Joel On Wiki

A part of Joel on Software, and a companion the Business of Software discussion group.

The "Business of Software" Wiki: "The point of this wiki is to bring under one roof as much high quality, useful information as possible about the business of software, whether it's microISVs selling desktop software, Web 2.0 sites or even the big enterprise kind of outfits."

Ten Golden Rules of Communication

Recent inter-office miss-communications drove a coworker of mine to dig up these Ten Golden Rules of Communication. Good read.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Google Connection | PBS

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Google Connection | PBS: "There is a text-input technology called ForWord Input that could be easily used on the iPhone to allow users with almost no training to input text with their index finger at 50 words per minute, which I have to admit is faster than I can type on a QWERTY keyboard. ForWord Input uses a finger, not a stylus (nothing to lose), is patented, and comes from developers who already have other applications running in 500 MILLION mobile phones.

If I could type 50 words per minute on my iPhone, I wouldn't need a computer, which defines both the opportunity and the problem facing Apple."

hmm.... where have i seen these?

Classic Mistakes Updated - 10x Software Development: "New Classic Mistakes

After founding Construx, a decade of work with hundreds of companies has enabled us to identify several new classic mistakes. Here are the additional classic mistakes we've identified:

* Confusing estimates with targets
* Excessive multi-tasking
* Assuming global development has a negligible impact on total effort
* Unclear project vision
* Trusting the map more than the terrain
* Outsourcing to reduce cost
* Letting a team go dark (replaces the previous 'lack of management controls')

...

The 36 Original Classic Mistakes

For the record, the table below lists the original classic mistakes from Rapid Development. And here is a link to the full text of the original Classic Mistakes chapter from Rapid Development)."

I may have a non-gay crush on Guido van Rossum!

msimoens.blogspot.com: Guido van Rossum, you're my hero!

Gamasutra - How Killing People With My Dad Improved Our Relationship

Gamasutra - How Killing People With My Dad Improved Our Relationship: "My dad is 54 and I am 34. Three years after that first night of gaming, he has a game rig that rivals mine, complete with joystick and headphones with mic. He even has the special gaming keypad. These days he probably spends more time playing games online than I do. In fact, half of the time I go online to play, he’s already there, often in a game and squaded up with some of my friends, kicking ass, and taking names - literally now that Battlefield 2142 has added the dog tag feature. There is nothing quite so humiliating in a game as being knifed by your dad."

If you can get past the hype, this is pretty cool...

Brightcove - Popular Mechanics - Microsoft Surface: Hands-on First Look

Whistlebox?!

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Whistlebox | PBS: "Look into your webcam and say what you have to say. Click another button to review your post or even to edit it. Once you are happy with the way your video looks, Whistlebox automatically compresses and uploads your response.

...

If you are wondering why you've never heard of Whistlebox, that would probably be because to my knowledge nobody has written about it before.

...

Let's think of some ways Whistlebox, or a Whistlebox equivalent, might be used beyond YouTube-like video responses.

Given that the Whistlebox boys come from an ad agency background, it isn't surprising that their product has a lot of potential ad-related uses. Dating sites can use it to post video introductions. Okay, that's a no-brainer, but why not use the same technology to advertise babysitting services, allowing parents to have a good look at that babysitter even before making the call? There are many services where it would be a great help to see and hear the potential service provider before making a commitment."

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

Ahh...he articulates my office environment to a tee...

10. Becoming a coward.

Have you noticed that employed people have an almost endless capacity to whine about problems at their companies? But they don’t really want solutions – they just want to vent and make excuses why it’s all someone else’s fault. It’s as if getting a job somehow drains all the free will out of people and turns them into spineless cowards. If you can’t call your boss a jerk now and then without fear of getting fired, you’re no longer free. You’ve become your master’s property.

Is this guy serious?

Hello everyone,

My name is Allan Hart - I'm a friend of Mike's who was invited to join this blog. This morning while I was perusing my daily comics I came across one that I thought at least Mike would find amusing, and hopefully the rest of you too. I'm amused by Calvin's notion that being happy is having the power to crush the opposition. Mostly I just like his facial expression.

I suppose this is a peculiar way to introduce oneself, but one thing you'll quickly learn is that I'll often dare to be different. Apparently I may know some of you from university, if not by name then at least by appearance. Thanks for the invite, Mike. Hope to meet you all at your next breakfast meeting. Mike mentioned Thursday evenings at around 5:00. If that's the case I'll hope to see you later on today!

- Allan

Apparently it's a need to know basis ...

Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies: "In the next four months Getty Images plans to launch new a new consumer business and a music licensing service.

Some rare hints about upcoming products came during a presentation last Wednesday by Getty CEO Jonathan Klein at an Internet conference organized by Goldman Sachs.

