Saturday, June 29, 2002

posted by Salmonberry » June 29 11:04 AM | 29 comments. Schools conspire against boys: educator I really don't know what to make of this. Nobody complained that schools were "anti-boy" before girls started to do better and outpace male enrollment in college. Boys were always the ones getting in trouble when I was a student too. [MetaFilter] 6:33:18 PM    comment []

RSS Tutorial The Shifted Librarian alerted me to t .... RSS Tutorial The Shifted Librarian alerted me to this nice tutorial, Publish and Syndicate Your News to the Web They are using Metabrowser, a Web browser I use to check Dublin Core metadata on our pages. They mention a workshop, they mean on-line workshop. In this workshop you'll learn how to create, validate, syndicate, and view your own RSS news channel. The emphasis will be the practical application of RSS XML/RDF metadata for dynamically publishing: news headlines events listings announcements lists of publication titles press releases interactive directories catalogs project status updates breaking news reviews in-depth features You'll learn how to use RSS channels to keep current with topics of interest. We'll show you how others can incorporate your news into their pages automatically. The workshop will showcase the use of public domain tools and the Metabrowser editor get_comment_link(78318423) Add a comment [Catalogablog] 5:32:26 PM    comment []

Adam Roberts explores "SF Plotto," a writer's tool that contains "all the SF plots that have or will ever be written. [Sam Gentile's Radio Weblog] 5:31:40 PM    comment []

Digital photography the Lomography way?. Though I'm far, far from being an "artiste" of a photographer, I want to do neat things with my camera. I want to capture some moments, some feelings, try some odd things. It's like hacking with light. I see the kinds of things done with the Lomo cameras, warm and... [0xDECAFBAD] 5:29:37 PM    comment []

No, this isn't some tricky statement. I was reading Gretchen's blog this past week where she went to town on someone who presumed to know her because he read her blog. She brought up the point that he couldn't possibly know her from reading her blog, and I have to agree. I don't hold back on any of my opinions here (as I'm sure is plainly evident in the rants), but it's also not the whole picture. It's little snippets of words, attitude and emotion that seep out (or boil over) during the day, but it's just a tiny, tiny piece of who I am. Even reading my personal pages doesn't really given you the whole picture, either. Would it be feasible -- and interesting -- for someone to completely chronicle their life into their blog? [The .NET Guy] 5:27:00 PM    comment []

Last night Paul Carrack visited our weekly "radio show". You might not immediately know who he is. But if you've heard Ace's "How Long", "Tempted" by Squeeze or "Living Years" from Mike and the Mechanics, then you know Paul Carrck. I met Paul for the first time back in 1989 when he was promoting living years and did a bit with me on MTV. He brought his keyboard that time. Last night he also had his guitar on had. We agreed not to pre-produce anything and just go with whatever came to mind. The result is one of the best pieces of radio I've been a part of, especially if you hear how well my co-host KidV translates for our predominately Dutch audience. For more than 20 minutes Paul played his hits, his favourites and cuts from his new album. I like it so much that I've posted it as an mp3 for your enjoyment (22mb). If you're interested in the entire show, you can always hear the latest show in real format on our BlogNewsNetwork weblog. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 5:24:09 PM    comment []

