December 2010
50 posts
3 tags
Coolest customer service email from a robot
This might be the coolest customer service email I’ve ever gotten from a robot. I had had a Griffin Autopilot. This was great for plugging an iPod Touch into an aux jack plus charging it, plus having a play/pause button so I don’t mess with the touch screen while driving. I had it for three months and it started to have really bad sound quality.
This email has been sent to you by...
‘Dutch Sandwich’ saves Google billions in taxes -... →
One more corporation basically not paying taxes. I don’t think Google is being particularly evil here, but countries, for their own good, should have sensible tax laws that can get money out of corporations as fairly as they can tax humans.
France24 - Armenian police target teenage rock... →
Emo kids getting rounded up in Armenia. (I think this might be what emo kids always wanted.)
If Global Warming Is Real Then Why Is It Cold →
Political cartoons on how global warming must be fake because it’s cold.
Frank Chu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
San Francisco’s favorite eccentric protestor. And we thought Paul Adams, Jesus Guy with Magic Easel, at UMBC, was a character.
Hyperbole and a Half: The Year Kenny Loggins... →
In which Allie, dissatisfied with a poorly staged nativity pageant, directs her parents, grandmother, and aunt in a more awesome nativity pageant. Her criticism of the church play reminds me of act one of A Very Special Sedaris Christmas, Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol, on This American Life.
xkcd chesscoaster →
A case in which life imitates some nerd’s stick figures.
Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free -... →
Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple, tells a bunch of really relatable stories about monopoly power and how it affects sharing information. It’s Christmas and you’re home with your family. Thanksgiving was a great time to talk with your family about bizarre and invasive TSA screening practices. Now is a great time to talk with your family about net neutrality; Woz’s...
The Open Internet →
Net neutrality should matter to anyone who uses the Internet and who likes not being fleeced by big corporations. Geeks shouldn’t be the only ones who know about this, and this site does a good job of communicating what net neutrality is.
Ex-WikiLeaker Explains His Spinoff Group,... →
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, formerly of WikiLeaks, is starting OpenLeaks. OpenLeaks is different from WikiLeaks because, rather than handling vetting and publishing leaks directly, it seeds the leaks to news organizations. If WikiLeaks were clearly considered “the press” in the same way that mainstream media is, it would more clearly have protection under freedom of the press. By making a...
Douglas Adams, evidently on switching podcasts on...
For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive—you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you...
Schneier on Security: Recording the Police →
Regarding how amazing it is that it is cheap and easy, technologically speaking, to record law enforcement doing their job, or not. In my neighborhood in southwest Baltimore, when the cops show up to settle a dispute, my neighbors all whip out their cameraphones, and I’m glad they do. Schneier is right: we should have a law that makes it legal to record government officials as they interact...
99 Christmas songs for $1.99 →
I have gone from reblogging everything Kottke writes to buying everything he tells me to. (Arrested Development is still on sale, but not on crazy sale on Amazon.)
Turkeylegs: A Winter's Picnic →
A friend in Turkey describes going to a barbecue, and, because he is in Turkey, at least three things must go unexpectedly. And, he’s supposed to go Christmas caroling at the British ambassador’s house that evening.
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices -... →
From the irony department: in 2009, Amazon erased copies of 1984 off of customers’ Kindles. (The book was a bootleg placed in Amazon’s store without proper review.)
JESUS IS ___. →
A collection of things that Jesus is; the website is made by emerging church types. A lot of these are charming and funny.
The Physiology of Foie: Why Foie Gras is Not... →
I’m a vegetarian, and I thought this article was a great example of thoughtful discussion on an emotionally-charged subject.
Jerry Klein's 2006 radio experiment - Wikipedia,... →
In which a talk radio host says that all American Muslims should be marked with armbands or tattoos for easy identification; he was curious as to how his audience would react.
The Daily Patdown →
Images of people being gently caressed by the TSA. It’s perfectly legal to take pictures of the TSA screening area. To curb abuses, we should get the TSA used to being watched. Also, some of these images look pretty funny.
“In the last 5 years of writing and designing, some of my best work started out...”
– Hooray for crappy stationery (via nikf)
Joshua Kors buys iMac, writes article, sets off... →
In which a Huffington Post “Technology Blogger” gets excoriated by a stranger on the Internet for failing at using an iMac, returning it, and then writing a “Technology Column” that reveals his cluelessness about all things that are not swing dancing.
Predicting the present
Views of 2011 From 1931
Way back on September 13, 1931, The New York Times, founded in 1851, decided to celebrate its 80th anniversary by asking a few of the day’s visionaries about their predictions of 2011 - 80 years in their future. Those assembled were big names for 1931: physician and Mayo Clinic co-founder W. J. Mayo, famed industrialist Henry Ford, anatomist and anthropologist...
The Real Lessons Of Gawker’s Security Mess - The... →
Lengthy analysis accessible to geekly laypeople on how Gawker, Lifehacker, Kotaku, and Gizmodo got hacked and how Gawker Media has been doing a terrible job of responding.
Marginal Revolution: Device Lag at the FDA →
Medical device manufacturers say that dealing with the FDA is way more onerous than dealing with the European regulatory agencies, which is curious, because Europe generally has very tight regulations on things like medicine and the environment.
Glenn Beck - The Lone Voice Of Reason In An Age Of... →
The Funniest Acts Of Wikipedia Vandalism Ever →
I like the one about Batman.
Gamasutra: Adam Saltsman's Blog - Tuning Canabalt →
Canabalt is a Flash game that I’ve played for literally minutes. It’s super-minimalist, I think that the controls are all of one button. Regardless, this is a detailed account of how the feel of Canabalt is finely tuned. This reminds me of the kinematic analysis of Angry Birds in which it was determined that the red birds must be at least 70 cm in diameter, and that the blue birds...
The LlewBlog - Meat eating and hypocrisy... →
I support the proposed carnivore license plan.
Star Spangled Ice Cream →
Patriotic ice cream, by which I mean ice cream that supports our troops and not liberal causes. It’s the opposite of Ben & Jerry’s. This is real.
Arrested Development entire series: $28 →
I feel a little silly for just reblogging Kottke, but he’s so good at finding amazing things. I’m buying this now.
For DecorMyEyes, Bad Publicity Is a Good Thing -... →
Deceptive online vendor treats customers horribly because, on the Internet, there is no bad publicity. Or, rather, Google’s Pagerank treats bad and good links the same. Via Kottke who tells us that the bad guy, Vitaly Borker, has been arrested.
Amazon.com: Tron: Legacy soundtrack by Daft Punk... →
I bought this and am enjoying it now. It’s a delight. Via Kottke.
Julian Assenge of Wikileaks: Don't shoot messenger... →
Man Found Sleeping In Car Wakes Up, Drives Into... →
very small array » The United States of... →
A US map with state names filled out by Google autocomplete.
41Latitude - Google Maps & Label Readability →
A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane... →
Andrew compared this to Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things; I agree with him, this is less surreal than Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things. It’s still weird and engrossing.
We all fall down →
In which Russ Roberts of Econ Talk watches a recent soppy GM commercial, and then becomes rightfully irate.
Julian Assange Fired From IT Job At Pentagon | The... →
Google Beatbox →