Aug 05 2008
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Waugh joins Olympic Twenty20 push
Support the Twenty20 @ Olympics Movement!
Aug 04 2008
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Italian mayor bans gatherings of three or more people as soldiers hit streets
Massimo Giordano, a member of Italy’s anti immigration Northern League party, defended the anti-gathering motion and claimed it would cut down on unruly behaviour.
Its reminiscent of Benito Mussolini’s edict of the 1920’s which banned groups of five or more people.
I’m sure Mussolini also wanted to reduce crime. Hello Fascism
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The people in charge of most free and open source software products tend to have poor taste in user interfaces; people with good taste in user interface design are seldom in charge of open source software projects.
Put another way, if you have to ask for better design, you will lose. You need to be in a position to demand it.
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Daring Fireball: ‘Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, and How to Improve It’
Microsoft produces such crummy software even though the company employees thousands of talented programmers and even designers — Microsoft’s decision makers have no taste
Aug 03 2008
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Travelers beware: U.S. agents now have the authority to seize and retain laptops indefinitely, according to a new policy detailed in documents issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
As part of border search policy, government agents are now authorized to seize electronic devices and inspect documents in them, the document states. The electronic devices might include laptops, cell phones, portable music players or storage devices such as portable hard drives.
The new DHS policies allow customs agents to analyze the contents of laptops without any suspicion of wrongdoing
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The World’s Worst Olympic Country
India
Medal count: 17
Score card: Think of India as the Washington Nationals of Olympic sport. India is by far the worst-performing Olympic country—no matter how you slice it. It’s not for lack of trying. A games participant since 1900, India still ranks behind Nigeria, a country with an economy one twentieth India’s size, in total medals. The country’s athletic ineptitude is so profound that a parliamentarian called for two minutes of silence to “lament the demise of Indian sports” after the squad failed to win any medals in Barcelona in 1992.
What’s wrong? Few sports venues (roughly 33 stadiums and sports complexes for 1.1 billion people), a lack of school sports programs, stingy government funding, and a narrow talent base. The result? A country whose most celebrated claim to Olympic greatness is “The Flying Sikh,” a track-and-field star who broke hearts by placing fourth at the 1960 Rome Games. It’s not that Indians can’t excel at athletics. Since 1933, the state of Punjab has hosted its own “rural Olympics,” where competitors vie for glory in tug of war, mule-cart racing, sack lifting, tent pegging, and various feats of strength. And there’s hope in the air. Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has established a trust to fund athletes’ training and medical care and “put India firmly on the medal grid” for 2012.
Aug 01 2008
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McCain has a half-dozen homes and spends on shoes what some families spend on rent. All the while, he advocates more tax cuts for millionaires, opposes increases to the minimum wage, and tells Americans their economic problems are in their heads.
Which candidate is outside the American mainstream?
Jul 30 2008
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“ Today’s Java-savvy college grad is tomorrow’s pizza delivery man. Their skills are so easily outsourced that they’re heading for near-term obsolescence.
Professor Dewar stresses that he’s not against Java itself. But the fact that Java is taught as the core language in so many colleges is resulting in a weak field of computer science grads, he says.
The reason: students’ reliance on Java’s libraries of pre-written code means they aren’t developing the deep programming skills necessary to make them invaluable.
Colleges, alarmed by falling CS enrollment, have dumbed down the course requirements. Consequently, CS majors sail through a curriculum of Math Lite, earning a smiley-face on their papers for “developing” projects using pre-built libraries
Professor Dewar stresses that he’s not against Java itself. But the fact that Java is taught as the core language in so many colleges is resulting in a weak field of computer science grads, he says.
The reason: students’ reliance on Java’s libraries of pre-written code means they aren’t developing the deep programming skills necessary to make them invaluable.
Colleges, alarmed by falling CS enrollment, have dumbed down the course requirements. Consequently, CS majors sail through a curriculum of Math Lite, earning a smiley-face on their papers for “developing” projects using pre-built libraries
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Jul 29 2008
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Wonder which airport I will be “randomly” searched at next…
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“ At restaurants in the five-star Shangri-La Hotel chain, beef patties served anything less than well-done now come with an unusual side dish – a legal waiver.
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Signing a legal waiver… or getting a verbal consent of indemnification. What has the world come to..
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How Skype & Co. get round firewalls
Bloody smart :)
Jul 27 2008
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