Four short links: 19 January 2010
Stack Overflow Data, Open Source GSM, Nostalgia, and Openness
- Stack Overflow Data Dump — all public data in Stack Overflow, Server Fault, and Super User.
- OpenBTS — an open-source Unix application that uses the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) to present a GSM air interface (“Um”) to standard GSM handset and uses the Asterisk software PBX to connect calls. Portable mobile phone basestation that routes calls over the Internet.
- Should We Encourage Self-Promotion and Lies? (Tom Coates) — And while encouraging people to spot the talented and the creative, we should also be considering how we shame those people who self-promote without creating. The financial collapse has taught us that rhetorical bubbles divorced from reality are a danger to us all. We’re already approaching this point – our industry has become venal, insular and dominated by marketing. We have come to value the wrong things. And if we want a continued vigorous, creative, free, open and equal environment, that’s something we have to fix. It’s not something to aspire to. Related: danah boyd’s tweet, Sometimes I feel deeply nostalgic about the days when the interwebs were filled with the techno-utopian dreams of geeks and freaks.
- The Opposite of Open is Theirs (David Weinberger) — absolutely nails the nature of openness. A quick must-read. (via timo on Delicious)
