Technology

2015-01-29 Recently Read

Grantland: How ‘Selma’ Got Smeared
As a member of more than one marginalized group of people, I can attest that these sorts of conversations with allies happen all the time wherein the needs of the marginalized group end up being subservient to the plans of their allies, who have more power and are able to set agendas and timelines that are at odds with those of the people they purport to aid. So the fact that Selma found a way to depict that sort of interaction is important to our understanding of the civil rights movement, and if minute historical detail was bent slightly in order to show that sort of interaction onscreen, I’m okay with that.

The Atlantic: Why I Am Not a Maker
When tech culture only celebrates creation, it risks ignoring those who teach, criticize, and take care of others.

Wikipedia: Searles Chinese Room
The Chinese room is a thought experiment presented by John Searle (b1932) to challenge the claim that it is possible for a computer running a program to have a “mind” and “consciousness” in the same sense that people do, simply by virtue of running the right program.

Good.Is: How Knitting Behind Bars Transformed Maryland Convicts
In late 2009, Lynn Zwerling stood in front of 600 male prisoners at the Pre-Release Unit in Jessup, Maryland. “Who wants to knit?” she asked the burly crowd. They looked at her like she was crazy.

Pacific Standard: The Greatest Rock Show I’d Ever Seen
How one guy’s beloved memory of a long-ago rock show turns out, when he rediscovers a record of it, to be quite different than the show as he remembered it.

Stairs upward

Continue Reading2015-01-29 Recently Read

Potential Web Hosting Replacements for Media Temple

After yesterday’s announcement of GoDaddy buying Media Temple, (more about this on TechCrunch) I’ll need to move. But it’s going to be a couple months before I can do that, so these are some notes about hosts to research when I get some free time to make the switch. These were all recommended to me by friends or picked up from the TechCrunch comments as possible replacements.

Green Geeks

Rackspace Hosting

Digital Ocean

LiquidWeb

pair Networks

Solar VPS

SoftLayer

BlueHost

Datarealm Internet Services

I hope that some of these share screens of their control panels. Media Temple’s control panel interface was far more usable than any other host I’ve worked with, so I hate to take a step backwards.

table flip princess bubblegum 1

Sigh.

Continue ReadingPotential Web Hosting Replacements for Media Temple

You can go into buildings on Google Street View?

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I was looking up street names in London to update this page on funny British place names, and as I was playing on Street View, I found myself inside a London pub. Pop into this pub yourself, if you’d like.

Nordic Bar in Google Street View

No one was there to give me a drink, so I left.

Nordic Bar Exit

Nordic Exit 2

Apparently this is a feature that has been around awhile, because people were writing about it in 2011. I missed that story.

Here’s how you can find buildings that you can enter – while you’re in street view, pick up the little yellow guy on the map, and you’ll see orange circles appear. Those are the stores you can enter.

Finding Buildings You Can Enter

That makes me a little bit nervous, given my previous interaction with Google Street View. Hey, what are you doing with that camera?

You’ll have to pardon me, I’m going to spend the morning popping in and out of shops in London. This was the place I was looking for when I stumbled into a bar…

Percy's Passage, London
Percy’s Passage, London
Continue ReadingYou can go into buildings on Google Street View?