More Geniusness From the People Who Brought Us "Homicide Bombers"

Looks like the Fox News morning crowd has it in for the late great Fred Rogers. What utter nonsense -- just like when they redefined the word "homicide" to mean "suicide." (Via PBH2 & Ablogistan.)

Even More Items

More stuff from around:

• Profile of Bob Moses at Science News. Mr. Moses is a very interesting guy, a civil rights activist from the 1960s whose general idea for the past 25 years has been that the best way to help disadvantaged youth is to teach them algebra. Excerpt: Moses founded the Algebra Project in 1982 with funds from a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" that he received for his work on voting rights. Initially, he focused on the goal of making sure that all students learn algebra, which he calls "the gatekeeper of citizenship." When students learn algebra, he says, they make a leap in their ability to manipulate abstract symbolic representations.
• NYT article on hip librarians. Excerpt: When talk turned to a dance party the group had recently given at a nearby restaurant, their profession became clearer. “Did you try the special drinks?” Sarah Gentile, 29, asked Jennifer Yao, 31, referring to the colorfully named cocktails. “I got the Joy of Sex,” Ms. Yao replied. “I thought for sure it was French Women Don’t Get Fat.” Ms. Yao could be forgiven for being confused: the drink was numbered and the guests had to guess the name. “613.96 C,” said Ms. Yao, cryptically, then apologized: “Sorry if I talk in Dewey.”
• Cleaning out links: Jigsaw Puzzle Gallery.
• Also, The National Museum of Funeral History.
• And, the Top Ten Punk Albums You've Never Heard.

Clever Title Escapes Me (Suggestions Welcome)

I would have thought this was a wanna-be Onion parody or something until I checked it out. Guess what Pat Robertson's Regent University and Girls Gone Wild (note e-mail addy at the bottom of that page) have in common? Their P.R. firm. Can't wait to see what they'll put Robertson up to to grab some headlines now.

Note the crucifix around the young lady's neck.

Wiki Legislation Mark-Ups?

Now here's a great idea (via the Wikipedia Blog): Congress should start writing legislation with a Wiki model. Excerpt: These are really thought-provoking suggestions. I was particularly struck by Karl's suggestion of a version control system for Congress. They say you don't want to see either laws or sausages being made, but I think they are wrong. Imagine how much more transparency and accountability our government would have if it were possible to see what changes were made by whom, who inserted extraneous riders into various bills, and generally to track the influence of various interests by the new visibility into their actual control over the knobs and levers of government!

More Items

Items:

• Ever wonder how the Klingon language was created? Wonder no more. Also, if you ever need to Google something in Klingon...
• Cool blog on new wave/alternative rock of the 80s.
• Interesting, hard-to-categorize blog: Ectoplasmosis.
• Spiffed up my Wiki user page a bit.
• Bootie Top 10. (No, not this; maybe some other time.) Via Mashuptown. Make sure to check out Gorillaz + Styx and Eurythmics + White Stripes.

Late to the Party w/ Röyksopp

I know I should have been up on this a long time ago, but I just recently came across some videos by the Norwegian band Röyksopp. Check out the first one for sure!

Lots of Blogging On The Way

So I had a trip to the doctor Monday; end result of which is that everything is OK, but I am laid up for a while with plenty of time to watch movies, read, and blog.

Items of interest:

• H.G. Wells wrote an article in the 1930s about the idea of a World Brain. Excerpt: Both the assembling and the distribution of knowledge in the world at present are extremely ineffective, and thinkers of the forward-looking type whose ideas we are now considering, are beginning to realize that the most hopeful line for the development of our racial intelligence lies rather in the direction of creating a new world organ for the collection, indexing, summarizing and release of knowledge, than in any further tinkering with the highly conservative and resistant university system, local, national and traditional in texture, which already exists. These innovators, who may be dreamers today, but who hope to become very active organizers tomorrow, project a unified, if not a centralized, world organ to "pull the mind of the world together", which will be not so much a rival to the universities, as a supplementary and co-ordinating addition to their educational activities - on a planetary scale. The phrase "Permanent World Encyclopaedia" conveys the gist of these ideas. As the core of such an institution would be a world synthesis of bibliography and documentation with the indexed archives of the world. A great number of workers would be engaged perpetually in perfecting this index of human knowledge and keeping it up to date. Concurrently, the resources of micro-photography, as yet only in their infancy, will be creating a concentrated visual record. Few people as yet, outside the world of expert librarians and museum curators and so forth, know how manageable well-ordered facts can be made, however multitudinous, and how swiftly and completely even the rarest visions and the most recondite matters can be recalled, once they have been put in place in a well-ordered scheme of reference and reproduction. Sound familiar?


