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Freedom To Tinker publishes a review of the OLPC laptop from a 12 year old. Sounds like most of its problems relate to software rather than hardware. (It’s slow, the software has memory leaks, and power management is apparently non-existent.) Here’s what the reviewer says: My expectations for this computer were, I must admit, not very high. But it completely took me by surprise. It was cleverly designed, imaginative, straightforward, easy to understand (I was given no instructions on how to use it. It was just, “Here. Figure it out yourself.”), useful and simple, entertaining, dependable, really a “stick to the basics” kind of computer. ...

Stephen Dubner asked a few luminaries to answer this question: You are walking down the street in New York City with $10 of disposable income in your pocket. You come to a corner with a hot dog vendor on one side and a beggar on the other. The beggar looks like he’s been drinking; the hot dog vendor looks like an upstanding citizen. How, if at all, do you distribute the $10 in your pocket, and why? ...

I’ve been deficient in posting links but not in collecting them. Here’s a big list of interesting stuff I’ve seen over the past week: Newsweek ran a long article this week about the well-funded global warming denial program that has developed over the past few decades. The article explains the comprehensive disinformation campaign applied over the years to stunt public understanding of global warming. Every popular argument against doing about global warming can be traced back to these efforts. ...

Sorry for the lack of daily linkage and commentary, but I had a crazy week. I’ve been doing a lot of this with the help of this and this. I even wound up buying this and this. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not much of a JavaScript programmer, but after a week of full immersion, I feel like I am starting to really get it.

Are Web 2.0 and Open Source headed for a collision? Here’s Stephen O’Grady: While these two dominant technical trends or directions have much to learn from each other, the convergence is likely to have its painful moments if OSCON is any indication. Indeed the talk of the conference was the somewhat shocking public swipe at Tim O’Reilly by one of the GPLv3’s chief architects, Eben Moglen. As documented elsewhere, Moglen absolutely dropped the hammer on Mr. Web 2.0, arguing that “that the FSF has ‘done the heavy lifting’ and ‘carried your water’ for the last decade, and that the era of Web 2.0 distraction (buzz about who is making money, who will get acquired, etc) will need to be replaced by a serious conversation about freedom.” ...

I’m running a few days behind on these, but I’m not going to let that stop me. The Los Angeles Times spiked a column because it frankly took on the newspaper’s money issues and suggested ways to fix them. Unsurprisingly, it turned up online. When are they ever going to learn? Nelson Minar explains how Microsoft is inflating its search rankings by integrating hidden searches into its online games. Jim Henley posted a novel theory on how the current Iraqi government sees Iraq as a “bust out.” Sadly I think he’s right on the money. Yesterday NBC reported that corruption in Iraq is untouchable. Peter W Galbraith has proffered yet another exit strategy for the US in Iraq in the New York Review of Books. ...

Bruce Schneier was invited by the TSA to visit them in Washington and talk security. One of the outcomes was Schneier getting to interview TSA administrator Kip Hawley on the record about security procedures. Schneier’s questions are great, and Hawley’s answers are definitely fodder for discussion. Don’t miss it.

I have my copy of the final Harry Potter book sitting on my night stand, just waiting to be read, but I haven’t started reading it. It seems like people are still being very careful with the spoilers, but I know that at some point, that will pass. I’m a little bit anxious about finishing it before that date arrives. How concerned am I? I was at a restaurant the other night and a teenager sitting a table or two over began to discuss the book rather loudly, and I was almost moved to violence. Fortunately someone at his table who hasn’t read the book yet cut him off. ...

Any time you have an expression in your code, it answers a question. For example, you might have an expression like this one: if (cart.getItems().size() >= 5) { cart.setShipping(0); } A lot of times you’ll see code like that in a servlet, or in a controller if you’re using an MVC framework. What I’ve realized is that such code should always live in whatever class “cart” is, and the number 5 should be stored in a constant somewhere. ...

Looks like the current reactions to the iPhone are about what I expected. People who are used to the Blackberry or other smart phones are annoyed by the features that they have to give up when using the iPhone. (See Dave Winer’s review.) People who have never carried a smart phone tend to be quite pleased with the iPhone experience. I imagine that’s was Apple’s goal. Rather than try to win over the hardcore Blackberry addicts, they wanted to build a smart phone for the much larger group of people who still haven’t jumped into the smart phone pond. ...