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Main page December 30, 2007Radio rings in the new year around the world MondayRadio vet Lou Josephs tracks New Year's Eve on the Web, beginning in Wallis Island in the the South Pacific at 5 a.m. EST: Medianetwork: Start here for New Years Eve listening. Update: Lou took this and ran with it for many posts. Try that main link to see where he's listening now. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 29, 2007Computerworld: The 25 most innovative products of the yearContinuing the lazy vacation blogging (12 hours sleep last night!), a list at Computerworld: Opinion: The 25 most innovative products of the year. Many might also appear on your "never heard of it" list.
Posted by Sheila Lennon December 28, 2007Tax deduction: One Laptop Per Child -- and one for you, too
Through the Give One Get One program, which runs through Dec. 31 at Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child (Laptop.org), you can get a XO laptop for a child you know and send one to a child in in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia or Rwanda. The price for both: $399, up to $200 which may be tax-deductible, They're bright and child-sized (7 1/2-inch screens), heatproof, sealed against dust, chargeable in all sorts of ways; they run on the Linux-based Sugar operating system, and come with impressive collaboration software and apps with which to Paint, Write, Chat, compose music, play games and read RSS feeds. Each contains an 802.11b/g wireless card. I think it’s possible that when I’m done telling everyone I know about the project in the next few months I’ll donate it to an organization that will have more use for it than I will. Aaron's review begins, "I got my XO Laptop shipped via FedEx this morning. In the box was..." and, along the way, he offers an overview of his first hours with it that's worth reading if you want a quick overview of the little Linux computer: (Here's the link again) Power users will snort at the specs of this machine. It has only one gigabyte of storage — all flash memory — with 20 percent of that occupied by the XO’s system software. And the processor is feeble by conventional standards. Starting up takes two minutes, and switching between programs is poky. Several tech bloggers noted that this could be a first programming environment similar to their own experiences with the Commodore 64 of the early '80s. Laptop Magazine offered a walkthrough review in September (Hands-On with One Laptop Per Child's XO Laptop) of the slower pre-production model, useful for its rundown on features and potential and many photos. Because of the built-in networking and sharing of these little machines, it might not make sense to buy (and give) just one if you know little folks who could use these. They would use them -- together -- in different ways from the tech-savvy folks who review them. If you like the concept but have no need to own one, you can also simply donate one or many for $200 each, and your entire contribution will be tax-deductible. Related: Laptop Project Enlivens Peruvian Hamlet, AP, Dec. 24, 2007 Posted by Sheila Lennon December 26, 2007New Yorker's best short stories of 2007? Read on...If you're on vacation, how about reading short stories? At Perpetual Folly, Clifford Garstang is blogging his choices of the New Yorker's best stories of 2007, and links to each story at the end of his own thoughts on each tale. Read the stories he considered before narrowing it down to a top 5 list. He invites you to vote your favorites in the blog's right column. Paging though them would be a fine way to spend a quiet winter night, especially if it's your first downtime in a while. Print them if you want to curl up by the fire with paper.
Posted by Sheila Lennon Near Bethlehem, the village Christmas tree is modern art
AP / Alvaro Barrientos Great tree.The full moon and clouds did their parts, the tree shines.
But by day, Beit Sahour does not look like the quaint village I pictured -- the one with huge earthenware jars of oil, and donkey carts.
About the festival: A posting at Yahoo group green-travel: In Beit Sahour, the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People and the Municipality of Beit Sahour have joined efforts to organize a three-day festival December 21 � 23, 2007, which will include the Annual Candle Procession for this year which will be held under the title "Light A Candle for a Just Peace" to affirm to all the world that what Palestinians need is a Just Peace a true peace that is based on retrieving the rights of those whose rights are violated. The town has a Web site, but there is nothing at all on the English version. Posted by Sheila Lennon I hope your Christmas was as much fun as ours
It's been a great, long day. I hope you had a good one, too.
