Here's part of the team doing some "real" work.
What's most exciting part - I'm now running a dual-head setup. That's dual whiteboards, not dual monitors. But anyone who knows me knows that I'd much prefer whiteboard real estate to screen real estate.
--Ben
Looks like DC missed a bit of a bullet this morning. We had a bunch of snow and slush - but luckily, it was a few degrees too warm.
A few degrees the other way and every surface would have been coated in ice. Instead it's just a wet mess. Whew.
Of course a nasty ice storm storm may have ment a snow day with the if. I guess I'm not *that* lucky.
--Ben
This evening I've come up with a must have feature for my next oven - internet access. Why on earth should I have to leave a nice warm bed to go downstairs to the kitchen, just to get a simple piece of information - is the oven on.
Instead, my next stove will be able to answer this question anywhere I have an internet connection (like from my sidekick, which I can use in the warm bed).
At first I though the answer was a wb sever on the oven. I'd hit some URL and get the vital stats.
But now that I've thought about it, I think an I'M bot interface would be way cooler. Imagine the conversation we (me and the oven) could have...
(Of course the oven is named Ken...)
...
Ben> hey Ken, yt?
Ken> oc, what's up?
Ben> you turned on?
Ken> Yeah baby!
Ben> How hot are you?
Ken> Really hot
Ben> Come on Ken, be serious. What are you set at.
Ken> You are no fun Ben. I'm current 225 degrees
...
Now, how could that be a bad idea?
--Ben
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/81032/us-blackberry-users-could-face-cut-off.html
So Blackberry is in a bit of trouble these days. Which seems to me to leave a real opportunity for a company to play in the typical Blackberry space: corporate mobile communications. And of course, I think the company that should get more involved is T-mobile and the product, Sidekick. I think that T-mobile has a chance to go after the very lucrative market that Blackberry is trying to defend.
First, from a abstract perspective the Blackberry device and the sidekick aren't *that* different. Both accomplish the same thing: get your e-mail on the road. But the marketing of each device is totally different: Blackberry is the corporate solution while the Sidekick is for kids. And each marketing campiagn is working - corporations buy up Blackberrys while teens buy up the Sidekick.
So, for T-mobile to tap into the corporate market, the first thing they are going to need to do is to change their marketing message. They need to stop pushing the device to kids and start making it an option for their working parents. I would think, though, the best place for T-mobile to focus is in the small/startup organization world. Don't be a me-too product going after the Xeroxs and GMs of the world, instead pitch yourself as the ideal platform for the little guy.
Small companies know they need to behave differently than large companies if they are to succeed. And if I were T-mobile that's the message I would be sending: if you're an old stuffy company, sure, go for a Blackberry. But if you are a fast-on-your-feet company, then your team needs Sidekicks.
One thing to consider is that a lot of professionals have no view of the Sidekick whatsoever. So T-mobile can shape the message as they see fit. This happens to me all the time, when I pull out my Sidekick at meetings. The screen-flip gets folks interested - though there's no real other official message from Sidekick, other than "this device is cool."
So, what exactly should the marketing message of the Sidekick be? How about ...
The device is standards compliant. You can hook this up to your pop e-mail account in seconds, and you all are set. No special, expensive, backened services needed.
This device is cheap. Unlimited - let me say that again - unlimited, bandwidth for $20.00/mo. Compare that to, what, $80.00/mo? Small businesses need to be thrifty and this is one more way to do so.
All the data on the phone is maintained on redundant, backed up, servers. Small companies are already struggling with their IT departments, this can just be something they don't need to worry about. And when your director of sales leaves his cell phone on a flight accidently, simply stop by any T-mobile store and get a new device. Within minutes, all your e-mail, to-do list and addresses are back again.
The Sidekick offers a ssh terminal, so your IT staff can use it to connect to and fix servers remotely. In other words, the Sidekick passes the "will geeks love it" test.
One of the most powerful apps on the Sidekick is the instant messenger application. It's the best mobile IM I've ever come across. Once you get used to the speed of IM, e-mail seems like a slow way to conduct busines. And this should be one of the Sidekick's primary marketing messages: e-mail is fine for a big company, but for a small agile company, nothing beats IM. Of course e-mail plays an important role in communication, but for that quick question between the director of sales and the director of marketing, IM is much more appropriate.
The technology - both the hardware and software - is there. All T-mobile needs to do is to start telling a new story. And my guess is that it is a story the market wants to hear.
