Shaav

ffffound

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:09:49 GMT

Does anyone know about www.ffffound.com?

If you do and have invites, could you let me know? I have a friend who's desperate for one...

Thanks in advance...

LJ Strike

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:01:12 GMT

http://jemmind.livejournal.com/160297.html

Begins at 6:00 pm Calgary time (midnight GMT [Greenwich Mean Time]) on Thursday, March 20, and goes for 24 hours.

Nearby books

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:44:19 GMT

I've been tagged by Friendly Humanist (cross blogspace interaction?? gaspé!)to do a meme. Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the book nearest you with at least 123 pages. (No cheating!)
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Count the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other bloggers.

There are three books equidistant in front of me so I guess I'll include them all. (Fortunately, they are closer than the stack of six to my left.)

From left to right:

The Unicode 5.0 Standard by the Unicode Consortium:

Section 4.2, Case---Normative.

Section 5.18, Case Mappings.

The Tree of Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar

"Though they may appear to be supernormal powers, they are not supernatural, but are simply the finest of the powers of nature. As the practitioner has developed sensitivity and intelligence, he experiences the effects of that sensitivity. These powers are normal, though they appear supernormal to people who have not developed that degree of sensitivity."

How to Calculate Quickly by Henry Sticker:

"No new principles are involved in multiplications of this type. The student is simply asked to apply the methods which he has already learned to larger numbers. ... Review the examples in Exercise No. 338 above."

Usually, I don't tag, but I like this one, and I'm curious. Not sure I can constrain myself to just five though...

Tagged:

Expanding my Knitting Repertoire

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:55:16 GMT

Over the holidays, I bust out into the grand world of hats. This being my second successful one -- I like it cause it's cabled.

I can't be held responsible for the colour, which actually came out a little nicer in the picture. It was chosen by the recipient of the hat.

I'm not sure that knitting was the right hobby for me to pick up; I'm allergic to wool. Which means, either the stuff that you make is all acryllic -- which is tolerable for scarves and stuff, but not much else -- or cotton, cashmere, silk, alpaca -- which is outrageously expensive. Well the cotton isn't so bad usually I guess, but it seems pretty hard to find, and often, just doesn't look quite right. Sigh.

Speech Signal in Telephony

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:30:31 GMT

I found a copy of an oft-cited source in my dissertation area: "Speech Signals in Telephony" by A. Lloyd James; it's one of those sources that you always cite based on indirect references in other sources because it doesn't really have much to say, but it was one of the first publications to say it.

Anyway, I do try to make an effort not to cite stuff that I haven't actually read even though sometimes is necessary, and in the right context totally OK; so I found a cheap copy online and ordered it.

It was published in 1940, specifically concerning wartime communications. It's a brief volume and reading it left me with two strong impressions: one heartening and one disheartening.

The man is quite clearly an expert on the subject -- at least for his time -- and there are definitely some astute observations. However, by current standards it's vaguely quaint. Stylistically, it reads like a paper written by a really bright high school student; content-wise it isn't as sophisticated as you'd likely find in a modern high school report. I don't mean to be condescending -- obviously, the fact that at the time, the information he's presenting isn't widely available and that a lot of it are his original observations and insights makes all the difference in the world! But we do know a lot more about speech now, and the things that he's talking about have been formalized beyond observations and insights.

Which on the one hand emphasizes to me that we really have made progress. Not only do we know more, but culturally our science and our writing has matured. In an abstract way, we all know that, but you don't really think about how that manifests in something as ubiquitous as writing styles. And I think that's pretty cool! (Yes, I notice the irony of that last statement imbedded in commentary about maturing writing styles!)

But on the otherhand... it's equally true that because we have made progress and matured, the book is a concrete manifestation of how much more difficult it is to make a contribution to that process now. In 1940, A. Lloyd James was able to be an expert in his field and write a book that contributed to human knowledge when today, while it isn't precisely common knowledge, it's within our expectations of a high school level research paper.

Although, I guess it's inevitable that anyone in my position -- working on my dissertation yada yada -- get angsty about this fact, it's not for myself that I find this disheartening. I'm passed doubting myself in that way. I worry about what it means for us culturally... long gone are the days when any half-way smart person can learn something new and valuable through their senses or introspections alone. All advances these days must be made through assistive technology (machines, statistics, increasingly vast bodies background research) which requires further and futher effort and expertise to get to the edge of.

Like wealth, expertise is so much in the hands of an elite now, what hope does someone who wants more out of their life than the relentless pursuit of knowledge or technique have to contribute something new? At some point, they must just give up hope... especially youth.

When I was growing up, at least I could maintain the illusion that I was having new thoughts and new observations because I was limited in what I knew other people knew; but these days when a simple web-search will turn up a dozen sites devoted to your "new" idea, its that much harder to sustain the curiosity and inspiration. I've seen it with my Shads who get disheartened when they find every one of their product ideas available online; and even myself more recently -- I gave up on my "specrogram reader" when I found someone had already done it online, and have certainly become less inspired by some of my SL ideas having found other people already doing them. Which ultimately, is counter-productive because who knows? My approach or my Shads' ideas might have been totally different, even better (*if* you put in enough effort)... But recreating just isn't as much fun as creating. So we just sit back down on the couch.

