James Kew: Linkblog

Netflix Community Blog: Todd Speaks: 1/2 Stars

2007-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

The tyranny of choice in action on Netflix: “when we make the ½ star options possible, we get fewer ratings. […] Our best guess is that the complexity of doubling the number of choices from 5 to 10 deters many people from rating, so they just give up.”

Scripting News: What to do?

2006-12-23T18:15:00.000-08:00

Three 3.5+ magnitude earthquakes in Berkeley in the last 3 days. We got a light rattling here, but Dave Winer’s on-the-spot description is a lot more evocative: “felt like a truck hitting the house […] quick but loud.” (But at the risk of sounding callous: if you hate quakes so much, why buy a house so close to the Hayward Fault?)

plasticbag.org: On the design of American State flags

2006-09-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

Tom Coates casts a quizzical eye on some of the state flags: “the flag for Arkansas reminds me of the label of a sardine can.” Bonus link from the comments: Snopes’ “no, I meant a pear” urban legend. Believe them? Check here.

Boing Boing: Amazon Unbox to customers: Eat shit and die

2006-09-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Cory Doctorow dissects the Amazon Unbox user agreement: “Amazon Unbox takes away your privacy and every conceivable consumer right you have, and then tells you that the goods you buy from them don’t belong to you, and they can take them away from you at any time, or change the deal you get from them without any appeal by you.” Even filtered through Doctorow’s evangelically anti-DRM stance, this is strong stuff.

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

2006-09-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

The abstract alone should scare the willies out of you; the full paper just gets scarier and scarier. Election-stealing voting machine viruses: glub.

SFGate.com: New Stamps Misspell 'Motorcycle'

2006-09-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

USPS finds a typo in a first-day cover postmark. Response: “[buyers] can still order the version with the incorrect postmark”. Very clever: most collectors will want both versions.

Guardian Unlimited Books: Hoax love letter fools Betjeman biographer

2006-08-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Nicely done: fake letter contains coded insult to A.N. Wilson. (Update: warring biographers.)

Boing Boing: Animation historians blast SF Chron movie critic

2006-08-18T23:41:00.001-07:00

And on the subject of Monster House: the Chron's Mick LaSalle doesn’t understand animation; animators respond eloquently. (via Boing Boing)

By Ken Levine: Pirates of the Caribbean

2006-08-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ken on the what-the-hell-was-all-that Pirates sequel: “If only the movie was six minutes and the ride took two and a half hours.” (Monster House was a much better cartoon…)

Workbench: Finding Good Soundbites in Bad Podcasts

2006-08-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Rogers neatly sums up why I dislike podcasts: “Content that sucks in two dimensions. A bad podcast suffers both in quality and in the amount of time required to find this out. I could’ve back-buttoned 60 bad blog entries in the time I listened to one Gillmor Gang.” The comments and correction also identify another problem: sometimes it's hard to tell who’s speaking...

SFGate.com: 'Hybrid' Creature Is Just a Dog

2006-08-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Somehow this story strongly reminds me of The League Of Gentlemen: “Some form of monstrous basilisk, the like of which the world has never seen.” / “You haven’t seen a goat, a pig and a chimp anywhere?”

SFGate.com: RICE-A-REDUX / After a 7-year hiatus, it's billed once again as the San Francisco treat

2006-08-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Rice-A-Roni was traditionally “The San Francisco Treat”: why? The Chronicle on the possible return of the slogan; and asks “when was Rice-A-Roni ever the civic pride of San Francisco?”

Bay Area Bites: It's It: The San Francisco Treat

2006-08-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

Bay Area Bites on the It’s It. Yes, it really is that good. (Andronico’s now sell the mint ones as well as the traditional vanilla; both very good.) (Google has custom It’s-Its.)

SFGate.com: Cougars rattle Rossmoor by going about their lives

2006-08-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

Old news, but I like the self-directed humor of one interviewee in this piece: “Half the people here can’t see, the other half can’t hear, the rest can’t think.” (Somewhat sobering: most of the results returned from a Chronicle search for “rossmoor” are obituaries.)