Later: A commenter suggested the punch was to blame. No punch was involved -- we were all a bit giddy from our gift exchange. Over the years it has grown into family theater -- no Lexuses in the driveway here, just lots of promising packages to unwrap: Small, funny gifts, often cat-related, balance the books, household items, small electronics and clothing upgrades Santa brings. Stress-free family fun is the goal. It helps that we like each other.
Posted by Sheila Lennon Farewell and many thanks to pianist Oscar PetersonMp3 blog CubikMusik offers a download of the great, now late, pianist Oscar Peterson playing The Christmas Waltz.
At Spinning in Air, you'll find at blue noël What Child is This and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. CBC obit: Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson dies From the CBC archives, Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant Library and Archives Canada offers a virtual exhibition with 27 RealAudio files of Peterson's music. The obit at the Toronto Star (Oscar Peterson dies at 82) includes video and a photo gallery. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 24, 2007Track Santa at NORAD; Christmas Tree 2007: The Flickr slideshow ; Christmas jazzUpdated Christmas Eve: Track Santa as he makes his deliveries all over the world! Google Maps will refresh Santa's position every 5 minutes. As I type this, at 6:41 p.m. he's nearing the west coast of Africa. Gotta go, promised the kid he could go to NORAD as soon as I finish blogging this.
Like the flickering fire on Christmas of early TV, here's the live, ongoing slideshow of photos tagged Christmas tree 2007 in the free public photo-sharing pool Flickr. The link is full-screen and photos change automatically.
I stayed up all night last Saturday night, seized by an idea. Christmas jazz, mellow, quintets, no schlock, no words, just a laid-back festive track for our own 2007 movie. I worked the lousy search engine at indy-label site eMusic (I subscribe) and found three sweet ones on this mp3 blog post, A Jazzy Xmas From the Southside. The background began as a photo by the Journal's Steve Szydlowski of the 2005 Christmas tree at Providence City Hall. By 6:30, I had burned a CD. (Software: Acoustica.) I wish I could just give you a download link, but I haven't figured out how to share it legally. Easy suggestions are welcome.
Never a Christmas morning, This week, I'm pushing away from the computer to make new memories. Merry Christmas to you. Let's hope it's a good one... Posted by Sheila Lennon December 21, 2007Surreal art and Friday mp3s: Ike & Tina loop, early ElvisC, Max Roach
One of a series of four related images. Way beyond gumdrop houses:
Friday mp3s: Compare and contrast: Ike and Tina Turner, 1966 outtakes at BigO, Singapore:"...eight tracks containing 18 takes of the 1966 Ike and Tina Turner classic, River Deep, Mountain High." Max Roach, Beijing Trio, Zurich 2001, Live at the Gessnerhalle, Jazznojazz Festival, Zurich, Switzerland, October 28, 2001.. Reviewing the trio's self-titled 1999 album, Corroto wrote: "The recording, a combination of duos and trios of Roach’s drums, Jang's piano and Chen's erhu, a Chinese two-string violin, is an intimate portrait of well, let's call it blues. Jang has made his career at the piano fusing Chinese sounds with jazz. His overtly political music has been well documented on Soul Note and Asian Improv Record labels... This isn’t a gimmicky recording in the least. It’s at times a drum clinic, other times meditative music, and mostly great interplay between improvisers. To paraphrase Duke Ellington there is no such thing as world music (jazz), just good music and bad music. Look for this disc on many, including my top ten releases for 1999." One of our cats is named Max, after this man. (The other is Miles...) Big chance: Costello 30 Years Ago. Elvis Costello Live at The Riviera, Chicago, Illinois, December 3, 1977. He opened for Tom Petty. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 20, 2007Indians secede; Healthy food too expensive; Sony offers $100 trade-in for old TVs...Blogs were down as they moved to larger servers, and the new DNS took a while to get around. I couldn't get in to blog, so here's just a quick link list. Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US. AFP.
Related: Bare linklist of copycat recipes from fast-food restaurants and grocery shelves. If you've got a lot of time on your hands, you can make your own Cheez Nips, Shake'n Bake McDonald's Big Mac Sauce.
