McCain doesn't really want to keep running

My theory: McCain is sick of running for President, dealing with the Rovians, dealing with an increasingly less enamored press corps, and running against Barack Obama. You may have heard about his recent interview with Time magazine, which you can read (McCain's prickly TIME interview) but listening to it is also available (the MP3)
I think his nomination of Sarah Palin for VP is also illustrative of his disillusionment with running as a Republican this year and having to deal with all the other VP candidates. My prediction: He is going to lose as big as is possible, in almost all of the swing states.

Great quotes from the convention

Here are some great quotes from the convention, in case you were busy preparing for classes and missed all the speeches. Just a few of my favorites:

"People who live in seven houses shouldn't throw stones" - Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota)

"You know, it was once said of the first George Bush that he was born on
third base and thought he'd hit a triple. Well, with the 22 million new
jobs and the budget surplus Bill Clinton left behind, George W. Bush
came into office on third base -- and then he stole second. And John
McCain cheered him every step of the way." - Gov. Ted Strickland (Ohio)

The future of the browser

I've seen some of the videos on concepts that Mozilla has done on the future of the browser, and I haven't been all that impressed. You can see for yourself if you are interested: It is called Aurora
But this new thing is definitely much more in line with what I think could be the future, and I am going to use it right now. It is called Ubiquity, and it is trying to integrate the many ways we interact with the web.
They give the example of how we might plan a trip, email a friend our itinerary, add the event to our calendar, search through maps, etc. Take a look at the tutorial, I think we will be hearing a lot more about this very soon.

Does the Pope sh*t in the woods?

Ok, this is pretty cool. The USGS (US Geological Survey) has set up video cameras in remote areas in Glacier National Park. The cameras go on with a motion detector, and transmit via the internet.
Here is the whole article about it
And here is a video with three bears interacting with a wolf.

Hamlet (as if written only in Facebook new feed updates)

From McSweeney's internet tendency (those who brought you the hilarious lists), comes...
Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)

A favorite excerpt...

The queen is worried about Ophelia.

Ophelia loves flowers. Flowers flowers flowers flowers flowers. Oh, look, a river.

Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float.

Samantha Power in the NY Review of Books

Samantha Power reviews a few books in the NY Review this month. It was a good review of the abuses of the Bush administration (and how they are not an exception, but the culmination of conservative foreign policy), but also notable for a few great quotes that I hadn't read elsewhere:
Here is the full article
The quotes:

"Based on my experience in talking to al-Qaeda members," John Cloonan, an FBI counterterrorism specialist testified to Congress recently,

I am persuaded that revenge, in the form of a catastrophic attack on the homeland, is coming, that a new generation of jihadist martyrs, motivated in part by the images from Abu Ghraib, is, as we speak, planning to kill Americans and that nothing gleaned from the use of coercive interrogation techniques will be of any significant use in forestalling this calamitous eventuality.[4]

and this from everyone's favorite worthless neocon, Douglass Feith

In 2003, for instance, when the reporter Jeffrey Goldberg told Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense, that US troops in Iraq had not been greeted with flowers, Feith said that the Iraqis had been too spooked by the presence of Saddam supporters to show their true emotions. "But," he said, "they had flowers in their minds."

There you have it. It is the liberals who are wishy washy, but "flowers in their minds" from one of the architects of the Iraq War. That quote should have had more legs, because to me it just epitomizes the refusal of any of the civilian officials in the Pentagon to take in anything from the outside world to inform their beliefs and policies.

The Onion predicts the future...

From January 17th, 2001, the Onion headline:
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Sadly pretty accurate. One could look today and think "You couldn't even make this stuff up." But then... someone did, just for the sake of comedy.

How Walkable is San Francisco?

What I have always wanted when we go into San Francisco, is an easily readable topographical map. This is a reasonably good start... except note that basically, most of the city is barely walkable. This is from some guy named Lee Byron... mashing up some different maps.
Here is his site, and the large version of the map:
Mapping Walkability in San Francisco
Of course, the best would be if Google maps had a whole set of options built right in, so that you could click to view "walkability", or "playgrounds with mulch or rubber, but not sand or dirt", or something like that. That would be awesome.

"Make a n**%a wanna invest in PBS"

Nas' new video about Fox News (Sly Fox). I don't think I would have ever heard the above line, but it is there, and other good ones too.

Ira Glass on practice, failure and storytelling

I think this is a great little piece on storytelling, the value of failure, and how to get good at something. I am going to find some excuse to make my students watch it.

Interesting takes on Bill Gates, on the occasion of his retirement

Anil Dash says that by combining Microsoft with the gates Foundation, what he has essentially done is impose a 100 dollar per white collar worker "cure AIDS tax" or "stop malaria tax" on every corporation in the developed world.  Interesting reading...
http://www.dashes.com/anil/2008/06/bill-gates-and-the-greatest-tech-hack-ever.html

And I enjoyed reading a rant of an email that Bill himself sent on one frustrating episode he had with a Windows product.
You can read his whole 4 page email here:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp

Bush impersonator reads kids letters

Pretty funny concept

Manage your email

Here are some links for managing email (both those you have and those you send)

For those of you who sometimes have problems managing email, it can seem like you spend more time doing less work. Below are a number of resources for various aspects of managing email, from getting your own inbox under control, to making sure other people respond to you emails.
My own system involves:

• Mozilla Thunderbird as the email program,
• three filters:
• One to gray out anything not addressed to me
• Two to send email from two distribution lists (Teachers of Psychology, Tomorrow's Professor) immediately into their own folder (I can catch up once a week)
• When I send a message, it is bcc'ed to my gmail account, so I have an easily searchable archive of what I have sent.
• UVA's greylisting service
  

Two guides for getting your inbox under control:
http://www.43folders.com/izero/

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/getting-to-done/getting-to-done-communication-a-guide-to-email-triage-156948.php

Email overload (lots of information about handling email)
http://itzy.wordpress.com/

like: how to keep track of overdue responses:
http://itzy.wordpress.com/2006/02/06/how-to-keep-track-of-overdue-responses/#more-15

"Googling" your emails
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000168.html

Color code messages that are addressed to you
For thunderbird
http://carl.evankovich.com/2006/03/02/color-code-email-messages/
For outlook
http://itzy.wordpress.com/2005/12/27/how-to-color-code-your-messages/

National Archives video online

Google video is putting video from the National Archives online for all to use. Pretty cool idea, except it is a little buggy right now. WWII newsreels, NASA films, and films from the departmet of the Interior are up for the first round.

http://video.google.com/nara.html

from lifehacker

Harry Frankfurt "On Bullshit"

Video interview from Harry Frankfurt - author of "On Bullshit"
This interview is two tweed jacket academic talking heads, sitting in front of stacks of books, talking about bullshit.
Both hilarious and insightful.
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/video/frankfurt/

Manage your email

Some tips on how to manage your behemoth of an inbox
http://www.43folders.com/2006/02/06/email-ninja/

Superbowl commercials

Complete superbowl commericals,
http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

Free information from your phone

1800 555-TELL gives you all sorts of information from your phone
(directions, news, sports scores, etc)
1800-FREE-411 offers free 411 services.

For each, you may have to listen to a brief ad, but it is unlikely.

23 Uses for your thumb drive

Useful article from PC World on what you can do to soup up your little ol' USB drive
link

One example: TO synchronize between computer and drive, use the Microsoft Windows XP SyncToy

Free online stock photos for presentations

Tired of clip art? Google Images not giving you what you want?
Try this link for a list of places that provide free images
http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2006/01/where_can_you_f.html


from lifehacker