links

Sometime between 06:45 and 12:22, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• McCain cancels Letterman. Letterman rips McCain: It’s one thing to irritate your opponent. It’s another to irritate a newsperson. But when you irritate the guy who’s made a living out of making people laugh for more than 26 years, any criticism may pack more of a punch. So when John McCain cancelled on Letterman – at the last minute – you could hardly expect that the comic would take it easy on him. He didn’t.
• Hack the Debate // Current: Current & Twitter have teamed up for the very first time to integrate real-time Twitter messages (aka "tweets") over major portions of a live television broadcast. Hack the debate by adding your Twitter posts to our live broadcast of the 2008 Presidential Debates. We will broadcast as many of your debate tweets as possible right over Obama & McCain, in real time, on our live broadcast.
• Retro Futurism: Crazy 1980s “New Wave” Princess Leia Poster: Very Nagel, pretty slick!
• Don’t drive iPhone developers away, Apple: If developers are afraid to write programs for the iPhone that aren’t games, to-do lists, and tip calculators, for fear that all their hard work will be wasted by a malicious or capricious Apple rejection notice, they will stop writing programs for the platform. And the well of innovative, interesting iPhone software will dry up. (via Daring Fireball)
• YouTube – David Letterman Reacts to John McCain Suspending Campaign: Heh — McCain ticked Letterman off. Letterman spends about six minutes laying into McCain for suspending his campaign and ditching his scheduled guest appearance on Letterman's show…and that's before he finds out that instead of "flying back to Washington" to work on the crisis, McCain's actually live with Katie Couric during the taping of Letterman's show.
• ⌘C ⌘V Character: Simple, fast way to use the most common extended characters (things like © or ½, but also including less common things like ‽, ♀, ☂, or ).

Sometime between September 23rd and September 24th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Tom’s Essay: Suzanne Vega tells the curious legend of “Tom’s Diner” — how an a capella ditty became a hit single and, eventually, a key component in the development of the MP3.
• Ten Ways to Celebrate National Punctuation Day: I'm sure I don't have to tell you that September 24 is National Punctuation Day. For weeks we've been gathering dashes, calling up old commas, and hiding gaily wrapped colons where (we think) the kids can't find them. So now that we've hung all those apostrophes with care, let's kick out the stops and celebrate! (via Seattlest)
• VH1 crowns Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” No. 1 of 100 greatest hip-hop songs: At No. 2 is the Sugar Hill Gang's groundbreaking song, "Rapper's Delight," followed by Dr. Dre's "Nuthin but a 'G' Thang" at No. 3. Run-D.M.C.'s "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" round out the top five.
• Democrats sue to keep Rossi a Republican: Rossi's listing his party as "prefers GOP" instead of "Republican", leading to confusion among voters who don't know the GOP nickname — enough confusion for a six-point jump in polls for "GOP Rossi" over "Republican Rossi". He's a shmuck and a Republican, this is a dirty, underhanded trick, and I hope he doesn't get away with it.
• Fake popup study sadly confirms most users are idiots: …the students seemed to find any dialog box a distraction from their assigned task; nearly half said that all they cared about was getting rid of these dialogs. The results suggest that a familiarity with Windows dialogs have bred a degree of contempt and that users simply don't care what the boxes say anymore. (via Slashdot)

