September 2012
28 posts
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How to include an entire web page in a URL, no...
This is a pretty cool little nugget I picked up from the excellent Security Now podcast and wanted to pass it along. Basically, there is an old and obscure IETF RFC that standardizes a scheme for including data in a URI, and all modern browsers seem to support it. In English, this means that instead of using “http:” and pointing to a web page hosted on a server somewhere, you can use...
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Google dips its toe in online education with... →
Doesn’t seem like a full-throated effort, though. More of their throw stuff on the wall approach.
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Americans still believe Iraq was behind 9/11 →
This week, the University of Maryland released a 9/11-related poll showing that many Americans remain ignorant about the link between 9/11 and the war Bush and Dick Cheney launched in Iraq. Nearly half of the respondents noted that Iraq was “directly involved” in the 9/11 assaults (15 percent) or gave “substantial support” to Al Qaeda without participating in those...
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The Writer’s Room: Tools And Strategies For A... →
Great new resource from Steven B. Johnson on Medium, Evan Williams’ new startup. One thing I don’t get, though, is how the heck am I supposed to follow new posts? There’s no RSS, no way to sign up for an email or otherwise follow a stream. Are we meant to check back every day like it’s 1999?
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LulzSec's Topiary writes a piece for the Guardian →
Jake Davis has been legally barred from using a computer for over a year.
Things are calmer, slower and at times, I’ll admit, more dull. I do very much miss the instant companionship of online life, the innocent chatroom palaver, and the ease with which circles with similar interests can be found. Of course, there are no search terms in real life – one actually has to search. However,...
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First review of Chris Anderson's new book →
It’s called Makers and it’s about how 3D printing will usher in a new industrial revolution. I especially like this bit:
Appropriately, Anderson’s story centres on California. It tells us why the US – in spite of widespread angst about the country’s direction – remains the global centre for entrepreneurship. Nowhere else would Anderson have been able to find the stream of...
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Leisure is really about working →
Putting aside the false consciousness mumbo jumbo, this piece by Gary Gutting nails what Richard Posner doesn’t get about leisure.
Everything depends on how we understand leisure. Is it mere idleness, simply doing nothing? Then a life of leisure is at best boring (a lesson of Voltaire’s “Candide”), and at worst terrifying (leaving us, as Pascal says, with nothing to distract from the...
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The One Government Bureaucracy Richard Esptein... →
And this is part of the 90% of stuff on which Tim Lee and I agree.
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How Google Fiber is not like Verizon FiOS
In a recent post, Tim Lee does a good job of explaining why facilities-based competition in broadband is difficult. He writes,
As Verizon is discovering with its FiOS project, it’s much harder to turn a profit installing the second local loop; both because fewer than 50 percent of customers are likely to take the service, and because competition pushes down margins. And it’s almost impossible...
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Google’s Amazing “Surveywall” →
Mechanical turking is the new micropayments for paywalls. This is crazy smart.
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WatchBuzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti explains why serious reporting on politics or foreign affairs can live in the same stream with cat videos and Ryan Gossling gossip.
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Dear folks, if your dog is outside it should be on a leash.
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Brooklyn is now the second most expensive place to... →
The findings compare costs like food, rent, transportation, and utilities, and put Brooklyn ahead of San Francisco, San Jose, and even Honolulu, a.k.a. paradise.
This is what they wanted, though, right?
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Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes? →
Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris in the WSJ:
To gather some empirical evidence on this question, we recently conducted an online survey of 492 American adults who have flown in the past year. In this sample, 40% said they did not turn their phones off completely during takeoff and landing on their most recent flight; more than 7% left their phones on, with the Wi-Fi and cellular...
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Ryan: Don't interfere with legalized medical pot →
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says the federal government shouldn’t interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana.
The Wisconsin congressman tells KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn’t approve of medical marijuana laws. But he says that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.
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Couple Demands a Refund to 'The Dark Knight Rises'... →
No joke.
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Watching Attack the Block with Kathleen at Birdskull Manor – View on Path.
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Larry Flynt Offers $1M Reward for Mitt Romney Tax... →
Adweek:
Flynt is taking out full-page ads in this Sunday’s edition of The Washington Post and Tuesday’s USA Today that promises “up to $1 million” for the dirt on Romney’s “unreleased tax returns and/or details of his offshore assets, bank accounts and business partnerships.” (But before you go calling the Hustler hotline, be aware that Flynt will need “documented evidence of your claims.”)
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More on the Mitt Romney tax return extortion plot
More on the Romney tax-return blackmail plot because I find it interesting if preposterous. Apparently PricewaterhouseCoopers does not believe that its systems have been compromised, but the Williamson County, Tenn., Republican and Democratic party offices have indeed received packages with USB thumb drives on which are encrypted files alleged to be Mitt Romney’s pre-2010 tax returns. They...
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Hacker Group Claims to Have Romney’s Tax Returns →
Allegedly stolen from PricewaterhouseCooper’s Tennessee office on Aug. 25. The group wants $1 million in bitcoins from Romney by September 28 or they say they will make them public. So lulzy if real, but why would they make their extortion demand public if it’s true?
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4chan unveils an API →
Moot:
The decision to release an API was partially out of necessity, but also because I’m curious to see how people will use it.
Here’s my idea, which I’m happy to see someone else implement: A service that notifies you whenever a keyword is used in a thread, either only by OP or by anyone.
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Folks, the definition of the word humility is “a modest or low view of one’s own importance.” Please stop saying you are “humbled” after enjoying a great success or receiving some recognition.
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Announcing the new WCITLeaks.org
As you might know, a few months ago Eli Dourado and I launched WCITLeaks.org, a site meant to bring transparency to the UN’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT, pronounced wicket). Today we’re relaunching a new and improved version of the site.
At the conference in December, world governments will consider proposals to increase government control of the...
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Louboutin wins exclusive right to color the... →
“We hold that the lacquered red outsole, as applied to a shoe with an ‘upper’ of a different color, has ‘come to identify and distinguish’ the Louboutin brand and is therefore a distinctive symbol that qualifies for trademark protection,” U.S. Circuit Judge José A. Cabranes wrote in a 31-page opinion.
Facepalmiest thing of the day (so far). Et tu also...
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