Sometime between March 12th and March 17th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Get Mac-Like Scrolling and Gestures on a Windows Laptop: "Once you've used the hand-helping, time-saving, two-finger scrolling and three-finger gestures on a MacBook, a standard Windows trackpad can feel kind of, well, dead. Here's how to get total finger control with a tiny app, or go further with a driver swap."
It’s not a bargain if you don’t need it: "Let's just say there is one of these bundles — lets just call it MacTheft — and the price for eleven apps is $19.95. And, let's just say they promise to give $5.00 of your purchase to starving children in cataclysmicly devastated regions of the world. Therefore, the price of the software — all eleven apps — is theoretically $14.95. But, let's just say there is only two apps out of the eleven that you really think you need. Here is a crazy idea to try… Buy the apps outright, full-price, directly from the developer."
Norrie First Registered Sexless Person: "THIS Mardi Gras, Norrie received a gift that no other androgynous person in NSW has had before. The night before the parade, the postman brought a certificate from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages that contained neither the dreaded ''M'' nor its equally despised cousin, ''F''. Instead, it said ''sex not specified'', making the 48-year-old Sydneysider, who identifies as neuter and uses only a first name, the first in the state to be neither man nor woman in the eyes of the NSW government."
Frommer’s Now F’Ing Both Freelancers and Photo Enthusiasts!: "I just heard from another colleague about a photo contest Frommer's is running….probably because of the problems they're running into screwing the photographers they signed to work with. You can win $5000 and get your photo on the cover of one of their guidebooks. Sounds like a cool contest, until you read the fine print: Participant retains ownership of the copyright in any submitted photographs. However, **by entering photograph(s) in this Contest, participant grants Sponsor the irrevocable, perpetual right to edit, adapt, use and publish in any media now known or hereafter discovered any or all of the photographs without compensation to the participant, his or her successors or assigns, or any other entity."
WA Legislature Toughens Cell Phone Driving Law: "The Washington state Legislature has approved a measure that makes it easier for police to ticket people who are driving while either texting or talking on a cell phone without a headset. On a 60-37 vote Thursday, the House passed a bill that makes it a primary offense to be caught holding a cell phone to your ear while driving, or to be reading, writing or sending text messages. That strengthens the state's current secondary offense law for both, which only slaps drivers with an extra fine if they are pulled over for another infraction, such as speeding."
Sometime between February 24th and March 11th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
The FCC Wants You to Test Your Broadband Speeds: "The FCC is asking the nation's broadband and smartphone users to use their broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nations' telecoms."
Zip Code Boundary Map: Useful Google Maps mashup with zip code boundaries for the entire U.S.
Better PDF File Size Reduction in OS X: "I discovered that anyone can create their own Quartz filters, which was the key I needed. Thus armed with knowledge, I set about creating a filter that struck, in my estimation, a reasonable balance between image quality and file size reduction. And I think I've found it. That 175MB PDF gets taken down to 34MB with what I created. If you'd like to experience this size reduction for yourself (and how's that for an inversion of common spam tropes?) it's pretty simple."
Hummer Brand to Be Wound Down After Sale Fails: Awesome. "It has achieved notoriety as the mother of all petrol-guzzlers, first developed for the US military, then taken up by celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger before he renounced it on environmental grounds. But the Hummer has run out of road. General Motors, the struggling car company, announced that it will wind down production of its Hummer SUV line after a deal to sell the brand to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery fell through."
Stryde Hax: The Spy at Harriton High: "This investigation into the remote spying allegedly being conducted against students at Lower Merion represents an attempt to find proof of spying and a look into the toolchain used to accomplish spying."
Sometime between February 16th and February 22nd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Tommy Westphall’s Mind: A Multiverse Explored: "'Tommy Westphall was an austistic child on the TV series St Elsewhere who, it was revealed in the closing moments of the final episode of that series, had dreamt the entire run of the show.' According to These Guys, many of the shows we love only exist in Tommy's mind. They have compiled a list of the intertwining series, but the resulting excel spreadsheet just didn't do it justice, so I designed a brain map to illustrate the theory."
