Archive for March, 2006
Hungarian commercials from the 80s
Friday, March 31st, 2006How random: YouTube’s hosting a bunch of Hungarian TV ads from the 80s. Here is one I even remember. It was for a big department store that still exists. It’s hard to translate what the little guy is saying as it’s a nice play on words. The basic script: “I go in. I come out. I do so well when I go in.” – The play on words is that “I do so well” is based on the same word as “I come out”. I doubt this makes much sense, but that’s how iit goes and it’s pretty clever in the original.
UPDATE: I’m adding another one that I remember. It’s for a bank (or the only bank at the time).
Translation:
Some come to us, because they have money.
Some come to us, because they don’t have money.
Some understand money, that’s why they trust us.
Some don’t understand money, that’s why they trust us with it. [Works better in Hungarian.]
Some save, because that’s what they saw at home.
Some save, because that’s not what they saw at home.
There are some who haven’t yet come to us. This film is for them.
Links for 2006-03-30
Thursday, March 30th, 2006Links for 2006-03-29
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006-
Michael Lindsay’s dissertation on evangelical elites
Links for 2006-03-28
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006Links for 2006-03-27
Monday, March 27th, 2006-
“a web page activity widget that helps you quickly see how people find, navigate and value the pages
of your web site” -
mixing videos
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generates the code for box with rounded corners
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customized printing service
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how many blades on a razor by 2010?
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using the collective to fight spam (requires software download)
Links for 2006-03-26
Sunday, March 26th, 2006-
“The official organ of LaborNet”
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“shows you who’s on a particular web page, allowing you to chat with them privately or in a group”
Links for 2006-03-25
Saturday, March 25th, 2006-
emergency contraception; making sure Walmart follows up on its promise to stock EC
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union funny
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UK union-sponsored site
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ajaxy MS Word type online word processor, unfortunately it crashed my browser; the file I had saved wouldn’t open up in Word
Links for 2006-03-23
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006Links for 2006-03-22
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006-
Carriers caused sleepless – and costly – nights and days by lost luggage
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Esther Dyson’s editorial about a new proposed service that would have senders pay to guarantee arrival of their email in the recipient’s mailbox
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by John Perry Barlow, a utopian approach to how the Internet was going to develop
Links for 2006-03-21
Tuesday, March 21st, 2006-
George Clooney and the Huffington Post
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various resources including stats, reports and a searchable EndNote reference file
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Monday, March 20th, 2006Two blogs with which I am affiliated – Crooked Timber and Lifehacker – made the top 10 list of referral blogs to EFF’s fundraising campaign. I was so glad to hear that!
Public speaking pet peeve
Monday, March 20th, 2006Today’s Lifehacker special is a piece I wrote on “Public speaking do’s and don’t’s”. I list ways in which one can prepare for a talk and suggestions for how to make the most of a presentation. I welcome additions to the list, in the comments here or to the original post.
I won’t replicate the entire piece here, but I do want to mention one of the issues I discuss. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to presentations has to do with most people’s inability to stick to the time they have been alloted for their talk.
Few people are such amazing speakers that the audience can’t get enough of listening to them so it is best to wrap up a speech on time. One of the most common pitfalls is to add “brief” introductory remarks to one’s prepared talk. There is usually nothing brief about such comments. Moreover, given that most conference presentations – the ones with which I tend to be most familiar – are supposed to take about 15 minutes, adding just three minutes of intro uses up 20 percent of the time allocation. However, most people are already short on time so this way they get even more behind.
I have considerably less experience in industry and other realms. Is this better elsewhere?
A related pet peeve concerns moderators who are unable to tell people that it is time to wrap up and give the next person a chance to speak.
Links for 2006-03-20
Monday, March 20th, 2006Links for 2006-03-19
Sunday, March 19th, 2006A photo is worth a thousand blog posts
Saturday, March 18th, 2006
The images in my Flickr photostream have been viewed over 30,000 times so I decided to create a tribute by placing some of viewers’ favorites in a mosaic and added, what seemed like, an appropriate tag line. Yes, it’s a bit exaggerated perhaps (depending), but it seemed appropriate.:)
Links for 2006-03-18
Saturday, March 18th, 2006-
interesting-looking RSS reader
Links for 2006-03-17
Friday, March 17th, 2006-
YAW20SP – Yet Another Web2.0 Start Page
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These are cute, if they had one in turtle, I’d probably get it. (Thanks to Fluffi for the link.)
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great blog log tool with visitor info by blog post
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view how many flights are in the air in the vicinity of various airports around the US
Geekier than geeky
Thursday, March 16th, 2006You may have to be a pretty particular breed to appreciate the following, but I can’t be the only one around here.:) I found this Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character quiz quite entertaining. I scored 33 and while it is probably a sign of something positive that I didn’t score higher, I was still a bit disappointed. My point range gets the following recommendation: “As your doctor, I recommend moving out of your parents’ basement.” The whole thing is quite amusing, try it. Don’t look at the score chart until you’ve taken the quiz, you don’t want to spoil that part of the fun.
Favorite tech writing?
Thursday, March 16th, 2006The University of Michigan Press is putting together a volume called The Best of Technology Writing 2006. The editorial team is soliciting suggestions for pieces, including blog posts.
[W]e’re asking readers to nominate their favorite tech-oriented articles, essays, and blog posts from the previous year. The competition is open to any and every technology topic–biotech, information technology, gadgetry, tech policy, Silicon Valley, and software engineering are all fair game. But the pieces that have the best chances of inclusion in the anthology will conform to these three simple guidelines:
1. They’ll be engagingly written for a mass audience; if the article requires a doctorate to appreciate, it’s probably not up our alley. Preference will be given to narrative features and profiles, “Big Think” op-eds that make sense, investigative journalism, sharp art and design criticism, intelligent policy analysis, and heartfelt personal essays.
2. They’ll be no longer than 5,000 words.
3. They’ll explore how technological progress is reshaping our world.
The resulting publication will be available both in book form and online.
Hop on over to digitalculture.org for more information and to submit your nominations.