'We plan to launch a consumer business in the next 90 to 120 days,' Klein said, without revealing what the business is. He mentioned this in connection with Getty's new strategy of operating multiple Web sites for different customers – including gettyimages.com, iStockphoto.com and new acquisition PunchStock.

Klein also expressed hope that the text-only search ads sold through Google will eventually incorporate multimedia content, like photos and video, both of which Getty provides. On that note, he added, 'We will be providing music to our customers within 90 days.'"

All I can say is that that is more information then I would have been able to tell you.

Pretty Pictures

TED | Talks | Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo (video): "Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation"

BZR sounds pretty cool...

Mark Shuttleworth » Blog Archive » Renaming is the killer app of distributed version control

Be Breif

Pimp My Code, Part 14: Be Inflexible!: "You've probably seen some variant of this, but I'll show you my version. In coding, you have many dimensions in which you can rate code:

- Brevity of code
- Featurefulness
- Speed of execution
- Time spent coding
- Robustness
- Flexibility

Now, remember, these dimensions are all in opposition to one another. You can spend a three days writing a routine which is really beautiful AND fast, so you've gotten two of your dimensions up, but you've spent THREE DAYS, so the 'time spent coding' dimension is WAY down.

So, when is this worth it? How do we make these decisions?

The answer turns out to be very sane, very simple, and also the one nobody, ever, listens to:

'START WITH BREVITY. Increase the other dimensions AS REQUIRED BY TESTING.'"

Code reviews are important

ChipLog » Blog Archive » Review Board: "We built a code review system called Review Board. Like most projects, it started out simple, but grew to be pretty powerful and useful quickly. It was designed to automate and simplify the process of creating review requests and actually reviewing code."

Good idea! I, however, have not yet checked out if it's a good execution.

feature creep

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/05/28/070528ta_talk_surowiecki

What's your number?

12 Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them

Why web 2.0 sucks

Share this blog post These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

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Courtesy of http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk/blog/nightmare-web-design-clients/

Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit

I Gizoogled Evzizolvs, and I Gizoogled Danizma! I Gizoogled Dezirin'Gizod, and then BizorrowMizzy, and finally I Gizoogled S-U-to-the-uper-frizink!!!

Word to yo Mammas!

I wanna make games!!!

If you've ever wondered why i want to make games you need to read this article...
Gamasutra.com Features - Where Game Meets Web, Raph Koster Speaks Out
then we'll talk...

WOW

Photoshop FTW Nobody is perfect, I am Nobody

Anyone wanna try out Joost?

invite all your friends to Joost: "invite as many
friends as you want to try out Joost.

To access your invites, log onto Joost, go to My Joost and fill in your
friends' details in the Invite Friends widget box."

Apparently i can invite as many people as a want... i haven't actually tried it out myself cuz i haven't bother to boot into windows since they announced the beta. I believe there is a Mac version too. Anyone want an invite?

Sucked into the swirling vortex

Acquisition!!!: "Evolvs, was purchased by Getty Images this last week."

Them's Fightn' Words!

avatraxiom: The Problems of Perl: The Future of Bugzilla: "Perl would not be my first choice for writing or maintaining a large project, such as Bugzilla. The same flexibility that makes Perl so powerful makes it very difficult to enforce code quality standards or to implement modern object-oriented designs"

I'm not sure i necessarily agree, but ...

Mystery revealed: Poppy quarter led to U.S. spy warnings

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year.

I don't know what is more surprising ...

I don't know what is more surprising, the fact that there is a US Presidential candidate who uses MySpace, Google Groups, Cafepress, and Meetup, or the fact that his MySpace page is one of the first I've ever seen that is decently assembled and isn't totally unusable!!!

Meet Like Minds | Gravel 2008

I usually try really hard to stay out of US politics, and politics in general but I have to admit that this guy has a nice website and I like what he's saying on it. All he needs now in a facebook account!

M.

Get to the point Paul!

The Hacker's Guide to Investors:

"Investors greatly prefer it if you don't need them. What excites them, both consciously and unconsciously, is the sort of startup that approaches them saying 'the train's leaving the station; are you in or out?' not the one saying 'please can we have some money to start a company?'"

This is yet another long winded, wisdom laden essay from Mr. Graham. It's definitely worth skimming.

JenJen & MikeMike: The Dangers of Phishing

JenJen & MikeMike: The Dangers of Phishing

Python vs. Ruby

Python up, Ruby down: If that runtime don't work, then its bound to drizzown: "I am not making any claims of Python having greater productivity than Ruby in the development cycle. I am claiming two things, though:

1. Python was very productive, despite having never used it before, and
2. The end result actually fucking worked

That last one is kind of big with me."

