Towse: views from the hill

December 30, 2008

Spinning

Filed under: blog,life,URL,web2.0 — Towse @ 8:30 pm

Spinning, a blog.

The thing ^H^H^H One of the things I find fascinating about the Web is all the things I find fascinating and stash away in a links folder or delicious or a Web page or a post and then forget all about and never return to.

Too many fascinating things.

With delicious, though, if I click to save a link to a page I’ve found interesting and I’ve already saved a link to that page, delicious lets me know.

I came across Susan Marie Rose Maciog Gibb’s blog from somewhere else earlier today and found the first post or two interesting enough that I clicked on her “about” page. I found her self-description and the items that were used to categorize her self and her life interesting. So I saved a link in delicious.

I then went back to the blog and read back a ways and said, that’s interesting. I’ll keep a link.

When I clicked to save a link in delicious, delicious told me I’d already saved a link: 05-Jun-2007.

I must’ve liked it then.

I’ve never been back since. (That I remember.)

How did I find it eighteen months ago?

Ah, the Web.

December 29, 2008

CUTE THINGS FALLING ASLEEP

Filed under: blog,fun,URL,web2.0 — Towse @ 12:06 am

Yes, there actually is a Web site called CUTE THINGS FALLING ASLEEP.

Found via CuteOverload.

Specifically … this post.

And why was I over at CuteOverload? Well because Jessamyn was tweeting that her Mom had never seen CuteOverload, and I said outloud (in a two-person office) that not everyone’s Mom has seen CuteOverload. And his nibs was all, “What’s CuteOverload?” and things went from there to there to there.

So there.

December 27, 2008

The Richest Gift, a tale.

Filed under: nonprofits,travel,URL,writing — Tags: — Towse @ 2:34 am

The Richest Gift – Travelers' Tales

Great tale. More great tales on the Travelers’ Tales site.

[via a James O’Reilly tweet]

December 26, 2008

Take It Apart dot net

Filed under: URL — Towse @ 4:57 pm

Take It Apart dot net: dissecting electronic gadgetry. Just for fun.

Disclaimers, of course.

December 18, 2008

Clinton foundation donors

Filed under: history,politics,URL — Towse @ 7:11 pm

The Clinton Foundation has released its donor list on its Web site.

And /ahem/ the site seems overwhelmed by the interest. (I got a timeout each time I tried. Couldn’t get through.)

NYTimes article to get you through the wait. And one from Huffington Post.

Airbrushing History — American Style and the Internet Archives (Thanks! Brewster Kahle!)

Filed under: history,URL,webstuff — Towse @ 6:44 pm

Airbrushing History — American Style by Scott Althaus and Kalev Leetaru. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

AIRBRUSHING HISTORY, AMERICAN STYLE

Legacies are in the air as President Bush prepares to leave the White House. How future historians will judge the president remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: future historians won’t have all the facts needed to make that judgment. One legacy at risk of being forgotten is the way the Bush White House has quietly deleted or modified key documents in the public record that are maintained under its direct control.

Remember the “Coalition of the Willing” that sided with the United States during the 2003 invasion of Iraq? If you search the White House web site today you’ll find a press release dated March 27, 2003 listing 49 countries forming the coalition. A key piece of evidence in the historical record, but also a troubling one. It is an impostor.

And although there were only 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion, later deletions and revisions to key documents make it seem that there were always 49.

The Bush White House seems to have systematically airbrushed parts of the official record regarding its own history. How extensively White House documents have been rewritten is anyone’s guess, but in the case of the coalition list, the evidence is clear that extensive revision of the historical record has occurred.

[...]

I remember reading about this a few weeks ago (end of November) and I thought, hm. interesting, but, this isn’t the first time this has happened.

There was a fairly well-documented instance back when Enron was crashing, where the bio for the Honorable Thomas E. White, Secretary of
the Army, was revised to elide a couple paragraphs about all the wonderful things he had done at Enron to “From 1990 to 2001, Mr. White was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions.”

Seems folks would learn that you can’t change history in these days of archives without someone poking around and finding out, but … no.

As always, these little glimmers of change are brought to you thanks to Brewster Kahle, whose Internet Archive not only stashes away the original of versions later changed, but also offers up such gems as

The Grateful Dead Live at Winterland 17 Jun 1975

Warren Zevon Live at The Main Point 20 Jun 1976

Betty Boop Betty Boop for President — 1932

India Travel film, India (c1930)

San Francisco San Francisco (1939) from the Prelinger Archives

Wordle

Filed under: app,graphics,life,URL,webstuff — Towse @ 5:40 am

Learned about Wordle via cygnoir. Played with it with my Delicious bookmarks as the resource.

Saved the Java applet results with CutePDF Writer, then pulled the PDF into Photoshop, messed with it and saved it as a .jpg.

VoilĂ !

So, a bit early, but heartfelt, nonetheless:

December 17, 2008

OEDILF – The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

Filed under: URL,wordstuff — Towse @ 3:55 pm

OEDILF – The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

An aphorist states what is known
In a pithier, folksier tone.
He is given to joke
That the mightiest oak
From a balanoid object is grown.

(BAL-uh-noid) Acorn-shaped.

Sorts by topic, author, word, &c.

We are presently accepting submissions based ONLY on words beginning with Aa- through Dd- inclusive.

November 19, 2008

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Filed under: history,photographs,URL,web2.0 — Towse @ 3:28 am

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

[via Scott Beale @ laughing squid]

October 3, 2008

MapTube

Filed under: maps,URL — Towse @ 7:14 pm

MapTube

“MapTube is a free resource for viewing, sharing, mixing and mashing maps online. Created by UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, users can select any number of maps to overlay and view.”

Love maps. This site’s brill.

Map of the Week this week is Big Mac Index, which graphs (in 2007 prices) the price of a Big Mac in various countries across the globe.

UK tilt because of the UCL connection.

Site reference came via links sent on to me from Dan Goodman’s delicious bookmarks. Thanks, Dan, for all of ‘em.

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