December 2011
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December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Skeptical Solstice! from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (updated daily)
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Muppet Christmas Carol
Muppet Christmas Carol will be 20 next year. That means that people born after this film came out are old enough to have children that are old enough to tell you that their parents weren’t born when this film came out.
from Wanna Feel Old?
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The Psychology of Child’s Play
Many of you may be familiar with the Child’s Play charity that was started by the guys behind the video game webcomic Penny Arcade. Since 2003, the organization has encouraged gamers to donate new video games (or cash or other toys) to children’s hospitals around the world so that little Timmy can distract himself from chemotherapy by teabagging some poor son of a bitch in Call of Duty. Coming...
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How Do You Deal With Overstressed, Irrational...
As an entrepreneur who has been on the client’s side of the design and development process, I’d like to discuss the thought process of the client, as well as some effective ways to interact with them. For example, why do they ask for Shakira music on the home page? And how do you respond to that?
I was recently referred to Sam Barnes’ piece on Smashing Magazine “How to Explain to Clients That...
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In which I am a Trolldad
Ryan’s home for the holidays, before he moves far, far away for his new job (hey, check out my son! He graduated college last week, and he starts a great job in two weeks! Go Ryan!!)
The first night he was home, I told him that the warm covers for the bed he’s sleeping on were in the dryer, so he could get them out when he was ready to go to sleep.
The conversation went something...
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Mapping Out The Revolving Door Between Gov't And...
Via Larry Lessig we get series of Venn diagrams showing the revolving door between big business and government. When people talk about regulatory capture, this is what they mean. When people talk about corruption and crony capitalism, this is what they mean. If you want a quick visual idea of why so few people trust this government to do the right thing for the people, rather than the big...
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Artificial retina restores vision, communicates...
The best way to communicate with someone is undoubtedly to speak in the same language, and that’s exactly what a new prosthetic eye (which we saw last year) is designed to do in people with some retinal diseases. Neuroscientist Shelia Nirenberg of Cornell University explained her solution at a TEDMED talk recently, saying that by understanding and using the brain’s code, sent in the...
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US Senator: Preserving Videogame History Wastes...
In a report called “Wastebook 2011,” Senator Tom Coburn included a $100k grant to preserve videogame artifacts.
View Article
from The Escapist : Latest News
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Ditch GoDaddy, Move Your Domains to Hover or an...
Full disclosure: I used to work as the Tech Evangelist for Tucows, a competitor of GoDaddy, creator of OpenSRS and Hover’s parent company.
There’ve been plenty of reasons not to use GoDaddy as your domain name registrar. From those cheesy “sex sells” ads to their constant upselling – domains aren’t really just their business; they’re just a loss leader they use to lure you in to sell you more...
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The dangers of video games
I was going to train a frog to spare my thumbs the repetitive stress injuries, but now I see that that will never work.
from Pharyngula
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The Trail Goes On (Goodbye Mr. Hitchens)
from Friendly Atheist
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An Atheist Sign at an Air Force Base Has Already...
A sign reading “Have a safe holiday season,” donated by American Atheists and sponsored by Travis M*A*S*H (an atheist group), can now be seen at the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California: Staff Sergeant Dan Rawlings had to fight to get that sign up there, despite there already being a Nativity Scene and a Jewish Menorah on the premises. And a day hadn’t even gone by before someone...
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The perfect games industry pricing model
In all these days of bundles and steam sales and DLC and blah blah, people are happy to shout loudly about what they think about any particular pricing model or experiment, but I don’t come across much discussion about pricing models in theory, from first principles.
So I’m going to ask, in theory, given magical powers to make anything work (like workable DRM, or perfectly rational...
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Migrating From Subversion To Git Quickly With...
Advertise here with BSA First of all, if you already are not using any version control systems, you definitely should. As, sometimes, the ability to bring back a single line of code is priceless.
Subversion and Git have both pros and cons however, lately, it is certain that Git is getting more popular over Subversion.
If you are planning to migrate to Git but searching for a solution...
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Nearly a Third of Americans Are Arrested by the...
Comments
from Hacker News
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iOSTO - Toronto's iOS community
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from Hacker News
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Introduction To Designing For Windows Phone 7 And...
Microsoft’s new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 (WP7), introduces a fresh approach to content organization and a different UX, based on the Metro design language and principles that will be incorporated into Windows 8. It also targets a different market than its predecessor: instead of being designed mainly for business and technology workers, WP7 is targeted at active people with a busy...
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Net Magazine's "20 HTML5 Sites that changed the...
