randomwalks/dj

I spent a large part of today “under the hood” working on this blog’s WordPress-based engine. My head hurts from all the PHP, but I am pretty happy with the results. What was I doing? Optimizations for CPU and bandwidth efficiency.

I have been pumping up DreamHost since I moved over to them a couple weeks ago. They’re still awesome, but the honeymoon did end a little bit when I got an email from them notifying me that I was exceeding my daily CPU usage allotment. Hmm? I had never even considered this before. I guess I just took for granted that servers were good and fast and they made it all work. I didn’t consider that with a virtually unlimited bandwidth quota, I would have to watch my step with how hard the server was working to fill that pipe.

I’ve been oblivious to web performance considerations, for the most part. This wake-up call from DreamHost inspired me to finally take the problems by the horns. When your site only gets a half-dozen hits per day, who cares how well it performs?. But as my traffic continues to increase, I’m starting to look at things more and more like a webmaster.

Some time ago I was chatting with John Gruber about the merits of WordPress vs. Moveable Type. He pointed out that WordPress, with its dynamic content generation, was a lot less likely to stand up to a major traffic burst than Moveable Type with its static generation. Frankly, it was the first time I’d even considered the issue - and it scared me so much it almost made me want to jump ship from WordPress. How could it be so inefficient? Basically every WordPress blog comes standard with a complete and utter inability to stand up to being slashdotted? Given the amount of traffic Daring Fireball must receive, it’s no surprise that John’s thought about this problem a lot.

But what was I going to do? Switch from WordPress? Please, no! Thankfully, the amazing WP-Cache WordPress plugin basically fixes all that. By saving a static copy of every dynamically generated request response, it achieves the best of both worlds by allowing content to be dynamically generated, but letting it stick around for a while on disk for future servings. Today I installed and activated the plugin. When the cache is on, every request that is answered gets appended with an HTML comment describing whether the request was cached or dynamically created, and how long the original dynamic creation took. I was curious to know how much time I was saving on the cached copies, so I hacked the plugin to also print a timestamp when the cached version is served. The results are pretty impressive. For example, on one entry I just looked at from my browser:

<!-- Dynamic Page Served (once) in 0.453 seconds -->
<!-- Cached page served by WP-Cache in 0.002999 seconds -->

In other words, it went from almost a half-second to almost no time at all. A huge reduction, most of which I assume would be spent as CPU time in the dynamic case. Curious about whether the cache saved you any time just now? Just look at the source for this web page or RSS feed, at the very bottom you’ll see a comment about the dynamic generation time. If it was cached, you’ll see a second comment about that. I haven’t exactly figured out everything that stimulates a cache flush for a particular URL, and it’s possible that the flushing is a little overly-cautious, but at least it’s not serving stale data.

Being so pleased with the caching success, I was in the mood to keep improving things. A reader pointed out a problem a couple months ago, which I’ve been meaning to look into. They had installed the latest beta of NetNewsWire and noticed in that application’s “Bandwidth Statistics” window, my blog was at the top of the heap for bandwidth used. The problem? A combination of my notoriously long posts, a fairly large “item count” for the feed, and a flaw in WordPress 2.0.2 that causes it to not properly return 304 (Not Modified) responses to clients who ask politely whether there have been any changes. So every time NetNewsWire refreshed, it would grab the full text of my last 10 posts!

Today I searched the web and found out that the 304 issue was in fact addressed, and the change is so simple I could type it in to the sources myself. Yee haw! I made the change and rushed over to NetNewsWire to try it out for myself. Alas, it still wasn’t working. The problem now? WP-Cache doesn’t seem to have any mechanism for supporting such a response, and since it essentially “takes over” when serving a cached copy, WordPress never gets a chance to respond. I’m not 100% sure I did this right, but I managed to hack up the WP-Cache plugin so it looks for the “If-Modified-Since:” header and, if it the specified date is not earlier than the cached copy, returns a 304 response. Seems pretty straightforward, but I’m nervous enough about it that I’ll postpone sharing the code until it’s had a chance to simmer.

These changes should have a positive effect on both my bandwidth (for whatever it’s worth) and CPU usage. But more importantly to you, they mean faster page loads in your browser, and faster subscription refreshes in your aggregator. And hopefully I’ll fall out of first place in your NetNewsWire bandwidth abusers list!

