September 2012

Critics have suggested plenty of reasonable reforms, from eliminating software patents to clamping down on "trolls" who buy up patent portfolios only so they can file lawsuits. But do we need a more radical solution? Would we be possibly be better off without any patents at all?

Critics have suggested plenty of reasonable reforms, from eliminating software patents to clamping down on "trolls" who buy up patent portfolios only so they can file lawsuits. But do we need a more radical solution? Would we be possibly be better off without any patents at all?

Given technology's focus on the latest and greatest, it's easy to forget that much of this "latest and greatest" wouldn't even be possible without the work Mozilla did for years with Firefox. Or that dominating the browser market was never Mozilla's aim with Firefox. Quixotic as it may sound, the purpose of Firefox was always to spread Web freedom.

Given technology's focus on the latest and greatest, it's easy to forget that much of this "latest and greatest" wouldn't even be possible without the work Mozilla did for years with Firefox. Or that dominating the browser market was never Mozilla's aim with Firefox. Quixotic as it may sound, the purpose of Firefox was always to spread Web freedom.

@damnredhead: I totally just dusted/cleaned my coffee table with WD-40. Because I'm hardcore like that.

@Schmoodles: If God didn't want me to masturbate she'd have put my vagina in that bit of my back that I can't quite reach.

@lxt: I admit to having said this RT @Lonnen OH: "Let's go out back and discuss this over knives" #postmortemsDoneRight

@jtaby: Google+ is really more of a competitor to LinkedIn than anything else. I use it to see who of my friends still work at Google

If you’re writing tests for code that’s rapidly changing, you’re going to spend more of your time writing tests instead of shipping features. For code that’s brand new, I typically only test-first a small amount of code and wait a while before hitting that green bar on a code coverage report.

If you’re writing tests for code that’s rapidly changing, you’re going to spend more of your time writing tests instead of shipping features. For code that’s brand new, I typically only test-first a small amount of code and wait a while before hitting that green bar on a code coverage report.

@OItBurns: You know what's fun about Todd Akin? He's a fucking lunatic #NDAAbeastiality http://t.co/EJE4phd0

@mconnor: Grinder upgrade for MozTO... dangerously awesome. I may or may not have had four shots in row. #icanseethemusic

@neilio: At Screens 2012 today. If you see me, say hi and get an jn-person demo of my real-time social awkwardness app. I'm going to go hide now.

@joedrew: Darn these socks. Darn them to heck.

@notch: Got an email from microsoft, wanting to help "certify" minecraft for win 8. I told them to stop trying to ruin the pc as an open platform.

Cable is poetry 65 haikus in 1830 cables

Cable is poetry 65 haikus in 1830 cables

@TheNextWeb: Valve pencils Steam Linux beta in for October as its plans gain further momentum http://t.co/afvQLRGB by @jonrussell

@decafbad: @lmorchard I’ve had similar feelings regarding WoW; I felt a definite sense of loss in Cataclysm even though many zones changed for better.

OK, so what’s going on? This morning a follower pointed out an article that describes how Safari iOS makes a total fucking mess of the meta viewport when the site is hosted on a .mobi domain.

@jamessocol: Jazz, great weather, and a cocktail--who could ask for anything more? (@ Clover Club w/ 7 others) http://t.co/0Dbx8jOp

An ash pit is a compartment at the base of the fireplace that holds fireplace ashes. This compartment, usually a cavity surrounded by cinder blocks or concrete, is reached through a small metal access door mounted flush in the fireplace floor or wall. Open the door and sweep ashes into the holding pit until they can later be removed. Does this Spark an idea?

Question: There was a black metal plate in the rear of my fireplace and it fell into a cavity below the freplace foor/hearth. What is the purpose of this cavity? What will happen if live embers fall into the cavity? There is no opening in the basement to access the cavity. How can I access it and remove the ashes I see down there?

Question: There was a black metal plate in the rear of my fireplace and it fell into a cavity below the freplace foor/hearth. What is the purpose of this cavity? What will happen if live embers fall into the cavity? There is no opening in the basement to access the cavity. How can I access it and remove the ashes I see down there?

