Flutterby™! From 2012-02-02 to 2012-02-29

Packetizer OpenID Provider Server Software is a Perl/MySQL/Apache OpenID provider system. I'm not sure if OpenID has been completely run into the ground yet, but if it does become useful at some point I wanted this as a resource to look at.

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama Perl Open Source Software Engineering Databases hubris ]

Last night, as Asha called me up to help her with a common task in Gmail, I realized a major flaw in Google's Continuous Delivery software development model. Some people, especially computer programmers, are used to a constantly changing environment. They know they that software A should have feature X and that it may be hidden inside UI element Q (despite the fact that it was in UI element P just the day before). It doesn't bother us that our software is changing all the time.

For people like my wife who just gave up her Windows XP laptop and Internet Explorer only because I enticed her away with a Macbook, this change causes constant reinforcement of their distrust of software. In my house, I hear "The Internet is broke again" multiple times a day. Asha is always befuddled because all that is needed for "the Internet to work again" is my physically standing next to her or touching her computer. This, of course, one of the basic tenants of Quantum Bogodynamics. I am a bogon sink. When I step near her computer, I absorb the bogons that are causing her computer to malfunction.

I get annoyed when people ask me "How do you know much about computers?" or "How did you learn to do XYZ?" I really know very little. What I do know is that if I click a button on a computer, it probably won't blow up. So I just start clicking buttons until I get the results I want. Nowadays we have this wonderful thing called "undo" that lets me fix things when I get bad results. It's not like you have to type your computer job on punch cards, submit them to the system operators, and hope you get a print out in the morning that matches your expectations. Click the button already!

Why am I able to format Asha's documents in Apple Pages? I've never touched the software before she did. But I know that there ought to be buttons somewhere to make it work and I just need to find them and click them. It's not like the DOS or Unix shell days when you needed to know these arcane incantations to do simple things like navigate a folder hierarchy. Just start clicking buttons already!

And here's a secret that the geek intelligentsia will string me up for sharing: If you can't figure out how to do something, just type a description of what you want to do into Google. Want to know how to change a lightbulb? Want to know how to change a light switch? Want to know how to format a table in Apple Pages?

And this continues just as complex as you want. Rocket Science, Brain Surgery, and even super complex subjects like downloading pictures from email, are just a Google search away. You can even click the "I'm feeling lucky button" if you don't want to decide which search result to try first.

So please, please, just start clicking buttons. Observe what the computer does. If you don't like the results. Try another button. Eventually, you'll know what the buttons do and not too long after, you'll be able to predict whether or not the button should exist. And if the button doesn't exist, then notify the software developers and we'll add the button you need. Unless, of course, all of our time isn't spent helping our wives download photos in email attachments for the ten thousandth time!

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama User Interface Photography Microsoft Health Nature and environment Software Engineering Space & Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Net Culture Pyrotechnics Marriage Real Estate Furniture ]

Software which is expected to be a part of a complex system and run indefinitely is very different from needing to ship for Christmas...

[ related topics: Software Engineering Machinery ]

iPad users: DD vision impaired adult needs note pad app that can be configured to use large text. Recommendations?

[ related topics: Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Dear All Things Considered. I haven't listened to you in a long while. I haven't been driving anywhere, and when I have, podcasts are generally much better quality than radio. However, I now have a real job, with a commute, and yesterday afternoon on the drive home the podcast wasn't making it for me so I switched on the radio for some variety.

I tuned in in time to hear Billboards Slather On The Guilt With Anti-Cheese Campaign, in which the crank behind this campaign was complaining that:

DR. NEAL BARNARD: If you look at the chemical makeup of what's in cheese, it's mostly saturated fats - the kind that's linked to heart disease. It's very high in cholesterol. Ounce per ounce about the same as any steak you can find, and surprisingly high in sodium. So, how often do you want to eat such an unhealthy food? I would argue never.

You mentioned that Americans are eating 31 lbs of cheese a year. You then went on to call up the French Embassy, in which a charming cultural attaché said a few nice things but... well... It was all I could do to keep from grabbing my smart phone and fact-checking.

You could have mentioned that U.S. cheese consumption isn't all that far out of line, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Greece, and more, all consume over 40 lbs of cheese per capita per year. You could have mentioned that the evidence against dietary cholesterol is kinda thin, and the war on salt is being reconsidered.

In fact, you could have just dropped the story altogether, and filled those 5 minutes with something that made me smarter.