Turkey: Archeological Dig Reshaping Human History: "The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago–a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture–the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember–the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed."
Typography for Lawyers: Don't let the "for lawyers" title fool you — though originally written for the legal profession, this is an excellent collection of typography tips, hints, and guidelines that every professional (and anyone who wants to create a well-presented printed document) would do well to read and keep handy. Much of this I knew and already used regularly (especially the 'single-space between sentences' rule), but there were some good new bits as well.
PeteSearch: How to Split Up the US by Facebook Interactions: "Pacifica: The most boring of the clusters, the area around Seattle is disappointingly average. Tightly connected to each other, it doesn't look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest of the West, even though a lot of them claim to need a vacation!"
Sometime between February 3rd and February 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Now You Can Facebook Chat Through iChat: "The set-up is pretty easy. All you do is go to the iChat's 'Preferences', menu, click 'Accounts' add a new account, select 'Jabber' from the pull-down menu and then type in your screen name (username@chat.facebook.com) and password. You then edit your 'Server Options' to point to chat.facebook.com at port 5222, unticking SSL as you go. Click OK and you're all set to harass and be harassed by Facebook friends through iChat at any time."
How to Create a Google Buzz Desktop App: "If you've used Buzz in its two current versions, inside Gmail and on the iPhone, you've probably noticed (like me) that the iPhone web app version is much better. Here's a quick little howto to take advantage of the much less clunky mobile UI for Buzz — assuming you're on a Mac." I'm actually not sure if I'm going to run this much, but I'm experimenting with it.
Deckle Edge in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: "The deckle edge dates back to a time when you used to need a knife to read a book. Those rough edges simulate the look of pages that have been sliced open by the reader. The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. The reader then sliced open the folds. Paper knives, variants of letter openers, were used for this purpose."
Pepsi Skips Super Bowl TV Advertising for Social Media: "Instead of pouring millions of dollars into a Super Bowl commercial, Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its 'Pepsi Refresh' initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20 million in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education. People can go to the Pepsi website refresheverything.com — which can also be accessed through Facebook and Twitter — to both submit ideas and vote on others they find appealing. Among those on the site now: 'Help free healthcare clinic expand services to uninsured in rural TN' and 'Build a fitness center for all students in Hays, Kansas community.' Every month, the company will offer up to 32 grants to worthy projects."
This is one of the most disturbing local stories I’ve seen in a long time. A 15-year old girl was targeted by a group of other teens at Westlake Center. She and her friend went down to the Metro Transit tunnel to try to get away from the group. Once on the tunnel platform, they approached the security guards to try to get some assistance or protection from the group that was following them.
The guards, however, did nothing — even when the group arrived and one of the teens was attacked, shoved off the platform (thankfully, no buses or trains were present), followed back onto the platform, knocked to the ground, and then repeatedly kicked in the head until she was left unconscious.
Here’s a local news report with security footage of the attack. This is not pleasant to watch.
There are so many things to be outraged at.
Apparently, the ‘security’ people are contract workers, authorized only to “observe and report” suspicious activity and attacks. This has been the standard party line from Olympic Security and from a number of other officials commenting on the incident, and their protestations of being “extremely disappointed” in the security guards just doesn’t compensate.
The girl approached the guards and requested assistance. Instead, they turned away from her. She tried to keep one of the guards between her and her attacker, and neither that guard nor either of his partners made any attempt to intervene or do anything except the contractually required radio call to the police. One guard actually walks away during the attack. Ten blows to the head and six kicks to the head later, they continue to watch as the attacker comes back for a final kick to the head.
There is no excuse, not even the “observe and report” language in the contract, that justifies the guards behavior in this instance.
