Spoiler alert.

Not that you care. Scientists at UCSD have shown that people actually prefer stories when they have advance knowledge of the plot twists. Maybe movie companies have figured this out, because the trailer for The Gray has the final two shots of the movie in it. Not, mind …

Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Highly recommended. Ronson returns to the form of "Them," and "The Men Who Stare At Goats," in this collection of humorous journalistic essays. His last book, "The Psychopath Test," was a little one-note and …

Ravelry is a profitable 4-person company, a "lifestyle business". This model is of little interest to venture capitalists but is, I think, very appealing to most people dreaming about their own business:

Unraveled » Blog Archive » How does Ravelry make money?.

Today is my first day at my new employer, Xamarin, sponsors of the Mono project and developers of MonoTouch and Mono for Android. Mobile cross-platform C#: long-term readers will probably see why this is the perfect job for me. (Well… short of a gig doing AI on a robot submarine …

Today, after 2 years, I am moving on from Gemini Observatory, where I worked as a Senior Software Engineer. Unlike most departures, this one comes with very little drama; it's more a case of wistful "well, that didn't work out." This is the second time in my life that I …

I have a security DVR purchased from Astak. It's software is Windows-only, using some proprietary plug-in, and although the DVR can FTP the .AVI files up to a server, they don't display on the Mac.

So, long-story short, this line will convert the format into an Apple-friendly .MP4:

/opt/local …

Lede with MSFT's unveiling of TypeScript today. Reiterate that it targets the Web and is a superset of JavaScript. Most importantly, mention Hejlsberg early, as he and Gosling are the only programming language designers that people have actually heard of. Refer to Dart, but don't bother to mention Bak or …

Every week I drive across the Big Island, a distance of 86 miles each way. Audiobooks, which I'd never bothered with much before, turn out to be a very enjoyable way of dealing with the ride. There are two major disadvantages: "listening while driving" is not suited for deep attention …

Good article: How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is not that Google allocates human effort to the mapping project but that they combine very advanced algorithmics with that human effort and, perhaps …