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November 2006
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March 2006
February 2006
Atom 1.0U2 moved its publishing company to the Netherlands for lower taxes — Hypocrisy worth noting. Maybe they should donate all of the tax savings to charity.
TextMate has a Halloween theme — Cool surprise du jour.
Why Adobe isn't supporting PowerPC in their new Soundbooth app — Short answer: they didn't want to rewrite Intel-specific audio processing code for the PowerPC.
Scott Rosenberg says you should read my blog — Who am I to argue? (Thanks, Scott!)
NASA has decided to fix the Hubble space telescope after all — Thank goodness.
eMusic prices are going up — The number of monthly downloads at each subscription level is dropping. Subscribe before November 21 to lock yourself in at today's rates.
Changing the way people relate to their computers — The keyboard on the One Laptop Per Child computer will include a "View Source" key.
How not to be an asshole — Also contains useful tips for identifying assholes and avoiding them.
Translating Edward Tufte's work to the web — The Tufte-like chart is a lot more useful than a standard chart.
Great article on ways to die in Nethack — I always played Angband rather than Nethack. I suspect that makes me kind of lame. (via Nelson)
The persistence of bad data — Not just a computer science problem; I hear many people still think Iraq had WMDs.
Tim Berners-Lee announces a new working group for evolving the HTML standard — Probably can't hurt.
Stephen O'Grady on Oracle's announcement of a rebadged version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux — Strong overview of what occurred and what it all means.
Chaos in Iraq has quashed democratic sentiment in Syria — Depressing but not surprising.
Most useful Firefox 2.0 configuration tweaks — No fix for the "open new tabs in popup windows" behavior that i was complaining about, though.
Dick Cheney on waterboarding: "It's a no-brainer for me." — Couldn't agree more. Let's ship him down to Gitmo ASAP.
The new DNC "stay the course" ad — I agree with Josh Marshall that the text parts are overdone. Just play the clips and let people think about it.
Debunking the myth of the "jihadist Tet offensive" — The comparison struck me as idiotic the first time I heard it.
Andy Baio finds some interesting products in a North Korean online store — Of course none of it is available to actual North Koreans. (My favorite product is the "world revolves around Korea" cell phone wallpaper.)
Masi Oka (aka Hiro Nakamura from Heroes) is also a special effects programmer — He wrote the software that produced the CGI water effects in films like The Perfect Storm.
You may not want to fly JetBlue — They're in hot water for running an unapproved pilot fatigue "experiment" that really turned out to be a way to skirt FAA safety rules.
The symptoms Michael J Fox exhibits in a campaign ad are side effects of his medication — Hacks like Rush Limbaugh are accusing him of going off his meds or faking it in the ad to up the drama.
Web site dedicated to long snapping in the NFL — Long snapping is the best career option for a would-be NFL player who lacks athletic talent.
The air cargo security risk — Air cargo is shipped on passenger planes but isn't screened nearly as carefully as luggage.
North Korea has fewer illuminated areas at night than some stretches of ocean — The thinking of the North Korean government is impenetrable to me.
Shame yourself with your IM status message — A Ruby on Rails plugin that shows how inadequate your automated tests are right in your IM status message.
Art Bell is threatening Rogers Cadenhead with a lawsuit — He's irked by things written by some commenters.
The toxic side of globalization — Waste from developed countries is being transported to Africa and illegally dumped by black marketeers.
Lawrence Lessig on net neutrality and former FCC chairman William Kennard — A cogent explanation of why explaining the net neutrality battle as between broadband providers and Google is wrongheaded.
Tim Bray's first hand report from RubyConf — Also includes opinions on the short and long term future of Ruby.
Pat Tillman's brother Kevin is sick of the status quo — "So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity."
LA Times reporter describes present day Iraq after a year away — Skip this link if you're planning on having lunch.
Iceland resumes commercial whaling — Time to add them to the axis of evil. Think of them as the Grenada of the Bush administration.
Best examination of why the Lancet estimate of Iraqi casualties is probably wrong — In the larger scheme of things, arguing over accounting is not important when tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands are dead.
Book publishing is not a bestseller-driven industry — Teresa Nielsen Hayden sets the WSJ straight.
Riverbend posts a dispatch concerning the Lancet estimate of Iraqi casualties — I stopped reading Iraqi bloggers some time ago out of despair more than anything else.
Maher Arar was cleared of all charges of terrorism but he's still on the terror watch list — This list is horribly broken and an affront to the rule of law.
Bruce Schneier on the death of ephemeral conversation — I am very circumspect when it comes to writing email, but I shudder to think of some of my instant messaging conversations being revealed.
Gartner analyst says Apple should quit the hardware business and focus on software — One wonders if the analyst in question has used both Apple and Dell hardware. There's no comparison.
Phillip Carter weighs in on what's going on in Iraq — I'm just glad he returned safely after a spending a year in Baqubah advising the Iraqi police.
Sony's latest Bravia ad involved 70,000 liters of paint and a high rise apartment building in Scotland — I don't know who convinces Sony to do these ads (see the ball one as well, but they deserve some kind of medal.
MySQL is splitting into Community and Enterprise versions — This looks the same sort of split as Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Results of an informal survey of intelligence figures on knowledge of Islam — It's like Jaywalking except that the unsuspecting dolts are paid to know this stuff.
Republicans are in trouble in America's most conservative House district — Voters there aren't satisfied with conservatives, they tend to elect the delusional.
Sun's data center in a shipping container — Ripped from the pages of cyberpunk fiction.
Guerilla Travel Tips — Courtesy of Paul Kedrosky.
