OOOH

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Joel has an article about determining walkability of neighborhoods. current residence scores 60, parents score 23 NY place scores 74.

http://brainoff.com/weblog/2007/11/11/1273

http://www.randsinrepose.com/ - brilliant post today

WOTD

word of the day : mawkish

more analog

todo: next time I'm playing tourist in one of the following cities { Amsterdam,
Barcelona,Berlin,Dublin,Lisbon,London,Madrid,Milan,Paris,Prague,Rome,Wien,Boston,New York,San Francisco,Washington,Chicago,Los Angeles,Seattle,Florence,Venice,Montreal} I REALLY need to journal my time with one of these:
http://www.moleskine.it/eng/_interni/catalogo/Cat_int/catalogo_city.htm

Alternatley a Trip journal might be fun with a series of the the Washington journals.

also a sketchbook and pair (weekly/daily) of diaries would be fun.

this will require me to re-locate my fountain pens.

On peanut butter

the "natural stuff" is thin!

re-enrolling

... school!

Rollins, Henry

- Is a fan.
I never realized the extent, the depth, the pure unadulterated obsession people can form with bands and music.

Rollins commentary is interesting, I'm assuming he's relating real events (filtered by his politics and personality) (I mean who doesn't). The really unique thing is he (evidently intentionally) regularly confronts the "socially awkward" and muddles through.

I've got a great depth of respect for him.

Consuming Evenings

Fall:

Portal - rocked (the best credits ever).
Halo 3 - fun
Halo 3 - ad campaign - unadulterated cool
Bungie taking over the world - well... only if they ditch Microsoft's "flagship" responsibility (being flagship evidently means you must spend millions refining the play-experience... at the cost of trimming extra levels)... on the other hand... they did pull a matrix-RE* and just like the movie there was not enough content.
Bioshock - System Shock 2 - cyberpunk + steam. a bit "shallower" (missing classes).

Still upcoming:
Mass effect
Guitar Hero 3
a plethora of other titles I've forgotten that PA will do more justice to than I.

Recipe for Science!

science Journalisim Cross Connections III.
add a dash of good old americanized Church.
Sprinkle with skepticism.

roast at 350 for 45 minutes.

Preach it brother!

Joel has some phenomenal observations in his latest post.

it's been a while

linkage:

RF-ECG
RF-Scale
new E-readers
SemaCode + Cell-phone = instant remorse

Telephono

I was returning home yesterday and after passing the mailbox I looked down and saw a stack of brand new telephone books, unopened, still wrapped in their heavy plastic coating. Those books had been there for the better part of two months, gathering dust and detritus including several leaves, and additional phone books. Not only had nobody picked up a book, but the pile had actually GROWN, That was when it stuck me.

Telephone books are obsolete

When I moved to Virginia I had brought phone books from New York, Books that I never opened. Two pound tomes roughly the size of a really detailed graphic novel. (as there really weren't that many people in Upstate New York). I was confronted with the size of the metro area I was moving into in a very tangible way when i was presented the Virgina Phone book, initially it appeared as though everyone in the state was listed, but no, only those who I could encounter should I desire to in the expanse of a day.

I never Used that book either.

Google killed the phone book. locale-based searches via Google maps have made the answer for "where's the nearest pizza place" ridiculously easy to find. further meditations upon this as we approach the 3G horizon (assuming the telephone companies don't screw that up as well) yield all kinds of interesting notions. My children will likely never understand the reference to yellow book. Alphabetization, a task that I learned as it was necessary to try and find information in an encyclopedia, a phone book, or even a dictionary... has become something that we teach children for no apparent reason, an arbitrary hierarchical data structure that has become obsolete.

Community

it's interesting... DCist (at least this morning) seems to be fostering (in me) a feeling of community, perhaps it's just the annual "back to school" migration. A sort of two month long congestion period where we all learn to drive in traffic again (saw 3 accidents on the road in this morning), or if it's something else, but I can understand why folks would endeavour to live in the district.

Not that I'd ever count myself one of them.

linux forensic

saved until slashdot gives up

new helmetcam pete fagerlin... eat your heart out

Trying to grasp the truly weird

More links in my quest to understand this "quantum mechanics" thing.

Measurement Problem

evidently you can interpret it too

2 things:

crazy Russian 3d Printer... you can make at home
(uses plastic, not sugar)
Harvesting thermal differences to create electrical power net: 200 mW

interesting : learning motion from known properties
amusing : keepon Dancing robot takes over hearts, world next.

but, Time travel a possibility (according to Germans)

To Read List

Cellphone Carrier comp.
Beautiful monocycle
MAKE open sourced Hardware
Glucose montioring
and... anti drink spikes

Cringely

I,Cringely Has a (typically) insightful piece into the history of the US TELCO's attempts to increase bandwidth availability to consumers.

