Unusual Job

I really like Flickr -- and it's amazing what stories some of the photo sets can tell. Check out this movie job.

Go Solar

I haven't been writing much lately. I've been a slug. I'm going to post some interesting items I've bookmarked.

Seems like there have been a lot of solar bags and other charging options for all the gadgets everyone is carrying these days. There is a solar messenger bag, another messenger bag, a solar panel in a briefcase form, and a pocket sized panel. These aren't the only options I've seen. Has anyone had good lucks with these types of charging solutions?

Papercraft

The Yamaha site has a lot of interesting papercraft items. If you haven't been to the site it's worth checking it out. They've added some new rare animals to that section of the site and also some new items in the seasons area.

Here is a blog devoted to paper that has lots of great pictures and links to interesting sites.

WSJ Portraits by Noli Novak

If you've seen the Wall Street Journal (as well as other sources), you've seen the characteristic pen/ink portraits on the page. The artist is Noli Novak and this website has examples of her work. I liked the collage area. If you go to the information area, among other things you'll find this link that shows how the portraits are made.

Make Your Own Google

This site will let you set up your own Google-style web page. Here is mine.

What If...

This site has a graphical depiction of some guy's "what if..." scenario. Interesting idea.

kite photos

I'm always interested in panorama photos. This site has some amazing panorama photos taken from kites.

Legos

I liked playing with Legos when I was a kid. Legos then were pretty simple. I remember how cool it was when Lego came out with wheels. This site has a very nice Flash piece that shows how Legos are made. A pretty intricate process given all the types of pieces available.

Secure Mailbox -- Sort Of

Check out this site showing a new, secure mailbox. It's so secure it's called the mail vault. There is just one flaw in their design. It requires the postal service deliver the mail to the correct box. In the last year or so, there have been many instances where we received our neighbor's mail -- and vice versa. So much for security.

Houston, Tranquility base here....

...The Eagle has landed. There is a lot of buzz today regarding the anniversary of the first landing on the moon. Google has a nice map of the moon that is annotated with the locations of the various US moon landings. This site has an excellent moon panorama (requires Quicktime) created by stitching together pictures taken by Gene Cernan during the Apollo 17 landing. The site has many other panoramas -- very well done.

Of course there will always be folks wondering why the big fuss since the moon landings were all a big hoax.

Shooting

On Saturday Dianne and I went to Target World. We took their basic handgun safety class. There were six of us in the class. It was a good class that covered safety basics and provided some good information on revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. We talked for approximately one and a half hours and then had time on their range. We tried various calibers from .22 to .357 magnum and used pistols and revolvers. Dianne had never shot before. When we were going to start shooting one at a time, she moved over to see a little better and she got volunteered to go first. She put her shot right thru the bullseye. She did the same with the .38 and the 9 mm. Later, when we were taking turns shooting, Dianne was on the firing line with a Glock 9 mm and I was standing back with the instructor. She put 2 shots through the bullseye at about 12 yards and the instructor leans over to me and says don't get her angry. It was a fun morning and we learned a lot.

June Flying Activities

It's been dry here compared to a typical June. While bad for crops and the landscaping, that has meant some good flying weather. On the 19th, Dianne and I flew to Bolton Field near Columbus, OH. It's a nice place to visit as there is plenty of parking on the ramp and there is a good place to eat (JP's BBQ Ribs & Chicken) at the terminal building. Dianne snapped a picture of me next to the Tiger on the ramp at Bolton. The clouds looked worse than they were -- high, broken layer. It was a nice flight.

Last weekend I attended the Wings Weekend held at the Butler County airport. The FAA Wings Program helps pilots maintain or gain proficiency. For each phase of the program, you attend an FAA sponsored aviation seminar and fly with an instructor for at least 3 hours. Every year in the Cincinnati area, flight instructors volunteer their time for a "Wings Weekend". Pilots just show up at the designated times, get paired with an instructor, and fly. There are also seminars held all three days. It makes it easy to complete a phase of the Wings program. I completed phase II this year.

UC DAAPworks

The University of Cincinnati's college of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) has an end of year show called DAAPworks. We went to see the show on the last day. Graduating students display a major project along with a description (sometimes) of the project, what they were trying to accomplish, etc. I added sometimes since not all the displays had anything to read. That made it very confusing and hard to appreciate the final product. At the left is a picture of Dianne taking in one of the displays.

It's an interesting exhibit to see. There is quite a wide variety of displays due to the breadth of the college. In general, I enjoyed the architecture, graphic, and industrial design areas the most. I'm sure all the students worked hard and they were all reasonably good. But when you view the displays side by side, you can really see differences in the skill levels between students. I also snapped a couple pictures in the Fine Art gallery. This piece consisting of papers suspended from the ceiling was interesting. Here is Dianne next to a recycled art pieces made out of plastic grocery bags and styrofoam packing material.

Norwich, NY

In the beginning of June I had to make a business trip to upstate New York. At the left is a camera phone picture of the Chenango County Courthouse in Norwich, NY. I lived in the area many years ago. It's a rural county with many small towns. In many ways the demographics and population are very similar to the area where I grew up.

One evening I had a chance to look around Norwich a bit. Driving around I had some feelings that things hadn't changed much since I left. There are a few new buildings and stores (e.g. Walmart) and some stores had closed. But basically the standard local merchants like McLaughlin's clothing, the Corner Cigar newstand, Garf's deli, Nina's pizza, etc. were status quo. That brought back memories.

On the other hand, there were times when it seemed like I hadn't lived there at all. I drove out to see the place I used to rent. It's about ten miles out of town near Chenango Lake (shown at right). I went out to the place using "the back way" and returned to town by the larger roads. I made that trip hundreds of times on the way to and from work. When living there I felt I knew every curve, sign, driveway, and house along the way. But driving out there I felt I really had to pay attention to make sure I didn't miss a turn! What has happened to my memory?

I drove past the old place and it looked terrible. There wasn't anyone home, although it seemed like someone was still living there. The grass was about 2 feet high, no flowers, tree branches down in the yard, and very little up keep. Just down the road some of land had been turned over to loggers. There were piles of large tree trunks and the side of the hill was torn up by the logging roads. As a whole, it was sad considering how pretty the place was with the large pond for fishing and swimming, tennis court, ski trails, garden, etc. Although my memory isn't great, I'll have to remember the place the way it used to be.

Summerfair

It's been some time since I've made a blog post. Seems like my work life is busy and there just isn't time on the summer weekends.

On June 4th, Dianne and I went to the annual Summerfair art celebration held at Coney Island. It is fun to walk around and see the wide variety of items displayed by the invited artists. Dianne bought a bracelet this year -- quite a surprise for her. It's silver and has two intertwined strands that give it a Celtic knot sort of appearance. It was a very hot and humid day, but there was a good crowd.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday Dianne and I went to Lunken field to have lunch at the Sky Galley restaurant. It's a good restaurant in the old terminal building. It has a good view of the field and the general aviation ramp. This weekend, in commemoration of Memorial Day, there was a restored and flying B-25H bomber, the Barbie III, visiting the field. They were selling rides and ground tours of the plane. Here and here are some pictures of the Barbie III. The Cincinnati Warbirds group also had a T-28 and an SNJ-5 on display. Here is a picture of those planes.