--Ben
Tonigh I got to go for a run - the first in too long. It was both dark and cold, which makes for some interesting running conditions. I had forgotten, but quickly remembered, that burning sensation you get in your lungs from gulping chilly air.
Afterwards, we went for dinner at La Creperie. I ordered a bunch of stuff off the menu which I couldn't pronounce and was quite impressed with the food. We split a salad which contained less than 60% lettuce and was covered in a most delicious (and bad for you) dressing; a mushroom crepe which was very tasty; and a potato thing which was to die for. And I'm not exaggerating, I'm pretty sure my cholesterol went up during this meal. But it was worth it.
I'm most impressed because the food seemed pretty unique and authentic. I recall ordering some fancy sounding potato dish from Wolfgang Puck only to get a bunch of fries with some seasoning poured on top. In this case the food was different, and unexpected.
Oh, and the place is cheap - $15.00 for the whole meal.
So, if you see a La Creperie, consider stopping - I give it an 8/10 for authentic and unique taste.
--Ben
A nice plug for using DrScheme as a language useful for learning to program.
If you want to give the gift this holiday season of learning to program you could buy a copy of How To Design Programs and burn a copy of DrScheme to a CD. Gift wrap the set, and you are good to go.
Don't think of it as teaching them to program in Scheme, think of it as teaching them to think like a geek.
A nice gift-guide for those who have to buy for the geek in the family.
Hint to Mom: two items that caught my eye on this list were the disposable CVS camcorder and the MiniPOV 2 kit.
This shot from my office may not appear to be a big storm. However, here in the DC world, this might as well be 2 feet of snow.
I'm just hoping it'll melt soon. Very very soon. Otherwise I'm going to get the chance to blog about how slow traffic is tonight :-).
I blogged a while ago about how you an make your own flipbook from a digital video. Lets say you don't have a lot of time, and you still think the idea is neat -- the site above will do it for you for around $9.00. It may not be as fun as making your own from scratch, but it sure is a lot easier.
Now, if only my Sidekick would let me take videos...
For Shira's birthday lunch we tried a new Chinese resaurant - Oriental Star in Alexandria, VA. Their claim to fame (for us anyway) is that will make any dish (chicken, beef, pork, seafood) vegetarian by substituting tofu for the offending animal.
I tried Kung Pow Beef, Shira had Mushu Chicken. Both dishes were tasty and filled with tofu as promised.
The only questionable part of the experience was Shira's fortune cookie: "You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth." Ouch. The first time I've ever been offended by a fortune cookie.
If you eat veggie food - this place is worth a try.
http://www.vegdc.com/restaurants.php
Shira just found this - a guide to veggie restaurants in the area. I was pleasently surprised with the lenght of the list. The list is nice because it gives you some details about exactly what to expect at the restaurant.
If you eat vegetarian and will be in the DC area check it out.
http://anina.typepad.com/anina/2005/12/digital_divide.html
This blog entry points to an interesting article about cell phones in the developing world. The $100 laptop may be a great device for kids in the developing world, but their parents could really use cell phones.
The article lists some clever uses for even the simplest cell phone (from basic communication to using SMS as am electronic wallet). I can only imagine what a smart phone or sidekick could be used for in those areas.
Also, the article makes the point that countries with cell phones don't need to develop the way we did. They don't need to go: signal telegraph, electronic telegraph, local wired phone, national wired phone, very expensive local cell service, cheap local cell service with expensive roaming, etc. Instead, they can jump right to cheap national/world communication via cell phones - skipping lots of steps in between. This should make for an interesting development pattern, as it should be less easy to predict than simply going through previously known stages.
Tonight was the last date I will ever go on with a 28 year old woman as tomorrow is Shira's birthday. To celebrate this fact, Shira and I went to a "fancy" restaurant - our usual Italian place, Tutto Bene (in Arlington VA). As usual, the food was very tasty - thanks most likely to the generous use of olive oil.
I call this place fancy because the tables had candles on them and we used cloth napkins. Not to mention the bill was over $19.99. Though the mood was broken a bit by all the kids at the table next to us singing along to the Italian opera playing on the sound system.
I'm kind of excited to see what being married to and older and wiser woman will be like. In just a few hours I'll find out.
The Bomber by Liza Marklund was supposed to be a nice little novel about some pathalogical bomber. Ya know, something to make the commute easier to my new job. Though I have been plesantly surprised as the book so far (on side 9) hasn't been so much about a bomber - but about life in a daily paper.
It's been fun watching the story unfold through the eyes of the crime-desk editor. The author does a good job of letting the story unfold at a decent pace - where the main character figures out stuff when she should.