Update: My changes to WP-Cache seem pretty stable in that they’ve been running on my blog for a week or so. If anybody is interested you can download the modified file here. The only change is to the phase1 script. The mods add support for 304 responses even on cached items, and for printing the elapsed time of page load even when cached.

Let me know if you have any feedback!

Originally from Red Sweater Blog by Daniel Jalkut reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 5:53PM

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on April 29, 2006 8:00 PM

Over at Geertjan’s blog, The Best Feature Of The Upcoming NetBeans IDE 5.5 is the strongest evidence I’ve seen that the mainstream Java universe is really paying attention to that lesson. Sure, over at the excellent Aquarium, you can read about how they’re slaving away in the engine room trying to make Java EE.next simpler and simpler and yet simpler. But I haven’t been convinced that they’ve got to a place yet where they’re going to win lots of converts from PHP and Rails. But this GlassFish+IDE combo is really coming along: in Geertjan’s example, he makes what looks like a basic CRUD app with no coding and no file editing. In particular, it looks like they’re getting close to Rails levels of DRY (“Don’t Repeat Yourself”). Geertjan skips lightly over the database-selection wizard; I wonder how much more than “use these tables” it needs? [Update: He follows up with the details.] And the Rails people will be asking “What is this ‘Deploy’ of which you speak?” But still, we’re in interesting territory. [Update: Not ten minutes after writing this, I ran across Java web frameworks - the Rails influence, which in turn led me to the (excellent, albeit in PDF) Java Web Frameworks Sweet Spots. Did I say “interesting territory”? Interesting times, too.] [Update: It turns out that the infrastructure Geertjan showed off was by Pavel Buzek, who writes about the process and seems like a Major Force for Good. It’s guys like him who are going to cost Berlind the price of a nice dinner.]

Originally from ongoing reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 5:09PM

Originally from ongoing, on April 29, 2006 5:53 PM

Bring it on!

Originally from FatBits: John Siracusa's Journal by siracusa@arstechnica.com (John Siracusa) reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 4:34PM

Originally posted by siracusa@arstechnica.com (John Siracusa) from FatBits: John Siracusa's Journal, on April 29, 2006 5:53 PM

OmniWeb sneaky peeks are back!

Originally from Hack the Planet reBlogged

Originally from Hack the Planet, on April 29, 2006 5:53 PM

In what will surely repulse Pennsylvanians, a Domino's delivery man used a car to transport corpses to funeral parlors when he wasn't using the vehicle to bring pies and Cheesy Bread to pizza enthusiasts.

Last Friday, a Lower Southampton Township Police Department officer pulled over a 1993 Buick after noticing the vehicle did not have an inspection sticker. (THE SMOKING GUN)

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 9:00PM

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on April 29, 2006 5:40 PM

There's a strange trend in Tom Cruise movies: he insists on running, over and over again, preferably with a painful look on his face. Whether you're a fan of the Cruiser or not, no matter how wierd he gets, he always runs. The Nike commercial that Bruckheimer and Spielberg could have made, but for no good reason - curiousfury.com made it instead. Run on Tom - can't wait for the runs in MI III. (YOUTUBE.COM)

WATCH THE 'JUST CRUISE' VIDEO

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 2:41PM

Originally from Agenda Inc. Live Feed, on April 29, 2006 5:40 PM

Chris Majors is an artist with an unusual mission: He produces digital artworks that contain such high resolution and such a large number of colors that normal printers -- which can handle 16 million possible colors -- cannot print them. Apparently he's written his own program to generate the images, and if you order at the largest possible print size -- 8 feet by 4 feet -- it'll take him 10 days to render the image, using a 2.2 GHz computer. As he notes: The resolution of the images: With a minimum of 2,8 billion calculated points (at 34x34 in.) the finest details can be fully appreciated, even with a magnifying glass. Because these drawings exist only in very large sizes with extremely detailed subjects, a profusion of views appears as one approaches them. Extremely cool! But unfortunately, also extremely ugly. Man, why is neato conceptual art always so totally hideous? This stuff looks like the side of a van. (Thanks to Ted Rainer for this one!)

Originally from collision detection reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 11:31PM

Originally from collision detection, on April 29, 2006 5:39 PM

The awesome Teastick is my new favorite beverage accessory, followed closely by in-door fridge ice makers and the twisty straw.

