text:
- "Hey SCO, Sue Me": What's Next? A petition that was circulated online says (in part)
I am a Linux user. I feel that SCO's tactics toward an operating system of my choice are unjust, ill founded and bizarre. I am willing to be sued because I am confident that SCO's tactics toward Linux will fail. If I have published my email address as part of this petition it is so SCO representatives can email me and begin the process of serving me a court order.The petition signing was cut off at 4000 people, but there were at least twice that many who wanted to sign, possibly opening themselves to litigation by SCO.
- SCO to Novell: See you in court SCO's saying that it doesn't matter to them that Novell claims to hold the copyrights on Unix. SCO says they bought 'em, and will probably sue Novell, too.
- See also Friday's SCO News from Slashdot.
- Here's a simple explanation of the SCO v world thing. [flutterby]
- Unlike SCO & the world, AOL & MS are Buddies Now. Which means that MSIE for Windows will become even more ubiquitous, complete with its box-model bugs that make using CSS such a pain in the ass.
- GM ads take high road while admitting bumps , admitting that they made some shitty cars in the 80s and 90s. And there were problems with things like paint falling off the cars. Well, yeah. But if they'd wanted to fix my gripe with them, they could have extended the paint warranty to cover the fact that the paint lasted five years and two weeks before starting to fall off in sheets, whereas the warranty was five years. [fark!]
- On a lighter note, BUTIK.PL is a Polish version of cafepress selling, naturally enough, Polish-language T-shirts. I still haven't gotten around to learning enough Polish to be able to read the shirts, but there are some fine ones I'd buy if they made them big enough to fit me. Examples include this one from www.KURDE.pl, or this strange little man, or this dog. [marysia]
- Update: Wow. Within an hour after posting this morning, I'd exchanged a half-dozen emails with both Marysia and Marcin from Butik and Marcin and I are working out the details of him shipping shirts to me (they're normal Fruit of the Loom T's, so the XXL will fit as long as I'm super-careful to only wash it in cold). Since their business is only three months old, and they didn't have any provisions in place to ship to the US, it's not as simple as just ordering from the website. And apparently both Marysia and Marcin keep a fairly close eye on their referrer logs.
- In other news, Jim reports that he's home and doing okay. His sense of humor seems intact.
- In MLB striking out on QuesTec, Dan Patrick says the new automated umpiring system isn't cutting it. First I've actually heard of the system, and while it sounds like it might be useful to help make umpires a little more consistent, I think it should be a coaching tool for umpires, rather than something used to determine who gets more work. Sheesh. Did I just come out in favor of umpires?
- Thanks to Jeff for the link to the Shoe Size - Penis Size Conversion Charts. This is where I mention that I wear an 11 ½ (US) shoe, and am single, right? I'm also apparently something of an underachiever, but I probably should have kept that to myself, eh? [WVSR]
- Another find by Jeff: The Porn Banner Showcase [not safe for work]. Dang! Someone critiquing porn banner ads. [WVSR]
- The Winners of Nerve's Bad Erotica Contest [not safe for some work] have been announced. Yes, they're certainly awful. [boing boing]
- WayTooPersonals claims to be for
when you're looking for laughs, not love.Posts seem infrequent, but funny. [metafilter]
- Finally, The Big Ol' Black Table Beer Run reviews twenty cheap beers, and has a sequel where they review another twenty. Useful! [WVSR]
- Steph (whose birthday it is today) demands pictures from yesterday when I did basically zilch on the blogging front and exhorted people to get out and enjoy the day. Well, my day yesterday consisted of putting out fires all morning, then walking to Dinkytown to deposit a check and get some lunch, and getting so clobbered by allergies (the wind was blowing all kinds of things around) that I came home and slept until 6pm just to get my brain together enough to realize that I should take some allergy medicine so I could think again.
- 'Conceal-carry' gun law takes effect today (well, yesterday now), and efforts are already underway to repeal it.
- Windows Users Knocked Off Net by a security update from Microsoft. Which probably makes it pretty difficult to get the update that fixes the problem. Luckily it was an optional update, rather than an automatic one, so the damage was limited.
- Asia running out of IP-address room. Will it help get IPv6 adopted? Probably in Asia.
- In Apple force-feeds customers shit, calls it sunshine, Cory takes aim at Apple, and the way they have crippled iTunes in the most recent update. [boing boing]
- SCO Might Sue Linus for Patent Infringement? On top of their suit against IBM over the IP problems. But the biggest danger of all is that this will do to Linux what the OS Wars did to BSD. Meanwhile, SCO stock dropped about a third of its value.
- German Software Group Threatens to Sue SCO on Linux unless SCO produces evidence of infringement on the part of IBM by May 30. That's tomorrow.
- And in further developments, Novell will challenge SCO over Unix ownership. This isn't making the people at SCO look all that bright.
- Major projects mean major headaches for metro-area motorists, including ones in the way to the one office I have to drive to most often. It's in Eden Prairie, where I've worked on and off for about ten years, so I know alternate routes, but deciding which one to take is going to be the trick. I should probably just ride the trike, but my knees don't like me lately. Blegh.
- Alchemy with light shocks physicists who are using photonic crystals and shockwaves to change the frequency of light in new ways. Cool stuff? I think so. [some guy]
- Civil Liberties Watch is Watching the Bush Administration rewrite the Bill of Rights.
- Excuuuse me! Is the world getting ruder?
There is almost no place that is a small town anymore,says Brothers.
When we're identifiable, we're nicer. Today, we're not as ashamed to be nasty.[strib]
- Geeky Legal Beagles Nail Spammers in New York, as the Attorney General has started prosecuting high-tech criminals using exiisting laws, such as those against fraud.
Friday night was the home opener. It was a pretty big deal for the local TV stations, with at least three trucks with big masts beaming live broadcasts back to the studio. There was lots of entertainment in the parking lot pregame, including this band that was walking about. They served as the backdrop for Dave Dahl's first appearance on the KSTP news for the evening, and he and his cameraman stuck around near us.
The Band 1600x1200(410k) 640x480(41k)
Our group served as Dave's backdrop for his other appearances on-air. Apparently we're more photogenic than I thought, but it probably didn't hurt that we had a foosball table to go with all the yummy bits we were grilling up.
Dave Dahl, doing the weather 1200x1600(338k) 480x640(33k)
The Saints won the Home Opener, but it left me with a bit of an uneasy feeling. While they came into the 8th with a 9-0 lead, they gave up a run in the top of the 8th, and then another four runs in the top of the ninth. It's nice to see them being an offensive powerhouse, but I'd also like to see them hold a lead, rather than letting the other team have a bit of hope again late in the game.
Dave Dahl, wrapping up 1200x1600(338k) 480x640(32k)
In other changes, the
The new scoreboard 640x480(59k)
Potential Breedersbit has now changed to
First Base Singles, and it's much improved. But there are still some who complain about the
dark toneof the entertainment. It'll be interesting to see how the bits evolve, and hopefully enough edge will be retained to keep me happy, while still not upsetting the folks who are there for more
family fare. I think it's going to be a tricky tightrope for Eric to walk. There's also the new scoreboard, which is nice in that you can see it from the parking lot, and which offers replays and other graphics during the game. It feels like whoever's running it is still figuring out what all it can do, so maybe there are even more cool features awaiting.
After the game, we broke out the log and played some hammerschlager. Jody stopped out for one game, but needed to run off to get some food, so we didn't make much of an evening of it.
The season's first hammerschlagen game 1600x1200(358k) 640x480(27k)
The Saints won again on Saturday night after giving up three runs in the first, their offense got busy, and the defense buckled down. Eddie Pearson figured in the game again, going three for four, and scoring three runs. The fireworks show after the game was good as always, and I'm starting to think we might have a pretty good team here, though the defense still worries me a bit.
fireworks 1600x1200(179k) 640x480(14k)
There were multiple false-finales in the fireworks display, but when they were nearly done I captured this movie (3.6MB). Sadly, my timing was a bit off, so I couldn't quite capture everything to the end in one go. Here's the very end of the Fireworks Finale (2.2MB). The still photos were tricky, since there's nearly a one-second lag between pressing the shutter and having the camera take the picture, but I got a couple pictures that please me, which is probably pretty good, since this was the first time I tried taking pictures of fireworks with a digital camera.
more fireworks 1600x1200(216k) 640x480(18k)
The Sunday game of the opening weekend wasn't a win, but it was an okay showing from the boys. The pitching was pretty good, but the KC pitching was better, holding the Saints to two runs on eight hits. It was a beautiful day, and I wasn't the only one in the stands getting sun-baked.
a swing and a miss 1600x1200(431k) 640x480(41k)
The St. Paul Sieve 1600x1200(437k) 640x480(44k)
One of the other changes in the on-field entertainment is a new St. Paul Sieve. The new guy's got a somewhat unorthodox style of defending the net, but I like it, and he's making an effort to talk to the fans.
The St. Paul Sieve 1600x1200(440k) 640x480(43k)
Post-game we hung in the parking lot (almost three hours after the end of the game) and spent some time talking with Jody (#14) (pdf), Jon (#41), and Chris (#10), all relief pitchers from Florida, who were all a little tired form the autograph session on the field. Being bat-day, there were a lot of kids in attendance and they spent about an hour signing bats after the game. Jon was the one who gave up the four runs on Friday night (getting a save), and Chris shut down the T-Bones last night. 2-1 on the weekend is a pretty good home stand, and now the boys hit the road for a ten-game road-trip to Sioux City, Winnipeg, and Fargo before returning home on June 6th.
The St. Paul Sieve 1600x1200(408k) 640x480(39k) kids lining up for autographs 1600x1200(382k) 640x480(34k)
- Microsoft takes spam plan to Washington, and naturally enough, their plan wouldn't actually stop any advertisements from being sent by email. The primary thing they've proposed is requiring the sender to be identified, just like the direct marketing industry wants. Go figure.
- A Spammer Speaks Out at the Congressional Hearings, saying that what he does is just like what other businesses and ISPs do, but he sends a couple hundred million messages per day.
- Evan posts a good essay about why Terrible Ideas Never Die (like the idea of an email tax, which Mark Dayton has been talking about, but in order to combat spam).
- Get your Free Spam for $21.95 / month!!! from EarthLink. It's a minor complaint, but perhaps public embarassment will encourage them to change their policy.
- Tough California Anti-Spam Bill Passes in Senate, requiring people to opt-in if they want spam, but I don't expect it'll have much effect.
- Massachusetts Senate Bill, No. 1911 is another state-level attempt to deal with spam. But I don't think laws are going to help. There's already a law against sending junk faxes, but rather than being able to find a lawyer to help me enforce it against fax.com, I'm spending an additional $15/month to make it harder for everyone to call me. So far it's working, but I expect that Qwest will probably start selling the junk-fax people a new service that lets them get through the roadblocks I've got in place, and then I'll need to pay even more money to Qwest so I can have some peace and quiet. How does anyone think that a law against spam is going to be any different? [some guy]
- I've got pictures from last night's Saints game, but haven't gotten around to sucking them into the computer yet. It was fun. The Saints won. I'll probalby do all the pictures from this weekend at once on Monday.
- Microsoft Documents to be Shredded in Utah. The documents from the Caldera v. Microsoft case are being shredded. Sun got copies of some for their lawsuit, but most of them will be turn into toilet paper before the ink will be dry on the new deal SCO (formerly Caldera) and Microsoft signed.
- SCO official defends Linux sales after suit was filed. The reason is that while they may have distributed some of their own code with a GPL copyright on it, they weren't the ones to put the copyright on the code they say was stolen, so they can still sue others who redistributed it.
- BusinessWeek asks Will This Be the Summer of Mac? and thinks the answer is yes. The reasons? New chips from IBM, a new version of Quark, and music sales. The chips and the new version of Quark are things I've heard rumbles about, and the music sales might boost Apple's bottom line. But I'm still not convinced it's going to add up to any big boost for Apple stock. They've found too many ways over the years to drive down their stock price in spite of good news.
- The UC Berkeley/Stanford Recovery-Oriented Computing (ROC) Project looks awfully interesting. It's a nice addition to the features I already want in a server, namely that when something does go wrong, it gets fixed quickly.
- Shocking New Jacket Hits Street: The No Contact Jacket for women delivers an 80,000 volt jolt to anyone grabbing the gal sporting one. It's powered by a 9V battery. It needs to be armed before it charges up, and once armed, it
emits a crackling sound. Also:
it would be hard for police to arrest anyone wearing one.Retail price should be around $1000. [boing boing]
- Mad cow case leaves an industry paralyzed in Canada. Bad news for beef. [strib]
- Tonight is the Saints Home Opener. Another season of fun begins.
- New Saints manager: Game's the thing is the PressPatch's story on the Saints opener tonight.
- Saints seek between-the-line success, looking to win their first title since 1996. Yeah, it's about time for a winning club again.
- Remember, May 23 means The Defenestration of Prague, too!
- Shot to Hell tells the story of Duy Ngo, the Minneapolis Police officer who was shot first by an unknown assailant, and then after calling in for help, by a fellow officer.
- Have you been Protesting Against the War in Iraq? Then You Must Be A Terrorist. Well, there it is, then.
- Hey, the Minneapolis Photo Collection of the Minneapolis Public Library went online, and I just noticed it now.
- A Seth Eastman Sketchbook at the Minneapolis Public Library has the sketches of "probably the premier watercolorist of the upper Mississippi."
- How does Dyson make water go uphill? on a fountain that looks like something M.C. Escher drew? [boing boing]
- Deal is sealed: 2 a.m. closing time for bars. It takes effect August 1. I like the idea overall, but I expect I'll have to adjust my pace on evenings out.
- Finally, to make sure I have both a booze link and a sex link for Friday: How to Write Sex Scenes: The 12-Step Guide by Steve Almond. I haven't been reading Nerve much lately, and apparently I've been missing out. This was a funny article, and probably informative, too.
- Jim has some sad news and wanted to share it with everyone while he still has the balls to do it. The news is that he appears to have Testicular Cancer (final diagnosis pending). For certain there's a tumor in one of his testicles and it will probably be removed. For those of you who know him (and even those who don't) be aware that it's highly treatable.
For all you males out there–here's info on how to do a Testicular self examination, though it might be fun to have your wife or girlfriend do it (if, unlike Jim, you have such a thing). [jim]
- When Jim told me about his news, one of the first things I thought of were prosthetics, since I'd heard the story of The Man Who Wanted 'Canine Cojones' a year or so ago.
- Since prosthetic testicles for humans have been outlawed by the FDA (see the previous story), here's a rundown on the ones for dogs called Neuticles. Their website is down, but the Internet Archive has the backup. There was also a story I read recently about someone adding in a radio-tracker so you could find your lost doggie, but I can't find the story again.
- On a more serious note, I've noticed recently that the crowd I hang out with is starting to get (or at least act) old. A couple weeks ago at the bar (we still haven't shed that youthful habit), we were talking, and the topic of conversation turned to everyone's various ailments. One gal was having a sore back. Two of the guys have sleeping disorders that require they wear things that shoot air into their faces while they sleep and one's got hepatitis C. I've got bad knees, almost certainly made worse by sitting on my butt too much and carrying around 50 pounds more than I should. While we're only halfway into an average lifespan or so, things are starting to break down, and it's a sobering realization. But even worse was being surrounded by 20-somethings and realizing we were sitting around talking about our infirmities, which made me feel older than any of the physical problems. The conversation didn't really get back to normal bar-fare the rest of the night, and it was one of the least satisfying evenings out in quite a while.
- U.S. bans Canada beef after mad cow disease found last January. There's no explanation for the delay. But the USDA are busy reassuring people that BSE won't spread to the US. More on the Mad cow case in Alberta, pointer courtesy Mr. Cosh. [colby cosh]
- RIAA Radar
is a tool that music consumers can use to easily and instantly distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America.Handy if you're still buying CDs. [boing boing]
- There's been a lot of talk [among the audio geeks, at least] about Apple's new AAC compression format. Well, the AAC vs. MP3 comparision. Is it as good as CD? Not quite, but for many people, it's good enough. Me, I can't really hear the difference unless I turn many switches and knobs and stuff that's generally more work than I go to just to hear some tunez.
- Pentagon changes the name of its new anti-terror surveillance system. See, it's Terrorism Information Awareness now, so you'll feel a lot better about it when you're being spied upon, in spite of none of the details of the program having changed. You will feel better, won't you? [fark!]
- Man Gets Ticket For Sitting On Milk Crate. The actual ticket reads
unauthorized use of a milk crate. This dangerous criminal was sitting on it outside of the salon where he worked. [jim] [He was probably a terrorist. Definitely up to no good. Can't have people sitting. Don't you know there's a war on? -DaveP]
- BBC correspondent defends Lynch documentary that says (among other things) that Kelly Lynch's ambulance was fired upon by US troops the day before her
