Five Live Links by Travis Smith

Firefox’s most annoying bug

Its "find" doesn't work in form fields, which is a real drawback for, say, bloggers, people who use wikis, people who edit content online, etc. etc. The bug's been around since before version 1.0 in mid-2004, but no developer wants to work on it because the feedback form users is so active and hostile (people are really frustrated). So there's no one assigned to the bug, and it's not scheduled to be fixed until at least version 2.0 in another 6 months. This is one of the ugly secrets of the open-source world -- bugs get fixed, but only if it's something a particular person decides to fix, there's no way to get people assigned to fix the boring or ugly bugs, so they endure and endure.

posted at 1:53 pm
on Nov. 25, 2005

Subservient Donald

It's a parody of Subservient Chicken featuring a Donald Trump look-alike, built as (stick with me here) an ironic comment on product placement in reality TV shows, created by the writers of (yes, really, the writers of) reality tv programming who feel product placement is getting in the way of the plots of reality TV shows. Uh, yeah. Anyway, it's funny.

posted at 11:08 pm
on Nov. 21, 2005

Variety offers a podcast of their great Screening Series

It's a series of 30 minute interviews with directors, actors, etc. being interviewed by good Variety reporters -- this isn't talk show style. They're talking in front of an audience who has just seen their film, so it's pretty insightful. Good stuff, especially if you like finding out about the process of filmmaking.

posted at 5:52 pm
on Nov. 17, 2005

Why didn’t anti-virus software detect Sony’s rootkit? cough*collusion*cough

From this great opinion piece: "What do you think of your antivirus company, the one that didn't notice Sony's rootkit as it infected half a million computers? ... This is exactly the kind of thing we're paying those companies to detect -- especially because the rootkit was phoning home."

posted at 5:22 pm
on Nov. 17, 2005

Hollywood institution Army Archerd ‘resumes’ blogging

I've always considered the three-dot style newspaper columns to be early blogs, and Army was one of the last columnists in that style. Congrats to Alex Romanelli of the editor of the Variety Web site, for hooking Army on this new format, it's a quite a coup.

posted at 12:00 pm
on Nov. 9, 2005

Overheard

“Oh boy! Another great opportunity for personal growth!”

...who said it?

“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”

...who said it?

After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.

...who said it?

“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”

...who said it?

“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”

...who said it?

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