Back to the podcasts.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Food History Sociology Heinlein ]

The headline reads Study: Multitasking hinders youth social skills:

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

Now I'm not one to suggest that technology mediated interactions are necessarily a good thing, but "normal social skills" are, even by the terms of this article, normal only in a world without "...various digital devices communicating online".

[ related topics: Children and growing up Journalism and Media Video ]

From Shadow: Worn-Out, Pre-Skidded Tires for ‘Fixie’ Fashion Victims. Yep, Retired Belts is making belts out of worn out bike tires.

Insert eye roll, followed by head slap because I didn't think of it first, here.

[ related topics: Fashion Bicycling ]

Oh dear, the problem with these is that it's been so long since I read music regularly that it takes me a while to figure them out. Don't shoot the pianist. A good example: This is not in the score.

[ related topics: Music ]

I can't find it in his website, but Olafur Eliasson is apparently the creator of these cool mirror wheeled bicycles, Flickr link, alt link that's the one Shadow originally sent me.

[ related topics: Photography Bicycling ]

All this chatter about big complex systems reminded me of a favorite weird Sci Fi author: Stanislaw Lem and The Fifth Sally... and the reminder that a bureaucracy can slay the mightiest of beasts, as well as kill a civilization.

Tennessee really wants to be a high-tech state, really. They keep saying it. Chattanooga wants to be The Gig City. But there is a big problem. The Tennessee Department of Revenue. In Tennessee, there is no "income tax", but there is a tax on taxable interest and divident income. "..exceeded $1,250 ($2,500 if married filing jointly)".

The problem is a lot of technology workers are "1099 Employees", either for their full time job, or for hobbyish and moonlighting work.

Still no problem, right? Wrong!. The TDR seems to be getting information from the Department of the Treasury, aka the Internal Revenue Service about your 1099 income levels. Then they tax you, with fines and interest, for that 1099 Income. It does not matter to them that it is not 1099-Div income. It does not matter that you hand deliver and send via registered mail the documentation that shows it was not 1099-Div income. They ignore that, fine you some more for not responding, and then threaten to levy your assets.

I am not alone, I've heard this from other people over the years, and now it is my turn. I have nothing to lose by being loud about it.

I've had issues with the TDR before. Last time (2000) they wanted $500k+ from HTS, Inc. After an insane audit and $20k+ in lawyer fees. They lost.

References:

• Tennessee Guide for Filing an Income Tax Return
• My Documention and Correspondence Images will be coming soon.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Sociology Law Work, productivity and environment Television Heinlein Chattanooga Douglas Adams Marriage ]

Still needs trim, but beats the plastic thing it replaced.

Salon: Are high-tech classrooms better classrooms? In which David Sirota age old question that once again comes back negative.

[ related topics: Salon magazine ]

yes, that is a serious case of "carpenter's hands"

[ related topics: Law ]

Unicode Character 'PILE OF POO' (U+1F4A9): 💩.

Yes, this is what multi-core multi-gigaherz processors and gigabytes of memory have brought us.

[ related topics: Typography Graphic Design ]

On computer screens, I prefer light text on dark backgrounds, am okay with the reverse, but mixing in the same doc? Die! Die! Die!

Anyone know how to dump created Moose objects to Perl classes? Trying to speed up Fey::ORM startup times by caching schemas.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Dear Everyone: If you continue to talk about the "Super Bowl", I will assume that you are referring to a product of Mendocino or Humboldt.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Sports ]

Hmmm... PogoPlug makes a $50 device with 4 USB connections and an ethernet jack, and officially supported pogoplug hackery.

Whoa, Time::Piece is a Perl core package? Why doesn't "perldoc -f localtime" say "no, no, no, go over there!"?

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Anyone else remember when Google services had nice clean interfaces that weren't annoying and intrusive?

From the Chicago Tribune: "These kids are the future of Mexican hockey!"

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Sports ]

An interesting item from Samizdata: A look at the Times of London from 1912. What the author finds strangest is reading the items with the knowlege that in only 2 years the Great War will blow it all into oblivion. He sees obvious signs of tension between Germany and England, but nobody seems to think it will turn into the world-historical disaster to come. You wonder what catastrophes we are currently blissfully unaware of.

Meantime, the Library of Congress makes 100 year old scans available here.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs History Archival ]

Worth a revisit: David Levinson: Transportation costs too much:

It sure seems like we should be able to build this cheaper. Think about it, $175K for 12 lightbulbs on a timer. What's going wrong?