rescue. Lileks [you'll need to scroll down a bit] is not so convinced, and the InstaPundit collects tons of links if you want to investigate further. [fark!]
- In An appalling magic,
Jonathan Freedland confronts [Ann Coulter] and recognises a truth about the United States today: Bush isn't an aberration and Coulter expresses what many Americans think.And she's cute.
- So I was sitting around on Monday, trying to set up my PC laptop so it would dual-boot XP and OpenBSD (which went about the way I expected: I've accidentally wiped XP, and can only boot OpenBSD on it), when suddenly I heard a pop and then a hissing sound from my trike. I hadn't ridden it since last Friday, and for some reason the front left tire suddenly popped and went flat. Blegh. Now I have to remember how to change a tire before I can go for a ride again.
- They're installing cameras everywhere in downtown Minneapolis. Since Target Corp is paying for it and that's called
charity(perhaps the strangest use of that word I've ever seen). Go to Skyway News Online for the complete story. [jim]
- Military waste under fire / trillion missing -- Bush plan targets Pentagon accounting. They lost a trillion!? And 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units. How do you lose 32 tanks? Or 56 airplanes? Or a trillion dollars? Sheesh. And people wonder why I think we shouldn't give the government so much money.
- The Patron Saints Index Topic List can help you find the saint you need, whether it's the patron saint of arms dealers, compulsive gamblers, or reformed prostitutes.
- Last night we put up the new machack site with the unstoppable theme. I think this is the first year I've been involved in much of the planning for MacHack, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty good conference. If you're a Mac geek who hasn't registered yet, why the heck haven't you?
- Dave Winer sums up the reason weblogs are so prevalent in google searches with If you want to be in Google, you gotta be on the Web. Nice work, Dave. This goes for companies like Logitech, too. They need to have a fixed URL for their Pocket Digital Camera if the want the ranking for their page to appear higher than my gripe about it. What Google Leaves Out is a study of exactly what it is google is indexing that might be interesting. [scripting]
- Citizen Reporters Make the News in Korea, with OhmyNews, a web-newspaper written by just about anyone who wants to. It's interesting that OhmyNews [Korean language] seems to be a lot more successful than IndyMedia is. Is it just because seventy percent of Koreans have broadband? Dan Gillmor's got more, but it'll be hidden behind a for-pay firewall in a week or two, so you'd better read it now.
- Yeah, we're probably living in a Surveillance State now.
Since September 11, a flood of federal legislation has reduced American freedom without increasing our security.But is it really a surprise to anyone at this point? [endwar]
- The Strib has Questions and answers about the new conceal-and-carry gun law. The new law goes into effect May 28th. [strib]
- What If SCO Is Right? What if Linux does include proprietary code? But what if SCO unintentionally released that very code under the GPL?
- Scoble says that Google has been coming under pressure from its advertisers who are upset that weblogs have as much weight as they do. I guess there's probably some justification there, since Logitech can't be very happy that my page griping about their Pocket Ditigal camera rates as high as it does. Speaking of which, I've updated that page with information about their Mac OS X drivers. [scripting]
- I was planning on taking a bunch of pictures of the various "patron saints" at the game last night, but got lazy (much as I'm doing today). But at least we cooked our own food. Here are some folks who took the really lazy approach to tailgating, getting their food delivered.
Lazy Tailgating 1024x480(108k) 640x300(24k) Lazy Tailgating 1280x600(153k) 640x300(24k)
I wrote up my thoughts (with some pictures) about the pre-season Saints opener that I was at last night.
- Wired News: Search Results Clogged by Blogs. As others have pointed out (I'm disappointed I didn't think of this earlier), part of the reason blogs rank well in google is because of the absence of archives for most of the news stories blogs point to. If more newspapers had archives that were searchable, I bet they'd rank a lot better.
- Wild ride ends as Anaheim wins 2-1, and Giguere's streak is done. [strib]
- Go learn some Latin Sayings and sound like a smarty-pants.
Carpe Cerevisi!
- Hey, my rant about using CSS for layout instead of tables appears in the Web Design References at UMD. Cool.
- What this country needs is an 18-cent coin. No, really.
- Hmm. Is it safe to make some Ten dollar Infrared Goggles? I don't know.
- This weekend, the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association's Art-a-Whirl brings creative storm to N.E. Minneapolis. I know some folks who'll be participating, so I may actually make it to some of the exhibits over the weekend. [strib]
- Tonight's the first pre-season game of 2003 for the Saint Paul Saints. I'm a bit excited about it, even though there are only four guys on the roster that I know from last year.
- Lunar eclipse viewing mixed around the nation as weather hardly cooperates, but the weather here was good. I stepped out to look at the dark moon about 10pm, before totality, and then decided that sleep was more important. [strib]
- Stupid Security tracks security measures that do little more than make people feel better. It's a good read, and I might end up adding it to my morning news. [cryptogram]
- Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed', or more accurately, completely faked. In fact, as the Iraqi medical staff were trying to return her in an ambulance, American troops at a checkpoint open fired on the ambulance, nearly killing her. [holy schmoly]
- Korean Activists to Sue for Internet Snafu. They're suing Microsoft for
introducing servers with security defects and failing to inform clients sufficiently of the risks.It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, since it could be the first case of a company being held financially liable for bugs in their software. [cryptogram]
- A Woman's Guide on How to Pee Standing has been revised since the original 1997 edition.
- Layne posted about a Friday Five from a while ago. It was about music, and since my musical tastes ossified back during the Reagan presidency (well, not completely, but it's my blog, and I'll make fun of me if I like), I'll pass on commenting on that one. But this week's concerns food so I don't think I can pass:
What drinking water do you prefer—tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
Bottled (or canned), with a bit of barley, hops and yeast.
What are your favourite flavor of chips?
My favorite flavour of chips? Probably potato. Gotta like the humble spud. I don't remember the source or the exact quote, but I once heard a comment about the Irish and the Polish having three curses in common: subsisting on the potato, a love for strong drink, and the Catholic Church.
Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
Color me simple, but I like a big hunk of meat with a few accoutrements. Take a beef tenderloin, season it, sear it, slice thinly and serve with horseradish and roasted beet roots on a bed of lettuce. Mmmmmm. About a half-hour of work total, most of which can be done with a grill and a knife. Some would call it a carpaccio. Other spices work, too.
How do you have your eggs?
Mostly fried, and in a sandwich, for breakfast, but the beauty of eggs is that there are so many different ways to cook them.
Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
You mean other than the guy at McDonald's, right? See, there's this gal… The food was good. The company was better. But mostly, I'm the one who does the cooking, because I like to do it, and I think I'm pretty good at it.
- Spammers Fight Back in Court, suing Spamhaus and SPEWS. See, they say they're being libelled, and they don't really send unsolicited email, people really want it, and besides it wasn't even them–they were never even near the place.
- So now SCO says customers bear Linux legal risks because Linux is infringing on SCO intellectual property, so any company using it could be liable for damages. That'll win them a lot of friends, I'm sure.
- Metro Transit fare hikes, route cuts coming. Gonna have fewer routes, and they'll cost more during a longer rush-hour (which probably reflects reality a little better). Well, hopefully none of the routes I ride will get axed. [strib]
- I know the series isn't over yet, but the Wild sure looked done last night. It didn't help that Giguere was incredible in goal for the Ducks, but it looked to me like the Wild got outskated after Gabby's breakaway went for naught. In spite of the raw numbers on shots, Anaheim played more of their defence right in front of Roloson and Fernandez. Roloson wasn't in hoover-mode, and combined with the aggressive forechecking of the Ducks suddenly Anaheim looked like an offensive power. Even when the Wild had a power play, it looked like even strength hockey. I guess it's possible the Wild could come back, but I think the only real question remaining at this point is how long Giguere's shutout streak is going to last.
- Hey, tomorrow is the first pre-season game for the Saint Paul Saints. Time to break in the new grill and start working out some new entrees for the new season. I bought a grill that I'm hoping will be trike-portable, so I can ride to the games and have the pleasant downhill-run home along the nearly-deserted transitway after games. I just need to find a cute single gal who wants to come to ballgames with me, and I'll be set for the summer.
- It's rare that I update twice in a day, but I finally figured out what I thought about the legislators who walked out in Texas.
D.C. feels reverberations of Texas' Democrats' move, but sadly, not the kind of reverberations I'd hoped when I saw the headline. I think that DeLay's off base in saying he finds no honor in the Dems' tactics. Heck, they were facing an unwinnable battle, and they ran away to fight another day. In doing so, they've shut down the Texas Legislature (shut down means no bad laws will be passed). The Democratic spokesman made noises about how brave the Dems are for insisting that
the state House address real concerns like the education and health care. Pshaw. They were going to lose a big political battle and walked out. I just hope they have the guts to stay out until the next elections. Heck, someone who promised
If elected, I will not serve.and then proved it would have my vote in a heartbeat. But I also think that having None of the Above on the ballot is a good idea.
- So Buffy's almost done as a series, and they've started a Buffy Auction to sell off the props. Nothing I'm especially interested in, but there's some things that harder-core fans would probably appreciate, like a tank-top and jeans costume worn on the show that are already up to thirty-five-hundred dollars. Last night's episode was a reasonably good one again.
- Spammers, Reveal Thyselves! or face bigger penalties under a new law. See, they're going to be required to put real email addresses and physical addresses in their spam. Surprisingly enough, it echoes the wording favored by existing
Legal expert David Sorkin said the bill could legitimize much of what people now view as spam, leading to an increase in unwanted, if not deceptive, e-mail.That wouldn't surprise me at all.
- In Jayson Blair and lost faith, Kim Ode writes about how she's more shaken by the fact that people have lost faith in journalists than by Jayson Blair's lies.
Encountering deceit no longer packs the same wallop. Being fatalistic feels the same as being realistic. Speaking up seems hardly worth the effort. We make a big deal about whistleblowers or those who buck the system, which only helps to magnify their rarity.Yeah, we don't expect much of journalists because we don't expect much of anybody anymore. [strib]
- Ftrain: My friend the Arb describes how Paul's going to formalise all the bits that are currently living behind ftrain. It sounds ambitious, but it also sounds pretty cool as a way to organize a site. The organization is one of the things I've always liked about F-Train (beyond, the writing, natch), and I'll be interested to see how it all comes out.
- Dave Winer says he got a note from google PR saying that they're not removing blogs from their searches, but there's nothing on the google site about it yet. [scripting]
- Thanks to the Today-in-History page of Scope Systems, I remembered (or was reminded) that it was twelve years ago today that Apple released System 7. I keep thinking that I should someday write one of those "on this day" things, but it never quite gets done. The hardest part is populating the database with interesting events, and not just everything.
- The Fault that could Fracture the Conservative Coalition talks about the differences between libertarians and conservatives and how the current alliance could be on shaky ground. The way I see it, it's always been something of a shaky coalition. Sure, the Republicans are pro-gun, and that's an important right. But they're also pretty much pro-big-government, pro-stricking-their-noses-into-other-people's-business, and generally a pretty reliable ally of the nanny-state. The Democrats aren't any better, with their lust for an even bigger and more
- Feds Doing More Secret Searches under FISA. 30% more in 2002 than in the year before.
- I've wanted A TiVo Player for the Radio for a while, but unlike the writer, my primary use would be to replay something from a few seconds ago.
What was that? Oh, okay.Well, I'd probably set it up to record Cosmic Slop, too.
- SEC reaches deal in spam fraud case. The important bit was the fraud, not the spam.
- Sneaky virus spreading rapidly. Fizzer is a new windows virus going around. Glad I don't much use Windows.
- 99 Bottles of Beer: programs in 515 different computer languages that generate the lyrics to 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. [boing boing]
- How could we have missed Modern Drunkard Magazine for so long? It includes the Clash of the Tightest in which dead celebrity drunks are competing for the coveted title of Greatest Boozer of all time. They're down to the finals–Charles Bukowski vs. Jackie Gleason. Gleason's favored, odds are 3-2. [jim]
- Well, I don't know how Jim missed it, but I pointed to Modern Drunkard on December 20 last year and February 16 and April 13 of this year. But sadly, the search I have on the site doesn't find words within URLs, so it's hard to know that unless you can grep all of Dave's Picks.
- Is the move to selling music Apple's exit strategy? Could be. Things don't look all that good on the hardware front, but then again, there's been signs that something is brewing and we'll find out about it at the rescheduled WWDC. Then there's this article about Carving up Apple into separate hardware and software companies. I'm dubious. I've said it before, but I don't think a separate software company is something Apple really understands how to do. DenBeste has more on X86 Mac—getting from A to B, and says he doesn't think it's possible. [some guy]
- In response to my post the other day about finding good writing on the net, I received a pointer to unitedHeroes.net, which says it's
Free original fiction stories with the cool taste of Real Pastrami.
- Baseball Blogs seems to be strictly oriented to MLB, and link to a number of blogs that are either really recent creations (which could be good or bad), or which publish infrequently. I've considered doing something just about the Saints more than once, but that sort of thing falls in the
well fine, but how would I pay for it?class of things that would be cool to do, but I've already got plenty of non-profit projects.
- There's a discussion about the rumor that Google is doing away with blogs. Ev also had something to say about it, and what with him working at google now, he may have a clue. Russell Beattie thinks Andrew Orloski was right. Of course Russell seems to be the type of blogger who talks a lot and doesn't have a lot of links. I'd be frustrated if google took me to his site on a lot of searches, too. Then again, other than bloggers pointing to him, I don't find his stuff very often. Ole Eichhorn has some thoughts about Google and Blogs, including linking to some of the source documents. But he still thinks that google might want to exclude blogs from regular searches. I'm still confused by this, since I don't see blogs doing anything but improving the results of the searches I do on google. [scripting]
- Trust Us: MS Admits Security Gap in passport and Flaw exposes Microsoft ID service.
- So now what do I do? I was planning on driving up to my mom's for Mother's Day , but she just called, telling me that the road to her place is in such bad shape that the only traffic so far this morning was the guy who delivers the paper in a four-wheel-drive truck. Even the neighbor, who usually stops by for a cup of coffee hasn't made it over. A few years back they paved all but the last ¾ mile of the road to her place, but that last bit can get pretty soggy when it rains. With as much rain as we've had lately, I was planning on it being a mess, so when she says not to even bother coming up because I'll get stuck, I guess I'll listen. Which now leaves me with a big chunk of today that was previously unplanned. Not like there isn't plenty to do, but I've suddenly got to figure out which thing on the long to-do list should get my Sunday.
- Whether fresh air or ill wind, change blows into Minnesota, as the state slowly turns from a blue state to a red state. [strib]
- Surfin' Safari is a blog written by one of the engineers working on Safari. Useful and interesting stuff if that's the browser you're using, as I am most of the time.
- css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design. A cool example of how using CSS will let you change your site's look easily. [zeldman]
- I think I like Rich Kulawiec's Draconian idea to rid the Net of spam, forever. Yeah, it might be a little harsh, but maybe that's what it takes. It mentions SPEWS.ORG - the internet's Spam Prevention Early Warning System. as the only solution that actually works.
- Saints try new games to attract more fans and keep the seats full.
- Don't write off the net as far as good writing goes–it's not all just h4×0rz writing L337–there's actually some pretty good stuff out there, and having websites is probably helping a lot of people write regularly, which helps make more good writing. The biggest problem now is finding the good writing. [boing boing]
- Google to fix blog noise problem. Me, I don't know that there's really a problem, but then I've always had pretty good luck searching with google. And where would sites like mine that are part blog, and part long-term content get classified? It'll be interesting to see how it comes out. [scripting]
- Blogger forces Irish domain registry into sunlight, which means that folks will finally be able to see why it is that .ie domains cost about 10 times what .com domains do. [scripting]
- People For Internet Responsibility announces TRIPOLI, a rewrite of the email infrastructure of the 'net in order to allow individuals more control over their email, rather than ISPs, so everyone can set their own tolerance for spam. It's an ambitious project, but they seem to have thought about many of the tougher issues, and it would be nice if it can get implemented.
