Yostivanichhttp://www.yostivanich.comSurfing the web and hopefully learning something new every dayenMon, 23 Nov 2009 06:04:25 PSTWordPress http://wordpress.org/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gifSome Rights ReservedYostivanichhttp://feedburner.google.comlinks for 2009-11-23http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/PGcsCDR1XFI/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingMon, 23 Nov 2009 06:04:25 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/23/links-for-2009-11-23/
  • Patient trapped in a 23-year ‘coma’ was conscious all along | Mail Online
    “A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night. Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed. He had no way of letting experts, family or friends know he could hear every word they said.”
    (tags: health righttodie science psychology neuroscience)
  • Daring Fireball Linked List: I Am Not Making This Up
    “To watch this video from Microsoft regarding the upcoming IE 9’s support for standards and interoperability, you are prompted to install Silverlight. (Via Mark Pilgrim.)” So much for open standards.
    (tags: ie9 standards microsoft internet browser ie)
  • Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened | Vanish | Wired.com
    “What had started as an exercise in escape quickly became a cross between a massively multiplayer online game and a reality show. A staggeringly large community arose spontaneously, splintered into organized groups, and set to work turning over every rock in Ratliff’s life. It topped out at 600 Twitter posts a day. The hunters knew the names of his cat sitter and his mechanic, his favorite authors, his childhood nicknames. They found every article he’d ever written; they found recent videos of him. They discovered and published every address he’d ever had in the US, from Atlanta to Hawaii, together with the full name and age of every member of his family. They discovered almost every available piece of data about Ratliff, in fact, except his current location.”
    (tags: information privacy internet twitter socialmedia socialnetworking)
  • BBC News — Twitter urges Murdoch to be open
    “Newspapers should become “radically open” if they want to make money in the online world, the co-founder of social networking site Twitter has said. Biz Stone said that he would “love to see what happens” if newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch went ahead with plans to block Google from his websites. “The future is in openness not [being] closed,” he told the BBC. ”
    (tags: business information technology internet economics twitter rupertmurdoch newspaper media)
  • The War For the Web — O’Reilly Radar
    “One of the points I’ve made repeatedly about Web 2.0 is that it is the design of systems that get better the more people use them, and that over time, such systems have a natural tendency towards monopoly. And so we’ve grown used to a world with one dominant search engine, one dominant online encyclopedia, one dominant online retailer, one dominant auction site, one dominant online classified site, and we’ve been readying ourselves for one dominant social network. But what happens when a company with one of these natural monopolies uses it to gain dominance in other, adjacent areas? I’ve been watching with a mixture of admiration and alarm as Google has taken their dominance in search and used it to take control of other, adjacent data-driven applications. I noted this first with speech recognition, but it’s had the biggest business impact so far in location-based services.”
    (tags: internet google facebook business microsoft mobile iphone web2.0 twitter apple amazon.com monopoly standards interoperability)
  • A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority « Clay Shirky
    “Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority, and has, I think, three critical characteristics.”
    (tags: wikipedia socialmedia information google internet research authentication crowdsourcing)
  • Ajaxian » IE 9: Hardware rendering, new JS engine, CSS, standards, and more
    “With PDC going on, we get a glimpse at the early stage of IE 9. There is some promise, albeit with omissions!”
    (tags: ie9 ie browser internet microsoft standards)
  • BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Six-year limit on DNA of innocent
    “The DNA of most innocent people arrested in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will not be kept for more than six years, the Home Office has said. But police may be allowed to keep DNA from terrorism suspects, even if they are later freed or found not guilty.” Oh yeah great comprise.
    (tags: crime legal law dna privacy surveillance freedom humanrights)
  • BBC News — World economies rebound but China set for best growth
    “The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says growth and recovery are expected in 2010 in just about all world regions. For its 30 member countries, rich nations including the US and UK, it has more than doubled its growth forecast to 1.9% for next year, from 0.7%. The main danger for rich countries is unemployment, according to the OECD’s economic outlook. In the US, people are expected to continue to lose their jobs at a faster rate than new ones are created until sometime in the first part of next year.”
    (tags: economy business china brazil usa employment)
  • Op-Ed Columnist — The Big Squander — NYTimes.com
    “So here’s the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. And by treating the financial industry — which got us into this mess in the first place — with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust.”
    (tags: business bailout banks politics economics usa aig)
  • Get Excited and Make Things! — WWdN: In Exile
    “So what are you waiting for? Do or do not. There is no Try. Whether it’s an Etsy store, or a book with Lulu, or a T-shirt or a mug or a clock or a fucking teddy bear in a sweater from CafePresssingle … hell, if it’s a photograph you put on Flickr or a podcast you host on Archive.org, or a story that you write for Ficly or your own blog, just do it! Go get excited and make things, and when you’re done, come back here and link us to what you did.”
    (tags: business art creativity entrepreneurship)
  • Apple’s Mistake
    “I don’t think Apple realizes how badly the App Store approval process is broken. Or rather, I don’t think they realize how much it matters that it’s broken.”
    (tags: apple software publishing information business programming google mobile iphone appstore programmer)
  • Tweetie Reloaded: An Interview with Loren Brichter | unraveled
    “Now he mostly answers email, and occasionally finds time to actually program.” The life of an independent software developer.
    (tags: software business twitter tweetie programming entrepreneurship)
  • Think Progress » The Board Of The ‘Voice Of Business’ Is A Republican Money Machine
    “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which purports to be “the voice of business,” is run by a Republican money machine. As the nation’s largest lobbying shop, the Chamber is spending millions of dollars from its corporate members against President Obama’s progressive agenda of health care, energy, and financial reform. The Chamber claims that the “board’s membership is as diverse as the nation’s business community itself,” but this is false. A ThinkProgress analysis of federal election contribution data compiled by the LittleSis project has found that the Chamber’s 116-member board of directors has given more than six times as much money to Republican candidates and committees ($4,741,747) as it has to Democrats ($778,282), with $1,074,697 flowing to corporate political action committees”
    (tags: politics republicans congress democrats lobbyists opengovernment)
  • Police Used Taser on 10-Year-Old Girl in Arkansas|myEyewitnessNews.com, Memphis News, Entertainment, Videos, Business Search and Shopping
    “A police officer in a small Arkansas town used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl after he said her mother gave him permission to do so. Now the town’s mayor is calling for an investigation into whether the Taser use was appropriate. The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his daughter has emotional problems, but that she didn’t have a weapon and shouldn’t have been Tasered.”
    (tags: taser weapons usa police arkansas)
  • Android GUI PSD | Android interface elements in PSD
    “Phohotoshop file with elements of Android 1.5 GUI to help open-source community with application mock-ups.”
    (tags: googleandroid photoshop design graphics interface)
  • Fraidy Cats
    Whose afraid of the terrorists.
    (tags: humor politics usa terrorism fear)
  • Think Progress » O’Reilly Upset Over 9/11 Trials: ‘I Don’t Care About The Constitution!’
    “But last night on Fox, the network’s top legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano — who has been known to disagree with Fox’s right-wing narratives on legal issues — disputed that view, citing the constitutional right to be tried in the place where the crime has been committed. “I don’t care about the Constitution!” host Bill O’Reilly responded.”
    (tags: legal lawsuit billoreilly constitution humanrights)
  • In House, Many Spoke With One Voice — Lobbyists’ — NYTimes.com
    “In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident. Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies. E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.”
    (tags: republicans democrats congress politics obama healthcare lobbyists opengovernment)
  • I’m a tailor — (37signals)
    “When people ask me what I do all day I have a hard time summing it up. I design, I edit, I think, I review, I suggest, I teach. Some things I mess up, some things I fix up. But what I really do most of the time is trim, tuck, iron, cut, press, and fit. I’m a software tailor.”
    (tags: software programming softwaredesign)
  • The Death Of The Blog Post — Smashing Magazine
    Creating a blogazine.
    (tags: css blogging webdevelopment webdesign design blogazine)
  • Boeing: Boeing Laser Systems Destroy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Tests
    “The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] in May demonstrated the ability of mobile laser weapon systems to perform a unique mission: track and destroy small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). During the U.S. Air Force-sponsored tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), which was developed by Boeing under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory, used a single, high-brightness laser beam to shoot down five UAVs at various ranges. Laser Avenger, a Boeing-funded initiative, also shot down a UAV. Representatives of the Air Force and Army observed the tests.”
    (tags: usa military weapons laser boeing technology airplane)
  • Boycott Microsoft Bing — Nicholas D. Kristof Blog — NYTimes.com
    “Western corporations have often behaved embarrassingly in China, sacrificing any principles to ingratiate themselves with the Communist Party authorities. Yahoo was the worst, handing over information about several email account holders so that they could be arrested – and then dissembling and defending its monstrous conduct. Now Microsoft is sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing. In effect, it has chosen become part of the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus.” Google and Yahoo censor results as well but Bing does it on all domains not just the Chinese TLD.
    (tags: china censorship privacy business internet google microsoft bing politics freedomofspeech)
  • Brin: Google’s OSes likely to converge | Webware — CNET
    “Google’s dual-pronged operating-system strategy will likely produce a single OS down the road, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.” Makes sense.
    (tags: google os googlechromeos googleandroid software)
  • Regents Raise Tuition 32 Percent in California — NYTimes.com
    “As the University of California’s Board of Regents met Thursday at U.C.L.A. and approved a plan to raise undergraduate fees — the equivalent of tuition — 32 percent next fall, hundreds of students from campuses across the state demonstrated outside, beating drums and chanting slogans against the increase. Isaac Miller and Irene Van, who traveled to U.C.L.A. late Wednesday night in a bus caravan from Berkeley, said they worried about how higher fees would affect illegal immigrant students, who are not eligible for financial aid, and minority students, already dwindling in number since Proposition 209 prohibited affirmative action.”
