This app is super-useful for switching keyboard layouts on Windows.
Windows’ normal behaviour is for windows to remember what layout you were using. There’s no built in way to switch the layout globally. This is a drag when I usually use Dvorak, but sometimes need to quickly switch to QWERTY for others to use my PC. This tool adds a shortcut to your system tray, so you can switch layouts globally.
Aaron Swartz death is really sad in so many ways. I think this is the post about it that speaks to me most personally.
Aaron Swartz is what I wish I was. I am a bright technologist, but I’ve never built anything of note. I have strong opinions about how to improve this world, but I’ve never acted to bring them to pass. I have thoughts every day that I would share with the world, but I allow my fears to convince me to keep them to myself. If I were able to stop being afraid of what the world would think of me, I could see myself making every decision that Aaron made that ultimately led to his untimely death. This upsets me immensely. I am upset that we have a justice system that would persecute me the way it did Aaron. I am upset that I have spent 27 years of my life having made no discernible difference to the world around me. Most of all I am upset that Aaron’s work here is done when there is so much more he could have accomplished.
It’s definitely reading the whole post.
This is an interesting conceptual model for how we think about other people.
As pointed out in the article, what incentive for creating is provided, by extending copyright on already created works?!
This interview is from 2002, but a great read about some of the technical stuff behind the making of Lion King and the IMAX format.
I saw Lion King at IMAX, and it was awesome. I hope it gets released again when Oscar’s old enough to go.
Tim Cook’s an interesting guy. So different to Steve Jobs. This sentence, from the linked to profile of him, sums it up.
He doesn’t look like the CEO of Apple, he looks more like an Apple product: quiet, tidy, carefully curated, meticulously tooled and at the same time strangely warm and inviting.
Sounds good. More hard than most of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack.
Tron: Uprising, the 2D animated series that bridges the gap between the cult classic original Tron movie and the 2010 follow up, is heading toward the end of its first season run. The soundtrack is composed by Joseph Trapanese — who arranged Daft Punk’s hit soundtrack for Tron: Legacy — the Uprising score extends the computerized audio adventure even further, stretching over 18 episodes.
And actually I didn’t even know about the animated series… Looks like I have something to watch over the Christmas holidays!
What would be a good solution to this? How do you take away the ability to do dangerous things with a piece of technology without destroying its safe uses?
If we do nothing and let people make whatever they like, what would happen? It’s still illegal to carry a weapon, or use it for bad things. Is that enough?
Agency is the ability to make a decision, and to be responsible for the decision you make.
This short post from Seth Godin explains agency, and how that relates to who has responsibility for stuff that happens.
As more jobs require knowledge workers, we’ll clearly be disseminating agency to those workers. This is a good thing: more people have the power and responsibility to form the world around them. And we trust them to make good decisions.
This 2D platformer version of Portal, running on a calculator, is very cool.
What’s happening to the Mac Pro?
