July 2012

Image searches

12 July 2012

This week’s edition of Media Watch, “Pixelating protects identity? Think again“, examines the threat image search engines pose to anonymity. Drop a disguised photo into Google images and the chances are you will find the original in the search results. Intrigued, I thought I would try it out. The pixellated the photo of Tom Waits […]

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Online music renaissance in Australia

10 July 2012

A year or so ago, I complained about the dearth of music streaming services available. A couple of months ago, Spotify launched their service in Australia. Now, five long years after they started blocking Australian users from their service, Pandora has finally re-emerged in Australia. In his email to Australians who signed up for the […]

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The power and peril of FRED

7 July 2012

“FRED” is the St.Louis Federal Reserve Economic Database. It is an excellent repository of economic data, currently boasting 45,000 time-series from 42 data sources. The web-site offers a powerful interface for creating charts of FRED data. Unfortunately, it is a little too powerful, offering a rather dangerous feature: the secondary axis. I have railed against […]

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