Instead of one of those stupid tea balls, the Teastick scoops loose leaf tea and holds it securely for steeping while hooked to your glass. Brilliant! What's more, there's plenty of room for the tea to float around uninhibited while brewing the perfect cup of Earl Gray.

Originally from Awesome! by S H reBlogged

Originally posted by S H from Awesome! , on April 29, 2006 5:39 PM

BBC: "The arrival of the railway will bring tremendous change. China's communist rulers say it will open up Tibet, bringing greater prosperity for its entire people. Detractors say the opening of the railway is the death knell of an independent Tibetan culture." (Background).

Originally from Archinect.com Feed reBlogged

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on April 29, 2006 5:39 PM

multiplayer game (?) where you control a deer in a forest of other players, but with only non-verbal communication [via] 

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 4:17PM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on April 29, 2006 5:39 PM

(Not that I give a shit about Sun -- I actually wouldn't be that surprised to learn that they went out of business in 1998 and I just didn't notice -- but that pie chart is teh funny.)

Also: Ha ha, that program sucked.

Originally from jwz by jwz@jwz.org reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 3:01PM

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on April 29, 2006 5:38 PM

The new plan for an expansion is the most modest to date, but it may prove to be the one that can actually get built.

Originally from NYT > Home Page by DAVID W. DUNLAP reBlogged on Apr 27, 2006, 12:00AM

Originally posted by DAVID W. DUNLAP from NYT > Home Page, on April 29, 2006 5:37 PM

All hail the conquering heroes LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. It feels to me like something big is happening--like these two guys might have the chance to be the Bird and Johnson of a new era of the NBA. 

Seeing that the two best players in the league are starting to win some games that matter must be thrilling David Stern with their performances right now. The longer those two are alive, the better the TV ratings are going to be.

But the player I'm happiest for today is Kevin Martin. I have been hearing for months about what a good teammate he is, how great his attitude is, and how hard he works. He's someone I was rooting for already.

Then, he gets to be the star of arguably the two best moments of the Kings' season so far--the two free throws that damn near won game two against mighty San Antonio. Then the driving layup that won game three. If you haven't seen it watch here. Here's a nice photo of the winning shot.

Martin says he was pretty positive he drew a foul. He didn't even look to see if the shot fell--he was headed to the free throw line. But the referees didn't blow a thing. What a fantastic welcome to the playoffs moment for Martin. They aren't calling that on Tim Duncan in playoff crunch time. And, from Martin's point of view,  thank God they didn't.

There had been another no-call seconds earlier, when it appeared Bibby might have fouled Manu Ginobili when he poked the ball free to earn Sacramento the final possession of the game.

For more, here's a podcast from Martin McNeal of the Sacramento Bee.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 10:43AM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on April 29, 2006 5:36 PM

passin' by, every day." -- kool keith

last week:
small child: miss serena, i wish my parents were robots.
larogers: [thought balloon] kid, i wish your parents were robots too.

the illinois state jingle -- television marketing tourism campaign, from the 80s -- went "illinois, you put me in a happy state." my brother and i used to sing, "illinois, you put me in a state."

can't decide which point to make, about the robots, or about the state, getting put into a state, so i'll just say this: if our parents were robots, about what would we write books?

aw shit. robot parents, of course.

illinois... you put me in a state. (sorry no photo. didn't bring my camera.)

Originally from serenalarogers by serenalarogers reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 10:40AM

Originally posted by serenalarogers from serenalarogers, on April 29, 2006 5:36 PM

I've been an idiot over AppleCare these last few weeks; sick to my stomach with computer withdrawl. I wrote a letter this morning explaining:

29 April 2006

Today I bring my Powerbook G4 in for its third repair in under three weeks. Currently, the poor beast thinks a second monitor is attached at all times. Even when there’s not.

This was the reason I brought the computer to the Apple Store, last Tuesday April 25th.

This was not the reason I brought my computer to the Apple Store on Tuesday, April 11th.

In early April, I noticed that one of my two gigabytes of memory wasn’t showing up. Also, my DVD drive began to eject discs without being able to read them. Jon from the Genius Bar suggested I had to send the laptop to AppleCare to resolve these problems.

