Flutterby™! From 2010-04-01 to 2010-04-30

It's been a VisualStudio and Visual C++ day.

error C2664: 'void System::Drawing::Drawing2D::Matrix::TransformVectors(cli::array<type> ^)' : cannot convert parameter 1 from 'cli::array<type> ^' to 'cli::array<type> ^'

This would suck far far less if Visual C++ bore more than a passing resemblance to C++, or I had the technology that I'm sure Microsoft has that would let me more easily convert C# to C++, or probably even if I were developing on a more recent version of VisualStudio.

But, sadly, no. It just sucks lots.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]

Awesome link: From Shawn (who, I think, got it from Felicia Day), Teal and Orange: Hollywood please stop the madness!

Those of you who watch a lot of Hollywood movies may have noticed a certain trend that has consumed the industry in the last few years. It is one of the most insidious and heinous practices that has ever overwhelmed the industry. Am I talking about the lack of good scripts? Do I speak of the dependency of a few mega-blockbuster hits to save the studios each year, or of the endless sequels and television retreads? No, I am talking about something much more dangerous, much deadlier to the health of cinema.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Health Movies Television ]

Summer: When it's nice enough outside that you only wear shorts because you need pockets.

I'm working from home today.. actually just babysitting systems after some 16+ hour days. Chilling, working on the house.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Real Estate ]

On Twitter, Heather Corinna expressed amusement that the French had a term for "technical virgin" dating from roughly 1900, "demi vierges". This perked up Columbine who, of course, knew that, but who then posted this page of cool Raphael Kirchner illustrations that popped up when searching for the phrase.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

For the most part, April 1 is a day of eyerolling and not clicking on links because I can't believe anything and not nearly as many people are funny as think they are. An exception that got an audible laugh from me: Top Shelf Announces "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1988". I'd totally read that (Via Mefi).

Comedy is hard, dying is easy dept: Using home made vegetable dyes for Easter eggs

[ related topics: Food ]

Just ordered 10 lbs of green beans from Mama's Kona Coffee, because my friend Sheri recommended them as good folks. Will keep you informed when I roast 'em.

Clay Shirky points out the obvious in The Collapse of Complex Business Models, but it's good to be reminded of a few things:

The ‘and them some’ is what causes the trouble. Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond. In retrospect, this can seem mystifying. Why didn’t these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? The answer Tainter gives is the simplest one: When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Council condemned over Britain's shortest cycle lane. Thanks, Shadow.

[ related topics: Current Events Pedal Power Bicycling ]

What a great two days! You know how the good bits of a conference are hanging out in the halls, talking with people about the cool stuff they're doing, sharing information and suggestions and brain power? That was WhereCamp 2010, except that instead of being in the halls that was what was happening in the rooms.

And I'm not even much of a geography nerd. Thanks to Eric for dragging me down there, Anselm Hook for putting the whole thing together, the folks from Google for the facilities and the food (which was the dominant cost), USGS, O'Reilly, Urban Mapping, geographic data and services, Four Square, whom you know, Krillion, location based shopping search, SimpleGeo, helping you build your geolocation infrastructure, Quova, geolocation from IP addresses and other stuff, makerlab, a Portland Oregon incubator space, Waze, crowd-sourced real-time traffic information and maps, Bing, the searcn engine that wants to be Google, ESRI, makers of the mapping software everyone uses if they can afford it, pii2010, August 17-19 in Seattle, on privacy, identity and innovation.

First guy I talked to? Flying small electric UAVs over Malaysia and neighboring countries to collect high quality aerial imagery without cloud cover. What sort of applications might this have? Well, imagine that you've got towns built out over shallow bays, and you're a post office, trying to figure out how best to deliver mail to these addresses.