    (tags: immigration california financial college education)
  • My LinkedIn Avatar
    “That’s unfortunate. I’m with Charlie on this one. I think we should be able to determine what we want to use to represent ourselves professionally within reason (no porn, no emotionally disturbing images, etc). In my case, the “AVC avatar” has become my online brand and I use it everywhere other than the usv.com website where we’ve opted to go with a consistent presentation across all of the professionals in our firm. The good news is that Linked In seems to be aware of the issue.”
    (tags: linkedin business censorship politics)
  • SupaFly.Designs Letterpress Business Cards on Flickr — Photo Sharing!
    Very nice business cards.
    (tags: photography design flickr)
  • 10 Must Have Hacks For WordPress Development | Spyre Studios
    “Building your own wordpress themes will open your eyes to a lot of things, mainly the fact that you’ll be retyping a lot of code over and over and over again. So in this post I am going to show you ten wordpress code hacks that you can add to your arsenal that will not only save you a lot of time, but they will also set your themes apart from others who don’t come pre built with these types of features.”
    (tags: wordpress webdevelopment webdesign php cms)
  • FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail
    “Still: I don’t know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that’s literally what some of these bloggers are saying! Incidentally, 2009 is shaping up to be the 5th warmist year on record, according to the conspiracists at NASA.”
    (tags: politics climatechange science research nasa environment)
  • No Need for New Nuclear Warheads, Agency Says | Union of Concerned Scientists
    “The report, by a prominent, independent scientific panel called the JASON group, concluded that the United States can maintain current high levels of safety, security and reliability indefinitely without designing a new generation of warheads or testing current warheads. The panel found that the arsenal can be maintained by two existing programs: the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which monitors the arsenal for signs of aging, and the Life-Extension Program, which refurbishes existing warheads with new components.”
    (tags: weapons nuclear usa military science)
  • PeoplePods.net
    “Build applications where people meet, talk, share, read, work, publish and explore.” Nice.
    (tags: socialnetworking software php mysql opensource framework cms)
  • Dilbert comic strip for 11/22/2009 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.
    Expanded safety zone.
    (tags: dilbert humor business management)
  • BBC News — US Army Corps blamed for Katrina floods
    “A US judge has ruled that negligence by the US Army Corps of Engineers led to massive floods in parts of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. The court upheld complaints by six residents and a business against the Corps over its maintenance of a navigational channel. They were awarded damages totalling $720,000 (£431,000), and the ruling could lead to thousands more claims.”
    (tags: usa legal lawsuit neworleans katrina military)
    • ]]>     Patient trapped in a 23-year ‘coma’ was conscious all along | Mail Online “A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night. Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed. He had no way of [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/23/links-for-2009-11-23/    Netflix for Bookshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/bBMiwyM7On8/Economics/BusinessIdeasSocial MediaTechnologyamazon.combooksbusinessebooksidealistnetflixnewmediapredictionpublishingrentalJustin YostSun, 22 Nov 2009 20:36:46 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/?p=988The tweet that spawned this post

    The tweet that spawned this post

    Netflix in case you haven’t heard of it is system whereby you give them money and they send you movies by mail that you can keep for as long as you want. No late fees, no extra charges on your account. Mail back the movie in their pre-paid envelope and a new movie is on your doorstep, in a few days.

    What makes Netflix stand out against any other system with the same feature set is their super intelligent prediction system. After you view a movie, they ask you to rank it on a scale of 1–5 stars, and over time they make guesses what you would like to watch.

    As a side note, Netflix just finished a campaign gathering independent teams to compete for a $1 million to beat their internal algorithm by 10% or better. While it doesn’t sound that hard, it took a long time before a team was able to be declared the winner.

    What I really want I realized tonight, is a throw back to my days as a kid and visiting the library but modernized. I loved checking out and renting all those books that I would never have been able to afford to buy (and still wouldn’t). I read a lot back in the day and checked out so many books for pretty much a single reason, about 1/4 of the books just weren’t worth my time to read and would go by the wayside.

    Applying Netflix or Amazon’s prediction algorithms to my reading list and let me put books in a queue to rent, add in Netflix’s keep out for as long as needed and deliver when available electronic copies of a book when available and I would be in heaven.

    The idea is purely stolen from Netflix, but the majority of what is needed Amazon already has:

    • Relationship with publishers — √
    • Storage facilities and mailing system for fast delivery of books — √
    • Electronic version of books — √
    • Software and delivery platform for these ebooks — √
    • Queue of books to read — that’s a sorta they’ve got the Wish List but it’s for items to buy little bit of work and converted, better than half way there
    • Rating system — √
    • Prediction algorithms — another mostly there, their algorithms are good but sometimes get fooled by stuff that you buy on a one shot deal

    Get working Amazon (or anybody for that matter) and I’ll sign up and buy more books in the process.

    ]]>     The tweet that spawned this post Netflix in case you haven’t heard of it is system whereby you give them money and they send you movies by mail that you can keep for as long as you want. No late fees, no extra charges on your account. Mail back the movie in their pre-paid envelope and [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/22/netflix-for-books/    links for 2009-11-22http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/a9vw3l1Wc0o/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingSun, 22 Nov 2009 06:03:23 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/22/links-for-2009-11-22/
  • Friendly Atheist by @hemantmehta » Stop Using Q&A Time to Pontificate
    “The problem: Many of those atheists used the time not to ask a question, but to tell everyone about their views of religion. For example, they felt the need to comment on things Wilson argued in the movie. There was no question posed to me or Chad — it was just long, rambling, word vomit. Or they told stories about their encounters with religious people who made really bad arguments in favor of God’s existence. If it happened once, I could just chalk it up to a self-righteous person who just enjoys the sound of his own voice. Unfortunately, it happened several times. And it was annoying as hell: to the (mostly Christian) audience, to me, to Jeremy, and (I’m sure) many of the other atheists who came to watch.”
    (tags: atheism religion communication)
  • MediaPost Publications Google Books Settlement Still Poses Privacy Problems 11/16/2009
    “The deal would allow Google to digitize and sell books at prices set by a new book registry, a collective rights group similar to the music industry’s ASCAP and BMI. Civil liberties organizations have pointed out that the agreement leaves Google in a position to amass at least as much in-depth information about users’ reading habits as libraries. For that reason, groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have said the settlement should have terms obligating Google to protect users’ privacy — such as provisions requiring the deletion of loggin information. Instead, the amended pact merely says that Google won’t share private information with the registry without “valid legal process.””
    (tags: google eff privacy information publishing legal humanrights)
  • BBC News — Lab worms are stunned by ‘phaser’
    “Scientists have shown off an effect not unlike that of the “phasers” in the show Star Trek — but it only works on tiny worms called nematodes. They used a special molecule that, when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, changes its shape. When the worms were fed this molecule and then exposed to UV light, they exhibited paralysis. But when the worms were again exposed to visible light, they regained their ability to move.” Not so much a phaser as a trained reaction.
    (tags: science biology research)
  • AT&T loses first legal battle against Verizon ads | Signal Strength — CNET News
    “A federal judge in Atlanta on Wednesday declined to grant AT&T a temporary restraining order that would force Verizon to stop showing the ads.” No surprise.
    (tags: att verizon legal lawsuit advertising)
  • BBC News — Tobacco firm Philip Morris to pay out $300m in damages
    “A Florida court has ordered tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay out $300m (£180m) in damages to a former smoker. The judge awarded $56.6m for medical expenses and $244m in punitive damages.”
    (tags: legal lawsuit tobacco health)
  • Chevrolet Volt’s No. 1 Question — How’s Life After 40? — Review — NYTimes.com
    “Throughout my test, the prototype behaves admirably. At its current state of development, the Volt is an extremely refined vehicle.” The Volt nine months before launch.
    (tags: chevyvolt chevrolet automotive)
  • BBC News — Harrabin’s Notes: E-mail arguments
    “The scientific establishment is likely to support the CRU. Despite continuing uncertainties in some areas of climate science, they say officially that their overall confidence that humans are warming the climate is now more than 90%. One leading figure told me unofficially that confidence was now at 99%. But the email controversy may prove an uncomfortable moment in the careers of some researchers in the spotlight and will undoubtedly provoke demands for renewed scrutiny of the CRU’s influential work. These demands may surface in the US Senate, where climate change sceptics and their allies are holding up the energy and climate bill which President Obama needs before he can sign a legally-binding agreement over cutting emissions.”
    (tags: climatechange usa politics science congress)
  • Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute — NYTimes.com
    “Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change. The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.”
    (tags: science research environment climatechange)
  • China’s New Missile May Create a ‘No-Go Zone’ for U.S. Fleet — Bloomberg.com
    “China’s military is close to fielding the world’s first anti-ship ballistic missile, according to U.S. Navy intelligence. The missile, with a range of almost 900 miles (1,500 kilometers), would be fired from mobile, land-based launchers and is “specifically designed to defeat U.S. carrier strike groups,” the Office of Naval Intelligence reported.”
    (tags: usa military china technology weapons)
  • BBC News — US healthcare reform Senate debate gets crucial backing
    “Democrats in the US Senate say they have now secured the votes they need to begin a full debate on a bill designed to overhaul healthcare provision. Two Democratic senators whose support had been in doubt say they will now back the move, assuring the party the 60 votes needed to pass the measure.”
