LEGO, now for Girls
LEGO Friends is “The new LEGO theme – for girls!”
So I guess the current sets not for girls include Alien Conquest, Architecture, Atlantis, Cars 2, City, Creator, Harry Potter, Hero Factory, Heroica, Kingdoms, Mindstorms, Ninjago, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pharaoh’s Quest, Prince of Persia, Racers, Spongebob Squarepants, Star Wars, Technic, Toy Story and World Racers.
I know they’ve tried this before, but still, how about LEGO Vikings: The new LEGO theme – for Danes!
Misogynistic plastic peddling marketing weasels.
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Catfood.Shapefile 1.40
I’ve just released a small update to Catfood.Shapefile. Stephan Stapel, who implemented PolyLineM support, has contributed a patch that improves the class hierarchy. CodePlex user originSH suggested supporting the ACE driver for 64-bit systems. I’ve added a constructor overload that allows you to use predefined Jet and ACE connection strings or provide your own templates if necessary. Thanks to Stephan and originSH.
Catfood.Shapefile is a .NET library for enumerating ESRI shapefiles. I originally wrote the library to help me build some complex layers in Catfood Earth. Since then it’s picked up thousands of users and some really valuable suggestions and patches from the CodePlex community. I’m very glad a took a couple of hours to open source the library back in 2009.
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- ESRI Shapefile Reader in .NET
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- Catfood Weather 2.20
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Reviews and Links for December 2011
REST API Design Rulebook by Mark Masse
2/5
Two huge problems with this book. It's short and very repetitive so the information content is about a couple of blog posts. The 'rules' are highly subjective, and much of the book is pushing the author's WRML 'standard' which I've never seen in the wild. The only real positive is that it's a comprehensive survey of the issues you need to think about when designing a REST API: just don't take the rules as gospel and research best practice from major APIs so you understand the context.
Links
What are the 1865 stickers on Bernal Hill about? http://t.co/0CGOmRYe
ITHCWY: Congress: instead of breaking the Internet how about fixing child identity theft?: According the the… http://t.co/4eBrdCPI
Penn Jillette: An Atheist's Guide to the 2012 Election - Boing Boing http://t.co/oA8XEYzP via @BoingBoing
Shouldn't hackers be _taking over_ a network of satellites? http://t.co/QmOcn8oy
ITHCWY: Shiti: Citigroup sent me a nice notice saying they are going to share my information in about four thousand… http://t.co/DQLR5DlV
The coming war on general computation http://t.co/yl9vNJHc (Cory Doctorow)
Zeno's Advent Calendar: http://t.co/EyGf4vBY #fb
“we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging ... hidden people.” - http://t.co/K7aSceFm
Check this video out -- IDEX: Connecting You to Grassroots Solutions to Poverty http://t.co/kiq32ThR via @IDEX
Catfood Software Blog | Winter Solstice 2011 in Catfood Earth http://t.co/O0x5TngH via @CatfoodSoftware
For Christmas, Your Government Will Explain Why It's Legal to Kill You: http://t.co/rrMIrELV
Arch druid ... said it was a "good omen for the year ahead" that the sun had come up after the ceremony. http://t.co/UxK0BQlf
Looking forward to: Build better web applications with "Get Some REST" http://t.co/DGxCp9uN via @getsomerestbook
Why is @VisualStudio so busy? http://t.co/y9TLULLk
Sphero http://t.co/VCM5rvhK #todo @myEN
HTTP status cats by GirlieMac: classic server error codes, now with cats: http://t.co/1bJc3tgt
Land of the free taken nearly taken care of: http://t.co/uNlYAzoJ just need to do something about home of the brave. #fb
Trillion-frame-per-second video: http://t.co/JLsK5GDm
ITHCWY: Reviews and Links for November 2011: Reamde by Neal Stephenson 5/5 Intelligent and humorous if highly… http://t.co/ysKotKbY
Yet more on http://t.co/Dk1bJ0Ve: http://t.co/OTViMYQW (BoingBoing)
Check this video out -- Cello Wars (Star Wars Parody) Lightsaber Duel - Steven Sharp Nelson http://t.co/8xzzZh6E via @youtube
Stop marketers from being able to call your cellphone! http://t.co/wJd12VzP @CREDOMobile #p2
More on http://t.co/p0AhRSIl hijacking shareware to install crap: http://t.co/lDsXNB2g #fail
RT @justanswer: Want to know how old Santa is or what he gets Mrs. Claus for Xmas? Ask Santa your questions for free! http://t.co/i9WIce ...
