- Why I Am Disappointed with Nature Communications (Cameron Neylon) — fascinating to learn what you can’t do with “non-commercial”-licensed science research: using a paper for commercially funded research even within a university, using the content of paper to support a grant application, using the paper to judge a patent application, using a paper to assess the viability of a business idea.
- The iState of the Union (Slate) — humorous take on the State of the Union address, as given by Steve Jobs.
- Five Obstacles for Synthetic Biology — a reminder that biology is bloody hard, natural or synthetic. “There are very few molecular operations that you understand in the way that you understand a wrench or a screwdriver or a transistor,” says Rob Carlson, a principal at the engineering, consulting and design company Biodesic in Seattle, Washington. And the difficulties multiply as the networks get larger, limiting the ability to design more complex systems. A 2009 review showed that although the number of published synthetic biological circuits has risen over the past few years, the complexity of those circuits — or the number of regulatory parts they use — has begun to flatten out. (via Sciblogs)
- UK Government to Set Up Own Cloud (Guardian) — will build a dozen data centres (each costing £250m) and push for open source on central and local government computers, eventually resulting in thin clients and “shared utilities”. (via jasonwyran on Twitter)
"UK" entries
Four short links: 27 January 2010
Science Publishing, iState of the Union, Synthetic Bio Obstacles, UK Government Cloud
Four short links: 18 November 2009
Web Time Travel, UK Map Data Liberation, Streetview Mashups, 3D Retail
- Memento: Time Travel for the Web — clever versioning hack that uses HTTP’s content negotiation to negotiate about the date!
- Ordnance Survey Maps to Go Online — The prime minister said that by April he hoped a consultation would be completed on the free provision of Ordnance Survey maps down to a scale of 1:10,000, (not the scale of a typical Landranger map set at 1:25,000). The online maps would be free to all, including commercial users who, previously, had to acquire expensive and restrictive licences at £5,000 per usage, a fee many entrepreneurs felt was too high. No word yet on license. (more details here)
- Mapsicle — open source Javascript library to create mashups and application on Google Streetview, from NZ developers Project X. It has been released by Google as part of the Maps Utility library.
- Freedom of Creation Shop — online store for 3D-printed objects. (via Makezine).
Four short links: 29 September 2009
Bletchley Park No Longer Blech, Contest Mania, Palm Process Fails For Free Software, Open Source Web Analytics
- Bletchley Park May Have a Future — the UK birthplace of modern computing, where Alan Turing worked during WW II breaking German codes, is dilapidated and in need of major repair. They appear to have a supporter in the UK National Lottery, who have given them a grant to begin work and prepare for further grants. It should be secured for the future as a place of significant historical merit in the development of computing. (See also The Geek Atlas)
- Google Opens Voting on Ideas to Change the World — there are a lot of contests at the moment: Project 10^100, Apps for Democracy, Apps for America, a plethora of X Prizes, the Netflix prize, and more. I wonder whether contests are like communities: you need a manager to cultivate and boost interest, or else your contest withers on the vine.
- My ongoing Kafka-esque nightmare of dealing with Palm and their App Catalog submission process (jwz) — This is my story about attempting to simply distribute this free software that I have written, and how Palm has so far completely prevented me from doing so. Epic Palm fail. (via Hacker News)
- Piwik — Piwik aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics. GPL-licensed.
Four short links: 17 September 2009
Involuntarily Opened Geodata, Sense Organ, Doc Vis, 3D Open Source Bodies
- Wikileaks Now Holds UK Postcode Database — the UK does not have open geodata in the way that we know it. A state-owned enterprise, Ordnance Survey, is responsible for maintaining all sorts of baseline data and they charge (through the nose) for that data. This is the release of 1,841,177 post codes, geographic boundaries, and more. Postcodes in the UK are far more useful than US ZIP codes–they identify a handful of houses, rather than a few thousand houses.
- My New Sense Organ — a strap with buzzers and a compass, so you always have physical reminder of orientation. For people like me who can get lost putting on pants in the morning, this would be a godsend. (via Slashdot)
- Saving is Obsolete — EtherPad adds a Wave-like replay feature to help you see the history of a document.
- Open Source 3D People — incredible software to design realistic 3D faces and bodies. (via glynmoody on Twitter)
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