Rock formations in Donegal. Amazing colours. The large size is more revealing.
Remix culture: why some videos go viral
Interesting, but ultimately not very illuminating, attempt at an answer by YouTube’s “Trends Manager”. What? You didn’t know that trends could be managed? Neither did I.
Thanks to Brian for spotting it.
Raspberry Pi today. Jam tomorrow
This morning’s Observer column.
The Raspberry Pi project – a philanthropic effort to create the contemporary equivalent of the BBC Micro of yesteryear – has graduated from idealistic vapourware dreamed up in Cambridge to a finished, deliverable product manufactured in China. (In a nice touch, the Pi device comes in two flavours, Model A and Model B, just like the BBC machine, which was also designed in Cambridge.) Over the next few months, we’ll see container-loads of the little computer boards delivered to these shores. The time has come, therefore, to start thinking about how this astonishing breakthrough can be exploited in our schools.
Here are a few suggestions.
First, we need to jettison some baggage from the past. In particular, we have to accept that ICT has become a toxic brand in the context of British secondary schools…
Antrim coast at sunset
Natural geometry
I’ve always wanted to see the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim, and yesterday finally achieved that ambition. It’s a remarkable geological phenomenon, 40,000 interlocked basalt columns which were the product of an ancient volcanic eruption. We got there at the end of the day, as the sun was setting, and it was quite magical — and almost deserted, despite being one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. I had expected only hexagons, but in this stretch the columns seemed to be mainly pentagonal in cross-section. And the light was wonderful. We ran into another photographer who was similarly transported by it.
Larger image here.
Sunset at Giant’s Causeway
Reality check
Interesting stats from Netmarketshare on the browsers people use to access the web. Of course usage doesn’t (obviously) map onto sales, but the resilience of, e.g., Windows XP is sobering.
Lytro: not yet
Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore?
That’s amazing to me. It must be a mistake, right?The realities of our emerging ebook landscape — as experienced by Seth Godin.
I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books I mention in the bibliography.
Quoting here from their note to me, rejecting the book: “Multiple links to Amazon store. IE page 35, David Weinberger link.”
And there’s the conflict. We’re heading to a world where there are just a handful of influential bookstores (Amazon, Apple, Nook…) and one by one, the principles of open access are disappearing. Apple, apparently, won’t carry an ebook that contains a link to buy a hardcover book from Amazon.
That’s amazing to me. It must be a mistake, right?
Er, no, Seth. It’s the way these companies propose to reconfigure the world.
Obama comes out swinging
Wow! The kind of combative speech we’ve been wanting him to make for years.