BBC NEWS: MP sorry for 'inbreeding' remarks

2006-08-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

Norfolk MP suggests constituents are inbred; an Alan Partridge moment?

SFGate.com: 1,000 pet rodents euthanized; rat lovers furious

2006-06-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

A sad story, redeemed somewhat by the bizarre final paragraph: “He’s an intelligent man to talk to, but he smells like rat urine.” Well, nobody’s perfect.

Instructables: Always have Correct Change in your wallet

2006-06-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

A vaguely appealing optimization, but surely pulling one of these out of your wallet would scream “NERD ALERT”? (via MAKE:Blog)

Tea Leaves: The Soul of A New Machine

2006-06-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

psu on The Soul of a New Machine. I agree entirely—it’s a great, great book, and as much about the personalities (and the burnouts) as the technology. (“I have gone to live on a commune in Vermont and will deal in no unit of time shorter than a season.”)

37signals: Does this company respect me? Try the sticker test.

2006-06-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

“If there’s a sticker on the product, and it peels off cleanly, then they’re a respectful company.” Which neatly confirms what the music industry thinks of us: those god-awful tags along the top edges of CDs never peel off cleanly. (via Coding Horror)

Washington Post: Behind the Scenes at Disney World

2006-06-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

The WP on Disney's behind-the-scenes tours. “Just remember, there are some hand gestures we don't do at Disney.” (via BoingBoing)

Guardian Unlimited Arts: 'It was complete, visceral excitement'

2006-06-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

The Guardian looks back on the Who's Live At Leeds: “the most explosive live album ever”.

rogerebert.com: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties

2006-06-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Is Ebert losing it? On his TV show he often seems to wander into trivial non-sequiturs; and now this review written entirely in Garfield’s voice? WTF, Roger? (Not that Roeper’s conservative misogyny is any better; does he inherit when Ebert checks out?)

A Whole Lotta Nothing: Myutterconfusionspace

2006-05-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

I also like Matthew Haughey’s “get the hell off my lawn you crazy kids!” bafflement at MySpace: “When you click from one [profile] to another to another, you are transported back to Geocities back before Yahoo bought it, flaming animated gifs and all. […] Apple has made the iPod the most popular music player on earth, but it’s clean as a whistle. How could the same people love their super sleek music player and also love the gaudy oversaturated flashing/pulsating monstrosity of their Myspace profile?”

Pete Ashton's Weblog: The Future of Music

2006-05-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Pete on MySpace and music: “to understand its success you have to understand the appalling state of band websites. Invariably built in Flash they were impossible to navigate, obfuscated all the important information, were never updated and often made you register before you could hear any music. By contrast a MySpace music page has everything you need on one page—band members, influences, biography, tour dates and, most importantly, the actual music. You could cover it in shit and it would still be an improvement.”

Foolish Vanity: The Royal Wee

2006-05-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

On Windsor: “The castle looms over the town in a very regal way, and the rest of the town nestles around its feet like a brick and timber blanket.”

Workbench: I Enjoy Particularly Rigorous Specs

2006-05-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

Rogers Cadenhead on why specifications matter—and why sloppy specs hurt. (And worth it for his take on RFC 2119: “You SHOULD read it. I RECOMMEND it highly.”)

Coding Horror: Code Smells

2006-05-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Jeff Atwood on smelliness. (I share his feelings on Refactoring: too dogmatic, too much of a catalogue, and often too obvious.)

XML.com: Dynamic News Stories

2006-05-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Adrian Holovaty explores some ideas to make online publishing more dynamic than the current “slap the article text on a web-page” model. Very clever.

SFGate.com: Elephant Not Interested in Using Treadmill

2006-05-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Probably my favourite headline of the week. Well, they are highly intelligent, you know…

Adactio: The ugly American

2006-05-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Jeremy is not a fan of Paul Graham: “essentially a Thatcherite screed about why businesses should be able to get away with doing anything they want and treat employees like slaves”. [Update: more on this from Tom Coates.]

