web reads

AJ

Links 04.10.2014

A few of the interesting bits and bobs I’ve stumbled on over the last few days

  1. Hope for a cleaner, cheaper, oil less future just became a wee stronger. Nigeria beware?
  2. @forakin on why we should all blog. For a more in depth analysis, Andrew Sullivan’s seminal piece from 2008 offers a longer read.
  3. The £11bn conundrum. The scale of the problem or an opportunity?
  4. Khoi on the design of the iPhone 6. Unimpressed is the word
  5. Education as a tool for disrupting and challenge paradigms – the NY Times weighs in.
  6. Ebola contained.. Phew –
  7. Elon Musk, on Mars
  8. On lightning, and being struck by it.
  9. On Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Modern Novel.
  10. Pay and gender gaps, closing?
AJ

The Friday Read: Are Emotions Prophetic?

Are emotions prophetic? The short answer is No, but Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex offers a good summary of the long answer [pdf]:

Every feeling is like a summary of data, a quick encapsulation of all the information processing that we don’t have access to. (As Pham puts it, emotions are like a “privileged window” into the subterranean mind.) When it comes to making predictions about complex events, this extra information is often essential. It represents the difference between an informed guess and random chance.

Thin-slicing for dummies? I suppose the unasked question is how our prejudices, worldview and the socio-cultural context bias us in one direction or the other when we emotionally thin-slice… It just might be a good time for me to re-read Gladwell’s Blink too.

AJ

Web Reads.. 1April2011

Quick reads….

  1. On-the-job relationships come back into the limelight – one Police Unit seems to have fallen apart over the Team Leader’s dalliance with a female team member.
  2. On paywalls, one of the more rational arguments I’ve read. (HT – The Daily Dish)
  3. Artificial leaves currently in development may one day power an entire house by electrolysing water and providing hydrogen for fuel cells.
  4. Robotic bird flying becomes a wee bit more realistic.
  5. The genetic basis for loving working out.
  6. Sounding a note of caution for using GPS-aware apps indiscriminately. Color gets another (light) bashing.
  7. Slick sleaze, or ill advised expenditure? A short history of the bomb-zapper that never was.
  8. Google aims to turn phones into credit cards.
  9. App of the Week? Social Media meets  shopping for dresses – an app for your friends to help you select a dress.
  10. The boobs have it. Apparently, there is a connection between length of time spent breast feeding and brain size. However there is no guarantee that breast milk is all that, especially when the mother isn’t eating well herself after all.
AJ

WebReads.. 04Feb2011

  1. Steve shares his learnings so far – 30 days after quitting Facebook
  2. The Christian Illuminati? Or Just a well connected crew? More questions than answers in this teaser...
  3. Large-proofing emergency services – counting the costs.
  4. The Jerusalem UFO, or a drone?
  5. Becoming invisible?
  6. Wack or what? The bloke who added his wife to a terrorist watch list to prevent her flying back home.
  7. ‘Spray-on skin’ for burn victims.
  8. This brings a whole new meaning to the storm in a tea-cup idiom. Storm in a bed sheet?
  9. Mubarak’s cronies launch a cyber counter-insurgency…
  10. Mosquitoes evolved?
AJ

Web Reads – 21Jan…

AJ

The Year in… Infographics..

A few of the info-graphics that captured my eye this year..

  1. Football Chalkboards: For us the discerning football enthusiasts, chalkboards were the revelations of 2010. Granted the Guardian debuted with them in early 2009, but the Roy vs Rafa debate for us Liverpool fans ensured chalkboards became the ultimate resource for assessing how high up the pitch the lads press, passes completed, oh and the aptly named heatmaps.
  2. Jermain Defoe's movement for Tottenham's first two goals against Manchester United was excellent
  3. Twitter is not a conversation: Us Twitter apologists usually claim Twitter as a conversation for being one of the reasons we stay on Twitter. Sadly, the data does not support that claim, as this info-graphic from 2010 showed.  retweets-replies-v2
  4. The world according to Facebook: In December, Paul Butler at Facebook came up with an interesting info-graphic; a world map based on Facebook connections. world_FaceBook
  5. Marriage In America: TIME asked if marriage in America was still required. Al Mohler argued that we all do, and this PewSocial info-graphic captured the data. marriage-50-states
  6. Infostate of Africa: Fascinating… via AppAfrica Flickr account… Infostate of Africa 2009
AJ

Web Reads: 10Dec2010

AJ

Nigeria: What We searched for..

Google’s 2010 Zeitgeist makes for interesting read.. The summary from Google:

In the year of Nigeria’s 50th independence celebration, it was unsurprising that terms like “Nigeria” and “Goodluck Jonathan” ranked highly in the search trends. But the nation’s imagination was certainly captured by social networking, with “2go” topping the fastest rising list, and “Facebook” being the second most popular search by volume. Nigerian musicians “Terry G” and “Dagrin” also attracted significant online interest.

Great to see Football Manager 2010 top the fastest rising games category and bella naija make an entry in the fastest rising people category. Sadly there’s no Liverpool in the sports section (goes to show the absence of true football connoisseurs IMO). Interestingly  ‘Love’ and MTN make the top ten popular searches…  Wonder how many of those ‘love’ searches were related to eHarmony though.. 🙂

AJ

Links: 19 Nov 2010

  1. 6 years on – the 66 year old woman who gave birth to a kid.. Selfish? Playing God or a real chance for re-inventing life? ..
  2. Celebonomics.. Why you’re not famous..
  3. Con artist.. Not Nigerian.. Gasp!
  4. Another take on the homoepathy debate.. Apparently the talk not the tincture is what works.
  5. The danger of desensitization – The daily telegraph’s Geoffrey Leon compares BP’s Gulf disaster to Chernobyl.
  6. Ghost writers.. A shadow scholar ‘bares’ all..
  7. Ultimate gadget? Or quirky? The remote control +  pillow combo…
  8. Google street view – weight loss tip..
  9. Apparently its not only Nigerian cops who are camera shy..
  10. The demise of marriage? Or just a blip.. Time ponders the relevance of marriage