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Being subversive is so much fun. I'm working a night shift at the utility I am working at, doing some data importing. Met "Teo", who was playing with a Garmin GPS and trying to play with some data. he was transcribing lat/long by hand from waypoints into some expensive ArcGIS based stuff, but also Google Earth.

I gave him a MicroSD card adapter. 5 minutes later he is clicking on the GPX files he copied from it in Google Earth and he is just freaking amazed.

He already did 400 points by hand today..

I also introduced him to OpenStreetMap.. His eyes are open.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Maps and Mapping ]

SOAP (as in XML and RPC) is one of those things that straddles the boundary between satire and stupidity.

[ related topics: Web development Content Management ]

Digging through vendor WSDL files to figure out why SOAP::WSDL wsdl2perl crashes on one isn't what I'd hoped to be doing with today.

RussellB: Sorry, Neo: I'm Rooting for the Machines

Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia fame): We are the media, and so are you. Some good commentary on the SOPA/PIPA copyright kerfluffle,

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Copyright/Trademark ]

Can we set up a hall of humiliation for people who implement things like the BayAreaFastrak.com web site?

Brief Jerky: DIY edible underwear.

[ related topics: Clothing ]

Urban ethics and theory: The House Transport Bill is anti-federalist, not anti-transit (Via The Transportationist, who also mentioned his previous A New Transportation Federalism).

[ related topics: Weblogs Ethics Invention and Design Public Transportation Real Estate ]

EIA U.S. Total Gasoline Retail Deliveries by Refiners says that retail gasoline deliveries in November of 2011 were under 31 million gallons a day, compare to well over 60 million back for all but January of 1986, and similar numbers in the late '90s and much of the naughties.

Peak oil, peak transportation, better mileage standards, or just sucky economy?

Charles Hugh Smith digs a little bit deeper. Via the Transportationist.

[ related topics: Economics ]

If a patent claim can say:

... modifications and combinations will readily occur to those skilled in the art, which modifications and combinations will be within the spirit of the invention and the scope of the following claims.

then that should certainly be a defense against claims of infringement, and probably evaluated in the granting of the patent in the first place.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Interactive Drama Art & Culture ]

Fascinating little article about being able to see UV down to 350nm after cataract surgery. Via /..

[ related topics: Health ]

Occasionally I'll pop over to Scripting News to see what Dave's been up to recently, and one of the issues that's been on his mind is an application which uploads your iPhone address book without asking (a tempering of that, follow-up, noting that Facebook doesn't do what Path did, a link a NY Times article on the Path data mining, and..., and......), leading up to today where he asks "What info can iOS apps access?"

Two things jumped out at me.

That second to last "and..." was a link to Dan Lyons on how tech "journalism" has become a highly paid PR game is worth a read, and worth looking at with a view towards what other places journalists are likely looking to secondary income streams.

And the whole thing reminded me that there was a time where we trusted the vendors of our software. Where we felt like actual customers. It's worth at least reading that last link and thinking about notions of trust and ecosystems and costs of enforcement a bit. No conclusions, but I've got some thoughts bouncing around on this...

[ related topics: Books Games Weblogs Dave Winer Software Engineering Current Events Journalism and Media iPhone ]

Initially, I thought of just sending an email to SPL, but thought I'd throw it put it here to get wider input.

I've been writing a lot of Python code lately. One thing that amazes me is how I am able to bang on code for an extended period of time, adding tens (if not hundreds) of lines of code, changing multiple modules, and yet, the program does what I want it to do surprisingly often!

In contrast, when I used to write C/C++ for a living, I would typically spend more time in the debugger than the code editor. And that was only AFTER the code would actually compile. Similarly, VisualBasic would let me make lots of changes without compile-time errors but often did not do what I intended. With Perl, it seemed that once you knew the complex, magic incantation, you could do amazing things but until you got the spell just right, the results were amazingly horrible.

What is it about Python that reduces the "impedance mismatch" between my intent and the resulting code? This is confounded by the fact that I am constantly having to remind myself of simple language constructs that I know cold in C/C++, VB and Perl. Even though I constantly have a browser window pointed to some version of the Python docs, I am considerably more productive as a programmer.

[ related topics: Perl Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Python hubris ]

My coworker Mario writes Brewed for Thought, on beer and brewing and culture and pairing those things with cheese.

