Two views of the moment of detonation of the old Jamestown Bridge yesterday.

Vacation update: I spent the afternoon at the Curious George movie with three kids under 9. Loved it, although it dragged a bit near the end. The animation is traditional -- painterly -- and George is just so goshdarn cute.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:48 AM | Permalink

April 18, 2006

Providence Geeks meet Wednesday night; Reporter, daughter blog from New Orleans relief kitchen; 34.5 million weblogs now

Providence Geeks -- a group open to anyone who shows up at their gatherings -- will have their third monthly meeting tomorrow night at AS220, 115 Empire St., from, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. or later. (Details).

This group needs women
.
Something new this time, a mini-demo: "Kipp Bradford and Brian Jepson will present the fundamentals of your gadget power needs and show you some ways to build your own charger that can feed juice to any device that charges over a USB connection."

I hope this is like Mr. Wizard.

Spring break in Katrina's wake: My longtime newsroom neighbor, Providence Journal features and society writer Faye Zuckerman, and her 12-year-old daughter, Melanie Chitwood, of Barrington are blogging from a tent in Arabi, La., near St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans' Ninth Ward.

They're spending this spring-break week volunteering at a relief kitchen run by Emergency Communities.

Fay & Mel in NOLA is their busy and interesting blog. Catch it while it's live, and watch them work.

From Mel: The storm is not over

...something I heard while we were getting a tour of New Orleans yesterday.

“A lot of people think the storm is over, but it’s not. The winds have gone, but the storm is still here.” Mary Greco

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:47 AM | Permalink

April 17, 2006

Guest blogger Liz Petow: College Admission: It's Over

Liz Petow

Last fall, after digging through information on all the colleges I could think of and sifting through all the "hottest" schools lists, I compiled a list of schools in which I was at least somewhat interested. Over the months, I whittled it down to seven schools, and after spending hours upon hours on admissions websites, gallons of gas on college visits, and too much money on headache medicine, the time has come and gone for admissions decisions.

It's over -- for most of us. By April 1, most colleges and universities have delivered letters of acceptance or rejection to their many applicants. For many of my peers and for myself, it was a mildly traumatizing end to an excruciating wait.

As many of my classmates and I have noticed, admissions seem to be unusually competitive this year. No one expects to get into every school, but when students get into few of their choices, it's surprising. Everyone I know seems to have gotten an unexpected amount of thin white envelopes.

We're not imagining it:

My theory is there had to have been an increase in births in 1988. Whether or not that is true, nearly every college I received an acceptance or a rejection letter from boasted their significant increase in applicants this year. Columbia received 19,730 applications this year, a 9% increase from last year and a record high. 20,300 students applied to the University of Pennsylvania this year, an 8% increase. Even the University of Vermont saw an increase to 18,000 applicants, a record high for the university. Harvard, however, saw its applicant pool hold steady, declining from 22,796 applications last year to 22,719 this year.

Others attribute these changes to a too-easy admissions process that encourages students to apply to more colleges without much interest in the schools. The Common Application allows you to compile one application, photocopy it, and send it to as many schools as will accept it. Or do the entire process online. Many colleges also offer even easier applications. VIP applications are offered to some students from many universities: They permit students to disregard the application fee or even the application essay. Next year, the Common App will do away with the paper application, making it so that all students, with the click of a mouse on a check box, can send their applications off to as many colleges as they desire. I had thought my seven schools was an excessive number, until a coworker told me she applied to fifteen.

With this many applicants, it is impossible for colleges to accept every qualified student. I think this generated a lot of headaches and heartache problems, with many being rejected or waitlisted to their top-choice, incredibly prestigious schools. Yale's acceptance rate dropped to 8.6%. Dartmouth accepted a record low of 15.4% applicants. Brown took only 13.8% of their never before seen 18,313 applicants.

When barely 9% of an applicant pool can be accepted, it's impossible for anyone to feel confident about being accepted by their first-choice school. The prospect of not attending Harvard or Yale next fall may be be a horrifying thought for some, but it is the reality for most of us. College websites and message boards, such as collegeconfidential.com have been bombarded by the wails of students who believe their lives have ended now that the Ivies don't want them.

