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How different can we be from a country that has its own top model television program?

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Yesterday, Michael Urban had some harsh criticism for Apple’s handling of Java in Leopard. There’s a lot of discontent in the Java world because Java 1.6 (err, Java 6) did not make the cut for Leopard, and Urban says that Java 1.5 (Java 5, if you work for Sun) is broken in Leopard as well.

Ben [...]

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I have a Java unit testing question. First, let me describe a scenario. Let’s say I have a class called IncomeTaxReturn that includes a method, calculateRefund(). That method is public (meaning anybody can call it). I also have a bunch of other methods that are only used by calculateRefund() that package up bits of logic [...]

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The New York Times Bits blog notes that the whois database may soon be gone. Being listed in whois is definitely a spam and junk mail magnet, but it remains the best way to track down many kinds of impostors, fraudsters, and online lowlifes. I’ll be sad to see it go. There was always something [...]

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In a classic example of the Overton window at work, there seems to be a broad effort to move waterboarding into the realm of the politically acceptable. It’s time for that to end. People advancing this argument should read what Malcolm Nance has to say about it. First, his credentials:

In fact, waterboarding is [...]

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Yeah, I know that everybody has already blogged John Siracusa’s review of Leopard, but I’m not going to let that stop me. The depth and breadth of his reviews consistently astound me, as does his ability to explain highly technical features in terms any user can understand. He also does an excellent job of not [...]

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Anil Dash had a strong negative reaction to Apple’s little joke at the expense of Windows in Leopard. If you haven’t seen it yet, Apple’s icon for PCs on your network (or anything that looks like a PC) is a CRT monitor displaying the dreaded blue screen of death.

It’s funny how Apple’s perception of itself [...]

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Earlier this week I posted about how many people use file sharing because the experience is so much better than the experience provided by people selling goods that can be downloaded. To further bolster my case, I offer this anecdotal evidence:

What was astounding: a full 80 percent of those we talked to (in [...]

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Last week I had to handle a couple of requests for new projects to be added to our bug tracking system, because adding new projects requires administrative privileges. In both cases, I wound up just giving the people who made the requests administrator privileges themselves, but I was reluctant to do so.

The thing is, my [...]

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William Gibson on the allure of conspiracy theories:

Conspiracy theories are popular because no matter what they posit, they are all actually comforting, because they all are models of radical simplicity. I think they appeal to the infantile part of us that likes to know what’s going on.

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