Thought Shrapnel

Stuff going in or out of Doug Belshaw's head - usually around education, technology or productivity.

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Join me at Discours.es!

Here’s why. 

Photo CC BY-NC David DeHetre

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Why Minecraft Rewrites the Playbook for Learning - Boing Boing

Mimi Ito on why she’s co-founded a startup focusing on Minecraft summer camps for kids.

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Pretty amazing backstory.

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I refused to be categorised, which probably makes me a 'Visualizer' ;)

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"Who wants to work 40 hours a week for a single employer? In the future, perhaps nobody."

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The long-awaited switch to WebRTC has arrived! :)

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Missed this a couple of weeks ago but my father sent it to me this morning. Thanks Dad!

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The CEO of Imgur talks my kind of language in this Lifehacker interview: http://lifehacker.com/im-alan-schaaf-founder-and-ceo-of-imgur-and-this-is-h-1708682552

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The essence of web literacy | commonspace

Mark Surman explaining how Mozilla will continue the work we started during my tenure.

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Make your 's look like the web c.1998

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Catchafire matches professionally-skilled volunteers with nonprofits and social enterprises.

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Uncoordinated armadillo is having some serious problems

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We live in an age of dramatic distraction. Robin Sharma shares 21 tips to help you become a productivity powerhouse so you can get big things done and make your life matter.

List posts about productivity are often extremely patchy. This one is pure gold.

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DockGems are tiny apps for Mac OSX that has a sole purpose of decorating your doc | Skrekstore

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Here’s the problem

I never really used Wunderlist, the to-do app that’s used (apparently) by 13 million people worldwide. But I signed up once and they’ve got my email address, so the founder sent along their glorious news that Microsoft have acquired them.

w00t.

For some of us, not having our data sucked up into a single silo is important. That’s why I don’t use the Moves app or Instagram or WhatsApp. They’re all - either now, or in the future - sending data to Facebook. Similarly with companies Google acquires. And now, with the resurgence of Microsoft, with that company too. 

I’ve written something on this recently, which may be of interest: Web Literacy: what happens beyond peak centralisation and software with shareholders?

PS There’s a whole tumblr blog of We’ve Been Acquired! posts. You’re welcome. ;)

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I have 227 browser tabs open, and my computer runs fine. Here’s my secret.

Tools and tips for tab addicts.

So 227 tabs is ridiculous, but the article made me realise that I abandoned, without realising, my previous habit of having vertical, nested tabs. Sorting that out right now!