http://memex.naughtons.org John Naughton's online diary Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:27:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Lest we get too carried away by admiration of the Daily Telegraph's role in exposing the hypocrisy and corruption of MPs, it's worth consulting Ben Goldacre's column in today's Guardian. He focussed on a report in the Torygraph which appeared under the headline "Women who dress provocatively more likely to be ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/04/8273 There have been lots of histories of the blogging phenomenon, but this is the best so far -- thoughtful, informed and perceptive. It also includes the best short description of us that I've heard: "a mutually supportive community of information scavengers"! Worth bookmarking and reading in full. A terrific ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/04/8271 Flickr version here. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/03/8268 Morgan Kelly is an Irish academic economist who warned two years ago that the absurd lending of Irish banks to builders and property developers would sink them if the property bubble burst. Since then, the bubble has burst, the banks have sunk, and my countrymen are all left wondering how ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/03/8265 Wonderfully sharp and surreal column by Harry Pearson in today's Guardian. Sample: During a Test match between New Zealand and South Africa in Wellington in 1994, the Springboks forward Johan le Roux bit a chunk out of the All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick's ear. Le Roux reacted to his punishment ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/03/8260 Lovely Ars Technica piece reminding us that Kodachrome was a huge technical advance when it first appeared. What Kodak did when it introduced Kodachrome in 1935 seemed nothing short of a miracle. The film had three separate light-sensitive emulsions, each filtered by the film itself to be sensitive to red, green, ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/01/8255 To the external eye, Oxford and Cambridge seem very similar -- the same glorious jumble of architectural styles, two apparently identical universities and their associated colleges woven into the fabric of their medieval towns, two institutions quaintly addicted to gowns and formal dining, etc. Yet the truth is that ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/07/01/8251 Interesting essay by Oxford University Press's Tim Barton. At a focus group in Oxford University Press's offices in New York last month, we heard that in a recent essay assignment for a Columbia University classics class, 70 percent of the undergraduates had cited a book published in 1900, even though it ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/06/30/8245 Pretty bad, it seems. According to the San Jose Mercury News, even pornography isn't selling at the moment. That's the glum assessment of those in the adult entertainment industry, hundreds of whom gathered last week for the annual Cybernet Expo conference in San Francisco. The industry, now a multibillion-dollar online ... http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/06/30/8243 I'm at the JISC Digital Content Conference 2009 (Twitter: #jdcc09), located in a strange hotel/conference centre in the 'Cotswolds Water Park', which I suspect is a former gravel pit. As usual, there were network problems! http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2009/06/30/8236