03/06/08

I got two great things in the mail yesterday. I'll talk about the second one in a bit, but the first is Kim Chinquee's book of flash fictions and prose poems, Oh Baby. Here's an excerpt: She sent me pictures of the cake. They had a flaming onion, wh ...

The placebo effect is real apparently even when you know it's a placebo, and, alternately, the possibility exists that cultural expectations of whether a drug works or not may have an effect on how well the drug works: There are various possible int ...

April 18 is Poop For Peace Day. Mark your calenders! (Gross.) Update: Mandar suggests everyday is poop for peace day. Update: If it so moves you -- sorry! -- Bennett has a post at the Utne Reader Blog about The Politics of Poop. (link)

We are having a lot of fun with drag queen names (aka, porn star names) over at clusterflock. Feel free to join in the fun. (link)

An (animated (and condensed (and brief (and truncated)))) history of evil. Almost as interesting for the comments as for the video itself. (link)

Rod Begbie : Open AIM | dev.aol.com - AOL have opened up the AIM protocol for reals, documenting the protocol and encouraging, rather than barely-tolerating, third-party AIM clients. I'd rather deal with XMPP, but this is an interesting step forward ...

philgyford : Litmus: Pricing and signup - 24 hours passes now available for this Browsercam-like site for testing web pages and emails against different rendering engines. (via Daring Fireball) Tags : browsers browsertesting top via:daringfireball we ...

Andy Baio : Solving CAPTCHAs for cash - in the year since the entry was posted, the comments became a global marketplace for human captcha solvers

factoryjoe : Distributed Social Networking for the Web Citizen » Digital Podcast - Notes from my DiSo presentation at Graphing Social. Saved By: Chris Messina | View Details | Give Thanks Tags: diso, graphing social

factoryjoe : Will you be my friend? - I think this sounds pretty interesting and I was all set to start on it when I found out about the DISo project. Their website describes it like this: DiSo (dee †¢ zoh) is an umbrella project ...

heh

this could be handy

"In fact, the main reason white people like soccer is so they can buy a new scarf." Ha!

these apparently work quite well... hmm. might come in handy

I bet we could find some students to hack on Hadoop... :-)

The Sorting Algorithm Demo (495)

Easy Photo Wall on a Shoestringwire Budget » Curbly | DIY Design Community « Keywords: photos, home, decoration, wall (226)

Lifehacker, the Productivity and Software Guide (221)

Ask.com gets a makeover, lays off 40: Well, this is a little drastic. In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married wome ...

One of my brothers is a big player in the flooring business in Sioux Falls (yeah, I know; that’s not saying a lot!) He sells a lot of carpet, vinyl & wood flooring, and as a result, ends up putting a lot of old carpet, vinyl & flooring ...

Forget best picture. How can any of us judge what should win the Academy Award for best editing? Hollywood editor Mark Helfrich walks us through well-edited scenes from this year's five Oscar-nominated films.

An anonymous reader writes "The number of undergraduate computer science degrees awarded last year hit a new low with the Class of 2007. The degrees awarded, 8,000, as tracked by the Computing Research Association, is only half of what it was five ye ...

coondoggie passed us another NetworkWorld link, this one discussing the banning of a shady telecom tycoon convicted for 'cramming'. "The owner of three companies that billed more than $30 million in bogus collect call charges, an activity known as cr ...

An anonymous reader writes ""The Web Standards Project has announced the release of Acid3, the latest test designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards in browsers. 'By making sure their software adheres to the test, the cre ...

A. Smith writes "Ars Technica is exploring the relationship between property rights and copyright, arguing that copyright holders are making a mistake by stressing similarities between property rights and copyright. They compare P2P users to 18th-cen ...

stoolpigeon writes "The Apache web server has been the number one http server on the internet since 1996. It has also become an integral part of many open source and proprietary software systems. It runs on diverse hardware, in locations all over the ...

eldavojohn writes "The SFGate site has up an article noting that Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is facing allegations from multiple quarters accusing him of abusing his power. Several people apparently claim he used the foundation to pay for ...

