On wish lists and recommendations

Why is it that Amazon.com’s recommendation system isn’t smart enough to figure out that it doesn’t need to recommend something to me that’s already in my wish list?

ElleBook

My eyes! My eyes!
Just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should do something.
(via Kahney)

Gmail privacy concerns

Declan McCullagh discusses his reservations about Google’s in-private-beta Gmail system. His privacy concerns are well-founded, but I’m sure a lot of people are willing to give up a bit of privacy for something that would have as much perceived value as a free gig of e-mail space.
Should Gmail open to the public as is, I can still see myself signing up for it, though my usage of it would be limited to a certain scope. In other words, I would be my own privacy protection, and that may be the best users can hope for.

NASA Space Flight Patch icons

Maury McCown of RAILhead Design has released a massive, 146-icon collection of NASA space flight patches. The patches range from the Freedom 7 flight in 1961 through 2003’s ill-fated Columbia mission. Maury obviously put in a lot of work on this icon set, and it is a must-have for NASA/space fans.
Sorry, Windows users, for Macintosh only.

VZW to carry Treo 600!

w00t!
So perhaps I won’t switch wireless carriers after all. It’s not like I can do anything right now anyway, being unemployed and all…

Buttoned up

So looking at Lee’s setup had me thinking that my blog could use a little more color, so I jumped on the button bandwagon. You can see my own button-mania in the link section to the left.
Huge kudos and thanks to my favorite code babe, Raena, for the buttons for my own web sites, as well as the buttons for Michael’s SpamSieve, ATPM, John Gruber’s Markdown, and Darwin. Feel free to steal and use on your own sites.

You like your iPod a little too much when…

This is just sad.
What makes it even more sad is that this “impulse buy” wasn’t at some flea market or craft store, or something along those lines. It actually had to be purchased online…
(via Lee)

Gateway closing all retail stores

The beleagured computer maker announced today that it would be closing all 188 of its retail stores, putting 2,500 people out of work.
Boo.
Hoo.
Maybe if Ted Waitt stopped talking to cows and buying rivals that Dell was going to put out of business anyway, he wouldn’t be putting 2,500 people in the unemployment lines.

Who needs satellite radio?

Lee linked to the Alpine iPod Ready in-dash receivers in a recent post. I must say I am very interested, though I will probably hold off on anything like this until we figure out my vehicle situation later this year.

ATPM 10.04

The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh is out. Yours truly contributed desktop pictures for this month’s issue. Of note is Evan’s Soundsticks review, Ted’s announcement of a new outliner, and would someone please send Wes some feedback so he’ll stop whining? Geez, you’d think Tom was writing again…