A, sadly, earthbound Commander Chris Hadfield in what is definitely the most awesome and extraordinary version of David Bowie's classic song:
An ideal replacement for Google Reader: Part 2
Inbox vs Stream
It’s been much longer than I intended when I wrote part 1 of an ideal replacement for Google Reader. But I haven’t forgotten that I promised a part 2 As you might recall the first (and probably most important) requirement for an ideal replacement for Google was that the back-end syncing service become an open... Continue Reading →
Keep Calm and Carry on
Bruce Schneier on the best response to the Boston bombing: As the details about the bombings in Boston unfold, it'd be easy to be scared. It'd be easy to feel powerless and demand that our elected leaders do something -- anything -- to keep us safe. It'd be easy, but it'd be wrong. We need... Continue Reading →
An ideal replacement for Google Reader: Part 1
The IMAP of feed readers
The impending death of Google Reader has got me thinking about what an ideal replacement for would look like. The first and most important feature (of an idealized replacement) is something I alluded to in an earlier post. Namely that the feed reader backend (which keeps track of all subscriptions and which items have been... Continue Reading →
The right way to shut down a service like Google Reader
My internet world came to an end today when Google announced they were shutting down Google Reader (the best RSS reader in existence). The problem is that Google Reader was more than a website, it was a backend that powered a bunch of useful services. All of those services are now in trouble. So how,... Continue Reading →
Confused?
via XKCD
Calamari!!!
The first ever video of a Giant Squid in its deep-ocean habitat.
Bah Humbug!
Physicists who want to protect traditional Christmas realize that the only way to keep from changing Christmas is not to observe it. (via xkcd) That is all.
The relativity of wrong
A recent comment on Planet3.0 gave me an excuse to post a link to Isaac Asimov's excellent essay on the Relativity of wrong, and I realized that I had never posted it here. So here it is for the record: The Relativity of Wrong By Isaac Asimov The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1989, Vol. 14, No.... Continue Reading →
The web we lost: XKCD edition
XKCD sums up the problem perfectly:
Ready for the end
Frankly I don't understand what all the fuss is about
The web we lost
I might sound old when I start rambling about the way things used to be, but Anil Dash's post about how the web used to be before the rise of walled gardens like Facebook is definitely must read: So here's a few glimpses of a web that's mostly faded away: Five years ago, most social... Continue Reading →
Everything that is wrong with Instagram in one horrible video
... and this doesn't even include the Twitter cards issue.
The world is neither black nor white
I am tired of the fact that the vast majority of the opinionated reporting on the situation in Gaza portrays it as a simple good vs evil fight, with the roles of good and evil cast predictably by the writers political affiliation. Reality is not usually that simple and the situation in Israel and Gaza... Continue Reading →
Rocket Science!
via XKCD (of course)
Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change
via Planet3.0
Neil
By now the news of Neil Armstrong's death is a few days old, but while we all mourn the passing of a great man, we should take the opportunity to remember that only 66 years after the Wright brothers' first historic flight we put a man on the moon. What have we done in the... Continue Reading →
The big Curiosity update
A lot has happened in the past few weeks on Mars. First of all we have much more high resolution videos of the entry decent and landing: And amazing self portraits: And brilliant panoramas: Then came the system checks. First a little wiggling of the wheels: And a test of the laser systems: Then it... Continue Reading →
This planet wasn’t enough for Curiosity
Last night's successful landing of Curiosity was absolutely a moment I will never forget. For those who chose the sensible option of sleep this is what you missed: And here is the short dramatized version: The words "we have thumbnails" instantly became this generation's "One small step for man..." Of course NASA's servers went down... Continue Reading →
Excuses
Definitely going to use this one at work:
Curiosity lands safely on the Martian surface!
This is humanity at its best. Never forget we are capable of amazing things. The first (small) image from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity!!! A few minutes later a larger version of the same image arrived from Mars Another image, this time with more detail: Meanwhile at the JPL mission control this was the reaction:... Continue Reading →
What to expect tonight
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a video detailing what we can expect tonight after the 7 minutes of terror:
Bipartisanship
via techdirt
7 minutes of terror
NASA's Curiosity Rover, currently on route to Mars, has an absolutely crazy method of getting from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. All of this will happen on August 5th 2012 at 10:31pm PDT. Set you alarm! And everyone should definitely follow the mission on Twitter.
Welcome to the new Mind of Dan
After the massive database crash a couple of weeks ago I decided to give Mind of Dan a proper upgrade. Really these were things that I should have done a long time ago (such as implementing proper permalinks instead of the ugly /?p=1063 type links I used to have). The basic layout hasn't changed much,... Continue Reading →
Pingback spam
I screwed up. A few days ago Mind of Dan had a database crash. A bunch of posts were lost and I had to rebuild the site from scratch. This meant restoring the recoverable archives by hand (a tedious job that is now mostly done). I left most of the WordPress settings on default (even... Continue Reading →
Intense Jealousy
I am not a jealous person... or at least I wasn't until I saw this picture: (h/t boingboing)