But, there are many options left that can give any student a quality education if that is what they want. The "public Ivies," which include UC-Berkeley and UNC-Chapel Hill, provide academic opportunities to their students equivalent to any private Ivy League school. Many small liberal arts schools, which are scattered throughout the country, may be a better fit than a large Ivy League school, where huge classes may be taught primarily by graduate assistants. Public universities, even those that haven't gained the title "public ivy," are usually more financially feasible for the average student, and many offer honors programs that can enrich the curriculum of especially successful applicants.

When students with Advance Placement and International Baccalaureate backgrounds, 2000+ SAT scores, and extracurricular success enter, not the halls of Harvard or Brown, but rather those of state universities and small liberal arts schools, the schools will benefit from their presence.

For those of us who have had it ingrained in us that we're exceptional our entire academic careers, these rejections are blows to our egos, and it's tempting to feel we've wasted our time and energy working toward a seemingly unattainable goal. But, at this point, I'm just happy I can say it's over.

Liz Petow, co-editor-in-chief of The Bengal Beat at St. Mary's Academy, Bay View, in Riverside, R.I., will be attending the University of Vermont next year.

Related: Stanford Daily: Seniors post college rejection letters at local high school

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:36 AM | Permalink

April 16, 2006

Neil Young CD to protest war, urge impeachment

Neil Young sets his sights on Bush Independent, UK: "He is country rock's biggest icon, and he is angry. Recorded in secret, his forthcoming album savages the war in Iraq. One track says it all: 'Impeach the President' "

"I just finished a new record -- a power trio with trumpet and 100 voices, I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan," begins the ticker at Young's site. "Metal folk protest? It's called Living with the War..."

Earlier, from Editor & Publisher, Neil Young, Son of Famed Reporter, Records "Impeach the President" Song:

Apparently it was recorded with a 100-voice choir. Rumors have circulated the past few days on the Web, but E&P has tracked down the strongest confirmation in a blog kept by Sherman Oaks, Ca. musician/singer Alicia Morgan....

Last Friday, Morgan wrote on her LastLeftB4Hooterville blog that she had been “summoned” to a local studio to sing on the new record with 99 others. “I'm not going to give the whole thing away, but the first line of one of the songs was ‘Let's impeach the President for lyin'!’ Turns out the whole thing is a classic beautiful protest record. The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally. Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience. I can't believe my good fortune at being a part of this.

“We finished the session by singing an a capella version of 'America the Beautiful' and there was not a dry eye in the house.

“Neil said it should be out in 6 to 8 weeks."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

Holidays are for making memories

We all slept late. My daughter is away, on a trip planned before she realized it would include Easter. Her son, Dylan, is staying with Joe and me, and eggs and chocolate are up to us. This weekend we have been to a reptile zoo, colored eggs, played video games, and hung out together, all three of us reading books while the blues played in the background.

Dylan wakes up to his Easter basket, a shower, an organic chocolate-chip muffin and orange juice in quick succession. His father is coming to take him around to see other relatives before Easter dinner,

John remembers his own childhood, always a new suit for Easter, and has bought his son a brand new suit -- his first since infancy -- and new socks and shoes.

I was present at Dylan's difficult birth, and I will always be in his corner. I am very kind to him, never harsh or critical. I do not have to discipline him, I'm Grandma. I defend him fiercely, and tell him the truth. He looks me in the eye, checking for signals in strange situations, trusting. He is polite, agreeable, intelligent and direct. And a lot of fun.

When his sleepover friend fell asleep Friday night and Dylan lay next to him, resigned but not tired, I asked in a whisper if he wanted to bake cookies with me. It's the sort of surprise I like to be.

So when I suggest he needs to take a shower and put on the suit, he agrees, and just does it. I never had a little boy, so we figure out the pre-tied necktie together. I do know about pockets sewn shut, and cut them open. I take a picture of him in his Easter outfit, one I know will be looked at frequently through the years.

Dressed and waiting, Dylan is more interested in the toys in his Easter basket than in the candy -- a Yo-Yo, a foot bag, and especially a little electronic recall game. When I asked last night if he wanted to put out carrots for the Easter bunny, he nodded and raided the fridge. I do not know if he still believes, but we pretend.

Later, when that handsome little dude has left for his round of visiting, I'm pouring marinade over lamb and a rush of pure love brings fierce tears to my eyes. I hope he smiles at his memories of Grandma after I'm gone.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments 3

The Easter bunny just came to my house

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:20 AM | Permalink

April 13, 2006

Guest blogger Liz Petow: Behind the Closed Doors of MySpace

Liz Petow

More than sixty million people belong to MySpace. Sixty million people have their own free little piece of the Internet, where they can publish anything they'd like (within reason).

