June 2010
6 posts
WatchA nice summary in slideshow format of cross domain issues on the interwebs. Interesting stuff.
Breaking The Cross Domain Barrier
1 tag
4 tags
InfoQ: Towards a Universal VM →
This InfoQ talk by Alex Buckley is a good description of why the JVM is quite a cool and interesting space to watch. One of the sort of pipe dreams i’ve had with JRuby is the day when i can use it to access Python’s NLP libraries (like NLTK) through Jython. Buckley’s talk indicates that this is very much an idea that they’d like to make possible if they can.
6 tags
Grinding on Vim, from a Textmate user's...
I’m spending some time trying to learn Vim. I’m finally so fed up with Textmate hogging memory and beachballing (particularly when searching) that i’m just looking for something else. So here are some things i’ve learned.
Learning Vim is like joining an MMO
Like in an MMO, when you start using VIM, everyone is higher level than you, everyone has cooler gear, and knows...
May 2010
7 posts
Nexus One Users, Get Your Froyo Download And... →
Are You Colorblind?
fakescience:
ha ha, now that’s just mean.
WatchKoichiro Tsujikawa - “Eyes” (by Passion Paris)
Cleaning out macruby (if you have to)
Macruby 0.6 is out, and with it a lot of new enhancements, but unfortunately i’ve been having some difficulties with rubygems.
Thankfully Matt Aimonetti is not only an awesome guy but also willing to help out if you’ve got a problem! I asked him what i could do to get my system back to a pristine state (since running the installer again over my borked install didn’t help).
...
April 2010
6 posts
Best sentence involving Paris Hilton ever
Thus, e.g. if Paris Hilton knows that Paris Hilton is Paris Hilton, then she must also know that every nontrivial zero of the zeta-function has real part 1/2, if that is indeed the case, or else she must know that this is not the case, if indeed it is not.
The abstract for Hyperintensional Questions, authored by Carl Pollard, a professor at my alma mater
RE: SEC proposal to require asset backed...
Ben Larrimer: i just don't know enough to assume that python doesn't have some amazingly important reason for using
Ted Han: your opinion would be interesting as a lawyer :)
Ted Han: it doesn't
Ted Han: i think what they're going for with Python
Ted Han: is that they want something that is Open Source (so anybody can download the tools needed to run the code)
Ted Han: and that is interpreted code, so that the code has to be transmitted across the wire, and inspected
Ted Han: as opposed to compiled code
Ted Han: which is in an opaque binary format, and not portable from platform to platform
Ted Han: python is a fairly human readable programming language.
Ted Han: there are problems and pitfalls which i need to see if this proposal addresses
Ted Han: things like what happens when programming langauges change/update
Ted Han: what about embedded code? You can write compiled C code and stick it inside of a python program
Ted Han: and it'll run on the python interpreter, but you won't be able to inspect the C code.
Ben Larrimer: honestly.... i think it depends upon the court
Ted Han: exactly :P
Ted Han: and i don't trust the courts on tech matters
Ted Han: i really really don't
Ted Han: they've screwed the tech community too many times
Ben Larrimer: you shouldn't. the way even liberal courts have shackled technology isn't shameful, its just stupid
Ted Han: yeah
Indexes and auto migration in DataMapper
< snusnu> JamesHarrison, knowtheory: you *can* specfiy indexes
yeah
you can go: property :name, String, :index => true
that'll create an index for just that property
you can also go: property :name, String, :index => :something
< snusnu> JamesHarrison: :index => true or :unique_index => true, or :unique_index => :some_index_name (for compound indices)
where :something is a label that multiple properties share
Formative Experiences: Intro to Chapter 5 of Larry...
Reading Larry Wall’s Programming Perl book was a formative experience for me in a variety of ways. Discovering that writing about programming could be funny was amazing. But more importantly, that writing about programming could be fundamentally insightful while being funny was the true delight. The introduction to Chapter 5 on “Packages, Modules and Object Classes” is the...
Datamapper paranoid delete quirks - Hez's Bloggity... →
I’d never bothered learning about how DataMapper does paranoid properties and how to work w/ paranoid models. Out of a discussion today in #datamapper on freenode, i learned how! I suggested to Hez, who was the impetus for the discussion, that he write up what we learned, and he did! Check it out at the link.
February 2010
1 post
The most hyperbolic NYT piece ever →
After all, nothing is more demoralizing and damaging to a nation than being beaten at your national sport. Even having been dragged into an 8 year long war, where your country men are losing life and limb, with no end in sight, pales by comparison!
