sadams0 G+ Posts

Bumped into this. "Luke, I am your....  pug". Suggested for Charlie Adams  http://www.lolcats.nl/images/lolcat/Image00262.jpg

Charlie Adams out on his trials bike this morning.

Me & Charlie Adams here to see Despicable Me 2 http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&mid=b0a940bb912f00c2&near=54.4030+-1.7297

RIP AltaVista, 1996-2013. Yahoo is closing it next month and didn't pay any decent respect to it, when making the announcement today. Some remembrances from me. http://searchengineland.com/altavista-eulogy-165366

Charlie Rose interview with Alan Rusbridger and Janine Gibson on The Story:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdzzZB7Xgo

Thanks to you Google+ is 2 Two years ago we started the Google+ project. We're still young, with lots of growing left to do, but today we wanted to stop (for just a second) and say thanks. It's your support, your feedback, and your enthusiasm that make Google+ so awesome. So let's keep building something to love. Together. #googlepluslove

Better than the original? http://bit.ly/15Nhe3g http://bit.ly/15Nhe3g

http://onion.com/1aRxx4S

Charlie's school team won at the schols footy tournament this afternoon. On pens, AET in the final. Well done Michael Syddall School! Charlie Adams

Nice spot for some lunch today.

Hmm, detention doesn't seem to be working:   http://j.mp/10SDkoR

From a mail list I'm on, populated by intelligent, thoughtful people, see this comment about the pardon-Snowden White House petition: > Once upon a time I would have signed a White House petition to this > administration with no qualms.  Now, however, a chilling thought > occurs: What "watch-lists" will signing a petition like this put me > on?  NSA?  IRS?  It's not a paranoid question anymore, in the United > States of Surveillance. >  This is what we're coming to...

An artist has created an apparently gravity-defying house in a street in east London. Watch visitors to the installation climb at what appears to be daring heights and angles. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23041236

Steve Adams was in a video call with 1 person.Greg Marshall

Anyone here aware of this? The "official" page for the G+ Notifications "mascot" Surely we don't find this (condescending page/posts)  acceptable.... what were they thinking? Look at the posts on that page!?!?! https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MrJingles/posts

The Great Vowel Shift , or, Why English Spelling Makes No Sense Why does the English language have such weird spelling? Well, there was a time, around 600 years ago, when the spelling made a lot more sense than it does now. One main reason that this is no longer the case is the Great Vowel Shift. This was a major change in the way English vowels work, and it started in about 1400. There are various competing theories as to why this happened, some of which are based on population migrations following the Black Death. The diagram shows how English vowel sounds have moved around in the last 600 years. English has a rather complicated vowel system compared to, say, the five-vowel system of Spanish. The vowel system of Spanish has not changed very much in the last 600 years, but the relatively large number of distinct vowels in English means that as soon as one of the vowels starts to be pronounced slightly differently, there is a good chance that it will displace a nearby vowel and set a...

Happy Birthday Babe!

The environment secretary Owen Paterson says we should be embracing GM crops - but has he bitten off more than he can chew? Factcheck investigates: http://bit.ly/14mnSi0 http://bit.ly/14mnSi0

Good News: Andy Carroll completes West Ham move on six-year deal http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/19/andy-carroll-completes-west-ham-move

Burned out on NSA blog postings for now, but I'll say this about Google's FISA motion. The government's stance on trying to bury or otherwise obfuscate FISA request numbers demonstrates a deep hypocrisy on their part, which has (in my opinion) necessitated Google to take the action it did. On one hand, the government is trotting out cases now where they say the surveillance programs broke plots -- but on close inspection many of these claims are questionable or just outright false. The government claims that the information revealed about the programs so far (or the release of FISA request ranges as Google quite reasonably wants to do) has already caused "terrorists to change their methods" and cut off information. I don't buy the government's line on this. Smart terrorists, like smart crooks in general, always assume their communications are under surveillance, even when they're not.  And the dumb ones, the dim bulbs, openly discuss their plans with...