We also went for a walk along the north side of the field along the pedestrian/bike path. We got caught in a passing shower, but it was a light rain. A good day for a walk as it wasn't too hot (around 75) and there was a nice breeze blowing. Many years ago we walked around the whole field on what seemed like the hottest and most humid day we had in August. Wow…that was a hike!

Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC)

I was a couple months outside of the 6 month clock for recent flight experience requirements for instrument flying. Yesterday I took an instrument proficiency check with an instrument instructor to get back up to speed. It was a good flight. It was a nice day with only a few high clouds. I had to wear a view limiting device so the only thing I could see were the instruments (Click on the Pilot Training Foggles link at this site).

We did two GPS approaches (one coupled with the autopilot). Because the Dayton approach controller was very busy, we had to fly the first one as a full approach (he didn’t have time to give radar vectors). That worked out well and was good practice doing a procedure turn. After the second approach, we followed the published missed approach instructions and entered a holding pattern. Personally, I don't find holds that difficult. After the first circuit, and often through the entry, you can detect how to compensate for the wind in order to stay on course. After a few turns in the hold, we headed back home and did a VOR approach opposite to the prevailing wind so it included a circle to land maneuver. A good IPC is a confidence builder, helps make sure I haven’t developed any bad habits and know how to use the system, and alerts me to any problem areas. Fortunately, I don’t have any problem areas. I just need to keep up on the instrument flying to stay current.

Grumman Gathering at KBMI

On Saturday I flew to Bloomington/Normal, IL, for a Grumman Gatherers event at Arnie's restaurant in the old terminal building on the field. The airport is also home to the Prairie Aviation Museum. It was an open house day at the museum and their DC-3 was giving rides around the city. I didn't tour the museum since I needed to head home. The airport is very nice, but there is construction taking place on some taxiways and access roads. One of the runways is closed and is being used as a taxiway.

I had a strong tailwind on the way to KBMI. Made it in just over 2 hours. My ground speed ranged from 125 to 142 knots! I flew VFR since it was a clear day. The way home took a little longer (~2 1/4 hours) due to the headwind. I flew a little lower on the way home and the headwind wasn't quite as strong. Nevertheless, it was a little bit bumpy. Not unusual with the afternoon heating over the green and brown fields. This is a picture of Tony and some of the other Gatherer aircraft in front of the old terminal building at Bloomington/Normal that is now the general aviation area. Click on the photo to see a larger view.

It was a good turnout -- approximately 20 people and I'm not sure how many planes. I took a few pictures of some of the Gatherer aircraft and also snapped a couple pictures of some airports I passed along the way. The service and food at Arnie's was very good. This review was on target. If you're in the neighborhood, it's worth stopping.

Dayton Hamfest

Today I went to the Dayton Hamfest and ARRL National convention (they were combined this year). It is the largest hamfest in the country. Although I've only been an hour away for the last 12 years, I've never been. I haven't been active on the amateur bands, but I thought I'd go to find some power supply and antenna equipment for my low power radio to do some operating when mobile.
It took me all morning just to walk through the indoor exhibits. The picture here is only one of several indoor areas at the Hara Arena in Dayton. The new radio technology has really improved in the last decade. Just like most electronic gadgets, there are more features packed in a smaller space. Unfortunately, I didn't find what I needed. Nevertheless, it was an interesting day. Click here to see a few other photos including a motorcycling ham that had over a million miles on a Honda Goldwing.

There were a lot of people there and folks representing many different countries. It's relatively easy to tell where folks are from as most people wear name badges that also have their amateur radio call sign. The prefix of the callsign tells you what country they are from. I saw people from England, Scotland, Finland, several Eastern European countries, Japan, and of course Canada. There were folks from all over the US.

Human Powered Hydrofoil

This looks very interesting – I wonder how well it really works. Has anybody tried one or seen somebody using one? It reminds me of a Trikke for water. Dianne and I got the Trikke and it works well once you get the hang of it. It’s a good, low impact cardio workout. I should clarify it’s low impact unless you take a spill and then the impact is high. In that respect the hydrofoil would be nice.

Bike Radio

I always had the best bikes when growing up. My dad owned a bicycle shop when I was younger and so I had good bikes with nice accessories. I rode around a lot with neighborhood friends.

When I was 12, one of my birthday presents was a battery powered AM radio that mounted on the handlebar. I thought it’d be neat to be able to listen to the radio while riding around. I was reminded of that yesterday as it was the anniversary of the start of the Watergate hearings in 1973. There weren’t a lot of AM radio choices during the day in central Minnesota (i.e. one unless you like old-time music). Our local station carried the Watergate hearings. Talking about boring to a kid! In fact, Senate hearings are boring to me now. Needless to say, I didn’t listen to that bike radio very much in the summer of ’73.

Sporty's Open House

Last Saturday, Dianne and I drove to the Clermont County Airport (I69) to attend an open house event sponsored by Sporty's which is based at the airport. The weather wasn't that great to fly over. Even so, the parking lot was pretty full of cars. It was raining lightly and the light breeze made for a cool day.

There were several vendors in the two new large hangars showing avionics, pilot supplies, new airplanes, etc. You can click on the picture to see a larger version. I was most interested in the AirMod organization based at I69. I'd be nice to eventually redo the interior of the Tiger. There was an AT-6 which did some passes over the field and was on display. I also thought there was a Bird Dog or similar aircraft with military markings.

You can fly or drive in to Sporty's any Saturday around noon to get a hot dog. Here are the directions.

Lite Brite

Remember the Lite Brite toy? If you are really bored, your can try the on-line version here.

Spam

What do you think of when you hear the term “Spam”?

Having grown up in the state that is home to Hormel Foods and having married someone from Hawaii, the canned meat pops into my head. We actually have cans of Spam in our cupboard at home. I don’t know if I buy the Hormel site slogan about crazy tasty.

The vision of canned meat is quickly followed by thoughts of unsolicited email -- the term that originated in honor of the Monty Python skit.

What I didn’t realize until today is there is a Broadway musical to think about too. My department head, a huge Monty Python fan, mentioned this to me. He and his son plan to take in the show while on a college hunt in the neighborhood. I can imagine this musical being like a Rocky Horror Picture Show kind of experience.

Friday Rant

I love satellite radio. I’m an XM Radio subscriber. From that point of view, this story is good news. However, the survey response as reported seems insane and led to this rant.

