Christmas approaches and unlike my wife, I’m not done with all my shopping. Hadley, my two year old, found some presents the other day and prompty opened them. “Look mommy! Ants!” (It was an ant farm.)

• When Nulls Aren’t Nasty – There has been an active discussion on TDD Yahoo Group about null parameters and exceptions and stuff. It made me remember this post from a few weeks ago by Michael Feathers.
• DropMyRights – A little tool (and an article) that you can use to keep yourself safer if you absolutely, positively have to run as an administrator.
• iOpener – Suppose you are an iTunes user and want to listen to your music on your non-iPod MP3 player… this little tool will strip the iTunes file of its encryption and then you can use iTunes to convert it in place to an MP3. Interestingly… it is written in C# and installs the source if you’re curious. Now if only I could figure out how to play encrypted WMA files on my iPod, I would have it all.
• Metaphoric Questioning – Martin Fowler talks about how metaphors are good and bad when talking about developing software. “Comparing to another activity is useful if it helps you formulate questions, it's dangerous when you use it to justify answers.”
• Madness and Genius – New Scientist interviews John Nash. In it Nash says, “But I think there is an element of choice. A person doesn't pass into insanity when their situations are good.” Interesting… [via Boing Boing]
• Richard Stallman Answering Machine Message – If you get three people to donate to the FSF, Stallman will record a custom message for you. But then you have to publish all your messages to the internet, right?  [via Boing Boing]

Now playing: Incubus - Make Yourself