Blog Posts

January 2011

• 2011-01-14

  Insightful article about education

  An insightful article about higher education in the USA: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education. Here are some interesting quotes. It’s a long article and all of it was quite interesting.

  “Students at places like Cleveland State also don’t get A-’s just for doing the work. There’s been a lot of handwringing lately over grade inflation, and it is a scandal, but the most scandalous thing about it is how uneven it’s been.

  Forty years ago, the average GPA at both public and private universities was about 2.6, still close to the traditional B-/C+ curve. Since then, it’s gone up everywhere, but not by anything l...

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  #education
• 2011-01-05

  Sifteo vs. Scrabble Flash

  Scott Kirsner tweets:

  “Invented at MIT, Sifteo cubes (tiny displays that talk to each other) are almost ready: http://bit.ly/eXsCQU / http://bit.ly/ehhZ1Q”

  Sifteo cubes are similar (except much more expensive and presumably programmable) to Scrabble Flash, that have been around since last year. Interesting.

  #culture
• 2011-01-05

  [GEEKY] Nicer way to run Ruby tests

  Just came across this handy-dandy tool to run tests for Ruby and Rails, and produce much nicer and readable traces so you have a prayer to sort out what is going on when stuff fails.

  Test::Unit Reporter — A new look and feel for Test::Unit output

  TURN is a new way to view Test::Unit results. With longer running tests, it can be very frustrating to see a failure (….F…) and then have to wait till all the tests finish before you can see what the exact failure was. TURN displays each test on a separate line with failures being displayed immediately instead of at the end of the tests.

  #programming
• 2011-01-02

  commonplace, ordinary, usual, common

  I just came across an excellent speech given by William Deresiewics (I didn’t know who he was either) to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The title of the speech is Solitude and Leadership.

  I had a hard time finding a representative quote from the article that would suck you in to reading it. This is a quote from the speech, where he is quoting the famous novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad:

  He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, w...

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  #education

December 2010

• 2010-12-31

  [SILLY] Beards and Facial Hair

  

  I was amused by these two, maybe because I myself am unable to achieve any of them:

  Beard Type Chart

  The Quest for Every Beard Type

• 2010-12-24

  Path to nowhere? I don’t get it either…

  I’ve seen Path, the new "un social" network (limit 50 friends) plugged by pundits and journalists. I tried it and just didn’t get it. Didn’t know what it was for, who it was for, and why it was getting attention. So I am glad finally to come across a commentator who seems to agree with me… Check this post Path Adds 10-Second Video to its Anti-Social Network from Mashable!: ** Ultimately, Path appears to value style over function with an overwrought and contrarian approach to social networking.** For a service that intends to be deeply intimate in purpose, it’s an approach that so far feels cold and unwelcoming. Of course, it’s too soon to tell whether Path is destined for success or doomed for failure. The pedigree of its founders and investors assures us, however, that we will certainly hear a lot more from this startup in the year ahead.

• 2010-12-17

  Stuxnet apparently as effective as a military strike

  Check out Stuxnet apparently as effective as a military strike(from Ars Technica: “Damage from the Stuxnet virus has apparently set back the Iranian nuclear program by as much as two years, according to a German security expert talking to the Jerusalem Post. This makes the virus as effective as a military strike—but without loss of life or risk of full-blown war.” (from: ...

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• 2010-12-16

  Interesting article about Architecture of the Certificate Authority Trust Model

  Check out The Flawed Legal Architecture of the Certificate Authority Trust Model(from Freedom to Tinker: ** "The bottom line is that the CA Trust Model’s legal architecture inures to the benefit of no one. Neither website operators, certificate authorities, nor end-users can be sure of their rights or exposure. The Model’s legal structure may therefore be just as troubling as its security vulnerabilities." (from: **The Flawed Legal Architecture of the Certificate Authority Trust Model)

  .

  #politics #blogging
• 2010-12-14

  [GEEKY] Resfulie GEM for Rails and RESˇ

  This is really nice: Restfulie – Rest from Scratch. It’s a package of code for creating REST clients and servers with built in content type negotiation and other goodies. Watch the fun tour-do-force video too:

  http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11294789&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

  “Rest from scratch” with Rails and Restfulie – part 1 from Caelum on Vimeo.

  #programming
• 2010-12-14

  Wikileaks, continued

  I continue to be fascinated by this. Is WikiLeaks a good guy or a bad guy? I don’t know how I feel yet, so I continue to read. Here are more articles that have impressed me: From Jeremy Wagstaff’s Loose Wire Blog:

  “Asked why he chose to work with three major news outlets to release the Afghan data, he said it was the only way to get heard. He pointed out that he’d put out masses of interesting leaks on spending on the Afghan war previously and hardly a single journalist had picked it up.

  Hence the — inspired — notion of creating a bit of noise around the material this time around. After all, any journalist can tell you the value of the material is less intrinsic than extrinsic: Who else is looking for it, who else has got it, and if so can we publish it before them.” (from Loose Wire Blog)

  #politics
• 2010-12-14

  Wikileaks

  Like many, I don’t know yet whether I support or condemn the Wikileaks action that has been discussed and debated at length on all fora. You have to agree that it has yielded some interesting insights about the way the world works.

