Joakim Nygård Archive Linked About

Michael Jackson on Last.fm

1 Jul 2009 -

Amazing graph of Michael Jackson tracks played per hour:

scrobbles

Information Can’t Actually Want Anything

30 Jun 2009 -

Malcolm Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson’s new book Free:

Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each [YouTube] video is “close enough to free to round down,” “close enough to free” multiplied by seventy-five billion is still a very large number.

So very true.

Walkman for a Week

30 Jun 2009 -

BBC asks 13-year old Scott Campbell to use a Walkman over his iPod for a week:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

The Cloud With No Name

4 Jun 2009 -

Remarkable images of a type of clouds with no meteorological name. Looks a bit like a wavy sea seen from benath.

ZFDebug 1.5 is ready

21 May 2009 -

ZFDebug, previously known as Scienta ZF Debug Bar, has reached version 1.5 with lots of new functionality and a new home with GoogleCode.

Visit the ZFDebug homepage and have a look. As always, keep the good suggestions and bug reports coming.

In Defense of Data Islands

19 May 2009 -

Louis Gerbarg comments on Steven Frank’s thoughts on the state of computing (previously linked to from here):

I think we can get past the desktop metaphor, and I think it will be done by designing systems that do not have a filesystem as an exposed concept for the user.

I think to some extent this is what Apple (and many others) are attempting on a small scale with applications like iTunes and iPhoto. They provide access to data within files without actually exposing the file system. The media browser in Mac OS X 10.5 is another example of browsing files by content rather than structural placement.

I’ve argued that these applications should be plugins to the file system, views in a file browser if you will, but the idea is the same: Easy access to the content of files without worrying about where it is or how it is stored.

The AddressBook application, as Gerbarg mentions, would be close to useless if it didn’t allow Mail.app to read my contacts or drag-and-drop a vcard attachment to create a new contact. The key is connectivity, online and on the desktop and to the user and developer alike.

The Black Box of Wolfram Alpha

19 May 2009 -

Biologist John Timmer of Ars Technica reviews Wolfram Alpha and has a some very important observations:

So, in essence, Wolfram’s asking you to outsource all the sanity-checking that should be done when obtaining information—does it come from a reliable source? Is it in keeping with other figures that are available? You’re just supposed to trust that the folks that populated the databases behind Alpha have done their job well. If they haven’t, it’s up to you to figure that out.

This is a major issue that needs to be fixed or the results will be of little more use than clicking “I feel lucky” on Google.

Wolfram Alpha remains an interesting approach to scientific data mining and input parsing. For now, however, I’ll stick with wikipedia, google and common sense (and books for deeper research). Computers are no match for knowledge explained by a human.

Wolfram Alpha Screencast

15 May 2009 -

Stephen Wolfram, who famously built Mathematica, demoes what appears to have potential to revolutionize the way we look for information online.

The information presented from a query in the demo is nothing short of amazing, providing remarkable relevant and interesting facts and graphs. The ability of the Wolfram Alpha engine to calculate the results rather than relying on static text and combining or comparing different entities makes for some very intriguing possibilities.

It will be very interesting to see where this is going.

iBiffen for iPhone

12 May 2009 -

My second iPhone app, iBiffen, is available in the iTunes App Store today. Focusing on the Danish market, iBiffen displays a visually compelling list of posters for movies playing today at Copenhagen cinemas.

In Danish: Mit andet iPhone program, iBiffen, er tilgængeligt netop blevet tilgængelig på iTunes App Store. iBiffen viser en flot liste med plaketer for biograffilm idag i biografer i København.

Read more about iBiffen or download at the App Store

Alone Across the Ice

7 May 2009 -

Todd Carmichael breaks the solo record for reaching the South Pole on foot. It’s a remarkable story

I have no water! That’s it. I have no water. If you don’t have water, you don’t have life.

Watch the amazing video documentary by Todd himself at the bottom of the story. Incredible determination!

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