You're doing it wrong: on toast, with butter: http://t.co/sTHvdHY6 (Sandwich Monday: The Marmite Sandwich)
Too hot? Switch Google off: http://t.co/ZRLIpH12
2 of 5 stars to REST API Design Rulebook by Mark Masse http://t.co/U6A4yQNk
Aliens on Ice: http://t.co/FmLdlfZ3
There, we fixed it: http://t.co/gEhPi3Z8 (The woman... must marry her rapist as a condition of the release.)
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Congress: instead of breaking the Internet how about fixing child identity theft?
According the the Carnegie Mellon CyLab one in ten – 10% – of children in the US have had their identity stolen. Most likely this is related to the relative ease with which social security numbers can be predicted.
As a parent this makes one want to start checking credit reports, but according to a Today Show segment on the topic “Advice for concerned parents on this point is nuanced. Both the FTC and the Identity Theft Resource Center say parents should not check their kids' credit reports on an annual basis.” Kids shouldn’t have credit reports, and if they do then checking them obsessively might do more harm than good by damaging their credit rating.
WTF?
It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. How about at birth or when the child’s social security number is generated placing an automatic block on it until their 18th birthday? There should also be a process to register existing children with the credit rating agencies until automatic registration kicks in. Would this for some reason be difficult or controversial?
Also, is there a great reason for social security numbers to be short and based on states and birth years? I guess there’s a Y2K level problem to update every computer system, but converting SSNs to UUIDs sounds like a great stimulus program to me.
Apparently Representative Jim Langevin has introduced legislation to try and fix the problem for foster children. Which is great, but why just for one special group? If 10% of children (or anything like this number) really are affected then this is a pressing issue that should be getting a lot more attention.
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Shiti
Citigroup sent me a nice notice saying they are going to share my information in about four thousand different ways, most of which can’t be limited. For the few that can limit you can’t update preferences on the web site, you apparently need to call them and beg to not be spammed. As I’m writing that number makes you type in your account number and then says ‘I’m sorry, our records are unavailable.’ Most likely they’re in the Citigroup basement behind the Beware of the Leopard sign.
If you decide to just cancel Citi then say that they will continue to share when you are no longer their customer. It reads like even if you take the time to phone in to opt out they’ll revert to happily sharing promiscuously once you leave. But you can contact them again anytime although it’s not clear what can be limited once you leave. Dear customer, we hate you.
Presumably there is some well meaning legislation to require that Citi sends clear information about their marketing policy and opt outs. Only you can’t opt out and I can’t for the life of me understand what happens if I close my account. How about requiring opt out of everything from the web site and no marketing to ex-customers instead?
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Reviews and Links for November 2011
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
5/5
Intelligent and humorous if highly contrived thriller set loosely around an MMORPG. Loved it.
Embassytown by China Miéville
4/5
Highly original tale of colonists cohabiting with some very unusual aliens with a very unusual language. It reads like J.G. Ballard and Nicholson Baker decided to collaborate on some SciFi.
The Affair (Jack Reacher, #16) by Lee Child
3/5
Not bad, returns to when Reacher was in uniform and tells the story of how he left the Army (the answer may surprise you). As with the last few in the series it all comes a little too easily and you wish there was at least one worthy opponent. I'm hooked though so as long as Child keeps writing them I'll keep reading.
Professional Android 2 Application Development by Reto Meier
3/5
Solid foundation and covers the platform you need to target to reach the majority of Android devices.
Links
RE: Feel free to use the code, no attribution required. http://t.co/IJTcOz3p
BBC News - 7 questions on computer programmes http://t.co/XKylU7WT (more of a history / pop culture quiz)
Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism: http://t.co/4h8M8kkK
4 of 5 stars to Embassytown by China Miéville http://t.co/kPwIrmDF
ITHCWY: Occupy Intellectual Ventures: Send them a troll. Now. http://t.co/VorWmZpz
Wow, My Flout score is -7 on @floutdotme! Get yours at http://t.co/1Sl8ei72
troll the troll! send a troll doll to intellectual ventures. http://t.co/S09ML14T via @nathtone
Walking through doorways causes forgetting, new research shows: http://t.co/JBbJXAaD
+1: Why Software Projects are Terrible and How Not To Fix Them: http://t.co/kE7WWix5
Hilarious, I had to Google how to power off Windows 8. Didn't figure it our until the third link: http://t.co/X1wrkh7R #fail
Building a Useful Task Board: http://t.co/icc8y4cU - only this should be a large monitor and an #API
#API Design Webinar http://t.co/rbDwus37 from @theamiableapi - some very valuable nuggets
Wow. Going to have to get this as a poster just to fully grok it: http://t.co/Z6iie3K5
ITHCWY: PolyLineM support in Catfood.Shapefile: I’ve just updated Catfood.Shapefile, my ESRI Shapefile parser for… http://t.co/ll50wcEi
Cal band at justanswer http://t.co/QOLcbe7e (missed this while at lunch)
Citogenesis: http://t.co/EH5K2xLg
Extensive document dump on Microsoft's shallow anti-Android bullying: http://t.co/tdEhMNLh #patents from @groklaw
Toast sandwich is UK's 'cheapest meal' http://t.co/0LG9zNOl (can't possibly be true - not factoring in cost of electricity!)
