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  Karen Watterson's Weekly Destinations and Diversions (D & D)  
 
 

12 March 2006

Readable/Watchable

VB KBs

  • 100+, including 50 Howto's, so check them out yourself by selecting "7 days" in the Modifed field.

SQL KBs

Downloadable

Browsable

Jargon Alert

  • 5S (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain, by just-in-time expert and international consultant Hiroyuki Hirano).
  • MAID - massive array of inexpensive disks
  • PALs - passive aquatic listeners (to detect audio pollution that might impact marine life, not audio signals associated with espionage)
  • Sea turtles. Overseas Chinese who have returned to their motherland for work and business opportunities. Play on the characters hai gui, which means "returned from overseas studies."

Misc

2 March 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

Downloadable

Browsable

Misc

  • Info about Sun's Neuromancer project (large-scale distributed networking).
  • Compete for cash prizes in VMware's Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge contest.
  • Linux shell one-liners. Example: ps -ef | grep ppp | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs kill -9. [It's hard to believe I used to be able to whip these sorts of things out without a second's thought. Rod]
  • Info about EU's data retention directive.
  • Yet another story of AOL woes.
  • Euan Garden's post on the history of SQL Server (roots in Sybase).
  • Cartoons I've enjoyed recently: 1) The scene: Man holding a fish seated next to a mermaid on a TV show set. Man says "We knew a mixed marriage might be difficult, but we never expected this." 2) Wife to husband in front of TV with large CBS-style eye filling the screen: "I hope this is CBS." 3) The scene: Man, driving a clunker belching smoke. Signage on car door: "As heard on Car Talk." 4) Man gazing upon piece of furniture in his living room: "And this thing was a treasured family heirloom till I saw it appraised on 'Antiques Roadshow.'" 5) Caption on cartoon showing man (presumably Tony) gazing at his comb, wallet, etc. on grass behind him - along with back pocket, hanging by a thread: "Tony is a purchaser of cheap pants." 6) The scene: Man seated on stool playing guitar and singing to a man at the Complaints window.

26 February 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

Downloadable

Browsable

Heads Up

  • GM's forthcoming 11-acre autotainment site (Drive) in Las Vegas where drivers 18 or older will be able to test drive the likes of Hummers and SUVs on a rugged site.
  • MEDC 2006 (Mobile and Embedded DevCon), May 8-11 in Las Vegas.
  • Apply to download ISA Server 2006 Beta (Standard or Enterprise).
  • ESRI (think maps and GIS) Developer Summit, Mar 17-18 in Palm Springs.

Jargon Alert

  • GMLJP2. OpenGIS GML in JPEG 2000 for Geographic Imagery.
  • PrP - prion protein, which, when misfolded, can kill neurons and enlist other proteins to misfold as well. Here, here, and here.
  • Type 1 encryption. NSA terminology.

Questions and Ponderables of the Week

  • Not too long ago, I finished Tim Egan's remarkable book about the dustbowl (Worst Hard Time), so it was particularly interesting to read the HBR editor Ted Halstead's recent editorial promoting a new Homestead Act for what he sees as the atrophying 21st century middle class. Do you worry about the plight of poor Americans? Katherine Boo's excellent 2/6/06 New Yorker article, "Swamp Nurse," (not online, but Q&A here) tackles the same topic.
  • In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor's Robert Marquand, embattled Chinese journalist Li Datong says that his Freezing Point site is meant to show people that "fear is not a normal state of existence." I invite you to ponder your own personal fear level, and trends in fear levels in different communities. From the February 24, 2006 edition. Related: Washington Post article on Li Datong with excellent links.
  • We've all heard the terms "sound science" and "flawed science" used recently, especially in a political context. Do the terms mean anything to you? Can you think of better terms?
  • It's my observation that kids who are good at algebra have a hard time with geometry and vice versa. Was this the case with you? With your kids?
  • A question on a local newspaper's kid's page intrigued me: "What chess piece are you?"

