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August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
Atom 1.0Ruby is growing like gangbusters — Its market is smaller than other scripting languages, but it's growing where others are shrinking (in terms of job listings, anyway).
Kathy Sierra on Damian Conway's presentation style — He spends lots of time preparing, which definitely puts him on a different plane than me.
More Hezbollah tit for tat? — An end to airstrikes from Israel seems to have been reciprocated by an end to rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
The brilliance of Billmon — Where would we be without him?
Joel Spolsky takes a stand for geeks — Seems like he should hammer the ad agency as well, although Travelers obviously bought into this crap.
Israel and Hezbollah play a game with rules — You decide who changed the rules and touched off the latest crisis. (Be sure to read the comments.)
What Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic ranting says about "The Passion of the Christ" — James Wolcott.
The Hall of Best Knowledge — "Can one noble genius single-handedly educate all of mankind?"
Your income relative to the rest of the world — Americans are really, really rich. (via Slacktivist)
Free Floyd Landis — A new blog that's digging deep into Landis' drug test.
White House proposes law to shield personnel from War Crimes Act — If this law passes, it's probably time to give up on the United States.
How restaurant owners cheat their waiters — If I find out that a restaurant cheats its waitstaff, I won't eat there.
Google launches open source project hosting — Ian Kallen has the details from OScon.
Jack Sparks on the death of country music — He blames Alabama (the band, not the state).
Mark McClusky on Floyd Landis' positive drug test — I really hope that the result is due to some kind of error.
Climate researcher to global warming skeptics: quit distorting my findings — In fairness he cites misuse of his findings by both sides in the climate debate, but he ends with, "I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming."
Another dispatch from Rasha in Beirut — Almost too sad to comprehend.
Majora Carter on urban renewal, poverty, and the past and present of the South Bronx — This amazing presentation defies description. Just watch it. (via Guy Kawasaki)
Bruce Schneier on bot networks — A good overview if you're not familiar with this phenomenon.
Garret Vreeland on beating the heat — Good tips.
Order a new phone and an even better newer phone is released — The Motorola MotoRAZR MAXX looks like a pretty substantial upgrade over the RAZR (and even the newer V3x and V3i).
Global warming may kill the Amazon, which in turn may kill us — Shocking and depressing. (via Dangerousmeta)
Brock Meeks on the "ticket quotas" for air marshalls controversy — Yes, some offices have imposed quotas, but the reports they file are generally ignored. Depressing on both counts.
Billmon catches news that Israel is playing a game of tit for tat — IDF chief of staff orders 10 buildings in Lebanon destroyed for every Hezbollah rocket strike.
Ralph Nader advises President Bush on how to fix things in Lebanon — Sorry, Ralph, but had you not gone around the country in 2000 telling everyone that there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats we wouldn't be in this mess. I hate you.
Interesting post on the market addressing problems with DRM — Prompted by the news that Microsoft may subsidize users migrating from iTunes to their new DRM platform.
Human Rights Watch has issued a new report of first hand accounts of detainee abuse in Iraq — They have the paper work to prove that the orders to torture detainees came down from the top.
Sadrist militiamen from Iraq are preparing to deploy to Lebanon — Lebanon gets to be fly paper now.
Joe Firmage starts Wikipedia competitor — I haven't been able to take Firmage seriously since he started making claims of alien visitation.
Is John Bolton a horrible ambassador to the UN? — I thought he would be when he was nominated, and if you judge him by the impression he makes on his fellow diplomats, he is.
Tom Ricks makes himself look like an idiot — Before writing "Fiasco," Tom Ricks was an uncritical stenographer of the whitewashed account of the war in Iraq.
Rogers Cadenhead has the numbers on "snowflake children" — The idea that stem cell research destroys embryos that would someday be implanted is ridiculous.
A picture worth a thousand words — The astounding front page graphic from today's edition of The Independent (UK).
CIA contractor fired for giving her opinion on torture — She wrote a post arguing against torture on the CIA intranet and was immediately fired.
America's vanguard of stupidity — If your political philosophy centers on ushering in the end of the world, you should probably just go ahead and kill yourself.
