links.lmorchard.com

June 2004

263 bookmarks saved in June 2004

MF Bliki: StranglerApplication

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/StranglerApplication.html
"An alternative route is to gradually create a new system around the edges of the old, letting it grow slowly over several years until the old system is strangled."
#programming
archive.org #2904

Voters Urged Not to Eat Their Ballots

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?section=news&src=rss/oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=5532085&type=oddlyEnoughNews
'"Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act," Elections Canada warns on its Internet site.'
#funny #odd
archive.org #2901

The Empty Cradle Will Rock

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra?id=110005277
"How abortion is costing the Democrats voters--literally." Ugh. Morbid and disgusting anti-abortion stab. Alternately, I wonder if morons will outbreed smarter humans equipped with both restraint and more reproductive options.
#abortion #politics
archive.org #2896

Magic Menu for Amiga

http://www.magicmenu.de/features.uk.html
"...Magic Menu offers the possibility of so-called popup menus, i.e. menus which are activated on any point on the screen will unfold on exectly this position."
#amiga
archive.org #2888

DejaMenu 1.1 for MacOS X

http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html
"DejaMenu will display the current application's main menu as a context menu when a key combination is pressed."
#osx
archive.org #2887

Tiny Tag

http://www.bgamers.com/tinytag.htm
"Hi, My name is Sean. I accidentally invented TinyTag when I was in kindergarten. My dad helped me build it. My neighbor Matthew wrote the software. His uncle Bob from NASA helped with the electrical stuff."
#nifty #toys
archive.org #2883

Blogs: A New Communication Tool or a Marketing Avenue

http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/ebusinesstactics/wpn-8-20040318BlogsANewCommunicationTooloraMarketingAvenue.html
"Isn't there something wrong with this picture? If every aspect of the web is fodder for manipulation and abuse, who do we trust? How do honest people compete in this environment and scrupulously manage their marketing or web or competition challenges?"
#metablogging
archive.org #2879

Smoking wipes 10 years off a life

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996054
"Quitting at 30 virtually eliminates the risk from dying prematurely, and giving up at 50 halves it. But half of those who fail to kick the habit will die as a result of smoking, and a quarter of all smokers die in middle-age." Looks like Dave had the ri
#health #smoking
archive.org #2877

The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/stories/the_livejournal_of_zachary_marsh.php
'This morning the authorities entered the home on Babson and found it deserted, the floors slick with mud and seaweed. On the computer was the LiveJournal of Zackary Marsh, with a notice reading “Update Successful.”'
#funny #lovecraft #metablogging #odd
archive.org #2873

PDL - The Perl Data Language

http://pdl.perl.org
"PDL (``Perl Data Language'') gives standard Perl the ability to compactly store and speedily manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing."
#math #perl
archive.org #2872

Usability and editing code: TextShapeView

http://michael-mccracken.net/blog/blosxom.pl/2004/06/21#meetTSV
"I've hacked together a widget for an alternative view of text. It's based on the idea that familiar source code is easily recognizable by a programmer using indentation alone." Very cool. Browse code by its shape.
#osx #programming
archive.org #2870

Private craft heads for space

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/21/suborbital.test/index.html
"The rocket plane SpaceShipOne separated from its carrier aircraft and launched toward the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere at 7:50 a.m. Monday (10:50 a.m. ET), controllers said."
#space
archive.org #2867

Indignant, Ignant Rumsfeld

http://margaretcho.net/blog/indignantignant.htm
"Rumsfeld takes the podium like he is already put out by the fact that people dare to have him explain his actions, then he just expounds on his indignity and then he says he doesn't know."
#politics
archive.org #2864

Gorilla's amazing leap puzzles zoo experts

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/06/18/leaping.gorilla.ap/index.html
'"I think we probably have underestimated the ability of these animals," Maple said. "I'm not saying he did it, but if he did do it, it was a tremendous feat of athleticism that heretofore was not known to this species."'
#odd
archive.org #2863

Beautiful Soup

http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup
"You didn't write that awful page. You're just trying to get some data out of it. Right now, you don't really care what HTML is supposed to look like."
#python #scraping
archive.org #2862

