Biweekly links for 08/24/2009

  • Pointless babble « Stephen Fry on Twitter
    • “The clue’s in the name of the service: Twitter. It’s not called Roar, Assert, Debate or Reason, it’s called Twitter. As in the chirruping of birds. Apparently, according to Pears (the soapmakers…– certainly their “study” is froth and bubble) 40% of Twitter is “pointless babble”, (http://is.gd/2mKSg) which means of course that a full 60% of Twitter discourse is NOT pointless babble, which is disappointing. Very disappointing. I would have hoped 100% of Twitter was fully free of earnestness, usefulness and commercial intent. Why do these asinine reports jump onto a bandwagon they don’t understand and why do those reporting on them relate with such glee that a service that was never supposed in the first place to be more than gossipy tittle-tattle and proudly banal verbal doodling is “failing to deliver meaningful commercial or political content”. Bollocky bollocks to the lot of them. They can found their own “enterprise oriented” earnest microblogging service. Remind me to avoid it.”
  • Amplifying on the PCR Amplifier « Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP
    • Excellent explanation of how the polymerase chain reaction lets us make many copies of a DNA strand.
  • Study Hacks » How to Schedule Your Writing Like a Professional Writer

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