BBC News - Pirate Pay torrent 'blocker' backed by Microsoft -
Pirate Pay has been backed by Microsoft and has so far worked with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures to stop “thousands” of downloads.
The tool poses as real bit torrent users but then “confuses” peer-to-peer networks, causing disconnections.
Critics argue that the method will be ineffective in the long term.
Once again, attacking the wrong problem. In the big picture of piracy, BitTorrent is just an implementation detail.
ibtool --remove-plugin-dependencies --write MainMenu.xib.new --plugin ~/Downloads/BWToolkit/BWToolkit.ibplugin MainMenu.xib
(In this case, Xcode refused to correctly use the copy of the plugin I pointed it too, so I had to fall back to the command line.)
GitLaw: GitHub for Laws and Legal Documents -
Imagine a public system like GitHub but instead of source code being tracked, legal documents such as bills/laws are tracked (and just like GitHub, versioned in git). Imagine if, before any bill is introduced to Congress, its contents were posted on this publicly available medium with adequate time before a vote?
I love this idea. Whether you could ever get anything like this implemented is another story. You’d have to start small.
Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues -
It’s advising Republican candidates to emphasize the conservative nature of gay marriage, to say how it encourages personal responsibility, commitment, stability and family values. It uses Dick Cheney’s formula (which was for a couple of years, the motto of this blog) that “freedom means freedom for everyone.” And it uses David Cameron’s argument that you can be for gay marriage because you are a conservative.
Clergy Rebukes Media for Asking Wrong Questions About Amendment One - YouTube -
Finally got a chance to watch Rev. Barber’s remarks on NC’s Amendment One. Make time if you skipped it. http://t.co/vvx0C6S7
Tennessee Lawmakers Need A Reality Check -
The Gateway Sexual Activity Bill was passed by the Tennessee House of Representatives. The bill outlaws students handholding with each other while at school (because, according to the Tennessee House of Reps this is a “gateway” to sexual activity.) It also allows the parents of the student to sue the teachers if they feel the teachers aren’t doing enough to prevent sexual activity among the students.
Unfortunately not from The Onion. There’s two sides to the irritation over this bill: the obvious, “are you fucking kidding me?” side, but also “is this seriously what lawmakers think is the best use of their time and taxpayers’ money?”.
On making fun of Starbucks and being discerning -
I try to be discerning in everything, because I love it. I love the research and acquisition of specialty things, I love finding new and better versions of the things I like, and I love discovering the immense depth of hobbies and goods that most people never see.
Most people aren’t discerning, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to be.
An old post, yes, but as true as it ever was. (And yes, there’s a distinct element of either OCD or addictive personality disorder at work here — but I don’t care.)
Don't Mind Me: Zynga's Going Down -
So the matchup is Zynga against the field, the field being every person in the world who knows how to, and has the will to create a social game. Who would you bet on?
If you think that using RubyMotion is going to make it so you don’t need to learn Objective-C… you are wrong.
This actually echoes one of my main concerns about RubyMotion: a big part of development, of learning to build Cocoa apps, is trawling through tutorials and sample code. If your main reason for wanting to use something like RubyMotion is a desire to avoid Objective-C altogether (and given that current Ruby developers are the apparent target audience, this seems likely to be the case), how exactly are you going to learn?
However, the majority of my work never sees the light of day. I’m constantly working on small projects and ideas, and for whatever reason they never get released publicly.
I want that to change; there’s no point in code languishing in my private Git repositories.
I personally subscribe to Tom Preston-Werner’s ‘open source (almost) everything’ philosophy - if it’s not creating ‘core business value’, release it to the world.