There is also a belief that older programmers “lose the edge” and don’t cut it anymore. That belief is mistaken in my opinion; older programmers may not burn as much midnight oil as younger ones, but that’s not because they are old, but because they get the job done without having to stay up past midnight.
Source: p. 56 of Communications of the ACM, Vol. 52 No. 5, Pages 46-56 (10.1145/1506409.1506424).
A new low-bandwidth, high-frame-rate videoconferencing technology that creates the appearance of three-dimensionality and a strong sense of co-presence without the use of expensive motion-tracking devices or multicamera arrays could eventually become available for cell phones, laptop computers and personal digital assistants, according to a researcher at the University of Virginia.
[...]
According to Timothy Brick, the U.Va. researcher who made the presentation, the new videoconferencing system may make high-frame-rate videoconferencing readily and inexpensively available to nearly anyone with small, portable communication devices, possibly within two to three years.
despite the housing crisis, one deeply entrenched value remains sacrosanct: homeownership. [...] But a growing chorus of economists and housing experts say that this mind-set needs fundamental reform.
In 2001 the US NGO Physicians for Human Rights published a manual on treating torture survivors that noted:
perpetrators often attempt to justify their acts of torture and ill treatment by the need to gather information. Such conceptualizations obscure the purpose of torture….The aim of torture is to dehumanize the victim, break his/her will, and at the same time, set horrific examples for those who come in contact with the victim. In this way, torture can break or damage the will and coherence of entire communities.
Yet despite this body of knowledge, torture continues to be debated in the United States as if it were merely a morally questionable way to extract information, not an instrument of state terror.
The palm oil industry is guilty of truly heinous ecological atrocities, including the systematic genocide of orangutans– who share nearly 98% of our DNA. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are the only place where these gentle, intelligent creatures live, and the cultivation of palm oil has directly led to the brutal deaths of thousands of individuals as the industry has expanded into undisturbed areas of rainforest.
When the forest is cleared, adult orangutans are typically shot on sight. These peaceful, sentient beings are beaten, burned, mutilated, tortured and often eaten. Babies are torn off their dying mothers so they can be sold on the black market as illegal pets to wealthy families who see them as status symbols of their own power and prestige. I am not trying to be overly dramatic. This actually happens. It has been documented time and again.
The best lard is leaf lard, from the fat around the kidneys of a hog, preferably a heritage hog. Flying Pigs Farm sells this at the Greenmarket in Union Square in New York City for $6 per 8-ounce container, and it sells out fast. Lard from the supermarket can still be pretty scary; most of it has been hydrogenated to make it last longer.
(As I learned from lard crusader Zarela Martinez in New York, you can make your own if you can get your hands on top-quality fat from a small producer—back, belly, or kidney fat will all work. Cut it into chunks and cook them very slowly over low heat until the fat seeps out and only crispy bits are left. Strain it and save the fat in the refrigerator almost indefinitely. Salt the cracklings and eat them as what Mexicans call chicharrones.)
[Samuel Johnson] held slavery in abhorrence and, in the run-up to the American Revolution, dismissed the case of the colonists as “yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes.”
According to this Inflation-Adjusted Dow Chart (1925 – Present)
To better demonstrate the true magnitude of the great bull and bear markets of the last century, it is necessary to adjust the Dow Jones Industrial Average for inflation. What the CPI (Consumer Price Index) adjusted Dow chart shows is that the 1966 to 1982 bear market was almost as severe as that of the early 1930s. And since 1982, a true and great bull market has ensued (even when adjusted for inflation).
Granted, a version of the California Good Life can still be had—by those Starr calls the “fiercely competitive.” That’s just the heartbreak: most of us are merely ordinary. For nearly a century, California offered ordinary people better lives than they could lead perhaps anywhere else in the world. Today, reflecting our intensely stratified, increasingly mobile society, California affords the Good Life only to the most gifted and ambitious, regardless of their background. That’s a deeply undemocratic betrayal of California’s dream—and of the promise of American life. As R. H. Tawney wrote, “Opportunities to rise, which can, of their very nature, be seized only by the few,” cannot “substitute for a general diffusion of the means of civilization, which are needed by all men whether they rise or not.”
I’ll have to meditate that, because it pretty much describes why I love today’s California. I can agree that one shouldn’t be punished for not being “gifted”, but why shouldn’t intense ambition within the rules be the price of admission to the good life?
In Milpitas, guns don’t kill people, knives kill people.
According to Ian Bauer, writing 9/25/2009 for the Milpitas Post,
The victim appeared to have been stabbed multiple times at the restaurant before attempting to drive away. But his car rolled to a stop in front of an under-construction apartment complex about 400 yards north of Montague Expressway. Arriving paramedics administered life-saving measures, but the victim died at the scene.
The homicide is the first in Milpitas since October 2007, when resident Yu Ju “Amy” Fan was fatally stabbed in her home.
Wasps are another problem for tarantulas. Several varieties paralyze tarantulas with their sting and then lay eggs in the spider’s abdomen. When the eggs hatch, the paralyzed spider is eaten alive by wasp larvae. Even the goliath birdeater is not immune. The particular species of wasp that feeds on the goliath is the size of a sparrow.
The film does a fine job of illustrating the sheer absurdity of corn production in this country: it depletes soil, it’s unhealthy (for both people and animals) and if not for vast government subsidies farmers wouldn’t make a profit selling it. And maybe not so coincidentally, the more large corporations have taken over farming the greater the subsidies have become, creating a system where generational family farms are going belly up while tax payers are subsidizing corporations to make increasingly unhealthy food.
fishermen off the northern coast of France have found a large parasitic isopod (a relative of the louse) that has evolved a rather hideous method for survival in its host: It gets into the fish’s mouth and then devours its tongue. It then attaches itself at the back of the fish’s throat where it presumably feeds of whatever the fish normally eats.
