http://memex.naughtons.org John Naughton's online diary Sun, 01 Aug 2010 06:31:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ever wondered why so many university websites are totally useless? Well this explains it neatly in one Venn diagram. You'd have thought that universities would have figured out the Web by now. The reason they haven't, of course, is that their official sites are usually the responsibility of the ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/08/01/11553 This morning's Observer column. In the annals of the net, one of the sacred texts is John Gilmore's aphorism that "the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it". Mr Gilmore is a celebrated engineer, entrepreneur and libertarian activist, who is regarded by the US Department of Homeland Security, the ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/08/01/11551 Interesting talk by Scott Rosenberg (one of the Salon pioneers), who has written a useful history of blogging. I really liked his "Ten Myths about Blogging" about 40 minutes in to the talk. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/31/11548 Years ago, I signed up to Google's AdSense program to see if it would be possible to reverse-engineer its logic. The results continue to amuse (but, alas, not to make money). I write quite a lot about intellectual property, generally from a standpoint that's highly critical of the content ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/30/11545 Anne Applebaum has set up an engaging straw man in Slate Magazine. I didn't think it was possible, but Julian Assange has now done it: By releasing 92,000 documents full of Afghanistan intelligence onto the laptops of an unsuspecting public, the founder of Wikileaks has finally made an ironclad case for ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/29/11541 Flickr version here. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/28/11538 Flickr version here. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/28/11535 One of my favourite Provençal fountains. Always reminds me of Britain's great wartime Prime Minister. Wonder why? Flickr version here. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/28/11529 The LoC is the official rulemaker on legal exceptions to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which makes it a crime to circumvent DRM measures designed to protect intellectual property). It's just issued some really good new rules -- one of which loosens Apple's iron grip on ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/27/11523 Some of my best friends work in advertising. Or used to. It was a great business once. It won't be so great ten years from now, because it was an industry based on a media ecosystem that is rapidly eroding. Two interesting pieces on the Web ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2010/07/26/11516