February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
5 posts
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SOPA: The Car Analogy
Imagine that a group of people who don’t drive much, don’t understand how cars work under the hood, and have never studied traffic engineering decide that they’re going to stop speeding by requiring that cars automatically slam on the emergency brake and lock the controls the moment they exceed the speed limit — or the moment someone reports that the car has exceeded the...
Much love
gorogues:
I want to give thanks for all the support people have offered me in the last day. THANK YOU, it really means a lot. The person who was rude has apologized, and that’s enough. I admit to still feeling rattled about it, but I’m flighty like that (unfortunately). I’m sure I’ll feel better in a few days.
Damn…I totally missed the original post, but I’d just like to say:...
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December 2011
9 posts
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SOPA Boycott: GoDaddy Was an Easy Target
After a list of companies publicly supporting SOPA (the censor-the-internet-in-the-name-of-stopping-piracy bill) went public last week, the complaints started rolling in…but the biggest target, at least in the circles that I frequent, was GoDaddy. People organized a boycott, transferred their business elsewhere, and GoDaddy eventually reversed course, but it was too late to stop a massive...
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Car Trek
License plate spotted today:
★TREK11
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I Work For The Internet →
staff:
We work for the Internet. And we’re guessing many of you do too. Whether it’s researching, selling, coding, supporting, designing — so many of our careers depend on the Internet.
One argument that’s been made to Congress is that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is needed to protect American jobs. In truth, the new liabilities this bill would impose on startups could stop American...
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Do you want the Internet to be Censored?
If you live in the US and you use the Internet, you need to know about this. There are two proposed laws, SOPA and Protect IP, that would set up a system to block access to websites deemed to be “infringing,” in the name of stopping piracy. Of course, “infringing” could refer to the actions of one user on a large site, like, say, Facebook or Wikipedia. Imagine if someone at...
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Lunar Eclipse and Sunrise (With Photos)
Just yesterday, I had no idea there was going to be a lunar eclipse this morning. Then I skimmed an article somewhere and got the impression it was only going to be visible on the east coast, And then I read about it on Bad Astronomy and realized I had it backward. Not only would I be able to see part of the eclipse, but I’d be able to see the moon in totality! All I had to do was get...
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November 2011
8 posts
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Comikaze Expo 2011
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Comikaze Expo, and I’d just been to Long Beach Comic-Con the weekend before, but I was curious about the new show, and for $12 a day, I figured I’d check it out. Getting a discount on that already-low price through Goldstar clinched it, and when I found out my friend Wayne was going, we decided to carpool.
What we found was a surprisingly big...
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LOL Spam: Generic Blogspam →
lol-spam:
You’ve probably seen it: comments that say something entirely vague and either flattering or condescending, that could apply to just about any article. And then they link to an “escort” site, or a pill seller…or some small-town insurance office in the middle of nowhere who hired a black hat “SEO…
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Those Sneaky Aliases
After looking through zillions of bounce messages for patterns, I’ve got to say:
“unknown or illegal alias” is now my official favorite way of saying that an email address doesn’t exist.
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Overheard: The Starbucks Buzz
Overheard at a convention center Starbucks:
Customer: Do you drink coffee? Barista: I work at a Starbucks. You’ve gotta stay buzzed somehow.
(During Comikaze Expo.)
Original Article
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Long Beach Comic and Horror Con 2011: Still Got It
When I heard that Long Beach Comic Con was rebranding itself as Long Beach Comic and Horror Con this year, I was a little concerned. One of the things I liked most about it the first two years was the heavy emphasis on comics compared to San Diego (which has plenty of comics, but is so big that it’s easy to miss them) or the Wizard conventions (which seem to have refocused around...
October 2011
13 posts
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Overheard at a Comic Con
Overheard at Long Beach Comic-Con:
Some guy asked me, “What’re you dressed up as?” And I said, “…a Muggle?”
Original Article
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Cacheback
You know you’re a programmer when you misspell “cash” as “cache.”
Original Article
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Allergy Walk Complete!
The Food Allergy Walk went well. There was a good turnout, apparently the highest yet for the Los Angeles event, which is in its fourth year. According to the event website, they raised about $43,000 of the $50,000 they had aimed for, but that’s only online donations. They may get closer once cash and checks are counted. Thank you again to everyone who sponsored us! You helped us raise...
