More than 90% of Americans believe that the US government is unduly influenced by money, and the Mayday.US super PAC is raising $5M to fund the election
campaigns of politicians who’ll pledge to dismantle super PACs and enact other campaign finance reforms. They raised more than $1M in 30 days last month, and this month, the goal is $5M. It’s
the brainchild of Lawrence Lessig, who’s going to run prototype the project by running five electoral campaigns in 2014, and use the lessons of those projects to win enough anti-corruption
seats in 2016 to effect real change.
Again, I’m not able to contribute to Mayday.US, because I’m a Canadian and Briton. But I ask my American friends to put in $10, and promise that I’ll put CAD1000 into any comparable Canadian
effort and/or £1000 into a comparable UK effort. We all win when countries embrace evidence-based policy guided by doing what’s best for its citizens, rather than lining the pockets of
corrupting multinationals.
Fascinating, but really most of the time it is in your code. Really you should look there first. Usually not the compiler’s fault, or the OS’s fault, or a loose wire in the CPU…
Also, the movie Moon is really good on a variety of points. Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey! Its
available on Netflix Watch Instantly so you have no excuse!
2010 Jul 13, 6:27"Occasionally the Technical Community Network group sits down with some of Microsoft’s most influential technical employees to capture their stories. Instead of examining specific technologies, BTC
takes a closer look at the person, the career and what it takes to produce world-class software."microsoftmsdnpodcastchannel9c++programmingtechnicalvideo
I just finished watching both seasons of this very funny and engaging TV series Id previously never heard of and I highly recommend it. Adam Scott stars as an actor who has given up on his dream of
acting and joins a catering company working along side actors trying to make it in LA. There are many ties to Veronica Mars: the shows creator is Rob Thomas (the creator of Veronica Mars), the show
features Ken Marino and Ryan Hansen, and has guest stars of Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, and Enrico Colantoni, among others. It has many of the same talented people from Veronica Mars but Party
Down is more like a smarter and funnier The Office given the relationship between Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan and their subtle mockery of their wackier workmates and inept boss.
An excellent movie I'd never heard of. An entertaining and humorous sci-fi indie romance comedy. It stars Emma Caulfield (who I recognize as Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who obsesses over
her timer, an implanted device that counts down to when she'll meet the love of her life. Thematically its similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which similarly adds a scifi device to
society in order to examine the value of failed relationships on a persons life.
I've just put up an update for Encode-O-Matic with the following improvements:
Hex editor: the output and input views can now be switched between a UTF8 textbox view and a hex editor view. This is built using the free Be.HexEditor.
Compression: I've added the .NET GZip, deflate, and inflate streams to the list of supported encodings.
Quick Show Output: There are now 'Show Output' radio buttons next to each encoding in the encoding stack. Clicking on them changes the output view to show the output from that encoding in the
stack. This lets you easily jump between different parts of your encoding process. Adding or removing an encoding to the stack resets the view.
Minor visuals improvement: added app icon, changed buttons with one word symbols to command names.
2009 Dec 27, 7:43"Have a look what happens when a huge hamster hits the Amsterdam Canals in a giant inflatable ball!" Almost a good idea. Maybe next time add some paddles to the outside of the ball.humorvideoyoutubehamsteramsterdamwater
I was reading Makers, Cory Doctorow's latest novel, as it was serialized on Tor's website but with no ability to save my place within a page I set out to find a book reading app
for my G1 Android phone. I stopped looking once I found Aldiko. Its got bookmarks within chapters, configurable fonts, you can look-up words in a
dictionary, and has an easy method to download public domain and creative common books. I was able to take advantage of Aldiko's in-app book download system to get Makers onto my phone so I didn't
have to bother with any conversion programs etc, and I didn't have to worry about spacing or layout, the book had the correct cover art, and chapter delimiters. I'm very happy with this app and
finished reading Makers on it.
Makers is set in the near future and features teams of inventors, networked 3d printers, IP contention, body modifications, and Disney -- just the sort of thing you'd expect from a Cory
Doctorow novel. The tale seems to be an allegory for the Internet including displacing existing businesses and the conflict between the existing big entertainment IP owners and the plethora of fans
and minor content producers. The story is engaging and the characters filled out and believable. I recommend Makers and as always its Creative Commons so go take a look right now.
