(1) Dropbox: Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with similar functionality? - Quora

(1) Dropbox: Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with similar functionality? - Quora: "If you're starting a new company, the best thing you can do is keep your feature set small and focused. Do one thing as best as you possibly can. Your users will beg and beg for more functionality. They will tell you their problems and ask you to fix it. My philosophy is that they're right if their feature request is right only if it works for 80% of your customers. Until you have a lot of resources, stay focused on your core competency."

The Rock Salt :: Got my first DSLR

It's a Sony Alpha A230L.



It's a starter DSL, a little noisier at higher ISO than a Nikon, but it has image stabilization and the lens motor is in the body so I can buy cheap Minolta film lenses and they'll work on this.

Now I want to go places that are photogenic so I can take pictures.

The A230L flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sony_alpha_dslr-a200/

A picture I took:


Right now I just use automatic mode, but I'm looking forward to spending weeks figuring out all of the manual stuff.

The body and lens cost me $350 at Walmart, online. That's cheaper than some point and shoot cameras, and even some 4/3rds.

Generation Why? by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books

Generation Why? by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books: "Over cocktails in a glamorous nightclub, Parker dazzles Zuckerberg with tales of the life that awaits him on the other side of a billion. Fincher keeps the thumping Euro house music turned up to exactly the level it would be in real life: the actors have to practically scream to be heard above it. Like many a nerd before him, Zuckerberg is too hyped on the idea that he’s in heaven to notice he’s in hell."

Wikileaks and the El-Masri case: Innocent CIA torture victim more than just a leaked cable - Boing Boing

Wikileaks and the El-Masri case: Innocent CIA torture victim more than just a leaked cable - Boing Boing: "Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, and a victim of so-called 'extraordinary rendition.' He was a car salesman in Germany, a father of six. The CIA kidnapped him by mistake (his name sounds and looks identical to that of an actual terror suspect), and sent off to receive months of torture in Afghanistan.

When the CIA realized he was innocent, he was flown to Albania and dumped on a back road without so much as an apology."

NYT: Global Review Trivia

NYT: Global Review Trivia

Cameron Winklevoss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cameron Winklevoss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In May 2005, the Winklevoss twins were evicted from an apartment in the Regatta Riverview complex in Cambridge over failure to pay rent, repeated complaints of noisy parties, and over the arrest of Cameron for smashing plates, drawers, and a door with a hammer in a 5AM fit of drunken rage at his brother. The twins retaliated by registering false domain names such as regattaboston.org and regattaboston.net, posting defamatory information, and buying ads from Google to direct traffic to these fabricated sites. The Regatta Riverview filed suit in July 2005, and the twins settled for undisclosed terms within two days."

Clive Thompson on How Tweets and Texts Nurture In-Depth Analysis | Magazine

Clive Thompson on How Tweets and Texts Nurture In-Depth Analysis | Magazine: "We’re often told that the Internet has destroyed people’s patience for long, well-thought-out arguments. After all, the ascendant discussions of our day are text messages, tweets, and status updates. The popularity of this endless fire hose of teensy utterances means we’ve lost our appetite for consuming—and creating—slower, reasoned contemplation. Right?"

Attention Disorders Can Take a Toll on Marriage - NYTimes.com

Attention Disorders Can Take a Toll on Marriage - NYTimes.com: "Talk therapy may be needed to unpack years of accumulated resentments."

Oh hell no.

Phys Ed: The Men Who Stare at Screens - NYTimes.com

Phys Ed: The Men Who Stare at Screens - NYTimes.com: "The physiological consequences are only slowly being untangled. In a number of recent animal studies, when rats or mice were not allowed to amble normally around in their cages, they rapidly developed unhealthy cellular changes in their muscles. The animals showed signs of insulin resistance and had higher levels of fatty acids in their blood. Scientists believe the changes are caused by a lack of muscular contractions. If you sit for long hours, you experience no ‘‘isometric contraction of the antigravity (postural) muscles,’’ according to an overview of the consequences of inactivity published this month in Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews. Your muscles, unused for hours at a time, change in subtle fashion, and as a result, your risk for heart disease, diabetes and other diseases can rise."

Peter Fonda makes a grisly discovery - CNN.com

Peter Fonda makes a grisly discovery - CNN.com: "A man who had committed suicide several days before was slumped over the wheel of the sedan, he said.
The man's identity has not been made public, but he was not a celebrity, he said."

