Remember when hackers were people who were able to circumvent the safeguards of a system to get it to do what they wanted and were sometimes played by the adolescent Angelina Jolie?

The Boston Globe today on the front page promises to show us how to “hack” our iPods and other devices. The article, by Hiawatha Bray, continues the trend of weakening the term “hack” so that it means tips ‘n’ tricks. For example, the article suggests two ways to “hack” Windows XP: Use the text-to-speech capability built into the system and manage the programs that automatically start up by using the built-in Windows’ utility designed for the job.

Q: What will we call the hacking that subverts and circumvents (for good or for evil)? Extreme hacking? X hacking? Xacking?

A: If Congress has it’s way: Terrorism. [Tags: hacking language hiawatha_bray]

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Having asked for your help trying to figure out what the four of us should do in NYC this past weekend, here are some highlights of what we ended up doing. Keep in mind our multiple restrictions: two shabbos-keepers, four vegetarians, one crutch-assisted walker, one whiny adult…

On Saturday we got up late and went to the Museum of Modern Art’s Pixar exhibit. (We’d bought tickets ahead of time online, but there wasn’t much of a line.) Somewhat disappointing. The wide-wide-wide screen movie they put together for the exhibit was mesmerizing and makes you wish Pixar gave itself permission to do a non-commercial film. The rest consisted mainly of items to please fans, although some of the items by themselves were beautiful, clever, or intricate in their design. Surprisingly little on the how-to, which was ok with me, Still, I was hoping to see more of Pixar-as-art…whatever that means.

We also spent some time on the fifth floor of the MoMA, which is hard to beat. (By the way, the MoMA is poorly designed for wheelchair access, at least in the special exhibit space.)

We went up the Empire State Building. Ten on a Sunday morning turns out to be a good time to go: No lines. The building is still very tall. (I plan on posting some photos soon to prove that point.)

The Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Natural History was good but a little disappointing, focusing more on eye candy than on telling us how he got to his idea. It covered big influences, such as the revolution in geology, Darwin’s observation of artificial selection, and Malthus’ writings, way too briefly. It was more about Darwin as an isolated genius.

We also went to the planetarium and saw a by-the-numbers show that starts with our night sky (spectacular) and then zooms out to the farthest edges, narrated by Tom Hanks presumably because Morgan Freeman was unavailable. It sounds better than it is: Our 15-year-old son came out of it feeling that he hadn’t learned much. Me too. The ramp around the planetarium provides a walkable timeline of the universe that’s pretty interesting, and the floor around it a gives helpful comparisons … “If the planetarium were Jupiter, this bubble would be the size of Google’s market cap”… that type of thing.

We had a great dinner at the Udipi Palace, one of five Indian kosher vegetarian restaurants within a block. How weird is that? The food was delicious and the waiter (owner?) was very helpful. And, for NY, pretty cheap.

We also spent a lot of time wandering around. The weather was eerily good for January, and the wandering was fantastic.

NOTES:

1. The plug converters (US to Europe) range in price from $20 to $4 in the frequent electronics rip-off stores in NY.

2. Random overheard comment made by a middle-aged man to his companions as they entered the observatory of the Empire State Building: “This building is going to be really tall by the time I get done with it.” Say wha’??

[Tags: nyc the big apple gotham]

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We’re seeing off our daughter who is going to study in Florence (yes, Italy, not Florence, NJ, although I’m sure the latter is totally lovely and rich in Renaissance art) for a semester. So the four of us, aged 15 to 55, are going to spend a couple of days in NYC, since the plane departs from JFK. We’re staying near Times Square. Here’s the challenge:

A couple of us are Shabbos-keeping Jews and thus can’t go in motorized vehicles or pay money from Friday evening through Saturday at around 7pm. (There’s a great worldwide database of kosher restaurants at Shamash.org, by the way.)

But wait, there’s more: One of us is on crutches after knee surgery and another of us is having a back problem and can’t walk for much more than hour without having to do some serious sitting. The back-problem person is also generally whiny, is never satisfied, and will probably spend most of the day looking for good wifi signals.

We already have tickets for the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday.

