Category Archives: Dispatches

Quick news bites gathered in the field, sent in via TXT, often unsourced, usually full of errors (factual/spelling/otherwise).

Retro Atari 2600 Video Game Cover Art

April 21, 2008 – 9:22 pm

Sure you played Asteroids and Defender, but did you play these?

By Casey | Comments (0)



My Flickr Complaint

April 18, 2008 – 10:24 am

Some whine about movies on Flickr, others about the switch to Yahoo IDs, I simply want better rendering of transparent PNGs as JPGs.

By Casey | Also posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Cats Want To Eat Your Brains

April 14, 2008 – 6:44 pm

NYT: parasites in your brain are driving you to raise cats in hopes that they eat you. Hat tip to Cliff.

By Casey | Also posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (0)

Flickr Adds Video

April 14, 2008 – 8:22 am

I asked for it in 2004, before YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, or Revver appeared on the scene, and before MySpace and Facebook added video sharing as a feature. Four years later they finally added it. Neil Rickards should get credit for creating the theme of “long photos” (Neil called them “moving photos”). And anybody who was [...]

By Casey | Also posted in Technology | Comments (2)

Identity Management Going Commodity?

April 7, 2008 – 8:56 pm

Atlassian’s Crowd SSO and IdM solution has the kind of online pricing you’d expect for word processing software. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it’s a sign that identity management getting boring.

By Casey | Also posted in Technology | Comments (1)



Make Your Own Sign

March 28, 2008 – 12:04 pm

I had fun with the signs in Taiwan (jet powered baby stroller and men’s bathroom signs, for example), but why travel around the world for these things when you can make them at home?
Create warning signs, protest signs, church signs, library catalog cards, or whatever.

By Casey | Comments (1)

Tibet Open Letter and other innovative uses of WordPress

March 27, 2008 – 10:13 pm

All Things Digital is interesting. Parents would say My Baby Our Baby.com is a little more important. But Tibet Open Letter is as real as the violence.
Two things to note: all of them are based on WordPress, and those who discuss Tibet probably risk being listed by the Chinese government as a trouble maker.

By Casey | Comments (0)

Evil Google

March 27, 2008 – 12:53 pm

Aaron Swartz’s Bubble City, Chapter 8:
He sent the report to his superior and wandered off for a bit to dwell on the power he had as a faceless person deep inside an office park in Mountain View to know every detail of another person’s life. He wondered what it would be like if he came [...]

By Casey | Also posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (0)

Interesting WordPress Plugins

March 27, 2008 – 6:45 am

WP Contact Manager turns WordPress into a contact manager. It’s a combination of theme and plugins (including Custom Write Panel) that allows you to enter and manage contacts as blog posts (familiar, eh?). Use Members Only to secure access.
TDO Mini Forms ?allows you to add highly customisable forms to your website that allows non-registered [...]

By Casey | Also posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Best Restaurant In Taipei

March 23, 2008 – 12:19 am

I ate here. It’s every bit as good as the review suggests. Seb’s description and photos tell more, I’ll post my own photos soon. Update: posted.
Short story: there’s a restaurant in Australia with a three month waiting list, but a Sydney Morning Herald reporter says the restaurant I ate at is its equal or better, [...]

By Casey | Also posted in Style, Fashion and Food | Comments (0)

Google PageRank Is/Is Not/Is All Machine Generated

March 17, 2008 – 10:49 am

Google’s always been in the awkward position of claiming that PageRank is algorithmic, not editorial, while also explaining that they’re constantly adjusting their algorithms to ensure that PageRank reflects editorial judgments of quality. Here’s a peek inside the machine.

By Casey | Also posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (1)

Great Name, But Is It Any Good?

March 11, 2008 – 11:32 am

?Spork? is a great name for a restaurant, but is it any good? Yelp says it is, but most of the reviews mention the burger, putting me in the position of having to review the reviewers and wonder if a hamburger person can recommend a restaurant to a vegetarian. Not that I am a vegetarian [...]

By Casey | Also posted in Style, Fashion and Food | Comments (0)

Geographic Tweeting

March 10, 2008 – 7:42 pm

twittervision and twittermap show new tweets wherever they appear on the map, TwitterWhere let’s you follow tweets at a specific location, and Ask500People has nothing to do with Twitter but does show you global opinion. Live. While you watch (so they say, anyway).

By Casey | Also posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Warming

March 10, 2008 – 4:49 am

If this doesn’t warm your heart, check to see that it’s not made of stone.

By Casey | Also posted in Books, Movies, Music, Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (0)

Netflix for Audio Books

March 10, 2008 – 4:23 am

Netflix for audio books: Simply Audiobooks. Though it makes me wonder why we don’t say ?like a library for audiobooks where they send you the stuff you want.?

By Casey | Also posted in Books, Movies, Music, Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (1)