Chaos Magnet

It's a Big Ad

I love it when advertising doesn't take itself seriously. Check out this very big ad for Carlton draft.

Technorati tags: Carlton Draft | Carlton Draught | beer | advertising | humor | big+ad | commercials

Trying something new

My arthritis is getting really really bad. It's not that I'm old. I'm not. In fact, my sister's three years younger than me and she's got worse arthritis than me. (Added later: I'm only in my thirties.) But I really can't type much anymore, and so today, and in fact with this blog post, I am starting to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I am in fact dictating this post. This is going to be interesting. Check out what the computer originally thought I said:

My arthritis is getting really really bad. It's not a mauled a knot, in fact, my sisters three years younger than me and she's got worse arthritis than me. But really can't type much anymore, and so today and in fact at this blog post. I am starting to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I am in fact dictating this post, this is going to be interesting.

Technorati tags: arthritis

The Ambient Orb

Totally swamped so i don't have time to comment, but have a look at the Ambient Orb, a glowing sphere that changes colors according to information received over a wireless network, like weather (blue for cooler, red for hotter) stock market fluctuation (green for up, red for down) and so on. You can even create custom channels, apparently. Very cool, but a bit pricey for me for the moment.

Technorati tags: Ambient Orb

Yahoo! vs Google, and adjustable filters

Apparently I'm not the only one questioning the methodology of the whole Yahoo! vs. Google thing. I can't help it, it's the scientist in me, but I was pretty sure that it wouldn't escape too many other people. In fact, Jeremy Zawodny has pointed me to an examination of the experiment in which some of what I've said is verified. (Hi, Jeremy! :)) And actually, more verified than even I suspected. Apparently some of the chaff isn't just content that's not relevant, it's search engine spam.

So what I'm thinking is, how do you find the right balance between finding everything and finding too much. Maybe it should be up to the beholder. I mean, I don't mind wading through crap to find that one gem, but my wife does. But then, when I was a baby the pediatrician said I wasn't sleeping because I didn't want to miss anything. That's just my personality.

So maybe what we need is the ability to adjust the strength of the filter. Then everybody could be happy.

Technorati tags: Yahoo | Google | search | search engines | Zawodny

Why I like to use my own photos

My wife, Sarah, took took all of the photos for Easy HTML for Ebay. (Well, all the good ones. The crappy ones in the last chapter were "for placement only" photos I took so I could finish the code and I never replaced them. My bad. Definitely my bad.) But here's a good reason why you should never use stock photos for something like that without at least getting an exclusive: The Fishbowl: The Head First Girl's Double Life.

I'm still cracking up over this. Hehehe...

Technorati tags: Head First Girl

Google vs. Yahoo: Does size matter?

OK, so in response to claims that Yahoo has indexed twice as many pages as Google, we have A Comparision of the Size of the Yahoo and Google Indices, in which the researchers compare the number of results returned for just over 10000 queries and conclude that since Yahoo returns fewer results, it must not have as many pages indexed, and certainly not twice as many.

But as anybody who's tried to wade through useless results has wondered, is more really better? Maybe -- and I have no reason to say this other than speculation -- Yahoo has a better way of choosing results?

Like I said, I have no idea how they decide what to display, and maybe they really don't have all of the pages they say they do. I'm just pointing out a major flaw in the experiment's methodology.

Technorati tags: Yahoo | Google | search | search engines

Create a problem determination scenario from scratch

Now available on IBM's developerWorks (and actually, featured on the home page!): Create a problem determination scenario from scratch:

This tutorial chronicles the building of an autonomic computing system that monitors a Java application to demonstrate the ability to detect and resolve issues within the system, a problem determination scenario. In the autonomic computing world, a problem determination scenario is one in which you can demonstrate how an overall system can detect, diagnose, and resolve problems. The Problem Determination Scenario, which you can download from the developerWorks Autonomic computing content area, is an example of a system that does just that by showing you how you can use the various pieces of the Autonomic Computing Toolkit together. In this tutorial, you can follow along and create each piece of our own simple problem determination scenario, which will give you an in-depth understanding of key autonomic computing concepts by using the Generic Log Adapter Runtime and Rule sets, the Resource Model Builder, and the Autonomic Management Engine.

In other words, it tells you how to build a system that fixes itself.

Technorati tags: Autonomic Computing | IBM

Cat on wheels

I have absolutely no clue what the context for this video clip is. All I know is this guy's cat got hit by a truck and lost the use of his back legs, so he built a robot platform the cat could drive. Pretty cool, actually.

24 years, and NOW foam is falling off?!?