Danny MacAskill's 'Imaginate' - New Film. Charlie Adams  It's pretty amazing and obviously had a pretty big budget from Red Bull (compared to the lo-fi street-scene stuff) although feels a bit "over-produced/contrived" to me (lacks the spontaneity of earlier ones). There is NO EXCUSE for the music... apparently by this mob calling themselves "Houston" https://www.facebook.com/Houstonsweden who say (in public and apparently without irony): "HOUSTON is a swedish AOR rock band" & "Influences: Survivor, Foreigner, Journey, Bon Jovi, Bad English, Jim Steinman, Whitesnake, Heart, Rick Springfield, Boston, Kansas, Asia and a lot of others." UNFORGIVABLE! Their turgid song is not fit for the artistry of  MacAskill. http://imaginate.redbull.com/videos/riding_film

Can't stop singing this, such an earworm. Enjoy :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Truth about PRISM :) Reminded of this via  http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/trading_privacy_1.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqggW08BWO0

out with alison adams Charlie Adams Arthur Mee & Granny Pam for a (day late) Father's Day meal this evening. http://thewellingtonheifer.co.uk

Love This!  Triple Your Internet Speed for Free (video) *via TWiT  *Note to less-geeky friends. If you are thinking of following this advice I recommend you consult me first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmMkiTB_uE

I made a "Hitler finds out about the UK Parliamentary Committee on Tax" video in honour Jeff Jarvis great efforts to speak sense to the idiotic people demanding Google do something other than obey the tax laws. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j_GvCO8rqtg

No Stopping Animated by ABVH @ madebyabvh.tumblr.com

UK Politicians...: WHAT DO WE WANT? A CHANGE IN THE TAX LAWS! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? SEVERAL YEARS AGO! WHO ENACTS TAX LAWS? er... WE DO ACTUALLY! DO WE HAVE WHAT WE WANT? NO, ACTUALLY, WE SEEM TO HAVE DONE A CRAP JOB OF THIS WHO SHALL WE BLAME? SOMEBODY ELSE!

The BBC's 5Live had me on this morning (2a New York time!) to talk -- once again -- about the supposed contretemps about Google and taxes in the UK. My opener: This story is absurd. The scandal here is with the legislators and diplomats who need to do their job and reform their tax laws, not with companies that do what they are supposed to do -- and what every taxpayer does: minimize taxes.  As I crawled into bed, the BBC called and said the response was "amazing" and asked me to come back on at 3a New York time. I said let me sleep. As they should let this story sleep.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bbzqr

Best analysis/speculation (& explanation) I've heard of the  #NSA    #PRISM   scandal.  LONG video but worth a watch. Start watching at 23mins Caters for what's been revealed/claimed in the leeks AND the statements form the big tech companies (i.e. no "direct access" into servers).  Essentially:  - Spooks wiretap major networks "upstream" of the big tech companies  - Splitting the fibre... hence PRISM!!!  - spooks grab EVERYTHING  - spooks can then retrospectively reassemble (BIG DATA problem) messages they are interested in  - NSA have a BIG datacenter with lots of boys toys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center  - once they have a "case" they can then request appropriate warrant/legitimate access to the tech corps data  - tech corps then service those requests (as they have explained they do and are compelled by US law to do) Refers back to 2006 story regarding NSA wiretapping of ATT networks (secret room in ATT networking facility)...

Another let's play is up. Normal playing of Minecraft. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81aWC077kH4&feature=share

New Frisell album out recently 'Big Sur' ... sounds rather splendid. "All of the music on this album was written at Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur" Listen on Rdio:  http://www.billfrisell.com/discography/big-sur http://www.billfrisell.com/discography/big-sur

So this is how you make a Hitler meme All you need to do is come up with the captions. http://downfall.jfedor.org/create/ Hat tip to Eli Fennell  #HolyKaw

...Browsers!   http://j.mp/ZJIKzU

Is it a Haiku? I just wanted to check (lazily, obv.)  if something was a Haiku and thought wouldn't it be great if there were such a website where you could cut&past in some text and it worked it out for you... and guess what...? http://isitahaiku.com/ http://isitahaiku.com/

Radio4 doc to feature Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards tomorrow (Thurs). More links and background at:  http://www.davidbowie.com/news/simon-armitage-oblique-strategies-bbc-r4-51771 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02qncrt

Wow! Realtime Google Search Visualisation for UK searches. [insert NSA snooping joke here] H/T Mike Elgan  http://www.google.co.uk/trends/hottrends/visualize?nrow=5&ncol=5&pn=p1

We're calling for greater transparency--asking the government to let us publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including their scope.  Here's our letter to the US government.   http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html

Jony Ive redesigns things!  In Tumblr form! http://jonyiveredesignsthings.tumblr.com/ http://jonyiveredesignsthings.tumblr.com/

New Job Posting: Unnamed USA intelligence agency seeks to fill $200K a year contract technical position in Hawaii.  Previous worker left position suddenly, so ability to start work immediately is a plus. If interested, dial any phone number to apply. (h/t Rick Klau  for the inspiration)

Happy Birthday!