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday blamed his primary defeats in Ohio and Texas on rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's criticism and news coverage that he argued benefited her at his expense.

John McCain got a White House embrace from President Bush on Wednesday, along with the party perks that go with sewing up the Republican nomination. The endorsement has baggage, though, reminding voters of the drawn-out Iraq war and the nation's econ ...

President Hugo Chavez charged Wednesday that Colombia and its allies in Washington are responsible for the intensifying crisis in this region — and said perpetual conflict with the United States is inevitable.

Slumping Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc. on Wednesday postponed a key deadline in a looming battle with spurned suitor Microsoft Corp., hoping to gain more wiggle room as it tries to escape a takeover.

A Swiss bank has dropped its lawsuit against Web site Wikileaks.org for posting sensitive customer data.

A couple retiring this year will need about $225,000 in savings to cover medical costs in retirement, according to a study released Wednesday by Fidelity Investments.

AFP - High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Travelers using Denver International Airport's free Wi-Fi service cannot visit Internet sites that airport officials consider provocative.

Juan Pablo di Pace didn't mind that a Royal Opera House poster showed him naked. He didn't even mind the air brushing.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush formally endorsed Republican John McCain for president on Wednesday, calling him a man of character who is "not going to change" when it comes to taking on Islamic extremists.

"Are you aware, by any chance, that honeybees have stingers?" the woman asked as I placed the order for my first bees. I was. "And that they use them?' That too, yes. "And you still want to do this?" Yes. Yes, I did. She smiled and ran my car ...

The BBC learns of alleged state-sanctioned violence after Kenya's poll, but the government denies the claim.

I’m delighted to say that online bookstores are shipping copies of Here Comes Everybody today, and that it has gotten several terrific notices in the blogosphere: Cory Doctorow:Clay’s book makes sense of the way that groups are using the ...

We've been watching these clips from seminal 1980s sci-fi porno "The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue," and we have to say that we're thoroughly stumped. Despite starring legendary fucksmiths like Sharon Mitchell, Herschel Savage, and Annie Sprinkle, the act ...

YouTube's leaderboard as of recently show a new #1 spot for the most watched video of all time. The video (shown below) isn't too bad -- and the ways of the internets are unfathomable -- but still curiously mundane for occupying the top ranking. Titl ...

This sounds like an April Fool's joke, but the source is Associated Press, via San Francisco Chronicle: In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower ...

I got two great things in the mail yesterday. I'll talk about the second one in a bit, but the first is Kim Chinquee's book of flash fictions and prose poems, Oh Baby. Here's an excerpt: She sent me pictures of the cake. They had a flaming onion, wh ...

Yesterday, YouTube refreshed their leaderboards and a strange new video became the Most Viewed Video of All-Time, topping the world-famous Evolution of Dance video. With 89 million views, the new winner is a fan-made music video. But did it get the ...

"I can't imagine Americans writing a song like this. It has a grim beauty. It feels pessimistic in one breath and optimistic in another." The Guardian asks musicians about the songs that define what it means to be English. The Welsh, Scot ...

Over the past decade, as NASCAR's popularity has grown, and Formula 1 has expanded into new international markets, open wheel racing in the US has floundered along with 2 rival series: IRL and CART. With little sponsorship money, the loss of big-nam ...

Found via these two 1985 David Fincher music videos, but browsed because of a clear tagged interface and some great content, here's DVblog.org.

London's Metropolitan police have a press campaign to help us inform on each other identify terrorists. How do you spot your terrorist? Well he could be the one with the camera pdf. Or he could be the one with two mobile phones pdf. Or the one with ...

Washingtonpost.com

It's quite interesting watching Keith Olbermann when he's in the mix with the rest of the MSNBC gang. He doesn't share the same set of basic assumptions about the world that most cable talkers, across the ideological spectrum, do. He's also more li ...

Something Awful eschews humor in this week's Comedy Goldmine for gibbering madness. "I know you were coming here expecting to laugh at the Comedy Goldmine this week. Well, you're screwed....

