Blog Posts

August 2008

• 2008-08-21

  Sign up for Jason Calcanis email list!

  Jason Calcanis has stopped blogging and instead is doing an email only mailing list(yes, how 1999 of him.) I had heard about it but recently got me a copy of his most recent missive. Interesting, opinionated, practical and easy to read. I recommend it!

  I’ve never met Jason but I’ve been in his presence as he forcefully (and humorously) debated this or that luminary. Feisty guy, experienced and articulate. Most recently he founded Mahalo.com, which was well covered when it first launched but now I don’t hear that much about it.

  Here’s where you sign up for Jason’s mailing list.

  #blogging
• 2008-08-18

  [GEEK] Note to self: Ruby has no ++ operator

  I don’t know why it don’t. I don’t know why the error message doesn’t just say: “Hey dope, Ruby has no ++ operator”

  Originally posted on Apr 13, 2007. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #programming
• 2008-08-17

  Mysteries of printing Mac OS X Address Book labels

  Apple always, or almost always, thinks through the user interface carefully and includes all kinds of deft and elegant touches that delight and amaze users. Not always though. Sometimes there’s a crazy quilt of magic and cleverness that is totally baffling.

  Originally posted on Feb 15, 2008. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #computing
• 2008-08-16

  Harper’s on torture

  Came across this interesting article. You may agree or not, but it’s definitely interesting: “So now the process can be fully diagrammed, and the cast of characters is stunning. The torture system involves the operations division of the CIA on the implementation side. They rely heavily on contractors, it seems, in torturing people. And a special role is apparently played by a couple of psychologists. (from Harper’s Magazine)

  p.s. Happy Valentine’s Day 🙂

  Originally posted on Feb 14, 2008. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #politics
• 2008-08-14

  [GEEKY] Can your current reader/aggregator do this?

  Check out the latest summary of amazing featsby BlogBridge. I don’t want to be too cheeky, but there are some pretty cool things that you get from BlogBridge (for free) that you can’t get anywhere else. BlogBridge is definitely a serious tool which is why I bit my tongue and marked this post ‘geeky’ but really it’s also, as you know, my labor of love, so I can’t resist showing it off. Hope you take a moment to try it!

  Originally posted on Sep 25, 2007. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #blogging
• 2008-08-13

  Blind to Bargains – Jeremy Wagstaff

  Here is a full article written by Jeremy Wagstaff… Blind to Bargains If We Won’t Pay for Software, People Won’t Write It April 20, 2007

  Computers would be nothing without programs to run on them, so why do we spend so much time drooling over our hardware — physical bits and pieces — and so little over the software that makes the bits and pieces do what we want them to? And why are we so stingy about paying for software?

  These thoughts were running through my mind the other day as I read the exchanges on a mailing list devoted to a piece of software I follow closely (a thought organizer called PersonalBrain, which I’ll be taking a closer look at in a forthcoming column). When its creator, C...

  Read more →

  #business
• 2008-08-09

  More on the Electric Car

  After an interesting comment on my previous post on Electric Cars topic, “Who Killed the Electric Car” suddenly I am seeing stuff about this topic all over the place. Here’s a great article from the current Atlantic Monthly about GM’s new shot at electric car fame and fortune (hopefully)

  “Still, he hesitated. GM had called him because of his deep experience with battery-driven electric cars. In the 1990s, he had...

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• 2008-08-09

  Finally, a simple cell phone!

  My Treo 600 recently died a hard death. I had to learn a new cell phone, a relatively low end one, and it was a serious undertaking.

  Someone I know recently did a 90 minute drive in 3.5 hours because their car’s GPS inadvertently was set in the ‘avoid highways’ settings and they were in unfamiliar territory, without a map, and so had no choice but to follow the long way.

  I’ve seen this idea suggested elsewhere, but how a cell phone for people who don’t read manuals? Why can’t a cell phone be as easy to operate as a regular telephone? (Yes, the new home cordless sets with built in answering machines are almost as complex as cell phones!)

  It seems someone has finally done it!Thank you KDDI, Kyocera and Toshiba.

  Originally posted on Sep 19, 2005. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

• 2008-08-07

  Why is this funny?

  Originally posted on Jan 01, 2006. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.

  #politics
• 2008-08-06

  Who Killed the Electric Car? (And why Wikipedia is GREAT)

  I just saw the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” which makes a pretty compelling case that years ago General Motors had a working and practical electric car which they took off the market under what are portrayed as suspicious circumstances. It’s an interesting movie but part of me, while never underestimating the corruption and incompetence in government and industry, still felt like there must be another side of the story.

