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What's Wrong With No Child Left Behind: "Make education foster a compulsion to read and write carefully. That’s a gift that never expires---there’s no blackout date on careful thinking."
Sounds like blogging.
(Via TeacherTalk.)
I love My Mom's new Photoblog. I wish the most recently updated albums bubbled up to the top, but it's excellent nonetheless.
I'm ending this year happier and more content than I started it. All in all, a success. I feel great about the relationships in my life and work, and I'm enthusiastic for the new year. Some of my ambitions for this blog haven't come to fruition, but I think they will in 2006.
In the spirit of holiday giving, here are all my open tabs with commentary. I'll start with what I think are my smartest comments, so when you get bored you can just stop reading.
Of all the "2006 predictions" I've read, none of them have much to do with the one laptop per child initiative. If it's even one quarter as successful as it is ambitious, it's going to change the face of the education forever. Counter-intuitively, it's going to make Google even more powerful than Yahoo and Microsoft, since Google is stronger in infrastructure and internationalization than it's competitors. It's also going to force a real business model to emerge around micropayments, since that's more in tune with the way third world economies already operate. Also, Google's Blogger is still the best completely free blogging option.
I'm reblogging at Eyebeam for the next couple of weeks. (Thanks for the kind words, Michael.) I love Eyebeam, and their projects. Part of my motivation for becoming a consultant was so that I could carve out more time to explore the more creative side of computer science, and Eyebeam's doing some of the best work out there right now. Reblogging makes reading and writing easier, which is the essence of blogging. And please submit links if there's anything you think I should see.
My buddy Charlie wonders if is Google behind T-mobile's Web 'n' Walk. My answer "it doesn't matter." Check out Christian Lindholm's remote (mobile???) contribution to Les Blogs 2.0:
The mobile industry is in a stalemate. The handset vendors are desperately trying to escape the “phone” legacy, a wonderful legacy in many ways, but the mobile phone we all love to talk on is perfected.
I've been playing around with the N70 and N90 a bit - and they are phenomenal phones. I didn't think the phone experience could get much better, but Nokia really nailed the details in a way they haven't done in a long time. But going forward, the real innovations are going to come from devices like the Nokia 770, which is one iteration away from challenging the low-end laptop market. I'm not sure if Lenovo, Nokia, Apple or wal-mart are going to get there first, but someone is. In two years we'll all be carrying around an iPod, a 770-like tablet, and a Nokia N-series style phone.
I was going to reblog unmediated's pointer to the flickr mobile API how-to. Then I realized they reblogged it out of MY delicious links. Talk about a closed loop
I'd buy the new ReadyMade book in a heartbeat, but there's a new order on our bookshelves - for us to buy a new book we have to read a book AND reduce another book. There are some low hanging fruit (Lego Mindstorms manual, old textbooks) but it's going to be a challenge. But hopefully Adriana and I can do some good book blogging this year.
Jason's lists of the best links of the year and the rest of the best more than justify my micropatron dollars, not that he had to justify anything. This is the kind of idea that crosses a lot of people's minds but no one finishes the job quite like Kottke.
In Steal from Google, a Businessweek columnist proposes that local newspapers should try and saturate the print market the same way google did the on-line space, by giving away ad space for virtually nothing to build eyeballs. The difference is, newspapers don't have built in search, the number of "eyeballs" in a few zip codes is limited, and the cost of paper is going up, while the cost of servers is going down.
Stale tabs I meant to spend more time with but probably won't: thoughts on Language Design, complete list of delicious tools, and yet another way to annotate images with CSS. (Now they're closed. Buh-bye!)
Fetching tags produces funny little tags for your dog. And people say our economy is hurting. The dooce claims Salma Hayek doesn't exercise, she just takes multi-vitamins. No way.
I was going to cut my hair, but now that Andy Samberg is hitting it big I'm going to let it grow out.
Velcro Hack (detail)
Originally uploaded by Lady Macabea.
Niall's reverse engineering of Google's feeds API is a fantastic scoop. A few quick responses:
More later. I'm kind of surprised how excited I am about this.
Merry Christmas, Portuguese Cousins
Originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro.
