I blew it and bombed the final exam. The physics prof put the gun on my head and told me to work harder. I could kill him. I feel like having a knife at my throat. The anger feels like poison in my blood but I know it is my fault and the all is blamed to that virus, I had been laboring with for quite a while. I'm working on it mom! I promise to make you proud. I can not wait to be on the subway home to work on my final project on weapons of mass destruction in my political science class. Its mental terror.
Love Your son
P.S. The powder you sent me works well for my skin infection. Strong agent.
This is essentially a large tablet PC. I wonder how much
it costs. The manufacturers pages I checked did not include
prize lists.
This might work for a small classroom. The pictures indicate
however that these boards are too small to be useful in a larger
class. I doubt one can read the small written text. The boards
can not be made much larger because kids have write on them. This
limits the distance to the screen.
I think there are cheaper alternatives:
the projector attached to a computer can be used in conjecture
with a the blackboard or an overhead projector. Watching movies
is possible also of course with a usual projector. A student
can use editing software also by working on the computer while
the class watches.
Apropos blackboards: I still think they are still the best. There
are just no reasonable alternatives. Having taught several semesters
on white boards and also have a large one at home, they have many
disadvantages over black boards:
pens run always out of color in the worst moment.
the dust from the dry erase marker is worse than the chalk dust
the white boards are usually too small, often much too small.
the average teacher handwriting is worse on white boards. Pens
flow faster over the surface, people write faster and sloppier
People write too small.
if someone uses a permanent pen by mistake (this is relatively
easy to mix up if an overhead projector is used in the same time),
the board is damaged.
What can not be beaten is the "coolness factor". New technology can
excite students for a while. But in general, this fades very fast.
This technology certainly makes sense for expensive seminars, where
customers want something for their buck. I doubt this will catch on
for K-12 education, where money is tight.
When asked whether real folders can be replaced with virtual folders,
I think the answer is no:
Backup: Data need to be backed up and often you want
only to backup part of it. I personally even prefer to have some
data redundant in multiple folders and leave old versions as they are. I
do not have to backup them regularly since they do not change any more.
I open for every new project a folder and copy things from
older projects there, instead of moving or linking to them. Keeping different trees
of the file system independent, makes things less error prone. The files
in the old project are untouched.
Robustness: If I modify a text file
in one folder, I might not want to have it modified in the other
folder. This is a reason, I avoid symbolic links in Unix.
Symbolic links are often cause for trouble, also in other operating systems
like the old Mac OS 9. In a world with symbolic folders, a single corrupt data base can
cripple your entire system. I like redundancy and keeping things
independent as much as possible.
Simplicity: I want to access data in different ways. Everything what
spotlight can do, can be done with Unix, using basic unix commands like "find", "tree",
"grep", "strings", "ln" and some conversion programs. The problem is that the later
tools are slow. But I do want to organize data with different tools and
different worlds with virtual folders do not play well together. An
example is email, where different vendors have different approaches. I organize
my mail in folders as text files which I can search and manipulate to my
likings with search, sort and filter technology I know to exist in 20 years also.
Platform independence: I'm still having to get used to the meta data
model. OS X has different ways to deal with meta data but they do not
work nicely with other platforms. There are efforts to deal with DOS file systems,
where the meta data are stored in flat text files. Spotlight is great, but it is not so
clear how the user can control or backup the search database. I like
technology which is platform independent, portable and does not lock me
into a specific OS vendor. Operating systems can disappear and evolve.
Files can end up in different operating systems. As it is now, spotlight is an additional
tool. I can still work with my files, when mounted on other operating systems.
User rights: This has been pointed out also before:
Virtual folders make sense for example, when listening to music,
where the user has been taken away any rights. In iTunes, song files are
organized in real folders carring names like F23, but the user does not see them and
organizes the library virtual folders. This is a model, where the user is not supposed to
work on the files like doing modifications. The user is only supposed
to use the data, not work on them. Digital righs managements control
the user in Itunes. The bottom line is: virtual folder technology makes it easier
to cripple the users abilities because the software can deny access to
work with the real files.
