http://outofcheese.org Redo from start.... Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:25:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Spirit landed on Mars four years ago today and Opportunity landed three weeks later. The two rovers were only supposed to last three months at most. They've traveled much farther distances than anyone expected and produced scientific data beyond nearly everyone's expectations, most notably providing very strong evidence that ... http://outofcheese.org/2008/01/04/happy-birthday-mars-rovers/ Neil Gaiman mentions, and other sites confirm, that the Nazis tried to eliminate German Shepherd dogs with white hair. Strange. I found myself looking into what Neil said because his phrasing caught my eye: There would be a lot more White German Shepherds around if the Nazis hadn't decided they were ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/12/28/white-german-shepherds-and-the-nazis/ Back around the dawn of time -- the summer of 1999, specifically -- I was an intern at Homestead Technologies. My three months there were a terrific learning experience. I wrote a ton of Java code, doing serious Java development for the first time; wrote my first seriously ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/12/10/homestead/ I received a note today from someone asking for help getting started with Facebook application development. Why'd that go to me? I've never even installed an extra app on my Facebook page, let alone tried to write one. Well, it turns out that Facebook's Java client library includes a ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/12/09/facebook-indirectly-ships-my-code/ This is terrific. Update: The video is from The Richter Scales, who are a Bay Area a capella group which happens to include super-cool Stanford CS lecturer Jerry Cain. Neat! Thanks to Evan for pointing out Jerry's connection to this. http://outofcheese.org/2007/12/04/here-comes-another-bubble/ A little while back I happened to end up sitting next to Marty Cagan of the Silicon Valley Product Group on a plane flight. He has an interesting blog at the SVPG site about product management and building great products and teams. Today he wrote about the role ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/12/04/the-role-of-the-ceo/ I can't help this...I actually have to say something complimentary not just about Cal, but about their marching band. I feel like a traitor to the LSJUMB, which I must say is absolutely my favorite marching band anywhere, bar none. But Cal's band (boo!) put on a terrific ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/11/15/marching-band-and-video-games/ I don't play poker, but I know quite a few people who do, and a few who play online. This post by Ian Ayres makes a fascinating argument that online poker might not last much longer. Not due to legal restrictions, but because computers are getting to be ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/11/13/poker-bots/ Brooks points out how Mountain View is not like the rest of the world. This is part of why I like living there, though sadly I can't do any work at Red Rock. The reference is to xkcd 304, but I think I like the comic a bit more than ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/11/03/living-in-mountain-view/ Over on the Freakonomics blog, they interviewed Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. One of the Q&As jumped out at me: Q: My all-time favorite Dilbert cartoon is the one where he gives some kooky well-thought-out amount of payment for an item so he’ll get back an even dime, and says ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/10/31/making-change/ Looks like someone figured out how to create WordPress accounts on this server without my permission and post a bunch of items about ringtones. Argh. I think I've cleaned up the mess now, and I've upgraded to the latest version of WordPress as well. Hopefully that'll help. Unfortunately, ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/10/31/hacked/ I saw a preview screening of Neil Gaiman's Stardust tonight. It opens nationwide August 10th. It was terrific. I just couldn't stop smiling -- so many parts of the movie were done well, or really funny, or had interesting twists that worked out great. I think people will ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/07/27/stardust/ A belated Happy iPhone Day to everyone! http://outofcheese.org/2007/06/30/happy-iphone-day/ The movers came this morning, so tonight is my first night in my new place. I just realized what I like the most about it -- I've been sitting here catching up on things for the past few hours and aside from a low-volume hum coming from the TiVo, ... http://outofcheese.org/2007/05/27/silence/ C4[1] registration is open. I'll be there unless I collapse due to exhaustion before August. http://outofcheese.org/2007/05/14/c41/