For Star Wars Fans

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:48:19 GMT

Sounds like a pretty entertaining Star Wars happening in Toronto:

http://ruralrob.livejournal.com/498565.html

Impulse Purchase

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:13:19 GMT

I got a bit carried away about a week ago and bought four laptops on a whim.

Yes, yes, you read that right. I'm only keeping one though.

Heard of the $100 laptop? It's kind of morphed into "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) cause they didn't quite hit the $100 goal but nonetheless. If you haven't, it's a program trying to send children in developing countries cheap, durable, good quality computers that they can learn on. An attempt to bring up the standard of education in these places.

I've been following the program for quite a while, and the laptops themselves are just BRILLIANT design... so cool -- I wish as much thought was put into the computers that we spend so much more on. And as long as I've been reading about them, I've really thought it would be cool to have one.

Well, in a stroke of genius -- I'm sure because they realize that all us technogeeks out there are totally fascinated by the project -- the OLPC peeps came up with "Give One Get One". Essentially, you buy two laptops, one as a donation to a child in a developing country, and one for yourself. I couldn't resist. And J and I decided that we should get a second for our nephew. Since, you know, they are actually designed for children, not 30-something technogeeks who just can't resist. Not to mention that I really believe in the program -- I'm happy to support it.

Should you be intrigued, you'd better act quickly -- it's a limited-time thing. Nov.12-Nov.26 ONLY. You should check out the laptop itself, nonetheless. It's a pretty awesome little piece of technology.

http://laptop.org

Recent Delivery

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:47:22 GMT

In other Potter related news...

In my quest to own all of the translations of the Philosophers Stone, I just got delivered one that is not a translation so much as an English transliteration: braille! :)

I've actually always been fascinated by Braille and have always wanted to learn to read it. I also got some educational materials at the same time, although they haven't arrived yet.

I shouldn't have been surprised by the size, but I was! It came in 4 volumes: 11"x11"x6" in total. In one respect I was surprised by how easy it is to read -- with your eyes... for the most part it's a substitution alphabet, although there are a lot of contractions. I've always been good with substitution alphabets -- usually within a few minutes I can start to read them nearly fluently. The contractions complicate things, but its still pretty tractable.

But trying to work out the patterns tactilely! That will be the challenge. Just playing around a little bit, I think that movement is really important -- just touching the character, it's hard to distinguish, but sliding across really aids the perception. I can see how starting to move quickly across the lines can also be really helpful -- you get a much better wholistic impression of the contours of the word, just like you would visually and combined with the top-down influences that a fluent reader would have, I can see how it could become very natural.

Another thing that surprised me is that the pages are double-sided. It makes sense -- offset the pages just a little so that the points don't interfere with each other, and you can't really feel the embossing from the over-page. VISUALLY though, it's impossible to read... It's like trying to distinguish over-typed text.

So cool!

I also started glancing around at some of the devices that are available now for blind people -- PDAs etc. Also some really cool ideas. I'm thinking how awesome it would be to have a Braille PDA that you could just hold on to; it would scroll text across your fingers... imagine how useful that would be for reading on the train in Japan? Or reading in bed at night without disturbing your partner by having the light on? Or for people (like me) that have bad neck issues -- it would be so great to just be able to lie back and not have hold my head in an uncomfortable reading position for so long. Not to mention how many other possibilities there could be for interesting interfaces... Just off the top of my head, what if you could read important indicators off of your stickshift instead of the display? You wouldn't have to have your eyes off the road as much.

Of course, it's a bit of a pipe-dream because the availability of reading materials in braille is pretty pathetic... Of course, as electronic media become more available, hopefully that would change. Braille transcription could be a pretty automated thing (complicated yes -- there's more to it than one might think -- but certainly easier than text-to-speech) so if you had a PDA...

Sadly it appears that Braille is becoming less and less popular as speech technologies improve... I think it's technologically more flexible, and there's a much shorter learning curve.

PS. With this one, I'm up to 27 of 68 (give or take how you interpret unauthorized translations and transliterations etc.)

Delightful Shock

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:21:37 GMT

!! It totally fits, and I certainly would have said it half-joking. I'm just seriously surprised that she said it publicly!

Answering a question posed to her at tonight's book reading at Carnegie Hall in New York, Harry Potter author JK Rowling said she "always thought Dumbledore was gay" and that he originally fell in love with the wizard Grindelwald.

Rowling also said she had read through Steve Kloves' script for the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and corrected a passage in which Dumbledore was reminiscing about past loves by crossing it out and scrawling "Dumbledore is gay" over it.

Upon hearing her response, a hush fell over the audience in attendence and then applause exploded. Rowling remarked that if she had known that would be the response, she would've revealed her thoughts on Dumbledore earlier.

and from later down in the account:

Jo ... unequivocally stated that Snape was "bitter, vindictive and mean."