    (tags: usa politics healthcare democrats republicans senate congress)
  • Rivals to Challenge Microsoft Browser Settlement — NYTimes.com
    “The changes — requested by Google, the designer of the Chrome browser, Mozilla, the creator of Firefox, and Opera — aim to ensure that Microsoft does not unfairly influence the decision, said Hakon Wium Lie, the chief technology officer of Opera, based in Oslo.” The best way would to display them in a random order.
    (tags: design browser internet google microsoft eu opera firefox)
  • Feds Wanted Private Data on All Visitors to Liberal News Site | | AlterNet
    “A Justice Department subpoena requesting all available information on all visitors to an independent news site is raising serious privacy concerns, and questions about how much information the US government is storing about its citizens’ news reading habits. Privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation has released an extensive report on a “bogus” attempt by a US attorney in Indiana to get Indymedia.us, an independent left-leaning news site, to hand over all the data it had about all the users who visited the site on a particular day. Further adding to civil libertarians’ and privacy watchdogs’ concerns is the fact that the Justice Department ordered Indymedia to keep silent about the request.”
    (tags: justicedept privacy internet media freedom usa eff)
  • Researchers’ Financial Interests Often Not Reported to U.S. — NYTimes.com
    “Few universities make required reports to the government about the financial conflicts of their researchers, and even when such conflicts are reported, university administrators rarely require those researchers to eliminate or reduce these conflicts, government investigators found.”
    (tags: research science education usa business university)
  • The Decline: Geography of a Recession
    Video showing the recession county by county.
    (tags: economics economy usa politics information statistics employment visualization)
  • Smoke Gets In Your Imac: Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty
    “Unless you’ve just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn’t good for you. Did you know, that smoking isn’t good for your computer, either? It’s true, at least according to Apple. Two readers in different parts of the country claim that their Applecare warranties were voided due to secondhand smoke. Both readers appealed their cases up to the office of God Steve Jobs himself. Both lost.”
    (tags: stevejobs apple customerservice business)
  • Morgan Stanley’s $9,000,000,000.00 Check. That’s $9 Billion! | Andrew Ross Sorkin
    “As detailed in Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves, Morgan Stanley received a $9 billion investment from Mitsubishi UFJ in the fall of 2008 that kept the firm from collapsing. The payment was supposed to be wired electronically, but because it needed to be made on an emergency basis on a holiday, Mitsubishi cut a physical check, perhaps the largest ever written.”
    (tags: morganstanley financial business economy economics)
  • Daring Fireball: Maybe Instead of Two Cars, You Just Need a Car and a Bicycle
    “Long-term, there’s no denying that Google is steering toward a future where typical users have no “primary” computer, but instead where every computer is just a terminal to Web-based software running on servers across the Internet. But there’s an opportunity today for secondary computers that offer just a subset of the functionality of Mac OS X and Windows, especially if they don’t just do less, but (like the iPhone) do less really well.”
    (tags: computer technology internet software google apple googlechromeos iphone hardware future stevejobs netbook)
  • Chromium Blog: Hello, open source developers. Would you like to help build an operating system for web users?
    “We are doing this early, almost a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with open source developers. There are many of you who share our passion for creating a new model of computing. Chromium OS makes it possible for any interested developer to contribute code, ideas and designs to help shape the future of personal computing.” Google Chrome OS is sorta announced.
    (tags: googlechromeos opensource os google internet technology)
  • Carsonified » 10 User Interface Design Fundamentals
    “It is often said when developing interfaces that you need to fail fast, and iterate often. When creating a UI, you will make mistakes. Just keep moving forward, and remember to keep your UI out of the way.”
    (tags: design webdesign userexperience)
    • ]]>     Friendly Atheist by @hemantmehta » Stop Using Q&A Time to Pontificate “The problem: Many of those atheists used the time not to ask a question, but to tell everyone about their views of religion. For example, they felt the need to comment on things Wilson argued in the movie. There was no question posed to me [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/22/links-for-2009-11-22/    links for 2009-11-21http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/a-WRNp0tWMo/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingSat, 21 Nov 2009 06:02:48 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/21/links-for-2009-11-21/
  • Official Google Blog: Automatic captions in YouTube
    “To help address this challenge, we’ve combined Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video. The captions will not always be perfect (check out the video below for an amusing example), but even when they’re off, they can still be helpful—and the technology will continue to improve with time.” Very nice.
    (tags: google youtube video technology accessibility)
  • qdPM — free project management tool for small team
    (tags: projectmanagement software php opensource mysql productivity collaboration)
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
    Logic vs. pithy sayings.
    (tags: logic humor comic smbc)
  • Seth’s Blog: The amateur scientist (that’s us)
    “The problem with being an amateur scientist is precisely the reason that marketers relish the opportunity to sell to us, the amateurs: we make stupid decisions, easily manipulated by those who might choose to do the manipulation (on their behalf or on ours). The news here is not that people are irrational, giving too much credence to the dramatic and the local and the short-term (that’s not news), but that people have added a veneer of scientific rationality to their irrational decisions. Armed with Zagats or internet data or some rumor off Snopes, we act as though now we’re supremely rational choicemakers.”
    (tags: science logic culture psychology marketing advertising)
  • Daring Fireball Linked List: Chrome OS Will Not Support Hard Disk Drives
    “If you can count on the drive being solid state, you can make all sorts of performance optimizations. They’re building for the future.”
    (tags: googlechromeos ssd harddrive performance optimization)
  • Marco.org — Hope
    “I suspect that we’re crossing that point now, and the decision is about to be made (or recently has been made) to abolish what we know of today as app review. I have no idea what would replace it, or whether its replacement would be significantly better. But it’s not like Apple to sit on their hands with such a high-profile part of their product line and do nothing to improve it. Maybe this is just blind hope. It’s certainly not based on any information. It’s a hunch at best. But I can hope.”
    (tags: appstore apple iphone software programming censorship)
  • Sarah Palin and the Decline of Conservatism — Reason Magazine
    “You could almost forget that for well over a year, Republicans have ridiculed Barack Obama as lighter than a souffle, an inexperienced upstart who owes everything to arrogant presumption and a carefully crafted image. But Obama wrote a 375-page book, The Audacity of Hope, that shows a solid, and occasionally tedious, grasp of issues. It is hard to imagine Palin (as opposed to a ghost writer) producing anything comparable. Almost as hard as it is to imagine that modern conservatives would expect it. Leaders who can think? That’s so 20th century.”
    (tags: politics republicans sarahpalin obama ronaldregan conservative)
  • Coding Horror: Buy Bad Code Offsets Today!
    “But that’s a lot of work. Really freaking hard work! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do something a bit simpler and easier to, just … say … offset the bad code you’re producing?”
    (tags: programming humor software)
  • Friendly Atheist by @hemantmehta » Texans Ban All Marriage
    “Do you remember how people insisted that the gays were trying to ruin marriage? Well, they succeeded in Texas. When the people of Texas passed a 2005 constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage, those clever, clever gays somehow forced them to word it poorly enough that it might prohibit ALL marriage in the state, same-sex or otherwise:”
    (tags: marriage legal texas lgbtq humor samesexmarriage)
  • Apple is no longer the Nordstrom of Tech, they’re the “New Nordstrom” — SlashGear
    “What’s making the difference is just how much mindshare Apple is building as a result of these types of tales of support love. There’s a great urban legend about Nordstrom’s that they actually took a return on snow tires. Years ago, I did a presentation for Nordstrom’s in Seattle and had a chance to chat with some of the family members who still are active in running things. Of course, I had to ask the question: is the story about the snow tires really true? There was a pause in the room and folks looked at each other and smiled. Finally, one of the family responded. I won’t tell you if it’s true or not, but here’s the thing, they’re not telling that story about Macy’s.”
    (tags: customerservice userexperience retail business apple)
  • US: Ratify Children’s Treaty | Human Rights Watch
    “The United States should ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is supported by nearly every other nation in the world, Human Rights Watch said today. The United States and Somalia are the only countries that have failed to ratify the Convention, which was adopted 20 years ago, on November 20, 1989.”
    (tags: un usa politics health youth humanrights freedom)
  • Who Controls Data About Public Transportation? | Electronic Frontier Foundation
    “How should city transit authorities treat independent software developers who make use of public schedule data? What approach results in the best experience for their passengers and customers? Two models appear to be emerging to answer this question. One, typified by New York City’s MTA and Washington, DC’s WMATA, sees schedule and related data as valuable intellectual property, to be zealously protected, licensed and monetized. So far, the results of this approach appear to have been bad press, irate passengers, wasted money and stymied innovation. The other model, typified by San Francisco’s SFMTA and Portland’s TriMet, holds that encouraging independent developers to make free use of schedule information can both save the city money and foster innovative applications.”
    (tags: information technology software copyright)
  • xkcd — A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language — By Randall Munroe
    Prudence is a great option.
    (tags: xkcd humor comic)
  • Potential Porn Legislation Supported by Local Group — KIFI — Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Jackson WY — Weather News Sports–
    “Since 2008, the Citizens for Decency have promoted legislation requiring all public libraries and schools in Idaho to have pornography filters installed on their computers. Their attempts to get the bill discussed during the 2009 session were unsuccessful due to the heavy emphasis placed on state’s budget. Officials close to the bill believe this session could be different.”
    (tags: porn government censorship freedom freedomofspeech)
    • ]]>     Official Google Blog: Automatic captions in YouTube “To help address this challenge, we’ve combined Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video. The captions will not always be perfect [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/21/links-for-2009-11-21/    links for 2009-11-20http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/tsBeJ3TiKhE/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingFri, 20 Nov 2009 06:04:19 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/20/links-for-2009-11-20/
  • ★ The OS Opportunity
    “That’s not the way things are today. Sure, there are massive business markets where Windows remains essential. But the Web is a bigger platform than Windows. The Web is universal. Every computer is on the Web. The Web provides us with a core set of software and APIs that work everywhere. Supposedly, tomorrow Google is set to unveil the details of Chrome OS, but we already know one thing about it: it’s designed around the assumption that the Web is the most important software platform in the world today.”