Why hasn't anyone (yet) done a photoshopping of Edward Snowden where he is wearing Google Glass? #comeoninternetmemecreators   http://images.smh.com.au/2013/06/10/4477613/VD-E-snowden-408x264.jpg

Why I suspect China of leaking Prism. Did the Prism presentation leak at exactly the perfect moment for maximum benefit for the Chinese government, or was that just an amazing coincidence? Momentum and moral outrage about Chinese government hacking has been building up for years. Finally, this weekend, President Obama was scheduled to call China's new President President Xi Jinping (shee jihn-peeng) out on the carpet, take him to the woodshed and do other cliches to him about China's intense hacking. But after years of being kept secret, facts about the Prism program leaked just days before Obama was going to lecture Xi on hacking, which resulted in domestic US outrage over Prismgate reaching a crescendo just as the leaders met. Whenever China is accused of hacking, they always deny it, and follow the denial up with the charge that the US is the world's biggest hacker. Everybody assumes that China knew about Prism (one benefit of all that hacking). If they didn't leak i...

Gotta love today's Google Doodle for  Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?hl=en&tab=ww http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/10/google-doodle-maurice-sendak-author

Government's Secrets: A Discussion of Principles America is supposed to be a nation governed by principles, which are undergirded by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and carried into law. The discussion about the government and its capture of our data should be held on the level of principles. * Privacy: Our direct and personal communication in any medium and by any means — mail, email, phone, VOIP, Twitter DM, and any technology yet to be invented — should be considered private, as our physical mail is, and subject to government intervention only through lawful warrant. That is not the case. Thus it is quite reasonable to be disturbed at the news that government can demand and receive communication we believe to be private. Government may call itself the protector of our privacy but it is our privacy’s worst enemy. * Transparency: The actions of government should be known to citizens. I argue in Public Parts that our institutions should be public by default, secret by nece...

Good blog post by Lauren Weinstein examining & contrasting the seemingly conflicting US Gov & Internet companies statements on #PRISM. " In other words, what we're likely talking about with PRISM isn't a "back door" for rummaging around through data in an uncontrolled manner, but rather a technical and legal protocol for the government to quickly gain access to specific data under order when the firm involved agrees that the order is valid and chooses not to challenge it. Overall, this regime would replace much slower, largely ad hoc systems for responding to data demands, with a pipeline that can provide that data to government directly -- but the firms still control the valve on that pipe and which data is permitted to flow into it, allowing the firms to fight orders that they do not consider reasonable, focused, or otherwise valid." http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001040.html

Wisdom from Bruce Schneier on US spying revelations. http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/what-we-dont-know-about-spying-on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/

Dear Google users— You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts. First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday. Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Ve...

http://gigaom.com/2013/06/07/through-a-prism-darkly-tracking-the-ongoing-nsa-surveillance-story/ http://gigaom.com/2013/06/07/through-a-prism-darkly-tracking-the-ongoing-nsa-surveillance-story/

ahhhh "stty sane" my old friend... how long since I issued you :) #CLI-FTW http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/32/salvage-a-borked-terminal

Why My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant is "the gayest game ever made" http://bit.ly/13ntqcD

Break in case of fabulous I'm clearly not connected to the right circles as I am months late to this meme! Funny! http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/break%20in%20case%20of

The millennial generation: http://on.ft.com/14zKWZc Online tools and smart devices have empowered people born after 1980 in a way few previous technologies have done. “They’re idealists and their level of engagement with the things they care about is extraordinary.” The second part of our special report into the world of 18 to 30-year-olds is here: http://on.ft.com/134gwyI   Image by Dreamstime.

Brilliant Music Experiment/Demo: The Infinite Jukebox "For when your favorite song just isn't long enough" I uploaded Ferry's "Reason Or Rhyme" which is a nice example and a song I wish did go on for ages. Found via this weeks TWIG This Week in Google 201: Patent Crows which has a great opening section on digital music (codecs and uses) and suggests more great business opportunities for the (stupid old) MUSICBIZ in 10 minutes than the biz has come up with in 10 years (the fools). e.g. They play and discuss the vocal only track of "Come Together"  by The Beatles - listen here - amazing:  This Week in Google 201: Patent Crows Wouldn't we music enthusiasts pay premium money to hear some of our favourite artists/albums like this. The ability to make your own mixes... or at least isolate specific tracks/parts. Would be amazing. Why didn't the music biz offer us this sort of thing several years ago.. upselling us (yet again) and getting us to re-...

Guardian front page, Thursday 6 June 2013: Verizon order: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama  http://gu.com/p/3gc62/?CMP=SOCNETTXT8763I

I visited the TWiT Brick House Studios on May 10 and 12, 2013. I thought you would all like to see some of the pictures I took during my visit. Thank you, Leo Laporte and everyone in the Brick House for making us visitors feel welcome.