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Scare people with your tool today
lol-spam:
This spam subject keeps landing in my mailbox. But you know what, I saw someone try this in last year’s Halloween story in Something*Positive. It didn’t end well for the guy with the chainsaw.
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2 Days Left: Raising Funds for Food Allergy...
This weekend, I’m walking to raise funds for research and education in the FAAN Walk for Food Allergy. I have life-threatening allergies myself, and while my son hasn’t shown any signs yet, the medical community is still trying to determine what causes people to develop allergies. It would be great if they find a way to guarantee that he won’t inherit them, or at least to make...
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Ocean Sunsets: Beach and Bluffs
It’s been six months since we moved, but I’ve only recently started really exploring the area. I think I just got caught up in too much other stuff for a while.
One day a few weeks ago, I tried to make it to the nearest beach I could in time for sunset. I missed…but while on the mostly-deserted beach I caught some nice views of pink underlit clouds over the Santa Monica...
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Recent Links: Black Death, Chocwave, Hipsters &...
A few years back, while I was reading Eifelheim, I read up on the Black Death. There was a theory floating around at the time that, based on symptoms and virulence, the black death might have been caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever like Marburg, not by the bubonic plague that’s still endemic in some parts of the world. Since then, researchers have managed to extract bacterial DNA from the...
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Recent Tech Links
Some interesting technology articles I’ve found over the last few weeks.
Cornell lab prints food (LA Times) - One step closer to the day we can order pizza online…and download it!
Nifty idea: Google is designing a designing a “web intents” system for web apps, similar to intents in Android. That way you can have, say, a social network and a photo site that don’t...
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It's Super!
Found this photo I took back when Super 8 was in theaters. It’s funny how, when you get used to emoticons, they just kind of insist on being read.
This one’s right up there with Windows XP.
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September 2011
6 posts
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Beware Of Fallen Satellites
fakescience:
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Recent Links: Netflix/Qwikster Edition
By now, you’ve heard that Netflix is splitting their business in two: one for streaming movies over the internet, which will keep the name, and one for renting DVDs by mail, which will be called Qwikster. Here are links to several funny (and a couple of serious) takes on the situation.
Quickster? That sounds oddly familiar…
Webcomic The Oatmeal explains it in terms of the food...
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50,000 Miles
This morning, I hit 50,000 miles on the Prius. We’ve had the car for four years now, and it still feels like a new car — or at least, it doesn’t feel old yet. That’s why, though I’d love to have the plug-in hybrid model launching next year (and Toyota keeps sending me ads for it), I don’t feel any need to get onto any waiting lists. There’s plenty of...
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What Can You Build With the Google+ API So Far?
Google has released the first taste of what will become a larger Google+ API for third-party applications built on their social network. So far, all you can do is authenticate, retrieve someone’s public profile, and read their public activities. That doesn’t sound like much, does it?
Well, here are some ideas I came up with over lunch:
Add Google+ activity to a lifestream.
Allow...
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Quick Poll: Multiposting - All at Once or Spread...
Assume an ideal situation: Essentially the same content or link is cross-posted to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc., but it’s (a) relevant to each audience and (b) adjusted to fit best within each network. No #hashtags or @usernames in the Facebook post, no fb.me links in the Twitter post, link previews in Google+ or Facebook, etc.
Your browser doesn’t support...
August 2011
10 posts
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It's not too late!
Favorite techie license plate spotted lately:
GREP IT
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Pavlov's Dogs
fakescience:
I know this is supposed to be fake science, but that last panel makes a disturbing amount of sense.
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A Radical Notion
I’ve accepted, even embraced the return of “awesome” over the last few years. But I’m seeing signs that “rad” is making a comeback, and I really hope that’s not the case. Some slang is worth preserving and maybe even incorporating into the language over time.
Some…isn’t.
I mean, it’s dudical to the max, daddy-o!
Original Article
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Reframing the Problem
Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself, “Is the problem I’m trying to solve really the problem I want solved?”
For example, “I can’t connect to this coffee shop’s wifi” may be worth trying to fix for a couple of minutes, but the real goal is connecting to the internet. The coffee shop just happens to be the most convenient/obvious...
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Is *Now* Better?
I spotted something interesting while walking to lunch, took a photo with my camera, and then took a photo with my phone so that I could post it to Twitter immediately.
Then I thought: why?
Is it breaking news?
Is it going to be any less interesting if I wait?
Would it add to an in-progress conversation?
Really, is there any reason that posting it now would be better than posting it later?
...