I've got gobs of notes to go through, and various people to continue discussions with. One more note now, though: Sunday morning, Jeff, of Cartagen Knitter fame among other things, was trying to figure out how to fly his trash bag balloons in a little more wind than he was used to, so we sat down to try to build a lighter than air kite to capture some additional aerial images of the 1300 Crittenden portion of Google's campus. Here are some pictures from Jeff Warren's photo stream of our efforts on "Black Knight 1".

[ related topics: Photography Software Engineering Maps and Mapping Conferences ]

One of the discussions at WhereCamp was led by the guy behind Green Goose. He's wondering what sort of fun things you could do with lots of cheap sensors that are location aware only in that there are receivers that they transmit (blind) to, so you could pick up "this object is being manipulated at your home", but I'm intrigued enough to want to buy their kit when it ships.

Other chance meeting at WhereCamp: After years and years of reading each other's blogs, I finally met Aaron Cope!

Howl!

"If you've already got an iPhone, a lot will be familiar to you on the iPad. The same touchscreen technology, the same apps... and just like the iPhone, you can't make calls with it." -Stephen Colbert

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor iPhone ]

Collateral Murder.com presents a WikiLeaks video of a U.S. gunship mowing down Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters photographers. On the video we can hear the crew of the helicopter identify what are obviously a dangling camera strap and a zoom lens as weapons.

I haven't wanted to watch further, but apparently they then shoot up the responding ambulance.

In other news, and in another incident In Afghanistan U.S. Special Forces apparently cut bullets out of bodies in order to cover up shootings outside the rules of engagement, similar article here.

[ related topics: Photography Current Events Guns Video War Aviation - Helicopters ]

Dan asked me to repost this from a converation about iPhones, Androids and my new Nokia n900.

I'm 90 minutes into it and impressed. Missing some of the polish the iPhone has in some ways, and in other ways, it's like the iPhone grown up.

In fact my take so far:

iPhone - Is a 17 year old very cute girl with lots of polish and no depth.. She's been to finishing school, but never left town, and it's technically illegal to __ with her.Jailbreaking =~ Jailbait.

Android - 21 year old woman, still experimenting with her self image and not sure who or what she is yet. A lot of fun to play with, but still learning the ropes.

n900 - 32 year old woman, missing some teenage cuteness, but you are impressed with the total package. She's dressed for business as well as a night out, showing just enough skin and lace to say "play with me", implying: "I'll teach you a few tricks".

[ related topics: Children and growing up Invention and Design Education Gambling iPhone ]

Okay, I played with an iPad for a few minutes. Apple is a media facilitation company, and viewed in that light the iPad delivers brilliantly.

It is not a replacement for the Kindle. It's a sucky e-reader, too slipper to read with one hand (while petting the cat, you perverts) and too heavy to read lying down. But if you're talking about coffee table books, then The Elements is amazing and achieves things the paper version couldn't.

As predicted, it's not a laptop or a replacement for a netbook. Typing on the screen doesn't really work. As a web device, it's a more sharable browser and viewer, I can look up something and then pass it across the table, rather than emailing a URL to the person across from me.

And, yes, it's totally proprietary and locked in. I can buy an Always Innovating Touch Book and it'd be a kit. It has more possibilities than the iPad. Hell, it probably runs Flash, so it probably already has a better web browsing experience. But the iPad has already sold more copies, and has already sold more to the sort of people who are likely to buy software I develop. Furthermore, I don't need a business infrastructure to set that up; Apple's already willing to take money, distribute the app, and cut the check.

The iPad is as much a game changer as the iPhone was. My next phone probably won't be an iPhone. My second tablet probably won't be an iPad. My first one probably will be, and I'll probably buy it within a month or so.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Games Software Engineering Journalism and Media iPhone ]

Alien vs Pooh.

Forklift safety.