A large portion of this space belongs to high school students. As a teenager, you either love it or you hate it, but you almost always give into the draw of MySpace anyway. You are on it, whether you're the girl with 900 "friends" or the guy with one picture who made it to appease his girlfriend. Everyone is there. You can find your best friend from third grade and the young janitor at your high school. You can find your 12-year-old cousin lying about her age and your friend's mother doing the same.

The newest powerful trend among young people is certainly taking hold of our online lives. In fact, MySpace.com has become an integral part of the entire life of today's teenager.

As much as I hate to admit it, every day when I come home, I click on the bookmark saved to my computer, and in an instant I am back on MySpace.

I started using MySpace briefly almost two years ago, when it was still pretty desolate in terms of high school kids. I signed up, looked around, and quickly dismissed the site as being as trivial as other sites around at the time, such as Friendster.com. Little did I know, even early last year when a friend reintroduced me to the site, what a phenomena it would become.

But, what is MySpace?

MySpace is "a place for friends," or that's how the creators describe it. It is a "social networking site," which is a site devoted to the connection and interaction of people with friends and potential friends. People sign up for a free MySpace site very easily, which has contributed to the large membership. After sign-up, the person is able to create their very own MySpace page.

A MySpace page can be very simplistic. The typical MySpace includes the following elements:

- a main photo of the author, which is linked to more photographs
- general information (name, age, location)
- a blog
- interests and favorites section (music, movies, television shows, and books)
- the About Me and Who I'd Like to Meet sections
- the Top 8 Friends, with a link to the full Friends List
- the Details section (relationship status, hometown, occupation, smoking/drinking preferences, zodiac sign, etc...)
- schools attended
- Friends' Comments

These elements may change. Simple html codes can alter the appearance of MySpace and are often used (most times incorrectly). The layouts can become quite complex. Entire websites are devoted to pre-made MySpace layouts that with a few alterations can easily be formatted to your own personal site. Many people also add video and music clips. As one friend explains, "Honestly, what other webpage can you personally customize the layout AND add music - your own personal theme song that plays every time someone visits your page?"

Nevertheless, the most important parts of a MySpace are the photos and the Friends List.

The core of every MySpace user is their main photo. This photo appears publicly on their MySpace page, on every friend’s Friends List, in search engines, and in comments. This main photo is a link to several other photos the user can also upload, and on which your friends can post comments. The main photo is a little 200x200 pixels or so representation of you. It is the persona you take on while on the site.

The main photo is the persona of the MySpace users. This Myspace belongs to Tom, the creator of MySpace, and everyone's "friend." He is the generic example of a MySpace.

The Friends List begins when you first sign up for the site. Each user starts off with one friend, Tom, the site's creator, who is often mistaken by uninformed parents as "that creepy 30-year-old man" on their daughter's page. From Tom, one searches for their friends in the real world, and begins to add people to a list that is linked to your MySpace page. Over time, you accumulate your friend's friends and other random people who decide they think you are worthy of their recognition, or just think that you seem cool.

Your friends are the audience for your MySpace. Friends send personal messages to one another, comment on each other's pages in the sort of guestbook at the bottom of every MySpace, and comment on each photograph.

The MySpace Friends List begins with your Top 8 on the front page of your site. The Top 8 is meant for only your eight best friends. It can become pretty excessively exclusive.

Besides friend-to-friend interaction, there is a lot more to do on MySpace. There is a database of bands and musicians, who post their most popular songs, videos, and tour dates. There are videos hosted by the site. There is even a classifieds section. All of these features are completely free to use and share. MySpace also has sponsored the release of a record, which can be bought on the site. The site even hosts MySpace parties at clubs and concert venues in major cities.

So, now that we know what MySpace is, why does it seem to have such a hold on today's young people?

Metaphorically speaking, MySpace is like a teenager's room. When being in your room meant more than sitting at your computer, a teenager's room was like their shrine, their haven, and their hangout. We decorate our rooms ourselves. We put up the posters of our favorite bands, line the bookshelves with our favorite authors, and frame photographs of our best friends and ourselves. Away from the pressures of schools and our parents, our room is a free-range expression of ourselves. It is a safe place where we can close the door and shut away the "real world." It is where we take our friends to listen to our music, watch our movies, and just talk.