- The Segway drives Woz to drink! Cool. It's part of the SEG STORIES part of Woz's website.
- Music Industry Poised for Another Bad Move, moving more toward copy-protected silvery discs that only work in some CD players (they're not CDs–and last I heard, Philips is still standing tough on that), which decreases demand by up to 76%. It decreases my demand for 'em by 100%.
- This morning my schedule got all kerfuffled. First there was last night's Wild game to watch on the TV, leading to me being up past my bedtime. But this morning, starting at 8am, the city was going to be working on the water mains, so the water would be shut off at 8 (they actually shut it off at 7:55am) until they're done with whatever work needs doing. The guy said
a couple hours, unless something goes wrong. Anyway, my normal morning routine is to wake up sometime between 5:30 and 7:30, spend an hour or two surfing the web and putting together Dave's Picks for the day (if you guessed I'm normally attired in fluffy bunny slippers and a ratty bathrobe during that process, you'd be half-right), then a bit of breakfast, and the morning ablutions, which end up being between 8 and 9 am, and then it's time to start working for the day.
But that wouldn't work today. Instead, the schedule was: wake at 6:45, sit down to check overnight email, read message I'd sent to myself reminding me about the water, shower, breakfast, brush teeth, and then finally get to surfing around the web. All basically a very long-winded way of saying it's the city's fault I'm running behind on getting the stuff posted for the day. Sorry. But hey, at least I'm wearing pants!
- Wild stuns Vancouver 4-2 in game 7:
The way things are going for the Wild, the NHL should just spot the Mighty Ducks a 3-1 lead right now and let the Wild roar back and break that record, too.I don't watch much NHL hockey normally, and to be honest, I wasn't expecting much of the Wild this year. Heck, I'm still a little bitter about the Sharks and the Stars moving out of town (when the North Stars got split into two teams), but I watched games 5, 6, and 7 of the series against Vancouver, and it's been some good hockey. [strib]
the wild's chances?
Colby Cosh NHL Playoffs Page says it best:
the wild's chances now
Anaheim-Minnesota in the final? Haw haw—that's a good bet in 2005, all right. Sometimes the great game of hockey makes delirious fools of us all.In Cosh's case, it would seem he might still be mistaken, as Minnesota started out ranked higher than the Ducks. Time will tell. [colby cosh]
- Speaking of hockey, there are more updates on the Hockey Riot 2003. One explusion and the regents at the U are suitably concerned and doing something.
- Dinkytown revives with new businesses. It's interesting watching it from my perspective. I've been living in the area for most of the past twenty years, and Dinkytown has always been the commercial hub for me. The resurgence lately has actually hurt it a bit from my point of view, since the hardware store has moved on, but it's nice to see more businesses making a go of it in Dinkytown.
- Pawlenty offers a deal: 2 a.m. bar close and more cops, which seems relatively fair. A 2am closing time would probably be a big change in Dinkytown, and I've wondered for years why there isn't one squad always stationed there weekend evenings at bar close. It might cut down on the drunks playing bumper-cars in the parking lot at 1:15am. [strib]
- Real World Technologies - Coding Challenge I compares various human optimizations of some code. The upshot? A smart human who can fix the algorithm wins hands down over small tweaks like loop-unrolling. There's nothing really earth-shattering here, and the main reason I point at it is that it's the same kind of work ETA Systems had me doing in 1984. It's interesting to see that people are still wrestling with the same problems we were almost twenty years ago.
- MacMerc.com: Alsoft Releases DiskWarrior 3.0 For Mac OS X. Yet another of the utilities I depend upon is now native. I'm spending over half my time in Mac OS X now, and have found that I prefer it for a few reasons, most of which boil down to the fact that on classic Mac OS, with coöperative multitasking, well-written applications still run better, but applications that aren't so well-written run better on X. And I'm stuck running some applications (such as CodeWarrior) that just aren't done that well.
- Camera, cellphone launches hit by lens shortages. See there's plenty of cheap-ass lenses and 640×480 CMOS sensors for bad cameras, but the actual glass lenses and CCD sensors you need for more than a megapixel of resolution are now in short supply, because Japanese cell-phone makers are upgrading the resolution of the cameras in their phones. Guess maybe it's not time for a new digital camera just yet.
- A couple quickie updates on the hockey riots: Regents to consider riot policy, financial aid and Fourth felony is issued in riots, this one to a non-student.
- Stupid Sentencing Tricks: U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum is coming under fire for having publicly questioned the new sentencing
guidelinespassed by Congress with no discussion at all.
- Finally, a quick mental state update. I've been pretty busy, and more than a little out of sorts lately. I aimed to solve that by just taking yesterday off and not doing any real work. I caught up on email a bit, had lunch with a friend, spent most of the afternoon watching things my TiVo had grabbed for me, had a beer with another friend in the evening, and then watched the Wild keep their playoff hopes alive. Now it's time to find out if the better mood can survive a full day of work and being a little farther behind on things. Wish me luck.
- It's Tuesday evening. I'm tired, cranky, and hungry. I decide I'll eat some frozen microwave lasagna. So why are the directions so darned hard to follow?
Heat 4 minutes in microwave. Stir sauce around edges. Heat two more minutes in microwave. Serve. Enjoy.Why is it that last step in the directions that's always the hardest?
- Judge Rules Against Pooh Heir. A. A. Milne's granddaughter never had the marketing rights to Winnie the Pooh, so she never could have sold them to Disney. Y'know, this wouldn't be anything like a big issue if Disney didn't spend so much time and energy trying to extend the term of copyright so none of their
propertieswould ever expire. [boing boing]
- Government, companies race to patent SARS virus, raising ethics questions. Okay, explain to me again how you can patent a virus. Hey! How about I patent Hydrogen? Feh.
- Cindy Cohn from the EFF gave a Report from FTC Spam Conference in which she mentions that a big concern is that there are legitimate mailing lists which are being blocked by spam-blocking software. Yes, that's true. It's also true that I don't give money to non-profits who contact me by phone anymore. While I may like their cause, telemarketers have wrecked the phone as a tool for raising funds from me. Spammers have wrecked email. If some non-profit wants money from me, they're going to have to send a letter on paper (and not 23 increasingly urgent letters beginning just after my yearly tithe telling me that my
annual membershipis about to expire, either) [boing boing]
- U renters protest, sue landlord Eischens. Our neighborhood association also hears a lot of complaints about him.
- Glow is off Minnesota's once-venerated tobacco deal, as the money MN received is now being used to make up general budget shortfalls, rather than anything remotely to do with tobacco. Not surprising, but disappointing. [strib]
- Steveo's got more to say about Blogshares cont. But there are other problems, too. If you buy up all the shares of your own blog (like Scott did), you end up actually driving the price down because it's not being traded actively, so the price doesn't move (either up or down). It doesn't emulate supply and demand. And for whatever reason, putting in a buy-order above market value almost never seems to get fulfilled, so that doesn't much affect the price, either. The artificial limitation on buying more then 12.5% of the shares of a blog just feels wrong, since if there are shares available (from whom?), why shouldn't I be able to buy them? Grumble. It's said (see the comments) that they're fixing the system, but why wasn't it fixed during beta? Grumble.
- High Court Ruling Blasts Telemarket Fraud. Basically it means that telemarketers can't lie to you about where the money they're collecting will go, even if it's for a charity. [fark!]
- CNet's reviewing the Color Sidekick (aka Hiptop). Doesn't look like they've managed to hook up the IR port yet, or for that matter make any way for me to get my data from the SideKick to something else. Grumble.
- Okay, so it's Cinco de Mayo and I could probably go on about how it's a swell holiday and all and I'd like to see the Mexicans take the holiday back from the drunken white frat-boys, but I don't really have the energy for it. Sorry to leave you with just three cheese sandwich posts today, but none of the news jumped out at me, and I'm not feeling all that jazzed about anything in particular. I'm still alive, and doing okay. I just don't have much to blog at the moment.
- I spent yesterday taking care of the little things and decided to spend a little time writing about it. It was a pretty good day, I think. I guess the real test will be how today goes after I spent yesterday clearing the decks so I could theoretically have a productive day today.
- I was thinking about writing up some of my recent confusion about women. There's actually been some, and I figured maybe some reader would be able to shed light on the situations that have left me scratching my head. But then I got an email containing The Top Ten Things Men Know and Understand About Women, and figured that pretty much covered it.
- Radke, Ullger suspended, fined for role in beanball battle with Tampa Bay. That's the ballgame that I went to on Wednesday with Steph, Tim & Jim. Steph commented about it on her blog (scroll to the May 1 entry), but I missed the biggest part of the hassles, as I was in the men's room at the time. D'Ohh! But I was pretty sure the Tampa Bay pitcher who was warned in the first inning just had no control at all, and it really didn't seem all that weird to me. I guess I'm too used to watching minor-league ball. [strib]
- I've been thinking about BlogShares (link takes you to my portfolio) and aside from it being a fairly time-consuming bit of entertainment, I had a feeling of unease about it. I mean look at the quantities of virtual money floating around in the system, and where the heck did it come from?!? This morning it struck me–the biggest problem with blogshares is that it isn't a zero-sum game. It's possible to make money in the game without anyone else losing money, and that's led to some behaviors that just wouldn't work in a real stock market such as being able to buy all the shares of a blog, thereby driving up the price, and then dumping them all at once. With no other person involved in the trades, it was possible for me to parley $500 into over $25,000 during the beta-period, and to turn that into over $30k in the first day or two of "real" play, without affecting anyone else's balance. The thing I feel worst about is that it took me this long to figure it out.
- Last monday when my server had a kernel panic, and needed to be manually rebooted, I figured out how to make it restart by itself. Automatically rebooting OpenBSD after a panic is the result.
- OpenBSD 3.3 has finally arrived. There's some pretty cool new technology in there to make the OS even more secure.
- Spam E-Mail Problem Worse Than Imagined:
If there are not immediate improvements implemented across the board by technologists, service providers and perhaps lawmakers, e-mail is at risk of being run into the ground.Yeah, it's bad. But there are tools to filter out most of the crap, it's just that so few email providers are actually running them.
- Spam Invasion: Your Cell Phone. If you get text-messaging on your cell-phone, especially if you pay per-message costs, things could get expensive real soon.
- Talking about spam, I've been using SpamAssassin, but here's an article on how to Fight Spam with SpamProbe. It looks like another reasonable system. But I'm thinking pretty hard about switching to an email client that supports IMAP. Leaving the mail on the server is starting to sound like a better and better idea, especially since it makes it so much easier to train the spam-spotting tools.
- Finally, Steve Jobs: "It's So Cool". Steve's talking about the iMusic thing. Thing is, I just can't get that excited about it yet. Steve says that they're going to be signing up independent labels soon, but they haven't yet. But between the RIAA's harping on DRM and piracy, and the way the labels screw most artists, I just haven't had the urge to buy any new music for a couple years. But there's no arguing that it's the best music-download system out there at the moment if that's what you want to do. In one day, Apple sold more music than all the other online music services did in the past six months (at least that's the statistic I remember hearing that I can't find the source for again).
- The Strib led today's paper with three stories on the new concealed carry law in Minnesota. Most see handgun law making Minnesota more dangerous, in part because the poll doesn't mention that to get a concealed carry permit you have to go through training. But the real issue isn't whether people think it'll make things safer or not, it's whether it will actually make things safer. People also predicted that when Florida got a similar concealed carry law, it would lead to old-west style shootouts, and it didn't. It decreased some kinds of crime. [strib]
- Studies inconclusive whether concealed handgun laws make states safer, but
What we've found is there's been no significant increase in crime, because the people getting permits are law-abiding people.[strib]
- In spite of the title, Your neighbor? Coworker? Date? Look who's packin' now actually seems to be a reasonably fair look at the training required to get a permit. [strib]
- AlterNet: Patriot Raid. The fact that this is happening in America makes me feel sick. [endwar]
- Court blocks campaign finance reform, striking down the ban on special interest groups advertising in the 60 days before any federal election. This was probably the worst part of the law, since it would have prevented most issue advertising by anything other than a private individual in the months leading up to an election.
- U.S. says Canada cares too much about liberties. Someone in the US State Department seems to need a refresher in the Bill of Rights. [accordionguy]
- Heading off film piracy / Movie trade group staying one step ahead in lobbying efforts. The MPAA is doing a lot better job of lobbying than the RIAA had, and they've gotten legistlation passed in some states because the volunteers at the EFF haven't been able to cover all the bases. Some of the state legislation that's passed (and is proposed) could end up banning TiVo in those states.
- I don't see it on any US news sites, but the World Tribune says US Special Forces may have captured Bin Laden in Afghanistan. [jim]
- Fairly-Secure Anti-SPAM Gateway Using OpenBSD, Postfix, Amavisd-new, SpamAssassin, Razor and DCC. Better than the writeup I did on installing SpamAssassin on OpenBSD? More thorough, to be sure, but it doesn't use sendmail.
- How To Make A Telemarketer Cry (or, Suing Bozos for Fun & Profit). Speaking of which, fax.com tried to send me their latest crap last night. I finally bit the bullet and am now paying an extra $7/month so everyone who calls me can be annoyed by having to press a button or two to get through. [boing boing]
- Every Unhappy Family Has Its Own Bilinear Influence Function. Expressing conversations as math. Cool.
- Size does matter: The top ultracompact cameras rounded up and compared by ZDNet. Come to think of it, I haven't bought a new digital camera in a while…
- The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is running A Survey of Blogs and Bloggers. [fark!]
- Steveo's got More RSS Ranting. Here's my take: I read the web using a browser in the morning. It's my morning news, and I hit a few papers, a few comics, and a slew of blogs every morning. The results end up in Dave's Picks at some point. Then in the evening, when I'm watching the TV, I fire up the laptop and use some RSS tool to browse through a different set of news. News that's more geek-oriented. Sometimes links come of that, but more often it's a matter of spotting something that looks newsworthy, and then I'll see some neat commentary the next morning that I end up linking to. The RSS is more of a headline-skimmer for me, I guess.
- Why Blogs Haven't Stormed the Business World discusses the problem organizing the large amounts of text that most bloggers accumulate. I've been thinking about that problem for the entries here, too. But the author of the article seems to have completely missed systems that do offer better organization, like More Like This, b2++ or b2 ftrain (which source isn't available, but the site works well most of the time), slash or scoop or any of the other technologies people have rolled together to solve the very problem the author's going on about.
- Now everyone's Licensed to War Drive in N.H., since a new law was passed explicitly making it legal to access a wireless network which has not been secured. Basically it means that if you connect to a wireless network without a password, the owner of that network can't sue you. In other states, you're a criminal if you access an open network. The NH law, if signed, will take effect in January 2004.
- Last Month
31. May, 2003 - shitty business permalink
30. May, 2003 - Underachieving permalink
29. May, 2003 - No Pictures permalink
28. May, 2003 - not today, thanks permalink
I know you've probably been frantically hitting "reload" waiting for the links for the day and wondering why I'm so tardy, but I don't have much for you today. Have a nice day, and get out and enjoy the beautiful weather we're having in Minneapolis today, rather than spending your time reading the web. If you're not in Minneapolis, I hope your weather is as nice as ours is today.
27. May, 2003 - back to work permalink
26. May, 2003 - Saints Opening Weekend Recap permalink
25. May, 2003 - not the pink meat permalink
24. May, 2003 - Geek out! permalink
23. May, 2003 - Saints Home Opener! permalink
22. May, 2003 - gone nuts? permalink
21. May, 2003 - Moo, damnit! permalink
20. May, 2003 - Pfffft permalink
19. May, 2003 - one month to MacHack permalink
18. May, 2003 - lazy permalink
17. May, 2003 - light weekend fare permalink
16. May, 2003 - busy weekend permalink
15. May, 2003 - almost a new season permalink
14. May, 2003 - my expectations are low permalink
13. May, 2003 - 12 years since system 7.0 permalink
12. May, 2003 - follow-ups permalink
11. May, 2003 - Mother's Day permalink
10. May, 2003 - I don't seem to have an eLife, either permalink
9. May, 2003 - schedule chaos permalink
8. May, 2003 - all over the map permalink
7. May, 2003 - Heat. Serve. Enjoy? permalink
6. May, 2003 - Grumbling permalink
5. May, 2003 - I got nothin' permalink
4. May, 2003 - last week - spam permalink
3. May, 2003 - concealed carry in MN permalink
2. May, 2003 - Only 7 more days until the weekend! permalink
1. May, 2003 - Mayday! permalink


