January 2006

Holy cow: Downtown Napa lies under 3 feet of muddy water #

Flipped through Close Reading: Chuck Close and the Artist Portrait at the bookstore the other day, really need to go see the Chuck Close exhibit at the SFMOMA. #

Spread the news, there’s a new cool thing to play with: retrievr (visual image search of flickr) #

Umm, cool: Kodak Unveils Dual Lens Digital Camera #

Terrie crunched the data: Rainfall at O’Reilly (in Sebastopol) over the month of December was 19 inches, 3 times the average! #

Cool!
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Heh: Playboy. In Braille. #

Oh my god! The sun is out! 95401 #

PD photo galleries of the flooding #

Reported a strange regression in Firefox 1.5: Bug 322267 – Single line pre block with overflow set to auto missing horizontal scroll #

This I must admit is pretty clever: Lip-o-suction Toothpaste Squeezer

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Neat, a bouncing camera: Satugo #

Katie has a uterus to donate #

Updated: monthchunks plugin for WordPress

New Features:
1) Added options to reverse year sort order and output letters instead of numbers for month links
2) Added title=”month_name year” attribute (aka tooltips) to the month links
3) Other code improvements and bugfixes #

Interesting blogosphere rumor that I’m going to inadvertently spread by linking to it: Clinton in Redmond..Is Ballmer Stepping Aside #

I saw this awhile ago, but never linked to it. Shame. Common-Civil-Calendar-and-Time #

Just stumbled upon the blog of the founder of Geek Corps, Ethan Zuckerman: …My heart’s in Accra

I had the application for Geek Corps filled out shortly before I got hired by O’Reilly. Strangely enough I got stuck on the last question of the application, the Statement of Interest. It starts:

Geekcorps is looking for a cadre of volunteers who are committed to bridging the digital divide one business at a time. We are asking you to be flexible, mature and open to experiences that challenge your personal and professional existence.

It seemed like the application was preemptively trying to reassure me of my doubts. I had no doubts.

A statement of interest is your chance to tell us in your own words why in the world you want to do this.

I just had no good reason. Whatever reason I thought I had had little to do with Geek Corps itself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted change. #

Neat: Ruby and Brian hang with John and Elizabeth (Edwards) #

I think I need professional help: Justin challenges Pippin to a showdown (This isn’t the first time) #

For all you cat lovers: Adorable cyclops kitten #

SF is so freakin’ cool: Flickr photo booth (I wish I was closer) #

Funny: Lindsay Lohan causes massive DoS war #

Illegal to annoy?

Whoever…utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person…who receives the communications…shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

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Geeky Wikipedia article of the day: Managed code is code executed by a .NET virtual machine. In a Microsoft Windows environment, all other code has come to be known as unmanaged code. #

Quote of the day: The “Gonzo fist” has six fingers as opposed to the regular five. According to Gonzo.org, this is “…a symbol of freak power.” #

Best blog name ever: Phnomenon (about Cambodian food and food in Cambodia) #

And then my mind was BLOWN: you can get bacon from Amazon.com!!! #

A link I thought my dad would appreciate: Apple’s share price an in-joke for Intelites #

Memerific: the craziest blonde joke EVAR! #

Neat: Vintage Chapel Hill Postcards (via Sally) #

Feeling SAD? …the people in Rattenberg, Austria are certainly feeling worse. From November through February, their sunlight vanishes entirely behind a mountain. #

I was surprised this wasn’t from The Onion: Yahoo! Announces Acquisition of Company Before Its Foundation #

To read later: Let There Be Wi-Fi: Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century—and much of America is being left in the dark. (via Paul) #

Ha: Like other politicians, he worships Satan… (Xeni definitely has a way with words) #

I shit you not. The one eyed kitten has ascended to internet heaven:

Is nothing sacred? #

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at Achewood. It starts here, wait till you get to January 13th: Ana-Tomix Car Concepts #

Don’t couple up, you may lose your identity (or at least your name): Brangelina, TomKat, Bennifer, etc., etc., etc. #

To think more about: Triangular theory of love (from Corey, very similar to a compatibility scale I’ve discussed previously) #

Loving M. Ward’s song Radio Campaign #

Every once and a while I read something that totally upends my world. My eyes water, I feel chills. Can you believe it was this that did it to me?

