The Lair

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup

Best Beer Names Ever → Or maybe just in the US #
more from the anonymous internet hate machine → I just love this. I really really do. #
CSS minifier → been intending a peek at these toys at some point #
whee. The big guns join the OpenID alliance → both provider and consumer service provisioning, please! #
Vertical branding taken to extremes – an encryption tool for err.. the mujahideen → with the marketing reading something like – “use the tool approved by the terrorist overlords to encrypt all your messages!” #
this is relevant to my interests → I swear. 20 odd years of school and I still can’t tie my laces properly. Sometime ago, I just stopped caring. #
Limericks, now in a convenient database form → uses the same software as the famous bash.org, I believe. #
Discover which candidate you would support in the US elections → if you were like … able to vote or even cared to do so. #
A Post-IntelliJ world → Yeah, but you know.. that was version 2.5 or 3.0. Everything after 4.0 has been on a downward spiral #
Victim of His Own Success: The Tragedy of Bobby Fischer → A balanced look at one of the game’s greats #
Raising the Steak → Kobe Beef : the myth and apparent reality #
five new yorkers who face extreme stress → 11th grade student? Oh please. #
prove that you are indeed a leet gamer when playing online → or not. #
everyone say it with me → scam scam scammity scam #
Top 50 British writers since 1945 → I’ve read maybe half of these people. And I already have nitpicks about the list. #
The Smart Set: Scent of a Führer → Yet more proof that vegetarians are the cause of most of the world’s problems. And you know who else was a vegetarian? yes, that’s right. #
everyone needs a bit moar lolcat in their websiet → It’s been done for lots of other pidgin languages, but it’s still funny in lolcat #
Life as a series of receipt stubs → Awesome #
Coffee Drinks Illustrated → Because pretty pictures are better than wondering why your coffee is that muddy colour #
Won’t someone please think of Vietnam? → I laughed when I heard the comparison being made. This article explains why. #
Unintentionally Sexual Comics Covers/Panels → Comics and innuendo. Old skool scans. #
MoanMyIP.com – yes, what it says → NSFW and don’t listen with the speakers turned up. You have been warned #
People aren’t what they seem over IM → News (and several films) at 11 #
A Soviet Poster A Day → Just what it says on the tin. A new Soviet era propaganda poster every day. #
Vanilla (the nifty forum software) embeds sponsored links in the product → inevitable, I suppose. Everyone needs to make some cash for their hard work. This is rather sad though. #
LOL Feeds → make a lolcat for each of the titles on your blog, twitter, jaiku or wherever #
The Chicken Fried Pork Belly Caesar → dammit. feel hungry now. #
Spite is apparently not a chimpanzee emotion → chimps are however, susceptible to vengeful behaviour #
In a blindingly obvious result: Ruby is faster to setup; but not yet as scalable as Java → The same team are expected to proclaim their findings on the colour of the daytime sky shortly #
Making Bacon → is there anything it can’t do? from an anonymous tipster #
Stephen King reviews Harry Potter → Not a huge fan of King’s recent work, but I think this review is awesome on many different levels. #
Eating meat as a dating strategy → why ordering meat can make someone seem down to earth and less finicky. Amen. #
The vast majority of people are unwilling to take another human life → fascinating read about how this reluctance is overcome #
Schneier interviews the chief of the TSA → lots of fascinating insight on airport security in the US #
Ransomizr – a Flickr ransom note generator → Generates old skool ransom notes from random Flick pics. Very cool. #
sickening, isn’t it? → cheese pie that doesn’t taste quite as good the second time. #
Microsoft Project now has an open-source competitor → imaginatively named OpenProj. Supposedly cross-platform. Looks nifty #
walking causes more damage to the environment than driving → so.very.confused now #
All men are liars, apparently → A fascinating read, if for no other reason than that my perspective is so different from his. #
237 reasons to have sex → some people take their research very seriously #
On a Ramen theme → I may have mentioned Ramen before – but this looks tasty. #

service may not be available in all areas

August 1st, 2007

So, Facebook was down for quite a while yesterday. Since I’m one of the hip and trendy Facebook haters; I actually didn’t notice for a while. I usually interact with Facebook only when I receive notification emails. Headed over to my profile, saw that the app was broken.

Mild consternation. Muttered a few curses. Ran a few tests. Nope. App really was broken. Then started half an hour of investigation while I upgraded to the newest version of the library and futzed around trying to fix it. Predictably, nothing worked. So I just threw my hands up and figured that Facebook was broken. Went back to work. This morning, things are back to normal again. How fortunate that this is a fun application and my employment or emotional well-being doesn’t exactly depend on it.