@davewiner: Pet peeve. Big companies who make you do all the work before they decide to let you ship. Life is too short to "submit" that way.

@grok_: German state parliament bans laptops -> Pirate party members show up with typewriters. ♥ http://t.co/qi8kQONg

@WiredUK: Apple and Yahoo: the perfect match? http://t.co/6Zxnu2e2

@allthingsd: Bringing Your Old-Media Memories Into the Digital Age with PeggyBank -by @waltmossberg http://t.co/KlCOk1PV

In 2009, Boucher and her then-boyfriend from Tennessee constructed a 20-foot houseboat, named the "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron", with the intention to sail it down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans. The cargo included chickens, a typewriter, 20 pounds of potatoes and a gifted copy of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, the chickens caught eastern equine encephalitis virus and perished soon into the trip. Boucher and her companion adopted the names "Varuschka" and "Zelda Xox" for the trip.[14] Due to engine trouble and subsequent harassment from the Minnesota police, the journey was cut short and the houseboat and chickens were impounded.[14] Their diet consisted mainly of potatoes.[15]

@matthewbaldwin: FTL is the super fun game of dying and shouting profanity at your computer while dying. http://t.co/tT6vBNxy

One dynamic that happens in a lot of idealist communities: we praise our opponents who make even a small step in our direction, but we attack our own mercilessly when they make even a small step away from us. It’s counter-productive.

One dynamic that happens in a lot of idealist communities: we praise our opponents who make even a small step in our direction, but we attack our own mercilessly when they make even a small step away from us. It’s counter-productive.

The internet really does have everything, and it's all available for download without lifting a finger. A series of helpful scripts, all installable in a few minutes, can transform your computer into an automatic media downloading machine.

@donohoe: "git vomit" does not work. Good to know #typos

@verge: Denver judge rules voters have no 'fundamental right' to a secret ballot http://t.co/sKXZ9gbT

It appears that there's a bot that plays KoL for you.

@pandamans: oops. fell in love with parker posey again.

@johnolilly: Remember when we all stood in line overnight for the new Mac Quadra? #ThingsNobodyHasEverSaid #old

@SAI: UH OH: Looks Like The Pretty New iPhone Scratches Easily $AAPL by @nichcarlson http://t.co/4D0FoZWb

@TechCrunch: The iPhone 5 Has Arrived: But Which iPhone Is The Best Value? http://t.co/cfF6EiQU by @drizzled

@verge: By the way, our iPhone 5 review went up late last night / early this morning. In cased you missed it: http://t.co/DOsGVoRO

@BenKuchera: HAY GUYZ, YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR LOSE INTERNET CONNECTION WHILE PLAYING TORCHLIGHT 2 OR BORDERLANDS 2? NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

@rcarmo: This. http://t.co/s1biDksp

@wdonohue: Home Office, Mind Control Division: MT @AndyRileyish The very sinister BBC logo of 1955. http://t.co/GfKBcyOE

@BrendanEich: Winning "very small taste" example at http://t.co/P81Mgw1F update thanks to @BenStriegel (cc: @nikomatsakis @pcwalton @rustlang).

@scalzi: ATTENTION CITIZENS: I have posted a free (and mostly silly) short story on my site. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU. http://t.co/85xC4JRD

@pastith: "@karounos: Chinese Phone Giant Chooses a Web-Based Mobile #OS - Technology Review http://t.co/Mm6EZbSZ #Firefox #mobile"

@TedMielczarek: Of all the surfaces in the house, the cat chooses to vomit on a heating vent. Ugh.

@shiflett: There’s a robot that tosses popcorn at your mouth on command? I can’t believe someone made this. http://t.co/X9Xnvohg

@zachbraff: Sleeping on a sidewalk for 4 days for an $800 phone? The Red Cross is always looking for people with extra time: http://t.co/px7DywTi

Say hello to our 'Popinator' - the world’s first fully automated, voice activated popcorn shooter triggered by the word "pop".

@fwenzel: @Adora at the rate we're hiring, you're one of the veterans now ;)

@Adora: You know what's awesome about Mozilla? The all-hands meetings are streamed live. You could watch now, if you want: http://t.co/Rts5sNJJ

@Adora: Fuck you, Meg Whitman. Indeed.

