From Wordsworth’s The Prelude 12.208-218 (1805 edition):
There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to [...]
Posted on January 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Gore Vidal’s “President Jonah“:
When the admirable Tiberius (he has had an undeserved bad press), upon becoming emperor, received a message from the Senate in which the conscript fathers assured him that whatever legislation he wanted would be automatically passed by them, he sent back word that this was outrageous. “Suppose the emperor is ill [...]
Posted on January 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From CNN’s “World without pain is hell, parent says“:
Roberto is one of 17 people in the United States with “congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis,” referred to as CIPA by the few people who know about it. …
Other abnormalities quickly surfaced. Roberto was severely susceptible to heatstroke on hot summer days. His parents soon noticed [...]
Posted on January 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From John Markoff’s “U.S. Office Joins an Effort to Improve Software Patents“:
the patent office plans to announce today that I.B.M. once again topped the list of private-sector patent recipients in 2005. The company received 2,941 patents last year, compared with 3,248 patents in 2004.
Related posts
What patents on life has wrought
The tyranny of HOAs
Paul Graham on [...]
Posted on January 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, business, technology | Comments Off
From Jake Ludington’s “Create Podcasts Using Your PC“:
I’m walking through the steps required to record and post your own podcast using tools virtually everyone has or can easily acquire on a tiny budget. … I recommend starting out with Audacity, an open source audio recording application.
Related posts
Remove EXIF data from JPEGs
Professions and clubs
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Posted on January 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: social software, Wash U: tech in changing society, tech help, technology | Comments Off
From “Study: Want Community? Go Online” [emphasis added]:
Nearly 40 percent of Americans say they participate in online communities, with sites around hobbies, shared personal interests, and health-related issues among the most popular. That’s according to a survey conducted by ACNielsen and commissioned by eBay.
The survey was conducted in late September. Of 1,007 respondents, 87 percent [...]
Posted on January 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: social software, Wash U: tech in changing society | Comments Off
From “3,600+ blogs: A glance into IBM’s internal blogging“:
Through the central blog dashboard at the intranet W3, IBMers now can find more than 3,600 blogs written by their co-workers. As of June 13 there were 3,612 internal blogs with 30,429 posts. Internal blogging is still at a stage of testing and trying at IBM but [...]
Posted on January 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: social software, Wash U: tech in changing society, business | Comments Off
From the Windows OneCare Team Blog’s “Windows OneCare Firewall – Keepin’ it Green, Part I“:
Through a combination of surveys, emails and customer communication, we maintain a close watch on the “health†status indicators, such as, percent of users with anti-virus out of date, or the ratio of customers that are regularly backing up files.
… Recently, [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From New Scientist’s “Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive“:
A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.
The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Science News’ “Night of the Crusher: The waking nightmare of sleep paralysis propels people into a spirit world“:
As a college student in 1964, David J. Hufford met the dreaded Night Crusher. Exhausted from a bout of mononucleosis and studying for finals, Hufford retreated one December day to his rented, off-campus room and fell into [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From MSNBC’s “75-year-old jewel thief looks back“:
When Doris Payne went to work, she stepped into her fancy dress, high heels and donned a wide-brimmed hat. Her creamy, mocha skin was made up just so, her handbag always designer. Sometimes a pair of plain gold earrings would do. Always, she looked immaculate, well-to-do. …
New York. Colorado. [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, fiction | Comments Off
From MSNBC’s “Very, very frequent flyer hits 1 million goal“:
On his blog “The Great Canadian Mileage Run 2005,†[Marc] Tacchi reported on Wednesday that he had racked up 1,003,625 mileage points and spent 56 of the last 61 days in an airplane. …
The 30-year-old embarked on his venture using Air Canada’s North America Unlimited Pass [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, commonplace book, true stories | Comments Off
From “Research puts actors’ memory on center stage“:
According to the researchers, the secret of actors’ memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words’ meaning - the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them - as well as on the physical and [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book | Comments Off
From Edward R. Murrow’s 15 October 1958 speech to the Radio-Television News Directors Association:
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get [...]
Posted on January 23rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From David L. Hudson, Jr.’s “Update on the Internet and the First Amendment“:
For example, as First Amendment scholar Rodney
Smolla explains, when Gutenberg developed the printing press
circa 1450, the Archbishop of Mainz created a censorship body,
and the Venice Inquisition issued a list of banned books.
The expansion of printing led English officials to pass
restrictive licensing laws that [...]
Posted on January 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, commonplace book, history, politics, technology | Comments Off
From The Register’s “How ATM fraud nearly brought down British banking“:
And there wasn’t time for the banks to fix the problem if anyone went public with it. Their MTBU was too short. MTBU? That’s “Maximum Time to Belly Upâ€Â, as coined by the majestic Donn Parker of Stanford Research Institute. He found that businesses that [...]
Posted on January 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, security | Comments Off
From Garr Reynolds’ “Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic“:
A key tenet of the Zen aesthetic is kanso or simplicity. In the kanso concept beauty, grace, and visual elegance are achieved by elimination and omission. Says artist, designer and architect, Dr. Koichi Kawana, “Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.” …
The aesthetic concept [...]
Posted on January 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, commonplace book, teaching, technology | Comments Off
Don’t know what the Long Tail is? Check out the seminal Wired article, or read the blog.
From The New York Times‘ “The Net Is a Boon for Indie Labels“:
CD and digital album sales so far this year are down 8 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. And [...]
Posted on January 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, business | Comments Off
From Glenn Fleishman’s post to the Interesting People mailing list:
I heard the strangely frank head of TSA on NPR this morning–perhaps he forgot he was speaking to the public?–talk quite honestly about what I would describe as “yield management for risk.”
Basically:
* The pilots are now protected, so the plane won’t be weaponized even if many [...]
Posted on January 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: security | Comments Off