Dec 31, 2012
Dec 25, 2012
TIL: Skijoring
Last week at work one of my coworkers suggested we go cross country skiing. In one of the maps, they mentioned skijoring. Looks fun and dangerous.
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 23, 2012
Custom lego designs
Sad, that Lego stopped offering purchase of custom designs. I thought this was a great idea, fitting with the "long tail" economics and personalization of Web 2.0.
Scout 2012-04
Messed up at CBS
Why would CBS run 4 hours of paid programming locally instead of the Packers-Titans game? Why would the NFL and CBS make it so difficult? This is the second game this year where we can't get local coverage.
AFOS: Not a One-Hit Wonder
I have to disagree with Carrie Keagan's assertion on VH-1's one-hit wonders. Even according to the insider definition of having top 40 on the top 100 hits, A Flock of Seagulls had 3 in the top 40 of the Billboard 100.
Dec 21, 2012
The Hiss of Data
From on the Mn SWF mailing list:
This article The Hiss of Data discusses fantasy user interfaces (FUI), both from a cyber video and audio perspective.
What is lacking in my current experience is focused audio signals. It is calm, at least, to only have the Operating system sounds, but, sometimes, it would be nice to have notifications from different browser tabs - the Jenkins build is complete." Of course this would require audio output which my work workstation lacks unless I jack in my headphones, so all those signals might be for not.
Windows 8 + UI Four C's
An angry rant, but some good talking points. I feel his pain when the "charms menu" suddenly appears; when trying to determine where to find something in the new interface (like setting up a Wireless Network) and abort to old Windows interface or Agent Ransack; or the whole Mondrian Metro interface of randomly placed squares as an organization paradigm.
- Control
- Conveyance
- Continuity
- Context
My ideal interface for an OS would be Android with easier to use copy and paste functionality so I could actually produce content from it.
I love the speed of my Asus Win 8 machine. I enjoy the touchscreen for scrolling and card games. But it's definitely a wierd incohesive beast right now.
Here are the UI guidelines from Microsoft.
Dec 19, 2012
Why can't HTML5 simply wrap text?
It'd be great if modern HTML5 semantics understood basic 1989-era multicolumn linked text like Aldus PageMaker did.
CSS3 extensions show some promise. CSS3 hyphenation only works in some browsers, but uses language to determine hyphenation.
Dec 18, 2012
Top Chef Unibrow
Why is the Top Chef unibrow guy so hypercritical of everything? His comments are gross, his attitude is basal and his unibrow is unsanitary.
Dec 17, 2012
"...the whole nation is degraded...
Not by plan, saw the movie Bobby last Friday night. The quote in the movie is fitting for the tragedy of that time as well as the present:
This is a time of shame and sorrow It is not a day for politics I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed And yet it goes on and on.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
-Robert F. Kennedy, Cleveland City Club, April 5, 1968
More quotes from RFK here.
Dec 4, 2012
V'ger
I heard this story on the Current this morning, Voyager onto the space highway. The woman on the radio station morning show joked about how the Federation officers in the future all believed it was V'ger because of a bit of dirt over the name.
Then tonight, we started watching another Space 1999 episode: Voyager's Return. In this episode, which clearly predates Star Trek:TMP, Voyager returns to mankind complete with additional knowledge, and a drive that causes potential trouble for humans. This Voyager apparently has an inside from within which a pilot can sit spaciously.
Dec 3, 2012
Dave Prowse
Dave Prowse (aka the body of Darth Vader) plays a Doctor Who-like monster in Space 1999: The Beta Cloud.
Vikings Fashions
Do those nametags look very temporary, like they could be unstitched and replaced midgame?
Dec 2, 2012
Windows 8 Metro
Not a fan so far of the Windows 8 and Metro interface. I like the grids most touch interfaces use, where the grids are regular and reasonable layout configuration. Metro's horizontal flow is not as efficient for finding apps as is the Android interface. I'm also not liking applications that think they do not need menus anymore. Take the Microsoft Applications that have come out recently - Office, and the apps delivered with Windows 8 - Spider solitaire does not have configuration menus, so where do you configure the application? Back on the main metro interface next to other apps.
How Beautiful
Tracked down this song from the Spirit and Song book last week. How Beautiful by Twila Paris: midi
1. How beautiful the hands that served
the wine and the bread and the sons of the earth.
How beautiful the feet that walked
the long dusty roads and the hill to the cross.
How beautiful,
how beautiful,
how beautiful
is the Body of Christ.
2. How beautiful the heart that bled,
that took all my sin and bore it instead.
How beautiful the tender eyes
that choose to forgive and never despise.
How beautiful,
how beautiful,
how beautiful
is the Body of Christ.
Bridge
And as he laid down his life,
we offer this sacrifice
that we will live just as he died:
willing to pay the price,
willing to pay the price.
3. How beautiful the radiant bride
who waits for her groom with his light in her eyes.
How beautiful when humble hearts give
the fruit of pure lives so that others may live.
How beautiful,
how beautiful,
how beautiful
is the Body of Christ.
4. How beautiful the feet that bring
The sound of good news and the love of the King.
How beautiful the hands that served
the wine and the bread and the sons of the earth.
How beautiful,
how beautiful,
how beautiful
is the Body of Christ.
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