Knowing where things are: One can look at the web as one gigantic file system where
most data are organized in real folders and the directory structure corresponds
to web addresses. "Virtual folders" on the web would produce
a lot of confusion which we see all the time, like websites, which use
other websites under the hood. Examples are meta search engines. In those cases,
I do not know, whether the "virtual folder" can be trusted or manipulates the data
before passing them to me. Similarly as I want to know the origin of data on the web,
I want to know in my file system, where a specific file is, not just a virtual name to it.
Erratic course changes of OS sellers always make me nervous ( have been burned by a decision of Jobs to drop the Next). I'm a regular OS X and linux user. The newest strategic move of apple only confirms me to invest in my linux boxes. For example, I don't yet see whether we will have to re buy all the commercial software. It is also not clear, how well Apple will do selling hardware from now on.
I had been writing a primitive sitemap generator myself using shellscripts essentially using "find" and "grep" alone, but this tool is much better, faster and easy to configure. Cool.
Note that this tool will allow google to reach files which never would be found by spidering a site, because the files are not linked. If you include something like
in your config.xml and run "sitemap_gen.py" on it, you will give the world access to a large amount of material (like test versions of your website or source code you did not want to make accessible). We might see lot more material material which had been 'hidden'.
Blackbox is extremely stable, has no footprint, looks good and has no unnecessary bloat. I use it since many years and do not have any reason to change. I find the default themes relaxing to work, even long hours do not tire the eyes. The menu configuration is kept simple too.There is something relaxing in not having to have icons all over the place. Just having to stare at a trashbin all day as in allmost all other windows managers...
Flash seems currently the best way to deliver sound, movies and vector graphics on the web. But the slightest inclusion of spyware would kill the technololgy in a flash.
... QWest announced to have solved their IT problems. Delayed phone connection times had
appeared already in
1998, when the company was called US West.
I like that unlike mapquest (which encodes location in a cryptic way) you can link in google maps, directly to longitude and lattitude: example http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.376373% 2C-71.116 184
Pages and Keynote are both great programs.
Both are easy to learn. I tried out Pages a week ago
the first time and liked it immediatly.
Both Pages and Keynote has good templates which makes it
easy to get started.
I found already the first version of
keynotes more stable then powerpoint, especially for
presentations with lots of movies. I did not find
any flaws in Pages yet but I must say, that I write
almost everything with LaTeX myself.
Both Pages and Keynote store their
documents in an XML form with pictures, etc
stored seperatly. This makes things more stable.
Pages stores the XML file in gziped form.
To look at the XML source of Pages (which does not have line breaks),
just add some newlines with:1,$ s/>\r
if you use the vi editor.
Pages can read and export MS word documents.
This works fine for simple documents, more complex
layouts get tossed around a bit but it is
easy to rearrange things.
Keynotes can read and export powerpoint.
Similarly, if Keynote exports to powerpoint, there
are things which need to be touched up.
What I like especially about keynote II is the ability
to export the presentation in SWF form. If only one could
chose the size of the exported file. There is an easy way
around: export as quicktime movie in a smaller format and
toss that into Flash.
It will be interesting to know how this will work together with
other OS, for example with linux or solaris. Some of the
metadata look similar to what has with the file system status accessible by
stat file.jpg
in linux. Would be nice in linux to beef up on
metadata too.
I hope that spotlight will work also, if you have a linux
partition exported to the Mac via NFS. Will file information of NFS
mounted systems also stored in the database?
Having linux and OS X working together is already now not
without issues. If you have a file Test.jpg and test.jpg in
your Linux partition and you copy both to the same place in OSX,
the finder (on the mac) complains, because the two files are considered the same.
while http://www.csszengarden.com/ looks nice for the eye,I find it almost unreadable. Compare the css free version http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sam ple.html
I found real player 10 for linux quite good, until realizing a built in DRM feature: It is no more possible to grab a frame (window grabbing) with
import ppm:- >test.pnm This used to work before. Confirms: for proprietary software, keep backups of the old versions.
Reminds me of the story in
Deception point by Dan Brown, which I read a few months ago. Its not the best of the books of Brown
(the "Da Vinci Code" for example is better) but entertaining.
