May 2013
6 posts
9 tags
2 tags
Digging this whole album. My taste has become...
Spotify's nightmare realized: Chrome extension... →
A new Chrome extension lets Spotify users permanently download any song currently available from the streaming music service, a massive slip-up that could quickly upset record labels and music…
If you steal form Spotify, you don’t understand the reason to use Spotify. It’s so you can list to the music, without storing the music.
Now that Spotify exists I never want to store an...
5 tags
April 2013
7 posts
WatchMy home town of La Crosse, Wisconsin is finally becoming the victim of a reality TV show. VH1 will start airing “Off Pitch,” which focuses on an adult show choir called “Grand River Singers.”
To see more embarrassing clips about my home town, go to VH1.com.
Going Into Debt Will Help Apple Avoid Taxes →
The statutory corporate income tax rate is quite high—35 percent—so it turns out to be cheaper to borrow the money and pay interest than to repatriate cash and pay taxes.
I agree with half of Yglesias’s proposed remedy for this, dropping the corporate income tax entirely. The numbers show that it’s not a money maker for government and causes all sorts of productivity loss in the...
MacBook Pro declared 'best performing' Windows...
PC World covered a report from Soluto, a PC services company, which declared Apple computers in the No.1 and No. 6 slots as the best performing Windows laptops.
Soluto explained their findings in the report:
A main factor in this machine’s metrics is the fact that every Windows installation on it is clean. With PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an...
2 tags
“The fact that I have no remedy for all of the sorrows of the world is no reason...”
– H. L. Mencken, 1956
March 2013
25 posts
3 tags
Management-Free Organization →
It’s appealing to espouse a management-free philosophy considering so many managers are bad and hobble rather than enable their employees.
However, some armies sure need generals and the idea that we can all become Valve Software seems at best optimistic and at worst plain stupid.
Many people in this world are not akin to self-directed software engineers and without orders from on high...
The Most Astounding Steam Powered Vehicles in... →
If you don’t think this stuff is incredible, then I don’t want to know you.
More Online Code Learning Fun
James Dellinger shot me two great links that may be useful at the Treehouse meetup, even if they are off-brand:
Build the Next Pinterest: One Month Rails
Teach Yourself to Code: One Month Rails
Mattan Griffel looks like one smart nerd.
12 tags
Is it just me, or does today feel like a Soylent... →
Why eat when you can simply drink a mixture of vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, oligosaccharide, olive oil, fish oil, antioxidants, probiotics, and nootropics?
When will this be carried by Whole Foods?
The Tyranny of the Short-Term →
We live in a world that demands long-term thinking, but we have a very short-term culture, even amongst the vaunted staff of the New Yorker.
Again, this is another sign that the economy of the web as it is today is either unsustainable or negative for the culture. The economics of ad-driven media and ad-driven services (Google, Twitter) are starting to show their limitations.
Ad-driven means...
5 tags
The Case Against a True Mac Pro Successor →
John Siracusa makes an empassioned plea to Apple to keep building the muscle car of computers, the Mac Pro.
Let’s explore Siracusa’s analogy regarding cars a bit further. While the car community certainly loves concept cards and “halo cars” that allow a big brand to show us exactly what throwing money at a engineering problem looks like, the car enthusiast community was...
7 tags
How much of Valve Software's flat management talk...
After hearing Gabe Newell speak about Valve Software’s organizational structure, reading about the same from their “economist in resident” Yanis Varoufakis, and hearing a discussion of Valve between Varoufakis and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts I was amazed with how a company like this could exist.
But then I started asking myself a few questions, mainly thanks to bringing this...
“It’s one of my favorite days of the year - don’t forget to set your...”
– the wisdom of Larry King
“Mr. President, what it comes down to is every American has the right to know...”
– Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/a-devastating-26-word-challenge-to-president-obamas-leadership/273789/
4 tags
5 tags
Stephen Colbert Schools James Franco in Lord Of... →
Check out 5:20 to see Colbert drop some Valar truth bombs.
Scientists say child has been 'functionally cured'... →
What great news. We focus a lot on the gloom and doom of the world, but fantastic things are happening every day and should be celebrated.
Anonymous asked: Are you the real Cord Blomquist?
5 tags
5 tags
Google Glass Looks Dorky →
I fail to see people adopting this technology en masse. Instead I think this will be popular with the same small minority of consumers who actually bought a Segwey.
Of course I could be wrong, we could all be walking around with cameras strapped to our heads being even more distracted than we already are with our phones.
February 2013
17 posts
Makers Mark Averts Disaster →
And I learn the meaning of “Wu” from an excerpt from a Phillip K. Dick novel about fascists ruling the world.
WatchThis looks awesome, right?
Also Added to Amazon Wishlist
Existentialism: A Beginner’s Guide
HT: Jerry Brito
Added to my Amazon Wishlist
How to Be an Existentialist: or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses
Nothingness and Emptiness: A Buddhist Engagement With the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre
The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized
Buddha in Daily Life, The: Introduction to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin
Book Review of Owen Flanagan’s “The Bodhisattva’s... →
In searching for works that address both Buddhism and existentialism, I found a review from The Existential Buddhist (whose slogan is “dharma without dogma”) of a recent work by Owen Flanagan. The author of the review, Seth Segall, writes:
[Owen] wonders whether Buddhism can be tamed sufficiently to be of interest to Naturalists. He also wonders, once one has stripped Buddhism of...
7 tags
7 tags
GIVE UP and USE TABLES →
For those of you still clinging to your old school HTML skills and who haven’t discovered the many HTML5 frameworks out there, this tool may be useful.
HT: Stan
6 tags
De-Gunk the "Open With" Menu in Finder
This is an incredibly easy fix! Just run this command in Terminal:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Onyx or Cocktail (GUI interface utilities) can also reset this database.
Hat tip: apple.stackexchange.com
Why nobody can copy Apple →
Oh yes, it’s a quote from a piece that heavily quotes another piece:
Apple’s products are unique not on their feature merits, but because of the way they are conceived, designed, built, sourced, manufactured, shipped, marketed, sold, opened, held, and used. This is integration taken to the extreme and it would be difficult for any company to replicate.
Galactus Hitler, Bin Laden Green Goblin →
As much as I like comic book movies, I’m getting burnt out comic book culture, if it can really be called that. Men in the 40s who can’t stop prattling on about the depth of Rogue’s pain or the subtleties this or that reboot of Batman aren’t twee or kitschy, they’re sort of sad.
Shouldn’t age make you more interested in history, literature, philosophy, or...