text:
During the reading of David Perkin's book Making Learning Whole, I was able to make connections to the way that I manage my classroom and I discovered so many other ways that I can teach for understanding. Practicing skills on a regular basis without the real world application of how it works doesn't allow students to make the connection and see the importance of what they are learning. Perkins used the analogy of baseball practice: the practice of pitching, catching, hitting, and throwing. He discussed how working on the small parts prepares one for the big game. It's not until you put it all together to play the whole game of baseball that you see the importance of practicing the small parts.
When setting my goals for the year, I knew that I wanted to try "playing the whole game" in the classroom. I knew it would be a challenge and somewhat of a risk, but I wanted to further investigate project-based learning and give it a try. The students would be given the chance to develop autonomy, decision-making and problem solving skills, and apply the English content in the process. Learning grammar in isolation does not give the students the opportunity to see how it is supposed to work through real world situations. Throughout the project, the students were provided formative assessments that gave them the feedback that they needed to help them grow as writers. They were able to work on the hard parts and improve according to individual needs.
The best part about project-based learning is that the students were able to "play out of town." They were able to take the grammar and writing, the higher-level reading skills, and the science and math that they were learning and apply them to the project as they made generalizations about their guiding questions of their space topic. They found a problem that they needed to solve and they come up with a hypothesis about a possible outcome. They used a KWL thinking routine to help them with inquiry that would guide their research. After investigating and exploring their chosen topic, they ultimately came up with a solution where they had to weigh their options and decide if their solution was worth the risk.
Through the process of PBL, the "hidden game" revealed itself. Reciprocal teaching occurred where the students were guided but were allowed the role of the teacher. They self-managed by using a rubric of expectations, a time-line, and a problem-solving guide that allowed them to organize their thoughts, record their findings, and reflect on what they discovered along the way. This opportunity allowed the students the freedom to be inquisitive and explore their curiosity through research. They definitely benefited from "learning from the team" as they collaboratively worked together on a daily basis to problem-solve. The end product involved a reflection paper, a model representation of their project, and the use of technology (prezi, iMovie, powerpoints, and glogster) to present their discoveries to class.
There are many things that I would do differently the next go-round of PBL, but that is part of playing the whole game. Now I will work on the hard parts as I will expect my students to do, and through my continued reflections, I hope to fine-tune the experience for my next year's students.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Dear co-developers, Could somebody help me to compile a really small binary for Windows? (1MB or less?) I don't need all decoders and only one encoder : Input file formats : Windows Media Video (.wmv, .asf) QuickTime (.mov) AVI MPEG-1, -2, -4 DV (.dv) .3gp (mobile phones) Output file format .flv (Flash 7) Anybody? Help is greatly appreciated. Gremmen


