Excerpt from:
Things to say when you are losing a tech argument
1 That won’t scale.
2 That’s been proven to be O(N^2) and we need a solution that’s O(NlogN).
3 There are, of course, various export limitations on that technology.
4 The syntax is idiosyncratic.
5 Trying to build a team behind that technology would be a staffing nightmare.
6 That can’t be generalized to a cross-platform build.
7 Unfortunately, the license would contaminate our product.
8 If we go with that idea, we’re going to have Don Marti camped out in the front lobby with 300 angry software jihad supporters.
9 Our support infrastructure simply can’t handle the volume that change would involve.
10 I had one of the interns try that approach for another project, and it scrambled the CEO’s hard drive. So I think it’s going to be a hard sell.

I’m having George Carlin flashbacks, what with ‘fuck’ or some derivative thereof being every other word. Besides that, the guy makes some good points. “Caustic” is definitely apropos.

Found this via Scoble – CausticTech has a rant that every techie should read and take to heart. Reading it is cathartic — I am sure writing it was as well. His rant is an equal opportunity attack – something for everyone – bloggers, open source zealots, Microsoft in general, evangelists, Microsoft MVPs (at least peripherally).

…excerpt from: radio.weblogs.com…

Another one bites the dust. Could we get more paranoid? Don’t answer that.

…excerpt from: blankbaby.typepad.com…

A cool story. Reminds me of my days on BITnet and xyzzy in college.

Xeni Jardin:
On John Perry Barlow’s blog today, this account of a random human connection by VoIP — testament to how technology can make this an oddly intimate planet.

I was sitting at my desk in New York on Wednesday night, writing a BarlowSpam, when Skype started to emit the old-fashioned bell tone that signals a request for a voice chat. I looked at the window associated with the request and saw a bunch of Chinese pictograms where the name should be. Some kind of Asian chatspam, I figured, and I ignored it. A few minutes later, it rang again. The name of the caller was “Kitty11_3″. There was also a text chat box on the screen, also from kitty11_3 which read, “I need a friend.” I was skeptical. I figured that whoever it was probably looking for “friends” to come see her “relax” in her web-cam equipped “bedroom.” But I took the call. A delicate Asian-sounding voice came from someplace in Cyberspace. “Will you talk to me?” she said.

“Why?”

“I want to practice my English.”

“Why me?”

“Because your name is John. I think that anybody named John speaks English.”

I remained skeptical, but further conversation convinced me that she was telling the truth. She really had no idea who or where I was and had plucked me at random from all the Skype users named John. Kitty11_3 turned out to be a 22 year old girl from Hanoi, who, like her father, works for the state-owned oil company. She had managed to get five of her neighbors in the Hanoi suburb where she lives to go in on a DSL line and WiFi which she had set up herself. Her boyfriend is off in Korea getting

…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…

This is an excellent post with a lot of informative comments as well. Personally, for years I’ve known there was a difference in thought process between typing and writing: when I want to write poetry or anything drawn from the depths of emotion, reflection, and introspection, I handwrite; when I want to write and think (logically) at the same time, I type — and then I proofread what I’ve typed several times to make sure it’s all coherent. My job as a Unix administrator benefits greatly from the typing-induced “muscle memory” learned by using the same commands thousands of times — I can have a spoken conversation and continue typing commands even while looking at the person talking, but if I’m looking at the screen while typing commands then the talking doesn’t work so well. I’ve been typing for over 20 years, touch-typing for more than 15 of them.

Excerpt from:
collision detection: Can you think better when you’re typing?
In today’s New York Times, there’s an Education article talking about the demise of proper cursive handwriting among high-schoolers. Computers have drastically reduced the amount a student writes by hand, so much that the skill, “like an unused muscle”, is pretty much dead by your senior year. But there’s an interesting question buried in this piece: What is the cognitive effect of handwriting versus typing?

Cool idea. I’m not sure how much it adds to the whole kinesthetic feedback thing but it probably can’t hurt.

