Michael Shields blog

Lost at sea - (Found July 15, 2008 )

Several of you have forwarded me Wireds coverage of a salvage operation on a sinking cargo ship. It is a good story, yes, but not such a good article; editing has never been Wireds strength. Within a few pages, the project is described as a sort of orchestrated water ballet and an unusual, waterlogged symphony, and the ship is compared to a stunned boxer after a heavy blow who has been trying to figure out whether it can do this, whether it can really return to the land of the living. If you.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2008/05/04#sinking

Unicode, the Universal Character Set - (Found July 15, 2008 )

One user group has been overlooked during the development of the UCS&8230 ISOIEC JTC1SC2WG2 N258A is a proposal to address this.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/04/01#n258a

Lay on ground, light fuse, retire quickly - (Found July 15, 2008 )

http:www.crackerpacks.com: The archive of cracker packs. thanks to typographi.ca
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/29#crackerpacks

Who&8217;s the cultural imperialist now - (Found July 15, 2008 )

A letter to The Economist: SIR According to you, a French official in the European Commission says that the English language is being killed by all these foreigners speaking it so badly (Charlemagne, March 1st). French has already done its worst to the English language. Two centuries of Norman rule in England after 1066 significantly changed the Germanic grammar and dumped a large amount of French vocabulary into the language. The curious union of French and...
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/20#english

Going twice&8230; - (Found July 15, 2008 )

I've been selling a lot of things on eBay lately. The venerable Lucent WaveLAN Gold PCMCIA cards (aka Agere or Proxim Orinoco) have been going for around $55 plus shipping. It's still as good a card as it was when I bought them in 1999. But it's interesting that people pay this much for a used card when you can get a a new one from buy.com for $59.69 delivered. Ultimately, though, by creating a more stronger market for everything used, eBay is the best hope we have of ending the culture of..
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/15#ebay

More database tampering - (Found July 15, 2008 )

Creating massive duplicates of a frequent-shopper card. Email me now to sign up! Use subject line: Clone Army.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/14#safeway

Perils of automated ad buying - (Found July 15, 2008 )

http:www.google.comsearchq=ass Ass: Find the best deal! Compare prices, Reviews and More - CNET Shopper.com
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/13#ass

Stockstock - (Found July 15, 2008 )

A film festival of editing. They send you thirty minutes of footage selected from the public-domain Prelinger Archives. You make a three-minute short film, using only that footage.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/03/04#stockstock

Round pegs were much easier - (Found July 15, 2008 )

The Reuleaux triangle is a geometric construction which you may recognize from rotary engines and Spirographs. It can be used to make drill bits that drill square holes.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/02/28#reuleaux

Wrath - (Found July 15, 2008 )

In 410, Rome was sacked by Goths. At almost the same time, it was nearly struck by a metallic asteroid that impacted with a force of 200 kton. Missed, as they say, by that much. Some more details from the Guardian. They cite Duncan Steel, who I trust to have his facts straight.
http://www.msrl.com/blog/2003/02/27#rome