Sometime between 10:22 and 15:40, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Seattle collaborates with 22 banks and credit unions to offer services to people who have no bank accounts: The city is collaborating with 22 banks and credit unions to offer services to people who are "unbanked" — those who have no bank accounts and turn to high-cost payday lenders for their financial transactions.
• The World, Justified: It shows the world we live in as only one of four possibilities, the others being a left-aligned, centred and right-aligned world. Our world is a justified one, i.e. aligned with both left and right margins. (via Daring Fireball)
• Drobo Data Robot: Planning ahead. Much as we love 'em, my G5 and Prairie's iMac (iLamp) will need to be replaced someday. I'm thinking that with BluRay software support strongly rumored for OS X 10.5.6, and with the 24" iMac already sporting a full HD resolution screen, there's a strong chance that the next iMac revision will include BluRay drives. Pick up new iMacs then, transfer the two SATA drives in my G5 to a Drobo, and add the DroboShare to allow both machines to use the Drobo with TimeMachine.
• Adventures in Flickr biking: I need to try to remember this idea. I'm planning on picking up a bike next spring/summer, and I'm wondering how easily/inexpensively I could rig up some small camera/GPS combo and mount it to the front of the bike to do something like this. Ooh, wait, the Eye-Fi Explore uses SkyHook's pseudo-GPS functionality. That'd get me pretty close pretty easly (just find a way to mount the camera to the bike). Of course, if Skyhook doesn't speed up making adjustments to their database it won't be very accurate. Still, better than nothing, I suppose.
• New Trailer For Roddenberry’s ‘Trek Nation’ Doc Online: Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod Roddneberry has been working on a documentary about his father and Trek fandom for a few years. Over the summer TrekMovie reported that Roddenberry had hired a new editor (Emmy winner Allan Holzman) who was finally putting it all together and had created a new trailer, which is now online.
• Neighborlogs is for neighborhood blogging: I'm looking for a few more 'some people' types to join the Neighborlogs beta. We're looking for a few good bloggers who either are already writing neighborhood sites and want to take their effort to the next level or bloggers in other fields (animal husbandry, for example) who are crazy enough to give placeblogging a try. If you are interested or know somebody who ought to be, you can register for our beta here. Neighborlogs gives you all the tools you will need to create a great neighborhood site. And it gives you all of that for free. (via Seattle Metblogs)
• iPhone App Store: Let the Market Decide: It's a huge mistake for Apple to appoint themselves arbitrator of what's cool, or to even appear to do so. It's an equally huge mistake for Apple to decide that all innovation must come from Apple. (via Ranchero and Daring Fireball)

Sometime between September 20th and September 23rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Flickr: Genres: Genre artwork for iTunes or any other use you see fit.
• Custom Genre Artwork for iTunes 8: iTunes 8 ships with a total of 52 genre artwork images, which are plain jpeg files contained in the software's application bundle, and a property list file determines which image is assigned to which genre. Customizing iTunes's genre artwork is as simple as copying an image file into the application bundle and editing the plist file.
• Bartell launches free CFL bulb recycling program: Bartell Drugs is providing free recycling of compact fluorescent light bulbs at its 56 locations in the Northwest. The drugstore chain is working with Seattle-based Total Reclaim to collect and recycle the bulbs, which contain small amounts of mercury. The stores will accept mini-twists, flood, globe, 3-way bulbs and other CFL bulbs. Fluorescent tube lights aren't being accepted.
• MPAA causes ‘Zack and Miri’ Poster to become BETTER: Zack and Miri Make A Porno, the next film to be released by Clerks creator, Kevin Smith, has had some issues in the past with the MPAA, mostly dealing with the final rating of the film.  Now, however, the MPAA has complained about the theatrical poster for the film. The new poster…is Smith’s comeback to their decision to prevent the first poster from being used.
• Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G: After years of "they really should…" conversations, Nikon's finally updating one of their old standard primes with internal autofocus for D40/40x/60 compatibility. Good choice for the first to arrive, too. No word on price yet. Worth noting in the preview image and info: M-M/A switch, metal mounting ring, supplied bayonet-style lens hood, filter ring does not rotate during focus, and it's now a Canon-size 58mm thread (rather than the old standard 52).
• Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ ad images made on Macs: Four of the images that Microsoft made available on its PressPass site today display the designation "Adobe Photoshop C3 Macintosh" when their file properties are examined. The images appear to be frames from the television ads that Microsoft will launch later today. (Yes, this is petty and silly. It's also really amusing.)