Repairs usually take 5-7 days; sometimes as few as three days! But sometimes more, I found out. I received my computer back thirteen days after I dropped it off for the first repair, on Monday April 24th.

I am about an 8 hour a day computer user. Some days more, some days less. But it averages out. So I really noticed not having my computer.

That wouldn’t be so bad, it might even be relaxing not to work. But I enjoy my work! I love editing video. I love corresponding! I’ve been making these high-dynamic range, software merged multi-exposure photos. I’m building my grad school thesis as a web-based multiplayer game. On my Macintosh!

But at least I got my laptop back, last Monday. With a new logic board, and a new problem. Now, the computer believed there was a second monitor attached at all times. Martin at Apple phone support suggested I do an Archive and Reinstall of my system. When I went to insert my OSX install disk, the machine wouldn’t accept my DVD.

One of the old problems, one of the new problems. Back to the Apple Store! On Tuesday, April 25th, Mindy from the Genius Bar saw the DVD problem, and the monitor problem. We returned the laptop to Apple as a “looper” – a item returned for service twice.

And on Friday, April 28th, I got the laptop back again. I found the DVD drive had been replaced, and my hard drive had been erased. Fortunately, I had a back up. So I eagerly restored all my data; discovering two things after about six hours:

1) I didn’t use very good backup software.

2) Erasing the hard drive did not fix the phantom second monitor problem.

Eighteen days and two repairs later, my laptop still had a problem it never had before. I re-erased my hard drive just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating – even with the factory installation of Mac OSX, the computer still thought there was a second monitor attached.

This wouldn’t be the biggest deal either, except that I run two monitors at home. When I go on the road, my windows are scattered all over the dual desktops: out of reach if you can’t see them on the second screen! I can see all my windows if I lower my resolution to 800x600 and mirror my displays. But then I can’t see all my icons in my application menu bars. Besides, it makes my computer look like something from the 1990s.

I bought this computer in mid-2004 when I started grad school. I bought the best 15” laptop I could – most RAM, most HD. I got the Dot Mac service. I bought AppleCare. Everything! Of course – because I wanted to have a powerful computer that I could kick ass and count on.

Now, I feel like an idiot. Because I brought my computer in for repairs two weeks before finals were due at school. Because I care so much about wanting to use my computer. Because I nearly broke my foot running to the door when I thought my laptop had come back. Because I hit reload on the “repair status” page on Apple.com about once every 40 minutes for the last 18 days. Because I care so much.

Thanks for reading this,

Justin Hall

April 11th Repair: R7804254
April 25th Repair: R7940353
April 29th Repair:

Originally from just in teractive by jhall reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 10:30AM

Originally posted by jhall from just in teractive, on April 29, 2006 5:36 PM

Now I guess that wall will be used to keep junkies like Rush Limbaugh in the U.S. instead of Mexicans out.

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans would be allowed to possess small amounts of cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use under a bill approved by lawmakers that some worry could prove to be a lure to young Americans.

The bill now only needs President Vicente Fox's signature to become law and that does not appear to be an obstacle. His office said that decriminalizing drugs will free up police to focus on major dealers.

"This law gives police and prosecutors better legal tools to combat drug crimes that do so much damage to our youth and children," said Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar.

Originally from Cynical-C Blog by Chris reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 9:58AM

Originally posted by Chris from Cynical-C Blog, on April 29, 2006 5:36 PM

I have this theory about a radical improvement in user experience that could be made for any website that allows comments to be submitted by readers. Especially if any of those readers are male. I'd like to share this idea with you.

You see, I know a lot of people that make community applications or blogging tools; I even get to work with some of the best in the business. I'm sure they do fancy things like eye-tracking and usability tests and armies of robots analyzing comment forms. But there's still one behavior that's eluded them, even after years of experience.

Based on extensive observation in the nearly 7 years that I've been blogging, here is how men actually submit comments to a site:

1. Skim just enough of the first few sentences so you can get a fair idea what the topic of a post or news item is.
2. Scroll quickly, as fast as you can! Be careful not to accidentally read any of the other comments on the page on the way down. (Some of them may contain the information you're about to post.)
3. Type out whatever opinion you've had on this topic your entire life. Don't waste time with spelling or punctuation, and be careful not to let any new information on the page influence your thoughts.
4. Now that you've completed your task, submit your comment and then, at your leisure, review the other content on the page. If you find that the original post or any of the comments that preceded yours were written by people who share your opinion, bask in the confirmation that you were right.

