Technolotics #11 – How to Pick up Chicks

Technolotics - An antique show about technology

[audio https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/11_technolotics.mp3]

Listen: Episode 11
Feed: RSS

Notes

Folksonomy rankings, the future of search?

Ok what is a folksonomy [1]
A new search engine for social bookmarking, entitled collaborative rank [2], has launched.
Site is a research project by a student of the University of New South Wales [3] in Australia
It enables search of taggers posts to del.icio.us [4] weighing search results by user importance, for the specific tag searched [5]
User rank is calculated based on the originality and subsequent popularity of a users posts to del.icio.us [6]
Does this ‘improve on pagerank’ by rewarding taggers?
The genius of del.icio.us [7] is that it provides an incentive for the grind of tagging, bookmark collection..But are other users tag choices and bookmarks useful?
Could this lead to sites currying favour with top taggers?
Or what about folksonomy spam?

RIAA sues a child

Although the RIAA’s case against 14 (then 13) year old Brittany Chan was dimissed with prejudice. They are continuing the persecution by suing her [8]
The four major record labels are demanding that the court appoint a legal guardian so a case may be taken against her

Anonymous Bittorrent

Users of the i2p anonymizer layer [9] now have the option to run anonymous bittorrent software
Although it is possible to use onion routing (Tor) with bittorrent already [10], this is not what Tor was design to do, and is strongly discouraged
Now users have the option of using the i2p network to anonymize Peer to Peer, with with azureus [11] (recommended), or custom I2P-BT torrent software [12]

Pod0matic Podcast Portal adds iTunes Support

Great services which should hopefully Apples insane demand for a US credit card before adding a podcast to the iTunes store [13]
Podomatic also provide 250megs of space for podcast hosting, and automatically create iTunes compatible RSS feeds for you. Making it an excellent beginner service
Whats needed is a service which would provide for adding your cast into iTunes, without tying you to a single podcasting hub – allowing for expansion and more professional podcasts

The new private library

Just like Google [14], yahoo is planning on scanning and developing a searchable online library of printed books [15]
Unlike Google, yahoo are planning on making the complete texts of copyrighted works readable
The Open Content Alliance, which is part financed by Yahoo, will synthesise the digital collections of several leading research librarys of research papers and historical works [16]
This collection will not include copyrighted works without permission from publishers
Scanning and hosting will be done by the Internet Archive [17], and works will be available under Creative Commons liscences [18]
It remains to be seen how much publishers support they will recieve for this effort
Several authors, such as BoingBoing’s [19], Cory Doctorow [20] have demonstrated that open source / creative commons literature can still be commercially viable

The UnGoogleable

All it takes is one link to your blog or darknet to get crawled, but some people are managing to stay off Googles radar [21]
Some take this further, living completely off the grid, with no bank account, no credit cards, and no phone line – although clearly, being completely off grid and hense untaxable and untraceable would be illegal [22]

No you cannot have children

The Indiana state legislature has proposed legislation which will require a licence to procreate by means other than sexual intercourse [23]
Women wishing to use invetro fertilization, sperm donation etc will have to apply for a licence – a licence for which only married women will be considered
The new law will make insemination without the “gestational certificate” a class B misdemeanor
Under Indiana law this means that those convicted are liable for a ‘Fine up to $1000 and up to 180 days in jail’
A married couple requesting assisted reproduction..

Must provide a description of the family lifestyle of the intended parents, include a description of individual participation in faith-based or church activities, hobbies, and other interests.
Are subject to fingerprint and criminal history checks

This is reminicent of Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel ‘The Handmaids Tale’ [24]

Make your own Web Application

New social software Ning [25] allows you to develop your own social / folksonomy software!
The service already includes templates of clones for a host of popular web applications like flickr [26], del.icio.us [27], thefacebook [28] etc
Developers can clone existing apps, or make their own in PHP
Although developers are restricted from running thirdparty adds, they are free to charge for the services they create
Ning provides plenty of plug in services and APIs to make the creation of web apps easier, as well as built in (limited) storage space
Current quotas for app content are – 1GB limit for public content, a 100MB limit for private content, and a 10MB limit for the developer file system where your PHP, HTML and other application files are stored

Steve Balmers Visit to Trinity

Steve Balmer visited Trinity on Friday [29], and Jason was there reporting for us!
PDF of proposed legislation [30]

Most sound recording are out of public reach

A study by the library of congress [31] has concluded that a majority of sound recordings are unavailable [32]
This is due to a combination of factors from changes in technology making old recordings unreadable to copyright holders lacking insentives to reissue them

How to pick up girls

‘The Game’ New book released on the blossoming PPA (Professional Pickup Artists Scene), which teaches how to use Neuro Linguistic Programming [33] to increase your conquests [34]

Media Pimp

Winamp now includes XM satellite radio! [35] Now you can listen to Howard Stern!
Ipod Video Pic ? Perhaps to be released on Monday [36]
Tactapad – the intuitive two handed haptic feedback control device [37]
Vimeo [38]