Blog Posts

January 2007

• 2007-01-05

  DayLife: very nice new News Site

  Notwithstanding the fact that Mike Arrington, an investor, doesn’t like DayLife too much, I just spend a few minutes looking, and I think it’s very very nice. I’d say it’s definitely worth a look.

  The other investors seem to like it better. Ironic state of affairs, aint it? Unless it’s a totally subversive way for Mike Arrington to get attention to the site. Wouldn’t that take the cake?

  Mike Arrington on DayLife Jeff Jarvison DayLife Technorati on DayLife

  Check out DayLife itself 🙂

• 2007-01-04

  FooPlot – looks quite cool!

  Check out this post from Ajaxian:

  "Dheera Venkatraman has released Fooplot, a new website that plots any function, and supports Google Maps-style panning around.

  Fooplot is currently using SVG and VML to do the rendering and canvas support is coming for Safari.

  For good SVG browsers like Firefox and Opera, 3D plots work too.

  In the future, it will communicate with Google spreadsheets and interact with server-side scripts that do curve fitting and other tasks.

  

  (from: Fooplot: function plotting)

  #mathematics
• 2007-01-03

  Technie note: Ethernet vs. USB-2 External Hard Disk

  I am enhancing the backup methodology here at BlogBridge Enterprises and was selecting a new 500Gb external hard disk. One choice I made was whether to get an Ethernet, i.e. network attached, hard disk or connect one directly to my Mac via USB-2 or FireWire.

  Admittedly being too lazy to do calculations I guessed that the limiting factor on speed of a hard disk would be the hard disk transfer speed itself not the speed of Ethernet-100 vs. USB-2.

  Not sure if this is actually correct, but I opted for the convenience of being able to place the hard disk anywhere rather than having yet another contraption attached to my computer.

  I had lunch with a bunch of guys who know about ...

  Read more →

  #technology
• 2007-01-02

  Freakonomics Blog on stealing in supermarkets

  Check out this post from Freakonomics Blog:

  ...

  Read more →

  #business
• 2007-01-01

  What planet is scoble living on?

  Check out this post from Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger:

  As a comparison, I have three PCs. Two of which have never crashed in their entire lifetimes. And I use my PCs nearly around the clock. I have two Macs too and haven’t seen this problem on those.

  (from: Apple rebooting problem hits us…)

  Huh? two PCs who haven’t crashed in their entire lifetimes? Must be something that happens only at Microsoft (yeah, I know he’s not there any more.) Or he got those two PCs for Christmas. 2006.

  #technology

December 2006

• 2006-12-30

  A Great Math Site: Understanding the Analemma

  When I was a kid I remember reading about this pattern. I never knew it was called a, what, Analemma??? Anyway, Check out this post from Good Math, Bad Math:

  ...

  Read more →

  #mathematics
• 2006-12-29

  OMG: Lotus Notes still alive and kicking ?

  A million years ago I used Lotus Notes … I think it was version 3 and 4. I believe that it ran on Mac even then so I am not sure what the big news is. But look at this screen shot. It looks more similar than different to the old Lotus Notes. And among the Mac congesenti there’s always a lot of tut-tut-tuting when an application claims to support Mac OS X but doesn’t have the true Mac OS X mojo. I guess they give IBM a pass.

  Check out this post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

  Filed under: Software, Internet Tools...

  Read more →

  #lotus
• 2006-12-28

  Joel on Software on bribing and ethics

  If you’re a blogger or read blogs you might have come across the debate, such as it is, about "pay per post." Frankly I’ve not paid much attention to it other than noting the links go by without my clicking on them. But Joel’s stuff is often good.

  Check out this post from Joel on Software:

  ...

  Read more →
• 2006-12-28

  Cool underwater restaurant…

  Check out this post from Crave RSS:

  

  (Credit: Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa)

  What I really should be saying about this, just to tick off fellow Craver Mike Yamamoto, is that I wish this underwater restaurant were in the Antarctic Ocean, so that I could go and see some penguins swim by. Alas, I don’t know how …

  (from: Dine with the fishes at Hilton Maldives’ underwater restaurant)

  #travel
• 2006-12-26

  New search engine from Wikipedia-land

  If you keep up, you may have heard abou this. A new search engine coming from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Check out this post from Mashable!for a pretty good update:

  “Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is set to launch a search engine early next year in partnership with Amazon – it’s intended to be a rival to Google and Yahoo.

  (Read the rest here: Wikiasari: Wikipedia Founder Launching a Google Rival)”

  Here’s another pretty good article introducing the idea from TimesOnline.

  #wikipedia
• 2006-12-23

  In-depth analysis of Microsoft content syndication platform patent application

  A bit of a debate is developing regarding Microsoft’s recent patent for (and here’s where the editorializing starts) "RSS". It’s only a slightly interesting question which is why I won’t pursue it, save to say that patents are very technical and narrow so it’s easy to jump to the wrong conclusion about them when reading them only superficially.

