- A sampling of advancements associated with past world’s fairs
Though world’s fair have long been outmoded, I’ve always romanticized them. Can you imagine being a Parisian teenager in the late 1800s—wholly interested in technology and science—and stepping onto the grounds of a world’s fair? Your head would explode.
We’re spoiled these days—what with infinite access to infinite knowledge and all—but back then your mind would have exhausted itself racing with the possibilities of what was taking place before your eyes. Not only had you never seen most of this stuff before, you likely had never even imagined it. The feeling must have been overwhelming.
(Relatedly, check out Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, which chronicles both the production of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a serial killer who created a killing chamber in a hotel near the fairgrounds.)
- Low-profile magnetic iPad stand from Ten One Design
This thing is absolutely beautiful, but I’m skeptical of its ability to keep the iPad still when you’re interacting with it.
- Burger King tries home delivery
Burger King has quietly begun testing home delivery of its burgers, fries and other sandwiches. […]
There’s a $2 delivery fee. And depending on the store, minimum orders vary from $8 to $10. The stores try to deliver within 30 minutes of the time a phone or online order is received. Delivery customers must live within a 10-minute drive of the store.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would be so proud.
I, of course, would do this in a heartbeat, but only if they somehow disguised themselves and the bag(s). There’s no way I’m walking down to the lobby of my (rather nice) apartment complex and accepting—in plain sight of people I interact with on a daily basis—delivery of a BK Big Fish and fries.
- Video of a crow using a jar lid to sled down a snow-covered roof, over and over again
If this doesn’t blow your mind, then, well, you might not be as smart as a crow.
- Announcing Arc: a new magazine about the future from the makers of New Scientist
Arc will explore the future through cutting-edge science fiction and forward-looking essays by some of the world’s most celebrated authors – backed up with columns by thinkers and practitioners from the worlds of books, design, gaming, film and more.
Selectively enable Flash in Chrome without an extension
Last week I wrote about the extensions I use in Chrome, and the number one question I got in response was, “You don’t block Flash?!” Of course I block Flash. I’ve always blocked Flash. (In my 2009 discussion of the ClickToFlash Safari plugin I wrote briefly about the ways I’ve blocked it over the years.)
The thing is, with Chrome, you don’t need a plugin or extension to ensure that Flash (or any other type of content that requires a plugin) is blocked by default, but easily enabled when needed; this sort of functionality is built into the browser.
To set it up, simply punch about:flags into the address bar and enable “Click to play.” Then (and you may need to restart the browser before doing this) go to Preferences → Under the Hood → Content Settings → Plug-ins, and choose “Click to play.” That’s it. (I’m not entirely sure this is currently available in the regular and beta channel builds, but it’s been baked into the developer builds for a very long time, and so my hunch is that it has creeped into the other builds by now.)
(You might also want to check out my trick for restarting (Chrome or Safari’s) Flash, without having to cycle your browser.)
- Kaufmann’s posographe
An ingenious six-variable exposure calculator from the 1920s. This kind of blew my mind.
The books I read in 2011
Just a quick list of the books I managed to plow through in 2011. After browsing this list, if there’s a book you think would interest me, please let me know, or just gift it to me. ;) Relatedly, you also may want to have a look at my book wish list.
★★★★★
- Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson
★★★★☆
- Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade
- The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer
- Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith by J. Anderson Thomson
- Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
- The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes
- The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
- Forged: Writing in the Name of God–Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are by Bart D. Erhman
- LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination by Phillip F. Nelson
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
★★★☆☆
- The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution by Eugene V. Koonin
- The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
- A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz
- The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures by Nicholas Wade
- The Invention of God: The Natural Origins of Mythology and Religion by Bill Lauritzen
- Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard A. Muller
- The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
- Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity are Revolutionizing our View of Human Nature by Douglas T. Kenrick
- God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette
- The Measure of Madness: Inside the Disturbed and Disturbing Criminal Mind by Cheryl Paradis
- How to Count (Programming for Mere Mortals) by Steven Frank
Currently, I’m reading the following books:
- Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong by Wendell Wallach
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
- Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne
- The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio J. Mendez
If you made it this far you might as well have a look at my reading list for 2010.