For Canada, anything other than victory after Sunday’s humiliating 5-3 defeat by the United States would have been a catastrophe that scarred the...
January 2010
8 posts
Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger | The Onion -... →
Now this, is fucking brilliant.
Evidence of a Tech President
A Deluge of Donations via Text Messages - NYTimes.com
2006 GameSpot ‘April Fools’ joke correctly... →
Oh Game Journalism. The idiot cousin of the already moronic mass media.
Fleshmap: Listen: Music →
Neat info graphic about body parts mentioned in genres of music.
Documents Show Officials Covered Up Deaths in... →
Off With Her Head, unless you'd actually like to...
I quite enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan, and i am strongly sympathetic to his perspective, given that he is clearly an American at this point, but with a very British sense of justice. In that frame of mind he’s been calling for Janet Napolitano to resign, in the face of the US Gov’s failure to stop the Christmas Day Crotch Bomber. But i think that Sullivan’s British sense of...
December 2009
1 post
Cardiovascular Curveball #001 | Life in the Fast... →
An amazing blog post/case that shadowfax linked to :D
October 2009
1 post
My Comment on "The Dark Side Of The Web" →
Nice, Andrew Sullivan published a comment I sent him in full (Thanks Andrew!).
Here’s the comment:
You have quite clearly mischaracterized Morozo’s argument. Morozo’s point is that technology does not INHERENTLY lead to democracy. It may well be that technology helps enabled people with reformist and democratic ideals to organize and communicate. That is not the same thing...
June 2009
1 post
Weekend Competition: Tom Swifties - Schott’s Vocab... →
These are a hilarious sort of pun. And the commentors on the NYT blog have produced some real gems:
“Oh I dropped my toothpaste behind the sink,” he said, crestfallen.
Misleadingly Naive Article in Psychology Today: ... →
This piece is so fundamentally naive that it’s really not worth considering. The author clearly does not understand evolution, or the nature in which humans participate in evolutionary, or economic systems (i know, the author is in neuroeconomics. I’m surprised too).
First, humans manipulate evolutionary systems for our benefit. Livestock and plant husbandry have served us well over...
April 2009
7 posts
Tired of (rubyists) arguing? Do something about...
Frustrated; Demoralized; Tired of arguing
I am described by all of these things. A lot of interesting things have been said over the past two weeks. A lot of horrible things have been said too. There is no community consensus. Instead we have what political pundits refer to as a “circular firing squad.” Its not even that the community is divided into separate camps, we...
Technology Review Videos: Fixing Lungs Outside the... →
Totally awesome, and totally freaky. Lungs kept alive for like 12 hrs outside of the human body (massive benefit for lung transplants and the like)
In New Jersey, an Immigrant Detainee Dies, and... →
I can’t find enough pejoratives to describe the ways in which the Bush administration has reinvented the executive branch. They created a shameful, callous, uncaring, soul-eating machine, built to serve their ideology. A device with no regard for the lives it destroyed, any notion of justice, or question of efficacy. Every time i think that i’ve become inured to the rank and...
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the... →
This Washington Post piece is extremely well put together. These are tragic stories, evocatively and heart-wrenchingly explained. More importantly though, the piece does an effective job of discussing the cognitive (even momentary distraction can have horrible implications) and sociological (this can happen to anybody from any background, and does happen).
WELL worth the read.
March 2009
17 posts
ShrinkTalk.net | Why Marriages Fail →
WatchScientists film HIV spreading for first time - Telegraph
AAEC - Political Cartoon by Chip Bok, None -... →
The best poem ever, even in translation: The...
This is actually a repost from a previous blog, but i love this poem so much, that i wanted to repost it :)
An excerpt from: The First Sally (A) or Trurl’s Electronic Bard of the Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem, translated by Michael Kandel (yes, this is a -translation-, i can only imagine what the original was like).
“Very well. Let’s have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral and...
NPR: Why Covering AIG Is So Hard →
If you are pissed about AIG Bonuses (and who isn’t) or the US Bailout, you MUST read this article.
Photography & Apologies
I am chagrined, horribly chagrined. Entirely unintentionally, I have embarrassed someone who I greatly respect, Yukihiro Matsumoto, aka Matz, Ruby’s creator. I feel horrible about it and figure the least that can be done is explain what happened.
I met a number of people at RubyConf2008, including Charles Nutter, Yehuda Katz, Matt Aimonetti, Kevin Clark, Aaron Patterson, and last but...
Daily Kos: F*%k you. →
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay... →