So how do I store our members in WordPress as blog posts? Pretty easily actually. WordPress inherently is an extensible data management system. Remove your blog from the equation, and really all WordPress is doing is storing data.

Update: a lot of people are flocking in droves to Ruby and Ruby on Rails as the new web application development platform. This post is more interesting because it implies that actually WordPress is the better platform. #

The only thing that blows about A’Roma Roasters (besides the occasionally spotty wireless) is that they don’t allow you to plug your laptop into the power outlet.

Some outlets have locks on them and another has a sign saying you’ll be asked to leave if you even think about plugging in.

Argh! I’ve been so productive, but the battery is almost dead. Time to go be productive at home. And maybe blog about my life or something. #

Oh dear: Tokyo Breakfast (I’m going to hell for posting this on MLKJR day) #

Fun read: In Praise of Slow Design (about the New Yorker) #

Charles Miller (of The Fishbowl) takes Joel Spolsky to task for peddling some essentially conservative advice:

Don’t start a business if you can’t explain what pain it solves, for whom, and why your product will eliminate this pain, and how the customer will pay to solve this pain.

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Whoa. Japanese boys in Flamingo Tutus Yes. I said Japanese boys in Flamingo Tutus. #

How cool: Knife block head

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This completely ROCKS MY FACE OFF! Link of the century: turning an Epson dot-matrix printer into an instrument (scroll down to listen to the kickass audio samples) #

For some reason, a number of newspapers all came out with articles about a new show on CBS (airing tonight apparently) called Love Monkey (thank you Google News).

So I Googled it, watched the trailer, and low and behold, my defamation of non-traditional relationships sensors went off. See what I mean:

Boy: Marriage does have its benefits…laughter…

Girl: You’re never going to propose to me are you?

Boy: Yeah, what, no, you said you didn’t believe in marriage. Is this a joke?

Girl: You can’t keep swinging from branch to branch, eventually you’re going to have to pick one and settle down.

Boy: Oh c’mon, what is it with you and this settling…I’m not just going to pick any old random branch, it has to be a smart, funny, pretty, sexually adept branch. It’s the perfect branch.

Girl: If you keep looking for the perfect branch, you’re going to end up one lonely monkey.

All I gotta say is, what’s so wrong with being alone or swinging from branch to branch? #

Good read: Jeremy Zawodny on the Work vs. Life Balance #

I was a picky eater, so I’m not sure this would have worked for me: Generation Pad Thai (but I like the idea)

Oh yeah, and if you get blocked by the NY Times registration system, you should be browsing the web with Firefox and Bugmenot! #

I am not a programmer though I write code. I do not play with programming languages in my spare time. I do not learn new languages for fun. But still I find it so interesting reading about people who do: Lisp is sin and The Perils of JavaSchools #

Phrase of the day: excessively homed (as opposed to homeless) #

To think about/do something about later: Help Out WordPress Development #

Cool hack: Scanner Photography (really) #

This bothers me VERY VERY much:

Which search engines other than Google received requests [from the Department of Justice] to provide search records? Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the company to do so.

FIGHT THE MAN! #

Umm, apparently I should be doing: LSD #

Quote of the day (from Goli): money makes you thick (1 hit in Google) #

Tonight it felt like brain freeze, only in [my] balls #

Oh no, the NYT ruins everything! Why Is Everybody Going to Cambodia? (I know why…)

Note: Get BugMeNot for Firefox to bypass compulsory web registration. #

I love this: If You Cut Off My Reproductive Choice… I’ll Cut Yours Off! #

Taste the Rainbow of Frustration: when you go to Disneyland and see Mickey Mouse walking around, you know he’s not real either, but it’s still good to see him. #

Whoa, Steve Jobs in control of Disney? Jobs to scoop $3.5bn as Pixar board approves Disney takeover #

I wish I had a banana: Peeling bananas from the other end is easier #

Interpreting signs from fate:

First time was in a dessert at The House, the second time was in the Generation Pad Thai article, and the third, fourth, fifth, etc. times have been in grocery stores all over.