Now the time has clearly come for modern Web 2.0 applications to reflect this reality. Where is all the innovation around accommodating this unquenchable need? We men need to inflict our comments on the web with wanton disregard for the context, content, and community in which we're participating. Let's get some Ajax on this motherfucker, stat!

Originally from Anil Dash by anil@dashes.com (Anil Dash) reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 2:00AM

Originally posted by anil@dashes.com (Anil Dash) from Anil Dash, on April 29, 2006 5:36 PM

on the heels of my previous link, here's another group of kids, doing a live re-enactment of MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH-OUT!!!

Originally from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs by michaelallroy reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 2:42PM

Originally posted by michaelallroy from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on April 29, 2006 5:30 PM

BET tries to answer Mos Def's question Sunday afternoon. Here's the word from Selwyn Hinds' new show The Chop Up:

Produced for BET and THE CHOP UP by Emmy Award-winning journalist, producer and author P. Frank Williams, the segment entitled “Long Kiss Goodnight” peels back the layers on the nine years since Biggie Smalls was gunned down in Los Angeles. In her first television interview since winning a multi-million dollar wrongful death suit against the city of Los Angeles, Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace shares striking details about the FBI investigation of her son’s murder. Also for the first time on television, Lil’ Cease, a member of Biggie’s Junior Mafia crew, shares a chilling eye-witness account of what happened inside the car where Biggie was riding when the fatal shots were fired. Hosted by Jeff Johnson and Jina Jinay.

Originally from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric by Jeff reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 1:22PM

Originally posted by Jeff from zentronix: dubwise & hiphopcentric, on April 29, 2006 5:30 PM

Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG)

Is Google trying to fulfill the prophecy of pundits from years back by finally trying to either cheaply sell or give away free or extremely cheap wireless internet (WiFi) in larger metro areas? With the recent announcement in San Francisco of a citywide wireless internet network (partnering with Earthlink), one has to wonder what Google's ambitions are in this space.

For one, if Google continues to enter markets to provide low cost or no cost options for whatever they are providing -- be it internet access, online calendaring or email or even satellite-mapping programs -- you can be sure they are going to monetize those efforts somehow. In my opinion, Google's ambition is to be the world's largest advertising company, by providing equal and cheap/free access to almost any kind of information from any device, anywhere. Watch out McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Originally from Blogging Stocks by Brian White reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 7:03AM

Originally posted by Brian White from Blogging Stocks, on April 29, 2006 5:30 PM

Here’s an observation: if there’s something you as a programmer want to do (connect to a website, read some XML, walk a filesystem, listen on a socket, whatever) there’ll be a library in whatever language you’re using to do that. I’ve observed that, on average, the quality of the libraries is better in Java than in the competition: Perl, Python, Ruby, whatever. Don’t get upset, those other languages have lots of other advantages and are The Right Tool for lots of jobs. And the delta isn’t universal—there are stinky Java libraries and lovely Ruby ones—but still, I’d say this is true way, way more often than not. This suggests a hypothesis: Having been a Java programmer will make you a better Ruby or Python or whatever programmer. Ooh, are people ever gonna get mad at me.

Originally from ongoing reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 8:26PM

Originally from ongoing, on April 29, 2006 8:14 AM

iScratch by Shosei Oishi (a student of IAMAS Japan) is software which enables you to scratch audio files like analog record using iPod’s touch wheel. Shosei re-wrote the pre-installed open source audio play program of Pozilla to be able to scratch audio files, and works using Linux.

I got to try this at the Takeaway festival and is great fun to use, an obvious metaphor that works without explanation. iScratch will be on display in the up coming Cybersonica exhibition.

Shosei is also a member of the Breadboard Band:

The Breadboard Band is a performing band that uses breadboards made of freely constructed electronic circuits to play music. We produce audio and visual expression through the most minimal, fundamental elements in the form of showing the electronic components of an instrument while directly touching and forming the electronic circuit by hand. The electric signals released from hand-made electronic circuits releases extremely rough and ferocious wave patterns. This performance is based on improvisational interplay, and we pull powerful music into shape through each member’s operation, while discovering new sounds by hand.