Other suggestions? [Tags: nyc]

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All I know about Krugle.com is that it’s launching at Demo, it has something to do with “vertical search” and code, and it’s had the incredibly bad judgment to hire RB to blog for it. Also, my friend Steve Larsen seems to be involved. (These are all actually very good signs.) [Tags: rageboy steve larsen krugle]

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I remain surprised that I can’t find a program that lets me do the most basic of research tasks: Take notes. on books…you know, the paper-based web sites we used to read.

Oh, sure, there are word processors and various outliners, some of which are terrific. But note-taking has some specific requirements. So, here’s my RFP for a program I’m calling Notetella for purposes of discussion. (“RFP” is short for “Easy for you to say.”)

It’s got a stand-alone client and a Web portion.

I know there are pieces of this around. There are some great outliners. There are Web-based systems such as Cluebacca and Clipmarks (which got a nice mention in the WSJ today), but they’re also not aimed exactly at my particular needs…and I think my needs in this case are fairly common among people reading books for research.

Sure wish I were a software developer. A really good one. With lots of free time. And an Hawaiian beach house. (Why not?)

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Jeez, a lot of popular TV shows are about super-competent teams: the 107 different flavors of CSI, House, The West Wing… In each of those shows, everyone knows everything. Oh, they may be puzzled for an hour minus the commercials, but the puzzles are just an opportunity to flex their competency.

Is this a response to the world’s new (or newly-exposed) complexity? When the enemy is an identifiable superpower, bravery and strength saves us. When the threat is that our environment is fragmenting and the pieces are raining down on us, the ability to put the pieces together saves us.

When we are facing an enemy with massive power, it’s good to believe that a single individual can make the difference, especially if he’s played by Sylvester Stallone. When the enemy is the pulling apart of everything we know, it’s good to believe that we can form teams that cannot be pulled apart. [Tags: entertainment]

24 is an interesting hybrid: Competent team, heroic individual.

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Chris Locke writes about “Indigo Children,” a meme reported on by the New York Times. The Indigo idea sounds like it pushes a whole bunch of buttons all at once — New Age, angels, the paranormal, child-worship, ADD. If it had some anti-child-porn hysteria about it, it’d be perfect. As one of the people in the NYT article says, this is basically the same social world view as Harry Potter’s muggles v. wizards set up.

Anyway, it is a great example of what Chris has been talking about over at Mystic Bourgeoisie, America’s Toughest to Spell weblog. [Tags: chrisLocke rageboy indigoChildren]

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Susan Mernit has moved to Yahoo Personal, which is excellent news for Yahoo. And since she’s now blogging about the personals space, it’s good news for all of us, too.

And Louis Rosenfeld, doyen of Information Architecture (damn! I just looked up doyen and it means “senior member,” which Lou chronologically is not, but I’ve always wanted to use the word so I’m going to even though it’s wrong — yeah I’m a little cranky this morning) has launched Rosenfeld Media, “a publishing house dedicated to developing short, practical, and useful books on user experience design.” Lou is, unsurprisingly, embracing the conversational properties of the Internet and trying to break through the Cardboard Wall. (I just made up Cardboard Wall. It means that which separates authors from readers. On the other hand, I was wrong about what “doyen” means, too.) (Disclosure: I am on Rosenfeld Media’s board of advisors. I accepted because I like what Lou is doing.) [Tags: susanMernit yahoo personals louisRosenfeld rosenfeldMedia ux doyen]

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The Boston Globe obituary of Stanely Tupper of Maine recounts his years in Congress as one of the most principled of liberal Republicans, his vote for the Voting Rghts Act and the Medicare Act, his refusal to support Barry Goldwater or the first Bush president, his law practice, his co-authorship of a book on US-Canada relations, his years as a lawyer and his continued involvement in politics. I hadn’t known of him before reading the obituary, but I came away impressed.

But what struck me most is this quote from his wife towards the end of the article:

But the most fun he ever had on the job, Mr. Tupper told his wife, was when he was a border patrolman in Texas and Maine. ”He was 21, they gave him a Stetson, a horse, and a badge, and no other job ever quite measured up to that,” his widow said.

A Stetson, a horse, and a badge: An American peak experience.

[Tags: america stanleyTupper obituaries]

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Ethan has a photo essay on how to build a ger, a Mongolian tent-like thingie.

Very interesting, and it makes me appreciate the indoors ever more so. [Tags: EthanZuckerman dyi mongolia]

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