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March 10 2010

snej

Biking directions added to Google Maps [Google]

Yay! Also, a new "Biking" layer on the map view highlights bike lanes and trails.
Tags: google bicycling maps

March 09 2010

snej

What It Might Be Like to Live in Viriconium

Fantasy/SF author M. John Harrison: "The great modern fantasies were written out of religious, philosophical and psychological landscapes. They were sermons. They were metaphors. They were rhetoric. They were books, which means that the one thing they actually weren’t was countries with people in them. The commercial fantasy that has replaced them is often based on a mistaken attempt to literalise someone else’s metaphor, or realise someone else’s rhetorical imagery. For instance, the moment you begin to ask (or rather to answer) questions like, “Yes, but what did Sauron look like?”; or, “Just how might an Orc regiment organise itself?”; the moment you concern yourself with the economic geography of pseudo-feudal societies, with the real way to use swords, with the politics of courts, you have diluted the poetic power of Tolkien’s images."
Tags: fantasy writing sf rpg
snej

Are Macs Really Cheaper To Manage Than PCs? [CIO.com]

"The survey found that Macs were cheaper in six of seven computer management categories: troubleshooting, help desk calls, system configuration, user training and supporting infrastructure (servers, networks and printer). Nearly half of the respondents cited software licensing fees as roughly the same for both platforms. A whopping 65 percent of respondents said it costs less to troubleshoot Macs than PCs, 19 percent said they spent the same on both computers, and only 16 percent said they spent less to manage PCs than Macs. Even more impressive, a majority of the respondents citing the low cost of Macs in nearly all categories said Macs were more than 20 percent cheaper to manage than PCs."
Tags: mac business
c3o

Improving Soup performance, and a general note on our status and the future

As you may have read on kitchen.soup.io or Twitter, we recently upgraded our hardware. This had a dramatically positive effect on page loading times, which had been gradually creeping up over the previous weeks due to Soup's continued growth. We also fixed a longstanding, annoying issue in which the content of posts temporarily seemed to disappear.

Unfortunately, since then a new problem has popped up, which is intermittently slowing Soup down yet again and even lead to several hours of downtime yesterday.
We're doing what we can to get to the bottom of this. Since signs point to the cause being in the notification system, we need to experimentally disable notifications for the next day or so as part of our debugging efforts. Sorry about that!

I know how much it sucks when Soup is slow or unreachable, when support requests remain unanswered and obvious feature improvements aren't implemented.
Unfortunately, our resources are very limited right now. @lfittl decided to leave the company earlier this year, and despite everyone's intentions of a smooth and swift transition to another full-time technical team member, it has been plagued by delays.

That you all are willing to tolerate these circumstances and continue to be active in the community and entrust us with your data is humbling and motivating, and just strengthens my unwavering commitment to the site and its future. Here's what's currently being done:

– I'm expecting to be able to introduce you to some new team members shortly.
– Plans are being made to future-proof the database architecture of Soup. This is just the start of a process that will take months, but will ultimately give us lots of breathing room from scaling issues.
– I'm busy working on the general future direction of Soup. I'm seriously excited about the way the plans, mockups and prototypes are developing and can't wait to share them and get some feedback from all of you. Right now, the only aspect I can give away is an increased focus on mobile devices, but that's just one part of it. Stay tuned!
– We're actively talking to investors to put these plans on a more stable financial foundation, while still keeping a plan B in mind for when that doesn't work out.

To stay in the loop on the progress of these plans, consider adding kitchen as a friend, if you haven't already. Thanks so much for your continued support!

– Christopher, Founder
Reposted bydeinneuerfreundrmkworm2302mydafsoup-01

March 07 2010

snej

Top 5 artists this week

  1. Luminous Orange 
  2. Biosphere 
  3. Slow Six 
  4. Loscil 
  5. Brock Van Wey 

March 06 2010

snej
4290_dec8_450
→ www.flickr.com
Naomi's chocolate fondue
Tags: iphone
snej

iPad Application Design [Matt Gemmell]

Great essay on specific user-interface design issues and opportunities for iPad apps.
Tags: ui ipad

March 05 2010

snej
4392_6492
→ xkcd.com
xkcd: Collatz Conjecture

March 02 2010

snej
Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot
2697_0649
→ superpunch.blogspot.com
Super Punch: Introducing the Super Punch Tarot
snej
1391_e0c4_450
→ www.bradcolbow.com
Why DRM Doesn’t Work or, How To Download An Audio Book From The Cleveland Public Library
Reposted byperohryztelofychristianlouisgerdistanstefpunisherNorkNorkeaposztrofcheathafpletzkoepidatenwolfnutzskullytooksalz
snej
1050_5ec3_450
→ www.mediamolecule.com
via Found Art! - Media Molecule
snej
“ We live in a unique time in our society: [surveillance] cameras are everywhere, but we can still see them. Ten years ago, cameras were much rarer than they are today. Ten years from now, they'll be so small you won't even notice them. ”
— Bruce Schneier — Spy Cameras Won't Make Us Safer
snej

Nokia Siemens: LTE more than higher speeds

"LTE will offer latency below 20 milliseconds, which is about half that of current HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) networks and much lower than the 120 milliseconds of GSM."
Good news. Low latency is definitely a big part of perceived speed, even for regular web surfing.
Tags: networks

March 01 2010

snej
5483_f03b_450
→ www.flickr.com
Fiction Police by Tom Gauld

February 28 2010

snej

Top 5 artists this week

  1. Loscil 
  2. Stars of the Lid 
  3. Pantha du Prince 
  4. Luminous Orange 
  5. Mexican Institute of Sound 

February 26 2010

snej
2391_c333_450
→ www.flickr.com
by Quinn Norton

February 25 2010

snej
“

  • After eight sessions, D&D 4e felt like an endless round of buying groceries in Slovak currency to me.

    JASON: (Holds out hand full of Slovak coins) I have this much coins.
    DUNGEON MASTER: (Takes some coins) OK you do this awesome thing.
    JASON: Can I have an apple now?
    DUNGEON MASTER: No, but here is a golf pencil. Tally these numbers. OK, Elf?
    ELF: I'm using my Daily - Triple Vortex Arcane Teleport! I hit! (rolls dice) 221 damage!
    JASON: Is this big coin worth the most?
    •  ”
    — Jason Morningstar, on Story Games

    February 24 2010

    snej
    9499_1c77
    → www.thinkgeek.com
    ThinkGeek :: Hello Schröddy
    Reposted byIntederdrittebbdlintlintekeliaskrekkkenkenniffaselnooneechoxraven

    February 23 2010

    snej
    Play fullscreen
    Ouroborus, by Karl Lautman

    February 22 2010

    snej

    Read an RPG Book in Public Week

    "Read An RPG Book in Public Week is an event that happens three times a year, during the weeks surrounding March 4th, July 27th, and October 1st (starting on the Sunday on or before, and ending on the Saturday on or after). During these weeks, roleplaying enthusiasts are encouraged to take their favorite RPG rulebooks out with them and read them in public - on the bus, in the coffee shop, at lunch, at the park, or anywhere."
    Tags: rpg
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