  First of all: as far as a diplomat making snide comments about one world leader or another, big deal! I mean it’s embarrassing (like someone hacking your email account or finding your personal diary) but certainly no one is surprised — gossiping and show boating is human nature, yes?

  A friend of mine who has been in the foreign service for a long time read the cables with gusto and said if nothing else, it shows that the US foreign servic...

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  #politics #internet
• 2010-12-12

  Space Geeks: Fantastic slow motion video of Shuttle Launch

  I’ve always been a major space travel fan and geek. This video linked from Engadget incredibly had me glued to my seat for almost 40 minutes. Some fantastic super slow motion footage of the launch.

  Note especially how the two narrators just love the shuttle and love their jobs. They can’t get enough of it, even after having seen this stuff a million times over.

  #science
• 2010-12-10

  Do you need to keep your cell phone in a protective case?

  Check out this really interesting Pogue article in the New York Times: “Gorilla Glass, the Smartphone’s Unsung Hero”. Here’s a tidbit:

  “It’s the screen of every touchscreen phone, like the iPhone and Android phone, plus the iPad and iPod Touch. It’s an amazing story. Corning invented this stuff in the ’60s, but didn’t know what to do with it. Then a few years ago, someone showed a piece of it to Steve Jobs. The guy dropped a piece of the glass into a bag full of keys and shook it hard; it came out without a scratch on it! Jobs immediately seized on the idea of using it for his iPhone....

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  #computing
• 2010-12-09

  Followup: Upgraded my iPhone from 3GS to 4 for MINUS $40.00

  Following up from yesterday’s post, in fact, I was able to get $300 for my mint condition iPhone 3GS on Craig’s list, and was able to buy a new iPhone 4 from Radioshack for $260 after tax!

  So, if you have an iPhone 3GS in good condition, and your AT&T contract is up, then you should upgrade to an iPhone 4 and make $40 in the process. Cool!

  #computing
• 2010-12-07

  Free iPhone 3GS upgrade to iPhone 4?

  So Radioshack is offering $50 off the price of an iPhone 4 for the next several days. As far as I can tell, the difference between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS is not that great, so I’ve not really been that interested. But it got me thinking.

  It turns out that there are many sites that supposedly give you cash for your old iPhone. Oddly, Radioshack is offering $125, and I see sites like Gazelle.com and CashForiPhones.com offering anything between $125 and as much as $315. How can that be? I am not sure.

  As current AT&T contract lock in is over, so from my calculations: $300 for the phone, $50 discount from Radioshack is $250, so if I can get $250 for my old phone, it’s a free upgrade. My remaining question is, who the heck is CashForiPhones.com and can I trust them?

  #computing
• 2010-12-06

  Finance Funny

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k&w=427&h=260]

  #business #politics
• 2010-12-06

  Wikileaks: Truth or Truthy or something entirely different?

  David Weinberger has, as usual, an interesting take, and some interesting links relevant to our perception and the defense or offense of Wikileaks. From his post: “I here just want to comment on a particular theory of truth that many are using to justify Wikileaks. This ideas says that “the truth” is a neutral and accurate depiction of how the world is. One is thus always justified in stating the truth.

  That definition may be true, or it may be true as stipulated, but it’s not useful. In fact, it’s the opposite of useful because it misses truth’s value. Someone who babbles an endless series of true statements is insane. Kierkegaard talked about this as “o...

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  #politics
• 2010-12-06

  Photo sharing thoughts

  I just returned from my mother’s birthday party with about 300 photos – I would say 70% of them are no good, so I selected about 40 of the best ones and then had to decide how to share them with everyone who cared.

  A little bit of research produced the following options which I am sharing with YOU to save you and me some time in the future.

  Note that I am on a Mac and thus I use iPhoto to store the pictures, and have an Apple MobileMe account.

  Option 1: Create a MobileMe Gallery directly from iPhoto and upload the pictures. This works well but the gallery has many clever features which may confuse some of the inexperienced computer users who want to see the pictures.

  Option 2: Send to Fa...

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  #computing #blogging
• 2010-12-04

  Bubble Bubble Sign Of Trouble

  The thing about a bubble is that while people worry about it, no one is actually sure whether they are in one, and especially when it will be over. The other thing about bubbles is that they keep happening because they are the result of human nature (greed and self-deception):

  “Less than a decade after the dot-com bust taught Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors that what goes up does not keep going up forever, a growing number of entrepreneurs and a few venture capitalists are beginning to wonder if investments in tech start-ups are headed toward another big bust.”…

  “The chief evidence, according to industry experts and analysts, is the way venture capitalists and established companie...

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  #business
• 2010-12-03

  Why we need new election technology

  I work at the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, where we are creating new, modern, open source, and publicly owned technology for operating all aspects of voting in the US.

  By the way, do not assume this means ‘internet voting’ — it does not. There is a lot of old technology use to run elections today, a lot of it developed and sold (expensive) by for profit companies. And there’s a lot more to running an election than how a voter casts a vote. We aim to develop tools and technology that is made available for free to anyone who wants it.

  It’s important and exciting work. I came across this bit as ...

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  #politics