philip greenspun links an article about a nazi concentration camp guard being arrested in michigan. and makes the strange suggestion that most europeans think of it as ancient history and irrelevant. i think it's interesting to contrast america's experience with other countries who have actually had real wars on their own soil, you have to wonder why europeans have such a 'pacifist' reputation now with this in mind. (note: the civil war doesn't count, i'm from the north, we're insensitive and we won, plus the war never got that close up here.)#

philip also brings up once again that "Investors realize that American corporations can make plenty of money without necessarily hiring Americans..." citing microsoft as the one company you'd think to move development out of the country and yet still doing it. showing that everyone (except the workers) seem to think it's a great idea.#

matthew dennis discusses how wonderful 4-H is for youngsters: "The pig show at the fair serves to teach 4-H kids that life is generally out of their control and up to a bunch of subjective events. And each individual is not very important in the grand scheme of things." it's very well written and oh so true. this is via doug miller who says he's had a very unproductive day because it's the day before a vacation weekend and what not. i think that's strange because i've had an incredibly productive day today... although i've blogged 3 times and been here since about 6 so maybe my situation is a bit skewed.#

peter merholz writes that usability is not user experience and that (SURPRISE!) words used by technology types have there meanings constantly warped and abused. the bit on "usability != user experience" is nice and new but the word warping is rule #1 in the technology pushing manual (sadly.) i found this from digital web magazine, where this article about something else usability isn't is also link. that article is interesting, i'd like to meet someone who's job is a usability special or information architect because it seems like such an abstract internet idea. i know they exist, but i've never seen one, not like a 'linux kernel guru' or 'senior engineer', hmm?#

philip greenspun notes the Bush challenging people who are murdering americans is a bit out of line. sometimes i'm surprised i'm not dreaming when i hear about some of the stuff that georgie porgie will do.#

green hat guy fills us in on what research he's doing as a graduate student. and it seems very interesting. now a days there's a big focus on a user's experience and usability and what, and i think that a good thing to do will be to trickle that effort downward so that programming is also easier, more enjoyable, and more doable. this is the tending to simple interfaces (like ghg is working on) and higher level languages (so called 'scripting' languages) where you have to worry less about memory management and all that bs - "being able to focus on your task, not the application you're using" => "being able to focus on the problem not the library/system you're using."#

on a similar note, the smalltalk blog thinks about the complexity in Java/C#/C land: the amount of configuration and code generation. linking the comment i mentioned earlier from charles miller. maybe if the code was less of mess the configuration would be less of a mess too? but that's not "expedient". if you like USEFUL over expedient, then look at tunes.#

tony doesn't understand why the younguns won't take his advice, it's good stuff - why else would the bitties be after him when he mostly thinks about the hitties?#

i feel bad for chrystal because life is out to get her and it's not very nice. the only thing i can think of as encouragement is that her life must have a pretty awesome future because nothing good is easy and nothing easy is good, plus she's the type of badass girl you will take on all the demons of the world fists up, head down, foot kickin your ass. mutha. take that!#

don park fights back the criticism that the "blogoverse" is really a sparsely populated high school or political circle where everything revolves around "returning the favour." he gives 6 rules of linking to other blogs and assure everyone that he's an unknown who's number one drive is to tell it like it is and be a happy, selfish pig.#

more on strom at demos greenhouse. two good bits: "To put Thurmond's extraordinary career in perspective, he first ran for president when Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were 2 years old." and "Thurmond thrived on that great US political maxim: "All politics is local"." old people are pretty awesome, i wish i knew more, because they MUST know vastly more than me about all the important stuff. and because i'm selfish and conceited anything that helps make me smarter than others is a good thing... i'm such an ass.#

someone who doesn't realize there are languages other than C++, Java, and C# wonders "Will there be a revolutionary language like C again - invented by programmers rather than corporations?" This person must be living under a rock or hiding behind the iron curtain of what the MAN wants them to see to not realize all the open source languages that we DEFINITELY created for programmers by programmers. (via jarno who says Python is the answer, because "Python owns [him]")#

dan hon writes a review of the hulk that is very similar to many others: the effects and cinematography was top notch and unique. the whole "this is what a comic book would look like if it moved" is something that everyone can identify and appreciate. he also agrees that it didn't get all the way there. a good read for a decent movie.#