My first #autoawesome  animated gif here on G+ Featuring Mr Arthur Mee

Granny Pam & Grumps (Arthur Mee ) and Tinker out in Tessa.

This thread by Brit Rock critic Barney Hoskins is getting a lot of attention here in the UK. Would be interesting to here what the likes of Jeff Jarvis Mike Elgan Dan Gillmor made of it. I think it's common sense not to work for no return (money or benefits in kind) and wonder why so many writers have apparently been so willing to do so. https://www.facebook.com/barney.hoskyns/posts/10151699566826449

FT chart of the day: The new leaders of economic growth http://on.ft.com/14vm2tw The shift in the global economy has been clear for some time, but this year is the pivot point. In 2013, for the first time since the industrialisation of the 19th century, emerging economies such as China and India will produce the majority of the world's goods and services.

Today in Geek History: In 1978, Taito introduced Space Invaders to the world. And thus, a new use for lunch money was born. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=437Ld_rKM2s

It's World Environment Day No, really it is! Clebrated/Sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme "The theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebrations is Think.Eat.Save" See:  http://www.unep.org/wed/theme/ Meanwhile in our country...: Decarbonisation target narrowly defeated in Commons energy bill vote A bid to include a target to decarbonise the UK's electricity generation by 2030 was narrowly defeated in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, to the dismay of green campaigners and businesses that had backed the goal as a way of stimulating investment in renewables and low-carbon energy. As an industrialised nation we are complicit (in wrecking our planet's climate). As a species we are insane. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/04/decarbonisation-target-defeated-energy-bill-vote

How Amazon's commercial fan fiction misses the point http://bit.ly/14edVEZ Kindle Worlds tries to crack a huge market, but it could lose the most interesting elements of fan writing

Hi Mike Elgan  I mentioned this in a comment on your Charles Arthur post. hoping it may get your attention. This is not some kind of grudge/sour grapes... rather I made an effort to expose some really bad reporting  by Arthur AND his subsequent poor response to reader feedback. Everything I've learned from the likes of you, Dan Gilmore, Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen and Matthew Ingram on "the new journalism"  seemed to be totally misunderstood/wasted on Charles Arthur :( http://storify.com/sadams_s/interaction-on-twitter-with-charles-arthur-of-the

Why the Guardian’s ‘Matrix’ analogy fails. Nothing much happens in the UK and the country has very little impact on the outside world.  At least, that’s the false belief you could come to if you never went to the UK and never learned anything about how the world works.  Likewise, if you never visited Google+ and didn’t learn how it really works, you could conclude that the network has “little visible engagement, pretty much no impact on the outside world,” as Guardian writer Charles Arthur has done in a misleading column recently.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/jun/04/google-plus-the-matrix There are two kinds of writers who comment on Google+’s “impact”: Those who use it and learn how massive its impact is and those who don’t use it and ignorantly conclude from their own non-use that nothing is going on.  Arthur, who hasn’t posted anything on Google+ for two years, makes the classic Arthur Spooner error, which I described here.  https://plus.google.com/113117251731252...

Here's a version everyone can watch of the BBC debate I had with Jaron Lanier: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22770908 Google Glass and wearable computers.  Media training? If you get on with Jeremy Paxman (many PR people live in fear of him since he has an adversarial interview style) in a debate setting, here's some tips: 1. Get there early and try to have a fun conversation with him before getting on air. That's where Paxman feels you out. I let him try Glass and had a good laugh with him. 2. Make sure you take the other side's point of view (I know the downsides of technology). 3. Wait your turn. No one likes someone who talks over other people. On the other hand, you do need to be firm about getting in your points too. It's a tight balancing act. 4. Self deprecation works a LOT with Paxman. He respects that since he always gets people pitching him stuff and pushing a singular point of view. Thanks Rory Cellan-Jones who had a separate film that led into t...

The view from my (home) office window this morning. "We've got Cows!"

TWIT coverage of new Mojang game Scrolls... several minutes starting from 44:31   http://youtu.be/WAif8nQxfoE?t=44m31s Charlie Adams  http://youtu.be/WAif8nQxfoE?t=44m31s

The next OSX Cat: Grumpy Cat (LOL) Not sure where this originated... I heard about it via TWiT  This Week in Tech 408: NUC NUC NUC http://imgur.com/pzY0k

Here is a nice little video on the Lenovo Thinkpad x131e Chromebook. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfmL0pX7vlY