[ related topics: Movies ]

It used to taught to Chicago journalists that you had to state who, what, where, when, why, how and Mayor Daley in the first paragraph. Even now, sometimes you find a paragraph that gets most of that right (not the Mayor Daley part), yet still sums up the sadness of some man's existance. From the Chicago Tribune:

"A man who dashed into a downtown subway after allegedly robbing a bank Tuesday — only to have a red dye pack explode in his pants pocket — was wearing a home monitoring device on his left ankle and was on parole for robbing a Loop Starbucks, police said."

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Public Transportation ]

Ogle Earth: In GIS as in economics, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing (Zimbabwe edition). Over at Marginal Revolution there was a blog post that looked at a Center for Global Development look at the effects of land reform in Zimbabwe. Stefan Greens noticed that the differences in the imagery were due to different image processing, but the underlying satellite images were most likely the same.

A recurring theme at WhereCamp was that map data is produced for a use, and understanding that use is necessary to know what sort of information to present in the map, and in the processing of the original source data into the final map. This is a very difficult process, and somewhere in the chain of data that between someone deciding that the Google Earth imagery would be more useful if it were processed differently and someone thinking that the processing of those images was constant and that quantity of green was indicative of vegetation, there was a breakdown.

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping Economics ]

A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health:

...Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded.

Huffington Post leaping to conclusions here, via Straus Organic.

[ related topics: Health Physiology ]

I have spent the last two+ weeks wrangling C# into "Visual C++", in quotes because it bears only a passing resemblance to C++. I've been cursing Microsoft's name up, down and sideways, for the fact that they've done everything they possibly can to lock you into their development environment.

Apple's gone further. They've encoded that into their developer agreement for the iPad and iPhone. Rafe elaborates: Apple hates cross-compilers.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Microsoft iPhone ]

Tom Negrino's going in for surgery today:

Oh, I finished writing my part of our Dreamweaver book, so it's done. A friend tells me that after this, I should teach a community college writing class, and when some kid whines about his deadlines, I should lean in, and patiently explain to him that I've had a heart attack, and I've had cancer, and I still made my freaking deadlines both times. Punk.

[ related topics: Books Health Writing Community Education ]

I picked this up through an internal discussion board at work and thought it was one of the most awesome things I'd heard in a long time.

A Thriving Denmark-Based Software Company Only Hires People With Autism

Thorkill Sonne, who founded Specilisterne in Copenhagen, believes that everyone does not have to fit in socially-accepted little boxes. He means to change the nature of that box completely. He is turning disability on its head, hiring his employees because of their ability.

It's nice to see somebody, somewhere recognizing that a) we're not all interchangeable cogs, and b) everybody is capable of doing something well enough to pay them for it.

[ related topics: Business Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Episode 112 (yes, I'm running about a month behind) of FLOSS Weekly introduced me to Amahi last week - a simple home server the team refers to as an HDA (Home Digital Assistant). In between all the new-home projects that have been keeping me busy, I've been trying to keep my eyes open for products to help address our future media-serving needs. Amahi has now taken the number one spot on my list of solutions to evaluate.

Rather than a full distribution, it installs on top of Fedora (an Ubuntu package is under development) where it provides its own 1-click app install system. A list of available, and upcoming, apps is on the website.

[ related topics: Free Software Technology and Culture Open Source Linux ]

It's actually just a recursive painting but it's kinda of fun. http://www.thegreenguide.com/infinite-photograph

[ related topics: Photography ]

GiggleOTD: Daniel Renfer posited:

Breaking News: After seeing what can be done now with web applications, Apple bans HTML on the iPhone.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Current Events iPhone ]

If you're anywhere near the wide-eyed civic boosters for your town, you've probably heard a lot of buzz about Google's Fiber Initiative. I know Chattanooga has fiber courtesy of the EPB, at least in some areas, but you should probably build that fiber network yourself.

Relatedly, Californians will be asked to vote on Prop 16, an PG&E sponsored initiative that lessens or removes the ability of local towns to set up and manage their own power grids. It's easy to scoff at the ability of local government to run infrastructure, but in our neck of the woods the town of Windsor has their own electric distribution company, and they have reliability and prices that the rest of us in the Marin and Sonoma area can only dream of.

