Context Sensitivity

If you were going to install a new version of, say, apache, and saw

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root   13 Jan  9  2009 apache -> 
                                           apache-1.3.29/
drwxr-sr-x   9 root root  512 May 10  2001 apache-1.3.26/
drwxr-sr-x   9 root root  512 Jan 27  2004 apache-1.3.29/

in /usr/local, how would you install your new version of apache? I would hope that you wouldn't just install it into an "apache" directory like this:

drwxr-sr-x  10 root root 512 Feb  9 09:38 apache/
drwxr-sr-x   9 root root 512 May 10  2001 apache-1.3.26/
drwxr-sr-x   9 root root 512 Jan 27  2004 apache-1.3.29/

I swear, this needs to be an interview question with a hard FAIL mode (as in "Sorry, we're done. Goodbye."). If you can't figure out to preserve the existing pattern, you shouldn't be a sysadmin.

Frustration

Dear Firefox,

Please don't suddenly and randomly flip the value of the "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages" option. Having the down-arrow key change from "scroll the window down a few pixels" to "jump to the next link" is brain-shearingly annoying.

 

 

Dear Web Application Programmers,

If your web page presents a very complex form to fill out, which can take up to 20 minutes to do correctly, PLEASE program it so that if the user hits Backspace when not actually clicked into a form entry field, it doesn't just happily do the equivalent of hitting the Back button. I.e. ask me if I really want to navigate away from the form I just spent 20 minutes filling in and let me click "no" so I don't scream "NO!" and want to poke out my own eye.

Sincerely,
A Nearly One-Eyed Ranting Nerd

 

P.S. Feh.

Howard Zinn, RIP

Howard Zinn has died.

Immorality of Power

Jonah Lehrer has an interesting post up about how having (or even just remembering having) power over others make people far less empathetic than normal.

The conclusion is not surprising, but is well put:

Of course, we live in an age when our most powerful people - they tend to also have lots of money - are also the most isolated. They live in gated communities with private drivers. They eat at different restaurants and stay at different resorts. They wear different clothes and skip the security lines at airports, before sitting at the front of the plane. We shouldn't be surprised that they're also assholes.

Avatar

The Spouse and I saw Avatar yesterday. We enjoyed it. It's spectacular (in the sense of being a spectacle). Pity about the script, though.

ETA: The Spouse and I both think that the movie would have been much more interesting if Sigourney Weaver had played Colonel Quaritch.

TorchWTF?

Fox is developing a US version of Torchwood.

Favorite quote from the story:

A more straight-faced spin-off of "Doctor Who," "Torchwood" is about a covert group that investigates and fights alien activity.

("straight-faced"? Have they watched this show?)

(Thanks to Wilmar for the heads-up.)

SF Reading Protocols

Jo Walton explains how reading SF takes different kinds of reading skills from other genres.

(Via BoingBoing.)

Attention Grumpy Old People

(And I count myself as one....)

Complaining about the Youth Of Today is far from new:

An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”

(Via Making Light.)

Up! In the Air! It's a Bird...it's a Plane! No, it's a Double Movie Review

So The Spouse and I finally watched Up last week, and then saw Up in the Air (in an actual theater) over the weekend.

Up, while technically brilliant and often gorgeous to look at, is one of the bleakest movies we've ever seen. The first 10 minutes of the movie are fascinating to watch, but veer into serious tear-jerk territory fairly quickly. The rest is just bleak and weird, with a few minutes of heartwarming content at the end. The dogs are cute, though.

Up in the Air is also bleak -- but it's supposed to be. It's a very sardonic, and an actual adult comedy (R-rated, even), and has some real bite. It also has George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick (who is (a) young and (b) very good). It may not make cinematic history, but it's a solid couple of hours of film, and I strongly wish there were more movies like it.

Happy New Decade

Good riddance to the Aughties, the 200X's, the Big Zero, or whatever else we want to call the last decade.

Geek Mashup Heaven

Via BoingBoing, there is apparently a cottage industry in mashups of Star Wars or Star Trek as if they were action TV shows from the 1980s:

The A-Team in the Star Wars Universe

Airwolf with the Star Wars people (rebel edition)

Airwolf with the Star Wars people (Imperial edition)

(The user page for the person who created most of those)

Star Trek + Monty Python's Knights of the Round Table

Star Trek characters as the A-Team

The Fall of Barad-Dur Was an Inside Job!

The Fall of Barad-Dur was an inside job!

I'm actually surprised that it took this long for someone to do this.

Mumps Outbreaks in the US

Mumps is breaking out just north of NYC.

<wonders if this will modify anyone's behavior with respect to childhood immunizations>

Testosterone, the Cooperation Hormone?

Well, not quite. But new research shows that the expectation of becoming more aggressive with a testosterone boost is as strong, if not stronger, than the actual effects of testosterone.

I love simple experiments like the one detailed in that article.

Serious Color Nerdity

Dumpster color fixed (at BoingBoing).

Cutest. Cat. Video. Ever.

Surpised Kitten Is Surprised.

(Via BoingBoing.)

This Explains So Much

Almost every building I hate in Cambridge (and some across the Charles River) turns out to have been designed by Sert.

This includes the Holyoke Center and Science Center at Harvard, BU Law School, and Peabody Terrace.

It's appalling how much of the horrible architecture around here can be laid at the feet of one architect.

Birds that Sing With their Wings

Birds that sing with their wings. (!!!)

(Via Carl Zimmer.)

As J.B.S. Haldane said, the world is not only stranger than we imagine — it's stranger than we can imagine.

Things that go WTF? in the night

About 02:30 this morning, while dead asleep, I was awakened by some noise. The cats all leaped up at the same time that I sat bolt upright. (The cats were all curled up around me, so it wasn't one of them — which it usually is — which made me worried that perhaps someone was breaking a window or something.)

I got up and proceeded to turn on lights all through the house trying to figure out what noise had awoken me.

After five minutes of this, I finally "mentally replayed" the sound I'd heard and thought, "Gosh, that sounded like something falling in a bathtub or shower." I checked the bathtub — nothing. But in the shower, there was a conditioner bottle lying on the floor.

How does a conditioner bottle that sat, stable on the shelf, for 19 hours, suddenly fall off in the middle of the night?

WTF?

 

(This is why I'm a little groggy today. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Bea Arthur, Class Act

Bea Arthur, in her will, left $300K to a homeless shelter for LBGT youth.