Analysis: The Darwin Economy: http://t.co/pSDkxupL
So True: What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You: http://t.co/dW8pl2uK
Bootstrapped Company Behind iDrive, iBackup Is Fed Up With Patent Trolls: http://t.co/DP6KFLxH
The Real Cost of Patent Trolls: http://t.co/1Cu4C6cV via @bfeld
Flying rhinoceros: http://t.co/MIhWtT3L
Cool: 1% Of Nothing Launches To Get Startups Donating Equity: http://t.co/ZNy7HcZl
3 of 5 stars to Professional Android 2 Application De... by Reto Meier http://t.co/UqCtaJ3Z
'Have the people who designed this protocol really never made the twenty mile drive to San Francisco?' - http://t.co/wWk77ZpQ
Explaining 'Jobs' to Rudy Giuliani: http://t.co/ek78XEe9
ITHCWY: Catfood: Klout and Follower: Klout is building PageRank for people. You get a score between 0-100 based on… http://t.co/rGyYkY9q
Catfood Follower 1.40: http://t.co/79xDac4F via @CatfoodSoftware
Old friends... No CDTV though! At #CHM http://t.co/WGw6VOOL
How much did I used to want one of these! http://t.co/lHhnY0AG
At #CHM for Norvig v Horvitz. Will punch anyone who mentions Searle's Room. http://t.co/wPRO8tYa
Don't do it, like defining π as 4: BBC News - Changes to the world's time scale debated http://t.co/hFkrZi4g
RESTful API Design, Second Edition http://t.co/uZthmj9c #API from @landlessness
Rudy wishes I hadn't just shown him: "Saber-toothed squirrel" from the dinosaur days - Boing Boing http://t.co/Wf7Y0ttH
Marked as to-read: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries http://t.co/MC9M0Iti
Ex-Google Reader Product Manager Posts Scathing Review Of Reader Redesign | TechCrunch http://t.co/DscEAHTw
Google indexing via POST: http://t.co/oM2JmHqI (P.S. may not grok your robots.txt, suggests bending over)
Writing helpful API documentation « The Amiable API http://t.co/rx9QdKyk #API
Oakland PD confused: An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland From the Oakland Police Officers Association http://t.co/W5LIBY7D (me too)!
Study: why parents help their underage kids pretend to be 13 in order to use Internet sites - Boing Boing http://t.co/aoUSw5wu
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Occupy Intellectual Ventures
Send them a troll. Now.
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- You won't believe this one crazy trick that would fix the broken patent system
- How to fix software patents
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PolyLineM support in Catfood.Shapefile
I’ve just updated Catfood.Shapefile, my ESRI Shapefile parser for .NET, with PolyLineM support thanks to a contribution from Stephan Stapel. The solution for the new version has also been updated to Visual Studio 2010.
Download Catfood.Shapefile.dll 1.30 from CodePlex.
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Catfood: Klout and Follower
Klout is building PageRank for people. You get a score between 0-100 based on how large your social graph is and how much you influence it. They also have a simple API and have been kind enough to let me use it as part of Follower so I’ve just released Follower 1.40 with Klout integration.
Follower automates the chore of following new friends on Twitter. It also somewhat automates removing traitors who don’t follow you back – as much as Twitter would let me get away with. One problem with following promiscuously is that you do end up following a lot of spammy and scammy accounts. Adding Klout helps with this as you can now say ‘follow everyone who follows me as long as their Klout score is higher than 15’. This keeps some of the riff raff out. And if a follower’s score rises above the threshold then they’ll be admitted into the club.
You can also use Klout to weed out existing follows with a low Klout. In this mode anyone below a configurable score will be added to the remove list even if they are following you back.
The only snag I hit with API is that while you can lookup a user by Twitter ID the ID isn’t returned in the response. If you query multiple IDs at a time you don’t always get a full set of results so without the ID you can’t reliably tell which result is associated with each ID. For this reason I’m only looking up one score at a time. Twitter has nice bulk methods to grab IDs for up to 5,000 friends or followers, it would nice if Klout could match this or at least fix the ID issue. This is a small problem though and having an automated way of detecting the quality of Twitter accounts is a great addition to Follower. If you use Twitter check it out.
