links for 2008-01-05

"Why didn't the Doctor do anything to fix the oppressive alien society he met in the Doctor Who Christmas special? Because most of the time, the Doctor only tries to preserve the status quo". Not entirely sure I *saw* an oppressive alien society, did you?

"I'm fascinated by the thought of what technologies I will refuse to have anything to do with when I am old - in the way my gran was 'having no truck' with computers". I take heart from having had a great-uncle in his 70s still fascinated by any new tech.

"In the 2000 workshop were 'The Difference Between Search Engines & Directories' and 'Submitting to Directories'. There was Lycos, Excite, WebCrawler, Go, Yahoo Directory, DMOZ & LookSmart. It seems like decades since we obsessed over those engines!"

"Some of the screenshots appear to infer that this user interface may do more than provide search results, and the description from the application also hints that this user interface may interact with other other software from Google".

"Social networks have really taken off, but email is still the dominant platform for social connections. It's the single open-source backbone of nearly every social network. Most require your email address to sign up, then try to upload your address book"