Category: linkblog

Now I know what’s missing from my library–an original Sputnik.

Goodnight, Opus. Argh.

Timeline of questionable McCain ads.

Interesting address about journalism from the first recipient of the I.F. Stone award.

Much better than the beer game as an interactive simulation of system dynamics.

It embarasses me to enumerate which of these I’ve been guilty of. “All of them” covers it pretty well.

Nice political judo moment.

Fact checks on the debate. The Times has to say both parties exaggerated, but I don’t think Obama’s exaggerations are much to write home about.

Review of the debate highlights a key exchange on foreign policy between McCain and Obama, in which Obama sounds like the mature grownup.

I thought this was odd last night, hearing McCain float Warren Buffett (an Obama supporter) and Meg Whitman as treasury secretaries. The fact that eBay is doing a 10% headcount reduction makes it even odder.

Good to hear that the Secret Service is going to investigate those comments from the Palin rally, after they were embarassed by doing so by the Post.

Interesting review of different cooking pans that gets deep into the science.

Interesting flap–a McCain campaign rep from Buchanan County, Virginia wrote a newspaper column claiming Obama wanted to paint the WHite House black, change the national anthem to the “black national anthem,” require teaching “black liberation theology in all churches,” and replacing the flag with a “star and crescent logo.” Apparently he’s stepped down, and about time too.

Amazing archive of images from the NY Public Library, including some interesting images from UVA. Still looking for licensing info–can the images be used on Wikipedia?

Making Obama out to be a foreigner who “we don’t really know” is pandering to the deepest darkest fears of xenophobic voters. He’s looking pretty ugly on the way down.

The McCain campaign is looking more and more like it remembers Goldwater.

Amazing photos of jazz players during the late flowering of straight jazz. Via David Weinberger.

Speaking of shivers down the spine, Palin’s campaign appearances sound like rallies of a very different kind.

Interesting speculation about Apple’s “brick,” which helps to explain why they were up $1.07 on Ski Slope Monday.

It isn’t April Fools, is it? “Mail Goggles” is the funniest idea I’ve heard in a long time. Um, and it should be available on Facebook too. Just sayin’.

The nice thing about Obama’s continued strength in the polls is that it’s drawing out all the crazies into the light, where hopefully they’ll shrivel up and die.

“Palin’s problem isn’t too much filter–it’s not enough signal.” Nice.

A slanted look at McCain’s record. But it does expose some interesting angles–his service record in particular–that you don’t hear about very often.

Interesting balanced summary of articles on Obama and McCain in the NYT. Worth noting is the greater volume of articles digging into Obama than McCain.

McCain’s health care plan will be balanced by cutting Medicare. Anyone want to do the next Florida poll?

Moving right along. Looks like the old Dobie is history after this year.

The use and misuse of language, and the disdain for language, in this election year are more explicit than they’ve been for many a year.

Good read regarding the history and changing symbolism of the Lincoln Memorial.

In which Virginia kicks the tar out of Maryland, somehow.

Interesting look at where Google Gears has gotten. How many pen tests have been done on this technology, I wonder?

Interesting comments thread on this–the intersection between sound budget policies, labor rights, and a very very peculiar Massachusetts custom.

For the record, a marathon is 24,776.597 smoots. Thanks, Google Calculator!

Interesting historical perspective on the partisan shifts throughout the 20th century. 1968 and 1992 look like pivotal years. And of course 2000 pivots back.

Dave lays it out. Who benefits when a candidate directly accuses their opponent of “palling around with terrorists” when it’s patently untrue? Not the voters, and not the GOP.

My God: It’s full of Lego!

Positive review, ultimately.

The bailout passes the House. Phew. Could be good news for McCain, if only the majority of the House Republicans hadn’t voted AGAINST again.

The New Yorker endorses Obama. The Tin Man points out that this is only the second time in the magazine’s history that it has offered an endorsement of a presidential candidate. Worth reading.

