I learn something every day:

The burning tire is a symbol of protest, and rubber is cheap in Pakistan. Protesters have set tires ablaze in the streets, sending black ash into the air as a smoke signal of sorts, transmitting a message of anger.

Another choice quote:

The dilemma is that people want to register their protest in a violent way because nobody listens when it’s peaceful.

(Gandhi must be rolling over in his grave)

An interesting data point: Bloomberg Moves Closer to Running for President (I wonder if anything will come of it)

Something I don’t need, but find myself wanting: Samson Zoom H2 Handy Recorder

This is how they dance in France: Tecktonik (krumping meets rave-dancing)

Hear, hear! Everyone should read this: The Airport Security Follies

…what most people fail to grasp is that the nuts and bolts of keeping terrorists away from planes is not really the job of airport security at all. Rather, it’s the job of government agencies and law enforcement. It’s not very glamorous, but the grunt work of hunting down terrorists takes place far off stage, relying on the diligent work of cops, spies and intelligence officers. Air crimes need to be stopped at the planning stages. By the time a terrorist gets to the airport, chances are it’s too late.

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.3.2 with svn:

svn sw http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.3.2

Hilarious French music video of the day: Fatal Bazooka feat Yelle - Parle à ma main (talk to my hand)

A close second: Fous ta cagoule (put on your ski mask)

News: r.i.p. netscape browser

Andy’s Talkbox

When Stephanie and I visited some of her distant relatives in Austin over the holidays, we had no idea we’d stumble upon a treasure trove of photos of Stephanie less than a year old

OCD: 365 Chiat Days

To read later: The Google Enigma

Google is certainly a different sort of company, but is it so different as to be anomalous? Is the company an exemplar or a freak?

Neat hand-drawn blog: Local Girl’s day in pictures (via Boing Boing)

This is where I work, this is where I work: True believer: John Battelle tries his third media enterprise

I’m thinking this is not the kind of “exposure” Poughkeepsie wants: The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Another Wikipedia gem, and quote of the day:

There is some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that it’s basically impossible to send a piece of hate mail through the Internet without its being touched by a gay program. That’s kind of funny.

The thought of a computer program being “gay” just tickles me. But then I’m wondering, what would an LOLCats-esque “gay programming language” look like? Discuss amongst yourselves.

I love stumbling upon nuggets like this in Wikipedia:

Prior to the release, BSD’s implementation of TCP/IP had diverged considerably from BBN’s official implementation. After several months of testing, DARPA determined that the 4.2BSD version was superior and would remain in 4.3BSD. (See also History of the Internet.)

Here’s another:

Together with the Free Software Foundation and Linux, the CSRG laid the foundations of the contemporary open source community.

You stay classy, EPA: E.P.A. Says 17 States Can’t Set Emission Rules for Cars

Stephanie reconstructs our typical ride-home conversations:

Third stop light:
– Good… I’m hungry! Are you hungry?
– Nah, not so much (Light turns green)…

Buzz-phrase of the moment: surfacing coincidence

Stephanie and Joy were talking about using TasteSpotting (an FM blog) for inspiration on what to cook for dinner (wish they had proper permalinks tho!)

Definitely voting for Dennis “I Hope That You’re Going To Talk About More Than A Tongue Stud” Kucinich in the primary

Currently burning up the geekosphere: Amazon’s SimpleDB

Congrats to Jason and Betsy on the birth of Eliza Rhea Griffey early this morning

Who knew? Trajan is the Movie Font

A reminder that people eat almost anything: Balut

Mark Pilgrim on MTOS:

So anyway, congratulations to Six Apart for finally joining the open community of freedom-loving pussy eaters.

This looks really cool: Persepolis

The always compelling Philip Greenspun:

I wrote a little article advocating that MIT abolish tuition, on the grounds that Harvard would eventually become so rich that they would have to abolish tuition or fight the IRS and explain why they weren’t simply an investment fund that ran a profit-making university on the side as a way to escape paying tax on investment returns.

Katie on creating shelves in my brother’s new house:

Ohh well, Matthew I love you and this is a Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday present. Hopefully you spend many years using it, if not I won’t mind, but never again will I submit myself in helping creating pantry shelves

Ha!

Note to DRM-mongers: do not piss off the mother-in-laws.

It may take a while for your customers to figure out that you’ve shafted them with DRM, but in the end they will, and they’re all going to be as mad as my mother-in-law.

Did you know you can subscribe to a single feed with all your friends’ photos on Flickr?

Crazy read: Many young black men in Oakland are killing and dying for respect

Thing I didn’t know existed: Scotch egg (and don’t want to try)

Neat: you can get a 1.5GHz gOS VIA dev board for only $60! (that’s significantly cheaper than the VIA C7 Mini-ITX boards which run from $150-250)

Awfulness: Anti-gay hate sites target gay elected officials

Andre on shavetiming:

If I come to meet you for something and my face has more than a little stubble on it, be assured I have something much more important than you coming up. I don’t waste a shave for just anybody.

The new newness: Google Chart API

Hehe: Flowchart: HOWTO determine internet truth.

Omg, cool: Pleo Dinosaur

I am speechless:

John Seavers, who says he is only one of five people with backward-facing feet in the US, and the only one who doesn’t need a wheelchair. Not only that but he can dance too and spreads a positive message too!!

Hawt! A Preview of HTML 5

This is SO good: Here Comes Another Bubble

Are you shitting me!? What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship? (oh thank god: “The product is a satire, but it is also a real product.”)

Defictionalized tshirts! Last Exit to Nowhere

OMFG! Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator (it’s like a monster truck you can pour into your face!)

The interwebs are awesome this morning! Pop-Up Market in Bangkok

Whoa, whoa! New York Archdiocese’s anti-pedophile coloring book

This is awesome! pedal-powered 1986 Buick Regal (gets pulled over by the Toronto cops!)

WTF? Six Apart sells LiveJournal to Russia (what a trainwreck)