Wintery Mask Review: 'Neal Cassady: The Fast Life of A Beat Hero' & The Dark Side of Fame. Kiko's House">Shaun Mullen on a bio of Kerouac's legendary beat sidekick. Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies PsyBlog both via wood s lot Hair Color: A History of Follicle Hue Adjusting. It's about time someone at COLOURlovers got around to hair color. Publisher Hands Sun-Sentinel News Site Over To Marketer. At The Daily Pulp, Bob Norman. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 18, 20071939 mp3: The Only Thing I Want For Christmas (Is Just To Keep The Things That I've Got); Providence Geeks to fan high-school robotics Wednesday night
If Santa passes by my stocking, I promise not to mind a lot
Source: Paul's Ramblings pulled together a linklist of pre-1940 Christmas tunes. Some are historical curiosities, primitively recorded, many reflect the year they were born and fears of the world that year.
Providence Geeks is a proud sponsor of Rhode Island’s 2008 FIRST FTC Robotics Challenge. The program provides high school students the opportunity to build working robots and test their creations in head-to-head competition.At Wednesday’s Geek Dinner, Tech Collective President Tim Hebert and other RI FIRST FTC team members will give an overview of the program, the kids, & the robots, and explain how Providence Geeks members can serve as volunteer mentors and referees. More at this link. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 17, 2007Pats announcing: Hype TV; 20 years of Star Wars Christmas cards; Sci-fi: 'Thinking Meat' is loose
At our house, we're ready for the radio version of Pats games. With nothing to talk about, the Fox crew today talked repeatedly about Spygate, and even about how there was nothing new to talk about about Spygate. This announcing model isn't working. The hype about the revenge, the feud between coaches Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini, "Spygate" had taken on energy that had nothing to do with the reality: A sloppy December football game in New England in the wet weather and strong winds of an exiting winter storm during which the Patriots made a few fewer mistakes than the Jets. No blowout (not even a proper snow game), a polite handshake between the enemy coaches at game's end, and these overblown stories fizzled like the filler they were. We'd like to try a radio soundtrack with network video, but we'd have to find a way to synch up the radio track with the replay-tv delays. On radio, at least, announcers are supposed to describe the action so we feel we're there. Incoming non-story: Will the Patriots rest their top players now that they've clinched the division, a first-round bye and home-field advantage through the playoffs? No. Seconded: No rest for the undefeated, Don Banks at SI. Passed: Don't expect the Pats to rest, The Projo's Jim Donaldson. Next story? Dolphins upset next week? Nah. The Dolphins have nothing left to prove. They beat the Baltimore Ravens in overtime today, 22-16, and are now 1-13: Dolphins edge Ravens, avoid infamy of winless season, at the Miami Herald. Not much left to inflate this week, but the appearance of the Dolphins offers an opportunity to write yet more stories about the undefeated 1972 Dolphins.
Cool Stuff: 30 Years of LucasFilm Christmas Cards at SlashFilm (/film) Star Wars greetings through the years. Runaway tale: At Terry Bisson's site: They're Made Out Of Meat. (From OMNI, April 1991. This story, which was a 1991 Nebula nominee, has been appearing around the internet lately without my name attached. Several people were kind enough to alert me, but the truth is I'm more flattered than offended. ) This does serve to reconnect his name to his story in the search engines, and I'm happy to help him reattach it. The story was new to me, although this blurb on his homepage says perhaps it shouldn't be: Stephen O'Regan's film of my short story won Grand Prize at the Science Fiction Museum's SF Short Film Festival in Seattle in 2006. O'Regan and I are working on a new film together. I think.
It leads with one of the great Jorge Luis Borges' short-story collections, Labyrinths (he never wrote a novel), then gets predictable. But the best part is the comments, where readers add their own favorites. I remember really liking Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End when I read it many years ago. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 16, 2007Updated: Webcam at Gillette: Field, seats look clearWeather Bug has a Webcam facing north into the stadium. Here's the current image:
The field looks clear, seats too, although the aisles are still white. With temperatures expected to be around 37 degrees at gametime, slow melt, occasional rain and trampling should clear the rest. The X factor remains the wind, expected to be gusting to 45 mph this afternoon when the Patriots meet the Jets. Later: I've added screenshots of images captured earlier today, and one yesterday for comparison. The Webcam has a time-lapse feature and you can choose to animate the slideshow in large or tiny increments.