There has to be another side to the results of the survey – e.g. expense of the satellite radio and subscription costs. I find it hard to believe Howard Stern is the reason people didn’t want satellite radio. Did people explain satellite radio to these Hyundai customers before taking the survey!?! It’s not like Sirius satellite radio only has one channel fixed to Howard Stern. Just choose a different channel and enjoy! Your satellite choices are being tracked and if the number of Stern channel listeners is low, they’ll drop him. Enjoy the other offerings. C’mon….think about where you can hear Howard Stern now. Do they want their FM radios ripped out of their car simply because they could maybe tune into Howard in the morning? Are they going to give up their cable box because they might see him on E!?

Motorcycle Season

It’s that time of year when Dianne shows an interest in the weather. Each day she wants to know if it’s going to be dry so she can ride her motorcycle to work.

We got the bikes out of storage several weeks ago and had their annual service done. This picture is Dianne coming home from work last week on her bike. It was still pretty cool in the mornings so she was wearing her Aerostich suit to keep warm during the ride. With that suit, an electric vest, and heated handgrips you're able to stay fairly warm. I’m OK down to about 45 F, but anything below that is too cold for me. However, I’d say she’s good to go down to about 35 F. This site has more detail about her bike. The seat height adjustment allows for a reasonable fit for her. The saddlebags can hold a lot of stuff.

Mashimaro

I’ve had this picture of Mashimaro in my cube at work for quite awhile. Someone stopped by to talk with me yesterday, noticed it, and asked what it was all about. Mashimaro, the main character in an online animated adventure series, is a lovable little rabbit that has a mischievous side. Check out the Mashimaro website to see the cartoons and get some info on the characters.

Dictionary of Altitudes

I was in the library at work looking for a German/English chemical dictionary when this book caught my eye: A Dictionary of Altitudes in the United States, 4th Edition, by Henry Gannett. The book was published in 1906 by the Government Printing Office in Washington and contains tables of altitudes organized by state and city. As a private pilot, I think a lot about altitudes but they are so easy to obtain you take them for granted. Charts are loaded with them, planes have reasonably good altimeters, and GPS with WAAS capability will give position and altitude with an error of roughly 20 feet. I did a little digging to understand what was behind the altitude dictionary.

Gannett started with the US Geological Survey around the time it was founded as a separate agency in the Department of the Interior. He was chief geologist about the time that then director John Powell got the blessing of Congress to continue preparation of a geological map of the US. In that period, the topographic mapping effort received the bulk of USGS funding. Gannett was a founding member of the National Geographic Society and one of its presidents. You can find a short entry on Gannett here and a nice overview of the USGS here. Besides the general desire to understand US geology and geography, a lot of folks needed altitudes. For example, railroads planned paths to minimize grades, the military needed terrain information for strategic planning, and topological information helped determine watersheds.

The Dictionary of Altitudes has a short methods section describing how they measured the altitudes. Many were based on barometric pressure readings and a fair number mentioned using trigonometry. Some altitudes were based on measuring the boiling point of water. This website has a great discussion of how altitudes were measured in the 1800s. It also discusses why different methods were used and the limitations and errors in the measurements. Quite a good read.

I checked a few of the measurements to get an idea of accuracy. It’s amazing how good the values are! For Little Falls, Minnesota there were two entries. The first was for the Northern Pacific Railroad (1120 feet) on the east side of town and the second was for a square cut on a step at the entrance to the Buckman Hotel (1114 feet). The Hotel was still operating when I was growing up. I wonder if there is a USGS benchmark there (here is an example). If there is, I walked past it hundreds of times as a kid and didn’t even notice it or know about the effort involved in placing these markers.

Clean Glasses Today

Clean Glasses

I got reading glasses a little over a year ago. What a difference they make – especially for my right eye! It really helps on days when I’m doing a lot of reading. The only frustrating part about them is they are hard to clean. Originally I tried a cleaning spray and dry wipes and then the pre-moistened cleaning wipes available from LensCrafters where I purchased the frames. I also tried some other brands. They all end up cleaning, but it generally takes several cleaning cycles because of the streaking. All the products I tried did more smearing than cleaning. Once I got the glasses mostly clean, I used a polyester/nylon cloth from Crizal to get rid of the streaks.

A few weeks ago we were at Sam’s Club walking by the optical area and I noticed a box of pre-moistened, lens cleaning cloths with the Zeiss name. On a whim I thought I’d give it a shot. After all, Zeiss should know how to clean optics (although I thought that about LensCrafters too). I finally got around to trying them today – after using two other pre-moistened cloths with no luck. The first Zeiss cloth worked like a charm!! Clean glasses with no streaks in one easy step! I can read again. If you haven’t tried ‘em, buy a package next time you’re at the store. Here is the smaller version of the 90 count package I saw.

Blogs for the Blogroll

I've been using BlogClicker of late to get a random look at some of the blogosphere. There haven't been too many sites that have jumped out at me on my journey. It's a matter of the first couple of posts catching your eye. Every now and then you'll find what you consider a gem. I've listed two new entries on my short blog roll: Seedlings & Sprouts and the Neverending Rainbow. I think these sites, while each covering very different material, are both very well done and interesting. Check them out.

Julie synthesizes a lot of things she reads on other blogs and tosses in observations of her own -- including those made through the eyes of her children. That makes for some interesting insights and there is always something on her site that gives good food for thought.

I also enjoy reading Michael's blog. I can relate to a lot of the topics he discusses. For example, although growing up in Minnesota I never listened to the X, the song "Heard it on the X" is one of my favorite ZZ Top tunes. Dianne and I like Project Greenlight which he's also discussed recently. I also enjoy the more substantial posts (as compared to most of my short ones).

Finally, both these blogs have simple layouts and no annoying banner ads -- just good content.

How's Your Report Card?

Dianne and I were at Barnes and Noble tonight doing some browsing. I came across a compilation of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. I hadn't read some of these in years and some weren't familiar or they have slipped away from me over the years. It brought back memories of the Fractured Fairy Tales segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

I read Andersen's story of the sandman. I had forgotten the Sunday sandman story talks about the sandman's brother who only knows two stories. How good is your report card?

Miscellaneous Web Items

Here is an eclectic mix of stuff I’ve run across recently.

For all the beach bums out there, check out these sand sculptures.

Here is a clever project that illustrates the 7 deadly sins using Mr. Potato Head. I love the sloth picture.

Not as well executed, there is also a gummy bear version of the 7 deadly sins. I like gluttony here.

What should you bring to your next picnic? Check out this gallery of watermelons!

Here are some web applications that aid learning about US states. In “place the state”, I had an average error of 12 miles in 254 seconds. Delaware and New Hampshire threw off my average. Guess I need some practice. I could use one of these for countries of the world.

Here is some math around communion.

Personality test

You can go here to draw a pig and then see what your drawing says about your personality. Here is my pig. I never said I was an artist.

Butterfly Exhibit

Today Dianne and I went to the Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park in Cincinnati. It's free (except for special exhibits) and worth stopping by if you're in the neighborhood. Today was the start of their annual butterfly exhibit. It was a nice exhibit with hundreds of butterflies flying around in one of the greenhouses. Kids and adults were enjoying the butterflies. I took a few photos and posted them in a set on Flickr.

