Say Cheese!

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Y’know, I probably shouldn’t have posted anything about that textbook I popped up in the other day. After months of quiet, as soon as that goes up, the Washington Post includes me in a list of twelve photos that should never have been posted online.

Michael Hanscom did not pose nude on Flickr, attack the locals with a stick on his trip to Mexico, or dress up like the Fairy Princess while calling in sick. His crime? In October 2003, the Microsoft temp posted photos of Macintosh G5s being unloaded on the Redmond campus to his blog with the title “Even Microsoft wants G5s.” And that was enough to get him canned from his job in Microsoft’s print shop for an alleged “security violation.” Apparently, the world’s largest developer of software for the Mac (besides Apple) didn’t want anyone to know that some of its employees use Macs. (Thanks for Michael Hanscom for use of the photo.)

(via Dad)

Do Bats Tweet?

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Potentially interesting additions to people I’m following on Twitter:

I found the Joker through a Wired article yesterday (I think). Today Rachel started following me, and I found most of the rest directly and indirectly through her, except for Edward, who added me while I was exploring.

I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here, but it’s intriguing so far. While it could be a tie-in to the current movie, it’s obviously working at least somewhat on its own chronology, as (slight spoilers here) a couple of those people are no more as of the end of the movie. At the same time, a couple more of those characters haven’t popped up in the current movie timeline, so perhaps there’s some long-term advance campaign for the next movie, whenever it comes along?

In any case, they’re actually savvy enough to have some sort of actual people behind the personas; there’s been some interaction with other Twitterers that they’re not solely advertising ‘bots. They may not stay on my Twitter list long-term, but for the moment, they’ve peaked my curiosity enough to keep an eye on them.

Possibly related accounts that just appeared on Twitter in the last few days:

Links for September 12th through September 15th

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Sometime between September 12th and September 15th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • George Takei Marries: George Takei wed his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, today in Los Angeles. The couple married in a ceremony in the Democracy Forum of the Japanese American National Museum,the museum Takei helped create to honor those forced, as he was, to live in WWII internment camp. In attendance were some of his Star Trek co-stars.
  • Women Against Sarah Palin: We are not in the habit of criticizing women in the public sphere, as we usually feel we should support our female compatriots with as much encouragement as we can. However, Sarah Palin's record is anti-woman. Feminism is not simply about achieving the power and status typically held by men. It's about protecting and supporting the rights of women of all classes, races, cultures, and beliefs. Palin's record and beliefs do not align with this. She was chosen by John McCain specifically because he believes that American women will vote for any female candidate regardless of their qualifications. He is wrong. (via Unlibrarian)
  • After You …: Mamihlapinatapais, from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, is considered the world's most succinct word — and the hardest to translate. It means "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but that neither one wants to start." (via Unlibrarian)
  • Haven’t we seen this election before?: The Obama v McCain race for the White House has been run before – NBC's The West Wing pitted a charismatic, non-white Democrat against a maverick, experienced Republican. (Interesting article, but my big argument was that on the West Wing, the Republican candidate was a candidate who I could respect while disagreeing with him. I can't say the same thing about McCain.) (via fraserspeirs)
  • Of Goths and Pregnancy, the Follow-Up: Goodness, Snarklings! The Lady of the Manners has always been impressed with the Power Of The Internet that our shadowy subculture has at its communal fingers, but didn’t expect quite such the flurry of helpful responses when she asked for useful links and resources for Goths in a family way! As promised, here is a collection of the information that various kind and helpful Snarklings sent in.
  • Fraser Speirs: App Store: I’m out: Apple’s current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle – submission to the App Store – is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren’t confident, they won’t invest in it. If developers – and serious developers at that – don’t invest, what’s the point?