[ related topics: broadband Bay Area Chattanooga ]

Sink Positive is a sink top for your toilet tank that allows the bathroom greywater to be recaptured and used for flushing. I'm a bit skeptical that keeping greywater in a toilet tank is a good idea, there's lots of opportunities for beasties to grow in that, but I'm intrigued.

Green Tea Press has a number of free computer books, which will make a good test case for the iPad as an ebook reader, even though they're not in Apple's book reader format and I'd have to read them with a net connection.

Speaking of which, I got an iPad yesterday, and... well... I don't think Apple's there yet. I like the form factor, but Safari is as annoying as it is on the iPhone (where it's a marvel, but not a real web browsing experience), and I haven't found that killer app yet. May yet write it, but...

I'm looking forward to the Google Android pad, and since someone else bought the iPad for me, I'm also still interested in the Always Innovating Touch Book.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books iPhone ]

Brilliance: HTTP status codes mapped to area codes. Via Mark Hershberger.

Rafe fact-checks a fast-food infographic that's been floating around.

[ related topics: Food ]

Scott Rosenberg has some worthwhile notes on the debates over why newspaper comments suck: Newspaper comments: Forget anonymity! The problem is management

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

Marathon Robotics has introduced a system based on Segways to help train snipers. PDF of the press release, direct link to a YouTube video

Personally, I'm just all giggly at the prospect of us training snipers to use against Segway riders. That's military spending I can get behind.

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Sports Machinery Trains Segway/Ginger/IT Video ]

Okay, so I now have an iPad. It is, indeed, a big iPhone on which you can't make calls either, but it does have some cool features. It also falls short in many ways.

Audio: Out speakers in the bottom. Great, except how do you watch video? In landscape mode. So all the audio comes out one side. "No problem", you say, "I'll just wear headphones", except that the whole thing that makes this device compelling is its use in social situations. Are the three of you looking at the device going to wear headphones? Also, the sound changes dramatically if it's held up versus when it's lying on a desk.

A number of people have been justifying Apple's smackdown on Adobe and Flash by saying it's good if people are forced to develop directly to the iPhone platform because they'll make their apps feel native to the device. Yes, the iPad has a gazillion FarmVille rip-offs and variants, and it has Flight Control, but many of the subtlest and most maddening games exist in the Flash world, and there doesn't seem to be a Taberinos for the iPad.

Light Table 2 gives an interesting view of what multi-touch can do, the idea of "Oh, I can't multi-select to drag, but I do have 10 fingers" is kinda cool. Unfortunately, it's not terribly stable, and the only output is sending a bitmap. How about exporting the metadata so that we could do something useful?

Which brings me to: I've only got the 16 gig version, but with more memory it could make a really really cool digital picture frame if I could get my entire photo library on there and organized in some way so that I could take it to family gatherings and say "here's our trip to...". Unfortunately, WiFi isn't universal, so it has to be stored on the device, and... well... maybe an opportunity is making a good full-featured photo album. If that doesn't step on Apple's iPhoto domain too heavily...

I haven't tried to read an ebook on it yet, although I have browsed The Elements from Touch Press, and it's clearly the sort of book this thing was built for: A multimedia coffee table experience.

Star Walk isn't quite that, but with the compass and the accelerometers it gives the experience of a star map that my iPhone 3G didn't, but the 3GS probably does.

Others have noted that the case suffers from the same "too slick" issue of the iPhone, and that glass screen scares me silly.

I still think it's a big shift in how people will relate to computers and computing, and I'll be happy to develop for it, but I'm also looking forward to the wePad, Google's rumoured Android device, and whatever else comes out. This is a harbinger of things to come, but it's not the "holy crap" revolution I was expecting.

Yet.

Oh, and when is Apple going to either let a real browser on this device or fix mobile Safari?

