interesting description of making "Zope Do Nothing" at Industrie Toulouse - "Zope is great at serving up dynamic content. But what about static content, such as images or large media files? Zope is great at managing such content (even without the higher level content management tools available), but it will never be as fast as a pure file HTTP server such as Apache."#

she's beautiful no matter what#

tony pierce advises christina - "the thing is i really like xtina. and ive been known to appreciate the dirrrty skank ho look. and yet somehow this get-up and makeup and attitude falls flat with me. i cant really say why. other than shes completely uglifying herself for no good reason. sexiness doesnt always mean tons of makeup, mousekateers. but why listen to me? if i was mtv i would have the Queer Eye guys go to Christina's house and give her the sweet makeover. maybe she'd have some tips for her."#

tony pierce made a new photo essay#

ted leung has something interesting to write about how many people think that Lisp hasn't changed at all and that if that's true it's a bad thing - "I've been posting away about the virtues of Lisp and Lisp like languages in an effort to educate folks about what Lisp can do. But I certainly don't think that there's no room for advancement. So it was a little disturbing to read this "Could he be right? Is old-style Common Lisp or Scheme actually the best that we can do?" in Greenspun's post. Not because Greenspun believes it, but because I think a lot of people in the Lisp community appear to believe it. It's not enough to say Python/Ruby/C#/Java 2003 = Lisp 1982."#

philip greenspun shows us the truth - " In this day and age of private contracts it seems that the one truly concrete benefit gay marriage confers is the ability to transfer property, tax-free, upon one's death to one's partner. George W., however, has basically eliminated the "death tax". Thus gay couples, even without the benefit of a civil marriage of some sort, are able to enjoy substantially all of the benefits of being married. Ergo, George W. Bush is the greatest gay rights activist of the 21st Century (so far)."#

awesome#

peter lindberg, one of the main sources of the knowledge i consider actually useful, writes about software development and metaphors. the "construction" model is flawed, at least right now (maybe at some point we'll have lego software - hah!), a more accurate model is the Scientific Method. you're discovering a problem and a solution for it - "In every software project the team has to discover what the problem is. Then invent a solution. How can this ever be more rational than the scientific method?" - he continues - "For a project to succeed, you have to get everybody involved in developing the same system. For me, this is the most important function of a system's architecture: to unite the team, to give them a context for the continued exploration and development. So what does this mean? The architecture isn't a distinct entity. It isn't technical but social. It's part of the mesh that is the story about the problem domain and the solution the piece of software provides. This story is told in discussion between programmers, between programmers and users, between programmers and managers, and so forth." - and sticks it too it at the end, "In software projects, innovation never stops, while in engineering projects, the innovation takes place at the beginning."#

mark is back and disappointed by normal life :(#

phrack #61 is out#

via atrios and many others is the register article about BloggerCon - "The medium is not the message. Imagine how tedious newspapers would be if every other story proclaimed "We use INK!!!" The writers don't care, and the readers don't care, how this message was delivered: but readers do care about quality." - john palfrey of the berkman center replies to the criticism - dave winer also replies, read it. - al3x has a unique thing to say about it - keith writes "I blog about blogs because I see work in an industry that uses them as a tools for many things. But they are simply that. A tool used to publish content. End of story. If I didn't use MT (blogging software) I'd use something else. Implying that blogs are anything more is pretty ridiculous."#

michael feldman ponders blogs and fair use.#

shannon campbell reveals the truth about temp jobs in "Temp Is a Four-Letter Word"#

Anyone who's ever done a quick succession of temp agency interviews can tell you it's nothing like doing "regular" job interviews. It's the same thing, over and over: typing tests, stupid Windows 3.1 tutorials on Office 2000 programs, and questions about what kind of job you really want. (What kind of job do I really want? I'm at a temp agency! Do think I have any room for preferences (or dignity?) at this point?)

