Todayâs Links: We Humans Are Machines for Propagating Memes
An extremely popular meme: Lolcatz. So hardcore, even i can has cheez burger blog commenters write in lolcatz-speak!
“The Matrix” Hacks
- Susan Blackmore: Humans Are Just Machines for Propagating Memes
Susan gives three reasons why people don’t like memes: 1) Often misunderstood as simply ideas, when it’s the process of copying that’s significant. 2) We fear that we lack free will. Thing is, if memetics were true, facts supersede emotions. 3) No testible predictions yet. There’s a need to find discerning patterns which lead to how we copy and remix ideas. Keywords: memes, psychology, research, interview, culture, evolution - New York Times Plans to Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs
Mark Deuze’s thoughts on the precarious nature of the media industry was spot on. We’re effectively evolving the way we produce, and in the process, destroying traditional measures of valuing content and labor. Just look at the New York Times article about their job cuts! Keywords: web2.0, media, internet, business, jobs, journalism, crowdsourcing - matrix.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)
Finally re-found the Matrix ringtones for my phone… this ninja of an audio file. Keywords: mp3, audio, matrix, ringtone
Surveillance Hacks
- QR-Kill. First Match in History | QR-Code
Before the match starts players are to decide a scenario, a modality and a meeting-point. Players will stick in their back a QR-Code with his/her telephone and name embedded. They will have to kill each other capturing the code and sending an SMS. Keywords: gaming, qrcode, mobile, cellphones, sms - I.R.A.S.C.: Infrared light against surveillance cameras
A simple DIY infrared headlight that blocks out surveillance cams. Awesome. Keywords: privacy, identity, surveillance, camera, diy - HARV gives soldiers a robot’s-eye view
Well implemented HARV (Head-Aimed Remote Viewer) for telepresence over a robotic host. Keywords: robots, telepresence - Behind the Great Firewall | The Guardian
While the old media quoted "heartwarming words" of appreciation for the government’s response and praised its own "heroic" reporters, the internet has been abuzz with furious denunciations of state broadcasters and officials for getting the picture wrong. Keywords: china, media, internet, citizenjournalism, politics - Leaked RIAA Training Video: Pirates = Crack-Dealing Terrorist Murderers!
This leaked official RIAA training video informs U.S. prosecutors why they should bust music pirates: Because it’ll lead them to "everything from handguns to large quantities of cocaine [and] marijuana," not to mention terrorists and murderers! Keywords: piracy, riaa, crime, funny, music, videos
Human Memory Hacks
- Christian Nold’s Bio Mapping: GPS + BioFeedback + Maps
Christian Nold’s biomapping takes psychological arousal readings and maps them to GPS data to determine interesting regions on a given location. It’s part art / performance, part science. Genius! Keywords: web2.0, map, art, geotagging, google, psychology - Hydra: Never forget that sunset again
Hydra gives human eye perception to your photographs by allowing you to create high dynamic range (HDR) images from a series of regular photographs, either from DSLRs or traditional point-and-shoot cameras. Even joins photos for you. Keywords: hdr, photography, mac - 10 Lifestreaming Services Ranked by Features
Mark of Lifestream Blog ranks the current lifestreaming services by feature. FriendFeed wins, but I really hope they beef up their widget. I need to customize it for my blog. Keywords: lifestreaming, comparison, blogging - Momenta: Concept Neck-worn memory prosthetic PC
Momenta, the neck worn PC, captures the most exciting moments of your life as triggered by heart rate and a rolling buffer of 5mins. Any iteration of Windows is a bad idea though. Think BOSD! Keywords: memory, pc, windows, lifecasting, gadgets, future - 21 Days of Wiki Adoption
A pretty sweet blog on using wikis for business and education. Includes video podcast. Keywords: education, wiki, business, howto, blogs
Virtual Community Hacks
- Le Monde.fr : Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents
A neat world map showcasing popularity of social networks by country. Keywords: culture, socialnetworking, facebook, web2.0, visualization, maps, internet, myspace, friendster, geography, comparison - JCMC: The Benefits of Facebook "Friends"
Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites. Facebook usage was found to interact with measures of psychological well-being, suggesting that it might benefit users experiencing low self-esteem and low life satisfaction. Keywords: socialcapital, facebook, web2.0, article, collaboration, socialnetworking, research, networks, psychology, community, education, identity - The Issue Crawler: The Makings of Live Social Science on the Web
The back story of how Issue Crawler came about… Keywords: history, social, internet, academia, research, software, networks - IJCCR: International Journal of Community Currency Research
The online forum for disseminating knowledge about community and complementary currencies around the world. Keywords: journals, currency, socialcapital, money - EarthE: Eco-Currency
EarthE .org is the place to find eco money, art, kisses, awards and other goodies that can be used to thank friends, customers and others for helping protect this exquisite planet. Keywords: currency, environment, gaming
iPhone Hacks
- Firefox "Grab and Drag" add-on: Flick your web pages like an iPhone!
