TED Talk: You Fell Through the Cracks

There was a time when my secret project, the thing that brought me in to work ever day and probably why I stayed till 8pm, was attempting to end the error_log from have anyone ever hitting the 404 page. It was after making the 404 page funny. Only no one got the joke.

If the below video does not work, then try Renny Gleeson: 404, the story of a page not found.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Eventually I did give up and focus on helpful things such that people could get where they needed to go.

 

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Interactive Archives

My jaw dropped at the end of this blog post Cloud Hosting and Academic Research.

There is a value in keeping significant old systems around, even if they no longer have active user bases.  A cloud hosting model seems so right to me–it’s scalable and robust. It just makes sense. But the hosting costs are a problem. Even if the total amount of money is small, grants are for specific work and have end dates. I can still be running a 10+ year old UNIX box, but I can’t still be paying hosting fees for a research project whose funding ended years ago, no matter how small that bill is.  Grants end–there’s no provision for “long term hosting.”  Our library can help us archive data, but they are not yet ready to “archive” an interactive system.  I hope companies that provide hosting services will consider donating long-term hosting for research.

Opening up a new area of digital archives by preserving the really cool works of the faculty seems like something I might enjoy.

My mentor in web design and server administration might have been described as a pack rat. He… Well, I guess, we kept around versions of web pages a decade old. Nothing really found deletion. The public just missed it by use of permissions.

When building my portfolio, my mistake was not gathering up the whole files to replicate the sites I designed. I’m no longer doing web design or even programming. So it is okay.

A professor in Geology had a pretty cool Virtual Museum for Fossils. The site moved around a few times, eventually ending up on the main web server also hosting WWW. Of course, HTML, images, and Flash files are easy to archive. Take the files and place them on a web server. Since they are static, it is easy to keep around for a long time. As long as the standards remain honored, they should be good. Developers of web browsers have pressure to go for the new, which potentially abandons the old eventually.

Scripted web sites using Perl, PHP, ASP, or JSP, JavaScript, or AJAX require a working interpreter. Still, some things might not be backwards compatible.

About a year ago my mother ran across 8mm video film. An uncle found a place who converted it to DVD. Will we even be using DVDs in a decade? Maybe the 8mm needs to go on Blueray?

Going back to the scripted web sites, should an archived web site’s code be updated to work on the new version of the interpreter? Maybe. If makers of the interpreters allowed for running in a backwards compatible mode, then all would be good. Even better, to be able to add to a script a variable that tells the interpreter which back version to pretend to use. For administrators, they could have the programmers check non-working scripts by just telling the interpreter to simulate an older version.

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Weekly Round Up May 11, 2012

• Pearson is making a play to be where states outsource educator licensing or certification.
• Availability, Ignorance, Committees, Comfort, Momentum, and Passivity are the Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness).
• I’m a fan of the book titled Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. It describes social rejection as stimulated the same parts of the brain as physical pain. So sharing opinions stimulating reward-processing parts of the brain makes sense.
• German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011 whereas in the United States you can find incidents where more bullets were used in a single arrest such as 90 shot at a Harlem suspect.

 

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Why I Love The Internet

Everything is out there. From the most profound to the most mundane, whatever I need to know when I need to know it.

Last week I set my DVR to record a series. I knew it was in re-runs and British. The DVR sucks in the sense it gives an original air date but not an episode number. The first episode I got was not called “Pilot”. At this point I had no idea whether I have the first, the sixth, or the eleventh.

So I toss the show title with episode list into a Google search. It pulls up several sites with episode titles and their dates. I could have just gone to imdb.com. Turns out I had the third. (Plus there are places offering to let me watch the series online.)

Probably I search too much instead of going to specific sites I know first.

There is something rewarding between hitting the button and seeing results. It feels so good.

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

TED Talk: Equal Parts Science and Magic

The unity of science and religion is an important concept in the Baha’i Faith. They are two sides of the same coin. One side looks ahead with faith. One side looks backwards without faith. One is impatient while the other is deliberately slow. Where the two agree is the sweet spot of true knowledge. There is a stage in the scientific method full of looking forward with faith: Ask a question.

Asking a question is the. most. important step. Everything depends upon it. Not asking the right question ensures nothing will be tried. And humanity suffers. Unless someone else gathers up the faith to do so.

Also, I am apparently a fan of spoken word artists. There is something about the cadence and flow that I like.

If the above video does not work, then try Equal Parts Science and Magic.

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Supermoon

Supermoon, originally uploaded by Ezra S F.

This is straight out of my point-n-click camera. Another reason I do not play much with my 6+ year old dSLR. (Tempted to go get another one 1/500s.)

dSLR version (cropped) www.flickr.com/photos/sneezypb/2348191039/

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Weekly Round Up May 4, 2012

• Google Chrome Secure Shell
• Secure Shell is an xterm-compatible terminal emulator and stand-alone ssh client for Chrome. It uses Native-Client to connect directly to ssh servers without the need for external proxies.
• Want a promotion? Make friends at work.
• “Recent research finds that people who initiate office friendships, pick up slack for their co-workers, and organize workplace social activities are 40% more likely to get a promotion in the subsequent two years.”
• ‘Pay What You Want’ Works by Making People Feel Good
• “In a second trial, researchers found that attendees at an amusement park paid five times more for a photo of themselves on a ride (such as the one above) under PWYW pricing if told that half the proceeds would go to charity. And in the third experiment, guests at a restaurant with PWYW pricing either paid someone directly for their meal or paid anonymously by slipping money into a box near the door on their way out. Customers paid about 13 percent more when they were anonymous than when they paid someone directly.”
• Tuesday’s post was about people feeling better when they help others.

from Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4