Noteworthy on the Web- The Register: AWS CISO needs permission to visit his data centresHe doesn't mind and you shouldn't either because they're not that interesting Amazon Web Services' General Manager and Chief Information Security Officer Stephen E. Schmidt is not allowed to make unannounced visits to the company's data centres.… […]The Register
- Boing Boing: Global subway systems converge on common topologiesA paywalled paper in the Royal Society's journal Interfaceargues that the world's underground rail systems are all converging on an "ideal" form. The paper, "A long-time limit for world subway networks," shows that subway systems grow "organically," in response to the needs expressed by the cities above them over... […]Cory Doctorow
- Discardia: Small shifts to make a big difference in your relationship to your email inboxOne of my coaching clients faced a problem a lot of us deal with: I keep struggling to pull the important emails out of a pile and follow up in a reasonable amount of time with the people I have not heard back from yet. At the moment, I'm able... […]Dinah
- Eater SF: Fartine Bakery: Fartine is not the latest offshoot...Fartine is not the latest offshoot of the Mission's iconic Tartine Bakery. It is actually the subject of a fake ad made by someone who had the genius idea to merge the word "fart" with the word "Tartine," and it's shockingly flown right under the high security radar on... […]Carolyn Alburger
- StorageReview.com: Hitachi G-RAID With Thunderbolt Review (8TB)Hitachi's G-Technology line of external hard drives has long been a favorite for creative professionals and others who generally need some combination of reliability, performance, capacity and redundancy. While Hitachi has several products in the G-Tech line that specialize in one or more of those qualities, their latest effort is... […]Kevin OBrien
- Bruce Momjian: Postgres Blog: Template1 Me!You might have heard of the template1 database before, or seen it in the output of pg_dumpall: REVOKE ALL ON DATABASE template1 FROM PUBLIC; … Continue Reading » […]bruce@momjian.us (Bruce Momjian)
- Felix Salmon: Facebook: The smart money exitsThe Facebook IPO is now set to raise an absolutely astonishing amount of money — as much as $18 billion, if the greenshoe is exercised and the offering prices at the top of the indicated range. As a result, it’s certain to be the single largest technology IPO of... […]Felix Salmon
- Ars Technica: Android fragmentation: one developer encounters 3,997 devicesA map of all the thousands of separate device models that downloaded OpenSignalMaps in a six month period. OpenSignalMaps One developer can do business with nearly 4,000 distinct Android ROMs, according to data postedby the creators of OpenSignalMaps on Tuesday. While the Android platform provides a lot of flexibility... […]Casey Johnston
- Gizmodo: Steak Specialists Discover a New Cut of Beef [Food]Turns out that what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas—and that's a good thing. A self-proclaimed Meat Geek has teamed up with Oklahoma State University to devise the first new style of steak in years. More » […]Andrew Tarantola
- The Brooks Review: ∞ The Best Diaper BagBack when my wife was registering for all of our “baby stuff” for showers she asked me which diaper bag we should get. I am pretty sure I said pick “whatever” because I was confident Target wouldn’t have what I wanted, and knew my wife wouldn’t put up with me... […]BenBrooks
- Marginal Revolution: The Myth of Chinese MeritocracyNo doubt you have heard how the leadership of China is meritocratic and composed of technocrats with PhDs. Minxin Pei suggests that there is less than meets the eye. …Contrary to the prevailing perception in the West (especially among business leaders), the current Chinese government is riddled with... […]Alex Tabarrok
- The Daily Viz: How Common Is Your Birthday?A friend posted an interesting data tableon my Facebook wall yesterday, which was my birthday. The data listed each day of the year with a ranking for how many babies were born on each date from 1973 to 1999. Some interesting trends are evident in the data. Apparently, people... […]Matt Stiles
- Boing Boing: Verizon refused to help police locate unconscious man unless they paid his phone billNancy Schaar at the Times Reporter: A 62-year-old Carrollton area man was found unconscious and unresponsive Thursday morning during an intense search overnight by Carroll County sheriff deputies, an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper and the patrol’s airplane. [Sheriff] Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone... […]Rob Beschizza
- CNET News.com: Facebook said responsible for killing text messagingSmartphone users are spending more time hanging out on Facebook and thus left with less time to shoot texts to each other. [Read more] […]Charles Cooper