• Publishing 2.0 asks: Should Newspapers Become Local Blog Networks? Excerpt: Most newspapers are actually using blogs as platforms for daily online publishing — platforms that allow one person to publish a “mini-publication.” This got me thinking — maybe what newspapers should become in the digital media era is a network of local bloggers — some of whom are staff writers and some of whom are freelancers. Maybe most of them are freelancers. Maybe the full-time reporters are dedicated to beats like covering local governments, which require more time-intensive reporting to fulfill the Fourth Estate mission, but which can be supplemented by freelance reporting.


• Here's the Periodic Table of the Internet.


• Via Bookworm, playing cards to teach U.S. troops about Iraqi archaeology.

Bill Richardson Feels Left Out

Barely Political:

Here's Obama Girl (blog here) (Update -- Catfight here.):

Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl:

Hott4Hill (Blog here):

Hawk Ford in Oak Lawn, Illinois Is Awesome!

So as I mentioned, we ended up locked out of the car at the Petco yesterday when we went to pick up our new doggie. I think my AAA card has expired, and we were at least an hour from home with no one at hand to bring down the spare keys. What to do?

We went in to meet the nice people from the rescue place from which we were adopting the puppy, and I left The ♥G♥ so she could play with him and buy some pet supplies. Fortunately, there was a car dealer one block down where I thought might be able to find some assistance.

I have cast aspersions upon Trutech VCR/DVD players in the past, because they have crappy products and crappy customer service. But the opposite side of that coin is that I want to point out places that have excellent customer service, so let me give mega-props to Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn, Illinois. If you are thinking about buying a car or getting your car fixed or whatever, please consider them!

I walked down there thinking that I might have to cough up some cash to pay a mechanic's one-hour minimum or something (if I was lucky) but some very nice people told me that they'd help me get the local police non-emergency number, and then some other very nice people told me that a couple of the technicians had some gear they could use. Two of the guys walked over to the Petco parking lot with me and had the thing open in about 30 seconds. I asked them a couple of times if I could pay them, but they said it wasn't necessary. So, big pain in the ass averted on D-Day (doggie day).

I know that Googlebombing is supposed to have been algorithmically minimized, but let me just say this anyway, based on my own (admittedly non-customer) experience:

• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service
• Hawk Ford of Oak Lawn = Excellent Customer Service

Now I Wanna Be Your Dog...

... That's what our new puppy Gilbert said to us yesterday! The ♥G♥ was so excited when we went to pick him up that she (we) locked the keys in the car. More on that later. But anyways, he's a baby St. Bernard and he's a good boy. He's getting along OK w/his feline siblings, but all parties involved (canine and feline) are still a bit hesitant to show their cards to each other just yet.

Here are the three children, taking a break from their busy schedules:

...and here's the new baby, a little bit worn out after his first day at home:

This Is Polar Cap

Let's get the band back together...

...a song devoted to our favourite planet. It's not Jupiter! It's not the Moon!...

The bigger the cushion... More bass!

Pics From Our Trip to Monticello and Montpelier

Here are a few of the pics from our recent trip to Monticello and Montpelier, a sidetrip from our Washington trip.

Here's Monticello. The thing is, they don't allow photography inside the building. What bullshit! I read a great book a few years ago called Jefferson and Monticello, and I want to read it again now.

Here's Montpelier, home of one of Jefferson's neighbors, James Madison. (Actually, James Monroe is an even closer TJ neighbor, but we didn't have time to go to his house that day.) It's undergoing a little reno.

The inside is getting a makeover too. Below is the room in which Madison studied many of the political systems of different nations throughout history to determine which elements he wanted to include in the Constitution.

Archaeology is one of my interests (I helped on a dig waaaay up in the Rockies one summer). Here is a group methodically going through Madison's front lawn.

He had this kind of temple thing in his backyard. I thought this was a cool shot. Anyone know what kind of tree that is?

More Things From Around the Web

Several things:

