botwerks

i really don’t know how i would use this implementation of vim on the ipad given that it doesn’t appear to have dropbox support. but i really like the fact that it exists and it’s getting downloaded instantly. i’m more of an emacs guy myself, but i’m perfectly conversant in and happy to get stuff done in vim. particularly given the sad state of editors on the ipad. i do fear however that the inability to ship vim with an external binary will limit its ability to support cloud filesystems. sigh …

kudos to the applidium guys for simply doing this and putting it out there. well done.

#1 with a bullet – mandate facebook as the authentication mechanism.

seriously, i’m looking at you spotify. i would like to like you. the reviews are pretty consistently positive, the pricing seems reasonable and the music selection appears to be pretty good.

but i go to sign up and you require that i link to a facebook account. no. i would like to moderate my interaction with that petri dish, thankyouverymuch. that’s a deal breaker for me. you know, i’d even be willing to pay a bit more to not have to use facebook auth. howsabout hooking a brother up there?

i had this in my instapaper favorites from my reading queue a few months back. with the recent santorumism in the news as of late, this popped back into my noggin.

• Rightist extremism: My right to say abhorrent things | The Economist.

the real nuggets here are in the linked research and the robin hanson posting which is referenced in the body of the article. both are worth the read. in short, hanson surmises that you have a lot fewer opinions than you think and that a lot of shit is just made up on the fly.

personally, this reinforces the notion that you have to work really hard to avoid confirmation bias. the knee jerk reaction being to simply ack what you’re surrounded with or you’re brought up with or what you surmise is the right solution. subjecting information to scrutiny, and your opinions as well, is hard. further, it’s consistently uncomfortable.

perhaps a better (but psychologically more difficult) response is to just say, “i don’t know.”

i wonder how much better off we’d be if we just copped to our individual and collective ignorance and thought really hard about stuff before opening our word holes.

lately, i’ve been a sucker for these bag emptying, pocket dumping spreads. to me, it’s interesting to see the stuff that folks carry with them on a daily basis.

to that end, here’s my pocket dump. i do a lot of traveling and i dropped the pocket knife a long time ago. it became too much of a hassle to remember to drop the pocket knife / multi-tool from one day to the next. this is as minimalist and readily replaceable a setup as i can imagine, that’s been sanded down over the years.

top (L to R clockwise)

• iPhone 4S – incase snap case (the soft-touch coating is slightly tacky but doesn’t prevent it from just sliding into my pocket). did i mention how mindblowing siri is when you integrate it into your workflow?
• tumi money clip – i’ve had this thing for like 8 years and it just keeps going and going and going … it’s worn a hole in more than a few pairs of jeans.
• moleskine cahier 12 month weekly planner – i just shifted over to the planner version this month. i previously used the gridded moleskine cahier notebook. all receive the clear duct tape reinforcement on the spine and back pocket. this is particularly key since moleskine simply glues the back pocket flap in place. one would think that a fold over and a single seam along the bottom would be easier than gluing 2 seams. shrug
• sakura micron 05 – i’ve vacillated between these, G2s and sharpie pens over the years. they’re cheap, they have a great line and the pocket clip is incredibly solid.
• gerber shard – you need something to help you open boxes, tighten loose screws, open beer bottles in the lab, etc. i’ve been thinking one of those peter atwood creations might fit the bill nicely too. it’s interesting that gerber markets this as airline safe. i’ve never received any flack from the TSA on it, but if i have to toss it i’m only out $6.
• timex weekender w/zulu strap. this has to be the best deal in simple, functional watches going. i immediately replaced the strap that it comes with, with a zulu strap. up til a month ago i carried an O&W submariner style with a zulu strap. the ETA movement in that started to gain upwards of 3 minutes / day. getting it serviced didn’t seem like a particularly worthwhile expenditure, but i’m pretty attached to the watch. i might end up doing that anyway.