April 2008
11 posts
“Lippmann likened the average American — or ‘outsider,’ as he...”
– Eric Alterman on Walter Lippman in “Out of Print: The death and life of the American newspaper” in New York magazine (via Jon Taplin)
March 2008
25 posts
“Add up enough urgencies and you don’t get a fire, you get a career. A...”
– Seth Godin, Managing urgencies
Schneier on Security: Security Perception: Fear vs... →
Schneier on a study where some participants had their sense of fear stimulated and others had their sense of anger stimulated. “If you’re fearful, you think you’re more at risk than if you’re angry”
A Little Bit of Wierdness With Mac OS X Security...
After installing Security Update 2008-002, my Mac restarted and just sat on a grey screen (no Apple logo) for several minutes. Startup only proceeded after I unplugged my iPod, which had been plugged in to the Mac via USB.
(It was a nice reminder that I should turn on my backup drive more frequently and let Time Machine do its thing.)
The risk for iPhone users: They know too much →
“‘It’s turned me from a really annoying know-it-all into an incredibly annoying know-it-all, with the Internet to back me up…. The second you go into the pocket for the iPhone, you have disconnected yourself from the conversation’”
Comcast sets its sights 20 minutes into the future →
“At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices…
Arthur C. Clarke, December 16, 1917 – March 19,... →
I’m sad to see he has died. I read a ton of Clarke’s books and short stories when I was growing up, and 2001: A Space Odyssey has a special place in my early movie memories.
“Generally, if you’re a member of a design team, you are not representative...”
– Jakob Nielsen on how people in these roles “know too much,” “are too skilled,” and “care too much,” in Bridging the Designer–User Gap
Endeavour to Orbit →
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is a fantastic image of space shuttle Endeavour’slift off. It’s my new desktop background.
5 tags
“…denying certain facts about the world around you, according to any number...”
– Robert Krulwich, in “Lying to Ourselves,” a segment of Radiolab show #402, “Deception” (quote starts around 56:52)
Nerdfotainment →
Rands writes about the appeal of certain TV shows and movies to “a huge pile of nerds who are traipsing around their 30s.” (NB: JJ Abrams is less responsible for the details of Lost then Damon…
“People have a limited amount of self-control, and tasks requiring controlled,...”
– Michael Inzlicht and Jennifer N. Gutsell, who performed an interesting study on self control (their research paper), quoted in Fighting the Urge to Fight the Urge (via 43 Folders)
“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different...”
– Rita Mae Brown (sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin; compare to Seth Godin’s thoughts on persistence)
“Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just...”
– Seth Godin, sharing some thoughts on Persistence (compare to this definition of insanity)
American Civil Liberties Union : Watch List... →
“…At that rate, [the Terrorist Screening Center] list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we’d all be dead.”
Was the iPhone SDK planned all along? →
John Gruber wonders whether Apple planned the iPhone SDK since the beginning. He states, “[s]imply judging by the quality and scope of the iPhone SDK documentation and tools, it seems like far more than a few months of work.”
I have had time to read about the tools and to look at some of the documentation, and agree that it is high quality and covers quite a bit. However, imagine...
Why We're Powerless To Resist Grazing On Endless... →
“‘When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those. You might call us “infovores.”’”
“The superstitions that grip airport checkpoints and banks are themselves a...”
– Cory Doctrow, Time to fight security superstition
Parks [Dept.] Issues Permit To Food Vendors... →
Sweet — the Red Hook Latin food vendors are set until 2014. [Via James]
10,000 BC live with Long Now →
Members of the Long Now Foundation, makers of the 10,000-year clock, are going to see a screening of the “landmark piece of multi-millennial retrospect,” _10,000 BC_
4 tags
On Variety Among iPhone Apps
Mac developer Brent Simmons asks, “How many Twitter clients and to-do lists on [iPhone] App Store Day One?”
I’ve been thinking about iPhone Apps recently, and I agree with what I think Brent is trying to say: certain categories of iPhone applications will be saturated. Many of these will be relatively simple apps made by novice developers enticed by the iPhone’s...
Nike + iPod Stats Tracking Coming to Gym Cardio... →
“New [cardio] machines from Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac, and Technogym will allow users to plug in their iPod nano into the console to record their workout data, all of which will be integrated…
J.J. Abrams: Genius Or Hack? →
io9 lays out the evidence (but JJ is not as involved in Lost as they seem to think he is)