Author: Daniel

Daniel https://turnings.phrasewise.com/ In the 4th grade Daniel was asked to step in into the hall because he was coaching fellow students on a similarity assignment he provided the class. Since then, Daniel’s passion for helping people has propelled him to be a creative developer of software and systems, and a team coach who excels at successfully delivering business value. Daniel founded QuietlyHelping in 2009 in order to have a direct hand in helping families with the struggles of debilitating disease. QuietlyHelping is an organization of compassion and empathy that brings ease, comfort, smiles, laughter, healing, and love to people battling cancer and other diseases. Spare time activities include cycling, occasional work as a musician, woodworking, photography, and reading books he never got around to in school. Unsurprisingly, Daniel is able to cook minute rice in just under thirty seconds.
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How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners

$1B of TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog — How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners « TSA Out of Our Pants!:

This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA’s insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe (radiation what?) and non-invasive (nude pictures who?). The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort. The TSA has been provided this video in advance of it being made public to give them an opportunity to turn off the scanners and revert to the metal detectors. I personally believe they now have no choice but to turn them off.

[The TSA has seemed like a hint government waste from the beginning. It continues to get worse and worse. A fairy tale for the American public.]

WSJ: U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers on E-Book Pricing

WSJ: U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers on E-Book Pricing:

Apple suggested the move to the agency model, which is what they’ve been using with other digital sales. Most publishers embraced that idea because they didn’t want to see Amazon end up with a natural near-monopoly on e-books… the way Apple has ended up with one on legal digital music.

I am not sure how many layers this irony cake has in it, but it’s a mighty big slice.

[Sure ’nuff is.]

Source: Coyote Tracks

Apple’s press conference showed a brand unraveling | VentureBeat

Apple’s press conference tie dyed logo

Apple’s press conference showed a brand unraveling | VentureBeat:

At some point in the future, it’s within the scope of my own limited imagination to envision Apple products that bear little or no resemblance to anything Steve Jobs created.

[I disagree with this piece, and really love that modernized version of the older logo. To me anyway, it invoked the sense of life that the Apple folks I’ve spoken to retained. Steve’s gone and technology will march on. Sad but true So of course Apple should produce products that “bear little or no resemblance to anything Steve Jobs created.” How could they do otherwise if Apple stays true to his ideals? The Nest thermostat proves to me that Apple has seeded new trees. Some great pushback here.]

Source: Daring Fireball

★ Only Apple

★ Only Apple:

“Only Apple could deliver this kind of innovation, in such a
beautiful, integrated, and easy-to-use way. It’s what we love to
do. It’s what we stand for. And across the year, you’re going to
see a lot more of this kind of innovation. We are just getting
started.”

That was Tim Cook, closing yesterday’s event introducing the new retina display iPad. Here’s the thing: he was right. To pretend otherwise you have to put your head in the sand (or some other hole).

[snip -Ed]

Nothing is guaranteed to last. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near. Apple’s position atop the industry may prove fleeting. But right now, Apple is Secretariat at the Belmont. And the company, to a person, seems hell-bent on not letting any competitor catch up.

[On point.]

Source: Daring Fireball

Fast, easy, realtime metrics using Redis bitmaps «

Fast, easy, realtime metrics using Redis bitmaps «:

Redis backed bitmaps allow us to perform such calculations in realtime and are extremely space efficient. In a simulation of 128 million users, a typical metric such as “daily unique users” takes less than 50 ms on a MacBook Pro and only takes 16 MB of memory. Spool doesn’t have 128 million users yet but it’s nice to know our approach will scale. We thought we’d share how we do it, in case other startups find our approach useful.

[Interesting approach…]

Source:

Linting the hell out of your Ruby classes with Pelusa – Codegram

Linting the hell out of your Ruby classes with Pelusa – Codegram:

Pelusa (which is Spanish for the word lint) is a static analysis tool and framework to inspect your code style and notify you about possible red flags or missing best practices. Above all pelusa doesn’t run your code — it just analyzes it syntactically to gain superficial insights about it, and raise red flags when needed.

Although Pelusa needs Rubinius to run, due to how easy it is to work with a Ruby AST with it, it doesn’t mean that you have to run your application or Ruby code on Rubinius. Since it’s a static analysis tool, pelusa doesn’t care what your code runs on, it just looks at it and tells you stuff.

If You’re Still Whining About AT&T’s 3G Data Throttling, You’re Part Of The Problem – SplatF

If You’re Still Whining About AT&T’s 3G Data Throttling, You’re Part Of The Problem – SplatF:

Here’s the big picture bottom line: If you use a lot of data, you are clearly getting some sort of value out of it. Value isn’t free. The world’s finite resources simply aren’t trending toward free. That isn’t logical. I predict most of you will be spending significantly more per month for wireless data in 5 and 10 years than you do today. You’ll be getting faster and better service, and more value out of it, but it won’t be cheaper.

Please get over your emotional battle — and extinguish any legal threats, that’s silly — and join us in reality. If you use a lot of mobile data, be happy about it, and be happy paying for it. It’s worth it. And consider trying the add-on tethering plan for the iPhone, it can be useful if you carry a laptop or iPad.

*Telecom joke, told to me by a big-company CEO: If you’re AT&T, how do you get to 80% market share? Start with 100%!

[This is the false promise and problem with free. This is why “free” doesn’t work. If something cost something to do, you have to pay for it. If it isn’t with money, ask how exactly you are… you might be surprised (see Facebook, Google, and your privacy)]

Earth to Cable: You don’t control us.

Earth to Cable: You don’t control us.:

Whether or not cable and phone companies succeed  in building out the fully licensed world (that is, sucking everywhere down under the lids of their closed systems), we will remain free. We can live without you if we have to. Always could, always will.

[Amazing how quickly Noah got used to not watching TV when he lost the privilege. It’ll never be back in its old form.]

Source: Doc Searls Weblog

The Github mess…

Responsible Disclosure Policy:

There has been some confusion over today’s security vulnerability and our policy on responsible disclosure and account suspension that I’d like to clear up.

[I think they’ve covered this fairly well. Not awesome, but fairly well. The biggest problem is that they weren’t completely forthright about what happened in their first blog post. Maybe they should’ve have waited a little while longer before posting… but I’m Monday morning QB’ing here. It’s all too common for people to take an all or nothing response to everything. They’re the best! They’s the worst! But that’s too easy. Rarely is life so binary. Besides, it’s all too easy to throw stones and in case there were two large targets… Rails and Github. Meh to all. ]