@Pinboard: I wonder why wine pairings are limited to just food. Give me a nice dry red for configuring LDAP, for example

@TelegraphSci: Three-parent IVF is a chance to create a generation free from mitochondrial diseases http://t.co/eozlVJmT

@gamespot: If you're from the San Francisco Bay Area (like us!), here's an awesome and useful Mario Kart Bart mash up. http://t.co/JcDwQdrA

A set of internal documents published by the New York Times has shed light on the "bundlers" who help raise money for Obama's campaign, and many of them are from the world of technology. After analyzing the data, BuzzFeed found that through 2011 and 2012, $27 million of the $180 million raised came from people in the tech industry, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. What's more, tech industry donors could be outspending their counterparts in the entertainment industry, long a powerhouse in Democratic fundraising. BuzzFeed counted only $9.5 million from the entertainment sector over the same period of time, although Los Angeles donors still outspent those in Silicon Valley. Since the data only covers the Obama or general Democratic... Continue reading…

By making the Kinect portable, [Mike] et al made the Microsoft’s 3D imaging device much more capable than its present task of computing the volumetric space of the inside of a cabinet. The Reconstructme project allows the Kinect to be used as a hand-held 3D scanner and Kintinuous can be used to create a 3D model of entire houses, buildings, or caves.

By making the Kinect portable, [Mike] et al made the Microsoft’s 3D imaging device much more capable than its present task of computing the volumetric space of the inside of a cabinet. The Reconstructme project allows the Kinect to be used as a hand-held 3D scanner and Kintinuous can be used to create a 3D model of entire houses, buildings, or caves.

@jmichael92: @scottsimpson 1/2 IPA 1/2 lemonade from lemon tree in community garden w/ agave instead of sugar 'cause you're not doing sugar right now.

Fortunately, CSS3 allows us to create loading icons without images. They’re easy to create, scale, re-color, use on any background and don’t incur image downloads

Fortunately, CSS3 allows us to create loading icons without images. They’re easy to create, scale, re-color, use on any background and don’t incur image downloads

@geekwire: App of the Week: Familiar shares family photos across devices and computers http://t.co/do8zvcgn

@gigaom: Are 3D printers really just piracy machines? (by @jeffjohnroberts): http://t.co/cUAdHSmw

@mattcallow: Shucking corn @jinjurly style http://t.co/91Bz63eC

So a couple of nights ago, I went through the familiar steps of manually adding the Freespace Source Code Project files to my GOG copy of Freespace 2. This time, however, I added all the extra high-resolution stuff from the MediaVPs (i.e. all the optional stuff) because I figured my new rig could run it (my last one totally choked when I added all the optional MediaVPs). Once it was all said and done, I ran the launcher and set up everything as ordered (as well as adding Spidey’s lighting settings) and ran the game at maximum resolution with everything set as high as possible for my first time ever. What resulted was nothing short of breathtaking.

So a couple of nights ago, I went through the familiar steps of manually adding the Freespace Source Code Project files to my GOG copy of Freespace 2. This time, however, I added all the extra high-resolution stuff from the MediaVPs (i.e. all the optional stuff) because I figured my new rig could run it (my last one totally choked when I added all the optional MediaVPs). Once it was all said and done, I ran the launcher and set up everything as ordered (as well as adding Spidey’s lighting settings) and ran the game at maximum resolution with everything set as high as possible for my first time ever. What resulted was nothing short of breathtaking.

@jenihead: @lmorchard say "pho-k it"

@stlhood: Having a really productive work-from-home day. Standing desk + new gel mat (thx @lmorchard), ambient Pandora station, pets sleeping nearby.

@morgamic: @lmorchard <3 (lorchard)

@WiredUK: Qualcomm: smartphones will become remote controls for our lives http://t.co/FSIXhbv9 by @liatclark

@gigaom: Open source champ Mark Shuttleworth invests $1M in Ceph storage startup http://t.co/NBrSrErX

@MediaReDEF: The Algorithmic Copyright Cops: Streaming Video’s Robotic Overlords http://t.co/AO6SuY3I

@jeffbcross: @dokas @lmorchard YES, examples or JavaScript conference presentations should be prohibited from using coffeescript.

No, I’m not joking. Just send your users an email. The activation email is a practice that’s been in use for years, but it’s often paired with complex validations that the email is formatted correctly. If you’re going to send an activation email to users, why bother using a gigantic regular expression?

No, I’m not joking. Just send your users an email. The activation email is a practice that’s been in use for years, but it’s often paired with complex validations that the email is formatted correctly. If you’re going to send an activation email to users, why bother using a gigantic regular expression?

Well, Kirk Cameron, here’s the thing. You are correct when you say you should be able to express your moral views on social issues, and as a staunch defender of the First Amendment, I will defend to the death your right to say whatever ridiculous, ignorant and bigoted thing that has been fermenting in that cracked clay pot you call a brain pan. But the First Amendment also means that when you say such things, other people have the a right to mock you and the silly, stupid words that have dribbled out of your skull through that word hole above your chin. If you call someone “unnatural,” they might call you an “asshole.” That’s the deal.

Well, Kirk Cameron, here’s the thing. You are correct when you say you should be able to express your moral views on social issues, and as a staunch defender of the First Amendment, I will defend to the death your right to say whatever ridiculous, ignorant and bigoted thing that has been fermenting in that cracked clay pot you call a brain pan. But the First Amendment also means that when you say such things, other people have the a right to mock you and the silly, stupid words that have dribbled out of your skull through that word hole above your chin. If you call someone “unnatural,” they might call you an “asshole.” That’s the deal.

Today, a principal tenet of geology is that a vast majority of the world’s oil arose not from lumbering beasts on land but tiny organisms at sea. It holds that blizzards of microscopic life fell into the sunless depths over the ages, producing thick sediments that the planet’s inner heat eventually cooked into oil. It is estimated that 95 percent or more of global oil traces its genesis to the sea.

Today, a principal tenet of geology is that a vast majority of the world’s oil arose not from lumbering beasts on land but tiny organisms at sea. It holds that blizzards of microscopic life fell into the sunless depths over the ages, producing thick sediments that the planet’s inner heat eventually cooked into oil. It is estimated that 95 percent or more of global oil traces its genesis to the sea.

@jesseltaylor: Given that Michelle Obama took down the entire Republican Party in 20 minutes, what's the rest of the DNC? Dubstep remixes?

@GregMitch: Ha: GOP launches #AreYouBetterOff hashtag, gets flooded with "Yes" responses. See some: http://t.co/YO7KOHss

@tlrobinson: Grace Hopper on Letterman http://t.co/ciZWE52s

@guardianscience: Is the 'Wang particle' the new Higgs boson? http://t.co/qz5nJYmA

@acleon: @lmorchard and vampires. So many damn vampires... in everything, all the time.

@RetroGameTeam: Look at what I just bought... #Retrogaming http://t.co/ZBBHUUlv

@pandamans: I came back to work to find panty hose on my chair. #ew #iworkinapubliclibrary http://t.co/wEmZZllw

@Thracks: "It's coming: September 12th." The "it" is me avoiding social media and RSS for an entire day.

But buttons are discoverable. They can have labels that describe what they do. Everybody knows how to use them. They just work. It’s why we use them to turn on the lights, instead of installing Clappers everywhere.

But buttons are discoverable. They can have labels that describe what they do. Everybody knows how to use them. They just work. It’s why we use them to turn on the lights, instead of installing Clappers everywhere.

Before there was Wikileaks, before there was Wikipedia… Before there was Facebook and Twitter and blogs… there was a computer programmer named Ward Cunningham. He’s the guy who, back in 1995, invented the wiki. He also did something even more radical. He didn’t patent it. He passed up billions of dollars in potential revenue, because he believed the internet needed to be more democratic. And why did he invent the wiki in the first place?

Hello! I've got some good news for you: your web browser has just been upgraded to a web server. It's responding to HTTP requests on the Internet as you read this.

Hello! I've got some good news for you: your web browser has just been upgraded to a web server. It's responding to HTTP requests on the Internet as you read this.