text:
Well, I didn't know that I was tagged. But then 3 awards also came to me from the same lovely blogger: Pretty Wonderful. {the tag was from her too (: } YEEYY..! So.. here are my questions.. (This is my first tag and my first awards! So, just ignore my super histeria reaction on these xp)
1. who or what is your inspiration?
I got my inspiration through people around me and from the bloggers. I read many blogs in one day, and they've been be an inspiration to me.
2. What is your makeup brand?
Etude House, Estee Lauder, Maybelline
3. What is your favorite makeup brand?
MAC~Hello Kitty collections
4. Would you rather go out with no makeup on with done hair, or undone hair and finished makeup?
I would rather go out with NO makeup at all with done hair. I'll have a bad mood and lack of confidence all day if my hair was a mess!
5. Name 5 things that's in your bag
wallet, mobile phone, lipstick, keys and the bag itself xp
6. Name something every makeup enthusiast should have
a BB cream?
7. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grow up?
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a doctor
8. What is your favorite clothes shop?
I'll say ZARA, Forever21 and Kamiseta
And, these are the awards..
Now, I have to choose bloggers to receive these 3 awards. And they are:
Hope you all like the awards! (maybe you want do the tag too? it's up to you guys!) ENJOY!!(:


text: Hello to all ... I have uploaded ocaml 3.04-3 to master incoming, and also available at the usual place (ftp://lambda.u-strasbg.fr/debian/3.04). This one fix the build problem on both ia64 and powerpc, as well as has ocaml depending on ocaml-base. It also fixes the missing camlp4 conflict. Both build problems are just workarounds, as there is not yet a new official fix, but it is working on. on ia64, i just disabled the opt.opt make target which caused the stack overflow, and on powerpc i applied mark brown's patch, which made powerpc use a long jump instead of a local jump somewhere, don't sure it really fix the bug, but it should allow ocaml to be built on powerpc and thus enter testing after a few weeks. The dh_ocaml.ml stuff is not yet in, i need still to work on it, but we needed to have a version that build on all woody release candidate arches, and that included ia64 and powerpc, quickly. I may also have missed some stuff you sent to me over christmas, please forgive me for it, and just resend it to me. (well only the ocaml stuff, i will soon look at ocaml-doc, lablgl and lablgtk.) Friendly, Sven Luther


