The man is a steadfast news-reading and -debunking machine. You can read his reviews of articles from the mass media at Beat the Press by Dean Baker (CEPR). He is a national treasure and that he’s not as household a name as Anderson Cooper is a sign of the average American’s decline and inability to pay attention to that which could make his or her life so much better.

In response to the recent article, The Budget Debate, Revealed by Richard W. Stevenson (NY Times), Baker wrote The Battle Is About Giving More Money to Rich People, Not About the... [More]

It’s so hard to separate all of the threads in the warp and weft of history. A Saudi prince is reared in the lap of luxury. At first, he is fiercely nationalistic but also proud of his people and his religion and his culture. This pride is easily manipulated to draw him into battle in a foreign country to battle the communist foe in the employ of the capitalist one.

Years later, he will take up arms against his former employer for the crime of building bases in his homeland. He was purported... [More]

The Fukushima I Nuclear Accidents (Wikipedia) page is quite good and the “Reactor status summary” somewhere in the middle of the page is updated often.

Wikipedia Reactor Status Summary

In addition to the reactor status information, there is a crowdsourced map of microsievert values from 215 Geiger counters across Japan. These are (ostensibly) real-life readings, but it’s hard to know whether to believe it or not. They certainly look legitimate, but it’s the Internet, so take it with a grain of salt.

Status as of March 27th, 2011

Rounding out the images is a the... [More]

The oft though-provoking XKCD published a flow chart recently, called Good Code (XKCD), which outlines the two branches: doing it fast or doing it right. The chart is linked below.

Despite the panacea of Agile Development, you still can’t have both fast and right. While it is possible to write good code, the odds are good that that code will accomplish a task that no longer requires completion (indicated by the “requirements have changed” block).

Even if it’s decent code, it’s further quite likely... [More]

The photo below is from the first week of the revolution in Tunisia by Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images (Big Picture Blog) and shows a protester taking aim at the police with a baguette[1].

I just couldn’t help thinking that the cops were surprisingly nonchalant considering the guy pretending his bread is a gun is part of a revolution. Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what would have happened to this guy had he tried something like this in a real hot zone, like New York City? Amadou Diallo’s family, perhaps?

The comedy/cabaret troupe Fascinating Aida riffed on cheap flights—specifically those that you can get in Ireland (I’m looking at you, Ryanair). The video below is pretty funny (and includes subtitles for the Irish-accent–impaired).

Cheap Flights with subtitles by bolikoki (YouTube)

SPOILER ALERT:The best line was right at the end (but it’s really much better in song): “And as we heard his announcement, our hearts gave a terrible thump…if you haven’t prepaid to use the steps, you’ll have to feckin’ jump!”

How did I not know that John Oliver had his own show on Comedy Central? It’s apparently a show where he does stand-up comedy of his own—at which he is flat-out brilliant—and includes bits from some other very talented people. He had a special last year as well, called Terrifying Times (Comedy Central) (the link takes you to clips from that show).

Below is a video in which he tells the story of a man who rushes to catch a subway train. Oliver is a natural-born storyteller; it’s definitely worth the four... [More]

The video below[1] explains the difference between the various political and geographical entities that are still or have historically been associated with England. Below the video is a summary with links and a screenshot of the final graphic, which is a nice Venn diagram of all of the various entities.

The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained by CGPGrey (YouTube)

• The United Kingdom is a political entity that comprises England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
• Great Britain is a geographical entity and is the largest of the British Isles and is a... [More]

I would amend this to:

“Never trust a programmer’s opinion about a programming language if he or she cannot give you at least one reason why that language sucks.”

TuneSync is a Windows application that transfers ratings, play counts and last-played times—as well as other song data—between iTunes libraries. Use TuneSync to keep all personal information about songs synchronized between two or more copies of iTunes. TuneSync should be run every so often between the same libraries to make sure that they all have the most up-to-date information, regardless of where you’ve made the changes.

TuneSync loads two iTunes library files, compares them using... [More]

A few years ago, I developed a utility for syncing ratings, play counts and last-played times between the same set of songs on two different iTunes installations. I haven’t worked on it in years, but it’s quite well-written and full-featured and has rich documentation with a tutorial. You can download the Windows-only software for free.

I originally wrote this software because I was listening to a lot of music at work and rating it. When I got home, I didn’t have these ratings anymore because... [More]

Lewis Black delivered what can only be considered a triumph of dark comedy in the following clip, in which he stumps for Donald Trump in 2012. You have to hang on through the whole video for his justification, which is transcribed below.

Back In Black – Trump 2012 by Lewis Black (The Daily Show)

“That’s what he’s best at: putting a bow on a turd, marking up the price and selling it so hard, you want it, even though you know it’s just a turd with a bow on it! America…is that turd. It’s time to let Donald Trump come in, put some gold leaf on the... [More]”

Imagine, if you will, that you would like to take a trip from Zürich (to pick an arbitrary starting point) to Copenhagen (to pick an equally random destination).

Imagine further, if you will further indulge, that you would like to take the train in order to see Germany along the way instead of flying over everything. Imagine that you have a vague notion of nobility in doing so because of the ghastly wastefulness of flying, as far as carbon footprint goes.

You will be surprised—and not just... [More]

I’m currently revising the Encodo C# Handbook to update it for the last year’s worth of programming experience at Encodo, which includes a lot more experience with C# 4.0 features like optional parameters, dynamic types and more. The following is an expanded section on working with Linq. A final draft should be available by the middle of April or so.

7.30 – Loose vs. Tight Coupling

Whether to use loose or tight coupling for components depends on several factors. If a component on a... [More]

I’m currently revising the Encodo C# Handbook to update it for the last year’s worth of programming experience at Encodo, which includes a lot more experience with C# 4.0 features like optional parameters, dynamic types and more. The following is an expanded section on working with Linq. A final draft should be available by the middle of April or so.

