from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Despite their bizarre capitalized naming scheme, these are the nail clippers you want. They beat cheap drugstore clippers in two important ways. First, they start sharp and stay sharp for a long time. I've had my first pair for perhaps 7 years, and they still cut beautifully. Second, they capture all the nail clippings that would normally scatter to the winds. This is a feature that seems trivial until you've tried it; in fact, it's a critical thing in a nail clipper.

The clippers come in three sizes. My wife uses a small for her fingers, while I'm more comfortable with a medium. We both use the medium for toes. The medium is a pretty versatile size, and the large, which I've never seen, must be very large indeed. Maybe it's for horse hooves.

I bought this on a hunch, because I was so frustrated with nail clippers that wore down after a few months. I've since given 4 more as presents, a move which raised eyebrows at the time, but in all cases has proven successful in the long term.

-- Ashish Ranpura

[Given that their website is in Japanese here's a bit of history about Feather the Japanese company that manufactures these clippers (among many other sharp objects).--OH]

Feather Parada Nail Clippers
Small, medium, large
$15-$17

Available from West Coast Shaving

Manufactured by Feather Safety Razor Company

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://instapaper.com/

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Android: There's no shortage of file browsers available for Android, but Solid Explorer Beta has raised the bar with a gorgeous UI and pro level features.

Inside the app you'll find a convenient dual-panel view with drag and drop support, an FTP client for file sharing, and ZIP, TAR, and RAR support, as well as handy features like indexed Dropbox searching and root file access. The ability to search by file type and specify filters is also a huge time saver.

What really sets Solid Explorer apart though is its beautiful design. Lists scroll smoothly, thumbnails load quickly, and the menus are easy to navigate. Solid Explorer Beta is free and compatible with Android 2.2 and above.

Solid Explorer Beta | Google Play Store via Andronica

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 When you experience a vague sense of inequity or deprivation but don’t have a template for whether your expectations are fair, drink.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9

But [Scott] Widdowson is a specialist. He’s one of 10 reverse-engineers working full time for a stealthy company funded by some of the biggest names in technology: Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Sony, and Ericsson. Called the Rockstar Consortium, the 32-person outfit has a single-minded mission: It examines successful products, like routers and smartphones, and it tries to find proof that these products infringe on a portfolio of over 4,000 technology patents once owned by one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies... In the last two months, Rockstar has started negotiations with as many as 100 potential licensees. And with control of a patent portfolio covering core wireless communications technologies such as LTE (Long Term Evolution) and 3G, there is literally no end in sight.

Dispiriting. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Exhaustive review.

The big question is whether TouchWiz legitimately adds to the Galaxy S III or if Samsung would’ve done users more of a service by delivering untampered Ice Cream Sandwich instead. There’s no doubt that Android 4.0 marked a vast improvement in native UX over earlier iterations, and we’re big fans of ICS’ simple UI too. Third-party reskins inevitably lead to delays in OS upgrades – and Samsung has a mixed track record for that anyway – while users new to the skin generally have a steeper learning curve.

On the flip side, those coming from an earlier Samsung device should be able to dive straight in, and will probably find at least one or two improvements in the Nature UX that work to their advantage. It’s the cleanest version of TouchWiz so far

Even so, he seems equivocal about its plastic-ness.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

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Whether you're getting an early jump on holiday gifts or just want to have an Instagram-like hard copy of your favorite photos, wood transfers are a great way to to turn a photo into a keepsake. We've found a method where all you need in addition to the wood and laser printed photo are two art-store chemicals, brushes, scissors, and towels.

Photography weblog Photojojo has tons of cleve photography tricks, here's their method for achieving easy wood transfers: First you'll need to reverse the photo you want to transfer, which can be done in any image editor. While you're in there make sure the photo will be nicely sized to print on your wooden plaque. Print the photo in reverse from a laser printer using at least a 300dpi resolution. Then cut out the photo and brush a thin layer of matte gel medium on top of the photo's surface. Very carefully lay the photo down on the wood piece and use an edge of a gift card to smooth out the photo. Let this dry for eight hours and then place a water-soaked rag on top of your transfer and let that sit for a few minutes. Now you just rub off the white paper fibers with your fingers or the rag and let it dry

Additional tips and step-by-step photos can be found at the source link below.

DIY: Make Easy Photo Transfers on Wood | Photojojo

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After the fourth or fifth time of being hammered after an article appeared in Google News, I finally discovered a pattern I should have seen earlier. Our access logs were full of requests from many different IP addresses asking for the same page repeatedly within a few seconds. That in itself wasn’t unusual for traffic generated by Google News, but more peculiar was the user-agent identifier — that’s the bit of text a browser sends that tells a server what its maker and version are.

Lots of traffic from Google News, but not all of it driven by humans.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from API Evangelist http://blog.apievangelist.com/

Here we are going into June, and I still don’t see a publicly available Pinterest API. Jay Yarow wrote in Business Insider back in February, "Pinterest's API Is Coming Soon, And VCs Are Super Excited" and Adam Duvander wrote in ProgrammableWeb, "Pinterest API: Coming Soon or Already Here?".

There is also a reply to a Quora thread by Yashh Nelapati, Lead Engineer at Pinterest from May 2011, saying the API is 2-3 weeks away. It’s now a year later and there is no official API (there is a Rogue API).

Business Insider says, Pinterest fears having a "Twitter problem”. Meaning that when Twitter released its API, it was still an immature company, allowing developers to build applications with features that it was missing--then Twitter matured, and it wanted to control its platform, it began adding building its own features and poaching from the Twitter API ecosystem.

So why not learn from Twitter and other APIs, and use the appropriate API building blocks to address this:

Branding Guidelines - Establish branding guidelines that clearly lays out what apps that use Pinterest API should look like

UI / UX Toolkit - Provide a UI / UX toolkit like Twitter Bootstrap that sets the tone for applications built on the API

Roadmap - Provide a real-time and transparent roadmap that developers can use to help keep their development efforts in line with Pinterest

Developer Framework - Establish a developer framework outlining opportunities for developers to become stronger members of API community, also introducing possible investment and incubation of most success or important features

Terms of Use - Establish a fair and equitable terms of use that protects Pinterests but acknowledges the commercial aspirations of developers

Events / Meetups - Establish a roadshow or network of meetups that brings developers together and makes them part of the Pinterest API community

These are just a few of the ways Pinterest could establish a solid business strategy for their API that would not only protect developer interests, it would establish the Pinterest API as an external research & development department, with a built in incubation component.

