February 2011
January 2011
“Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think...”
– Dennis Leary. I’m having a fucking awful day. Woke up to a crew cutting down the giant (at least 100 ft tall) coniferous tree in my backyard. This is the second removal of a nice tree in my yard by my landlord—who never notifies us these things will happen, or gives a reason. Can’t wait...
13 reasons why software is not free →
I think of these things every time I hear of startups with no business plan, see people complain about already inexpensive software being too pricey, or even have people question why I buy Apple products. Every time I struggle with scarcely documented free software and every time I get personal support emails from founders of small software shops, I am reassured of my position: You Get What You...
“Sure, go ahead and test what’s testable. But the real victories come when...”
– Seth Godin, A Culture of Testing
Colorblind leading the Blind →
Andy Baio’s frustration over a colorblind-unfriendly Netflix chart leads to a great article on considering the colorblind and solving the problems without major changes.
“I have gone through my fair share of being called a Pommy bastard, I can assure...”
– HRH The Prince of Wales. Who talks to plants. (via indefensible)
I am the man I am because australia helped me build big fucking walls.
themonkeysyouordered:
I’m glad we set the CEO’s desk on fire to roast marshmallows.
Highly considering this for our weekly Learn Something New. Dave’s desk looks pretty flammable.
“1) You
Charges: Your brain’s been cobbled together over millions of years of...”
– 50 most loathsome Americans of 2010. I think that’s more than 50, but I’ll let it slide for my mounting contempt for humanity…
“Tea Partiers Charges: Openly racist and lying about it, uber-religious,...”
– The 50 most loathsome Americans of 2010. Most apt description of the Tea Party horde I’ve read.
“It’s a week before the biggest day of her life, and Anna Williams is...”
– And thus begins The Most Emailed ‘New York Times’ Article Ever. Brilliant. (via jimray)
Epic fluffy satire of Portlandia™ extremes.
“Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser has warned the [insurance] industry could...”
– That’s how you bring the insurance industry to heel. America –– take notes.
The Age PM flags one-off flood tax
(via indefensible)
Cosmic Log - Scientific shifts go beyond the... →
2105:
Msnbc.com’s Alan Boyle summarizes the best myth-busting point learned in Astronomy 101. (Without math.)
“I don’t want to pressure you but my Viagra is starting to wear off. – Je ne veux...”
– The Barbtian Chronicles: Flirting in French
Your New Years resolutions are hindering my...
It’s a new year, so of course bajillions of people have made resolutions. The most common? Go to the gym and sign up for some sort of fitness class—you know, drop that most american of possessions, excess fat. And hey, I’m happy if you’re doing that. In fact, work out twice as hard to offset how rotund I’ve become (otherwise the earth’s axis may be further skewed!)....
“What galls me about two-spacers isn’t just their numbers. It’s their certainty...”
– Author! Author!
Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine (via hellbox)
Pawned: Gamification and its Dicontents →
Sebastian Deterding’s presentation on why the current trend of “gamification” (that is, the attempt to boost a web app, service or business using concepts from game play) is inherently flawed in its misunderstanding of what makes real game play work.
If you’ve dealt with people who want to incorporate badges, rewards and “game” concepts into a product, you need...
1 tag
“It is an invariable principle of all play, that whoever plays, plays freely....”
– James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games (1986). If we are forced to do something, by definition, it ceases to be play.
Faruk on Google, H.264 and Video on the Web →
A concise piece on what Google’s dropping of H.264 support in Chrome means to you, and the ramifications. I have to agree: they could have just waited if they really want to make WebM the de facto standard for web video. Instead, they’re just showing contempt for the users and makers of the web.
CubeDuel, and the Cruelty of Arbitrary Choice in a...
In a flash of viral insanity, our office was swept up in a new web “service” this afternoon: CubeDuel. The idea is essentially Hot-Or-Not, but for current and past coworkers, based on which of the two presented people you’d “rather work with.” It connects to your LinkedIn account, and the head-to-head battle ensues. Two large photos of coworkers, separated by a small...
CubeDuel, and the Cruelty of Arbitrary Choice in a...
In a flash of viral insanity, our office was swept up in a new web “service” this afternoon: CubeDuel. The idea is essentially Hot-Or-Not, but for current and past coworkers, based on which of the two presented people you’d “rather work with.” It connects to your LinkedIn account, and the head-to-head battle ensues. Two large photos of coworkers, separated by a small...
“This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec...”
– Comment on /. regarding Chrome dropping support for the h264 codec.
As I was saying to someone today, it’s more than the Chrome team going all ideologue on us, it’s like your girlfriend dumping you after cheating. Chrome supported “everything.” They were supposed to be the...
“If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gonna get selfish, ignorant...”
– George Carlin, our era’s most perceptive political commentator, disguised as a comedian. (via marco)
“Facebook runs on a very stiff, crude model of what people are like. It herds...”
– Lev Grossman’s profile on Mark Zuckerberg for Time
I think this is the best analysis of Facebook I’ve ever read. “The social equivalent of liver failure” is a genius phrase. (via buzzandersen)
“HERE’S A REALITY check for those of us who can’t believe fax machines are still...”
– Reality Check. – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report
If you find this hard to believe, you’d get a kick out of how we had to set up a Windows VM on my mother’s computer so she could continue to use her copy of Microsoft Money 98 for her finances.
Tim Morgan: The failures of the Mac App Store's... →
riscfuture:
I had a remarkably different experience upon opening the app. Much like with the App Store itself, the head-scratching UI left me bewildered and confused more than once.
Gruber makes reference to Tim Morgan’s article in his piece on Uniformity vs. Individuality in Mac UI Design, and then gets lost in the concept of the HIG being dead because Apple changes things, and how a...
“But employers were interested in looking beyond a person’s resumé, said Kate...”
– Employers Checking Job Candidates’ Facebook Pages
Years ago, Scott Adams said that in the future we’d eventually be able to use technology to expose all crimes. The problem would be that we would find out that in some ways we are all criminals.
(via indefensible)