Sometime between September 18th and September 19th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Twitter, ye markup be non-standarrrrrd.: I know this will make me sound like the annoying standardista, but how could anyone who still uses <center> still be doing web design professionally in, of all places, San Francisco? This is an element which has been deprecated for eleven years. Do we really have people who haven’t changed their coding practices since before 1997? (Also, as noted by wnalyd, going all AJAX-y broke accessibility. The redesign is pretty, but flawed.)
• Rollergirls win bout with Starbucks over logo: The roller derby team got into a bit of a dispute with Starbucks this spring after the coffee giant asked the team to change its logo, which it deemed too similar to its own.
• The 20 Best Worst Science Fiction Movies Of All Time: Not every movie gets to be the Oscar darling of its time, but sometimes we love the bad movies the most. These movies exist to be found in the bottom of bargain DVD bins and are met with squeals of excitement. Movies like Red Planet, Enemy Mine, The Faculty — these aren't successful by any standards other than the people that love them and treasure watching them for the 14th time. So I asked around and pulled a sampling of what I believe is the science fiction equivalent to Point Break. Here's our list of the greatest bad scifi movies of all time. (I want to go out and rent ALL OF THESE RIGHT NOW. At least the ones I don't own already.)
• Chuck’s ‘Buy More’ Versus Best Buy: Do Best Buy workers really watch movies in the stores' theater rooms? Do Geek Squad members (called the Nerd Herd on the show) really go joy-riding in the Geek-mobile? Is there really a special evacuation code word for use on Black Fridays? (via Engadget HD)
• Is there anything that can’t be made into a “sexy” halloween outfit?: I totally get the sexy costume idea for some of them – cheerleaders, witches, Playboy Bunnies, nurses, all of that stuff.  I even get the sexy Alice in Wonderland and Princess Peach and stuff like that.  But these… these are ridiculous. (Related: this YouTube bit for the Girls's Costume Warehouse) (via Mike and Mellzah)
• Fla. judge rules saggy-pants law is unconstitutional: A judge has decided a law banning sagging pants in this town is unconstitutional after a teenager spent a night in jail on accusations he exposed too much underwear. (This is good. As stupid as I think this fashion is, the law was ridiculous. From what I remember of the stories from when the law was first passed, the way it was presented, you could get busted and fined $150 for showing too many inches of your boxers above your pants — but if you took off your pants and just wore the boxers as shorts, you'd be fine.)

Sometime between September 17th and September 18th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Eat together, stay together: Mealtime — from prep to cleanup as well as the actual eating part — may help couples bond just as the family dinner has been shown to benefit kids, suggests a researcher at the University of Missouri who has been studying newlyweds. (Being able to eat together nightly has been one of the nicest side effects of my new job and having a 'normal' work schedule.) (via Unlibrarian)
• “Battle in Seattle” brings back memories of WTO riots: "The Battle in Seattle," a feature film based in the 1999 WTO riots in Seattle, opens this Friday. Reporter David Postman, who covered the riots for The Times, has seen the movie and talked to writer-director Stuart Townsend.
• Unscrambling the Claims of the Boastful Egg: Some claims on egg cartons are regulated by the federal government, some by the states and some not at all. Some affect consumers’ health, some touch upon ethics and some are meaningless. All purport to describe how the hens were raised, or what they were fed, or what extra benefits their eggs might provide. So, what do these terms mean? (via Danelope)
• Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!: Microsoft's version of the story: Redmond had always planned to drop Seinfeld. The awkward reality: The ads only reminded us how out of touch with consumers Microsoft is — and that Bill Gates's company has millions of dollars to waste on hiring a has-been funnyman to keep him company.
• New Hitchhiker’s Guide to be published… seven years after the author’s death: I'm really hard pressed to see this as anything but a Bad Idea prompted by nothing more than the desire to wring as much money as possible out of an established fan base. Not impressed.

Sometime between September 16th and September 17th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email addressed hacked: Both of AK Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail addresses (gov.sarah@yahoo.com and a previously not publicly known gov.palin@yahoo.com) — which, unlike .gov e-mail addresses, are not subject to archiving and oversight, leading to controversy from several sources, including fellow Republicans, asking her to release e-mails from her Yahoo account — were hacked into and have since been deleted. This link has a rundown of the events and links to screenshots and images of the hack. (via Waxy)
• My Gal: Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.” (via Daring Fireball)
• Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2008 Results: Carmen's romance with Broderick had thus far been like a train ride, not the kind that slowly leaves the station, builds momentum, and then races across the countryside at breathtaking speed, but rather the one that spends all day moving freight cars around at the local steel mill.
• Lynda Carter (1970’s TV’s Wonder Woman) on comparisons between Wonder Woman and Sarah Palin: Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness … that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she? No one has the right to dictate, particularly in this country, to force your own personal views upon the populace — religious views. I think that is suppressive, oppressive, and anti-American. We are the loyal opposition. That’s the whole point of this country: freedom of speech, personal rights, personal freedom. Nor would Wonder Woman be the person to tell people how to live their lives. Worry about your own life! Worry about your own family! Don't be telling me what I want to do with mine.
• Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession by George Guthridge: Beautifully written, and very Alaskan, short sci-fi. Worth reading if you're an Alaskan (past, present, or future), a sci-fi buff, or both. From IO9: "To celebrate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as vice president, the Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction has posted its 2004 story, 'Nine Whispered Opinions Regarding the Alaskan Secession' by George Guthridge. It's a collection of nine vignettes about a future Alaska…." (via IO9)