Originally from Pixelsumo by chris reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 7:57PM

Originally posted by chris from Pixelsumo, on April 29, 2006 8:14 AM

Regarding Think Secret’s report on the break-up of the Aperture development team.

Originally from Daring Fireball by John Gruber reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 6:37PM

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on April 29, 2006 8:14 AM

200 terabytes per day of mostly illegal goodness  

Originally from Waxy.org Links reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 5:59AM

Originally from Waxy.org Links, on April 29, 2006 8:11 AM

On the US leg of Shakira's world tour this summer, Verizon Wireless subscribers will be able to use their cell phones to receive video clips and vote for their favorite songs. "It's gonna be really exciting to see my fans interact," she said. "They'll get videos, messages from me, it's interesting." [via Associated Press]

Originally from ringtonia.com by emily reBlogged on Apr 29, 2006, 2:48AM

Originally posted by emily from ringtonia.com, on April 29, 2006 8:11 AM

iScratch by Shosei Oishi (a student of IAMAS Japan) is software which enables you to scratch audio files like analog record using iPod’s touch wheel. Shosei re-wrote the pre-installed open source audio play program of Pozilla to be able to scratch audio

Originally from unmediated by exiledsurfer reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 9:38PM

Originally posted by exiledsurfer from unmediated, on April 29, 2006 8:11 AM

Alice from Wonderland loves the Wii: "You know what, I think it's a fantastic name. It's girly, metro, slinky, inoffensive, funny, cute, KAWAIIII, and it's got people really talking." Over at hello, nintendo we lack that vision. Wii?

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 6:14PM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 28, 2006 6:30 PM

Photographer Tim Dahlin was hired by the Minnesota Timberwolves and asked to do something a little bit different. He came up with some incredible infrared actions shots that make everyone look dramatic (while really making clear the tattoos that are often hidden in dark skin). There's a wide-angle action shot that looks to me like "if Norman Rockwell painted modern black and white basketball scenes."

Big if, I know.

Here are some more.

Thanks Seth for the heads up.

Originally from True Hoop by Henry Abbott reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 11:27AM

Originally posted by Henry Abbott from True Hoop, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

After pooling the features from 100 different writing systems, including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, and syllabaries, scientists have concluded that all of them are based on shapes derived from the natural world, chosen because we are hard-wired to recognize them.

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 8:30AM

Originally from Rebecca's Pocket, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

story links: amanda to ze frank (via waxy) [related archive: first contact]

Originally from Rocketboom by Rocketboom reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 6:13AM

Originally posted by Rocketboom from Rocketboom, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

From among the six steps to meet your perfect partner (heteros only), comes Music:

US psychologists at North Adams state college in Massachusetts discovered that women found pictures of men more attractive when they were listening to soft rock.

I immediately envisioned the woman, gazing at a picture of A Man Who Is Listening To Soft Rock, preferably Whitesnake or Marillion. How would one photograph the act of listening to soft rock?

Originally from the lady upgrade project by mr tibbles reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 6:04AM

Originally posted by mr tibbles from the lady upgrade project, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

You know what, I think it's a fantastic name. It's girly, metro, slinky, inoffensive, funny, cute, KAWAIIII, and it's got people really talking. Ninty'll hoover up all those folk who have been previously offended, bored or turned off by videogames' sometime sweaty machismo, anyone who owns an iPod, and anyone who thinks Skype is a perfectly viable brand name.

Genius.

I'm desperate for a wii.

Originally from Wonderland by Alice reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 5:34AM

Originally posted by Alice from Wonderland, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

Also, I am horrified to learn that A) there is a Wookieepedia, B) there is a Wikipedia entry for it, and C) there is a Wookieepedia entry for that.

Originally from jwz by jwz@jwz.org reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 5:24AM

Originally posted by jwz@jwz.org from jwz, on April 28, 2006 6:09 PM

Following up on why HAL sings "Daisy, Daisy" in 2001: A Space Odyssey", Lee Hartsfeld found a 1961 record with the Bell Labs recording on it at a junk shop for $10.

