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An interesting alternative to Amazon’s S3. I had a few technical questions that were thoroughly answered in a quick email exchange. Thinking about it…
… it becomes a multi-tabbed slideshow… the four tabs allows… a total of 96 possible separate images…. from 1 to 24 on each tabbed page… the option to have a few lines of descriptive text which will appear beneath the thumbnails.
by Stu Nicholls at CSSplay — Very attractive I think. It appears to be mostly CSS, and little or no javascript (maybe I just can’t spot it).
Using mutt on OS XIt may come to this yet… I still think elm is one of the best email clients I’ve ever used, mutt takes some of that and mixes in a few other mail clients (hence ‘mutt’).
So You Want to Write a Book?The first of a series of articles on writing by Dave “Pragmatic” Thomas.
Techdirt: Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period
in a competitive market, the price of a good is always going to get pushed towards its marginal cost… many people tend to look at it and say that if price equals marginal cost, then no one would ever produce anything… a misconception that is at the heart of this whole debate…
from Mike at TechDirt — now which of the three Michaels I don’t know.
The 100% Easy-2-Read StandardI think So. conforms to those guidelines. If it doesn’t it’ll not be long until it does.
Web Design is 95% TypographyApparently there is a bit of a debate over this article and its follow-ons. I think at this point the debate is over the number: is it 95%? 90%? 100%?
Subtraction: Offending Experts and Pleasing Everybody
The idea is that, as interaction designers, we of course don’t want to offend any segment of the user base. But if you’re going to offend anyone, it should be experts and not beginners or intermediates.
from Subtraction — Interesting enough article, most of Khoi Vinh’s stuff is interesting. But truthfully the reason I’m posting this particular link is that I really really like the design of his site, in-particular the design of the article pages (like the one I linked to).
ATypIAssociation Typographique Internationale
Using Amazon S3 as an Image Hosting Service
I concluded that my best outsourced image hosting option was Amazon’s S3 or Simple Storage Service.
by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror — Compare this to the rsync.net link above. There are advantages to both.
Reducing Your Website's Bandwidth Usage
on the internet, popularity is a tax
by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror — Useful.
We should harbor no illusions. Mr. Hicks is not exactly a Gandhi-like Mr. Charisma. He is a “kangaroo skinner” who some Aussies have colorfully described as a “ratbag”. But the Australians are rallying to his defense, nonetheless, because, as people down under have noted, even “ratbags” deserve a fair and prompt trial… meanwhile, Hicks’ military defense lawyer, Major Michael Mori, has been aggressively trying to get the “new charge” dismissed. He has criticized the process, the retroactive nature of the crime and the entire military tribunal system – in the United States, in Australia and in front of the media… the US Army is now threatening to charge Maj. Mori with a criminal violation of Article 88 of the military code of conduct; that is, using “contemptuous language” about the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense. If court-martialed, Major Mori could be busted in rank and imprisoned for defending his client in a way that the Army does not like.
by (DV) Zingh — A principled rant.
Gingrich Admits Extramarital Affair During Clinton Impeachment
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair
from The Huffington Post — Fun!
Blog Archive Heresy and Fried Onions
There’s story in Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table link in article about a recipe for varnish that included a raw onion. Nobody at the varnish plant where he worked knew what its purpose was. It turned out that it had originally been used as a thermometer: if the onion fries, things were hot enough. Now, they had (and used) better thermometers, but they kept on throwing the onion in because that’s just what you did. I think that web frameworks have a lot of onions in them.
from Avi "Seaside" Bryant at HREF Considered Harmful — I agree.
Judge Shoots Down Flight Simulator Patent Suit Against Google Earthfrom Techdirt — There are a lot more patents that need this kind of treatment.
PATRIOT Act makes us all terrorists
The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.
via Boing Boing — Leaves me speechless.
Toronto councillor: dead cyclists have themselves to blame!
“I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.” – Toronto city councillor Rob Ford
via Boing Boing — I live in Toronto, and for years I commuted by bike (usually 11-15k each way, for a while 30k each way (I preferred the car)). I’ve been knocked off my bike, in dangerous circumstances, three times (once caused $800 damage to the bike), and five or six clowns tried to drive me off the road deliberately, but I’ve never hurt. It is getting very dangerous to ride a bike in Toronto. In theory they are making bike lanes all over the place, the only trouble is that they end at the approach to intersections which is right where you need them the most. Apparently drivers find it difficult to make turns without the option of knocking down a bike rider.
image_science version 1.1.1 has been released!
ImageScience is a clean and happy Ruby library that generates thumbnails… and it doesn’t leak memory like a sieve.
