corollary to zawinski’s law of software envelopment: “every website attempts to expand until it can read mail. those websites which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”

“rubberhose was originally conceived by crypto-programmer julian assange as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field [...].” (via langreiter.)

if you should ever have one mac with a broken and another one with a working cd/dvd drive this little shell gem might be of help:

enable remote disc (drive sharing) on any mac!

# defaults write com.apple.networkbrowser enableodiskbrowsing -bool true

defaults write com.apple.networkbrowser odssupported -bool true

works fine with a macbook and a mac mini.

unfortunately, you will not be able to access most of the cds or dvds you own because of course apple has to prevent you bloody pirate criminal terrorist from ripping off the poor film and music industries...

gee, i really made it to move my mac os x time machine archives from its current hard disk to a bigger one!

this was more difficult than this generally is already due to the backups being made remotely, to a so-called sparse bundle disk image.

the trick is to mount that very disk image by double-clicking, dragging the mounted partition to the source input field in disk utility (ie. not opening the disk image itself!) and restoring it to the new, formatted drive.

lots of interesting programming stories today at hacker news:

shubha ramani wonders about today’s coding interview game, something i also wonder about pretty often, lately. i always assumed it is that i am getting older, and according to a recent study in austria, older (ie. age 40+) programmers are “practically not existent”.

anyhoo, the cam.ly blog recommends and reminds me to code fearlessly and david ing says it’s time to diversify and reassures me – amongst others – that the web will win.

of course i hope he is right.

(and of course i still could and should learn how to get better at ui design, anyway.)

you must learn javascript.

on the origin of hypertext by means of electronic processing.

“on december 9, 1968, douglas c. engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the augmentation research center at stanford research institute in menlo park, ca, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, nls, they had been working on since 1962.”

»wieder fiel mir auf, was ich in letzter zeit häufiger bemerkt hatte: in was für merkwürdigen sätzen wir miteinander sprachen, ohne dabei lachen zu müssen. die gesamte finanzbranche hatte sich zu einer gigantischen verpackungsindustrie entwickelt. mit den faulen krediten verfuhren wir ähnlich wie die leute auf dem rummelplatz mit alten äpfeln oder bananen: sie überzogen sie einfach mit schokoladenglasur und verkauften das ganze als spezialität. unsere glasur war die sprache; wir waren durchaus kreativ gewesen.« — Markus Feldenkirchen: »Was zusammengehört«. Roman (2010)

hokum, pokum.

got out late last night, in the rain and sleet
tryin’ to find a butcher that grind my meat
yes i'm lookin’ for a butcher
he must be long and tall
if he want to grind my meat
’cause i’m wild about my meat balls.
— lil johnson, “meat balls” (~1937)

snowclone. food for copy&pasta journalism.