At first I assumed that the book took place in England, as the narrartor had a kinda English accent. But I realized that none of the place names sounded familiar - and everybody was driving a Volvo. Then it hit me - this is taking place in Sweden. This helps to explain the funky names - Olf Olfeson, or Anika, and why day care seems to be brought up so often. There were also references to what a small country the main character lives in.
So now I have this mental model of Sweden. The people are nice, their news agencies hard working, and they like to cuss a lot. Oh, and it's cold there.
So far I give the book and 8/10 for lisenability as it's been fun and the story works for me.
--Ben
[Sorry, can't include a conference photo...my Sidekick still can't send image e-mails]
I got to attend the Kelsey Group Local Search Conference yesterday evening and watch the big guns (AOL, Yahoo, MS, Google, etc.) talk about Local Search, and more specifically, maps. The title of one of the more impressive sessions was Maps, Mashups and Monetization.
There were some very educational points in this session, but the main take away is that the map isn't being used in advanced applications for just getting from place A to place B. Instead it's being used as a visualization technology - a new form of UI canvas.
In other words, say you have some data such as where movies are playing. You plop it on a map to simply help the user to visualize the data. An interesting and powerful notion. One that I could use in apps, but also a reminder that visualization metaphors can be powerful. It doesn't have to be a map per se, but next time I have a result set I'll be thinking of other ways to display the data rather than in rows and columns.
One speaker also made an interesting comment about where mapping is going. At this point they, and other companies are focusing, on APIs simply because having an army of creative third party developers is much more likely to produce the next big thing rather simply having a product developed internally.
Of all the companies, the google spokes person seemed the most like his company image. Relaxed and not out to prove anything. His slides were all white with a simple google logo in the upper corner. And he spent quite some time explaining why the google search API is and will remain free - even to commercial sites.
Lots of fun.
--Ben
Apparently, Danger Inc, (the company that supports my Sidekick) is having server issues. It's odd, because my attempt to send e-mail with pictures fail (well, they don't fail - just never leave my outbox). This makes moblogging tricky especially because I really like using a picture or two to give the message some extra context.
But this note isn't all bad. It's worth noting that T-mobile has their support system setup to direct all sidekick questions to a Danger help desk. That means that I don't have to some generic clueless person who thinks that every problem I have is related to me not being able to send SMS messages.
Instead, I talk to a person who knows my network and my device. And in no time he confirmed that they did indeed have a known issue.
It's a nice setup and reminds me that customer service doesn't have to be hell.
--Ben
I don't claim to understand it -- but it sure is hard to argue with free. InBubbleWrap is a site that has contests you can enter on a very regular basis to win business related books and related materials.
As I said, I don't quite understand what the goal of the site is. But the tone is more of one where business ideas are informally exchanged, rather than a FREE FREE FREE contest site.
You may want to give the site a try and see how you fare.
As long as I'm on the theme today of how good kids have it...check out this item. A cellphone for kids. And by kids I mean 4 year olds.
I'm telling you, kids today - they have it so good.
Here's a chance to get (what seems to me) to be a pretty good deal on the new FLY Pentop Computer.There are reviews around and a good article in the latest issue of wired that talked about the device.I think it's a risky, but neat idea. Essentially, the toy is a computer that uses the pen as the input device and voice/the paper-you-draw-on as the output device. This makes the device portable, and gives you some interesting abilities to mix a computer with old-fashion media. In fact, the pen supports the ability to "scan" over a piece of paper and interpret the results as code to be run. In other words, LeapFrog could trivially publish a magazine that could contain "paper programs." It should also be nice and portable, which is something I assume parents will like. No clunky devices, just the pen and whatever sheets of paper they would like.
I'll guess I'll see what the hackers out there do to this device before I start drooling over one and consider buying it. Perhaps this is another good reason to consider having kids, so that I can buy them the gadgets I'd like to play with?Between this, and the $100 laptop, kids have it so good these days. Back in my day, after my 10 mile hike uphill to and from school, all I had to play with was a stick and some rocks.
More on the famous $100 laptop. They even included some pictures which I hadn't seen before. I think it's fairly clever that the form factor allows for the device to be used in the typical laptop fashion, as well as being held like an oversized novel.
Step by step instructions for making something out of duct tape -- need anymore be said??
Thanks to my Dad, who knows my fondness for this all purpose utility device.
So, I've been working and talking about my new job to Shira pretty much non-stop lately.
