The Talk Show: Live From WWDC
7:00pm Tuesday • California Theatre
Tickets Available • Fun Will Be Had

Linked List: January 1, 2008

Tuesday, 1 January 2008

My Twitter use in 2007, compiled and graphed using Damon Cortesi’s very cool Twitter Stats.

Most interesting to me is the big hourly spike around 2-3 pm, which is usually right after lunch for me. Rands has a big post-lunch spike too.

Rands in Repose: Year in Twitter ★

Rands:

The only thing better than data is data about data. Data about data is information that, in quantity, becomes knowledge, which is just a short hop away from wisdom. And when wisdom shows up, you know you’re this close to figuring it all out.

U.S. Bans Spare Lithium Batteries From Checked Bags ★

Useful information for anyone heading to Macworld Expo:

New rules will go into effect on Jan. 1 that prohibit air passengers in the U.S. from carrying spare lithium batteries in their checked baggage.

The new rules, announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Transportation, are designed to reduce the risk of fires in aircraft. Lithium batteries have been identified as a possible cause of several aircraft fires.

You can still pack extra batteries in your carry-on bags, however. Update: Here are the actual TSA guidelines.

On Horseshit, and The New York Times ★

Screenwriter John August on having one of his weblog posts grossly misrepresented by New York Times reporter Brooks Barnes in a story about the ongoing WGA strike:

Worse, by omitting what I actually said, the article creates the implication I said something much worse. Something — gulp! — unprintably awful. Which I didn’t. I said that the AMPTP’s offer on the table was horseshit. Which it was.

I think what’s especially wrong is that in addition to not quoting any words from the blog entry in question, The Times also neglected to include a URL to the post (or even to the home page of August’s weblog). I see this all the time — but only, of course, from publications rooted in print. I think anyone who reads what August actually wrote would agree that Barnes’s characterization of it as “vulgar” is, well, horseshit.

Trading for Their Own Account ★

Tim O’Reilly:

Everyone applauds when Google goes after Microsoft’s Office monopoly, seeing it simply as “turnabout’s fair play,” (and a distant underdog to boot), but when they start to go after web non-profits like Wikipedia, you see where the ineluctible logic leads. As Google’s growth slows, as inevitably it will, it will need to consume more and more of the web ecosystem, trading against its former suppliers, rather than distributing attention to them.

Comicraft New Year’s Day Sale on Comic Book Fonts ★

Some nifty comic-lettering fonts on big, big sale, today only. (Via Andy Ihnatko.)