Apparently Flash 10 isn’t much better than the previous versions of Flash in terms of performance on OS X. Anyone ever read a decent technical explanation of why that’s the case? Is it that Adobe just doesn’t put the effort into optimizing the Flash player on OS X that they do into optimizing it under Windows? Is it that there are APIs that Adobe takes advantage of under Windows that aren’t available in OS X? ...
Rogers Cadenhead on an Obama rally he attended in Orlando: Throughout the event, black families, some with aging grandparents and young children, gently moved through attendees to get closer. Although the crowd was racially and generationally diverse, you couldn’t miss the emotion of blacks who had come to see Obama’s first event in the city. As an adopted Floridian who has learned the tragic history of race relations in the Sunshine State during my decade here, I had to marvel at the progress that brought some of the older Americans in attendance past central Florida’s Rosewood massacre, Klan lynchings, poll taxes and the civil rights struggle to this amazing moment in time. ...
Massively reports that today is the 30th birthday of MUDs. The original MUD launched on this day in 1978. I’ll date myself by saying that MUDs (or one MUD in particular) was a very big part of my college years. In fact, I’d say I gained more practical knowledge of programming coding for the MUD I played than I learned in all of my college courses put together.
The New Yorker ran a long article this week explaining how John McCain came to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate, but it wasn’t very interesting. That said, FiveThirtyEight flags the most interesting bit, which is that the “draft Sarah Palin” movement arose from one Republican’s search on Wikipedia for a sufficiently conservative female politician.
Louis Menand has written an article damning texting as the nadir of human communication. As a late but fervent adopter of texting, I’ll argue to the contrary. One of the biggest complaints about texting is that entering text using the numeric keypad on a mobile phone is incredibly tedious and painful. On this note, I agree. I never texted until I bought an iPhone. Here’s the thing – cell phones that provide only a numeric keypad are an endangered species. Blackberry and iPhone are the harbingers of the future in this regard. With a real keyboard, texting really isn’t too painful, and there’s less incentive to abbreviate everything. ...
Michael Ruhlman helpfully turns some of Michael Pollan’s suggestions for building a better food industry into a list of bullet points. I don’t vehemently disagree with any of the suggestions, and I think some of them are downright brilliant. My wife and I were discussing agricultural practices the other day, and I tossed off the suggestion that the packaging for every animal product (meat or dairy) sold in the grocery store should have a picture representative of the animal it came from in the conditions in which it was raised. I’m not against people eating meat, but I find the willful ignorance of most food consumers to be revolting. ...
Bruce Schneier and Atlantic Monthly writer Jeffrey Goldberg travelled around the country testing the limits of airport security. If you read Schneier’s blog, none of their findings will surprise you, but the article is entertaining nonetheless. Here’s an example: On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads THEN SURELY THE PARTY OF GOD ARE THEY WHO WILL BE TRIUMPHANT. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, “That’s a Hezbollah flag.” She said, “Uh-huh.” Not “Uh-huh, I’ve been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley–trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system,” but “Uh-huh, I’m going on break, why are you talking to me?” ...
I’m looking for a first selection for a book club for programmers. The two books I’m considering to start are Code Compete, the classic Steven McConnell book on software development, and The Pragmatic Programmer, by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas. Anyone have an opinion on which to choose? I’m looking for something that both experienced and relatively new programmers will enjoy and benefit from, and that isn’t language specific. Are there other books I should consider as well? ...
James Surowiecki posts in Some Excellent Debunking: You know that $700 billion that John McCain and Barack Obama say we’re sending to ‘tyrants and dictators’ because of our dependence on foreign oil? It doesn’t exist. In fact, it appears that Boone Pickens made it up. This is one of the better pieces of debunking I’ve seen lately. This figure is tossed around everywhere and it’s fictitious.
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