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Entries from May 2007

Dead in the water

May 21st, 2007 · No Comments

Looks like the site was down for a bit due to some server configuration mistakes that I made. Note to self, don’t reference Apache::Registry in your server configuration when you don’t have the Perl module installed.

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The case for .bank

May 18th, 2007 · 2 Comments

F-Secure security researcher Mikko Hyppönen suggests that in order to combat phishing, a new top level domain should be set aside for use by banks and other entities that are often spoofed. The organization that manages the domain would verify that the sites are owned by actual financial institutions and that they were not being [...]

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Who planted the iPhone news?

May 17th, 2007 · No Comments

Was the quickly retracted iPhone delay news this morning the product of fraudsters attempting to manipulate Apple’s share price? I’d sure love to know.

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Warp your brain

May 17th, 2007 · 1 Comment

My mind absolutely refuses to let me believe that the two images on this page are identical.

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Mitt Romney is the pro-torture candidate

May 17th, 2007 · 5 Comments

Mitt Romney made some provocative statements about Gitmo and torture in the Republican debate Tuesday night, and followed up yesterday with even more comments on how he feels on the subject. In his quest to portray himself as a tough guy, apparently he feels we should shed our treaty obligations and our existing military regulations [...]

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Ruby on Rails layouts and JavaScript includes

May 16th, 2007 · 7 Comments

Ruby on Rails includes the concept of layouts, which enable you to specify that outer framework that pages in your application will be rendered within. Most view libraries support includes, which enable you to do things like this:

My page

Do stuff here.

Layouts are a bit nicer in that you don’t even have to maintain the includes [...]

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Visual Studio is deficient

May 15th, 2007 · 3 Comments

Check out Jeff Atwood’s description of developing in C#:

The second is the C# compilation tax. When working in C#, I’m constantly compiling the solution to ensure that I haven’t broken anything. It’s a ridiculous productivity tax in an endless loop: Write some code. Compile. Write a little more code. Compile. Change a function. [...]

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Matt’s excellent tips on running a community

May 15th, 2007 · No Comments

Matt Haughey has posted his recommendations for people trying to establish and moderate an online community. They’re right on the money.

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Stephen O’Grady on Microsoft’s patent assertions

May 14th, 2007 · 3 Comments

Check out Stephen O’Grady’s FAQ on the Fortune article I linked to earlier on Microsoft’s declaration of war on open source software. He provides a lot of supplemental information that’s worth taking in.

I agree with this bit completely:

Q: How does the picture change over the longer term? A: Microsoft has spent the [...]

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Why artists tend to be liberal

May 14th, 2007 · 2 Comments

This post from The Storytellers clearly explains something that I’ve known but couldn’t articulately describe for a long time. The crux of it (via Kottke):

Stories, by their nature, have some sort of conflict. Otherwise, they would be boring. Conflict, by its nature, has at least two sides. To be able to write these [...]

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