Sometime between September 12th and September 15th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• George Takei Marries: George Takei wed his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, today in Los Angeles. The couple married in a ceremony in the Democracy Forum of the Japanese American National Museum,the museum Takei helped create to honor those forced, as he was, to live in WWII internment camp. In attendance were some of his Star Trek co-stars.
• Women Against Sarah Palin: We are not in the habit of criticizing women in the public sphere, as we usually feel we should support our female compatriots with as much encouragement as we can. However, Sarah Palin's record is anti-woman. Feminism is not simply about achieving the power and status typically held by men. It's about protecting and supporting the rights of women of all classes, races, cultures, and beliefs. Palin's record and beliefs do not align with this. She was chosen by John McCain specifically because he believes that American women will vote for any female candidate regardless of their qualifications. He is wrong. (via Unlibrarian)
• After You …: Mamihlapinatapais, from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, is considered the world's most succinct word — and the hardest to translate. It means "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but that neither one wants to start." (via Unlibrarian)
• Haven’t we seen this election before?: The Obama v McCain race for the White House has been run before – NBC's The West Wing pitted a charismatic, non-white Democrat against a maverick, experienced Republican. (Interesting article, but my big argument was that on the West Wing, the Republican candidate was a candidate who I could respect while disagreeing with him. I can't say the same thing about McCain.) (via fraserspeirs)
• Of Goths and Pregnancy, the Follow-Up: Goodness, Snarklings! The Lady of the Manners has always been impressed with the Power Of The Internet that our shadowy subculture has at its communal fingers, but didn’t expect quite such the flurry of helpful responses when she asked for useful links and resources for Goths in a family way! As promised, here is a collection of the information that various kind and helpful Snarklings sent in.
• Fraser Speirs: App Store: I’m out: Apple’s current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle – submission to the App Store – is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren’t confident, they won’t invest in it. If developers – and serious developers at that – don’t invest, what’s the point?

Sometime between September 11th and September 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Tax Plans (that’s one for you, nineteen for me): There’s a graph that Obama supporters are sending around, showing the differences between the Republican and Democrat tax cut proposals. It shows that Obama is not in fact planning to raise taxes – he’s planning to cut them for all but the very, very rich. I couldn’t help but notice though – the graph is still massively weighted towards the interests of the super-rich…one of the brackets represents one thousandth of the population. So let’s make this a bit more accurate – let’s keep all the brackets, but draw it to scale. (via Waxy)
• Maurice Sendak’s Concerns, Beyond Where the Wild Things Are: Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, “Well, that I’m gay.” “I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business,” Mr. Sendak added. He lived with Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst, for 50 years before Dr. Glynn’s death in May 2007. He never told his parents: “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.” (via The Republic of T.)
• Mashups: The Future Of Music?: Mashups can be kind of a gateway to "trick" people into listening to music they wouldn't normally hear, and exposing them to different aspects of culture (and pop culture) they wouldn't otherwise be paying attention to. When a rock fan in their 30s or 40s hears a familiar '80s song, but then hears an unfamiliar pop or hip-hop vocal from some Top 40 artist, they're being exposed to current pop culture that they perhaps normally avoid. The same goes in the opposite direction — kids today get to hear older music because it's mashed up with the current stuff they enjoy. It's practically a musical education… or getting people to expand their boundaries of taste.
• Top 11 Reasons a Star Trek Marathon Is a Bad Idea: 4. Confirms your suspicion that bolting an eyepatch to your skull would look totally cool. (via TrekMovie.com)
• Chillax: If it works like a word, just use it.: Whenever I see "not a real word" used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading "I am not confident about my writing" on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an "unreal" word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police? The revocation (as the joke goes) of your poetic license? A public shaming by William Safire? The irony is that most of these words, without the disclaimer, would pass unnoticed by the majority of readers. (via Gruber)
• Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin: The American Idol candidate: I think I might be able to explain some of Sarah Palin's appeal. She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. (via Gruber)
• The GOP Loves the Heartland To Death: For decades now we have been electing people like Sarah Palin who claimed to love and respect the folksy conservatism of small towns, and yet who have unfailingly enacted laws to aid the small town's mortal enemies. Without raising an antitrust finger they have permitted fantastic concentration in the various industries that buy the farmer's crops. They have undone the New Deal system of agricultural price supports in favor of schemes called "Freedom to Farm" and loan deficiency payments — each reform apparently designed to secure just one thing out of small town America: cheap commodities for the big food processors. Richard Nixon's Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz put the conservative attitude toward small farmers most bluntly back in the 1970s when he warned, "Get big or get out." (via A Crank's Progress)