Category: Clever

In response to this xkcd, ASofterWorld finally strikes back. ((Both of these use the mouse-over-to-see-the-punch-line trick.)) ((Chris: I assume that you saw this xkcd.))
These are two of my favourite webcomics; I read them every day, along with Jesus and Mo, UserFriendly, Sinfest, and the delightful Questionable Content. I also feed the slightly more twisted aspects of my persona with Explosm and Basic Instructions.

From Marc Andreessen’s blog: robot self-reassembly:

Must-read piece by Bruce Schneier on what he calls The Security Mindset.

Security requires a particular mindset. Security professionals — at least the good ones — see the world differently. They can’t walk into a store without noticing how they might shoplift. They can’t use a computer without wondering about the security vulnerabilities. They can’t vote without trying to figure out how to vote twice. They just can’t help it.

And it seems that someone across the lake at UW is trying to teach it, and the students are blogging about it. Very cool.

John Turley’s assessment of Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey:

Many view the decisions as raw examples of political manipulation of the legal process and overt cronyism. I must confess that I was one of those crying foul until I suddenly realized that there was something profound, even beautiful, in Mukasey’s action.
In his twisting of legal principles, the attorney general has succeeded in creating a perfect paradox. Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.

This is magnificent! It is worthy of that greatest of all commentaries on politico-legal principals, The Mikado! W. S. Gilbert would have been proud.

From iowahawk, the perfect commentary on L’affaire Cantuar – with apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer:

1 Whan in Februar, withe hise global warmynge
2 Midst unseasonabyl rain and stormynge
3 Gaia in hyr heat encourages
4 Englande folke to goon pilgrimages.
5 Frome everiches farme and shire
6 Frome London Towne and Lancanshire
7 The pilgryms toward Canterbury wended
8 Wyth fyve weke holiday leave extended

And so on. Absolutely brilliant.

Every year, John Brockman and the folks at The Edge pose a big question. Their Annual Question for 2008 is a classic:

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.
WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?”

I’m going to have to think a bit before giving my own answer, but I can’t wait to read the responses from everyone from (alphabetically) Allan Alda to Richard Wrangham. If I have one concern, it is that there may be too many contributions this year. I’d prefer quality over quantity. We’ll see.
UPDATE: Having read them all (so far – there are new writings and corrections, arriving all the time), I have to say that there are some excellent pieces, together with a fair number that shouldn’t really have made the cut. Some writers – especially “Edge newbies” – don’t really address the question. Never mind. Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean Carroll has put together a good summary of the more interesting offerings.

As Alec said, this is something that should have been invented years ago!

Here’s a really cool idea: reCAPTCHA. It’s a system which “takes scanned images from actual books, with which optical character recognition software are struggling, and uses them as the source material for CAPTCHA’s.” So when you’re proving that you’re not a robot to yet another web site (something which happens 60 million times a day, apparently), you could be helping to digitize old books.

A few weeks ago I stumbled over the syndication site Butterflies and Wheels, and added their RSS feed to NetNewsWire. I’ve gradually realized that I’m spending more time on stories that they promote than almost any other source, including such stalwarts as the BBC, Comment is Free, HuffPo, El Reg, BoingBoing and SlashDot. Recommended.
P.S. On the subject of cool sites, let me mention two of my personal favourites: the Akihabara News (geek heaven), and Flight Level 390. No flame-fests, just stuff to make you smile, and wish you were there….

What do you get when you cross a newspaper with a bunch of blogs? The answer from the Grauniad* is Comment is free. Promising.
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* The name bestowed upon the Guardian by Private Eye, in recognition of a long tradition of spectacular misprints.