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The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer. |
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Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that. |
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Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood. |
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making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms. |
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Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz. |
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(Wednesday, September 19)
Deciding to Tourniquet the Arm to Save the Hand
Spite is the default in which hackers can always relate the causality of their actions too. Sure, there may be financial gains involved, there is the personal joy associated with a good break and/or the undergrid or overgrid fame associated with a good hack, but ANY company issuing ANY internally regulated hardware or software should expect the entire brunt of leet haxors to go after any protected product they produce, if only for spite. When you take a product that embodies both a software and hardware system, this becomes doubly fun. I think everyone in America (including Apple) knew that the 1-upsmanship of iPhone unlocking was destined to happen within a few months or so of release.
What I was anticipating was the Apple rebuttal. Would it be a swift Hammurabi style reaction? Would it be the 'just don't bother us, but we can't guarantee we won't bother you' mentality in regards to apple's shiny new phone?
We are still awaiting the retaliation... it could come next week, or it could come a year down the road when they release a new version of the iPhone, but I am soo very eager to see where this leads.
For all his bluster, we all know Jobs is a savvy savvy businessman. Most people think Steve is on their side when it comes to Anti-DRM laws (I have decided not to use the word Draconian in this post), Steve writes letters and makes speeches about how it hinders business, but we have to remember that it is HIS business it hinders. Apple would love to toss DRM specifically because it costs them untold amount of money each year on versioning. And every new version, (out of Spite?) just gets cracked and moves on to the next fight with crackers.
So do I think that Steve would do the unthinkable in regards to the iPhone? Yes I do.
MS has done it to a point (didn't kill 360, just XBL), I personally could see Nintendo doing it if need be (although they seem to be letting the DS fly), Sony maybe.. (I haven't heard much about PS3 since they allowed 'nix on it)
Could Steve brick unlocked iphones? Yes.
Would he? Looking at the past I would say No, just because it would create a PR mess and in that realm Apple is pretty fucking golden.
BUT, there is a little voice in the back of my head that says he might with the iPhone. a.) because of contractual obligations with AT&T (disclaimer: my wife works for AT&T, but that doesn't influence this post) and b.) I think that if he is going to brick them, he should do it now. Strike fast, and Strike hard Kobra-Kai. Let the iphone mod community know unlocking and carrier hopping doesn't fly with Apple. You may be able to get by for a few months but Apple will pick you back up on the update end.
Will bricking work? No.
Why?
Spite.
I think Steve would only mobilize more forces. (almost sounds familiar in other contexts) Steve is in an odd position with this one. MS took the hard handed route and got by with a couple of discouraging, yet hilarious YouTube videos, but I don't think that Apple would be able to get by as well. M$ already had that reputation, which in this case just works well for them. When they started freezing XBL accounts, everyone just thought "it IS Microsoft" which gave them an advantage in these situations.
Apple doesn't really have that.
Regardless, as a non-iPhone owner, I am eager to see the next shot.
Labels: iphone
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Travis - The Boy With No Name
Travis is back. I wouldn't say I hated 12 memories, it was meant to be very political, I just thought it went a little overboard and was somewhat preachy. Then when the greatest hits CD came out to be honest I was really hoping it didn't mean the end to one of my favorite brit bands. Boy With No Name is everything they were capable of. Supurb CD all the way through. Every song is brilliant. Big Chair is probably my favorite song and the opening to the CD on 3 Times is as good as it gets in music imho. |
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Pop! Why Bubbles are Great For The Economys (Gross)
One of the better economic books I have read in while, where the author gets their premise across in a well written, clear and concise manner. Basically Gross believes that the infrastructure left over after economic bubbles, provides companies with the ability to move forward (maybe more than the original bubble did). Not a hard read, I would definitely suggest it for a day and the beach/lake. |
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Feist - The Reminder
I CANNOT GET "I feel it all" OUT OF MY HEAD. Period. Great album, angelic voice. |
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Catan - Xbox Live Arcade
I am hopelessly addicted to this board-turned-video game on the xbox360. I had never played the board game but had seen it being played in some comic shops growing up. Click the Pick and play the demo, it isn't the 360 interface, but same game. |
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Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worse Nightmare
No Sophomore slump here. Just as good (if not better) than Whatever they Say. |
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Beautiful Evidence (Tufte)
Tufte reads like a text book, most people would say bleh, but the information about "information" that he can deliver is top notch. My first Tufte book was "A Visual Display To Quantitative Information" and it was extremely well done, albeit confusing at time. I think beautiful Evidence is a little easier of a read (I am still only half way through it) and a little easier for myself to understand the ideas he is presenting.. |
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Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Fountains of Wayne are the Gods of pop music. If Welcome Interstate Managers was a collection of short stories in song form, then Traffic and Weather is an even better collection with more humor. I already feel like CNN has the hottest female anchors, imagining them throwing their lust around like the Title track to the CD makes it even better. |
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Game of Thrones (Martin)
I started this book assuming it was going to be a high fantasy novel. Elfs, Dragons, Magic and the like. It isn't. It IS fantasy but more surrounding the politics and cunning of a few high ranking families. Incest, Murder, Intrigue, unscrupulous midgets. It has it all and more. |
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
© Copyright 2003-2007, Eric Thompson |
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