Ben Kudria » Weblog

“Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for a purpose other than defeating itself. That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.”

I’ve been tweaking the design of the site for the past week or so, shifting elements around and mostly attempting to give the text a chance to breath. Because HTML sucks, my spring cleaning will undoubtedly broken something for someone, somewhere. So, if you are that someone, and you’ve noticed some bit over here broken, give me a ring, if you please, and let me know. Thanks. Oh, and I’m still not done, that sidebar over there is giving me trouble. Bear with me, please, I’m working on it. ­

A collection of semi-organized links to reading threads on Ask Metafilter, most of them threads asking for book recommendations. If you’re looking for something to read, try this. Covers plenty of categories.

Right what it says on the tin, this is a clear and simple explanation, suitable for reading by a layperson or beginner.

A very useful guide on hiding from someone in America.

One of the more lucid explanations of recursive function theory I’ve seen.

Today, in December 2007, of the 6.6 billion people living on our planet, around three billion have access to cellular service (1).  In contrast to the relatively staid growth of fixed telephone lines (fig. 1), the growth in cellphone and Internet service subscribers is staggering.  This growth is evident not only in the United States and Europe, it can also be seen in second- and third-world countries such as China, India, those in Africa (2), and those in the Arab world.  Although these countries are not as wealthy as the US, and certainly not the center of technological developments and innovation, their governments are finding that cellular and Internet service are basic and vital infrastructure that their populations highly demand.  Almost half the population on Earth is connected somehow to a telecommunications network, either the Internet or the local cellular network.  Furthermore, this proportion is on a strict upward trend.

How editors/IDEs need to change to support more iterative design and coding practices.

“As good design further penetrates the Web, once highly-regarded conventions fall into disfavor and are replaced by more effective ones. Yet some flawed conventions persist. In fact, they persist on some pretty high-profile websites; to their detriment.”