David Wulf Riordan’s Weblog

Today Reddit launched a Subreddit dedicated exclusively to data sets. This, in the words of Joe Biden is, a “big f’ing deal.” When we have people striving to gain access to data (one of the federal government criteria for deciding which datasets should be released is public demand) and others curating it so it can [...]

I’ll spare the mid-90’s concrete mixer animations, and simply say that this site is long overdue for a redesign and a reinvigoration of content.  It is on the way.

Originally published in the Hamilton College Spectator on October 24, 2008.
Remember those simpler times when we didn’t know who Senators McCain and Obama would pick as their Vice-Presidential nominees?  It feels like decades ago, but there was  a time before “Hockey Mom” was a punchline and the media thought “Gaffezilla” was a poorly foreign translated movie.  It [...]

The iPhone is not the place to compose the Great American Novel.

When Andy Baio posted a 1987 internal video from Apple predicting the year 1997, I was instantly reminded of the accompanying video from Bill Gates’ 1995 tome, The Road Ahead.
So here they are – in their entirety:
Apple Time Capsule (1987 -> 1997):

 
The Road Ahead – Home (1995 -> 2004):

The Road Ahead – Education (1995 ->2004):

 
Also, [...]

Tory leader David Cameron and Barack Obama certainly have a lot in common, including a shared belief that “thinking time” and relaxation are essential to fulfilling the offices they both aspire to.
In the year since he became the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, the charismatic 41-year old Cameron has reinvented British conservatism and revitalized [...]

A few weeks ago, a major media buyer released a report on the average viewership age for network television programming.  It concluded that the average age of network television viewers was now 50.
Lets take a look at the live viewership per network:
And now lets look at DVR viewership over a 7-day period per network:
Notice anything?
Aside [...]

Being a completely new linux user used to suck.  Not because there wasn’t much software for it, but as a completely new user, it was difficult to install the software you wanted.  Software had to be compiled by the end user.  You’d have to go out and get source to the software you wanted, the [...]

Verizon has been blocking all social networks from their users until they build in parental controls.  That’s a good thing.
I’ve been using the location-driven social network BrightKite pretty heavily in the past few weeks (and it’s made me realize that I’m the only one who uses it since Fairfield County is not a web-hipster enclave), [...]

This morning, I heard Nas’ brilliant track Black President off his new “untitled” album, and it made me begin to realize the massive cultural impact of Barack Obama.  Barack Obama hasn’t just inspired Will.I.Am’s Yes We Can video, but a fairly substantial collection of tracks from a particularly influential group of artists all across the [...]