To thank her for putting up with me and for being so very supportive, I made a stop at my favorite jewelry store: Jared.
The result was an amethyst bracelet - and a happy wife.
The bear in the photos is also something Jared's is doing - you donate to St. Jude's Children Center and they give you another thing to give your wife to make her smile.
--Ben
At work, the team I'm on is considering coming up with some more defined coding standards. The discussion above points to a well known tutorial on the topic. Yes, I know the title of the article contains the word "Lisp" -- but that's not why the article is interesting. It's interesting because the topic of standards is looked into with so much depth.
You can check out a PDF version of the tutorial here.
And when you are ready for a little laugh, you should also read the the guide to writing unmaintainable code.
An interesting project -- deliver a .avi movie on paper, how cool is that?
I agree with their suggestion: this could be a neat gift for that special someone.
Today I printed a short 1 page document (if you can call it that) from notepad. I walked over to the printer after a minute or two and found it saying: "Calibrating..." It then did so for approximately 5 minutes (which felt like 2 hours).
Excuse me? Do you really need to spend 5 minutes calibrating yourself to print a 1 page black and white document? That's a a rate of .2 pages per minutes.
Which brings us to Ben's law: the faster you need a document the longer the printer will "calibrate."
What laws have you discovered?
--Ben
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001044.php
Seems like more and more I can depend on Kevin Kelly and his Cool Tools blog to provide some thought provoking insight. Tonight's cool tool - a fly fishing manual.
Yep, you read that right. What makes this manual interesting is that it is written as a cartoon. As Kevin points out, cartoons are one of the most dense ways to pack information into a book.
I find this interesting, because as a programmer, I'm always curious how others solve the problem of packaging information. I do it with programming languages - where the goal is to have a concise program that is easy to read and understand.
Hmmm, I wonder if I could invent a cartoon based programming language? Or maybe we should use cartoons for the documentation? I guess the more serious question is to contemplate why cartoons are so dang effective.
Like I said, stuff to think about.
--Ben
Tonight's entertainment was provided by a perfect stranger. Somebody let $10.00 in a lotto-card machine. We figured that someone else was going to take the cards, so why not us? We got 5 $2.00 cards.
In the end, we won $55.00. I'd love to know the story behind whoever invented the scratch-off game piece. What a novel concept - simple, yet apparently very hard to "beat."
Thanks to this anonymous stranger, we got to have that unique thrill of scraping off a paper card and hoping you would make $25,000 in the process.
And don't worry, the money is going to charity. So if it was your $10.00 you left in the machine, you can be happy you did something good for the world.
--Ben
Cool, I can stop brushing my teeth and just drink cranberry juice. That's ok, right Jeff?
(Jeff's my dentist friend, who I turn to whenever I make big dental decisions. My recommendation is, if you don't have a dental friend, get one today. I can't tell you how handy they are to have around.)
While following Cool Tools, I came across this article for the Sun USX Recumbent Tricycle (not exactly the model shown in the picture above, but I just couldn't resist). I particularly liked the comment:
What's significant about the USX? It's the most comfortable human powered vehicle ever, more comfortable than many cars. It's safe, practical, and affordable.
In other words, this $800 bike isn't being reviewed because it's an extreme machine, a custom made bike for Bike Geeks (there are Bike Geeks, aren't there?). It's because this is an alternative to buying a $15,000 car. I find that just remarkable.
How cool would it be if vehicles like this could become more mainstream? Perhaps you could even mix this concept with a the Zip Car concept. For your daily activities you could use a bike like this, and for longer trips, you could get access to a car.
This does remind me of a comment (joke?) my dad made about the current oil crisis. He explained to me that the US and China are changing places. Today, parking lots of American companies are jammed with cars, while the same parking lots in China are crammed with Bicycles. In the not-too-distant future, the roles will be reversed, we'll all be riding bicylces, while China will have the cars.
If the bikes are as cool and as comfortable as the one described in the review, I'm not sure I'm as bothered by that vision.
Glenn Vanderburg had some interesting thoughts about what would make an ideal time for a Ruby on Rails project. Now, I know basically nothing about Ruby On Rails (my preferred framework is SISCweb of course), but I was still struck by his comments. He summarizes a quality team as:
All I would add to his comments are this: I don't care if you are writing COBOL, Ruby, or Scheme, the above set of goals are still what you should be shooting for.
Joel Spolsky did a minor redesign of the look of his blog. What I found impressive was that he did it not to add more fluff, but with a very specific goal. I guess that's what a redesign should be about: recognizing what is broken, making sure you can test it to see if it's fixed, and then actually fixing it.