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Music Games Space & Astronomy Sociology Video iPhone ]

Web testing with HTTP::Recorder. Set it up as a proxy, it writes a WWW::Mechanize script for you.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source ]

250 years of the industrial revolution have led us to this? The Rev. Hasty alerted me to Evil Eye: Microvision SHOWWX as a Face Tracking Eyeball, or a web cam doing face tracking, and a laser pico projector pointed inside a frosted globe from a bathroom light fixture.

[ related topics: Cool Technology ]

"Mark Fiore can win a Pulitzer Prize, but he can’t get his iPhone cartoon app past Apple’s satire police."

[ related topics: Apple Computer Free Speech iPhone ]

Mystery fact of the week: in Brooklyn, every third car has North Carolina license plates.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Automobiles New York ]

Chronicle of Higher Education looks at a study in Journal of Marketing Communications that suggests that men with beards are perceived as more trustworthy.

This comes Via GOOD, which asks:

Furthermore, if men can grow facial hair and are considered more credible because of it, what's the female equivalent? Or dare I even ask?

Whole thing via Ünnecessary Ümlaut.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Consumerism and advertising Marketing Education ]

Went down to Fresno this weekend to visit Charlene's family. The original plan was that I'd take the train home yesterday evening, but on Friday afternoon I took out my wallet to buy my ticket, printed out the receipt with the magic codes on it, but left my wallet sitting in front of my monitor. So, come Sunday, Amtrak wouldn't let me on the train without ID.

I could fly (granted I'd have to spend some extra time in interview and search, but I could), but they wouldn't let me on a train. Apparently they were concerned that I'd hijack it and drive it into a building or something.

Amtrak sucks. But what sucks more is that the terrorists really have won. I grew up with stories of the Soviets and needing papers to travel and having regular identity checks and... well... we've got that. People can complain all they want about taxes and government services turning us socialist, but the real thing we've gotten in common with the Soviet system is a huge bureaucratic infrastructure dedicated to bullshit paperwork.

So Charlene's arranged to borrow cars while she's down there, I drove back last night, and will drive down next Friday to pick her up, then we'll race back early Saturday morning to catch the Butter & Eggs day festivities (Freudian slip: Originally typed "Bugger & Eggs", and, no, really, I don't want to know).

Expecting that I'd have some time to do some code hacking on the train, I didn't bring my MP3 player, so on the drive back I was listening to To The Best of Our Knowledge (and various Christian stations, this is the Central Valley after all, but after I heard Senator Orrin Hatch pressure Attorney General Eric Holder to ignore that pesky First Amendment, my blood pressure was too high to continue there). Among other segments, they had an interview with New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis. Writing up a full critique would require reading more of her stuff, which I'm unwilling to do, but: wow. Reinforces my notion that the NYT publishes writers who use long words without knowing what they mean in order to impress readers who don't know what they mean either.

[ related topics: Politics moron Sociology Writing Law Civil Liberties Pop Culture Trains Public Transportation Government ]

There's a general feeling that Apple's put the kibosh on Flash on the iPhone and iPad because it wants to force developers into committing to the platform. I haven't done much cross-platform (OS/X to iPhone/iPad stuff) yet, but JWZ rants a bit about some of the wankery in the differences between those two platforms, adding fuel to the "Apple wants to sew up this platform by making it hard to port" theories.

Having had it for a few more days, I've played a bit with JavaScript and the <canvas> element, not fast enough to do much interesting stuff, not compatible enough to take many of the apps I'd most like to use straight across, so it looks like developing straight Objective-C is the strongest way to go. Price for ebooks doesn't seem to be any cheaper than paper, and I can't pass them along to anyone else. Further, at least with the Amazon apps I can read the ebooks on my iPhone and have the possibility for other apps, and the iPad feels a bit too large for reading paperbacks. So it's really not a decent ebook reader, and as a web browser, despite my hopes for a shareable experience, it's got most of the flaws of the iPhone browser.

