I haven’t had a lot of time to dig up various links. Compounding that with the fact that the aggregators I visit have been pretty dry makes for a dry LotW!

News

Looks like the Associated Press has done something pretty stupid. Techdirt writes that Reuters should take this as an opportunity.

Programming

Paul Graham has an interesting piece on what he calls the maker’s schedule and the manager’s schedule.

Science

For a number of years, scientists have been rather puzzled by the human tendency to swing our arms as we walk. Anthropologists were inclined to believe it was a trait inherited from our evolutionary development. However, a new study has a surprising (but not unexpected) finding.

Food allergies are fairly commonplace in our society now. But what’s more peculiar is that a recent study reveals that such allergies might have a more geographical component than we thought.

Technology

Paul Graham writes about what he feels is wrong with the Segway. It makes for an entertaining read.

Looks like the Boeing 787 is going to have a hard time getting off the ground, if you pardon the pun. As it turns out, wing loading tests have indicated that the wings (and wing box) aren’t quite up to par in the new aircraft.

Television

In 1957, the BBC pulled off the biggest televised hoax ever conducted by a news agency. How? By showing a “bumper” spaghetti crop grown, of course, on spaghetti trees.

Travel

I’ve linked this elsewhere, but I feel it’s important to share here as well. Scott Fisher wrote a lengthy article detailing his trip into North Korea back (I’m guessing) in 2002. The Orwellian world of the NK regime is fascinating–frightening, in fact–and well worth reading about.

I have an incredible load of links this week. In fact, there’s so many in this post that I’m going to have to truncate it by making you click on the “read more” link (below). No, I’m not kidding. This week has delivered.

So, what are you waiting for? Click that puppy!

Updated Thursday.

Read more…

Yeah, so I lied. Thursday didn’t happen. Friday didn’t happen. Hopefully today will. I’ve been pretty busy working on a few other things (Will knows) and will be unveiling a new layout either later tonight or tomorrow. I’m also planning on cleaning it up and releasing it as a free WordPress theme. If I get a few creative streaks, I might even make a few extra themes here and there.

Following along with a LotW layout I did about two weeks ago, I’m just going to write random rubbish about some of the things I stumbled upon in the last four or five days.

Programming/Scripting

Google’s progress on Unladen Swallow is moving ahead nicely.

Digging through my bookmarks, I came across this gem related to JavaScript arrays. If you’ve ever wanted to know how to create associative arrays (although they’re not technically associative arrays) in JS, look no further. It’s also a great reference if you happened to forget the exact syntax after playing around with a few other languages in the interim.

Khaled alHabache has an insightful write-up on Scala. I’ve been eyeing the language off for a couple of months now, but I think he’s convinced me to give it a try. It seems appealing.

Adrian Pelletier has an article that explains how to create a realistic hover effect using jQuery. I’m not sure what utility this would have for most sites, but I imagine flashy media sites that refuse to use Adobe Flash might find a use. (Note: This is a good example of JavaScript supplanting Flash in some cases; using Flash for menus and simple animations? Ridiculous.)

DIY

Did you know that simple and fairly common household items can make your old plastic hardware look new again? Surprised me, too!

Hardware

Speaking of hardware, I’ve finally decided to replace my ages old SoundBlaster Live! with this puppy. It should be coming in tomorrow afternoon sometime. I’ll take some pictures and write up a brief review.

Well, that’ll be it for now. I need to do some work on a new template!