Enables Adobe Acrobat-style grab and drag scrolling, Flick gestures, and Momentum scrolling in Firefox, Thunderbird, and Flock. Keywords: firefox, plugins, iphone, productivity - The Next Big Puzzle Game Wave? iPhone + Accelerometer!
Called Trism, it’s a Bejeweled-like game except that you slide triangles and use the iPhone’s tilt sensor to gain an advantage. Now that’s a very unique puzzle game! I hope Apple opens up for developers to build apps as creatively as these! Keywords: gaming, iphone, video - iChinese - learn Chinese characters on your iPhone!
Designed as a native iPhone application, iChinese will train you writing and reading of Chinese characters. iChinese’ lessons are based on well-known training courses, like "Practical Chinese Reader". Keywords: iphone, chinese, language, education - iBand: Music band using a Nintendo DS and two iPhones
Since Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS we constantly think about implementing those sounds, and since the iPhone we like to play with PocketGuitar (played in the clip by Roland Dell’mour.) Now that iAno came out (played by Marina Dell’mour) we just had Keywords: music, nintendo, iphone, collaboration
“Free” Hacks
- Free Macworld Presentations: Best of Leopard OS X Hints
Pay attention to Rob Griffiths’ "Best of Leopard OS X Hints". Includes the best of macosxhints.com’s tips for Apple’s recently released OS X 10.5, as well as some general OS X tips, troubleshooting advice, and a selection of useful third-party add-ons. Keywords: macworld, video, tutorials, apple, learning, tutorial, free - FUPPES - Free UPnP Entertainment Service
FUPPES is a free, multiplatform UPnP A/V Media Server. FUPPES supports a wide range of UPnP MediaRenderers (see "features" for details) as well as on-the-fly transcoding of various audio, video and image formats. Supports Xbox 360! Keywords: xbox360, networking, opensource - One Manga: Your Online Manga Reader
One of my new colleagues recommended One Manga. Has all the manga scans, including Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Claymore, Hana Kimi, Vampire Knight… it’s all here and more! Keywords: manga, comics, free, download, anime, online
Webapp Hacks
- QuestionForm: powerful online survey creator, simple and free
It’s true, neat and simple. Keywords: survey, free, webapp, research - A Few URLs
Pretty useful for launching an entire collection of URLs as hyperlinks. Keywords: tools, web, research - eHub: The Web App as Your Personal Assistant
Ehub reviews free web-based personal task management, namely Remember The Milk, Todoist, and IWantSandy.com Keywords: productivity, webapp, web2.0, tools, gtd
Gadget Hacks
- PSP Pandora’s Battery: Reverts any PSP to firmware 1.5
Interesting story of how all this came about… and how to make one yourself. Keywords: psp, hacking, firmware, howto - Multi-band GSM Mobile Phone Watches
I so want one!! Keywords: cellphones, watches, gadgets, geeks
Gaming Hacks
- MSNBC: video games an ‘easy scapegoat’
Mainstream media finally calling out their own on the scapegoating of video games in view of teen violence. Keywords: violence, gaming, media, journalism, teenagers - FPS players feel better after dying than after killing others, say researchers
What rubbish research. The gamer comments in the article were more insightful, especially one about how the psychologists were only able to track outward signs of emotions. Killing an opponent might not register as much of an arousal than getting killed. Keywords: culture, psychology, research, games, violence
