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« Previous Entries Next Entries »Guitar builder & picker Wayne Hendersion interviewed on NPR
Saturday, November 27th, 2010NPR’s On Point recently broadcast an interview with guitar builder and world class picker Wayne Henderson. If you love guitar, do check it out. Among other things, Henderson plays a very nice version of Doc Watson’s Nothing to It. Indeed, Henderson has built instruments for Doc Watson and Eric Clapton, etc. Highly recommended.
Norm Walsh on XML and JSON
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010There’s been a lot of fuss lately about the widespread adoption of JSON for Web APIs, and a sense in some quarters that this represents a failure for XML. Norm Walsh has a new post summarizing the pros and cons of JSON vs. XML, and as usual, Norm has it exactly right: (somewhat rearranging Norm’s […]
DSLR hint: what’s that AF-ON button for anyway?
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010Somewhat to my surprise, the photography postings in this blog continue to be by far the most popular. So, here’s another. This time I want to share some thoughts about careful focusing, and in particular, how and why to use the AF-ON button that’s on some advanced DSLR cameras. If the camera is capable of […]
Another Gig with Rock City this Saturday
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010I’ll be playing another gig with Rock City Band this Saturday, Oct. 9, at Mickee’s on the Water on Middlesex Turnpike in Billerica, MA (map). We’re playing from 9 to 12:30, and if you live near Bedford, Lexington, Arlington, etc., it’s only about 20 minutes away. Rock City plays covers of rock and pop favorites […]
Doug Crockford: Go slow on HTML5 until security concerns are addressed
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010There’s a very interesting article in the Web Security Journal quoting Javascript expert Doug Crockford on HTML 5 and security. Doug’s point is basically: we had bad security problems with HTML and the Web before HTML5 was proposed. What should have been done was to focus on getting a good, clean, secure architecture for core […]
James Gosling Interview
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010There’s a transcript of a terrific interview with James Gosling available at http://www.basementcoders.com/transcripts/James_Gosling_Transcript.html. Lots of irreverent, insightful comments on Java, Oracle, open source, Google and the Android suit, etc.
Type too fast, melt your processor?
Saturday, September 25th, 2010Not really, of course, but there’s a nice ASPLOS XV paper from Mesa-MartÃnez et. al. titled Characterizing Processor Thermal Behavior which explains, among other things: “…each [Emacs] keystroke generates around 1â—¦ C thermal spike…” Who knew? In their tests, the startup phase of Emacs raised the processor temperature in the area being measured (simulated) by […]
Bass gig: Robert Cedrone in Lexington on Sept. 25th
Thursday, September 16th, 2010Robert Cedrone and I will be appearing again this Saturday at the Starbucks (map) that’s on the north side of Lexington, MA (not the one in the center of town!) Robert and I go on at about 7:20 PM and we’ll play until a bit after 8 PM, but there are also a couple of […]
Bass gig: Rockin’ for KPM on Sept. 25th
Thursday, September 16th, 2010On Sept. 25th, I’ll be playing bass for Rock City Band at the Rockin’ for KPM benefit at Back to the Boathouse in Dracut, Mass. Rockin’ for KPM is held each year to celebrate and raise money for the surviving two of three triplets, Kyle, Patrick and Matthew Wilkins, all of whom were born with […]
Blog upgraded to WordPress 3.0.1
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010This evening I updated Arcane Domain to WordPress 3.0.1. If you see anything that’s not working right, please comment here, or email the Web master (instructions on the About this Blog page). Heartfelt thanks to everyone in the WordPress community who worked so hard on the upgrade!
Radioactive decay affected by solar activity?
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010Seems hard to believe but Purdue and Stanford researchers report that the rates of decay of several radioactive elements drop somewhat during periods of solar flare. Amazing. Thanks to @bramcohen and @daveo for passing this on. UPDATE: Discover Magazine reports that other scientists are skeptical, with some supporting reasons, but in the same article the […]
Interesting History of Java & thoughts on the Oracle/Google Android lawsuit
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010Charles Nutter has an interesting post titled My Thoughts on Oracle v. Google. It gives a quite detailed history of the Java platform, and some thoughts on the recent lawsuit by Oracle against Google.  I’m not in a position to comment on the accuracy of all the details, but I found it to be thought-provoking, […]
Excellent “What’s new in HTML5?” cheat sheet
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010From Mark Pilgrim by way of DaveO:  HTML5 Peeks, Pokes and Pointers, an excellent quick guide to new syntax and Javascript APIs in HTML5. See also Mark’s Dive into HTML5.
Gig alert: Payson Park Music Festival this Wed. in Belmont, MA
Monday, July 12th, 2010My friends in Rock City Band will be appearing this Wed., weather permitting, at Payson Park in Belmont, MA for the Payson Park Music Festival. As far as I know, this is a local neighborhood summer music event, at a small park in Belmont. I’ll be coming by to do sound, and I’ll likely trade […]
Worldwide celebration of Dan Connolly’s contributions to the Web
Monday, July 12th, 2010Few people have contributed more to the development of the World Wide Web than my good friend Dan Connolly. After many years at the W3C, Dan is moving on the University of Kansas Medical Center. To thank Dan for his unique contributions to the Web, Tim Berners-Lee has organized a worldwide celebration for this Wed, […]
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