sword-billed hummingbird » Blogs

Cleaning House (Rundown)

Ben — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:58:46 +0000

It turns out computers can figure out what language you’re speaking without actually hearing you. In at least some controlled circumstances, anyway. (NewScientist, via Monochrom)
“Astonishingly”, (1) people forget their passwords all the time, but (2) the ever-helpful “secret” “questions” are not really either — at least, not as far as security is concerned.
If I had a car I needed to get into on a regular basis (as in, for driving), this would be wicked awesome. It’s not everyone who can open a car with his shoes.
And this video montage is just kinda sweet.
This post is a good example of why I’m recently drawn to reading Tetrapod Zoology on a regular basis. The lead-in sentence (I think) sells itself:

I used to receive random unsolicited emails from an individual who strongly promoted the idea that birds could not not not not be dinosaurs, that the entire dinosaur family tree was screwed up beyond belief, that ‘dinosaurs’ had evolved from random assorted diverse archosaurs, that cladistics was rubbish, and that all mainstream palaeontologists were idiots.

Read on.
I am still waiting for these business cards made out of meat to get real. (No, not like that.)
Without having perused it much, Ficly at minimum stands out as an interesting concept — a place for collaborative story-telling (in a time & place where social networks are, weirdly, moving us away from that kind of collaboration). (via SimpleSpark)

Look Right

Ben — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 16:00:19 +0000

I’d like to draw your attention to the right-hand column of detritus, where, under the heading of blogs, there are two proud additions:

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog
Lifehacker

I’m less excited by Lifehacker than I am by the fact that WFMU (radio station, wacky, Jersey City) has a blog, but both are interesting, and you should know they’re there. The WFMU blog is a group effort by a bunch of the DJs, and it appears to cover all things musical and eclectic. The Lifehacker blog offers hints and tidbits on navigating both the electronic and the non-electronic world; kinda like Cool Tools, but more corporate (Lifehacker’s sponsored by Sony) and less physical (seems like most of the tips have to do with software and what-have-you).

I am reminded of this when we hit the second moose

Ben — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:02:45 +0000

I’m not nearly as fanatical about Fafblog as any number of other folks are, but the following piece, “drivin with Donald,” is pure gold. Better, even. I’m quoting it in its entirety because, well, it’s that good. (Also because it’s related to the previous post here regarding a real-life Rumsfeldian incident, albeit without Rumsfeld’s involvement.)

Though I should also take care to note that, even supposing you do read the whole thing here [which, let's be honest, you shouldn't], a trip to Fafblog is wholly warranted on account of the most excellent “picture” that accompanies the grade-A documentary writing.

Anyway, here it is:

Donald Rumsfeld is no perfectionist.So we’re ridin on down the road in our Cross Country Journey of Inner Discovery and Of Course the American Dream when Donald Rumsfeld hits a moose.

“Maybe we should stop an get a tow truck,” says me.
“Gosh, that seems pretty excessive,” says Donald Rumsfeld. “I mean, was a moose hit? Yes. Do the antlers sticking through the windshield make driving trickier? You bet. But should we just turn around and quit because the road got a little bumpy? I’d say no.”

One thing about Donald Rumsfeld that you have to give him credit for is he always cuts through the crap to tell it like it is in his no-nonsense style. I am reminded of this when we hit the second moose.

“Moose happen,” says Donald Rumsfeld. “There are moose, and we’ll hit ‘em. That’s the way it goes. We’ve lost two tires and the brakes. That’s life. I’m drunk, legally blind and have been charged with eight counts of vehicular manslaughter in the last three years. Gotta deal with it. Nothing’s perfect.”
“If you think about it the more moose get hit by us, the fewer moose there are to get hit by us!” says me.
“I like the way you think,” says Donald Rumsfeld.

Donald grabs a beer an misses a pedestrian. Hooray! One of the moose is still alive an kicks at the engine. “Bad moose,” says me. “No beer until you stop.” Donald Rumsfeld throws an open bottle a Coors at the back seat to put out the fire.

“Are parts of the car on fire? Sure. Would we like them not to be? Of course. Have I gone insane from three decades of snorting military-grade rubber cement? Quite possibly. Do we need everything to be perfect for us to go out on the road? Well, that’s absurd,” says Donald Rumsfeld.
“That’s very true,” says me. “We cannot make the perfect the enemy of the terrible.”