Pinterest has already missed out on a year of developers innovating on their platform. Why continue holding back innovation? Establish a flexible API business strategy that allows for you to learn from the mistakes made by Twitter, and become the platform VC’s are looking for you to become.

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Where I live, decent public libraries with connections to the software service Overdrive allow surprisingly easy checkout of "library books" wirelessly to your Kindle. The Overdrive system provides libraries with both audiobook downloads and eBooks. I find, like most, that reading or listening to these books on a computer is untenable, but transferring audiobooks to my Sansa Clip player is as easy as pie.

For the (increasingly) large selection of books with Kindle versions, it's very easy to get free content to show up via Amazon's Whispernet. Nothing fiddly about it, no cables either. And for the earlier cool tool of "User Manual First", Kindles are a pretty good place to keep these PDF files. Either transfer via cable (easy) or use your Kindle's email address which allow your docs to show up via Whispernet.

Finally, if you sign up for Amazon Prime service, you not only get free shipping on your purchases, you also get access to the "Kindle Owner's Library" - more books without fees. And if your Kindle is a Fire (or you don't mind watching on a PC), you also get access to lots of streaming video (my wife is re-enjoying Ally McBeal (and I'm enjoying not being exposed to it, too)).

Anyway, go to your library's website and look for Overdrive services. Another convergence of several cool tools that merge to form a new level of cool tool.

-- Wayne Ruffner

The ubiquity of ereaders like the Kindle, Nook and iPad has driven a surge in ebook availability. Retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble have the lock on bestsellers and the like, but a flourishing underground market for free and cheap ebooks has become a boon for readers.

The best established source for free ebooks is Project Gutenberg whose archives contain over 36,000 ebooks that represent nearly every out-of-copyright classic piece of literature along with a vast archive of obscure but pleasurable reads. The quality of digitization is excellent, and the site's vibrant community ensures that any errors are quickly fixed. They also offer the ebooks in a variety of formats (ePub, mobi, html), including some as downloadable audiobooks.

With more and more libraries getting into the game of lending ebooks, the software company Overdrive (that Wayne mentioned) has been leading the way. Libraries contract out their ebook libraries to OverDrive who make them available for a limited loan period (via a proprietary DRM from Adobe) through their software that is available on most operating systems including iOS and Android. Once you have the application, simply add your local or state library system (some are better stocked than others) and Overdrive allows you to browse the ebooks that they have available to check out. Everything's automated so there are no late fees, and often times you can get best sellers without waiting (or, if they're "checked out" you can reserve them and when they become available they are automatically downloaded).

ManyBooks.net is the friendliest index of free ebooks of the bunch. It will search Project Gutenberg's archives, as well as troll through numerous other archives. They also provide recommendations and reviews (which is incredibly useful given the sheer number of available titles).

Outside of strictly free sources, InkMesh is the best search engine I have found for identifying if an author or a book is available in ebook form, whether it is free, where I can download it, and in what format. They have also collated a comprehensive list of free ebooks available for a variety of platforms.

Two more sources for the ebook crazy are the blogs Pixel of Ink and Books on the Knob which highlight attractive deals for the Kindle.

Finally, to manage this inundation of ebooks I heartily recommend the previously reviewed Calibre. If you have other recommended sources for eBooks and the like, feel free to leave a note in the comments and I'll make sure to update this page.

-- Oliver Hulland

Overdrive
Free

Amazon Prime
$79/year (or $39/year for students)

Project Gutenberg
Free

ManyBooks.net
Free

InkMesh
Free

Pixel of Ink
Free

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh "Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, 'Straight White Male' is the lowest difficulty setting there is."

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9

Today, we’ve been informed that Apple has removed Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store.1 We first heard from Apple about this decision two days ago, and we’ve been discussing the pending removal with them since then. However, we still do not yet have a clear answer on why Apple has chosen to remove Airfoil Speakers Touch.

Apple is still pulling this crap? Give an explanation at the very minimum.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9

Microsoft wants Windows developers to write Windows 8-specific, Metro-style, touch-friendly applications, and to make sure that they crank these apps out, the company has decided that Visual Studio 11 Express, the free-to-use version of its integrated development environment, can produce nothing else.

If you want to develop desktop applications—anything that runs at the command line or on the conventional Windows desktop that remains a fully supported, integral, essential part of Windows 8—you'll have two options: stick with the current Visual C++ 2010 Express and Visual C# 2010 Express products, or pay about $400-500 for Visual Studio 11 Professional. A second version, Visual Studio 11 Express for Web, will be able to produce HTML and JavaScript websites, and nothing more.

Flipping heck. Former Microsofties are appalled.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

Android: Widgets are awesome, but if you're keeping your eye on a service or web site that doesn't have a widget in the Play Store, you can make your own with Meta Widget.

To get started, just open up Meta Widget and navigate to the site you want to "widgetize". Then, when you get to the page you want, check the box in the lower left corner and tap somewhere on the page. It'll surround that element in an orange box, after which you can move the selection tool around with the arrows at the bottom of the screen. When you find the element you want to put on your home screen, tap the plus sign and go to town configuring text colors, widget alignment, and more to make it look just right.

It won't work with every single site out there, and unfortunately it takes quite a bit of trial and error, so be prepared to do some serious tinkering with this app. The more a site is formatted for mobile, the better it will probably end up (RSS feeds often work well too). Check out the video above to see a demonstration, or hit the link below to download it for yourself.

Meta Widget is a free download for Android devices.