It's trying to cram your well-designed resume into some squinchy stock application form fastened to some shitty clipboard balanced on your knee as you try to comfortably perch in a freakishly designed modernist chair next to a fake plant potted in real dirt while weird, jangley Musak is piped in through stealthy Bose speakers because, "Yes, honey, I see you have a resume but this is what we use. Next?"

crimson - "Again I am going to bitch about men (and I've never seen a woman do this, although perhaps it happens sometimes) who lean out the windows of their (usually) trucks and whistle or yell things at me on my commute. I'm just going to freakin' work, shut up! This isn't a free show for you at 8:30am. Gross, gross gross gross. Keep it to yourself." - i once tried to talk to someone as we were sitting waiting in stop and go traffic - embarrassing!#

from nova is an article about the idea that the "Laws of Physics" may be changing over time - "WHAT do we mean by "the laws of nature"? The phrase evokes a set of divine and unchanging rules that transcend the "here and now" to apply everywhere and at all times in the universe. The reality is not so grand. When we refer to the laws of nature, what we are really talking about is a particular set of ideas that are striking in their simplicity, that appear to be universal and have been verified by experiment. It is thus human beings who declare that a scientific theory is a law of nature and human beings are quite often wrong."#

DEVONthink 1.7 is out - word.#

from matrix essays is a post about the idea that the machines want to learn how to be human from the humans - "My reasoning is this: humans are, as individuals, unpredictable. It would be impossible I think to pluck any one individual out from the multitudes and predict with any accuracy exactly what they will do, either in their present situation or in an unknown situation (the machines seems to have shown that they are not very good at predicting human behavior, else or heroes would not exist). I think this randomness, this chaos, is necessary to the machines in some way. Perhaps they get bored (al la Marvin the Paranoid Android) or perhaps they need the variability provided by the humans. It's hard to say exactly what free will and variability add, and perhaps this is why the people of Zion have assumed the simpler explanation that humans are needed to power the Matrix when what they truly do is animate it."#

and another idea on matrix essays about the Architect giving up a little bit of control in the Matrix by creating Zion. interesting.#

stef wonders why many designers don't like Jakob Nielsen? - "The only explanation I can come up with is that he makes you feel stupid, particularly if you're a designer who just turned out some piece of flashtastic dogcrap for the client^H^H^H^H^H your portfolio, and hurtfully for your ego, the client suddenly comes in shouting and waving a copy of Designing Web Usability. But he only makes you feel stupid because you know, in your heart of hearts, that he's right. He never says anything radical, or offensive, simply right. Get over it."#

dr frank writes that one reason his studio time goes so smoothly is that the group doesn't go crazy, instead when they hit a rut they just sacrifice the song to save time, energy, and feelings#

i wish i got this spam - but i didn't and now i'm in jail :(#

dieneke has an interesting theory about women and hair colour - "This is my tentative theory on the evolution of hair depigmentation in humans. Hair acts as a frame for the face, in the same way as a frame for a painting. If the frame is light-colored, then it draws attention away from the face. Now, most women do not have exceptionally beautiful features; indeed, the uglier one's features, the more one would like to draw attention away from them, and this can be achieved via light-colored hair. On the other hand, beautiful women want the opposite effect, i.e., to present their features in the most striking way possible. For such women dark hair is an advantage, since it contrasts with the light skin (of Caucasoid women). This is why beautiful brunettes retain their dark hair, which they know to be an advantage."#

shelley writes about the outdoors, photography, quitting smoking, and the problem with fight - as Good Clean Fun says, "By now we should all know better, fighting doesn't solve problems it only creates them"#

from macslash is an interview with Steve Jobs in Business Week - "Q: Will we see more groundbreakers like the iPod from Apple? A: The iPod is not a new category. Music is not new. It's not a speculative market. It's a very, very large market. It's been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as humans exist. So it's not like saying we're going to go build an information appliance or some technical curio and hope the market exists. We're taking a giant market and bringing it into the Digital Age. That requires hardware, software, and the ease-of-use talent that Apple has. "#