Check out his comments, and get inspired to do your own redesign.
I mentioned earlier that I'm a big fan of the AOLYellowPages bot, as I find it much easier to get address data over I'M than by using a browser.
My new favorite bot is SmarterChild - it's a kind of general purpose bot. One feature I really like is the spell checking. Just type:
Spell <yourword>
And the bot will give you suggested spellings. Spell the word right and you can get a definition.
Again, a useful UI that seems much more efficient than a browser.
Remember, to use these bots just add them as buddies to your AIM list and send them a message saying hello.
--Ben
I'm about 99% sure that if the pilgrims had access to Philadelphia cream cheese and a mixer, then we would all be eating cheesecake today. Well, that's what Shira and I assume. So in that honor, Shira made home made cheesecake, and I ate it. Boy was it tasty!
Also, on the list of things to be thankful are our friends. Tonight, Perry and Irene had us over for dessert at their family meal. We had a great time and they couldn't have made us feel more welcome if they tried. We are so thankful to have friends like them.
Oh, and I'm thankful that I have blogger, so I can even publish this message.
And I'm most thankful I have my beautiful wife, who pays the cell phone bill, so I can use mobile blogging.
--Ben
Last night I got to watch the Longest Yard, with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. The movie was effectivly a compromise: no long action scenes for the girls, and no chick-flick plot for the boys. So, we didn't have high hopes for the movie - it was just something we could kinda agree on.
With that said, I must say that I did enjoy the movie. It was nothing deep and provocitave, but I did get a surprising number of laughs out of the movie. And one usually doesn't get a lot of laughs from a prison related movie.
My suggestion - rent the movie for a buck and get some laughs. And remember, "prison inmates are people too."
--Ben
Looks like it is finally winter in DC.
Too bad kids have off of school tomorrow, with all the snow we got tonight they no doubt would have closed for weather.
--Ben
The plan was simple. Hit Petco, buy some kitty food for friends. Go home. Ahhh, but it just wasn't that easy.
Instead, we are now the proud owners of a pretty blue Betta fish. This was something I didn't know that I even wanted. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was 100% against pet ownership. But that's all in the past. We are officially a pet owning family.
Now we have the tough part - choosing a name. We are currently thinking "Ali". He got this name because we accidentally dropped him on the ground, breaking his container and nearly suffocating him. So, we figure he's a fighter.
What's this I hear about having to clean the tank? That's optional, right?
--Ben
At my new job, this article turned out to be a huge help. Everyone around here runs windows on their machines, and right now all I have is a laptop. I was a little hesitent about putting Linux on my laptop -- afterall, I'd be getting things like Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint documents sent to me. But, after playing with Windows I quickly learned how much I miss emacs and gnus.
This article points out how you can set things up so that you pretty much feel like your on a unix box. I'm reading my mail in gnus, and typing away at the command line like the good 'ol days.
While most of the tips in this article are pretty intuitive - there was one that I really thought was useful. The bash cygwin terminal is nice -- but when it comes down to it, it still feels like an old, crummy dos box. For example, the cut and past handling is this rectangle business. And don't even get me started on this in-ability to resize the windows. Anyway, the article suggested something brilliant: run sshd on your laptop, and then use putty to connect to. Putty's screen handling is wonderful. You really do get the feeling that you are using a unix box.
So, I've got a case of the Mondays, and it's Tuesday no less!
I got a shiny new laptop. That's good. However, it gets into this state where it thinks that the control key is always pressed. That's bad.
Try opening a browser and type www...what happen? The same as if you typed Control-w, close window.
Could it get worse? Of course. This morning it wouldn't recognize Control-Alt-Delete. Try logging on when you can't do that.
Ahh, what fun.
--Ben
Check out this article to watch people complain about AOL and AIM bots.
Me, I probably take a different position than most on this topic. I use the AOLYellowPages bot on my sidekick pretty frequently - and love it. In fact, I think the bot interface for some things can be much better than the web or e-mail. Consider what I need to do to find the number for my local theatre:
Keep in mind the cl ... step is only needed when I change locations.
So, I say to AOL: keep the bots coming. Though maybe instead of adding them to my buddy list automagically, you can publish a page on the web that lists well known bots.
If you want to try out some more bots yourself, check out the AIM section on this page.
Thanks to Dilbert for showing me how I can gently explain that 3 people read my blog.
A fun when I have time hardware hacking project.
Though, as a first project, I probably should try this project instead.
