Monthly Archives: April 2007

PHP Libraries for Collaborative Filtering and Recommendations

April 30, 2007 – 7:20 pm

Daniel Lemire and Sean McGrath note that ?User personalization and profiling is key to many succesful Web sites. Consider that there is considerable free content on the Web, but comparatively few tools to help us organize or mine such content for specific purposes.? And they’ve written a paper and released prototype code on collaborative filtering.
Vogoo [...]

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (0)



Remixability vs. Business Self Interest vs. Libraries and the Public Good

April 30, 2007 – 12:29 pm

I’ve been talking a lot about remixability lately, but Nat Torkington just pointed out that the web services and APIs from commercial organizations aren’t as infrastructural as we might think.
Offering the example of Amazon suing Alexaholic (for remixing Alexa’s data), he tells us that APIs are not ?a commons of goodies to be built on [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (0)

Boris Yeltsin: The Most Colorful, Drunk Politician Since Churchill

April 29, 2007 – 9:07 pm

Sure, Clinton played his sax on TV, Bush groped Angela Merkel, but Boris Yeltsin gave speeches drunk, tossed women into the water, danced on stage, and generally did all manner of laughable things. But he also turned back a hardline coup by jumping atop a tank and dragged Russia kicking and screaming toward democracy.
Not [...]

By Casey | Posted in Politics & Controversy, Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (2)

Atomic Test Photos From Los Angeles

April 28, 2007 – 12:45 pm

This renewed talk of building nuclear weapons here in the US reminded me of an old report of photos of the sky glow from nuclear tests done in Nevada seen over Los Angeles. This one includes the following description:
Atomic explosion, the largest yet set off on the Nevada test range, was clearly visible in Los [...]

By Casey | Posted in Photoblog | Comments (1)

Nukerator, We’re Nukrawavable

April 27, 2007 – 12:35 pm

Will, Cliff (both above), and I recorded this song in one take in late 1999. Though, calling it a ?take? is overstating it. We were beyond silly drunk and lacked any talent for the task, but we had a mic in front of us, a guitar, and a willingness to open our mouths and let [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Questionable...funny. Pointless., Style, Fashion and Food, Technology | Comments (0)



CSI Jumped The Shark

April 26, 2007 – 7:13 pm

I’m a newcomer CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, I started watching it with season six while suffering a flu that immobilized me for what seemed like a week or more. Dumb with illness, I went searching for a diversion at the iTunes store and stumbled into the series. I had the entire season downloaded quickly; it [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (0)

How To: Zip Files on Mac OS X

April 26, 2007 – 12:48 pm

It couldn’t be much easier. I’d previously posted command line instructions, but it turns out that there’s a huge number of people who don’t know the easy way: just CTRL-click on the file and select ?Create Archive…? You’ll also find the option in the File menu. Either way, you’ll end up with both the original [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (5)

NCAA Set To Ban Text Messaging Between Recruiters And High School Students

April 26, 2007 – 7:16 am

College sports are big business, so recruiting student athletes is big business. The NCAA limits the times coaches and recruiters can call or visit athletes, but text messages are all fair game. For now.
The Chronicle of Higher Education explained in an October 2006 story:
Before Chandler Parsons committed to play basketball for the University of Florida, [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (2)

Are We There Yet? Still Waiting For Decent iPod Car Integration

April 25, 2007 – 12:22 pm

Even Bob Borchers, Apple’s senior director of iPod worldwide product marketing, calls most iPod car setups an “inelegant mess of cassette adaptors and wires.” Indeed, while Apple aparently doesn’t want to get into the car audio business, they do want to improve the in-car iPod experience:
What Apple really wants you to buy is a [...]

By Casey | Posted in Planes, Trains, & Automobiles, Technology | Comments (1)

Please, Not Another Wiki

April 24, 2007 – 12:02 pm

Ironic secret: I don’t really like most wikis, though that’s probably putting it too strongly. Ironic because I love both Wikipedia (and, especially, collabularies), but I grit my teeth pretty much every time I hear somebody suggest we need another wiki.
Putting it tersely: if wikis are so great, why do we need more than one [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (9)

Claims of Prior Art In Verizon/Vonage Patent Infringement Case

April 23, 2007 – 5:25 pm

Vonage has been saying Verizon’s patent claims are overly broad for some time, but now people have dug up some prior art.
One of the patents Verizon is complaining about is #6,104,711, what they call an ?enhanced internet domain name server.?
In short, it’s all about linking phone numbers to IP numbers, and Jeff Pulver says he [...]

By Casey | Posted in Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (0)

The High Cost Of Innovation: Vonage’s Patent Woes

April 23, 2007 – 12:02 pm

Vonage will be in court again tomorrow defending itself against Verizon’s claims of patent infringement. The innovative VoIP company had lost the trial and was ordered to pay $58 Million in damages in early March, when a jury found them to have violated thee of seven related patents held by Verizon. Vonage appealed of course, [...]

By Casey | Posted in Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (1)

Eco-Friendly Web Design For Earth Day

April 22, 2007 – 12:02 am

Mark Ontkush at ecoIron did some math starting with the Department of Energy data that showed CRT monitors consume less power displaying dark colors than light and determined that redesigning Google’s site in black would save 750 megawatt-hours per year (assuming that 25% of computer users still haven’t upgraded to LCDs and are using power-hungry [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

?I Want My Money?

April 21, 2007 – 10:13 pm

My nephew checked his email while he was here this morning and this was the first thing in his inbox. Maybe it’s because he’s 17 and my humor is at about the same level, but both of us were cracking up over it.
Miserable attempt at recovering my dignity with serious criticism: Will Farrell and landlord [...]

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (7)

Reminder: Paris Hilton To Retire In 60 Days

April 21, 2007 – 12:39 pm

Amid all the ?ZOMG Paris Hilton is pregnant!? rumors, it’s worth remembering that the girl famous for doing nothing (except repeatedly having her racy photos and video leaked) is retiring in two months.
Yep, on June 20th 2007, Paris is give up on public life. At least that’s what she said in Newsweek:
She?s certainly managed to [...]

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless., Style, Fashion and Food | Comments (2)