SFGate.com: Famed bookstore's last chapter -- Cody's on Telegraph to close

2006-05-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Cody’s is going. Telegraph in decline? (Hard to see how Rasputin and Amoeba keep going, given that for used music Amazon Marketplace trounces them on both selection and choice...)

New York Times: This Boring Headline Is Written for Google

2006-04-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

Search engines could kill the art of the newspaper headline: “Software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing.”

ContraCostaTimes.com: Trader Joe's in, Albertson's out

2006-03-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

Oh yes: Trader Joe’s within walking distance. Life is good. (And what an overly-sentimental picture the article paints of the old Albertsons, which was small, run-down, and seedy. I hope TJ’s clean it up a bit before they move it…)

Tea Leaves: Sloth, Ignorance and Denial

2006-03-28T20:18:00.000-08:00

psu skewers an NYT piece on a peculiar phenomenon: meal assembly centers. “The value proposition for one of these prep-cook services is something like this: you pay them premium prices for food that you could probably buy at the deli for not much more. In return, you go to their house and help them finish the dishes for you.” How odd. (Oh, and bravo to this: “In this day and age, a man who can't cook is a pathetic creature indeed.”)

UMN news: Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority

2006-03-27T22:57:00.000-08:00

“Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. ” Well guess what, America: us atheists often see the Christian majority as a threat to our way of life… And where does the 3% come from? The Census Bureau can’t ask, but table 67 of the 2004-2005 Statistical Abstract of the United States suggests it’s either a lot less (902 of 207,980 (0.4%) self-identified as “atheist”) or a lot more (29,481 (14.2%) in total as “no religion”. (via Metafilter, although pickings are thin in the resulting thread)

rogerebert.com: A 'Grizzly' matter

2006-03-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

Roger Ebert, asked about Discovery Channel’s showing of Grizzly Man—a fantastic documentary absolutely butchered by ad breaks every 8 minutes—gets a reply from director Walter Herzog himself. (Bonus link: the LA Times on how Grizzly Man, a far better documentary than those dratted penguins, failed to get even an Oscar nomination.)

i was just really very hungry.: Milking the Soy Bean

2006-03-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

I can’t imagine ever having the time to do it myself, but wow: maki's detailed instructions for making soy milk and for turning it into tofu make fascinating reading.

salon.com: If my wife dressed better, would gay guys stop hitting on me?

2006-03-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

Salon’s advice column annoys me—it always seems to have a lingering note of smugness—but this one’s just bizarre. (And is it just me that’s reminded of this Onion piece?)

ContraCostaTimes.com: Brit hikes, blogs

2006-03-23T06:53:00.000-08:00

Yep: it’s me.

Whatever: Post-Oscar Thoughts

2006-03-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

John Scalzi is more measured, less sweary: “[Crash] is not a bad film; in fact, it’s a rather good film. But it’s not a great film, nor the best film of 2005, or even the best film of the nominees. It is, however, a very lucky film, and this year that’s good enough.” (I was rooting for the cowboys.)

plasticbag.org: Watching the Oscars...

2006-03-05T22:08:00.001-08:00

Brokeback Mountain is robbed; Tom Coates is not happy. “Fucking hell! Fucking Crash wins?! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Right. I’m done. Screw you, Oscar! I’m going home.” (See also Tom’s initial review: “However beautiful it was, there was still somewhere in all the pain a deeply missed and wonderful opportunity.”)