Yes, I am publishing these after the game has started. I'm recording it, and have paused the action at moment before kickoff to build up "pause time" so we can skip the timeouts, network filler and bad commercials. It's realtime to us. (If one of us is inadvertently catches a realtime score, nobody wants to know.) Details: I have an old Panasonic Showstopper replay tv, bought on eBay several years ago. That link goes to the lone Amazon seller. I see only parts on eBay now, no whole systems. When Sonic Blue bought the franchise, the warehoused inventory, brand new, was orphaned. Showstoppers come with a lifetime subscription to the nightly modem call to update the channel listings and don't track your actions, which is why they're still selling despite their age. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 14, 2007Where should I get my Christmas tree?To you Rhode Islanders whose homes are already aglow: We'll be out looking for a tree tomorrow. We want one already cut, fragrant, that won't shed lots of needles. And as far under $50 as possible without being a Charlie Brown tree. If you have such a one, would you please tell us where you got it, for how much? A lot of the rest of us would probably like to know, since some of the tree lots of our youth have vanished in recent years. Thank you. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 13, 2007To the teacher trying to track Santa Claus: Try YouTubeIn a comment on my Dec. 1 post about tracking Santa (NORAD Santa-tracking site up today; Google Maps, YouTube to help), reader Jennifer writes, I am a mom and first grade teacher and would love to go on NORAD 2007 for the video that usually prefaces the tracker Christmas eve. I cant seem to get the site to do anything but tell us to wait until Christmas eve. I thought last year I was able to pull it up before Christmas?? We are studying maps and globes and thought this would be an exciting way to do it! Jennifer, I agree the Norad site is rather lame -- a game and a Google countdown-to-Christmas gadget. What you're looking for may be at YouTube.
Here's a trailer promoting NORAD's big night, much slicker than last year's. Found along the way: NORAD tracking 2005 sighting 1. It's probably the same one you used last year. the second norad sighting or the christmas of 2005 finds him in New Zealand. The last broadcast of 2005 is a santa sighting in hawaii. santa sighting in paris is a report from last year, with some geography. These clips let me zero in on the one YouTube uploader who has made it his or her business to collect these reports: Scar the Lion King's NORAD tracks Santa collections from 2005 and 2006, each with 24 parts. This preview -- does Santa's route change? -- could be just what you're looking for. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 12, 2007w00t voted Merriam-Webster word of the yearMerriam Webster: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007 Reuters: "w00t" crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary Merriam-Webster asked the Internet, and the Internet chose "w00t," complete with two zeros. Welcome to the wisdom of crowds.... Guess who's jumping for joy: w00t It beat out the verb "facebook." I think I prefer the word that placed eighth: Peck·sniff·ian \pek-ˈsni-fē-ən\ It means "unctuously hypocritical : pharisaical." Posted by Sheila Lennon December 11, 2007Doris Lessing sets off a blog flap; Make under $60k and Harvard is free
Doris Lessing's acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize for Literature (transcript at A hunger for books at The Guardian) has set off a Web flap, largely because of this: ...we never thought to ask, "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging et cetera?" Shelley Powers defends (Do something useful: Don't read this). I'm not in this one, in part because I am guilty of daily sifting for gold among the inanities of Digg and Reddit -- largely young men's fancies -- then switching off to mystery novels rather than serious literature. But mostly because what struck me about her speech -- read by her editor, since the woman whose Golden Notebook challenged me at 15 is frail now at 88 -- is the secret she had him speak aloud: We are in London, one of the big cities. There is a new writer. We cynically enquire: "Is she good-looking?" If this is a man: "Charismatic? Handsome?" We joke, but it is not a joke. I confess that my my "voices" speak loudly when I divert the chattering monkey brain with this computer game, The Treasures of Montezuma, which I have been playing for weeks, and recommend as a Christmas gift for writers and other patient people. I do not think Doris knows this secret space.