    (tags: internet technology software apple google microsoft innovation palm osx os netbook windows business)
  • Free Software Foundation files objection to Google Book Search settlement — Free Software Foundation
    “Today the Free Software Foundation (FSF) filed an objection in court to the proposed Google Book Search settlement (The Authors Guild, Inc., et al. v. Google Inc.). The objection urges the court to reject the proposed settlement unless it incorporates terms that better address the needs of authors using free licenses like the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and does not provide special competitive advantages to Google.”
    (tags: google fsf copyright publishing lawsuit legal)
  • Med Schools Quizzed on Medical Ghostwriting — NYTimes.com
    “Senator Charles E. Grassley wrote to 10 top medical schools Tuesday to ask what they are doing about professors who put their names on ghostwritten articles in medical journals — and why that practice was any different from plagiarism by students. Mr. Grassley, of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent the letters as part of his continuing investigation of so-called medical ghostwriting. The term refers to publication of medical journal articles in which an outside writer — sometimes paid by a drug or medical devices company whose product is being studied — has done extensive work on the article without being named on the publication. Instead, one or more academic researchers may receive author credit.”
    (tags: medicine health plagiarism science research business)
  • 30+ Professionally Designed & Useful Mac Applications | Web Resources | WebAppers
    Just what it says.
    (tags: design apple osx software technology)
  • Basic Instructions by Scott Meyer: Your all-inclusive guide to a life well-lived.
    The Imperial’s plan for the ATTT.
    (tags: starwars humor comic basicinstructions)
    • ]]>     ★ The OS Opportunity “That’s not the way things are today. Sure, there are massive business markets where Windows remains essential. But the Web is a bigger platform than Windows. The Web is universal. Every computer is on the Web. The Web provides us with a core set of software and APIs that work everywhere. Supposedly, [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/20/links-for-2009-11-20/    links for 2009-11-19http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/8fWxw9YhA5U/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingThu, 19 Nov 2009 06:04:02 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/19/links-for-2009-11-19/
  • Choosing the Small Screen of a Smartphone for E-Reading — NYTimes.com
    “Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget.”
    (tags: iphone mobile ebook technology kindle)
  • Blag Hag: Indiana schools ban atheist websites
    “How the hell could they have thought this was a good idea or even legal? You can’t look up views on certain religions or atheism, but Christianity is a-okay? Discrimination, much? The only thing I find much stupider than that is lumping atheism with supernatural/paranormal events when atheism rejects those things. I take it back: thinking that spells, incantations, curses, and magic powers can actually work is pretty fucking stupid.” And people say Christianity is attacked in the US.
    (tags: usa religion atheism christianity censorship information lgbtq education indianapolis)
  • What’s Wrong With This Picture? | FactCheck.org
    “Anyone who saw news coverage of Obama on Veterans Day might have smelled a rat right away: He didn’t wear a red tie that day, as he does in the picture, but a blue one, and he wore a winter coat over his suit. (We’ve seen some e-mails claiming that the picture is from the Ft. Hood memorial service. Obama did wear a red tie that day, but the memorial took place at Ft. Hood, against a backdrop of multiple flags including a prominent Air Force flag.) In fact, the picture was taken several months earlier, at a Memorial Day observation at Arlington National Cemetery.” Oh photoshop users.
    (tags: politics obama usa)
  • FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Palin Calculus: A Rejoinder
    “Let me preface the following by conceding that many of Nate’s arguments are quite persuasive. Most compelling is his observation about the media’s love affair with Palin. For all her complaints about the supposedly liberal national media, the media want to sell ads and Palin attracts eyeballs, holds listeners, and generates clicks. The media is the best thing she’s got going for her. Nate’s also right about the 2012 GOP field potentially being small and/or weak; if either Mike Huckabee or Newt Gingrich opt out–and certainly if both do–Palin’s path to the nomination is made easier.” The stuff about her being unpopular and not having a lot of experience and too rash in her conversation stand out the most to me.
    (tags: mikehuckabee politics sarahpalin usa 2012 election republicans obama)
  • Not. Okay. — Feministing
    “I’m sorry, but how the fuck could a game titled, “Hit the Bitch” be anti-violent?”
    (tags: feminism videogames violence domesticviolence)
  • FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: 10 Reasons That Sarah Palin Could Win the Republican Nomination
    “Now then, do I think Palin is the favorite to win the Republican primary? Not necessarily. She’s certainly not the majority favorite and perhaps not the plurality favorite, depending on who runs. And you could fairly easily come up with a set of ten bullet points to argue against Palin’s chances. But I think she’ll run, and I think it would be a mistake to discount her chances too significantly given the makeup and mood of the Republican primary electorate.”
    (tags: sarahpalin politics republicans 2012 election)
  • The Google Phone May Be Data Only, VoIP Driven Device
    “The Google Phone may be a data only, VoIP driven device. And Google may be lining up at least AT&T to provide those data services for the Google Phone, says one person we spoke with today.” I am so in love with this idea it isn’t even funny.
    (tags: google mobile internet voip android att)
  • Simply-Buttons v2 : p51 Labs
    Simple xhtml/css buttons, no javascript.
    (tags: css html webdesign webdevelopment programming library button form)
  • something positive: archive
    “Real men do what I tell them to do.”
    (tags: humor comic somethingpositive)
  • G.O.P. Women Attack Mammogram Guidelines — The Caucus Blog — NYTimes.com
    “A group of female House Republicans used the upset over new guidelines on breast cancer screening issued by an advisory panel earlier this week to highlight what they view as the dangers of government-administered health care and the Democrats’ bill to revamp the system.” Republicans attack independent medical professional for making a medical decision by saying this is an example of government intruding in medical decision, when the decision to intrude is by the Republicans protesting.
    (tags: democrats politics logic health gender republicans)
  • Dilbert comic strip for 11/18/2009 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.
    Lead by example managers.
    (tags: management business cloudcomputing humor comic dilbert)
  • Ames Tribune > Ames Tribune > News
    ” Joyce Bannantine presented a petition with 118 signatures to the Library Board of Trustees last month objecting to the open display in the teen area and offering free copies of the magazine Sex, Etc. The magazine is written for teens by teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University.”
    (tags: magazine library freedom sexual education youth censorship)
  • “Going Rogue”: The 18 Biggest Falsehoods In Palin’s Book
    “Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” hits stores Tuesday. But can you believe what you read? Check out these statements, contradicted by the facts or by other people on John McCain’s campaign, and see what you think.”
    (tags: mccain sarahpalin logic politics 2008 election)
    • ]]>     Choosing the Small Screen of a Smartphone for E-Reading — NYTimes.com “Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/19/links-for-2009-11-19/    links for 2009-11-18http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/isYihVVh-KE/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingWed, 18 Nov 2009 06:04:21 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/18/links-for-2009-11-18/
  • Coding Horror: Parsing Html The Cthulhu Way
    “So, yes, generally speaking, it is a bad idea to use regular expressions when parsing HTML. We should be teaching neophyte developers that, absolutely. Even though it’s an apparently neverending job. But we should also be teaching them the very real difference between parsing HTML and the simple expedience of processing a few strings. And how to tell which is the right approach for the task at hand.”
    (tags: html regex programming programmer philosophy)
  • xkcd — A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language — By Randall Munroe
    The business world vs. academia.
    (tags: business academia programming humor software xkcd)
  • U.S. arrests and charges two Madoff programmers | U.S. | Reuters
    “Two computer programmers designed codes to falsify thousands of fake trade blotters and phantom records for swindler Bernard Madoff and took hush money to help keep the massive fraud going, U.S. authorities said.”
    (tags: usa bernniemaddof crime legal programming software)
  • Web Icon Set — Offers Professional and Quality Icon Sets
    “You can use these icons on any desktop and web applications. Application Icon Set inclides Register, Settings, Users, Database, Login, Chat, Add, Delete, Edit, invoice.”
    (tags: webdesign webdevelopment programming icons)
  • Mark Cuban counsels Google-busting bribery • The Register
    “Broadcast.com co-founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s idea is simplicity itself: Just pay the top 1,000 websites a million bucks per to de-list themselves from Google.”
    (tags: google searchengine business internet media)
  • BBC NEWS | Technology | Age of cyber warfare is ‘dawning’
    “Cyber war has moved from fiction to fact, says a report. Compiled by security firm McAfee, it bases its conclusion on analysis of recent net-based attacks.”
    (tags: security technology cyberwar internet china usa military)
  • Microsoft Azure is The New Outlook — jungleG
    “So basically you would launch the Web Platform Installer, add an application from the gallery and launch it on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud and that’s it. The application basically handles the database, frontend, and serving in a matter of minutes.” Sounds really neat.
    (tags: database microsoft programming webdevelopment cloudcomputing)
  • Advanced JavaScript Table Sorter – TinyTable V3 — Web Development Blog
    “The third iteration of the TinyTable table sorting script adds search, column averages and totals, record numbering, a view all function, and a reset function. At only 6KB it is still lightweight, quick, and includes all previous TinyTable features. Other features include alternate row highlighting, header class toggling, auto data type recognition, and selective column sorting. If you don’t need the new features take a look at the second version of the script which weighs 2.5KB.”
    (tags: javascript programming webdevelopment plugin tables sorting)
  • PHD Comics: Buzzwords
    Buzzwords make the paper.