Re-Imagineering

2006-03-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Insider blogging on the problems at Disney’s parks: strangely compelling. “The Disney Company is unique in that, with Disneyland, your customers are physically strolling around in the foundation of your brand. […] This is not an opportunity you'd want to skimp on.” (via BoingBoing)

The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed

2006-03-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

On the Hitchhiker’s Guide: “There was a movie that perfectly captured the Douglas Adams experience, the combination of bitter sarcasm and sharp imagination, the droll British wit and whale-exploding slapstick that infused his novels. And that movie was Shaun of the Dead.” (And I too remember the vivid contrast between that Alien 3 trailer—Aliens on Earth!—and the glum, claustrophobic movie we ended up with.) (via Slashdot)

Tea Leaves: Late to the Party

2006-03-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

Note to self: read The Count of Monte Cristo. (And a big “me too” to his opinion of Dune: “a book with a compelling story but that is so badly written that you should read [the] Cliff”s Notes version instead.” I found it utterly unreadable.)

Tea Leaves: Curious George

2006-03-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

psu liked Curious George too: “seeing the pastel shaded little monkey get up and start walking around was just magic.”

Cooking with Amy: A Food Blog: Favorite Things: Breath Palette

2006-02-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Oddball Japanese toothpaste, in 31 flavours. Curry toothpaste? Very Red Dwarf.

Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing

2006-02-26T19:08:00.000-08:00

Tips for better writing, from a professional: short, funny, and accurate. “If you actually want to be a better writer, you have to be a better writer every time you write.”

Russell Beattie Notebook: WTF 2.0

2006-02-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

Russ compares the “make cool toy; give it away free; …?” Web 2.0 bubble to the mobile market: “I deal with companies every day who have no qualms about charging 25 cents to send 160 characters of data from one person to another, or who have no problems charging $3.00 for a 10kb .gif image or a bad .midi version of a popular song, or even up to $10.00 for a small Java clone of Tetris— a 20 year old game. Unlike the web world, the mobile world is accustomed to charging for every thing that has the slightest bit of value.”

i was just really very hungry.: Restaurant Blinde Kuh

2006-02-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

Dining in total darkness. Sounds a little impractical—how do you locate your food—but fascinating.

The Amateur Gourmet: The Polenta Post

2006-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

“Foodies are often polenta bullies. ‘You should have polenta in your pantry,’ they’ll tell you. ‘I make polenta all the time,’ they’ll brag. ’I named my first born child Polenta.’” Nonetheless, this makes me want to take another try at polenta; despite the bland, mushy results of my first attempt.

101 Cookbooks: Valentine's Chocolate Fondue

2006-02-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

I like the sound of this…

maps.huge.info: Zip Code Boundary Map

2006-02-10T23:41:00.000-08:00

Nice use of Google Maps: where's the boundary of my zip code? my town? my county? I particularly like the click-on-the-map-to-explore nature of this one. (See also MelissaData’s comprehensive set of lookups, although I don’t like their we’d-rather-you-registered daily limit; and Ben Fry’s lovely zipdecode applet.)

MSN Autos: Gas Prices for 94596

2006-02-10T23:17:00.000-08:00

Pretty much tells me what I already know: the cluster of stations around Ygnacio and Main consistently have the cheapest gas (often as cheap as, and a lot closer than, Costco); Rotten Robbie in Alamo, an old favourite of the in-laws, doesn’t measure up; and it’s cheaper to fill up near home than near work. (via Scobleizer)

The Fishbowl: A Slice of Life

2006-02-10T22:46:00.000-08:00

Charles Miller: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a nerd than I did in that moment.” But surely that fades into insignificance alongide the sheer Comic Book Guy übernerdiness of this proposal to ISO/IEC; “enjoys both scholarly and popular use” indeed.

Refund Please

2006-02-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

Amazon refunds you the difference if they reduce a price within 30 days of purchase? News to me, and I can’t find any mention of this policy on Amazon’s help pages. Is this for real? (via Rod Begbie at Groovy Mother, who says it is)

Dan’s Data: Peculiar pens

2006-02-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

I particularly like the Rainbow Titanium Bullet: ooh, shiny.