(Bloomberg) -- Harvard University will cut the costs of attending the Ivy League school by as much as 50 percent for families that earn $120,000 to $180,000 a year, making access easier for ``middle-income'' students. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 10, 2007Food photography vs. what your fast food looked like
By law, the photograph has to be of the same food that's sold (no shaving cream for whipped cream, for instance), but your corner Micky D's doesn't have a food stylist. Fascinating stuff: An Insider’s Look At Food Photography by commercial photographer Dennis Davis. Food Photography Case Study: Strawberry Cheesecake at photographer Michael Ray's Food Photography Blog. Walk through a shoot, with test shots. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 9, 2007Gimme a verb: Patriots (crush, pound, rout, shred, bruise) Steelers
7:42 a.m. Monday The giant slumbers no more Perfect Pats end malaise, thanks to Smith 'guarantee'. Don Banks, CNN. Speechless: Patriots do all the talking, 34-13. Pittsburgh Post Gazette. FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- There is but one guarantee worth making in the NFL these days: Tom Brady is as good as gold. Formula for winning wasn't good enough. Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Patriots rout Steelers 34-13 after 2 close calls. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "We still control our own destiny," quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said after the loss, "and that's what's most important." ??? "Obviously the Patriots were the better team today," Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. "If that's the measuring stick we're not even close."
Patriots crush Steelers to stay on course. Guardian UK. FOXBOROUGH, Mass., Dec. 9 (Reuters) - The New England Patriots crushed the Pittsburgh Steelers 34-13 on Sunday to move closer to the NFL's first perfect season since 1972. The same AP story in three places: Patriots rout Steelers 34-13 to keep undefeated record intact. Canadian Press. Patriots put bruising on Steelers, become 5th team with 13-0 mark. ESPN. and -- verbless -- Steelers no match for unbeaten Patriots. National Post, Canada. FOXBORO, Mass. - The New England Patriots did not let the new Steel Curtain come down on their perfect season. Much more to come tomorrow from the hordes still pecking away at keyboards. These are the instawriters. Query: Got a better "action word" for what the Pats did to the Steelers? No, another one... Bonus: Over at the projo PatsBlog, Ben Roethlisberger postgame transcript and Steelers postgame quotes. From that last one, Anthony Smith, Safety Disappointing mush, considering the "guarantee." Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel becomes a candidate for the weird-quote award: "They got a bunch of little squirmy guys who know how to break loose." Posted by Sheila Lennon Pittsburgh scribe predicts Pats victory; Gifts for foodies; Free Xmas game; Net pioneers celebrate;
Do not fret about a loss to the Patriots, at least not now. This can be a fact-finding mission for the Steelers, just as it was in '05 when they lost in Indy to the 10-0 Colts. Today he looks at likely strategies. I'll predict the Patriots thrive being home again at last, and win by at least two touchdowns. I hope we see Troy Brown back; Providence Journal photographer Mary Murphy snapped this photo of him running a drill at practice Thursday. My colleague Pam Cotter will be at the game, rooting for her hometown's Steelers, unfortunately, and standing (SRO tickets) in the predicted sleet and freezing rain at Foxboro. I'll be cozying up to the warm TV with the whole family hoping we're not in for another nailbiter.
Food & Foodie Gifts: Ten Ideas & Ten Links for More Ideas by Alanna Kellogg at BlogHer. Ten Great Homemade Food Gifts, and No Cooking Required for Some!. Kalyn Denny (Kalyn's Kitchen) offers lots of links to other food bloggers' recipes for treats worth giving. I've been disappointed when buying flavored oils for dipping bread, so I clicked Carrabbas Italian Grill Bread Dip Mix at Sidewalk Shoes. Definitely worth a look. Similarly, a formula for Herbes de Provence from French Kitchen in America In this list, How to Make Vanilla Extract at Andrea's Recipes also caught my eye. It requires vanilla beans, good vodka and eight weeks, so your lucky recipients get to watch your gift "ripen" if you start any time before Christmas. (Following Andrea's links, I end up at Arizona Vanilla's extract page, with a recipe for Vanilla Bourbon Extract 1/2 cup Kentucky Bourbon (pick your favorite!) 4 or 5 vanilla beans Or you could just give it as very special bourbon. Global Gourmet - Food Gifts From Around the World. Peter Greenberg spotlights four sites, and gives you a sense of what to look for there.