"It's the Bizaro Ethel Merman." "She's like a garbage bag full of fighting Muppets back from the dentist." "It's like the little exorcist girl stung by bees." "The first time...

A short film in which a Paris Hilton-esque socialite is revealed to be the architect of her own loopy attempts at notoriety, and who will go as far as she...

I thought today would be a great day to interview UC-Berkeley professor George Lakoff on the Democratic campaign, who should have done what, and how his candidate (and mine) Barack Obama should proceed in the race with Hillary Clinton and John McCain ...

Listen to the Obama and Clinton campaigns spin results from yesterday's primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. — — Sorry I don't have an RSS feed yet for all these podcasts. It's all rushing by so fast, it's the most I can d ...

.... clearly someone has # 22:29 holy crap my laptop did not like switching to dual display like that # 22:37 @4braham to reflect on your earlier comment, if you develop a commercial Thick App, you dev in windows most likely. # Automatically ship ...

.... using†¦ I usually use Microsoft Picture It 7.0 for most of the color selection and for the layered shots I used Photo Shop. If you ever have any other questions or comments don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you again! Authored by marcs. ...

March's Inc. column is online: “Don't tell your star salespeople to take the bus and stay with relatives when they make that call in St. Louis, even though that's what you did when you started the company.” Not loving your job? Visit the ...

From my February column in Inc. Magazine: “The bureaucrats in Washington had forgotten Newton's first law: An object in motion tends to remain in motion.” Not loving your job? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, gr ...

in the year since the entry was posted, the comments became a global marketplace for human captcha solvers  

this model for indie creators is a natural use of the Internet, but still rare  

from a massive collection of historical computer photos; don't miss Tomorrow's World and Alien  

tried an early version at Foo, had a blast  

a good game can change the world  

decisions aren't made by a giant golem named Microsoft, but by the interactions of thousands of individuals  

he responds to an independent bookseller arguing that it cuts them out of the process  

Slingshot Press is selling a signed and numbered print of my illustration "Map of Everthing." It costs $50 and is limited to 50 copies. Here at Slingshot! Press, it is our goal to make art affordable for everyone so we have teamed up with 50 of your ...

Bjork won't be performing in China any time soon -- the singer shouted "Tibet, Tibet," after performing her song "Declare Independence," which was originally about Greenland. Her remark was not reported in official media, but led to criticism when it ...

Michael Booth of the Denver Post has an article out today about the use of censorware at Denver International Airport to block access to certain websites on the airport's public WiFi service. The net-filtering at DIA came to public attention when leg ...

From Larry This site hosts this video to explain the launch of two exploratory projects -- first, a Change Congress movement, and second, my own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th. I have decided I want to give as much ener ...

Seb Schmoller has a really interesting post about the taxonomy of a museum of cutting-edge tools.[Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous taxonomy museums seb_schmoller ]

For many of us, playing video games and working on computers is second nature. My laptop and I are practically attached at the hip. But what if, due to physical limitations, you were unable to use your computer for gaming and other applications? Assi ...

Sure, we've known that The Sims 3 was coming as early as November of 2006, when EA essentially semi-announced the thing in an earnings report. We also know that EA is planning The Sims 4 and a gross of expansion packs over the next decade, but that's ...

Red, yellow and blue cars are on their way in a hurry to the Brooklyn side of the bridge.

AFP

Armed with soldering irons and spare electronics, the DIY revolution might be the force to reawaken American innovation. Originally posted by Clive Thompson from Wired: Top Stories, ReBlogged by Leah Gauthier on M ...

It seems like the word "breakthrough" gets tossed around a lot. But we try to save it for the real deal. Well...here's the real deal. LEDs are fantastic. But for a long time, they've been fantastic more because of what we think they can do ...

An unnamed U.S. carrier maintains a DS-3 line to a mysterious facility in Quantico, Virginia, according to a computer security expert who worked for the company as a contractor in 2003. Customer voice calls, data packets and billing records are all a ...