They could have paid attention to the girl about to be attacked. They could have worked together to form a barrier between her and the group of teens. They could have surrounded her to keep her attacker away. They could have moved to block her attacker from coming back for that final kick. They could have made any number of non-aggressive attempts to intervene that would not have involved directly contacting any of the group of teens threatening the girl.
Futhermore, thanks to Washington’s “Good Samaritan” law, at the very least, they could have assisted her after the attack without fear of liability, instead of standing around her unconscious body. Even more importantly, according to this article, Washington has had a “Good Samaritan” law on the books since 2005 that “makes it a misdemeanor offense to fail to assist a person who has suffered substantial bodily harm, provided that the person could reasonably summon assistance without danger to himself or herself.” Unfortunately, I’m currently having trouble finding the exact language of the referenced statute.
Of course, that brings up a second point. The witness interviewed in the above video describes standing there, watching the attack, and wondering, “Why doesn’t anybody do something?” Well, lady? Why not? Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t anyone else do something? Why didn’t any of the other people on the platform do something? I’m not even talking about physically restraining the attacker or accosting any of the rest of the group, just get close, surround the victim, get some sort of barrier between her and her attacker.
Don’t wait for someone else to do something, because they’re all doing the same thing.
This whole thing is just disgusting.
Another troubling aspect to this that I’d thought a little about, but was brought up in a comment on the LiveJournal mirror of this post (which, unfortunately, appears to have been eaten when I updated this post with the news reports below):
A bigger problem, however, is that this incident has shown to everyone just how powerless the security guards are, so I would imagine that if people are inclined to commit violence against someone else at the bus stop, they know they an do it now without ANY fear of retribution.
Exactly. Given what we’ve seen, just what is the function of the “security” guards? And what’s to prevent more frequent and more severe attacks from happening, now that it’s been made abundantly clear just how little protection these guards actually provide?
King County Metro Transit will change its security policy in the Downtown Transit Tunnel after a surveillance video showed a 15-year-old girl beaten in front of three security guards who didn’t intervene to help her, an agency official said Wednesday.
In the meantime, county officials have called for a full review of tunnel security practices.
On Wednesday, prosecutors filed first-degree robbery charges in King County Superior Court against Latroy Demarcus Hayman, 20, Tyrone Jamez Watson, 18, and Dominique Lee Whitaker, 18. A 15-year-old girl was also charged in juvenile court.
Speaking with detectives, the girl said she’d expected the guards to come to her aid.
“I thought the security guards would defend me if (the 15-year-old) tried anything,” the girl said, according to court documents.
Following the attack, the girl said the same Seattle police officers who’d contacted her previously refused to take action.
Admittedly agitated, the girl said she tried to tell the officers she’d been assaulted, according to court documents. When they did not assist her, she called her mother.
Her mother arrived at the scene, the girl told detectives, and contacted the officers on her daughter’s behalf.
“They told my mom that they were tired of all these kids downtown causing trouble,” the girl told police.
“It seemed like (one) officer put us all in one category,” the girl continued. “We were fed up with Seattle police but we wanted to press charges. It didn’t seem like the officers were (ever) interested in hearing my side of what happened.”
Sometime between January 26th and February 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Why Are You So Terribly Disappointing?: "Big f–ing deal. We just do not care. It's all a big disappointment. Hey, I was expecting to be blown away. I was expecting miracles and transformations and multiple twitching orgasms on sight. Do not come at me with tantalizing promises only to reveal that you can fulfill most of them to a fairly good degree, and not far exceed all of them in every imaginable way. We're Americans, goddammit. Ye shall know us by the tang of our bitter and untenable jadedness."
Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret: "A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution."
