I’ve been meaning to post an updated LotW for a while but between Firefox crashing like a stunt car driver and real life obligations, it’s been difficult to make find some time so I could sit down and hammer it out. I confess that there are other reasons I wished to delay the inevitable (I didn’t feel like it–hey, that’s a legitimate excuse).

So, here you go. Clicky-clicky on the link. Apologies if some of these are a little old–I needed to flush out the 450+ tabs I’ve got open in Firefox.

Academia

Professionals in academia pose something of a problem. To find out more, read the article!

Biology

Dolphins are deep thinkers. Capable of planning ahead and teaching their offspring tasks that have no immediate survival benefit, these creatures exist as an aquatic near-analog to humankind.

Health

What happens when you cross Disney with flu shots? No lines. Okay, so the lines still exist–sort of. Now, if only certain large retail chains could learn the same lesson…

Is tech causing attention loss? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m of the opinion that the human brain is incredibly adept at evolving. What we consider an ailment today (ADHD) might very well be an evolutionary advantage tomorrow. Of course, only time will tell, but it still humors me to imagine that Twitter, Facebook, et al might be contributing to the increasing “stupidification” of our youth.

History

Josh sent this one to me. It’s a collection of great aviation quotes from various sources throughout history starting with World War I. Contributed quotes are pulled from both factions in numerous conflicts. Check it out.

Legal

Enjoy freedom of the web while you can. While the FTC may begin regulating the disclosure of compensation toward blog authors, one has to speculate whether this extension of the FTC’s (or the FCC’s) authority will end. There are some who feel that since the Internet is in the realm of communication, it should therefore be held against the FCC’s decency standards and such. Good luck. I hope that never happens. As with the author of the previously linked article, I’m concerned what the language of this stipulation may be interpreted to mean. The implications are worrisome.

Linux

I installed Mandriva in a VM about a week ago for my own personal amusement. It hasn’t changed much. I still hate it. It is one of the most awful and disgraceful half-broken reimplementations of Red Hat ever conceived. I’m also reminded of why Yum appeared when I glance through the convoluted package manager that is urpmi. Still, nothing beats ports or portage. (I have a rant against aptitude and family, but I’ll save that for another time.)

Literature

This doesn’t really fit in the literature category, but I can’t think of a better place to put this interview with Umberto Eco. Frankly, I’ve never read any of his works nor am I familiar with him (thank you Wikipedia). What he states in Spiegel’s interview is enlightening and entertaining–maybe even a little strange.

Mathematics

Ever wondered what a three dimensional mandelbrot might look like? Wonder no more; introducing the Mandelbulb.

Operating Systems

Earlier this month, news spread that OS X Snow Leopard will break most Hackintoshes. This amuses me.

Paranormal

I’m not of the persuasion to believe ghosts exist. Rather, I believe that apophenia is the most rational explanation for unusual phenomenon attributed to paranormal events. In this sense, apophenia refers to pattern recognition made by humans that is attributed to the Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP. Nevertheless, the Scole Experiment is of vague interest. It would be interesting to repeat the experiments in a highly controlled environment, because I am skeptical that the claims made by Scole’s “researchers” are all that valid. Consider it a curio.

What sent me along this topic was my research of Carl Sagan. This isn’t exactly paranormal, but among Sagan’s suggestions of topics in need of more research was that of random number generators being influenced slightly by thoughts. Naturally, Sagan didn’t believe such a thing were possible. He did feel that science needed to put it and other claims to rest.

While this article isn’t of the paranormal, it is still a mystery–the mystery of Oak Island, to be exact. What’s buried there? Who knows!

Science

There’s an amazing tribute to Carl Sagan on Youtube called A Glorious Dawn (featuring Stephen Hawking). What an incredible use of a vocoder!

Technology

Here’s a list of 11 open source companies to watch. Unfortunately, the list is comprised of one entry per page. If you’re on a short fuse today, don’t bother. It’ll annoy you.

There is a war in progress. It is a war for the web. I’d like to subtitle this as “The Dangers of Consumerism.” Let’s just hope that the war isn’t won by media conglomerates.

Windows 7 is the most secure Windows-based OS ever. Err, maybe not. “A” for effort, I suppose. While I am a fan of Windows 7, there’s no way in hell I’d trust the OS inside an unfiltered ecosystem.