I was hoping for the game changer, and this may be the Palm of that space (assuming that the Windows tablets were the Newton), but it's not yet the iPhone of it.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Games Microsoft iPhone ]

And it's only Monday: "Douglas Spink, Ex-Cocaine Smuggler, Charged With Running Bestiality Farm for Tourists"

[ related topics: Drugs Sports Embedded Devices Dogs ]

It's a hummingbird feeder you wear on your face.

Mark VandeWettering: Shame On You: An Open Letter To Gizmodo. Many of you have heard that Gizmodo paid $5k for what's apparently a next generation iPhone prototype that was allegedly left in a bar by an Apple engineer. Mark expresses nicely some concerns about the questionable ethics of the whole affair.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Ethics iPhone ]

I've been looking for the words to express this for years: This post over at The Technium contained this QOTD:

"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -- Clay Shirky

[ related topics: Quotes ]

The OK Cupid blog keeps coming up with some great insights into sociology. Worth reading: The Democrats Are Doomed, or How A ‘Big Tent’ Can Be Too Big.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

ePub Bud is a site for publishing free children's books, in the format that the iPad uses. Their about page gives the background (Thanks, Hanan Cohen).

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

Saw Kick-Ass last night. It did, indeed. The script took it in places that weren't always obvious, the direction never made me squirm uncomfortably the way that over the top violence sometimes can (I'm remembering the bank scene in The Matrix where I very much felt "I'm uncomfortable that I'm enjoying this").

A few days ago, in response to some of the reviews of Kick-Ass, I observed that

Asking "but what is it satire of?" suggests the answer is close to home.

and after seeing the movie I think that the subtleties of the answer to that might make it a "see it again" movie. On the one hand it's a comic book teen romp, on the other hand there are aspects of one of the heroes being an 11 year old killing machine who swears like a sailor, who also happens to be female, and how that squicks many reviewers, that can lead to some good introspection.

[ related topics: Movies Pop Culture ]

Scenes from a Citywide Disaster, With Mannequins:

...The first person they encounter is a young man covered in blood, running toward them.

“Aaaaaaaaugh!” says the man, waving his arms. “Help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

This is a sign that he is probably alright.

Monday before I had the last class of the 40 hour CERT training. We had the class split up into two teams, one doing search & rescue inside a darkened building with various obstacles and challenges, one taking the survivors extracted from that doing triage and first aid. The class had its value and limits, but overall I think it was worth doing, and now I'm looking forward to doing some more of these exercises.

It's been ages since I had my various certs, but one of the amusing things is that the class is taught with the assumption that, unlike most first aid situations, in a disaster situation the rescuer to victim ratio is low, thus I had to un-learn the stock reaction: If they weren't breathing and a head tilt didn't start 'em, mark 'em as dead and move on.

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

So I downloaded a few books from http://www.ePubBud.com . I drag 'em, one at a time, to the iTunes icon (because dragging them to the window doesn't work, and because multiple drag doesn't work). I see them in my books, click sync, and they don't end up on the iPad. Then I scroll to the top of that section, notice that there's an unchecked checkbox next to "Sync Books". Okay, check it, click "Sync", get:

Are you sure you want to sync books? All existing songs, movies and TV shows on the iPad "Dan Lyke's iPad" will be removed.

Huh?

[ related topics: Books Technology and Culture Movies Work, productivity and environment Television ]

Via a number of people: NASA: First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory, pretty pictures of forces and dynamics on a scale that I can't begin to comprehend.

[ related topics: Photography Space & Astronomy Astronomy Current Events Photovoltaics ]

Stratfor: Dirty Bombs Revisited: Combating The Hype. Nothing you probably don't already know, but a reasoned article on how the real impacts of dirty bombs are in provoking a reaction, and what actual impacts are drawn from the various experiences humans have had so far.

Thanks, Shawn! Large Hadron Rap.