(When you download it as a zip file, extract it and run the activate.exe file before you run setup.exe; this registers the game.) You won't be able to burn it to disk, it will only run on the computer you active it on. But it's a fun holiday-theme platform game that one or two players can play. This downloader's mini-review in the comments has a lot more information about playing it.
AS a young NASA engineer during the 1980s, Milo Medin liked to irritate his managers by building scientific computer networks using freely available Internet software that outperformed more costly commercial systems. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 7, 2007Weekend mp3s: Mountain '74; Billy Joel/Cass Dillon last week; 2005 Christmas mix; Chicago's '98 Christmas showNew tunes up at BigO, Singapore... Mountain New York 1974, Live at the Felt Forum, December 31, 1974> ...Leslie West and Mountain
Billy Joel/Cass Dillon, Christmas In Fallujah Live at Sears Centre, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, December 1, 2007. One track. Upon This Night... Christmas Collection 2005 "Someone was kind enough to share these tracks on the internet in 2005. We hope you will enjoy them." Quite the holiday mix 'tape': Graham Parker - New Years Revolution (Idiots Delight FM 12/18/94) (5.0MB) Posted by Sheila Lennon December 6, 2007Hillary changes her tune? Gotta serve somebody; Grocery chain bans high-fructose corn syrupAt ABC News' Political Radar blog, 'You and I' No More?: ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Less than 30 days before the critical Iowa caucuses, there's a shake-up in the Clinton presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton and Celine Dion appear to be parting ways. "Blue Sky" was "written at the request of crewmembers of the Space Shuttle Discovery for their STS-114 Return to Flight mission in 2005, the first mission after the Columbia disaster." (Wikipedia) Former Journal reporter Liz Anderson posted the Monsters' podcast clip below at her Politics on the Hudson blog at the Journal News' LoHud.com, which covers the Clintons' Westchester, N.Y., hometown. Click the arrow to hear it. Or you can watch the music video at YouTube. Sidebar: The Denver Post's Politics West posted in October (Big Head Todd jumps on Clinton's bandwagon), As (Todd Park) Mohr tells it, Tuesday’s rally marked the first big political gig for the Colorado-based group. He said he hopes for a "longer relationship" with the U.S. Senator from New York, envisioning the group’s song "Blue Sky" as a possible campaign theme. Gotta serve somebody: My hope is that they’ll realize that the relationships that matter most are with users rather than advertisers... Doc said (Product (re)placement) that. Also from that item, Alec Muffett (at Facebook garage in London last week): “To be told that Facebook is a ’social utility’ which exists purely as a space to attract advertising revenue was both a) a stark truth and b) deeply, deeply upsetting.” Serving Wall Street investors has done newspapers no good, either.
Bill Maher will be happy -- he's been on a rant against high-fructose corn syrup -- sugar on steroids -- for years. Maybe the alt-fuels push will divert the corn from that into ethanol. Background: The subhed of this 2003 Washington Post story is High-Fructose Corn Syrup May Act More Like Fat Than Sugar in the Body. Mayo Clinic: High-fructose corn syrup: Why is it so bad for me? Posted by Sheila Lennon December 5, 2007Viral catchy video; Silly GPS routes; Should Dalai Lama be reborn? Solar spray paint; Vatican astronomer debunks..."Won't you blog about this song?" Here Comes Another Bubble, created by Matt Hempey of the a capella Richter Scales (of San Francisco, of course), and sung by them, is a viral musical satire (cf. Jib-Jab) to the tune of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.. Fortunately, the lyrics, by , are in subtitles. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. All the cool kids are in it -- of course it's hot. (Kind of like Dr. Hook angling for the cover of Rolling Stone.) Geek trivia: YouTube displays the middle frame of an embedded video. Think this middle frame of TechCrunch's Michael Arrington deliberately placed there?
