February 2012
1 post
The Parable of the Languages →
December 2011
1 post
Monk, a Sinatra-based Ruby framework →
One of several cool Citrusbyte projects.
November 2011
1 post
“[D]evelop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll...”
– Tim Ferriss
October 2011
1 post
September 2011
9 posts
Movies on My Computer
I feel sort of bad for Netflix. Although today’s announcement was just a boneheaded move that made no sense (unless they’re planning to sell off their DVD branch), I suspect that the reality of their price hikes is that they’re getting squeezed by movie studios.
Here’s what the studios don’t seem to understand: I use Netflix because it’s easier than The Pirate...
The Best PCs You Can Build for $600 and $1200 →
This would be a great article if they didn’t recommend only 4GB RAM and strongly imply that any more was a waste of money. To me the waste of money would be buying a new computer with less than 8GB today.
Sketchy Shoe Stores
I just spontaneously remembered a shoe store I went to a few years ago. I’d gone into the city to see a movie with a friend, but I was about an hour early, so I explored the area a little bit. I should explain that “the area” was Park Street by Boston Common.
I went down some sort of alley with some small storefronts. I found a shoe store, and, since I was in the market for new...
FinePix X10 →
Fuji couldn’t keep the X100 in stock, even though it’s over $1,000 for a practically-point-and-shoot camera with a fixed, prime lens. They’ve just announced its little brother, the X10.
August 2011
9 posts
Namebench: Find Better DNS Servers →
namebench is an open-source, cross-platform tool to find the fastest DNS servers. I switched to Google’s DNS servers long ago assuming they were faster. namebench “found” Verizon’s public DNS servers in Boston and found that they’re 93% faster than Google’s DNS.
For reasons that make no sense, the best “Boston Verizon” DNS server 151.203.0.85 has a...
“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are...”
– Steve Jobs, via Steve Jobs’s Best Quotes in the WSJ
Captchas
I get them wrong at least 50% of the time. Either the bots are winning, or I’m only half-human.
The House Across the River →
This house is across the river from where I’m staying. I’d buy it, but I’m a little short on cash.
July 2011
10 posts
WebAppers →
“Hunting the Best Open Source Resources for Web Developers.” And they mean it. How have I not seen this before?
What's My IP? →
I specifically like this page because it gives you a plain-text answer, as opposed to a page full of ads for “IP blocker” software. Handy for when you need to refer people somewhere.
Pumped Up Kicks
I have to admit that I really don’t pay any attention to song lyrics or look for meaning in songs. I found Rihanna’s S&M to be an upbeat, catchy song, and it was weeks of hearing it on the radio before I realized that S&M was about S&M. Even the egregiously-sexual lyrics didn’t tip me off. I was just obviously.
More absurdly, someone recently pointed out what...
Oops
Meant to post that music video (with the more-porn-ish cover image than I realized) on my other blog, These Songs I Like.
People Staring at Computers →
The BBC reports (and awkwardly avoids linking or naming the site) that Secret Service agents showed up to question the author of People Staring at Computers, which uses software installed on computers in Apple Stores to post photos of people looking at the computers.
The Thing I Love about Wikipedia... →
…is how quickly it can jump from providing a good background on a subject to providing far more detail than anyone could ever need to know. On honeycomb, Wikipedia authors wrote:
The closed ends of the honeycomb cells are also an example of geometric efficiency, albeit three-dimensional and little-noticed. The ends are trihedral (i.e., composed of three planes) sections of rhombic...
June 2011
5 posts
Woman Drives Into Swamp Following GPS Directions →
“We’ve seen sitcom parodies of something like this and to actually see it is surprising… I don’t know why they wouldn’t question driving into a puddle that doesn’t seem to end,” [Lt. Eric Keenan of the Bellevue Fire Department] said.
Retirement
I have about 40 years to go, but when I eventually retire, I am going to travel the world taking quality photographs for Wikipedia articles. Mark my words. (Today, only Martha Coakley, Political positions of Barack Obama, a few international versions of the page for Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport, Bentley University, and Joseph Hooker have photos taken by me.)
May 2011
5 posts
SSH Agent Forwarding on Mac →
Switching to a new machine, it took me the longest time to figure out why ssh-agent forwarding wasn’t working. I can’t help but think that I should have thought of this on my own, but the answer is that you need to actually enable it in ssh_config. And then, magic!
April 2011
10 posts
CoffeeScript →
“Underneath all of those embarrassing braces and semicolons, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous object model at its heart,” CoffeeScript says. CoffeeScript has a much nicer syntax that compiles down to JavaScript.
The Pandora Disease
After months of only listening to music on Pandora, I just fired up iTunes, and keep trying to rate every song. How else is iTunes going to know what to play and what not to play?
Instead of just deleting the songs I don’t like — or awkwardly assigning 5-star ratings to the good songs — I’m left wondering if Mahout could do an okay job with recommendations based solely on...
Nice things to buy yourself. →
An old Ask MetaFilter question.