  Here’s an article in Wikipedia about the film “Who Killed The Electric Car” and evidence in support and opposition to the case made in the movie. While one might quibble similarly with the Wikipedia article, it is replete with references and links to other sites which tell other sides of the story.

  Interesting.

  #blogging

July 2008

• 2008-07-28

  Cuil vs. Google

  By now if you probably heard about Cuil, the new search engine that claims to be the biggest (since when does size matter when it comes to search engines?) And secondly is being given a PR pass because it was created by ‘ex-Google employees’ – I guess that’s a major element for success? Anyway, after doing my obvious test searches, like Curacao, Arlington Mass, and BlogBridge, I thought I would try each against an actual useful search I had been doing over the weekend:...

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• 2008-07-26

  Should he have signed the letter?

  Ok this is a bit irreverent. There’s been a spat relating to the note that Barack Obama wrote and left in the stones of the Western Wall (the “wailing wall”). This tradition goes way back.

  The spat is about the fact that someone pulled it out and photographed it and it’s been all over the papers.

  I agree that this was an awful invasion of privacy and inappropriate, which is why I resist the strong temptation of putting a copy of the letter.

  But how my weird mind works: the letter was a very nice generous and humble statement. But I found myself looking to the end to see how Mr. Obama ‘signed’ the letter. Well it was unsigned, which struck me for some reason as funny.

  I mean I guess the intended recipient of the letter would know who wrote it. I guess that’s the difference between a letter and a prayer.

  #politics
• 2008-07-23

  Credit card activation: security or reverse marketing?

  So I received two new Discover cards, with supposed enhanced security features. I didn’t ask for them, they just sent them to me. I got a new account number which is a pain because various merchants directly bill my credit card and they will have to be updated, by me. You know the little stickers on the credit cards, call xxx-xxx-xxxx to activate your credit card? Do they actually do anything or add to security? Would the card not work if I didn’t call the number?

  Well the nice lady who got on the line to activate my card promptly switched scripts and (after thanking me for being a customer for sooo long) promptly started selling me something.

  How annoying. Tricked me into calling them to get their sales pitch.

• 2008-07-21

  Towards better memory

  An interesting, quirky, though-provoking — memorable article in Wired about Memory: “[snip…]SuperMemo is based on the insight that there is an ideal moment to practice what you’ve learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you’ve forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you’re about to forget.” (from Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn?)

  #science
• 2008-07-20

  Heresy: Wall-E just so-so

  Yeah I know all the reviews have been raving – “Best movie this year” – “Will change your life” – and so on. I saw this new animated film last night. It did have really wonderful “Star Wars”-class visuals but as an overall story and movie experience, well, it was fine. Not even as good as Toy Story. Sorry.

• 2008-07-19

  Eye-fi wireless enabled memory card for your camera

  If you haven’t seen this and you shoot a lot of digital photos, you will love this product; also seems like a great gift: “Upload photos automatically from your digital camera to your computer and favorite photo site with the world’s first wireless memory card.” See Eye-Fi web site.

• 2008-07-18

  Did you know what happened to Seymour Papert?

  The other day I came across this article in the Boston Globe about one of the greats of Computer Science, Seymour Papert, inventor of the seminal Logo programming language and many other important accomplishments. “He was long a jewel of the MIT faculty. Now, after a devastating brain injury, mathematician Seymour Papert is struggling bravely to learn again how to think like, speak like, be like the man of genius he was.” (from In Search of a Beautiful Mind, The Boston Globe)

  Hard to believe that I hadn’t heard of it before. So Sad. Read the whole article, it’s worthwhile.

  #science
• 2008-07-15

  Helpful iPhone tip (even though I don’t have one)

  I saw this somewhere and I thought I would share as it seems very useful, yet obscure: Helpful Tip: To quickly reset your iPhone without wiping anything off it or retethering it to iTunes, hold the volume up button, the home button, and the lock button at the same time. Keep holding it even after the “Slide to Power Off” appears, eventually it will flash totally off and then you’ll get the Apple logo. Let go then.

  #computing
• 2008-07-15

  [GEEKY] Funny

  The true measure of code quality: WTF’s per minute.

• 2008-07-14

  10 Commandments might apply to more than just Facebook!

  Check out these 10 Commandments for Facebook Applications. They are pretty good commandments for software in general. I especially like: “Make it simple. Users DO NOT read.”, from FaceReviews

  Yup, I have seen that time and time again with BlogBridge. Hard to believe. But true. Of course there’s the 1 in a thousand who ask for more documentation, but they are very rare.

  [if you are interested in Facebook, take a look at BlogBridge’s Guide of Facebook blogs and feeds]

  #blogging #politics