Google enhances the manageability and reliability of MySQL

Google Code - Updates: Google releases patches that enhance the manageability and reliability of MySQL: "We would love for the some of these changes to be merged with the official MySQL release, but until then we felt strongly that anyone should have access to them, thus we have released the changes with a GPL license for the MySQL community to use and review.

...

• SemiSyncReplication - block commit on a master until at least one slave acknowledges receipt of all replication events.
• MirroredBinlogs - maintain a copy of the master's binlog on a slave
• TransactionalReplication - make InnoDB and slave replication state consistent during crash recovery
• UserTableMonitoring - monitor and report database activity per account and table
• InnodbAsyncIo - support multiple background IO threads for InnoDB
• FastMasterPromotion - promote a slave to a master without restart"

Microsoft's Channel 9 sounds like propaganda and it probably is!

Wired 15.04: Operation Channel 9:

"What Pryor had done to set off this uproar was outfit a team of five people, himself included, with camcorders and turn them loose on the company to interview engineers about their jobs and their products. Then he posted the clips - unvetted and largely unedited - to a Web site that anyone, inside or outside the company, could see and comment on.

...

Microsoft urgently wants the world to know about Channel 9, and the company has been actively peddling the tale of how big, bad, mean Microsoft let bottom-up communications recast its image.

But its efforts to be transparent go only so far. Someone at Microsoft unintentionally emailed me the confidential dossier the company keeps on reporters writing stories about it (presumably a common practice among big corporations). My file ran to 5,500 words and included all the angles I had been pursuing (along with suggested responses to my questions), the people outside the company they thought I had talked to, detailed background on Wired and how it has covered Microsoft, and notes on me and my interviewing style. "We need to reinforce with Fred that these efforts [Channels 9 and 10] are a natural extension of the company's DNA," the file reads. "Microsoft has been using a wide variety of communications mechanisms to reach out to developers since the days of yore (to read entire memo click here). This is simply the latest manifestation of those efforts." The irony is thick. While working with me on a story about its newfound openness, Microsoft and its PR agency were furiously scurrying behind the scenes to control the message. One thing about transparency is clear: It's harder than it looks."

Ten Conversation Tips

Ben Stein How Not to Ruin Your Life

How to Have a Business Conversation

Michael S. Dell - Chairman of the Board

Michael S. Dell - runs Ubuntu at home.

Canonical Launches Latest Ubuntu Desktop 7.04 | Ubuntu

Canonical Launches Latest Ubuntu Desktop 7.04 | Ubuntu

About Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop Edition

The latest version of Ubuntu includes the following new features:

Windows migration tool: The new migration tool recognizes Internet Explorer bookmarks, Firefox favorites, desktop wallpaper, AOL IM and Yahoo IM contacts, and imports them all into Ubuntu during installation. This offers easier and faster migration for new users of Ubuntu and individuals wanting to run a dual-boot system.

Simpler multimedia: A new guided wizard for automatically installing multimedia codecs not shipped with Ubuntu gives users a safe and easy way to view music and videos.

Plug and play network sharing with Avahi: This new feature allows users to automatically discover and join a wireless network to share music, find printers and more.

Best of the open source world: Ubuntu 7.04 supports the Linux 2.6.20 kernel, the recent GNOME 2.18 desktop environment, and thousands of additional applications.

Ubuntu's already outstanding support for thin clients is further enhanced with advanced sound support from PulseAudio sound server and Jetpipe, a printing architecture for thin clients.

Ubuntu continues to impress me as a desktop distribution.

Name that tune?!

midomi: "Search with your Voice

Search for music by singing or humming part of a song. All you need is a microphone."

This is too cool! i wish I'd thought of it!

Savenetradio.org

Savenetradio.org

The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC has more than tripled the royalty rates for webcasters and left unchanged they will kill Internet radio. These exorbitant rates go into effect on May 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). Without Congressional action the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.

Disclaimer: I haven't bothered reading into this too much, but I cannot understand how this is a reasonable move!? As users of the 'net, we all need to work hard to protect our freedoms. This include online Radio.

Virginia vs. Iraq vs. The World

The "Virginia Tech Massacre" just highlights the problem of American (and Canadian) media.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/17/cole-virginia/

Quotes

as seen on bash.org: i like computers better than chicks cuz they will willingly accept my 3.5" floppy

Straight out of Neuromancer

Discovery Channel :: News - Technology :: Newton, Einstein Go Digital: "We want to preserve more than a person's factual knowledge. We want to preserve their mannerisms and personality so you feel that you are talking with a real person,"

Steorn Orbo: the thermodynamics defying energy product is named - Engadget

Steorn Orbo: the thermodynamics defying energy product is named - Engadget

Everyone, quick! Invest your monies!

