May 2006

Considering I just installed IE7b2 at work (it’s awful, btw), this is very interesting: Schmidt’s Google Goes To Authorities About MSN

IE 7, it appears, could put a dent in Google’s lucrative grip on the search market thanks to a slim white search box located in the browser’s top right hand corner. Google’s concern is that the integrated search tool points users towards Microsoft’s MSN search engine, leaving them less likely to stumble across Google’s all-important ads.

Sucks to be a monopoly. #

OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! Thank You Stephen Colbert, indeed! Everyone in America should see this! #

I shit you not. This is really a reality tv show: God or the Girl (about aspiring Catholic priests) #

Who knew? Santa Rosa has a magazine? #

Another victory for the human spirit: In good health and spirits despite surviving five days on little more than a muesli bar and groundwater — the two Beaconsfield miners trapped almost a kilometre underground have vowed to play football this weekend. #

Wikipedia article of the day: Truthiness #

Ooo! Shelley Powers gives me another reason to visit St. Louis: Last of the Chihuly Photos (more information here) #

Ok, now this is fucking awesome: American national anthem sung in Morse Code (this I can get behind, SO PROUD to be an American right now!) #

URL of the day: memory-of.com (a virtual resting place for dead people) #

Must suck to be not-Google sometimes: Ask.com offers Google Maps knock-off with one neat feature, the ability to drag and drop the starting point and destination markers. Cool. #

New flashlight from Energizer with the ability to run on 2 D, C or AA batteries (my favorite part was the demo video with thumping techno music in the background) #

Word of the day: enfant terrible #

I’m surprised Google only returns 67 results for cinco de mayonnaise #

I don’t know why the existence of some blogs/websites still surprise me: BEVNET — The beverage industry’s source for new product reviews, news, jobs, and more #

Apparently this is something I must see: KFOG KaBoom (Saturday, May 13, 2006, 4pm – 10pm) #

I luv techno-marketing babble:

Neither architecture pays a byte-swapping tax due to Sun’s patent-pending “adaptive endian-ness” technology

What a mouthful. #

Wikipedia entry of the day: Urban exploration #

Why yes Virginia, there is a “tunnel” under the Bay: BART’s Transbay Tube #

As seen on Boing Boing: #

Just referred back to Don’t Invent XML Languages to remind myself what Tim Bray considered the big 5 XML languages: XHTML, DocBook, ODF, UBL, and Atom (ODF and UBL being the two I’d never heard of before this mention) #

Can I get an “Oh my god!”? How to cure your asthma or hayfever using hookworm #

Interesting: Version 1.0 of the Firefox CCK (Client Customization Kit) has been released (this is big for companies) #

Hmm, Eric Meyer is Flummoxed By Frameworks #

Updated: The Random Image Plugin for WordPress

New Feature:
Administrative configuration interface for painless management of options #

Cool video: FAA Radar track sequence of a bank of FedEx aircraft getting into Memphis as thunderstorms pass over the airport #

Freaking Google Video: Dildo Song (NSFW) #

Musing: [Noam Chomsky] may not have had programming languages in mind while he wrote this passage, but the same limitations when communicating in English stand when communicating in Ruby or some other programming language. #

I want! Circular kitchen #

After 5 years at Texas A&M Matthew sez: I’m done… I’m done… I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. Oh yah! #

Neat! Google Trends (it looks like I really do come from Scotland) #

Nominations for the 2006 Photobloggies just announced. #

Flash movie demonstrating the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans #

Interesting idea? Software to emulate a typewriter (seems like this would be right up 37signals alley) #

I’ve linked to these photos by Michael Wolf before, but let me say again, I find them absolutely horrifying! Architecture of Density. It’s like the Matrix, except without any robot overlords.

Now, via Kottke, I discover a series of 100 photos of people living in their 100 square foot flats. Reminds me of college, only smaller. #

Domain name of the day: SetLoveFree.com Southwest promoting political activism with a website. Yay! #

Funny: Mad Libs-style template for new music service stories #

This is great, a new nickname for Bush: Mr. 29 Percent (here’s the explanation) #

Awesome: “Plan” by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga, consists of 10 photographic compositions which are an extremely detailed representations of 10 private apartments. All of them were photographed as if the ceilings were taken off. (sorta NSFW)

more here #

Hrm, Google releases the GWT (Build AJAX apps in Java) #

Acronym of the day: YAGNI (via Sam Ruby responding to Tim Bray on whether or not to thread comments. I’m strongly in the no thread camp for linguistic reasons: I feel it’s an inaccurate representation of small group conversation.)
Update: Coincidental? Dealing with comment threads at blogs on SvN #

Wow, crazy input device of the day: Belkin Nostromo n50 SpeedPad #

Wait, is Conor Oberst old enough to be covered? #

HAWT! Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees (headline of the day) #

News of the weird (and cool): Great-grandma tattoos “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” on her chest
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How did I miss this? Ask A Ninja: Special Delivery 4 “Net Neutrality” (You Got Questions, Ninja Got Answers) #

It cost $20 million to sink a fucking ship? #

I am in love with this photo:
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Quote of the day: Developers are like artists; they produce their best work if they have the freedom to do so —Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO (yes yes yes!) #

To do in Petaluma: Olive oil tasting #

Though I tend not to like the word engineer, I do like this sentiment: I think it is far more important, when hiring engineers, to find a fantastic person and see how they would have fun helping you, than to find the right resume. —Marc Hedlund #

I like Achewood: Damn, talk about the missing link! Havin’ that weight hangin’ there is totally releasin’ wonderful hormones in my brain! #

Jesse Wilbur’s been working on GAM3R 7H30RY a hypertext book by McKenzie Wark, apparently all implemented in WordPress. Trippy. #