Here's a snapshot of Me as I head out for my first day of work at Innovectra.
--Ben
I got to visit one of my favorite places in Arlington. As I've written on this blog before, I'm really impressed with Goodwill as an organization.
Lets see: first, they will take my junk - no questions asked. Second, I get some sort of tax deduction thing. Finally, I get to walk away knowing that I'm helping make this world a better place.
I can't think of many locations in town that can be a one stop shop for all of that.
I recommend you try it for yourself - checkout http://www.goodwill.org.
--Ben
Lesson learned: always look before you leap.
Photo taken in the Mens room at Potomac Mills Outlet Mall.
--Ben
As seen on the car in the included photo:
Bush Orwell '04 - Ignorance Is Strength
As a bonus, the car also had a: "Warner President 2008" sticker.
--Ben
The above article is a terrific introduction to moblogging. It captures two important points well. First, moblogging is fun. As they say:
With the possible exception of exhibitionists, what's the point of posting photographs from your mobile phone on a website where strangers can gawp at them? And yet, as anyone who's ever tried moblogging will tell you, there's something addictive about documenting your days for the amusement of others.
Second, moblogging is different from maintaining a weblog. The moblog, because of the photos, is often easier to write. As I just pointed out here, the photo can provide the setup for your blog entry, and all you need to add are your witty comments.
The article talks about setting up your own moblog. I really enjoy using blogger, as it was quick to setup, works well with my phone, and allows me to maintain the posts after the fact like a regular blog.
So try moblogging today!
WARNING: this blog message has not been approved by Ben's wife. Read at your own risk.
I noticed something a bit strange on the bottom of this new mug - a warning label.
The label says soemething to the effect of: California Propsition 65 requires that you be warned that "materials used in color decorations" contain lead. It goes on to explain that consuming lead is a *bad* thing.
I guess this is supposed to discourage me from: (a) licking the outside of this mug, (b) using the outside of this mug as a cooking device and (c) from chipping off and eating those tasty looking gold letters.
My guess is that warning labels are an American obsession. No? What other country would be so concerned that people will sue them, that they label everthing. True, some labels are quite useful (I should know how many grams of fat are in a Krispy Kreme doughnut) - but do people stop drinking wine because of the warning label?
Maybe we should be focusing on really educating our citizens, rather than just protecting ourselves.
--Ben
A gigantic list of homonyms. Why do we need such a list? Apparently, this list is useful for punning.
I list it here only to show one thing: you just never know what you are going to stumble across on the internet.
Update: Little known fact: My wife once won a homonym contest in school. Married for 7 years, and I've known her for 21 years, and yet she still never ceases to surprise me.
Daniel J. Blumenthal passed away Thursday, November 10, 2005. Predeceased by his parents, Sadie and Raphael J. Blumenthal and his father-in-law, William "Bill" Raskind. Survived by his wife of 31 years, Peggy (Raskind); daughters and son-in-law, Shira and Benjamin Simon, and Elana Blumenthal; mother-in-law, Bess Raskind; aunt, Ida Wattenberg; uncle, Benjamin Raskind and several cousins. Dan taught Chemistry and Physics in the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District for 25 years and did substitute teaching in several Rochester area school districts. He also practiced Pharmacy in Poughkeepsie and Rochester. Dan was a member of Fairport-Flower City Lodge 476 F&AM and was a past Master of Orawaupum-Siwanoy Lodge 1003 F&AM. He was Grand Steward from the second Westchester-Putnam District in 1984-1985. Masonic Services will be held in the Rabbi Abraham Solomon Chapel of Temple Beth El (139 Winton Rd., S.) on Sunday, November 13th, at 1:45 PM followed by Dan's funeral service at 2 PM. Interment, Mt. Hope Cemetery. Following the funeral the family will sit Shiva, Sunday 7-9 PM, Monday-Thursday 1-5 and 7-9 PM and Friday, 1-3 PM at 320 Council Rock Ave. Contributions in Dan's memory may be made to Benincasa Hospice Home for the Terminally Ill, 3880 Rush-Mendon Rd., Mendon, NY 14506, William Raskind Defibrillator Fund of Temple Beth El, 139 Winton Rd. S., Rochester, NY 14610 or Masonic Medical Research Laboratory, 2150 Bleecker St., Utica, NY 13501. Brighton Memorial Chapel, Inc. 427-8520
Apparently the $100 laptop is still alive, and I'm still interested in it.
This article is nice because it tries to answer the question -- does Africa need this $100 gadget?
