Super heros gotta go too, ya know?
We Regret The Error
Not all errors in news reporting are as trivial as this one: THE COST of beer kegs has risen by about 30% since the end of 2003. In addition, Neil Witte is the draught beer quality-control specialist of Boulevard Brewing Co., and Steven Pauwels is the brewer’s brewmaster. A March 14 page-one article on beer-keg […] » about 200 words
and he did it in a tie
Macs vs. PCs
Vista delayed The delay is the latest problem for the software giant’s flagship operating system. Microsoft had originally slated the software for release in late 2005, but pushed back its target date to summer 2006 and dropped several planned features to try to guarantee delivery. The company attributed the delay to the extra time needed […] » about 300 words
Bad Quality
I should be all down on this sneaky way of advertising Nokia’s N90, but…eh, they’re funny. Bad Quality Officechairs is the latest, Bad Quality Hydraulics (somebody tell them it’s “pneumatics”) and Bad Quality Superglue bring up the rear. If that isn’t enough, they’ve got the Bad Quality Blog which pulls back the curtain a bit. […] » about 200 words
Zhang Huan’s “My Boston”
Most people may recognize Zhang Huan from his “My New York” work that had him dressed in a beefy muscle suit. Above is “My Boston,” but I have a feeling it might get repurposed elsewhere during finals this spring to represent the agony of study. Ups to Ryan for the pointer. art, book, books, boston, […] » about 100 words
drive thru
titles and typefaces
Ryan pointed out that the titles for Thank You For Smoking are pretty interesting, then he followed up with a pointer to some font spotting at Typographica.
DNS Problems
Things went whacky with Dotster‘s hosted DNS services last night. Though the problem now appears to be fixed on their end (and I’ve actually move elsewhere in my attempts to get back online), it could be a while before the bad data is flushed from caches around the world.
In the meantime, let me mention that Ryan shared with me a useful tool I’d not seen before: DNSReport.
interesting, scary
Identity Management In Social Spaces
(note: the following is cross-posted at Identity Future.) Being that good software — the social software that’s nearly synonymous with Web 2.0 — is stuff that gets you laid, where does that leave IdM? Danah Boyd might not have been thinking about it in exactly those terms, but her approach is uniquely social-centered. She proposes […] » about 400 words
Big Iron Won’t Win Wars Anymore
Technology changes things, sure. The question is, how do you recognize the early signs of change before they become catastrophic? I spend most of my days working on that question in academia, but what about our armed forces? Noah Shachtman regularly covers that issue in DefenseTech:
Like a lot of other sage observers, Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla isn’t nuts about the idea of spending a ton on Cold War-style weapons systems when we’re supposed to be fighting terrorists and insurgents. But Arquilla is one of the first military analysts I’ve heard say that “the Pentagon’s big platforms [aren’t] merely the wrong weapon systems to fight present and future wars, but [are] actually likely to bring defeat.”
The superiority of aircraft made huge battleships a liability just before World War II. The climax of Top Gun pretty much centered on the vulnerability of our all our ships — including aircraft carriers — to missile attack (BTW, those Exocet missiles now sport ranges as high as 180km). But these are just a few examples of the general problem. Of course, the Navy isn’t the only force with big, Cold-War iron. There’s more, including some good quotes at DefenseTech.
Sparkline PHP
Sparklines are “intense, simple, wordlike graphics? so named by Edward Tufte. In lieu of a more detailed introduction, Professor Tufte’s site has an early release of a chapter on sparklines.
Cool. Here’s a PHP library and accompanying documentation wiki.
More bsuite Hacking
Update: bugfix release b2v6 available. Some conversations with Chow Kah Soon, who’s site is full of diversions from work , finally convinced encouraged me to solve some small problems that were giving him big trouble. Chow Kah Soon is in the lucky, but rare, position of having over 20,000 unique daily visitors to his site, […] » about 400 words
Winter’s Last Breath
Snow and rain mixed throughout the day Tuesday, but we awoke to glistening white fields and trees. Above is the view due west in Wentworth this morning, before the warm spring sun melted it all away. glisten, glistening, landscape, morning, pine, pines, snow, snowfall, spring, tree, tree farm, trees, winter, woods » about 100 words
Don’t Think You Use Web 2.0? Think Again
It can be hard for library folk to imagine that the web development world might be as divided about the meaning and value of “Web 2.0” as the library world is about “Library 2.0,” but we/they are. Take Jeffrey Zeldman’s anti-Web 2.0, anti-AJAX post, for instance. Zeldman’s a smart guy, and he’s not entirely off-base, […] » about 400 words
“I Hate DRM” And Other Projects To Preserve The Digital Artistic Commons
| People hate <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/search/drm">DRM</a>. It prevents law abiding folks from <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/10683/">enjoying the music and movies they've purchased</a>, and it does little to prevent crackers from <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=copy+dvd+css&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">making illegal copies</a>. In response, somebody's created <a href="http://www.ihatedrm.com/" title="I Hate DRM">I Hate DRM</a>, “a site dedicated to reclaiming consumer digital rights.” And on the content creator's side: <a href="http://www.crftp.com/propaganda.html" title="CRFTP.com - Propaganda">Creative Remixes For The People</a>. » about 200 words
Number Sequences
Think about it, at the moment this post went live, it was one hour, two minutes, and three seconds past midnight Greenwich Mean Time. Why’s that matter? It doesn’t, but it looks cool:
01:02:03 04-05-06
Of course, Brits and most others don’t represent dates that way, so the point is really only valid in US local time. C’mon, let’s wait up.
