Monthly Archive: December 2004

Dec
23

When developed nations spawn refugees.

Isn’t there possibly something wrong when a world class nation like the United States of America creates a massive out-flux of nationals who claim to be refugees? Is there something else seriously wrong when the receiving nation accepts them, citing that they are in danger if they were to stay? Seriously, what’s going on down …

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Dec
20

Economic Amusements

This showed up in my mailbox courtesy of Herb today. It was particularly well timed as I was reading a copy of the Economist as it arrived. Made me laugh out loud for a few moments, then I could get on with my day. Link.

Dec
19

Books for Mac OS/X Developers

Here’s a collection of useful books to get started in the Mac environment. “Mac OS X for Unix Geeks”, Brian Jepson & Ernest E. Rothman, © 2003, O’Reilly and Associates, Inc., ISBN: 0-596-00356-0. Amazon USA and Canada Barnes and Noble Indigo Books (Canada) “Learning Cocoa with Objective-C”, James Duncan Davidson with Apple Computer Inc., © …

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Dec
18

Revenge of Unintended Consequences

Quite a few years ago, I read a wonderful book about unintended consequences. It was an excellent narrative and collection of case studies surrounding good ideas, gone very bad. Items like Prairie Grass overcrowding, the Tacoma Narrows bridge, bio-engineering that ‘slipped’, etc. The recurring theme in the book was that complex systems — which is …

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Dec
17

MarsEdit + WordPress + NetNewsWire == RSS Heaven

Ranchero Software (who make some of the best Mac applications for Web use out there) has really caught my attention this week. I’m particularly impressed with their very famous NetNewsWire product. I have no idea what Jobs & co have up their sleeve with Tiger, but I’m digging NNW! In particular, something I just stumbled …

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Dec
06

Kentucky creationist museum online

Found during a scan of Boing Boing this morning. Boing Boing: Kentucky creationist museum online As the kids would say, OMFG.

Dec
02

Censorship: MSN Spaces

Xeni has a great post over on Boing Boing regarding censorship and automatic blacklists. Or at least a nice exposé of what’s permitted and some surprising no-gos. The part about a legal history of profanity being out of bounds hits a funny bone around here.

Dec
02

iTunes Music Store, eh?

Originally found at link. The much anticipated iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is now open for business in Canada, eh? Apple announced in October that it would launch an iTMS in Canada before the end of November. December 1 is close. Bring it on, at only 0.99$ CDN, that’s about, oh, 0.85$ USD. Happy joy. Now …

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Dec
01

Remote editing with emacs and ange-ftp over SSH

I just found something I completely forgot I was looking for. A method to edit files remotely using emacs (just like the good old days) with ange-ftp, but using SSH (scp) connections. Rather than blab on about it for an hour, I’ll let someone else explain it to you.

Dec
01

Cocoa Completion

A useful tip for Cocoa applications: In most widgets (text entry) you can complete the current word by typing Option-Esc. Much like emacs or xemacs. The goodness continues. I found another blog entry dealing with this over at Salad With Steve.