August 2007
35 posts
The Tech Industry Wants You To Support The Fight... →
An interesting TechCrunch post on intellectual property. Here is the comment I added to the discussion: Probably the best libertarian arguments against intellectual property have been made or summarized by the lawyer and libertarian theorist Stephan Kinsella. A good place to start is his Sep., 2000 article “In Defense of Napster” http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/kinsella2.html Doug Lay...
The Hollow Men: Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris →
I’ve always found it astonishing that, after the events of the 20th century, atheists could talk about the horrors of the Inquisition as proof that people would be nicer to each other without religion. In this marvelous response to the best-selling atheist trio, the author makes this point and goes beyond it:
This “religion is evil” argument suffers from a triple weakness. First, it ignores...
A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks →
Was Caesar a political “wonk” or “geek”? What about Dick Cheney, Alexander Hamilton, and Ron Paul? Jeffrey Tucker has some ideas.
U.S. is the Most Armed Country in the World →
The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
More American Women are Dying at Childbirth →
U.S. women are dying from childbirth at the highest rate in decades, new government figures show. Though the risk of death is very small, experts believe increasing maternal obesity and a jump in Caesarean sections are partly to blame.
Holding a Program in One's Head →
Another outstanding essay from Paul Graham. Underscores not only the crucial importance of having a distraction-free (preferably quiet!) environment for programmers, but many other factors that help a programmer be “in the zone”, which is when real problem solving occurs. He then goes on to point out how much these factors tend to be absent in large organizations:
Even more striking...
Is the Open Source Movement Libertarian? →
Good sense on this issue from Tim Swanson at the Mises Blog:
…in practice the development of FOSS (“Free and Open-Source Software”) really is not a philosophy per se but rather a business/distribution model.
The journalism that bloggers actually do →
Michael Skube, a journalism professor, published an article dismissing the idea that bloggers every do any real journalism. He said that they don’t do “the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence … the depiction of real life.”
Ironically, Skube’s pronouncement on bloggers has been blown out of the water primarily because he did not...
On Top →
“Writing an email is like writing an article. Only quote the relevant parts, interspersing your new remarks between the quoted passages. Don’t quote anything at all from the original message if you don’t have to.”
A New Mac Tip Every Day: A quicker page down and... →
“I tried it in Mail, Safari, Firefox and Camino and it was all fine. To go down, you can simply hit “Space Bar” and you can go up with “Shift - Space Bar”.”
Ancient Tablet Vouches for Biblical King →
People who joke about the Bible being a “fiction book” are clearly unaware of the steady trickle of archeological evidence backing up the Bible as an accurate historical document.
Childbirth (Pain) The Huichol Indians have a tradition during childbirth where the husband’s testicles are tied to a rope, which is pulled by the labouring wife when she feels a painful contraction, to share the pain of childbirth. I suppose that’s reasonable. [more]
[Merlin Mann]
“Companion program to Inbox Zero: Browser Tab Zero.”
– John Gruber via twitter.
Despite occasionally getting behind, I’ve pretty much mastered Inbox Zero. But Browser Tab Zero is a whole new challenge. I’ll get something in a browser tab and it can stay there for weeks before I get around to reading it/processing it. Gruber makes a worthy...
“I took up the job on my own, kept at it as I pleased, and was fully prepared to...”
– Albert Jay Nock in Memoirs of a Superfluous Man. [Thanks BK Marcus]
Read the rest… Full of insight!
“A book reviewer in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal discusses the assassination of...”
– David Boaz on Anarchists vs. Statists. [Thanks Roderick Long]
US Israel Policy Harms Both Countries - by Paul... →
I have argued that you can be For the Jews, Against the Jewish State. Among my Christian family and friends this is a controversial position, though it is just as logical as my being for the American people but against the monstrous U.S. Federal Government.
“but I saw how my father when he thought
he was alone would raise his hands and...”
– excerpt from “No Work Poem #1” by Virgil Suarez. [Thanks Writer’s Almanac]
I don’t like very much of the modernist poetry featured on the Writer’s Almanac. I don’t even like this poem very much as a poem, but I like what this portion is saying. It captures...
Discipline Makes Strong Developers →
“Without discipline, things like tools and languages are irrelevant.”
Court Asks Mother To Stop Breastfeeding →
A woman in the middle of a custody battle is facing an unusual order from the court. A district court investigator is recommending that Christa Burton stop breastfeeding her 15-month-old child, Carter.
“You see how much Paul longed to see the Romans, but he did not want to see them...”
– St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, (commenting on Romans 1:10).
Facebook on the iPhone = STUNNING →
“A reader tipped us off today that Facebook has launched a version of the site for the iPhone. And - wow! - have they done a spectacular job with this.”
Next Generation C++ →
Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++, discusses new features that will be present in the next version of C++ (tentatively C++09). He addresses many important questions form the audience, and gives his views on C++ compilers, including GCC and Visual C++.
Ron Paul comes in 5th w/ 9% →
Straw poll results
The new frontier: Mac OS X is a mature technology;... →
by John Gruber. I made this point in my article on the iPhone, but Gruber makes it better:
With the iPhone, on the other hand, Apple is heading into uncharted territory. The fundamental elements of the Mac interface are overlapping windows, the menu bar, and the mouse pointer; the iPhone has none of these. Every Mac ever sold has had both a keyboard and a pointing device providing single-pixel...
Sheehan announces independent run against Pelosi →
Former anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan announced on Thursday that in 2008 she will run as an independent candidate against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “I dedicate my candidacy to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Sheehan said, weeping.
Why apple may have left copy and paste out of the... →
Interesting story about why apple makes some of the choices it makes, specifically why copy and paste seems omitted from the iPhone.
Bye-Lo (mp3) →
A first try at a simple multi-tracked recording of a lullaby by my wife, Heather Carson.