Micro everything...

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a..."

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:50:45 -0700

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

- Image via Wikipedia

James Nicoll (via srsly)

(via rafer)

caterpillarcowboy: winenutnyc: thegongshow: msg: Transcendin...

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:27:55 -0700

caterpillarcowboy:

winenutnyc:

thegongshow:

msg:

Transcending Moore’s Law

Steve Jurvetson thinks this is the most important chart in technology business.

(It’s an updated version of Ray Kurzweil’s published work, posted with permission)

In this abstraction of Moore’s Law, Kurzweil plots computational power on a logarithmic scale, and finds a double exponential curve that holds over 100 years (a straight line would represent a geometrically compounding curve of progress).

In the modern era of accelerating change in the tech industry, it is hard to find even five-year trends with any predictive value, let alone trends that span the centuries.

Ray argues that through five paradigm shifts – such as electro-mechanical calculators and vacuum tube computers – the computational power that $1000 buys has doubled every two years. For the past 30 years, it has been doubling every year.

Each dot is the frontier of computational price performance of the day. One machine was used in the 1890 Census; one cracked the Nazi Enigma cipher in World War II; one predicted Eisenhower’s win in the 1956 Presidential election.

Each dot represents a human drama. They did not realize that they were on a predictive curve. Each dot represents an attempt to build the best computer with the tools of the day. Of course, we use these computers to make better design software and manufacturing control algorithms. And so the progress continues.

found via my favorite flickr blogger, jurvetson

Andrew’s $0.02: This chart is most impressive for all the reasons outlined above, but I’d add that it’s wild to see which medium dominated which time period and for how long. When will we grow beyond the constraints of the Integrated Circuit (if ever)? And, how much does a newer medium pull from an older medium in terms of design paradigms?

Groucho Marx on Father’s Day.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:27:32 -0700

Groucho Marx on Father’s Day.

tuneage: Beck - “Sunday Morning” An upcoming addition to Beck’s...

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:49:20 -0700

tuneage:

Beck - “Sunday Morning”

An upcoming addition to Beck’s website known as Record Club will have him hopping into the studio with some friends, covering an entire classic album (without the benefit of rehearsal), and posting one song a week from the session. Lucky for us, he started with a perennial favorite, The Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. The first track off the album, one we’ve posted here before, is also the first of the Record Club sessions to be released. And as obvious as it may be, this song really is my favorite song to play on a Sunday morning.

"Ricardo Carvalho and Deco head for exit and reunion with Jose Mourinho • Inter seek to reunite 2004..."

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:29:50 -0700

“Ricardo Carvalho and Deco head for exit and reunion with Jose Mourinho • Inter seek to reunite 2004 Champions League winners
• Carvalho hits out at Chelsea over treatment last season”

- Ricardo Carvalho and Deco head for exit and reunion with Jose Mourinho | Football | The Guardian

Summer transfer season will be exciting. Kaka & Ronaldo moves will set dominos in motion.

I now work for Microsoft

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:22:32 -0700

I have a new job at Microsoft looking at the silicon eco-system. Lots of fun so far.

Give Bing A Chance

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:21:00 -0700

Give Bing A Chance: Read the comments. Interesting and good ideas for how MS should compete with Google in search.

"He has the seeds of greatness in him, but I have my doubts about germination. Pelé, Maradona,..."

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:11:01 -0700

“He has the seeds of greatness in him, but I have my doubts about germination. Pelé, Maradona, Cruyff, Beckenbauer: where does Ronaldo fit in with this quartet of greatness? He doesn’t, and nor is he likely to.”

- Cristiano Ronaldo one-man show finds perfect stage - Times Online

hapa: A ‘bit’ laborious, but good to listen to thought process,...

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:12:17 -0700

hapa:

A ‘bit’ laborious, but good to listen to thought process, and that innovations are out there and coming…

smarterplanet:

Whole-Building Energy Analysis through Wireless Networked Sensing (via citrisuc)

We present a real-world solution that combines three CITRIS-related technologies to accomplish this task: high-fidelity AC sensing nodes that attach easily to circuits in the building, openstandard IP-based wireless networking that simplifies installation by the electrician, and a web application tier that presents live and historical trends, tracking to goals, alerts based on energy usage and energy spending as per the building’s utility rate schedule, and open API access to data.

"Faced with an annual loss for the first time in two decades, Ryanair, the European budget airline,..."

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:04:40 -0700

“Faced with an annual loss for the first time in two decades, Ryanair, the European budget airline, confirmed on Tuesday that it plans to start charging passengers for the luxury of using the toilet on its jets.”