WEDMORE, England: This little village would seem to be an obviously poor place through which to drive your average large truck. It is in an obscure rural location. Its streets were built in the days of horses and carts. There is no room to pass and no room to maneuver.
The Daily Mail: The Dalai Lama could end 600 years of history by forgoing rebirth in a bid to stop China seizing control of his reincarnation, he has revealed. I think that says he'd appoint his future self in advance. (Scratching head.) Wasn't Galileo a heretic? Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer. The Scotsman. BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday. The Vatican has a meteorite collection?
Scientists have invented a plastic solar cell that can turn the sun's power into electrical energy, even on a cloudy day. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 4, 2007Baltimore reacts to Ravens' loss; to Patriots fans, hard win felt like team's early days
The top four headlines today at The Baltimore Sun's Ravens section tell their own sad story: Falling just short Four downs: Ravens-Patriots is the post-mortem post at Moving the Chains, Sheil Kapadia's NFL blog at the Sun, where he live-blogged last night's 27-24 Ravens' loss to the Patriots . Sheil asks his readers questions about the game, and the comments, some from Pats fans, are worth a read. ("We-wuz-robbed-by-the-refs" cries come from both sides, but are discounted.) At the Sun reporters' Ravens Central group blog, Mike Preston (The T.O.) thinks defensive coordinator Rex Ryan called the fatal timeout just before the snap that canceled Tom Brady's failure to convert on fourth and one in the fourth quarter. After a false start on Heath Evans turned it into fourth and six, Brady ran it in himself for 12 yards and a new chance that eventually led to throwing the winning touchdown pass to Jabar Gaffney. Brady, in his post-game press conference, was asked, "Can you describe the play – you get stuffed, but they called timeout. Did you realize what was happening?" “I heard the whistle blow," Brady said. Then he deadpanned, "I would have gotten the first down if it didn’t blow [laughter]. I stopped [laughter].” Preston also calls out Ravens linebacker Bart Scott, who picked up 30 yards of penalties reacting to the TD, and wonders why the Ravens haven't played (Willis McGahee) like that the rest of their season. Shalise Manza Young's game story (Hot heads, timeout lead to thrilling win) on the Projo PatsBlog does this well: Now it’s first and goal. You can’t just hand Tom Brady first and goal. Jabar Gaffney, who hadn’t caught a ball all night, has his number called, and Brady zips a ball in to him on the left edge of the end zone. Gaffney gets both feet in bounds, but there is a question of whether he had possession. The answer comes back yes. This game felt like 2001 again -- tense, riddled with errors, grindingly hard, the outcome very much in doubt. Shalise writes ...Tedy Bruschi said he never doubted the outcome would be in New England’s favor. This is the Patriots' most endearing quality, that somehow they get it done. Every time they have to bear down, though, fans fear that this is the time it just won't work. It's not easy being a Patriots fan these days, and not just because of three night games in a row. Irritating ESPN announcers sidebar #2: ESPN's Monday Night Football announcers were annoying again, especially Tony Kornheuser, who openly rooted for his fantasy of a Baltimore redemption. The patter is stale, obviously written in an office earlier in the week and trotted out as a parallel track that continues regardless of what's happening in the game they're "covering." These announcers need to be at the game they're at, in realtime. When the Patriots finally adjusted and stopped McGahee's breakout runs, they might have explained how they had changed the run defense that had let him gain 138 yards on 30 carries. But they had chatted through the game, maybe they weren't watching it that closely. It would be okay to fall silent sometimes. Ambient fan sound is fun for fans. It could make us feel like we're at the game, if they'd just chill sometimes and let us hear it. Earlier: Irritating ESPN announcers #1, How should sports announcers cover games? Posted by Sheila Lennon December 3, 2007Better mysteries; Food donations earn discounts; BBC interviews Pirate Bayers; Foodpairing; How to leave Facebook
Donate Food, Save on Home Furnishings at Habitat - $10 Tom adds, The idea was the store manager's. I'd not seen anything quite like it -- perhaps others have. But it seems like an exploit that might easily be replicated.