Keven Bacon spammed me?!

Six Degrees

Sometimes, Wired is weird...

Wired 15.04: Mixed Feelings: "See with your tongue. Navigate with your skin. Fly by the seat of your pants (literally). How researchers can tap the plasticity of the brain to hack our 5 senses — and build a few new ones."

Blue collar work in a White collar job

Flip a Web Site Fixer-upper

One of my favorite cable television networks has a show called "Flip that House." The concept is as simple as the work is hard. You buy a house that needs work, do the work, and sell it for a profit. We can do the same thing with web sites, without getting our hands dirty, or risking as much of our precious capital resources.

I *HEART* Co-Op Game Play

Software development as a cooperative game

Pay close attention to direction number 23!

from: New York, NY to: london uk - Google Maps

Recommended Add-ons :: Firefox Add-ons

I've already been using a lot of these for a while and I really like them. I want to try out a few more of them.

Linked list - Google Patents

Linked list - Google Patents

Abstract
A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes.

MSGee-licious

The Science Creative Quarterly » MSG: MORE THAN MEETS THE TONGUE: "In spite of the detrimental effects of MSG, the FDA approves of MSG in our food products based on its “naturally occurring” ingredient. Because glutamate is also found in nature, MSG is a safe food additive. Many manufacturers rename the monosodium glutamate ingredient to euphemistic terms such as, malt extract, corn syrup, cornstarch, or hydrolyzed “anything”.

So why do food companies and restaurants add MSG to foods in spite of the problems it causes? MSG fools your brain into believing you are consuming nutritious and tasty food, stimulates appetite, and reduces costs for the food processors."

"Hillary 1984" Video Creator Steps Forward

Many experts feel that the Hillary 1984 video marked a change in political campaigning. Now that voters have the ability to produce their own ads in support of their favorite candidate - or against politicians they oppose - many will.

Mr. de Vellis commented "This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed."

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/03/22.3.shtml

JSON is not as safe as people think it is - Joe Walker's Blog

JSON is not as safe as people think it is - Joe Walker's Blog

Interesting post. As we move more and more towards web based applications I suspect that this will have to be fixed. I wonder why each javascript session isn't completely sandboxed? IE - why isn't there a different instance of the javascript interpreter with no shared memory for each web page's session?

In an effort to reduce my monthly phone bill, I went searching for an alternative long distance provider for cell phones. I found yak.com It gives cell phones a 3.5 cents per minute long distance rate with no monthly fees.

Does anyone know of anything better?

Even if I pre-pay for 300 minutes of long distance with Fido, it still costs me 8c per minute! I'm also switching to the "family plan" with me and Anita. It gets unlimited incoming calls, unlimited between members of the family and unlimited weekends and evenings. It only comes with 300 outgoing weekday minutes, but (to be honest) I don't need my phone much during work hours, except to answer incoming calls.

An interesting option is to add other people for only 15$ a month. I think they must share the 300 weekday minutes. I wonder if groups of friends can sign up?

TEDTalks

Forget about the mouse and keyboard.

Autocorrect is Grate

Autocorrect is Grate.
For some reason I think of WCL...

Two steps closer to The Singularity?

Jeff Hawkins (inventer of the Palm Pilot and the Treo) has turned to work on neuroscience full-time and has published On Intelligence describing his memory-prediction framework theory of the brain.

In a recent interview with Wired Magazine, Hakwins, claims to have something quite significant to contribute to the study of artificial intelligence. The Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing.

Wired 15.03: The Thinking Machine: "Hawkins joins a long line of thinkers claiming to have unlocked the secrets of the mind and coded them into machines. So thoroughly have such efforts failed that AI researchers have largely given up the quest for the kind of general, humanlike intelligence that Hawkins describes. “There have been all those others,” he acknowledges, “the Decade of the Brain, the 5th Generation Computing Project in Japan, fuzzy logic, neural networks, all flavors of AI. Is this just another shot in the dark?” He lets the question hang for a moment. “No,” he says. “It’s quite different, and I can explain why.”

... Hierarchical Temporal Memory, or HTM ...

An HTM consists of a pyramid of nodes, each encoded with a set of statistical formulas. The whole HTM is pointed at a data set, and the nodes create representations of the world the data describes — whether a series of pictures or the temperature fluctuations of a river. The temporal label reflects the fact that in order to learn, an HTM has to be fed information with a time component — say, pictures moving across a screen or temperatures rising and falling over a week. Just as with the brain, the easiest way for an HTM to learn to identify an object is by recognizing that its elements — the four legs of a dog, the lines of a letter in the alphabet — are consistently found in similar arrangements. Other than that, an HTM is agnostic; it can form a model of just about any set of data it’s exposed to. And, just as your cortex can combine sound with vision to confirm that you are seeing a dog instead of a fox, HTMs can also be hooked together. Most important, Hawkins says, an HTM can do what humans start doing from birth but that computers never have: not just learn, but generalize."

