It’s been a month since my last link blog post. That’s terrible.

Why is Google interested in owning the entire “.dev” top level domain?

Business Insider has a long piece on the downfall of Fab and its CEO. He turned a bad idea (yet another social network) into a good idea (flash sales of interesting goods) and then implemented a strategy that wasted tons of money and ultimately killed the company. Strategy matters.

It seems like everyone in the analytics infrastructure world is talking about stream processing. Martin Kleppmann’s post is a good starting point.

Will Yager explains why Go is not a good programming language. My main takeaway was that I don’t know or use any good programming languages.

The government can compel companies to disclose information about users and then prohibit them from reporting that they have done so. However, they are able to report that they have never been subjected to such a request. Such statements are referred to as “warrant canaries.” The EFF’s Canary Watch tracks companies that have issued these warrant canaries.

Jocelyn Goldfein explains how to ask for a promotion. Her blog is an excellent resource for all things HR-related in tech.

Branko Milanovic explains why human capital is not actually a kind of capital, and why the use of the term is harmful.

Jason Punyon’s explanation of what went wrong on the Providence project at Stack Exchange is a useful dose of reality for people making technology choices. The kinds of mishaps he describes are incredibly common and rarely discussed openly.

Look, it’s a blog post full of links!

In the New York Times, Scott Shane reviews Guantánamo Diary, which is in fact the diary of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who has been detained at Gitmo without charges since 2002.

An attempt to definitively answer the popular interview question, What happens when you enter an address in your browser?, by Alex Gaynor.

For some reason, it never occurred to me that YouTube’s massive audience equates to massive power. Zoë Keating reports on the onerous terms YouTube is requiring her to accept in order to publish her YouTube channel.

A collection of spreadsheet horror stories from the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group.

My coworker Brad Greenlee has created a Mac Menu Bar App to monitor the status of running Hadoop jobs.

Luke Plant reviews iPython Notebook Essentials by L. Felipe Martins. iPython Notebook is on my list of things to spend more time with.

Paul Ford, Greg Knauss, and Kim Kardashian’s butt – you’ve probably already read this, but if not, you should.

Falling oil prices can be looked at as an interesting natural experiment in economic stimulus.

The antidote to an inflated sense of self-importance.

Here’s one of those posts where the comments are as important as the original posting: John Peebles says that systems administrators are endangered species and commenters dissent. Good stuff.

People who don’t pay any federal income tax are still taxed.

Here’s why I don’t read any gadget blogs: after the tech pundits panned the iPhone 4S as underwhelming, it sold double the units that the iPhone 4 did on “opening weekend.”

Don’t miss this interview with PIMCO co-CEO Mohammed el-Arian on Occupy Wall Street. Here’s the bottom line:

In the U.S., the bailing out of the financial sector was sold on the basis that it would allow growth and job creation to resume, and that has not happened. So the rationale for socializing those losses hasn’t played out.

Today it’s all about the technology links.

First, Peter Knego data mines Stack Overflow and finds that older developers are scarce but valuable.

John Gruber compares Apple’s approach to Google’s when it comes to software development, arguing that Apple focuses on quality of user experience whereas Google focuses on reach — making their software available to the largest audience possible. I think he’s right on the money, and of course it’s worth pointing out that Google’s usability is fine for most users. I prefer Apple’s approach to interface design, but I am a happy user of a large number of Google products.

Tim Bray compares native apps to web apps on mobile devices. In my opinion, a good Web interface is the basic price of entry. Every company that’s deploying Web-based services should have one. Then, if they have the budget to support it, they should build native OS X and Android clients as well, if they can provide any value at all over the basic Web interface. Like Tim, for services I like, if there’s a native client, I pretty much always install it and use it rather than the Web site.

James Fallows looks at a non-obvious reason why Google may be deprecating its translation API. Very interesting.

OK, this link isn’t technical, but it is interesting. Researchers found that rebounding in basketball is a mental skill. I loved this bit:

What allowed the players to make such speedy judgments? By monitoring the brains and bodies of subjects as they watched free throws, the scientists were able to reveal something interesting about the best rebounders. It turned out that elite athletes, but not coaches and journalists, showed a sharp increase in activity in the motor cortex and their hand muscles in the crucial milliseconds before the ball was released. The scientists argue that this extra activity was due to a “covert simulation of the action,” as the athletes made a complicated series of calculations about the trajectory of the ball based on the form of the shooter. (Every NBA player, apparently, excels at unconscious trigonometry.) But here’s where things get fascinating: This increase in activity only occurred for missed shots. If the shot was going in, then their brains failed to get excited. Of course, this makes perfect sense: Why try to anticipate the bounce of a ball that can’t be rebounded? That’s a waste of mental energy.

