Stephendann.com

A glorious day of technology, people, ideas and political thoughts .

BarCampCanberra (#bcc2) also combined my love of liveblog journalism with the twitterstream plus streaming photos to Flickr (barcampcanberra2).  I was a quasi-sponsor this year, having set aside a budget to cover misc.cost.other and rolled out some on-the-day equipment (including putting my video camera into some serious testing with the 16gig memory card getting a good work out), and providing that sort of random cover fire for the commanding officers of BarCamp Canberra.

I presented on my rather odd sideline habit of “Documenting the Future” as I spend my time writing textbooks that need to be relevant and functional in the future, and thus far, they’re doing okay on that front.

Google Suffers a Fail against Epic Fail

Updata: <a href=http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/human_error_causes_googles_epi.php>  Read Write Web has the story on the Google Fail</a>in its glory.  Google adds the  single character of ” / ” to the banned URL list.  Entire Google usefulness fades away in a keystroke.

It’s strangely reassuring to know that the Big G is mortal (and mortally embarassed).

Google Fail. It’s the new black.

Take 1 Left 4 Dead Achievement Generator.

Add 1 L4D player with a free night. Mix.

The result? A packet load of Left 4 Dead jokes.

L4D Fake Achievements this way...

Not that I spend too much time in the game itself these days…

Filmed under emotionally controlled conditions

Rom-coms ‘spoil your love life’
Watching romantic comedies can spoil your love life, a study by a university in Edinburgh has claimed.

After the road safety campaign teams decided that it was appropriate to lobby for mandatory warnings on any and all depictions of cars driving at speed, or turning corners or other ‘stunt’ driving, the time has come for relationship movies to carry a similar safety message.

These actors are paid professionals, acting under strict supervision of a director.  These actors are filmed under emotionally controlled conditions, and the rom-com should not be taken as advice for real life relationships.

Please, do not try this at home.

(hattip to @barrysaunders for the original link)

Picked up the latest copy of the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing in the post this morning, and threw it out within a few steps of looking at the Table of Contents.

It was the same set of names on the cover as it was 10 years ago.

Diversity isn’t the same as it ever was, and it’s just one more time that I find the academic business motto of “To be published in here, you must have been published in here before” more frustrating than rewarding.