an interesting article covering a debate about the PATRIOT act and other anti-terrorism legislation where, ``ACLU president Nadine Strossen quotes Senator Don Young as saying the PATRIOT act was "stupid". '' (via stupid security)#

a man got life in prison for spitting at a government employee, read about it here. that's pretty surreal. (via minorthird)#

there's a clever and funny article at kuro5hin: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Writers of parody news were saddened to learn Monday that merely writing their stories in the clipped, authoritative style of the Associated Press does not make them funny." i laffed#

evhead links an article in the economist that compares the IT industry and how it is beginning to develop standards with the auto industry and the early 1900s/late 1800s when there were standards beginning to be created from things like screws. the important thing to note is that this article quotes the father of a friend of mine Eric Newcomer. Murdah, if you're into web services check out his book#

patrick logan wonders if the usa would be better off with a parliamentary system of government and raises the common complaint that elections are too long and expensive for real issues and debates to happen, instead it's a battle of money and public image. "The way it's always been, The way it SHOULD be."#

an italian couple was ordered to make love more quietly (via bikini diaries) and i think that that is pretty awesome. they must've been pretty loud to have been brought to court over it so more power to them :)#

Nicholas Confessor reviews for us how the government really works. (via jimlog, who writes ``Ralph Nader said it best: "Bush is a corporation disguised as a human being." '')#

aj, who's tag says "You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her," writes that the worst part of a relationship is when your girlfriend finds out who the real you is, with a very fitting picture of gollum next to it. you know what they say - "Dating is that wonderful time when you try to push your lies as far as possible so that you can get someone interested in Artificial You (tm)" or "Dating is the time between when two people decide they might want to take each other's clothes off and when they actually do" - depending on what your glass looks like.#

charles miller adds more fuel to fire of the debate about if using your own software makes it better, and gives a few examples of why this could be true and why it may. it's strange to me because his PRO of the theory is speculation and his CON of the theory is reality. not that i don't think it's a good idea, i'm very dogmatic about anything joel has ever said, but if you think about charles' critique that way it looks awfully bleak. (via cincom smalltalk blog)#

also from the smalltalk blog: "the wild tale of Alice and Bob. Make sure to read all the way down." and it's funny.#

i'm sure she doesn't think "not showing her boobs in the future" is a viable option.#

there was a new lwn weekly edition today so that means that the older one is available freely. the initialization and 2.7 speculation of the kernel section is interesting and the scheme weekly news from the development section points at two cool things: dmd, an init replacer (whos website is down and not in english, so here's a good google query that points to the author's "manifesto"); and serveez which looks like a very useful server framework, sweet.#

don park relates his theory of confidence, pointing out that if you try to attach it too specifically to one aspect of yourself it will definitely go away: looks fade, intelligence rots, etc.#

michael mccracken recommends the modest mouse. specifically "The Moon and Antarctica" and "This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about" which are very good. i personally prefer "Sad Sappy Sucker" but they're all really good. and if you like them you may like built to spill (good cd: "Ancient Melodies of the Future") or other doug marsch stufff.#

richard poe gets a lot of props from musical artists. via gene expression#

tony pierce captures what it means to be live life right: "meet the people of the world. stick to your convictions. demand respect. love each other. and love each other enough to call bullshit on bullshit and walk away when the dj starts playing crap on the wheels of steel." even though he claims "i dont want to teach any damn lesson, i just want to live my life and when people fuck me over i want to wipe them off my speed dial." he continuously imparts 100+ year old wisdom on the net. thanks tony.#

i'm glad peter lindberg likes my response to what he wrote because his blog makes me think and read stuff i would not normally read.#

ted leung also adds good bits to the stream of tim o'reilly's All Software Should Be Network Aware... not that i think i added good bits but you know what i mean.#

john wiseman of lemonodor also looked at the article on teen "behavior modification centers" and thinks that the discussion board for people who came out of it is creepy because it's filled with posts from ``happy "graduates"'' my brother HATED the place that he went to and occasionally he still keeps in touch with the people he met there but generally not. some people who are there know it's not so good but also know there's nothing they can do to get out.#

russell beattie offers AWESOME advice to anyone who thinks about emailing him. read it kid.#