Bargain $5 MP3 albums on Amazon over the weekend. To check out: the Wynton + Willie collaboration.

Official coverage of the lifting of the UVA sign ban at athletic events.

Interesting notes about restoring some of the missing features of the original Pavilion design, including the roof parapets.

Insightful review about the first big-press Achewood collection. Wishlisted.

An excerpt from Hughes’ letters that, maybe, puts a stop to the one-sided criticisms of his role in Plath’s suicide. Yes, he had a role, but so did she, and he never forgave himself for what happened.

Ig Nobel 2008 winners!!!! Improving the perceived crispness of a potato chip, the negative impact of armadillos on archaeology, fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats, pricing effects on placebo effectiveness, slime molds can solve mazes, Coke is (or isn’t) a spermicide…

I think I’ve seen this before but can’t remember when. Quite funny. And I’m guilty of quite a few of these.

Littlepage lifts the no-signs policy. About damned time.

Olsson’s, we hardly knew thee.

The art and science of asking Nasty Softball Questions and the election.

Campaign management from the ground up just got seriously mobile. Very, very cool.

Using Inkscape as a poor man’s Illustrator. I recently used the first tip in this article (opening the AI file in Acrobat Reader), but I think the Inkscape tip could really be a killer trick for any engineer or product manager who works a lot with design professionals.

OMG. OMFG. “I had to give up. This sentence is not for diagramming lightweights. If there’s anyone out there who can kick this sucker into line, I’d be delighted to hear from you. To me, it’s not English—it’s a collection of words strung together to elicit a reaction…”

The alternative to the VP debates: the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize webcast. Or, you know, you could watch the debate WHILE you watch the webcast. And drink. Oh yes.

Interesting document calling out security issues in NTLM. Not new, but new to me.

Is the financial crisis our next Katrina?

Inevitable: the longer it goes through the process, the costlier the bill gets. Any bets that Bush ends up threatening to veto what Congress passes?

Heh. Quite funny.

Cool. Hope they don’t run it into the ground.

With the removal of the iPhone API NDA, expect to see more cool tips & tricks on how to leverage the platform. Specific criticism of this idea: part of the power of URL schemes is that you can choose which app to handle a particular protocol, but this recommendation is to choose an app-specific scheme. So, for instance, Exposure and Cocktails will post to Twitter through Twitteriffic but not through Twinkle. That ain’t cool.

Really interesting visualization–each cycle of the spiral represents a variable timeslice, and you can see at a glance whether a cycle represents an increase or decrease in value for the measured data. The Dow and temperature data slices are really interesting, and the prime and divisor cycles are absolutely fascinating if you use the index values on the slider.

Notes makes it to the iPhone.

Cogent advice on creating a working customer advisory group.

Google in 2001. This was before my blog started.

How a group of restaurants buys meat in bulk–real bulk–and uses everything from head to foot.

It shouldn’t surprise me that Palin isn’t up on her science. That seems to be par for the course.

CSRF goes mainstream.

How scale free nodes intersect with bandwidth caps.

Krugman discusses the options faced by the Democratic Congressional leadership. Screwed, or more screwed, but not as screwed as the House Republicans.

Transcript of Pelosi’s remarks. And that was what so inflamed House GOP that they voted against the bill? Yougottabekiddingme.

Something to do with your multimonitor PC when the market tanks: screensavers.

Good thing that John McCain took credit for the bailout before his House friends voted against it. Really helped my 401(K). And then blamed Obama for killing the deal? Thanks, John!

There are two ways to combat smear chain emails: reply aggressively, publicly, and loudly, or dig deep to uncover the source and expose it to daylight. I tend to do the first, and this researcher does the second.

Strong analysis of Obama’s presence and challenges in Appalachia.

The performances really were something extraordinary. Levine came out at the end to express his appreciation for putting out a powerful performance at what he admitted were slower than usual tempi–and for producing an even more dramatic effect.

