Category: Pointless Ramblings

The Heartbreaking story of Seymour Papert

Posted on by Nimgimli

Well worth a read. Thanks to Wohali for sharing.

In search of a beautiful mind – The Boston Globe

Couple of quotes:

Seymour Papert is tinkering with a robotic,
computer-controlled turtle in The Learning Barn, the rustic,
light-filled laboratory where he developed and refined many of his
ideas…

Nineteen months ago he was struck by a motorbike in Hanoi and suffered
a brain injury so severe he was comatose for a month and couldn’t walk,
talk, or read. The man widely considered to be the most important
living thinker about the way children learn is struggling with an
unreliable memory and an uncertain grip on words.

Simplifying the “home theater”

Posted on by Nimgimli

So my project for the day was to re-do my ‘home theater’ setup. I put that in quotes because we’re talking, y’know, the living room, not a dedicated home theater in a separate room. My goal was just to get components plugged in so that I could turn them all completely off, rather than have everything in ‘standby mode.’ Good for the environment, and good for the electric bill, right? But of course I didn’t want the DVRs turning off, nor the hubs.

Once I started pulling stuff apart…I was pretty amazed. I ended up with a huge pile of gear I really no longer need to have hooked up. First, my ancient Laser Disk player. I haven’t turned that on since I moved into this apartment a few years ago. Next, VCR. Can’t remember the last time I used that. DVD player? Just collecting dust, since the PS3 upscales DVDs so nicely. I found out I had a wireless bridge running that was supplying ethernet to the XBox. Not the XBox360, mind you…the old XBox. And speaking of the old XBox, tear it out and stick it into storage. I don’t have time to play all the new games I want to play; I’m never going to get around to playing those old XBox 1 games.

Now I was really getting into the spirit of things: I pulled out the #2 Comcast Box, and the Tivo that was hanging off it. I never watch Tivo anymore because I can no longer tolerate SD content delivered through an s-video cable (the best my Tivo Series 2 offers). I’ll either put the 2nd Comcast box in the office, or turn it in and save the $10 or $12 that Comcast charges me every month. I did end up re-connecting the Tivo just to see if it gets its podcasts (like Cranky Geeks) via ethernet, or if it somehow is pulling them now through the cable. I can’t imagine how it would be… anyway that still might end up going. I had an Airport Express out there to stream music from my computers to the stereo, which I last did about 18 months ago. And I never print to the printer hanging off of it. So out that went.

Suddenly, a brace of switch boxes and y-cables were no longer needed, so I got rid of those, several of which were powered. Which mean fewer plugs and so fewer power strips.

That whole side of the room looks so much neater and uncluttered now. I’m using 3 power strips. One will be ‘always on’ and has the Tivo, the Comcast DVR and the single remaining ethernet hub on it. One controls the receiver and the XBox 360. And one (plugged into a different circuit) controls the TV, PS3 and Sub-Woofer. So when I’m turning out the lights at night, I can just toggle off those power strips and all that energy going into keeping all this gear on standby no longer gets wasted.

Now my big challenge is… where to store all these gear I tore out!!?

Roz Savage

Posted on by Nimgimli

Have you heard about Roz Savage? She’s single-handedly rowing across the pacific. She’s already done the Atlantic!

http://www.rozsavage.com/blog/

She’s holed up in her cabin while a storm is smacking her around. She’s got a satellite ‘net connection/phone, and solar panels to charge stuff. Leo Laporte hooked her up with an iPod full of audiobooks. 🙂 Normally she rows 15-16 hours/day.

No support vessel. Just a woman in a 16’ rowboat out in the Pacific. Fascinating stuff.

Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C.

Posted on by Nimgimli

Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France’s Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.

The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles – founded by Caesar.

Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C.

A note to all web journalists

Posted on by Nimgimli

Warning, incoming rant.

I was reading an article at an online magazine today and noticed a glaring and really embarrassing typo where one of the editors had just (inadvertently) dissed his own product. So being a nice guy, I figured I’d point that out to them. Turns out contacting the editors of this “magazine” isn’t easy.

Here’s how my thought process went:

1) I’ll leave my feedback as a comment

  • I have to register or sign in to comment? Annoying
  • Oh, they support openid, I’ll use that!
  • Wait, they post my openid as my name if I use openid? That’s insane. Skip that.

2) I’ll email the author then. Click on his name.

  • OK here’s a profile, what’s his email address? Not listed. Yes, I know it’ll get you spam but you’re setting yourselves up as journalists. Being contactable is part of that process.
  • OK click on Contacts
  • OK here’s a contact email address. I’ll click that.
  • Oops, it isn’t a link. Highlight and copy it then
  • Nope, they used an image so I can’t cut and paste the email address

So finally I type out the email address and send them an email, but not to tell them about the typo. Rather, to tell them how this process was so frustrating that I’m unsubscribing from their RSS feed and won’t give them my eyeballs again.

We’re talking about a site with advertising on it, so my page views = revenue for them. If you want to put on your journalist suit and collect an income from my visits, then you damned well better treat me, the reader, as a customer. Yes, I understand spam is a huge problem. But its part of the cost of doing business if you’re going to set yourself up as a business, which the ads tell me these people are (that opinion is bolstered by the name and format of the site).

OK, end of rant. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about such things but, well, I do. And I can’t be the only one!

A counter to over-protective parents

Posted on by Nimgimli

This lady is my new hero:

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone | The New York Sun

My friends and I often spend time talking about what life was like when we were kids; how we’d run around unsupervised and how none of us died, y’know? We didn’t have “play dates,” we just shouted “I’m going over to Billy’s!” as we tore out the door. These days I just wonder when kids have a chance to be kids? Henry Jenkins has suggested that kids are so drawn to video games these days because those are the only places they can go to, y’know, get away from the parental units and be themselves, so to speak. That makes sense to me.

Now I should state that I have no kids, so to a certain extent, talk is cheap for me.

Anyway, Lenore Skenazy, the author of the article above, has started a blog called FreeRange Kids. How about that for a blog title!!? I love it.