[ related topics: Sociology Beer California Culture ]

Summary of an actual conversation with a developer INSIDE the credit card gateway company. The only one available for this country/currency and customer.

me: Should I send it as: CreditCardNumber, CreditcardNumber or CredicardNumber ? Your documentation and example code has it multiple ways.

Juan: How does it get returned in the error message?

me: <input type=hidden id='CredicardNumber' size='20' maxlength='16' name='CreditcardNumber' value=''

(4 minute pause)

Juan: sorry, send CredicardNumber

Of course the real WTF is that they return the values as hidden form tags in an HTML document. Not a real API interface ala URL encoded key value pairs or XML.

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Invention and Design Cryptography Currency ]

Bettie Page, circa 1953, in Carnival magazine modeling how much skin it's legal for a dancer to show in various jurisdictions, via Columbine.

[ related topics: Law Douglas Adams ]

Oooh: Really cool graphic about women's dress sizes and fit measurements, from this Metafilter thread about an online attempt to match body measurements to the sizes and fit of various UK clothing retailers

[ related topics: Clothing ]

Chronicle of Higher Education: The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia

So I waited two years, until my book on the trial was published. "Now, at last, I have a proper Wikipedia leg to stand on," I thought as I opened the page and found at least a dozen statements that were factual errors, including some that contradicted their own cited sources. I found myself hesitant to write, eerily aware that the self-deputized protectors of the page were reading over my shoulder, itching to revert my edits and tutor me in Wiki-decorum. I made a small edit, testing the waters.

Yep: Wikipedia can be one hell of an echo chamber, reinforcing commonly held wrong beliefs, and making statements that are not supported by their alleged sources (for instance, the Passenger Rail section of the Fuel Efficiency In Transportation page currently lists the East Japan Railway Company at 0.35 MJ/passenger-km, the JR East Goals and Results document that it cites makes no mention of passenger loads), and I haven't delved too deeply, but it sure feels like the culture does nothing to to counter this problem. Especially as the culture becomes more entrenched and more hostile to editing.

Hat Tip to Rafe.

[ related topics: Books Nature and environment Sociology California Culture Trains Education Public Transportation ]

A few historical things have struck me hard recently:

• Remember when Madonna's photo book "Sex" was a big deal?
• Remember when Ellen coming out was a big deal, and now Ellen and J.C. Penney laying the smackdown on a small fringe group that calls itself "Million Moms" is something we're aware of only because we run in "those circles"?

In that vein, I wanted to make note of an Ask MeFi question looking for "Anthologies about Abortion and Homosexuality?" in order to better get a handle on historical context, because it's important to remember how far we've come.

Lest we back-slide.

[ related topics: Books Photography Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Spreading Romney is gaining in the search engine rankings.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

LA Weekly: Geek Chicks: PyLadies, a Gang of Female Computer Programmers. Hat tip to Paul Ford

[ related topics: Monty Python Automobiles Python ]

New York Times > Education > On Education: SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors. Dr. Les Perelman, one of the directors of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked at the available scored SAT essay tests:

... "I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time." The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade.

And factual errors aren't scored. So, kids: If you're taking the SAT, on the writing section go long, and make a whole lot of shit up.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Invention and Design Writing Education New York ]

The latest issue of Popular Science has a fascinating story about a 14 year-old genius from Arkansas who became the 32nd person in history to achieve nuclear fusion, using some cobbled together lab equipment and advice from a bunch of impressed technical mentors.

The piece also has a few asides about David Hahn, the Nuclear Boyscout. In the early 90s he attempted to build a breeder reactor in his Michigan barn, without the knowlege of his parents or anybody else, like the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. While he was trying to dismantle the pile the cops found out about it, and triggered a Nuclear Reaction Team scramble which declared the property a Superfund site and carted everything to a dump site in Utah. It seems that Tyler, the Current whiz kid, has a tremendously (perhaps insanely) supportive family and they have gotten him into a genius educational program in Reno. Hahn is apparently far less socially fluent, and never got the support may have needed. Since the reactor incident he did a stint in the Navy and in 2007 he was arrested for stealing smoke detectors, presumably to acquire the Americium isotopes inside. A bit of "there but for fortune..." in action.

[ related topics: Cool Science Sociology Child-Freedom Nuclear Disaster ]

A font just for Chattanooga, Tennessee.

(Thanks, Columbine!)

[ related topics: Chattanooga Typography Graphic Design ]

@NowThis tweeted a link to an article about redesigning the Windows logo. Interesting, though something about that "8" makes me feel unsettled.