The bridge up ahead is either out or doesn’t exist. But if we waited for everything to be perfect before we did stuff well then we’d never get anythin done! Forward, onward, downward, Donald Rumsfeld!

(via Alas, a Blog)

Minor Blog Rundown

Ben — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:26:51 +0000

Noam Chomsky doesn’t think Bush is lying. His treatment of the question is more or less simplistic, but he delves into some interesting topics re: Iraq and Afghanistan along the way, and it’s a pretty worthwhile read.
Mark Kleiman brings up the topic of whether Bush spared Zarqawi (who’s potentially linked to the Berg killing), quoting at length from a Slate article by Fred Kaplan.

Heads up: That’s Not What I Said

Ben — Sun, 02 May 2004 17:20:28 +0000

Dave Pollard at “How to Save the World” has an interesting post on the inadequacies (and idiosyncracies) of communication, focusing mostly on formal presentations and informal conversation. Pollard uses (admittedly anecdotal) evidence to point out the woeful inadequacy of most presentations. As he says, “almost none” of what a presenter says “gets ‘correctly understood, internalized, or learned by their audience.” Moreover, it’s not just business presentations: it’s all presentations, all conversations, all interactions.

Anyway, the post is chock-full of curious observations that have relevance to pretty much anybody’s life. Dig in. And please, take notes.

(via How To Save The Earth: “That’s Not What I Meant” by Dave Pollard [April 28, 2004])

Patterns of Thought re: Global Dimming

Ben — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:53:36 +0000

“Goodbye Sunshine” is a Guardian article that keeps turning up in the oddest places. It was picked up by Slashdot sometime close to the original publication. MeFi seems to latch on to it from time to time (I can’t find the other time, but I know it’s there), too. And it’s even found itself a home in the ‘external sources’ section of a Wikipedia article on global dimming.

(So what’s the article say? Oh, nothing much—just that the amount of the sun’s (that’s the bright thing in the sky that you’re not supposed to look at) energy reaching earth has declined approximately 3% every 10 years, for a 10% total decrease in solar energy over the past 30 years.)

In fairness, it’s a very good and important article, and you should probably read it. So here I am, linking to it. Oh well. So much for forgoing the bandwagon.

(via Guardian: “Goodbye Sunshine” by David Adam [December 18, 2003] and other linked sources)

Define “Mercenary”

Ben — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 22:46:18 +0000

The recent mess with Blackwater has—understandably—riled some tempers, fueled some angry debates, etc., the word “mercenary” often slung about in no uncertain terms.

No uncertain terms which have often remained somewhat uncertain on account of no one really bothering to seriously puzzle over what meaning, exactly, mercenary has in the context of the conflict in Iraq.

(e.g., Using mercenaries is evil! No, it’s pragmatic! etc.)

Mark A. R. Kleiman writes an excellent, thoughtful post on What’s wrong with mercenaries?, and you should go read it.

Chomsky Blogs

Ben — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 22:31:36 +0000

As of some very recent time, Noam Chomsky has a blog. It’s called Turning the Tide. What’s not to like?

(via some other blog, possibly diepunyhumans though possibly not; actual laudatory reference will appear here if I can dig it up)

News as arterial spray likely isn’t the most brilliant metaphor I’ve ever devised, but it works

Ben — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 13:58:43 +0000

Maybe. Possibly.

It’s well and good to stay informed, but sometimes news is nothing so much as arterial spray: here one minute, gone the next, and what the hell can we do about it anyway? E.g., the blogfolk at Pandagon are thorough and tend to very often bring up salient points, but the problem is kinda the oftenness, i.e., they write too damn much.

But whatever. That’s actually not my point. (Or it is—part of my point, anyway—but it’s not the meat of my point.) My point is that it’s good to read something that has merit in&of itself, that doesn’t hinge on your ability/inability to act on the knowledge presented to you.

So, my point is you should read White on rice or Elephant, two excellent and short posts at the somewhat inexplicably labeled onepotmeal. Why should you read these two posts?

I’ll let you come up with the reasons.