- Shawn Blanc reviews the Galaxy Nexus
I usually mark-as-read product reviews if it’s something about which I already know a fair amount. That said, I ended up reading this piece because Shawn is a friend and I was curious what his opinion was of Android’s latest flagship device, especially given that this was his first real experience with Android.
It’s a thoughtful write-up that I encourage everyone to read, particularly the iPhone-for-life crowd.
The Chrome extensions I use
I’ve long been a huge fan of Chrome/Chromium and have been asked more than a few times for a list of the extensions I use, and so I thought I’d whip up a quick post to list and discuss them (where necessary). (The italicized text after the name of each extension is the copy provided by the respective developer.) Note that this list does not include the bookmarklets I use; I’ll discuss those in a separate post.
Though it probably is obvious, there likely is some overlap between certain of the “privacy” extensions, and I’m OK with that. Relatedly, I also whitelist cookies on Chrome (an awesome browser feature). Basically, this means that I have to give a site explicit permission before it can set cookies. It’s great, though not without its annoyances; for example, sometimes some snooping is required to get certain websites working. (It’d be nice if Chrome let us enable cookies for a particular site, and then automatically deleted those cookies as soon as the tab in which they were created was closed. If you’re aware of an extension that will do this, please let me know.)
- Send to Kindle Push web articles to your Kindle. I use this extension a lot; if, for whatever reason, it fails, I fall back on Instapaper’s “Send to Kindle” bookmarklet (which, I’m guessing, most people don’t even know about).
- Instachrome Save your URLs to Instapaper. I use this instead of the bookmarklet(s) because it automatically closes the tab after the link has been saved, something I’ve written about (and “fixed”) before. I hope that future versions allow us to target specific folders.
- Posthoc Adds pages to the Read it Later online service. This is a must-have for me because I use both Instapaper and Read It Later, and like Instachrome, this too closes the tab after the link is saved.
- Tabs Counter A visual candy – always know the number of opened tabs. This is the kind of stat I love knowing at all times. I kind of wish it would display the tab count for the current window and the combined tab count for all of the open windows; currently, it shows the tab count of just the current window.
- AdBlock The most popular Chrome extension, with over 2 million users! Blocks ads all over the web.
- Chrome Cookies Button Provides quick icon access to manage your Chrome cookies.
- Chromeblock Stop secret tracking of your web browsing. (UPDATE: This extension is no longer available for download; I’m not sure why.)
- 1Password Beta Password and identity manager for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android.
- Disconnect Stop third parties and search engines from tracking the webpages you go to and searches you do.
- Ghostery Protect your privacy. See who’s tracking your web browsing with Ghostery.
- YSlow Make your pages faster with Yahoo!’s page performance tool.
- Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on Tells the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) not to send information to Google Analytics.
- Page One – Banish Multipage Articles Always display the single-page version of articles at popular news sites.
- SelectOut Tracking Opt-Out Be in control of who tracks you online.
- Sheepish Protect your privacy. See who’s tracking you. Are you sheepish? (UPDATE: This extension is no longer available for download.)
- Engineers create virtual sky for office ceilings
I so want this in the bitcave.
- How to dismiss iOS banner notifications
News to me. (Via Shawn Blanc.)
- Video tribute to the defunct-as-of-yesterday “Jaws” ride at Universal Studios
This brings back some memories.
- Misconceptions about iOS multitasking
The multitasking bar always shows a list of recently used apps, regardless of whether they’re in the Background, Suspended or Not Running states. (Emphasis mine.)
I thought this was well known, or at least just common sense, but all the links to this post in my RSS reader tell me otherwise.
- Why is the NYPD after me?
[O]n average, every young black man [in New York City] can be expected to be stopped and frisked by the police each year.
America, 2012.
- Florida was weird as only it can be in 2011
There’s pockets of strangeness all over the country, but here it’s a baseline lifestyle. There, it’s the aberration. There, it’s the tail end of the bell curve. Here, it’s the peak of the bell curve.
So, so true.
Relatedly, I was back in Florida earlier this week visiting friends and family, and tweeted: “In an incredibly smokey bar with my brother discussing probation violations and trying to ignore a large dog at my knees. What? Florida.”
Most of the conversations I have—and overhear—when back in Florida, wouldn’t be believed unless you’re from there. It’s just a different world, and one I often miss.