The article didn't go on to explain HTM's to my full satisfaction but Numenta's Community Wiki did a much better job.


... but wait, there's more! ...


In another, entirely separate Wired Magazine interview, Douglas R. Hofstadter (Author of Gödel, Escher, Bach and I Am a Strange Loop), makes some interesting points about self awareness.

Wired 15.03: PLAY: "WIRED: How is your new book different from Gödel, which touched on physics, genetics, mathematics, and computer science?

HOFSTADTER: This time I’m only trying to figure out “What am I?”

Well, given the book’s title, you seem to have found out. But what is a strange loop?

One good prototype is the Escher drawing of two hands sketching each other. A more abstract one is the sentence I am lying. Such loops are, I think anyone would agree, strange. They seem paradoxical and even strike some people as dangerous. I argue that such a strange loop, paradoxical or not, is at the core of each human being. It is an abstract pattern that gives each of us an “I,” or, if you don’t mind the term, a soul."

I realize this is a stretch, but my imagination immediately jumps to pictures of the vast information of Wikipedia, and the Internet in general, all wrapped up with a friendly personality. Then make it self aware and, BOOM, One strange looped Singularity coming right up! I think they should name it "Singleton". It has a nice ring to it. "Thanks for explaining the meaning of life to me, Singleton, your a pal!".

Hello, My name is Mike. I saw LittleBigPlanet and i liked it...

Penny Arcade! - Karma Sucks: "in place of a six hundred dollar game, I will accept a six hundred dollar idea."

Clips: LittleBigPlanet - Kotaku: "This is the biggest thing to come out of GDC07. Hyperbole? Yes, probably. Is the game worth it? Yes, probably"

Picasa Web Albums Is Getting Really Cool

Picasa Web Albums: "What's New on Picasa Web Albums?

Some on my favorite features so far include:

• The free storage quota has been upped to 1GB (and counting).
• Photos uploaded through Blogger appear in My Photos.
• You can upload videos using Picasa.
• Order prints and photo products
• Email notifications and RSS feeds
• Easy Upload from Google Picassa or from iPhoto
  

YouTube - Mideveal helpdesk with English subtitles

YouTube - Mideveal helpdesk with English subtitles

This made my evening.

Ink-less Printers?!

Since Ink Costs More Than Human Blood, I'm pretty excited about this Zero ink printer from Zero Ink Printer from ZINK!

It won't be available until late 2007 (and I'll believe it when i see it) but it would be really cool to have printers that don't require ink! How much would you pay for an ink-less printer? $300? $1,000?

Nuzmo - Sniffer rats trained for detecting land mines, no joke

Nuzmo - [picture] Sniffer rats trained for detecting land mines, no joke

Haha! This is great. Wonder if it's for real?

Anatomy of a well-intentioned Linux Troll - Ubuntu Forums

Anatomy of a well-intentioned Linux Troll - Ubuntu Forums

Ballmer Repeats Threats Against Linux

...and open source will have to respect the intellectual property rights of others just as any other competitor will.

But maybe they should take care of their own code before worrying about the code of others.

M$ Hit by $1.5 Billion patent award.

Funny Funny

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe: "Open Source"

A Wall Between the U.S. and Mexico?!

Schneier on Security: CYA Security: "we're seeing CYA security on the national level, from our politicians. We might be better off as a nation funding intelligence gathering and Arabic translators, but it's a better re-election strategy to fund something visible but ineffective, like a national ID card or a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Securing our nation from threats that are weird, threats that either happened before or captured the media's imagination, and overly specific threats are all examples of CYA security. It happens not because the authorities involved -- the Boston police, the TSA, and so on -- are not competent, or not doing their job. It happens because there isn't sufficient national oversight, planning, and coordination.

People and organizations respond to incentives. We can't expect the Boston police, the TSA, the guy who runs security for the Oscars, or local public officials to balance their own security needs against the security of the nation. They're all going to respond to the particular incentives imposed from above. What we need is a coherent antiterrorism policy at the national level: one based on real threat assessments, instead of fear-mongering, re-election strategies, or pork-barrel politics.

Sadly, though, there might not be a solution. All the money is in fear-mongering, re-election strategies, and pork-barrel politics. And, like so many things, security follows the money."

Get to the Point Paul

This essay is too long to read but too good to skim!

