randomwalks/dj

Imapix at Work
Originally uploaded by lefion.

Inspired by the US team's curling success, surveying work has begun on a curling ice in Prospect Park, hopefully to be finished before next winter.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 06:31 PM

Exciting new Web 2.0 product: JusFlam is "the social network for people who enjoy Jesus, and flames, and rotating stuff". The beta seems to be down at the moment...it's throwing a "due to overwhelming server load, that is due to underwhelming development methodologies and system architecture, due to limited resources, due to limited business direction, due to giving away a complex web service for free with no feasible plan for revenue generation besides 'getting bought by google or maybe yahoo', we are unable to process your request at this time" error.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 05:55 PM

If you, like me, installed kubuntu-desktop to try it out, then afterward, you must have noticed that when you boot up, the kubuntu splash screen appears with “kubuntu” in blue (instead of the Ubuntu brown) while the computer is booting up.

While this is not a major problem, it is a minor irritant, since you will have to field questions from people regarding why you use kde instead of the superior gnome. Even if it is not a problem, I found a solution, and so it deserves to be called a problem, just so I can write an entertaining article regarding how to fix this.

To get back your familiar Ubuntu usplash image and screen, do a:
$sudo update-alternatives --config usplash-artwork.so

Now you will get to answer a question regarding whether to use the Kubuntu, Ubuntu (or if you have it installed xubuntu) - desktop usplash imag. Select the one you want and rest at ease.

For those who don’t want to muck around with the terminal, may I suggest a quick read of the galternatives article I authored previously?

P.S. Regular Daily readers might like to know that an article on this site got dugg. I apologize for not having published anything since then - was busy reinstalling Ubuntu on a machine, and life interfered, too.

Originally from Ubuntu Blog, on February 20, 2006 05:54 PM

We've been fans of the Amazon Web Services blog since it launched on TypePad last year, but it's not just because we love the technology and APIs that the site shows off. It's because of its cute, fuzzy nose.

In addition to the usual promotion of web services that you'd expect, the AWS blog does a great job of introducing the more human side of the team behind the tech. Need proof? Just take a look at the recent post introducing Rufus, the preeminent four-legged member of the AWS team. Often times discussions of technology and related topics can seem a bit dry; A team blog offers a great way to show that there's some personality on the other side of a website.

Just like similar TypePad-powered tech blogs by the teams behind web services such as PayPal, Salesforce.com, Flickr, and del.icio.us, the Amazon Web Services blog does a great job of telling the story of both an interesting set of web technologies and the even more interesting people (and dogs!) who build them.

Originally from ProNet, on February 20, 2006 03:59 PM

I've been meaning to blog about this for... well, forever. It's one of my favorite things from the late, great Suck.com: the Shiny vs. Useful chart.

BIG IDEA OF THE MILLENIUM

People like shiny things.

SHINY VS. USEFUL

It's the Big Idea to end all Big Ideas: Each and every person, place, or thing in the universe can be judged based on its location on this one little scale!

Originally from pseudorandom, on February 20, 2006 03:59 PM

Originally from Google Blog Search: ted2006, on February 20, 2006 03:59 PM

User-generated content can thrive when only a small portion of the audience contributes.

"There are a couple of interesting points worth noting. The first is that we don't need to convert 100% of the audience into "active" participants to have a thriving product that benefits tens of millions of users. In fact, there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to do this. The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal. Another point is that the levels of the pyramid are containing - the creators are also consumers."

Originally from unmediated, on February 20, 2006 03:55 PM

Oil prices rose 2.6 percent today after violent attacks by militants shut down nearly a fifth of Nigeria's oil production.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on February 20, 2006 02:33 PM

McDonald's Corp. faces at least three lawsuits claiming the fast-food giant misled the public after it acknowledged earlier this week its french fries contain milk and wheat ingredients.

Debra Moffatt of Lombard, Illinois, seeks unspecified damages in a suit filed Friday in Chicago. Her attorney, Thomas Pakenas, said his client has celiac disease, which causes gastrointestinal symptoms set off by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat. (CNN)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on February 20, 2006 02:32 PM

Digital Lifestyle has shot some videos and created a video review (vBlog) of the N70.

Check it out here.

Originally from Nokia N70 Blog, on February 20, 2006 02:32 PM

No prizes for identifing this animal in Houston zoo, Texas - it’s an elephant!

