McFilter: March 2015 Archives

March 30, 2015

Interesting Things on the Internet: March 30th 2015

Everything is Made up and the Points Don’t Matter "But I've come to see that the most successful of our students have a worldview shift during our program, an entire change in their demeanor towards the built world around them. They come to see rules as malleable, power structures as changeable, and culture as embodied."
The graph George Osborne doesn’t want you to see
Roger Martin's Unconventional Wisdom. Good thoughts on strategy and innovation (with a dash of #bigdata).
Hidden stress. A good article on harder-to-spot depressive tendencies from Roo Reynolds.
Liverpool's Open Data portal. Early days, but Ross Jones has fired up a CKAN instance for Liverpool. Basically, somewhere to store links to open data sets about the city. Add any you know of.
On the politics of lying: Hillsborough and the British institutional malaise. It's good that the truth is finally being officially acknowledged. It's a disgrace that it's taken such effort to get to it.
Slow boat to China. Lovely travelogue of a trip aboard an ACL container ship from the US to China.

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March 23, 2015

Interesting Things on the Internet: March 23rd 2015

Why the alternative is called alternative. "Having thoughts like this now, and sharing them is becoming more and more normal. You could say, that the alternative is becoming the normal."
The Man Behind MakerBot on Finding the Stories That Build Your Brand.
Coase cost and web 2.0 (explained by Cory Doctorow). "if any worker, anywhere, can communicate with any other worker, anywhere, for free, instantaneously, without her boss’s permission, then, brother, look out, because the CoaseCost of demanding better pay, better working conditions and a slice of the pie just got a *lot* cheaper."

Posted by Adrian at 03:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 16, 2015

Interesting Things on the Internet: March 16th 2015

Towers of SIAM, trade associations and Civil Servants. Good analysis of how the UK Government is changing how it approaches IT. I'm with Simon in it being a great move.
A Richter scale for outages. An interesting idea from Matt
My IxD15 conference talk: “Jumping to the end”. A lovely talk about (interaction) design from Matt Jones. It's been a while (I think) since he gave a talk, and I've missed that.
Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities. Simple to explain, difficult - I suspect - to implement.
How Apple Makes the Watch. A great, detailed look at the manufacturing processes shown in Apple's videos for their new watch. Far better than the annoying breathless commentary on the videos themselves.
People are more likely to spend time together in public spaces than they were 30 years ago. I'm surprised by this, but it's good to have your assumptions challenged.

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March 09, 2015

Interesting Things on the Internet: March 9th 2015

Alternative Innovation — Do we really need startups?. Not just for Belgium, this is a good manifesto for tech everywhere.
Interview: Bruce Sterling on the Convergence of Humans and Machines. Another interview with Bruce Sterling about the future of technology. Just as good as the one I linked to last week.
Sixteen Years. It won't get reported in any of the mainstream press, but this is the next stage in the well executed life of the right sort of Internet firm.
The beige world of clickbait journalism. Alison Gow on the endless froth of brands and media titles chasing clicks. I hope the clicks are worth it for the firms in question, compared to the damage to how I perceive them.
The Web’s Grain. Interesting thinking about how to approach web design.

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March 02, 2015

Interesting Things on the Internet: March 2nd 2015

.@jabley @escmum all the time! pic.twitter.com/GWl6RgYXad
— Jordan Hatch (@1jh) February 24, 2015

A different cluetrain. Charlie Stross on finance, politics and power.
The Seven Reasons Why Super-Rich British Tax Dodgers Don't End Up in Jail. And following that, a more concrete and depressing example of how the establishment works. When is there going to be a political party that makes some inroads on that?
Emma Thompson on tax-strike until HSBC tax evaders are jailed. Maybe this is a way forward for the rest of us?
Bruce Sterling on why you shouldn't care how SIRI feels. Bruce Sterling doing an excellent job in reminding us that artificial intelligence is our era's horseless carriage. We should be having discussions about the ethics or dangers of the systems we're building, but we shouldn't only apply that approach to something we can identify as AI because then we'll miss the important developments.
Hardware by the Numbers. Great read if you've anything to do with building hardware.
Hacking for the planet. In Chicago, civic hackers are working to improve local life with data and technology.. "Getting the right people together is more important than patching the right code together. That’s one of the most important things to understand about this movement. This is not a bunch of coders coming in on white horses going ‘I can fix this with code!’, but rather people with technology skills partnering with non-profits, government agencies, community activists, to build something together that solves problems in our cities.". I wonder who wants to run something like this here in Liverpool.

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