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Tweets
- Second page of ‘Dinner with Barack’: donation required. Tempted to throw in $5 for a chance to ask for the cash prize. http://t.co/1YfxzrcF
- Barf. If Romney is elected and does this, Barf x2. RT @iowahawkblog: Dinner with Barack Obama: "Void where prohibited" http://t.co/ITxuQVLx
- Been using @ChronoMateApp for over a year. Does everything I’ve ever wanted a timer to do. Works great w/ FreshBooks (http://t.co/JuqzYjUl).
- Cool. @ChronoMateApp, the best project timer for FreshBooks, is now avail. on Mac App Store (or $1/mo @ via FrB store). http://t.co/dMCUhjse
- Had the opportunity to name something a ‘lameness widget’ this morning. For cattle. Grabbed that bull by the horns.
- Two projects to complete and I left my power cord at a client’s office today. Naturally.
- Google killed my favorite @Gmail Lab: Hide Unread Count. http://t.co/Z9ooAC55 (bottom) What does ‘less popular’ mean in real numbers?
- Why would a freelancer join @NASEtweets when they promote crowdsourced design work? http://t.co/PJ8FdjcF @NASEtweets @inspiredMark #antispec
- Sure, let’s protect it. But not as-is: “107 docs, nurses & social workers charged w/ defrauding Medicare for $452mil.” http://t.co/xsUdfYmc
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Posts
- Nazis Everywhere, including in spreadsheets
From www.theatlantic.com:
Nazis Everywhere
As a way of giving back to the community, Goldblog is going to start compiling lists of people who are not Nazis but who have nevertheless been called Nazis in public, as a way of proving the obvious point, which is that people reaching for insults should find something better than Nazi.
After reading “Nazis Everywhere,” a blog post by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly (excerpt below), I did a few Google searches to see how many results the names in his article would have when paired with a Nazi-related term. I got a bit carried away and ended up putting the results in a Google spreadsheet (suitably enough). I thought I’d throw together a quick spreadsheet showing the search result count for each name he included when a Nazi-related term is part of the search. It is somehow reassuring that a search for “hitler nazi” still comes out on top of all the others by a wide margin. I used what I deemed to be the most relevant Nazi-related term, and in several uncertain cases, the term that provided the highest number of results. People, groups, and subjects that have a party affiliation are colored accordingly. There are a few charts in separate sheets (see tabs at the bottom) that help compare the results. Far from complete and yes, unscientific!
- Thanks, Abe.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of StateThanks to Dan Foster at NRO, from whom I ripped off this idea (original source). Hey, Lincoln belongs to all of us, right? Happy Thanksgiving.
- TSA thugs don't know their own rules; detain man for taking photos
I highly recommend reading this whole post (originally linked by @daringfireball on Twitter). Enough with these thugs. Let’s disband the #TSA and outsource airport security to Israel already.
From erratasec.blogspot.com:Today, I was detained by the TSA for about 30 minutes for taking pictures while going through security. Taking pictures is perfectly legal.TSA: You can’t take pictures in this area.
Me: Well, I read the TSA guidelines on the web a few months ago, and they clearly state that people can take pictures in this area.
TSA: You can’t take pictures in this area.
Me: Can you show me the rules that say that I cannot?TSA: (Nodding over to the main desk) They are checking on that now.TSA: You have to show us your pictures and delete them.
Me: I’m not going to delete my pictures.TSA: Show us the pictures you took.
Me: If I unlock my phone, I want assurances that you will give me the chance to relock it before you take it from my control.
TSA: We can’t give you any promises.Me: So I’m not going to unlock my phone.Q: When is your flight?
A: 4:30 (in roughly two hours)The implied issue was that if I didn’t comply with their demands, they could detain me long enough to miss my flight. - Who formats their CSS this way?
