Israel carries out deadly Gaza raid. At least nine Palestinians are reported killed during an Israeli operation in a central Gaza refugee camp. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

I don't know why the BBC bother to keep mentioning dead Palestinians.  Don't they realise that they are wasting valuable space that could be taken up with news about celebrities or adverts for hair products?

Java generics are going to come at a cost according to Eric Allen's article and I'm inclined to agree.  The prize of keeping compatibility with previous JVM's is, I guess, a valuable one but for me breaking the type system like this (or at least introducing ways to create new and subtle bugs) seems too high a price.

What are you looking at?. This morning a friend of mine, Luca Reginato, who works at SrLabs in Padova sent me this very cool movie. Using a technology that they are developing, he tracked his eyes movements while browsing my weblog. The blue spot you will see in the movie shows where he is looking, the larger the spot becomes, the longer he has been looking at a specific item. It's really amazing. While today these services are available mainly to large companies (with large budgets), I'm trying to convince Luca that such a service made available at affordable prices would not only make sense, but be profitable. How much would you pay to have this kind of feed-back on a site you are designing or that you already have? [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog]

This is way cool.  I want a version of this software for $99 that runs on my PC and uses my webcam.

Between Hope and Memory

I'm interested in memory because memory is all we have. We are unable to perceive the temporal singularity of the present, which is a razor-sharp edge. It cuts our experience into past and future. We understand the division, but cannot comprehend the blade.

I have nothing but my own quickly fading memories out of which to build my reality. These memories lose focus and detail as they disappear behind me, drifting far into the past.

How hopefully I bind them together even as they fall apart. How boldly I proclaim reality even as I forget it.

We live in the transition between the future and the past. We are the moment that hope becomes memory.

Someday I will be dead and my children will cobble together their ragged memories and create me anew. They will create me in their own image. I will be clay in their hands with only the breath of their memories to give me life.

So I spend a fair amount of energy trying to create good memories for my three daughters. This may seem rather contrived, but I’m of the opinion that parenting is mostly contrived. There’s really no time for much else.

Plant good memories while you can, mommies and daddies. Our time on earth is short and hope becomes remembrance in the twinkle of a little girl’s eye.

AD 2063
A 70-year-old woman points her grandson’s hand toward the Eastern sky on a November evening. Orion’s belt of three stars hangs low near the horizon, forming a nearly perfect vertical line.

“The middle star, that one’s mine. Its name is Alnilam. That means ‘string of pearls’. My father gave me that star because I was his middle daughter. He said I was his string of pearls.”

She stares at the star and tilts her head slightly. “I was his string of pearls.”

“What about the other stars, Grandma”

“Well, the top star is Susan’s. She was the oldest. The last star is Sharon’s because she was the baby. Each year they rise in the east, just in the order we were born. See?”

“Most people call it Orion’s belt, but daddy always called it ‘The Three Sisters’. He said he had as much a right to name the stars as anyone. He used to say, ‘Look for the three sisters in November, when I am gone.”

“Look to the sky and remember that you were loved.’”

The Preacher