Month: February 2009
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An excellent song from the future
I heard about these guys from Stack Overflow’s podcast. Really fun.
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A Secret of the Economics of Manufacturing
I saw this quote in an article on E-Ink: If you ever want to make a billion of anything cheaply, you print it. What an interesting observation! With such interesting far reaching consequences: Nano Solar is on the right track, crystaline solar is not. Diamond Age-style nano-assembly is not quite a sure bet, and mass-customization…
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Two things I like about England
I’ve been known to complain a bit, now and then, about my current hosts, the English. I reserve the right to continue complaining, to be sure, but I’d like to take a moment to point out two things I like about England: ICICI Bank UK: This is one of the largest banks in India. In…
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Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy (or a nicer country)
Carl Malamud + the Government Printing Office is a match made in heaven. Please, President Obama, make it happen. This guy is one of us, one of the good guys who cares about transparency, about good government, about the freedom to know, to learn, to discuss and to criticize. He’s a person who speaks not…
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Silverlight on Linux
Microsoft, what’s your problem? Why are you so stupid? My current irritation is with Silverlight. First, it’s a redundant technology. Bringing .Net into browsers is not a compelling argument for redoing everything that Adobe Flash already does better than Silverlight. But fine, I’m not a shareholder anymore, you can waste their money all you want.…
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Anathem
I’ve finished Anathem, and I’m happy to report that it’s not just Hogwarts with math. There’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in there, and it’s fun. You have to like Stephenson’s style, and you have to enjoy learning and thinking about a whole new planet. Luckily, the planet is based on principles…
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Bad Passwords – problem or opportunity?
This article includes some interesting analysis of passwords found in the wild. A reasonable first impression would be, “good god, those people are sure stupid”. But I had another idea… isn’t it interesting that a lot of people prefer pattern-based passwords, i.e. pressing the buttons in a certain order, without respect to the semantic meaning of…
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Stop reading this right now: Go read 512 Words!
My friend Curtis writes 512 Words of fiction every week, then posts both the story and a reading of the story every Friday. Today’s story was his best ever, even better than Ghosts of Earth my previous favorite (though hard to choose, really…) Be sure to listen to the reading of this week’s story, entitled…
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The (confusing) State of Streaming Video in England
Something really amazing happened to me the other night. Marina was brain-fried from a long day at school, and she said, “I wish I could just sit in front of the TV and zone out to TSI1 (Italian Switzerland’s public TV station)”. I said, let me see what I can find… I searched on the…
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Quotable Quotes
Here’s a new feature on Google News: Quotes. If you search for someone by name, and Google noticed that they’ve been quoted, then one of their quotes will be on top of the results. Then you can click for more. Here’s an example from a quotable politician.