December 2010
Jacqui's 2010 round-up in photos! →
I forgot to mention the absolute best part of...
…spending my 10th year with the most beautiful, irrepressible, and consistently amazing person I’ve ever met. My best friend in the world, Jacqui Cheng. I love you! ;-*
2010 Things
Personal Stuff
Spent our first year in the house we bought last year.
Finally started buying cool art to hang on our walls.
Hit a new weight low of 205.5 pounds.
Ran the Terrapin 5k, Bucktown 5k, Hot Chocolate 5k, and the Turkey Trot 8k.
Ran my best recorded 5k at 28:23/9:08.
Ran the 8k in under 50 minutes and made plans to run a half-marathon in 2011.
Visited Wichita twice, the farm once...
SGR 1806-20 →
On December 27, 2004, the radiation from an explosion on the surface of SGR 1806-20 reached Earth. In terms of gamma rays the burst was brighter than a full moon… It was the brightest event known to have been sighted on this planet from an origin outside our solar system.
The gamma rays struck the ionosphere and created more ionization which briefly expanded the ionosphere.
The magnetar...
Shakedown Street by Bruce McCall →
Those bike lanes eating up one or two traffic lanes were only a start: City crews are now out collecting overtime as they convert New York’s widest major thoroughfares into Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s dream of a vehicle-free paradise — and all for no more than the cost of a few thousand buckets of white paint! Under the new system, sidewalk parking for all vehicles becomes not only mandatory but...
Transloadit - Realtime Video Encoding on Amazon... →
Whereas prior transcoding solutions waited for the entire video to be uploaded, Transloadit runs the encoding process directly on the incoming data stream, using the popular node.js library to capture each chunk of the file as it is uploaded, piping it directly into the also-popular ffmpeg encoder. Because transcoding is almost always faster than uploading, the video is ready to go shortly after...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-12-19) →
Tegan and Sara (65)
Kanye West (53)
Notorious B.I.G. (28)
Jack’s Mannequin (13)
Something Corporate (9)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The Long Wait for Sarah Palin's Emails →
In 2008, Mother Jones and other media outfits made an open records request for Gov. Palin’s emails. Alaska state officials are still processing it.
robb1e/Tengo-and-Cache →
Could be a reasonable replacement for PhoneGap on iOS if you’re not using any of the advanced features of the framework:
I have and cache. A iOS application that when pointed at a HTML5 cache manifest document downloads all the files and fires up an index.html file.
Vagrant: a tool for building and distributing... →
By providing automated creation and provisioning of virtual machines using Oracle’s VirtualBox, Vagrant provides the tools to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable virtual environments.
Finger may point to solution in Amelia Earhart... →
“[The artifacts] include part of a mirror from a woman’s compact, a zip from a Pennsylvania factory and travel-sized bottles made in New Jersey as well as a pocket knife listed on her aircraft’s inventory, all manufactured in the 1930s.
Alongside the goods are the remains of small fires with bird and fish bones, and empty oyster shells laid out in a row as if to collect water,...
“As an initial matter, there is no doubt that WikiLeaks is very unpopular right...”
– Wikileaks did not commit a crime, House Judiciary chairman says
“Cook up an assload of bacon and remove it from the pan. Pour your beaten eggs...”
– Cooking for Assholes: Crimpacon: Breakfast Sandwich
Backbone.js and Django →
Awesome stuff!
PROPER™ — Semantic Rich Text Editor →
PROPER is a Semantic Texteditor based on HTML’s contenteditable attribute. It’s being developed in the context of Substance, a data driven document authoring engine.
The goal is to output proper semantic HTML by restricting the set of possible tags. To accomplish this we use Sanitize.js in order to guarantee valid output as browsers tend to mess up the markup.
Pure CSS folded-corner effect →
Create a simple CSS folded-corner effect without images or extra markup. It works well in all modern browsers and is best suited to designs with simple colour backgrounds.
Am I the only person surprised to see the word “cheese” rate so highly on the list of most popular Gawker passwords?
I mean, I love cheese as much—if not more—than the next person, but to use it as your password? Insanity! :)
Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition →
Excellent article by David Leonhardt:
The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism,...
FOXLEAKS: Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on... →
Welp:
In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the “veracity of climate change data” and ordering the network’s journalists to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called...
President Obama signs child nutrition bill →
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will expand the number of children in school lunch programs by 115,000, increase the reimbursement rate to school districts for meals by six cents and replace the junk food available outside the cafeteria, such as in vending machines, with more healthful options.
The $4.5 billion expansion of the school lunch program, which feeds 16 million children, gained...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-12-12) →
The Beatles (79)
Glee Cast (54)
The Go! Team (26)
Jóhann Jóhannsson (21)
Rihanna (13)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Mangano Lowers Taxes but Leaves Nassau County in a... →
Tea Party Candidates, HECK YEAH:
Facing a huge budget deficit when he took office in January, Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano did not impose a hiring freeze. He did not stop borrowing to subsidize some of the richest school districts in the country. He did not eliminate the Police Department’s beloved mounted unit.
Instead, Mr. Mangano, a Republican who won one of the first upsets of...
WatchWhat happens when an intelligent person is interviewed on Fox News.
Chicago magazine: Why Is Illinois So Corrupt? →
When federal agents arrested Governor Rod Blagojevich two years ago—interrupting what the U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called “a political corruption crime spree”—Robert Grant, head of the FBI’s Chicago office, offered a succinct analysis of the day’s events. “If [Illinois] isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States,” he said, “it is certainly one hell of a competitor.”
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-11-28) →
Kanye West (59)
Crystal Castles (44)
Rihanna (27)
Daft Punk (17)
Animal Collective (12)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz