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Monthly Archive for October, 2005

Google Reader, revisited

“Google Reader”:http://www.google.com/reader is now my only RSS reader. Sure, it was “slow”:http://google.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000663062331/ and clunky when it first launched. But, there has been some performance improvement, and the adddition of some new functionality.

For instance, you can use your mouse’s scroll wheel to quickly skip through the list of posts. Also, they’ve added some additional keyboard shortcuts - “v” opens the source page, (although you can’t hold down CTRL to open in a new tab), while “n” and “p” allow you to scroll through items without loading the content, which speeds things up considerably.

Scooters: 101

Jason wrote up a nice post on scooters, in case you’re interested in understanding a bit about these machines.

The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm the next few days, so I hope to get out and ride a bit.

Mr. Sulu is gay?

George Takei Declares His Homosexuality… lest you think this is merely a publicity stunt to generate buzz for the play he is currently starring in, there is also this:

The current social and political climate also motivated Takei’s disclosure, he said.

“The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.”

Full-speed ahead, Captain.

First Snow

It’s been snowing, today. The first hour or so, a few flakes fell, and it was cute. But then, the temperature dropped 8 degrees, and it started to accumulate on the ground.

Winter tears

Flurries! On October 29! Enough to make you cry

Last year, the first snowfall was in mid-November, and in early December in 2003…

links for 2005-10-27

Sphynx

Our friend “Nobuko”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinagiku/ is cat-sitting in the South End this week — she isn’t sitting for _normal_ kitties, mind you, but these [“Mr. Bigglesworth”:http://www.austinpowers.com/cgi-bin/drevil/photo.cgi?object=imgmrbigglesworthhairless]-esque hairless “Sphynx”:http://www.cfainc.org/breeds/profiles/sphynx.html cats.

Check out her photos tagged with “Sphynx”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinagiku/tags/sphynx/, or some “interesting”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sphynx/interesting/ public photos.

[_[*UPDATE*]: Presley has some “Sphynx”:http://flickr.com/photos/presley/tags/sphynx/ shots from her cameraphone:_]

“[!http://static.flickr.com/27/57597201_c0366cfa2a_m.jpg!]“:http://flickr.com/photos/presley/57597201/in/photostream/
“New Friend”:http://flickr.com/photos/presley/57597201/in/photostream/, by “Presley”:http://flickr.com/photos/presley/

Flickr Adds Printing service

Nice announcement, long overdue: “Order Prints from Flickr”:http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2005/10/your_photos_on_.html… you even get your first 10 4×6″ prints free.

On the rare occasion that I need an _analog_ photograph, I do it from iPhoto. But, now I can print my friends’ and contacts’ photos, (so long as they “allow me to”:http://www.flickr.com/account/printing/setup/).

But wait, there is one other interesting nugget:

bq. You can order prints to be delivered by mail, or pick them up at your “local Target store “:http://target.com/target_group/storelocator/index.jhtml for one hour printing, even.

One-hour Flickr Prints! Cool.

links for 2005-10-26

Mapped FTP drive

mapped ftpThere was a great “how-to” article on Engadget yesterday: Map a drive to your FTP server.

Now, tweaking that CSS file is as easy as right-click, and Edit.

Ironic Moustaches

I’ve spent the past few months, (off and on, usually with a glass of wine in my hand), trying to convince my girlfriend that I should grow an ironic moustache — and now, Kottke has gone and beat me to it. Game over.

The jury is still out on whether that ’stache is ironical or not, but I must say that it takes balls to walk around like that.

links for 2005-10-23

Productivity

Flock

“Flock”:http://flock.com has indeed landed, today — they released a _Developer Preview_ this afternoon. In fact, I’m publishing this very post from within the browser.

Initial impressions — why can’t I select Movable Type text formatting?  I know this is a beta and all, but this is kind of a deal breaker for me… apparently MT is giving them some “troubles”:http://www.flock.com/products/flock/releases/0.5pre.php:

bq. WordPress and Blogger work pretty well. There are some problems still with Movable Type. We haven’t tested any other blogging platforms

I haven’t done much with the “del.icio.us”:http://del.icio.us integration yet, but so far this doesn’t seem very revolutionary. John Oxton “agrees”:http://joshuaink.com/blog/479/fifteen-minutes-of-flock.

Wow, I just checked the code that Flock wrote to my entry… hard coded <p>s and <br>s, no line-breaks… yikes. I wonder if it defaults to whatever your default text formatting is?

Statistics

“The Boston Foundation”:http://www.tbf.org/ has just put out a “Greater Boston Housing Report Card [PDF]“:http://www.tbf.org/uploadedFiles/Housing%20Report%20Card%202004.pdf, and drew _some_ ridiculous conclusions. John A Keith of the “Boston Real Estate Blog”:http://johnakeith.typepad.com/boston/2005/10/bostonians_spen.html explains [[“via”:http://leftcenterleft.typepad.com/blog/2005/10/effective_rent.html]]:

bq.. From the report:

Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood

*2004 estimated renter income:* $24,132
*2004 estimated monthly rent:* $1,498
*% of median income needed to pay rent in 2004:* 74%

No.

Why not?

1) earlier in their report, the authors estimate rents on two-bedroom apartments throughout the city. They estimate a two-bedroom apartment in the Fenway would cost $1,498 per month. A two-bedroom apartment. Would one person, making $24,132, rent a two-bedroom apartment? Why would they? If they did rent a two-bedroom apartment, they’d have a roommate, thereby reducing their share of the monthly rate to $749. Rent would therefore require only 37% of their gross income.

p. He goes on to question another aspect of their methodology — using the _advertised_ rental rates, which are often higher than what a landlord can get. It’s an interesting discussion, because there is obviously a diminishing pool of “affordable” housing in Boston. The median home price in our fair city of “Cambridge”:http://cambridgema.gov is well over $600,000…

It always surprises me, the _carelessness_ with which people use statistics. No where is this more true than in the education reform debate. For instance, when politicians say, “Half of our kids read _below_ their grade level”. This kind of statement is used to provoke anxiety, and to justify raising (sic) standardized test requirements.

What they don’t choose to explain, (or understand for that matter), is that this is precisely the _definition_ of _grade level_ — 50% above the line, 50% below. That’s how you set a grade level, for god’s sake.

I cringe everytime I hear statistics being manipulated like this.

links for 2005-10-19