BoingBoing has a post about a machine that reminds people to wash their hands after they use the restroom. The people who make the machine claim that it increases hand washing by 12%. I wonder how much further the percentage would rise if they included a picture of eyes with the machine?
Some old friends and I were enjoying a spirited discussion of torture via email yesterday, and I presented them with a hypothetical that I thought I’d post here as well. It neatly bundles up all the reasons why torture is wrong. While the situation is hypothetical, Pete is a real life friend of mine who is a dentist in the Army Reserve Dental Corps. I forget what rank he is, but he’s an officer. ...
This morning I read that Al Gore’s news network, Current, is bringing four broadband channels online with Yahoo as a partner. I can’t say the announcement interests me all that much, but I do think that Current will make a fascinating case study one day, mainly because it arrived at the same time as YouTube with some of the same aims. When Current came out, the big news (aside from its not having a set programming schedule) was that it would feature amateur content alongside professionally produced news. YouTube, of course, offers another way for amateurs to present their video to an audience, and has about a thousand times the buzz that Current TV does. The reason for that is simplicity. YouTube is just a big repository that makes it easy for people to upload videos, link to them, embed them in Web pages, and most importantly, play them without installing anything or even making any decisions. That simplicity has made YouTube ubiquitous. ...
If you’re a Ruby on Rails developer (or perhaps a wannabe Ruby on Rails developer), the one blog you must read is Err the Blog. I just discovered it this morning, and every post I’ve read has both educated and astounded me. This post has about ten useful tips that I can apply today. Amazing stuff.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been paying enough attention to the crazy spying story involving Hewlett-Packard. Today we learn that the company was spying on journalists. It sure looks like this thing is headed toward criminal charges.
From an article on Microsoft’s new music player, the Zune: In its quest to catch up to iPod, however, Microsoft has hired an army of musical savants. Like Winn, many on the Zune team come from recording labels, radio stations, or other music companies. Maybe it’s just me, but these are the people that I hate when it comes to the music business. I love music, but I hate every radio station that plays music (except the local college station), and I absolutely loathe the record labels. These people are the problem, not the solution, at least as far as I’m concerned. I don’t expect them to come out with anything great. ...
David Brin wrote an article for Salon about the absence of BASIC on modern computers that is wrong on so many levels that it makes my brain hurt. Here’s the argument: Only, quietly and without fanfare, or even any comment or notice by software pundits, we have drifted into a situation where almost none of the millions of personal computers in America offers a line-programming language simple enough for kids to pick up fast. Not even the one that was a software lingua franca on nearly all machines, only a decade or so ago. And that is not only a problem for Ben and me; it is a problem for our nation and civilization. ...
I’ve been doing a huge chunk of my development in Ruby on Rails for about a year now, and I’ve been quite happy with it. The tools are fine (hello, TextMate and Locomotive), the language is a pleasure to work in, and I generally feel like Ruby on Rails is good for my productivity as a programmer. What’s been interesting to me has been watching how the perceptions of Ruby have changed over the course of the year. When I started, Ruby on Rails 1.0 had not yet been released, and while there was a rabid fan base out there, it was still very much regarded more as a curiosity rather than as a contender. That has changed. ...
This morning I noticed that the pilot for the new series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is available from Netflix and is, in fact, recommended for me. It looks like the TV guys are getting smarter. I actually pay attention to my recommendations, and putting new shows into the Netflix system is a smart way to get them exposure with people like me. Between making shows available on iTunes, creating mini-episodes of shows for the off-season, and now getting shows onto Netflix as soon as possible, it sure seems to me that TV is beating its competitors in music and film to the punch when it comes to becoming more Web-friendly. In the meantime, last time I went to the movies I was reminded no less than three times that it would be wrong to steal the movie I was paying to see. Maybe it’s just me, but the thought that went through my head was, “I could have stolen this instead of paying $8.50 to see something that’s probably mediocre?” ...
I just got an email from Continental Airlines asking me to sign a petition urging the Department of Transportation to allow them to add service from Shanghai, China to New York. I have no idea whether it will work, but it’s an interesting use of its loyalty program. I already have miles in Continental’s frequent flier program. If I had to fly to China regularly I’d certainly sign the petition.