Tag Archives: Mathematics

The End of Boorish Intrusion

(This is a copy of my Loose Wire Sevice column, produced for newspapers and other print publications.) By Jeremy Wagstaff One of the ironies about this new era of communications is that we’re a lot less communicative than we used to be. Cellphones, laptops, iPhones, netbooks, smartphones, tablets, all put us in touching distance of… Read More »

Nonsense Linking, Or the Rise of the Cheap Bot

I’m a big fan of The Guardian, but their auto-linking software needs some tweaking. It’s a classic example of trying to provide that extra value to data on the cheap. My argument for a while has been that the only lasting way for traditional media to make itself competitive again is not to create more,… Read More »

Protect Your Privacy With Twiglets

I really hate being asked for lots of private details just to download a product. In short: People shouldn’t have to register to try something out. An email address, yes, if absolutely necessary. But better not: just let the person decide whether they like it. It’s the online equivalent of a salesperson shadowing you around the shop… Read More »

Europe’s Top-heavy Leagues

 Spanish Primera Liga (48%)  German Bundesliga (54%)  English Premier League (47%)  French Ligue 1 (47%)  Greek Ethniki Katigoria (6%)  Dutch Eredivisie (25%)  Italy Serie A (24%)  English Championship (29%)  Scottish Premier League (29% This doesn’t have a lot to do with technology, but it’s an excuse to play around with sparklines, Edward Tufte’s approach to feeding data… Read More »

Sudoku’s Secret: Open Source Collaboration

Great piece in the NYT/IHT on the company behind Sudoku and similar games. Their approach — no trademarking, harnessing users to help develop and perfect games — all sounds very Open Source: clipped from www.iht.com Nikoli’s secret, Kaji said, lay in a kind of democratization of puzzle invention. The company itself does not actually create… Read More »