Small White Dog

2004-01-05T09:32:00.000-06:00

An interesting piece on heretical ideas that expresses exactly a philosophy I didn't know I had, until I read it. What You Can't Say

2003-12-17T07:58:00.000-06:00

PNC Bank's 19th Annual "Christmas Price Index" shows that Christmas this year costs 18.8% more than last year, or about $65,000. This is a sure sign of economic recovery.

2003-12-16T08:46:00.000-06:00

According to a review of Eric S. Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming, there's an important difference between Windows and Unix programmers.

What are the cultural differences between Unix and Windows programmers? There are many details and subtleties, but for the most part it comes down to one thing: Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers.

Apparently, I'm a Unix programmer.

2003-12-05T09:52:00.000-06:00

I've found the source of Dave Winer's "It's even worse than it appears" in UserLand's discussion group archive. Nice to know where that came from.

2003-12-03T11:14:00.000-06:00

What in the world is this? Hypobole statuecraft I was googling for "hypobole" (thinking it was the antonym to "hyperbole") and was directed there. It looks like a distributed.net project to create static web pages that will have a high probability of being returned when attempting a Googlewhack.

2003-12-02T10:38:00.000-06:00

Thank you, Blogger for validating my HTML. I'd closed my last post with a </a> instead of a </b> and Blogger gave me a warning message to that the </a> didn't actually close anything. Way to go Blogger!

2003-12-02T09:56:00.000-06:00

As linked from slashdot, Cringely discusses tablet computing, and Apple's (possible) upcoming role.

Funny, I don't know anything about tablet computing. I don't know what Apple would do with it, or how they would specify it.

But I want one. Am I a true American, or what?

2003-12-01T10:44:00.000-06:00

Brief history lesson of the day... The Creation of the UNIX* Operating System

2003-11-26T15:05:00.000-06:00

Make an anagram with this fairly liberal (large) online tool.

"Welcome to Global Specialty Practices" has been hanging out in our lobby for years. We're no longer Global Specialty Practices (since Oct 2001). I could rearrange the letters to "sarcastic poet web; completely logical"

But then, that wouldn't really mean anything. I'll keep working on it.

2003-11-26T14:10:00.000-06:00

Want to cut through a Class 5 safe, how about a Thermic Lance?

2003-11-26T14:00:00.000-06:00

While doing a search for the Surety Association's standard Form 15, I came across this reference guide to Crime Insurance. Toward the middle of the page is more info than you ever wanted to know about door and lock security, alarm systems, and safe robbery.

2003-11-25T14:31:00.000-06:00

A fascinating tryptophan article by James South details the actions of tryptophan, and provides an interesting theory on why it feels good to eat ice cream when we're depressed.

2003-11-25T09:38:00.000-06:00

New find - I just love the OpinionJournal - from The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page. Pay special attention to the Best of the Web Today page.

2003-11-25T09:32:00.000-06:00

As seen in Snopes: LA county opjects to the term "Master/Slave" in vendor proposals. What a load of crap. As Joe Soucheray would say, "It's the end of the world as we know it."

2003-11-24T09:46:00.000-06:00

Story in Slashdot this moring about Synthesized Singers that reminds me of Idoru by William Gibson. Good book, indeed (thanks, Jerry) The idea of lyrical music generated by machine intrigues me - would it be possible to link this up with a system that unerstands the user's preferences in music, and synthesize the lyrics, vocals, and score? What happens to the flesh-and-blood artists when(if) this is possible?

2003-11-21T15:23:00.000-06:00

I've seen it dozens of times before, in different formats, but this is the most complete rendition I've yet seen of the political/ideological comparison which begins "You have two cows.."

My favorite: LIBERTARIANISM: Go away. What I do with my cows is none of your business.

2003-11-21T14:05:00.000-06:00

I got into a discussion about Burma-Shave signs today so I had to look it up. It turns out the first signs were erected between Minneapolis and Albert Lea.

2003-11-21T09:23:00.000-06:00

If you're at all politically interested (and who isn't) it's a good idea to check out The Political Compass. Where do you fit on the political spectrum? The answer may be surprising.

Apparently, I'm only slightly to the left of Milton Friedman (3.5) and about as Libertarian (-1.2).

Oddly enough, I'm almost exactly in line with the UK's "Liberal Democrat" party. Apparently, "Liberal Democrat" means something different in the UK than it does in the US.

2003-11-21T09:11:00.000-06:00

I remember making cutout snowflakes when I was a kid. I've since forgotten how :(

Imagine my surprise when I found the delightful Make-a-Flake, which allows you to cut out "virtual" snowflakes, and if you're quick, you can follow the folding directions to make your own real paper flakes.

2003-11-21T09:08:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! Finance made a change recently that I didn't catch right away - see MRK: Historical Prices for MERCK . If you "Download Historical Prices" you'll see that the final column is now "Adjusted Price" - adjusted for splits and dividends. This wasn't available two months ago, and I had sent them an email informing them that I thought it would be nice to have.

I wonder if the change was directly in response to my query?

I wonder how Yahoo! can continue to provide this service free of charge. I use it for an automated process, downloading updated stock data for 1000 stocks each night.

aistockbot for example, does the same thing, with 4-10 thousand stocks. None of this bandwidth results in any eyeballs to Yahoo's banner ads.

I fear it's just a matter of time before they turn it off.

2003-11-20T23:54:00.000-06:00

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention The Shroyer Chronicles, a PHP-Nuke site I've been keeping for a little over a year now.

2003-11-20T23:47:00.000-06:00

For some reason, Dave Winer has had his undies in a bunch over Blogger.

Therefore, I've just got to give it a try.