Links for September 11th through September 12th

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Sometime between September 11th and September 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Tax Plans (that’s one for you, nineteen for me): There’s a graph that Obama supporters are sending around, showing the differences between the Republican and Democrat tax cut proposals. It shows that Obama is not in fact planning to raise taxes – he’s planning to cut them for all but the very, very rich. I couldn’t help but notice though – the graph is still massively weighted towards the interests of the super-rich…one of the brackets represents one thousandth of the population. So let’s make this a bit more accurate – let’s keep all the brackets, but draw it to scale. (via Waxy)
  • Maurice Sendak’s Concerns, Beyond Where the Wild Things Are: Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, “Well, that I’m gay.” “I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business,” Mr. Sendak added. He lived with Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst, for 50 years before Dr. Glynn’s death in May 2007. He never told his parents: “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.” (via The Republic of T.)
  • Mashups: The Future Of Music?: Mashups can be kind of a gateway to "trick" people into listening to music they wouldn't normally hear, and exposing them to different aspects of culture (and pop culture) they wouldn't otherwise be paying attention to. When a rock fan in their 30s or 40s hears a familiar '80s song, but then hears an unfamiliar pop or hip-hop vocal from some Top 40 artist, they're being exposed to current pop culture that they perhaps normally avoid. The same goes in the opposite direction — kids today get to hear older music because it's mashed up with the current stuff they enjoy. It's practically a musical education… or getting people to expand their boundaries of taste.
  • Top 11 Reasons a Star Trek Marathon Is a Bad Idea: 4. Confirms your suspicion that bolting an eyepatch to your skull would look totally cool. (via TrekMovie.com)
  • Chillax: If it works like a word, just use it.: Whenever I see "not a real word" used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading "I am not confident about my writing" on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an "unreal" word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police? The revocation (as the joke goes) of your poetic license? A public shaming by William Safire? The irony is that most of these words, without the disclaimer, would pass unnoticed by the majority of readers. (via Gruber)
  • Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate: I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. (via Gruber)
  • The GOP Loves the Heartland To Death: For decades now we have been electing people like Sarah Palin who claimed to love and respect the folksy conservatism of small towns, and yet who have unfailingly enacted laws to aid the small town's mortal enemies. Without raising an antitrust finger they have permitted fantastic concentration in the various industries that buy the farmer's crops. They have undone the New Deal system of agricultural price supports in favor of schemes called "Freedom to Farm" and loan deficiency payments — each reform apparently designed to secure just one thing out of small town America: cheap commodities for the big food processors. Richard Nixon's Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz put the conservative attitude toward small farmers most bluntly back in the 1970s when he warned, "Get big or get out." (via A Crank's Progress)

Links for September 10th through September 11th

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Sometime between September 10th and September 11th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Stormtrooper’s Lament: (via Unlibrarian)
  • Roger Ebert looks at the cinematic choices of political candidates: Everybody is making lists of the questions the candidates should be asked during the debates. My question would be: What's your favorite movie? As my faithful readers all know, the answer to that question says a lot about the person answering. It could be used as a screening device on a blind date. Among other things, it tells you whether the person has actually seen a lot of movies, and I persist in believing that cinematic taste is as important as taste in literature, music, art, or other things requiring taste (including food and politics).
  • Washington State OAHP WISAARD: Welcome to Washington’s on-line searchable database for State and National Register properties. The Washington Information System for Architectural and Archaeological Records Data (WISAARD), allows users to search for listed properties via a map or a text query. (via Seattlest)
  • Ten things you don’t know about the Earth: Below are ten facts about the Earth — the second in my series of Ten Things You Don’t Know (the first was on the Milky Way). Some things I already knew (and probably you do, too), some I had ideas about and had to do some research to check, and others I totally made up. Wait! No! Kidding. They’re all real. But how many of them do you know? Be honest. (via Kottke)
  • Heinlein’s Fan Mail FAQ: Heinlein engineered his own nerdy solution to a problem common to famous authors: how to deal with fan mail. In the days before the internet, Heinlein's solution was fabulous. He created a one page FAQ answer sheet — minus the questions. Then he, or rather his wife Ginny, checked off the appropriate answer and mailed it back. (via Slashdot)

Jazzy Genius

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While there’s been some grousing about the accuracy of iTunes 8’s new Genius feature, I’m getting a kick out of playing with it. Sure, it’s not always spot-on (though Apple says that will change over time as their database grows and the matching AI improves), but that lends a certain entertainment value to the playlists it generates. When it works, though, it’s slick.

Here’s a playlist my iPod just put together (pulling only from songs that happened to be loaded at the time), seeding off of Tony Bennett’s take on “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”:

  1. Tony Bennett, “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”
  2. Frank Sinatra, “Nice ‘n’ Easy”
  3. Bobby Darin, “More”
  4. Johnny Mathis, “Chances Are”
  5. Dean Martin, “You Belong to Me”
  6. Fred Astaire, “The Way You Look Tonight”
  7. The Andrews Sisters, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
  8. Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”
  9. Billie Holiday, “All of Me”
  10. Perry Como, “Magic Moments”
  11. Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues”
  12. Louis Jordan, “Let the Good Times Roll”
  13. Benny Goodman, “Swingtime in the Rockies”
  14. Frank Sinatra, “Witchcraft”
  15. The Glenn Miller Orchestra, “At Last”
  16. Bobby Darin, “Hello, Dolly!”
  17. Billie Holiday, “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around (Remix)”
  18. Tony Bennett, “(I Left My Heart In) San Francisco”
  19. Dean Martin, “That’s Amore”
  20. Louis Armstrong, “Ain’t Misbehavin'”
  21. Duke Ellington, “Take the A-Train”
  22. Judy Garland, “The Man That Got Away”
  23. The Andrews Sisters, “Rum and Coca-Cola”
  24. Billie Holiday, “God Bless the Child”
  25. Frank Sinatra, “You Make Me Feel So Young”

Not bad at all, I’d say.

