Links from March 30th

Jason Santa Maria: Reflections on Layer Tennis. Really, really great post on participating in Layer Tennis. I loved this.
SF Gate: Food, service uneven at Absinthe. A review of Top Chef participant Jamie “Top Scallop” Lauren’s San Francisco restaurant by Michael Bauer. Brutal.
John Resig: Determining Browser Market Share. Deep thoughts on measuring browser market share.
New York Times: Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries. Uncovered by researchers at the University of Toronto. Also read this followup from James Fallows.
Goodnight, Raleigh: Memorializing a Magnificent Oak and “The Great Pacificator”. A little local knowledge about Raleigh.
The Economist: Germany’s racy auto banks.
Tim Bray: On Rack. A nice, short introduction to Rack, the glue that provides an interface from Ruby applications to Web servers.
MySQL Performance Blog: PROCEDURE ANALYSE. Very useful for optimizing your MySQL schema.
Vanessa Fox: Transforming the Relationship Between Citizens and Government: Making Content Findable Online. Advice on making data more searchable, pertinent to anyone publishing online.
Last.fm: Last.fm Radio Announcement. Users not in the US, UK, or Germany have to pay up to listen. Music licensing sucks.
LastFM Firefox Extension. Scrobbles Pandora tracks to Last.fm, for people like me who feel weird anytime they listen to a song and the data isn’t transmitted to Last.fm.
intranation: Development virtual machines on OS X using VMWare and Ubuntu. A clever alternative to MacPorts or Fink.
Trustico: Buy GeoTrust, VeriSign SSL Certificates At Cheaper Prices - Strategic Partner United States. I hate paying for certificates. These guys are cheap.