MySpace works in the same way; this is why it has become so popular among teenagers. It is a place where we can express ourselves freely and be with our friends. It's our shrine.

We post photographs of ourselves to revel in the comments we receive. We comment on friends' pages, so they comment on ours. We send messages to receive messages. It's an ego boost for many – someone is looking at you, someone is commenting on you. It is a haven, because it is outside the realm of the "real world" of our parents and our teachers. With a majority of the MySpace membership being young people, we do not have the fear the judgments of older generations, like in so many other social situations.

MySpace, most importantly, is our hang out. All our friends are on MySpace, and thus so are we. It's an easy way to communicate with friends, even if we have not seen them in a while. You can speak with multiple people at once or leave little notes for someone to read later. You can meet friends of friends and expand your social network that much further.

It's like going to the mall and looking to meet new, interesting people.

Friends' comments are the main interaction on MySpace. The average comments section on a MySpace is a collection of "You are so awesome," "I love you," and "What a great party last weekend."

It is also a source of free, easy-access entertainment. We're all voyeurs, or else we wouldn't enjoy a good reality TV show. MySpace is a little clip into the lives of our friends, our enemies, our classmates, and our coworkers. You find out things you'd never have known in reality. It's fun and interesting to see what someone you don't know very well is truly like.

There are, however, many arguments against MySpace. Yes, there is the possibility of sharing too much information. Yes, there is the possibility of talking to the wrong person. Yes, some people use obscenities and post objectionable content on their pages. But, MySpace is a much safer place than it seems. Most teenagers know what limits to put on shared information and presentations of themselves. Most teenagers aren't trying to get into trouble on the site.

The details section. This section provides the only section on the site to enter personal information. What a user enters is their choice. Knowing what to reveal and what to keep secret is essential to safe use of MySpace.

Knowing what MySpace is is the key element in understanding why so many of today's teenagers are addicted to it. Misunderstandings have led to a lot of headaches at high schools for both teachers and students. MySpace use has been banned in most schools, networks blocking the site from school computers. At one friend's school, a student was suspended for the content of his MySpace, which was neither threatening nor explicit. At my own school, the senior class got a surprise when several students' MySpace pages were printed out and faxed home, due to "questionable" content. Actions such as these cause parents to become nervous and upset, which is only compounded by articles about young people being attacked while meeting strangers over the site. That is very worrisome, but if parents would talk to their children, rather than ban usage of the site, it would be more likely that these risks would be lessened, and everyone could use the site for what it is intended.

MySpace really shouldn't get as much controversial attention as it does. It's simply the place teenagers have found they are able to express themselves, get a little bit more attention than they might in high school. It's a place where they connect, without the restrictions they feel school or their families put on them. We're not trying to exploit ourselves and others. We're not trying to cause trouble. We're just trying to find ourselves and hang out with our friends.

Liz Petow, 17, is a senior at St. Mary's Academy, Bay View, in Riverside, R.I. She is co-editor-in-chief of its student newspaper, The Bengal Beat.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments 4

Google Calendar launches; Webby Award nominees announced; Argentina on two steaks a day

Fodder for new bookmarks: The 10th Annual Webby Awards nominees are out, in an amazing number of categories. The best approach may be to treat the list as a way to check out sites new to you.

Otherwise you might start to wonder how The Smoking Gun from Court TV News is nominated in the Humor category, and what's so thrilling about the OralB Pulsar site. There's even an Insurance category, and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is a nominee.

If there was any doubt that the Web is no longer a funky, fun thing, the corporatization of the Webby Awards smacks you in the face with this. For a little fun, you have to turn to Boneless Pig Farmers Association Of America in the Weird category.

AP
Meerkats play with Easter eggs filled with meal worms at the London Zoo.

