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Thursday, August 21, 2003

Better Search Engine Design: Beyond Algorithms. Search engine accuracy is important, but convenience may be more important than squeezing the last few ounces of performance out of your system. Peter Van Dijck demonstrates simple but effective query analysis, best bets, and controlled vocabularies -- tools to make your search engines more effective. [O'Reilly Network Articles] 8:59:20 PM  Permalink  comment []

The Lying Liars Spinsanity has this great refutation of that Coulter woman, on of Al Franken's lying liars, perhaps chief among them. Not to be missed. 3:38:22 PM  Permalink  comment []

Understanding Singularity. I can't assume you've heard of the "Singularity". Anyone wanting to write SF needs to be aware of it as a fundamental SF theme. So here is a definition. Hell, Charles Stross, arguably one of the hotest authors out there,  has a new book named after it; Singularity Sky. I'm reading it now. It's pretty good. [Science Fiction Ideas] The term "singularity" is new to me, though as a reader of SF in general and Vinge in particular, the concept isn't. The new Locus magazine has several issues on the "New Space Opera" that are very, very interesting, and the source of a lot of recommended readings. I hope to write more about this in the near future (pre-singularity, presumably). 1:09:02 PM  Permalink  comment []

Mac OS X-native OpenOffice delayed until 2006. If you've been awaiting a Mac OS X-native version of OpenOffice, be patient: the estimated time of arrival has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2006. OpenOffice is an open-source version of what was once StarOffice, Sun's application suite. OpenOffice runs on Mac OS X systems now, but requires an X11 windowing interface to work, like Apple's own X11 for Mac OS X. Some users are waiting for a Mac OS X-native version of the productivity software suite, instead. [MacCentral] Imagine the howls if Microsoft announced that we would have to wait until 2006 for a release of Microsoft Office! I'm not going to hold my breath. 1:03:06 PM  Permalink  comment []

Quitting Microsoft cold turkey is a Ball. Sterling Ball's story of how his company quit using Microsoft products and switched to Linux. [Workbench] Great story. In this case, Microsoft and the "Business Software Alliance" tried treating one of their customers like shit, and he retaliated the best way: by giving up on their products all together. 12:06:17 PM  Permalink  comment []

Baseball Research HOTAir has this nice roundup of recent baseball-related research. Highlights include "Self-esteem and narcissism among the most and least empathetic Finnish baseball players," “Life Expectancy of Major League Baseball Umpires,” and 3 articles on the wearing of baseball caps! Stylin'. 11:23:48 AM  Permalink  comment []

Sandy Koufax I just finished reading this captivating biography of Koufax. One of the nicest touches is the way she interleaves the biographical matter with a detailed narrative of Koufax's 1965 perfect game (the opposing pitcher threw a one-hitter). She seems to capture Koufax's usually misunderstood personality. I loved her descriptions of his ravaged arm, and it's amazing to think he pitched in such conditions. For a Giants fan, the book also gives you plenty of reasons to hate the Dodgers management for their mistreatment and misuse of the guy. Highly recommended. 9:35:34 AM  Permalink  comment []

Mars Andrew Chaikin did a nice piece on NPR this morning about taking photos of the moon occulting Mars. Of course, no pictures on the radio, but they do have them on the web site as well as RealAudio of the program. Wonderful pictures; as he said in the piece, they do give you the feeling of standing on another planet. 9:08:51 AM  Permalink  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.