Interesting Links for 11-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• The Floppy Disk means Save, and 14 other old people Icons that don't make sense anymore
  (tags: computers design )
• Derivatives trader: 'The trouble is, regulators are idiots'
  (tags: regulation finance london money )
• External auditor: 'Nobody at a bank can have a complete overview any more'
  (tags: banking uk finance )
• Melinda Gates wants family planning back on the global agenda
  (tags: contraception family GatesFoundation )
• 'Snooper's charter' delayed after last-minute coalition talks
  (tags: privacy politics uk )
• Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies
  (tags: employment business france )
• Communications interception — dazed half-memories of a conference call with Julian Huppert
  (tags: law politics uk internet privacy )
• Community coming back for a final season of 13 episodes
  (tags: tv community )
• Facebook now charging people if they want to make sure their friends see their posts.
  (tags: facebook money )
• Heliosphere's long-theorized bow shock does not exist
  (tags: astronomy space physics )
• Maternal antibodies to gluten linked to schizophrenia risk in children
  (tags: schizophrenia gluten )
• Susceptibility to autism may be the price we pay for being human.
  (tags: autism brains humanity intelligence genetics )
• The salesman and the developer
  (tags: business marketing sales development )
• Facebook Rolls Out File-Sharing for All Groups
  (tags: files facebook sharing )
• Smartphone users think differently to those with non-smart mobiles.
  (tags: mobile_phones behaviour society technology )

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

"Susceptibility to autism may be the price we pay for being human." As someone who is elsewhere on the spectrum, I find that self-evident.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to think that Facebook is going to become the new AOL - it will sell for a fortune at it's initial stock offering, use that money to buy a different company and then over time become itself irrelevant as it is replaced by other outlets that people move onto.

Either that or it will become Skynet.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining a teenage John Conner being saved from a Patrick-Terminator by a Schwarzenegger-terminator and recording for posterity the fact that the human race has at some point in the future now been saved by clicking 'Like'.

[andrewducker]

Oh Dear Lord. I can totally see that happening. But hopefully in an awful spoof.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

There's some interesting stuff in that interview with the "external auditor". What it glosses over though is that the "external auditor" in question is still a trainee chartered accountant. He/she is what we more grown up auditors would refer to as an "audit monkey" - a very small cog in a big team. Junior auditors working on the big bank audits definitely won't have an overview, and are unlikely to speak to anyone at the client who does either. It's a shame they didn't speak to a senior manager, director or partner.

[andrewducker]

They've talked to oodles of people - I haven't been keeping track, but there might be a more senior person in there somewhere.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

France (and for that matter many other European economies) desperately need to sort out their supply side, especially their labour markets. Can't see that happening in France any time soon though.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

The thing is that Facebook will only let you share files up to 25 megs - and I can't think of anything I'd want to pirate that would be less than 25 megs.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Isn't that sort of thing (one of) the point(s) of formats like rar? Break a big file up into several small ones.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to figure out how to get rar files to play on either my TV or my VLC.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'm sure VLC can do this... in fact I'm sure I have HAD VLC DO THIS in the past (I forgot how). But OK, inserting the faff of turning the rar files into a more congenial video format does make this a slightly less desirable method.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it can be done. I've just never been able to figure it out. avi and MP4 for the win.

[zz]

rar files are just a different sort of zip file. using something that can open such things, like 7-zip, you can extract the file(s) contained within.

[i_kender]

Correction: Community has been renewed for a fourth season, no mention of "final"... it was 30 Rock that got its final season confirmed.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re Facebook: $2/post seems really steep. If I were running Facebook, I'd make highlighting posts free, and the ability to only see highlighted posts (possibly only highlighted posts from selected people) cost something like $2/month.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this would be tied into to disallowing the current "subscribe to all updates from X" option, or if the assumption is that most people leave it at the default of only see important updates or that many people have so many friends on FB that they couldn't set it to see all updates from most people without having a nigh-endless feed of updates.

Having the person who wants their posts visible be the one who pays is clever, since it means people can think "Heh, I'll never be one of those suckers who pays", while having the option to pay to -view- something would make it seem like people were being locked out of (for want of a better word) content.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

My suggestion isn't that people would have to pay to view highlighted posts, it's that they would have to pay to not see non-highlighted posts.

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

That maternal antibodies link is redirecting to the science daily homepage.

[andrewducker]

How odd. It also popped up in their feed again, so possibly they correct an error:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120511101242.htm