And you are here why?

source unknown :-(

There are two types of people in this world - those for whom ‘Summer’ is a noun, and those for whom it is a verb.

Curt Monash talks to James Phillips at Couchbase about their future, and comes away, well pretty much where he was before. There is nothing drastically new in the article as far as Couch (Base/DB) is concerned, there is plenty of information available through The Googles about whats going on there as far as futures, players, etc. are concerned. The part I found fascinating was at the very end, when he says MongoDB is the big competition. He believes Couchbase has an excellent win rate vs. 10gen for actual paying accounts. DataStax/Cassandra wins over Couchbase only when multi-data-center capability is important. Naturally, multi-data-center capability is planned for Couchbase. (Indeed, that’s one of the benefits of swapping in CouchDB at the back end.) Redis has “dropped off the radar”, presumably because there’s no particular persistence strategy for it. Riak doesn’t show up much. Which is interesting, to say the least. The MongoDB is the big competition part is absolute...

An animation by Pakiavelli - complete with Enya-esque music - answers the question...

If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God we ha' paid in full Classic lines from Rudyard Kipling's The Song of the Dead   Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges -- They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses, Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sear river-courses. Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle hollows, Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof -- in the brake of the buffalo-wallows. Song of the Dead in the West -- in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them, Where the wolverene tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them; Hear now the Song of the Dead! I We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town; We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, Till t...

From the Style  section of the New York Times , an article about the new HanleyMellon  clothing line (which, lets just say, is not for the proletariat). So, who exactly are Hanley  and Mellon ? They are not exactly starting from the gutter. Mr. Mellon, who comes from the Mellon and Drexel families of Bank of New York Mellon and Drexel Burnham Lambert, grew up in New York City, Palm Beach and Northeast Harbor, Me., and went to the University of Pennsylvania. The walls of the pad he and Ms. Hanley Mellon share at the Pierre are lined with paintings by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Peter Beard and, Mr. Mellon said, “Taylor Swift.”  And the clothing line?  It consists, apparently, of a very limited selection - 10 items - "staples of the jet-set lifestyle", each "inspired by a different place in the world". So far so priveleged, but the pièce-de-résistance  is “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for i...

via C-A-D

This has been annoying me for   years  now. I mean, seriously, WTF is " T25 "? via SMBC

via Floating Sheep ...a new publication by members of the Floatingsheep team. Just released is "Offline Brews and Online Views: Exploring the Geography of Beer on Twitter",  a new book chapter written by Matt and Ate that analyzes the geographies of beer-related tweeting activity  [and]  shows that geotagged tweets about beer, and other alcoholic beverages for that matter, are reflective of people's offline consumption preferences. Using a database of one million geotagged tweets from June 2012 to May 2013 containing the keywords "wine", "beer" or the names of a range of light or cheaper beers within the continental US, some clear regional variations in alcoholic beverage preference are detected. [...] While Bud Light is more popular in the eastern and southeastern US, Coors Light tends to dominate the west coast, with Miller Lite and Busch Light being preferred in the midwest and Great Plains. The dominance of these brands in virtual space is no...

via You Are Here ,  the location of every coffee shop in San Francisco, and its Walkingshed Independent coffee shops are positive markers of a living community. They function as social spaces, urban offices, and places to see the world go by. Communities are often formed by having spaces in which people can have casual interactions, and local and walkable coffee shops create those conditions, not only in the coffee shop themselves, but on the sidewalks around them. We use maps to know where these coffee shop communities exist and where, by placing new coffee shops, we can help form them. Visualizations - use the power for good, never for evil :-)

via XKCD

In the wake of the Mozilla-Eich craziness , it is really worth re-examining what exactly we mean by "Free Speech". I know, its there in the constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Crystal clear, innit? To absolutely no-ones surprise, this has meant a lot  of things over the years, including  You can say  anything you want, and we can throw your ass in jail for saying it  (i.e., no, "thought crimes". This surprising viewpoint held for till 1801) You can go to jail for saying that you oppose a war - even on the campaign trail   (yup. in 1919 no less! Debs. vs. U.S. ) " Free Speech "  doesn't apply to the states!  (till 1940! Cantwell vs. U.S . ) And the list goes on. For a complete history, read...

I know its supposed to be funny, but it strikes way too close to home, and is - by far - the most cringe-inducing thing I've seen in a long  time...