Meta Widget | Play Store via XDA Developers Blog

from The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ We believe that openness is crucial for the future of the Internet. When something gets in the way of the free flow of information, we believe there should be transparency around what that block might be.
So two years ago we launched the Transparency Report, showing when and what information is accessible on Google services around the world. We started off by sharing data about the government requests we receive to remove content from our services or for information about our users. Then we began showing traffic patterns to our services, highlighting when they’ve been disrupted.
Today we’re expanding the Transparency Report with a new section on copyright. Specifically, we’re disclosing the number of requests we get from copyright owners (and the organizations that represent them) to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content. We’re starting with search because we remove more results in response to copyright removal notices than for any other reason. So we’re providing information about who sends us copyright removal notices, how often, on behalf of which copyright owners and for which websites. As policymakers and Internet users around the world consider the pros and cons of different proposals to address the problem of online copyright infringement, we hope this data will contribute to the discussion.
For this launch we’re disclosing data dating from July 2011, and moving forward we plan on updating the numbers each day. As you can see from the report, the number of requests has been increasing rapidly. These days it’s not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests each week, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009. In the past month alone, we received about 1.2 million requests made on behalf of more than 1,000 copyright owners to remove search results. These requests targeted some 24,000 different websites.

Fighting online piracy is very important, and we don’t want our search results to direct people to materials that violate copyright laws. So we’ve always responded to copyright removal requests that meet the standards set out in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). At the same time, we want to be transparent about the process so that users and researchers alike understand what kinds of materials have been removed from our search results and why. To promote that transparency, we have long shared copies of copyright removal requests with Chilling Effects, a nonprofit organization that collects these notices from Internet users and companies. We also include a notice in our search results when items have been removed in response to copyright removal requests.
We believe that the time-tested “notice-and-takedown” process for copyright strikes the right balance between the needs of copyright owners, the interests of users, and our efforts to provide a useful Google Search experience. Google continues to put substantial resources into improving and streamlining this process. We already mentioned that we’re processing more copyright removal requests for Search than ever before. And we’re also processing these requests faster than ever before; last week our average turnaround time was less than 11 hours.
At the same time, we try to catch erroneous or abusive removal requests. For example, we recently rejected two requests from an organization representing a major entertainment company, asking us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright violations of the show, even though there was no infringing content. We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search results. We try to catch these ourselves, but we also notify webmasters in our Webmaster Tools when pages on their website have been targeted by a copyright removal request, so that they can submit a counter-notice if they believe the removal request was inaccurate.
Transparency is a crucial element to making this system work well. We look forward to making more improvements to our Transparency Report—offering copyright owners, Internet users, policymakers and website owners the data they need to see and understand how removal requests from both governments and private parties affect our results in Search.Posted by Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Counsel

from Code: Flickr Developer Blog http://code.flickr.com/blog
With over 1.5 million groups, it’s no doubt that they are an important part of Flickr. Today, we’re releasing a few new ways to interact with groups using our API.

Group Membership

We are adding two new methods to manage group membership through the API.

flickr.groups.join to join a group. Before calling this method, check if the group has rules using flickr.groups.getInfo. The user needs to agree to the rules before being able to join the group. Pass the accept_rules argument if the user accepted the rules.

flickr.groups.leave to leave a group. The user’s photos can also be deleted when leaving the group by passing the delete_photos argument.

Group Discussions

We are also opening up group discussions in the API. You can now fetch a list of discussion topics for a group using flickr.groups.discuss.topics.getList, with sticky topics first, then regular topics sorted from newest to oldest.

flickr.groups.discuss.topics.add to post a new topic to a group, passing a subject and the message content.

Additionally, you can fetch a list of replies for a topic using flickr.groups.discuss.replies.getList, which includes the information for the topic along with all the replies, sorted from oldest to newest.

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.add to post a reply to a topic, passing the message content.

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.edit to edit a reply, passing the updated message.

flickr.groups.discuss.replies.delete to delete a reply.

You can only edit and delete replies when authorized as the owner of the reply. For now, it is not possible to edit or delete a topic through the API.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just want to chat about these methods or anything else related to the API, please join the Flickr Developer mailing list.

Photos from fofurasfelinas and larissa_allen.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 First off, my intention is not to fight you on this. You have more cars than I have dollars, and so I know I don’t stand a chance legally, and on top of that, I don’t really understand how legal stuff works. But the truth is you kind of fucked up my shit and I need to talk to you about it.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ We continue to work toward a simpler, more beautiful Google, and today we're accelerating these efforts with a new Google+ app for Android phones. The update includes lots of highly-requested features—like the ability to start a hangout on the go, and to edit posts inline—as well as a stream that celebrates the rich content shared across Google+. In all cases we're building for a mobile future, and we're excited about what's ahead.Start a hangout from anywhere, and ring the folks that matter most
With Hangouts we want to help people connect face-to-face-to-face—at any time, from anywhere. Of course, there's really only one device that's always by your side—your phone—so we've invested in mobile hangouts since early on. Today we're adding another important feature to the mix: the ability to start a hangout directly from your mobile device.
To get started, tap “Hangout” in the (new) navigation ribbon, add some friends and tap “Start.” We'll ring their phones (if you want), and if someone misses the hangout, they can ring you back with a single tap.Share your favorites, and feel awesome afterward
When you share with your circles, we owe you an experience that's both intimate and immersive. Your time and your relationships are precious, after all, so your posts should make you feel proud. Today's new Android app takes this to heart, with full-screen media in the stream, conversations that fade into view and instantly-touchable actions like +1.Do more, in less time
We think you’ll find today’s app nicer to look at, but we’re also making it easier to use. Improvements include:

A navigation ribbon that slides in and out, providing quick access to just about everything

The ability to download photos directly from Google+, and turn them into wallpaper

The chance to edit posts inline, in case you make any mistakes while on the go

The update is available now from Google Play (version 2.6), so we invite you to download Google+, and let us know what you think!

Selected screenshots from today’s new Android app

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President

from The Wirecutter http://thewirecutter.com

I've field tested the Solar JOOS Orange battery pack on many adventures, and it has never let me down. Now, we've collected some evidence that it's one of the best around.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://apple.com/iphone/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 I want to help port the MESS and MAME emulators to Javascript.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

Rahul, a loyal MR reader, asks:

You seem a very productive person and travel quite a bit too. Are you very cell-phone savvy and does it impact your productivity? Any apps you love or use a lot? (Do you play chess on the move! )

Can you blog about your personal cellphone selection strategy. Curious what phone(s) you use.
Ditto for Laptops. What’s your selection strategy. Small versus large screen real estate. What’s your personal optimum.