More Finger Food

Check out this story about another finger in food. It's just sad it wasn't documented and the finger given to doctors immediately.

Photo Fun

I saw this link at The Mad Perseid site. He had it listed under a subject of 40 reasons not to post photos on the Internet.

Social Security

The AP has a bizarre story out of Wisconsin. This won't happen once Social Security goes bust.

Readability Stats

This site will measure the readability of any web page. Here is a summary of the results for my blog:
Gunning Fog Index = 9.10
Flesch Reading Ease = 70.30
Flesch-Kincaid Grade = 6.06

What do these mean? Here are definitions for the Gunning Fog Index and the Flesch Scores.

A Bug's Life

This site has some great macro photographs of insects.

Shadowbox Cabaret

Friday night we went to the Shadowbox Cabaret at Newport on the Levee. We saw their "dirty little secrets" show with another couple. We had a good time! The show was a mix of live music and comedy skits. I'd say overall the music was stronger than the comedy, but there were some very funny skits. There was an excellent lead guitar player that did an amazing job on Voodoo Child, and a bass guitar player that was rocking on Papa was a Rolling Stone and on Who Are You. A fun evening on the Levee.

Folksonomy and New Music

A few weeks ago I had a post about finding new music and I’ve mentioned Flickr several times in other posts. I found a connection between these items today.

A business site I was reading used the term “folksonomy” which I wasn’t familiar with. There is a good Wikipedia entry for the term. Folksonomy is an informal, spontaneous classification using keywords or tags. The entry immediately made me think of the Flickr site (which the article gave as an example) and how fast classification tags become popular and adopted. A couple examples include the Flickr tags of memorymap and whatsinmybag. I find both tags interesting and like browsing the related entries. My first attempt at a memory map got a surprising number of views!

The Wikipedia article on folksonomy also mentioned GenieLab as a tag example. I went to the site and found it is a music rating and recommendation service. A main function of the site is to record your ratings of music artists or groups (both good and bad), and use them to lead you to other music you might like. I did a quick test by rating about 30 groups (a mix of likes and dislikes) and then asking for recommendations. Some of the recommendations, e.g. Pere Ubu, were newer groups that I have heard (and in this case seen) and do like. That gives me confidence in the GenieLab recommendation feature. The site also makes it easy to explore these recommendations by linking to sites like Amazon, iTunes, or MSN Music that have sample recordings. If you feel lucky, you can also rely on the wisdom of crowds and find groups similar to your favorites that are liked by others. There are lots of other functions and the Genie Lab blog describes new developments and functionality.

Happy Earth Day

I’m not much for political blogging, but I couldn’t let the Bush administration’s phoney concern for the environment shown around Earth Day go by without calling it out. George W’s Earth Day photo opportunity and the First Lady’s support of the Junior Rangers can’t even begin to offset the environmental damage the Bush administration has supported. Shortly after Bush’s first election victory, he pulled the US out of negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol which was trying to limit carbon dioxide emissions. The recent news about oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is another example. There are several spots on the web where you can learn more about George’s concern for the environment including the W Watch page maintained by the Sierra Club.

Television Commercials

If you don’t get to see enough advertising on television, you can go to this website that claims to have the best ads from TV. Some of the ads are familiar. However, there are quite a few from foreign markets that are new to me. Be sure to click on the archives and you’ll find a lot of clips organized by year and month.

Talk About Over-Packing!

Dianne always laughs at my packing stress when we go on a trip. I wish I could adopt her approach of just throwing some stuff in a bag and going. I'm counting days, thinking about the weather, and trying to have options along with some sense of color matching. In the end, I pack heavy. I like to have my bases covered on a trip. Nevertheless, I'm a rookie compared to this guy carrying 14 suitcases that must have each weighed a ton!! I'm sure it didn't take a rocket scientist working for the US Border Patrol to realize something was up.

I also liked the comment regarding refrigeration near the end of the article. That was the second thing that popped into my germophobe mind after reading the second paragraph. And what was the third thing? I hope his clothes were clean. Hmmm....this smokey flavor reminds me a bit of used sweat socks.

No Soup For You!!

Remember the "Soup Nazi" episode from Seinfeld? Dianne and I happened to see that last night. That's one of my favorites -- right up there with the Kenny Rodger's chicken episode. CNN has an article today about Al Yeganeh taking his soups national later this year.

Stationary is Bad

I got a Motion Computing tablet PC a few months ago. One of the Microsoft products that came with the tablet is OneNote. I've used it a bit and it is very handy for taking notes. The ink capabilities make it a handy piece of software for a tablet PC. In fact, I find it's a great way to make clippings to use as a basis for blog entries.

Why the OneNote advertisement? A friend sent a link today to the "stationary is bad" site. They have three movies on the site that are pretty funny. They're worth watching a couple times to see all that is going on.

Grafedia

Call me old school, but the Grafedia media project described here just sounds like graffiti for the 21st century. The main Grafedia web site is here.

Has anyone seen any Grafedia in the wild?

Spring

Spring is here. It is very pretty with all the trees flowering. Here is a tree outside our door.

But with the flowers comes a lot of pollen. Even taking anti-histamines, I'm still congested. I had a bad sinus headache today.

Saturday Flying

On Saturday, Dianne and I went to an AYA fly-in at the Muncie airport. It was a beautiful day and there were 17 Grumman planes that flew in for lunch. Here is a picture of our Tiger, Tony, on the ramp at Muncie with the control tower in the background.

Memory Map

I've posted my first attempt at a memory map at Flickr. It's an annotated view of Little Falls. If you search for Flickr images with the tag "memory map", you'll find lots of annotated maps.

I also ran across a couple of neat Flickr hacks here and another here. There are many folks taking advantage of the public image tags. I like the Flickr concept.

Creativity and Teaching

I was reading a post at the Innovation Tools site which discusses five things you can do or think about to enhance creativity. I found four of the five items and questions interesting.

Attend
What do you need to pay more attention to in order to manifest your most inspired idea or project?

Intend
In what ways can you strengthen your intention on a daily basis?

Extend
What boundaries, limits, or old paradigms are you willing to challenge this week?

Connect
Who (or what) do you need to connect with in a new way in order to manifest your hottest, new idea?

These items hit home with me – but not directly in a creativity context. I’ve been thinking about ways I might stimulate student motivation and foster problem solving skills in my first year chemistry students. Here's what came to my mind.

Attend
Although important, I wasn't thinking about class attendance. I thought of this like the Zen of chemistry. I have to be there in the moment and be focused. The same is true for the students. Everyone has to be concentrating and participating to get anywhere.

Intend
Especially from the student side, what is “…the primal purpose and commitment…that will sustain you through the doubts, fears, and unexpected obstacles along the way”? Many students project the attitude of giving up at the first sign of difficulty because everyone knows chemistry is hard. It seems they lack the determination to succeed. You hear Donald Trump say that all the time on The Apprentice. The trick is to instill that drive in my limited lecture time. I find this particularly frustrating and hard to overcome on an individual basis in a large class.

