We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953
US science fiction author (1920 - )

Wow I have not looked at any client side (non web) blog editors in a really long time. I just picked up BlogDesk (using it on this post). It had one of the smoothest setups that I have ever used for a blog editor. Very nice if you have not looked at it go check it out.

This is a very intriguing article about a dynamic 5th Grade teacher who went against the grain with some great results.

Suben said: “My primary goal as a teacher is to help my students understand the reasoning behind math rules and procedures. I have several core beliefs about this: (1) Understanding is constructed by the learner, not passively received from the teacher. (2) Understanding is built by making connections between as many strands of knowledge as possible. (3) Understanding is galvanized through communication. (4) Understanding is only valuable when you reflect on it and question it.”

Well I have really been slacking on writing in this weblog and I have no excuses. I have a new goal on my Joe’s Goals list to get back to writing here so I am ready to start. I hope everyone has started off the new year in a great way and here is to hoping that 2007 will be better than 2006 in every way!

Extraordinary efforts

“It’s complicated explaining how genius or expertise is created and why it’s so rare,” says Anders Ericsson, the professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee who edited the handbook. “But it isn’t magic, and it isn’t born. It happens because some critical things line up so that a person of good intelligence can put in the sustained, focused effort it takes to achieve extraordinary mastery. These people don’t necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort.”

“Americans will always do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives,” - Winston Churchill.

“Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle,” - Mahatma Gandhi.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
~ Woodrow Wilson

Keith Olbermann is my HERO!

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “Unlawful Enemy Combatant” for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

I want to be one of the lackeys for this!

This book sounds like something that I need to read to brighten up my rather dismal view of the future that I have had for the past year or so.

Fred C. Ikle, one of America’s foremost strategic thinkers, in his latest book “Annihilation from Within” (Columbia University Press), sees the ever-faster advances in brain science and computers merging to build superhuman intelligence systems. Brain-computer-interface (BCI) research projects are proliferating among universities in the G-8 major industrial countries and China. And when this quest succeeds, Mr. Ikle says it will trump the latest supercomputers (already up to 73 trillion operations per second) and the best human experts.

Looks like Writely has morphed to Google Docs & Spreadsheets so I guess it is time to test it and see if I can get my Title yet. I know I have not been posting enough lately and part of the reason is the pain of getting Writely to do what I need it to do. I hope this works!
This is a very different look from Writely and it looks like there are a few more features available now. Comment looks like an interesting feature.

I am trying Writely again to see if any of the issues I was having are gone. I was able to login with my gmail account today that is a nice new improvement. I was having several problems previously with Writely which had put me off from using it and I am hoping these are fixed now. I was unable to use the title feature for my posts and the blogged listing on my Post views had stopped working correctly. So I am back today and I will let you know if any of the problems are gone.

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who likes documentation writing? I don’t! The rest of the Steelpixel team agrees with me on this point, documentation is a necessary evil. Well, court3nay came up with a cool idea today in the #caboose irc room, why not start a project to offer people money to update the rails docs. Brilliant! Court3nay is trying to raise $5000 and they have over half that in less than 12 hours.

SteelPixel

technorati tags:rubyonrails

Blogged with Flock

I want to find a workplace like this!

At Semco: Employees set their own working hours, choose their own salaries, All meetings are voluntary and open to everyone, Employees hire their own bosses… read on for more.

read more | digg story

We did it! My wife and I made it to our first dance lesson last night. It was a blast. We started learning the foxtrot, Rumba and mambo and we are greatly looking forward to the next lesson.

Why do did I have the title in the post area? Well, Writely is not putting the title up when I post from it, even though it used to. I am not sure what is happening with it since google purchased it but it seems to be languishing by the side of the road for some unknown reason.

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
—Peter Suber, the creator of Nomic, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362.

While doing my morning browse for new ideas I came across a great post at Spindrop about Version Numbers and how to include very pertinent information inside of them.

On the otherhand if version numbers incorporated a date, we’d be set. If I told you I was using 1.0.20050405 of a piece of software and I was experiencing problems, you’d wonder why I hadn’t upgraded to something newer. If something newer didn’t exist, you’d question if development has stopped.

“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.”~ Greg Anderson

That title may not be very self explanatory to most of you. At my day job I am currently transitioning from Legacy ASP 3.0 code to ASP.NET 1.1 code and I am also teaching myself Ruby and Rails. I know what you are saying, “That is a really silly thing to do Dewayne!” and it is true but it is what I am doing.

So here is my question for my avid readers, What is the BEST Way to setup an ASP.NET solution in VS.NET 2003 to use ASP Classic with COM objects and ASP.NET 1.1 while converting the code base to ASP.NET?

I am especially having some fun with the COM objects because the creators of the objects put them at the top of the web app. tree instead of inside the tree so I am trying to figure out how to move them safely into the bin directory under the web app in my solution.

I am having so much fun with Ruby on Rails that the ASP.NET stuff feels outdated and clunky and just flat out UNFUN that I am really having a hard time motivating myself to learn what I need to learn in ASP.NET when I have such a shiny tool in Ruby on Rails.

This is very interesting and I am hoping this will give me another path to my blog.

I had to wait quite a while to test this after reading about it because I could not get signed on to Windows Live Beta for several days.

A research team led by Brown University engineers has harnessed the coding power of DNA to create zinc oxide nanowires on top of carbon nanotube tips. The feat, detailed in the journal Nanotechnology, marks the first time that DNA has been used to direct the assembly and growth of complex nanowires.

read more | digg story

If you have not tried Spotback yet, you really need to! I did not think I would be this Wowed again for quite some time but this web application is knocking my socks off today.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Ok all of you Browncoats, lets get on the ball and head on over to the new site that is pushing for Firefly Season 2! I filled out my Recruit Profile, What about YOU!!!

The Firefly Season 2 Project:
Captain Mal and the crew of Serenity need your help to stay flying.

We are looking to push the envelope of episodic television by offering Season Two of Firefly in a groundbreaking new format. Each episode (or the entire season) would be made available for purchase in Standard or Hi-Definition.

It’s possible that subscribers may choose one of three playback options; monthly DVD deliveries, TV On-Demand using your cable or satellite provider, or computer viewing via Streaming Download.

It’s also possible that a box set of DVD’s would be available at the end of the season.

In order for our plan to be successful, we need to take stock of the browncoat recruits that support our cause. It will only take a minute, is strictly confidential, and each profile will take us one step closer to victory!