Mathematician Uses SETI Formula to Determine He Has a 0.00034% Chance of Getting Laid: "Backus has modeled his search for a human being on a planet coated with human beings by using an equation designed to locate communicative civilizations in the vast reaches of our galaxy. What does that mean? He's assuming that 'women I can have sex with' and 'communicative aliens' are roughly comparable values. If you consider the rest of the Drake Equation, that would make most women into the equivalent of dead planets, empty space, and alien life without intelligence. A tiny percentage of those women might not be dead or empty. An even tinier percentage could communicate intelligently, but possibly not during his lifetime."
Football Games Have 11 Minutes of Action: "According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes. So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps." And people wonder why I have absolutely no interest in football. Yikes.
El Nino Helping Green River Valley Avoid Floods: "Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington, said the current mild weather could lead to Seattle's warmest January on record. And in this region, he said, 'Once you get past the 20th of February, one month from now, I mean, winter's over.' For those living and working below the dam, 'I think they're home free at this point,' he said."
Sometime between January 20th and January 26th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Here comes the new cell phone etiquette: "It's easy to be rude with a cell phone. A visitor from another planet might conclude that rudeness is a cell phone's main purpose. Random, annoying ring tones go off unexpectedly. People talk too loudly on cell phones in public because of the challenge of holding a conversation in a noisy environment with someone who's not present. Cell phones need their own rules of etiquette, or we'll descend into social barbarism. But cell phones — and the ways we use them — change. In the past three years, the whole world of cell phones has evolved so much that we need some additional rules of etiquette."
Menifee school officials remove dictionary over term ‘oral sex’: "After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across 'oral sex' in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week. School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the 'sexually graphic' entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. 'It's just not age appropriate,' said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district. 'It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,' Cadmus said." Ugh. See also: the followup article, in which a committee will determine the curriculum applicability and educational appropriateness of the dictionary.
The Cost of Care: "The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system–paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn't reliably improve a patient's health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, 'More care does not necessarily mean better care.'"
The Science & the Fiction: "It is impossible to determine just how much science misinformation audiences retain, but it’s safe to say the minuscule amount of good science in the movies is entirely outgunned. After combing through a vast library of science fiction flicks both sublime and ridiculous, your intrepid Bad Astronomer sat down to explain the best and worst of movie science. So grab some popcorn, relax, and be glad that when the lights go back up, the real universe will still be out there for us to enjoy."
Christopher Hitchens on "Like": "The actual grammatical battle was probably lost as far back as 1954, when Winston announced that its latest smoke 'tasted good, like a cigarette should.' Complaints from sticklers that this should have been 'as a cigarette should' (or, in my view, 'as a cigarette ought to do') were met by a second ad in which a gray-bunned schoolmarm type was taunted by cheery consumers asking, 'What do you want, good grammar or good taste?' "
Sometime between January 18th and January 19th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
H. G. Wells on ‘Metropolis’ (1927): "Never for a moment does one believe any of this foolish story; for a moment is there anything amusing or convincing in its dreary series of strained events. It is immensely and strangely dull. It is not even to be laughed at. There is not one good-looking nor sympathetic nor funny personality in the cast; there is, indeed, no scope at all for looking well or acting like a rational creature amid these mindless, imitative absurdities. The film's air of having something grave and wonderful to say is transparent pretence. It has nothing to do with any social or moral issue before the world or with any that can ever conceivably arise. It is bunkum and poor and thin even as bunkum. I am astonished at the toleration shown it by quite a number of film critics on both sides of the Atlantic. And it costs, says the London Times, six million marks! How they spent all that upon it I cannot imagine. Most of the effects could have been got with models at no great expense."
Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion: From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a "card". But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material.
AirTran 297 – Anatomy of an Urban Legend: Since the flight and initial media reports, several blogs and Internet sites have recounted the incident as portrayed by a passenger originally scheduled for the flight. Below is that passenger’s account (unedited in any way including spelling and grammar), as reported on several blogs. Highlighted between the passenger’s account, are the factually accurate circumstances surrounding this incident. We bring this to your attention in order to dispel myths that are beginning to make the rounds in chat rooms, blogs and conspiracy theorists’ Web sites.