Argentina On Two Steaks A Day: A good read about eating in a country where beef rules and cows roam free, the ice cream is excellent, the bread and coffee are awful, and restaurants begin to open at 10 p.m. for the convenience of families with small children. (Adults eat later.) Excerpts:

There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States. Since this is the way of life a cow was designed for, it is not necessary to pump the animal full of antibiotics. The meat is leaner, healthier and more flavorful than that of corn-fed cattle. It has fewer calories, contains less cholesterol, and tastes less mushy and waterlogged than American meat. And the cows spend their lives out grazing in the field, not locked into some small pen. You can taste the joy.

and

You might think that fruits and vegetables would get short shrift in this animal paradise, but they are actually delicious. Tomatoes, for example, have odor, flavor, and are colored red, an intriguing novelty. You can get excellent salads in any restaurant, although just like with the steaks, you get only what you ask for. Celery salad is a bowl of celery, with nothing else; carrot salad is a bowl of shredded carrots.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:17 AM | Permalink

April 12, 2006

Providence Library proposes closing (or giving to city) 6 branches; LibraryLookup updated, new instructions for IE users

Journal photo / Kris Craig
Ruby Monegro,11, and Evelyn Aquino, 8, peek out from behind a runway curtain to see a dance exhibition that was part of a Youth Art Month fashion show March 29 at the Olneyville library, a branch that would close under the proposed 2007 library budget.

Providence Library proposes closing 6 branches by Cathleen Crowley in the Providence Journal, today (free reg. req.):

PROVIDENCE -- Providence Public Library officials proposed closing six library branches and laying off workers to bridge a $900,000 shortfall in the fiscal year 2007 budget.

Library officials are also considering severing all branches and handing them over to the city.

The executive committee of the library's board of trustees, met yesterday to review the budget and listen to possible governance changes at the library. The committee did not vote on either issue.

Under the library's proposed 2007 budget, the branches that would close are: Fox Point, Smith Hill, Olneyville, Knight Memorial, Wanskuck and Washington Park, which was already shut down in January because of structural problems.

Four of the library's 10 branches would remain open: Central, Rochambeau, South Providence and Mount Pleasant. South Providence, which was recently renovated, would operate at its current hours and hours would be extended at Central, Rochambeau and Mount Pleasant -- the three most-used libraries....

Aboout transferring the branch libraries to the city,

Mary B. Olenn, chairwoman of the board of trustees, summarized the dilemma like this: "I think it's helpful for us to realize that the responsibilities for delivering basic library services is the responsibility of municipal government and that the private institution that we have is really the value-added; it's the extras."

This is an important story, worth reading the whole thing.

What kind of society would close all the libraries in the poorer neighborhoods? What kind of library board would propose that? What a mess.

Related: LibraryLookup bookmarklet updated, workaround for IE: Jon Udell's wonderful LibraryLookup bookmarklet at InfoWorld takes you from any page with a book's isbn number -- including online bookstores -- to its page in the library catalogue.

You can see which branches own the book and if it's on the shelf -- click the small photo at right for a 75 percent screenshot.

You may reserve the book (for free -- no postage any more) or save it to a reading list to consider later. You invoke all this by clicking a link in your links bar (IE) or personal toolbar (Firefox, Netscape)

I use it constantly. I choose which branch to pick it up at, and a library computer calls when the book arrives.

Quick start: The link is over on the right side of this blog, under Rhode Island Library Lookup. You drag it to your personal toolbar and off you go. In IE you bookmark it to your Favorites-->Links folder and it pops into the Links toolbar. Try Browse to a single book's page at an online bookstore and click the new toolbar link to try it. If it doesn't work, check out your popups situation.

Background, IE breaks the drag, more installation instructions: Recently, I got an email from a reader, Matt Ramos, saying that "The Providence Public Library has a created a new library book catalog" -- and the bookmarklet I'd worked out years ago had broken.

Fortunately, Jon Udell now has a form that writes the new code for your library, and it worked for me.

Then yesterday my colleague Tim Barmann beckoned me over in the newsroom. "it doesn't work in IE," he said, his mouse unable to grab the PPL so he could drag it.

"I'll look into it," I said.

Later....

Hi, Tim,

Another reason not to use IE!

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/03/20.html

Stephanie Johnson is a librarian who constantly uses her LibraryLookup bookmarklet. When her computer was upgraded recently, she could no longer use or add bookmarklets, and she wrote to ask why. It turns out that in the current version of Windows XP, you can no longer drag bookmarklets to Internet Explorer's link toolbar.

I'd seen this behavior on the computers in my own local libraries, and attributed it to security settings. But no, it's merely a quirk of Windows XP's Service Pack 2. To work around it, you have to add bookmarklets to the link toolbar in a different way. The procedure worked for Stephanie, and it works on the public machines in my local libraries too. I should have sorted this out and documented it long ago, but better late than never. Today's four-minute screencast (Flash 8, earlier Flash versions) has the scoop.