    (tags: humor comic phdcomics academia)
  • National Partnership for Women & Families: CDC Report Finds Comprehensive Sex Education Programs Effective
    “Sex education programs that advise students to delay sexual activity while also offering instruction on ways to avoid unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections effectively reduce risky sexual behavior, increase condom use and decrease spread of STIs, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-commissioned report released on Friday, the Washington Post reports. The report said there is insufficient evidence to determine whether programs that focus on abstinence until marriage reduce the chance adolescents will engage in risky sexual behavior, become pregnant or contract an STI.” So let’s double check this comprehensive sex ed programs work, abstinence first or only no evidence to see if they are effective.
    (tags: health cdc sexual usa politics)
  • Making browsers faster: Resource Packages · Alexander Limi
    “What if there was a backwards compatible way to transfer all of the resources that are used on every single page in your site — CSS, JS, images, anything else — in a single HTTP request at the start of the first visit to the page? This is what Resource Package support in browsers will let you do.”
    (tags: http browser firefox html webdevelopment optimization performance gzip)
  • Blag Hag: Gay tourists not welcome at the Vatican
    “Nope, simply being gay is provocative, abusive, and disrespectful. Not bears in assless chaps, not rainbow flags, not public make out sessions, not kisses, not holding hands — thought crimes of a homosexual nature are enough. You know how many gays probably go to the Vatican to stare in wonder at the Michelangelos and Berninis (who were probably gay)? Maybe the Vatican would be singing a different tune if they realized how much money they’d lose from banning everyone but upstanding, “moral” Catholics from visiting.”
    (tags: lgbtq catholic religion travel stupid morality ethics)
  • Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them
    “In the Evolution vs. Creationism debate, it is important to be able to spot all the logical fallacies that Creationists tend to throw around. This essay covers many bare essentials of logical thinking, as well as ways to critically evaluate an argument. The logical fallacies listed here are the ones most often used by Creationists, although Creationists have, to date, used almost every single logical fallacy in existence to “prove” their case. Each fallacy will have its own little paragraph, describing it, why it is fallacious and how to counter it. Enjoy!”
    (tags: logic communication religion evolution science debate biology creationism)
  • Gay Marriage Lost, But It’s Not Losing — Reason Magazine
    ” As it turns out, it’s not the idea of treating gay couples equally that bothers most Americans. It’s the name of the legal arrangement. Call same-sex marriage by another term—civil union, domestic partnership, everything-but-marriage, Qualcomm Stadium, Death Cab for Cutie—and they’re fine with it.”
    (tags: lgbtq samesexmarriage maine washington politics usa)
  • FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Why Palin Will Run for President in 2012
    “Tom provides two pieces of evidence against Palin running for the nomination. The first is that 2012 is a year when an incumbent, Barack Obama, will almost certainly be running for re-election, and incumbents seats are much tougher to pick up than open ones. The second is that Palin’s polling has gone somewhat sour against her potential GOP rivals, which might deter her from entering. For starters, I’d somewhat dispute Tom’s unspoken assumption that Palin is liable to be looking at this decision through such a narrowly rational prism. Was quitting the Alaska governorship — particularly in the sudden and disorganized way that Palin did it — a decision characteristic of someone who carefully ponders all the facts and circumstances before jumping to a conclusion? Not hardly. Palin is impulsive, impatient, ambitious, thrill-seeking: not the type of politician to prudently wait for a better moment.”
    (tags: sarahpalin republicans politics 2012)
  • Star Wars: Trench Run game released for iPhone | The Loop
    “THQ has released Star Wars: Trench Run, a new game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It costs $4.99 and is available for download from the App Store.” Do you need any other reason to own an iPhone.
    (tags: starwars iphone videogame)
  • The Standard Way — The Daily WTF
    “Greg lowered the brim of his glasses further down his nose for emphasis. “The standard way of recovering passwords is to send a user their password, not to hide it behind a link! Here, let me show you how Google does things – pay attention and please, keep an open mind.” While Greg surfed onto Gmail to go about resetting his password, Michael could barely watch – the embarrassment was too great. He thought that he had considered every angle and that he here he was going to be proved out to be a fool. However, he was saved at that last minute. In the email that Greg had received, Gmail sent a link enabling him to set a new password.”
    (tags: softwareengineering software programming security password)
    • ]]>     Coding Horror: Parsing Html The Cthulhu Way “So, yes, generally speaking, it is a bad idea to use regular expressions when parsing HTML. We should be teaching neophyte developers that, absolutely. Even though it’s an apparently neverending job. But we should also be teaching them the very real difference between parsing HTML and the simple expedience [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/18/links-for-2009-11-18/    links for 2009-11-17http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/eFyMN9wx_II/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingTue, 17 Nov 2009 06:04:23 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/17/links-for-2009-11-17/
  • WTF Code
    “Highlighting exemplary examples of code written by fine programmers.”
    (tags: humor programming webdevelopment development geek computer quotes)
  • Non Sequitur — UCLICK GoComics.com
    Twitter is being led by the “biggest social retards in the world”.
    (tags: humor comic nonsequitur)
  • Sarah Palin: If you fact-check my book, then the terrorists have already won | Media Matters for America
    “So Palin is suggesting that the AP’s effort to fact-check her book — something a news organization has a journalistic duty to do if it’s going to report on it — means that it is somehow ignoring the stories of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s trial and Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s associations? Sorry, but… where’s the link?”
    (tags: sarahpalin politics logic)
  • In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40 — NYTimes.com
    “Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.”
    (tags: breastcancer cancer health fda insurance)
  • Slashdot Technology Story | URL Shorteners Get Some Backup
    “Now a group of such companies, organized under the auspices of the Internet Archive, has formed a non-profit entity to hold URL-shortening databases in escrow, with the intent of continuing to resolve a member company’s links should it get out of the business. At announcement, the 301Works organization has 21 URL-shortener members, including the largest, bit.ly. Many others are not (yet) on board. The members have agreed to cede control of their domain names to 301Works.org should they exit the field, and to back up their URL mappings regularly to the organization.”
    (tags: shorturl twitter slashdot)
  • Zambian Editor Acquitted on Morals Charge for Sharing Photos — NYTimes.com
    “A Zambian newspaper editor was acquitted Monday on charges of distributing obscene materials with the intent of corrupting public morals, a case filed against her after she sent photos of a woman in childbirth to government officials and other prominent figures. Many media advocates in Zambia and throughout the world considered the arrest of Chansa Kabwela, news editor of The Post, to be an assault on press freedom. The newspaper and the government of President Rupiah Banda have been at loggerheads about allegations of public corruption.”
    (tags: zambia africa humanrights freedomofspeech freedomofpress freedom health)
  • On the Road — At the Airport, a Box of Cash Becomes a Constitutional Case — NYTimes.com
    “The transcript of Mr. Bierfeldt’s recording shows that the officers, evidently unaware that Mr. Bierfeldt was recording the session, threatened Mr. Bierfeldt with federal arrest for declining to account for the cash. Mr. Bierfeldt kept asking politely whether he was legally required to answer. This intransigence irritated the officers. It is not illegal, by the way, to carry a large amount of cash while traveling. (The law does require cash amounts over $10,000 to be declared on international trips.) And as the American Civil Liberties Union argued in a lawsuit filed in June against the T.S.A. in the Bierfeldt case, screeners exceeded their authority in detaining him and demanding explanations once Mr. Bierfeldt had cleared standard checkpoint security inspection.”
    (tags: humanrights freedom freedomfromsearchandseizure usa tsa security politics travel)
  • 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9 — Technosailor.com
    “Unlike WordPress 2.8, which Mark Jaquith describes as the Snow Leopard of WordPress since most of the basis of the WordPress 2.8 upgrade was complete rewrites and optimization of the infrastructure that ran WordPress instead of providing lots of new features in the same way Apple’s new OS X release is a focus on improved performance instead of features, WordPress 2.9 brings major new “bling” to the table. As a reminder of WordPress 2.8, you can see the writeup that Jonathan Dingman brought us last time around.”
    (tags: wordpress wordpres2.9 cms webdevelopment programming)
  • Groklaw — Apple Wins Like a Champ — Psystar is Toast — What? You’re Surprised?
    “You’re surprised? I told you, I told you, I told you. So, to those who feel crushed at the moment, there could be an appeal, I suppose. And if you want freedom for your code, you certainly can find it on Planet Earth. Look in the right direction. You’ll be happy you did, because you can hack away to your heart’s content, and it’s perfectly legal. The court’s message is clear: EULAs mean what they say; if you don’t want to abide by its license, leave Apple’s stuff alone.” Not surprised.
    (tags: eula apple psystar lawsuit legal copyright software technology osx)
  • Conservatives Say Gitmo Detainees Would Be Fine In IL Prison, Warn GOP Of ‘Scaremongering’ | TPMDC
    “Three prominent conservatives warned in a joint statement against Republican “scaremongering” on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying the prison in Thomson, Illinois would be fine to handle them.”
    (tags: republicans politics congress guantanamo terrorism illinois)
  • 8 Tips Concerning Domain Names | Admix Web
    “call it the “Domain Game.” Now days it can be almost impossible to select a domain name for your business’s website. When I get a project, many times the client will give me a list of ten or more possible domain names, and I have to respectfully suggest that they make me another list of ten after I have explained to them my tips for selecting a good domain name. Many times they are too long, too hard to spell, or just too generic. Another big issue these days is the buying up of domain names. Many times you cannot even get your company’s name, because they have been bought up by people to sell the domain later at a higher price.”