Dear God, please confirm what I already believe: God may have created man in his image, but it seems we return the favour. Believers subconsciously endow God with their own beliefs on controversial issues. "People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want," the team write. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."
Insanely Vulgar ‘Better Off Ted’ Outtakes (NSFW Video): "ABC's 'Better Off Ted' recently had an episode where a mistyped inter-office memo encouraged employees to swear insults at each other, with PG-rated results for broadcast. Below are the ridiculously NSFW outtakes, scripted for Web-only release. If you are offended — not even 'easily' … but, like, even slightly, by graphic language, do not watch this video, which is like melding the Disney-owned TV network with 'The Aristocrats.' According to a network spokesperson, ABC did not post this."
Sometime between January 13th and January 17th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
U.S. Supreme Court to Rule on Petition-Signers’ Rights: "The Supreme Court on Friday added five new cases to its decision docket, including a significant test case on a plea for confidentiality for the identities of voters who sign petitions to get policy measures on election ballots. The Court expedited the briefing of all five cases, thus giving the Justices the option of scheduling all of them for oral argument in the April sitting. There is no commitment to April arguments at this time, however."
Dispersion of Sound Waves in Ice Sheets: "The most striking thing about these recordings is the synthetic-sounding descending tones caused by the phenomenon of the dispersion of sound waves. The high frequencies of the popping and cracking noises are transmitted faster by the ice than the deeper frequencies, which reach the listener with a time lag as glissandi sinking to almost bottomless depths."
Here’s to Planet Earth! Doomsday Clock Moved Back 1 Minute: "The Doomsday clock, a measurement of the threat posed by nuclear weapons, biotechnology, and climate change, has been moved back one minute, to six minutes before midnight, signaling a more 'hopeful state of world affairs.'"
Pat Robertson Cites Haiti’s Earthquake as What Happens When You ‘Swear a Pact to the Devil’: "Today on his 700 Club television show, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson highlighted the tragedy and said that his network will be there 'to help the people.' However, he then tried to offer an explanation for the earthquake, blaming Haiti's own people for once making a 'pact to the devil'"
Sometime between January 11th and January 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
Tobey Maguire, Sam Raimi Out of ‘Spider-Man’: "Columbia Pictures has pulled the plug on 'Spider Man 4' and will instead make a younger, cheaper installment of the superhero franchise. Star Tobey Maguire and helmer Sam Raimi, who were both set for big paydays for 'Spider Man 4,' will no longer be involved in the franchise as Col moves forward with a high school-aged Peter Parker pic, which will bow theatrically in summer 2012."
The C Programming Language: 4.10 Recursion (Brian W Kernighan & Dennis M Ritchie & HP Lovecraft): I never heard of C Recursion till the day before I saw it for the first and– so far– last time. They told me the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticket-office, when I demurred at the high fare, that I learned about C Recursion. The shrewd-faced agent, whose speech shewed him to be no local man, made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered. "You could take that old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation. "It runs through C Recursion, so the people don't like it. I never seen more'n two or three people on it– nobody but them C folks."
The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Among many fascinating things about the Prop 8 trial in California is that a prominent conservative lawyer, Theodore B. Olson, is helping to make the argument that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
Avatar Hit by Claims of Racism: "Avatar is a racial fantasy par excellence … It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that non-whites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration."
The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse: "'The 'Loudness Wars' have gone back to the days of 45s,' Ludwig says. 'When I first got into the business and was doing a lot of vinyl disc cutting, one producer after another just wanted to have his 45 sound louder than the next guy's so that when the program director at the Top 40 radio station was going through his stack of 45s to decide which two or three he was going to add that week, that the record would kind of jump out to the program director, aurally at least.' That's still a motivation for some producers. If their record jumps out of your iPod compared with the song that preceded it, then they've accomplished their goal. Bob Ludwig thinks that's an unfortunate development."