Quentin Stafford-Fraser's blog
One should always have something sensational to read on the net...
"Bill [Gates] isn't afraid of taking long-term chances. He also understands that you have to try everything, because the real secret to innovation is failing fast." - Gary Starkweather quoted in a Fortune article by Brent Schendler. Good point.
Rose has just noticed that one of the cardboard boxes we used when moving house recently has a label on the side: "Made from at least 100% recycled paper. Fully recyclable." At least?
[Original Link] "A new study compares Mac-using Web surfers with their PC-wielding counterparts. If you're reading this on Windows, feel free to take your time on the big words." [from CNET News.com]
[Original Link] Clay Shirky has written a splendid article, discussing this well-known maxim, which teaches us something about statistics, something about catchphrases, and quite a bit about telecoms. [Found on Michael Gilbert's excellent Nonprofit Online News.]
Update, twenty years later: Clay's article is no longer at its original location but can be found on the Internet Archive here.
[Original Link] Doc Searls quotes Vint Cerf: "The history of the Net is the history of its protocols".
And then in this Linux Journal article he emphasises
...that the real virtue of Linux and other forms of infrastructural software...is not only that it's open and free, but that it's transparent. It is see-thru infrastructure. In fact, what makes it infrastructural is the fact that you can see through it. You can trust it because it has no secrets. ...Bill [Gates] says, "Trustworthy Computing is computing that is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony." We should note that all those services are pure infrastructure whose workings are mostly transparent.
[Original Link] I'm a bit concerned about my weight and my cholesterol level, both of which are rather higher than they should be. I also enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. This combination makes me interested in this well-written New York Times article in which Gary Taubes asks whether the dramatic rise in obesity recently has come about because of, rather than in spite of, the received wisdom on how to tackle it. Could the Atkins diet live again?
[Original Link] "Hollywood is winning, folks. You are losing. And you'd better start caring."
Another from Quotes of the Day: Isabel Colegate.
"It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them."The great thing about weblogging is that it's a pure meritocracy. Other people can ignore your ideas if they find them worthless.
[Original Link] Ross Anderson has written a very good FAQ about the Intel/Microsoft plans for control/protection of digital content. I'm worried about this stuff, but I was worried about .NET and Passport/Hailstorm. Still, that was just Microsoft, and however big they were, you could choose to ignore them; enough people did, fortunately.
If the motherboard manufacturers adopt TCPA/Palladium, on the other hand, it may be rather harder. It has potentially worrying implications for Linux, Mac and other platforms. If somebody sends you a Word document in future, you might not only need a Microsoft software package to read it, you might also need an Intel motherboard. It's a good thing there's all this anti-monopoly legislation around, isn't it?
(About a year ago, Microsoft even wanted me to change my name!)
[Original Link] The scourge of web design is the "javascript:" link. Agreed. Javascript, if used at all, should augment normal web activity, not replace it.