Pray For Reason

http://www.prayforreason.org
"Pray For Reason is a call to Americans of all religions and belief systems who want to see their country's policies at home and abroad based on facts, history, and reasonable thought processes."
#politics #religion
archive.org #2853

Wired News: Word Refuseniks: Never Upgrade

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63848,00.html?tw=rss.TOP
"Microsoft's brand-new version of Office for Mac OS X has been highly praised in reviews, but for many users it can't hold a candle to the 13-year-old Word 5.1."
archive.org #2852

How to shut down a free website without hurting the user base

http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/archives/001485.html
"As soon as you have at least one regular user that depends on your service, you are no longer the only person affected by the site. Yes, you still own it, yes, it's still yours and yours alone to do with what you please, but now you have an ethical oblig
archive.org #2848

The Reality of Running Away from Stuff

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people/home/idris/Movie_Reviews/Reality_of_Running_Away.html
"Here's a chart showing maximum speeds for some of the more common Hollywood hazards measured against the fastest speeds that an Olympic level human can deliver (all in meters/second)."
#funny #movies
archive.org #2846

MSNBC - Grim Numbers

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5217874/site/newsweek
"A U.S.-sponsored poll shows Iraqis have lost confidence in the occupying authorities--and that the majority of Iraqis want Coalition troops out of the country ‘immediately’"
#iraq #war
archive.org #2834

ThinkGeek :: Umph Energy Tablets

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/6b4f?cpg=cj
"Each tablet contains 99 milligrams of caffeine and 30 milligrams of Panax Ginseng along with Vitamin B6." I wonder what these would do to me, if dropped into a mug of coffee?
#food
archive.org #2832

Ash Taking On Freddy And Jason?

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-05/14/12.00.film=
'Bruce Campbell, who played Ash in the Evil Dead horror films, told SCI FI Wire that there is "some validity" to the rampant rumors about the possibility of a movie that would pit his character against Freddy of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason from th
#horrom #movies
archive.org #2830

Planet Reagan

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060704A.shtml
"Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration."
#politics
archive.org #2820

About Weblogs.com

http://doc.weblogs.com/2004/06/15#aboutWeblogscom
"Thousands of us got a free ride from Dave, and Userland, over the past five years. What we got was far more than we didn't pay for. For many of us (certainly for me), the benefits have been incalculable."
#metablogging
archive.org #2819

Making Votes Count: Gambling on Voting

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/opinion/13SUN1.html?ei=5007&en=40e4afe91f2a555f&ex=1402459200&partner=USERLAND
"If election officials want to convince voters that electronic voting can be trusted, they should be willing to make it at least as secure as slot machines."
#politics #security
archive.org #2815

Whiskey Bar: A Very American Coup

http://billmon.org/archives/001533.html
"But while I don't know exactly where the imperial tide is taking the U.S. military, and the United States, I don't think it's going to be any kind of place I would want to go, or produce any kind of regime I would want my children to have to live under"
#military #politics #war
archive.org #2814

My blogging tools

http://www.ecyrd.com/ButtUgly/Wiki.jsp?page=Main_blogentry_130604_1
"These are all the blogging tools you need. These are the hands I use to write; this is the eye I use to filter the world. I tried to get a picture of my brain, but you'll have to settle with my eye, and what is visible beyond."
#metablogging
archive.org #2812

Acquisition - Heap_of_Trouble

http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?CONTENT_ID=2365&page=content
'"A Heap of Trouble" shows the seismic effect on a leafy housing estate when nine naked men come marching through, recruiting other men to join'
#funny
archive.org #2808

URSONATE

http://www.ubu.com/historical/schwitters/ursonate.html
A sound poem, found via nextbigthing.org. 'Canadian poet Christian Bok may be the only poet who has performed all of Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters’s “Ursonate” (also known as the “Sonate in Urlauten”) by heart.'
#art
archive.org #2806

Doug Engelbart 1968 Demo

http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
"On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS,
#compsci
archive.org #2805

No More Pizza

http://www.windley.com/2004/06/11.html#a1272
"One of my complaints about Safari has been that I constantly got the little spinning pizza (some people call it a "beach ball" since its multi-colored) whenever a page download was slow."
#apple #osx
archive.org #2804

