Category Archives: geek

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One good thing about the London tube strike

The Guardian posted this list of ‘useful maps during the Tube strike‘, including the Tube lines superimposed on a real street map so you can see how the Tube map relates to the real world – very handy if you’re new to London and don’t know when not to bother with the Tube, two walking sites and a map that shows how long it takes to get to each station from a particular station.

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The BBC “asks why search engines are so keen to keep hold of our personal data” and raises some interesting issues:

“This is a general problem with free services,” she added. “You have the impression that you don’t pay for this, you don’t pay. In fact, you pay a very high price, because you pay with your own privacy, your own intimacy. You pay with yourself.”
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With Web 2.0 now moving so many of our desktop applications, and therefore data, online, campaigners feel we would do well to get these privacy issues sorted out sooner rather than later.

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I’ve upgraded MovableType

So there might be a few glitches along the way… it’s quite a good upgrade process, but it would be helpful if it tested that the config file had the right paths for some of the necessary files (though it was my bad for initially getting the mt-static directory name wrong).
I had some stuff to display post categories and link to a category archive that I’ll have to fix cos it doesn’t recognise anymore, but that’s ok. I haven’t figured out all the new functionality yet but it looks like they’ve made a good effort at catching up with Word Press.
While on the geek thing, my favourite RSS reader is testing new functionality. They have feedback forums, so I posted something from my wishlist:
“I would love a ‘drip feed’ feature that would load a small set of posts from a feed, so that you could skim read them, mark them as ‘keep new’ to read properly later, etc; then click to call up the next set of posts from that feed.
Basically it would let you page through a feed so that you don’t have to skim through every post because the entire feed will be marked as read when you’ve let a particular feed build up (cos you’ve been on holiday or busy or whatever).”

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At a first glance the could apply to anyone but if they’re based around what women have been bad at doing, they’re worth posting. Seven Rules for Women in IT

1. Expand your frame of reference. Get technology experience in a variety of areas, such as sales, consulting, customer service and operations.
2. Work for standouts. Work with name-brand companies or on important, high-impact projects.
3. Choose projects with weight. Don’t work solely in support roles or the “people” aspects of projects. Work on at least one project that is operationally oriented.
4. Speak clearly and with integrity. On risky or troubled projects, break through political correctness and be forthright.
5. Soften the edges. Be hard-charging and results-oriented, but also develop people skills and a relationship orientation.
6. Raise your own flag. Publicize your team’s successes.
7. Reflect. Assess your leadership qualities, style, values and what you want your career to look like.

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Are you ready for Web 3.0?

A cynical ha!

all software and all data are simply complements to Google’s core business – serving advertisements – and hence Google’s interest lies in destroying all barriers, whether economic, technological, or legal, to all software and all data. Almost everything the company does, from building data centers to buying optical fiber to supporting free wi-fi to fighting copyright to supporting open source to giving software and information away free, is about removing those barriers.

And yes, this probably sums it up:

Web 3.0 involves the disintegration of digital data and software into modular components that, through the use of simple tools, can be reintegrated into new applications or functions on the fly by either machines or people.

From Rough Type.

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I have a new intellectual crush. It’s partly because of the way she didn’t let the interview be derailed by stupid questions, and partly just her sheer enjoyment of her area:
Math Book Helps Girls Embrace Their Inner Mathematician
“The actress who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, Danica McKellar, is a self-proclaimed math advocate for girls who might otherwise shy away from a subject that Barbie once famously described as “hard.””
I also admire Beth Wilson’s personal courage:
“Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson has revealed her own emotional experience with abortion in a bid to persuade MPs to support a push to remove abortion from the Crimes Act.”
Health chief tells of abortion experience