Jeffrey Zeldman on Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 — It's funny because it's true.
EV1's license deal with SCO really was a publicity stunt — Just as basically everyone expected.
Please give Dori Smith's license plate back — She's just looking to have her "WEB GEEK" plate returned, no questions asked.
Web browsers and content management systems could stand to improve — "One important request though: Please do NOT post the naked URL in the first 60 characters of your entry -- it messes up the blog for IE readers."
Why Windows must continue to support 640 x 480 resolution — These types of considerations are the bane of developers and illustrate the value of a good QA department.
Jason Levine on the proliferation of wifi scamming — This looks like a much bigger problem than I would have imagined.
Automated search for registered sex offenders on MySpace turns up 744 profiles — Out of about 43 million users total.
Fareed Zakaria and Bill Emmott discuss the J Curve — Ian Bremmer, the author of the book was on the Daily Show recently, and the book's argument sounded interesting.
Why would anyone vote for Joe Lieberman? — Ostensible Democrat hasn't decided whether a Democratic majority in the House would be good for the country.
BBC style guide on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict — It's hard picking terms that don't favor the views of one side or the other.
MEMRI cooks up bogus story about Muslims being offended by Apple Store — The fact that MEMRI used a photo of the store taken during construction when it was covered with black plywood (and looked more like the kaaba) was a dead giveaway of its bogosity.
The Attack on Human Rights Watch — People who don't like its reports are launching ad hominem attacks aimed at its leader.
Steven Griffin on the ticking time bomb scenario — He takes on Richard Posner's argument that torture is necessary in such situations.
Bill Clinton is not responsible for North Korea going nuclear — His accusers on that note are liars.
Wikipedia outlasts Chinese government censors — Maybe the Chinese government has just decided to go in and delete anything that offends them instead?
Future versions of Eudora will be based on Thunderbird — Not surprising in that Eudora had really become a dated, buggy mess over the years.
Italian TV show covertly drug tests members of parliament — And you thought Stephen Colbert's "Better Know a District" was bold.
New York magazine profile of Stephen Colbert — The "becoming what you satirize" aspect is just weird.
SalesForce.com announces the enterprise version of Ning — That's how it looks to me, at least.
Why not just let offensive linemen try to play quarterback? — As a former offensive lineman, I wholeheartedly endorse this line of thought.
Female high school football player plays on the offensive line — This is the first time I've ever heard of a female lineman.
Scott Rosenberg on GooTube — The first analysis I've read that really makes sense to me. It's $1.65 billion in play money.
Ruy Teixeira on the state of the Congressional races — Long, detailed analysis of the current poll numbers.
Was the North Korean nuke a dud? — All of their other tests seem to fail, so why not this one?
Photodude on the Foley scandal — A very well written 10,000 view. Yes, it really is that bad.
How we'll find out if North Korea's nuclear test was for real — Gen Kanai on the USAF plane used to monitor for radiological debris.
The Secret Letter From Iraq — Time publishes a letter from a US Marine serving in Iraq.
There are currently 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria — Early in the war, one of the arguments that things were going well was the lack of refugees. Guess that argument no longer stands.
The problem with the no fly list — The names of the highest risk people that we know about are secret, and thus can't be put on a widely disseminated list.
In 1947 the US considered waterboarding a war crime — A Japanese officer was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for using it on an American.
Why security is hard — Bruce Schneier dissects what seems to be a common sense idea about airport security.
Google Code Search — Very cool.
Using S3 to back up content in a CMS — Don Park has a seriously good idea here.
Danish scientists have made a breakthrough in teleportation — I don't understand exactly what they accomplished, but that doesn't stop me from being amazed.
How Bob Woodward's treatment of Donald Rumsfeld changed through his books — I don't like Bob Woodward.
Steve Wozniak explains the appeal of Steve Wozniak — You never know what you'll get when you post on Ask MetaFilter.
Iran isn't supplying or training the insurgency in Iraq — I always assumed the accusation was unfounded.
Verizon "unlimited bandwidth" plan has a 5 gig limit — Where I'm from, we call the "unlimited bandwidth" claim a lie.
Will the Democratic party die like the Whigs did? — The unwillingness of the Democratic party to take a stand on the torture issue has destroyed any enthusiasm I had for it, although I'll still vote for them as the lesser of two evils.
37signals has a clever approach to keeping track of status — Elegant and suitably lightweight for a small team.
PVRblog on a usability problem with the Tivo Series3 remote — I have run into exactly the same problem with the relocated volume and channel buttons. It's driving me nuts.
Why Tivo Series3 doesn't support TivoToGo — The answer won't surprise you.
Step for man or step for a man? — Clive Thompson argues that Armstrong cut short the "a" due to a subconscious impulse toward the poetic. Why not?
The story of the Food Network — I always wondered what happened to Sara Moulton. I actually called Cooking Live once and asked a question.
How to kill a joke (Boing Boing edition) — A perfect example of how explaining jokes ruins them.
Scott Rosenberg's review of Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month — Reading this book is still on my to-do list after all these years.
Was Rome ruined by its own "war on terror"? — Provocative op-ed in the New York Times.
Torture produces confessions, not evidence — How American POWs in the Korean war were coerced to confess to a plot to attack North Korean cities with biological weapons.
Netflix offers $1 million prize for improving their recommendations system — Sure looks like they've put a lot of thought into the rules of the contest.
John Robb on why propaganda doesn't work — Aimed at the US government, but applicable to any organization.
Malcolm Gladwell on judging the work of others — I would suspect that most software developers know just what Gladwell means.