Anfrage: Wir sind… (André Krüger auf Facebook)
"Anfrage: Wir sind der Facebook-Auftritt des Magazins einer kleinen Wochenzeitung und auf der Suche nach lustigem Content. Ein Honorar können wir hierfür leider nicht bezahlen."

Too Much Sociology (The Intellectual Situation, n+1)
"Sociology has ceased to be demystifying because it has become the way everyone thinks. Discussions about the arts now have an awkward, paralyzed quality: few judgments about the independent excellences of works are offered, but everyone wants to know who sat on the jury that gave out the award. It’s become natural to imagine that networks of power are responsible for the success or failure of works of art, rather than any creative power of the artist herself."

Roger Ebert’s Legacy as a Relentless Empire-Builder (David Carr, NYTimes.com)
"A journalist since the 1960s, he not only survived endless tumult in the craft, he thrived by embracing new opportunity and expanding his franchise at every turn."

Does Buzzfeed Know the Secret? (Andrew Rice, New York Magazine)
"Gawker Media’s Nick Denton, a cantankerous competitor, has predicted that BuzzFeed will “collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.” But venture capitalists have put $46 million into it, and it’s not because they adore kittens.<br />Perhaps the best way to understand BuzzFeed, though, is as the culmination of a wager its puckish founder, Jonah Peretti, made twelve years ago as a graduate student at MIT."

The New Bitcoin Millionaires (John Herrman, BuzzFeed)
"With the value of Bitcoin recently approaching $200, one would only need to hold about 5,000 coins to become a Bitcoin millionaire."

8.4.2013  Notizen  Linkschau

The Future of Bitcoin (Maria Bustillos, The New Yorker)
"Contrary to hysterical media reports, such as this recent video from the Guardian, the Bitcoin-software community is loosely governed not by wild-eyed kids camping out in half-deserted lofts but by what appears to be a rational and sober group of adult administrators who run the Bitcoin Foundation. "

The Strange Case of the Super Mario Bros. Movie (Karina Longworth, Grantland)
Eigentlich hätte der 1993 erschienene Film zu "Super Mario Bros." ein Hit werden sollen. Im Spiel steckt viel drin: "They quickly learn the only thing more important than timing is artful cheating: With the prevalence of warp zones, shortcutting the system is part of the superstructure. As the landscape becomes more treacherous and competition more fierce, they find that they can no longer survive without the "boost" of mushrooms and invincibility stars. In the final stages, they race against the clock in abject desperation, roided-out addicts making stupid, careless mistakes in their frenzy to ascend just one more level. Maybe they find and save the princess in the end, but at what cost? It could be a lost Godfather sequel. It could be Scarface."

Yes, Healthful Fast Food Is Possible. But Edible? (Eric Schlosser, NYTimes.com)
"Twelve years after the publication of ‘Fast Food Nation’ and nearly as long since Morgan Spurlock almost ate himself to death, our relationship with fast food has changed. We’ve gone from the whistle-blowing stage to the higher-expectations stage, and some of those expectations are being met."

Untappable Apple or DEA Disinformation? (Julian Sanchez, Cato Institute)
"Apple’s iMessages, however, are stored indefinitely—which is a lot more useful if you’re trying to investigate a crime that’s already occurred. That means cops should be absolutely overjoyed if drug dealers or other criminals start using iMessage instead of SMS."

Hacking the World (Nathan Schneider, The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Über Gabriella Coleman und ihr Buch "Coding Freedom": "In the years since the fieldwork that led to Coding Freedom, Gabriella Coleman has found herself playing a new kind of role: that of the world’s foremost scholar of Anonymous. (…) She has to make sure not to collect data that could be used in investigations by law enforcement—not learning where subjects live, for example, and leaving chat rooms if discussions of illegal activity begin."

6.4.2013  Notizen  Linkschau

Stunden, bevor ein 50 Meter großer Meteorit die Erde passiert, regnet es Meteoriten im russischen Tscheljabinsk. Internet, was ist da los? Videos, News und Tweets sammelt Peter Hassett auf Russian Machine Never Breaks: Explosions in Chelyabinsk; Meteor Suspected.

iPhone lockscreen can be bypassed with new iOS 6.1 trick (Aaron Souppouris, The Verge)
“A security flaw in Apple’s iOS 6.1 lets anyone bypass your iPhone password lock and access your phone app, view or modify contacts, check your voicemail, and look through your photos.”

YouTube: Unterschätzte Medien-Konkurrenz (Daniel Bröckerhoff, Zapp)
“Die Macher der YouTube-Netzwerke laden die Werbetreibenden ein ins Neuland der fast unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten – unbegrenzt und unbeaufsichtigt.”

