On May 19, 2005, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars.
(via NASA - Sunset on Mars)
The Andy Rooney Game:
“Here’s how you play: Take out everything but the first sentence and the last sentence from Andy Rooney’s latest segment on 60 Minutes.”
(via bullshit)
“In every color combination surveyed, the darker text on a lighter background was rated more readable than its inverse (e.g. blue text on white background ranked higher then white text on blue background).”
I’m surprised. I had thought that white on black (or gray) is better. In my own experience, I’ve found that a darker overall shade is much more pleasant when sitting at the computer for a while. (If there were an easy way to make the internet generally light on dark, I’d be all over it.)
I was just wondering the other day if there were still people groups that lived on their own without contact from the outside world. (I think because I was camping with some people who have traveled to Bolivia.) Well, it turns out there are, but the number of them is dwindling. (And I’m not sure how to feel about that.)
This idea fascinates me. Survival International works to “help tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.” By contacting them, other cultures break into their land, their culture. I don’t think it’s possible (and I’m not sure it’s desireable) to maintain cultural reclusivity forever, but it’s clear that the current situation with this tribe is not going well.
I wish it were possible to learn about these people without decimating their culture or giving them diseases. I wonder about their history and heritage. (Maybe there are some good documentaries on similar subjects?)
(I tried hard to say this tactfully, but I’m not sure I succeeded without letting my cultural bias clobber all manner of cultural compassion.)
(via Survival International, via John Gruber)
So some semi-driving idiot took my mirror off today and kept driving, and Edwin and I were inches away from losing a lot more. (Not to be dramatic, but there it is.) He also scraped the side of my car, but fortunately it’s driveable.
I was able to get him to pull over (by catching up with him at 70 MPH). Now it’s time for my insurance to take care of business.
Problem is, if you sidestep the defaults, specifically with software you’re implementing, you also sidestep any (sometimes painstaking and meticulous) work that goes into making said software accessible and useful. It depends on the project, of course, but (to address Gruber’s remarks in that post) a lot of work goes into making Wordpress simple to use out-of-the-box. It’s also extremely customizable (though I can’t compare it to Movable Type), so the sky’s the limit.
Me? I like defaults. Every so often, I try to reconsider which defaults I can comfortably use, or at least understand why they’re around. Sometimes, it can even be refreshing to clear your settings and start from scratch. My goal is a low-maintenance experience, which doesn’t always take as much work as people think.
I’ve heard Steve Reich’s name mentioned a lot recently on blogs (I’ve been reading more blogs about classical music in general) and it’s getting to the point that I need to listen to him.
Anyone have any suggestions on where to start, other than the Last.fm artist page? :) His Music for 18 Musicians seems to change lives—or at least be very memorable the first time people have heard it—so I look forward to that, and may start there if no one comments.
Great movie, but how many covers do we need? Compare:
versus
OK. Innocent enough, though the background is odd. Then check the Frames’ website for this one:
Wait, where’d that hat come from?
Paul Buchheit: There’s no such thing as a “social network” (via Google Operating System)
So what is the purpose of Ubuntero.org? Maybe this is why we’ve had trouble finding our niche?