BrewBlogger 2.3.2 is a easy to set up, easy to use, browser-based homebrew logging and calculation suite. It is a PHP/MySQL-based system that provides today's brewer not only a fast and easy way to record their brewing activities, recipes, and awards, but also forum to share their zymurgistic efforts and expertise with the homebrewing community around the world.

BrewBlogger 2.3.2 is a easy to set up, easy to use, browser-based homebrew logging and calculation suite. It is a PHP/MySQL-based system that provides today's brewer not only a fast and easy way to record their brewing activities, recipes, and awards, but also forum to share their zymurgistic efforts and expertise with the homebrewing community around the world.

@jeffbcross: @lmorchard programmable drip coffee maker is essential for first coffee. Keep it on your night stand, next to your george foreman grill.

@WiredUK: Study finds 75 percent of homeless youth regularly use social networks http://t.co/lPiQcDOi by @IanSteadman

@TechCrunch: How Obama Stole Romney's RNC Thunder With Clever Social Media http://t.co/GV2sRvaX by @ferenstein

@CBSNews: Poll: Romney receives lowest score for candidate's convention speech since Gallup began asking in '96 @CBSNewsHotsheet http://t.co/TvXFRDsj

@wombatnation: @lmorchard And that's why I invented the overnight, timed-release caffeine patch. Or, at least, should have.

@alexch: @lmorchard Been there! Also last week I put a friend's *electric* kettle on his *gas* stove. Then I bought him a new one.

Google Cloud Storage is a new service for developers to store and access data in Google's cloud. It offers developers direct access to Google's scalable storage and networking infrastructure as well as powerful authentication and data sharing mechanisms. Developers can store objects of any size and manage access to their data on an individual or group basis using Google Cloud Storage.

SpriteLib is a collection of static and animated graphic objects (also commonly known as sprites). It was created to provide hobbyist game developers with an assortment of images to use in their creations. Because of SpriteLib, developers don't have to waste precious time or money creating graphics from scratch.

It's a raspberrypi mounted inside a keyboard.

@engadget: Mozilla pulls Firefox Home from the iOS App Store, posts source code to GitHub - http://t.co/T5R6eyls

@TechCrunch: How Apple And Google Could Make QR Codes Mainstream http://t.co/9hIJwUuB by @mulligan

source: http://moviesludge.tumblr.com/page/21

There is a common misconception that every time a new release of Firefox comes out Mozilla claims “this is the one that fixes the memory consumption problems”. I see this misconception in action all the time.

There is a common misconception that every time a new release of Firefox comes out Mozilla claims “this is the one that fixes the memory consumption problems”. I see this misconception in action all the time.

Old school demos re-built in HTML5

Old school demos re-built in HTML5

Die roller and unofficial rules compilation. Feel free to make edits and revisions. Rules are in rules.markdown.

A team of European and American astronomers have found signs of a simple sugar molecule, glycolaldehyde, in a gas cloud surrounding a young sun-like star. Located 400 light-years away, it's the first time that sugar has been located around such a celestial object — and this indicates that the early building blocks of life are present when planets start to form around stars. To make their finding, lead researcher Jes Jørgensen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). It's an extremely sensitive radio wave receiving device that's capable of capturing exceptionally short wavelengths, and without this feature the discovery would have been impossible. By using ALMA, the researchers were able to pick up on the characteristic radiation signatures emitted by the sugar molecules. ALMA was able to capture these signatures from radio waves, which the researchers were then able to map and identify. This is not the first time that glycolaldehyde has been found floating in the depths of interstellar space — but it is the first time that it has been spotted near a sun-like star at distances comparable to the distance of Uranus from the Sun in our solar system. As a result, the discovery is a strong indication that the chemical compounds required to sustain life are already in existence at the time of planet formation. Specifically, glycolaldehyde is a key component to RNA, which like DNA, is an integral precursor to life. Moreover, the gas containing the sugar molecules is falling in towards one of the stars in the system. "The sugar molecules are not only in the right place to find their way onto a planet, but they are also going in the right direction," Jørgensen noted through a release. Moving forward, the astronomers are hoping to gain an understanding of just how complex these molecules can get before they're incorporated into new planets — an important clue about the early composition of new planets, and the chemical compounds they carry that could eventually ignite the processes of life. The entire study will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. I'll update the link once the paper has been published online. Image: ESO/L. Calçada & NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team.

