Larry Schwarm – Photography

Amazing, simply amazing.

Garfield minus Garfield

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27158539

FCC Auction Opens Door to Open Access

FCC Auction Opens Door to Open Access

While the identity of the high bidder for the C block remains a mystery under the FCCs rules, it now appears certain the nation will see its very first open-access wireless network within a few years. Until now, the FCC has always allowed licensees to exercise full control over which phones and applications could be used on their networks. Indeed, three of the five blocks being auctioned this time around will allow the owners traditional discretion over their networks.

This could be interesting.

Snow sculpture

Snow sculpture

Originally uploaded by tonystl.

Twisting, turning, coming off like a wrapper.

New technology makes me happy

It’s about to happen. I’m getting a new cellphone in a couple of days. The only thing I’ll be able to think about, and the only Google searches I’ll be doing for the next two weeks, will revolve around the Nokia N75.

This will be my first phone with the Symbian operating system. Apparently this OS is highly customizable. The OS also has quite a following with developers, so there are plenty of little applications to download and fiddle with.

This will also be my first phone that accepts Micro SD cards. The phone can be used as a mass storage device, which is pretty exciting for me since I’ve been wanting to get 1-2 gigs of flash memory, but never really wanted to put the money (even thought it wouldn’t be much) out for it.

The phone has a 2 megapixel camera. Which isn’t much, but will be much better than my <1 megapixel Razr.

White bread for young minds, says university professor

White bread for young minds, says university professor – Times Online

Google is “white bread for the mind”, and the internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information, a professor of media studies will claim this week. She believes that easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate.

If these students are so addicted to Google, then how is Google dulling their sense of curiosity? Don’t you Google something when you are curious about it? I don’t just mindlessly Google things all day long unless I have a passing interest in what I’m typing. Also, I usually run across a decent news article or two about my topic and learn more than I knew the moment before.

True, students may rely too much on Google or Wikipedia (which are two different beasts, each with its own set of strong points and weak points) for their information, or as a first, and only, research source. But I don’t think this is the solution:

Her own students are banned from using Wikipedia or Google as research tools in their first year of study, but instead are provided with 200 extracts from peer-reviewed printed texts at the beginning of the year, supplemented by printed extracts from eight to nine texts for individual pieces of work.

Draining the available research pool to these finite texts isn’t going to teach these students anything. By gathering all the printed material together for the students, handing it to them and then expecting them to use it for research paper preparation is like giving open-book tests all year long. Do the students really learn how to do their own research by giving them all the available material, telling them not to deviate from it, and then the next year releasing them into the wild, Google-White yonder to suddenly know how to research any better than before (when they were supposedly sustaining on a diet of Google search results and Wikipedia entries)?

“I want students to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels – both are fine but I want students to have both – not one or the other, not a cheap solution,” she said.

If she can also provide those texts in digital format with a decent search algorithm, then more power to her. It sounds like she also has a problem with the digitizing of the printed word.

Words on paper

Sometimes I like to look at books, and photos of books, more than I like to read books.

New year savings

We use coupons. Katie actually gets excited on Saturdays when the coupons arrive. We LOVE using coupons. We don’t use coupons for things we don’t need; just because something is $1 off doesn’t mean we’re going to buy it to act like we saved a $1 when we actually spent $3.99.

I kept track of all the money we saved using coupons for things we were going to buy anyway (deodorant, TP, medicine, canned veggies, etc.). I will be doing this again this year, but I will be doing one extra step. What we save will be moved over into savings. So if we save $4.50 in coupons, then I will move $4.50 over to savings. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but after a year it really adds up.

Here’s the breakdown from 2007:

January: $17.70
February: $11.64
March: $12.45
April: $9.40
May: $8.35
June: $11.64
July: $7.15
August: $12.25
September: $16.65
October: $17.58
November: $12.10
December: $12.75
———————-
Grand Total: $149.66

You see, after a year it adds up to a decent amount. Enough to pay for the tags on my car (plus the inspection and emissions tests). Enough help pay half of my personal property taxes. That’s a BIG help.

Try it this year.

Jack in the snow

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