Netflix lets you watch a subset of their movies online via their website and a subset of those movies are available to watch on the Xbox 360's Netflix app. so its not always easy to find movies to
watch on Xbox 360. Yet, I regularly see my Xbox friends using the Netflix app and its a shame they didn't make an easy way to share movie recommendations with your friends. Instead we must share
movie recommendations the old fashioned way. Here's the movies I've found and enjoyed on my 360.
If you enjoyed Paranoia Agent you'll enjoy this movie in the same animation style and by the same director and
writer, Satoshi Kon. Its like a feature length version of a Paranoia Agent episode in which a dream machine lets outsiders view one's dreams but eventually leads to blurring the dreams and
reality.
I didn't see either of the Grindhouse movies when they first came out, but of the two, Planet Terror is the more humorous and exciting gore filled parody.
A hilarious documentary on the struggle between the reigning champ hot-sauce salesman and the underdog Washington state high school science teacher to obtain the Donkey Kong world record high
score. After watching, checkout this interview with the creators of the movie and the
villain.
2008 Nov 18, 1:10"...Just in case the previous 62 questions do not ferret out any potential controversy, the 63rd is all-encompassing: 'Please provide any other information, including information about other members
of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect.' ... For those who clear all the hurdles, the reward
could be the job they wanted. But first there will be more forms, for security and ethics clearances from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Government Ethics."governmentobamafbiprivacy
2008 Nov 16, 10:24Noah Sussman describes the 'via:' delicious tag with references including a bookmarklet to ensure the via: tags are added automatically. The bookmarklet would only be useful to me if it worked on the
'Save a new bookmark' page, but the history and references are interesting. Reminds me of my past idea for a project that shows who influences who in your Delicious network based on duplicate links
among friends with the influencer who saves it first.via:ethan_t_heindeliciousmetabookmarkletscriptwhuffienoah-sussman
2008 Oct 14, 11:45A bit of interesting history on Apollo 7 on the 40year anniversary of its launch: "More surprising yet, this was the first US spaceflight in which there was major friction between the crew and
Mission Control."historyspacenasaapolloapollo7article
Netflix has recommended three party movies over my time with Netflix and if you're OK with movies featuring sex, drugs, rock&roll (or techno) as almost the main character then I can recommend
at least The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down.
24 Hour Party People is based on the true story of Tony Wilson, journalist, band manager, and club owner (not all at once)
around the rise of punk and new wave in England. Like many true-story based movies it starts off strong and very interesting but gets very slow at the end like the writers got bored and just
started copying the actual events. Unless you have some interest in the history of music in the 80s in Manchester I don't recommend this movie.
Human Traffic is fun and funny following a group of friends going out for a night of clubbing and partying. I had to get over
seeing John Simm as not The Master from Doctor Who but rather as a partying youth. It felt like it was geared towards viewers who were on
something like the totally odd techno musical interludes with the characters dancing for no apparent reason. Otherwise the movie was good.
The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down is done in the style of an old educational movie on the topic
of clubbing and partying. It sounds like a premise that would get old but they do a good job. While demonstrating drinking and driving they have scientists push a mouse around in a toy convertible.
Enough said. It was funny and I recommend it.
2008 Sep 4, 6:08The new Windows ad campaign begins. I thought it was funny. I thought it'd be more directly aimed at the Mac ads and have something about Vista. I'm no ad expert though so what do I know? "The ad to
air tonight is the first of a series and is meant to be humorous, said a company spokeswoman. She would provide no additional details about the campaign." Oh, jokes! I get jokes. Thanks for the tip
company spokeswoman!humorvideoadvertisingmicrosoft
Still on the fence if this is good for the web. Love the progress!!
“@shanselman: Flash isn't dead. It's undead. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/JavaScriptHasWonRunFlashWithMozillaShumwayAndDevelopSilverlightInJSWithFayde.aspx …”
Jaydiohead -
Radiohead & Jay-Z mashup. Listen:
Selene - Richard Rich & beats over the Moon
soundtrack. Listen:
Double Check Your
Head - Beastie Boys albums mixed together. Listen:
Makers is set in the near future and features teams of inventors, networked 3d printers, IP contention, body modifications, and Disney -- just the sort of thing you'd expect from a Cory
Doctorow novel. The tale seems to be an allegory for the Internet including displacing existing businesses and the conflict between the existing big entertainment IP owners and the plethora of fans
and minor content producers. The story is engaging and the characters filled out and believable. I recommend Makers and as always its Creative Commons so go take a look right now.
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