Posts

First off, I should probably tell you that I totally ♥ Heroku . I run a bunch of little apps off it and at work believe it’s production ready for our main platform. A while back someone posted a nice little snippet of how to get a static site working on it in two lines of code on heroku, however, with some change in heroku, gem packaging or the like (or fact I added in multiple custom domains for the site), these static served pages suddenly stopped working. Counterintuitive when looked at, and even @radar and I together looking at it couldn’t figure it out. Anyhow, I puzzled the following out. Probably a few of the gems can be removed but this definitely worked for me.

Love Amnesty using Allen Ginsburg’s “A Prophecy” for its latest ad campaign. Inspiring.

via Osocio Weblog .

We sometimes forget about those souls slowly pushing forward the edges of science and discovery. Love this time series animation of the discovery of asteroids in the last 30 years. It’s incredible to think how much more we’ve discovered in such a comparatively short amount of time.

Can’t wait till we see a model like this for extrasolar planets we know about or stars we’ve reached… ;-)

In 1963 on 28 August 2010, MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech to over 200,000 people at the Washington Monument. Still, one of the greatest speeches ever given and a beacon to the human rights movement everywhere. Watch it all the way through.

Good thing to watch this Sunday and reflect on what you can do to make this world a better place for everyone.

Great diatribe by Mitchell and Webb (of peepshow fame) on why the whole election platform claim of “eliminating government waste” is complete bollocks (I can use the word “bollocks” here because he’s English. Ahem…).

I hope Tony is listening. The Australian Liberals need a slightly better leg to stand on economically.

This Australian election has been awash in rhetoric about “turning back the boats.” Sadly, neither party is willing to honour its obligations under international asylum law and continue to use the refugee issue here as a political football (hockey puck to my Canuck brethren).

The Age’s Katz appeals to Oz’s future prime minister that we should just keep out the worst of the worst – the Canadians .

… something must be done to curb the influx of Canadastanis flowing across our borders like thick insidious maple syrup smothering a helpless little butterball atop a compassionate pancake short-stack.

Crikey’s Rundle had to say (annoyingly behind the Crikey paywall but well worth the read) about the low down on how crap this election here in Australia is. With nine days to go, I’m despondent about the state of kanga democracy. Australians deserve better. The state of this election is shameful.

Have I got that right? I mean have I got that right? Cos I don’t know how the election looks from over there, but from over here… it looks like sh-t. Beyond sh-t. Meta-sh-t.

I’ve often bemoaned the fact that more innovative architecture seems to have fled my Canadian homeland to be replaced with boring commercial buildings maximizing rental receipts. Especially for public architecture, I wish we’d get as brave as this:

The Bjarke Injels Group (BIG) won the competition for the design of Kazakhstan’s National Library , a flowing twist of metal and glass shaped like a Möbius strip! Stellar. It’s a continuous circulation möbius Strip, as the result of 2 interlocking structures: the perfect circle and the public spiral.

Love this post on swimming against the academic stream . God knows I can relate (though am nowhere near as clever as this guy)…

Unfortunately that’s an incredibly inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around stepping on every rake in the grass, while the A Students memorize someone else’s route and carefully pick their way across the lawn without incident. My only saving graces are that every now and again I discover a better path, and faced with a completely new lawn I have an instinct for where the rakes are.

OK, not sure who thought of this idea, but I absolutely love it. Personally, I use and abuse the excellent TaskPaper for my own GTD flogging (can haz iPad verzion pleaz?), but Epic Win is sheer brilliance : Your task lists as a role playing game. Brilliant.

Done right, this could unbelievably popular. WTB now. Apparently, the twitter feed for the app says it is awaiting approval in the Apple app store at the moment. Do wonder how it’ll work and sync with my desktop needs though…