There's an interesting post at The New Normal about the dreams of television over IP, how the traditional broadcast model is impractical within the constraints of today's networks and how this shouldn't prevent innovative non-realtime distribution models from taking root now.
A couple of Hunter S. Thompson links featuring Johnny Depp and Ralph Steadman.
Datamonitor is indicating that the reason for Google's recent expansion to domain registrar status could be for using its access to the list of recently transferred domains in order to clean up search results. Once a domain would change hands, its pagerank would be reset, avoiding pollution of the Google database from domains having gained pagerank in their previous life.
This could, among other things, help stop search engine optimisation outfits snake oil merchants from buying up high-ranking domains and turning them into marketable link pools.
Well, what do you know. The legendary Craigslist has expanded all the way to my neck of the woods.
Someone must have been wearing blinkers the day they came up with this idea at the Belgian government: in order to protect teenagers in chat rooms and forums, they will receive an electronic identity card reader on their 12th birthday. This reader, once connected to their PC, will let them authenticate as genuine teenagers™ and be protected from Joe the pervert trawling their communities pretending to be a 13-year-old.
The New York Times has an interesting article on, among other things, the balance between design and price; how design, now becoming a commodity, is something you look through, not at.
When I manage to gather enough courage to drift through local shopping areas, all I see are signs of a long and twisted road to pervasive design.