Hibernia GFN : A Financial Network Customized for Your Corner of the World

Hibernia GFN : A Financial Network Customized for Your Corner of the World

Associated Press Settles Copyright Lawsuit Against Obama ‘Hope’ Artist | Threat Level | Wired.com

Associated Press Settles Copyright Lawsuit Against Obama ‘Hope’ Artist | Threat Level | Wired.com: "According to the settlement’s terms, the two sides agreed “to work together going forward with the Hope image and share the rights to make the posters and merchandise bearing the Hope image and to collaborate on a series of images that Fairey will create based on AP photographs.”"

International Defensive Pistol Association - Tactical Journal Article

International Defensive Pistol Association - Tactical Journal Article

Airsoft Shooting - [International Airsoft Practical Shooting]

Airsoft Shooting - [International Airsoft Practical Shooting]

Climate of Hate - NYTimes.com

Climate of Hate - NYTimes.com: "Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post."

Winning the lottery: Does it guarantee happiness? - CNN.com

Winning the lottery: Does it guarantee happiness? - CNN.com: "Harvard economist Guido Imbens found that lottery winners who received annual payouts averaging $20,000 (in 1986 dollars) were happier on average -- the recipients got to have the excitement of getting more money each year, rather than adjusting to one lump sum."

Facebook

Facebook: "Where were all the rhetoricians debunking the bullshit arguments being made by the radical right, funded quietly by billionaires? They were being objective, cowering under the threats of budget cuts, trying to bring quiet resolve. And got steamrollered. If I get invited into the big house, I'm gonna tell massa what I think. And I think this sucks, and I think people are condoning violence against people who have ideas different from their religious ideologies, and I will not go quietly. The incendiary rhetoric is designed to help the unhinged find a target. That's a legitimate object for rhetorical study and I will study it. How to move the mad to acts of terror with repeated words of encouragement and coded language. How to plant false evidence about 'yellow cake uranium' and browbeat the UN into acts of aggressive preemptive war. Again, legitimate rhetorical studies about the exercise of power in institutions."

The intense world theory - a unifying theory of th... [Front Hum Neurosci. 2010] - PubMed result

The intense world theory - a unifying theory of th... [Front Hum Neurosci. 2010] - PubMed result: "Abstract
Autism covers a wide spectrum of disorders for which there are many views, hypotheses and theories. Here we propose a unifying theory of autism, the Intense World Theory. The proposed neuropathology is hyper-functioning of local neural microcircuits, best characterized by hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity. Such hyper-functional microcircuits are speculated to become autonomous and memory trapped leading to the core cognitive consequences of hyper-perception, hyper-attention, hyper-memory and hyper-emotionality. The theory is centered on the neocortex and the amygdala, but could potentially be applied to all brain regions."

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): "For additional information, you may call 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327) (voice). Individuals who use TDD may call 1-800-437-0833.

Or you may contact us at the following address:

Family Policy Compliance Office
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202-8520"

Best Brightest: The Alumni - Esquire

Best Brightest: The Alumni - Esquire

The Last Undiscovered Genius - Esquire

The Last Undiscovered Genius - Esquire: "I should confess, I'm not the most objective party here. I myself am technically in my fiftieth year, and if there is a theme for this period of my life, it is of being stalked, surprised at every turn by private specters--from old lovers to ungainly former selves. Banville has nailed that feeling, and the air is still ringing from the hammer blows. Eclipse may be spare in its depiction of surface events, but it captures in its pages a felt life so dense, so swift in its paranoid momentum, that the whole idea of the novel as a window to the self seems viable again."

There Is No Greater Responsibility for Intellectuals | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

There Is No Greater Responsibility for Intellectuals | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters: "The belief that there can be no alternative to capital is ubiquitous – and no wonder, given how wonderfully convenient the idea is to the ruling ideology. That, however, does not keep it from being nonsense and a failure of vision and political will. Nothing lasts forever and what is humanly made can theoretically be unmade. Of course it could be the case that the job of changing it is too hard and capital is as far as humanity can go, in which instance we must simply accept our fate stoically and try to palliate the results. But we don’t know this and cannot know this. There is no proving it one way or the other and only inertia, fear of change or opportunism can explain the belief in so shabby an idea as that there can be no alternative to capital for organizing�society."

Is Overeating an Addiction? - NYTimes.com

Is Overeating an Addiction? - NYTimes.com: "Ten years later the survey told a different story. In 2001 and 2002, adults with a family history of alcoholism were 30 to 40 percent more likely to be obese than those with no alcoholism in the family. Women were at particularly high risk: they were almost 50 percent more likely to be obese if there was family alcoholism than if there wasn’t. (Men were 26 percent more likely to be obese.)"

Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa
'I Got All The Approval I Needed,' Content Former Pop Star Says'

02.14.01
SPILLVILLE, IA—Following the widespread acclaim and media adulation over his latest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, multimillion-selling recording artist Kanye West announced Wednesday that he had finally received the exact amount of approval he needed to attain and had therefore retired from the entertainment industry to live on a small farm in Iowa."

Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardio... [Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009] - PubMed result

Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardio... [Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009] - PubMed result: "RESULTS: There were 1832 deaths (759 of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 547 of cancer) during 204,732 person-yr of follow-up. After adjustment for potential confounders, there was a progressively higher risk of mortality across higher levels of sitting time from all causes (hazard ratios (HR): 1.00, 1.00, 1.11, 1.36, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) and CVD (HR:1.00, 1.01, 1.22, 1.47, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) but not cancer. Similar results were obtained when stratified by sex, age, smoking status, and body mass index. Age-adjusted all-cause mortality rates per 10,000 person-yr of follow-up were 87, 86, 105, 130, and 161 (P for trend <0.0001) in physically inactive participants and 75, 69, 76, 98, 105 (P for trend = 0.008) in active participants across sitting time categories.

CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate a dose-response association between sitting time and mortality from all causes and CVD, independent of leisure time physical activity. In addition to the promotion of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and a healthy weight, physicians should discourage sitting for extended periods."

Sources: Harry Reid Sleeping With Mitch McConnell's Wife In 1986 At Core Of Senate Gridlock | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Sources: Harry Reid Sleeping With Mitch McConnell's Wife In 1986 At Core Of Senate Gridlock | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "'Of course, Mitch actually didn't find out until months later,' continued the aide, who claimed that McConnell overheard Sens. Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy exchanging graphic details of the liaison in the Senate men's room. 'But when he did he totally flipped. Next thing you know, he's angrily drafting some spiteful legislation to store all of the country's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Harry's home state.'"

http://www.youneedabudget.com/help/ynab3userguide.pdf

6 Resolutions for Those With Realistic Expectations | Cracked.com

6 Resolutions for Those With Realistic Expectations | Cracked.com: "A better resolution: Spend more time on Yahoo! Answers

If you ever want to feel smart, spending time on Yahoo! Answers is, aptly, the answer. This is a community composed entirely of people with terrifying head injuries trying to help 12-year-olds with their homework, and you could do very well here indeed."

YouTube - The Joy of Stats

YouTube - The Joy of Stats

Bank Of America Sets Up WikiLeaks Defense Team

Bank Of America Sets Up WikiLeaks Defense Team: "No word yet as to when this newest material will be leaked, but according to the Computer World interview, the delay may be a matter of presentation. 'It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it.'"

Usability!

Beef Bourguignon Recipe at Epicurious.com

Beef Bourguignon Recipe at Epicurious.com: "Preheat oven to 325�F. Saut�bacon in heavy large Dutch oven over high heat until brown and crisp, about 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels. Season beef generously with salt and pepper; coat with 1/3 cup flour, using all of flour. Working in 3 batches, brown beef in same pot over high heat, about 5 minutes per batch. Transfer meat to large bowl. Add onions and carrots to same pot and saut�until light brown, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and saut�1 minute. Transfer vegetables to bowl with beef."

Beef Bourguignon Recipe at Epicurious.com

Beef Bourguignon Recipe at Epicurious.com

Bonus Card Barcode Hack

Bonus Card Barcode Hack

Walter Benjamin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Benjamin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The fact that he was buried in the consecrated section of a Roman Catholic cemetery would indicate that his death was not announced as a suicide. The other persons in his party were allowed passage the next day, and safely reached Lisbon on 30 September."

Never give up.

Walter Benjamin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Benjamin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

Build a Chaise Frame from Scratch

Build a Chaise Frame from Scratch

Panasonic DMC-FZ50 Review: 19. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review

Panasonic DMC-FZ50 Review: 19. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review: "And so what we have is a camera that stretches its sensor to almost breaking point and compensates for the lack of sensitivity in anything but the brightest conditions by using excessive noise reduction. The FZ50 is an excellent 5 or 6MP camera, but a rather less impressive 10MP camera. Is this a problem? Probably not - by the time the huge files have been shrunk down for printing or viewing on-screen they look fantastic, and the handling and features are quite simply peerless. But do not, for a minute, think that the 10 million pixels you're getting with the FZ50 bear anything but a passing resemblance to the 10 million pixel images you'll get from a good SLR once you get above ISO 100, or once light levels start to drop."