June 2008
97 posts
2 tags
“This is the most dysfunctional technology relationship I’ve ever had.”
– Twitter / Wil Wheaton … in response to Twitter’s on-again/off-again relationship to its features. I feel his pain, and I’ve only been using Twitter for a couple of months. I don’t remember being very demanding with earlier apps like AIM, but I also don’t feel like this...
Jun 30th
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Jun 30th
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ListenLadies, if you are unmedicated and aggressive,...
Jun 27th
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Is Twitter down for everyone or just me? →
I love Down for Everyone or Just Me? and find it very useful, but right now a search for Twitter.com (which is down) runs for about a minute and then crashes to an error page. Sweet. On the other hand, istwitterdown.com corretly assesses that, yes, Twitter is down. It also wants to sell me a T-shirt. Blerg.
Jun 27th
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Facebook to users: State sex to cut grammar errors →
I fear that this is going to upset more people than it pleases, but you can put me squarely in the “pleased and not much caring about the upset people” camp. The online hangout Facebook is getting more serious about grammar. No more will users see jarringly incorrect declarations such as “Debbie changed their profile picture.” … Late last year, Facebook quietly...
Jun 27th
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Jun 27th
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“You know what would be awesome? A real life Rickroll: you go to a concert,...”
– WWdN: In Exile: moon over a ruined castle Wil Wheaton is a genius. I hope someone with enough pull and an unmarked envelope full of blackmail photos of Rick Astley can make this happen.
Jun 26th
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Jun 25th
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“This time, however, the White House seems to be ignoring the nuclear terrorism...”
– Bush fails to appoint a nuclear terror czar - The Boston Globe What “checks and balances”? I think these legal scholars are missing the fact that simply saying a thing exists does not, at least in this reality, make it so. If the executive branch chooses to ignore the checks and...
Jun 24th
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The Door to Hell →
The Door to Hell, it turns out, is located in Uzbekistan. You know, in case it ever comes up in a game of trivia or something.
Jun 23rd
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WatchWatch
Look! Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls) performing with the Boston Pops! I found this video on Neil Gaiman’s journal. Amanda mentioned something about Neil’s working on the liner notes and a related book for her solo album, but he’s taken the coy route by just posting this video with no additional information. I can’t wait to see what they’re working on. Seems...
Jun 21st
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Jun 20th
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WatchWatch
Steampunk DIY on Vimeo (via Vimeo) As you may know, Merlin Mann is an ardent fan of “steampunk.” “… all brass fittings, too, I would note.” If you’re viewing this at work and you don’t work at home (sad for you) or in a cozy, private office with a closed door, you deserve what you get. Just sayin’.
Jun 20th
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Jun 20th
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YouTube - Screening Room →
You Tube meets the indie film circuit. YouTube features four short films in the Screening Room. Every two weeks, they’re shuffled out and replaced by four new films. Our Time is Up, which is playing right now, is both funny and moving.
Jun 19th
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“Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named...”
– Japan’s robot for lonely men (+video) - 18 Jun 2008 - NZ Herald: Gadgets and electronics news Hold on a sec. She kisses and passes out business cards? EMA is the new Furby. Or, possibly, not.
Jun 19th
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I never knew Google was THIS massive! →
An article comparing the amount of data Google processes in a single day to grains of rice Google. It’s big.
Jun 19th
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WatchWatch
Amanda Palmer prepares to perform with the Boston Pops.
Jun 19th
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“neil gaiman is working with me on the book that is going to accompany the...”
– The Dresden Dolls Diary: celtic scramble brain pudding !!! Amanda Palmer is working with Neil Gaiman.
Jun 19th
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Making Light: AP to negotiate with sham "Media... →
More details on what the “Media Bloggers Association” really is. In case you missed my post yesterday, this is the group with which the Associated Press is supposedly meeting in order to come up with some sort of structure under which bloggers may quote AP articles. Y’know, in case the law and doctorine of fair use isn’t good enough for you.
Jun 18th
3 tags
“If I play my music with my window open, my neighbour might decide to open his...”
– Virgin Media cable says that the record industry is in charge of your router configuration - Boing Boing Is idiocy catching? Do we have a pandemic? Today has just been insanity in terms of online reading about rules and regulations that virtually spit at the consumer/individual. I just … gah!...
Jun 18th
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“Ahead of major public holidays the Russian Air Force often dispatches up to 12...”
– In Russia, sometimes it rains cement | Reuters Wait … Russians have been attempting cloud seeding for 20 years? I could almost (though still not fully) understand attempting to seed or “de-spin” a hurricane or otherwise potentially damaging storm, but seeding clouds purely to keep...
Jun 17th
3 tags
Regarding the AP Quotation Licenses
haides: but they'll get laughed at.
Joey: let's hope so
haides: people who blog have no money for that gibberish. =)
Joey: truth!
Jun 17th
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Jun 17th
4 tags
AP Wants Quote Licenses for Bloggers
The problem with “Freedom of Press” is that it doesn’t make any sense to give a freedom to a particular vocation—and yet that appears to be what the Associated Press seems to think that freedom of press means. In fact, it could be better translated as “freedom of non-libelous, non-slanderous information sharing.” If a member of the traditional press publishes an...