Thanks to Opera’s Bruce Lawson (@brucel) sharingthe link on Twitter I discovered Oli (@boblet)Studholme’s ”2011 in review: 20 HTML5 sites that changed the game” piece on netmagazine.com. It’s a great showcase of pages that exploit new web technology to good effect. I first saw the link while browsing with the Android 2.3 browser on a Motorola Photon and was...
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A Suite of JavaScript Audio Codecs
Advertise here via BSA Web browsers are becoming more and more powerful, and new APIs like the Web Audio API and Audio Data API are making the web an ever more interesting and dynamic place. At ofmlabs they are invested in improving the state of audio on the web, and with JSMad showed that decoding audio purely in JavaScript is possible thanks to these APIs and the hard work of browser makers and...
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Least I Could Do: 2011-12-20
from Least I Could Do
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Thanks for giving these morons a voice, internet
Oh twitter, sometimes you sap away the only remaining hope I have for humanity. The unfiltered garbage that’s excreted out of the mouths of cretins is enough to drive you mad. Eventually, you reach a threshold of tolerance where it all sounds eeirly similar to bees buzzing around. Once in a while, you find a few hot topics that really make our species truly shine, in both verbosity and compassion...
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SASS: Subtle Artificial Sassy Server
(Arcade | Pennsylvania, USA) (I’m working the cash register at an arcade. This arcade is known for having an animatronic band that performs.)
Me: “Hi, can I help you?”
Customer: “Medium pizza, pepperoni on half…” *mumbles and trails off*
Me: “Can you please repeat that last part?”
Customer: *mumbles*
Me: “I’m sorry, a medium pizza with pepperoni on half and what else?”
Customer, to his son:...
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This cartoon is spending too much time on the...
from See Mike Draw
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Veiled Testimony: Is It Fair If You Can’t See Your...
I have an affinity for cases in which the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment bumps up against some other law, especially some other fundamental right, such as Freedom of Speech. Here is a compelling example of just that kind of case coming out of Canada: Are the rights of the accused violated if a witness is allowed to testify while wearing a veil? Or, put another way, can people testify...
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Misguided protesters should ‘occupy’ Apple, former...
Comments
from Hacker News
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The Last Unicorns
The Last Unicorns
from The Perry Bible Fellowship
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Dave Winer in a Nutshell?
Edd Dumbill says it’s time for me to write a book.
I want to write a book. The reason to write a book is so that I can go on tour with the ideas. The system still caters to book authors, not bloggers. Really weird. But change comes slowly.
If I had a book I’d be able to go on NPR shows. Might even get an invite to speak at an O’Reilly conference.
Problem is that...
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One week until Christmas
I hope you’ve all gotten yourself straight with the big guy in the red suit.
(via Scott Brundage)
from Pharyngula
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Charles Stross draws the lines – accurately –...
* title borrowed from Mark Pesce‘s tweet linking to Stross’s blogpost.
Here is Charlie Stross’s ‘view of contemporary US politics’ / flame-war bait. Watch him link SOPA and ‘the Coming Insurrection‘ in eight easy-to-follow steps (some steps not shown):
1. The USA is already a functional oligarchy. (Or, more accurately, a plutarchy.) It has been functioning as such for some time — since 1992 at...
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Helping a client plan a trip.
Client: Is it cold...
Helping a client plan a trip.
Client: Is it cold in Alaska?
Me: Yes, definitely. You should bring warm clothes.
Client: So I should bring a sweater?
Me: Ma’am, you are going dog sledding on a glacier…
Client: …
Me: Maybe even bring two sweaters.
from Clients From Hell
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A history of public toilets in Toronto
Everyone knows what it’s like for nature to call when you’re miles from a clean and comfortable bathroom. Often sneaking unnoticed into a busy fast food joint is the only viable option in a crisis, and even then you have to cross your fingers you don’t get someone else’s urine on your shoes. If you think about it, shouldn’t there be more public facilities to cater to...
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Arkansas Superintendent Puts Up Nativity Scene in...
Jerry Noble, the superintendent of the Green County Tech school district in Arkansas, must hate his job. He’s doing everything in his power to push his faith onto students, just hoping and waiting for someone to bring on a lawsuit: “Enough is enough,” said Jerry Noble, superintendent of the Green County Tech school district. “It’s His birthday. We celebrate Jesus’ birthday. One person should not...
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Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not...
I’m starting to resent Apps like I resented CD-ROMs. I started playing this evil little game called Tiny Tower last week. It’s effectively a Sim-Tower-heroin-clone-resource-management game. Every few hours I return to feed the beast make sure the little “Bitizens” are OK. Moving things, managing resources, restocking virtual shelves with new virtual goods....