    (tags: domain webdesign webdevelopment marketing business seo)
  • 172 final flag icons — Custom Icon Design team
    “172 final country flag icons which rendered at 256×256, 128×128, 64×64, 48×48, 32×32, 24×24, 16×16 pixels and formats are png, ico and icns.”
    (tags: icons design webdesign graphics country)
  • Create YouTube-like adaptable view using CSS and jQuery
    “Besides Turn off the lights feature I explained earlier, YouTube has more great stuff. I believe that you noticed “change view” feature which allows you to switch between normal and wide mode and thus expand/shrink movie area. I like this feature because in different circumstances, I need a different view. But the thing I like the most is that, although layout changes, it is done seamingly and all the information remains easily accessible.”
    (tags: youtube css jquery webdesign javascript video html design)
  • A Pocket Guide to Social Media and Kids | Nielsen Wire
    “In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media.”
    (tags: socialnetwork socialmedia media technology information education mobile youth marketing web2.0)
  • TrojanHorse.jpg (JPEG Image, 700x558 pixels)
    TrojanHorse for real.
    (tags: trojanhorse security humor)
  • Don’t Bother Defending Yourself in Maine New Hampshire — Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
    “In summary, Almon was 20 feet away, holding only a pocket knife, which he immediately gave up when he realized the two officers were police. Cattabriga was with another officer, both were carrying both handguns and tasers, and they were following Almon. But it was Officer Cattabriga who apparently feared for his safety.”
    (tags: logic police legal stupid)
  • Disgruntled Star Editor Takes Constructive Revenge — Torontoist
    A Star Editor takes on the memo firing editors at the paper, and kicks but.
    (tags: newspaper media humor editing writing business language grammar)
  • Dinosaur Comics — November 16th, 2009 — awesome fun times!
    What do you experiment with.
    (tags: humor comic dinosaurcomics)
  • Rogue Facts: Media Matters ’ ongoing list of falsehoods in Palin’s memoir | Media Matters for America
    “Media Matters for America has documented numerous falsehoods in Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life. Below is a list of what we’ve found so far.”
    (tags: sarahpalin politics usa)
  • Court Won’t Get Involved In Book Banning Case — cbs4.com
    “The Supreme Court is staying out of a dispute in Miami between school officials and civil libertarians over a book about Cuba that depicts smiling children in communist uniforms but avoids mention of problems in the country. The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida that sought to prevent Miami officials from removing the book “Vamos a Cuba” and its English-language version, “A Visit to Cuba,” from library shelves.”
    (tags: legal lawsuit supremecourt aclue)
  • Pearls Before Swine free online comic strip library at comics.com
    “Profanity it offends me.”
    (tags: profanity humor comic pearlsbeforeswine)
  • Oxford’s word of the year? ‘Unfriend’ | The Social — CNET News
    “Perhaps in a sign of how the plague of social media has numbed us all to the value of legitimate human connections, the New Oxford American Dictionary has picked the verb “unfriend,” or “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook,” as its 2009 Word of the Year.”
    (tags: facebook socialnetworking languages culture)
  • Writing effective email copy — Blog — Campaign Monitor
    “When you’re elbows-deep in applying visual tweaks to your HTML email design, it’s very easy to forget how important writing quality, punchy copy can be. Tailoring email copy to your audience is not a matter of ensuring your message is readable even with images turned off, but presenting it in a style that your readers will respond to. In this post we’ll highlight some considerations when writing effective email copy, including tone, personality, keeping it concise, offering value to the reader and testing.”
    (tags: email copywriting marketing)
  • BBC NEWS | Technology | China joins supercomputer elite
    “China has become one of a handful of nations to own one of the top five supercomputers in the world.”
    (tags: china supercomputer technology research science usa ibm)
  • Countries Agree on New Approach to Fight Hunger — NYTimes.com
    “World leaders at a food summit on Monday rallied around a new strategy to fight global hunger and help poor countries feed themselves, but failed to pledge funds sought by the U.N. The summit approved its final declaration during its first hours in a show of broad consensus. Countries pledged to substantially increase aid to agriculture in developing nations, so that the world’s 1 billion hungry can become more self-sufficient. The summit did not commit to a specific figure of $44 billion a year for agricultural aid that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says will be necessary in the coming decades.”
    (tags: un poverty foreignaid)
  • Nation’s Fast Food Patrons No Longer Trusted To Dispense Own Ketchup | The Onion — America’s Finest News Source
    “In an effort to cut condiment expenses and address the gluttony, waste, and utter lack of self-restraint exhibited by Americans, officials from the fast food industry announced Monday a new policy prohibiting all customers from dispensing their own ketchup. “We thought our patrons were responsible enough to handle a self-service ketchup pump,” said McDonald’s CEO James A. Skinner, who claimed that fast food industry leaders were partially to blame for overestimating the maturity of the American public.”
    (tags: fastfood humor theonion)
  • Buenos Aires mayor won’t appeal same-sex ruling — CNN.com
    “The court ruled that two articles in the city’s civil code that say only people of different sexes can get married are illegal. The court decision applies only to Buenos Aires. Same-sex unions in most of the rest of Argentina remain illegal.”
    (tags: argentina lawsuit buenosaires samesexmarriage lgbtq)
  • Blueprint: A CSS Framework | Spend your time innovating, not replicating
    “Blueprint is a CSS framework, which aims to cut down on your development time. It gives you a solid foundation to build your project on top of, with an easy-to-use grid, sensible typography, useful plugins, and even a stylesheet for printing.”
    (tags: css framework programming webdevelopment webdesign xhtml html typography)
  • BBC NEWS | Business | Murdoch may block Google searches
    “Rupert Murdoch has said he will try to block Google from using news content from his companies. The billionaire told Sky News Australia he will explore ways to remove stories from Google’s search indexes, including Google News. Mr Murdoch’s News Corp had previously said it would start charging online customers across all its websites.”
    (tags: rupertmurdoch foxnews business google internet copyright media politics)
  • 9 Most Common IE Bugs and How to Fix Them — Nettuts+
    ”

    Internet Explorer — the bane of most web developers’ existence. Up to 60% of your development can be wasted just trying to squash out IE specific bugs which isn’t really a productive use of your time. In this tutorial, you are going to learn about the most common IE bugs and rendering disparities and how to easily squash them or deal with them.”

    (tags: ie css webdevelopment webdesign ie6 html xhtml)
  • CNN Paid Lou Dobbs $8 Million to Quit | Media and Technology | AlterNet
    “Although Lou Dobbs has been saying that his departure from CNN was an “amicable parting on the best of terms,” the New York Post reports that CNN wanted him gone so badly that it gave him an $8 million severance package.”
    (tags: cnn media)
    • ]]>     WTF Code “Highlighting exemplary examples of code written by fine programmers.” (tags: humor programming webdevelopment development geek computer quotes) Non Sequitur — UCLICK GoComics.com Twitter is being led by the “biggest social retards in the world”. (tags: humor comic nonsequitur) Sarah Palin: If you fact-check my book, then the terrorists have already won | Media Matters for America “So Palin is suggesting [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/17/links-for-2009-11-17/    links for 2009-11-16http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/-UdbpuZFKFg/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingMon, 16 Nov 2009 06:04:45 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/16/links-for-2009-11-16/
  • The law loves American Christianity : Pharyngula
    “We’re getting more of the same from Congress, too. Religion is being given permission to intrude on science once again, with the sanctimonious Orrin Hatch (abetted by a pair of Democrats, Kerry and Kennedy) sponsoring a provision in the mangled health care football to allow prayer to count as medicine. It’s specifically a sop to Christian Science, that nonsensical superstition that believes that medicine is a betrayal of faith and that wants to charge sick people money to pray over them…and also get reimbursement from the government.”
    (tags: religion health politics congress usa atheism freedomofreligion irs christianscience)
  • Creating a Timeless User Experience
    “Even something as simple as a redesign of a website “for a refresh” does not get you a good experience. Building experiences with buzzwords and features are a drug, and if Web and UX professionals don’t have a client intervention soon, more useless websites and products are going to crowd out what few good experiences there are. All projects should begin with this question: Do you know what the problem is, and does this (product, website, application) solve that problem for the people that will use it?”
    (tags: design webdesign userexperience marketing management business)
  • xkcd — A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language — By Randall Munroe
    We need a hero and that hero is Sagan-Man.
    (tags: carlsagan humor xkcd science)
  • 40 Fresh and Free Icon Sets for Web Designers and Bloggers : Speckyboy Design Magazine
    “In this post we have collected 40 recently released free icon-sets for web designers, developers and bloggers.”
    (tags: icons webdesign design graphics)
  • PEN American Center — November 11, 2009: Book Groups Support Patriot Act Reform Bill in House
    “The Campaign for Reader Privacy today urged its supporters to contact members of the House of Representatives in support of a bill that would effectively ban the government from using the Patriot Act to engage in fishing expeditions to identify the books that people borrow or purchase.”
    (tags: privacy patriotact library freedom)
  • Armey of ignorance — Paul Krugman Blog — NYTimes.com
    “The proposition that the Community Reinvestment Act caused all the bad stuff, because government forced helpless bankers into lending to Those People, has been refuted up, down, and sideways. The vast bulk of subprime lending came from institutions not subject to the CRA. Commercial real estate lending, which was mainly lending to rich white developers, not you-know-who, is in much worse shape than subprime home lending. Etc., etc.”
    (tags: politics realestate business economics banking subprime)
  • BBC NEWS | Americas | US swine flu deaths ‘near 4,000′
    “Swine flu has killed nearly 4,000 people in the US, including 540 children, officials said after devising a new counting method. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the new system is based on more precise figures provided by 10 states. The previous estimated death toll from the H1N1 virus in the US was 672. Latest figures show about 22 million Americans contracted the virus in six months with some 98,000 hospitalised.”