Remember that rule about checking your own code before blaming the compiler? Well, this was one of the rare occasions where the compiler (or in this case, the Facebook platform) was at fault.

A tad more concerning though, El Reg is reporting that the outage revealed severe privacy flaws. More details. Where are your privacy controls now?

Posted in entertainment, tech, web | No Comments »

inverse relationship between grades and sex drive posited → what if you’re really smart about getting laid? Ah. Paradoxes. #
A-List Bloggers: It’s a fad. Everyone go home now. → Well I’ll be. They’re not tech gods? #
it’s apparently national orgasm week. This week. → One week a year just isn’t that great, is it? #
Scarlett Johansson will play Jenna Jameson → zomg bewbies #
The Kremlin is like something conceived by Mario Puzo → Kasparov on Putin and politics in Russia today #
being aggressive leads to higher pay. Umm. duh. → But then the article had to go and bring gender into it. #
from flirting to fornication → like this is a bad thing… Granuiad writer sounds like nose is distinctly out of joint here. #
childrens books are banned from the NYT bestseller lists → err. right. Not that I use the NYT bestseller list for my reading decisions, but ok. #
eating beef is less green than driving → that’s too bad for the planet then. I’m probably close to being classed as a militant carnivore. #
Collaborative filtering for news sources → this is an idea that sounds like it should work in practice – but one man’s news is another man’s propaganda. I expect it to be gamed viciously if it ever becomes popular. #
a new superhero for this day and age – splogfighter → the database of 13m blogs sounds rather creepy though #
PHP4 will not be supported after this year → end of an era? I just hope everyone upgrades. #
let loose the badgers of war, they said. → may I be only about the millionth person to chant “badger, badger, badger, badger, mushroom, mushroom”. #
joke comprehension may decrease with age → laugh it up, junior. laugh it up. #
smacks ever so slightly of elitism, but there is a lot to agree with in this review → jumped the shark. Over. I still watch the Simpsons though. #
rent a house and get richer → skippy pointed me to this a while ago. It flies in the face of everything I thought made fiscal sense. So. Confused. #
is anything safe to eat anymore? → can’t help but feel slightly aggrieved at this. #
how to retain people → lots of interesting stuff there #
Time notices 37Signals → ultimately not a great deal of new insight, though #
not sure this article is enough to reform GWB in the public eye but … → the human touches were very nicely done. #
blog and social network by proxy → ghostwriter? Who’s that? oh, but this is Facebook. It’s different. #
fried chicken → it’s the spice mix that counts #
why poor countries remain poor → the rest of the site is a bit suspect for my left leaning self, but this article mirrors my observations elsewhere #
map of social networks → yes, another one. #
what families eat, around the world → the pictures are a tad “You Are What You Eat”, but it’s interesting to see the variations #
want to dodge the smoking ban? become an embassy → of an uninhabited island. Yeah. That’ll work. #
Food photography aggregator → Truly one of the most brilliant places I’ve visited recently. Do not go there if hungry. You have been warned. #
customer feedback for a store which deals in sex and bondage toys → I love the velvet handcuffs. Now, about that malfunctioning key? #
“clearly, to save a woman you need a man. It’s a question of muscles” → Italy’s first? all-woman beach opens for business. Italian wumminz also ask for moar eunuchs. These Romans are crazy. #
myspace vs facebook: it’s about class, apparently → correlation is not causation and all that sort of thing #
Vimperator: Firefox with Vi key bindings → make it stop. Dear gawd, make it :wq! #
continuous partial attention → some call this multitasking, but it’s not quite that #
facebook in 40 years → face what? #
don’t say this to us. apparently → worth a snigger. Probably going to get me a “fine. read those silly articles” too. #

facebook applications

June 23rd, 2007

Yes, I recently hopped on yet another bandwagon as some of you may well know. I decided to check out what the huge fuss was all about – I started poking around the Facebook API and wrote an application.

Is it a big deal? I rather think it is . There are reports of teething troubles aplenty and I discovered some limitations in the documentation – but overall, I really like the concept of being able to wrestle with the innards of a social networking application. It was fairly frustrating to figure things out, but ultimately it is an interesting experience. I’m still coming to grips with the possibilities.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in programming, software, tech, web | No Comments »

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