Mark Cuban has a plan to kill Google. I wonder if he’s also willing to go to jail for anti-trust violations and/or bribery? His proposal certainly smacks a great deal of the latter. Hey, Mr. Cuban, why don’t you–I dunno–try innovating?

Is there anything to like about the NoSQL crowd? Maybe!

Robert Scoble has a very worthwhile post on what he describes as the chat room/forum problem. In it, he explains why most forum-like communities “devolve” over time whereas blogs almost paradoxically increase in value. There isn’t a paradox, mind you. I won’t spoil it.

Web, The

Ever wondered what the click-through conversion rates really are? Here’s some insight.

The fate of Mr. X. Or, rather, why American Airlines is evil and stupid. If you don’t read any of the other links in this post, please read this one.

Web Technologies

How can you achieve painless registration? Here are some suggestions.

Weird and Unusual

No language is complete without a canonical “Hello, world!” application. Neither in this respect is a cornfield.

They’re on time this week! Yay!

After examining some of the related searches that have come up for my site via Google’s webmaster tools, I’ve decided that all Links of the Week will require you to click “I want to read more.” I know, it’s one extra step. I’m sorry. I don’t want Google to think my site is a link farm!

Anthropology

Meet future woman: Shorter, fatter, and more fertile. Ummm, okay.

Arachnology

Even spiders can be vegan.

Business

Here’s a discussion about “Rich v. King,” which should follow as advice related to why you ought to sell your business if you’re offered a decent sum.

Speaking of selling off, here’s another insightful entry that explains the decision at a more personal level.

Darl McBride has been booted from SCO after driving the company into the ground. Not that it matters, really. I’m sure he was laughing all the way to the bank.

Launch failures can happen in a business. In fact, this particular story Andy Swan shares is absolutely brilliant.

Duh?

So a woman who signed up for an advertising campaign that was designed to be a simulated stalking/harassment ordeal is now suing Toyota. 1) Why would a company create something like this in the first place–stalking is NOT a joking matter and 2) why would she have signed up for the campaign in the first place? This is full of stupid on both fronts.

Freedom of the Press

In one of our most neglected rights we take for granted here, the UK parliament bans their press and gives us reason to love our Bill of Rights ever more. And you guys wondered once why we thrust off the shackles of the monarchy?

History

Here’s a drawing of something called the Mordhau. I’m at a loss for words to describe it. Take a look. I’ve never seen a sword used like that before.

Coal power plant accidents never happen anymore. Right?

Humor

I think Hunter sent this one to me. Did you want to see what happens when the English version of Star Wars is translated to Chinese and back to English? Maybe not.

Linux

While I will offer some praise to Ubuntu for attempting to bring Linux to the desktop, I’ll confess that it annoys me to no end. (This is true of all Debian-based distros.) If you’re using CIFS shares, you’ve probably noticed a long delay when rebooting or shutting down the system. Here are two possible fixes. I haven’t tried the second one (I’m not sure if it’ll even work!), but if the first one doesn’t work for you, take a look at the second.

Physiology

Day dreaming may not be so bad after all.

A procedure used to treat severe epilepsy (and other seizures) has discovered a little bit more about how the brain processes language.

Programming

Want something to sink your braaaaaaaains into? Here’s a little list of “puzzlers” for Java. Try compiling them for yourself and you’ll find that a couple of the examples don’t work. This list is interesting because it highlights some of the internal behaviors of javac. What’s even more interesting is the following. Here’s what Question #2 looks like if it’s disassembled:

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Compiled from "Question2.java"
class Question2 extends java.lang.Object{
Question2();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
   4:   return
 
public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
  Code:
   0:   bipush  10
   2:   istore_1
   3:   getstatic       #2; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
   6:   new     #3; //class java/lang/StringBuilder
   9:   dup
   10:  invokespecial   #4; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder."<init>":()V
   13:  ldc     #5; //String x is
   15:  invokevirtual   #6; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.append:(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
   18:  iload_1
   19:  invokevirtual   #7; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.append:(I)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
   22:  invokevirtual   #8; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.toString:()Ljava/lang/String;
   25:  invokevirtual   #9; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
   28:  return
 
}

Now, remove the if (true) statement and disassemble the new class:

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Compiled from "Question2a.java"
class Question2a extends java.lang.Object{
Question2a();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
   4:   return
 
public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
  Code:
   0:   bipush  10
   2:   istore_1
   3:   getstatic       #2; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
   6:   new     #3; //class java/lang/StringBuilder
   9:   dup
   10:  invokespecial   #4; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder."<init>":()V
   13:  ldc     #5; //String x is
   15:  invokevirtual   #6; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.append:(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
   18:  iload_1
   19:  invokevirtual   #7; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.append:(I)Ljava/lang/StringBuilder;
   22:  invokevirtual   #8; //Method java/lang/StringBuilder.toString:()Ljava/lang/String;
   25:  invokevirtual   #9; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
   28:  return
 
}

They’re identical! Why? Because javac strips out conditionals that always evaluate to true. Thus, the code in Question #2 behaves precisely as it would if the conditional did not exist.