    (tags: h1n1 health usa cdc)
  • Daring Fireball Linked List: Lots of Excuses
    “That doesn’t sound like someone who plans to ever ship something of the caliber of Tweetie, Birdfeed, or Twitterrific. From what I’ve seen of Twidroid, it’s not even as good as Craig Hockenberry’s original version of Twitterrific for iPhone, which was written as a jailbreak app before the iPhone officially supported third-party software. If Android hardware diversity is already a problem for third-party developers, it’s only going to get worse.”
    (tags: userexperience iphone appstore sdk apple design)
  • F.D.A. Threatens to Ban Alcoholic Drinks With Caffeine — NYTimes.com
    “The drinks, which combine malt liquor or other spirits with caffeine and fruit juices at alcohol concentrations up to about 10 percent, have become increasingly popular among college students. In a news conference, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the agency’s principal deputy commissioner, said their consumption was associated with increased risk of serious injury, drunken driving, sexual assault and other dangerous behavior.” Is it the alcohol and caffeine mix or the college student aspect.
    (tags: health alcohol fda drugs caffeine crime)
  • Log in or sign up? — Leah Culver’s Blog
    “For one of my side projects, Leafy Chat, we have just added the concept of user accounts. This includes the need for registration and log in (as well as log out and forgot password and so on). Leafy Chat only requires an email address and a password for both registration and log in, so it would be great to have some clever way to have both forms on the homepage.”
    (tags: login design webdesign webdevelopment userexperience form)
  • Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? — Times Labs Blog
    “An even more striking thing, perhaps, emerges in this second graph, namely that revenues accrued by artists themselves have in fact risen over the past 5 years, despite the fall in record sales. (All the blue bars in the chart above represent revenues that go directly to artists. As you can see, the ‘blue total’ has risen noticeably.) This is mostly because of live revenues, but also because of the growing amount collected by the PRS on behalf of artists, which accounts for a much bigger chunk of industry revenues than most people realise.” Record labels are losing the most money.
    (tags: business music internet copyright piracy p2p riaa drm economics)
  • More Freedom Necessary as Top Developers Abandon iPhone | Electronic Frontier Foundation
    “Apple’s ridiculous iPhone app approval process has hit a new low, with rejections for “ridiculing public figures” and using Apple’s own APIs to access Apple icons. These are just the latest reasons why the U.S. Copyright Office should approve EFF’s effort to legalize jailbreaking of the iPhone—customers and developers shouldn’t need Apple’s approval before using the software they want.”
    (tags: eff mobile iphone appstore copyright legal lawsuit jailbreak apple politics sdk)
  • Broaching Birth Control With Afghan Mullahs — NYTimes.com
    “The message was simple. Babies are good, but not too many; wait two years before having another to give your wife’s body a chance to recover. Nothing in Islam expressly forbids birth control. But it does emphasize procreation, and mullahs, like leaders of other faiths, consider children to be blessings from God, and are usually the most determined opponents of having fewer of them. It is an attitude that Afghanistan can no longer afford, in the view of the employees of the nonprofit group that runs the seminars, Marie Stopes International. The high birthrate places a heavy weight on a society where average per capita earnings are about $700 a year. It is also a risk to mothers. Afghanistan is second only to Sierra Leone in maternal mortality rates, which run as high as 8 percent in some areas.”
    (tags: afghanistan religion islam familyplanning reproduction health population)
  • Stop selling out science to commerce — opinion — 09 November 2009 — New Scientist
    “Do commerical pressures have a negative impact on science? This debate has been raging for so long that it usually raises little more than a shrug of indifference. That is no longer a defensible response. A new report from our organisation, Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), exposes problems so serious that we can no longer afford to be indifferent to them. The report looks at the impact of five commercial sectors on science and technology over the past 20 years. The damaging influence of two of these, pharmaceuticals and tobacco, has been noted before. But we also looked at the oil and gas, defence and biotech sectors, which have been subjected to less scrutiny. We found a wide range of disturbing commercial influences on science, and evidence that similar problems are occurring across academic disciplines.”
    (tags: science business research bias ethics)
  • IEA Whistleblower Claims Agency Has Downplayed Looming Oil Shortage | Popular Science
    “Outside economists and energy experts have already criticized a figure within the new report that states oil production can grow from 83 million barrels per day to 105 million barrels per day by 2030. The whistleblower added that the IEA had already dropped its 2030 estimates from 120 million barrels a day to 116 million, and then 105 million. He also said that many IEA members believe maintaining oil supplies at just 90 million or 95 million barrels per day seems impossible.”
    (tags: iea oil naturalgas energy economy economics)
  • Rob Pegoraro — Fast Forward: FCC Takes Sides in Net-Neutrality Debate — washingtonpost.com
    “On Monday, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said the agency would write rules requiring Internet providers to do something many of them already say they do: deliver online content without discrimination.”
    (tags: fcc netneutrality internet communication broadband mobile)
  • Partial loop “unrolling” – James Padolsey
    “I’ve only tested it briefly, and to be honest, there doesn’t seem to be a notable benefit. In IE, I can see a bit of improvement over the conventional forEach implementation but only if I’m using arrays with 1000+ lengths. I think this would only be useful in situations where you absolutely have to squeeze every inch of potential performance out of your app. Anyway, it’s still pretty interesting, I wonder what other fancy things can be created by using pre-compiled functions.”
    (tags: javascript optimization forloop foreach)
  • Daring Fireball: The Airfoil Speakers Touch Situation
    “Is Apple within their rights to reject this app for this reason? Sure. The bottom line is that they can reject apps for whatever reasons they want — that’s the rule that matters here. But was Rogue Amoeba foolish for designing their application this way? No. There’s nothing in the SDK agreement that they’ve violated.”
    (tags: apple appstore iphone copyright trademark)
  • Phenomenon — The Price of Free — NYTimes.com
    “The smartest, most creative TV shows, from “Deadwood” to “Mad Men” to NBC’s own “30 Rock,” tend to be the most expensive to produce. They have large, talented casts, top-notch writers and directors, elaborate sets and generally high production values. If the changes in our viewing habits stanch the flow of money back to studios, producing those kinds of programs may no longer be possible. In their place, we’ll get more junk: dopey reality shows, cookie-cutter police dramas, inane gab fests. The vast wasteland will become even vaster.”
    (tags: information technology media internet video culture)
  • Support for Same-Sex Marriage by Age and State » Sociological Images
    “The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people. I also think it’s interesting that, even in states that we normally consider quite hostile to gay rights (the ones at the bottom of the table), there is still a significant age difference: 18–29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts. So, while we like to think about states as “liberal” or “conservative,” spreading out the data by age tells a much more complicated story.” Texas is the last state where support for same-sex marriage falls under 50% for 18-29yr olds.
    (tags: texas usa culture massachusetts alabama politics lgbtq samesexmarriage age statistics)
  • If The WSJ.com Says Goodbye To Google, It Will Also Say Goodbye To 25 Percent Of Its Traffic
    “If Murdoch wants fewer people coming to the WSJ.com and other news sites he controls, blocking Google from indexing those sites is the perfect way to achieve that goal. Just over 25 percent of the WSJ.com’s traffic comes directly from Google or Google news, according to estimates by Hitwise. About 12 percent of that comes from Google News, and another 15 percent from Google search directly. About 44 percent of visitors to the WSJ.com are new to the site, so Google is doing a good job of introducing new readers to the WSJ. But Murdoch clearly would rather have loyal readers than those delivered by search engines. Or at least that is his story, and he is sticking to it. Never mind that in order to get people to pay for content, they first have to be able to find it.”
    (tags: news information google googlenews copyright media socialmedia rupertmurdoch)
    • ]]>     The law loves American Christianity : Pharyngula “We’re getting more of the same from Congress, too. Religion is being given permission to intrude on science once again, with the sanctimonious Orrin Hatch (abetted by a pair of Democrats, Kerry and Kennedy) sponsoring a provision in the mangled health care football to allow prayer to count as [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/16/links-for-2009-11-16/    links for 2009-11-15http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Yostivanich/~3/EmSC6I4pXX0/Daily LinksDelicious Blog PostingSun, 15 Nov 2009 06:02:59 PSThttp://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/15/links-for-2009-11-15/
  • Beware ‘frighteningly bad’ Flash flaw, say researchers | Security Central — InfoWorld
    “The problem lies in the Flash ActionScript same-origin policy, which is designed to limit a Flash object’s access to other content only from the domain it originated from, added Mike Bailey, a senior security researcher at Foreground. Unfortunately, said Bailey, if an attacker can deposit a malicious Flash object on a Web site — through its user-generated content capabilities, which typically allow people to upload files to the site or service — they can execute malicious scripts in the context of that domain.”
    (tags: internet adobe flash security hacking software)
  • Stone Age humans crossed Sahara in the rain — life — 09 November 2009 — New Scientist
    “While about 40 per cent of hydrocarbons in today’s dust come from water-dependent plants, this rose to 60 per cent, first between 120,000 and 110,000 ago and again from 50,000 to 45,000 years ago. So the region seemed to be in the grip of unusually wet spells at the time. That may have been enough to allow sub-Saharan Stone Age Homo sapiens to migrate north: the first fossils of modern humans outside Africa date from 93,000 year ago in Israel. And both genetic analysis and archaeology show that humans didn’t spread extensively beyond Africa until 50,000 years ago, suggesting a second migration at the time of the second wet spell.”
    (tags: archaeology)
  • Can Wind Power Be Stored?: Scientific American
    “There are many companies moving to fill the energy gap. Using federal loan guarantees and $4 billion in “smart grid” stimulus cash, they are working on utility-scale storage units that they hope will help balance intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar and let electric grid operators match power supplies with demand.”