7.17 – Using System.Linq

When using Linq expressions, be careful not to sacrifice legibility or performance simply in order to use Linq instead... [More]

PHPDoc is a popular tool for generating documentation for PHP projects. I made a whole lot of improvements to it for PHP5 and created a new skin with clean separation between structure and styling as well as a lot of generation options.

The new style is cleaner, has far fewer borders, better margins and alignments and nicer icons (for all elements, with access visibility for all element types) as well as much more legible placement and more information, including direct links to source for all... [More]

PHPDoc is a popular tool for generating documentation for PHP projects. I made a whole lot of improvements to it for PHP5 and updated all the skins to look less boxy, have nicer and more informative icons and be easier to use, and then created an earthli fork. This article includes a full feature list and screenshots.

The earthli WebCore (the software that runs this web site) is open-source. It is also relatively well-documented. The documentation is generated using PHPDoc, but a better... [More]

I’ve been keeping track of the movies I watched for a couple of years now, but have only recently been adding mini-reviews[1] to each so I can remember (A) what it was about and (B) whether I liked it.

Since I’m no longer maintaining the old text file in which I kept this list, I’m dumping the list here.

2008 (or so)

1. Monster (2003) — 8/10
2. The Good Shepherd (2006) — 7/10
3. Breach (2007) — 7/10
4. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) — 7/10
5. Eastern Promises (2007) — 9/10... [More]

More than a decade ago, the available web browsers—Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera—differed widely in capability. Cutting-edge pages that worked in one browser either didn’t work at all in the others, or ceased to be cutting-edge. In those days, it was both common and appropriate to include a browser recommendation. “Best viewed in Internet Explorer” or “Best viewed in Netscape” flourished.

Today, however, the various browsers have standardized to a great degree. There is no longer a... [More]

Two articles drifted down my news-pipe today that caught my eye: Is anything nuclear ever really super safe small and simple? by Robert Cringely and The no-BS info on Japan’s disastrous nuclear operators by Greg Palast.

We’ll start with Palast, who was formerly employed as a “lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations”. He’s also the guy who proved that Bush & Co. stole the election in 2000 and who’s been working in England almost exclusively because no one will hire him in the... [More]

Seriously, calm down. Stop babbling about how the Japanese are a closed society that would rather immolate our whole planet, taking us all down with them as they refuse to admit any mistakes made in an effort to avoid losing face.

It’s all bullshit, just like all such blanket statements about millions of people are.

I’m going to put this right here: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors by Dr Josef Oehmen.

Read it. It explains pretty well why a small explosion on top of a cooling tower in no... [More]

This was 45 years ago and the wheel of... [More]

Warning: semi-inchoate and stream-of-consciousness rant lies ahead. YMMV.

It’s time to reëxamine our myth, to reëvaluate the stories with which we allow ourselves to be lulled into a complacency about who we really are. Or rather and more precisely, what it is that America really is when the scales have fallen from our eyes, when the rose-colored glasses are put away, when we stop turning a blind eye to the horror that our lifestyles engender the world over just so we can continue living... [More]

Anyone who’s used Visual Studio 2010[1] for a non-trivial Windows Forms project has run into situations wherein the designer can no longer be opened. Usually, it’s because the class encounters null-reference exceptions when referencing data that is unavailable until runtime. Those are easy to fix: just avoid referencing that data in the constructor or load-routine while in design-mode.

However, sometimes Visual Studio has problems loading assemblies that it seems it should have available.... [More]

1. Salt (2010) — 6/10
2. Paranormal Activity (2008) — 5/10
3. Green Zone (2010) — 7/10
4. Evangelion 1.01 You Are (Not) Alone (2007) — 5/10
5. Evangelion 2.22 − You Can (Not) Advance (2009) — 5/10
6. Mean Machine (Kampfmaschine) (2001) — 6/10
7. 16 Blocks (2006) — 6/10
8. Shutter Island (2010) — 10/10
9. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) — 6/10
10. I Love You, Phillip Morris (2009) — 8/10
11. The Lake House (2006) — 4/10
12. Greenberg (2010) — 3/10
13. The Rock (1996) — 7/10
14. The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)... [More]

The venerable Plastic.com is closing its doors for good this weekend. I’ve been a member for about a decade and contributed sporadically throughout. I saved my comments from the site before it goes dark and included them below. The context is often not there, but it’s an interesting compendium of issues from the last decade.

My stats were as follows:

• name: dur
• member since: Tue 23 Oct 2001
• karma: 8 (astute scholarly underrated succinct)
• favorite words: countries(16), already(10),... [More]

As usual, Stephen Colbert manages to encapsulate the problem with American media in a rant delivered to/in support of Mika Brzezinski on his show from the 18th (transcript below).

Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue by Stephen Colbert (Colbert Nation)

“Mika, you need to buck up. I know you think this story has no purpose other than to keep Sarah Palin’s name in the headlines for another news cycle. I know you think she has nothing to offer the national dialogue and that her speeches are just coded talking points mixed in with words picked at random from a... [More]”

Dear American Media, Political Talking Heads and Wonks of all Stripes,

If you’re going to insist on calling each other Nazis all the damned time, fine. I don’t even care that the shoe almost never fits.

But, if you’re going to invoke the dreaded Herr Göbbels (Wikpedia), at least pronounce his name correctly.

Take a close look, morons: that’s an umlaut, not an ‘r’.

While it’s inspiring that you actually manage the umlaut correctly, it’s a complete mystery why you all insist on adding an ‘r’ after... [More]