A wealth of information in NY Times article on how to use Skype with your mobile:

Both SkypeOut and SkypeIn carry a relatively low fee. SkypeOut calls to land lines can be as little as 2 cents a minute, while calls to mobile phones are usually a bit more. In Italy, for example, Gary’s call cost me (not him) 30.8 cents a minute (not including tax). A SkypeIn subscription, meanwhile, costs $60 a year or $18 for three months. All I have to do before I leave home is set my American cellphone (an older-generation iPhone) to forward to my SkypeIn number, and all I have to do when I arrive in a new country is get a SIM card, go online and set the Skype software’s preferences to forward all calls to the new number.

So, here’s how Gary’s call to me worked:

He dialed my regular American cellphone number, which forwarded to my SkypeIn number, which, in turn, forwarded (via SkypeOut) to my Italian cellphone number.


"Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”

theconnor

"Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web."

timmylevad / Tim Levad Cisco channel partner advocate


In this enchanting article from Vanity Fair Michael Lewis draws parallels between a gentle people from Scandinavia who just want everyone to have the same amount of everything and "a horse that pretends to be broken."

“The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery.” The brilliant paper was written back in 1954 by H. Scott Gordon, a University of Indiana economist. It describes the plight of the fisherman—and seeks to explain “why fishermen are not wealthy, despite the fact that fishery resources of the sea are the richest and most indestructible available to man.” The problem is that, because the fish are everybody’s property, they are nobody’s property. Anyone can catch as many fish as they like, so they fish right up to the point where fishing becomes unprofitable—for everybody.

This insight is what led Iceland to go from being one of the poorest countries in Europe circa 1900 to being one of the richest circa 2000. Iceland’s big change began in the early 1970s, after a couple of years when the fish catch was terrible. The best fishermen returned for a second year in a row without their usual haul of cod and haddock, so the Icelandic government took radical action: they privatized the fish.

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Social Web
No UserpicTwittering as a Displacement Activity
Posted by Trapeze Artist

Twitter is not a substitute for really engaging with people and winning them over. Political Twittering is merely a displacement activity for doing something more meaningful.

Rachel Sylvester in The Times this morning quotes a psychologist (a real one, not Derek Draper) who hits the send button on the head;

Exhibit B: Twitter is reality TV without the pictures. There is a combination of neurosis and narcissism involved. The psychologist Oliver James has said: “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.

Not sure if sense of identity is the right attribute, it is more a case of self-worth stemming from attention. That people care to know what the Twitterer is doing enhances their own sense of self worth. Draper feels validated and boasts (on Twitter of course) that he has more “followers” than his rivals. He has spent a lot of time canvassing thousands of Twitterers of other political commentators to build his following. Desperate. The desperation is shown by a key ratio, your followers to following ratio - your Twitter F2F ratio.

Exhibit C: Twitter F2F ratios

John Prescott 1,410 Followers, 29 Following - 48.62

Iain Dale 2,499 Followers, 152 Following - 16.44

Tom Watson 2,518 Followers, 909 Following - 2.77

Alastair Campbell 2,567 Followers, 2,088 Following - 1.23

Derek Draper 2,918 Followers, 2,836 Following - 1.02

Read more...

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Advertising
UserpicFitness First Bus Stop Ad
Posted by Sasha

This bus top ad from N=5 Amsterdam, The Netherlands simply rocks! I guess that obese people are standing.

Fitness Ad


Social Web
No UserpicSocial Networks are E-mail 2.0
Posted by Trapeze Artist

Finally an acknowledgment in today's article from BBC of what social networks are good for besides user profile, promotions and networking:

Status updates on sites such as Facebook, Yammer, Twitter and Friendfeed are a new form of communication, the South by SouthWest Festival has heard.

"We are all in the process of creating e-mail 2.0," David Sacks, founder of business social network Yammer said.


One of the most brilliant examples of a "V Fame" or how somebody who is completely unknown can become a celebrity overnight for doing nothing, but doing it in public.

One year ago a young, unnamed and heavily-eyelinered young woman who hung around on Gaia Online made a video. She went by the name of Boxxy.

Official version of a story from The Guardian "How Boxxy Brought Web to It's Knees."

"At Christmas, the video - by then languishing in YouTube's vaults - got posted to i-am-bored, and from there hit 4Chan, and in particular the site's /b/ messageboard... the heartland for many memes (and definitely NSFW). Why? Nobody's sure. Was Boxxy herself behind it? Or was she simply a vehicle for fans who liked her camgirl approach, apparent ADD and weirdly excitable behaviour?

Over the subsequent days and weeks, Boxxy became a topic of contention on 4Chan - with the site splitting into two groups; those who professed to love Boxxy and all she stood for and those who hated Boxxy and her fans. Every thread threaten to spill over into Boxxy spam or a flamewar, and hundreds of 4channers went hacking Boxxy's YouTube account and other websites in search of her true identity. So far they don't seem to have succeeded.

Things really came to a head, though, when Boxxy haters - sick of seeing so much about her on 4Chan - decided to launch a denial of service attack on the website itself, bringing it down for some hours as a protest."

 


Apple
UserpicApple Release Safari 4 Beta
Posted by Moxietype

Apple Release Safari 4

See the new fetatures of the world's fastest web browser. Mac, PC, i-Phone, i-Pod Touch. Download Safari 4 Beta from Apple

 

 

 


Paul Boutin shares a number of low-tech hacks for high-tech problems.

Suppose your remote car door opener does not have the range to reach your car across the parking lot. Hold the metal key part of your key fob against your chin, then push the unlock button. The trick turns your head into an antenna, says Tim Pozar, a Silicon Valley radio engineer.