Extend
I feel only a minority of students push themselves when thinking about new concepts or when trying to develop problem solving skills. I sense several issues here that can vary by individual. Examples include difficulty with subject vocabulary, lack of confidence or drive when reaching limits, and insufficient background skills (e.g. math ability). I use several techniques to address these, but I’m always looking for better options to gently push the limits.

Connect
Making connections between concepts in different topics or chapters, or linking laboratory experience to lecture, has always been an obstacle for students. My typical student is low on Bloom’s taxonomy pyramid and has difficulty with problems that require making connections to solve. Many of my students would drive constructive learning theorists nuts! I hope using mind maps as a basis for lectures, along with Socratic discussions, will facilitate making connections. We’ll see if this will work in a large group.

Maybe I need to think more about motivating creativity rather than worrying so much about experiences, relevance to a major, or extrinsic factors for student motivation?

Flickr and AOTS

I decided to jump into the Flickr pool and pee in it. Dianne’s favorite TV channel is the G4 video game television network. One of the programs on the network is called “Attack of the Show” (AOTS). They cover gaming and internet related items. I find the show entertaining. On their April 5th episode, they did a segment about Flickr – the online photo hosting site. Besides being a basic photo repository, Flickr offers a lot of functionality for albums, tagging and searching for photos, privacy, linking to blogs, etc. They encouraged viewers to open a free Flickr account and post photos in the public pool that contained yellow colors (i.e. peeing in the pool). No photoshop allowed. Each yellow photo was to have a tag of AOTS. There were quite a few entries. Here is one of mine showing the signs of spring we’re experiencing.

Jungle Jim's International Market

A while back I posted a vision for the supermarket of the future. This Business Week online article talks about the wacky supermarket of today – Jungle Jim’s in the greater Cincinnati area. It really is a shopping experience and a great place to go for specialty items, produce, and fresh fish. As mentioned in the article, it’s not necessarily a place to go for bargains on everyday items. However, a lot of “foodies” think there is value in the specialty products.

Miscellaneous Items

Here are a few odd items that speak for themselves.

Instructions for making a clock. This gives new meaning to snack time.

Don't keep me in suspense.

Here's a good gift for all cooks practicing voodoo.

With gas prices rising, this green motorcycle could be a good seller.

Here's an innovative new watch. I can't imagine what that would cost.

Weekend Flying

This weekend the weather was nice and I was able to take the Tiger for a couple flights. On Saturday I did a local flight to check out the plane after the work that was done on the cylinder head temperature gauge. Everything looked good, the engine was fine, and it handled great. Here is a picture after I had landed back at KISZ.

On Sunday I took a short cross country trip to KMQJ in the Indianapolis area. Again, everything was fine with the Tiger. Surprisingly, it was a little bumpy even at 5500 feet. It was such a beautiful day, a lot of people were out flying. There was parachute activity at a couple airports along the way. Just west of Middletown (KMWO) I saw a group of 3 gliders circling (likely trying to catch some thermals). It was unusual to see gliders in that area. Usually they are over by Waynesville and the Caesar's Creek.

Now I just need to get my instrument flying skills back in shape and we should be ready for some trips.

Radio Broadcasts and New Music

Where does your music come from today – especially new music? That question popped into my head after doing some reading last week. It got me thinking about how my music listening habits have evolved.

Growing up I loved listening to FM radio. It was fun tuning around to hear new music. KCLD was a great Top 40 station out of St. Cloud, Minnesota. If propagation was right, I could hear stations from the Twin Cities that played good easy listening or rock music. It wasn’t all good of course, but I was hearing new stuff. I got a good feel for which groups I liked and which I didn’t. It seemed like there was more stuff I liked than not.

College days here and here were a music bonanza. If nothing else, stereo wars in college dorms exposed me to a lot of new music. Word of mouth and media sharing (records and tapes) with friends helped. In the early 80s, who didn’t vegetate for an hour watching music videos on MTV?

Today things seem different. I find it hard to listen to Top 40 radio. Even local alternative radio stations don’t hold my attention anymore. And the commercials get old really fast. How many times can you listen to an Enzyte commercial that tells you nothing? Good luck even catching a video on MTV during normal viewing hours today. When you do find a video on their sister stations, it’s not even worth watching. It seems there is a very small percentage of new music that I consider airworthy. I guess I’m getting old and cranky. I’m sure Dianne would agree.

My waning interest in FM radio isn’t unique. A recent article in the NYT discussed the rise of satellite radio and how that may be changing the landscape for traditional broadcasting. I see an analogy to cable TV subscriptions. I have an XM satellite radio and love it! Continuous reception, no commercials, wide selection – what’s not to like. Even though satellite radio subscribers only represent about 3% of number of radio listeners, apparently broadcasters are changing formats and reducing commercials to protect their lucrative business (I was amazed that profit margins can be up to 50%). I’m sure the rise of iPods and similar devices as well as internet streaming audio have cut into radio listening time.

So where is my new music coming from? I still get good music tips from friends and share CDs now and then. Web based streaming audio is another way to hear some variety. I used to use the custom radio station option of the Real Player. You pick groups you like and they stream songs from those groups as well as related groups. It was a good way to hear new songs that you’d have a high likelihood of enjoying. Unfortunately, Internet streaming at work (most of my listening time) isn’t allowed. Finally, special internet broadcasts are good if you can find ‘em. For example, David Byrne of Talking Heads fame has started a regular streaming audio broadcast to share new music he finds interesting. That’s the best sampling service I’ve heard recently. I also liked his comments about licensing in his interview with Xeni Jardin.

I’d be interested in other approaches you use to find new music.

Supermarkets of the Future

This article describes an interesting new supermarket concept. It fits with the American love of automobiles. It’ll be interesting to see if their concept and expansion plans play out. This would be fantastic in harsh environments. I remember as a kid how excited people were over the grocery service at the new Coborn’s supermarket. After checkout, you had the option of loading your groceries into a numbered tub. The tub went to a drive-up window where an employee would load the groceries into your car when you presented your numbered claim check. That was handy in the Minnesota winter. The AutoCart concept takes that idea into the 21st century.

Flavor enhancers

The New York Times had an interesting article about a biotechnology company called Senomyx and their work on flavor enhancers. Senomyx has studied the five flavor receptors and used that knowledge to search for compounds that activate or suppress the flavor receptors. The Senomyx technology pages provide a nice overview of their strategy. The NYT article reports several food and beverage companies have licensed rights to use Senomyx products in certain types of products. I’m sure there’s a lot of regulatory work ahead to prove the additives are safe. It would be nice to have a safe, salt receptor agonist so companies could reduce the amount of salt in their products (e.g. canned soups or V8) and yet maintain the flavor.

