Category: linkblog

Incredible miniature photography and models.

First tweeted haiku resignation?

Dave writes about use of your Google Profile information to personalize search results. To which I reply, Yes, and what took so long?

And it’s about time.

Okay. So you’re the world’s biggest book merchant, and you completely pull physical and digital inventory of a publisher’s books out of circulation because you have a pricing disagreement with them. I mean, they’re totally gone from your website. Then you reinstate them after reconsidering your position. Would you choose to use the word “monopoly” in your post explaining the situation? Would you, seriously, use the word ABOUT THE PUBLISHER? What on earth are they smoking at Amazon?

Somewhat to my surprise, strip croquet is in the “frequent” category as of this writing (n>1.44%). (I forgot about the strip croquet scene in “Heathers.”)

There’s something refreshing about the thought that there is no longer any point to trying to get the “world’s tallest skyscraper” title. Maybe now we can refocus attention on the streets.

“Millions of ads use Flash. Get used to the blue legos. You’re welcome.” <—Hahaha.

A more cogent take on the Flash evangelist’s “blue Legos” picture, using actual Mobile Safari screen caps. Only two sites are completely inaccessible without Flash.

Nice cogent discussion of the possible impact of the iPad (and iPhone) on Flash market penetration. I’d add: the other major reason for falling Flash usage rates is the annoying uses to which Flash is put. Animated ads, splash banner pages that you have to wait through to find out something about the site you just visited…

“The Republicans are better at questioning the President than you are.” Does an “articulate president” who engages in “substantive” discourse spell doom for the media? Maybe for the media we have now.

Watterson is sharp as ever and proves he still knows which end is up in this reply to a human interest interview question: “Q: How soon after the U.S. Postal Service issues the Calvin stamp will you send a letter with one on the envelope? A: Immediately. I’m going to get in my horse and buggy and snail-mail a check for my newspaper subscription.”

This article answers one of the questions I had about the iPad, namely, file handling in iWork. New iPad applications will be able to indicate that they can support files and then you can drag and drop files for those applications while the iPad is connected to the parent computer. Plus support for registering apps to handle file types and PDF creation on the fly.

Matthew Guerreri’s always satisfying review of the MacMillan Passion.

Blog reaction to the MacMillan St. John Passion, with particular notes about the attendance.

On the importance of fixing potential security bugs, whether you think they’re exploitable or not.

Berkshire Review reviews the London Symphony Orchestra premiere recording of the Passion.

Would have been a good night to catch a game at BC.

Jeff does a review roundup of the MacMillan St. John Passion.

Nice to see Microsoft start to put some meat in their requests to get users to move off IE6. Now we need to start to see some teeth. Wonder if we could start a movement to actively block IE6 users from getting online until they upgraded, or forcefully redirect them to a page where they could download a real browser.

Really nice rundown of good font releases from 2009.

As Conan burns the rest of his bridges with NBC, he gets funnier and funnier.

Oh, this is going to end in tears. And the jokes that could be told: “What’s the difference between the All American Basketball Alliance and the NBA? About six inches and forty points per game.”

Amazing what you can do with HTML and CSS these days.

Something is up in Baltimore! Where is the Poe visitor?

Wow. Great resource for western swing downloads.

Considerations for using more than just the search box in web interfaces.

Google static analysis framework for Python, from a summer intern.

A good project for the day that I have a few extra feet of bookshelf space. Which would be approximately the end of never.

These attacks bring home the importance of tightening the perimeter.

The first step to resolving the application security problem is admitting that you have a problem. Bravo, Google.

Serious consequences from the hack attack. Linking the malware attack to infiltration of dissidents’ Gmail accounts and Google’s overall China policy suggests that the company is taking the perspective that the Chinese government is directly behind the attacks.

Yikes. Okay, so just in case anyone wasn’t paying attention, application security is serious business. This is industrial espionage on a massive scale, enabled by a single zero-day flaw in Acrobat Reader.

Great interview with Hoefler & Frere-Jones about typography today.

I’m with the Ministry of Type on this one. Joe Clark’s rage against small caps is petty, obnoxious, and generally wrong.

A Woody Allen short, with flavors of Poe and Dostoyevsky, where the protagonist is a homicidal cow.

Nice story on how readability has to trump elegance. The crystal goblet wins again.

Super Mario Bros. meets Tetris. Awesome game, though the context switching between the Tetris game control and Super Mario is a little jarring.

Nice essay on why real statistics matter for engineering.

Nice chart summarizing possible approaches to monetizing data.

Useful little application to get passwords anywhere. Now if I could only sync my Mac’s keychain to my PC at work…

Good profile of one of the finer bands of the decade.

“Shawn Moore, former star quarterback at Virginia, is joining Mike London’s football staff at UVa.” Or in other words, hell yeah.

Interesting (old) paper on the mathematics behind priority queuing systems.

Best wishes to the maestro and hopes for a speedy recovery.

Among the greatest albums ever.

Pwning your neighbor’s picture frame for fun and profit!!!!111!!! Note: if the picture frame responds to ping or one of half a dozen other protocols, you can probably find the MAC address remotely too. Just sayin’.

Congrats to my friends at the Waltham based mobile advertising firm.

Noting the passing of the coiner of the word “blogosphere.” (Hat tip to Tin Man).