I’m chasing down ICC profiles for examples, and am behind on writing for the book. Time to ‘hunker down’, and forgo the pleasures of sipping the nectar of the blogs. At least for a week or two.
In the meantime, here’s stuff:
- Update: In light of recent discussion, I point you to Boy’s Toys and Women’s Work: Feminism Engages Software, published in Chicago University Press, 2001.
- Update: WordPress has put out another release, this one required because of security fixes.
- Some folks have posted notices about jobs in my post on opportunities. An interesting assortment of jobs, including one for the Oprah show. All positions are diversity friendly. In order:
- Seth points out that his company is hiring. They need an eclectic assortment of skills, including C++, GIS, math, statistical natural language processing, and so on. The job is in Cambridge, Ma.
- Elaine writes that her company is also hiring. This one requires Visual Studio, certification, and a CS degree, though I wonder if experience might not make up for not having a degree. The job is in the Seattle area.
- Aruni point out that Oprah is hiring! In Chicago, of course.
- Lawrence writes one of the better job requirements, and is looking for a PHP developer, preferably in Virginia. Experience with MySQL, HTML, CSS, REST, and XML.
- I helped a friend repair his WordPress installation tonight after it was badly hacked. Every one of his theme files was hacked. A word to the wise: use FTP to move theme files between your desktop and the server, and do not make files writable in order to edit within WordPress. Also make sure you have upgraded to the most recent of WP. Finally, check for the use of “error_reporting” in any of your template files. Chances are it was added by a hacker. Believe me, if you’ve been hacked, you’ll be able to see it in the templates.
- Apple got a lot of flack on Safari 3 last week, and probably deserves it. But going beyond the initial release, one nice thing about the browser is true color management. Word has it Firefox will have this in 3.0, too. Another upside/downside to Safari 3 is that the old Browser Object Model (BOM), the original “DOM 0″, seems to at least be partially dropped. This means JavaScript libraries using object collections such as document.images will break.
- Ethan Johnson writes about scrapbooking in his weblog and I mentioned that I didn’t know much about it. He’s put together a nice overview on scrapbooking, with examples. It seems as if each scrapbook page becomes a physical metaphor of sorts, if I understand it correctly. So tell us: are you a scrapbooker?
- Unfortunately, Papa Scott got caught up in the Flickr restrictions for German subscribers, which automatically sets German speaking subscribers into SafeSearch, and then doesn’t allow them out. Papa Scott says I’m right on the problems with centralized service.This is a very unfortunate event that wasn’t handled well by Flickr. Yes, it may have to follow government guidelines, but a heads up was in order.
We knew this was happening, though, when the Yahoo board voted down the anti-censorship statements. Look for more events of this nature with all of the centralized services. I rather expect that if 2006 was the year of Web 2.0, by end of this year, we’ll see moves back to Web 1.0 decentralization.
I’ll look for my code I used to migrate off of Flickr next week, if anyone needs it.
- Bad Astronomy has a terrific story on Eta Car:
So Eta Car is ticking bomb. It could go off tonight, or in the year 3000 … but it won’t be much longer than that.
Note that the lobes appear to be tilted away from us by about 40 degrees or so. That’s a good thing. When stars like Eta Carinae explode, they tend to shoot of(f) beams of energy and matter that, at its distance of 7500 light years, could kill every living thing on Earth. But since it’s pointed away from us, all we’ll get is a spectacular light show.
- The Man of Mystery sent me a link to a video on the live mantra birth in Japan, and a reference to it also appeared on Cephalopodcast.
Instead of hanging with your social network, dogging the blogs, or twittering away online this weekend, why not go outside for a walk. Look at the sky and contemplate how lucky we are that Eta Carinae is pointed away from us. Feel the wind, smile at complete strangers, and spend some time listening to songbirds before they’re gone. Make yourself a nice dinner and treat yourself to dessert. Enjoy the company of those around you or, if you’re alone this weekend, read a really good book or watch a favorite movie.
Don’t you all feel the need for a break? Sure you do. Have fun.