links for 2009-09-07

"Even when you're away from your desktop, we want you to be able to share and connect with those that matter to you on Facebook. We had that goal in mind when we launched Facebook Mobile in 2006. Today, we reached a new milestone with more than 65 million people now actively using Facebook on their mobile devices — a significant increase from 20 million just eight months ago." Crazy.

"Do you own your email address? How about your web address? These things, like your telephone number, identify you and need to be something you have control over. How you do that is by owning a domain name. If your email address ends in comcast.com, bellsouth.net, msn.com, or aol.com or something similar then you don't own that part of your identity and you don't have as much control over it as you would believe. The same applies if your blog ends in blogspot.com, wordpress.com, or typepad.com. The companies providing your email or hosting service could go out of business tomorrow, raise your rates to exorbitant levels, or unilaterally decide to cancel your account. Anil Dash covered this years ago, and it's truer today than it ever was."

"Upcoming versions of Mozilla's Firefox browser will automatically warn users running versions of Adobe's Flash Media Player that contain known security bugs, according to a published report." Pretty smart idea.

"The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before."

"So I don’t know if there’s supposed to be some deep statement about race and gender here or something, but it very much reproduces the creepy naked Black woman/clothed White woman imagery that we see often, such as in the ads we discussed here."

He has just a few books.

"For all its pronouncements that gas could be used to replace aging, inefficient coal-fired power plants — and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the process — lawmakers from coal-producing states appear committed to keeping coal as the nation’s primary producer of power. Those influential lawmakers, from both parties, say that new technologies under development to capture and bury emissions of coal are a better bet than gas for long-term solutions to climate change. The difference of opinion is about more than what is best for the environment, of course. Industry profits are riding on the outcome of the discussion — a rich mix of politics, environment, science and business." Money influences politics again.

"We've reached the breaking point, and it's time to make a stand. There is no more "more," so IT must do less with less. You already know how to draw the line: Stop doing the busywork with little value. Make the business choose its key priorities, rather than dump them all on you. Be smarter about letting users handle some of their own tech so that you can do what's truly critical. Help yourself eliminate aggravation while helping the business to reduce costs. Push back when confronted with impossible deadlines and requirements that have no basis in reality can actually be beneficial in the long run — for everyone. In a world of junk food and harried families, we saw the rise of the fast-food nation and the high price paid for its convenience. From that frustration was born the Slow Food movement, which promotes a healthy relationship with food. The Slow IT movement applauds that sentiment and seeks to apply it to technology management."

"Starting Sept. 14, chapters concerning praise for children (and why too much is not a good idea), the importance of an extra hour of sleep and the prevalence of lying among children, will be posted on PoBronson.com, Nurtureshock.com and Twelvebooks.com, the Web site of the book’s publisher, the imprint that released the book. Readers will be able to highlight a word, a sentence or a paragraph and add notes that will be integrated as footnotes on the text."

"This simple arithmetic observation offers powerful insight into the limits of privacy. It dictates something we might call the 10-Digit Rule: just 10 digits or so of distinctive personal information are enough to identify you uniquely. They're enough to strip away your anonymity on the Internet or call out your name as you walk down the street. The 10-Digit Rule means that as our electronic gadgets grow chattier, and databases swell, we must accept that in most walks of life, we'll soon be wearing our names on our foreheads."

"The good news is there have never been more online sites offering to help print and publish your work. Better still, it has never been more affordable to self publish in small amounts (100 or 1,000 copies, for example) either." Just in case.

"Why do so many people believe that personal finance is only about willpower? The idea goes like this: “If I just try harder, I’ll start saving more, pay off my debt, stop spending all that money, keep a budget, learn about investing, start investing, rebalance ever year…” Unlikely. In fact, go ask your friends if they’re taking full advantage of their employer’s 401(k) match. The vast majority of people are not — even though it’s literally free money. Their answer? “Yeah…I really should do that…” It’s not about willpower. More than anything else, the psychology of automation is critical to successfully getting control of your finances."

"Apparently the International Space Station is going to get bigger. NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) are preparing to sign an agreement to add another laboratory to the ISS by using a modified multipurpose logistics module (Raffaello) during the final Space Shuttle mission. "

Atheist cat so cute.