It's interesting that he phrases it as a net loss. I wonder if he's looking at Cable as well? or is his contention that we've lost 45 M bps bi-di forever. (Not that I think cable can get us there (ever)) but I'm not convinced that upstream bandwidth EVER needs to equal downstream (to the home).

to look for comparison: Fios and Cable Bandwidth.

On Competition

why we compete - washington post

"Nonzero sum, mutually beneficial relationships (cooperation) affect evolution, just like the zero sum (competition) ones." - slashdot poster on Competition V Cooperation in Darwinian evolution

Paul Greengrass - NEVER go see another movie from this director.

which is a shame, because Bourne Ultimatum is a fun movie, great pacing, decent job distinguishing sets, nice post production job.

from the Giz

DARPA toys
Boats And a guy who jumps out of airplanes with a rocket strapped to his back.

Manhattan or Bust!

Some folks are still trying to escape from brooklyn.

Physics today

Manitoba university physicist John Page along with CSM professor Roel Sneider (Center for Wave Phenomena (@CSM)) have some interesting work on the physics of beer bubbles

Fake Steve Jobs

groklaw: evidently PJ has a history with Daniel Lyons of Forbes. the Unmasking

Le Tour 2007

What a year, rocked by scandal, the tour in 2007 comes to a anti-climatic close?

Final results Alberto Contador takes home the white and the yellow, Levi Leiphimer gets a stage win and stands on the podium, and Team Discovery comes home in first place.

I really should spend this time to reflect on sportsmanship, the nature of competition, and what's going on with professional cycling...

Read an amateur's test with EPO, HGH and Steroids

Pearls Before Breakfast

So... the Washington Post published an article Pearls Before Breakfast.

And I finally understand what "good Journalisim" is all about.
I was reading a peice on CNN about the Post having difficulty remaining solvent as advertising revenue for print goes the way of the dodo. The interesting parts of the CNN article dealt with why losing the post (more specifically it's investigative division) would be a tragedy. They also aluded to (Pearls (PBB)) to demonstrate how presenting mixed media was possible on the web, and in some kind of bid for relevancy.

When I've picked up the times or the post I've enjoyed their writing, but I don't make time for a paper anymore (not that, frankly I ever did). however it would indeed be a tragedy if writing of this caliber were to no longer be made due soley to the invention of a new communications style.

Todo:
"Chaconne" from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor.
"AVE MARIA"
Manuel Ponce's sentimental "Estrellita,"
Jules Massenet
Bach gavotte
"The Voice of the Violin,"

Ripped from the article:
The song that Calvin Myint was listening to was "Just Like Heaven," by the British rock band The Cure. It's a terrific song, actually. The meaning is a little opaque, and the Web is filled with earnest efforts to deconstruct it. Many are far-fetched, but some are right on point: It's about a tragic emotional disconnect. A man has found the woman of his dreams but can't express the depth of his feeling for her until she's gone. It's about failing to see the beauty of what's plainly in front of your eyes.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Currency issues

The problem with DCIst is that Invariably I've already made plans by the time I find out about something interesting happening in the District.

Possible solutions:

1. Paralyze my schedule such that nothing is planned and everything becomes "spontaneous" (downside: yeah, that never works, I wind up watching too many re-runs of old movies).
2. find some way of shortening my planning horizion to 12 -24 hours (This doesn't work with Cycling with friends, or with biking into work, or any of a number of events that require more than 12 hours of planning).

The issue is (obviously) I'm missing information. Someone (perhaps the DCist) is telling folks about events ahead of time, and I'm just not seeing them.

enter RSS + filters?

Duff's Device

Duff's Device quite possibly the coolest thing since jump vectors.

On Collaboration

A group is it's own worst enemy (via Joel) which is an outstanding read if only for the goldmine of ideas it presents.

linkage from within the essay:
The Well which I'm calling an analog to NPR, that thing that I know I should be a member of, and listening to more, but aren't

Assuming Infinites

Web 2.0 : free bandwidth to your pocket! wherever you are! (if that's what Web 2.0 really means). (with NEW accurate positions!
(slashdot on techconsumer)

So.. you will always know where you are(Bruce Sterling) be able to watch youtube, and know the location of the nearest sushi restaurant.

So will everyone else (assuming infinite bandwidth)

which is hard to imagine given current technology
google free wifi in mt vista
google plan for wifi in San Fran

On Blogging

Yay! - test
Boo! mobile doesn't work!

Note: mobile doesn't mean via a phone... must be due to Scripting within blogger.