Jun 17th
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Jun 17th
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Is it Christmas? →
See also: http://www.isitchristmas.com/rss.xml
Jun 17th
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The best of Google Street View | NEWS.com.au →
A car on fire, a plane landing at McCarran International (where I was last week), and a guy running down the street in scuba gear are just some of “the best of Google Street View.”
Jun 17th
3 tags
“One thing you can say about the copy of Nicolaus Copernicus’s book “De...”
– Scientific Treasures on the Auction Block at Christie’s - NYTimes.com I think that a Copernicus volume from 1543 would complete my library collection. Let’s see … where to get $1.2 million …
Jun 17th
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“Groucho Marx once said that the trouble with writing a book about yourself is...”
– Steve Coogan/Tristram Shandy, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Jun 16th
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Spore →
I had a brief conversation with Mike Cohn last week at the Better Software Conference about the new iPhone, in which I mentioned that the thing that might end up pushing me into making a purchase would be the release of Spore. In addition to the full game, which will be available on Mac/PC as usual, they’ll be releasing a version for the iPhone. It’s been a while since I’ve been...
Jun 16th
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“My weekend epiphany: The guy who screams “get in the hole” *right*...”
– @thomasleeiv (edit: See also Thomas Lee IV’s Web site, which was hiding when I originally posted this quote.)
Jun 16th
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Jun 15th
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Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Washy Ad Jeffy →
Oh, what I would’ve given for this song when I was in elementary school. Send this to all the kids you know. They’ll need it, and it will save them time and tears.
Jun 14th
2 tags
“Tired of petrol prices rising daily at the pump? A Japanese company has invented...”
– Petrol pricey? Japanese invent car that runs on water | Lifestyle | Reuters OK, so the whole biofuel thing isn’t working out so hot. Too many hungry people to be putting corn in cars. Still, the idea of a car that runs on water … I can’t wait to see the follow-up stories on this...
Jun 13th
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“Tim Roth: Yes! My son today on the way to school said, so can you tell the...”
– Quint’s hilarious interview with Tim Roth and Louis Leterrier! HULK! (Kids are awesome.)
Jun 13th
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Mystery on Fifth Avenue - NYTimes.com →
What a glorious tale! This family bought a new home overlooking Central Park and had it renovated, leaving much up to the discretion of the renovator—who managed to build a game of puzzles into his work. Cyphers, objects that go together to form new objects, a poem in the wall … this is just too damn cool.
Jun 13th
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Jun 13th
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“Being a hedgehog or being a fox is more about attitude and perspective than what...”
– The Fox and the Hedgehog
Jun 10th
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Jun 10th
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“If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I...”
– Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
Jun 8th
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Marvel Comics
I was in the Orange Park Mall Books-a-Million some time in the last two years and overheard the following conversation between a father and son. I wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper, which I just found while sorting out what I need to take to the conference this week and what I can leave here (and what I should've tossed two years ago).
Father: (tries to show his son the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia)
Son: I guess I'm just one of those strange kids ... who don't like Marvel comics. (The son walked over to his mother, who was on the other side of the store.)
Father: (continuing to flip through the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia on his own and speaking to himself) These'll put some lead in your pencil, all right.
Jun 8th
Jun 8th
3 tags
Slashdot | Google Earth Beaten By Autorendering... →
A new technology is used to “convert 60,000 aerial photographs of Stockholm” into a 3D world … a technique that “took less than 8 days (including the photography).” Cool.
Jun 8th
5 tags
Making Light: The power of storytelling...to make... →
The post at this link discusses a Guardian article (you can get there from here) in which Bruce Schneier ponders the post-9/11 fear of photography (and therefore photogs). None of the major terrorist activities or threats over the last decade have involved photography—though it makes for a useful plot point in films. Is our storytelling nature getting in the way of reality (and sanity)? In...
Jun 7th
Jun 7th
1 tag
“Amazon’s international sites, such as amazon.co.jp, amazon.co.uk and...”
– Amazon.com site fails for 2 hours, cause unknown | Technology | Internet | Reuters
Jun 7th
3 tags
Amazon.com Jet Therapy
Haides: there are F-16s and F-15s doing circles around my apartment complex.
Haides: i'm scared.
Joey: must be some tight turns
Haides: heh
Haides: how do you know how big my apartment complex is? Haides: =)
Joey: the current amazon.com holder page, which changes by the second apparently, is a video of your apartment complex
Joey: they're just trying out different things to see what works
Joey: the jets ... that's part of it too
Joey: "what if we uhm ... fly some jets around a random apartment complex?"
Joey: "it's gotta be better than feeding the servers more cocaine"
Joey: "do it."
Jun 6th
1 tag
Down for everyone or just me? →
One cool thing to come out of all the Amazon.com mess is that I’ve discovered Down for Everyone or Just Me? (via Thomas Lee)
Jun 6th
Jun 6th