links for 2009-04-10

  • "Realtime disease detection for your city from messages on Twitter (and soon Facebook)"
  • "Internet Archive on turning the Stanza online catalog system into an open standard for distributing free and commercial eBooks. This new standard, the Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS), will be built on top of Atom, and aims to create an open standard for distributed online catalogs for electronic books."
  • "Archaeologist Magnus Artursson at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, demonstrates in his thesis that societies during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age had a significantly more varied and complex structure than was previously thought. This power structure was based on social networks rather than on permanently established institutions. Society was organised into small and medium-sized chiefdoms that were typically involved in ongoing struggles for dominance between various powerful families."
  • "I think there’s more here than meets the eye. A lot more. I also believe there’s enough evidence to indicate that neither StockArt.com, Artlaws.com or the various people that work for them, hire them, or use their services are the bastards that they’re being made out to be. And while the entire world has heard Jon’s side, only a few have taken the time to research the other side (or even taken a look at some of the work in dispute). Do I know who copied who in this case? Not for absolute certainty, but I have some pretty strong opinions as to what’s what."

    "My pitchfork and torch will have to wait for the next time that I’m absolutely sure of the cause. And who the bad guys really are."