Journal: News & Comment

Links of interest (2005-08-26):

Permalinks to this entry: individual page or in monthly context. For more material from my journal, visit my home page or the archive.

• Rob at Mac Net Journal wonders, with others: could you organize everything you need for your work and life in a single great big text file?
  
  
• One of the best ways to save coastal communities from tsunamis is to preserve their natural coastal ecosystems.
  
  
• "I'm talking about the honest people who play by the rules: they buy a house and the vendor moves out and pulls no more strings. They buy sofas and flowers and wine and paper and the store where they bought them doesn't try to limit what you can do with them, and when the digital-media vendors try to horn in on this relationship, the response is going to be 'you and whose army?'"
  
  
• I have this, and it works fine, but this looks better.
  
  
• Language Log is lots of fun.
  
  
• From Scientific American in July 2002: "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" (PDF file).
  
  
• Even A-List bloggers get a bit wiggly when meeting a real tech celebrity like Steve Jobs, who does appear to be a rude man.
  
  
• Wondering what math is good for? Astronomers have figured out exactly when the first marathon was run, and both where and when Ansel Adams and Vincent Van Gogh made two of their famous images. They're even going to try to replicate the Adams photograph this year.
  
  
• This week the London Zoo is putting humans on display. (It's temporary.)
  
  
• Articles from 2002 and this year about why some level of software piracy is probably good—even economically optimal.
  
  
• I do not enjoy either playing or watching golf, but I do find golf courses pleasant places to look at. There may be an evolutionary reason.
  
  
• Genes? The uterine environment? Upbringing? All of the above? Scientists are not yet sure about the reasons for different sexual orientations. But they're getting there.

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