Worst timing evar!
Microsoft announces the latest release of MSN messenger, in the middle of the Google talk buzz. [icbm: work]
I wonder if that paraglider has any drugs?
How about we find out by firing these here machine guns at him? [icbm: work]
Hackathons again
How about a 48 hour hacking session in a house? It forces you to turn of that part of your brain associated with fear of failure, and therefore makes you more creative. Again, this sounds like a cool idea to me. Previous linkage. [icbm: work]
Rides last week
Here's a dump of recent bike rides... All distances deserve an ish near them. Work to accountant: 3km Work to accountant and then uni: 6km Work around lake and back: 23km Home to investment property: 10km Work to pub: 3km Work to pub: 3km I've done around 60km since learning to ride. Not too shabby me thinks. [icbm: home]
Interview with Adam Savage
An interview with a Mythbuster. Did you know the show was an Australian concept? Or that they get gay fan mail? [icbm: dcs]
Alternate queries on results pages making it easier for future evilness?
John Battelle implies that the new search result page being testing by Google could make evilness easier in the future. The premise is that offering alternate queries might be useful now, but it would make it easier to insert paid listings later. I'm confused though, and John doesn't have a comment link in his RSS output, so I'll post it here. Surely if Google wanted to embrace evil later, they could just direct their coders to make it happen? They already know what keywords you're searching for (i.e. Adwords), couldn't they just roll those into the page in a way which looks like search results? I see no real way this positions for future evil. I've been keeping an eye on Google news recently, and there seems to be a propensity towards paranoia in a lot of people (for instance the gmail displaying Adwords thing). If people are bothered, why don't they just use another search engine? You can't tell me that MSN and Yahoo! are any less evil...
Where did SUVs come from?
I've always wondered where the SUV proliferation in the US came from. This article assures me that it's because the US federal government tried to make cars more fuel efficient. Interesting, if it's correct. Nick Hac. [icbm: work]
Want to be an acquisitions editor on Open Source topics
Because the Average Joe is looking for one. [icbm: home]
The channel seven defence
Your honour, they can't prove we didn't lie in our story. Arguing that you could have lied in a journalistic story as a defence? Either Channel 7 is populated with such morons that you shouldn't be watching, or they can't be trusted. Pick. [icbm: home]
Hackathons
Let your development team spend a day hacking on a feature they care about. Sounds like a great idea to me. I look around at a lot of the developers I know and they're running at 50% efficiency because they feel bored doing what the managers say they should the whole time, and the product suffers as a result. Is your company having trouble with staff churn? It's probably because you don't let your employees become passionate any more. [icbm: home]