To save the bookmarklet under IE 6.0 on Windows XP SP2, you can right-click on the link, select Add to Favorites, answer Yes to the security question, and save in the Links folder. To have it appear in a toolbar, go to View --> Toolbars --> Unlock toolbars. Drag the Links to the bottom of the toolbars, delete the ones you don't want and PPL will be in there.

The IE on this machine has google toolbar blocking popups. It let PPL work when I held down the control key while I clicked the link while on a page with an isbn at Amazon.

If this works for you, I'll try to condense it.

sheila

Later still....

That did it. I didn't need to unlock the toolbar -- it displayed with my other links.

I did have to allow popups with both IE and with Google.

Nice! Just looked up a book from Amazon.

Thanks,
Tim

And, in case you're wondering, there are books, especially those published originally in paperback, that the library may not own. In that case, you're still on the bookstore page, a click away from a shopping cart.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:23 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

April 11, 2006

Clay Osborne died Friday, but his voice is still out there

Journal photo / Glenn Osmundson.

(Clarence J.) "Clay" Osborne performs at a party for the
National Governors Association at the R.I. State House,
Sunday, August 5, 2001. The singer died Friday at 78.

Music clips.

Andy Smith: Clay Osborne filled Providence with song (free reg.req.)

..."Clay, to me, was as good a singer as anyone I've ever heard," Jeffrey Osborne said. "His voice was very pure. He had a way of phrasing that was uncanny -- he could make you feel the emotion in a song."

Offstage, Jeffrey said, his brother also had a gift.

"He could sit down and talk to you, and just lighten your burden. He was so personable -- he just had that way about him. I don't know anyone who didn't like Clay," he said....

Calling hours will be from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at the Olney Street Baptist Church. The funeral will be 11 a.m. Saturday at the church.

The Osborne family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Clarence J. (Clay) Osborne Scholarship Fund, PO Box 27815, Providence, R.I. The fund is designed to assist minority musical performers.

Thanks for all the good nights, Clay, in recent years at Bovi's, and the Gatehouse. Like so many pillars of Providence, I thought you'd always be here.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:20 AM | Permalink | Comments 8

April 10, 2006

Online egg toy; French protests succeed; John Lennon songwriting contest; Google Map Maker; Firefox memory leak hack

Timely toy: Porfolio :: My Special Easter Egg. Stamp or paint your brown egg. A little Flash toy, with no obvious way to save your creation. I grabbed this image -- and another, cropping it to just the egg -- with MWSnap, a little freeware screenshot utility.

Related: Emeril Lagasse's Deviled Eggs recipe, from Food Network. For your real Easter eggs.

Imagine: The John Lennon Songwriting Contest is accepting entries through June 15. Rules.

The anti-CPE demonstration is ending on Place de la Nation where people are gathering, when a group of clowns appeared in a well-humoured parody of the CRS (riot police). Unfortunately, it would soon turn sour...Hugo on Flickr

French President Jacques Chirac on Monday scrapped a youth job law that provoked weeks of angry protests, in a climbdown opponents celebrated as an unqualified victory.

The move was a personal blow to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had championed the First Job Contract (CPE) and seen his popularity slump with the mass opposition and unrest.

Villepin said in a television address he regretted that weeks of strikes and protests showed the CPE could not be applied but gave no hints about his own political future, on the line over his handling of the dispute.

"The necessary conditions of confidence and calm are not there, either among young people, or companies, to allow the application of the First Job Contract," Villepin said, adding he would open talks with unions on youth employment....

Related: CPE: Protests slideshow on Flickr

No coding required: Google Map Maker: "Make google maps the easy way. Use the map to find locations, activate the controls, click where you want a marker and add your information. Click 'Generate code' to get the source code to add to your website. More Instructions."

You'll need to get your own Google API key to put the resulting maps on your site. (Although this will generate code that works, the maker -- Richard Stephenson of Leeds -- asks that you download your own markers and he offers links; linking directly to his will cause him to pay the bandwidth bill for your visitors.)

Crash avoidance? This May Help Your Firefox Memory Leak: A simple hack from CyberNet Technology News. Comments from those who've tried it seem enthusiastic.

Times: This Boring Headline Is Written for Google.

Some news sites offer two headlines. One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles.

