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Justice Department Says It Can’t Share Lobbying Data Because Computer System Will Crash - from TBO.com. via slashdot.

Boing Boing: MP3: Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” played by school percussion ensemble.

Direct link to MP3.

Mozilla 1.7 is released. I see nothing particularly exciting in the “what’s new”. Reduced footprint always useful.

From a developer/designer’s point of view, it’s interesting to read some of the design decisions evolving or going nowhere in discussions in the bug reports. E.g. this one, on file download during selection of download location. I didn’t say this stuff was exciting.

NewsForge | MandrakeSoft: An inside look

Guardian | The miracle of Älmhult (part 1), part 2. Guardian article today on the Ikea company. Good even if, like me, you’ve never been to an ikea.

Dictionary ms-word macros for translators. For example, select a word in a word document, and press a key to start a dictionary lookup.

The site gives the vb source code and simple creation instructions, so you needn’t worry that the macro is a virus.

The default impl explicitly calls IE to do the lookup. Expect it’s easy to change to talk to moz or something lighter. Sensibly, the default impl WILL communicate with the browser process it opened earlier, if it is still open.

I created one for portuguese word lookup, which uses the google translation service. Now I just have to find a decent online portuguese-english dictionary.

I still prefer to just use a custom search for dave bau’s quicksearch deskbar, but I understand the most recent version of this tool is strict about the required IE version. No idea why. disappointing.

Much better to have a quality dictionary installed locally, of course.

“The University of Tokyo has developed the illusion of invisibility, under the name of ‘Optical Camouflage.‘ The system is remarkably simple - you have a mix of light-sensitive and light-emitting devices attached to an adapted reflective surface. The devices are hooked to a computer, which simply projects on each side whatever is on the opposite side. The result is more of a translucent look, than real invisibility, but the potential is there.

via slashdot.

An Introduction to the Drools Project and the comments. via erik’s blog.

some classloading best practices.

The exceptions debate - To check, or not to check? Developerworks article introducing the debate. 25th may.