The Virginian Pilot’s verified commenting system.
Three months ago, the Virginian Pilot started an interesting experiment. In the face of the same crappy reader comments that virtually every media outlet gets on their site, they decided to do something different. They started requiring proof of identity in order to comment on the editorial section of the site—verified in the form of [...]
Links for February 28th
The New Yorker: Worrying About ReaganJane Meyer chronicles concerns about President Reagan's mental health that began in in his second term. Incoming chief of staff Howard Baker started a quiet internal investigation, talking to top White House aides. Quoting the head of that investigation: "They told stories about how inattentive and inept the president was. [...]
Links for February 24th
MySQLTunerThis is a clever little program that examines your MySQL databases and makes recommendations about how to improve your database's performance in light of the reality of your data. I'll be spending some quality time with this on a few of my websites. Wikipedia: Enclaved countriesThere are only three countries that are completely surrounded by [...]
Links for February 22nd
Washington Post: Hampton Roads lawyer David McCormick to seek 2012 GOP Senate nominationSome random guy is running for the Republican nomination for Webb's seat. In his announcement, he compared himself to George Washington. New York Times: The Threatening Scent of Fertile WomenMen in stable, long-term relationships rank women as less attractive when they're ovulating than [...]
Links for February 21st
New York Times: As Republicans See a Mandate on Budget Cuts, Others See Risk"Public surveys suggest that most voters do not share the Republicans’ fervor for the deep cuts adopted by the House, or for drastically slashing the power of public-sector unions." I imagine that the electoral see-saw is going to continue in 2012, with [...]
Links for February 16th
Washington Post: Ex-rep. Perriello might run for U.S. Senate in Va. if Kaine doesn’tGood. Kaine is my first choice, for practical reasons, but Perriello is my second. Library of Congress: Chronicling AmericaThe LoC has the complete contents of long-ago newspapers from all around Virginia, mostly from around the turn of the last century. The Richmond [...]
Links for February 16th
New York Times: 30 Steps To Better GovernmentAmidst all of the flowery rhetoric about making government more efficient, this op-ed by Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro seems wonderfully concrete. He describes some of the GAO's successes thus far, and where they see improvement is necessary. Auditing oil and gas leases seems promising. Right now, we [...]
links for 2011-02-15
The Guardian: Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war Remember "Curveball," the (code-named) guy who was the sole source of US intelligence that Iraq had WMDs? He admits now that he made all of that up, providing no evidence whatsoever, because he didn't like Saddam Hussein. He says that the government figured out [...]
links for 2011-02-14
Salon: Journalists angry over the commission of journalism Good for Anderson Cooper for calling a lie a lie. Generally media outlets are reluctant to be frank about this sort of thing, which lets politicians get away with lying, and pretty routinely. (tags: journalism media ethics) Paul Krugman: Eat The Future The economist points out that [...]
links for 2011-02-11
New York Times: Nantucket Whaler Lost in Pacific Tells Its Tale at Last I had no idea that Moby Dick was based on the true story of The Essex, a whaler sunk by a sperm whale. The captain survived—barely—and lived to captain another whaler, which also sank. That ship has been found off of Hawaii. [...]
How I OCR hundreds of hours of video.
One of the features that I’m most pleased with on Richmond Sunlight is the integration of video. It’s one thing to put up chunks of video for people to paw through, but it’s another to automatically index it so that people can be directed to just the parts of the video that interest them. That [...]
links for 2011-02-10
New York Times: Speck by Speck, Dust Piles Up Does it seem like you've been dusting more throughout the last…er…century? The amount of dust suspended in the air has doubled in the past hundred years, a result of desertification in North Africa. The particles are blown clear across the Atlantic and deposited under our beds. [...]
Good for Senator Webb.
You know what Congressman Tom Perriello should have done differently? Nothing. That’s basically how I feel about today’s news that Senator Jim Webb isn’t going to seek a second term. If Perriello had changed his votes or his message to appease the right, he wouldn’t be Perriello—he’d just be another pandering politician. Webb hated running [...]
links for 2011-02-09
ESPN: William "The Refrigerator" Perry acknowledges alcoholism, insists he's not putting himself in jeopardy This profile of Perry is depressing, yes, but the description of his earliest days in the NFL is a lot of fun. His style of play was revolutionary, although it did usher in the era of morbidly obese players, most of [...]
links for 2011-02-08
YouTube: Jorge and Alex Narvaez Cover "Home" If you, like me, are not among the 6.5M people who missed this father-daughter cover of the Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros song when it made the rounds last month, now is your chance to get a decent dose of cuteness. (tags: music cute) Baseball Prospectus: Ferris [...]
links for 2011-02-02
Wall Street Journal: Scott Adams on How to Tax the Rich I love rethinking the fundamentals, and Adams does a great job of doing that here. His proposals will probably infuriate some people, but he's started a valuable discussion, showing an admirable willingness to eschew the status quo. As my refrigerator magnet reminds me, "without [...]
links for 2011-02-01
The New Yorker: Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients I love Atul Gawande's writing about healthcare, and this is no exception. This is a really exciting read about a doctor-cum-stats-geek who identified the 1% of Camden, New Jersey residents who account for 30% of its medical costs. Then he started treating them, voluntarily, [...]
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Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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