I’ve been thinking about it more in terms of project/time management, but regardless, here’s another quote that’s been floating around in my head lately: premature optimization is the root of all evil —Tony Hoare (and famously repeated by Donald Knuth) #

Use JS to clear columns: Clearance #

Ha! Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life. I call it bullshit. #

Yeah. Macs. Yeah. Matt Haughey does macsaber #

Another stunning photo from worksongs:
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Snark. Trixie demonstrates More Cowbell #

Oh shit, I totally already had this idea, but this is such a cool implementation: journaling-cum-blogging #

This is cool: The Inco Superstack is the world’s tallest chimney #

Neat: The process of getting text and photos from our little tent on the Greenland icecap to your computer screen involves a fair amount of technological jiggery-pokery #

Oh dear: script.aculo.us (mentioned twice today, is that a sign?) #

SO COOL! Plaster casts of The nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius #

Joy wins the URL of the day award: ohjoy.org #

Cool, the first (English-language) WordPress book: Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress

Here’s another one coming in June: WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide

And here’s one coming in October: Pro WordPress Development #

How to select text with JavaScript across browsers. #

Firefox extension of the day: MeasureIt Draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width, height, or alignment of page elements in pixels. #

Infographic of the day:
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Quote of the day: Suspending your rights through the duration of the permanent war (with bonus mp3 of the day) #

Matt on blogging:

my intentionally vague style of writing has even me wondering what the fuck I was writing about. I need to not be so damn vague, but that can be hard to do when being less vague means being more open and damned if I don’t want to do that all at once.

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Heh. Photo of the day: Kristina on vacation #

This is only going to go badly: O’Reilly trademarks “Web 2.0” and sets lawyers on IT@Cork! Cease and Desist 2.0, snark.

Inside scoop: watch the Radar for a response.

Update, response posted: Controversy about our “Web 2.0” service mark #

Matthew (my brother) is starting to write a novel on Monday because:

Beth leaves on the Thursday of that week for Japan, but I will see her for the last time on Monday morning. This goal will fill my seven weeks of loneliness.

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Hehe: “His grammar was perfect,” Mr. Kushner recalled. “That was a turn-on.” #

Second quote, same article:

“If you’re gay and you can’t hold hands, or you’re black and you can’t catch a taxi, or you’re a woman and you can’t go into the park, you are aware there’s a menace,” Mr. Kushner said. “That’s costly on a psychic level. The world should be striving to make all its members secure.”

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To read later: Using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) with Yahoo! Web Services #

I did not know this: Amy’s Kitchen is based in Santa Rosa! http://www.amys.com/ #

Two local Sonoma County organizations I’d like to take advantage of:

Laguna Farms in Sebastopol: Pick up a box of locally grown fresh vegetables and fruits each week. ($16/week)

Breadstone: 4 dinners delivered each week in an ice chest, packed with yummy all organic, vegetarian, poultry or meat fare, including 4 substantial main entrees, 2 salads with homemade dressing, bread, dessert, fresh flowers and a colorful newsletter. ($96/week) #

The Dauphine Press in Petaluma has letterpress classes #

NYT Opinion: One Man’s Constitutional Crisis

The danger of abuse with this kind of activity [the F.B.I.’s search of a congressman’s office] is enormous, especially with a president and an attorney general whose grasp for power seems to have no limits. They cannot be trusted to keep legitimate police activity from turning into political persecution.

But members of Congress who have been politically comatose or complicit as the Bush administration built itself an imperial presidency, immune from the historical powers of the legislative branch, are up in arms.

Damn! #

War fucking sucks:

Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings

Bring our troops home for sure. #

Ceci n’est pas la pornographie

Martin Shannon’s Self-portrait as Amanda Coogan as David with Cattle #

Ha! You can go to prison for that? #

Photo of the day: operation bear #

Cool! Webpages as graphs

Here’s what justinsomnia.org’s homepage looks like:

Try it yourself: HTML DOM Visualizer Applet (caution: may be resource intensive) #

Headline of the day: ‘Dead’ Everest climber survives (I’m not dead yet!) #

Word of the day: stasis (aka constipation) #

Linguistics in real life: Easily pronounced stocks do better on the market #

AWESOME! Infernoptix, a Digital Pyrotechnic Matrix
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Updated: The Random Image Plugin for WordPress

New Feature:
You can now configure which category or categories you want your random images to be pulled from #

From Jackie, the tshirt of the day: You’ve Got Some ‘Splaining To Do!

also: Well, This Just Really Sucks… and Biblical Disaster and maybe my favorite: Know Your Meats #

Ahem! “Simply” Google #

Depressing quote from San Francisco Chronicle article entitled, Many reluctantly choose private schools:

“The best private school is, in my opinion, better than the best public school anywhere,” said Pamela Singer, whose daughter, May, attends Convent of the Sacred Heart Elementary. “When you take a group of people who have money and they just pour money into this school, and they’re already like-minded because they’ve chosen to join this club together, it’s just going to be elevated.”

Yep, there’s really nothing like homogeneity and conformity. #

Sometimes mob violence is symbolic (as well as cathartic):

“I think this reflects the frustration and anger some Afghans feel, and they were looking for symbols of foreign presence,” [Paul Barker, CARE’s country director] said. “The tolerance for U.S. military mistakes has become strained to the breaking point in a lot of people.”

Kind of casts the recent blogosphere lynching of O’Reilly in a new light. Why were people so ready to pile on? #

The wisdom of crowds?

“Last fall (when Caltrans realigned the westbound lanes for the project), it took the morning commute one week to two weeks to figure it out,” said Dennis Turchon, Caltrans construction manager. “There will be a learning curve for this new configuration,” he said.

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