I know some people prefer single-line CSS formatting. It’s horribly unreadable in my opinion, but okay, to each their own. Throwing tabs into the mix, and a varying number of tabs at that, makes it pretty clear there’s a masochist at the keyboard. As if single-line wasn’t bad enough, look at the wrapping nightmare this creates. How much time is wasted trying (and failing, here) to line up the declaration blocks?
And I do know who formats their CSS this way, but it wouldn’t be nice to say, now, would it?
Originally posted on skitch.com.
- “The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy…” 35 years later
My fascination with the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald goes back as far as I can remember. It sank just a month after I was born. Like most people who know about the disaster, it was Gordon Lightfoot’s song that first made me aware of it, probably playing on a bad AM radio in my parents’ car in the early ’80s. Trips to Duluth — still one of my favorite cities after traveling far from Minnesota — always had to include a visit to the maritime museum there, and I could have looked at the Fitzgerald exhibits all day. But as nostalgic as it is to think back on this childhood fascination, I was reminded by one of the pages linked below that this wasn’t just a mysterious calamity that became a romantic ballad. It was a tragic loss for 29 families who have been without one of their members for 35 years now.
Photo source: www.mhsd.orgFrom cimss.ssec.wisc.edu:
On November 10, 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. All 29 crew members died. At the time, it was the worst shipping disaster on the Great Lakes in 11 years.
Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976, Moose Music, Ltd.) is a tribute to this ship wreck and the men who lost their lives. Some of the lyrics of the song are given below along with descriptions of related events.
From ssefo.com
Why has the sinking become such a fascination of so many people? Surely the mystery has contributed to this, but for me, the stories of the twenty-nine men lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald tell an even greater story: the value of family. A ship was not the only loss in 1975. Twenty-nine families mourned the loss of a loved one, and the memories of their loved ones will never be forgotten.
From www.thestar.com:
Gordon Lightfoot has changed the lyric of his 1976 hit, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, to remove the implication that human error played a part.
- Was I disenfranchised? Or does it just feel like it?
I take voting very seriously. It’s the sacred right of every citizen living in a democratic society. As an American living abroad, I made sure to request a ballot well in advance of the election and sent it in with plenty of time before the deadline. So imagine my surprise when I found out I could have voted in more races if I had put it off until the last minute. Since moving to Latvia 2.5 years ago I have only been able to vote in federal races — president and U.S. House & Senate. Twelve days ago I got an email from a “@state.gov” email address saying I could use electronic voting to vote a full ballot including federal, state, and local races. This was not an option when I visited http://www.fvap.gov/ weeks before. The last line of the email: “If you have already received, voted, and returned your state ballot, you should not participate in this project.” How is this fair? I was penalized, and you could even say disenfranchised, for getting my ballot in early. I’m not too worried about who becomes the next Soil and Water Supervisor in my county, but there are a number of very close races on the state level and I would have liked very much to vote in them. As it is, I got to vote in one race — for a U.S. House seat. And it wasn’t even close.
- True story: This procrastination article was so good I decided to check my email in the middle of reading it.
This is one of the best articles on procrastination I’ve ever read. Read the whole thing… unless you’re one of those mutants who doesn’t procrastinate.
From youarenotsosmart.com:You keep promising yourself this will be the year you do all these things. You know your life would improve if you would just buckle down and put forth the effort.
You can try to fight it back. You can buy a daily planner and a to-do list application for your phone. You can write yourself notes and fill out schedules. You can become a productivity junkie surrounded by instruments to make life more efficient, but these tools alone will not help, because the problem isn’t you are a bad manager of your time – you are a bad tactician in the war inside your brain.
- Coming to a SkyMall near you… GoateeSaver.
The fact that this exists made my bearded (but not goateed) jaw drop. Then I read the copy and watched the video. And that mouthpiece… Wow.
From www.goateesaver.com:
It reflects your personality. It declares your individuality. Your goatee is much more than just facial hair, your goatee style helps fashion your identity. We understand its importance to you. That’s why we created the GoateeSaver shaving template, the innovative grooming tool designed to give you the perfect goatee every time you shave.
