Morning Linkage (Sept 1)

Technology and a lit­tle Transportation

Skype is an impor­tant part of the ‘net ecol­o­gy espe­cial­ly in parts of
the world where phone taps are ubiq­ui­tous. Various pro­grams have been
writ­ten to allow inter­cept­ing and record­ing VOIP. Now the programmer
who wrote one of them has released his code to the pub­lic. Interesting
results.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/skype-trojan/

If you are the fam­i­ly IT depart­ment you should book mark this page. It
con­tains about half of the flow charts devel­oped by Morris Rosenthal
for trou­bleshoot­ing PC hard­ware. If your fam­i­ly is par­tic­u­lar­ly hard
on lap­tops or par­tic­u­lar­ly demand­ing you might want to buy the book.
http://www.fonerbooks.com/pcrepair.htm

He’s also got a set for repair­ing cars. All avail­able on line.
http://www.ifitjams.com/

We often make fun of twit­ter and it’s users. But it has become an
impor­tant plat­form for devel­op­ment. Here’s a list of 10 mash-ups.
http://www.inspiredm.com/2009/08/31/the-most-creative-10-websites-and-apps-built-on-top-of-twitter/

The most pleas­ant of the batch is an ani­mat­ed stream search. Enter a
term in the box in the low­er left hand cor­ner. Click on the
magnifier/search icon. Rolling your mouse over the blue birds gets you
the con­tents of the tweet that each is car­ry­ing. (I’ve set the initial
search to moto GP.) Or you can just watch the lit­tle birds flitter
past. It’s kind of restful.
http://toriseye.quodis.com/#moto%20GP

————————
News and Culture

What ever your opin­ion of Ted Kennedy, the Big Picture’s col­lec­tion of
images from his life and the trib­utes and memo­ri­als to his life is a
visu­al his­to­ry of one of the most pow­er­ful fam­i­lies in America.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/senator_ted_kennedy_19322009.html

I haven’t read an adult/literary nov­el in ages. Writing in the WSJ,
Lev Grossman looks at why I and so many oth­ers are aban­don­ing the
Modern Novel and what we’re read­ing instead.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377163804387216.html

——————

Images

Today is water­col­or artist day.

Drawn looks at “The Art of Ponyo.” Hayao Miyazaki’s char­ac­ter studies
are done in watercolor.Miyazaki’s choose of medi­um under­lies the
com­mon look to all of Studio Ghibli’s productions.
http://drawn.ca/2009/08/28/ponyo/

This paint­ing of the Bloor Bridge is just one Herry Afrin’s lovely
urban landscapes.
http://www.herryarifin.com/index_files/Page2313.htm

Howie Tsui’s car­toon­ish take on tra­di­tion­al Japanese paint­ing is both
beau­ti­ful and horrifying.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/31/howie-tsuis-asianwes.html

He’s not using water­col­ors but… Luc Grateau does speed por­traits of
the denizens of the Paris Metro on metro tick­ets. The site includes
exam­ples of his work and a news report on his paint­ing. The video is
in french but you don’t need to under­stand the voice over to enjoy the
story.
http://viacomit.net/2009/08/30/subway-ticket-portraits-by-luc-grateau/

Awesome pic­ture of the day. Space shut­tle lift-off at night.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1458.html

New com­ic that I will be watch­ing. Spacemen, robots, and ger­bils!  (No
feed at the moment — so I’ll put it on my watch list and let you know
when there are new installments.)
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=comic&id=50969&page=1

Enjoy the day,