There have been a variety of stories recently about MacDefender, and the recent [small] wave of malware attacks on Mac OS X systems. For years, one of the most-touted features of the Mac was its [relative] immunity to malware: the number of viruses, trojans, etc for any edition of the Macintosh is remarkably small: with …
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Category:commentary
world war z by max brooks
{{Max Brooks}} is likely the world’s foremost authority on zombies – how to survive them, what to do if there is an uprising, etc. In “{{World War Z}} – An Oral History of the Zombie War”, he tackles the issue of reporting on what happened by interviews with those who survived. From first-hand accounts from a …
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producing your own power by many
Rodale Press published a collected works book entitled “{{Producing Your Own Power}} – How to make Nature’s Energy Sources Work for You” in 1974. There are a host of now-humorous segments of the text: “The US government estimates that by 1980 1 percent of our country’s land will be covered with utility companies’ equipment” {viii}. The contiguous …
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virtualization myth – reduction of servers
Ars Technica has had a great series of articles recently on virtualization (1 2 3 4 5). But a statement made in part 5 repeated what has been too-often stated as a benefit of virtualization: the reduction of servers, and associated management tasks – The benefits of performing a large-scale P2V conversion are pretty clear: …
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pascal’s pensées
{{Blaise Pascal}}, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and part-time theologian, is a fascinating member of history to me. Several years ago I borrowed a copy of his “{{Pensées}}” from a friend, and skimmed it. At the time, I was impressed more with the randomness of the collection than with anything specific he wrote. A few days ago, …
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oracle discontinuing itanium support
This morning I saw the headline on InfoWorld: “Oracle stopping development on Itanium — slap at HP or obvious decision?” At my previous employer, we were entertained by a couple visits from both HP and Intel folks ballyhooing the Itanium, HP-UX, and the future of the platform – especially in the database arena. I thought those visits …
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the deadly sins of programming – again?
InfoWorld this week published yet another article on “The 7 deadly sins of software development”. For those who don’t care to read the ~1 page article (that’s split unless you use the “print” option that puts it all on one page), here’s the list: Lust – overengineering Gluttony – not refactoring Greed – cross-team competition …
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john stossel’s show last night
health care “reform”?
The problem with health care in America is NOT that too many people don’t have it. And it’s NOT that it’s too expensive (though it is expensive). The problem with health care in America is that there is no reason for people to pay for what they can get for “free”. And if something goes …
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denita smith, 1981-2007
As I mentioned a few days ago, I was a juror on a trial. That trial was the State of North Carolina vs Shannon Crawley in the unlawful death of Denita Smith on 04-Jan-2007. Miss Smith’s fiancee, Jermier Stroud, was implicated by the defendant. Mr Stroud is a police officer in Greensboro. Under oath, and …
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end6 must die
Have any of you seen end6.org? Apparently some web sites choose to redirect their viewers to end6.org rather than render in IE6. Yes – IE6 is old. Very old. But hundreds of thousands of us are stuck using it while at work due to bad IT policies, or upgrade paranoia. Taking me to end6 instead …
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bad math and the digital economy
I generally like reading Seth Godin’s blog. However, this post on the digital music economy isn’t very helpful, in my opinion. “A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single …
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out/open-sourcing education
Along with the /. post mentioned by Jason, is Bob Cringely’s discussion on outsourcing education. What is the emphasis on in-person education from specific professors? I’ve been asked for my transcript professionally once – and that’s because my current employer pays more attention to grades than technical aptitude. I can recall only a small handful …
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html 5
A list apart has a nice write-up of the forthcoming HTML 5 standard. If you are like most designers, you probably don’t write all your markup by hand. But until the tools you use catch up to the new elements in (X)HTML 5, you will be doing some markup by hand while you learn. There’s …
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hizook and google
I recently found out about Hizook – a robotics news aggregator. I found out from this story that was posted to Hacker News. It seems that Google thought their traffic spike was anomalous, and disabled their Adsense account without warning. Thankfully it was re-enabled a few days later, but it does undermine some confidence in …
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little vietnam
I’ve been enjoying a small restaurant near my apartment in Singapore. It’s a cash-only operation called Little Vietnam. They’re located at 511 Guillemard Road S. They open at 1700, and close at 0100 Tuesday through Sunday. I’ve now been there several times, trying different pho options, the spring rolls, and some other specialties that jump …
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moonwinks
We’re driving down I-86. Where? Near the town of Cuba New York. Time? About 1945. Date? 25 July. Due to some unavoidable delays earlier, we got a later start to our trip to Oshkosh for the EAA AirVenture week. As the sun is getting lower in the sky, we realize that we haven’t eaten in …
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jersey city
This week I have the pleasure of working in Jersey City. No, that’s not sarcasm. Getting the PATH from my hotel in Manhattan to work is a cinch, and cheaper than taking the subway anywhere (fares on the subway are $2.25; the PATH is $1.75). It would’ve been nice to be at the hotel across …
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oh no! more information! stop it!
As reported here, authorities in Sydney claim that by having the “blacklist” leaked, it will ‘”the concerned parent’s worst nightmare” as curious children would inevitably seek it out.’. Oh come on! Kids can find anything they want anyways. I certainly could when I was younger – and it didn’t require the internet. Encyclopedias, libraries, talking …
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guess it’s good this server is in the united states
Because this link to wikileaks would be illegal in Australia. That’s right – if you operate a website in Australia, just linking to a banned site will cost you $11k per day. So. Mr Australia government guy… you’re banning domains? What happens when folks copy data from places like http://wikileaks.org to their own sites? Or …
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jim hansen – climatologist
A friend pointed-out Jim Hansen’s profile page on the NASA site: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html. I find this quote amazing on his profile, “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.” He flat-out admits to manipulating data to better his study’s goal. I’ve seen brazen …
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how is this racist?
Yes, I am aware of regional American history in which black people were sometimes referred-to as ‘porch monkeys’. But please tell me how this cartoon is racist? According to Roland Martin, it’s a racist attack on the president. “The cartoonist didn’t hang a sign around the neck of the chimp, so he left it up …
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blacksburg is in the news too much
I heard this morning of the murder that took place in Blacksburg VA this past week. There were several other people in the Virginia Tech cafe when this happened, and while they called 911, none tried to stop the attack. The opening scenes of Boondock Saints has the following excerpt of the priest’s homily: “And …
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store brands are sometimes better
I shop at various grocery stores, and the cashiers generally look at my purchases a little askance: clementines, milk, ice cream, pot pies, beer, Ensure – they seem to get confused when I checkout with my selections. I was raised with a thrifty mindset, but am not afraid to spend money for better quality. For …
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eating at home has other benefits
Not merely saving money, but it’s also healthier. I’ve been eating dominantly at home – either mine or friends’ places – and have noticed that not only is each meal less expensive, but I can eat better food, too. Don’t get me wrong, those McDonald’s breakfast burritos are awesome. They’re also 300 calories a pop …
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