However, last time I upgraded Windows, the resulting logo looked quite different.

[ related topics: Free Software Photography Microsoft Open Source ]

Takedowns run amok? The strange Secret Service/GoDaddy assault on JotForm (updated). Or why you shouldn't do business with GoDaddy, and why we should give those who'd assault the net, like the supporters of SOPA/PIPA and such, not one damned inch in their attempts at creating further legal overreach.

[ related topics: Law Current Events ]

If you watch only one video of freestyle trials riding on a vintage lady's bicycle today, make it this one.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Pedal Power Video Bicycling ]

A couple from Shadow:

• I could swear I've seen a video similar to this Insane Downhill Bike Race before, but this one seems to have slightly different course elements. Maybe same race, different years? Either way: In-freakin'-sane.
• world first 720 double tailwhip - FISE Costa Rica. I'm not even sure my head can wrap around the physics of that.
• Lawsuit to allow bikes on section of (Boise Idaho) Greenbelt dismissed. I'm not generally a fan of bike and pedestrian shared infrastructure, but I'm even less a fan of the risk introduced by "bikes must be walked" sections. Seems to me that this just makes the cyclist suddenly that much wider and more protrude-y an obstacle.
• Live Leak: Road rage bus driver who 'used vehicle as a weapon' is jailed at Bristol Crown Court. Seems like Britain is treating motor vehicles like the deadly weapons they can be!

[ related topics: Movies Theater & Plays Current Events Guns Video Bicycling Public Transportation ]

Here Comes The Neighborhood (trailer) (Vimeo video) is an introduction to Here Comes The Neighborhood, a series of short documentaries on graffiti and street art as practiced in the Wynwood district of Miami, where wall space is curated and the spray-painters are invited.

Via Dulemba.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Space & Astronomy Art & Culture Television Video ]

At the Petaluma Friends of the River boat build.

[ related topics: Photography Boats Machinery ]

Dr Jen Gunter: Pre abortion ultrasound: the medical evidence and why it's important.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

I never watched much Star Trek Voyager, but I've been catching up on bad sci-fi space opera as background noise (via NetFlix). I found myself thinking that if I were Captain of a powerful starship, 75+ years from home, in need of food, energy, and everything else.. I'd find a hospitable planet with a less advanced population and take charge. Maybe a few planets. Forget prime directive, I'm thinking Jesuit style religious and cultural reformations ala the Europeans conquering the western hemisphere. Injecting religion, philosophy and technology as needed.

"Right thing to do"? I guess it depends on the perspective, But it was a twist in my head that made me realize how different the perspective in that series really is compared to our past.

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Movies Star Trek Food History moron Space & Astronomy Sociology Philosophy Aviation - Helicopters ]

Dayumn! @Autopsy9 rawked the latest NineBullets.net podcast. That one's gonna get listened to again next time I need energy for cleaning!

Unsuck-it.com - In case you need to truly understand the buzzword of the day.

[ related topics: Law ]

The Oatmeal: I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened.

Good thoughts on piracy and broadcast media...

[ related topics: Games Movies Journalism and Media Comics ]

Calamities of Nature: Making money from Advertisements on Your Website, Comic or Blog: The first place I've really seen a bunch of ad options and strategies laid out.

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Currency ]

Time in the shop with headphones on, and a commute, mean I'm consuming podcasts.

• Nobilis Erotica. Nobilis is hugely prolific, some of his tales are full-cast recordings, some are straight reads, his genres run all over the place, both written by him and written by others.
• JD Sawyer has a number of podcasts, including some full-cast recordings. I've been sucked into his "Antithesis Progression" series, although it tends to get a little too caught up in the hard action "uh, wait, the world doesn't really work that way even if this is a solar system spanning Sci Fi world", and enjoyed "Down From Ten", although that one felt a little more obvious about where it was going. But for pulpy fiction with great production values, I'm eagerly awaiting future episodes.
• Christiana Ellis has put out Nina Kimberly the Merciless, in which the daughter of the most feared barbarian in the land leaves home to find adventure, and Space Casey, an intergalactic grifter telling tales. Both feel a little YA, but I enjoyed 'em.
• I got turned on to Chris Lester's Metamor City based on a story Nobilis wrote in that universe. An imagining of what might happen when a world with telepaths, vampires, magicians, and millenia old shapeshifting curses evolves to modern day technology. Full cast, high production values, lots of attention to world building and exploring the psychology of transformations, poly relationships, and religion and technology in the face of magic.
• NPR's Planet Money. Economics in a little bit of depth.
• NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Current events quiz show humor.