And, as usual, I agree with Clive. The laptop as a consumer item Africa could live without. The laptop as a tool, a tool for thinking no less, is something that every child could use.
As I've said before -- the $100 laptop is an interesting problem to solve. The lesson plans, and uses for this laptop are what should be on everyone's mind next. Until I see those, the project won't be even close to successful.
This is my own portrait of The Thinker. Good O'l Grandpa Irv.
I can only imagine the complex thoughts passing through his brain. Witness the world's problems being solved.
Or maybe he's napping.
--Ben
I haven't even had my first day of work and Innovectra, the company I'm starting with on Monday, has already impressed me.
As if giving me huge flexibility in picking my start date - so I could have time with Shira's family during her Dad's illness - wasn't enough. They just sent us flowers to console us on his passing.
What a thoughtful thing to do.
Now, how am I going to make such a good impression to them?
--Ben
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog.php?id=P381
I start a new job on Monday. Maybe I'll take this article's advice and try to make my voice mail just a bit more interesting. The article suggests some ways in which your voice mail could help reinforce a subtle marketing message.
Any suggestions for what my message should say?
--Ben
Thanks to my family for providing chow tonight.
Through the magic of credit cards and local delivery, my family from around the country could provide us with a nice Thai meal.
Mmmmm.....
--Ben
Attached is a shot of another laoner phone I got from T-mobile. This one made the Nokia 6010 look like a top of the line model.
The phone in the photo was a tiny Motorola thing with - get this - 3 lines of screen real estate. It even had 'moto mixer' some kind of sound program, I guess useful for authoring ring tones on the phone. I guess that seemed useful to someone, though I'm not sure why.
Anyway, it sure is nice to have my Sidekick back. Should make my blog a lot more interesting. The photos add so much, because they put in a position to add extra commentary to a defined scene, versus describing the whole package.
I must say I'm pretty impressed with T-mobile through this process. True, their update is what killed their phone...but...
Tech support never blamed me. They offered to express ship me a phone for free. They provided a loaner phone very easily, for free. The sidekick server software meant that my phone's data was always available to me. And finally, because the state of sidekick is maintained on the sever, all I did was drop my SIM card in the new unit and all my settings and data showed up on my new sidekick.
Now if only they could partner with Verizon to provide a huge network, I'd be all set.
--Ben
What's the killer app of the nokia 6010?
Besides the phone and sms: wap + cnn mobile.
It's useful content in nibble size bites.
So I started up a version of Netscape and was greeted by their home page. According to this, here's what news is most important:
- One Way to Keep Teens From Having Sex - Oops! Keira's Top Slips Off on Red Carpet - 66% of Men on First Dates Say No to THIS - 7 Feet Under: Astounding Find in Kansas - Do This One Thing. Live 4 Years Longer? - Did the Naked Chef Go Too Far This Time? - Scary Side Effect of a Popular Birth Contro
C'mon -- Keria's Top Slips Off? That's important news? Oh, and from this page you can also learn about: "The Sexist Star Body Parts" and "Hollywood's sexiest redheads."
What makes a company like Netscape decide that their top level page needs to be nothing but sex and junk (Story: "Could the bird flu ruin thanksgiving?" -- ooh, what a hard hitting story)?
I guess sex sells and all...but you would think that with access to global sources of information they could do a bit better.
Update: OK, so the front is trashy. Here are a couple of things you could do about it, and how I feel about those actions:
| Action | Ben Agrees With? |
|---|---|
| Parents change the startup page avoiding this trashy page | Yes |
| Church groups write letters to netscape telling them to change their page, or they'll recommend a boycott | Yes |
| Congress passes a law saying trashy web pages are not allowed | No |
| Bloggers complain about how trashy the front page of netscape is, recommeding they change it | Yes |
Time for a deep thought in 160 characters.
Read not to believe, but to weigh and consider. - DJB
Not only does this new nokia phone make typing slow - but every post must be less via 160 characters.
Be brief.
Google's at it again. Taking a service that typically cost (lots of) money, and makes it free for the world. How very nice of them. As they say:
Google Analytics gives us an opportunity to invest in our advertisers and everyone else who wants to create quality content on the web. Instead of spending money on web analytics, you can focus on creating targeted, ROI-driven marketing campaigns, and on improving your site design and content.
One day Google's strategy will become 100% clear -- and I really hope it is as nice as wanting to support "everyone else who wants to create quality content on the web."
I had the pleasure of getting to eat a very loud and chaotic breakfast witha large chunk of my family. Josh, Iris, Dave, Mom, Dad and Grandparents were present.