- Image by chadmagiera via Flickr

Awesome.

Budget Airline to Charge for Toilet Use - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com

(via heyitsnoah)

Rafer sez:
I really hope they post usage stats! And, they really oughta give a free pass for diaper changes.

(via rafer)

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies..."

Tue, 26 May 2009 22:15:33 -0700

“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

- Wow. I am speechless.

George W. Bush (via unburyingthelead)

From the Story on AlterNet:

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated……

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs”.

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on “a mission from God” in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

KookKoo!

(via tsparks)

Zune HD – First Take « GartenBlog

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:20:06 -0700

Zune HD – First Take « GartenBlog

Real Human Interface

Sun, 24 May 2009 13:12:29 -0700

Real Human Interface

Teensy USB Development Board Start hacking $19.

Sun, 24 May 2009 09:05:51 -0700

Teensy USB Development Board

Start hacking $19.

Jaqua scores! Jaqua scores! Jaqua scores (from 6 yards).

Sat, 23 May 2009 22:01:48 -0700

Jaqua scores! Jaqua scores! Jaqua scores (from 6 yards).

Love this. tracks: Young MC - Bust A Move

Sat, 23 May 2009 21:56:04 -0700

Love this.

tracks:

Young MC - Bust A Move

I always found the notion of translated poetry to be a bit odd. ...

Sat, 23 May 2009 21:55:22 -0700

I always found the notion of translated poetry to be a bit odd. So much of poetry is playing and bending the language and so much of that has to with the language in particular. I never quite got how you might translate that oddities and quirks of a poem in its native language.

tsparks:

i12bent:

Pär Lagerkvist (May 23, 1891 - 1974) was a Swedish author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951.

Lagerkvist wrote poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early 20s to his late 70s. Among his central themes was the fundamental question of good and evil, which he examined through such figures as the man who was freed instead of Jesus, Barabbas, and the wandering Jew Ahasuerus.

Lagerkvist was yet another one of those writers who himself was part of the Nobel committee (The Swedish Academy), and who perhaps would not otherwise have been considered for the highest international literary award… Still, the Committee declared in its motivation:

“On each page of Pär Lagerkvist’s work are words and ideas which, in their profound and fearful tenderness, carry at the very heart of their purity a message of terror. Their origin is in a simple, rustic life, laborious and frugal of words. But these words, these thoughts, handled by a master, have been placed at the service of other designs and have been given a greater purpose, that of raising to the level of art an interpretation of the time, the world, and man’s eternal condition. That is why in the statement of the reasons for awarding the Nobel Prize to Pär Lagerkvist, it seems legitimate to us to affirm that this national literary production has risen to the European level.” (Source)

From Aftonland, a 1953 collection of poetry, translated by W.H. Auden & Leif Sjöberg as Evening Land:

I wanted to know
But was only allowed to ask,
I wanted light
But was only allowed to burn.
I demanded the ineffable
But was only allowed to live.

I complained,
But nobody understood what I meant.

——————————————————————

I have read The Dwarf, Barabbas (basis of the movie with the same name) and The Sibyl . Each novel is a morality play, the themes are modern but the plots are ancient.
RECOMMENDED.

Matthew Yglesias » Conservative Radio Host Has Himself Waterboarded to Prove It’s Not Torture, Realizes He Was Wrong

Fri, 22 May 2009 21:03:28 -0700

Matthew Yglesias » Conservative Radio Host Has Himself Waterboarded to Prove It’s Not Torture, Realizes He Was Wrong:

tsparks:

dalasverdugo:

via charlietodd

The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:23:03 -0700

The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade: The premise of this article is all wrong. Namely that home run successes are the product of careful planning, focus groups etc. The flipside article here would be the 10 biggest tech successes of the last decade. I would bet that most of those products started as something completely different than what they ended being, that they were shot down by investors, pundits etc. The point is that creating a home run success product is an organic process that cannot be cookie cuttered. It is as much about the product (which often changes significantly before it reaches success in the market place) as it is about perservance, hard work and luck. The notion that someone sits down and pens a plan for hugely successful product and then simply executes that plan is just wrong.

Early Bruce = better Bruce. What are those people doing sitting...

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:15:19 -0700

Early Bruce = better Bruce. What are those people doing sitting down in the front row?

newspeedwayboogie:

ymmv but likely that this show, this run of shows, were the greatest Springsteen concerts ever. Proof: watch this video

fuckyeahtheboss:

thephenthouse:

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Prove It All Night (9/19/78)

SICK. SICK. SICK. The chills start at 1:27 and don’t stop until the very end.