Music-wise, I've been listening to:

• Coverville, everything covers, many of which are better than the originals, some are the originals of things you know better as covers, and a few are covers that should never have been made.
• Nine Bullets, hard rockin' alt hillbilly something.

There are a number that have dropped off my listening.

• This American Life dropped off my list because the smarmy Chicago urban thing got kind of old.
• Marketplace because... well... I'd rather be informed, and do we really need more "Freakonomics" distortions trying to pass themselves off as insight?

I don't remember the others off the top of my head.

So, what else should I be listening to?

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Humor Music Erotic Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality moron Theater & Plays Space & Astronomy Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Pop Culture Guns Currency Clowns Economics Real Estate Photovoltaics ]

Not quite sure this was where the quoted SFGate.com commenter was going...:

"Don't compare children to dogs or any other beasts. I raised four children in this town and not one of them ever defecated on the sidewalk, jumped up on someone's leg with dirty feet or urinated on the front porch of a stranger. At least not until they went to college."

Student loans aren't the only reason to get your kids to explore career paths which don't involve college...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Quotes Education Dogs ]

For looking at when I get home: Open Photo.

Because me and "git annex" aren't getting along.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Auburn Maine school sees positive results with iPads in kindergartens:

Since Auburn is the nation's first public school system to provide iPads to each of their youngest students, the district is closely examining the program through a yearlong research study. Dr. Mike Muir, Auburn School Department's Multiple Pathways Leader, stated, "Too many innovative programs don't prioritize their own research, and even if they collect observations and stories later, they don't make the effort to do a randomized control trial, like we did. We wanted to make sure we could objectively examine the contribution of the iPads."

Note that this is (positively) surprising to me on a number of levels: That technology is actually improving the educational process, that they bothered to actually try to isolate and study the effects, and that they seem to be working from a curriculum need.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment Education ]

Hat tip to Larry: a centenarian cyclist

“I haven’t cycled on a track for 80 years,” said Frenchman Robert Marchand. “You have to get used to the fixed gear! I prefer cycling outside but that is impossible at the moment [due to snow]. I don’t want to catch the flu. So I am short on training.”

[ related topics: Weblogs Sports Pedal Power Bicycling Gambling ]

The True Story of the Oscar Streaker.

Kevin Drum: The Internet is a Major Driver of the Growth of Cognitive Inequality.

Or: It's a tool. If you don't know how to use a tool, you can injure yourself. Even if you do know how to use a tool, you can injure yourself. You can also do things with it.

Well worth remembering in discussions about the "digital divide", and in discussions about libraries (which, presumably, have people who are good at using reference materials).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Net Culture ]

Re criticism of Santorum's observation that Satan is attacking America: do we need cites on corroborated autobiographical behavior?

Remember the news that the OPERA project at the LHC was puzzling over some apparently faster-than-light neutrinos? m passes along the news that the measurements were apparently flawed because of a loose cable.

[ related topics: Current Events Archival ]

It's a Makefile! And an HTML document! And a Python script! All in one!

[ related topics: Monty Python Python ]

a light article on attempts to crack down on GPS jammers in the UK

[Link fixed: iPad Safari sucks]

[ related topics: Current Events Maps and Mapping ]

Two items from the news this week re: Science fiction.... A Japanese company is seriously(?) suggesting that they could build a space elevator to the Clarke Orbit by 2050. It would be 36,000 KM tall, with 30 passenger elevator cars moving upward at 200 KPH, which means a 7.5 day trip. I also visualize the problem of waste disposal, with meteorites of fiery shit raining down on Japan.

The other piece is about Isaac Asimov's spoofing his own degree dissertation with a fake paper about Thiotimoline, the substance that dissolves before you put it in the water. I remember one of his stories from the 60s where the Harvard scientist gets the substance to dissolve, then locks the apparatus up in a safe to prevent the water from being added at the correct future time. Immediately, two Atlantic hurricanes change course and head for Cambridge!

[ related topics: Cool Science Space & Astronomy Writing ]

Ferris Jabr: When Squid Fly: New Photographic Evidence

The MeFi entry points to this Treehugger.com article with photos

[ related topics: Photography Invention and Design Aviation ]

Utah State Representative Bill Wright, R-Holden, says of HB 363, a bill that prohibits instruction in contraception in sex ed classes says:

"We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it..."