Google Maps and Flickr

I used to use Mapquest all the time for on-line maps and driving directions. Since Google starting posting maps that also include an option to see satellite views, I go there all the time. A lot of people are using this site in creative ways. One example is to get a satellite preview of an area containing a geocache. Another neat example is creating an annotated tour on a map. Here is an example showing a tour of Ithaca, NY. I could imagine this would be useful for chamber of commerce websites. Today I saw another, more personal use, of annotating a satellite view.

News Aggregators

If you get into reading a lot of blogs, you’ll find it is time consuming to surf to each blog and find out what (if anything) is new. It’s much easier to use an RSS news aggregator that tracks your favorite blogs and shows what is new-along with other features. I like Bloglines and use it almost daily. Robert Scoble of Microsoft posted a short review of various RSS aggregator services on his blog. I was happy to see that he spoke highly of Bloglines.

New Pens

I’ve always been intrigued with pens. I have several fountain pens that I don’t use too much since I have a tablet PC, a palm Pilot, and a Logitech IO pen. More of my writing is digital these days. Nevertheless, I was intrigued with some new ink pen designs that you can see here and here.

On-line Language Courses

Deutsche Welle Germany’s government run international radio station has been broadcasting German language lessons. Now, on their website, they are providing collections of the language lessons. Along with the spoken instruction are PDFs that help with reading as well. That might be interesting to try-although I don’t have a big demand for German.

Interestingly, the BBC has similar on-line language courses on their website. This would be a good way to maintain a language you don’t use very often.

Photo Blogs

I’ve been looking around the web at lots of other blogs. I’m looking at content as well as layout to get ideas. One class of blog I find interesting is the photoblog. Given my interest in photography, I guess it makes sense. One photoblog I like is called a daily dose of imagery. There are some beautiful shots of Toronto as well as examples of interesting techniques possible with digital photography. The world according to Mona site has some nice photos too.

I also found a couple photoblogs based in Hawaii. You can find them here and here. What a great place to find subjects for a photoblog.

There are also several spots to find lists and rankings of photo blogs. One of my favorites is photoblogs.org.

April Fools Gift Idea

In college, it was an event to get some mail in your postoffice box. A package was even better! Often times that meant food from home. One spring break, my roommate and I visited my Aunt and Uncle’s dairy farm and picked out a nice cow pie to mail to one of our “friends” at college. We sent it anonymously. He was so exited to get a package he didn’t even look for the return address. It was a good practical joke.

What I didn’t realize is you could make money doing that sort of thing! Maybe my friend owns the business?

MindJet Blogs

Several of the folks at MindJet have initiated blogs discussing various aspects of information mapping software and their MindManager software in particular. I'm learning their product and hope to try it as an alternative approach for chemistry lectures in the next academic year.

Sony PSP saga

Dianne, the quintessential gamer, got one of the first million Sony PSP units released in the US. We got it the day they became available. It’s quite the system offering gaming as well as options to show videos, digital photos, and play digital audio. The screen is an amazing LCD, TFT screen with 480x272 resolution at millions of colors. You can see a picture and get the details here.

Unfortunately, Dianne’s PSP has some pixel defects. There are at least two (I think one is actually two adjacent pixels that makes it look like one) pixels that are always on. They are in the middle of the screen and stand out when looking at a dark background. It’s pretty annoying to have that happen right out of the box. In the few days the US units have been on the market, there has been a lot of web traffic describing Sony PSP units with pixel defects. For example, check here and here.

I understand manufacturing of LCD screens is difficult and there can be some screen defects. These were much more common in the early days of manufacturing computer monitors. That’s why ISO standards for LCD screens were established several years ago. The standard describes limits for dead or always bright pixels for various quality screens. This site has a description of the standard for computer monitors. If you calculate the defect rate for our PSP unit assuming only 2 bad pixels, it comes out to 15.3 bad pixels/million. Clearly that’s way higher than the error rate for a computer monitor – much harder to manufacture the larger screen. That seems completely out of line for a PSP sized screen.

So how to get it resolved? We purchased the unit at Blockbuster and as of 3/31 they are refusing to stand behind the product and are referring us to Sony. In fact, we were given some mis-information at our local Blockbuster – but that’s a long story. Suffice it to say I won’t be patronizing any Blockbuster stores in the future. If you do, I’d encourage you to read their return policy (especially for non video items) very carefully before purchase! Sony will take the units back as described here and here, but you have to pay for shipping. That wouldn’t be an issue if Blockbuster supported the products they sold. Although Sony’s warranty appears to limit liability, it’s really unfortunate they won’t cover the cost of resolving a problem with a brand new unit whose defect rate is much higher than even a class III LCD screen.

Data Visualization and Names

This baby names site has a very interesting interface for visualizing the popularity of first names by decade. Besides having an interesting interface, it's fun to see how the popularity of your name and those of your family and friends have changed over the years. Personally, I can't understand the decline of Earl in recent decades.

New Results in Genetics

In the 1800s, Mendel‘s studies of pea plants led him to assert some basic laws of heredity that were the foundations of modern genetics. These laws are still taught today in beginning genetics classes. There is a short explanation of his pea plant experiments here. The Mendel Museum has a nice website that gives a lot of information about his life and his work (a lot more than just pea plants and genetics).

In a recent issue of Nature, a group from Purdue University led by geneticist Robert Pruitt published some results that contradict Mendel’s laws. A summary is given here. In short, they found that occasionally some plants didn’t inherit traits from their parents as would be predicted by Mendel. Instead, they showed traits of their grandparents. If true, that could mean there is another mechanism that transmits genetic information from the preceding generation. Sometimes this information can override normal inheritance or genetic mutations. If that mechanism could be understood and controlled, it could offer a new avenue for therapies to treat genetic diseases.

Office chair

Here is a funky design for an office chair.

Creative cubicles

I'm one of the lucky, Dilbert era people that gets to work in a cubicle in an open office environment. The back wall of my cube is ~5 ft 6 inches high, two sides are 4 feet high, and the final side is the "door". That open environment can be distracting when you're trying to focus -- like when you're writing something. I have to put on headphones sometimes to shut out the rest of the world.

This page has some interesting pictures taken during a tour of Pixar. Scroll down about 1/3 of way and you'll see how Pixar handled setting up "cubicles" in a creative way for their animators. Looks like a fun environment.

Brady Bunch Clones

Here is a cute video spoof on the Brady Bunch opening theme.

RFID Chip Implant

Someone posted photos on Flickr showing an RFID implant in their hand that they plan to use for keyless entry into a car. There are a couple videos on this page that show how the implant works.

You can't believe everything you read, or see, on the web. I can only hope this is a hoax -- I could imagine the videos being faked by having an RFID tag taped on the underside of the hand. But you never know. There are some crazy people out there.

Bloodmobile

Dave Logan made an interesting animation to accompany the song Bloodmobile by They Might Be Giants.

Need a wallet?