Is It Worth Being Wise?: "I think it's important to understand the relationship between intelligence and wisdom, and particularly what seems to be the growing gap between them. That way we can avoid applying rules and standards to intelligence that are really meant for wisdom. These two senses of 'knowing what to do' are more different than most people realize. The path to wisdom is through discipline, and the path to intelligence through carefully selected self-indulgence. Wisdom is universal, and intelligence idiosyncratic. And while wisdom yields calmness, intelligence much of the time leads to discontentment.

That's particularly worth remembering. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac. Perhaps if we acknowledge that some amount of frustration is inevitable in certain kinds of work, we can mitigate its effects. Perhaps we can box it up and put it away some of the time, instead of letting it flow together with everyday sadness to produce what seems an alarmingly large pool. At the very least, we can avoid being discontented about being discontented.

If you feel exhausted, it's not necessarily because there's something wrong with you. Maybe you're just running fast."

All Aboard The Ubuntu Train! You Too ESR!

Goodbye, Fedora: "This afternoon, I installed Edgy Eft on my main development machine -- from one CD, not five. In less than three hours' work I was able to recreate the key features of my day-to-day toolkit. The after-installation mass upgrade to current packages, always a frightening prospect under Fedora, went off without a hitch. I'm not expecting Ubuntu to be perfect, but I am now certain it will be enough better to compensate me for the fact that I need to learn a new set of administration tools. Fedora, you had every advantage, and you had my loyalty, and you blew it. And that is a damn, dirty shame. -- Eric S. Raymond"

Vista's Peach Wreck Cognition

...windows vistas speech recognition of king rocks delete of king rocks capitalize f asterisk see kay eye inn gee sucks exclamation point ...




YouTube - Windows Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting

Life Is Hard

I use Google cuz it makes my life easier. I run Ubuntu cuz it makes my life easier. I prefer to program in Python and use Django for web developement cuz they make my life easier... and now the Django cheat sheet (Mercurytide) makes my life easier still!

I *HEART* Nintendo, I Hate Fox News & Penny Arcade is my Hero

MyFox Milwaukee | Nintendo Hand-Held Child Molester Target: "Nintendo Hand-Held Child Molester Target"

Penny Arcade! - The Most Recent Catastrophe:
"While driving on the highway, a child molester who is also driving might look into the back seat of your car and see your child using their DS back there. According to this terrifying report, the child molester can then - while driving their car - produce a DS of their own and utilize it to divine your home address. You will recall that he is driving on the highway at speeds approaching sixty miles an hour. One hand is on the wheel and the other is managing the gearbox. Thus, there can be no question... He is entering these messages into the DS with his erect phallus."

B.C. firm to show off quantum computer

B.C. firm to show off quantum computer: "D-Wave Systems Inc. of Burnaby, B.C. plans to show off its commercial quantum computers at the Computer History Museum on Feb. 13 and at the Telus World of Science museum in Vancouver on Feb. 15."

Steve Jobs has DRMatitis

Apple - Thoughts on Music

Bruce Schneier is Funny & Smrt

MySpace Passwords Aren't So Dumb: "blink182"

History of Programming Languages

I showed this to someone recently and they asked me to "put that were links go".

O'Reilly -- The History of Programming Languages

I Like It

YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype - www.bumptop.com

Not All Traffic Is Created Equal

Not All Traffic Is Created Equal » Publishing 2.0: "mounting evidence suggests that Digg traffic in particular is less like networking with like-minded individuals at a social event and more like getting attacked by a pack of wild dogs, who leave nothing of value in their wake, other than lessons learned on closing comments and crashed servers"

open-source segway

http://lca2007.linux.org.au/talk/185

I've often thought that it would be fun for some of us to get together some summer's weekend to build something cool, like the open source segway. Any other suggestions of what to build?

The Internet weighs two ounces

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2007/01/this_is_lovely.html

Adobe's PDF Software Flawed

Dunham gave this hypothetical scenario: an attacker finds a PDF file on a banking Web site. The attacker creates a hostile Web site that links to the bank's PDF file. Included is malicious JavaScript code that will run on the unsuspecting user's computer once the link is clicked.

http://www.physorg.com/news87093505.html

Blutooth Watch To Control Your Phone?

Review: Sony Ericsson MBW-100 Bluetooth Watch

When a call is received by the paired phone, the watch will vibrate and display the phone number or, if available, contact name of the party that is calling. The phone's ringer can be quickly silenced by pressing the watch's top button once, and the call can be outright rejected (and sent to voicemail) by pressing the top button a second time. When the phone receives a new text or MMS message, the watch will vibrate and display an envelope icon for a few seconds...

... But it only works with a select few Sony Ericson phones :(

Do heavy things fall faster than light things?