So I decided to pick up some Scharffen Berger chocolate with my groceries tonight. I’ll report back. #

License plate of the day: A GNUDAY (I practically expected to see Richard Stallman behind the wheel) #

You should be listening to this: Wolf Parade – Shine a light is like my favorite high energy song right now #

Dang it, Internet Explorer FUCKING SUCKS!

I try to be all cool and embed a Google Map in a blog post and IE won’t even display my blog anymore!

More information here: Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site, Operation aborted “Google Map API error”

Update:

IE doesn’t allow changing HTML tables via DOM until they are fully rendered.

So enclosing your code in a function and triggering it using setTimeout, e.g.:

setTimeout("display_map()", 1);

Seems to get around this limitation that I LOST two hours of my life to. How much of your life has IE taken lately? Download Firefox. #

I’m not sure about this whole Performancing thing, given that I first heard about them via an ad on Boingboing, given that their website looks a little too cheesy. But they’ve just released a new version of a tool for blogging with Firefox (giving the overfunded Flock a run for their money) which suggests they might be sticking around. #

Ironic indeed: Internet Explorer copying features from Firefox which were originally copied from IE #

Word of the day: capacious #

Dude, Coop’s Paintblogging is fucking awesome. I especially like how he poses with the painting at the end of every post. #

Neat: Thumb Thing Book Holder #

I love weird trailers: Brick #

As much as I like Google, this is important to expose: Sites Google Agreed to Censor in China #

Quote of the day: We’ve now got a dedicated tunnel task force #

This is SO brilliant: MPAORIAA Warning Parody (I love how creative people are in their rebellion) #

Quote of the day: Apparently Iran, which President Bush has deemed part of the ‘Axis of Evil,’ is a suitable partner when it comes to discriminating against gay people #

Quote of the day: I made a thing, right? So call me a producer. I produce things. I would not say entrepreneur – the enterprise of the thing was always dragged along by the thing itself. (I feel like this often) #

Christy on adolescence: I see a hollow protest against conformity that ends up being its own conformity. #

Quote of the day: Isaacs threw a party for his students, at which he served Tab. “I was surprised at how many of them drank it,” he said. “One was putting Scotch in it. I mean, that sounds fucking awful.” #

Cool video: Scratch the World #

Send Tim flour, get a mention on his blog: I came back from a couple of days out of the office, and Sandy, my assistant, said, “Oh, and you have these three bags of flour…” #

Overheard Madeleine Peyroux’s cover of Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars” last night at Manzanita with Stephanie. It was awesome: Madeleine Peyroux – Careless Love

The weird thing is, I’ve seen this album cover before, but I’ve got no idea where.

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This is great. MS defaces O’Reilly books in IT security print ad: Afraid to tell people what books their developers are really reading?

Can you see what’s missing? Two things were changed. #

Trailer for Sleepless In Seattle recut as a horror movie! #

I love boingboing for fearlessly amplifying the rebellion: Script to replace Google logo with Evil Google logo (What happens when the people have a different idea about what “Do No Evil” means?)

and more… #

Can you foil search data trackers with crafty queries?

Lazy web idea: write a Firefox plugin that performs “subversive” Google searches in the background to increase individual privacy while overwhelming government/corporate spooks. #

Brilliant:
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How to make photos taken of real-life look like miniatures (to read later): How Shift Lenses Change your Life (via Boingboing) #

To read later: Feeding fury

Mark Rothko was an unknown abstract expressionist when he won a plum commission – to provide paintings for New York’s swankiest restaurant. So why did he pull out and give them to the Tate?

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