I prefer a simple window manager like blackbox but still use many of the KDE and Gnome parts. It is for example possible to start a gnome-panel within blackbox by typing "gnome-panel" into a terminal and then get rid of it, if no more needed. For KDE applications, one often gets annoying messages like " QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used" and sometimes the application does not work. I would like to see more elements of different windows managers to coexist peacefully with others without actually have to run a specific window manager.
I'm using the gimp in Linux since 1996. I'm also a Mac
user who has used all previous photoshop versions since 1992.
The gimp is a fantastic application which is in my opinion
comparable already with photoshop.
In the long run, there is no question, what will prevail. Photoshop
is 14 years old, the gimp 7 years. Photoshop 2 was already a good
project and I preferred photoshop 3 for many years since it was much
faster then the photoshop 4/5 hogs under the old Mac OS.
Having seen Adobe pulling Premiere from the Mac
platform, I would not even bet on whether Photoshop
will exist on the Mac in 10 years. The sudden death of
closed source projects makes me nervous. The sudden
disappearance of applications like Adobe dimension or Canoma
is something which should make you think. I have more faith
in open source projects. The gimp steadily improves while
photoshop essentially stagnated.
Yes, the Gimp has a different user interface, but this
is a minor issue. What is important for me is that the
application is stable, also with memory intensive
tasks, that it starts up fast and I'm done quickly also with
working on hundreds of files at once "gimp *.jpg"
My experience is that the gimp on linux starts a multiple
times faster then photoshop or the macromedia fireworks on
a mac with a similar CPU. The slower Gimp OSX performance might
be related to the fact that X applications still run way
too slow on the Mac. But this is steadily improving.
"Every examiner starts with his or her first patent application after receiving
just two weeks of training at the USPTO Patent Academy, where he or she learns
the basics of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure."
Slashdot Mirror
Soviet Russia ...
Letter from College:
Hi Mom,
I blew it and bombed the final exam. The physics
prof put the gun on my head and told me to work harder.
I could kill him. I feel like having a knife
at my throat. The anger feels like poison in my
blood but I know it is my fault and the all is
blamed to that virus, I had been laboring with
for quite a while. I'm working on it mom! I promise
to make you proud. I can not wait to be on the subway
home to work on my final project on weapons of
mass destruction in my political science class. Its
mental terror.
Love
Your son
P.S. The powder you sent me works well for my
skin infection. Strong agent.
This might work for a small classroom. The pictures indicate however that these boards are too small to be useful in a larger class. I doubt one can read the small written text. The boards can not be made much larger because kids have write on them. This limits the distance to the screen.
I think there are cheaper alternatives: the projector attached to a computer can be used in conjecture with a the blackboard or an overhead projector. Watching movies is possible also of course with a usual projector. A student can use editing software also by working on the computer while the class watches.
Apropos blackboards: I still think they are still the best. There are just no reasonable alternatives. Having taught several semesters on white boards and also have a large one at home, they have many disadvantages over black boards:
What can not be beaten is the "coolness factor". New technology can excite students for a while. But in general, this fades very fast. This technology certainly makes sense for expensive seminars, where customers want something for their buck. I doubt this will catch on for K-12 education, where money is tight.
Erratic course changes of OS sellers always make me nervous
( have been burned by a decision of Jobs to drop the Next).
I'm a regular OS X and linux user. The newest strategic
move of apple only confirms me to invest in my linux boxes.
For example, I don't yet see whether we will have to re buy
all the commercial software. It is also not clear, how well
Apple will do selling hardware from now on.
I had been writing a primitive sitemap generator myself using shellscripts
/>
essentially using "find" and "grep" alone, but this tool is much better,
faster and easy to configure. Cool.
Note that this tool will allow google to reach files which never would be
found by spidering a site, because the files are not linked. If you
include something like
<directory path="/var/www/html" url="http://www.example.com/"
in your config.xml and run "sitemap_gen.py" on it, you will give the world
access to a large amount of material
(like test versions of your website or source code you did not want to
make accessible). We might see lot more material material which had been
'hidden'.
Blackbox is extremely stable, has no footprint, looks good and has no unnecessary bloat. I use it since many years and do not have any reason to change. I find the default themes relaxing to work, even long hours do not tire the eyes. The menu configuration is kept simple too.There is something
relaxing in not having to have icons all over the place. Just having to stare at a trashbin all day as in allmost all other windows managers...