Morrissey comments spark Bush fire

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/119/119298_morrissey_comments_spark_bush_fire.html
"The ex-frontman of Manchester band The Smiths announced the death of the former US president at a concert in Dublin - then said he wished it had been President George W Bush who had died instead."
#bush #music #politics
archive.org #2800

Mission Statement

http://ripples.typepad.com/ripples/Mission/mission_statement1.htm
"I've always noticed patterns in life and in the world around me and tried, often without success, to communicate to others what I saw." What a great weblog mission statement
#metablogging
archive.org #2797

Last Summer's Blackout Made Cleaner Skies

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040611/ap_on_sc/blackout_benefit
"Aircraft sampling in the 24 hours following the blackout found a 90 percent drop in sulfur dioxide and a 50 percent cut in ozone levels, while visibility increased by more than 25 miles, University of Maryland researchers report."
#environment
archive.org #2793

Human subjects play mind games

http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/911.html
"For the first time in humans, a team headed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has placed an electronic grid atop patients' brains to gather motor signals that enable patients to play a computer game using only the signals from their br
#cogsci #future #mediicne
archive.org #2792

Comparison of Linux code with MINIX code

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/codecomparison
"So, I guess what I want to say is, pay no attention to this man; to the best of my knowledge he is talking out of his ass. I apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused you by participating (however indirectly) in Ken's pet project."
#linux
archive.org #2785

Rebuttal to Ken Brown

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/rebuttal
"I'll bet he dismisses the widely reported claim that Mozart wrote three symphonies and performed for the King of England when he was nine on the grounds that 9-year-olds don't normally do this sort of thing."
#linux
archive.org #2784

thejohncleese.com

http://www.thejohncleese.com
"Welcome to my Web-Site. Extraordinarily exciting and dramatic things will start happening here just as soon as I've had a cup of tea."
#funny
archive.org #2777

clean sweep assessment

http://betterme.org/cleansweep.html
Oh yeah, and has anyone ever observed the similarity of time-management / self-help writing to that of the Amazing Live Seamonkeys writing?
archive.org #2775

Life Assessment Quiz [dive into mark]

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/06/09/life-assessment
...wherein the quiz itself is relentlessly critiqued as obsessive-compulsive and offensively materialistic. Your life is not Ikea and all that Fight Club jazz. (I thought the quiz was interesting.)
archive.org #2774

AlterNet: Cold Turkey

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18881
"Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey."
#politics
archive.org #2764

Talking Points Memo

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_06.php#003046
"It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means -- a government of laws, not men, and all
#bush #politics
archive.org #2763

Reuse

http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/examples/reuse.atom.html
I really like Atom, but... tell me again why it doesn't look like this? I suspect there are very good reasons, but...?
#atom #syndication #xml
archive.org #2756

Charles: Still in Charge

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/07/171640.php
"With the recent rash of TV show reunion movies, I have come to the conclusion that one classic from the 80s is being tragically overlooked: Charles In Charge."
#funny
archive.org #2749

Sourcefruit Juiceboxes

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/sourcefruit-juiceboxes-015789.php
"...the first in a series of drink boxes that look and feel like the juice they contain."
#food
archive.org #2744

A Lamentation for TechTV

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/technology/circuits/03POGUE-EMAIL.html
The new channel is really very sad. TechTV, with all its original shows and filler, was quickly taking over as one of my standby channels. I'll miss the real content they had on TSS.
#television
archive.org #2739

AutoGraf Home

http://autograf.sourceforge.net
"Introducing AutoGraf, a whole new metaphor for Cocoa with automatic, self-updating diagrams of your classes, and intelligent, visual browsing of code documentation."
#cocoa #osx
archive.org #2733

SQLiteServer

http://sqlabs.net/index.shtml?sqliteserver=
Umm... WHAT?! US$269 for a server wrapped around SQLite?! I must either be missing something very good about it, or this is a crazy rip-off.
#programming
archive.org #2720

Atari Bionics Prototype Sketches

http://www.atarimuseum.com/otherprojects/bionics/proto/index.html
"Below are many of the prototype concept sketches that Regan Cheng created when designing the whole idea of a modular medical system while at Atari."
archive.org #2714

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4629.shtml
"Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq."
#bush #politics
archive.org #2713

Bank's clients in limbo

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040603.wroyal0603/BNStory/Front
"In one of the worst messes since banks put their faith in computers, today is the fifth day in which the Royal Bank of Canada cannot tell its 10 million Canadian customers with any certainty how much money is in their accounts."
#oops
archive.org #2712

Tartakovsky Helms Astroboy

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-06/04/09.30.film=
"Sony Pictures Entertainment has struck a deal with animator Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack) to write and direct its long-in-development film version of the classic Japanese animated series Astroboy, Variety reported."
#movies
archive.org #2711

Are developers stealing code?

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,39156544,00.htm
"Developers who keep a copy of code that they wrote in one job and then reuse it for a subsequent employer seem blithely unaware of the legal implications"
#programming
archive.org #2710

Espresso Cuban style

http://www.starbanner.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040603/NEWS/206030338/1027/FEATURES01
"Much more than a jolt of caffeine, this coffee is a way of life"
#coffee
archive.org #2706

An eye on the tongue

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-06/uom-aeo060204.php
"The Tongue Display Unit (TDU) can activate areas that are normally reserved for visual information and are unused when someone suffers from congenital blindness. "
#future #medicine #science
archive.org #2705

Their Charming Man

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/03/02/cover-arellano.php
"Morrissey sings to the disaffected, and God knows alienation is part of the assimilation tradition—the equal and opposite reaction of the immigrants drive to blend in."
#music
archive.org #2703

Mole in Our Midst

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?articleId=7799&name=ViewWeb§ion=root
"Finally, a grand, unified theory that explains Bush's domestic and international policies. Little did we know."
#bush #politics
archive.org #2689

The Case Against SELECT *

http://www.parseerror.com/sql/select*isevil.html
"You may be in the habit of using SELECT * to fetch fields in your SQL queries ... there are several very good reasons to break this habit and enumerate the fields in any query."
#programming
archive.org #2682

Synergy

http://synergy.wincent.com
"Synergy won't take up precious space in your Dock as it appears only in the menubar." Neat iTunes accessory. Unfortunately, on this 12" PowerBook, menubar space is *so* much more precious than dock space.
#apple #music #osx
archive.org #2678

Love Object

http://www.salon.com/ent/indie/2004/02/13/love_object/index_np.html
"It was only a matter of time before someone made a horror film about a sex doll, but don't burn rubber to see this one."
#movies #odd
archive.org #2677

GI JOE cartoons edited

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/gijoe.html
"These clips are dubbed over with new dialogue and even some of the animation is changed and remixed. The result is so hilarious that I almost wet my pants the first time I saw them."
#funny #oldschool
archive.org #2676

Smart Mobs: Pocket Rendezvous

http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/003278.html
"Pocket Rendezvous also allows you to browse for nearby devices running Pocket Rendezvous and view the content published by the Pocket Rendezvous server on those devices."
#mobile
archive.org #2672

Biodiesel Boom Well-Timed

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63635,00.html
"Higgins said most diesel vehicles do not have to be modified to burn biodiesel, and auto manufacturers support fueling their vehicles with biodiesel, which burns cleaner than standard fuel."
#cars #economy #fuel #oil
archive.org #2668

Enjoy the Good Life, on GameCube

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,63619,00.html
"Milk the cow, find something edible for the dog, scrub down the horse, bring your sweetheart some fresh flowers. Go fishing. Water your crops. Make dinner. Sleep. Repeat."
#gaming
archive.org #2667

Bush's Air Force One advantage

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/31/bush.travelcosts.ap/index.html
"President Bush is using Air Force One for re-election travel more heavily than any predecessor, wringing maximum political mileage from a perk of office paid for by taxpayers."
#bush #politics
archive.org #2659

From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3222-2004May30.html?referrer=emailarticle=
"Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts."
#bush #politics
archive.org #2657

Fish

http://oriol.mine.nu/fish
"Fish is an aquarium simulator. It allows you to add fish to an underwater environment and customize them."
#gaming #osx
archive.org #2650