- Facebook apps are sharing personal info, but is Facebook making it harder to remove them?
After reading yet another article about privacy issues with Facebook apps, I was planning to eliminate unused apps from my account and check the privacy settings and policies of others. After 5 minutes of searching for my applications, I checked the Facebook help pages — which weren’t much help, as you can see here. Would Facebook intentionally make apps more difficult to remove or did someone screw up here? I’m not one to assume the worst, but as this page seems increasingly difficult to find with every update to their user interface, I’m starting to wonder. Or am I just missing the not-so-obvious new location of the application settings link?
From arstechnica.com:If you use Facebook but don’t want your personal information leaked all over the Web, you had better make sure you don’t use any of Facebook’s most popular apps. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, “tens of millions” of apps on Facebook transmit varying amounts of identifying information to their own personal ad servers, even in cases when users’ profiles were set to completely private.
- Bower birds, optical illusions, and the joy of hypertext
Every once in a while, interesting subjects coincide in such a way that brings me back to the early days of the Web as we know it. BoingBoing’s post today about the male Bower bird got me started. The order of the images at BoingBoing emphasized the optical illusion, and at first I followed the Ames Room link to read more about that at Wikipedia. Fascinating stuff. When I went back to finish reading the BoingBoing post, I found the footnote link to the original Creature Cast article (a better read, in my opinion; see excerpt below). The emphasis there was on the bird first, then the optical illusion. A subtle distinction, but this difference got me interested in the bird itself, whose peculiarities extend beyond the already amazing ability to construct optical illusions to fool “the ladies.” Again at BoingBoing, a National Geographic article and photo gallery linked in the comments tell more of this color-crazy architect of a bird.
Clicking through page after page and site after site is such an everyday experience that it has become mundane. A decade or more of high school graduates don’t remember the days before little bits of underlined text took us from one page, document, server, or continent to another. But somehow tonight, as each link led to something more fascinating, I was reminded of those early days of surfing with Mosaic, when the act of serendipitous discovery was just beginning to come to the computer. Ah, geek memories.From creaturecast.org:Male bower birds boast an architectural prowess, it is true. They also have a discerning eye when it comes to the color palette for their homes. It turns out that, if that weren’t enough, these birds also use forced perspective, arranging stones in their court in size order to create an optical illusion for the female who is shopping around for a mate.
The males are creating variation of an Ames room, sort of like this one:
The trick in this picture is that the room is actually much deeper and taller on the left side, and so the leftmost suited guy looks really tiny, whereas the suit on the right is standing closer downstage, on the smaller side of the irregularly shaped room, which makes him look huge.
Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.” He [a “prosperous publisher” -Todd] said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. “Yes, there are,” I retorted, “and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can’t act believe in themselves; and debtors who won’t pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.
If you drive an old car, you can’t put unleaded fuel in it, there is nowhere to fit a stereo, you can’t put in a satnav or even perhaps have disc brakes. Yet, people who use the web equivalent of such a car think that they can have all the latest innovations working in their IE6. Ten years in internet time is about 50 years in car technology terms when talking about development. If they want to stay ahead they will have to instruct their IT department to get their fingers out and update to a modern browser.
‘ornette,’ from websites do NOT have to look the same! - SitePoint ForumsMichael Yon, a former Special Forces soldier and embedded reporter/photographer in Iraq and Afghanistan, has written some excellent reports based on his experiences with American soldiers on the ground (see Little Girl and Gates of Fire). He provides perspective that others who don’t venture out on missions with the troops can’t offer. He posted this snapshot of a soldier to his Facebook page for the soldier’s wife — who responded in the comments. You don’t see many ‘mainstream’ reporters connecting with the soldiers in this way.
- Did Twitter ignore user feedback?
