Finance Funny
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k&w=427&h=260]
Blog Posts
All my blog posts and articles
Page 71 of 141 (2815 total posts)
December 2010
Wikileaks: Truth or Truthy or something entirely different?
David Weinberger has, as usual, an interesting take, and some interesting links relevant to our perception and the defense or offense of Wikileaks. From his post: > “I here just want to comment on a particular theory of truth that many are using to justify Wikilea...
Read more →Photo sharing thoughts
I just returned from my mother’s birthday party with about 300 photos – I would say 70% of them are no good, so I selected about 40 of the best ones and then had to decide how to share them with everyone who cared. A little bit of research produced the following options which I am sharing with YOU ...
Read more →Bubble Bubble Sign Of Trouble
The thing about a bubble is that while people worry about it, no one is actually sure whether they are in one, and especially when it will be over. The other thing about bubbles is that they keep happening because they are the result of human nature (greed and self-deception): > “Less than a decad...
Read more →Why we need new election technology
I work at the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, where we are creating new, modern, open source, and publicly owned technology for operating all aspects of voting in the US. By the way, do not assume this means ‘internet voting’ — it does not. There is a lot of old techn...
Read more →Amazing Stuxnet story
With apologies for quoting a Foxnews story, and with thanks to Scott Adams for the link, here’s a fascinating behind the scenes story of Stuxnet: > “The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists...
Read more →November 2010
[GEEKY] Ruby 2.0 Refinements in Practice
I went to RubyConf and heard a detailed presentation on a new possible feature of possible Ruby 2.0 called ‘Refinements’. I have to admit that I didn’t fully grasp how the feature really would be used. Here’s a nice and quite techical article about it: Ruby 2.0 Refinements in Practice from Katz Got Your Tongue?: > "The first thing you need to understand is that the purpose of refinements in Ruby 2.0 is to make monkey-patching safer. Specifically, the goal is to make it possible to extend core classes, but to limit the effect of those extensions to a particular area of code."
Facebook security
I was experimenting with a lit...
‘Like a Full-Body Massage’: Thinking About the TSA
Check out ‘Like a Full-Body Massage’: Thinking About the TSA(from James Fallows :: The Atlantic: > “3) The ‘zero-risk’ mentality vs ‘acceptable’ risk. Every society acc...
Read more →Woz speaks (on iPhone)
I happen to be reading iWoz, which is Steve Wozniak’s memoir/biography/whatever. It’s a very breezy easy read and fun if you follow this kind of thing. So naturally this caught my eye: > “Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant...
Read more →Easily the best Microsoft advertisement EVER
And, maybe, better than any ad that Apple has ever done…. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAhJTxC1C8w&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
[Geeky] RubyConf Summary (updated 2)
RubyConf 2010 was excellent. It was my first and probably not my last. Some general thoughts and then a master list of links (the real meat.) - Unlike most all ‘business’ type conferences and talks I have gone to, the RubyConf style of presentation (and perhaps the Rails or Ruby community — I don’...
Read more →By boat from Boston Harbor to the Lower Mystic Lake
This is very close to where I live, and people are amazed to know that you can actually go by boat from Arlington to Boston Harbor. This video is beautiful proof of that. [vimeo 16535358 w=400 h=225] The Mystic (in Three Minutes) from Sarah Ginsburg on Vimeo.
Overreaction
I tend to agree with this writer that: > “With respect to airport security, it is remarkable how we have come to place Sept. 11, 2001, as the fulcrum upon which we balance almost all of our decisions. As if deadly terrorism didn’t exist prior to that day, when really we’ve been dealing with the same...
Read more →[GEEKY] RubyConf
The problem with conferences is knowing what session to go to, right? Check out this talk called “ZOMG WHY IS MY CODE SO SLOW? Aaron Patterson. It’s really excellent. It has many specific pointers that I will be able to use as soon as I get back. (Yes, in case you wonder: ZOMG)
[RubyConf] Percentage of Windows users
Odd thing happened in a talk at RubyConf. Speaker asks all attendees who are using Windows to raise their hands. Looked to me like about 3% of folks here are on Windows. Now its a very biased audience but still an interesting number!
Definitious
Check out this cool site developed by some Brandeis students who participated in the bootcamp-like course that I taught this summer. It’s called Definitious and it’s kind of a collaborative, semi-serious, semi-silly dictionary where anyone can define any word they want and others can vote the definitions up and down. Definitious. By the way, we are in already planning an expanded version of the course for this coming summer. It’s going to be even better!
[GEEKY] CSS Deep Thoughts
I feel that I am finally mastering CSS and in doing so I am seeing some interesting patterns. It seems to me that it’s very easy to get into a situation where you have too many CSS rules that overlap and override each other in ways that are more complex than necessary. It seems like there could and ...
Read more →Will the App Store Accept Java Applications?
Check out Apple Begins Accepting Submissions for Mac App Store(from GigaOM: ** "At the Oct. 20 “Back to the Mac” event, the Mac App Store was announced alongside the next iteration of OS X,...
Read more →October 2010
[DESIGN] Typography Cheat Sheet
If you are into fonts and typography, you might enjoy this Infographic that will help you choose.