Also, Mac / PC / or Linux? What’s your ecosystem and what do you love/hate about it.

Would love a blog post on these topics! It’s convenient to imitate the choices of a productive person!

No, I am not cell phone savvy, as I still do not know how to send a text (just this year I learned how to read one).  In any case, here is my ecosystem:

1. Verizon cellphone.  Very simple, I use it only for calls, the keys are very convenient and otherwise it has no features which I either understand or use.

2. iPhone, latest edition.  I never use it for calls unless I am overseas, in which case it becomes my cellphone for receiving calls (no reason to make them in other countries).  I use it for email, and not for apps, and occasionally for visiting websites such as this one.  I have spent time with some apps to learn how they work, but for research purposes.  Overall their closed systems do not appeal to me.

3. iPad 1.0.  It’s beautiful, it was important, mine has a nice case on it, and I don’t want to part with it.  Plus I have some windows kept open on it.  By carrying around two iPads I can keep more windows open, without being confused.

4. iPad 3.0.  Better than the original iPad (which as we’ve seen is already worth carrying around), and the web connection works internationally and very well.  I now feel connected to the important information just about everywhere.  It has changed my life.

5. I don’ t know what kind of laptop I have, although I guess I could look.  It’s not optimized for anything, except perhaps my own ignorance.  It’s not an Apple Mac, I know that, and I am glad I got rid of Vista.

6. Kindle.  I still prefer real books, but for long plane rides, or sometimes even short plane rides, the carry costs of books are high.  So it gets plenty of use.

Here is an article on why so many Nigerians own more than one cell phone.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 'a Java framework for developing ops-friendly, high-performance, RESTful web services. Developed by Yammer to power their JVM-based backend services, Dropwizard pulls together stable, mature libraries from the Java ecosystem into a simple, lightweight package that lets you focus on getting things done. Dropwizard has out-of-the-box support for sophisticated configuration, application metrics, logging, operational tools, and much more, allowing you and your team to ship a production-quality HTTP+JSON web service in the shortest time possible.' From Coda Hale/Yammer; includes Guava, Jetty, Jersey, Jackson, Metrics, slf4j. Pretty good baseline to start any new Java service with....Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "Between 11:49 and 11:54, something extraordinary happened. For about 300 seconds, the computers took over. The stock, which had dropped four points in the five minutes prior, froze in an incredibly narrow five-cent range while two sets of computers put in thousands upon thousands of bids against one another. On one side, the underwriters' computers were offering to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock to keep it from dipping below the crucial $38 level; on the other, high frequency traders were making veerrryyy slightly higher bids at just above $38 — $38.01, $38.02 — which they would sell, literally seconds later. … For a few minutes, the most-watched stock in the world behaved like a malfunctioning computer program. The stock that convinced untold thousands of regular people with E-Trade accounts to get back into investing behaved according to rules that literally none of them understood, traded at volumes that none of them could conceive of and effectively followed contradictory orders from two sets of screaming robots. This is what future shock feels like." via Chris (Twitter)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

That is the new and oddly underreported book by Mark Kurlansky, about Clarence Birdseye and the early history of frozen food.  I found it consistently good and enjoyable, here is one excerpt:

Birdseye asked himself many questions about food and survival in the subarctic.  Why, he wondered, did people in Labrador eat lean food in the summer but a tremendous amount of fat in the winter?  The ultimate winter survival dish was something he called bruise, which is sometimes known as brewis, a combination of dried and salted food mixed with a tremendous amount of fat.  Usually it was salt cod, hardtack, flour, and water, baked hard and mixed with cubed salt pork, and then boiled and served like a hash with huge globs of melted pork fat.  Bowls of melted fat were often served on the table to spoon onto food.  Birdseye laughed when heard a host say, “Have some more grease on your bruise,” but everyone then took a few spoonfuls.  It was a Sunday morning breakfast favorite.  He remembered that people also ate a great deal of grease in the Southwest, where it was hot in the summer.  They would open a can of corn and eat it with pork fat.

Here is one picture of fish and brewis.  I found this book especially interesting on the early history of European-settled Labrador.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Program design: The program hung at an angle, so the names were rotated accordingly to ensure optimal readability. The hole was drilled in the bottom gutter of the booklet so it could be easily flipped through while attached to the lanyard.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 RT @TheAtlantic: Why aren't cities littered with dead pigeons? The answer is fascinating -- and gross: http://t.co/bC91NORxSource: http://instapaper.com/

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

I grew up making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (PB&Js) using the simplest method possible. Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread, spread the jelly on the other side, and combine. The problem with that is the jelly can make the bread soggy and can leak out after you take a bite. Reddit user ChickenMcFail uses a trick I call the "Jelly Pocket Method".

Basically, what you're doing is spreading a light layer of peanut butter over both sides and then creating a peanut butter "ridge" on one slice. Add the jelly/jam/whathaveyou to into the pocket formed by the ridge and add the other slice on top. The peanut butter keeps the sandwich from getting soggy, and as long as you don't squeeze the middle of the sandwich you shouldn't have any leaks.

Peanut Butter and Jelly: Secret Technique | Reddit

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Also, I've wanted "Just is a four letter word" embossed on a baseball bat, for years now. (h/t @carlfish)Source: http://twitter.com/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 A great read, but important too for understanding why some parts of the internet are weak for fact-checking:

If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism.

Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 @rem , but use a regular hook cause github never posts the username and password somehow :(Source: http://twitter.com/

from The Wirecutter http://thewirecutter.com

There are a lot of iPhone accessories out there, but only a few of them are time tested and have an actual chance of making your iPhone photos look better. Here are the best, chosen with the help of friends from Gizmodo and Instagram.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Must read if you want to learn about viewports: (thank you @ppk) andSource: http://twitter.com/

from The Experience is the Product http://www.cindyalvarez.com

Start interesting.

Big splashy image. Provocative statement. Thought-provoking question.  Dancing on-stage.

