Nov 22 2006
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The Apple revolution

Posted by | predictions | No Comments

The Apple Revolution. Hasta la Vista Microsoft. JMP securities suggest that Microsoft may lose Windows Vista users to OSX. How could an operating system, such as OSX, with such a tiny market share gain dominance without a fundamental change in computers as big as the one that replaced mini computers with desktop PCs? There is an elephant in the room. The change has already happened and people just haven’t noticed. The elephant is the laptop. Laptops have been around for ages, but several factors, have recently conspired to make them the primary computing tool. The reason this is fundamentally different is that a laptop is a very personal thing, its as different a computer as a PC was to a room sized Vax. A laptop is a truly personal computer, one that connects to business data when needed, but which should naturally be yours. You may not own your office…

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Nov 19 2006
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Watr Bloggers – repent your sins.

Posted by | politics | No Comments

I’ve noticed that even the use of the spin doctored prefix ‘not in full blown’ to pretend that Iraq is not in Civil War has been quietly dropped in the last couple of weeks by magazines like the Economist and people like Kissinger. At the same time, people who supported the war in Iraq, such as Matt Drudge, the Economist and nearly all of the red blooded (now red faced) war bloggers are now desperately clambering all over each other to make sure the shit doesn’t stick to them. They don’t want to be on the losing team, there is nothing in it for them to continue to support Bush over McCain or even the Democrats – except loyalty and integrity. People who witnessed Murdoch switch his support, overnight, from the Tories to New Labour, in the UK, will not be surprised if even Fox News flips allegiance as its…

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Nov 07 2006
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Japanese shoe fitting

Posted by | diary | No Comments

There’s some good stand up comedy material in Japanese shoe measurements: “Foot Morphology and Fitting of the Shoe to the Foot” In the Japanese shoe size system, shoe size is determined by length and ball girth. The shoe size indicates the size of the foot that fits the shoe, not the size of shoe itself. A shoe is manufactured on a last, so last size and shape determines the size and shape of the shoe. The foot shape may vary even when the foot length is the same. Any shape mismatch causes disuncomfort [sic]. Through research into the size and shape variations of Japanese feet, we are developing a method of shoe design that takes shape characteristics into consideration. Foot Morphology and Fitting of the Shoe to the Foot

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Nov 05 2006
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Thereis no redemption for Haggard.

Posted by | religion | No Comments

Rev. Haggard: “There is part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.” Unfortunately he is not referring to the part of his life that extorts money to brainwash people into following a obscenely twisted form of Christianity, via sermons that have been compared to the Nuremberg Rallies? Haggard confesses to ‘lifelong’ sexual problem – CNN.com

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Oct 27 2006
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Universal Mod Rewrites

Posted by | software design | No Comments

This mod re-write strategy seems to fall into the ‘duh why didn’t I think of that’ category of really simple but perfect solutions. People use mod rewrites to trick google into indexing stuff create pretty urls. Rails and a bunch of other frameworks force a grammar for links based upon actions and data when really most of the time there is no distinction made, there are just name/value pairs passed to the url. e.g. color=red is no different from colorit=red. The strategy below loops through name/value pairs as url query string parameters and actually spits out the name and the value in the url: site.com/name1/value1/name2/value2. There are some potential problems with null values and ordering, but I like the idea. Create Dynamic URLs With Mod_Rewrite and PHP Functions by www.Shadow-Fox.net

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Oct 26 2006
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The Obvious Corp – Evan and Biz take back Odeo

Posted by | business | No Comments

The greening of The Valley, why sustainable companies matter. Evan williams and Biz Stone have taken back Odeo from its backers to form part of a company focused on innovation through multiple products, rather than exit. It’s like a tech. startup version of the recent trend for private equity takeovers of public companies. But it could point to a better model for Internet startups – the model of normal companies like corner stores. Here’s why. [update: The sustainable model is not new, it is the way that almost all companies outside of the bubble-prone technology world work, however, sometimes the bleeding obvious is worth pointing out. Venture backing should be for the exception – for the exceptionally rapidly growing.] The Exit Model Every venture funded tech company is predicated on the idea of ‘exit’, the point where the company is sold to a bigger one or has an IPO, so…

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Oct 24 2006
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Richard Dawkins Foundation

Posted by | religion | No Comments

The Richard Dawkins foundation is accepting donations. If you are a tolerant, reasonable person that opposes religious persecution, perhaps you might accept that: 1. Faith, the opposite of reason – is unreasonable. 2. Tolerating the intolerance which exists in all major religions – is intolerant. 3. Allowing a child to be automatically given its parents’ religion (often irreversably reducing the capacity for freedom of thought, religious or otherwise, as an adult) – is religious persecution. In which case I recommend you give this ‘reason based initiative’ lots of tax deductable money. You will be contributing to truly reasonable and tolerant cause, making a stand against religious persecution – in a way that only atheists can. (At last RDF means something useful!) RichardDawkins.net – The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

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Oct 19 2006
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Iraqi bloggers tell a tale of woe.

Posted by | politics | No Comments

Iraqi blogs make for depressing reading these days. The war appears to be all but lost. Zeyad says: “Another close friend of mine has been killed in Baghdad. We had lunch together in Baghdad just days before I left. I can’t concentrate on anything any more. I should not be here in New York running around a stupid neighbourhood, asking people about their ‘issues’. I now officially regret supporting this war back in 2003. The guilt is too much for me to handle.” Healing Iraq And nothing short of a revolt has happened over some pretty weird comments by the increasingly deranged ‘Iraq the Model’. Iraqi Konfused Kollege Kid: Iraqi Bloggers Discuss Lancet Study, Iraq The Model

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Oct 19 2006
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Andy Kessler – the Internet is a series of pipes

Posted by | technology | No Comments

If the most stupid thing ever said about the Internet was Ted Stevens’ infamous “the Internet is a series of Tubes” speech, Andy Kessler’s pieces about the Internet as a series of pipes must rank amongst the most intelligent. If you can create a ‘virtual pipe’ between the service and the customer, where the the customer cannot exit, and you can hold on to it, and broaden your base – you win. But there are all sorts of pipes, and nothing special about the material the pipe is made of, what matters is where is links to and from, in the multi dimensional phase space that defines a market. Unlike the days of mainframe and frame relay, there is nothing special about the technology of the pipe itself – there are lots of pipes, a road network rather than a railroad system, and you can try building them anywhere. In…

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Oct 17 2006
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Popgloss Launches

Posted by | Uncategorized | No Comments

The latest Wists shopping blog, Popgloss launches today. Popgloss covers womens clothing and accessories, an eclectic mix of quirky and fun or innovative design – fashion without the attitude. It has a similar feel to Cribcandy, lots of pictures few words, updated dozens of times a day and with the ability to save pictures and links to anything you like with one click.

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