I'm busy; can you read this lot for me and let me know what they say:
Happy invoicing!
- Pepys’ Shows - "After dinner to the Duke’s house, and there saw 'Twelfth Night' acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day." Oddly entertaining little hack by Matthew Somerville and Clare Lovell, which presents snippets from Samuel Pepys' diaries where he mentions plays he has seen, with links to more info about the play. Use the "freshen anew" link to get a new quote.
- Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy theories and Controlled Demolition Myths - "No one 'Funds' me and no one should need to fund conspiracy sites. I shouldn't have to shell out even 4 dollars a year, much less 4 dollars a month to expose these groups misinformation but I gladly do it. The only reason for those web sites to ask who funds me is to suggest I'm a government shill. That way you won't read any further. If you think I'm a government shill because I paid for this web site then I'm not sure you have the capacity to understand what's on it anyway." Excellent and comprehensive resource exposing the nonsensical gibberish of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
- Ten Tips for a (Slightly) Less Awful Resume - "If you've spent more than approximately seventeen kiloseconds as an industry programmer, you've had to review bad tech resumes. It's just part of the job. Programmer resumes ultimately have to be gauged by programmers — it takes one to know one. So it winds up being a kind of karmic revenge on you for bad resumes that you've written. C'mon, you know you've done it. You even knew it was bad when you were writing it. Admit it! You listed HTML under programming languages, didn't you? Argh!" Amusing yet informative rant by Steve Yegge.
- In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie - "At a small United States Air Force installation in eastern Wyoming, I’m sitting at an electronic console, ready to unleash nuclear hell. In front of me is a strange amalgamation of ’60s-era flip switches and modern digital display screens. It’s the control console for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM." Great description of what's involved in doing one of the strangest jobs on the planet.
- Internet start up - Craiglists Ad Translated - "Hi! I'm looking for a programmer to build a webapp for a new Internet start up over the next couple of weeks." Translation: "You work, I get paid. You have about 4 weeks to implement this crazy cool idea I had the other day while I was sitting on the toilet."
- Future Shock? Welcome to the New Middle Ages - "Imagine a world with a strong China reshaping Asia; India confidently extending its reach from Africa to Indonesia; Islam spreading its influence; a Europe replete with crises of legitimacy; sovereign city-states holding wealth and driving innovation; and private mercenary armies, religious radicals and humanitarian bodies playing by their own rules as they compete for hearts, minds and wallets. It sounds familiar today. But it was just as true slightly less than a millennium ago at the height of the Middle Ages." Parag Khanna identifies some interesting historical parallels.
- Sample interview problems - Fancy doing Computer Science at the University of Oxford? Here's some examples of the kinds of questions you might be asked at interview.
- 8 Awesome Cases of Internet Vigilantism - "Yet another unintended side effect of the web has been the birth of the Internet lynch mob. Now, everything from child abuse to bad customer service can get the online masses whipped into a frenzy of Old Testament-style vengeance."
- Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else - "A few months ago I wrote about WordPress Security. Now, armed only with the words 'free WordPress themes,' builtBackwards’ Theme Authenticity Checker Plugin and Donncha O Caoimh’s Exploit Scanner, I’m going to take a look through the first page of Google to see just how safe pages ranking for 'Free WordPress Themes' are." "Not very" is Siobhan Ambrose's conclusion.
- Amusing Ourselves to Death - Stuart McMillen's comic compares the dystopian visions of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World: "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no need to ban a book, for there would be no one who would want to read one."
Happy invoicing!