You'd think this would be on the Red Green website, but's it's from 3M -- a web page describing how to make a wallet out of duct tape.

Latte art

Not being a coffee drinker or a frequent visitor to Starbucks, I had no idea what a barista was until a contestant on Survivor listed barista as an occupation. There's even a barista championship!

There is an interesting photo page on Flickr showing latte art. Pretty amazing! If a barista could just figure out how to make an image of the Virgin Mary, they'd make a fortune on eBay.

Who is doing this and why?

I have always been amazed at spammers. How can spammers be wasting their time pumping out these annoying emails that no one in their right mind would respond to? There must be a few people responding to make it worthwhile. I always thought maybe 1/10 of a percent. If a spammer sent out 100,000 emails and made 5 cents per response that'd only be $5.00. It didn't make sense -- until today.

The BBC posted an article recently describing results of a poll about spam and responders. I couldn't believe the poll said 10% of people have bought items advertised in spam emails!! In addition to enacting anti-spam legislation, I think spam responders should also be prosecuted.

That changes my estimate of a spammer's profit per email campaign to $500! Hmmmm....did I trash that email message I got about working from home as a spammer?

Follow up on chicken harvesting

I few weeks ago I had a post about chicken harvesting. I went back to the website today to show someone the video and the link for the chicken harvester movie had disappeared. The site must have been getting a lot of hits when that hit the major blogs. That shows the power of the blogosphere -- or animal rights activists.

How to scare a spouse, part 2

A few weeks ago I did a post on sleep jerks. Here's another sleep story.

A few nights ago I was dreaming that Dianne and I were in the house where I grew up. I don't know why, but we were the only people inside and were looking around in the house. We noticed a group of people outside that looked like they wanted to get in. They were coming up to the windows and pressing their faces to the glass and using their hands to shield their eyes so they could see inside. We decided to scare them aware to keep them from coming in. Dianne suggested I should jump in front of the window and shout real loud the next time someone puts their face to the glass. So that's what I did. Apparently the shouting part carried over from my dream into real life. Dianne awoke to me shouting.

Of course she wondered what was wrong. I said I was just dreaming and apparently fell back asleep right away while she was left wide awake with her heart pounding. Well....the shouting was her idea.

Danger in Char Siu?

One of my favorite Asian foods is char siu -- especially in baked manapua form. You can see and learn more about manapua at the Manapua Research Labs where I'd like to work someday. Typically, char siu meat has a bright red color. Seasoning mixes are a bright red powder. That made a connection with this article about red dyes in food sold in China. Hopefully that's not what makes char siu taste so good.

Body plastination

Last fall we saw the Body World exhibit in Los Angeles. It was an exhibit of cadavers and organs preserved in plastic and prepared or positioned to illustrate various body systems. It was a fascinating exhibit.

Recently, Yahoo news had an article on the artist and his purchase of a factory in Poland where he hopes to increase his plastination output. Here is an updated link for the article.

Here is a movie where people are plastinated while still alive. Hopefully the Plastination factory won't be the site for the sequel.

American Sign Museum

A new museum is opening later this spring in Cincinnati.

You can't always win with outsourcing....

....especially when it comes to innovation.

Business Week has a nice article about Apple and the benefits it reaps by maintaining design work in house and integrating the design work with other functions of a product team. I thought the comments from Donald Norman were interesting. A design consulting group can provide a good design, but you can get great design by integrating in-house creativity with the project team.

Power Tool Drag Racing

I haven't seen the Power Tool Drag Racing on the Discovery Channel. Looks interesting. However, according to Boing Boing, what's more odd is the entry that was left out of the documentary. There's a movie at the site.

Chicken Harvester

This will stop any craving you might have for chicken. Click on the video link on the right side of the page.

Music Royalties

The music recording industry is having a hard time dealing with the digital sound era. I don't completely understand their thinking and something will have to give. Two recent articles on the web have caught my attention and caused this rant.

I understand music industry arguments against completely open sharing of recorded music in digital form. A prime example was Napster in its original form. Several folks argued that ripping music from a CD and sharing it openly would hurt the pocketbook of the recording industry. I understand that position. However, to be fair, increased exposure through some song sharing could increase listener interest in a group and result in increased CD sales. That's probably especially true for lesser known bands. That's a positive for the industry. Off the record, I'm sure a rational representative of the recording industry would accept that as true.

In contrast to open sharing is controlling the distribution of digital recordings by establishing some type of control (DRM) that permits use only when paid for. Napster's current music distribution system and Apple's iTunes music store are a couple examples of that today. This latter position, when taken to extremes, will also hurt the music industry. Here are two examples that illustrate how the music recording industry is shooting themselves in the foot.

The first example involves paying royalties for recordings used in podcasting. Say you make a podcast to tell the world about this great new song you bought and you include a bit of the song in a podcast to show how great it is. The recording industry position is you would have to pay a royalty. In short, you'd have to pay the recording industry to perform word of mouth (i.e. podcasting) advertising for them. Word of mouth advertising has got to be powerful -- it has shown it's value with books. Wil Wheaton had a rant about this recently and I agree with him on how insane that is. There are more details here. I guess I better be careful about discussing music face to face with friends. If you hum or whistle during the discussion it could cost you. Oh….and be careful about singing happy birthday at your next party.

The second example involves distribution of the old TV show WKRP in Cincinnati. What does that have to do with music? Since the sit-com was based at a radio station, they played bits of songs throughout the show. It wasn't a complete song, but often times background music when say Venus or Johnny was talking to Les Nessman in the studio. The music added a lot to the show. Unfortunately, the music also adds significantly cost via royalties if the old shows would be distributed on DVD. The alternative is to take out the music. That could upset fans and might not fly with the shows creators. It seems if royalties are that hefty that they prevent distribution of old TV shows containing music, the music industry is hurting itself. Lower royalties could lead to DVD distribution which could lead to baby boomers spending money getting the recordings they hear on the old shows -- now that they have money to buy them.

It's no wonder why the video game Donkey Konga doesn't use original recordings.

Sleep Jerks

Have you ever had a "sleep jerk"? Just as you're starting to fall asleep, your body jerks and you wake yourself up. It's usually a one time deal. Besides waking yourself up, you might also scare the crap out of your spouse. I do that every now and then. Sometimes the jerks are quite strong. I had one of these last night.

These one time sleep jerks are called hypnic jerks -- the fancy medical term that keeps most people from understanding what physicians are talking about. As an aside, I always hear complaints from students about chemistry vocabulary. I call them secret code words that are used to keep the riff-raff out. If you didn't have special terms, anyone could understand what you're talking about and be a chemist. Apparently this sleep jerk phenomenon is more common when you're not getting enough sleep.

No one knows exactly why the body will sleep jerk. There are some theories. One theory is that as your body prepares for sleep, muscles start to relax. When the muscles relax, the brain interprets that as a situation where you might fall. The brain stimulates the muscles to catch you from falling and thereby creates a jerk. That's why these are sometime associated with tripping or falling dreams just as you're falling asleep. That's been my experience when I can remember what I was dreaming about. Sometimes it's hard to remember through all the expletives caused by scaring Dianne.