That’s the first thing your audience wants to see.  We have faith in you — but not that much faith.  Make us care, immediately.   The best talks are the ones where not only are we looking forward to getting the information but we’re eager to hear it from you.

Tell us why we should care.

You’re not just giving your talk, you’re selling your talk.  And to do that, you need to tell me why it’s relevant.

“This affects you every time you do X.” “50% of people believe Y, and here’s how that affects your decisions.” “What you’ll learn from these lessons is how to do Z.”

Don’t rely on technology.

Live demos, slides, or video are great if they work.  It’s terrible when they don’t and the speaker can’t go on without them.

I listened to a speaker the other day who really needed his video – but first his computer crashed and then the conference wifi went down.  He tried to speak without the video, but it threw off his entire game.  He kept making little tangent complaints about technology.  He kept glancing over at his laptop screen as though to will it back to life – and every time he did it completely derailed his talk.  It was painful to watch.

Contrast that with a second speaker with the same problem.  The second guy shrugged, closed his laptop with an audible click, and just talked with no distractions and a blank screen behind him.   The audience quickly forgot that he’d ever had background props planned and focused on the speaker.

Remember Twitter…

If it’s a technology talk, your audience wants to have something pithy and interesting to tweet.  It may be petty, it may be the downfall of civilization, but it’s true: a talk with no tweetable sound bites feels like a disappointment.

Have some funny bits.  Make a memorable analogy.  Use an unexpected phrase.

…but make your audience look up from their laps.

You may be rocking it with the retweets, but if you aren’t getting any eye contact, you’re failing as a presenter.   There’s a reason why people go to conferences and listen to talks instead of reading lines of text – it’s the human connection.   Your audience is probably lazy: we’re not seeking it out.  You need to force us to engage.

Pause.

(A long pause forces everyone to look up: we’re afraid we missed something.)

A joke.

We look up when we laugh, and smile at the person next to us.

A tone change (the snarky comment, the drawn-out vowels, the quiet statement when you’ve been talking loudly).

Variation in your pace and tone of speaking helps jerk people out of autopilot so they can better absorb what you’re talking about.

Leave us wanting more.

If you have 20 minutes to talk, plan on your slides ending in 15.  If you have 50 minutes, plan on ending in 45.

The only thing worse than the speaker who races through their slides, talking quickly and sweating nervously — is the speaker who only gets through 4 of the “8 principles” mentioned in the title of your talk.  Worst case scenario is that you don’t get questions and your audience gets an extra 5 minutes for a bio-break.

Is content king?  No, when you’re talking, it’s confidence, relevance, and humanity.

from The Pickled Piper http://hapdaniel.wordpress.com

My head is still reeling from this. Today I looked at a question on the Pipes message boards that included a link to the user’s (Tikkie) pipe – http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit?_id=ab21ecfcd00b90a64c2dd6be258210ed

I noticed that the Rename module was using Xpath expressions. "Well that won’t work" I thought. But actually it did! Using XPath expressions to define an element can greatly simplify that definition. For instance, the traditional way of defining the first element in the Rename module would be ‘item.div.div.div.0.div.div.1.div.p’ (it was an effort working that out). Compare that to ‘item.//*[@id="more-description"]/p’.

Here’s a link to my copy of that pipe with a few more uses of Xpath to define elements in other modules:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit?_id=d90cabfee11e17b6fc27a81c25df1bee

I’ve contacted the Pipes team about this. They’re hoping that this can be a supported feature.

Update: This use of XPath expressions is supported. I quote from Paul Donnelly ‘it’s baked into Pipes’.

Update: We can use ‘//*[@id="more-description"]/p’ instead of ”item.//*[@id="more-description"]/p’ (thanks to Paul Donnelly for this tip).

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Evans works for Enders Analysis. Here's a little bit from his latest report:

Roughly 50% of all the smartphones sold in the USA in Q1 2012 were iPhones. This is very different to the global picture:

Android is outselling iPhone by more than 2:1 on a global basis. But in the USA, Apple is massively outselling Android. That has obvious implications for where (mainly US-based) developers should be placing their efforts.

More to come today.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 the easiest way to run PostgreSQL on the MacSource: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 27% of emails are opened on mobile devices: statsSource: http://twitter.com/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh One reason for this revolution is explained by Etsy in terms of Conway's Law: When a team makes a product the product ends up resembling the team that made it. I’ll extend this notion to say the team and thus the product end up resembling the underlying technology used to make it. When you change the underlying development infrastructure, by moving to a cloud, you are bound to change teams and processes they create.

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Camscanner allows your Android or iOS smartphone to function as a document scanner. And while there are other competing apps from the few I've tried it's clear that Camscanner is the pack leader.

This app is better than the rest because it is intuitive and produces great results. It includes a virtual bubble-level shown on the screen when you are taking the photo, so you get the picture straight on and undistorted. When you get it level, it disappears, which is excellent design (both giving feedback that you 'got it right' and uncluttering the view at the same time). [Note: Strangely, the bubble level seems to be an Android-only feature.--OH]

When you need to crop, the cropping screen shows a thumbnail 'peek' window at the opposite corner while you pull the crop line, showing crosshairs of where you are placing the corner on the photo. No need to try multiple times since you can't see what is happening under your thick finger! The layout is very intuitive, five unambiguous icon buttons, and a quickstart document with a guided tour included (no searching for the documentation)! Did I say great design?
After you've scanned something the cropping and enhancing happen before your eyes, recapturing some of the thrill of watching a Polaroid develop. The enhancement options work well, turning even faint pencil scratchings into well contrasted digital versions.

Once the document has been processed, Camscanner can either email or upload the document as a JPG or PDF to a number of hosting services including Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, Evernote, and iDisk.

There are no ads in the free version, though it is limited to generating 10-page scan-pdf's with a 'watermark' line at the bottom of each page and also doesn't feature the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for text searches or AirPrint (which is iOS only). But other than that no annoying (and bandwidth guzzling, cpu-battery hogging) ads! The full version costs $5 and removes all limitations.