Web pages I’ve “dugg”.
By: bradpierce on 2009/02/26
at 1:50 pm
Be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
By: bradpierce on 2009/02/26
at 5:01 pm
A day spent dejected, angry, or otherwise distracted from positive action by negative emotion is a wasted day.
By: bradpierce on 2009/03/27
at 5:44 pm
According to Michi Henning
Source: p. 56 of Communications of the ACM, Vol. 52 No. 5, Pages 46-56 (10.1145/1506409.1506424).
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/11
at 9:31 am
Every minute you waste on stupid stuff, procrastinating, etc., is a minute you steal from your family and your higher self.
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/11
at 5:02 pm
Joke: When you find yourself muttering “I am not insane. I am not insane.” is that a good sign or a bad sign?
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/11
at 5:18 pm
Don’t rehearse your excuses — rehearse your acceptance speech.
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/12
at 2:57 pm
According to Marc Perkel
Love that slogan.
He also offers a “Rent a Genius” service and answers the question
And check out his Choose Reality campaign.
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/14
at 1:18 pm
According to Fariss Samarrai
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/14
at 7:53 pm
Another day, another belly flop into an Olympic-size pool of self-delusion.
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/21
at 12:26 pm
According to Edward McClelland, according to Barack Obama in his Grant Park victory speech after the 2008 USA Presidential election
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/23
at 9:50 pm
According to Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/24
at 8:57 pm
According to Naomi Klein
By: bradpierce on 2009/05/25
at 9:15 am
According to Richard Zimmerman
More …
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/02
at 5:10 pm
According to Regina Schrambling
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/06
at 5:51 pm
According to Pat Rogers
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/06
at 9:45 pm
There are worse reasons for getting something done than simply getting people off your back.
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/07
at 7:39 pm
According to John Lydon
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/07
at 8:16 pm
I asked about bedbugs here.
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/11
at 10:17 pm
According to Esther Dyson
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/13
at 10:11 am
Ted Nelson on “Toward a Deep Electronic Literature: The Generalization of Documents and Media“.
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/15
at 11:42 am
According to this Inflation-Adjusted Dow Chart (1925 – Present)
Here’s a different version.
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/15
at 2:08 pm
I commented about the bogus “Nobel Prize” for economics here.
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/15
at 4:07 pm
Twitter asks
But often the hidden subtext is
By: bradpierce on 2009/06/22
at 10:38 am
Who are the people that buy books “For Dummies” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to” this and that? Why not books “For Smelly Losers”, too?
By: bradpierce on 2009/07/05
at 7:17 pm
Haiti’s “dirt cookies“.
By: bradpierce on 2009/07/05
at 7:28 pm
Go ahead, get me wrong. It’s OK.
By: bradpierce on 2009/07/05
at 7:29 pm
According to Benjamin Schwarz
I’ll have to meditate that, because it pretty much describes why I love today’s California. I can agree that one shouldn’t be punished for not being “gifted”, but why shouldn’t intense ambition within the rules be the price of admission to the good life?
By: bradpierce on 2009/07/05
at 10:26 pm
The feeling without the fact
By: bradpierce on 2009/07/09
at 1:42 pm
Synthetic genomics.
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/02
at 9:15 am
According to Jason McCampbell
I asked him
According to Jason McCampbell
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/03
at 12:23 pm
I commented about sexism at DAC here.
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/03
at 12:29 pm
Hear the last music from deserted cities.
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/03
at 10:46 pm
Radio personality Thom Hartmann wrote a book called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.
The last hours of ancient sunlight
The last music from deserted cities
The last X preposition adjective noun
By: bradpierce on 2009/10/01
at 1:23 pm
“Lose weight” is another euphemism. You could achieve that by forgetting your head somewhere.
Should be “lose fat”, or maybe better “burn fat”.
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/09
at 10:42 pm
According to Mickey Billingham
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/12
at 9:32 pm
I wrote here
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/14
at 10:00 pm
I wrote here
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/14
at 10:02 pm
I wrote here
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/14
at 10:07 pm
Jonathan Mead wrote here
I responded
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/14
at 10:16 pm
I wrote here regarding “Aerobic Activity May Keep The Brain Young”
By: bradpierce on 2009/08/14
at 10:19 pm
According to Marge Piercy
By: bradpierce on 2009/09/27
at 10:53 am
In Milpitas, guns don’t kill people, knives kill people.
According to Ian Bauer, writing 9/25/2009 for the Milpitas Post,
Details here.
Spoke too soon. On 7:20 pm, October 23, 2009, 34-year-old Michael Anthony Davis of Richmond was shot dead in the Great Mall parking structure.
By: bradpierce on 2009/09/27
at 11:07 am
According to Sy Montgomery
By: bradpierce on 2009/11/02
at 12:04 am
If people brushed and flossed as carefully each day as they do before a dental appointment, they wouldn’t need to see the dentist so often.
By: bradpierce on 2009/11/05
at 2:52 pm
According to this
By: bradpierce on 2009/11/05
at 7:08 pm
According to Brent Richards
A shortcut to the icky picture is here.
By: bradpierce on 2009/11/08
at 1:05 am
When real life knocks, open the door.
By: bradpierce on 2009/11/11
at 12:37 am
I recalled a list from the Unix fortune file, which I thought was “Top ten signs you might be dead”, but couldn’t find it on Google.
By: bradpierce on 2010/01/24
at 10:36 pm