February 2005 Archives
I heard an interview with Andy Trudeau explaining why he thinks John Debney deserves the Oscar for the musical score of The Passion of the Christ. It is fascinating to listen how complex the music is and how much influence Mel Gibson had on the music. For example, Gibson thought that the most painful scenes visually should have the most beautiful music.
Listen to this with headphones or a computer with good speakers.
Below is a link to a rather long, academic article that argues why Wikipedia is as good as and even better than conventional Encyclopedias.
Anyone can add an article. Anyone can edit any article. Anyone can undo anyone's edits. Sounds like a formula for chaos, and indeed sometimes there are "Wikiwars" when an argument over an article (often political) begins. Some steering group helps govern these.
In practice, Wikipedia is amazingly orderly and professional.
I agree with the author that Wikipedia is a very useful resource. I use links to it in my own blog postings and e-mails. I visit it regularly to look things up. I also end up visiting it because others use it as a reference.
Greg added an entry for Rosary Army. Looking under the edits history it looks like others have come in and helped "tidy up" the article. I thinking the word organisation (a British spelling) is evidence of such tidying.
Article:
Free Software Magazine - The FUD-based Encyclopedia
Wake the kids and gather the family around. Thursday night from 8 pm to 10 pm.
ABC News: The UFO Phenomenon -- Seeing Is Believing
(Kathy was born in Roswell, New Mexico.)
Kelly and I went through the MovableType MySQL database and closed over 120 old blog entries with open Trackback pings. This involved the repetative task of going row by row and changing a 1 to a 0.
I also deleted the trackback spam entries from the database, most advertising on-line gambling.
Since we don't really use trackbacks (we all seem to use comments instead), I recommend not leaving this option open when posting a new entry.
And for the moment, no one can leave a trackback because I changed the name of mt-tb.cgi until I can implement some kind of security to prevent trackback spam.
A news story about the creaters of MovableType (and TypePad.)
This is a remarkable "natural light" photograph of the moon Mimas floating in front of Saturn.
Cassini-Huygens: Multimedia-Images
Ted found this story: Hopkin Explained, the story behind lostfrog.org which is now up to 119 variations. One of my favorites is the modified Pioneer plaque that has left our solar system. This article explains that the plaque will outlast the Earth and the Sun. If the Internet follows us to new worlds, then Hopkin may outlast the Earth and Sun, too.
Mac OS X FTP Server Administration
This requires QuickTimeVR which can be installed free. It looks (and sounds) great on our widescreen iMac.
Apollo 11 - 17 Mission First man on the Moon - Fullscreen QTVR photo from panoramas.dk
Years ago I repeatedly developed carpel tunnel swelling in my right hand. I switched the mouse to my left hand and that solved the problem. I think keyboarding plus mouse-clicking plus using my right hand for writing all built up too much strain. Switching to my left hand for mousing distributed the work, and I have not had a problem since.
At night, I use my laptop keyboard, so I have to become right-handed again. This means twice each day, changing my mouse settings from for the left and right buttons.
A little hotkey utility called SwapMouseButtons solves this problem. This would be good for anyone who switches mouse hands or for a house with right and left-handers who like to move the mouse from one side to another.
It even has an option to make your pointers mirror so they tilt left or right, reminding you which way the mouse is set.
I worked in our headquarters in Decatur for 14 years. Then I worked out of a plant in Conyers for 3 years. The plant was closed, and I moved back to headquarters last year. For most of the plant workers, it meant their drive was going to be much longer (20 minutes instead of 5 minutes). For me it went from 30 minutes to 40 minutes. For a few people the drive ended up being shorter.
All of us were given a one-time "commuter bonus" to help compensate for the move and to encourage us not to quit. I thought it was ridiculous that management (or people who got a shorter drive) be included and even said so. I did not apply for the commuter bonus. I got it anyway, as did everyone in management.
I do have a longer commute, and I've considered getting XM Radio (satellite radio) to make for a more pleasant drive. A new iPod-ish portable radio, XM MyFi, is all the buzz at work. I have not purchased an iPod (people seem surprised by that) because I can listen to music at a computer when I want, and I don't see myself wearing headphones to the store, driving to work, to the kid's sporting events, or to church. These are the only time I leave the house. I'm not going to wear headphones in the yard. The chain-saw could cut the wires.
I have always known I would end up getting an XM Radio kind of service because I like the idea of letting someone else randomly serve up a variety of music, and I hate commercials.
I doubt I'll get the portable, but I may look at getting the semi-portable version that can play in your car or at your desk. You may have seen it in the commercial where the guy is driving a little car into the building, up the elevator and to his desk, listening to XM all the way.
At the moment I am listening to XM Radio on the iMac. You can sign up for 36 hours to try it out. Currently playing Cedar Walton's "I'm Old Fashioned" on the Jazz station. It's great. I'm going to do this a lot whether I get XM or not. With Bloglines, you can create a disposable e-mail address to receive the access code! The disposable e-mail addresses are a way to receive newsletters, which I do with Clark Howard, Apple, and Motely Fool newsletters. I assume XM won't send an access code to the same e-mail address twice, but with Bloglines, you can create as many temporary e-mail addresses as you need.
Posting a photo or two in a blog can be useful, but not obvious Here is a summary and then details of how to do it.
1. Export photo reducing the size to something around 600 x 400 pixels. (No giant photos, please.)
2. Upload this "medium" size photo, creating an embedded thumbnail that is around 200 x 150 pixels.
3. Add the attribute border="2" so that it will make the thumbnail look clickable.