I use this in Raconteur for creating thumbnails (of course). It uses FreeImage which is a pain to get compiled on OS X, but easy on linux.
Friendster Scores Yet Another Social Networking Patent??
Friendster confirmed that this patent has been awarded - look for an announcement soon. They’ve filed for a dozen or so of these, they say.
Software patents continue to annoy.
Metalua is a metaprogramming extension to Lua 5.1, i.e. a compiler which allows to extend the language’s syntax and semantics from within programs
via Lambda the Ultimate — With ‘samples’ of adding typechecking and pattern matching. I’m really going to have to take another look at Lua.
The No Shit Guide To Supporting OpenID In Your Applicationsfrom danwebb.net — This OpenID thing is looking as though it is going to happen. Nice article about how to help that along.
OpenID for Railsfrom Leancode — Overview of Ruby libraries available supporting OpenID.
They are simply wrong to suggest that Canadian law no longer applies once the information leaves the jurisdiction (as the federal court just ruled) or that a privacy policy is somehow voided by virtue of the fact that the data is outside of the jurisdiction.
by Michael Geist — Privacy laws are obviously national things. Canada and Europe both have stricter privacy laws than the US has. So what happens when Canadian or European companies use US-based services? Well, in Canada at least, that doesn’t exempt you from obeying the law. Canada.com is using an American email service for its customers and is trying to exempt itself from its obligations through an EULA (I think, maybe just a FAQ??).
DemoCamps are supposed to combine local innovation, sharing, geekery, and some social drinking. Recently, it feels closer to a local version of Demo to allow individuals and companies to launch products and technologies to an audience.
by David Crow — A lot of thinking going on about the Toronto Demo Camps. I’ve been to a bunch of them and I’ll continue to do so. They are a mixed thing, some good, some bad, but the beer helps.
Metaweb has slurped in the contents of several of the web’s freely accessible databases, including much of wikipedia, and song tracks from musicbrainz. It then turns its users loose on not just adding more data items but making connections between them by filling out meta tags that categorize or otherwise connect the data items, using a typology that can be extended by users, wiki-style.
from Tim O'Reily — Keep an eye on this one, but I’m sceptical.
Email Security All ForcesA tutorial on email signing and encryption on OS X (10.4).
… in Melbourne Australia… recently completed residential property in the back streets of the inner suburb Richmond. Jackson Clements Burrows Architects responded to the difficult and often costly heritage protection laws with a superimposed 1:1 scale photo of the original dwelling onto a glass facade.
from Core77 Design Blog — Take a good look at those photos.
This imposing building is believed to be the world’s tallest wooden house rising 13 floors to reach 144ft. The house is also crumbling, incomplete and under threat of demolition from city authorities who are eager to end Nikolai Sutyagin’s 15 year project. Driven to inspiration by his formative years spent in a Soviet communal flat, Sutyagin felt lonely living by himself. Building began in 1992 and was only going to reach two stories high, however, convinced by a trip to see wooden houses in Japan and Norway, he decided he had not used enough roof space efficiently enough and decided to keep building. He firstly added three floors, but was not keen on the outcome, so he added more floors and just kept goind, he calls the finished project a “happy accident”
…but Sutyagin is determined to save his building and has erected a roof around the second floor that he says allows him to claim that everything above is decoration.
Just decoration, eh? Nice photo.
Dedosfrom Josh Spear. Nice.
… iConcertCal is very useful… a free iTunes plug-in, you should never again miss a show due to bungled dates or forgetfulness… scans your iTunes music folder to comprehensively detail live concerts in a well-organized and personalized… calendar… you can click on your choice to purchase tickets…
from Tim Yu at Cool Hunting — I’ve installed this thing. It crashed my iTunes twice before coming up properly and has run well ever since (my iTunes library is about 10,000 songs which may have had something to do with the problems). This thing actually does work. It is a visualizer for iTunes.
New Meccafrom Pruned — There is a construction boom in the holy city of Mecca. Wow.
Dowd knew people are looking for alternative places to hang their hats where the ambience is, well, creative.
by Gagglescape — This is a very good idea.
James Hutchison, Idaho, Latah County, 1855-??
JAMES HUTCHISON Among the leading fruit growers of Latah County must be mentioned the subject of this article, and also it is right that the faithful labors which he has performed for the substantial progress of this county should receive proper consideration.
Nice example of biographies from a hundred years ago or so. No idea if James is related to me (of course, he is likely distantly related, if only because of the name but also the New York connection). My sister thinks he looks a lot like my father. I can definitely see a resemblance. These projects to preserve our history deserve our support.
Ruby 1.8.6 releasedSurely you’ve heard this by now. Seems to be mostly a bug and performance upgrade (not that that isn’t appreciated).
