I think the last time I posted a link dump, I was flaking from my new tattoo. This week, I’m flaking from the tattoo’s touch-up! Much less pain for the touch-up, but the itching may drive me nuts if it doesn’t end soon.
Luckily, it’s healing very quickly.
Have some good reading:
Tony and Hilary’s Tiny Loft Apartment – I feel like it's been forever since I read The Tiny Life blog, but what a purdy little house to come back to.
Six Thoughts On The Case Of The Breast-Feeding Professor | Alas, a Blog – "The child was allowed to crawl on a floor! Shocking! She had to take a paper clip out of its mouth! Shocking! Etc, etc. Makes me wonder if these people have ever met an actual infant. Seriously, the things are like a cross between a stumbling drunk and a vacuum cleaner."
An Architect’s Guide to Color – Color is beckoning this season, and one architect is heeding the call with a plethora of new hues to tempt your house's palette.
Linux computer the size of a thumb drive now available for preorder – "[…] the Cotton Candy, a tiny computer that looks like a USB thumb drive. The device, which can run either Ubuntu or Android 4.0, has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a Mali 400MP GPU that allows it to decode high-definition video."
Cruise Ship Didn’t Aid Drifting Boat, Passengers Say : NPR – "One of the other birders on the Star Princess was Judy Meredith from Bend, Ore. She says, "We all watched him for a bit and thought, 'This guy's in distress. He's trying to get our attention. And he doesn't have a motor on his boat.' We could see that."
Old news, but that big ol' cruise ship probably could have saved those folks. Instead they kept on driving. Of course, I'm sure if they had changed course, some passengers would have been pissed at the delay in their journey.
Coding Horror: Speed Hashing – As usual, a good post from Atwood on security, if a bit sensationalist. Excellent reading on the article he links to, as well.
I'll confess, Atwood (and the StackExchange user experience) has convinced me that (for now) OpenID is the best authentication method for SAAS applications.
This is what happens when Greg asks, “What’s the Harlem Shake?”
I just about feel off the couch. Especially when I realized at about 2:40 that that’s a DVD in his belt, not a buckle.
Greg may never ask me another dancing-related question ever again.
A few other nuggets:
Three Word Phrase, by Ryan Pequin – I’ll confess, I started watching Hoarders recently. Just entered Season 3. I’m not sure how I feel about myself anymore. In my defense Season 3 fired off with enough drama that I’ve skipped episodes.
Twitter / @violetblue: They made me wait a long t … – This is definitely a WTF. Also a “what in the world do you do?” Do you make a kerfluffle about being able to see your stuff when you’re about to be patted down? Do you just wait in silence?
BBC News – Gay men blood donor ban to be lifted – Better than a permanent ban, but a one-year deferral is still discriminatory. And how often are people not sexually active for one year? o_O I ended up in a poorly handled (on my part) Twitter fight about the issue of safety vs. discrimination. Ugh.
Client management: [Forget] you. Pay me. – A contract focus on handling clients that’s polite-but-serious while ensuring you get paid. The video’s funny, though.
Dot Dot Dot – Animated – This is really damned funny: a dramatic reading of a lousy flash game comment… including bad spelling and grammar. Great voice, great text animation.
Windy City Times – VIEWS Surviving the ex-gay program – 308 – A man's attempt (and ultimate opting out of) trying to become straight. I knew that there were programs to try to do so, but wasn't aware that they were based in Exodus: "I learned the basic theories of Exodus: that homosexuality wasn't real, that gay people were just confused straight people, that gay sex was a sin similar to idolatry. The theories seemed a bit far-fetched but I did my best to embrace and understand them." A good tale.
<Insert title here>: TSA encounter at SAN – I'm disappointed that I hadn't heard about this back when it happened (I'm sure I was under some rock). This guy–who had done his due diligence on his local airport and believed it to not have the uber-scanners–opted out of the scanning process and the pat-down.
I swear, my heart was racing as I read it.
Privacy Icons: Alpha Release « Aza on Design – An interesting attempt to have “second-tier” sites label themselves in terms of how they store and use your data–“I share your information with advertisers”, etc.
There’s a great discussion in the comments (albeit not much back and forth) on the flaws and pluses of the idea, but the biggest issue seems to be that companies with crappy practices just wouldn’t display the icons. Asa proposed some Mozilla-initiated measures around that, but it seems like a hefty undertaking.