  At any rate if there’s any beef to be had, IMHO, it’s with the Patent Law and the Patent Office, not with Microsoft.

  Check out this post from ...

  Read more →

  #legal
• 2006-12-22

  Blog tag, I’m it

  I’ve been tagged in the new fangled blog tag game, and am now honor bound to reveal 5 things about me that you probably don’t know yet.

  The “R” in R. Pito Salas stands for Ralph My ancestors have been in Curaçao for over three hundred years I’ve been studying piano for 3 years. I am still a beginner. I was a team lead on one of the earliest Macintosh software products, Jazz

  And now, it is for me to tag 5 others. It would be fun if there was a permanent home for these fun factoids about us.

  Brian DelVeccio – The Institute of Hybernautics Aleksey Gureev – Noizze Francois Gossieaux – Emergence Marketing Kathleen Gilroy – The Otter Group Marjolein Hoekstra – Clever Clogs

  Over to you, pals!

  #personal
• 2006-12-21

  New del.icio.us toy

  What do you think?

• 2006-12-21

  ‘Daybreak’ canceled, episodes to stream online

  This is too bad. Daybreak was one of the new shows I was enjoying (not ‘must-see-tv but still entertaining.) It was basically “Groundhog Day meets ’24’. Anyway, check out this post from Lost Remote:

  The new ABC show Daybreak is getting the ax. The terrific, 24-like show is a tough one to join mid-season, so ratings slipped and ABC did what networks do. My fiancee is a huge fan of the show, and fortunately the remaining episodes will be streamed online — a programming move that’s quickly becoming the standard.

  (from: ‘Daybreak’ canceled, episodes to stream online)

• 2006-12-18

  MacSanta: 20% off popular Mac Apps

  Check out this post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

  Filed under: Software, Stocking Stuffers

  Almost a dozen companies are offering a 20% off sale until Christmas. Rogue Amoeba, Bare Bones, Potion Factory, Unsanity and more. You’ll find a full list of participating developers at the MacSanta site.

  (from: MacSanta: 20% off popular Mac Apps)

  For all you mac users out there 🙂

  #apple
• 2006-12-18

  World’s Tallest Man Lends a Hand

  I just thought this post was interesting and curious — thanks Dowbrigade News

  FUSHUN, China — Bao Xishun, the world’s tallest man, reaches in to retrieve objects from the stomach of a sick dolphin at an aquarium in Fushun, in China’s northern Liaoning province. Bao, whose arms measure more than a meter in length, was called in by the aquarium after experts failed to surgically remove unidentified objects from the stomachs of two dolphins. Bao was able to reach in and retrieve the objects, which turned out to be pieces of plastic from their pool surround.

  (from: World’s Tallest Man Lends a Hand)

• 2006-12-18

  TIME 2006 Person Of The Year: What a cop out!

  Time Magazine news "You?" as the person of the year? What a cop-out! Check out this post from BAGnewsNotes:

  You?

  TIME’s ’06 Person of the Year is You? I mean, Me?

  (from: TIME 2006 Person Of The Year: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (No?))

• 2006-12-17

  Holiday gift for the geek who has everything

  Everyone has a column or article these days of gift suggestions. Here’s mine for all of you who need to buy something for your favorite geek “who has everything.” I bet they would really like these sculptures. Check out the whole site, they start at about $80 for a pocket sized doohikee and go to like $300 for a larger one. Kind of pricey, I admit.

  Bathsheba Sculpture, via Kevin Kelley, Cool Tools

• 2006-12-14

  A good bit by Bruce Schneier about “Real-World Passwords”

  Check out this post from Schneier on Security:

  How good are the passwords people are choosing to protect their computers and online accounts?

  It’s a hard question to answer because data is scarce. But recently, a colleague sent me some spoils from a MySpace phishing attack: 34,000 actual user names and passwords.

  (read the whole thing here: Real-World Passwords)

  My password philosophy goes like this. I have a standard one that I use for the majority of sites where I don’t care at all if someone gets into it. Then I have a series of 4, progressively more obscure ones that I use on how important access control is, with the most impossible to guess one on my financial accounts.

  Reading this makes me wonder if I am not taking this far enough…

• 2006-12-13

  Chess and Violent Meditation

  Check out this post from empire state blues.:

  "[snip…]Everything else is blotted out by the deafening sound of my own consciousness, the ascendant primate mind, churning on all of its terrifying and unknown cylinders. And playing chess is in some ways a taking of communion with this austere machine-mind; this family tree of decisions; this full blooming of abstract thought.[snip…]

  (from: Chess and Violent Meditation)