Month: December 2007

has ecto run its course?

This is posted with MarsEdit. If I was using Firefox, I would use ScribeFire (lower footprint, and it worked just fine). Safari lacks the community support of Mozilla’s offspring.

So far, so easy. Not sure what the differences between the apps might be. More as I use it.

Setup is minimal, but they both do that well enough. You can add categories from the desktop which is useful.

Currently playing in iTunes: Sleigh Ride by Los Straitjackets

quote of the day

The best developers already have good jobs or are commanding a price premium, and there are a lot of other people out there claiming to be Ruby developers who don8217t really have the skills. I think most companies would find more value finding good developers who don8217t know Ruby on Rails and letting them get up to speed on the platform, rather than demanding Ruby on Rails right out of the box.

s/Ruby on Rails/whatever buzzword or language you like/g

What’s the lesson in here for most of us? It’s that if you’re interested in value, beware scarcity. In markets where assets are scarce, prices go up and quality goes down. It’s one reason why you have to be careful when hiring Ruby on Rails developers. Right now there’s something of a bubble in terms of demand for Ruby on Rails skills. The best developers already have good jobs or are commanding a price premium, and there are a lot of other people out there claiming to be Ruby developers who don’t really have the skills. I think most companies would find more value finding good developers who don’t know Ruby on Rails and letting them get up to speed on the platform, rather than demanding Ruby on Rails right out of the box. [From The bubble pattern]

Continue reading “quote of the day”

meanwhile, back in the America of the Founders

Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on our President, and the President of our choice has assented to, and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws have pledged hospitality and protection: that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the President, than the solid right of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on our President, and the President of our choice has assented to, and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws have pledged hospitality and protection: that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the President, than the solid right of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

— Thomas Jefferson, The Kentucky Resolutions, art. 8, Oct., 1798. [From “Jefferson on the Tyrannical President” (Harper’s Magazine) ]

the creative process

The 8220Reckoner8221 that was part of the band8217s live sets sounds nothing like the 8220Reckoner8221 on the album, which includes the lyrics 8220in rainbows.8221

…Mr. Hufford said that he and Bryce Edge, Radiohead8217s other manager, had come up with the pay-what-you-want plan during a stoned philosophical conversation about the value of music.

Some fun quotes:

The “Reckoner” that was part of the band’s live sets sounds nothing like the “Reckoner” on the album, which includes the lyrics “in rainbows.” When the band returned from touring, it decided the song needed a second part, and then a third one; eventually it discarded the original.

[…]

Mr. Hufford said that he and Bryce Edge, Radiohead’s other manager, had come up with the pay-what-you-want plan during a stoned philosophical conversation about the value of music.

[…]

The music business awaits results on how the worldwide downloads of “In Rainbows” will affect disc sales. “The record company doesn’t know,” said a grinning Colin Greenwood, Radiohead’s bassist, over tea in London. “They called our office and said, ‘We’ve made this amount of records, is it enough?’ And our manager’s office said, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s great, isn’t it?”

[From Radiohead – In Rainbows – Music – New York Times]

links for 2007-12-08

לאַטקעס

Heard a piece on the radio about making (and eating) them and it made me want to go right home and do that.

…They don’t actually date back to biblical times, as alluded to, but are linked to the eastern european peasant culture, where potatoes and onions were staples.

In other words, latkes. Heard a piece on the radio about making (and eating) them and it made me want to go right home and do that. I resisted, but I did make bagels after dinner. Fresh bagels for weekend breakfasts are a fine thing.

I researched latkes a bit, since the person interviewed didn’t seem to have any idea what their origins were. They don’t actually date back to biblical times, as alluded to, but are linked to the eastern european peasant culture, where potatoes and onions were staples. A rösti, which I made earlier this week, is very similar, but has cheese in it. It was pretty popular, so perhaps we’ll see some variations on that.