Naw, nobody's going to get away with it. Shaggy and Scooby will reveal that it was the old theme park caretaker in the mask all along.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Real Estate ]

Greece is much in the news right now, with an even shot at either ruinous austerity or a Bolshevik putsch. Even if they get bailed out, there are other problems. Here is a story about a group trying to set up an online olive oil business. It took them 10 months to get all the permits. Among the hoops presented for their jumping, the Health Department demanded that all shareholders submit stool samples. Suddenly, Sarbanes-Oxley doesn't sound so bad.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Current Events Gambling ]

Greece is much in the news right now, with an even shot at either ruinous austerity or a Bolshevik putsch. Even if they get bailed out, there are other problems. Here is a story about a group trying to set up an online olive oil business. It took them 10 months to get all the permits. Among the hoops presented for their jumping, the Health Department demanded that all shareholders submit stool samples. Suddenly, Sarbanes-Oxley doesn't sound so bad.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Current Events Economics ]

Actual film. No pixely artifacts or plugging ears to block out the DLP title sound! Decent movie, too (Big Miracle).

[ related topics: Movies ]

YouTube video of a steam engine in the London Underground. Blog entry explaining the steam engine in the London Underground subway tunnels.

[ related topics: Weblogs Movies Machinery Trains Video Public Transportation ]

Last week, Smashwords, an online publisher of ebooks, modified their terms of service to forbid "...erotic fiction that contains bestiality, rape and incest.".

Remittance Girl has an open letter to Smashwords' Mark Coker on the new policy that's well worth reading.

No, sir. Smashwords is requiring the removal of these books to maintain its relationship with Paypal. Please let us be clear on this. I am sure your aspirations regarding the founding of Smashwords were and are very noble. But it is YOU who have decided to let a financial services provider dictate your TOS and therefore impose censorship on the authors who post their works on your site.

Secondly, you, like so many other people seem to have intellectual difficulty in distinguishing between the textual, fictional representation of something and reality. The language you use in your letter is evidence of a conceptual inability to do so. You are not alone in this: forces within our society who wish to ‘protect us’ from ourselves have used this blurring of the fictional with the concrete to great effect, whipping people who also can’t distinguish the fundamental difference up into froths of moral outrage.

No Boundaries Press sees this as an opportunity.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Ethics Free Speech Invention and Design ]

Some interesting notes on bisexuality and how we treat sexual preference: Notes from a Unicorn:

The gay rights movement has been so successful because activists like Harvey Milk encouraged people to come out and tell the truth to their families, to their friends, and to their coworkers, to be everything they were, to say “We’re here, we’re queer,” yes, but also, implicitly, to say, “We’re here, it’s complicated, and probably it’d be good if we talked about this over tea.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Civil Liberties ]

There's a whole lot I want to write about this, but it's been sitting in my browser tab for a week now, so I'll just toss it up, with the caveat that I think there are some good points here, but I think it's more complicated than this: Why Sex Is Not Spiritual.

We cannot afford for sex to be sacred. Sacred things sit on altars to be worshiped from afar, not to become part of one's everyday life. They are not to be touched, played with, fondled, mocked, examined, or questioned. They do not come down into the dust and muck that we live in every day. The sacred stays safely behind the veil of mysticism and respect. Keeping sex behind that veil isn't just repressive and boring, it's fatal. ...

Via craschworks

[ related topics: Religion Erotic Sexual Culture Theater & Plays Gambling ]

Journal of Apocryphal Chemistry: A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine:

A quick search of several neighborhoods of the United States revealed that while pseudoephedrine is difficult to obtain, N-methylamphetamine can be procured at almost any time on short notice and in quantities sufficient for synthesis of useful amounts of the desired material. Moreover, according to government maintained statistics, N-methylmphetamine is becoming an increasingly attractive starting material for pseudoephedrine, as the availability of N-methylmphetamine has remained high while prices have dropped and purity has increased [2]. We present here a convenient series of transformations using reagents which can be found in most well stocked organic chemistry laboratories to produce psuedoephedrine from N-methylamphetamine.

Via JWZ.

Edit 2023-10-03 to update the link, used to point to heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf but that's been hijacked by spammers.