Here’s a link from dzone. It’s titled “JavaScript for People who are in slightly less of a Hurry – Part One.” Creative!

Are ORMs a thing of the past? A compelling article on DZone suggests otherwise. TL;DR version: hah hah, no!

Proof that Java is still the fastest language around. This article could be subtitled “Or why you shouldn’t trust Benchmarks.”

Okay, this one is more about classes, inheritance, polymorphism, and a few other dry, boring topics. I’m only linking it for the picture. Enjoy.

HN had a link to an Introduction to Clojure (Lisp for the JVM). Lisp has always made my head hurt.

What kind of math should programmers really know? Well, they need to know it just not all of it. Oh, wait, this is where I got the link to first-order logic from!

Java Rebel lets you dynamically load Java classes when they change.

Properly shuffling random data in a game can make it easier. Why? Because truly random patterns could render a game unplayable. You wouldn’t want to put a puzzle together when the pieces have random image segments that repeat indefinitely, for instance!

Science

I found this periodic table of the elements to be humorous. Now, before you start making any assumptions why I think this is funny because it’s important to understand that this chart represents a somewhat flawed view many people have of science-minded religious folk. This chart presents a biased belief that most religious types are uneducated and prefer to cover their ears when faced with scientific fact. Me? Well, I’m something of a heretic. I’m a Southern Baptist, believe evolution is the best theory we have for the development of life, and also believe the universe is some 15 billion years old. Consequently, no one likes me!

This isn’t really science. Or maybe it is. The question that’s been lingering around certain circles of academia for years has been “How would you spot an alien out there?” SETI thinks they can find aliens by radio signature. However, the most fascinating suggestion I have seen yet is to simply follow the pollution trail.

Cheap, nuclear fusion? You decide.

There’s a giant ribbon at the edge of the solar system. I guess we’re gift-wrapped.

Here’s an oldie but goodie. How do you destroy the Earth? Lots of ways but most aren’t exactly feasible. (Note: This site has been around a lot longer than the Discovery program which I believe may have been inspired by the stuff on qntm.org. I came across this a few years ago.)

Scientists have discovered a little bit more about how DNA is folded in the nucleus.

Software

IntelliJ IDEA has been released in a community edition. It’s largely useless to me since I’d have to buy it anyway to get Python support and Eclipse does reasonably well in that department. If you’re doing a lot of Java development, it might be worthwhile to take a look in case Eclipse is annoying the daylights out of you. (For all its quirks, I do happen to like eclipse.)

Release late, release rarely. Whether you agree or not–or even think this piece is satirical–it raises some really good points. “No one would be that stupid to release late,” I hear you chide. Ah, but what about the gaming industry? Blizzard is notorious for delays and their releases are infrequent (patches don’t count), but their products are always wildly popular. Think about it. (Oh, and ignore most of the comments; it appears too many posters can’t seem to look outside their own little bubble.)

Technology

So why didn’t Vista sell well? Marco Arment ponders why. TL;DR: we have only ourselves to blame. Well, and Microsoft.

If you want to enable guest access to Samba shares but don’t want to disable share authentication, this article is for you.

Random number generation is possible via pen and paper although the result isn’t quite random enough. I think I found this when I was looking up first-order logic.

Along the lines of my own project, here’s an HTPC inside a CD player.

What is it that Google Wave hopes to accomplish? It appears to be a competitor to Microsoft’s Outlook.

Sonar might make your laptopt a little smarter.

Hey, would you look at that. It appears that solid state disk drivers are improving in everything but price.

Dropbox has finally the domain everyone thought it had.

Never underestimate the power of DNS. It broke Sweden.

Wow. I’m not sure how to describe this. It’s a fascinating bit of nanoscience.

libdispatch, better known as Apple’s Grand Central has been ported to FreeBSD (PDF warning).

