links for 2007-12-30

"I ran one of my standard test searches on 'Richard Budge', the UK coal magnate. It worked impressively well but the FT was conspicuous by its absence". Chipwrapper thoroughly put through its paces, and found wanting here and there.

"The inquiry will ask whether the programme was appropriate for Christmas night, when many children would be watching". It was shown at 10:30pm, so should Ofcom actually be asking whether they have a watershed, or whether they have a seasonal variable?

"Bish, monster, bosh, speech about love, thinly veiled gay reference, kissy kissy, bish, bosh, explosions, back to Tardis, Doctor regrets woman he loves dying, Doctor doubts himself and mission, then gathers himself, bish, bash, bosh". Sounds great to me

"It's sad to see that Linus Torvalds, one of the leading figures in the Free Software movement, doesn't really care for freedom". Yes, Laika, heaven forfend that Linus should be free to express his opinion if it disagrees with yours

"A lot of smart and entrepreneurial people want to do things that others aren't doing. Outsmarting the biggest brains at the search engines falls into this category. The opportunity to brag about success also attracts a highly motivated group of people."

"Social media URL shortening service. Put in the URL of a page you think will do well, and Votrs will give you a shortened URL as well as check to see if the page has already been submitted, and how many votes its gotten". Gotten?

"The bad news is that spam will increase and we may finally discover what the Storm 'botnet' - the colossal network of compromised Windows machines someone has been covertly building - is for. My hunch is that the net is headed for its own 9/11."