[This won’t make much sense to people who don’t use Twitter. If you do, you probably know that Twitter made a significant change to their service on Tuesday (May 12) by removing a setting that allowed users to choose which “@ replies” appeared in their stream. This is a response to that change. @chrismessina posted screenshots showing the change (see his first comment, too). Also, this response to the change makes some good points.]
From the Twitter blog:
This morning we received lots of great info about the replies setting we changed yesterday. Folks loved this feature because it allowed them to discover new people and participate serendipitously in various conversations. The problem with the setting was that it didn’t scale and even if we rebuilt it, the feature was blunt. It was confusing and caused a sense of inconsistency. We felt we could do much better. [emphasis added — Todd]
Perhaps, but when that setting has been around as long as @ replies, you could also do better than ripping it away from a lot of users who enjoyed it the way it was. You might be able to shrug and say, “Well, we had no way of knowing how strongly some people felt about this setting.” Balderdash. Presumably you can determine how many users of your own service have chosen “all @ replies” as their preference. And just as importantly, you already asked users for their opinion on this subject in a blog post a year ago. The response was not ambiguous. While 66 comments is not a significant percentage of Twitter users, the fact that most if not all comments were in favor of keeping the setting says a lot. Why was this ignored a year later?
So here’s what we’re planning to do. First, we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account. This will bring back some serendipity and discovery and we can do this very soon.
If I’m not mistaken, this means all users will now see all replies with the seemingly arbitrary distinction of having been manually addressed to a particular user. Won’t this just upset everyone who wasn’t upset by your last change? I’m curious how this is somehow more scalable than just leaving the setting as it was and perhaps changing the default to “@ replies to the people I’m following” if that’s not what it already was.
And so I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever faced: I walked away from the licensing deals. They had become too complex for a site founded on simplicity, too restrictive and hostile to continue to innovate the way I wanted to. They’d already taken so much attention away from development that I started to question my own motivations. I didn’t get into this to build a big company as fast as I could no matter what the cost, I got into this to make something simple and beautiful for people who love music, and I plan to continue doing that. As promised, the site is coming back, but not as you’ve known. I’m taking a feature that was in development in the early stages and making it the new central focus. Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands…
Muxtape
Another sad story of innovation being quashed by a music industry stuck in thestoneLP-age. Good luck with the new incarnation, Justin, but it just won’t be the same.The MP3 fools the ear by eliminating the least essential parts of a music file…To create MP3 [Karl-Heinz] Brandenberg had to appreciate how the human ear perceives sound. A key assist in this effort came from Suzanne Vega. ‘I was ready to fine-tune my compression algorithm,’ Brandenberg recalls. ‘Somewhere down the corridor a radio was playing “Tom’s Diner.” I was electrified. I knew it would be nearly impossible to compress this warm a cappella voice.’” So Mr. Brandenberg gets a copy of the song, and puts it through the newly created MP3. But instead of the “warm human voice” there are monstrous distortions, as though the Exorcist has somehow gotten into the system, shadowing every phrase.
- Converting an MP3 to audiobook format
You have an audiobook in MP3 format, perhaps of the public domain variety. Notice how your player doesn’t remember where you left off? So annoying. Here’s a quick and easy way to convert such MP3s into an audiobook format that won’t drive you batty. Assumptions: You know your way around iTunes and your computer’s file system.
- Import the MP3 file into iTunes.
- Find the audiobook in your library. At this point you may want to make sure the title is in the track name, not just the album name as it sometimes is. Might as well change the genre to “Audiobook” while you’re at it.
- Right-click the track and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” Churn, churn, ploop! Duplicate track.
- Right-click one of the two versions of your audiobook and select “Show in Finder.”†
- Keep that window open and return to iTunes. Delete both files and confirm, but be sure to click the “Keep Files” button.
- Go back to the Finder/Explorer window showing the files. Delete the one with the .mp3 extension.
- Change the extension on the remaining file from .m4a to .m4b.