I tried to get a shot of the group but had no luck. The attached shot I thought would do instead.
--Ben
http://www.donatacom.com/papers/pomo49.htm
Check the above link for really interesting view of what the news media could be. The bottom line, is that Terry's suggesting that the news media needs to shift from pristine end-of-day broadcasts, to giving their viewers what they want: the real news, now.
Of course, that's kinda how I get my news now (bloglines + Reuters feed). I might watch a nightly news broadcast, but only if I'm hanging out with my Dad. What Terry seems to be suggesting is that your typical Channel 10 news program needs to start looking at news in this raw'ish streamwise fashion.
I also think what Terry's suggesting might help out with the news bias problem. Rather than delivering only the final summarized (and perhaps biased) version of the news, the news comes in first as raw facts and then gets a reaction added to it. This reaction can come from anywhere, including readers, giving the media a chance to see what the people really think about a story. At the end of the day, the summary broadcast will represent a variety of diverse input instead of just relying on the media to police itself.
Now, who has the guts to try this apporach first?
--Ben
The other day I cam across a link for Amazon's Mechanical Turk [1]. This is a really simple, but powerful idea. The concept works like this: some tasks are trivial for a human, and really tricky for a machine. The example Amazon uses is: "is there a pizza parlor in this picture?"
Amazon's Mechanical Turk allows companies (including Amazon) to register jobs with the system. The workers, like Shira (or yourself), can tackle these jobs. In Shira's case, each job pays a whopping $0.03 (that's right, three pennies). Yet, the jobs really are pretty simple, so it doesn't take long to make it to $0.25, and maybe even a buck.
Amazon calls it: Artificial Artificial Intelligence. I couldn't have put it better myself.
Anyway, Shira's hooked. She'll do just about anything to make an extra buck or two (except manual labor - she's gotta draw the line somewhere). She's having fun, and it's almost a game to see how you can optimize the process such that you make your pennies the fastest.
I, personally, am just impressed with the idea. The fact is, a company with one business guy (or gal) and one technical gal (or guy) could have launched this same idea with almost no resources. Gosh I love the internet.
Curious why they call it the Mechanical Turk? Google Mechanical Turk Hoax and find out the history behind the term.
My guess is, that by the time I've written this message, Shira will be $0.15 richer!
[1] http://mturk.com
--Ben
Here I am typing away on my T-mobile sidekick, yet I'm really impressed with this cheesy little LG cell phone. Why? It's not the phone that's impressing me - it's the network (gosh I sound like a late 90's commercial for SUN [1]).
For about 60%+ of our trip, my T-mobile sidekick has no signal. While this cheesy little Verizon phone had signal-bars the whole time. Wow.
If Verizon had the sidekick, I'd probably sign-up today.
Don't get me wrong, T-mobile works great in our local area. But it just can't compete out in the boonies.
Can you here me now? Sure can, on Verizon. Argh.
[1] SUN: The network *is* the computer. Huh? At least it stuck with me all these years, even if it didn't make any sense to me.
--Ben
This is an interesting viral ad-campaign. Though, what really caught my eye was the use of the Google Image Search to power an application. Using Google Images you can create an application with a vast media library which is highly searchable.
As a test, I made a postcard for Arlington, VA. The images that Google found were really quite impressive and of high quality.
For the last three weeks we have been living in a most remarkable home. Its name is Benincasa, and it is a hospice.
When I thought about hospice the first word that came to mind is 'institution.' Benincasa couldn't be farther from that image.
First, it's a real honest to goodness home, and feels like a warm place to be. Secondly, it is mainly staffed by volunteers. Isn't that amazing? This place only functions because people give of themselves. Finally, this place is focused on comfort. Comfort for the sick, and also for family and friends. Whatever you could ask for, they will provide. Heck, we moved in for weeks, and they made us feel like one of the family.
Places like Benincasa are not only special because of the work they do, but by the very fact that they can exist. The cynic in me says that a place like this could never survive on volunteers and donations. And the cynic is proven 100% wrong.
One message I got from being here is simple: there's simply no excuse to not go out and make a difference in people's lives. They do it here, every day, 24 hours a day.
Here's an idea - check to see if there's a hospice home in your local area, and if so donate to them. It can be your time, money, or even a plate of cookies.
If there's no hospice in your area, you can always give to Benincasa: 3880 Rush-Mendon Road; Mendon, NY 14506. I promise you'll be happy you did.
-For DJB-
--Ben