Mr. Pozar explains, "You are capacitively coupling the fob to your head. With all the fluids in your head it ends up being a nice conductor. Not a great one, but it works." Using your head can extend the key's wireless range by a few car lengths.


Offbeat
UserpicLa Jetée Movie (1962)
Posted by Moxietype

A short synopsis from imdb:

After World War III Paris is lying in tatters. The earth has been contaminated and survivors of the war have to live underground imprisoned by the victorious nation (it's never said explicitly which nation that is, but they are talking German). Scientists are looking for a way to secure the survival of mankind by exploring the possibilities of time traveling. In the process one of the prisoners, who has a strong connection to the past because of a recurring dream of his childhood, serves as their guinea pig. As the experiments go on the time traveler falls in love with a woman from the past and comes face to face with the childhood memory he's been obsessed with all his life.

Director: Chris Marker. Beautiful signing by the Choirs of the Cathedral of St Alexandre Newski. "Music from Russian Liturgy of the Good Saturday."

28 minutes


Social Web
UserpicWhat is Twitter
Posted by Moxietype

Twitter is nothing more than a group Short Message Service or SMS. It is built for the mobile as SMS is. User has a choice to tell the whole world that they are about to do laundry in 140 characters or less, or they can keep it in the family. No more, no less.

Twitter.


One of the most celebrated commercials of all time was Mama Magadini's Spicy Meatballs for Alka-Seltzer. Created by Doyle Dane  Bernbach Advertising Agency. In 1996, Leo Burnett  Company featured it in a compilation of the 100 Best Commercials  of All Time; and, it was ranked number four in Entertainment Weekly's  feature on the top 50 commercials (March 28, 1997 issue).


Advertising
UserpicSpicy Meat Ball versus Sexy Sausage
Posted by Moxietype

It reminded me one of the all time famous Alka Seltzer's «Spicy Meat Ball.» See more of PETA's Banned Spots and become a vegetarian today.


NBC found spots promoting vegetarianism as being too sexy, while at the same time they run ads promoting "fried chicken and burgers... -- even though these foods make Americans fat, sick, and boring in bed," said PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange in her statement about the decision.

In my view PETA intentinally crafed the spots to be rejected by NBC. The Web Site of PETA's Banned Spots for Super Bowl drives plenty of traffic.


Social Web
UserpicHow Boxxy Brought Web to It's Knees
Posted by Moxietype

Boxxy

It is January 16. On Youtube, the user 'boxxybabee', has 21,800 subscribers, 1.4 million video views and over 38,000 comments on her videos and channel, yet she only signed up 8 days ago, and has only 3 videos.

By the time you read this her account is: Dieses Konto wurde gesperrt. For some reason YouTube thinks that I am in Germany but the meaning stays the same: This Account is Closed.

Somebody who is entirely unknown can get picked up for basically doing nothing, but doing it in public.


Advertising
UserpicBlogging in Paradise
Posted by Moxietype

Hamilton Island
Photo from site key2australia-holidays.co.uk

Telegraph wrote an article today about a guerrilla marketing campaign to promote Tourism Queensland. For example, the clip of a female who tattoed a message professing her love for the Great Barrier Reef was created by the advertising agency.

In its latest campaign, Tourism Queensland invited people around the world to send in a 60-second video of themselves to apply for a six-month stint on idyllic Hamilton Island in Whitsundays. The job involves little more than lazing around on the beach and blogging about life in paradise. Thousands of sun-seekers have applied so far.

Tourism Queensland have since been forced to admit that "Tegan's" video was concocted by their advertising agency.

The site received 25 thousand hits in one hour and close to 300 thousand in one day and was taken down by traffic.


I though it was a thing of the past. If you use embedded flash files on your Site, you should read How Embedded Flaws in Flash Files Allow for Cross Site Scripting Attacks:

An attacker can carry out cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on a vulnerable system through newly disclosed vulnerabilities in Shockwave Flash (SWF) files.

The flaws, which can be found by the thousand via search engine, are caused by an error in the way that input is validated when passed to embedded ActionScript and JavaScript in Flash files, according to the US-CERT, which warned about the issue in an advisory updated today.

Websites hosting vulnerable Flash files are exploitable by an XSS attack in the context of the domain hosting the vulnerable file, as well as attacks that spoof or modify online content, according to the cybersecurity division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.


Business
UserpicThe Recession in Perspective
Posted by Moxietype

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis compares output and employment changes between this and past recessions. It doesn't look as bad as thought, and yet:

The 10 previous postwar recessions have ranged in length from 6 months to 16 months, averaging about 10 1/2 months. The current recession has surely surpassed the postwar average, but its total length will only be known when the Business Cycle Dating Committee retrospectively determines the final month of the recession.


Porsche Type 64

Adolf Merckle, one of the world’s richest men, committed suicide last week by throwing himself under a train, reports Bloomberg:

[Merckle's company] VEM was caught in a so-called short squeeze after betting Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen’s stock would fall. Merckle lost at least 500 million euros on the bets on VW stock, people familiar said on Nov. 18. VEM lost “low three-digit million euros” on VW stock, the company said in November.

It took Porsche three years of careful maneuvering:

It was darkly brilliant, a wealth transfer ingeniously conceived like few we’ve ever seen. Betting the right way, Porsche roiled the financial markets and took the hedge funds for a fortune.

Read full story


Berlin Billboards

"Don't forget..." consists of Photoshop palettes pasted over billboards in a metro station in Berlin. Is it a street art project or clever advertising campaign? I studied advertisng in Berlin at HdK and will not be surprised if there is an advertising campaign behind it.