Fire and Knowledge

I’m shocked at this:

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Since when is protesting a crime? The Republicans would be having a fit if this was being done to pro-life protesters. This seems unconstitutional to me. I’d expect this in some kind of police-state, but in the US?

(via PZ)

My iPhone stopped working the other day. So I called Apple support, and a pre-paid package arrived the next day to send back the iPhone in. Apple received it the day after that, replaced it, and sent it back overnight so I had it the next day. That’s just incredible to me. My phone broke, but all I can focus on is what great and quick service I received.

That’s the way to do business.

Altogether, it has been estimated, the cost to the nation of complying with the full whack of federal regulations is $668 billion a year, an average of $7,000 per household. That’s a lot of compliance.

—Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Broadway Books: 1999), p. 99.

Coda finally has subversion support. Web developers rejoice! Now it’s actually worth considering.

Sorry for this blog to get so geeky all of a sudden. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Here is a video showing Mozilla Lab’s new project, Ubiquity. It’s a mashup command line for the web. It’s really impressive — I’m sure this idea will go far.

Update: I installed it and it works pretty well for an alpha release. I created a simple “dg-search” command (now available from the DG homepage) and was impressed with how quickly development goes. I found a few bugs and reported them, but I think this is going to change the way people use their browser.

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

—Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek (2007), p. 73.

For more information, see Charity: Water’s birthdays section.

The NY Times has a good comparison guide on Obama and McCain on various election issues. What I found most helpful is it has quotes from the candidates, so you hear where they stand from their own words.