And I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas to all my Internet cousins.
Looks like David Rees may have a little bit of writer in him after all. His piece on D. Boon is pitch perfect.
If Mayor Mike really loved us he'd be browing We Make Money Not Art and sending Hannukah Harry out to all five boroughs. New York City residents should get their choice of the Polite Umbrella or the Instant Balcony.
I'm sitting in an all-day meeting and I made a joke to our business manager about posting to LiveJournal from Excel.So to complete the joke, I had to implement it for him. [excel download]
Watch these amazing videos of someone banging out a perfect combo of the William Tell Overture on Taiko's hardest mode. Last time I tried "Oni" I literally threw the drum up in the air and cried. Watching this video fills me with joy. Expect to see this on rocketboom soon!
And while I'm offering links to rocketboom, I'll steal one. DIY paper bookmarks fold over the corner of pages. Perfect for use on moleskines or just as a regular bookmark. You can download the template and print some of your favorite photos, or if you're super GTD (OCD?) then you can print your most pressing items on the bookmarks. Expect to see this on 43 folders soon! (update: maybe not! Mr. 43 Folders just eloped, so he may be busy for a while with other things. Congrats!)
The story of a judge ruling mentions of Intelligent Design to be unconstituational is notable enough on it's own. But all this talk of "intelligent" "design" seems to have lit a fire under the butt of CNN's "designers." Witness The evolving bubble people and this DNA helix that appears to dwarf the earth in size. It's almost... threatening. And what's the light up near the North Pole? Is God in the DNA?
Transport Workers Union, Local 100 has a blog. Right now they're using it as a backup for their "real" site and to cut and paste press releases, but I'd be interested to see if they expand their content as the week goes on.
Silence Of The Blogs (Forbes):
"'The only people you get mad at are the people you care about,' he [Anil Dash] says. 'It's the holiday season, it's the time for fighting with family.'"
Exactly. People wonder why I love Anil (do they?) That's why, at any rate. I also love the headline: "Silence of the Blogs." Many, many dimensions of double entendres there. A sudoku of entendres, if you will. (I understand if you won't.)
Washington Square Park
Originally uploaded by david.
This week began (Saturday, 10AM) and ended (Friday, 4pm) in the dentist's chair, and wasn't much better inbetween. I'm glad it's over.
September 15, 1998: Alex Chiu's Eternal Life device is "the most important invention in human history." And it's yours for a low low price of $16.50! to Wackos by Joshua.
June 12, 2002: "My favorite site on the web right now is muxway, which Joshua Schachter has created as a database of (just barely) categorized links."
May 20th, 2004: "http://www.muxway.org/ has moved to http://del.icio.us/joshua. Goodbye, sweet simple muxway."
March 20, 2005: "After seeing my little project go from a small hobby to a large one and
then consume all my waking hours, I've decided to quit my job and work
on del.icio.us full time."
December 9, 2005: "The deal is similar to Flickr, but *that* deal was not really at 30-35 million, it was more like $17-19 million."
Jackson is well known for applying the principles of Zen to the game of basketball, and O'Neal says that Jackson's methods meshed with his own strategies for victory. "I control my dreams," O'Neal told me. "So-called educated people call it meditation, but I don't. I call it 'dreamful attraction.' The mind controls everything, so you just close your eyes and see yourself dribbling, see yourself shooting." Contrary to some reports, O'Neal says that Jackson has not induced the team to practice yoga. "We tried Tai Chi one year, but the guys didn't like it, because, even though it was stretching, it would make us tight," he said. "Anyway, I don't stretch. I just play."
Henry @ True Hoop just re-posted this Rebecca Mead article about Shaquille O'Neal which is one of my favorite things ever. I think about Dreamful Attraction almost every day, and when we play basketball in the summer, I see good results.
heave ho
Originally uploaded by dmansouri.
This is a fantastic New York moment captured by Daryoush. Half the people in the picture struggle to keep a stoplight, the canonical embodiment of government responsibility and infrastructure, from falling into the sidewalk, and half the people are just walking by or turning their backs as if they couldn't be bothered. And check out that pink hair!
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