    (tags: energy wind)
  • Free High-Quality Magento Theme: Sigyn SM | Smashing Magazine
    “Today we are glad to release Sigyn SM — a free high-quality Magento theme created by Silverthemes.com especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The theme has a unique grungy design that stands out and can serve as a good baseline for your Magento-powered online shops.”
    (tags: magento template webdesign design)
  • Op-Ed Columnist — Trucks, Trains and Trees — NYTimes.com
    “No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over. The one that always stuns me is this: Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year. The amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, all those cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo. We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year, and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change.”
    (tags: climatechange deforestation usa brazil economics economy travel transportation)
  • TableGear — AndrewPlummer.com
    “TableGear is a software package for working with data on the web. It is designed get your data into a web page, and let you work with it quickly and easily, the way you would in powerful desktop applications like Excel.”
    (tags: mootools javascript ajax programming webdevelopment mysql plugin css php tables form sorting)
  • Imprisoned for Not Having Health Care? | FactCheck.org
    “The letter from the JCT includes a list of civil and criminal penalties. These aren’t penalties for not buying insurance, however. They’re penalties for refusing to pay the resulting tax.”
    (tags: taxes usa healthcare politics insurance senate congress)
  • BBC NEWS | Americas | Amazon deforestation ‘record low’
    “The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 45% and is the lowest on record since monitoring began 21 years ago, Brazil’s government says.”
    (tags: amazon deforestation environment)
  • The Guerrilla Girls in Canada — Feministing
    “It’s amazing that after 20+ years of existence, the Guerrilla Girls’ message is still as resonant and needed as ever. Art museums average 15% women in curated exhibits, women of color .003%, and 4% of museum acquisitions are of work by women artists. Ridiculous.”
    (tags: feminism art female gender guerrillagirl’s)
  • The worst question in social media
    “Chris Walker, on Twitter, asked a question I get often: “Any advice on getting followers?” It’s the worst question in social media. Sorry Chris for picking on your question. It’s actually a question lots of people wonder, but it’s the kind of thing that no one really can answer.” I agree totally.
    (tags: socialmedia socialnetworking twitter)
  • Redesign: When To Relaunch The Site and Best Practices | Smashing Magazine
    “The problem is both a lack of correct planning and a lack of understanding of the root need for the redesign. Once we’ve identified these elements, we’re set for success. In this article, we’ll discuss how to plan and execute a redesign, and how to find the perfect timing for it.”
    (tags: webdesign design programming)
  • Wall Street Banks Getting Swine Flu Vaccine Before Many High-Risk Groups (VIDEO)
    “While thousands of at-risk Americans wait, some big Wall Street banks have already secured the hard-to-find H1N1 vaccine for their employees. Building on a story that BusinessWeek broke, NBC reports that employees at the New York Stock Exchange, bankers at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and employees at the Federal Reserve have all received swine flu vaccine doses to administer to their employees. In particular, NBC reports that Goldman Sachs has received 200 doses of the vaccine — the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Wall Street banks, like many other companies, put in requests for the vaccine but seem to have had something of a leg up on securing doses.”
    (tags: usa politics health h1n1)
  • BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Europe split on Google book plans
    “Google plans to put millions of the world’s books online and create the world’s largest virtual library by 2010. The company has already scanned 10 million out-of-print books as part of its Library Project. Google plans to charge people for access to its large online collection of books and to act as a selling agent of books through its Google Editions. Critics fear it is creating a monopoly over information, and are unhappy at the firm digitising titles against the wishes of many authors and publishers.”
    (tags: google information copyright lawsuit legal eu)
  • Floom — Oskar Krawczyk – blog.olicio.us
    “Floom is a MooTools slideshow plugin that can present images & their captions beautifully.”
    (tags: mootools plugin javascript slideshow html slider)
  • Fast-Tracked Solar Project Could Speed Mojave Desert’s Demise — NYTimes.com
    “But a closer look at a federal draft environmental impact statement released last week reveals that even with extensive mitigation, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project would destroy rare plants and permanently alter prized views from the nearby Mojave National Preserve. It would also annually consume an estimated 32 million gallons of groundwater in a region where water is scarce. Such findings concern environmentalists who are almost certain to challenge the project. They also add to mounting criticism that the Obama administration is rushing to permit utility-scale renewable energy projects without considering the projects’ effects on pristine public lands and the rare plants and animals that inhabit them.”
    (tags: solar energy environment california mojave)
  • Twitter Spokesman: “We Own You, B*tch” (Spoof Video)
    “Twitter’s official spokesman Mark Logan recorded a video of himself responding to common user complaints about the popular service. In it, the man bluntly tells users that the company doesn’t really care whether you leave or not.”
    (tags: twitter video humor)
  • Free “Site Under Construction” Template
    “This template is a simple one page “Under Construction” template that allows you to keep your users informed,while you work at your website.The template has a jQuery slider containing 3 slides:one with your social pages,like Twitter or Facebook,one with a subscribe-by-mail form and another one with an area for writing what you do.I thing it‘s very useful.Now you have to convince yourself of its functionality.” Very nice.
    (tags: webdesign webdevelopment javascript jquery html template)
  • Notimo Demos site
    “Notimoo is a Mootools plugin for displaying Growl style notifications to your web visitors.”
    (tags: mootools plugin javascript programming webdevelopment)
  • BBC NEWS | Americas | Mexican purge axes corrupt police
    “Mexican authorities have dismissed almost a quarter of all traffic police in the city of Monterrey for failing corruption and competence tests. It is the latest move by the Mexican government to clean up its police forces, many of which are suspected of having links to organised crime. At the end of last month all 1,142 traffic police in Monterrey were pulled off duty to undergo extensive tests.”
    (tags: mexico police corruption)
  • Schneier on Security: FBI/CIA/NSA Information Sharing Before 9/11
    “James Bamford comes to much the same conclusion in his book, The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America: there was no legal wall that prevented intelligence and law enforcement from sharing the information necessary to prevent 9/11; it was inter-agency rivalries and turf battles.”
    (tags: government fbi cia nsa usa politics security privacy)
  • Chairman Says G.M. Can Repay Taxpayers — NYTimes.com
    “The chairman of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., said Tuesday that the automaker would be able to repay all of its government loans and would begin doing so soon.”
    (tags: gm automotive usa bailout)
  • BBspot — Top 11 Things Nerds Can Do that Average People Can’t
    How true.
    (tags: humor geek starwars wilwheaton)
  • Plastic Roads Offer Greener Way to Travel in India — NYTimes.com
    “Mr. Khan, 60, is trying to solve two of the biggest problems in India: battered roads and overflowing landfills. His solution: streets made with recycled plastic. Mr. Khan’s company, K.K. Plastic Waste Management, which he founded with his brother, Rasool Khan, has built more than 1,200 kilometers, or 745 miles, of roads using 3,500 tons of plastic waste, primarily in Bangalore, India’s technology and outsourcing hub. Mixing plastic with asphalt, Mr. Khan forms a compound called polymerized bitumen. When used in roads, it withstands monsoons and everyday wear and tear better than traditional pavement.”
    (tags: plastic india recycling environment)
  • ‘Significant’ water found on Moon
    “Nasa’s experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, agency scientists have announced.”
    (tags: nasa water moon science)
  • BBC NEWS | Technology | Windows 7 borrowed ‘look’ of Mac
    “A Microsoft executive was quoted in an interview as saying “what we’ve tried to do with Windows 7…is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics”. The comments, by partner group manager Simon Aldous, appeared in UK computing trade magazine PCR. Microsoft countered that Mr Aldous was not involved with the development of Windows 7.” I see a lawsuit.
    (tags: legal lawsuit microsoft apple osx design windows windows7 business technology software)
  • Joe Hewitt
    “We’re at a critical juncture in the evolution of software. The web is still here and it is still strong. Anyone can still put any information or applications on a web server without asking for permission, and anyone in the world can still access it just by typing a URL. I don’t think I appreciated how important that is until recently. Nobody designs new systems like that anymore, or at least few of them succeed. What an incredible stroke of luck the web was, and what a shame it would be to let that freedom slip away.” A thinly veiled attack on Apple’s App Store.
    (tags: apple appstore internet software technology business)
  • The worst things startups do
    “Here’s some things that startups that aren’t run well do”
    (tags: business entrepreneurship startup management)
  • Nanomaterials Under Study by the E.P.A. — NYTimes.com
    “The document, issued in draft form in June, calls for work to identify sources of nanomaterials, which can measure as little as perhaps one-10,000th the width of a human hair. Research will also center on how they move in the environment, the problems they might cause for people, animals and plants, and how these problems could be avoided or mitigated.”
    (tags: nanotech epa health environment)
  • Novel will not be banned from Roanoke Co. school libraries — Roanoke.com
    “A controversial novel challenged by the parent of a Roanoke County high school student will not be banned, but school officials have chosen to restrict access to it. Three copies of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, a coming-of-age novel written from the perspective of a teenager and containing sexually explicit scenes, will be returned to the shelves of the libraries at William Byrd and Hidden Valley high schools.”
    (tags: censorship youth education virginia)
    • ]]>     Beware ‘frighteningly bad’ Flash flaw, say researchers | Security Central — InfoWorld “The problem lies in the Flash ActionScript same-origin policy, which is designed to limit a Flash object’s access to other content only from the domain it originated from, added Mike Bailey, a senior security researcher at Foreground. Unfortunately, said Bailey, if an attacker can [...]0http://www.yostivanich.com/2009/11/15/links-for-2009-11-15/