Where Do You Find the Time?. Real software engineering has so little to do with actual technology, it's kinda sad. I'm lucky. I only have to do the technology part. My question is, how do people with full-time jobs find the time to learn the technology? [sellsbrothers.com: Windows Developer News] Sounds like you have much more than a full time job Chris! I mean -- Genghis, WebServices DevCon, books, consulting -- and more?! You sound like a pretty busy guy to me. For someone like me, it can be difficult. I've got a full time job that (like many other coders) winds up usually being a 9 hour day (and then some). Plus I have a wife and two kids I enjoy spending time with. And I enjoy sleeping every now and then too. Where to find the time... I squeeze it in whenever I can. I usually get up early and try and get some reading done (web sites). So far (this week), Radio has made this much easier. I subscribe to the newsfeeds that have particular interest to me. So when I get up, I go to my News Aggregator and look over just the really cool stuff. Since the bulk of my day is spent "in the office", I usually don't do too much during the day -- except for lunch. Lunch is my one hour opportunity to squeeze in a little .NET research. I rarely go out to buy lunch. Instead, I'll brown bag it or bring a microwave dish (sometimes leftovers from last nights dinner). I jump into the newsgroups (news.devx.com/msnews.microsoft.com) and see what's going on there. I'll also check out my News Aggregator since I can get to Radio on my home machine over the Internet! When I get home, I spend some time with the wife and kids (dinner, playing outside, etc..). The kids are usually in bed by 9:00pm (although with Daylight Savings Time, it's more difficult to get them inside when the sun is still out!). Between 9:00pm and around 11:00pm/12:00am is when I get some time to do more reading/research. But that's not an everyday occurence. Sometimes, when I've really spent some brain cells during the day, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer when I get home. I'm fortunate to have a very understanding wife that knows how much I like technology. Plus, she has her things to keep her busy from time to time. We're not always in sync -- many times she'll want to spend "quality time" together and I've got something I'm dying to do on the computer. Other times, I fried my brain at work and don't want to be on the computer but she's in the den doing some work of her own. It's a delicate balancing act! :) One day I'll find that perfect job that lets me do .NET 9 hours a day. Ahhh.... [Wrinkled Paper] 5:20:58 PM    comment []

A man walked into a gun store and attempted to rob it. As if that weren't stupid enough, he did it with a knife. *smacks head* Unsurprisingly, the would-be thief is in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest, and the store owner is unharmed. Virtually every gun store I've ever been to, the employess all openly carried sidearms. I guess this guy (if he ever gets out of jail) will have learned a valuable lesson. :-) [The .NET Guy] Ingenious! Is this guy trying to win a Darwin award?! [Wrinkled Paper] 5:19:20 PM    comment []

No more playing Tag A Santa Monica elementary school principal recently banned tag, saying the game can only be played under the strict supervision of physical education teachers and not at all during the lunch hour recess. That's due to: one, the risk of injury; and two, a "self-esteem issue," because whoever is "it" could be considered a "victim." [ESPN.com] Whew!  Thank heavens.  After 100 years of obviously damaged children, they've finally found the culprit.  On a similar note, a few weeks ago an elementary school suspended a kid for making a "gun" with his fingers (you know, "cowboys and indians" style).  Close call there, too... I mean, it's inevitable that after pointing your finger at someone on the playground, San Quentin is the next step. Does anyone live in the real world anymore?  Hello? [Greg Reinacker's Weblog] You hit that nail right on the head Greg. What's this "only be played under the strict supervision of physical education teachers."? Does this mean the person who is "it" feels okay as long as the gym teacher is around? Anyone ever heard of that little sport we play called "Football"? Give someone some pads and hand them a ball -- then it's perfectly fine for everyone to not only tag him, but to physically bring him to the ground! Read the ESPN article. It's funny read. What's not funny is that this is not a joke... [Wrinkled Paper] 5:17:52 PM    comment []

MCAD for Microsoft .NET. Microsoft has just announced the Microsoft Certified Application Developer credential [link]. Sorry no C++ for now :) This begs the question, how important is it to be certified ? [/serdar/] [Wrinkled Paper] 5:17:29 PM    comment []

Thank-you Microsoft I want to publicly thank Microsoft for releasing the Rotor (a.k.a. SSCLI) sources. I am totally amazed that virtually any question that I have about the runtime can be answered using the sources. [IUnknown.com: John Lam's Weblog on Software Development] [Wrinkled Paper] 5:17:05 PM    comment []

Telemarketer saves life. A hiker stranded in the Andes thought he would die, but then his cellular rang. It was a telemarketer calling to get him to top up his pre-paid plan. The telemarketer got emergency services on the line and called the hiker at regular intervals to make sure he didn't lose consciousness from hypothermia. When the hiker's battery died, he put it in the snow to cool it off and it came back to life. The article doesn't say why he didn't just call 911 to begin with. Link Discuss [bOing bOing] 5:14:55 PM    comment []

