PUBLIC MARKS with search sightsandsoundsofchristmas,the-children\\\'ssing-a-long

To cut a long story short: while reconfiguring my local server to match our production settings I found out that the Vary-header was the actual culprit, and that mod_gzip (a module responsible for compressing content before sending it to the client and thus saving bandwidth) added this particular header, even though we explicitly excluded images from being compressed by this module by means of a mimetype filter (images have a mimetype that matches image/* e.g. image/gif, image/jpeg and so on).

Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding (Microsoft did the same thing with their first Zunes, which were built by Toshiba).

The Peter Principle is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter. It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity.[1] Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".

the chief problem with ending the satellite abuse in this country is that U.S. and Brazilian authorities simply waited too long to start. Thousands of users are believed to have the know-how to use the system. After a bust, the airwaves always go quiet for a while, but the hijackers always return.

This exhibition which caused a great deal of commentary was one of the first manifestations of arte povera, conceptual art and land art in Europe and as such marked an artistic breakthrough for many of the participants. Among the artists are Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Ben d'Armagnac, Joseph Beuys, Walter de Maria, Jan Dibbets, Barry Flanagan, Jannis Kounellis, Richard Long, Mario Merz, Bob Morris, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Rob Ryman, Lawrence Weiner, & Gilberto Zorio.

When you create a public group everything will go well for a couple days, at most. Without fail an onslaught of spam will start to come through your group - I've even seen it happen within the first day. It happens to every group and doesn't matter how well you advertise it (or try to hide it). After having watched Google Groups for as long as I have I can only assume that there exists no spam filtering whatsoever. Or, if there is any, it's the most grossly incompetent spam filter I've ever seen.

Le plus gros problème aussi, et que (au moins à une certaine époque), la liste de tous les inscrits avec leur adresses mails était publique... (et une boîte mail de perdue, une). Google, premier récepteur de SPAM, mais aussi premier fournisseur de chair à SPAM.

you said: “Especially given the by-now-clichéd recognition that we’ve decisively become an urban species”

It is indeed very interesting to think about urban systems design given there was a major move toward cities. That said I have the feeling that this move comes with, at least, three issues:

1. access to the “thought” urban environment,

2. the space left where 50% of the population is still living,

3. the space of this growth

There are many areas in the world where the growth of the cities is made by people without access or a limited access to the thought urban environment. Poor people living in slums or just in a space which is not part of the work of urban planner per say. In a recent exhibition about slums I went, it was very interesting to see that the organic structure of the slums was making possible for the individuals to create a rich and meaningful space, driving sometimes to less criminality than more traditional areas of the city. The slum is a forced collective creative space for survival.

The rest of the population, the 50% living in deserted areas are the forgotten of this story. It’s indeed more “fun”, interesting for researchers, sociologists to observe and think about the density in urban space (richness of interactions) more than the low level of activities in the “countryside”. Though there are equal challenges there in terms of design and space organization, access to services, etc.

Finally, is it really cities which are growing? What we call urban space often relates to the city center, but I have the feeling that the growth is happening in the in-between space (suburbs), which is again a complete disaster in terms of design, even more so in rich countries. The private space is becoming a space of non-creativity, dead areas of non activities. Someone, who wants to start a small business in between two buildings on the grass of a random suburb of a rich city, will not last for very long. Complete different dynamic than the slum where unregulated areas give the opportunity of creative solutions for surviving or living.

Facebook, Flickr, Delicious, Twitter, … nos données et nos identités ne nous appartiennent plus, . Chacun devrait pouvoir héberger soi-même ses données et ses applications et être maître de sa propre identité. Le Web tel qu’il a été imaginé.

Le plus court chemin vers la liberté passe par son propre domaine. Mais le gros frein à la décentralisation reste d’avoir un hébergement à soi puis d’installer et de mettre à jour chaque application. C’est long, c’est compliqué et les configurations sont toutes différentes.

La Distribution est la solution pour reprendre le contrôle.