A Little Ludwig Goes a Long Way

A smattering of opinions on technology, books, business, and culture. Now in its 4th technology iteration.

Web Service Stuff I Should Learn More About

08 July 2007

* Six Apart - Movable Type News - MT4: Time To Give It A Try – you can run a hosted version of MT4 on Amazon’s EC2 service. When my server hardware dies I’ve been intending to move to a hosted service, maybe this is smarter than a traditional hoster… * I wonder how Yahoo Pipes is doing. Lots of noise when it launched but I haven’t heard so much about recently * Google subscribed links included in onebox results – lots of stuff I don’t get here.

Switching from newsgator to google reader

07 July 2007

I’m switching from newsgator to Google Reader (4) for rss reading. I’ve been a longtime user of newsgator and loved it, especially the outlook integration. But I find myself spending less and less time in Outlook and more and more using the web version, and the newsgator web version is just too slow, and tends to block in firefox frequently. The google reader isn’t perfect but is a lot zippier.

How History is taught elsewhere

06 July 2007

I’ve often wished I could read a sampling of history texts used in high schools worldwide – it would be educational to see how students in different societies are programmed. For instance in the WSJ today, some of the messages that are being pushed in Russia, so different than how we teach history here: A Do-Over for Russian History? - WSJ.com

_Another teachers’ guide getting Kremlin support, meanwhile, recasts key elements of Soviet history. Dictator Josef Stalin is described as “the most successful Soviet leader ever,” for building industry and leading the country to victory in World War II. The guide explains his purges and the system of camps for political prisoners as a function of his desire to make the Soviet Union strong.

Mr. Putin himself echoed that view at the meeting with teachers, saying Stalin’s “Great Terror” of 1937 – during which at least 700,000 people were executed – wasn’t as bad as atrocities other nations had perpetrated, such as the U.S. use of the atomic bomb._

Recent Summer Reads

01 July 2007

Only one keeper here.

* “Legions of space”:amazon by Keith Laumer. Some of that old time science fiction: manly men slashing their way thru space and claiming the universe as their own. Interesting as a nostalgia piece, not sure I’d pick it up otherwise. * “Simple genius”:amazon by David Baldacci. A really crappy potboiler. My buddy Tim warned me. Sorry I spent the 2 days on it. * “Counting heads”:amazon by David Marusek. Nano-infused future society tale. Tugged at some interesting character issues but didn’t really dig into them. The ending was a little predictable as the story devolved into a typical adventure tale. * “Blindsight”:amazon by Peter Watts. Wow! A head spinning first encounter tale with a deep exploration of alienness and sentience. A deeply alien structure is encountered, and humanity sends the most extreme representatives of humanity to grapple with the situation under the theory that it takes an alien to understand one. An ambiguous, atypical, and probably unhappy ending.

Stuff I Want But Don't Need

30 June 2007

* Have to lead today’s list with the iphone. My lizard brain wants one. The rest of me has no idea why. I’m going to attempt to hold off until V2. * Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Magnogrip Magnetic Wrist Band – wow this actually seems super useful. * Nike floor hockey cleaning concept * PuchiPuchi bubble wrap toy. Can you imagine having one of these on an airplane? * Rich and Bob’s advice for lens cleaning tools. * Phoneflasher. Not sure I can pull this off. * Magnatag whiteboards. These appeal deeply to me tho I have no specific need. Maybe I can use one to manage my halloween efforts?