Web Design

Here’s a collection of sites that might be useful for web developers. I’m disappointed they linked to lorem2.com instead of lipsum.com. I like the latter better, though it’s UI isn’t as shiny. (Web designers are notoriously attracted to shiny things, so maybe that’s why lorem2 was picked!)

Smashing Magazine has a list of the top 10 CSS table designs. They’re pretty amazing!

There’s a 1 kilobyte CSS grid floating around by Tyler Tate. He’s got a few articles, too. I’d suggest reading all of them: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Ever wondered what the real differences in CSS between IE 6, 7, and 8 are? Wonder no more.

Web Technologies

Terracotta has been used in the enterprise for a while. It’s an interesting solution to the scalability problem.

Ever wondered what web fonts you could use that are safe? Here’s a list. Note that it doesn’t include the new C fonts Microsoft released in 2007.

HTML 5 meets 1998. Err, the site actually lives here. I linked to the Hacker News comments because I’m not sure it’s wholly obvious that the site geocitieslycostripod.com is a joke intended to poke fun at the individuals who have been touting HTML 5 as the solution to CSS/XHTML’s complicated nature. Take a look at the source–there’s no tables and the site really does look like something out of 1998. Plus, it validates as valid HTML 5! It’s absolutely BRILLIANT.

You’ve put together a navigation bar (horizontally, of course) and now you’re having trouble centering it. Don’t worry, it’s a tricky problem but the solution is stupidly simple if a little non-obvious.

Is Google charging you an idiot tax? If you’re a webmaster using AdWords/AdSense/AdWhatever, you might want to read this.

Web Things

I found a list of the 100 best professors who blog. Blogging: It’s not just for kids!

Did I link this last week? I can’t remember, and I don’t want to look. It’s a collection of nearly every single “under construction” banner that ever appeared on Geocities.

So what does web based marketing look like? Here’s a good approximation.

Here’s something to kick off your weekend. Enjoy.

Archaeology

Mesoamerican pyramids are just plain awesome. No, really, they are. Take a look at some of them. They even used mortar to hold rocks of varying shapes and sized together!

Astronomy

Ever lay awake at night worrying about some big rock falling out of the sky and blowing our entire civilization to bits? I’m not saying you should, but here’s some food for thought.

The universe may have more entropy than we originally thought.

Climate

Captain Bligh’s logs are apparently now a source of inspection for paleoclimatology. Cue global warming debate in 5…4…3…

Graphics

Get ready for a change of pants. GiMP will be sporting a unified interface soon. That means: one window GiMP. It’ll look a lot more like Photoshop in future versions.

Health

Maybe pandemics aren’t so bad. There’s speculation now that the 1918 flu might be responsible, if indirectly, for making this year’s variation of H1N1 mostly harmless.

Here’s a list of 10 foods that are most likely to make you sick. Scary scaremongering!

Apparently, the ability to count your heartbeat can be tied to better decision making. Here I thought it was just something called “panic!”

Legal Crap

Looks like someone else is getting sued over a patent that really ought to have prior art. This time, it’s a certain popular social networking site. Honestly, if Phoenix Media was so worried that their dear patent was so profitable, why didn’t they do something about it earlier? They’ve owned it since 2001. Eight years later, they decide to sue someone for “infringement.” I hope you idiots lose. 8 years is a long time; I wish there were some statute of limitations on patents. This trolling has got to stop, because it is destroying innovation.

Speaking of lawsuits. Toyota is slated to be sued by some small company in Florida (Floriduh?) over something that I’m not so sure the latter has even really produced. I’ve got a link to the patent and while it seems legitimate, it still makes me wonder why patent law hasn’t been revised to ensure that if you’re going to file something, you darn well better be ready to manufacture it. Instead, there’s far too many firms that spend most of their time filing for odd and unusual patents in the hopes that they can win a sort of lottery. All it takes is for one big firm to step slightly within the bounds of their patent nets and BOOM! Instant retirement.

More lawsuits. This time, if you use AJAX, you might be screwed. Honestly… Head… Desk.

Linux/Gentoo

If you’ve ever needed to get UPnP working with a Gentoo box (or any Linux distro for that matter), here’s a good place to start.

News

Rupert Murdoch is an idiot.

Office Stuff

Sooner or later, if you’re in school, they’ll probably make you use a spreadsheet to do something unusual. For starters, here is a reference for Excel that might be helpful. If you need an example of the sort of use case I have in mind, here’s one. Basically, it boils down to doing something (like counting rows) that contain a specific string.