[ related topics: Movies ]

NYPD seen confiscating bikes along Obama motorcade route. As caseywest observed: "Earth Day fail". Via Genehack.

And, as one of the commenters points out, if I wanted to put a pipe bomb along that parade route, the inside of one of those barricades seems like a great place.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Bicycling ]

You know the boyz at South Park studios are doing their jobs when even there own network is too cowardly to show their uncensored episodes. Comedy Central won't even allow them to stream it on the web. http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267116

I am sure a lot of Murketing agencies would still be happy to buy air time. http://www.murketing.com/journal/?p=5274

[ related topics: broadband ]

Via Reid Beels, I giggled: The Only Thing That Can Stop This Asteroid Is Your Liberal Arts Degree.

I've wasted enough time with chatter. Let's get you over to mission control. Our avionics team needs your help getting their paper on gender politics in The Matrix properly cited in MLA format.

[ related topics: Politics Astronomy ]

Check it out: Facebook is starting to link in and out with the new "like" button. Some RDF is being exposed - like my record. Not quite FOAF, but it's somethin... can we get a "Lyke" button on Flutterby?

[ related topics: Content Management Invention and Design ]

In response to an Iranian Cleric claiming that immodestly dressed women caused earthquakes, Jenny McCreight declared today "boobquake":

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts.

Predictably, some self-styled "feminists" didn't get it, which led to the worth-reading Boobquake, or Why Feminism Needs More Jokes (via Lyn).

[ related topics: Current Events Earthquake Clothing ]

Shawn had a retweet of Petaluman Leo LaPorte's link to Dilbert cartoons on the lost 4g phone that you won't see in print because of lead-times.

[ related topics: Weblogs Television ]

crasch: Not liking versus not knowing. Starting with an anecdote about someone discovering that, beyond all reason, they enjoyed the hell out of a monster truck rally, Chris says:

What do you think people should try at least once? What do you fear trying? Here's a list of things I suggested to Tynan. Some of them I've tried, some of them I would like to try, and some of them I fear trying.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

HeliSim is a free model helicopter simulator. Of course to make it useful you've got to buy a joystick set in the form-factor of an RC transmitter, but...

[ related topics: Model Building Aviation - Helicopters ]

Ah, how quickly things change. On April 25th, a story from the LA Times service declared that Hollywood was herniating itself to convert summer blockbusters to the 3-D format. However, on April 22nd the same service declared that the bloom was off the 3-D rose, and viewers were complaining. So, which is it?

[ related topics: Movies Graphics ]

In which I come off as way more optimistic about the iPad than I thought I was: Petalumans say iPad is a ‘game changer'. Yes, those are my hands.

Balance? I showed the iPad to Charlene yesterday, watched her muck about with it a bit, and she said something like "I don't get it."

[ related topics: Apple Computer ]

Refined carbs increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease more than (saturated) fat.

Rafe has some worth reading notes on criminal activities in journalism, Gizmodo, and Chiquita.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment ]

A great little JavaScript canvas trigonometry animation, useful both because I'm trying to figure out how to do some JavaScript canvas stuff, and because it's a great benchmark for the iPad.

That 10 hour battery life comes at a cost...

[ related topics: Animation ]

Heather Corinna: 10 things that may make you wish I hadn't lived past 40.

WTF CNN?

Brain shuts off in response to healer's prayer.

It's not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.

[ related topics: Religion Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Physiology ]

Barack Obama, April 2^nd 2010:

... It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. ...

The 120 mile oil slick is advancing on Louisiana.

AnonLib said:

I'm so old I remember when Sarah Palin rambled on in the VP debate about "safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore."

Uh. Yeah. Thanks to Lyn for both those.

[ related topics: Politics Economics ]

Using an off-the-shelf Chumby One with no software mods to create a WiFi to 3g access point.

[ related topics: Weblogs Software Engineering ]