Posts from: April 2010

27 Apr 2010

Real Shocker: Drug Enforcement Increases Violence

Remember Calderón’s It’s-OK-if-criminals-kill-criminals argument? In light of the new study that finds increasing drug enforcement increases violence, our last drug czar weighed in: The former drug czar, John Walters, said the researchers gravely misinterpret drug violence. He said spikes of attacks and killings after law enforcement crackdowns are almost entirely between criminals, and therefore may,

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In
21 Apr 2010

New Bass

Craigslist comes through with a huge step up from my crummy Precision bass knockoff. Sounds golden, great action (a joy to play), even volume & tone all across the fretboard. Love it.

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In
18 Apr 2010

23,000

…Deaths in the last three years of Mexico’s drug war. While U.S. prohibitions create thousands of criminals, Calderón reassures us they’re mostly killing each other. Of course plenty of cops, govt. officials, and innocent kids are in that figure, too. With the Mexican economy going South—especially tourism—parents will just have to hope their children don’t

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In
18 Apr 2010

I eat Green Berets for breakfast, and right now I’m very hungry.

(NSFW)

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In
17 Apr 2010

Patent Absurdity

Don’t miss Patent Absurdity, a free half-hour documentary that “explores the case of software patents and the history of judicial activism that led to their rise, and the harm being done to software developers and the wider economy.” When you open the page, the embedded video begins without human interaction, a violation of an Eolas

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In
16 Apr 2010

Bash script: recursive diff between remote hosts

This script will generate a recursive, unified diff between the same path on two remote servers. You set the CONNECT1 and CONNECT2 variables as necessary to point to your hosts/paths. Of course, the users you connect as must have read access to the files/directories you’re accessing. #!/bin/bash # USAGE: ./sshdiff DIRECTORY # # E.g. ./sshdiff

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In
11 Apr 2010

Magnetar on This American Life

Today I heard the tail end of a fantastic This American Life episode based on a ProRepublica story on the hedge fund Magnetar. The short version is that, when the housing market started to appear unstable in 2005, Magnetar realized that bad incentives at investment banks would allow it to make money by creating a

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In
7 Apr 2010

Fire Jimi

Flipping through the radio I heard “Fire” and thought, “could I get this without guitar?” Of course, the answer is yes. And I like it.

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In Music
4 Apr 2010

Alex and Elliott

“Thank You Friends” was the first Big Star song I heard, hanging out with Dan Francke listening to a Time-Life cassette comp he ripped from his dad.

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In
3 Apr 2010

Elgg, ElggChat, and Greener HTTP Polling

At my new job, we maintain a site powered by Elgg, the PHP-based social networking platform. I’m enjoying getting to know the system and the development community, but my biggest criticisms are related to plugins. On the basis of “keeping the core light”, almost all functionality is outsourced to plugins, and you’ll need lots of

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