February 2004
Feb. 17, 2004
Hacking the political system
Danny O’Brien has a fascinating post up about the nature of hacking and how to game entrenched political systems. It’s all worth reading, but the part about how Fax Your MP was created as a deliberate political hack in particular caught my attention. I’ve long been a fan of Fax Your MP and it’s really interesting to see some of the ideas behind the system explained:
[... 380 words]What’s New in Python 2.4. An early look at Python 2.4’s new proposed features.
End user license agreements hit a new low
So apparently there’s an unpleasant worm going around AOL Instant Messenger at the moment. Only it’s not a worm—it’s a semi-legitimate piece of adware which asks you for permission to “modify the instant messenger software, deliver additional content such as advertisements and promotional messages” and announces that “In addition, the software will interoperate with your current instant messaging client so as to permit the automatic sending of advertising messages originating from your computer to your contact or ’buddy’ list regarding content offered by PSD Tools or its suppliers.”
[... 126 words]Feb. 18, 2004
Advanced Python network programming
Understanding Network I/O, Part 2 by George Belotsky (via The Farm) is the best tutorial on the subject of network programming I’ve seen yet. It provides a detailed explanation of simple threaded network clients, thread pools using the Queue module and asynchronous I/O using both Twisted and Python’s asyncore library—then discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
[... 93 words]Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks (via) Cory’s notes from Danny O’Brien’s Etcon session.
New PHP releases (via) Joey reports on PHP 4.3.5 RC 2 and PHP 5.0 Beta 4
Catching up with Harry
I’m not sure how I missed this, but Harry Fueck’s new book The PHP Anthology was published by SitePoint back in December, as a hefty 2 volume epic. Harry is the guru behind PHP Patterns and really knows his stuff. While the book is at first glance a cookbook for solving web related problems, Harry also uses it as a platform for teaching sensible development practises:
[... 237 words]Killer rabbit 404. Creative ;)
AT&T Trips Up SCO. Things are getting a lot trickier for Darl and chums.
Largest Living Thing Is a 2,200 Acre Fungus in Oregon. 2,000 years old and mostly harmless.
Yahoo! Birth of a New Machine (via) Did you know Yahoo! owns both AltaVista and AllTheWeb?
Electrolite: Upholding standards. (via) Judge denies court order over rogue semicolon.
Feb. 19, 2004
Hypocrisy: RDF and the Atom API. Russell really doesn’t like PUT and DELETE.
Feb. 20, 2004
If foxes can learn Ruby, why can’t you?
Why The Lucky Stiff’s (poignant) guide to Ruby is shaping up to be a masterpiece. Trust me, you’ve never read a programming language guide that’s even remotely comparable. Even if you have no interest in Ruby you should check it out, if only for the cartoon foxes. Here’s Why’s explanation of Ruby’s array syntax:
[... 219 words]Wired News: Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Porn (via) In which Larry Flynt discusses the Patriot Act.
Codeville (via) Not content with revolutionising file distribution, Bram “BitTorrent” Cohen has his sights set on CVS.
Om Malik on Broadband: pMachine is now Expression Engine. Interesting interview with the man behind pMachine and Expression Engine.
Perl Gets Extreme Makeover. Surprisingly informative overview of Perl 6 from Yahoo! News.
WackyCam. Play with your iSight.
Big and Bad (via) Why SUV safety is a myth.
Flowers for Al and Don (via) Send flowers to gay couples waiting in line to get married in SF.
Feb. 21, 2004
Recommendations for a cheap US dial-up provider?
I’m in the market for a cheap US dial-up internet provider. I’m connected via broadband most of the time but I really need to get a backup modem account. In the UK, dialup accounts are available for free with the cost of the phone call as the only charge applied. I haven’t heard of any similar deals in the states, so I’m looking for recommendations. I won’t be using it very often so the cheaper the better.
Codeville (via) Not content with revolutionising file distribution, Bram “BitTorrent” Cohen has his sights set on CVS.
Feb. 23, 2004
Feed Me. RSS feed link usability still sucks.
ATM scam alert (via) Photos of the “skimmers” used to steal ATM card and pin details.
Fixing CMS usability issues with JavaScript (via) Make Vignette suck less.
Feb. 24, 2004
“I’m Brian and so’s my wife”
I’m subscribed to a whole bunch of mailing lists, mostly as a lurker as I have a hard enough time just keeping up with some of them. One of those lists is Bugtraq, which is pretty much required reading for anyone with sysadmin responsibilities for a server connected to the public internet. Bugtraq is the central hub of the “public disclosure” security community and is actually surprisingly low traffic with only twenty or so messages a day. It’s fascinating to watch the latest exploits for all manner of popular software packages tick by on an hourly basis.
[... 285 words]Why is this site grey today? Kottke on musical sampling without prior consent.