- Import the file back into iTunes.
Your audiobook should now show up under, yes, Audiobooks in your iTunes Library. Enjoy the bookmarky goodness!
* That’s Control-click for you Mac users without a right mouse button, but you should know that by now. Oh, and get a decent mouse, already.
† Or “Show in Explorer” for Windows, I imagine. Not really interested enough to find out. People still use Windows?
Can we just NOT fight with Pakistan? They have nuclear weapons & Islamic militant schools that churn out suicide bombers.
Lorna Li on Twitter
Not that we should declare war on Pakistan itself, but all of the above look like reasons for taking on the militants there. Or is better to just let them keep doing their blow-people-up-in-the-name-of-Allah thing? To each their own, right?I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
John McCain, May 25, 2006 (via hotair.com) Note the date!
I’m also given to understand that the rules of science begin to bend and even break at the extremes of the universe’s scale. Down where everything is subatomic-sized, things tend to be a bit random with mesons, leptons, quarks, brilligs, slithy toves, etc., subjected to Strong Force, Weak Force, Force of Habit, and so on. Meanwhile, in the farthest reaches of outer space, matter, antimatter, dark matter, and whatsamatter are tripping over string theory and falling into black holes. God is not like that. He’s famously there in the details, and He is the big picture.
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Photos
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Posts
- May 08, 12
Free multi-platform graphical diff tool. Liking it on Mac so far.
- May 03, 12
A very colorful theme for TextMate (also compatible with Sublime Text, my preferred editor).
- Apr 19, 12
- Apr 19, 12
- Apr 03, 12
- Mar 27, 12
- Mar 13, 12
A good metaphor for media corporations' response to piracy.
- Mar 07, 12
A great rant on the state of mobile developer relations from the big vendors of mobile devices.
- Mar 03, 12
Interesting... a reasonably priced animating tool that makes use of HTML5, CSS3, and Canvas. Something like this could make Adobe's efforts in the area too little, too late — or at least provide cheaper alternative.
- Feb 27, 12
A good learning resource for people just getting started in web design and development (at $25-49/mo, a bit pricey compared to other resources, but perhaps worth it).
- Feb 26, 12
A good resource for those learning how to use the new elements in HTML5.
- Feb 23, 12
- Feb 20, 12
Useful for converting an Apple vCard file into an LDIF or CSV file. Select a group of contacts in Address Book and drag to the desktop first, which creates a group vCard file.
- Feb 13, 12
I can't believe I didn't already have this bookmarked. Great post but be sure to read all the updates.
- Feb 10, 12
A complete list of US bailout recipients. Your tax dollars at work!
- Jan 19, 12
SOPA/PIPA opposition surges in Congress. Time to jump ship, Senator @AlFranken.
- Jan 19, 12
I really, really, really hope Dwolla can take a big bite out of PayPal's monopoly pie.
- Jan 17, 12
- Jan 16, 12
My dream office will have a height-adjustable desk.
- Jan 16, 12
Documentary on mash-up media and 'piracy' (recommended by @paulrouget).
- Jan 13, 12
"If you want to defend Samsung, don’t do it by arguing that they don’t copy Apple. Go with the 'good artists copy, great artists steal' argument."
- Jan 13, 12
Love this: "So Jony Ive leads the design team at the two most-profitable phone makers. Impressive."
- Jan 13, 12
Testimonials from users of Lumosity. Pretty impressive.
- Jan 12, 12
One of the better SOPA/PIPA FAQs I've seen. Read up!
- Jan 11, 12
A good list of places to learn stuff online.
- Jan 06, 12
Very interesting video experiments... and I better not say more than that!
- Jan 06, 12
Possibly the best implementation of micropayments yet (although that's not saying much). Will have to watch this one.
- Jan 05, 12
A substitute for Lorem Ipsum that pulls sample copy from a Twitter feed. Nice idea, though I'd like the ability to add custom filters.