I'm kinda surprised by this too... although it's definitely how I feel.

cf. http://www.hpana.com/news.20228.html

Shocking Information

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:54:00 GMT

So I was listening to this piece about how moray eels eat and the scientist says: "their oral jaws" and I'm like "Their oral jaws? What as opposed to their nasal jaws?" I'm thinking it's just someone a little nervous interviewing and being a little hyper-technical.

But NO. Turns out "oral jaws" is in contrast to "pharyngeal jaws" -- the eels bite with the oral, then with the pharyngeal; release the oral, pull back with the pharyngeal; bite with the pharyngeal, release the oral and repeat thereby drawing the unwary cephalopod (or other big fish) into their long skinny bodies.

How is it animals have more than one set of jaws and I don't know this? Hmm... maybe cause I only did Bio 10...

Nonetheless, pretty shocking information for so early in the morning...

Life Expectancy Test

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 04:26:31 GMT

I have no idea how valid it is, but it was quite interesting:

http://www.poodwaddle.com/realage.swf

And since my results were good, I'm favourable towards it. ;)

I Wish I Talked Like Joss Whedon Wrote My Dialogue

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 05:00:37 GMT

We glutted on Firefly over the weekend and a little more tonight, whilst I soldier on on knitting project three (new style Hufflepuff scarf -- about half done).

I continue to be in awe; it's still the finest example of visual literature I have seen.

To think we could have been entering season 6...

Highly Dorky Nerd King (booya!)

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:47:34 GMT

Because I like to point out the fact regularly that I am, in fact, a dork.

Image Resizing Innovations

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:19:09 GMT

OK, when I saw the link to start with, I was like, "umm... how is this so earth-shattering?" but holy CRAP, it's amazing!!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/28/adobe-hires-co-inventor-of-image-resizer-technology

Calgary AIDS Walk

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:07:53 GMT

I'm going to be walking in this year's Calgary AIDS Walk on September 23rd.

If you feel moved to, please sponsor me! You can do it online by following the link below:

Sponsor Sean in the Calgary AIDS Walk

Good Quote

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:43:12 GMT

"Science is not truth; it is, instead, a method for diminishing ignorance."

- Jim Adovasio and Olga Soffer

Rockbox

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:06:42 GMT

I hate the IPod software and ITunes even worse... If you have mixed media on your IPod, or even drastically different genres... or even if you just want to freaking use "shuffle"... so sucks. I hate that it just throws away my well maintained and easy to navigate directory structure in favour of ONLY (often irrelevant) tagging structure (I don't want entries for all the artists that appear on a Soundtrack...).

So, I finally took the plunge and put Rockbox on. I've been toying with the idea for about a year... seriously wish I had done it sooner! It's a different OS (firmware) for portable devices (not just IPod) and it's fantastic! Treats your IPod just like a hard drive, and then you can EITHER navigate the file structure you put on it OR use the database it creates by scanning it. And then on top of it it has a gazillion more better features... including much more flexible bookmarking, so I'm done with the days of losing my place in my audiobooks cause apple lost them. Grr! So worthwhile.

The only thing I haven't tested yet is whether it can handle video -- I have my doubts -- but it handled the car adapter just fine which makes me very happy. That was my biggest concern. I can live without video.

Off to Shad

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:48:37 GMT

Moving into Shad today. Don't expect to hear anything from me for the next month. ;) Not that you've heard much from me lately... ;)

Too funny

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 05:46:31 GMT

Wahahaaaahaa hahahaha haaaa.... [wipes tears from eyes]

OK, is just me that's so warped to think this is FREAKING HILARIOUS? :)

I love wondermark. Most of the time anyway. ;)

Crud

Thu, 24 May 2007 04:30:04 GMT

My recording didn't work. :( Sadly, my sage wisdom of linguistic sexism is lost forever. :(

Oh wait! I still know all about it! You'll just have to ask me.

On the Radio

Thu, 24 May 2007 01:55:50 GMT

Late notice I know, but I'm going to be on CJSW tonight (http://www.cjsw.com/listen.html) at 9pm EST talking about Sexism in the language of the GLBT community (I think! :) ). I'll probably record it and post it later too.

Just in case you're interested.

HP Squee!

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:40:04 GMT

Three Indic Philosopher's Stones arrived today! Marathi, Gujarati, and Malayalam

SWEET!

That brings me up to 18 (of 64).

Touching Base

Wed, 16 May 2007 21:39:47 GMT

Sophia-Antipolis, where I have come for a meeting of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute is quite beautiful as is the rest of the area which include Nice and Cannes. I suppose this is not surprising given the reputation! It's well deserved.

Unfortunately, my luggage did not arrive with me, which complicated my meeting which was today -- all my materials were in the my suitcase. However, it did arrive at the hotel in the morning and I was able to pick it up.

Minnie Driver and Jude Law shared my flight from London... Jude Law rushed through baggage claim leaving it to some lacky -- Minnie Driver though, hung around and picked up her own.

Overall, I fail to be star-struck however.

Back to France

Mon, 14 May 2007 23:56:02 GMT

For a week. Will possibly be better in touch this time...

Daemon

Wed, 09 May 2007 13:31:17 GMT