links for 2009-06-16

"Jaxer is a strange new hybrid application coming from the folks at Aptana (the makers of the quite-excellent web IDE). Literally, they took the Mozilla platform (which powers Firefox, Camino, etc.) and built a stateful platform on top of it. You can imagine it as a browser that's able to render pages, modify them dynamically with JavaScript and the DOM, and even use JavaScript libraries with great ease – with the exception that it's living as a standalone server-side process, un-associated with the typical browsing experience." The idea of JavaScript on the server side is cool, but to me uninteresting.

"Instead, let's lay out some principles for a strong public health insurance option. If any proposal meets these principles, no matter what you call it, it is worthy of support." What are the guidelines for those looking at the public health insurance option looking at?

"Native Client, called NaCl for short, is a mechanism to run software downloaded over the Web directly on x86 processors such as Intel's Core line." The next step in web apps taking over desktop apps.

"In the future, Amazon.com’s Kindle e-book reader will display more book formats beyond its own. And you should also expect to see Kindle books on a lot more devices." Woot.

"The US military has abruptly ended an informal arrangement that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites. The change is a blow to the astronomers and planetary scientists who used the information to track space rocks, especially those that burn up over the oceans or in other remote locations. " This seems really weird, what up with that Air Force?

"Whatever it's called — public option or chopped liver — it has to be able to squeeze Pharma, Insurance, and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. And the more likely it is to squeeze them, the more they'll fight it. And the greater the opposition from Republicans, and from Dems who either believe any bill has to have some Republican support or who have sold themselves out to the medical biggies."

"The Top Gear boys are deeply offended by a fan letter claiming that they don't review cars properly anymore. To compensate, Jeremy Clarkson takes the new Ford Fiesta for an extraordinary road test including a car chase inside a shopping centre, and a Royal Marine assisted beach assault. Brilliant high quality video from BBC motoring show, Top Gear." Because why not.

"Senior secured lenders to G.M., unlike their counterparts at Chrysler, are rightly being paid off in full. Chrysler’s senior creditors were forced to accept less than the full face value of their loans. But G.M.’s reorganization plan calls for it to make its senior secured lenders whole on the approximately $6 billion they are owed."

"Facebook Chat usage has increased steadily since its launch last year, and this week we reached 1 billion messages sent per day" Good job Facebook.

"But in a rare break from a long history of cautious moves, he rushed to bless President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for winning the election, calling on Iranians to line up behind the incumbent even before the standard three days required to certify the results had passed. Then angry crowds swelled in cities around Iran, and he backpedaled, announcing Monday that the 12-member Council of Guardians, which vets elections and new laws, would investigate the vote." Could the Iranian leader be losing his power over the masses of Iran?

"Accused al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has said he was tortured into lying while in CIA custody, newly-released documents show." Uncovered thanks to work of the ACLU.

"Opposition parties and campaigners have condemned Gordon Brown's decision to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war behind closed doors." All this demonstrates to the UK people is that they have something to hide, which they probably do.

"Iranian state radio says seven people were killed during Monday's protests in Tehran over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The reports said the deaths came after "thugs" attacked a military post. The BBC's Jon Leyne says that in light of what he saw of the vast and largely peaceful protests this seems an unlikely version of events." This is becoming a bigger story every day.

"The number of “software publishers,” defined as operations necessary for producing and distributing software, has dipped slightly in the United States through 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January, there were 262,100 publishers in the U.S., according to the bureau. That number decreased to 260,500 in February, 259,300 in March, and 258,100 in April." I'm not shocked.

"Shots have been fired during a massive rally in Iran against last week's presidential election results, with reports saying one person was killed. Hundreds of thousands rallied to support candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, but a group of them was fired on from a militia base they had surrounded." Not good.

"The Fox Nation suggested that Iran's presidential election and its aftermath indicate that "[President] Obama's 'Apology Foreign Policy' " is "failing."" Fox News it's unbaised if only we say it.

"You might be wondering what, exactly, you would learn at a University Of Metaphysical Sciences." I'm so dropping my degree at TTU for this.

"NASA has decided: Endeavour will attempt a launch Wednesday June 17, at — get this — 05:40 Eastern time (09:40 GMT). So I won’t be watching, as that’s 3:40 a.m. my time." Good news.

How do geeks comment code?

"A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran)." Awesome job Twitter.

"Fixes for a number of serious vulnerabilities in the version of Java in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 were released by Apple today – about six months after Sun Microsystems released updated packages for all other platforms that Sun supports, including Windows. Apple releases its own updated versions of Java for Mac OS X." Why, just because.

"As they confront unprecedented numbers of troubled customers, credit card companies are increasingly doing something they have historically scorned: settling delinquent accounts for substantially less than the amount owed." Companies in this time frame want more money today than money tomorrow.

NOW highlights the misogyny so prevalent in the media, conservative and liberal alike.

"The Obama administration will order the Navy to hail and request permission to inspect North Korean ships at sea suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology, but will not board them by force, senior administration officials said Monday." I'm somewhat suprised we weren't doing that previously.

"Microsoft filed the civil complaint on Monday in United States District Court in Seattle against Eric Lam, Gordon Lam and Melanie Suen, of Vancouver, British Columbia, along with several corporation names they were believed to have used, and several unnamed parties." Happy days, MS is looking for $750,000 in damage.

"As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions." Like I've told people before imagine if the Timanean protests had social media, how different it would be.