By popular request (big number so it won’t run out):

NetNewWire now has 5061 unread items and counting. And it’s randomly dropping read items despite my protestations (preferences set to not delete). non-suck RSS reader is definitely moving up the priority list.

• Matt Webb comments on ‘Normalization is for sisses’ – unnormalized data is typially for masochists, but that’s b/c data management tools (read: rdbms) are too brittle. Now if we had some efficient way to make those structures more late-binding/morphable…
• Firefox is on the move – must run stats on campus soon. My Mozilla stats have been going down on my blog, but recently lots more ‘normal’ people have been dropping by
• The Descent of the American Empire
  

  The American military is without equal. That sounds good, until you realize that a massive military without an equal means you have an irrelevant army. America is building a missile defense system after being attacked with domestic civilian aircraft. America sees the world in need of policing, while the world sees America as something from which you should protect yourself.

  Insightful, although (and this makes his statements more telling before), as a nit, bush has been pushing his Faith-Based Missile Defense program since he came into office, before 9/11

All my new machines are now in. Here’s what I got, from 3 ISPs:

• 3.0TB @ 100Mbps
• 1.2TB @ 100Mbps
• 1.8TB @ 100Mbps
• 1.0TB @ 100Mbps

Another 5-6 machines from volunteers, and then if need be, I can get more machines (possibly a full 100Mbps, and or new machines provisioned almost instantaneously @ EV1)

BTW, while we’re talking about massive bandwidth, Marc Percel has the idea. He’s distributing Fahrenheit 9/11 far and wide. ($2K for an unmetered 100Mbps? Not as cost effective when you do the math I think. 5x20Mbps from Servermatrix for $1K or you could get 15-20 1-2TB boxes for the month)

Update: not much sleep, but on track for today or tomorrow

Linkdump:

• BXE 0.9.6 released – new version of the Bitflux Editor (amazing editor if all you need to support is Moz)
• MT vs. WP vs. TxP: Entry Page Design – Scrivs says MT is best of the bunch, but really, the bar isn’t set that high
• Download Fahrenheit 9/11 Here – Marc Perkel has the idea
• W3C: Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests
• 35th Anniversary of the Internet – Party Oct 29 @ UCLA
• TestXSLT 3.0 – great quick XSLT previewer
• Web-log Continuum Sparklines – visualizing posting times

Wow, thanks everyone for their generous contributions. Dropcash success! (thanks to Paul for pushing it over the top) I’ve already provisioned 3 additional 100Mbps dedicated servers and will be putting them to good use. All contributors will be getting an early sneak peak at the next project being cooked up at the labs a bit later this week.

• Towards tag-based bookmark management in web browsers? – Whoa, how’d I miss this?
• Living Design Case Study – Flickr.com – Ludicorp’s genius came up in conversation at dinner. Peterme points out the latest example

Last night, Robbie gets animated at SPARC‘s ElectThis! artists discussion.

I went to support a friend and listen to some good discussion, but also ended up giving some props to The Internets when the talk turned to distribution.

In a nutshell:

What is the definition of politics? Everything.

• FlashPoint Pen Drive – has a tiny battery and female USB plug to allow computerless copying. Genius!
• Discussion on Heather’s bizarre complaint – sorry, the reason the web looks the same is because most of the millions of people who are now blogging, *gasp*, aren’t designers! (also people, stop beating up on Anil. At least for anything besides his taste in music [or lack thereof])
• UF SCIENTIST: “BRAIN” IN A DISH ACTS AS AUTOPILOT, LIVING COMPUTER – this is just, well, sorta scary
• random($code) – pre-launch, but this is where I’m releasing some code, testing out Drupal
• Gizmodo: Blu-Ray Has Already Won – looks like a solid case

Thanks to all who contributed and keep it coming (if you want, I’ll eat the difference either way, but it’s certainly appreciated). I’m going to be picking up a couple servers that I hope to have up and running by Monday. I’m no whiz w/ the driving out and registering voters thing, but I have some ideas cooking that hopefully won’t disappoint.