Elon Musk’s Data Doesn’t Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery (Rebecca Greenfield, The Atlantic)
“New York Times” berichtet über Batterieärger mit dem Elektrosportwagen Tesla S, Firmenchef zeigt Trackingdaten des Testwagens und behauptet: Stimmt alles nicht. Oder hat die Zeitung doch Recht?

Firefox für Windows 8 im Metro-Kacheldesign ist da: Mozilla Firefox Windows 8 style browser released (hands-on) (Tom Warren, The Verge)

Former BlackBerry CEO Sells Out (John Paczkowski, AllThingsD)
“Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of BlackBerry and once one of its largest individual shareholders, is a shareholder no more.”

Dropbox soll noch dieses Jahr einen Börsengang planen, Konkurrent Box 2014. Kim Dotcom plant den Mega-IPO in den kommenden 18 Monaten: Dropbox is talking to banks about an IPO later this year (Gina Chon, Quartz) und Closing in on 100M files, Mega projects investment round in 6 months, IPO in 18 (Alex Wilhelm, ReadWrite)

LESETIPP

A Chinese Hacker’s Identity Unmasked (Dune Lawrence und Michael Riley, Business Week)

15.2.2013  Notizen  Links

How Facebook Uses “Ginormous Data” to Grow Its Business (Wade Roush, Xconomy)
"At least 1,000 of Facebook’s 4,600 employees use the back end every day, mainly to monitor and understand the results of the tens of thousands of tests that are being run on the site at all times. Which leads to a larger point: there is no single Facebook. As a product, Facebook is about as Protean as a non-mythological entity can get."

Sina Weibo introduces "Rage Face" emojis, a la 4chan/Reddit rage comics (Jason Q. Ng, Blocked on Weibo)
"Someone at Sina thought it worth implementing a whole panel worth of emoji that began strictly as an English-language meme—and an often times mean-spirited one at that. Rage comics are rather passe now in America, having peaked in popularity a year or two ago."

Need Support for Gmail Or Facebook? Good Luck (ReadWrite, Matt Asay)
"Once upon a time, vendors like Apple and Microsoft sold you things and then stood by the phone, happy to help resolve any problems that might arise from the use of their products. But in the modern world of free services, you get what you pay for: nothing."

The Sheikh And I: Ghostwriting For A Crown Prince In Exile (Michael Janofsky, Los Angeles Review of Books)
"It all started with a cryptic phone call. As a newly minted freelancer, after 24 years reporting for The New York Times, I was juggling several projects when a long-time friend left a voicemail message, saying, "I have a strange gig for you if you’re interested.’"

The Importance of Excel (James Kwak, The Baseline Scenario)
"You should pause whenever you hear that banks’ quantitative experts are smarter than Einstein, or that sophisticated risk management technology can protect banks from blowing up. At the end of the day, it’s all software. While all software breaks occasionally, Excel spreadsheets break all the time. But they don’t tell you when they break: they just give you the wrong number."

14.2.2013  Notizen  Linkschau

Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Declined 1.7 Percent in 2012 (Gartner)
“Huawei Reached No. 3 Spot in Worldwide Smartphone Sales Ranking. Apple and Samsung Increased Share to Control 52 Percent of Worldwide Smartphone Sales”

New vulnerability in latest versions of Adobe Reader is being exploited in the wild: Use another PDF reader (FireEye)
“We have been working with Adobe and have jointly agreed to refrain from posting the technical details of the zero-day at this time. This post was intended to serve as a warning to the general public.”

HP To Adopt Android For Upcoming Mobile Devices (, Taylor Wimberly, ReadWrite)
“Having failed to carve out a place for itself in the post-PC era, Hewlett-Packard is now taking drastic measures — by adopting Google’s Android operating system to run a series of upcoming mobile devices.”

Apple loses Brazilian iPhone trademark ruling (BBC)
“Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the ‘iPhone’ trademark in the country.”

Pentagon Inks Deal for Smartphone Tool That Scans Your Face, Eyes, Thumbs (Spencer Ackerman, Wired)
“The Defense Department has awarded a $3 million research contract to California-based AOptix to examine its ‘Smart Mobile Identity’ biometrics identification package, Danger Room has learned”

Google engineers found over half the bugs in Microsoft’s latest security update (Adrianne Jeffries, The Verge)
Erst basht Microsoft Apple, jetzt Google Microsoft: 32 der 57 behobenen Schwachstellen haben hat ein Google-Mitarbeiter aufgespürt.

14.2.2013  Notizen  Linkschau