Misc

  • Joke I've enjoyed (this, thanks to Ed Nisley in his 3/06 Dr Dobbs "Embedded Space" column where Ed talks about the value of professional licenses): Q: What's the difference between an electrical engineer and a civil engineer? A: EEs build weapon systems. CEs build targets.
  • Yahoo, MSN, and Google aren't the only sites being monitored and/or muzzled in China. Wikipedia's off limits, too.
  • Annotated lists of think tanks. Another list of US-based ones.
  • Interesting research on how planarian neoblasts control regeneration.
  • Cartoons I've enjoyed recently: 1) Scenario: man and woman seated on couch, observing elderly man dancing on their dining room table with his cane held aloft. The man says, "Your grandfather just paid off his student loan." 2) Series of placards above Army recruiting station: "An Army of Juan," "Some Juan," "Any Juan." 3) Man at entrance to something that looks like a junkyard for cars: "I need two pickles for a '96 cheeseburger." 4) One Secret Service agent to another, observing former Presidents Bush and Clinton seated next to each other at a drive-in that's showing Brokeback Mountain, "I'm begining to think their friendship's real." 5) Forest Fire Level-type sign in front of a church: "God's Wrath Level: HIGH", 6) The scene: a little kid is standing in front of a snowman. The kid, who holds a bag of baby carrots says to the snowman, which has a normal carrot nose, "For 20,000 bucks, I can replace that with a cute little baby carrot." The caption: Future Plastic Surgeon. 7) Banner over a local high school on Presidents day: "Send Presidents Day Greetings Over Wiretap"
  • Caltech Professor Libbrecht's wonderful (art *and* science) Snowcrystals.com site.
  • Info about equatorial launch platform Sea Launch.
  • Sounds useful: YakTrax snow/ice grippersHistory News Network.
  • Royal Society's 2005 inductees. Here and here.
  • Northern City Shift (in pronunciation of vowels). Related: this and this.
  • WarNewsRadio. An innovative online radio show created by Swarthmore journalism students.
  • Micro*scope - Internet Resources for Microscopy, including microbe biodiversity.
  • 21-year old David Lehre's site (self-taught film maker of "MySpace: The Movie" parody fame). The movie.
  • Interesting "ad," which seems to offer AK-47s for sale, by Amnesty International UK.
  • Sandra Gittlen's well-written article on How do the feds tap phone lines.
  • New earthquake hazard maps showing color-coded hazard zones in SF.
  • Recommended book: Clifford Conner's "People's History of Science." It's written in the spirit of Howard Zinn's "People's History of America" and has tons of footnotes that will entice you to further reading and thinking. Good review with excerpts.

19 February 2006

Readable/Watchable

HowTo KBs

Other KBs

SQL KBs

Downloadable

Browsable

Jargon Alert

  • OLPC - One Laptop Per Child. Refers to an initiative spearheaded by MIT's Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte to distribute $100 laptops.
  • KAM - Key Account Management.
  • VOA - Virtualization-oriented architecture.

Question of the Issue

  • Jefferson once said, "I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple. Were we directed from Washington when to sow when to reap, we should soon want bread." He was raising the old question about centralized government, of course. How do you think we're doing in our era?

Misc

12 February 2006

Readable/Watchable

Info/HowTos

Bugs

Downloadable

Browsable

Jargon Alert

  • AXT - Alien Crosstalk, electromagnetic noise that can occur in a cable that runs alongside one or more other signal-carrying cables. Not to be confused with NEXT, near-end crosstalk.
  • TSAT. Transformational Satellite Communications System, the USAF's initiative to develop next-generation, space-based communications over the Global Information Grid, the Pentagon's voice, video and data network.
  • Greenfield mode. Type of 802.11n backward compatibility that addresses a pure network of 802.11n APs and clients, taking full advantage of the high-throughput capabilities of the 11n MIMO architecture.

Heads Up

Questions of the Week

  • Gandhi once observed that, "As the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence." Do you agree?
  • In an excellent essay on the curious topic of "players," in the February issue of Harper's, Garret Keizer begins by taking issue with a statement by a recent National Teacher of the Year that teaching students to write essays was irrelevant. (What they need to know was how to write good memos.) Do you agree?
  • Valentine's Day question: Do you remember the 1993 movie, Indecent Proposal, where a billionaire offered a young couple a million dollars if the wife would sleep with him? What's your bottom line? Would you ever betray your spouse/significant other for a huge sum of money? What if you had to sleep with someone to save your significant other's life. Would you?

Misc

6 February 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

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Jargon Alert

Heads Up

Misc

29 January 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

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Jargon Alert

Heads Up

Questions to Ponder

  • Marshall McLuhan once observed (rather depressingly, it seems to me) that the successor to politics will be propaganda - "Propaganda not in the sense of a message or ideology, but as the impact of the whole technology of the times." Do you agree? McLuhan also said that "Those who distinguish between education and entertainment don't know the first thing about either." Well, what do you think?
  • Food for thought: "There is nothing accidental [then] in the fact that democracy in politics is the twin-brother of scientific thinking..." Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), in Drift and Mastery (1914)

Misc

22 January 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

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Heads Up

Questions to Ponder

  • I went on a tour of the Reagan Library recently, and various displays featuring all the US presidents reminded me how I'd had to learn their names in order. That led me to think of other things I'd had to memorize as a kid. Think back on your own school days: what can *you* remember memorizing - and how good is your memory?
  • When was the last time you held a shell to your ear?
  • Today's young kids don't seem to have the same opportunities to get neighborhood jobs as they used to - paper routes, weeding, mowing lawns, babysitting, and so on. (They also don't seem to be getting as much homework). Does this worry you?
  • Did you ever consider joining the Peace Corps? Why or why not? If it had been an option to a mandatory year of military service, would you have opted for it in favor of military service or work in US inner cities?

Misc

15 January 2006

Readable/Watchable

Selected KB articles

Downloadable

  • Monad Beta3. x86 code. Docs. As Arul Kumaravel says in his post, Monad Beta3 is feature complete and "contains support for our new snapin model which allows cmdlets to be developed and di