Flash seems currently the best way to deliver sound, movies and vector graphics on the web. But the slightest inclusion of spyware would kill the technololgy in a flash.
... QWest announced to have solved their IT problems. Delayed phone connection times had appeared already in 1998, when the company was called US West.
We don't worry about the N. Korea nukes: CNN has
this morning already moved to a more relevant story:
"Prince Charles to marry Camilla Parker Bowles".
I like that% 2C-71.116 184
unlike mapquest (which encodes location in a cryptic
way) you can link in google maps, directly to
longitude and lattitude: example
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.376373
> After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up.
It actually looks like a keyboard for kids in Toys R Us.
> The New Standard Keyboard is a bold departure from current designs
The slightest change (i.e. switching Y and Z in European keyboads) is difficult to adapt to.
> The keys are arranged alphabetically, so there is no learning
> curve for hunt and peck typists
You anyway have to learn the QWERTY keyboard because most laptops will
not offer this keyboard.
> It is compatible with all systems running Microsoft Windows 95 and above.
And this is called "Standard Keyboard"?
stat file.jpg
in linux. Would be nice in linux to beef up on metadata too.
I hope that spotlight will work also, if you have a linux partition exported to the Mac via NFS. Will file information of NFS mounted systems also stored in the database?
Having linux and OS X working together is already now not without issues. If you have a file Test.jpg and test.jpg in your Linux partition and you copy both to the same place in OSX, the finder (on the mac) complains, because the two files are considered the same.
whilem ple.html
http://www.csszengarden.com/
looks nice for the eye,I find it almost unreadable.
Compare the css free version
http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sa
- book: years
- article: months
- webpage: days
- weblog: hours
- forum post: minutes
- wiki: seconds
Go figure about the quality.Still, I think wikipedia is a great melting pot for a reliable encyclopedia.
surviving in a word world:
I found real player 10 for linux quite good, until
realizing a built in DRM feature: It is no more possible to grab a frame (window grabbing) with
import ppm:- >test.pnm
This used to work before. Confirms: for
proprietary software, keep backups of the old
versions.
Reminds me of the story in Deception point by Dan Brown, which I read a few months ago. Its not the best of the books of Brown (the "Da Vinci Code" for example is better) but entertaining.
I prefer a simple window manager like blackbox but still
use many of the KDE and Gnome parts.
It is for example possible to start a gnome-panel within
blackbox by typing "gnome-panel" into a terminal and then
get rid of it, if no more needed. For KDE applications, one
often gets annoying messages like
" QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used"
and sometimes the application does not work.
I would like to see more elements of different windows managers
to coexist peacefully with others without actually have to run
a specific window manager.
Running
...
ispell -c|sort -bfdiu
over the post counts 155 words in that submission. That is well under 200 words
"happy hacking keyboards" do not have
the annoying kapslock.I have quite a few of them.
Work also well for the mac.
In the long run, there is no question, what will prevail. Photoshop is 14 years old, the gimp 7 years. Photoshop 2 was already a good project and I preferred photoshop 3 for many years since it was much faster then the photoshop 4/5 hogs under the old Mac OS. Having seen Adobe pulling Premiere from the Mac platform, I would not even bet on whether Photoshop will exist on the Mac in 10 years. The sudden death of closed source projects makes me nervous. The sudden disappearance of applications like Adobe dimension or Canoma is something which should make you think. I have more faith in open source projects. The gimp steadily improves while photoshop essentially stagnated.
Yes, the Gimp has a different user interface, but this is a minor issue. What is important for me is that the application is stable, also with memory intensive tasks, that it starts up fast and I'm done quickly also with working on hundreds of files at once "gimp *.jpg" My experience is that the gimp on linux starts a multiple times faster then photoshop or the macromedia fireworks on a mac with a similar CPU. The slower Gimp OSX performance might be related to the fact that X applications still run way too slow on the Mac. But this is steadily improving.
"Every examiner starts with his or her first patent application after receiving just two weeks of training at the USPTO Patent Academy, where he or she learns the basics of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure."
...
It might not only be inexperience which leads to stupid patents. There could well exist young patent clarks spending their time building a new theory of relativity