Pre-Filled RSS Feeds Slowing RSS Adoption?
I've only recently gotten into RSS. I was just reflecting on why my quick adoption of RSS hadn't happened before. Is one possible reason the RSS clients that come with pre-filled RSS feeds? Usually these pre-filled feeds are the exact thing you're trying to get away from.
OS X Software That I Like
This started of as a comment on "Robby's post":http://www.robbyonrails.com/articles/2005/04/17/attempting-to-work-with-osx-much-to-learn about his experiences starting off with a mac and "TextMate's":http://macromates.com/ somewhat nebulous features, but I need something in my "software recommendations" section anyway, so I'll try the "trackback" thing. I use a ton of different software on my mac and am always trying new software. Everyone has their own taste in software, but I'd love to hear any suggestions people have. Here are just a few of the more developer-oriented tools I use.
Satellite Photo of the Playa
Ok, I know I "already posted":http://derekgulbranson.com/2005/04/10/google-maps-satellite-image-of-castro-street-fair/ about a Google satellite image but, this is pretty cool too. Check out "the playa":http://maps.google.com/maps?q=gerlach,nv&ll=40.749182,-119.243031&spn=0.049353,0.065145&t=k&hl=en on satellite. Must be within a month before or after "burningman":http://www.burningman.com/ , center camp is there and there's some stuff going on by where the man would be. Too bad it's not during the event, that would be way cool. Anyone got any connections? Make it happen this year, we can get a bunch of people out on the playa to "spell something":http://maps.google.com/maps?q=bunker+hill,IL&ll=39.014329,-89.979132&spn=0.008862,0.007349&t=k&hl=en .
Me as a South Park Character
I showed my friend Bryan a South Park character I made on "this site":http://www.planearium2.de/flash/spstudio.html so he made one of me.
Benefits of Taking Exstacy Studied in Cancer Patients
From "this article":http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-he-lab11apr11,1,4660218.story?coll=la-health-medicine&ctrack=3&cset=true" by Linda Marsa which appeared in The Times, Ecstasy's good side .
"Within the next few months, a group of late-stage cancer patients will be given an illicit party drug to see if it can help them come to terms with their situation. That chemical is MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. 'There are so few palliative care options for the terminally ill,' says Dr. John H. Halpern, a psychiatrist who will be conducting this research at Harvard University's McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. 'And there is anecdotal evidence that MDMA can help them resolve the anxieties they experience without doping them up on tranquilizers.'
The study is part of a resurgence in research into the therapeutic uses of psychedelics for severe psychiatric ills that don't respond to traditional treatment. Because of the chemicals' profound ability to alter perception and mood, scientists hope they will melt the psychological barriers that prevent patients from getting better.
"We stand to learn a lot from these drugs, and I hope that the judicious application of this new knowledge would decrease suffering in people who have mental illnesses," says Dr. Francisco A. Moreno, a psychiatrist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who has done psychedelic research.
Google Maps Satellite Image of Castro Street Fair?
I was checking out my house on the satellite photos from "Google Maps":http://maps.google.com and I noticed that the satellite photo for San Francisco must have been taken on a day when there's a festival in the Castro. The street is full of people and there are little tents in the middle of Castro street. Market Street is closed off too, you can see the stage set up. Must be Castro Street Fair or the Eureka Valley fair. I checked out City Hall and there's nobody there, so it can't be Pride. There's a bunch of people in Union Square too, but that happens all the time. Neat though. One of those little pixels might actually be me.
G.O.P. Consultant’s Gay Wedding
WASHINGTON, April 8 - Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.
"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," he said.
The New York Times > G.O.P. Consultant's Marriage Is a Gay One
Ruby is fun
I spent my free time last weekend working on the my little app in "Ruby on Rails":http://www.rubyonrails.com/ . I'm only a novice programmer at best, so my experience at learning Ruby is likely different from someone that has another language down pat. But for me, Ruby is just fun. Part of it is the quality of learning I feel like I'm doing. I fee like the things I spent the most time on are things that ended up being one very brief line of code in the end, and also things that will apply to more than just that particular problem.
Block ads by redirecting their domains to localhost
This is a pretty neat hack. Block ads regardless which browser you're using by redirecting their domains to your local computer.
Since my mac has a local web server running, I got error messages instead of ads. So I also added a line to my mac's local apache config file so that I wouldn't get a 404 error message all the time. I just edited /etc/http/http.conf and inserted the following line towards the end:
ErrorDocument 404 "Blocked
You can get a hosts file that includes a huge list of ad servers and learn more about how to do it at the "link above":http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html . You might even be able to make use of the list for Firefox's AdBlock plugin..
“I want my burger,” call 911
this "911 call":http://www.sumama.com/misc/911_tape.wma is pretty unbelievable. Confirming my suspicions that there are stupid, self-absorbed people in this world.