-- Aryeh Abramovitz

[I gave the free version of Camscanner a run through on my iPhone 4 and it really is far better than any other scanning apps I've tried. Its flexible processing engine turns out very readable PDFs (here is a link to a sample PDF I made) even in crappy light. It should be noted, though, that this application is limited by the quality of the phone's camera.--OH]

Camscanner
Free (with limitations) or $5
Available from iTunes Store and Android Store

Produced by Intsig

from Apigee Blog http://blog.apigee.com/

Thanks to all who participated in last week's Webcast, APIs and Copyrights: Monopolizing Ideas or Affording Protection?

The video and slides are below. Thanks to our moderator @brianpagano and the entire team for a lively and informative discussion. We'd love to continue the discussion on the api-craft forum.

APIs & Copyrights

View more presentations from Apigee

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 I've been trying to re-implement an HTML5 image uploader like the one on the Mozilla Hacks site, but that works with WebKit browsers. Part of the task is to extract an image file from the canvas object and append it to a FormData object for upload.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Delicious/network/earth2marsh http://www.delicious.com/network/earth2marsh 1. Empowering with permission - but without action: It's not empowering when people are given more responsibility, yet must still obtain an unreasonable number of approvals and sign-offs to get anything done. This signals a lack of trust. 2. Leaders focused on process instead of people: Leaders look to processes, not people, to solve problems and it doesn’t work. Where's the inspiration, the vision? This signals a lack of humanity. 3. Overdependence on meetings: productive teamwork does not require meetings for every single action or decision. People become overwhelmed and ineffective when they are always stuck in meetings. 4. Lack of (clear) vision 5. Management acts as judge, not jury: If the purpose of a meeting is to think, create, or build, management has to stop tearing people down when they propose new ideas or question the status quo. This signals a lack of perspective and openness.

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

If you're suffering from a moment or a long period of low self-esteem, chances are the problem isn't internal. As Psychology Today points out, the problem is more likely caused by issues you have with people other than yourself:

Think of self-esteem as the fuel gauge on a car. Most of us are busy driving around trying to keep the indicator from registering "empty." The whole time, we're focused on the alerting system-instead of on its true function: keeping fuel in the tank. "In the same way, in focusing on the psychological gauge, many psychologists have erred by concluding that people are motivated to maintain self-esteem for its own sake," Leary[, a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina] says. Instead, we should be using self-esteem as a gauge "to keep our 'interpersonal gas tanks' from running low."

Call it a "sociometer." When self-esteem sinks to the danger zone, the appropriate response is not to fix some inner sense of self, but to repair your standing in the eyes of others, to behave in ways that maintain connections with other people.

In the end, self-esteem might just have very little to do with the self. If we're not feeling good about our relationships with other people, we're just not feeling good at all.

At Last-a Rejection Detector! | Psychology Today

Photo by Mikael Altemark.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 chrome.experimental.socket.create('tcp', '127.0.0.1', 8080, function(socketInfo) {}Source: http://twitter.com/

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

Android: Alarm clock apps are typically bare bones affairs, but Alarm Clock Ultra manages to pack in a shocking number of features into a beautifully-packaged Android app.

Each alarm you create comes with a huge array of customization options. You can gradually increase the intensity of your chosen alarm sound, limit the number of times you can hit snooze, and even force yourself to solve math problems or puzzles to shut it off in the morning. Other features include a quick-start nap mode that lets you set a napping alarm with one tap, a built-in egg timer for boiling a perfect egg, and a news ticker that previews your overnight social network notifications as you wake up.

Most features are available in an ad-supported free version, but $3 gets rid of the ads and unlocks the whole app.

Alarm Clock Ultra | Google Play Store Via AddictiveTips

from API Evangelist http://apievangelist.com/ GitHub for Mac is powered by TwUI, Twitter's open source, Core Animation-based UI framework for Mac. It's the same framework that drives Twitter for Mac. TwUI lets us create fast, animatable UIs using modern APIs. It's fantastic. We've made a lot of fixes and additions in our TwUI fork: We've been working with the fine folks at Twitter to figure out the best way for us all to make TwUI more amazing. They invited us to join forces. What does it mean? TwUI has a bright and glorious future. All of our changes are now in the original TwUI repository. That includes a lot of bug fixes, HiDPI support, and our sweet new popover: We're excited to work with Twitter to make TwUI even more awesome.

from API Evangelist http://apievangelist.com/ essay on SOAP + REST in which he proposes four web service world-views: everything is a resource; everything is a get; everything is a message; everything is a procedure. I think he’s missing the point. My understanding of the key difference between the REST and SOAP positions is that resources should be addressable. In REST this means GETting a specific URI to retrieve the representation of, say, the weather forecast for Rome. In SOAP the URI is used as a command target, the command being to retrieve the weather for Rome. The same URI can be resused for retrieving the weather for Moscow and, perhaps, last week’s temperature chart for Athens. Sam also makes the smart, analogy of SOAP services being the dark matter of the Internet since

from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from Developer Experience http://developerexperience.org/ Lessons learnt from shipping APIs for Microsoft's cloud platform:

Lessons learned by Sriram Krishnan from his time at Microsoft working on the Azure APIs. This was originally published in July 2011

Highlights:

REST conventions don’t matter…that much

Start with how the API is going to be used, work backwards

Reduce the cognitive load

Make sure key actions are simple and fast, prefer chunky over chatty

Measure and log everything

Versioning and extensibility

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 jQuery Plugin that casts photorealistic shadows. Perfect for eye-catching demos and landing pages.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Desktop Apps with HTML5 and the Mozilla Web Runtime - #webrt #futurewithoutjetpacksSource: http://twitter.com/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "name one other thing in the world, he said, that is used by so many people and which is created entirely by hand?  Stuff that is made by hand is hard to make, and even more hard to make well, and tends to be less sturdy than things made by machines.  [Honestly, I had never thought of it that way.  In the "Etsy Era", when everybody wants authentic and local and handcrafted, what could be more hand-made than software?!] Plus, in the history of the world, he said, is there one thing you can think of that has been hand-made, and on such a large scale as software, that was as complex?" via PhilSource: http://pinboard.in/

from API Evangelist http://apievangelist.com/ When you first set out to build your API, the number of factors to consider may be overwhelming.  Which functions do you need to expose to your clients?  Which should remain hidden?  What if you change your mind in the future?  Can your servers handle all of that additional load?  The list of questions goes on and on, and some of the trickiest issues may not apparent until you are stuck in the middle of them.  Fortunately, there are several existing patterns you can follow to address some of the most common concerns. In this series, we outline the practical considerations when building an API. APIs are now an essential part of building business.  Through a network of APIs, companies can more rapidly develop new applications and pro