Fontifier – Your own handwriting on your computer!
Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer.
It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a handwriting font that you can use
in your word processor or graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica.

Kathy’s recent post, Creating Passionate Renters got me thinking about the whole 180 thing. And then today, I saw this terrific post on 43folders.com…: Patching your personal suck. I realized there a couple of different ways of looking at the whole “I don’t want to suck” thing with 180 in mind: there’s the “turn the negative into a positive” – as in Kathy’s post where the apartment complex has turned owning a dog from a renter’s negative to a renter’s positive; and then there’s the “how do I work my way out of sucking” perspective, reflected in Merlin’s post on 43folders.

Let’s start with the “how do I work my way out of sucking” thing. According to Richard Restak, you don’t have to suck. New brain research says that you can get pretty darn good at anything you really put your mind to if you 1) focus on it enough and 2) practice a lot. He talked to a lot of people who have studied “prodigies” in various areas (e.g. music, athletics, chess, and even math) and found that the really, really good people spend most of their time practicing. And not just practicing the fun things either; they practice everything, hours and hours more than people who are just good at those things.

…excerpt from: headrush.typepad.com…

Excerpt from:

Inside Firefox – The Inside Track on Firefox Development
Every few months a new worm makes the rounds, Sobig, Sober (the 77KB worm which ultimately destroyed my email account) and others. These worms usually travel using Microsoft Outlook as the hook onto people’s systems. Creating an email with an attachment that appears inocuous and beckons the user to open it but which is really a malicious piece of executable code, these emails scan addressbooks and propagate rapidly. Sophisticated worms like Sober even contain their own SMTP engine.

People get infected with these worms because they are a) do not understand internet security (probably an impossible problem to solve) and b) their email client software makes it too easy to execute such attachments.

Excerpt from:

Creating Passionate Users: Most classroom learning sucks
The most depressing result of Skyler’s transition to public school was when she came home one day a few weeks into her 7th grade, and said, “In real school, they don’t seem to like it when you question the teacher…” She was horrified to be labeled somewhat of a troublemaker, because she’d been treated for so many years as a thinking person, encouraged to challenge and question and not assume it was her fault if she didn’t understand something. Suddenly dropped into the US public school system, she quickly learned that it’s a very different world. She knew more about learning theory and the brain than most of her school’s administration, and her tolerance for poor/weak educational experiences was pretty low.

She did have some fabulous teachers throughout the rest of her public school days, but wouldn’t you know it–they were always the teachers getting into trouble with the school administration or even parent’s groups. In a later post I’ll tell you a shocking story about one of her teachers who made the national news, twice, for encouraging students to think–and act– for themselves. He was nearly fired during a witch hunt that both local and national media seized on (although most later offered apologies when it became obvious what was really going on).

Filmmakers know that the feeling the audience leaves with has a huge impact on the movie’s success. It’s what the audience remembers, and determines how (and whether) they talk about the movie to others. When filmmakers do audience testing, they’re trying to get the ending right, and that’s why usually the best music of the movie is saved for the ending credits.

It’s the psychological princple known as primacy-recency, and it matters to advertisers, writers, entertainers, and teachers.

When it comes to retention and recall, the middle sucks.

People tend to remember beginning and endings better than middles.

So the solution is simple: have more beginnings and endings in your message.

A 90-minute lecture with no breaks means that most of the material is presented somewhere in the vast cognitive wasteland of the middle.

A series of 15-minute mini-lectures punctuated by exercises for deeper processing of the new content, means a lot more beginnings and endings, so more opportunities for better learning, especially better recall and retention.

The more granular the message “chu

…excerpt from: headrush.typepad.com…

USA Today: Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law. Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

t: Drug Control Office Faulted For Issuing Fake News Tapes. Shortly before last year’s Super Bowl, local news stations across the country aired a story by Mike Morris describing plans for a new White House ad campaign on the dangers of drug abuse. What viewers did not know was that Morris is not a journalist and his “report” was produced by the government, actions that constituted illegal “covert propaganda,” according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office.

