As I was moderating the 37 pieces of comment spam I received this morning (must've been a hiccup in Akismet) I was struck by how much the activity resembles reading RSS feeds. Quick scan of the contents, followed by an action. Not to mention the abundance of junk in both …
MoreJust last week I was calling for someone to hack up the Wiimote for PC use, and lo-and-behold, it's here!
Hack-a-day gives an overview, Wii Hacks has lots of different hacks, and Bob Somers has even build a Wiimote Drum Machine.
Apparently you grab the GlovePIE program, get yourself a …
MoreI tried Yahoo Answers when it first came out (I'm a Yahoo employee so I got a sneak preview). Interesting concept, I thought, let's see how it turns out.
I checked it out every once in a while and wasn't impressed - the questions are generally junk and the answers aren't …
MoreI was looking for a way to put together simple HTTP based services with as little fuss as possible. In this case that meant having a self contained script with minimal external dependencies, skipping even apache (for various reasons such as not having root access on the box, not having …
MoreI'm thinking through an implementation that I'd like to scale some day. Essentially it's a message processing system with a small bit of state to pass around. Mostly it's a matter of handing messages off between various workers.
In Java world I'd do this with threads. If I wanted to …
MoreThis is a recipe for setting up pageant.exe on windows to allow ssh login without having to type in the password every time. Mainly for my own notes.
From putty download: putty.exe , puttygen.exe, pageant.exe .
Run pageant. Take the default options and move your mouse around till …
MoreThe Django folks have started publishing preview copies of The Django Book for free on the Web. This is similar in concept to Beta Books, except that this one's free - you don't have to pay for anything. Excellent.
But far more interesting is the comment and feedback system. They've taken …
MoreMoreThe Rev. Ted Haggard admitted Friday he bought methamphetamine from a male prostitute but maintained he never had sex with the man and never used the drug.
I bought it for myself but never used it. I was tempted but I never used it," he said …
I've been interested in DabbleDB for some time now, since they first showed up on the scene with their Under The Radar demo. I immediately pointed a friend at them, who in turn got very excited and spent a few days integrating his app with theirs, only to give up …
MoreI find people are often curious and ignorant of the social norms in Iran. Here's a representative snippet in photos:
Unmarried couples of the opposite sex are not permitted to associate with each other in public. Women are required to cover their hair and bodies at all times when in …
MoreI've been following various learned discussions of housing prices and thought I'd add my own mini-view on the San Diego market.
In my neighbourhood there is a significant decline in housing prices (probably about 15% off the peak), and the number of houses for sale is significantly higher than it's …
MoreInteresting talk from Dan Gilbert on the factors driving satisfaction and (Dan concludes) happiness in humans. This one is worth listening to help understand your own reactions to choices, as well as to help you decide how to present choices and options to users of your products, people you are …
MoreI've been a long time user of Bloglines, but I kept hearing good things about Google Reader and decided to give it a try…
Well, I'm a convert. The switch was fairly easy - just export OPML from Bloglines and import into Google Reader. The main selling point for me is …
MoreCheck out Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System, via Bruce Schneier's post on profiling.
Fascinating. The government's CAPS screening program actually ends up helping determined terrorists. And if we've learned anything it's that the terrorists are determined and clever.
If security matters to you, always …
MoreThe Abolish XML Namespaces article is finally published at IBM DeveloperWorks. Here's the abstract:
MoreExperience shows XML namespaces can be a common cause of confusion and a major complicating factor in XML adoption. In this article, the author argues that XML namespaces do not offer a good solution for the …
Kurt Cagle has some interesting thoughts on RSS/Atom as a replacement for SOAP. He mentions WS vendors will likely poo-poo the idea, so I'm compelled as a reformed former vendor to comment.
I think Kurt makes excellent points. A lot of the Web is syndication oriented, and certainly RSS …
MoreGo read Inside LiveJournal's Backend for an excellent real world study of how to handle very high levels of traffic.
MoreI shaved my head yesterday. People always ask why when I do something like that. Mostly because I'm an idiot, but also because of something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:
MoreThe soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid …
Sound Advice and Blueslugs weighing in on tagging in general and for unix file system respectively. You may have seen Pooya's and my thoughts on this.
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