Monthly Archives: January 2012

Ask Science

If you’ve never heard of Reddit, we recommend you have a read. Reddit is a social news website containing user-generated news links where the readers themselves can vote for submitted content to be promoted to the front page.

We’ve been reading the AskScience section today, finding out answers to burning scientific questions we’re sure experts have been pondering over for years… Ah em.

Here are our favourites:

 

-If space is a vacuum why isn’t the Earth super clean and spotless?

 

-I always wake up feeling groggy in the morning. I heard that a coma can give you

months of sleep! What is the cheapest and most efficient way for me to get a

coma?

 

-Has anyone ever given a sloth amphetamines? or any other psychostimulants?

 

-How do you know when blue cheese has gone bad?

 

-Where can I get my free radicals?

 

 

 

 

10 FREE Fab ‘N’ Funky Social Media Icon Sets

There are absolutely hundreds of sites where you can download Social Media and other icons for use on websites and blogs.

There are many, many different types and styles; some quite standard, others totally off the wall, so we thought we’d put together a shortlist of our favourite quirky icon sets of the moment (to download any of these sets click on its title and you will be taken to the relevant website):

Choco Sosial

Gorgeous little chocolate love heart icons


chocolate social media icons

chocolate social media icons

Delifeed

A set of 8 tasty lollipop and cake icons

lollipop and cake social media icons

lollipop and cake social media icons

Bottle Top Icons

Just as it sounds, a good range of icons in different sizes all in the style of bottle caps.

Bottle top social media icons

Bottle top social media icons

The Leaves Fall

A set of social media icons on leaf backgrounds.

Leaves social media icons

Leaves social media icons

 Hand drawn icons

A good range of icons all drawn in ink.

Hand drawn social media icons

Hand drawn social media icons

Black Twitter Icons

Very swish!  Only Twitter icons, but just so very sophisticated!

Black Twitter icons

Black Twitter icons

Heart Social Media Icons

Love is in the air…a set of 22 icons all  in heart shapes, awwww.

Hearts social media icons

Hearts social media icons

Globe Social Media Icons

Pack of 8 social media icons on a globe background.

Globe social media icons

Globe social media icons

Clear Bubble Social Media Icons

Clean and clear set of 154 icons all in bubbles.

Clear bubbles social media icons

Clear bubbles social media icons

Drinks Cans Icons

Fab set of 28 social media icons on tin cans.

Drinks cans social media icons

Drinks cans social media icons

Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere

I stumbled across an extract of Newsnight’s economics editor Paul Mason’s new book in the g2 section of the Guardian yesterday. A very interesting read. Titled ‘Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions,’ Mason examines how technology has been at the heart of the recent global unrest and has been used as a platform for outpourings of discontent.

From Occupy protestors in San Francisco, Egyptian anti-government bloggers, to mobile phone footage of the London riots, Mason illustrates how social media and new technology were crucial in shaping the revolutions of 2011, just as they shaped industry, finance and mass culture in the preceding decade.

Mason writes: “Here, the crucial concept is the network – whose impact on politics has been a long time coming. The network’s basic law was explained by Bell Telephone boss Theodore Vail as early as 1908: the more people who use the network, the more useful it becomes to each user.

The most obvious impact of the “network effect” has been on the media and ideology. Long before people started using Twitter to foment social unrest; mainstream journalists noticed – to their dismay – that the size of one’s public persona or pay cheque carried no guarantee of popularity online. People’s status rises and falls with the reliability and truthfulness of what they contribute.

Once information networks become social, the implications are massive: truth can now travel faster than lies, and all propaganda becomes instantly flammable. Sure, you can try to insert spin, but the instantly networked consciousness of millions of people will set it right: they act like white blood cells against infection so that ultimately the truth, or something close to it, persists much longer than disinformation.”

Read Paul Mason’s blog ‘Idle Scrawl’.

To get your hands on a copy of ‘Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions,’ for less than £10, visit Amazon.

Release date – 16th January