fear not fellow os x and python aficionados – macpython 2.3 is available for your downloading pleasure:
“MacPython-OSX is a distribution of Python that contains a complete unix-Python plus a number of Mac-specific extras. It is available in both source and binary form for Mac OS X 10.2 or later.”
while i disagree with some of the details i his latest example, if i ever had chance, i think i’d find any ol’ cheap excuse to get joel to write a book forward for me. why? go read “rick chapman is in search of stupidity”:
“When Pepsi-pusher John Sculley was developing the Apple Newton, he didn’t know something that every computer science major in the country knows: handwriting recognition is not possible. This was at the same time that Bill Gates was hauling programmers into meetings begging them to create a single rich text edit control that could be reused in all their products. Put Jim Manzi (the suit who let the MBAs take over Lotus) in that meeting and he would be staring blankly. “What’s a rich text edit control?” It never would have occurred to him to take technological leadership because he didn’t grok the technology; in fact, the very use of the word grok in that sentence would probably throw him off.”
i’m inclined to wait for further proof before declaring it official, but it appears that bill maher has a blog. if it’s not him, someone is doing a fairly good impression of his “voice”:
“Jurors in a Los Angeles police brutality trial were unable to reach a decision. A hung jury and yet no riot. Did you see the tape? The cop punched the guy and threw his head against the hood of the car. Black people shame on you! Ten years ago you’d be setting fire to a Korean grocery store right now. You’ve gotten soft. You’ve lost the fire in the belly. No more edge. It’s like watching The Who without John Entwistle. You no longer have it. Hang it up. Go ahead and be like the Chinese and Mexicans and go gently into the night. You broke my heart!”
evidence that it is an actual celebrity blog and not a well-designed parody can be found in its glaring lack of permalinks and – less decisively – the lack of visitor comments. [ via dangerousmeta ]
prompted in part by a fantastic post by cameron “blogdex” marlow on weblog churn rates, maciej ceglowski does some calculations on a subset of the blogcensus data and finds that 1 in 3 blogs are likely, “…abandoned, unused, or very much out of date…” and that around 8 weeks since the last post seems to be a good arbitrary point for determining whether or not a blog is “active”.
although peter disclaims any specific intent to persecute jakob nielsen in the Report Review: Nielsen/Norman Group’s Usability Return on Investment, it’s still fun to look for evidence of mudslinging:
“Unfortunately, the NN/g report does not seem to follow this advice. Although it does make a reasonable anecdotal case for investing in usability, the report methodology is so fundamentally flawed that any financial analyst worth her salt would immediately question its findings.”