Foot rubs

What's better after a long, hard day than a foot rub? How about an electrical shock? Maybe I should get Dianne one of these for her birthday.

Sound security?

A recent article at CNN describes a new computer attachment designed to control internet access. The basic idea is to use ultrasound to measure the bone density of the computer user. There are a number of companies such as Sunlight that sell ultrasound equipment for medical use to follow osteoporosis- a low bone density condition.

Presumably someone with low bone density (like a child) would not be allowed to access adult only sites. Conversely, someone with high bone density (like an adult pedaphile) wouldn't have access to a child only chat room. Unfortunately, bone density changes slowly and varies widely. I don't see this as a foolproof security tool. It seems you could defeat it with a simple fake bone (a phantom) that is widely used to calibrate bone density measurements by ultrasound. I could see a kid using a piece of chalk in a thin walled aluminum tube to defeat this thing.

Don't look for this on store shelves anytime soon.

Right Before Your Very Eyes

Now you can watch the image of Elvis or the Virgin Mary appear on your toast. Check out the Sternform site for more pictures.

Expect a toothbrush on the next iPod

I'm sure Apple will be looking at this. You might be getting your next iPod from your dentist.

Eureka!

Sony Erikson did a study on where people get their best ideas. This article gives an overview of the results.

Alternative Energy Option

There is an interesting article in Wired about a project to develop a large scale solar energy source. It's hard to imagine the size given that the CN Tower is a massive structure.

Apologies to Christo

This is a cute take on Christo's latest project in Central Park.

Macy's Wedding Registry

You remember Mary Kay Letourneau -- the married, then mother of 4, grade school teacher who had sex with one of her students. She served 6 months in prison and, when released, was caught with him again. She was sent back to prison. What I didn't realize is that she was released after serving 7 ½ years. How time flies.

As a postscript to the story, Mary Kay had the court overturn the no contact order when she was released. I guess not a big deal now that her former student was over 21. He proposed and the two plan to be married this Spring. If you plan on going to the wedding, you can check out the bridal registry at the Macys site.

Jill Sobule will have to write another song -- or at least add a verse to her Mary Kay song.

Creative Thinking

What's the trick to stimulate creative thinking? If you have a definitive answer to that question you'll make a fortune. Looking around the web or a library you'll see all kinds of suggestions to lead you to the next breakthrough idea.

In the last couple weeks, I've seen two approaches to stimulate creative thinking. I was struck by the similarity between the ideas. They both force you to sit back and take time to think. Both use a deck of cards as a simple tool to bring out your own potential during your thinking time. Although used for different purposes, the basic concept is pretty simple. The first approach suggests using tarot cards and the second uses a set of Genie cards. There is a free on-line Genie that illustrates the use of that deck.

The idea of making time to think and bringing out your own potential also reminds me of rubber ducking.

Squeak

Viewpoints Research Institute is focused on developing a new computing environment that can be used to help teach kids math and science in a fun, interactive way. They're trying to capture the Montesorri idea of learning through exploration and play in a computer. They will provide the tools for anyone to use as well as provide curriculum content. An ambitious but interesting goal.

Their platform is called Squeak. You can learn more about it at Squeakland. There is also a simple HTML example of a Squeak project -- making and steering a car. I was struck by how they led kids to connect the words "steer's heading" in the steering wheel script to the number they used earlier to characterize a turn as left or right along with the rate of the turn. That connection is described as a visceral flash -- that some text (a variable) represents a number. Although they're targeting K-12, I know several students in my first year chemistry class that haven't had that visceral flash yet!

By including more complicated objects (e.g. beakers, flasks, burets, bunsen burners, etc.) and behaviors, I could imagine constructing a virtual lab environment where you could explore chemical reactions or perform experiments. It could make for an interesting pre-lab preparation exercise. Students often have trouble seeing how the measurements they make relate to a concept or equation that is used to derive a result or make a conclusion.

Kudos to the Squeak folks. I hope their early attempts to stimulate thinking pay off for science and math education.

Easy web reading

I've been using the RSS news aggregator service provided by Bloglines to consolidate my on-line reading. It's an easy, server based, free service that provides headlines for new information on any site that provides an RSS feed. You pick sites of interest, add them to your list, and Bloglines provides one site where you can go to read all the headlines. Clicking on an article of interest takes you to the website for the entire article. It beats keeping track of URLs and surfing around to catch up on all the news. There are lots of options for RSS readers. I like the server based option of Bloglines that let's you check your headlines from any computer.

They offer other services like clippings, suggestions for other sites of interest based on your activity, email notifications, etc. They were recently purchased by Ask Jeeves, but I'm not holding that against them.

On-line Maps

Google has a new, on-line map service that includes driving directions, business searches, etc. Right now it's in the beta phase, but it's a nice alternative to other sites like Mapquest.

Credibility in Journalism and Blogging

I'm not a newspaper reader. Based on my limited sampling, I think it's generation related. I don't know many folks my age that regularly read a newspaper. So how do I get the news? I look for local news highlights from morning TV when I'm getting ready for work. We'll sometimes watch CNN to get national/international news. I'm also using internet news sources more and more. And of course there is a lot of "news" or opinions being shared via blogs.

On the other hand, folks that are a generation older seem to be big newspaper readers. Older folks that I work with always read the paper. In fact, I get old newspapers from them to line our bird cages. I remember my parents always reading the local papers when I grew up. We subscribed to the local paper and my dad even worked there for awhile. It was interesting to visit him and see the linotype machines using a molten alloy, the typesetting, and the printing process. Most every week we'd pick up a Sunday paper from the Twin Cities. The best thing about the Sunday paper was the color comics. Who hasn't used Silly Putty to stretch Snoopy or Dagwood into odd shapes?

No matter how you get your news, there's always a question about credibility. The maxim "you can't believe everything you read in the newspaper" can readily be extended to on-line sources like blogs (except this one of course).

The folks at ZDNet demonstrated an interesting idea in an attempt to improve credibility. A reported wrote a story that included quotes from one of the pioneers of blogging -- Radio Userland's Scott Young. While researching the article, the reporter recorded the complete interview with Mr. Young. As a supportive piece to the article, the reporter podcasted the interview. When he quoted Young in the written article, he included time stamps corresponding to the quote. The idea is if you wanted some context around the quotation, you could go to the podcast and listen to that portion of the interview. Presumably this increases transparency and lends credibility to the article. The reporter's commentary on the process is here.

Combining the podcast with a traditional written summary is an interesting idea. However, I'm sure there will be discussions around confidentiality and other issues of protecting sources.

For the gadget lover

Remember Billy the singing bass that was popular a while back? For the singing hunter in the family, check out Buck the Animated Deer. Don't you just love that picture? Could it be more of a Photoshop hack job?