[ David Pogue lampoons Vista. Pretty nice. Important to note that widgets ≠ gadgets -k]

New York Times Video

[Gold Star. I'm tempted to give it two. This is hands down one of the best essays I've ever read.

I think that I'll have a lot to say about it, but I'm going to need to spend some time on it. In the meantime, go, read it.

It is vrey much applicable to those of us in the InfoTech/InfoSec world. I see many parallels in our work to those of a tradesman -- writing software can be dull and monotonous or it can be vibrant and engaging, largely depending upon the personality and skill of the developer, but also largely depending on the environment in which he works.

I'll stop, but I'll be back with more.
-k]

The New Atlantis - Shop Class as Soulcraft - Matthew B. Crawford

With OmniPlan, you can create logical, manageable project plans with Gantt charts, schedules, summaries, milestones, and critical paths. Break down the tasks needed to make your project a success, optimize resources, and streamline budgets. It's project management made painless.

For y'all MS Project haters out there who are also Mac users, here's a potential alternative. Omni makes good stuff, and i'm a user of their OmniOutliner Pro product.

It's not a complete rethinking of the project management methodolgy or anything... essentially it looks to still be a Gantt builder. That being said, making that process easy would put it well in front of ^&($@&$)_^%&#^% Project, which makes me want to stab out my own eyes.

Anyway, if you're into this sort of thing, worth a look i reckon.

Also, 2000 K-rad points to anyone else who catches the reference they're making with the human resources in the screenshots (without Google, cheaters).

-k

The Omni Group - Applications - OmniPlan

Ladies and Gentlemen.. 2006's Quote of the Year is ... [ drum roll ]

"The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders." -- Bruce Sterling

This one doesn't need a context if you understand the reference. This quote would fit in editorials on a number of subjects.

And the runner-up:

"I'm an artillery officer, and I can't fire cannons at the internet." -- Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt US Central Command

nice

2006 Quote of the Year

NEW YORK (AP) -- By the year 2030, New York City could have so many people straining its infrastructure that it won't have enough electricity or housing to meet demand, and rush hour traffic will last all day.
...

Atlanta can't be too far behind...we don't have any natural boundaries, but it seems traffic is terrible in midtown all the time and we don't hardly have a mass transit system to update.

-janelane, the choir

[ That's true, but at the same time, not having much of a transit system should theoretically mean we don't have a lot of inertia holding us back.

What's holding atlanta back is asshole suburbanites who see public transit as a gift to the poor and who do everything they can to keep their money out in the burbs. It means nice big houses out there, but the city itself will be bankrupt before long if the trend continues.

I seriously think atlanta is fucked. Not because it's not possible to create a true modern urban environment here, but because the people here don't seem to get what that means or want it even if they do understand. -k]

New York faces all-day rush hour by 2030 - CNN.com

On January 27, 2006, our great friends and Channels members J. Robbins and Janet Morgan welcomed their first child, a son named Callum.
...
As Cal grew, though, his parents began to notice that the expected development milestones - biting his toes, squeezing Janet's finger, even rolling over and sitting up unsupported - weren't happening.
...
Sometime around Cal's 8-month birthday in September, J. and Janet learned that Cal was born with a genetic motor neuron disease called Type 1 SMA, or Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

[ I'm not really the type to do this kind of thing, but in this case, the people involved are somewhat relevant to my life and the situation is particularly horrible.

J. Robbins is a name you may know from his bands Burning Airlines or Jawbox (any self-respecting indie rock kid certainly should own some of each).

Anyway, I'm not gonna overstate it -- charity is a personal thing and I'm not here to be preachy, but I wanted to share the link and if you feel it, you feel it. -k]

DeSoto Records: For the Benefit of Cal Robbins

Another DoS vector I see with Ajax applications is something I'm going to call Control Logic Denial of Service. All those web services and Ajax endpoints are API calls into the application. By looking at the JavaScript code that’s pushed to the client, I can see in what order and how often these webservices are contacted, as well as what the parameters are. In essence, this is a blueprint of the steps the applications takes to function normally. However, it is also a blueprint on how to use the application incorrectly. Some webservices may allocated resources where another one cleans them up. An attacker simply never calls the clean up functions. Or I simply call all the functions out of order. Even if the code fails gracefully, it is extremely expensive for a program to generate an Exception, even it gets caught.

[ Very interesting. Webservice authors take heed. -k]

Punching them in the brain! Control logic DoS.

This is a neat site.

What is LibraryThing?

Enter what you're reading or your whole library—it's an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things.

What's good?

* Searches Amazon, the Library of Congress and 60 other world libraries.
* Get recommendations. Connect to people with similar libraries.
* Tag your books as on Del.icio.us and Flickr.
* Put your books on your blog.
* Export your data. Import from almost anywhere too.

If you want to explore the site, try the zeitgeist and the BookSuggester. For example: enter From Dawn to Decadence and you'll get a recommendation for The Metaphysical Club.

[Looks rad, but i wonder if there's any way for me to upload my Delicious Library file to it?

I spent a lot of time populating DL -- though i've since slacked and it's woefully out of date -- it'd be nice to start from there... -k]

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

A long-overdue wake up call for the information security community.

This popped up on Slashdot recently. I'm curious to get feedback from the security experts here at Memestreams.

I'm no security expert, but he seems about on target to me. He has someone in there quoted as saying the internet is "one exploit away from a complete meltdown" and know of at least one memestreams regular (ahem) who can certainly speak to that (though legally not in great detail).

Security Absurdity; The Complete, Unquestionable, And Total Failure of Information Security.

According to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

"It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control," said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

"The Taser can be incredibly violent and result in death," Eliasberg said.

According to an ACLU report, 148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999.

During the altercation between Tabatabainejad and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would "get Tased too." At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.

Such a threat of the use of force by a law enforcement officer in response to a request for a badge number is an "illegal assault," Eliasberg said.

"It is absolutely illegal to threaten anyone who asks for a badge - that's assault," he said.

Until tonight I hadn't watched the video of the taser incident. Its linked here. Its hard to watch. In fact, I didn't make it through and I was very angry for a while after seeing it. I actually don't recommend watching it.

These cops are tasering this kid and then demanding that he stand. They are demanding over and over again that he stand up and then tasering him when he refuses to stand. Its fucked up. Would you want to stand after getting electrocuted? Worse, they threaten to taser the other students that are watching the incident because they express concern with the situation. I do not understand how people can watch this video and not get that this is a bunch of guys who enjoy hurting people and have found a victim. How warped can you possibly be? What sort of authoritarian brain washing leads you to look at this and wonder whether or not it was justified?

[Hear hear.

It's one of the most difficult things I've ever watched too.

Had I been present I'd have had a tough time avoiding getting tasered too. That shit was completely obscene.

Losing their jobs will probably force those fucks to take out their animal urges in some other way, i guess, but for gods sake, they shouldn't be there.

My cousin goes to UCLA. If she got tasered by some jackass with a fake badge, I'd be wanting to fly out there and taser him with a tire iron. -k]

Community responds to Taser use in Powell