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Military Tebowing: Tacky or Unconstitutional?
US Troops Pushing Christianity on Muslim Children
By now, you’ve heard plenty about Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his public displays of faith. Maybe it’s not a big deal to you and you turn up your intellectual nose at professional sports, but this guy, for all intents and purposes, is preaching to tens of millions of Americans every week, whether they like it or not.
One result...
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The Farce Is Strong In This One
(I am a customer shopping through DVD sales on Black Friday. A young boy runs up to look as well.)
Boy: “Look, dad! Star Wars!”
(The boy picks up the movie and looks closer. It is Episode 2, with Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman on the cover.)
Boy: “Wait. This isn’t the real Star Wars. What is this? Hey, dad, why are they pretending to be Star Wars?”
from Not Always Related | Funny &...
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Farewell Christopher Hitchens
from Ape, not monkey
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Mobile web fails
WTF Mobile Web collects screenshots of web sites that fail on mobile devices.
Link: WTF Mobile Web (wtfmobileweb.com) No mobile web for two inch screens
Mobilising the web
Mobile Web 2.0 Summit
Small Surfaces designs amazing mobile and device UI. Learn morefrom Small Surfaces
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The Golden Age Of Crazy
(My best friend and I are at a small café. My friend drops and bottle lid on the floor, I pick it up. Soon after, a man approaches us.)
Man: *to friend* “Excuse me, do you have a grandmother?”
Friend: “Uh… yes?”
Man: “If your grandmother slipped on a bottle lid and broke her hip, you’d be sad, right?”
Friend: “Yeah, but…”
Man: “If she broke her hip, she’d probably die. How would you feel to...
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Yes, We’re Serious
Reports surfaced this morning that the gentlemen over at The Cartoonist Studio (http://bit.ly/vyJ7gU) have launched their 2nd annual cartooning contest. The Daily Cartoonist reports that the contest will kick off February 6th. The Grand Prize? Your comic will run on GoComics.com and you will be paid “any advertising money generated on [the comic’s] GoComics.com page.” And… AND… an electronic-book...
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Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA)
Anti-aliasing has an intimidating name, but what it does for our computer displays is rather fundamental. Think of it this way — a line has infinite resolution, but our digital displays do not. So when we “snap” a line to the pixel grid on our display, we can compensate by imagineering partial pixels along the line, pretending we have a much higher resolution display than we...
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How Dare Those Atheists Share Public Space with...
(A response to this story)
from Friendly Atheist
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Paternalistic Patriarchal Surgeons And A...
A philosopher was faced with the choice between a vitally necessary surgery and giving up the chance to have children. This was an easy choice for her to make, but a hard one for the surgeons to accept:
I assured the surgeons, my partner and I weren’t planning on having kids. Naively, I thought this extra bit of information would settle the matter. As it turned out, it had surprisingly little...
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UN to Canada: “If you won’t investigate Aboriginal...
Via a press release by Native Women’s Association of Canada, evidently the United Nations will be stepping in to investigate the significantly higher murder rates of Aboriginal women in Canada after law enforcement has essentially failed to adequately investigate.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has decided to conduct an inquiry into the murders and...
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Infinity Ward Issuing "Temporary" 13.5 Year MW3...
If you’ve been banned from Modern Warfare 3, you can start playing again in another 5,000 days.
View Article
from The Escapist : Latest News
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A common atheist delusion
This is just the weirdest thing: Julian Baggini discovers that believers believe. Baggini is an atheist who has in the past sniped at the New Atheists a fair bit; he’s argued that we’re an uninformed bunch who rail against straw man theism, because, he has argued, most practitioners of religion are followers of practice, not belief — they go to church for ritual and community, and all the dogma is...
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Timelinks: Linking 3D Interactive Timelines in the...
Timelinks is a new start-up, based in Brooklyn, New York. It is currently developing a new kind of 3D timeline interface that highlights the relationships between people and the moments when paths cross. The idea is that Timelinks will catalogue all the images one has stored in the cloud and on social media websites. As a unique feature, it will visually ‘link’ the timelines of...
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Facebook Platlas: Social Media Atlas Reveals All...
Platlas - the Facebook Version [platlas.com] is not one of easiest interactive infographics around, as its attempts to provide a better understanding of the driving principles behind social media, and Facebook in particular. Branded as the “first ever social network ecosystem exploration tool”, it starts from revealing the variety of actions users tend to take on the various social...