Originally from kottke.org remaindered links by jkottke reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 12:26PM

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on April 28, 2006 6:06 PM

Meg's been following the growing movement against Foie Gras and yesterday noted PETA's heavy handed tactics in getting the legislation passed. I'm a strong advocate of animal rights, but I'm definitely no fan of PETA. Often people hate PETA so much they lose the ability to think critically about animal rights. PETA is the far right of the left. I love Meg's idea about creating laws to encourgae the humane treatment of animals modeled after organic certification.

I'm suspicious of Foie Gras' current status as a cause celebré. It reminds me of recycling's role in the environmental movement - it makes people feel active and progressive, but only in rare cases does the act of recycling encourage conservation and smart reuse. We're just doing free labor for waste management companies.

updates:

• Certified humane, via megnut.


• The Gurgling Cod: "No one mentions that much more suffering could be eliminated by banning the McNugget." Via finn. Bonus points for name checking The Power Broker.

Originally from hello, typepad by David Jacobs reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 11:18AM

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on April 28, 2006 6:06 PM

I mentioned making cinnamon ice cream the other day and a reader emailed asking for the recipe, so here it is! I started with Ben & Jerry's French Vanilla as a template but reduced the quantity of vanilla by 50% (they call for 2 teaspoons) and added ground cinnamon.

INGREDIENTS
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon**

Whisk eggs until light and fluffy, then whisk in sugar a little at a time. Add milk, cream, vanilla, and cinnamon and whisk to blend. Then use ice cream maker according to its directions. Makes 1 quart.

** I used 2 teaspoons of cinnamon but Jason and I both found that it was too much, it affected the texture more than I wanted (though flavor was fine, not too cinnamony). So I think maybe 1 teaspoon, or 1 1/2 would be better. Next time I'll try it with less. Also, if you're a fan of a cooked ice cream base, it might be nice to try and simmer cinnamon sticks with the dairy rather than use ground cinnamon. Or make a combination. But I haven't gotten that far yet!

Another idea: basil ice cream. Reader Sam wrote in to say he made this recently and that it was fantastic, and a lovely color.

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 11:16AM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on April 28, 2006 6:06 PM

hack isight into a webpage via quartz composer

Originally from unmediated by yatta reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 11:05AM

Originally posted by yatta from unmediated, on April 28, 2006 6:06 PM

From today's New York Times:

Thomas Dolby entered pop eternity in the guise of a bespectacled, wild-haired mad scientist, with the 1983 novelty hit "She Blinded Me With Science." He returns after a long absence — in his other life he has been an innovative creator of ring tones — with a tour that finds him largely in the same gearhead persona (sans the hair), surrounded by bizarre-looking doohickeys with colorful gauges and oversize knobs. Wednesday at 10 p.m., Thursday at 7 (with the singer-songwriter Carey Ott) and 10 p.m., Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778; $20. (Sisario)

TEDsters will be in the house Wed/10PM show, showing love for our Music Director. Tickets available online for what promises to be an utterly original evening.

Originally posted by June Cohen from TED Blog, on April 28, 2006 6:06 PM

Now this is pretty cool. Google Calendar has put up an online form that'll create a button for your event. party or whatever. You can then place this button on your blog, MySpace page or online-whatever so that people can click it to add your event to their Google Calendar.

This is a great way to get your event out there.

Google Calendar Button

 
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Related: Add common events to your calendar with Mark This Date
Related: Download of the Day: Google Calendar Notifier
Related: Download of the Day, part II: Google Calendar Quick Add Firefox extension

Originally from Lifehacker reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 6:00PM

Originally from Lifehacker, on April 28, 2006 6:02 PM

Have you heard of the Certified Humane Raised & Handled movement? I hadn't until LaVonne sent me an email this afternoon alerting me to it and to this ABC News article on the Certified Humane movement, Where Was Your Chicken Before It Hatched? Sounds like an interesting step in the right direction.

Originally from megnut.com blog reBlogged on Apr 28, 2006, 5:19PM

Originally from megnut.com blog, on April 28, 2006 6:02 PM

Posted by Jon McAlister, Software Engineer

I've always been a big fan of both Google News and Google Suggest. So in my 20% time, I've worked on a way to bring them together, and I'm now happy to report the launch of Google Suggest on Google News, which provides you with search suggestions specific to news in your country, in real time, while you type. If you're already a Suggest user, you'll see this right away, but it's not on by default