Given this administration’s fondness for fiscal recklessness, war-inducing lies, torture, attacks on civil-liberties and other misdeeds, these seem like minor matters. But the Bush White House’s contempt for honest journalism is really something to behold. Worse, it’s clear that the adminstration honchos believe the public doesn’t care — and that officials consider professional journalists to be utterly helpless in making anyone care.

…excerpt from: dangillmor.typepad.com…

Cory Doctorow:
CoolGov uncovered this US Highway Administration document that explains the numbering scheme behind the US interstate highway system.

* Major interstates routes have a one or two digit number associated with them. North-south routes have odd numbers (I-5) while east-west roads have even numbers (I-10).

* Connecting interstate routes or beltway loops around urban areas have 3 digit numbers (the 101).

* To prevent duplication within a state, a progression of prefixes is used for the three-digit numbers. For example, if I-80 runs through three cities in a state, circumferential routes around these cities would be numbered as I-280, I-480, and I-680.

* There�s no set standard on exit numbering, but states generally use one of two systems:
1. Milepost numbering. The southern or western-most point on a given interstate begins the odometer at 0. If an exit is 6.5 miles from that point, it�s exit #6 and so forth.

2. Consecutive numbering. Again, starting at the western or southern-most point, each exit is given a number, starting with 1. When they have to shoehorn more exits in, they become #6A, #6B, etc�

ttp://coolgov.com/”>Cool Gov)
…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…

Starbucks says in a news release: “With Chantico drinking chocolate, we’re introducing our customers to the pleasures of drinking chocolate — transforming the way consumers think about chocolate, just as we transformed the way consumers experience coffee.” The drink, which debuts on Saturday, Jan. 8, is called “a liquid heart attack” by one STARBUCKS GOSSIP reader and Starbucks employee. (Read comments on the drink.) (Starbucks PR)a href=”http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/dining/drivethru/2977950″>Chantico review: “Imagine melted Godiva bars covered with hot fudge and Hershey’s syrup”

…excerpt from: starbucksgossip.typepad.com…

UPDATED

CNet’s interview with Bill Gates has any number of howlers, but a couple of them stand out.

He claims, for example, that Internet Explorer is the best browser. Insulting people’s intelligence is par for the course for Gates, but this one is beyond laughable.

More serious, and ugly, is Gates’ attack on people who want to restore a modicum of balance to today’s grossly tilted system of intellectual property. He snidely dismisses “some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”

The purity of this lie is remarkable. Even the most ardent of the free-software folks are not trying to remove the incentive to be creative. They believe in a different kind of incentive, just not the mercenary one that motivates Bill Gates.

The larger truth — a principle for which Gates so frequently demonstrates such contempt — is that the vast, vast majority of people who find fault with today’s system still want to reward creators for their work, financially and otherwise. But we also want a system that balances the rights of creators with the rights and needs of the larger society.

Gates and his allies in the entertainment cartel want absolute control. For them, fair use and other societal benefits are what the intellectual property holders deem them t

…excerpt from: dangillmor.typepad.com…

Of all the weblogs I read, there’s something cool to learn on Headrush almost every day.

Which would you prefer to listen to–a dry formal lecture or a stimulating dinner party conversation?
Which would you prefer to read–a formal academic text book or an engaging novel?

When I pose this question to authors or instructors, I usually hear, “You think the obvious answer is the dinner party and the novel, but it isn’t that simple.”

Followed by, “It all depends on the context. I’d much rather hear a dry formal lecture on something I’m deeply interested in than listen to inane dinner party conversation about Ashlee’s lip-syncing blunder.”

But here’s what’s weird–your brain wants to pay more attention to the party conversation than the formal lecture regardless of your personal interest in the topic.

Because it’s a conversation.

And when your brain thinks it’s part of a conversation, it thinks it has to pay attention… to hold up its end. You’ve felt this, of course. How many times have you sat in a lecture you really needed and wanted to pay attention to, but still found it hard to stay focused? Or how about the book you can’t seem to stay awake for… finding yourself reading the same paragraph over and over because you keep tuning out–despite your best effort to stay with it?

