Ramblings & ephemera

Conservatives are more ruthless than liberals

From Alan Wolfe’s “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern” (The Washington Monthly: July/August 2006):
Political parties expend the time and grueling energy to control government for different reasons. Liberals, while enjoying the perquisites of office, also want to be in a position to use government to solve problems. But conservatives have different motives for wanting power. One [...]

The way to trick smart people

From Paul’s “The easiest way to fool smart people“:
There’s a saying among con-men that smart people are easier targets, because they don’t think they can be conned.
I’m not sure if that’s true, but there’s one scam that’s almost guaranteed to make smart people switch off their brains and reach for their wallets. It’s a trick [...]

Canals & tolls

From Andrew Odlyzko’s “Pricing and Architecture of the Internet: Historical Perspectives from Telecommunications and Transportation“:
The modern canal era can be said to start with the Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal in England. Originally it was just a means of connecting the Duke’s colliery to Manchester. The parliamentary charter (which enabled him to take over private property, [...]

Google ad advice

From “Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets“:
While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. …
Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

336×280 large rectangle
300×250 inline rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper

Related [...]

DRM Workaround #18: HP printer cartridges

From “Cartridge Expiration Date Workarounds“:
In light of the lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard over the expiration date of their cartridges, two ways to fix the problem:
1) Remove and reinsert the battery of the printer’s memory chip
2) Preemptive: Change the parameters of the printer driver
Search for hp*.ini … In it there is a parameter something like pencheck. It [...]

Amongst family and friends

From "The Producer" in the 15 October 2001 issue of The New Yorker, an article about the Hollywood producer Brian Grazer:
His creation achieved its brilliant apotheosis a few years ago, when he reconceived Brian Grazer as a form of performance art. He started putting photographs of himself, grinning like a pixie, in dime-store frames and [...]