robhyndman.com — @rhh

Anti-memes

August 29, 2006

I blogged recently that the aggregator-ification of the ‘sphere seemed to be draining the life out of it. Today, Jeremy Zawodny comes at it from a different direction. Yes, exactly.

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The Neuroscience of Wine Ratings

August 26, 2006

Jonah Lehrer confirms what many suspect: as he puts it, “wine ratings are for suckers”.

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Wired runs a piece on Nettwerk and Terry McBride. Words you will not often hear coming from a label: “”This one’s a real wingdinger,” he says, leaning into the speakerphone so New York, Denver, and Los Angeles won’t miss a word. “Let’s give away the ProTools files on MySpace. Vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. We’ll […]

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Content Discontent

August 25, 2006

I’ve been finding the ‘sphere somewhat empty of late. I think that partly it’s because of a sameness of voices, something I blogged here, and that my friend Mark Evans writes about today also. This may be an aggregator effect – a tendency of automated aggregation to select content mechanistically (how about tweaking the Flickr […]

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CRTC Asked to Block Hate Site

August 24, 2006

Mark Goldberg blogs an application to the CRTC to block two foreign sites featuring hate content. Michael has more details and some good questions. The question of the state’s proper role in suppressing speech of any kind – even the biliously hateful content at issue in this case – will not be settled here. But […]

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Ricky Gervais to Replace Steve Ballmer?

August 24, 2006

The leaked Microsoft-Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant videos are mercilessly hilarious, and proof again of why Gervais is the most painfully funny man alive.

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What (Not) to Learn in College

August 23, 2006

If I’m reading this right, one of Guy Kawasaki’s latest posts explains why you should use your time in college to learn things you can easily learn in the first few months of your working life, instead of spending it absorbing knowledge you will never in your life have another opportunity to learn. I just […]

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Canadian Soldier Ordered to Stop Blogging

August 23, 2006

The Toronto Star is reporting that a 21 year-old Canadian soldier based in Kandahar has been ordered to stop blogging and remove all posts. I’m guessing this is the blog. The Star report suggests that Canadian Forces officials have implied that the blog went “too far” but refuse to confirm whether or not it did. […]

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A Heron Just Walked By

August 22, 2006

Stranger things have happened in the office I suppose, but this is a wonderfully routine event when I work from a summer place in PEI.

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And They Say Money Can’t Buy Happiness

August 22, 2006

Frank Quattrone’s settlement would seem to suggest otherwise. Per WSJ law blog: “no fine, no admission of wrongdoing, no prevention from working in his industry again. And, most significantly, if Quattrone stays out of trouble for one year, the charges against him will be dismissed.” Update: I’m stunned to hear that some are saying he’s […]

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But Before I Go …

August 22, 2006

I’ll note that lately I’ve been finding Reddit and Tailrank to be much more effective aggregators of interesting content than Techmeme. Techmeme has begun to feel like an echo chamber. I suspect that many people have begun writing for it, hoping to get mentioned there. And the recurrence of the usual faces has, in recent […]

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