text:
COSTA MESA — Just three months ago, the Orange County Employees Assn. applauded a California government watchdog group that suggested Mayor Gary Monahan and another council member violated the state's open-meeting law by sitting on a two-member budget committee behind closed doors.
Last week, Monahan returned the favor by calling for county prosecutors to investigate OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino in his new role as a member of the O.C. Fair Board because, in his view, Berardino is not conducting the public's business in public.
But it remained unclear Wednesday whether a letter — penned by Berardino and sent to other members of the Fair Board — that called for an audit actually violates the state's opening-meetings law. The state owns the fairgrounds.


text:
Why is PayPal displaying the calculation of eCart discounts and charges as Shipping and Handling?
I have recently noticed that if eCart is displaying and forwarding both discounts and charges to PayPal, they are displayed as a "Shipping and Handling" option line item under PayPal. However, when discounts are only being applied, but no charges, PayPal displays a "Discount" options line item with the correct discount total.
I understand that PayPal limits the number of option line items it can display at any given time. I also have noticed within my (pp_confirm.php) page that that eCart charges subtracts from any eCart discounts. This appears to be the catalyst for the "Shipping and Handling" option line item which PayPal appears to be displaying.
Is there a way to reword the PayPal "Shipping and Handling" label so it correctly displays the difference between charges and discounts?
My site does not apply taxes or shipping charges. Is there a way to modify these options to display the charges and discounts correctly?


text:
All items > Knives > Custom Knives > Crawford (Custom)
- Overall Length:4.875"
- Blade Length:1.25"
- Blade Thickness:0.10"
- Blade Material:Stainless Steel
- Blade Style:Dagger
- Blade Grind:Chisel
- Edge Type:Plain
- Handle Length:3.625"
- Handle Thickness:0.10"
- Handle Material:Titanium
- Color:Black
- Weight:1.12 oz.
- Sheath:Kydex
- Knife Type:Fixed Blade
- Brand:Crawford
- Country of Origin:USA
- Finish:Black
- Model:Custom
- Best Use:Everyday Carry
- Product Type:Knife
This Crawford Bottle Opener is a black finished stainless steel knife with a DLC finish. This great little knife can open a box, a letter and a bottle! It can be worn with the provided Kydex sheath and ball chain around your neck or just carried in your pocket.


text:
You may be familiar with our Tampa Bay Fellows program. This nine-month initiative began three years ago here at Holy Trinity in an attempt to equip and train young Christian professionals in the working world to go about their particular callings and lives in a truly Christian manner, allowing the Scriptures to speak to every facet of business, academia, and the like, no matter the cost. Our hope is that this program would assist the church in raising up faithful Christian artists, business executives, teachers, scientists, etc. who live and work out of a truly biblical worldview.
We will hold an information session for anyone who is interested in learning more about the 2018-2019 program Wednesday, March 21 at 7:00 pm at the home of Wink & Gretchen Hall – 3614 W. Jetton Ave. Tampa, FL 33629. Whether you are a prospective Fellow or not, we'd love to have you join us to learn more and help spread the word about next year's program beginning September of 2018. Direct questions to Leslie Hall.


text:
The game with Western was quite the experience. It was amazingly hot, hot, hot followed by amazingly wet, wet, wet and windy.
Sept. 3, 2011
Site: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Michigan Stadium)
Score: Michigan 34, Western Michigan 10 (declared final with 1:27 left in third quarter due to weather)
Records: U-M (1-0), Western Michigan (0-1)
Attendance: 110,506
Next U-M Game: Saturday, Sept. 10 -- vs. Notre Dame - Under the Lights (Michigan Stadium), 8 p.m. (TV: ESPN)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Senior weakside linebacker Brandon Herron (Stafford, Texas/Dulles) became the first Wolverine in school history to post two defensive scores in a single contest, helping lead the University of Michigan football to a 34-10 win over Western Michigan in the 2011 season opener, which was declared final with 1:27 in the third quarter due to weather on Saturday (Sept. 3) inside Michigan Stadium. The victory is head coach Brady Hoke's first at the helm of the Michigan program.
Although the opening kickoff featured 90-degree heat and sunny skies, storms from the southwest rolled over Michigan Stadium in the second half. The game was suspended twice in the third quarter after lightning was spotted within six miles of the stadium. The first suspension resulted in only a 30-minute delay, but the bleak outlook of the second suspension forced Michigan and Western Michigan officials to call the game with 1:27 left in the third quarter and declare the Wolverines the winner. This is the first Michigan football game to end due to weather before all 60 minutes of regulation have been played.
The rains came (and thunder and lightning!):
The students didn't want to leave!
At least it cooled off by 10 degrees or so. Tom and Dick hung in there until the end...I left after the first quarter - just couldn't handle the heat and no shade. Wimpy wimpy wimpy. During the storm, the thermometer in the car said 84.
When we got back to the apartment there were trees and branches down everywhere. What a storm. We ordered pizza and the delivery person actually found our apt.
We had a great time with Tom - he loved the game and had a good time, weather notwithstanding. He wanted the game to continue, claiming that 8 year old girls play soccer in the snow!
Speaking of Tom, our plans have changed and we're not going to Tom's in Dec. Chip has made Captain and will be flying reserve - most likely will have to fly on Christmas Day, and will not be as able to adjust his time off for a while. We're all going to Florida again, and we figure that we'll have Christmas on whatever day he can be home.