Valve Portal trailer — This looks like the most amazing FPS ever. (via Andy Baio)
Fans of Italian soccer club Fiorentina protest punishment by blocking rail line — After their team was relegated as punishment in a match fixing scandal, 300 fans blocked a north-south rail line at the behest of Franco Zeffirelli.
The New York Times on Danger Mouse — I ordered St. Elsewhere, the Gorillaz CD, and the cartoon CD last week, mainly because I love the Grey Album.
The case against relational databases — Tim Bray is concerned about performance and reliability. He uses an RDBMS the way Six Apart does (for storage but not publishing).
Amazing Spike Jonze interview with Al Gore from 1999 — Why are we only seeing this today?
Ed Felten tries to make sense of Ted Stevens' statement on the Internet — Yeoman's work indeed.
Foreign Policy debunks Al Jazeera myths — The Arabic news network is neither anti-Semitic nor pro-terrorist.
Adam Gopnik takes on the Zidane head butt — Someone on the Well made the point today that while Zidane will be remembered for more than the head butt, Materazzi will always be remembered for being the recipient.
WSJ reports on post-9/11 option grants — During the stock market falloff immediately after 9/11, executives granted stock options to themselves in order to profit. Greedy slime.
Over at 3qd, a dispatch from Lebanon — In short, more bad news.
NBC's Richard Engel on Beirut — Beirut was back. Fate is cruel.
Tony Bourdain is stuck in Beirut — Holy crap.
Gutting the Hamdan ruling — The White House is addicted to torture and is trying to figure out how to make the ruling mean something other than what it means.
billmon analyzes the new war in Gaza and Lebanon — When one country is rapidly and systematically destroying the infrastructure of another, it's war.
The claims in the Wilson-Plame lawsuit against the White House — I have no idea whether there's any merit to the suit.
Ben Stein on the state of America — I can't argue with a single thing he says. (via Rebecca Blood)
Miguel de Icaza on voting irregularities in the Mexican election — Basic mathematical calculations point to a problem.
Case study of Mark Hurst's del.ico.us redesign — I really think that I need to set up listening labs (or the equivalent) for all of my projects.
EFF's awkward questions for the entertainment industry — These companies hate their customers and we should hate them back.
45% of the world's carbon emissions are from cars in the US — We drive too much and our fuel efficiency sucks. (via Rebecca Blood)
Secret spying programs are pissing off even Republican allies of the White House — What a downer today has been, news-wise.
Pentagon claims it will treat Guantanamo detainees humanely — In the same breath they claim that detainees were never treated inhumanely, so scepticism must be excused.
Sick of slinging Java code? Become a tailor's apprentice — Talk about your once in a lifetime opportunities ...
Robert Weintraub on the World Cup final — Good stuff.
Eric Sink on negotiation — I can confirm that looking for a job when you've been laid off puts you in a weak negotiating position.
Abbas Raza on Zinedine Zidane and racism — He argues that the only possible insult that would have provoked Zidane's actions is a racial slur.
Holux pocket GPS unit — Now this looks like an extremely cool toy.
The evils of the passive voice — It is a writing practice that should be avoided. (See what I mean?)
Michael Ruhlman on eating animals — Scroll down for a comment from Anthony Bourdain. (via Kottke)
TV critic Tim Goodman on the Emmy nominations — They seem particularly awful this year.
Researching ways to reduce transparency — The federal government has made a $1 million grant to St Mary's Law School to research ways to defang the Freedom of Information Act.
How "The Searchers" became a classic — I watched it a few months ago and had to turn to the reviews to figure out why the movie was important. It's not an entertaining film.
Guy Kawasaki's advice on how to lay people off — I've never laid anyone off, but I've been laid off a few times myself. There's nothing worse than the "This is as hard on me as it is for you" speech from a CEO. It's not.
How the ESPN announcers make soccer boring — I have no idea what the guys on Univision are saying but they sure as hell don't seem bored.
Don't drink and drive, seriously — Even one drink increases the "inattentional blindness" effect.
James Wolcott on the state of affairs in Gaza — Taking a soldier hostage and ransoming their life is horrible. Collective punishment of a million people is worse.
Bye bye FastCGI — Looks like 37signals is moving from FastCGI to Mongrel for Rails deployments. We use Mongrel at work. It rocks.