But here’s the coolest (and for me, the most fascinating) part of all this:

When you lecture or write using

…excerpt from: headrush.typepad.com…

Starbucks Drinks Simplified (kinda)
Since many people seem to be overly confused by the wide variety of options available at Starbucks, I’ve put together this handy-dandy cheat sheet to help you figure out what you want without spending hours staring blankly at a menu. It’s huge, but that’s because there’s a lot to choose from, and I’ve tried to include as much as possible. Of course, a lot of this stuff is trademarked by Starbucks Coffee Co. Drink availability will vary by location.

The always hilarious BBspot hits it out of the park again. Today, they give us The Top Eleven Geek Break Up Lines.

My personal favorite is number eleven:

(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? F
Relationship failed.

…excerpt from: www.wilwheaton.net…

More stupid security from our government. From an AP story: President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House…
…excerpt from: www.schneier.com…

Xeni Jardin:
It’s official. LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick says:

Why is Six Apart buying LiveJournal? Lots of reasons:

* Our companies are more alike than different.

* We both use Perl.

* Together we form super robot that’s stronger than the sum of its parts.

* Super robots can fight super companies.

* They respect us, we respect them.

* We have a number of features they don’t.

* We have experience with making “inward-facing” community sites, whereas their sites/products tend to be “outward-facing”. They want some of that inward-facing action.

* Because we’re awesome.

What does this mean for LiveJournal? Nothing earth-shattering. LiveJournal development and support will continue, and will probably even accelerate, as we grow the team. We’ll continue to work on speed, reliability, and new features. LiveJournal won’t become paid-user-only or anything crazy like that. We’re not going to raise prices. We’re not going to cancel permanent accounts, etc, etc. And we’re not going to spam or sell your information. You own your journals, not us. Really you shouldn’t see any negative changes. The most immediate changes will be that we’ll start to get prettier…
more styles, themes, etc. Six Apart is really good at that and we’re not.

ent. (thanks marginalia and
…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…

Excerpt from:
apophenia: The Cultural Divide Between LiveJournal and Six Apart
If Brad is willing to sell, i suspect that this rumor is definitely true. It doesn’t require a brain to know that buying LiveJournal would be a brilliant move on Six Apart’s part. That said, i’m not sure that i like this move at all.

Live Journal is a culture, not simply a product or commodity that can be bought. From an outsider’s perspective, it might appear as though they are similar properties – they are both blogging tools, right? Wrong.

Jump inside LJ culture. People who use LJ talk about their LJs, not their blogs. They mock bloggers who want to be pundits, journalists, experts. In essence, they mock the culture of bloggers that use Six Apart’s tools. During interviews with LJ/Xanga folks, i’ve been told that MovableType is for people with no friends, people who just talk to be heard, people who are trying too hard.

LJ folks don’t see LJ as a tool, but a community. Bloggers may see the ethereal blogosphere as their community, but for LJers, it’s all about LJ. Aside from the ubergeek LJers, LJers don’t read non-LJs even though syndication is available. They post for their friends, comment excessively and constantly moderate who should have access to what.

While you cannot generalize about LJers, a vast majority of them are engaged in acts of resistance regularly (think: subcultures, activists, youth rebels, etc.). They value LJ because it values them. They value LJ because it is a tool of resistance, an act of going against mainstream and representing those already marginalized by society – the geeks, freaks and queers among us. They don’t want to be mainstream. They don’t want their parents/authorities/oppressors using the same service. At the same time, LJ provides shelter, support, community. When someone threatens to commit suicide, LJ doesn’t throw up its hand and scream “not my problem.” There are folks who actually work to help friends help each other. They’re not just an anonymous service – they care.

I would love to know why people donate to LiveJournal. My hunch is that it has to do with cultural identity. When you donate, it says so on your page. When you donate, you signify that you value LJ. Forget increased features, you’ve just made the ultimate commitment to a community – a commitment of money. And aren’t you jealous of the permanent members and early adopters?