Ramblings & ephemera
From Brendan I. Koerner’s “Is a Dishwasher a Green Machine?” (Slate: 22 April 2008):
To really green up your automatic dishwashing, you should always use the air-drying function, avoid the profligate “rinse hold” setting, wash only full loads, and install the machine far away from your refrigerator.
…
Just promise that you’ll scrape your dishes instead of pre-rinsing, [...]
Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: science | No Comments »
From “Report: China’s botnet problems grows” (SecurityFocus: 21 April 2008):
Computers infected by Trojan horse programs and bot software are the greatest threat to China’s portion of the Internet, with compromises growing more than 20-fold in the past year, the nation’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CN-CERT) stated in its 2007 annual report released last week.
The response [...]
Posted on April 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: law, security | No Comments »
Denise is talking to our class about how people are slowly giving up their civil liberties, a bit at a time: “It’s like the story about how you gradually turn the heat up on a pot of water and slowly boil the lobster!”
(Hint: she meant frog.)
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That poor polish sausage
Denise-ism #98
Denise-ism #92
Denise-ism #92
Denise-ism #90
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, True Stories, overheard | No Comments »
“You’ve been hoist by your own retard.”
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One of the benefits of LASIK eye surgery
Why so many Google projects & betas?
The strictest of teachers
The largest library fine … ever.
Talbot describes his son’s valiant death
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Language & Literature, True Stories | No Comments »
From Larry Page’s “How to Motivate Your Staff” (Business 2.0: December 2003: 90):
We wrote a program that asks every engineer what they did every week. It sends them e-mail on Monday, and concatenates the e-mails together in a document that everyone can read. And it then sends that out to everyone and shames those who [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, Technology, business | No Comments »
Denise & I are in the car, talking about her friend Scott E., when her cell phone rings. It’s Scott E.!
Denise: “Scott! We were just talking about you! Your ears must have been ringing!”
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Denise-ism #601
That poor polish sausage
Scott-words #17
My new business idea
Denise-ism #98
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, True Stories, overheard | No Comments »
From Brian Gibbs’ letter printed in Wired (January 2005):
The explanation that the decline of brands is due to competition, informed consumers, and constant innovation is insufficient. There’s another factor wreaking havoc. Over the years, brands have lost their meaning because advertising campaigns developed by creative types have been clever and witty, but often not relevant.
Once, [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business | No Comments »
From Oliver Sacks’ “The Case of Anna H.” (The New Yorker: 7 October 2002: 64):
I was reminded of a blind woman, a contemporary of Mozart and a most remarkable pianist, who, it is said, could no longer play after she regained some sight.
Related posts
After a stroke, he can write, but can’t read
Our eye seeks the [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: art, history, security, weird | No Comments »
From Oliver Sacks’ “The Case of Anna H.” (The New Yorker: 7 October 2002: 64):
I recently received a letter from Howard Engel, a Canadian novelist, who told me that he had a somewhat similar problem following a stroke: “The area affected,” he relates, “was my ability to read. I can write, but I can’t read [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, science, weird | No Comments »
From Charles Glass’ “The New Piracy: Charles Glass on the High Seas” (London Review of Books: 18 December 2003):
Ninety-five per cent of the world’s cargo travels by sea. Without the merchant marine, the free market would collapse and take Wall Street’s dream of a global economy with it. Yet no one, apart from ship owners, their [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, law, security | No Comments »
From Celeste Biever’s “Language may shape human thought” (New Scientist: 19 August 2004):
Language may shape human thought – suggests a counting study in a Brazilian tribe whose language does not define numbers above two.
Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: science | No Comments »
From Victor Bogado da Silva Lins’ letter in Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram (15 May 2004):
You mentioned in your last crypto-gram newsletter about a cover that makes a license plate impossible to read from certain angles. Brazilian people have thought in another low-tech solution for the same “problem”, they simply tie some ribbons to the plate or [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | No Comments »
From Holt Sorenson’s “Incident Response Tools For Unix, Part Two: File-System Tools” (SecurityFocus: 17 October 2003):
Various commands change the MAC [modify, access, and change] times in different ways. The table below shows the effects that some common commands have on MAC times. These tables were created on Debian 3.0 using an ext2 file system contained [...]
Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Tech Help, Technology | No Comments »
From Steven Pinker’s “What the F***?” (The New Republic: 9 Octobert 2007):
The mammalian brain contains, among other things, the limbic system, an ancient network that regulates motivation and emotion, and the neocortex, the crinkled surface of the brain that ballooned in human evolution and which is the seat of perception, knowledge, reason, and planning. The [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: science | No Comments »
From Jono DiCarlo’s “Ten Ways to Make More Humane Open Source Software” (5 October 2007):
Do
Get a Benevolent Dictator
Someone who has a vision for the UI. Someone who can and will say “no†to features that don’t fit the vision.
Make the Program Usable In Its Default State
Don’t rely on configurable [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, business | No Comments »
In Clay Shirky’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007), he takes on the persona of someone talking about what new changes are coming with the Gutenberg movable type press. At one point, he says, “Such a change would also create enormous economic hardship for anyone [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, art, business | No Comments »
From Douglas Rushkoff’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
But I think many writers - even good ones - will have to accept the fact that books can be loss-leaders or break-even propositions in a highly mediated world where showing up in person generates the most [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, art, business | No Comments »
From Adam Parfrey’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
I like the internet and computers for their ability to make writers of nearly everyone. I don’t like the internet and computers for their ability to make sloppy and thoughtless writers of nearly everyone.
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The shift from [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, Technology, art | No Comments »
From Mark Dery’s response to R.U. Sirius’ “Is The Net Good For Writers?” (10 Zen Monkeys: 5 October 2007):
But we live in times of chaos and complexity, and the future of writing and reading is deeply uncertain. Reading and writing are solitary activities. The web enables us to write in public and, maybe one day, [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: On Writing, Technology, art | No Comments »
From Les Jones’s email in Bruce Schneier’s “Crypto-Gram” (15 August 2005):
Avoiding rescuers is a common reaction in people who have been lost in the woods. See Dwight McCarter’s book, “Lost,” an account of search and rescue operations in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In one chapter McCarter tells the story of two backpackers in [...]
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, weird | No Comments »
Headed off to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Since we're about to rock, please salute us.
Just had dinner at Maria's, an Italian restaurant. Not bad. Worked all day on the book. Now for a coffee shop & more work on that darn book!
NY Jets signed Bret Favre, so little bro Gus (Jets Equipment Director) has had one hell of a busy morning. Phone 1st rang at 5:45, poor guy.
Wonderful, huge Spanish dinner with Gus & 9 of his co-workers. Standing outside his hotel waiting for a cab on a gorgeous Cleveland night.
Just landed in Cleveland (which rocks, I hear) to visit my little brother Gus. He's here with the NY Jets for a game. I'm here to see him.
Bookmarked a link: Webvet.com - Pet News, Information, and Education
Alright, it's official - I'm gonna be the papa to a baby boy. Currently named Finn, but we'll see. :)
Added a product to their wishlist:
Bookmarked 5 links
Chapter 10 (Google Contacts) is hereby done. Now on (back!) to chapter 9. (Hey, sometimes jumping around helps keep things fresh!)