- TechOpsGuys.com: More 10GbaseT Coming..I wrote a couple of times about the return of 10GbaseT, a standard that tried to come out a few years ago but for various reasons didn't quite make it. I just noticed that two new 10GbaseT switching products were officially announced a few days ago at Interop Las Vegas... […]Nate
- Gizmodo: You Won't Believe This Colorful Glass Gem Corn Is Freaking Real Corn [Food]This is corn. No, it's not photoshopped. Yes, it's real. It's a corn variety called Glass Gem Corn and though it may look like jelly beans or beads, it's real, actual, edible corn. What in the world? More » […]Casey Chan
- Cool Tools: FreesoundThere are sound effects libraries that cost more than a small car, and they're probably worth it to certain kinds of users — like movie studios or audio production houses — but not to me. In search of interesting, appropriately licensed sounds for personal amusement, some google searching led me... […]Cool Tools
- David Lebovitz: Restaurant Alain DucasseUncharacteristically, I’ll spare you the specifics, but I need to catch up on about 147 hours of sleep. And while we’re at it, I could use a hug. And since the former isn’t necessarily easy to come by here, as is the latter, I was embrassé by dinner at Alain... […]David
- Ars Technica: USPS won't ship tablets and smartphones internationallyThe United Sates Postal Service is banning the international shipment of all devices that contain lithium ion batteries starting May 16, it announced in a press release. This includes even small-order batteries in devices like smartphones and tablets, meaning that if you wanted to pick up an iPad or ... […]Casey Johnston
- Mac Performance Guide: Unhide Your Library FolderMac OS X 10.7 Lion hides the Library folder which is found in your home directory. this can be a headache, here’s how to unhide your Library folder on Mac OS X. Read more […]diglloyd, Inc.
- The Register: AWS CISO needs permission to visit his data centres
Author Archives: majid
Withings smart baby monitor review
One of the joys challenges of being a first-time parent is being exposed to a bewildering array of gadgets and equipment required to care for the baby, from baby car seats, strollers and diaper pails to 2-axis rocking robots (thanks Rohit!). … Continue reading
Posted in IT, Stuff
3 Comments
Welcome, baby Afsheen!
My first child, Afsheen Zahra Majid, formerly code-named “Lolo”, was born Tuesday 2012-01-03 at 10:47 AM Pacific Time in San Francisco. She weighed 4,148 grams (9.2lbs) and was 56.5cm long (20.25″) at birth. She has a full head of hair, … Continue reading
Posted in About Me
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Prints not-so charming
Ansel Adams wrote a celebrated series of photo instructional books. It is organized as a trilogy: , and . Of these, the camera business is still going strong, buoyed by sales of digital cameras and upgraders to DSLRs (although market … Continue reading
Posted in Photo
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Fixing Microsoft Office Mac 2011 font woes
This post may be of use to people experiencing the same problem I had. When I opened PowerPoint slides sent by a coworker, I was getting blank slides. Attempting to switch to outline view would crash PowerPoint. A search for … Continue reading
Posted in Mac
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The HP-15C was reissued at long last!
It is strange no one seems to have picked up the news yet, but HP has reissued the legendary HP-15C in a special “30th anniversary limited edition”, and it became available for purchase last week. The new HP-15C is not strictly speaking a … Continue reading
Solving Mac freezes due to ocspd crashes
A public service announcement for anyone experiencing the same problem and who may google for a solution. A couple of days ago my work iMac started experiencing intermittent freezing, and very slow searches in Mail.app. Rebuilding my Spotlight index overnight … Continue reading
Posted in Mac
2 Comments
How prevalent is high-ISO photography?
Low light performance is one of the most important factors I consider when buying a camera. At one point I did an expensive switch from the Canon system to Nikon, when the D3 came out, for its amazing high-ISO performance … Continue reading
Clearing custom crop aspect ratios in Lightroom
Lightroom’s crop tool allows you to constrain the aspect ratio to a proportion of your choice, e.g. to 4:3, defaulting to the same aspect ratio as the original. The last 5 or so custom crop aspect ratios are saved, but … Continue reading
Posted in Mac, Photo, Python
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Crime does not pay
Two years after the Staceycide, the spot is still vacant. At a reported rent of $65,000 a month, that adds up to a cool $1.8M loss for the greedy landlords who pushed them out of business.
A waiter for a server
I had to monitor a long-running process on a Solaris server tonight, but didn’t want to stay glued at a computer monitor. A neat trick: ssh myserver.example.com “pwait 17601″; say “batch done” You would replace 17601 with the process ID … Continue reading