- Kindle iOS app can now manage emailed content
This is kind of a big deal, especially for those that don’t have a Kindle device and instead just use the iOS app. As you guys know, each day I send a ton of articles to my Kindle, and until just a few days ago those articles could be read only on the device itself, because content not purchased from Amazon didn’t get synced with the various Kindle apps. With v2.9 of the iOS app that’s no longer the case—non-Amazon content is automatically archived in the Amazon Cloud (including last page read, bookmarks and annotations) and (re-)downloadable on the app.
While I don’t see myself using this too much (simply because I prefer e-ink for all of this stuff), it’s pretty cool that in a pinch I can pick up my iPhone or iPad and read something I’ve sent to my
@free.kindle.comaddress.
- Jake Dyson’s CSYS LED task light
It will surprise no one that I keep a collection of beautiful desk lamps—along with every other type of product—inside Yojimbo. This way I don’t have to go scouring the web each time I decide to buy a new product; I simply scroll through the stuff I’ve accumulated over the years.
All of these products have two things in common: simplicity and beauty. If a product strikes me as having both of those qualities, it goes straight into Yojimbo, along with at least two tags: “Want” and a tag that describes the type of product (e.g., lamps).
Now, I don’t currently have a desk lamp in my home office, and don’t particularly need one. I like to tell myself that if I got one I’d write more. Really, I get these romantic thoughts of me hunched over a desk late at night, desperately trying to carve some great idea into a Moleskine. I know that that’s not likely to happen and that even with a desk lamp I’d still probably write only when adding sentiments to Christmas and birthday cards, but come on, just look at this task light and tell me you don’t want it!
The rub: it’s $850. But, it’s so pretty! And the bulbs will last for at least 37 years! And it has so much great tech! And…
OK, fine, I’m not going to buy it right now, but you can be damn sure I’m keeping it in Yojimbo.
- Not quite 1,000,000,000,000 frames per second
Professor Allain throws some water on that insane video camera I linked to last week.
- A primer on evolution
For those of you who may not study this sort of thing (how can you not?!), but still are interested, be sure to give this a read. It’s short.
Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011
“Humanity’s first sin was faith, its first virtue doubt.” The author of that quote is unknown, though today I’d like to think it was Hitchens.
He was an intellectual omnivore and a polemicist of the first order. In debate, he would utterly annihilate all comers, especially if the topics were at all concerned with religion or willful ignorance. There were few things I took more pleasure in watching.
His love affair with the English language was laid bare for all of us to enjoy, and his gifted way of cajoling it into making a razor-sharp point for him is something I’ll forever endeavor to emulate, knowing full well that I’ll forever fall short.
Wit, to me, is one of the most enviable creative traits, and Hitchens’ was unmatched. It was biting, unforgiving and often irrebuttable. As Ian McEwan once said of his friend’s aptitude for corralling knowledge and experience at will, “It all seems instantly, neurologically available: everything he’s ever read, everyone he’s ever met, every story he’s ever heard.” Indeed, it was a sight to behold.
Hitchens and I of course didn’t agree on everything (probably most notably his unwavering defense of the Iraq war), but his opinions and insights always demanded attention besides. You knew that in his mind he was juggling pieces to a puzzle that most of us didn’t even know existed. It always was a fun, if rigged game.
In his final, wonderful book (that wasn’t a collection of essays), Hitch-22: A Memoir, he quotes Horace Mann: “Until you have done something for humanity, you should be ashamed to die.”
Hitchens was not ashamed to die.
- Inside the Secret Service
It took me more than 18 months to persuade the service to let me be the first reporter to see the process from the inside in a real-world, real-time situation. I was allowed access to command posts, operation centers, and other secure areas. I agreed only to withhold some details about protective methodology that would imperil the service’s ability to do its job.
- Girls high school basketball team chants n-word before games
The team has one African American player, the rest are white.
America, 2011.
- The Big Picture captures homelessness from around the world
Do something today to help someone in need. Tomorrow it could be you who needs the help.
- Aaron’s Twitter Viewer
I made this little program so you can view and link to a whole conversation from Twitter in context.
(Via Daring Fireball. I agree with John, it’s better than Exquisite Tweets.)