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Bach left Microsoft abruptly in 2010. Here he looks back at what Microsoft got right (and wrong) in the launch of the original Xbox and the Zune. As you may know, one of them went better than the other.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 This is great. Knock yourselves out arguing over the interpretation of the pie chart, the mysterious absence of other devices (Wii, PS3?), the non-inclusion of "PC" devices... there's enough here for days of argument. (It also shows how misleading the phrase "more than" can be.)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Conrolling defaults in user interface design can make people very much more wealthy.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "An it harm none, do as you will. An it cause harm, do as you must."Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 True Story. A large consumer internet company where I worked sent in a team of lawyers to check over the fledgling social network I was building. The registration flow concerned them. There needed to be a check where the person registering was required to submit their date of birth so that we could ensure they were over 13. The advice of the lawyers was to throw an error if someone underage tried to register. “What kind of error?” I asked. “A generic error, something like, Your registration has failed or The system is down for maintenance.“ As a product guy, if there is one thing I hate more than a generic error message it’s a deceptive one. I want to give the user a specific error message that tells them what went wrong. “Can I just tell them that they are too young to use the service?” “No, then they would just adjust their date of birth and re-register,” said the legal department. We all know this is what happens anyway, it’s one of the great collective nod and winks of the internet along with checking the [I understand and grok completely] boxes on the End User License Agreements we find across the web. I argued that we must give them a more specific error so it doesn’t look like our service is broken. Legal didn’t want me to tip our had too much. What to do? We compromised. The new error message? The agreed upon language? You cannot use this service . . . at this time.  Source:

from Lifehacker Feed Cleaner 2.0 http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=_KqfbFy42xGm7SnDp2IyXQ

You might already have a 72-hour disaster kit or even a longer-term Doomsday survival kit, but what if you're caught at work when disaster strikes? If you don't already have one, create a survival kit that will help you get home from work and keep you safe for at least 24-hours.

Why do you need a Get Home Bag (GHB)? Most of us spend more time away from home than at home, and as The Art of Manliness points out, "just getting home can be a survival journey in and of itself"—whether the disaster is caused by severe weather, a blackout, terrorist attack, or other event.

Creek Stewart, author of Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag: Your 72-Hour Disaster Survival Kit, outlines all the supplies he keeps in his GHB. Not surprisingly, these include water, energy bars, and a multi-tool. Some items you might not have thought of are a paper map, paracord, small signal mirror, and headlamp. His list is more extensive than the office survival kit we've noted before. Check out Stewart's list to make sure you don't miss any items that could make all the difference when you need to get home safely.

What's in your Get Home Bag or office survival kit?

How to Build a Get Home Bag (+Book Giveaway) | The Art of Manliness

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
There are sound effects libraries that cost more than a small car, and they're probably worth it to certain kinds of users — like movie studios or audio production houses — but not to me. In search of interesting, appropriately licensed sounds for personal amusement, some google searching led me to Freesound.org, which has many thousands of freely usable, user-contributed sound recordings, all Creative Commons licensed. Some of them are tiny snippets, the audio equivalent of the icons on a computer screen, and some are lengthy field recordings. (Many of the sounds here are purely synthetic, too, or remixes that the CC licensing facilitates.) Last Halloween, I set up a playlist for my family's "haunted condo," consisting of screams, clanks, and creepy laughter (but also repurposed sounds like foghorns and musical instruments I thought sounded ominious), with sounds drawn entirely from this site.

It's also a good place to find ring-tone and computer alert sources, if you're just looking for audio clip art, or (with headphones, especially) fascinating "you are there" audio experiences; being transported to an audio landscape inhabited by gentle waves, ships' horns, and thunderstorms is a legal way to escape ordinary consciousness.

Freesound really is free, too, though donations are accepted; it started as a project of the Music Technology Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. One (very small) catch: you can listen all you want just by visiting the site; downloading the files requires free registration.

-- Timothy Lord

Freesound
http://www.freesound.org/
Free

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 I'm making something that uses Markdown, and there's currently no great universal symbol for identifying Markdown support. So I created one.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

Working as a censor is interesting. “I like this work. It gives us experience, information and we always learn something new. It takes about a year or a year and a half to become a censor, as the person is first employed as a censor assistant. The employee first starts slow in reading and it takes him a week or days to finish a book. Also, beginners are not given political or religious books in the beginning as these are difficult. Instead we give them children’s books or some scientific books, which are easy,” said Dalal.

In some religious books, the censorship department cooperates with the Ministry of Endowments. “Religious opinions may differ and that’s why we demand a professional explanation, although we have some censors who are graduates of the Faculty of Islamic Law. Some religious issues are transferred to the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. The banned books include publications printed in Israel, Christian missionary and Jewish books and other similar books,” she noted.

From Kuwait, here is more.  By the way, “a philosophical book needs about four days to read,” Dalal added.”

Hat tips go to Bookslut and @StanCarey.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "Yes, I’m going to compare Portal and Photoshop. Yes, they reside in two entirely different universes with entirely different motivations. This is about how these two universes should collide and that means what I’m really talking about is gamification. There’s a reason I didn’t mention this until paragraph 17 because there are a lot of folks who think gamification means pulling the worst aspects out of games and shoving them into an application. It’s not. Don’t think of gamification as anything other than clever strategies to motivate someone to learn so they can have fun being productive. … The plethora of online Photoshop tutorials demonstrate its power and its flexibility, but I believe they also demonstrate its poor design. Think about it like this: what if each time you plunked down in front of World of Warcraft, you had to spend an hour trying to remember, wait, how do I play this? Great design makes learning frictionless."Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 "When you think that so many of humanity's grownups are idiots and morons, why wouldn't you show children as much respect? In fact, why not show children more respect than you'd show adults, who are corrupted by things like hatred and the lust for money in ways kids aren't?" "What guided Sendak's unique ability to speak to children was his belief that the world and all its residents are quite often ugly and scary and flawed. He let kids finally feel old by telling them they were just as messed up as their parents. We're all little beasts."Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

The 8-year-old twins love their iPad. They draw, play games and expand their vocabulary. Their family’s teenagers also like the hand-held computer tablets, too, but the clan’s elders show no interest.