text:
Are Bonnie Dumanis' prosecutorial decisions for elected officials affected by politics?
Yes 86% (364)
No 14% (60)
424 total votes.
The elected official accepted hundreds of dollars of theater and opera tickets, all the while steering millions of taxpayer dollars to the people paying the bills.
A South Bay official charged with corruption? No.
Supervisor Pam Slater-Price accepted the tickets, while dispensing grants to the opera and the Old Globe Theatre. After The Watchdog revealed she failed to report the gifts on state forms, she was given a $2,000 administrative fine in 2010.
Slater-Price's act — failing to report gifts on state-mandated forms — is what has four current and former officials of the Sweetwater schools in trouble with the District Attorney's Office.
They are accused of taking meals (and theater tickets) from a contractor and then steering public money toward his contract. They have pleaded not guilty to perjury and filing false statements, 24 felonies total related to the failure to disclose the gifts.
Defense attorney Marc Carlos, who represents accused Sweetwater board member Pearl Quiñones, is skeptical of the differing treatment.
"It seems some people are allowed to amend their forms and don't get any prosecution," Carlos said. "The timing is curious considering the upcoming elections, is all I'll say."
Dumanis is a Republican running for mayor of San Diego, endorsed by Slater-Price, another Republican. Former Chula Vista Councilman Mitch Thompson said the political question is legitimate.
"What about Pam Slater-Price and the gifts she received?" Thompson said. "Did they get examined or did they get a pass? I would say Bonnie needs to answer the question to the public, what is the difference between people in the South Bay and what Pam Slater-Price did?"
Dumanis declined to discuss specific cases and rejected any idea that her prosecutorial decisions are political, calling it offensive and a disservice to her staff.
"We investigate, we examine the evidence and facts, and make a determination if there is sufficient evidence to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt," Dumanis said. "It doesn't matter where you live, what your party registration is, or who you are. There are no sacred cows."
Slater-Price rejected the comparison as well, through Chief of Staff John Weil.
Slater-Price fails to report gifts of tickets
Campaign funds tapped to pay state fine
County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price Endorses Bonnie Dumanis for Mayor
"The supervisor's opera tickets should have been reported. We owned up to that," Weil said. "It was a clerical oversight. The supervisor immediately paid for the tickets with her own money.
"Any comparison of the two cases is a desperate attempt by an attorney to defend his Sweetwater clients. This isn't even apples to oranges. This is apples to giraffes."
When Dumanis announced the Sweetwater charges on Jan. 4, she called it perhaps the worst case of public corruption uncovered on her watch.
Contractor Henry Amigable was charged with bribery, which he denies. None of the public officials were charged with accepting bribes — an inconsistency noted by former District Attorney Paul Pfingst, who is representing former Superintendent Jesus Gandara. The charges against the elected officials are related to the paperwork omission.
"If the violation is a reporting one," noted former City Attorney Michael Aguirre, a longtime Dumanis critic not involved in the case, "then Dumanis' claim that it may be the worst corruption case she has seen is a gross overstatement."
The investigation is expanding, prosecutors say. Still, the Sweetwater case has focused attention on Dumanis' public integrity unit and what it has done— and not done — since Dumanis launched it in 2007.
Dumanis said the unit has filed "dozens of public integrity cases against many types of defendants in several areas of the county."
The bulk of the cases pursued by the unit have involved charges against public employees, and only a handful have involved elected officials. One of those was another South Bay elected official — Chula Vista Councilman Steve Castaneda, who was acquitted of perjury charges in 2008 in the first major case filed by the unit.
Dumanis said that the unit was never intended to focus only on elected officials, though the official announcement in 2007 spoke only about elected officials, candidates and campaign officials.
"It was always the mission to include public employees," she said. "The purpose was, to put people on notice."
Through the end of last year the public integrity unit had investigated 94 cases, said Deputy District Attorney Damon Mosler, who oversees the unit.
Of those, some 35 cases resulted in prosecutions, he said. The balance were either referred to other agencies, such as the Fair Political Practices Commission, or closed because there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction or it was determined no crime was committed.
Prosecutors have secured convictions against a former city parks worker who stole $40,000 from a recreation center, a San Diego Unified School District worker who was convicted of grand theft, and a former Oceanside school principal who also admitted stealing thousands of dollars from elementary schools where she worked.
Allegations of misconduct against some elected officials ended with different results. Slater-Price was not prosecuted. Her case was handled as an administrative matter by the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Encinitas mayor got appliance deal
Encinitas mayor didn't report $100,000 loan
In another case Dan Dalager, the former Democrat mayor of Encinitas, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor conflict of interest charge in 2011 and was fined $1,000. The charges stemmed from Dalager accepting deeply discounted appliances from a store owner, then voting in the owner's favor in a dispute with the city.
Dalager's plea did not cover a potentially more serious allegation reported by The Watchdog — that Dalager received a $100,000 loan from a constituent, did not disclose it on state-mandated forms, then cast the council lone vote to cut development fees as advocated by the constituent.
"This is what it looks like to us here in the South Bay," said Bea Fernández, vice president of the South Bay Forum, a club for Democrats. "It looks like she (Bonnie) is very selective on whom she and her unit investigates. What about the county supervisor and the Encinitas councilman? Did they get their homes raided? Did they get their records scrutinized because they had a lunch? Do we really think they never met with a contractor?"
Mosler said prosecutors considered more serious charges against Dalager but concluded there was not enough evidence to prove he received a financial benefit.
"We go where the evidence takes us," Mosler said. "Not everything is appropriate for a criminal remedy when there are other administrative or civil penalties that can be used."
Wendy Fry contributed to this reportCopyright © 2019, The San Diego Union-Tribune


text:
Friend's Email:
Subject: I have found a DVD that I think you would enjoy
|The Apartment
Actors: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Dorothy Abbott, Edie Adams
Genres: Indie & Art House, Comedy, Drama
NR 2001 2hr 5min
Winner* of five 1960 Academy AwardsÂ(r), including Best Picture, The Apartment is legendary writer/director Billy Wilder at his scathing, satirical best, and one of "the finest comedies Hollywood has turned out" (Newsweek)... more »
Larger Image
Movie Details
Similar Movies
Similarly Requested DVDs
Member Movie Reviews
Michel D. (michelann) from WALNUT GROVE, MO
Reviewed on 6/7/2016...
This is one of those old classics that is hard to beat when it comes to entertaining! Cast is super talented and writing is excellent! Even though it's in black and white after it starts I forgot and just laughed and enjoyed!
1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.
Movie Reviews
Classic Wilder-but not classic treatment for the DVD
Stephen Reginald | Chicago, IL United States | 09/03/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The Apartment is an insightful movie made by one of cinema's most talented directors. The plot is fairly simple, but C.C. Baxter's (Jack Lemmon) is anything but. By innocently lending out his apartment to a coworker, Baxter's residence becomes the love nest for his philandering colleagues. Along the way, Baxter develops a friendship with Fran Kubelik (Shirley Maclaine), one of several attractive female elevator operators. Baxter is rewarded for his generosity by getting promoted by Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). Little does he realize that Fran is Sheldrake's latest plaything. The Apartment has all that you expect from the best of Wilder: great performances, witty dialogue, and a plot that holds to this day, even if most of the depiction of the corporate office environment has changed dramatically (When was the last time you saw an elevator operator?). The three stars provide great characterizations, with MacMurray the real surprise here playing against type. This film is also notable for solidifying the Wilder/Lemmon team. With The Apartment, Lemmon was no longer playing second male leads or supporting roles. A worthwhile film that is still enjoyable today, but the DVD version leaves much to be desired. The picture quality is good, but the looping (the sound synchronization) is off and very distracting. Don't know the reason for this, but considering this film's place in cinema history, I would have thought it would have gotten the A treatment. The DVD is a disappointment."
A Very Nearly Perfect Film
Robert Moore | Chicago, IL USA | 08/06/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Most people consider Billy Wilder's best film to be SOME LIKE IT HOT, but while I love that movie, THE APARTMENT has not only been my favorite Billy Wilder film ever, but one of my favorite movies, period. Few movies have managed to blend together so many tragic, humorous, and romantic elements so completely and so well.Over the years I had managed to see THE APARTMENT five or six times. Each time I had seen it either as a TV broadcast film or on VHS. Therefore, I had never seen it in widescreen format. Seeing it for the first time in its widescreen version brought the film home with greater power than ever. What a great movie!The acting in this movie is utterly beyond reproach. In my opinion, this was Jack Lemmon's finest role. It is impossible to imagine anyone else playing C. C. Baxter. Cast anyone else in that role, and you have a lesser film. Although Fred MacMurray today is primarily remembered for his role on MY THREE SONS, he was also a highly capable villain, and he was never nastier than he was here. Shirley MacLaine was never more adorable than as Fran Kubelik. Unbelievably, she lost the Oscar that year to Elizabeth Taylor (for BUTTERFIELD 8. Although no one today would compare either Taylor's performance to MacLaine's in THE APARTMENT, at the time of the voting Taylor was seriously ill and appeared to be in danger of dying. Unfortunately, from time to time Oscars are awarded less on merit of performance, but for other reasons. For instance, in 1940, Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY primarily because voters felt bad that he hadn't won the previous year for MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. But Stewart's winning meant that one of the greatest performances in the history of American cinema, Henry Fonda's portrayal of Tom Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, was not recognized with an Oscar. (Far from being cutthroat competitors, Fonda and Stewart were best friends.) In the spring of 1961, Elizabeth Taylor's health apparently was a greater factor than Shirley MacLaine's much stronger performance.Having seen this movie several times, what strikes me is how many memorable though apparently everyday moments remain vivid over time: Jack Lemmon using a tennis racket as a spaghetti strainer; the way that Lemmon quickly rifles through cards on his desk; the game of cards that Baxter and Kubelik play in his apartment while she recovers; the toothpicks and olives arranged in a circle in a bar; the quirks and mannerisms of each of Baxter's immediate superiors; Lemmon starting to shave only to realize that he had earlier removed and hidden the blades in his razor.I don't buy many DVDs or videos, but I bought this one the second that I saw that it was available in widescreen."
Stay At The Apartment
Thomas Magnum | NJ, USA | 12/12/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The Apartment is Billy Wilder's satirical look at office politics and the Man In The Grey Flannel Suit. Jack Lemmon stars as C.C. Baxter, a lowly office clerk in a huge corporation who is just another faceless working bee in an endless row of desks. When Baxter starts lending his apartment to executives in his firm so they can take their mistresses there, he finds himself moving up the corporate ladder. Although the constant loaning of his apartment starts to be an inconvenience, he keeps doing it as makes sense business wise. In meantime, he meets Fran, an elevator operator in his building, who is involved in affair with the big man in corporation, J.D. Sheldrake, played by Fred MacMurray. Mr. MacMurray is outstanding playing against type as the lascivious lowlife boss and philanderer (although is played another unscrupulous character quite well in The Caine Mutiny). Ms. MacLaine is excellent as the morose Fran who brings the situation between Baxter, Sheldrake and herself to head when she tries to commit suicide. Baxter must decide between his integrity and his career. Mr. Wilder masterfully fills the film with laughs and heart and his look at corporate politics is sharp and incisive. For his efforts, he yet again had a triple win at the Oscars, taking the 1960 Best Director, Screenwriting & Picture awards. The Apartment was also the last black & white film to win the Best Picture Oscar until Schindler's List (which has some elements of color) won in 1993."


text:
Solar Impulse plane ends American odyssey with fears, tears and cheers - NBC News.com
The Swiss-built Solar Impulse airplane ended its two-month-long, solar-powered trip across America with a nail-biter of a flight from Washington to New York on Saturday.Patrons - SOLAR IMPULSE - AROUND THE WORLD IN A SOLAR AIRPLANE
The extra drama came from the discovery in the trip's final hours that the ultra-light airplane had suffered an 8-foot-long (2.5-meter-long) tear in the fabric on the lower side of the left wing. Andre Borschberg, who was filling the pilot's seat for the Washington-to-New York segment of the "Across America" journey, noticed a balance issue with the wings on Saturday afternoon — and pictures taken by a helicopter flying nearby confirmed the damage.
Neither Borschberg nor the plane were thought to be in danger; nevertheless, the Solar Impulse team did everything it could to reduce the risk. That meant considering all the options for ending the flight, including the possibility of bailing out over the Atlantic. It meant passing up a Statue of Liberty photo op and working out a deal with air traffic controllers to land the plane three hours earlier than originally planned. And it meant changing the landing procedure."We have an airplane which has almost unlimited endurance," Borschberg told NBC News. "This airplane could have flown directly from California to New York, so it's fully sustainable in terms of energy. The limiting factor is the pilot."
These last years, several eminent personalities have committed themselves to searching for concrete solutions to safeguard the future of our planet. Solar Impulse has invited some of them to join in the adventure
Al Gore
«At the cutting edge of exploration and renewable energy, and technology, this expedition has the potential to capture our imaginations. Solar Impulse will help bring to us images of our world while, at the same time, demonstrating that we can find alternatives to carbon-based fuels.»


