Yearly Archives: 2009

First Snow 2009

First snow of the year:

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Platform.new()

Taking platform management advice from a Mac person is like taking relationship advice from an autistic savant. His advice probably works for him, but Your Mileage May Vary. Which brings me to John Gruber of Daring Fireball on OS opportunity: … Continue reading

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Miéville on Tolkien

Hell freezes over: China Miéville (better known for excoriating Tolkien in the past) has a piece out with 5 reasons Tolkien rocks. Money quote: “Tolk gives good monster”. (Also, if you haven’t already, go read Miéville’s new book The City and … Continue reading

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Useful Windows Shortcuts: Win+B

Lifehacker recently pointed to a very useful new Windows 7 shortcut that vertically maximizes windows — really useful on laptops with 800 pixels or less of vertical real estate. In that spirit, here’s another useful “shortcut”: Win+B gives focus to the … Continue reading

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Installing Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope on a Sony Vaio

Installing Linux on laptops still isn’t as easy as it should be. I installed Ubuntu 9.04 (“Jaunty”) on a Sony Vaio today, only to find that WiFi — on an Atheros AR242x controller — was working, but very slowly. I … Continue reading

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Google UK as a Search Provider in Firefox and IE

The default Google search built into Firefox (at least in British builds) goes off to google.com and is then redirected to google.co.uk. Problem is, sometimes the redirection stops working and it stays with google.com — usually clearing cookies solves this … Continue reading

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Using the Flickr API with Python's FlickrAPI

Python FlickrAPI is an easy-to-use library for accessing Flickr from Python apps. Here’s a simple app prints the thumbnail URL for a photo, give a list of photo URLs.

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The Perils of Grammatical Gender

Language Log: At lunch a couple of weeks ago, I asked a bunch of doctoral students and postdocs what the gender of Schorle is. Much inconclusive discussion resulted. For one postdoc they’re both feminine (die Apfelschorle, die Weinschorle); for another, … Continue reading

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Visions in the Tundra

Michael Lewis has an excellent, long (16 pages) article about Iceland in Vanity Fair — Wall Street on the Tundra (via Paul Kedrosky). Read it all: …you can’t help but notice something really strange about it: the people have cultivated … Continue reading

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