Thanks to Artemis and Dave Garcia.

Originally posted by Alex from Google Sightseeing, on February 20, 2006 02:32 PM

the indelible open street maps project

Originally posted by anselm from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 02:08 PM

Introducing Joyeur, the Joyent weblog.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on February 20, 2006 02:08 PM

Rob at Cockeyed is building a photographic height/weight grid, effectively a catalog of people's body types. Description and call for entries here.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 02:08 PM

DIY projector with a disposable camera.

Originally posted by negatendo from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 01:26 PM

That's the kind of feedback that gets you up in the morning!

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 01:26 PM

Originally from Lifeblog, on February 20, 2006 01:25 PM

Khoi Vinh is hiring several full-time positions for the design group that he leads at the New York Times. If you’re a visual designer, information architect, or design technologist looking for a gig, you can check out the job descriptions he posted at Subtraction.

Originally from Signal vs. Noise, on February 20, 2006 11:35 AM

Originally from Susan's Nutrition Weblog, on February 20, 2006 11:35 AM

Like the players, I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole All-Star weekend thing. But it's still basketball:

• Video of every dunk from the dunk contest, which is really worth watching for Andre Iguodala's alley-oop off the back of the backboard, and of course Nate Robinson's leap over Spud Webb. Then catch up on the judging controvery.
• Dwyane Wade didn't practice and beat LeBron James in the insert-sponsor-here skills challenge.
• The big German/Texan won the three-point contest.
• Some guy set a world record by dribbling for more than 26 hours straight. Clyde Drexler said "nice handle."
• The East won the All-Star game thanks to a Pistons and LeBron inspired comeback. LeBron James won his first All-Star MVP.

Originally from True Hoop, on February 20, 2006 11:34 AM

The BBC has an interesting article that points out: "In 2013, copyright in the sound recording of the Beatles' first album expires, as it will for recordings from Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and other performers of the same period." No...

Originally from Guardian Unlimited: Technology blog, on February 20, 2006 11:34 AM

Coco:

I went to Gyoza Tengoku (Gyoza Heaven or Gyoza Paradise or whatever) on Friday with friend. It was first time I had big gyoza, I enjoyed it very much! Of course I had chuhi too, it plused my happiness.
We ordered cheese, vege and shrimp. All of them were good. I want to try garlic sometime, but maybe everybody on way to home will hate me. heh.It is located about 7mins from Tachikawa station. English menu is available.

you can see duty hour here. http://www.geocities.jp/gyoza1059/

Originally posted by Coco from Metroblogging Tokyo, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

What joy - I can finally see where I've gone wrong in Level 8-3 thanks to Ian Albert

Originally posted by guardiangamesblog from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

My favorite Winter Olympics coverage is this correspondence being posted several times daily to Slate. If this is what the NBC coverage was like, it might actually be entertaining.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 11:33 AM

De La Soul do Parrappa?

Originally posted by blackbeltjones from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Precinct, Danish, Squirrel

Originally from Ftrain.com, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Packing up leads me to think about interfaces and garbage.

Originally from Ftrain.com, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

My pal Judith lost her camera on vacation in Hawaii and tried to make the best of the situation by starting a project using other people's Flickr photos to reconstruct a trip journal. Now, a family has found her camera but won't give it back to her because they don't want to take it away from the 9 yo kid that found it. "We can't tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card". The dishonesty displayed here is maddening.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

Adult Diaper Sales Soar in China: Alongside food and fire crackers, Chinese are adding a new item to their lunar New Year shopping: Adult diapers. Sales have soared ahead of the holiday as travellers prepare for long trips home aboard trains so crowded that even the toilets are jammed with people. The problem arises from the need to sell twice as many tickets as there are train seats to accommodate the crush of travellers. Those without seats must find some place - any place - to put themselves, including in overhead racks, between cars and in the usually stinking toilets.
Link

Originally from monochrom, on February 20, 2006 11:32 AM

HBO has launched one of the first marketing efforts to use Google's map technology to promote "The Sopranos."

