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razib | December 27, 2006I work on two machines in the mid-to-high 2 Ghz range with 1 gig of RAM on a regular basis. And yet the new YAHOO MAIL "Beta" has consistently crashed and throttled Firefox multiple times within the last few days. If your AJAX app does this you're worse than Microsoft.
Client: Is my app Web 2.0TM©® ready???
Me: Oh yeah baby, you won't be able to find a desktop it won't crash!
razib | December 22, 2006Steinn Sigurðsson has an has an amusing post up about his multicultural Christmas. Here is the "American Infidel," Robert Ingersoll, on Christmas (1892):
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions -- the worship of the sun.
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of…
razib | December 20, 2006My review of The Gecko's Foot is out in Science & Spirit. I'll be honest, I'm not happy with the review since I was on a time crunch (I was a back up reviewer and the piece needed to be sent in on a short deadline) & very busy with other things. Nevertheless, the take home message is about right.
razib | December 20, 2006Well, as many of you know I have been criticized quite a bit by some fellow ScienceBloggers (this query will take you where you need to go if you are a virgin to this incident). I haven't really responded for a few reasons
1) I've been very busy with week at work
2) I've been reading a great book when I've not been busy
3) I don't really see the need to address arguments which don't relate at all to what I said or intended
But, two comments piqued my interest and I feel I have to say something. They deal with my racial identity. Seeing as I'm known in some quarters as "cinnamon love, you…
razib | December 19, 2006I upgraded to Firefox 2.0 almost immediately, but am feeling user's remorse. Perhaps 2.0 was a non-trivial improvement over 1.5, but the lack of familiarity with its options and preferences because things were changed (I'm sure there was a UI rationale) really means that I took a short-term step back. Anyway, this is my first irritation with Firefox, the "release" seemed timed to one-up IE 7.0, it really should have been a bug fix and the switcheroo in the UI seems to be the main reason to stick it with a 2.0, even though as I offer above I think the UI changes mean a loss of short term…
razib | December 16, 2006Check out the ScienceBlogs group portrait. They caught me chillin' with my buddy PZ. I wonder if the designer who worked on this ran out of brown pixel, cuz Selva & I look mighty pink! Chris Mooney out front looks a bit uncomfortable. And straight up, WTF are Evil Monkey & Mike Dunford doing???
razib | December 15, 2006Storm slams Pacific Northwest. People ate in because the wind was so bad outside for lunch in the office. We are also the most unchurched region of these United States.
razib | December 12, 2006The virginity thread generated a lot of response. The virgin lot of the nerd, ah, so cliche. And yet now I'm having a really weird moment, I'm at the local wine bar and a very attractive hostess1 is recommending books in the science fiction genre to another (far less attractive) hostess. So far I've heard Ender's Game, Hyperion and Snow Crash tossed off as appropriate for a "newbie." Is this the Twlight Zone??? Am I a freak to think this is freaky? I haven't had a sip of wine, so it isn't the alcohol.
Update: She's reading American Gods I notice (taking a break).
Update II: Smokin'…
razib | December 9, 2006Mike Dunford points me to an organization that supports families who've lost loved ones in the Iraq War. From Mike:
As I mentioned recently, a number of soldiers in Iraq will be running the Honolulu Marathon this weekend. The course goes around a base several times, mostly over dirt roads. In part, running the Honolulu Marathon lets folks maintain a connection with home, but that's not the only reason that they are running. They're also running to support TAPS - an organization that provides support to the families of people who die while on active duty in the armed forces.
You can see the…
razib | December 7, 2006The New York Times Magazine has an article about being gay in the Arab world. Scary stuff. NPR interviews an author who has a book out on the gay culture in the Middle East. One point, which I find interesting, is the peculiar juxtposition of extreme anti-gay sentiment in the Arab world combined with ambivalence and ambiguity in the past and the present. After all, there's the old Afghan saying that even pigeons who fly over the lands of the Pashtun cover their rear with a wing, a reference to the prevalence of pedarasty in that subculture (where men and women are rigidly segregated). The…
razib | December 7, 2006Another update on the "Tripoli 6," this time on the science. Spread the meme! Nature has a paper out which vindicates the claims of innocence of the scientists.
razib | December 6, 2006Thanks to Chet for filling in, but now I'm back! Your long Snicker nightmare is over! I kid, but seriously, I appreciate Chet's contribution, and he'll be guest blogging in the future. I'll be helping Chet set up a weblog where he can focus on his two passions: Austrian economics & radical feminism, and how the former can be used in the service of the latter. Stay tuned!
razib | December 5, 2006
Your Political Profile:
Overall: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal
How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?
Via Shellee.
razib | December 3, 2006Chris has a post up where he asserts that it looks like Louisiana is trying to flip off the Caribbean. I hold that Florida and the Tarim Basin both look pretty phallic.