Cool Tool: Tick Twister

2006-02-07T22:14:00.000-08:00

Where were these when I needed them? (via BoingBoing; see also the manufacturers’ engagingly French website)

Whatever: Early Oscar Thoughts, 2006 Edition

2006-02-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Hollywood makes great movies, but nobody sees them: “At this moment, the three highest-grossing Best Picture nominees (Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Munich) have done less business in aggregate than the single Adam Sandler film The Longest Yard. […] The film industry is failing at the task of marrying art and commerce—or, at the very least, failing at the task of convincing moviegoers that art is worth seeing.”

Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the Frontiers of Pornography

2006-02-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

Damn; I'll never watch Sandra Lee the same way again. Pinging Armchair Cook. (also an interview with the author at On The Media; via The Old New Thing)

chickenortuna.com: Test Your Knowledge of Chicken and Tuna

2006-01-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly difficult.

taquitos.net: Worst Chips Ever

2006-01-30T22:54:00.000-08:00

From the curiously obsessive taquitos.net: the Worst Ever. OK, Crispy Fried Chicken Skins I can see; but Monster Munch Pickled Onion the fourth worst ever? Nooooo: generations of English schoolboys disagree.

SFGate.com: Americans' Savings Rate Declines in 2005

2006-01-30T20:53:00.000-08:00

Americans’s personal savings rate was negative last year; for the first time since the Great Depression. *boggle*.

Official Google Blog: Google in China

2006-01-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Google squirms on the censorship hook. See also Charles Miller’s quietly devastating A Tale Of Two Googles (elegantly sidestepping the E-word); Shelley Powers’ truthfully resigned Green, Green, The Grass Is Green (“Google issues another beta or releases another new toy, and the pundits stop in mid-indignant outburst with murmurs of ‘Oooo, shiny. New toy.’”).

NME.COM: Grandaddy split up

2006-01-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

Aw. But were they ever going to be able to live up to The Sophtware Slump, anyway?

Signal vs. Noise: Four things

2006-01-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

Popping the tedious meme, and about time too: there's nothing more tedious than lists of lists.

Wikipedia: In-N-Out Burger

2006-01-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

Oddly obsessive; see also Snopes on the subtle Bible citations on In-N-Out packaging.

Badmouth: in-n-out’s secret menu

2006-01-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

In-N-Out’s secret burgers; as seen elsewhere on the web, but these come tried and tested with photographic proof. Animal Style looks like a winner to me. (Taken too far, things turn ugly: the 20x20; the 100x100. via BoingBoing.)

The Amateur Gourmet: What I Can Tell You About The Taping I Attended of "Iron Chef America" Without Having To Pay The Food Network $1,000,000

2006-01-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

...it’s (mostly) a setup: “These people know or at least have a very good idea of what the secret ingredient is going to be. And with all the stops and starts and editing and lack of music, a live performance of Iron Chef America is as tense as watching two 90 year olds play a game of hopscotch.” No big surprise, given that we never see the chefs pausing to plan recipes or timings: something which I would find as interesting as the cooking…

but she’s a girl: Plastic peril

2006-01-26T20:18:00.000-08:00

bsag rants on the increasing trend towards welded-shut plastic packaging: “This breed requires some kind of bolt cutter (or other fearsomely sharp tool which can exert tremendous force), heavy leather gloves and a safety net or mattress.” These annoy me too, particularly when a tiny item—most recently, an SD card—comes surrounded by enough plastic to encase a largish book…

MediaGuardian.co.uk: BBC's Jesus sings Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

2006-01-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

Manchester Passion: “The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and featuring songs by The Smiths and New Order.” So weird it must be true, unless the Guardian is pulling some sort of TVGoHome-inspired hoax… (via Metafilter, who make the obvious I Am The Resurrection suggestion.)

Phil Gyford: A trip to the Falkland Islands

2006-01-22T13:23:00.000-08:00

Offbeat tourism; the journey sounds awful, the destination terrific. “Like many of my formative memories, there are grown adults alive now who weren’t even born when these things happened. So I guess there are people in the UK who haven’t heard of the place.”