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 20, 2006 09:30 AM

India’s leadership in global outsourcing may be in jeopardy unless it increases its supply of skilled workers, according to executives gathered in Mumbai for an industry meeting.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on February 20, 2006 09:30 AM

Washington Post accidentially exposes their anonymous botnet hacker with photo metadata [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

In my previous essays on the topic of deploying Rails applications, most notably Deploying Rails with Apache 2, I've been lukewarm on running FastCGI-based applications on Apache. Indeed, the most stable setup I've found is to proxy Rails-based requests to a separate lighttpd instance. However, there's one technology that I haven't yet worked with much to run FastCGI-based applications under Apache: mod_fcgid. This weekend, I changed that. [essay]

Originally from James Duncan Davidson, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

a Canadian couple found the Flickr fan's camera, but won't give it back [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

Aaron says I need to work on my slug sentences, and I agree. On reflection, I suck at writing almost any kind of sentence. I guess I shouldn’t expect slugs to be different.

For a couple of years I’ve been akwardly saying things like “and I would suspect that JavaScript is the most successful scripting language ever” or “I don’t really have any hard numbers, but JavaScript seems incredibly successful as a language”. Note all the hedging.

What I would like to know is this: on what axis is JavaScript not the most successful scripting language of all time? Can some other language beat JS in:

• implementations of a ratified language spec (scheme? lisp? do they even “count”?)
• interpreters deployed (Forth is in every Apple and SUN bios…can that possibly beat the distribution of IE, Firefox, and Safari?)
• lines of code written for said language

Perhaps KSH and/or bash would win? I’m curious to know if anyone can think up other strong contenders.

Originally posted by alex from Continuing Intermittent Incoherency, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

The BBC has a launched a new mobile service called BBC Springwatch to record the signs of Spring. [via Smart Mobs] "Record the signs of spring while you're out and about. If you spot a species and text its keyword [e.g. ladybird, butterfly, bee, etc.] ... your mobile will tell us the location and date..."

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on February 20, 2006 09:28 AM

Japanese company Konami will issue this summer a curious LCD-based portable game in which the player "raises" virtual characters by giving them a "steady diet" of music:

"When the game, called Otoizm, is connected to a MP3 player, various characters appear according to the type of music being played.

The game classifies music into 19 types, and the growth and type of character produced changes according to the type of music it listens to. More than 30 kinds of characters can be created."

Via Nikkei.

Originally from we make money not art, on February 20, 2006 09:27 AM

a relational visualization chart showing the branches & connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map. train lines denote different music styles (e.g. pop.soul, reggae) & are directional according to time, branch lines represent sub-genres (e.g. rock divides into grunge & psychedelia). stations represent music artists, so that key stations naturally are linked to the most eclectic artists. see also music similarity map & artist similarity visualization & music plasma.
[guardian.co.uk (pdf) & guardian.co.uk|thnkx Rajio]

Originally posted by infosthetics from information aesthetics, on February 20, 2006 09:25 AM

Rothco has been hooking up military and civilian customers with their camouflage gear since the 1950s. We're fans of their classic sneakers, and find their camo flask appropriately discreet for outdoor sippin'. The camo socks are another favorite.

A camo flask and a pair of hi-tops (men's size 8 only) will be given to the first CH reader who sends us the correct answer to this question: Andy Warhol painted many camouflage portraits, all of which were commissioned except for self-portraits and those of which person? Send your guesses to us here, and mention camo flask or camo sneakers in the subject.

Update: Thanks to all of the CH readers who wrote in. The correct answer according to DPM, our trustworthy guide to all things camo, is Warhol's friend and fellow artist Joseph Beuys.

Rothko products are available from these online retailers.

TAGS: Design, Sneakers, Alcohol, Socks, Camouflage,

Originally from Cool Hunting, on February 20, 2006 09:25 AM

These amazing sketchbooks by the one known as Johnny Hardstaff have just been added to his site.

Originally from Protein Feed, on February 20, 2006 09:24 AM

Originally from Wooster Collective, on February 20, 2006 09:24 AM

Cat in a Saucepan
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.

Easy.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 03:31 AM

Roger Ebert - Dwarfs, Little People and the M-Word (xhtml)

I am an actor that you have reviewed neither favorably nor unfavorably in two different movies: one was "Death to Smoochy," the other "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her." I have absolutely no objection to you trashing a film or lauding it. I do object to the use of the word 'midgets' in your review of "Death to Smoochy."

Too lazy/busy to blog today, so I offer you this classic Roger Ebert meditation on height and bigotry.

Originally from hello, typepad, on February 20, 2006 03:31 AM