links for 2010-04-28

Thought-provoking post. One of my over-riding impressions through watching Twitter during the election campaign is just how funny British people can be, as in "funny ha-ha" not "funny perculiar". As a nation we love being the voice at the back of the class chiming in with the witty remark that undermines the teacher for a few seconds....

Good follow up from psmith (do you pronounce that with a silent 'p'?) on that fascinating paper from Nuno A. Vargas at Barcelona University.

Imagine how simply furious the Daily Express will be if it ever realises that the *entire* iPlayer service is just an excuse to show lots of repeats...

Write-up of informal meet-up which I would have liked to have gone to but couldn't. Note to most journalists / most developers working in news organisations though: you can probably also have informal meet-ups like this by walking over to each other's desks and saying hi. Congrats to Joanna and James Ball for getting this up and running, but I'm not sure about this idea of untrained 'Citizen Coders' though. ;-)

...with predictable consequences in the comments thread.

Iain Hepburn writes a blog post suggesting Doctor Who fans can be pompous and take themselves too seriously. Comment thread immediately full of over-serious pompous Doctor Who fans...except for this classic: "I couldnt even be bothered to comment just get a life and move on"

This also includes a priceless comments thread - particularly the people who feel the need to share on The Telegraph site the fact that they don't feel the need to share on the Internet... ;-)