source: http://memebase.cheezburger.com/senorgif

Futurama powers down Wednesday night until next summer. Patrick Stewart is probably going to need the breather.Image courtesy Comedy Central The thespian who played Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard joins Bender in a not-so-jolly robot fox hunt in “31st Century Fox,” the first of Futurama‘s back-to-back midseason finale episodes Wednesday. And let’s just say that the real thing is not really his thing. “In real life, Patrick Stewart is actually an anti-fox hunt crusader,” Futurama executive producer David X. Cohen told Wired earlier this summer as the seventh season of The Sci-Fi Toon That Wouldn’t Die booted up. “31st Century Fox” airs Wednesday night alongside “Naturama,” which transforms Futurama‘s snarktastic space messengers into animals locked in sexual struggle (see a clip below). In “Naturama,” Fry, Leela and Zap navigate a salmon love triangle, Bender battles back hordes of haters encroaching on his elephant seal harem and Professor Farnsworth faces down extinction and solitude as a Galapagos tortoise. Cohen told Wired that Futurama‘s artists nearly went metaphorically extinct after first seeing how far they were being asked to push their impressive skill sets. It’s one of those episodes where “our animators have heart attacks and collapse in front of us after we hand them the script,” he said. “Because they have to redesign the entire universe and all of the characters three times instead of once. These episodes are always our favorites, but they’re difficult.” Futurama‘s back-to-back midseason finale airs Wednesday night at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central on Comedy Central. (The remaining episodes of Futurama arrive next summer.) runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1811364368001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences();

Futurama powers down Wednesday night until next summer. Patrick Stewart is probably going to need the breather.Image courtesy Comedy Central The thespian who played Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard joins Bender in a not-so-jolly robot fox hunt in “31st Century Fox,” the first of Futurama‘s back-to-back midseason finale episodes Wednesday. And let’s just say that the real thing is not really his thing. “In real life, Patrick Stewart is actually an anti-fox hunt crusader,” Futurama executive producer David X. Cohen told Wired earlier this summer as the seventh season of The Sci-Fi Toon That Wouldn’t Die booted up. “31st Century Fox” airs Wednesday night alongside “Naturama,” which transforms Futurama‘s snarktastic space messengers into animals locked in sexual struggle (see a clip below). In “Naturama,” Fry, Leela and Zap navigate a salmon love triangle, Bender battles back hordes of haters encroaching on his elephant seal harem and Professor Farnsworth faces down extinction and solitude as a Galapagos tortoise. Cohen told Wired that Futurama‘s artists nearly went metaphorically extinct after first seeing how far they were being asked to push their impressive skill sets. It’s one of those episodes where “our animators have heart attacks and collapse in front of us after we hand them the script,” he said. “Because they have to redesign the entire universe and all of the characters three times instead of once. These episodes are always our favorites, but they’re difficult.” Futurama‘s back-to-back midseason finale airs Wednesday night at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central on Comedy Central. (The remaining episodes of Futurama arrive next summer.) runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1811364368001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences();

Eight-year-old Ashley Taylor's Mandeville, Louisiana, home was in the path of Hurricane Isaac, so her dad, Greg, sent her and the rest of the family to Alabama for safekeeping. More »

12 potato

allaboutmargo: Judy Garland singing and dancing and not giving a flying fuck.

longcat [tastefullyoffensive:via]

remember when time ruiner tried to prevent air-breathing organisms from existing? that was a rough two weeks hey PAX! come see me in bandland this weekend!! i will have lots of cool things :D

remember when time ruiner tried to prevent air-breathing organisms from existing? that was a rough two weeks hey PAX! come see me in bandland this weekend!! i will have lots of cool things :D

sollux:

Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) defines a way for client web applications that are loaded in one domain to interact with resources in a different domain. With CORS support in Amazon S3, you can build rich client-side web applications with Amazon S3 and selectively allow cross-origin access to your Amazon S3 resources.