Adactio: Links

In San Francisco, a house with its own Twitter feed in MIT Technology Review

A profile of Tom’s house.

It’s weird how normal this is.

The open internet and the web

A history lesson from Vint Cerf. I can’t help but picture him as The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded.

When Tim Berners-Lee invented and released the World Wide Web (WWW) design in late 1991, he found an open and receptive internet in operation onto which the WWW could be placed. The WWW design, like the design of the internet, was very open and encouraged a growing cadre of self-taught webmasters to develop content and applications.

Internet Archive on Vimeo

A beautiful short film on the amazing work being done at the Internet Archive, produced on the occasion of their 10 petabyte celebration.

Truly awe-inspiring.

The Secure Transport of Light on booktwo.org

A beautiful piece by James on the history of light as a material for communication …and its political overtones in today’s world.

What is light when it is information rather than illumination? What is it when it is not perceived by the human eye? Deep beneath the streets and oceans, what is illuminated by the machines, and how are we changed by this illumination?

Creating a physical internet to save money and energy on logistics

I remember a talk and discussion at SxSW a few years back about trying to improve the efficiency of trade networks by making them more web-like: there are ships full of empty cargo containers, simply because companies insist on using the container with their logo on it. I really, really like the idea of applying the principles of packet-switching to physical networks.

But here’s the hard part:

The technology is not a problem. We could do it all in 10 years. It’s the business models and the mental models in people’s minds.

Submarine Cable Map

This year’s TeleGeography map of the undersea network looks beautiful—inspired by old maps. I love the way that latency between countries is shown as inset constellations.

The impending crisis that is Windows XP and IE 8 by Troy Hunt

A good explanation of the litany of woes that comes from Internet Explorer 8 being the highest that users of Windows XP can upgrade to. It’s a particularly woeful situation if you are a web developer attempting to provide parity. But there is hope on the horizon:

2013 will see the culmination of all these issues; support for IE 8 will drop of rapidly, users of XP will find an increasingly broken web, the cost of building software in XP organisations will increase.

On Open Platforms, Wifi, Home Automation, and Kitty Litter | John Battelle’s Search BlogJohn Battelle’s Search Blog

This echoes Scott Jenson’s call for more open standards when it comes to networked devices. We’ll need it if we want “If This, Then That” for an internet of things.

Is it the Internet of Things?

Wondering whether that network-enabled device of yours is worthy of being considered part of the “internet of things?” Just answer these few short questions.

Was the Internet just an accident? | Scott Jenson

Man, I just love Scott Jenson.

Our brains have collectively gone startup-crazy, seeing the world through stock option colored glasses, assuming that if there is no money, there is clearly no value. This is madness. I’m so desperately worried that the internet will turn out to be a happy accident.

Turning his focus on “the internet of things” he makes the very good point that what we need isn’t one company or one proprietary service; we need an ecosystem of open standards that will enable companies to build services.

We all have to appreciate how we need a deep, open solution to solve this problem. If we don’t understand, demand even, that hardware devices need to be just as discoverable an open as web servers are today, we’ll never see the internet of things come to pass.

Stories from the New Aesthetic : Joanne Mcneil

A lovely piece from Joanne on storytelling, identity and the internet.

Connections

This is quite an astounding piece of writing. Robert Lucky imagines the internet of things mashed up with online social networking …but this was published in 1999!

The Internet of Things - Readlists

Those articles about the “Internet of Things” I linked to? Here they are in handy Readlist form.

The fetishization of the offline, and a new definition of real

A good recap of the recent online/offline/does-it-really-matter discussion …although it does lend a bit too much credence to the pronouncements of that king of trolls, Nicholas Carr.

Latency: The New Web Performance Bottleneck - igvita.com

This is just wonderful! It combines almost all of my recent obsessions into one unified post: website performance (particularly on mobile) and the locations of undersea cables. The interactive map is the icing on the cake.

How to Kill a Troll - Incisive.nu

What Erin has written here makes me want to be a better person.

The Myth of Cyberspace – The New Inquiry

There is a there there after all.

The IRL Fetish – The New Inquiry

The backlash against the backlash against connectivity.

Vint Cerf: We Knew What We Were Unleashing on the World | Wired Business | Wired.com

I could listen to Vint Cerf all day.

I think that it’s perfectly reasonable to have packets raining down from satellites, IP packets just literally raining down from satellites and being picked up by hundreds, if not millions, of receivers at the same time.

The Evolution of the Web

A nice timeline visualisation of recent history.

A New HTTP Status Code for Legally-restricted Resources

I love Tim Bray’s idea for naming the response code for censored content on the internet in honour of Ray Bradbury.

The Man Who Makes the Future: Wired Icon Marc Andreessen | Epicenter | Wired.com

Chris Anderson interviews Mark Andreessen.

Internet! - Imgur

The Old Aesthetic.

timoni.org - I love the internet.

This is a beautifully heartfelt post from Timoni:

Every day, I feel things because of the internet, and that’s amazing. Humans have been using abstracted communication for thousands of years, but it’s never been so instantaneous, never so capable of bringing folks of completely different backgrounds together in conversation. This is a huge step. Good job us.

