Links from July 2008

Links for Wednesday 30 July 2008
Economics of POW Camp
Fascinating description of the bartering network in World War II Prisoner of War camps. (via Kottke)
Secrets of book publishing I wish I had known - Good Experience
Nice clear description of having a book published. Even if you have a publisher, you're on your own. (via Kottke)
Seth's Blog: Advice for authors
More advice for when you're having a book published.
The American Scholar - The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - By William Deresiewicz
Great measured rant about what Ivy League educated kids are missing out on. (via Kottke)
Times Higher Education - All the privileged must have prizes
About teaching at Harvard and the sense of entitlement the kids there have. (via Kottke)
Cool Tool: Best home chemistry lab book
Sounds like fun! In theory. In reality I never used the chemistry set I had as a kid much, so maybe not.
Dotcode's bookmarks tagged with "scrolling" on del.icio.us
A handy collection. For some reason (some) clients and (some) designers are the only people in the world who can't work scrollbars.

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Links for Monday 28 July 2008
Google LatLong: Pound the pavement
Google Maps can now give you walking directions. A quick couple of comparisons in London showed it doesn't know about as many pedestrian-only alleys etc as WalkIt.com. Yet. (via City of Sound)
iSquint - iPod Video Made Easy.
Free converter for making video into iPod/iPhone-friendly video. (via Haddock)
Ten Books on Investing Recommended by Warren Buffett | Business Pundit
I love lists of books recommended by people who know what they're talking about. (via Kottke)
Chris Gilmour
Wonderful lifesize (I assume) sculptures of everyday objects (bikes, cars, dentist's chair, etc.) made entirely out of cardboard. (via Kottke)
Last Call, Bohemia: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com
Christopher Hitchens on gentrification, New York's West Village, London's Soho, etc. (via Kottke, yes I'm catching up on a lot of Kottke)
Survival tips for the Middle Ages
Completely awesome stuff. I've thought about this kind of thing loads since I was a kid - how would you cope if you travelled back in time? Lots of conflicting ideas there.
Marginal Revolution: Time travel back to 1000 A.D.: Survival tips
The post that resulted in Jason's post. Yet more conflicting but interesting ideas about how you'd survive. (via Kottke)
Amazon.co.uk: "Travellers Back in Time"
I collected all the fiction mentioned in the Kottke and Marginal Revolution posts about "How would you survive if you travelled back to 1000AD?" and made them into an Amazon Listmania list.

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Links for Monday 21 July 2008
What is it like to write a technical book? at Xaprb
Great write-up of what it was really like to write a big complicated book, managed by rather disorganised people. (via Simon Willison)
Why HTML
More recent arguments for why to use HTML rather than XHTML. (via Simon Willison)
Toggl - Time tracking - that works.
Free thing for tracking time spent on different tasks. Hated being made to do this at one place I worked, but still might be handy for freelancing.
Google Maps API Tutorial
Lots of examples for how to do things with Google Maps. (via Tim Brayshaw)
Walkit.com – help us take walkit.com onto bigger and better things
The very nice Walkit.com is looking for an agency to help them make the site better. Is it you?
Zenphoto
PHP/MySQL photo gallery. Front-end looks gorgeous. But a couple of silly awkward problems made it tricky to install and the admin interface was a bit baffling. No multiple users.
PhpAlbum | PHP Photo Album - Gallery
Photo album that doesn't use a conventional database, supports multiple users I think. Demo looks horribly like phpBB. Tried installing and just got a blank page. Gave up.
Gallery | Your photos on your website
Very full-featured, a bit complicated, but very polished PHP/MySQL photo gallery. Installed easily, multiple users, nice themes. Win.
Tag Based PHP Photo Album | JuxtaPhoto
Looks nice, but haven't tried it. Single user only.

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Links for Sunday 13 July 2008
Features are a one-way street - (37signals)
Yes. (via Daring Fireball)
Houston Futures Home - Houston Futures
A new unofficial student / staff / alumni-generated wiki about the Future Studies course I did in Houston.
Frobisher Crescent : Coming Soon
Work has started on 69 new studio, 1, 2 and 3 bed flats in the Barbican. Pointless un-informative Flash site.
493. South Park, San Francisco.
South Park around 1860 or 1870. One of many great old photos on this University of California site.
'Grand,' but No 'Godfather' - WSJ.com
On why 'Grand Theft Auto IV' is very good but isn't great art in the way the best films are. (via Infovore)
LRB · Iain Sinclair: The Olympics Scam
Very good long article on the 2012 London Olympics and its effect on East London. I was getting won over by the Olympics until this reminded me how I really feel.

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Links for Tuesday 1 July 2008
Viddler.com - Phil Gyford at Interesting 2008 (mask)
A clip of me (taken by Roo) talking about masks at Interesting 2008.
Viddler.com - Phil Gyford at Interesting 2008 (red nose)
Another brief clip of me talking, this bit about the clown's red nose.
Expression Engine vs Textpattern / journal / hicksdesign
Thoughtful comparison of both CMSs. (via Daring Fireball)
Conceptual Trends and Current Topics - Unthinkable Futures
I like this kind of "thinking the unthinkable" as a way to come up with new ideas about what the future could be. So easy to get stuck thinking about the most likely outcomes otherwise.
Condé Nast to launch Wired magazine in the UK | Media | guardian.co.uk
I hate that a bit of me is torn between bitterness and excitement about this. I want not to care. (via Haddock)
Upload.mn - free image hosting - Wired UK
One person's guess as to how the forthcoming UK version of Wired will turn out. Not quite Thomas Paine. (via Haddock)

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