Don’t let the moment slip away. Now is the time to suck up to my ego and vote for Gen X at 40 and A Good Beer Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards for best blog, best culture blog, best group blog and best blog post series. I sucked up to my ego just now myself. I feel better for it. Just today and tomorrow to get through the first round. In exchange, I provide you a small glimpse of the art of someone else, a pleading moment captured in pastels between Kirk and Spock. It’s like he’s saying “Vote, Spock, Vote!” Isn’t that fair exchange?
Category: Uncategorized
Google Bubble
Micheal is putting the boogie curse on my one share of Google. I suppose that the collapse of Google in itself would trigger the end of this bubble economy. But what of the small investor who puts just enough in to get the annual report and little else? What of me that person? Shouldn’t that investor be able to trust in a system that allows irrationality to provide a 3000% annual return and a few decent share splits on an information product that can’t even assure you that the answer provided is the authoritative one on the topic?
The Other Vote
Given the likelihood that the Federal government will fall tonight, is anyone clambering for fixed election dates these days? Regardless of the content of the issues, north and south of the border folks are less than happy with the administration of their national governments if the polls are to be believed. Given the split in the naiton below, three more years must pass before the voice of the people can be herd. With a bit of care and luck up here, another minority might get in which effectively keeps the feet to the fire. I think this particular feature of Parliamentary democracy is to be preferred.
Camera Recommendations?
For the third time in 2005, the basic Sony Cyber-shot has died. The first time it was the day before my cousin’s wedding in the US…so I had to buy another. Likely cause I thought was sand in the lens. That camera, a DSC-P32, had done yeoman’s service so I did not feel too bad. Then the next one was on the second day of summer vacation only a few months later. Maybe the DSC-S40 was getting treated too roughly. Likely problem I thought was a jarring of the lens. So I bought another in the US. Tonight we get that third one back from the trip. It was working fine at lunch but by 5 pm it can’t take a sharp picture, it keeps telling me to reset the date and it takes 15 seconds to “access”. I am thinking that the likely cause is that Sony can’t build a camera. They are being relegated to file back-up and shelf riding service.
I am sick of Sony, refuse now to be tied to their proprietary memory sticks and need your advice. What can I buy that is cheap and will not die?
Friday Chatter
Just as with the child whose non-meal time symptoms passed within a day and a half, so it has come to pass with me. I credit the chanting and the placement of the gerbil statutettes. So it is Friday and it is a day off booked far in advance to coincide with an teachers’ in-service day and as we monitor the route south, it is interesting to note how useful the New York State road condition web pages are. One would be content to wait until tomorrow were Ithaca not the sort of place where you can curl with rutabagas…rutabagi?
So it is sunny and clear here, we have new winter tires and are likely wise to stay put and chat. Topics?:
- VOTE EVERY DAY!!! The awards let you vote each day from yesterday to next Wednesday. We need you to make your mark as often as you can. And join the GX40 nation while you are at it. There is a rumour that you should vote in every category to make the web widget work. And look for both beer and here in best blog, best culture blog, best group blog and best blog post series. And remember…your idleness is the Flea’s best friend.
- Now that the necessity of scrounging is done…are winter tires the best value for technology or what? $425.00 gets you a full set installed including taxes and they take away the old bald things you were driving on. Can an iPod do that? I have driven year round on winter tires to the amusement of others but been caught in tornado inducing downpours and stuck to the asphalt while all around me hydroplaned. Plus you have only one set of tires to buy every two years. I expect vigourous discourse on this topic. It’s a gem.
I need a coffee to consider other topics. But that one above is a winner. Go with that for a while.
Update: I took a look south and you can see Watertown. We are making a run. If we are stuck in Watertown, we will find a high school basketball game to watch tonight. You could even see a laker:
Click for a bigger view. I don’t know why it is blue. I must have had the camera set on something other than auto. The wall of cloud behind the laker in the big picture is the lake effect show machine.
Stat-cher
The BBC has produced a interactive game with Margaret Thatcher’s reign’s economic stats including a chart with champagne imports 1979 to 1990. Smoking down. Foreign holidays up.
Remember 25% inflation? Hokey-kabokie! The only upside for me in that was it was undergrad and at the beginning of the term when there was lots of grant money in the bank the monthly interest paid for certain optional necessities which came in brown bottles.
Wigan
Mr. Lovely scores
Nice to see Arsenal move up the ranks with its win over second place Wigan. Who knew Wigan would be so strong? Now we are hoping that teams like Newcastle and Charlton have big days to tighten the top of the table and keep Arsenal third.
In bigger sporting news, Morton v. Cowdenbeath has been postponed due to a frosty field. Jumpin’ Jimminy! When I were a lad I recall slide tackling through thick ice on the muck-puddled fields of East Hants high.
Draw Your Own GUI
GUI = Graphical User Interface. Now you can draw your own. I find this widget called the Fly very interesting – and I don’t find many new widgets actually of any use at all:
The Fly also comes with something called Fly Open Paper: a sheaf of blank pages that permit a much more free-form range of creative activities. You indicate which program you want by writing its initials in a circle. For example, in Notepad mode (draw an N in a circle), you can write up to three block-letter words at a time; the pen then reads back what you’ve written. In Scheduler (circled S), you can write “Tuesday 3:45 P.M. student council”; at the specified time, the pen will turn itself on and speak the appointment’s name. Then there’s the Calculator (circled C), which is for nerds what “Pinocchio” is to wooden puppets. As you draw a set of calculator buttons, they come to life, speaking their own names when tapped and announcing the mathematical results (“one hundred sixty-nine, square root, equals thirteen”).
Not only does the computer state it but it stores it and then makes it downloadable. The neat thing is that a whack of people could work off the a single computer in a setting where there is not a lot of cash to buy a PC per person. I wonder if it comes in United Nations green? Click for a bigger view.
Update: there is a harrowing little paragraph at the end of the New York Times article lined above:
when it comes to children’s technology, a sort of post-educational age has dawned. Last year, Americans bought only one-third as much educational software as they did in 2000. Once highflying children’s software companies have dwindled or disappeared. The magazine once called Children’s Software Review is now named Children’s Technology Review, and over half of its coverage now is dedicated to entertainment titles (for Game Boy, PlayStation and the like) that have no educational component.