Saturday, January 13, 2007

When Your Site Ceases To Exist. El Lobo writes with a sobering account of how Javalobby dropped off the face of Google last month. The site had been attacked by forum spammers and Google indexed some of their spew before the Javalobby guys could remove it. According to a post in Rich Skrenta's blog, Google is now the de-facto front page for the Internet, accounting for anywhere from 70% to 78% of the search market. The power this conveys is hard to overstate. From the Javalobby saga: "We had completely disappeared from Google's main index! If you run a website, then you know how serious a problem this is. On any given day over 10,000 visitors arrive at Javalobby as a result of Google searches, and suddenly they stopped coming! ... Suddenly we no longer existed in the eyes of Google."[Slashdot] 9:40:38 PM      Google It!.

Ford Airstream Electric Concept Car. Not to be upstaged by GM's plug-in electric concept vehicle, Ford has unveiled its own concept. The twists are design by Airstream and a hydrogen-powered fuel cell to charge the battery. From the AutoblogGreen article: "The fuel cell, made by Ballard, turns on automatically when the battery charge dips below 40 percent. With the on-board charger (110/220 VAC), the battery pack can be refilled at home. Ford says the HySeries Drive is 50 percent smaller and less complex than conventional fuel cell system and should have more than double the lifetime."[Slashdot] 9:39:06 PM      Google It!.

Formula For Procrastination Found. kandela writes "Science Daily reports that a University of Calgary academic has published a paper titled The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure in the Psychological Bulletin. The research reveals that most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure, most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation. The research is apparently the culmination of 10 years work. However, no indication was given of how much time was spent putting it off before it was begun." From the article: "Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task... Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."[Slashdot] 12:25:05 PM      Google It!.

Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board. BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"[Slashdot] it used to be just evolution but anti science is at least vocal -- sort of if you say it often enough then it must be true style of validity --BL 10:50:06 AM      Google It!.

The Snoop Next Door Is Posting to YouTube. Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Your most trivial missteps are increasingly ripe for exposure online, reports the Wall Street Journal, thanks to cheap cameras and entrepreneurs hoping to profit from websites devoted to the exposure. From the article: 'The most trivial missteps by ordinary folks are increasingly ripe for exposure as well. There is a proliferation of new sites dedicated to condemning offenses ranging from bad parking and leering to littering and general bad behavior. One site documents locations where people have failed to pick up after their dogs. Capturing newspaper-stealing neighbors on video is also an emerging genre. Helping drive the exposés are a crop of entrepreneurs who hope to sell advertising and subscriptions.' But other factors are at work, including a return to shame as a check on social behavior, says an MIT professor."[Slashdot 10:45:49 AM      Google It!.

Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux. George P. Dvorsky has created a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that re-define the human condition and should be known by any expert generalist. They include Accelerating Change, Anthropic Principle, Artificial General Intelligence,... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 10:26:55 AM      Google It!.

Computer Security Awareness Video Contest for College Students. The EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force, in cooperation with the ResearchChannel, is conducting its second annual contest in search of short computer security awareness videos developed by college students for college students. The 2007 contest is sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). Winners will receive cash prizes. This is a good opportunity for students to gain experience and for campuses to gain recognition. The videos will be featured on the Security Task Force Web site and may be used in campus security awareness campaigns. A promotional packet is available to help with on-campus promotion. The video submission deadline is March 15. Ideas for topics include: Botnets Computer maintenance Cybersafety tips: how to protect yourself online, including social networking sites Encrypting files/e-mails Global cybercrime: includes theft, extortion, denial of service, and Web defacement Guidelines or suggestions for effective passwords Physical security Safeguarding data: confidentiality, privacy, and identity theft Security of wireless/mobile devices Security risks of P2P filesharing applications Security updates, antivirus (AV) software, and firewalls Spyware and phishing Learn more on the contest Web site. [EDUCAUSE CONNECT blogs] 10:22:40 AM      Google It!.

Moodle Pilot Report from Idaho State University. http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/ ISU_IDUS/I061227I.pdf Via Jim Farmer comes a link to this Pilot Report from the Instructional Technology Resource Center at Idaho State University, a current WebCT 4 customer. On the basis of this small (20 instructor) pilot, they are going expand it to 50 users. What I thought was interesting (and maybe the Moodle folks will notice this too) is that the only functionality that both students and faculty seemed not totally thrilled about were the assessment and grading capabilities in Moodle. That seems about right. Especially if you've used WebCT 6/Vista, which I have to admit seems pretty decent in this capacity. And you can tut-tut all you like about how those are such 'administrative' tools, but time and again the surveys come back that grading/gradebook management is actually one of the most used aspects of the CMS, ignored at CMS developers' own peril. - SWL [EdTechPost] 10:06:53 AM      Google It!.