InfoQ is a great site for the practicing programmer and has some very interesting presentations available for free. Here are my current faves.

When I was a lad the closet I got to a computer was watching them on TV. The BBC was (and still is) on the forefront of new technology and rightly so! Two programmes that inspired a lot of UK computer talent were “The Computer Programme” and “Micro Live”. See two clips embedded below from YouTube. Oh, the way we wore.

Sir Ken Robinson recently answered questions submitted via Reddit on the TED site. Worth a read.

Is iTunes the worst piece of software in the world today? Yes!

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion... When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Gentoo recently switched to make python 2.6 the default python. This means that mod_python and mod_wsgi will be re-compiled against 2.6. Which means that any python modules you’re using with Apache will also need to be re-compiled against the new version or you’ll get version mis-match errors. If you’d rather not go through all that work you can tell portage not to upgrade with the following line in /etc/portage/package.mask:

netbooknews.com has a video tour of Kingston’s China factory where they make USB flash drives (embedded below from YouTube). They are very lucky to get this tour. Factories usually do not allow visitors let alone cameras. It features the phrases “ship shooter” and “icy mounter”. Marvellous stuff for your geek.