Update, update, update.

“The point is this is one of the most important irrevokable economic decisions we will ever make. Let’s make it in a state of panic.” — Steven Colbert.

Some valid counterpoint to the Agile drumbeat.

You didn’t think astroturf wrote itself, did you?

You know, if you have to bet consumer against industry, I’m pretty sure consumer is going to win. Every single time.

Pledge to vote on Wilco’s website, get a free download of Wilco and the Fleet Foxes covering Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Sweet!

McCain’s ties to Freddie and Fannie are now down to one degree of separation. So why does he keep insisting that Rick Davis has no connection with them?

PDF exploit toolkits spotted in the wild. Update your browser plugins, kids, it’s going to be a fun ride. Better yet, if you’re on Mac OS X, uninstall Acrobat Reader entirely.

Hysterically funny and very pointed at the same time.

The proper solution to the dilemma is, of course, taking an equity stake in exchange for purchasing the distressed assets.

No way that my tax dollars will go to buy distressed mortgage debt at above market value. I might as well just flush the money directly down the toilet; at least that way it would be entertaining and I’d have a small chance of getting the money back.

I’ve long thought that a good statistical mechanics analysis was going to be necessary to fix the Boston roads; I might be right.

Hard to believe that the administration tried to make the bailout non-reviewable, but here it is: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. “

Levine was in New York for the Met premiere to conduct Renee. He’ll be in Boston this week for the BSO season premiere. Nothing like hitting the ground running.

Beta story-sharing feature on the New York Times. Nice UI. Don’t know if they have enough readers online who are into this sort of thing to build a real network.

Alex Ross receives a Genius Grant. Right on.

Wil Shipley has common sense about the Apple Store. I don’t want to read any more stories about Apple pulling apps that compete with its own. Ever.

Inspirational listening: MLK speech about civil disobedience. “Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

I have a couple bags full of VHS tapes that are worth BILLIONS.

Heh. The bailout letter as Nigeriam spam. Brilliant.

Real time commentary on the bailout bill. Go nuts.

The source of that Bernie Sanders quotation (below). Yes, it’s very left-wing stuff, but it’s also thought provoking. How much of the risk taking was enabled by the thought that senior government officials like Paulson would be there to bail them out?

I think–I hope–Krugman nails it here. The Bush administration tried to slip a fast one by us, a last gift for his cronies. There are enough people who were paying attention that it slowed down. Now, with Bernie Sanders, we can ask, “We’ve been told…we can’t afford—that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street.”

I think–I hope–Krugman nails it here. The Bush administration tried to slip a fast one by us, a last gift for his cronies. There are enough people who were paying attention that it slowed down. Now, with Bernie Sanders, we can ask, “We’ve been told…we can’t afford—that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street.”

Great article by Steven Weinberg on the ongoing collision of religion and science.

The investor in me agrees with the administration’s request for full speed ahead on the mortgage bailout. The citizen in me says that should be “all deliberate haste” and particularly thinks that the request not to weigh down the leglislation with “provisions that would undermine” the bailout–i.e. provisions to ensure the money is spent correctly and that individual mortgage holders get some relief too–is disingenous at best, crap at worst.

Cisco buys Jabber; much concern about the future of Jabber as an open source platform. These guys were among the first to help leverage standard blogging APIs, so Mazel Tov.

An aircraft carrier, apparently built to minifig scale. We’re gonna need more gray pieces.

Of the massive bailouts, Matthew says: “I hereby propose that, from now on, any banker who disparages government arts funding as unfairly rewarding organizations that can’t make it in the free market gets the business end of a broken beer bottle.” Yep.

Levine is back, and better. Can’t wait to work with him next week on the Brahms Requiem.

Um. Nothing I can say about this post could possibly be taken the right way.

OMFG. The look inside Barack Obama’s email inbox is funny, but his deleted mail is even funnier.