Embedded searches in Google

I may be late to the party on this one, but I’ve just noticed it and I think it’s cool.

If you search Google for certain sites which are themselves searchable, you’ll get an inline search box right in your Google results.

So, searching for “wikipedia” gives you:

It works for Urban Dictionary too..

Using the search box doesn’t take you directly to the results, but to another Google page with an appropriate “site:” keyword added, so Google still get their advert imprints.

Nice.

How to get the dimensions of the dock with AppleScript in Mac OS X Leopard

This code snippet might be useful for anyone wanting to write a script to resize your application windows automatically to fit on your display.

Note: I’m fairly sure you need to enable UI scripting for this to work.

1. tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dock"
set dock_dimensions to size in list 1
set dock_width to item 1 of dock_dimensions
set dock_height to item 2 of dock_dimensions
end tell

Twitter and responsibility

Ariel Waldman claims she was harassed on Twitter, and Twitter refused to ban the user responsible. This has caused a huge outcry across the web, with many people accusing Twitter of negligence and cruelty.

This is an example of something I have often found to be a problem on many social websites (for example, online forums). The owners and operators of the website should not be responsible, legally or morally, for the conduct of its users. A social platform provides a canvas upon which people can express themselves. Asking the company behind the social platform to moderate the user-generated content is like holding a notepad manufacturer responsible for offensive messages written on its paper, or a brick manufacturer responsible for unpleasant graffiti daubed upon walls constructed from its products.

Perhaps Twitter could (and should) have been more clear in their TOS, but in the end the responsibility for moderating the content of a social network should lie with the participants in that network, not the creators. Once censorship begins to creep in, all is lost. It’s impossible to draw lines between acceptable and unacceptable content, and it’s impossible to please everyone.

As Twitter employee Jason Goldman states on the support thread for this issue:

What we believe is that Twitter is a recipient-driven utility; you choose what content appears in your timeline. We offer tools like block so that users can distance themselves from others with whom they have disputes or disagreements.

So if someone offends you on Twitter, you know where to click:

Saint IGNUcius

Richard Stallman, Manchester, 1st May 2008.

LOLrouter

This lovely error message was presented by my nice new Linksys WRT54GL router when I tried to replace the firmware with Tomato (fortunately, it was just a mistake on my part and everything went smoothly in the end).

PS.. the router is fantastic, especially with the replacement firmware. Realtime bandwidth monitoring, QOS.. rather better than my crappy old Belkin!

PyTwitFace: Twitter/Facebook mashup with Python

I’ve recently started using Twitter, but its “What are you doing?” functionality does have some overlap with the Facebook “Status“. It’d be nice to join these two things together, so that an update in one place would automatically update the other.

Continue reading PyTwitFace: Twitter/Facebook mashup with Python…

Mobile Cellular Automata

As a first project with Mobile Processing, I’ve written a really simple implementation of Conway’s Game of Life for Java (J2ME) mobile phones.

This is an extremely scruffy alpha version hacked together in a couple of hours, but it works. The initial configuration is a Gosper Glider Gun. You can pause the simulation using the softkey, and then use the arrow keys on the keypad to move a “cursor” around. Click the main select button to flip the cell under the cursor from on to off and back again. Then press the Resume softkey to start running again.

Download the .jar file here.
(either click this link with your phone’s browser or download on your computer and send to your phone).

Thanks to Nigel Crawley (who I met at BarCampBrighton2) for the inspiration!

BarCampBrighton

I have just managed to snag a last-minute ticket to BarCampBrighton2, which is taking place on the University of Sussex campus this weekend. There’s going to be an Arduino workshop, which seems to be based to some extent on my Gmail Notifier (Linden Lab are supplying some of those cool glowing cubes), so I’ll probably be helping out with that. I’m also thinking about doing a talk about Artificial Life. Should be a fun weekend anyway!

LOLflickr

How to make a Physical Gmail Notifier

Or: how to turn this..

into this..

I was given a lovely glowing cube by the generous people at Linden Labs as a freebie at a job fair yesterday, and I decided that it was far too attractive to simply sit there on a shelf, pulsating forlornly until its batteries went flat. How about making it useful, while maintaining its visual appeal?

Continue reading How to make a Physical Gmail Notifier…