• I like this guy's perspective on the global warming concerts yesterday (even though I'm not sure where he gets his stats): If you ask the 15 million people who are going to die from easily curable infectious diseases next year, the idea that climate change is our top priority seems to be massively overblown. What’s even more important is that you ask: ‘Where can we actually do some good?’ The answer is overwhelmingly: we can do very little good if we focus on climate change policies, whereas we can do immense amounts of good if we focus on some of the many other problems in the world. Climate change is a problem, and it definitely is one that we need to tackle over this century. But to say that this is the first and foremost thing that we need to tackle, as Tim Flannery said in a Financial Times interview a week ago, that this is the one thing we need to focus on in the next 10 years - that is simply ridiculous. We would be doing something that will help people very little - and only in a hundred years from now - at a very high cost. Meanwhile, we would be neglecting the fact that we could do massive amounts of good for less money for a lot of the people living right now - and in the process helping their descendents much more... ...We know how to solve many of these problems, just as we know how to deal with climate change. If you want to stop HIV-AIDS, it’s about information, about providing condoms. If you want to stop global warming, it’s about cutting carbon emissions. My point is that cutting carbon emissions costs a lot and it provides only a small benefit 100 years from now; handing out condoms and information, however, is very cheap and it works for people suffering from HIV-AIDS right now... ...To give one example: Gore points out that with global warming we’re going to see more heat deaths. That is true; we will see 2,000 more heat deaths in Britain by 2080. But at the same time we will also see 20,000 fewer cold deaths from climate change in 2080. It seems to me that only drawing attention to the 2,000 heat deaths and neglecting to tell us about the 20,000 cold deaths is not a good way to inform the democratic debate.
• This sounds like a fun job -- Usability Professional -- NYT article here. Excerpt: SOMETIMES there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries. Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology. Jobs in the usability industry are varied, as are the backgrounds of the people who hold them. The work can involve testing products in a laboratory, watching people use products in the field or developing testing methods.
• Michael's Museum, which is housed in the residence of this guy named Michael, features a lot of nifty stuff, more organized than my nifty stuff. One day I'll have it how I want it. (The ♥G♥ pointed out the other day that Thomas Jefferson essentially did the same thing at Monticello.)
• Make sure to check out The Incredible Grafitti-Covered Building (via GoodShit -- NSFW):

From Around the Web

Items:

• Happy 100th birthday, Robert Heinlein. Excerpt: When one looks to the writings of an SF writer like H.G. Wells to see concepts of what constitutes the best society, one reads polemics against authoritarianism and stories championing the working class. One also reads narratives critical of bourgeois morality and against democracy as we understand it. His non-fiction book, a presentation actually, After Democracy being a prime example of this part of his thought. Wells was a complex thinker, of the Left to be sure, who wrote insightful critiques of the future. When one looks to Heinlein however, it is almost a mirror reflection of Wells. Almost. We still find polemics against authoritarianism, the Bugs in Starship Troopers comes directly to mind, but you also often find examples praising of other authoritative regimes, the Earth of Starship Troopers comes to mind. There are other examples, and to be fair the Earth society in Starship Troopers can be interpreted as a democratic society of a kind, but since Starship Troopers is one of Heinlein's most controversial stories it bears mentioning.
• I totally remember the Ready Ranger pack from when I was in about fourth grade. I never had one, but that's OK, because I think you can do it all on the iPhone now.
• Topics from the Unclutterer. Example: Hate matching up sock pairs while folding laundry? One way to save you time is to have all socks of the exact same color and style. Every six months, throw away all of your white sports socks and replace them with six pair of new, identical white sports socks. Be sure to alternate the style slightly between purges so if an old sock accidentally doesn’t get purged, you can identify it when it tries to sneak back in to your drawer. All of your socks will have the same amount of wear, they all will match, and they will save you time during folding. I'll have to think that one through. I have certain sock-matching procedures I go through that seem to work OK, plus I have my socks with Fred Flinstone on them that I save for special occasions.

Google Labs Coming Attractions

When I was at ALA last week, there was a guy there from Google talking about Google Labs. Some neat stuff:

• Google Trends: This is cool. It tells you how many people have been searching for a certain word or phrase, and graphs out the searches. It's still in testing, so I don't think they have applied it to live, current data. Think of something you were searching for in January or February of this year and give it a try.
• Google Pagemaker: WYSIWYG webpage creator. Don't feel like signing up for a G-Mail account for it right now; Maybe later.
• Google Reader: An improved aggregator w/a bunch of doodads.
• Google Timeline, etc.: Pick a president or king or general or something, and it will display that search couple with a year, showing the number of hits for Thomas Jefferson in 1776, 1777, 1778... 1826, etc. Do it with John Adams and it will show a bunch of spikes during the Colonial Era for the president, and a bunch of spikes in the late-20th/early 21st Ctys for the composer.

(Also: If Google Owned Everything photoshop contest.)

Charlie Christian Bio Clip

(That's the great Charlie Christian...)

A Few Things

Several things:

• Amba on writing about ideas vs. narrative: Call it Mercator's Dilemma. Ideas are global in structure. Sentences and paragraphs are linear, and pages are planar. That makes the problem of writing out an idea so that it reconstitutes itself fairly faithfully in the reader's mind a lot like the problem that preoccupied early cartographers -- how to map the globe onto a flat piece of paper. Misrepresentations and distortions are unavoidable.
• Slight mistake with a few non-English characters on the Wikipedia logo. They'll be fixed soon, I'm sure.
• Thomas Jefferson had his libraryies organized according to three broad areas: Memory, Reason, and Imagination. This was an idea he got from Francis Bacon, and one that is hat-tipped by the Library of Congress. The subcategories are detailed here. I'm keeping this in the holster in case I ever tire of having the books in my house Deweyed.