Coding Horror: Preserving The Internet… and Everything Else

A love letter to the Internet Archive.

Minimal Mac | TV Is Broken

A fascinating insight into the reaction of an internet-savvy child upon being exposed to “regular” television.

The world’s undersea internet cables - interactive | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Explore the shape of the underwater world of internet backbones.

Rhizome | She Was A Camera

Remembering the camgirl community.

A List Apart: Articles: Say No to SOPA

A superb piece of writing from Jeffrey, scorching the screen with righteous anger. THIS. IS. IMPORTANT!

SOPA approaches the piracy problem with a broad brush, lights that brush on fire, and soaks the whole internet in gasoline.

The New Patterns of Culture: Slow, Fast & Spiky

A thoughtful piece from Matt on the changes in cultural transmission that we should be embracing instead of bemoaning.

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet on Vimeo

If you live in the States, please, please, for the love of the internet, write to your representative at fightforthefuture.org/pipa

SPEED SHOW

I like this ad-hoc approach to staging one-night-only internet art shows:

Hit an Internet-cafe, rent all computers they have and run a show on them for one night.

Techniques For Gracefully Degrading Media Queries - Smashing Magazine

There are some inaccuracies and misrepresentations in here, but on the whole this is a pretty good round-up of your options when dealing with responsive design in older browsers.

Open science: a future shaped by shared experience | Education | The Observer

A nice summation of the open science movement, courtesy of Bobbie.

Why I Don’t Self-Host Anymore | romkey.com

A comprehensive look at some of the problems with taking self-hosting to its logical conclusion: running your own web server.

Tom Morris - .tel, .xxx and .mobi are all pointless and idiotic

If I were an American, I’d now be saying something like “ICANN have jumped the shark”. Instead, I’m British, so I’ll say “ICANN are fucking useless twats who need a firm kick in the bollocks”.

Alex Payne — Content-Centric Networks and the Future of the Internet

A brave and probably unpopular stance; could it be that the fundamental technological bedrock of the internet needs to change to avoid the seemingly-inevitable rise of walled gardens?

Wired 9.03: Founding Father

Here’s a gem from the past: a thoroughly fascinating and gripping interview with Paul Baran by Stewart Brand. It’s thrilling stuff—I got goosebumps.

Safe-keeping - Preoccupations

I wish I had a teacher like David when I was in school.

URLs, permalinks, archives … preservation. It all matters so very much.

I Have Seen the Future and I Am Opposed - Core77

Don Norman bemoans the seemingly-inevitable direction that the internet is taking; from an open system of exchange to a closed, controlled broadcast channel. I share his fear.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: A 12-Year-Old Explains the Information Age’s Facts of Life to Her Mother.

Cute.

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2010 — Page 8

How Has The Internet Changed The Way You Think?

BUY THIS SATELLITE - Connect Everyone.

This is an excellent idea: buy up a communications satellite and use it to provide free internet. I kinda wish it were a Kickstarter project though.

Long Live the Web: Scientific American

An inspiring State Of The Web address by Tim Berners-Lee. He can't resist pitching linked data at the end, but it's mostly a stirring call to arms.

How to Access the Internet (A Guide from 2025)

An entertaining missive from the future.

I'm quitting the Internet. Will I be liberated or left behind? (1) - By James Sturm - Slate Magazine

James Sturm outlines his plan to give up the internet, which sounds like a good decision for him. Comments are open via snail mail.

This is the title of a typical incendiary blog post - Coyote Crossing

This is a pithy one-sentence description of a blog post, praising the author's insight.

The Paciello Group Blog » Google Chrome frame - accessibility black hole

Using Google Chrome Frame in IE will give users of assistive technology the same shitty to non-existent experience they would get in the actual Google Chrome browser.

Digg the Blog » Blog Archive » Much Ado About IE6

Trammell outlines the thoughtful, research-based approach that Digg will be taking in phasing out IE6 support.

Meme Scenery - Waxy.org

There's something haunting about this: the physical settings of internet memes with the protagonists removed.

Cory Doctorow: We must ensure ISPs don't stop the next Google getting out of the garage | Technology | guardian.co.uk

A superb call to arms on the importance of "fat pipe, always on, get out of my way."

Persuading Microsoft to Implement Canvas « Processing.js Blog

The 26 step process required to add +1 to a feature request in IE. Franz Kafka is alive and well and living in Redmond.

Internet Users in Developing Countries Drag on Sites’ Profits - NYTimes.com

A sobering article on the cost of being a truly global website. This gives some context to Last.fm's recent pricing model decision.

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

There goes your day.

Our Goal: No Guilt Upon Accusation Law — Creative Freedom Foundation (creativefreedom.org.nz)

New Zealand is enacting one of the most draconian unfair ISP policing policies in the Western world. "Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation and forces the termination of internet connections and websites without evidence, without a fair trial, and without punishment for any false accusations of copyright infringement."

Tags: internet

More information

About this site

Customise

Search

Subscribe