educating eric

Checkbox News (Scripting News) What a great idea! What I don't know is how you'd handle competing tags, but we'd eventually figure that out. (For instance, the example is un-checking news about Anna Nicole. Which I would do. But the problem is that if Anna Nicole's partner's gardener's father says something insulting about Billy Graham, I might want to know about that, even though I'd never go out and check "Billy Graham" news as something I'd like to know about. So the automated system would drop that article out because it would see the Anna Nicole tag, even though it's not about Anna Nicole. It gets complicated.)

Thanks to a memory-jog on Twitter by " Ariel Waldman ", a friend of Jon Gordon , I got to thinking... Did you ever compare Saint Etienne's cover of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" with White Town's "Your Woman"? Maybe everything in the early 90's sounded the same? Seriously, don't those two songs sound a lot a like?!?

Just watched an episode of Mythbusters where they busted the myth that flying birds in a truck weigh less than resting ones. Tested with birds, and confirmed with a model helicopter on a scale. So? Some of us are old enough to remember that Newton's Apple, produced by our very own KTCA-TV and hosted by Ira Flatow, did this exact same experiment in the 1980s. Down to the model helicopter on the scale. Anyone else remember this? (The result was the same back then, by the way; it's a myth.)

So, now I have a problem. Comments are few and far between on this blog, but "casedog" gave me some advice in response to an old post : get a girlfriend, kari doesnt like your loser a** The problem is, my wife doesn't want me to get a girlfriend. Should I listen to her over "casedog"? And I'm confused; would "getting a girlfriend" cause Kari Byron to like my "loser a**"? Does "casedog" have inside knowledge that Kari already likes some other part of me (spleen, kneecap, etc.)? UPDATE (June 2006): I've moved all my Kari Byron commentary over to a different site; you're welcome to browse around here... but for anything new, check out the Kari Byron category on att.ention.net .

Okay, guys (and gals... no, it's 'guys')... if you haven't seen this one, you need to. Believe it or not, I missed it when it aired. Editorial comment: At the end, she must have powdered her hair. Personally, I think it looks best just before she does. UPDATE (June 2006): I've moved all my Kari Byron commentary over to a different site; you're welcome to browse around here... but for anything new, check out the Kari Byron category on att.ention.net .

UPDATE: Alternate photo is now working. Skimming over the Coast to Coast AM web site, I found a reference to Cognitive Labs: Anomalous Image on Google Maps Basically, there's some strange shiny starbust on a picture. And folks wonder, "What's really there?" Well, thanks to www.terraserver.com , you can find out. Here's a [BROKEN]link to an alternate high-resolution photo , which may or may not work (because I took it from their "shopping cart" engine). UPDATE: That link doesn't work, so I'm just posting the photo here, risking the wrath of the Terraserver folks. No offense, guys -- I love you a lot! Give me a link so people can see (and maybe even buy) this photo, and I'll send them your direction! Image Size = 500 x 500 pixels Ground Resolution = 0.5 Meter (ul = upper left) - ulx = 4.947711693793586; uly = 52.512580909946806 (lr = lower right) - lrx = 4.951287799174984; lry = 52.51042524349497 (cp = centerpoint) - cpx = 4.9496189499969985; ...

Okay, conspiracy theories are fine and there's probably something to some of them... but this? School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?

What a story! Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com My personal take on why people ignored Joshua Bell as he performed in a subway station is because he had a case open looking for money and people didn't want to make eye contact and feel obligated to pay... but 1) maybe that's just a Minnesota perspective, and 2) who wouldn't be willing to chip in a buck or two for a performance like this one?!?

So I'm thinking about what I might be able to throw in a podcast while Chloe's sleeping (and Ruth and Candela are at McDonald's), and I think I'll title the next one "Hobbies in Community". I fired up Twitter this morning, saw something from Garrick Van Buren, and started reading. The interesting thing is that, intentionally, I'm Tweeting my initial thoughts rather than analyzing the whole situation and composing a blog entry (or something else). Maybe there's a continuum like... Whitepaper > Blog > IM > Tweets But I realized that there are some hobbies ( podcasting being one) that only make sense if you do them in a community. They have a strong social aspect to them. If others aren't interested, the hobby loses its "purpose". Some hobbies are enhanced by a community -- you can knit alone, but it's fun to knit with friends (so I hear). But some don't make any sense if you don't have others involved. And some,...

The FridgeFest site has information on a series of performances by Mikael Rudolph of his "Swim Home" show. If you listen to my podcast , you might remember this episode where I interviewed Mikael and talked about the "history of mime" (among other things). I can't believe that after months of not blogging, I'm back with, "Dude! You gotta go see this mime!" But, seriously, this is a remarkable performance and a really interesting study in non-verbal communication, personal interation... all sorts of good "instructional design" or "usability" stuff. (A slight stretch, but not by much.) So, for my hip friends who can pop up to the Loring Playhouse on an afternoon (you know who you are!), you should check this out. Here's the update from the e-mail Mikael just sent out: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Minneapolis-based Vaudevillian Mime Artist/Physical Comic Mikael Rudolph, who for much of the year tours nationally to fairs, festival...

If it's good enough for Jon Gordon of Future Tense fame, Twitter is good enough for me! Checking it out to see if it might be a good way of keeping up on work-related activities. Of course, one could argue that a blog update isn't a work-related activity and shouldn't be Twittered (is that the past tense of it?), but when you're an Instructional Process Analyst, that's the kind of thing you have to keep up with!