Ancient forest found along roadside near Denver. CNN has a report today that may be interesting to some folks. It appears that scientists have found evidence of a tropical forest buried under layers of soil outside Denver - a forest that thrived in the years following an asteroid collision with Earth. Here is the story: Signs Earth recovered quickly from asteroid. [Mac Net Journal] 5:13:49 PM    comment []

New mailing list caters to OS X developers. Mailing list for OS X developers of web services apps. - The osxweb mailing list was formed to promote inter-operability between OS X apps that use web services and formats such as XML-RPC, RSS, OPML, and so on. The idea is to create informal standards for things like clipboard formats for RSS items. (The idea is not, for instance, to work on RSS itself.) A secondary goal is to promote a toolbox of code that app developers can use. [ranchero.com] [AppleScript Info] [Mac Net Journal] 5:13:27 PM    comment []

Fact checking Ann Coulter's ass. Ann Coulter's Libels In Slander is a weblog devoted to fact checking Ann Coulter's new novel. [rc3.org] 5:07:36 PM    comment []

Ants by mail!. In yesterday's mail came a little cardboard tube from Uncle Milton, creator of the Ant Farm(R). I'd picked up >Giant Ant Farms back in January and immediately sent off the enclosed coupon for "ants by mail." The tube was emblazoned with the slightly jarring "Live Ants. Do not handle. Ants will bite or sting to protect themselves." Unfortunately it bore no indication as to whether or not there was some further containment beyond the cardboard or if the little blighters were simply lounging around inside the tube, ready to sink their chops into the fingers of any unsuspecting twit popping the top. The twit popped the top and was delighted to find another containment unit, a little plastic test-tube filled with about 15 fidgety... Eek! They're HUGE! About 1/3" in length with massive noggins and particularly pinchy-looking mandibles. I prepare their new home, filling the base of the ant farm with sand (provided), adding a little water, and pushing bits of cotton-wool into the sand to create some initial tunnels. Meanwhile, the ants are cooling it in the fridge for 15 minutes to "calm them for transferral to their new home." Secondary containment unit (read: plastic test-tube) top popped, a couple of shakes, plastic farm top quickly replaced, and the miniature idylic farm scene is overrun with ants, immediately making themselves at home. I noticed a few odd heads, legs, and other bits and bobs along with the live ants. Perhaps those are spare parts, just in case -- he said with purposeful naivete. Hankering for a gander at an ant colony without having the little blighters in your house? Take a gander at these snaps: [raelity bytes] 5:05:42 PM    comment []

Robot Store. Nat pointed out Robot Store, your source for all things robotic. I've a LEGO Mindstorms kit which I adore and simply must spend some more time with. Particularly attention-grabbing are the Muscle Wires: "For silent, direct linear action, grab hold of NanoMuscles" and the Space Wings Kit: "Sleek silvery mylar wings flap silently using only five centimeters of Muscle Wire. Perches on you computer, annoys cats*, amuses babies. . . . *Based on limited factory testing. Your cat may vary. No, it doesn't really fly. Wish it did, but it doesn't."" [raelity bytes] 5:04:05 PM    comment []

Parrot Cellular Automata. Andy Wardley, of simply smashing Template Toolkit fame, has whipped up Parrot flavoured simple, deterministic cellular automata a la Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. nat> [raelity bytes] 5:02:15 PM    comment []

Ant Update, 2002-06-22. Quite a network of tunnels since last we checked in on the little critters. The farm has established an official graveyard where the victims of shock, cave-in, or having the feeding-hole cover hit them on the noggin are stacked and buried -- after finishing off the more tasty bits, that is. Every day brings more tunnel construction, hauling of foodstuffs (here a bit of graham cracker) several times one's own weight, and meetings. Nonetheless, there's always time for the joys of a little sightseeing and working on a good stare under a favourite tree. [raelity bytes] 5:01:17 PM    comment []

Heat Switches New Glue's Stickiness On and Off [Scientific American] 4:59:29 PM    comment []