On the other hand, if you don’t use Excel, here’s a good reference for OpenOffice.org Calc. They’re roughly the same, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble switching between Calc and Excel, however!

Politics

The comments on Slashdot surrounding Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize (what a joke!) entertain me. I’m surprised there are individuals who are actually defending it! Besides the posts made by Shakrai, whose commentary I really appreciate and enjoy, here’s another one I especially like.

Programming

If you wanted to know more about optimizing PHP, look no further. Giorgio has a great (and delightfully concise!) post on how to do precisely that. Ignore the comments; there are some complainers who posted to his blog in regards to how they feel the title he picked is misleading. I don’t know about you, but “Optimizing a PHP application in 5 minutes” sounds good to me. If anyone disagrees, they can go write their own damn posts. Giorgio: Good job, man! Don’t let those posters get you down. Your title does exactly what Jakob Nielsen suggests, and I like it!

Debugging can be painful. Here’s an interesting article on using ltrace with Python, PHP, and a few other languages.

I’ve never understood people who would work at a job doing something they don’t like, particularly when it’s tech related. Imagine writing code from 9am to 5pm and then never turning a computer on on the evening. Would you hire that person? Of course not. Now, aside from the obvious reasons that might make someone who codes as a hobby more desirable (they think it’s fun, and if they think it’s fun, they might do a better job), here’s a couple more to think about.

Drupy: Drupal meets Python (Django-based). I’m still not sure what to think. Maybe it’ll be interesting.

Programming an application may be part of the design phase NOT implementation. It’s curious to think about!

If you’ve ever had trouble understanding *args and **kwargs in Python start here. The layout is a little messy, but it’s one of the more practical guides I’ve seen that should be helpful for newcomers to the language. Surprisingly, they even cover one of the common “gotchas” that are likely to bite you.

Science

Meet the periodic table of the elements reloaded. Blech.

Technology

What impact can a single article have on the behavior of a company? You’d be surprised. There’s a wired article that appears to have Google doing something. While I agree that Usenet may have had its uses, I’m not so sure I’d refer to it as an “abandoned library.” Maybe a cesspool of years of mindless drivel with a few tasty morsels hidden inside. Outside of comp.lang, I can’t think of any other reason to preserve Usenet. Am I biased? No, of course not.

So over at the LHC (that’s the Doomsday device for those of you who don’t know), they’re thinking about testing a new form of propulsion. Slashdot mistakenly calls it a “hyperdrive” device when it instead reads like some sort of repulsive drive. Nevertheless, if it works, that’d be really cool!

Did Microsoft accidentally leak details about a new 128-bit version of Windows? Maybe so.

I love it when Apple zealots cry such sweet tears over the change in something that I think is largely unimportant. Oh no, now I have to actually use the filename extension and what the OS thinks I should use! Newsflash: Most other OSes have done the same thing for years, and having a “creator code” embedded in the file metadata seems a bit… silly. Frankly, I’ve never worried about these sorts of things. I’ve always used window managers with extensible interfaces that let me choose the application I want to open something in, and under Windows, I’ve always added shortcuts to interesting programs to my SendTo menu. Who the hell cares about what default application the OS thinks a particular file should be opened with? I don’t. Whaaa.

Consistent hashing, they call it. While most of us probably won’t have much of a use for it, if you’re designing scalable applications (on the order of magnitude of hundreds to thousands of servers), it might be important!

What happens when a bunch of geeks have entirely too much free time? This.

A long time former NASA employee and 7 time astronaut has decided to put his money where his mouth is (plus some private investors) and start working on refining plasma propulsion. Don’t read the comments, though. They make me sad. I can’t believe how many people think that this is a waste…

Unix

So I came across an interesting commentary on why ls *.c could be considered dangerous. While there are good reasons for it (see the comments on Hacker News), I think the solution is a bit… ridiculous. For one, I really don’t like Perl. Finally, why would I want to invoke another interpreter just to do something “properly” that the shell interpreter isn’t? I should think it’d be better to understand the limitations and idiosyncrasies of the shell than dare attempting to chain basic tasks together with Perl. (Disclaimer: I love Python.)

* is Unix. Okay, I think this “mini-meme” is kinda dumb, but I had to link to a list of links Jacob Kaplan-Moss has been collecting presumably to track the meme and its progress.