The orangutans at Miami’s Jungle Island apparently are just like people when it comes to technology. The park is one of several zoos experimenting with computers and apes, letting its six orangutans use an iPad to communicate and as part of a mental stimulus program. Linda Jacobs, who oversees the program, hopes the devices will eventually help bridge the gap between humans and the endangered apes.

How about this?:

“Our young ones pick up on it. They understand it. It’s like, ‘Oh I get this,’” Jacobs said. “Our two older ones, they just are not interested. I think they just figure, ‘I’ve gotten along just fine in this world without this communication-skill here and the iPad, and I don’t need a computer.’”

Here is more, and for the pointer I thank Daniel Klein.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Twitter runs earlier than Facebook runs earlier than Tumblr. All times are Eastern Standard (ie, UK time -5hr.)Source: http://pinboard.in/

from Marginal Revolution http://marginalrevolution.com

The poster, which features a slightly demonic looking Father Christmas looming over a small boy, is part of the art student’s campaign to put an end to the commercialisation of Christmas and to launch an attack on the advertising industry’s targeting of children. “Santa gives more to rich kids than poor kids,” declares the poster, which will be on Glasgow’s Balmore Road.

“Santa Claus is a lie that teaches kids that products will make them happy. Before they’re old enough to think for themselves, the story of Santa has already got them hooked on consumerism. I think that’s more immoral than this billboard,” said Mr Cullen, who spent four years studying advertising before becoming disenchanted with the industry and switching to Glasgow School of Art’s environmental art course.

Here is more, and for the pointer I thank Jeremy Davis.

from Smarterware http://smarterware.org

Link: How to Tell if Your Tech Salary is Fair

Most people have no idea what the market rate or prevailing wage is for their profession and career level, much less where they fall on the pay scale.I’m tired of fluffy unvetted career advice, so I’ve sourced and linked to ten ways you can determine what other people with your job are paid.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 I remember reading about the no-www movement years ago. At that time it struck me as a cool thing to do, but I now know that no-www is a really bad idea in general. That’s because the DNS system lets you assign CNAME records to subdomains, including the www subdomain, but only A or AAAA records to root domains. In other words, you can say that www.example.com is the same as test.example.org, but you can only say that example.com is the same as a particular IP address.Source: http://pinboard.in/

from The Experience is the Product http://www.cindyalvarez.com

You will (probably) learn:

Is it usable? Can people figure out how to navigate through your product?

Are your calls-to-action visible? Do people notice the buttons or links that you want them to click on?

Are the steps to use a feature clear? Can someone figure out how to complete a task that you set them?

Is your copy clear? As people scan the words in your product, are they comprehending and moving forward smoothly? Or are they frowning and hesitating?

Is your product intimidating / jarring / confusing / threatening? As people are going through testing, is their body language indicating discomfort? (do they have furrowed brows, tense shoulders, are they fidgeting or hesitating, are they frowning)

You will not learn:

Is it useful? Would they bother if you weren’t there in the room watching them?

Are your calls-to-action compelling? Will people actually click them?

Do people understand what your features are? It doesn’t matter how ‘easy’ a feature is to use if people aren’t aware that the feature exists (or why they’d want to use it)

Is your copy convincing? When a person comes to your product with behavioral/purchase intent, do the words in your product help push them to action?

Why is your product intimidating / jarring / confusing / threatening? Because body language is at least partially subconscious, people may not notice that they are reacting to your product. Even if they do, they often can’t articulate what is bothering them or how it could be resolved.

from Cool Tools http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
I carefully laid plastic on my bedroom carpet before painting my closet. But somehow my painting tool began to fall, and as I grabbed for it I dumped the latex paint on the carpet beyond the plastic-protected area. I used wet rags to soak up what I could, but this left a 12" sticky latex stain on the rug plus numerous spatters. I put an old wet towel on it overnight. The next day I used successive applications of Gloves Off Stain and Paint Remover following each with a rag. By repeated applications, I was able to remove all visible paint.

Gloves Off is a newish brand of stain remover that uses plant-based ethoxylated alcohol as a surfactant to loosen stains and make them easier to clean. It's marketed as being a greener alternative to bleach and ammonia based cleaning agents.

Today, I spied a dried exterior latex stain on metal so I sprayed it with Gloves Off, and in a minute, literally peeled off the paint. So far I've been delighted with this product!

-- PJ Cote

[As with any chemical product it's best to have the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) just in case.--OH]

Gloves Off Stain and Paint Remover
$6

Available from Home Depot

Manufactured by Planet People Co

from API Evangelist http://apievangelist.com/ The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that application programming interfaces (APIs) and other functional characteristics of computer software are not eligible for copyright protection. Users have the right to examine computer software in order to clone its functionality—and vendors cannot override these user rights with a license agreement, the court said. The case focuses on the popular statistical package SAS. A firm called World Programming created a clone designed to run SAS scripts without modification. In order to do this, they bought a copy of SAS and studied its manual and the operation of the software itself. They reportedly did not have access to the source code, nor did they de-compile the software's object code.

from Pinboard Network RSS Improver http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=b22b9c9acee5906aab7e8a7645a247a9 Like any other drink, it is only as good as its worst ingredient. Fortunately, the basic margarita only has three: tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Choose a spirit made of 100% agave, stock your bar with a solid orange-flavored liqueur, squeeze fresh lime juice—think of how strong your forearms will get!—and nail the proportions and you'll have a wonderfully balanced sweet, tangy, slightly earthy (that's the 100% agave) drink to sip this Cinco de Mayo and throughout the summer.Source: http://pinboard.in/