Blog Posts

bow river valley

24 photos shot on my iPhone, and stitched using Autostitch as I watched the clouds move. Science fiction.

making windows liveable

I’ve had to move onto a Windows machine at work (Win 7 Enterprise). This is the first time I’ve ever had to use Windows as a primary work computer, having used Macs in various incarnations since 1988 (when System 6 was the Shiny New Thing). It’s been a bit of an… adjustment.

One of the first things that hit me was how fracking BLUE everything is. There’s an easy fix - change the Window Color and Appearance setting to use a more neutral grey, dial down the color intensity, and turn off the stupid transparency.

tracked

apparently, I spend a fair amount of time around Calgary. great secrets unlocked by the iPhone’s cellular reception logs.

photo friday - friends edition

I’ve been thinking about friends a lot lately - most recently because I just rediscovered my best friend from childhood online, after stumbling across her photos on display in Mac Hall. (as an aside, she writes an absolutely fantastic blog, and is a really good photographer)

I think about my childhood, growing up with friends in Canyon Meadows, a lot. I didn’t realize how much I think about it, and talk about it, until I told my son that I’d found my friend online again. He asked me if it was the friend with the boomerang. Dang. Yes. She had a boomerang, and I stupidly threw it and nearly took her head off when it came back (thankfully/unfortunately landing in a pond instead). I’d been telling him the stories of my childhood because they have shaped who I am.

back

it was a pretty great week away. sun. sand. etc…

out of the office

Offline until April. Comments closed until I get back.

Midway

Midway Journey

on acceptance in freeform

Yesterday, Jim was rolling out an all-requests show on DS106, based on the theme “love and loss.” I caught part of the show, and it was pretty amazing. Then, some requests came in and I complained.

I was a jerk. I apologize for complaining about the content of a user-powered freeform Internet radio phenomenon.

For freeform to be truly freeform, the community needs to feel able to experiment and play anything, without fear of judgement or condemnation. My snark broke that trust.

no more political attack ads

An election hasn’t even been called, but The Harper Government has been running ads nonstop, trying to discredit any alternatives to The Conservative Party of Canada. The attack ads have to stop. I just signed the petition by the Green Party to try to reign in this madness.

For the likely 2011 federal election, I refuse to vote for any party that runs attack ads. Stand for something, not against.

DS106 ringtone. can you dig it?

The intro for DS106 Radio has become pretty much burned into my brain. I don’t know who made the clip, but they took a segment of Cyrus’s speech from The Warriors, and smushed it into some marching band music (?).

The intro bumper from the best damned freeform internet radio station on the planet. Can you dig it? Can you DIG it? CANNNN YOUUUU DIIIIIIIGGGG IIIIIIITTTTTT? Yes. Yes, I can.

lecture capture technology may not be inherently evil

I just saw a link retweeted by David Porter, pointing to an interesting post by Mark Smithers.

Mark’s post is a great read, on why lecture capture may not be what we think it is, nor do what we think it does.

But, I don’t think that necessarily makes the technology bad. Yes, it offers a tempting crutch to lazy instructors. Look! My lecture is available online! I’m totally innovative and engaging. Next slide.

still no analytics

It’s been almost 6 months since I killed all active analytics on my blogs. I scrubbed it of Google Analytics and WordPress.com Stats. The only numbers I get now are passive and highly aggregated and anonymized, webserver logs automatically crunched by Urchin.

I don’t miss the detailed active analytics one bit. I still find out if anyone links to my stuff, through the WordPress Dashboard links widget. But I have no clue about how many people read my stuff, nor how many RSS subscribers there are.