RSS Tutorial. Publish and Syndicate Your News to the Web "In this workshop you'll learn how to create, validate, syndicate, and view your own RSS news channel. The emphasis will be the practical application of RSS XML/RDF metadata for dynamically publishing...." [via Serious Instructional Technology] Now this is an excellent resource! Put up by the Government Information Locator Service (GILS) folks in Utah, this one-page tutorial gives a brief overview of RSS, what it looks like, aggregators (they call them "viewers"), how to locate feeds, how to create your own feeds, how to validate your RSS, and more. I'm not sure what impresses me the most - the link to Metabrowser (their "recommended tool for creating and editing UtahGILS and Dublin Core metadata"), their Metabrowser tutorial, the reminder about David Carter-Tod's Javascript code for embedding an RSS feed in a web page, that they're doing RSS with meta tags, or that it's the library folks doing it! I r-e-a-l-l-y need to get these people to talk to the folks at the Illinois State Library so that they'll understand my vision of news aggregation for Illinois libraries. [The Shifted Librarian] 4:46:02 PM    comment []

The Realities of "Minority Report". In Future, Ads Could Rely on Eyes "In 1999, Spielberg convened a three-day think tank to pick the brains of 23 futurists about likely changes technology would bring during the next 50 years. 'The futurists that I assembled around that table didn't agree with each other on every point, but one of the several things they did unanimously agree on was that the entire advertising industry is going to recognize us as individuals, and they're going to spot-sell to us,' Spielberg said. 'They will sell directly to you....' In one key scene in "Minority Report," detective John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is fleeing agents of the Pre-Crime police unit chasing him for a murder he is foretold to commit. As he runs down a street, electronic billboards scan his retinas and hurl personalized pitches his way.... In the future, it seems, the eyes are the window to the wallet.... 'It's amazing how events have caught up with us after Sept. 11,' said Alex McDowell, the production designer for "Minority Report" who began imagining the world of 2054 in 1998. 'We know we want security, and we're willing to give up some of our civil liberties to have that,' he said. 'And Pre-Crime is really, in the end, the total loss of civil liberty. That's the extreme of it and the consumer-driven part of the film is the parallel extreme.' " [Excite News, via LibraryPlanet.com] [The Shifted Librarian] 4:45:15 PM    comment []

World's Smallest Mouse?. Optical Mouse Saves Space in Cellphones "Chris writes 'Researchers at Philips have integrated a space-saving optical mouse into a mobile phone for the first time. Dutch researchers at the Philips Center for Industrial Technology have developed a compact, optical interface for portable electronic equipment. The team says that its new input gadget can be easily integrated in cellphones, laptops and PDAs, providing an space-efficient alternative to a mechanical trackball or touch-pad for example. The device is made up of a low-power red laser diode and a detector placed beneath a lens. Light from the 650 nm laser is focused on an object, such as a fingertip, creating an external cavity. It is not necessary to touch the lens. A small portion of this light is then reflected back and mixes with the light within the internal laser cavity.' " [Slashdot] If the usability is truly there, a mouse on a cell phone would be great because it would help navigate through menus more efficiently. And think what it would do for wireless gaming! [The Shifted Librarian] 4:43:21 PM    comment []

E-ink Announces Thinner Displays. World's Thinnest Active Matrix Display "E-Ink says its new active matrix screen is not only shatter-proof and flexible, but only measures 1/13 of the thickness of other active matrix displays on the market. The Cambridge, Mass. company announced recently a new active matrix screen measuring just 0.3mm thick, half the thickness of a standard credit card. Most active-matrix displays currently in use are 2mm thick and require a backlight or sidelight that makes their total thickness 4mm or more. E-Ink's displays are over thirteen times thinner. ...This provides a super-thin screen that's not>infoSync] Having just seen Minority Report last night and seeing folks in the movie reading an E-ink newspaper, this announcement is very timely! The ebook industry had better get their butts in gear so that it's ready when devices with these screens become available. [The Shifted Librarian] 4:42:35 PM    comment []