(I also love that I just happened to have the songs on my iPod to build that kind of playlist. It’s semi-randomly loaded, so there’s often no real telling what might be on there at any given time. Hmmm…it may be about time to do another “here’s how I organize my music” post….)

Links for September 8th through September 9th

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Sometime between September 8th and September 9th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Neal Stephenson Talks to io9 About Religion, Aliens, and Spoilers: Though Stephenson usually likes to hole up with his ideas and avoid the spotlight, he's having what the characters in Anathem would call an "Apert," a time that comes every few years when he opens up and talks to the public about his work. We were lucky enough to get a chance to talk to Stephenson during his Apert, and asked about Anathem, as well as a few questions about Earth. (Warning: There are a few spoilers ahead.)
  • AKPL8S: The Alaskan License Plate Blog: Statehood photomosaic poster: I have been taking photos of Alaskan license plates since 1996. People send me photos they took, or photos of their collection. I also save photos that I find on eBay and the Internet. My Alaska photo archive currently contains over 19,000 photos, representing 15,000+ unique Alaskan plate serial numbers and vanity strings (not counting pairs). "Why?" seems to be a common question (way up there with "Are you crazy?" or "What the heck are you doing to the back of my car?") The main reason is that the more photos you have, the more you can tell about when various features of plates changed, etc. Partly for historical research, partly for collector information. But I've always wanted do something more.
  • How Videogames Blind Us With Science: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today. This makes sense if you think about it for a second. After all, what is science? It's a technique for uncovering the hidden rules that govern the world. And videogames are simulated worlds that kids are constantly trying to master. Lineage and World of Warcraft aren't "real" world, of course, but they are consistent — the behavior of the environment and the creatures in it are governed by hidden and generally unchanging rules, encoded by the game designers. In the process of learning a game, gamers try to deduce those rules. This leads them, without them even realizing it, to the scientific method. (via Daring Fireball)
  • The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth: Imagine waking up on the Socotra Island and taking a good look around you (let's say your buddies pulled a prank on you and delivered you there, and lets also assume that you don't have any hangover from abuse of any substances). After a yelp of disbelief, you'd be inclined to think you were transported to another planet – or traveled to another era of Earth's history. The second would be closer to the truth for this island, which is part of a group of 4 islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, this island is teeming with 700 extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are endemic, i.e. found nowhere else on Earth.
  • Ron Sims on Twitter: It’s all him: Sims is one of a growing number of politicians using venues in social media to get personal with residents and speak in their own voice – and the only one in King County to do it so aggressively. Unfiltered by press releases or media coverage, he's finding an outlet in an era of increased scrutiny.

Links for September 6th through September 8th

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Sometime between September 6th and September 8th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • The Cyber Crime Hall of Fame: In compiling our list, we looked for a few things: ingenuity (had it been done before?), scope (how many computers, agencies, companies, sites, etc. did it affect?), cost (how much in monetary damages did it cause?), and historical significance (did it start a new trend?).
  • Big data: Welcome to the petacentre: What does it take to store bytes by the tens of thousands of trillions? Cory Doctorow meets the people and machines for which it's all in a day's work.
  • Man rubbed with spices, other beaten with sausage: A stranger broke into a home east of Fresno, rubbed spices on the body of one of two men as they slept and used an 8-inch sausage to whack the other man in the face and head before he fled, Fresno County sheriff's deputies said Saturday.
  • International Action Day “Freedom not fear – Stop the surveillance mania!” on 11 October 2008: A broad movement of campaigners and organizations is calling on everybody to join action against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses. On 11 October 2008, concerned people in many countries will take to the streets, the motto being "Freedom not fear 2008". Peaceful and creative action, from protest marches to parties, will take place in many capital cities.
  • A DSLR Catechism: Should sound very familiar to anyone with a DSLR.
  • Hi, I’m a Mac… Beep, beep!: It's pretty common, when reading discussion of Apple's “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads, to come across the comment: "Sure, they're great ads but they don't work. John Hodgeman’s PC is far more likeable than Justin Long’s smug hipster Mac." This is missing the point.