text:
Azimuth To Test 802.11n
Page 1 of 1
Shipping now to early access partners is the ADEPT-n MIMO test platform from Azimuth Systems of Acton, Massachusetts. The new single-box test solution is the latest from the company that provides test equipment used by the Wi-Fi Alliance for interoperability testing -- testing that will soon include checks on the 802.11n draft 2.0 specification.
What weve done is taken a rats nest of interconnections and put it all in the ADEPT-n box, says Jeff Abramowitz, Azimuths vice president of marketing. Unlike previous products like the W-Series chassis, which had separate blades for different kinds of test connections, the ADEPT-n integrates all the connectors, along with the RadioProof enclosures that a product resides in while testing.
11n has tremendous challenges for testing, says Abramowitz. Its a more complex standard than a/b/g, has a more complex physical layer and MAC, lots of options that were not in the previous specifications. Interoperability becomes that much more of a challenge with other MIMO products. MIMO stands for multiple in, multiple out, using multiple antennas for sending and receiving -- a cornerstone of 802.11n.
The older ADEPT-WFA (used by the Wi-Fi Alliance labs for testing) and the original W-Series chassis will not be phased out. Abramowitz says theyll still be needed by vendors who plan to make legacy 802.11a/b/g products -- the older standards for Wi-Fi will not be going away any time soon. Those with newer products will want to migrate to ADEPT-n, he says, but adds that Azimuth has had MIMO enclosures for almost a year, which can handle the job along with Director II.


text:
A real quick and easy way to speed up your compiz experience – first we're gonna use fusion-icon which is just a little systray icon to get access to your compiz settings (also this is very useful to reload the window manager or set it back to KWin/Metacity or whatnot if Compiz decides to act up in any way). Fusion-icon isn't bundled with Compiz by default, so if you haven't already got it, from the terminal go with:
sudo apt-get install fusion-icon
[Update: It turns out you also need Compiz Settings Manager, so run sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager ]
Okay – now you've got it, you might want to run it… From the console type:
And you'll end up with a systray icon like the one pictured below:
Okay – almost there… Right click on the Compiz Fusion Icon and select Settings Manager and then General Options and click the Display Settings tab. Here you'll see the two options we're going to tweak:
- Refresh Rate, and
- Sync to VBlank
Basically – to increase performance you just bang the refresh rate up to a higher value (maximum of 200) and untick the "Sync to VBlank" checkbox…
With that done, I get the following performance change from the Compiz Benchmark (found in Compiz Settings Manager):
Over 230% speed increase? Not bad at all. However – as we all know there's no such thing as a free lunch, for the sake of balance I'll outline some downfalls of this method as well:
- Your graphics card will be getting more of a workout, so will run hotter and the fans will spin faster (hence noisier) – and this can decrease the lifetime of your graphics card, but really only in the same way that driving your car will decrease the lifetime of your tyres… It's there to be used!
- With Sync to Vblank disabled – you're going to get a bit of page-tearing, the severity of which and how much it bothers you will depend on your system and your own personal preferences.
- Your compiz.real and Xorg process time will increase – which is to be expected as they're going to be doing more work.
If you're good with that or just want to cheaply get a big performance hit – go for it and enjoy your swifter compiz desktop!
Also, you don't really need to whack the refresh up all the way to 200 if you're just looking for a small boost. Edging the refresh up a little bit and leaving VSync on can be enough to improve performance to a point where everything is smooth & swish but isn't hogging the box. Have a play with the options and see what best fits. Cheers!
Update: I've also found that (on NVidia graphics cards at least) checking the loose binding box through fusion-icon (under Compiz Options) increases compiz performance, as it seems the NVidia driver is pretty slow at assigning textures. If you wanted to start compiz from the commandline with this option, just call it with:
compiz --loose-binding


text:
How hard can it be to make a sunny side up egg
and a sausage for breakfast?
Well, I nearly failed it!
No, I'm not kidding you...it the picture Jojo me that kidding me...
It's "MISLEAD" me that it easy enough for kids to make it!
This is the one I'm talking about...
A sunny side up framed with heart shaped sausage.
It don't have any instruction...
So, I "assume" that it should be slice the sausage in half,
leave a bit uncut at one end...bead it around and 'pinned' with a toothpick...
placed into the pan and crack an egg into the hollow heart shape, right?
NO and Nope! The sausage got 'split' at the uncut 'end' and even I pinned
both ends with 'toothpick's it still not staying in the right shape and got 'tilted' too!
(I know, how can I describe a 'process' that easy into a DISASTER?)
And the helpful tips from the source...select the sausage that's more softer
so it would shape easily...Oh dear, I bought my sausages from frozen dept!!!
Anyway, with my lack of patience and experience (luckily Jojo and Mei Mei
were beside me, they so look forward for the result...if not...I could have
swallow those sausages raw!) I get a little help with a tools.
A round easy fried mold
Yup...that's save all the toothpicks and the tilted problem.
How you like that...make a heart shape from a round mold!
...and it's works! Easy Peasy!
(this one...I cut the sausage into quaters...4 long strips
so the egg is kind of 'overflowed' Mei Mei prefers less sausage!)
(This is not a sunny side up...Jojo prefers the yolk to be fully done!)
Well, as long it works and they finished their breakfast...
Have a nice day, dear!


text:
Telangana TS ICET 2018 Notification, Exam Dates, Apply Online: Engineering, Agriculture & Medical Common Entrance Test (TS ICET) is conducted by Kakatiya University, Warangal on behalf of TSCHE, Hyderabad. This examination is the prerequisite for admission into various professional courses offered in University/ Private Colleges in the state of Telangana.
Telangana TS ICET 2018 Notification, Exam Dates, Apply Online @ icet.tsche.ac.in
- Print Your Filled in Application Form
- Forgot Registration Number
– Rs.450/- (For SC/ST Candidates)
– Rs.650/- (For Others)
- Date of Commencement of Submission of Online Applications : 06-03-2018
Last date for Submission of Online Applications
- a) Without Late Fee : 30-04-2018
- b) With a Late fee of Rs 500/- : 05-05-2018
- c) With a Late fee of Rs 2,000/- : 10-05-2018
- d) With a Late fee of Rs 5,000/- : 14-05-2018
- e) With a Late fee of Rs 10,000/- : 19-05-2018
Applications are invited for appearing at the Telangana State Integrated Common Entrance Test (TSICET2018) for admission into M.B.A. and M.C.A. courses (full time/part-time/evening/distance mode) offered by the following Universities in the State of Telangana including their affiliated colleges for the academic year 2018-2019 to be conducted by Kakatiya University, Warangal (as per G.O.Ms. No. 25, dated: 19.03.2004; G.O.Ms.No.108 dated 30-7-2005; and G.O.Ms. No.66, dated 15-07-2011 G.O.Ms. No.5, dated 2-8-2014; G.O.Ms. No.7, dated 5-8-2014; and G.O.Ms. No.33 dated 31-12-2014 of Higher Education Department and its amendments).
- Prof. Jayashankar Agricultural University (PJSAU)
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University (BRAOU)
- JNT University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H)
- Kakatiya University (KU)
- Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU)
- Osmania University (OU)
- Palamur University (PU)
- Satavahana University (SU)
- Telangana University (TU)
a) The candidates should be Indian Nationals and should satisfy local/non-local status requirements laid down in the Telangana State Educational Institutions (Regulations of Admission) Order, 1974 as amended up to date (as per G.O. Ms. No. 25, dated: 19.03.2004 & G.O.Ms.No.108, dated 3-7-2005, Higher Education Department, dated 30-7-2005 and its amendments).
b) The candidates other than Indian Nationals should satisfy the rules of the Universities concerned.
c) The candidates seeking admission
i) For MBA: Should have passed recognized Bachelors Degree Examination of minimum three years duration except Oriental Languages.
ii) For MCA: Should have passed recognized Bachelors Degree examination of minimum three years duration (except Oriental Languages) with Mathematics at 10+2 level.
d) The qualifying Degree obtained by Distance Mode Program should have recognition by joint committee of UGC, AICTE and DEC/DEB
e) The candidates who are appearing for the final year degree examination shall also be eligible to appear for TSICET-2018
f) Admission into any college depends on its Recognition/Affiliation by the Statutory Bodies
g) Qualifying marks in TSICET-2018 is 25% and no minimum marks are prescribed for SC/ST candidates. Mere qualification in the entrance test does not entitle a candidate to have been admitted into MBA/MCA course unless the candidate:
i) appears for Counseling at the notified Centers
ii) applies in response to the admission notification issued by the authority concerned (for part-time\evening\distance mode
iii) satisfies all the eligibility criteria for admission as stipulated by the authority concerned
TS ICET – 2018 Important Dates
|Notification Date TSICET-2018
|22-02-2018 (Thursday)
|Start of Submission & Registration of Online Application form
|06-03-2018 (Tuesday
|Last date for Submission & Registration of Online Application form without late fee.
250/- for SC/ST Candidates,
350/- for Other Candidates
|30-04-2018 (Monday)
|Last date for Submission & Registration of Online Application with late fee of Rs.500/- with Registration Fee
|05-05-2018 (Saturday)
|Last date for Submission & Registration of Online Application with late fee of Rs.2000/- with Registration Fee
|10-05-2018 (Thursday)
|Last date for Submission & Registration of Online Application with late fee of Rs.5000/- with Registration Fee
|14-05-2018 (Monday)
|Last date for Submission & Registration of Online Application with late fee of Rs.10000/- with Registration Fee.
|19-05-2018 (Saturday)
|Start of Downloading of TSICET-2018 Hall Tickets.
|07-05-2018 (Monday)
|Date of TSICET-2018 Examination.
|23rd and 24th May, 2018 (Wednesday &Thursday)
|Announcement of Preliminary Key.
|27-05-2018 (Sunday)
Last Date for Submission of Objections on Preliminary Key.
|04-06-2018 (Monday)
|Announcement of Final Key and Test Entrance Results.
|06-06-2018 (Wednesday)
University College of Commerce and Business Management,
Kakatiya University, Vidyaranyapuri,
Warangal – 506 009. Telangana State.
Phone: 0870-2438088
Fax: 0870-2458088
Email: email@example.com
Link: icet.tsche.ac.in