Video of dropping a hammer and a feather on the moon to see which falls
faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHzVsLAhUCA

Athlete fails gender test

1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6188775.stm reads:

"Santhi was subjected to a gender test in Doha and we have received the
report which says she failed the test," said Manmohan Singh, chairman of
the Indian Olympic Association's Medical Commission.

Soundararajan is refusing to comment. "I was not informed about the test
results and I don't know much on that. I do not want to talk about it,"
she told journalists.

...

KP Mohan, a sports journalist, said athletes were usually examined by a
team of doctors, including a gynaecologist, endocrinologist and
psychologist, and put through physical and clinical examinations during a
gender test.

2) http://tinyurl.com/yxxuu7 reads:

[G]enetic tests in place in sport might unfairly single out some women as
men, IOC medical commission chairman Dr Arne Ljungquist [said].

...

The gender verification tests are based on chromosomes and sometimes a
sexual disorder results in the presence of male chromosomes in a female.
The athlete would then present male-like features, though without gaining
any undue advantage.

...

The IOC only allows the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique to
determine chromosomal patterns, a test that was reportedly not done on
Santhi.

...

AIS individuals are genetically male, will have 46,XY chromosomal (male)
pattern, may have male or female genitalia or predominantly male or female
genitalia, but will not have a uterus. Medically, if such individuals
compete against women, they will have no unfair advantage.

3) The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is used for duplicating DNA so labs
have a larger sample to perform tests on. I assume (but am not sure) the
sample is examined to find the X and Y chromosomes. Females have two X
chromosomes and males have one X and one Y.

It is possible for a human to be born with extra chromosomes. eg two X
and one Y is called "Klinefelter's syndrome". In cases of XXX, XXY, XYY,
or YYY there are a few known differences from the more common XX and XY
humans (eg height). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome for
more information.

Hidden Message

Apparently, this clothing company uses their labels for political expression.

Open-Source Car

"The idea behind open source development is to allow anyone to copy, modify and redistribute ordinarily secret information about a technology without paying royalties to the original developers."

Discovery Channel :: News - Technology :: Open-Source Car Project Gears Up:

Browser sniffing is [or should be] dead

"Sniff the right way

One solid alternative [to browser sniffing] is feature sniffing. This is the other solution mentioned by the “Gecko is Gecko” folks, and it’s vastly superior; instead of looking at the user-agent string and redirecting if it’s not in your “approved” list, you instead use JavaScript to test for the features you want (and, these days, browser sniffing is much more about JavaScript — particularly AJAX capabilities — than anything else). This is a concept that’s been kicking around for years, and which has had one or two high-profile articles written about it (including one by JavaScript guru Stuart Langridge, helpfully linked by the “Gecko is Gecko” site).

The nice thing about feature sniffing is that it’s almost completely foolproof: a browser will lie out of both sides of its mouth about whether or not it’s IE, but its JavaScript engine won’t lie about whether it supports getElementById. There are a couple of wrinkles in this rosy picture (notably Safari which, last I checked, exposes a method called preventDefault on DOM events, even though it doesn’t actually do what preventDefault is supposed to do), but I’d be willing to bet it’s as least as effective, percentage-wise, as sniffing for the “big four” (IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera) and it has the advantage of being future-proof: when the browser market changes, you have to adjust your sniffing scripts. But so long as you’re testing for actual features, you never have to update; getElementById isn’t going to get renamed any time soon.

And to really hammer it home, keep in mind that this is by far the most effective way to implement AJAX effects. Versions of IE prior to 7 expose XMLHttpRequest in a slightly different fashion from other browsers, so the browser-sniffing method relies on being able to absolutely differentiate IE so you can use the correct invocation. Of course, lots of other browsers like to masquerade as IE in their user-agent strings, so that’s out the window — trying to use IE-style invocation in non-IE browsers will just throw JavaScript errors at your users, and then they’ll complain (if you’re lucky) or take their money and their ad-viewing eyeballs somewhere else (if you’re not). Meanwhile, a few short lines of JavaScript which determine where the XMLHttpRequest object lives are all that’s needed to effectively work out how to do AJAX. "

The B-List: Sniffle:

17 years of accumulated strategy experience down to three items

• Standardize - Agree on the standard, upgrade non-standard material, do not allow exceptions but always look for new ways to keep it best of breed. This has so many benefits unto itself that one could write a book on it.
  
• Consolidate - Use a repository (doc, code, etc.), shutting down rouge or excess locations allows folks to locate and interact with the material better. It also saves a ton of money and drastically reduces confusion. I have found that it is always better to harden the central area than distribute it. This doesn’t work for everything (e.g. peer to peer, bazaar coding model (e.g. DARCS/BZR)) but it does for most things.
  
• Automate - Queue up some simple tooling and automate as much as possible. Aside from saving money it allows you to focus your employees on things worthy of their attention instead of the mundane. It does wonders for productivity and can have a positive impact on communications.