[ related topics: moron Sociology Mathematics ]

Because @genehack made a post about this, I read his suggestions and still wasn't quite certain:

mkdir gittest; cd gittest; git init

Initialized empty Git repository in /home/dlyke/code/gittest/.git/

for a in First Second Third Fourth ; do echo $a >> abc.txt ; git add abc.txt ; git commit -m $a\ Commit ; done

[master (root-commit) 8c68792] First Commit

 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

 create mode 100644 abc.txt

[master cbccf0c] Second Commit

 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

[master 426fd1a] Third Commit

 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

[master 94694d7] Fourth Commit

 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

If we now do a git rebase -i HEAD~3, we can combine the second and third commit by changing the file to:

pick cbccf0c Second Commit

squash 426fd1a Third Commit

pick 94694d7 Fourth Commit

This will then pop up a second window which lets us amend the revised commit message, which I'll make "Second and Third Commit". git log now shows three commits, and the middle one has 3 lines in it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama John S Jacobs-Anderson Music Television ]

Ultra Local Geography: Building paranoia in Rogers Park.

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping ]

The fun of doing work in Africa is working with a really sharp west african guy that said the following about doing the first run-thru for the client utility (rough quote):

"It is like when you buy a women.. You know you bought her, but you don't know if she is really a boy or a girl until you take her to bed.. "

and then you realize he may not be talking about a hooker (short term business deal).. he might be talking about actually buying a woman (permanent).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Race Furniture ]

Techdirt's SOPA/PIPA coverage gets bogus DMCA'd. As if we needed another reason to not give them one more damned inch.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Journalism and Media ]

Fluid Simulation with Turing Patterns (WebGL, Firefox & Chrome, at least).

Couples who cohabitate are happier than married couples.

[ related topics: Sociology Current Events Marriage ]

Pondering if Prop 13 creates additional incentive for enhancing property vs conventional assessment, which penalizes improvements.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

The Noun Project - An attempt to create CC licensed icons for nouns (and some verbs). Also has an interesting interface itself.

Harris Exits Cloud Hosting, Will Sell Data Center

“As this market evolves, it’s also becoming clearer that customers don’t place additional value on trust and are unwilling to move the most mission-critical applications to the cloud before less-sensitive applications are thoroughly tested and vetted in a cloud environment,” Brown added.

I've come over a bit on the cloud issue, I know that leased servers are disappearing in favor of virtual machines, and the Apple direction suggests that many users are far more interested in computing as a service than computing as a product. On the other hand, we have been seeing one hell of a bubble.

Via /..

[ related topics: Apple Computer Nature and environment Economics Archival ]

Whoah. Just realized that the first posts to Flutterby.com happened in February... *14* years ago.

Light reading ADSL TUTORIAL: Extracted from the Introduction and Chapter 1 of A G.hs Handshaking Protocol Analyzer For ADSL, a Master’s Project by Matthew J. Langlois, May 2002.

With reference to Figure 9, the Cell TC block handles all ATM specific requirements, including header error control (HEC) generation, idle cell insertion, cell payload scrambling, bit timing and ordering, cell delineation, and HEC verification. The ATM Cell TC block essentially handles the conversion of ATM data to ADSL bearer channel data. Again, in ADSL systems transporting STM data, the ATM Cell TC block is not utilized. Following the ATM Cell TC block, data is routed, through bearer channels, to the Mux/Sync Control block. The Mux/Sync Control block synchronizes data to the 4kHz ADSL data frame rate and multiplexes data into the fast and/or interleaved data buffers.

Mostly because I was unhappy with the class description of interleaving in ADSL and ADSL2+ and wanted to understand it. Looks like interleaving does decrease latency and increase the circuit's ability to maintain sync in noisy situations, but it increases throughput. If I'm reading this paper right, massively. Need to test in the real world...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama broadband ]

The most amazing thing abut Santorum: his statements have been so hateful and shocking that we're now talking about him, not his namesake.

Boo for the asshole who spewed the confidentiality, but yay for Mr. Hawking: Stephen Hawking has participated at Freedom Acres swinger's club "...more than a handful of times"

[ related topics: Erotic Privacy Sexual Culture Civil Liberties Government ]

Video from last year's Bodega Bay Boat Building Challenge. We're starting to prep for this year...

[ related topics: California Culture Boats Machinery Video ]

Via @Paul_E_Ester: Ron Paulk's mobile wood shop (YouTube), a workshop in a truck.

[ related topics: Movies Machinery Woodworking ]

Speculist: In the future, everything will be a cofee shop