Jumping in:

• Did you know that many people are released from prison owing a debt to the state for things like court fees and charges for public defenders? Our criminal justice system is intentionally cruel in so many ways.
• And speaking of the criminal justice system, people who benefit financially from incarcerating massive numbers of people are generally in favor of maintaining and expanding the systems that put people in jail, even unnecessarily. The League of Ordinary Gentlemen looks at how the prison guards’ union has gained influence in California and the quality of prisons has gotten worse. This is a great piece of blog writing.
• This is the sort of libertarian philosophy I agree with. The fair price of goods should include the negative externalities of their use.
• The description of now-more-than-everism is useful, and not just for politics. I’ve certainly seen it plenty of times on engineering teams, and probably have practiced it more times than I’d care to admit.
• James Governor talks about the advantages of giving engineers some responsibility for communicating with the public. Probably the smartest blog post I read last week.
• Anil Dash explains how he uses the favorite and like features on social sites.

Trying to spin up the link blogging again:

• Kevin Carey explains why all those articles about the decreasing value of college degrees are wrong.
• Mike Loukides thinks everyone needs to learn JavaScript. I agree, but I have little progress on that project this year.
• John Scalzi has a simple rule of thumb for figuring out whether or not you’re cheating on your significant other.
• Inbox Influence is a browser extension that shows the political donations people in your Gmail in box have made. It’s a very cool illustration of how easy access to various databases will affect user experience in the future.
• Rands talks about notifications. His tangential discussion of RSS is noteworthy as well.

• How DRM may have made it more difficult for the Amazon.com MP3 store to fulfill orders for Lady Gaga’s album when they put it on sale.
• The Affordable Care Act is increasing the number of people with health insurance.
• “In matters of cooking, authenticity is a joke.” This statement is important and true.
• Edouard de Pomaine’s tomatoes a la creme. Incredibly tasty and easy to make.
• An explanation of Pivotal Tracker’s client-side architecture. These days, all of the advanced Web applications are client-server apps written using JavaScript and HTML instead of Visual Basic or PowerBuilder.
• Tim Bray thinks about what may happen to our stuff when we’re gone.
• The Cassiopeia Project is a library of free science instruction videos. Funded by a retired scientist who wants to improve the quality of science education.
• Journalists appear to be noticing that Republican politicians and pundits are not engaging with reality. Hopefully it’s the start of a trend.
• The New York Times explains the lengths to which hotels must go to protect their staff from guests. Depressing.
• Researchers find that cultured people feel less stress. Perhaps you’d enjoy a trip to a museum this weekend.

• Jeff Shell argues against needlessly baroque testing frameworks like RSpec and Cucumber. I’ve always hated them.
• Rebecca Murphey explains how to get better at JavaScript. This is related to my 2011 Skill of the Year. I’ve made little progress toward that goal.
• Mark Nottingham explains how to perform HTTP load testing properly.
• Tyler Cowen explains the economics of BitCoin. This is actually a post from last month, but I’m seeing lots of BitCoin discussion, so I thought I’d remind people of it.
• InFocus has a gallery of photos of nuclear bomb tests. Number 14 blows my mind every time I look at it.
• This story about Al Capone’s dairy farm is a must-read.

• Guardian.co.uk Switching from Java to Scala – Interview with techies from the Guardian. Here’s a counterpoint.
• The Health Care Difference – Matthew Yglesias explains concisely why technological change is unlikely to lower health care costs over time.
• Critics’ review unexpectedly supports scientific consensus on global warming – Being a real scientist is about going where the facts take you.
• GOOD Asks the Experts: Is The “Paleolithic Diet” Really Better? – Humorous interview with experts on prehistoric man. I, for one, am sick of hearing about the Paleo Diet.
• Brian Aker explains Memcached – Short and useful.
• Slow Firefox? Mozilla Says Add-Ons Are to Blame – Firebug is a killer.
• Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less – A ton of good, adaptable ideas for dinner.
• I am a 91-year-old bodybuilder – Inspirational.

A few links that caught my eye:

• Securing Arizona – If Arizona is a microcosm of America, we’re in big, big trouble. The state has huge financial problems brought on by the real estate bubble and recession, and the right wing government is looking for solutions in all the wrong places.
• Music industry will force licenses on Amazon Cloud Player—or else – Jacqui Cheng explains why record companies aren’t going to accept Amazon’s new Cloud Player without a fight.
• App Store Shenanigans – Chris Dixon looks at a few ways iOS App Store vendors game the review process and trick people into downloading their applications. Even with Apple’s restrictions on what gets published on the App Store, it’s amazing how much total crap makes it in.
• Why Paying Bribes Should Be Legal – Kaushik Basu argues that bribes can be prevented if you legalize paying bribes. Then you can enlist people who are being solicited for bribes into the enforcement process. This reminds me of an old Bruce Schneier piece, Aligning Interest with Capability.
• Number of the Week: PCs Make Americans $500 Billion Richer – Economists try to estimate the value delivered by personal computers.
• Shooting an Elephant: Why GoDaddy’s CEO Was Wrong – You may have seen this on Twitter. Basically, GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons wanted to shoot an elephant and found a loophole that would enable to do so. He made a video of his hunting trip I because he was so proud of himself.
• TMI: Fear, Fukushima and Facts – Anil Dash with the one post you have to read about the risks of human exposure to radiation.