Famous for 15 megapixels: Beware the Eight Passion Proteins

2006-01-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

Now hey; I wouldn't say I was “old London”—I lived there from 1988 to 1995—but I remember the “LESS PASSION FROM LESS PROTEIN” guy very clearly. (And how utterly cool that the Museum of London has preserved his placards…)

MercuryNews.com: Freeway becomes a runway

2006-01-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

Plane lands on southbound 680 — my commute route, about 10 minutes away from work. I’m amazed they found a clear enough stretch. “You see a lot of things on the freeway, but you never think you’re going to see something like this.” (via Jeremy Zawodny)

i was just really very hungry.: OMG, Turducken

2005-12-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

OMG indeed: 3 hours boning poultry?

Official Google Blog: I'm feeling silly

2005-12-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

“Three weeks later, I had an eighth of a ton of Silly Putty delivered to my desk.”

Cinema Blend: Brokeback Mountain

2005-12-23T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hints for movie reviewers: it’s hard to read a review as objective when it’s laced with “eeww, butt-sex” squeamishness. And despite the not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with that opening, the closing paragraph’s “in my home state of Texas, we just outlawed gay marriage” is rather more revealing, no? (via Google Movies. See also the thoughtful reviews by Mick LaSalle and Roger Ebert; and a big hoorah to Advocate's skewering of the “aren’t they brave” hoopla: “I seem to have missed the volumes written about the courage of gay actors playing straight.”)

Jimmy Dean: Recipes

2005-12-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

Just reading the titles make me feel greasy and queasy. My favourite stomach-churners so far: the tater-tot-tastic Breakfast Boat and the heart-attack-on-a-plate Breakfast Casserole. 1 pound sausage, 10 eggs, 2 cups cheese; and those pesky few vegetables? Optional. (On the other hand, though: 2 for 1 at Safeway this week, plus a dollar off…)

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist 2005

2005-12-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

There’s something mildly fascinating about Google’s Zeitgeist roundups of most-searched terms. My favorites from this year-end version: the BBC kicking CNN’s arse online; and the oddly mundane “computer desk” coming in at number 9 in Froogle’s otherwise gadgety top 10. (via Matt Cutts)

Ask Metafilter: Lookin' in your big brown eye

2005-12-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

Why do cats do the here’s-my-arse thing? “Googling Cat Butt Face got me nowhere that anyone would want to be.”

SFGate.com: Girl meets gorilla in big, hairy mess of a movie

2005-12-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

The Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle swims against the tide of King Kong hype: “Overlong, repetitive, and lacks impact. […] Three hours of a sad incident involving a big gorilla.” Compare and contrast his measured prose to the gushing torrent of adjectives that is FilmBlather’s review: “a sweeping, achingly gorgeous fantasy, possibly the most incredibly awesome action movie ever made.” *gak*. Put the keyboard down, fanboy. [both via Google Movies]

USPS FAQs: Does the USPS have suggestions for parents sending Santa Claus letters?

2005-12-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

Letters from Santa can be postmarked at North Pole, AK. Cute, but at the same time slightly creepy in its patronising paternalism: “Santa might want to remind the child to be in bed at a certain time.”

USPS Frequently Asked Questions: Addressing a letter to Santa Claus

2005-12-06T22:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently, as far as the Postal Service is concerned, Santa lives everywhere. Bonus *boggle*: “Letters to God can be addressed in the same way, replacing ‘Santa Claus’ with ‘God’.” [Update: Boing Boing is so last week…]

Wired News: Monsters of Photorealism

2005-12-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

The release of the XBox 360 provides a handy excuse to revisit the Uncanny Valley: “Sure, the 360 can generate the most photorealistic human avatars of any game console in history. But that is precisely why they look so creepy.” (This linked article is a much better read.)

