Check out this movie on youtube showing the process of Microsoft repackaging the iPod. Pretty much summarizes the entire industry of dysfunctional marketing departments.

The first really interesting new camera announced at PMA today is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC1. It’s an SLR similar to the Oly E-300, but with a couple of notable differences. First, it looks a lot better. The lines have been cleaned up and smoothed out. Second, there’s a shutter speed dial right on the top. And most exciting is the new 4/3 format Leica lens on it. This new lens looks pretty sweet. Image stabilization, an effective range of 28-100mm and and… wait for it… an aperture ring! Basically, it looks as though it might just handle like a “real” camera. Time will tell.

Photo from dpreview.com

That may be the sexiest DSLR I’ve ever seen.

I’ve used a couple of TextHelper methods in Rails, but never looked at the docs for the entire module. Bad move, as I just (unecessarily) wrote a “truncate” helper method myself. Should’ve used the built in “truncate”. Note to self, Read the Docs.

I don’t want to have to do this living. I just walk around. I want to be swept off my feet, you know? I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen.

–Richard Swersey in Me and You and Everyone We Know

According to Tim Pennings, dogs calculate the fastest way to retrieve a thrown stick using some form of canine calculus before they even start running. Seems Zim only looks dumb.

!/images/zim-calculus.png!

“Thus,” he adds, “in swimming to shore he was not acting to minimize his distance to the stick as quickly as possible. Instead he did in fact apparently make a ‘global’ decision form the outset as to what path would get him to the stick most quickly.”

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060218/mathtrek.asp

So we) did pretty well at the ADDY awards last night. A couple of Silvers, a Gold, and Best of Show. On top of that, our own Dan Tobolic) walked away with his own Gold, Silver, and Best of Show in the Student category. Exciting stuff. Nice work everyone.

I’ll start by saying that I don’t believe for a second that the 9-11 attacks were some sort of scheme cooked up by a group of Bush’s buddies in order to hang onto the petroleum economy. However, the conversation at lunch today did reveal a few interesting points in favor of something being not quite right with the whole thing.

As it happens, the Village Voice yesterday ran an interesting piece about the theory, and theorists behind the so-called “9-11 Truth Movement.”

“…Yet dubbing Truth movement members “conspiracy theorists” is inaccurate for two reasons. First, there’s no doubt that 9-11 was a conspiracythe question is whether it was among Muslim terrorists or others.”

“It’s easy to dismiss the odd characters. It’s harder to ignore the regular guys in the room.”

“I think it’s terribly important,” she says, “to distinguish between the legitimate questions and the wackinessand the wackiness has contaminated the legitimate questions in a very destructive way.”

“Although the Truth movement is quick to seize upon shifts in the government’s story, its own version has changed multiple times. Meyssan first said a truck bomb hit the Pentagon, then suggested a drone aircraft or cruise missile did. At first, skeptics said there was too little damage to the interior rings of the Pentagon for the building to have been struck by a 757; now, some say there was too much. The number of hijackers who are supposedly alive has risen and fallen over the years.”

And I’ll tell you something else, if it turns out I’m wrong about this - I’m leaving.

[Link)]

Just to reiterate, I think Stikipad) is the best hosted wiki implementation I’ve used. It helps that I can email the developers, ask for something, and have it 2 days later. They’ve recently changed the features in the free version, so give it a whirl.

Second is 9cays). Yes, they’ve unfortunately chosen another [0-9]+[::alpha::]+.com domain name, but I’m getting used to it. The idea is that you can have a normal email conversation with a group, and have copies of all messes held in “Conversations” at 9cays. Like little impromptu mailing lists. The best part is that it’s very non-disruptive. Simply CC your message to a 9cays address and the rest takes care of itself. Good stuff.

I was reading about foldera) and found this…

“Foldera has raised $13 million since its launch. Last week it completed a reverse merger into an existing (shell) public company, raising an additional $8.5 million. It is now a publicly traded (OTC) company with a market capitalization of $70 million.”

The thing hasn’t even launched yet! I’m beginning to believe the folks who claim that Bubble 2.0 is upon us. Be afraid.

An old Philip Greenspun quote I just ran into…

“If you want to know why computer programmers get paid less than medical doctors, consider the situation of two trauma surgeons arriving at an accident scene. The patient is bleeding profusely. If surgeons were like programmers, they’d leave the patient to bleed out in order to have a really satisfying argument over the merits of two different kinds of tourniquet.”

And something from Lesscode.org) that I think at least once a day…

“Youll get used to it, unless you intent to expend a lot of energy refusing to get used to it.”