[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Security vs. Convenience
- Although my intent is not to start the next GNOME/KDE-level war, it seems there must be a happy medium between total desktop insecurity and total desktop unusability. Linux offers so many ways to secure data that it’s important to realize it’s okay for folks to have different needs and desires. Sure, there are some basic security measures we all should take—things like…
- NASA to Broadcast Mars Lander Descent – Breaking Orbit
- [National Geographic Blogs]
…for their next Mars lander, the roving science lab dubbed Curiosity, they’re gonna film and broadcast the moments just before touchdown…The downward-facing Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, will record full-color, high-res video of the two minutes before landing, as the craft comes screaming through the Martian atmosphere and deploys its unique landing system.
…Curiosity isn’t slated to reach Mars until August 2012, and the video will be too much data for the lander to send back in a timely fashion… Given the delay, the video frames will get sent to NASA piece by piece, enabling a slow progression in video quality.
The first version will be comparable to a YouTube video, according to the camera’s lead investigator, Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems.
- Get Back the Old Google Image Search with a URL Hack
- [Lifehacker]
If you’re not happy with the new Google Image search and would prefer to stick with the old search as your default, reader The_Doc offers this simple URL tweak.
- Whut.
- [Shakesville - Melissa McEwan]
[TRIGGER WARNING]
I just don’t have it in me to parse everything that’s distressing about this story in the Boston Globe about the “several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material.” [...]
I love that the main issue of concern to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service seems to be that, because many of the offenders had security clearance affording them access to sensitive and/or secretive government material, national security agencies were put “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations.” I mean, I hate to get all “what about the children” and everything, but OMFG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!
- Batch processing in Aperture and Digikam
- [Linux Today]
Sander’s Photography blog: “Both digiKam and Aperture deliver excellent results if it comes to batch processing of your images. However, the look and feel of batch processing is entirely different between the two applications and as we will see, their implementation is also very different.”
- Dumped Into The Harbor?
- [Talking Points Memo]
It’s being presented by the Tea Party Express as his decision, but Mark Williams is out as spokesperson for the group. Maybe he is doing it on his own, but hard not to think that the firestorm created by his comments like Allah is a “monkey god” and the NAACP makes “more money off of race than any slave trader, ever” didn’t convince the Republican operatives behind the Tea Party Express that it was time to dump Williams.
[You know... if the teabaggers actually want to repudiate Williams's racism, they need to take credit for FIRING him. -L]
- LightShot is a Lightweight and Fast Screenshot Capture Tool
- [Lifehacker]
Windows/Firefox and IE Add-on: If you’re looking for a snappy screenshot tool, LightShot is lightweight, fast, featured packed, and available as a stand alone application or a browser add-on.
- PHP 4 and MySQL 4 End of Life Announcement
- [WordPress Development Blog]
Our approach with WordPress has always been to make it run on common server configurations. We want users to have flexibility when choosing a host for their precious content. Because of this strategy, WordPress runs pretty much anywhere. Web hosting platforms, however, change over time, and we occasionally are able to reevaluate some of the requirements for running WordPress. Now is one of those times. You probably guessed it from the title — we’re finally ready to announce the end of support for PHP 4 and MySQL 4!
First up, the announcement that developers really care about. WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4.
- YouTube Begins Experimenting With HTML5 Embedable Player
- [ReadWriteWeb]
The battle between Adobe Flash and HTML5 will extend into YouTube video players embedded around the web, now that Google has announced a developer preview of video iFrames that use HTML5 when viewed in a browser that supports it. The move seems to represent a big shift in policy from multiple statements the company made just last month.
Google began experimenting with HTML5 players on the YouTube site itself in January, but offering HTML5 for the embedded players all over the web is a big step. For users, each new platform that supports HTML5 instead of Flash-only means Apple devices will be able to display that content, that advanced capabilities of the new format will be available and that, according to Flash critics, our devices will run faster and with fewer crashes.
Users of Chrome on a Mac may also be able to view embedded YouTube videos without wanting to throw our computers into the street in front of oncoming traffic in frustration.
- Retirement and Special Needs Planning
- [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
Retirement Accounts and Special Needs Planning is a lengthly, but important May 2010 article from the NYS Bar Journal. It is primarily about how a beneficiary, who may have special needs, should handle a distribution of retirement or other income….
- The Extent of Copyright In Original, Unpublished Material: Raymond Carver’s Stories
- [Media Law Prof Blog]
- "Rough justice: America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal"
- [Sentencing Law and Policy]
The title of this post is the headline of this new commentary in The Economist. Here is how it gets started:
[Apalling bit redacted. -L]
The linked briefing is also a must-read, and it is headlined “Too many laws, too many prisoners: Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little.”
The Link(s): Fri, Jul 23rd, 11am by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.