Richard Sambrook Talks Citizen Journalism
I’m not sure what to think of Richard Sambrook appearing to struggle to find a place for traditional journalism in the age of the internet, but the story’s worth a read.
David Weinberger […] talked about the crisis in US journalism with failing trust in the big news organisations. He pointed out that Google now provided a news service with just an algorithm where there used to be a newsroom of dozens of people — and suggested algorithms were probably more reliable than journalists anyway! So if information is commodotised, and the public can tell their own stories, what’s the role for the journalist? I came up with three things — verification (testing rumour and clearing fog), explanation (context and background) and analysis (a Google search won’t provide judgement). And journalists still have the resources to go places and uncover things that might otherwise remain hidden. Citizens can do all of those things, but not consistently, and with even less accountability than the media.
Getting Things Done, And Feeling Okay About It
[The pictures tell this story, click through to see.] How's a guy supposed to feel when his manager gives him a copy of David Allen's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000280/ref=maisonbisson-20/104-1865310-3771904" title="Amazon.com: Getting Things Done : The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: Books: David Allen">Getting Things Done</a>? » about 100 words
Go Get Yer Podcast On
<a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/alesis-firewire-and-usb-podcasting-kits-163761.php" title="Alesis FireWire and USB Podcasting Kits - Gizmodo">Gizmodo pointed out</a> these <a href="http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=99" title="Alesis :: USB Podcasting Kit">USB</a> and <a href="http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=100" title="Alesis :: FireWire Podcasting Kit">FireWire podcasting kits</a> from Alesis. The package gets you a (hopefully not sucky) microphone with desktop stand, headphones, a carrying case, podcast production software, Cubase LE recording and editing software, and a digital mixer that plugs directly into the computer via USB or FireWire (duh). The US$400 <a href="http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=37">USB version</a> does two channels of 16bit/44.1 KHz audio while the US$600 <a href="http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=40">FireWire model</a> cranks eight channels of 24bit/48KHz sound. » about 100 words
Information Behavior
| It was more than a year ago that <a href="http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/000540.html" title="Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Eat your spinach, it's good for you ...">Lorcan Dempsey</a> pointed out this bit from <a href="http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i18/18b01301.htm">The Chronicle</a>: <blockquote>Librarians should not assume that college students welcome their help in doing research online. The typical freshman assumes that she is already an expert user of the Internet, and her daily experience leads her to believe that she can get what she wants online without having to undergo a training program. Indeed, if she were to use her library's Web site, with its dozens of user interfaces, search protocols, and limitations, she might with some justification conclude that it is the library, not her, that needs help understanding the nature of electronic information retrieval.</blockquote> » about 300 words
Atlanta Art Scene, Spring 2006
<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1280+Peachtree+St+NE,+Atlanta,+GA&ll=33.78967,-84.384742&spn=0.019759,0.053773">Atlanta</a> was a bit of a lark. I hadn't seen my friends for a while, and they were telling me that <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11242/">the weather was beautiful</a>. So why not go? Once there we did a marathon tour of museums and galleries, scoping out works by <a href="http://www.high.org/experience/chuckclose/close_home1.aspx" title="High : Experience - Exhibitions">Chuck Close</a>, <a href="http://www.rogerballen.com/" title="Roger Ballen Photographer">Roger Ballen</a>, and <a href="http://www.saltworksgallery.com/exhib/current.html" title="Saltworks">Iona Rozeal Brown</a>. » about 300 words
Water Feature
| We were excited in New Hampshire to have the first week of weather warm enough to go out without our coats at midday, but <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=atlanta,+ga&ll=33.749179,-84.39045&spn=0.079074,0.215092">Atlanta</a> was <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/tags/atlanta/">warm enough</a> to hop in the pool and hot tub after midnight. » about 100 words
Abductions
I don't know how I feel about shilling for the <a href="http://www.milk.com/value/innovator-spring99.html">california dairy industry</a>, but this <a href="http://www.cowabduction.com/">cow abduction site</a> is pretty funny. Be sure to watch the movie. Want more, <a href="http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11056/">go look</a> at <a href="http://www.mailorderchickens.org/">mailorderchickens.org</a>. » about 100 words