Alertbox: Talking-Head Video Is Boring Online

2005-12-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well, duh: it’s pretty boring offline, too. (Oddly, Jakob notes attention on the caption—which doesn’t seem much in evidence from the heatmap graphic—without noting the much bigger hotspot around the window’s Close button…)

Armchair Cook: A Food Network Addict: Friday Frozen Dinner's Guide to Emeril

2005-11-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

Armchair Cook, my new favourite food blog, on Emeril; or, as he’s known in this household, that blowhard sack of shit Emeril. “Emeril is just like my grandpa. If it’s just a small group, my grandpa is relaxed and fun to be around. But as soon as he’s in a crowd, my grandpa’s inner entertainer comes out, and pretty soon it’s nonstop jokes, pronouncements and interruptions.”

Walnut Creek On Ice

2005-11-22T23:36:00.000-08:00

A temporary, but real, skating rink in Civic Park: pretty cool. Shame about the huge and noisy refrigeration unit right next to the library, though…

SFGate.com: World's Ugliest Dog Dies at 14

2005-11-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Who could resist a headline like that? Not me.

phil ringnalda: No, ask what Bloglines can do to you

2005-11-21T16:41:00.000-08:00

This doesn’t look good at all…

Efectos Especiales: How to exit

2005-11-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

Hans Nowak on a minor, but pointless, annoyance in the Python interpreter. Me too: those messages, with their undertone of “you’ve got to do it our way, you dolt” always felt a little hostile to me.

Ask MetaFilter: Pluralisation of acronyms and abbrevations?

2005-11-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

The NYT believes the plural of CD is CD’s; it’s wrong.

Famous for 15 megapixels: Second Class Citizens

2005-11-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

Stef on tokenism. Vicious twist at the end.

Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera

2005-11-19T09:07:00.000-08:00

The dry title belies something really boggling: recording light rays from multiple directions at each pixel produces digital photographs that can be refocused after they’re taken. Check out also the macrophotography section in the video, with its noodle-baking virtual observer. A real conceptual leap away from the boring sensor-instead-of-film digital camera model. (via New Scientist, MetaFilter)

Armchair Cook: A Food Network Addict: Breaking Bobby Flay

2005-11-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

The Armchair Cook eviscerates Food Network’s perpetual frat-boy Bobby Flay: “arrogant and obnoxious and mean.” Also worth it for the link to Flak Magazine’s comprehensive The Staggering Dicketry of Bobby Flay: “Emeril seems, at all times, dangerously close to actually copulating with the food he prepares.”

telescreen.org: Plagiarism at the San Francisco Chronicle

2005-11-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

Perils of publishing in the blogging age: bloggers have long, and easily-searched, memories.

The Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: On the Origins of the BCs

2005-11-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

A savage dissection of the Daily Express via a misguided but typical “political correctness gone mad” article; a pleasure to read. (via Pete Ashton)

Eric.Weblog(): My life as a Code Economist

2005-11-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

Eric Sink on triaging bugs: a long read, but a valuable one. (On a lighter note, The End of an Era is very evocative of small-company social culture: “the full spectrum of absurdity you see here didn’t happen overnight.”)

defective yeti: $eason$ Greeting$!!

2005-11-12T19:37:00.000-08:00

Matthew Baldwin imagines conversation spamming: “Great conversation! Keep up the good work! Enlarge your penis. penis pills emporium dot net.” (Bonus link from the comments: McSweeney’s on Responsible Spam.)

Tea Leaves: Dancing About Architecture

2005-11-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Art criticism in the style of tech-happy games reviewing: “The improved technique used by Cezanne now allows him to depict many more objects on the canvas simultaneously.”

BitWorking: Camera-Ready Copy and the Social Denial-of-Service Attack

2005-11-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

Joe Gregorio on committee disruptions: “Any technical group of sufficient size and activity will spontaneously generate its very own sociopath.”

Le «blog personnel» de Joe Clark: Stop fighting your distractions

2005-11-03T22:48:00.000-08:00

A riposte to the “trendy buzzword bullshit” of the Getting Things Done crowd: “You were a procrastinator today and, when you get around to it, you’ll be a procrastinator tomorrow.” (I like the little nod to speakers of French in the URL, too.)