Joey Stanford » Strategy: My Three Secrets

Vibrating Corn Starch

Corn starch vibrating in a wide range of frequencies exhibits bizarre, finger-like formations.

PHP security team member gives up

http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/82500

"
Stefan Esser, PHP security specialist and member of the official PHP
Security Response Team has, he says, had enough - in his blog he has
announced his immediate resignation from the PHP Security Response Team.

...

He says that he had stopped counting the number of times he was called a
traitor when he published a bug report on a vulnerability in PHP.

...

While Esser feels that certain PHP functions are intrinsically unsafe (for
example allow_url_fopen/allow_url_include) and should therefore be
revised, many developers, including PHP specialists Zend, think that the
security problems in PHP applications have simply been caused by
inexperienced programmers.

...

In his view it is also irresponsible to cease proper support for the PHP4
tree.
"

Google as a Registrar? (Sorta)

Official Google Blog: Your easiest holiday task:

"we've made signing up for Google Apps for Your Domain much easier for those of you that don't yet have your own domain. We've partnered with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two leading domain registration services, to offer domains for $10 per year. And I like the fact that we're including private registration to protect your personal information"

USA discussing allowing leaded gasoline.

I almost can't believe this news.

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/12/epa-leaded-gas-may-return-along-with.html

"The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that revoking those
standards might be justified "given the significantly changed
circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant"

Map of the Inter-Web

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

Cringely interviews Englebart

This interview is interesting because Douglas Englebart talks about how he
had ideas he wanted to pursue and how he kept quiet because people told
him his ideas were too wild for the culture he worked in at the time.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501021&ObjectID=10362306

"Doug Engelbart invented computer networks, time sharing, graphical user
interfaces, and the mouse--all while driving to work one day in 1951."

Microsoft redesigns iPod packaging

This was going around a while ago. I found it very entertaining in a "it's funny cuz it true" kinda way...

interface that closely mimics a pencil-and-paper method of design

According to FreeDesign, the NSS technology allows FreeDimension to present a curve-based interface to the user that closely mimics a pencil-and-paper method of design, giving designers more freedom in generating 3D shapes for new product, virtual gaming, and entertainment applications.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11985

“Are you my friend? Yes or no?”

This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites. Participants must select who on the system they deem to be ‘Friends.’

Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites

FBI turns on cell phone microphone remotely.

"Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially
vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said
James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely
with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to
transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without
having physical access to the phone.""

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/remotely_eavesd_1.html

FoxTrot comic strip will go to a Sunday-only schedule.

FoxTrot will go to a Sunday-only publication schedule as of Dec. 31, 2006.

"After spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot
cartoons, I think its time I got out of the house and tried some new
things", said Bill Amend.

http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/newsrelease/?view=468

"You-tube for data"

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/05/swivel-to-launch-this-week-communitize-your-data/

"the site allows users to upload data - any data - and display it to other
users visually. The number of page views your website generates. Or a
stock price over time. Weather data. Commodity prices."

"Uploaded data can be rated, commented and bookmared by other users,
helping to sort the interesting (and accurate) wheat from the chaff. And
graphs of data can be embedded into websites."

"You and other users can then compare that data to other data sets to
find possible correlation (or lack thereof). Compare gas prices to
presidential approval ratings or UFO sightings to iPod sales. Track your
page views against weather reports in Silicon Valley. See if something
interesting occurs."

Wait staff scam. er I mean trick.

I found this on reddit.com.

http://www.gradschoolstory.com/archives/90/credibility

"
Experienced waiters in high-end restaurants use a neat trick to gain trust
and credibility with customers. While taking orders, they point out that
whatever was ordered:

isnt that good tonight, may I suggest the (cheaper dish)?

This immediately gives the customer reason to believe that the waiter is
on their side, since he is willing to comment negatively about the
restaurants dishes and point to a better dish that is cheaper (which would
actually have the effect of decreasing his tip).

In the customers eyes the waiters credibility has increased considerably
because of this show of objectivity. Of course, the waiter then goes on to
leverage this increase in credibility by recommending more expensive
wines, appetizers, and deserts - thereby increasing his tip considerably.
"

Ten Guaranteed Ways to Screw Up Any Project

Michael Greer's Ten Guaranteed Ways to Screw Up Any Project

Strange yet Interesting

Lojban?!

What is lojban?

Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken, as well as written, language designed in the hope of removing a large portion of the ambiguity from human communication. It was made well-known by a Scientific American article and references in both science fiction and computer publications. Lojban has been built over five decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters.

melu la xrist. na.enai la pacrux. djica da li'u

Cringely on ISP service.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20061201_001274.html