OK, somebody explain this to me. We've been launching space shuttles since Columbia first went up in April 1981. For 22 years, with the exception of the tragic Challenger O-ring in 1986, there have been no problems. Now, all of a sudden, foam is falling off the external fuel tank every time we launch one. And I'd buy the "well hey, they're 25 year old spacecraft" arguement, except for one thing: the external fuel tank is the only part of the shuttle that's not reusable. And yet, after two consecutive launches in which foam fell off, NASA is now saying that foam is the biggest obstacle to next shuttle flight. Did somebody make an engineering change? A vendor change? Has foam always fallen off the ank, and it wasn't until Columbia blew up that we noticed it?

Technorati tags: shuttle | space shuttle | Columbia | Challenger | NASA | space | foam

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain

Some people have a knack for knowing what's coming next. And some work very, very hard at it. O'Reilly is pretty well regarded in that field, and at OSCON, Tim O'Reilly gave some insight into the numbers that help guide those predictions. Interesting stuff.

Technology: trends | technology | Oreilly | open source

Get MAD, damn it!!!

I'm sitting here filling out my resume for a new online job site I've been invited to review -- it's still in beta, so email me if you want details -- and I've frankly forgotten how much it is that I've actually done. But more importantly, I'm sitting here and realizing that dammit, I'm good at what I do. And what I do is take complex nonsense and turn it into intelligible information that anybody can understand.

But it's hard, and I mean really hard to find other people who can do that, or who even want to try. I've been working with a bunch of writers lately, and a few of them are good at this. They bust their butts to really do a good job, and when they hit a roadblock they bust through it or they find a way to go around it but they don't just sit there and say "it can't be done."

The rest of them are making me nuts.

I'm realizing with a great deal of horror that the people who just sit down and quit and say "it's too hard, I can't do that" are the norm, and not the tragic exception.

So this piece from marketing guru Perry Marshall, Escape the Institutional Straightjacket, has infuriated me with a brilliant explanation of just how the hell this is happening. Starting on page five or so he's talking about business and marketing and such, but the first few pages are a must read. Let me give you the beginning. I don't think Perry will mind:

John Taylor Gatto received the New York State Teacher of the Year award in 1990 and was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1991. When the appointed evening arrived, Mr. Gatto appeared in the hotel ballroom before an audience of well-fed administrators and principals, and delivered his acceptance speech.

It was that night that he publicly turned on them like a mongrel dog.

"The only reason I received this award – the only reason I've been a great teacher for my students – is because I didn't do a single thing you told me to. I ignored your ‘standards,' I thwarted your bureaucracy and I taught unauthorized material. I filled out those forms that said the students were in their desks, when they were really taking horizon-expanding study trips. I had them read real books instead of those inane, dumbed-down textbooks of yours, I taught them real history instead of the porridge of revisionist pabulum you call 'social studies'.

"Your bureaucracy is a mill that grinds up human beings and turns them into consumer fertilizer for a planned economy. Human potential erodes as hungry minds sit in listless boredom, and teachers operate without the tools they need, just so you guys can fill your administration buildings with cushy jobs and give contracts to your cherished vendors.

That's why most of our students can't read after 12 years of education – yes, even though it only takes 3 months to learn how to read. That's why most kids follow the herd into a bleak future instead of thinking for themselves.

I am officially turning in my resignation as of today.

For the record, I wasn't home schooled, but did I work for my parents' business from the time I was 12 until I got my first paying job at 16. (That'll make sense if you read the piece.) I was certified as a high school teacher, but couldn't get a job partly because of economic conditions and partly because I was just too unconventional.

Now I'm a professional trainer and I also teach people through writing you can actually read rather than the unreadable gobbledygook that is unfortunately so common. But why the hell does that seem so hard to find these days?

Technorati tags: education | personal | rants

Stupid crimes and misdemeanors

Some people just have more time than brains. Check out the Stupid Crimes and Misdemeanors on Courttv.com.

Technorati tags: fun | humor | humour | crime

The amazing falling woman

There are time sinks and there are time sinks. I actually stared, mesmerized, at this through an hour long phone meeting. If the original disappears, see it at Dwight Silverman's TechBlog.

If she gets stuck, pick her up and toss her with your mouse. Truly amazing.

Technorati tags: fun | falling woman

Installing Perl modules without root privileges

The one thing I hate about not running my own server is not having root privileges. It just makes my life a bit more complicated. Fortunately, I can usually get around this little problem. When I started using PHP-Nuke, I figured out how to create my own symbolic links to my own images directory, so I could add new ones. Now I need some Perl modules, and fortunately, you can install without superuser privileges. This article is about installing mod_perl, but of course the concepts apply to anything...

(Oh, and if you can't run CPAN, you can search CPAN and download the packages manually...)

Technorati tags: Perl | cpan