The Pirate Bay is one of the most popular file-sharing websites in the world and much of the content reachable via the site is pirated. Here the founders of the site and those that keep it running talk about what they do, why they do it and how hard it is to stop them.
A list will be made of 250 food products each with their major flavour components. By comparing the flavour of each food product eg strawberry with the rest of the food and their flavours, new combinations like strawberry with peas can be made. The way to use is, is just to select a food product like strawberries. You will get a plot where you have strawberry in the middle surrounded by other food products. Take one of those other food products and try to make a new recipe by combining those two. The more flavours food products have in common the shorter the distance between the food products.
“The idea that the whole genome is oscillating is really cool,” enthuses Vanderbilt Professor of Biological Sciences Carl Johnson, who headed the research that was published online Nov. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The fact that oscillations can act as a regulatory mechanism is telling us something important about how DNA works: It is something DNA jockeys really need to think about.” Light seems to be the trigger.
...You can't delete your Facebook account yourself. They do it for you. This would be ok if you didn't first have to manually delete all the information in the account yourself. That means deleting all your friends manually, one by one. Not too much of an issue if you've only got a small number of friends but I'd imagine that would get tiresome if you've got hundreds. Posted by Sheila Lennon December 2, 2007Sunday morning artThanks to sitting next to a Christmas-lover (Yuleophile?) in the newsroom, I've actually finished the practical part of my shopping this year -- it's my duty to keep the family warm and in underwear, a task best crossed off early. But shopping -- even at its most mechanical -- is wearying. Waking at 2 after going to bed early, I shrug off politics and tech, and scroll to the right-brain blogs. The future warehouse of unwanted books at BLDGBLOG appeals. It begins as a story about storing all that is copyrighted and spins out into a riff on libraries, time capsules and the allure of unknown places. And, from Air Brain there: All houses should be greenhouses. Imagine going to work in a place like that – in an oxygen garden – bringing the tropics to an exurban office park near you. Creeper vines, and Pyrex-shelled ferns, and huge corridors lined with orange trees – groves and orchards spiraling above you up stairways and halls. The sheer terrestrial weirdness of flowering species. In the course of finding out what kind of sci-fi plant I'm growing in the newsroom, I was searching areca palms on Google Images when it tossed up a tiny version of the cow below, linked at a Spanish garden forum. A green polka-dotted cow? I investigated, and found it at the site of Manchester, England sculptor and environmental artist Lorna Green.
Lorna Green's site-specific sculptures -- conceptual art with a budget -- seem more than fresh, even as the work spans decades.
 "Look, Reflect and Recover" 2005 Photo by John Noddings Roof garden: ...stainless steel rods threaded with varied sizes of specially made blue glass beads in "pools" of blue glass chippings in aluminium dishes surrounded by blue neon lights.
 "The Flower of the Forest" 2001 Granite with painted wood. For "From the Buds of Small Grass", 2001 Geum Gang International Nature Art Exhibition, Kongju, Korea
Posted by Sheila Lennon December 1, 2007NORAD Santa-tracking site up today; Google Maps, YouTube to help
The hard news: NORAD has partnered with Google to use technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube to track Santa... But the cool part is the blogger -- Carrie Farrell is the granddaughter of Col. Harry Shoup, who, as commander-in-chief of NORAD in 1955, took a call to Santa from a wrong number printed in a Sears ad, and gamely asked his staff to check the radar for a sleigh. The photo is of Harry and Carrie now. Read it all :Tracking Santa, then and now. Posted by Sheila Lennon |
Interesting read: 
Purge: 
Looking for mysteries? You might try the 
my passport photo blogging since 2002 garden blogs archived headlines  Sheila Lennon is features & interactive producer of projo.com, the Web site of The Providence (R.I.) Journal Rhode Island |
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