Archive for the ‘uncategorized’ Category
links for 2009-06-13
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The man who invented ASCII for IBM recounts some interactions of the early days of the Computer Industry
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RealTime editing FX board
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Great tutorials on how to do certain things with Social Networking websites
links for 2009-06-12
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This company is a hosting provider too and will include an install of the Expression Engine if you so desire
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There is no more important provider of Map data than Navteq
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Outlook email sync with Gmail
links for 2009-06-09
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Used to be the premiere video board for editing Premiere with real time FX Preview on the PeeCee.
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Berkeley's own department of computer architecture is legendary alongside that of Stanford. The two together have pioneered more technologies for the Computer Industry than any other University.
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Grout Sealer guaranteed to stand up to wear and tear
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ABC affiliate in Rochester, NY
links for 2009-06-06
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Dryden Theatre film schedule
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IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, Robby Robson and a number of other notables participated very heavily in this process to write and vote on specs for Course Management Systems.
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This is the webpage inside the IMS website with the IEEE standards for LMS/CMS
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This was the premier location to shop for archival inkjet supplies. Ink and paper were archival and tested by the supplier and this merchant in particular. Very comprehensive product line, lots of technical support with color profiles for different printers/ink/paper combination.
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This is the glue that allows institutions to collaborate over the web without creating unique userids and accounts for everyone involved. It's a trust based relationship, done electronically speaking.
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Best place to find good prices on audio and video gear
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This is the website that uPortal started up for open source web portals. Carl from UDelaware was the prime mover in getting uPortal started.
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One worthwhile station in Rochester. It's run as a BOCES project for kids who want to have careers in Media.
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This is where I used to buy snowblower parts for the little yardman snowblower
links for 2009-06-05
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This is where I used to buy snowblower parts for the little yardman snowblower
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Formerly Click2Learn, this is a LMS used in higher education, now moving into the corporate online training market.
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Info Technology at UW-Seattle
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This is the full roster of participating institutions in Apples iTunes U website.
Frontline: News War (Episode 3)
In this episode we discover the economics that drive the so-called ‘News Business’. Apparently up until 1968-69 the networks ran their news divisions in the public interest as dictated by the FCC. Everything changed when CBS with Don Hewitt at the helm created “60 Minutes”, which turned a profit for the news division. It was all downhill from there. Personally I kind of like ’60 Minutes’ as both an investigative news show and as entertainment. The proof that things had changed was when the Loews Corp knuckled under pressure from the ‘Cigarette Industry’ and buried the Jeffrey Weigand whistle-blowing expose on the research done on the effects of cigarettes and the correlation with cancer. I wrote once in an ironic way (probably ripped off of another article I read at the time) that this time Dan Rather’s vaunted eye of CBS blinked. That was proof that ’60 Minutes’ was not like other news programs. It had financial interests to protect.
And whither the old grey newspapers? When public ownership became all the rage and stockholders drove decisions at the newspapers, things took a turn for the worse. The financial obligation a publicly traded company has to its stockholders and the profit margins required outweigh any public interest the newspaper may serve. Knight-Ridder was profiled in its takeover of the L.A. Times and the what followed as the profit margin shot up to 20% year over year. Every quarter attempts were made to show stockholders that management was actively involved and that profits would stay high. Which requires constant publicly visible attempts to cut costs. This is the merry-go-round every company suffers from, and in the era before publicly traded Newspapers, was unnecessary. Families owned newspaper operations in the prior age, and didn’t require 20% profit margins year over year. And therefore, newspapers didn’t have to go through a quarterly charade of cutting costs to maintain profits and growth.
The measure of success for the public interest oriented newspapers and broadcasters are the St. Petersburg Times and National Public Radio. St. Pete is run as a non-profit trust and they are able to be profitable, but are not required to maintain year over year profits and growth in the range of 20% profit and 1% growth each year. As a result the St. Petersburg Times is the most popular newspaper in ALL of Florida, central and otherwise. The only thing I remember coming from the St. Petersburg Times is Dave Barry’s humor column. In retrospect, it makes sense that Barry would have found a comfortable home at this newspaper. The other measure of success is any news organization that is able to keep reporters permanently stationed in Baghdad since before the invasion began. As it stands today National Public Radio can count itself in the same league as N.Y.Times, AP, Reuters, etc. Very few organizations outside the newswires are able to bear the cost of reporting daily from Baghdad. And now NPR is counted as the most trusted broadcast news reporting organization in the U.S. with 26million listeners. Thank God someone is doing something right. Let’s hope private ownership and private trusts can reverse the trend of poorly managed publicly traded media companies.
I inform people against their will
Borrowed from the podcast of “This American Life” #326. Full attribution is a good thing. Mystery Hunt @ MIT. New Puzzles keep coming. There are no instructions but there is an answer. However in real life, outside of MIT, most problems don’t have an answer. Thirteen and half straight hours, 30 straight hours. Dave tells the story of his time at Hallmark in Kansas City, MO. He moved from humor to serious and couldn’t figure out why he was told not to use so many allusions in his day to day speech. “Ooooh, that’s the problem. I inform people against their will.” The thing that makes you annoying in the regular world is not annoying here. Some people have talents that require the right context in which to shine. Truer words were never spoken, thankyou Lisa Pollock.
Podcast addendum – Bomb Run 021
After posting the show and listening to it some thoughts occured to me. Stuff I would have included if it wasn’t boring or made the show go too long would have included:
References to the history of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research
References to Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert’s book: Perceptrons
The role of AI Research in missile defense planning/budgets
The re-invigoration of AI Research with the missile defense program under Reagan et. al.
These topics will stay off the podcast until I get through the first round of scripted podcasts. An art professor of mine once said, “Where do you come up with all these stories?” And I looked at her, smiled a big dumb grin and said, “Oh this?! I got a million of ‘em.” So don’t be surprised if we revisit the MIT AI Lab and it’s history and contributions to the computer industry and society in general.
Thinking about the weather
10,000 Maniacs: The color of the sky as near as I can tell is called grey
Thinks finally cooled off, below normal in fact for many quarters in the eastern U.S. The ice wasn’t too bad. We could have had power outages, but we seem to have escaped them. Tonight is the big chill however, the prediction is 10 degrees fahrenheit. I’m kind of glad the weather is acting somewhat more normally. And I hope it stays this way for the duration. Snow of any kind isn’t a burden if it melts occasionally.
Photo Blue Shuttle
Every so often, Shuttle tries to compete directly with Apple. I’m sure that now when Apple has started its migration to the dual core Intel machines, they really will have to turn up the heat. If I ever buy a PC for the home, I’ll be torn between a Dell and Shuttle PC. Who knows, it may happen. But I have also just recently purchased a new Intel dual core iMac. So I’m tapped out for now when it comes to computer purchases.