Nic Newman, head of product development and technology at BBC News Interactive, pointed to a few examples from last Wednesday. The first headline a human reader sees: "Unsafe sex: Has Jacob Zuma's rape trial hit South Africa's war on AIDS?" One click down: "Zuma testimony sparks HIV fear." Another headline meant to lure the human reader: "Tulsa star: The life and career of much-loved 1960's singer." One click down: "Obituary: Gene Pitney."

"The search engine has to get a straightforward, factual headline, so it can understand it," Mr. Newman said. With a little programming sleight-of-hand, the search engine can be steered first to the straightforward, somewhat duller headline, according to some search optimizers.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:58 AM | Permalink

April 9, 2006

Read the Gospel of Judas, backstory online; 1000-layer lasagne; Photorealism: bugs

A Gnostic edition: National Geographic has put some pages of The Lost Gospel, aka Gospel of Judas, online, along with translations. There's a TV special tonight at 8 p.m. (EDT) on the find, on their own National Geographic cable channel. (From the video preview here, it appears there are dramatizations of the events in this coptic alt-narrative. This could be historic, or hokey.)

This being the Web, there are others who've been all over this for a while. (These pages were discovered in the '70s, so there's been time for the story to develop.)

The Coptic Ps.Gospel of Judas (Iscariot) by Roger Pearse reproduces news accounts of the find's trek through the rarified end of the art world, details on carbon dating and gum adhesive. He credits Michel van Rijn's art-market site, DEVASTATING ART NEWS, which is a trip in itself. (Here's its index.) The lead item right now is Most of the Judas Gospel has 'disappeared.' (No permalinks.)

For the very patient: Thousand Layer Lasagne: (But the photo looks like about nine layers of superthin noodles...odd)

Thin out your pasta using a pasta machine. Start by cutting the big sheets into 2-inch(ish) wide ribbons. This means making 2 cuts along the sheets. This should yield you about 12 2-foot strips. Run them through the pasta machine. I go to the 8 setting, one shy of the very thinnest setting. The sheets should almost be translucent. Cut the strips into manageable rectangles roughly 4-inches in length.

Pre-cook the pasta: Fill a large bowl with cold water and a few glugs of olive oil. Place a large flour sack or cotton dish towel across one of your counters. Salt your pot of boiling water generously. Ok, now you are ready to boil off your pasta. Believe it or not, you are on the home stretch. Place a handful of the pasta rectangles into the boiling water to cook (I've found I can get away with about 20 at a time), fish them out (I use a pasta claw) after just 15-20 seconds, don't over cook. Transfer them immediately to the cold olive-oil water for a quick swim and cool-off. Remove from the cold water bath and place flat and neat on the cotton towel. It is ok for them to overlap, I don't have a problem with the sheets sticking typically. Repeat until all your pasta is boiled....

I'd love to try somebody else's..

Igor Siwanowicz: Amazingly sharp photos of mantises, butterflies, bugs and a frog, close up. Good thing these creatures aren't larger.

(I know I've had dreams of a giant brown mantis like this one.)

That's a raging hornet at right.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:13 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2006

Fly with specs; Radio Liberty towers removed; Paul Newman eats dog food

National Geographic
Housefly Gets Glasses Made With Lasers

Towers fall: In comments yesterday, longtime radio guy Lou Josephs points to a video clip "of the demolition of the shortwave transmitter site of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe... That caps the cold war."

The 13 towers were at Playa de Pals, Spain, on the Costa Brava.

Radio World Online published advance word on the demolition (Radio Liberty Towers at Playa de Pals to Be Destroyed Next Week) passed on from a Catalan newspaper by a former managing director for Spain of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, David Hollyer. 16 kilos of explosives were to detonate them all simultaneously.

Afterwards, it added,

For a historical recollection about the site, see David Hollyer's 2003 account.

A reader also passes along this link for an extensive collection of still shots of the Radio Liberty site. Click on "broadcast section" at the top, then select Continental, Marconi, Telefunken, etc. from the drop-down menu.

This last one is worth the click -- there are hundreds of images at this tribute site.

The Hoover Institution Archives offers an online exhibit on the history of Radio Liberty, prepared for its 50th anniversary in 2003.

At IndyMedia U.K., a poster notes (The end of Liberty) :

at 165 metres in height the antennas of Radio Liberty on the coast of Catalonia were one of the most visibile signs of the "cold war" outside of Mannheim Germany.

Erected to broadcast propaganda into the Warsaw Pact states and the Soviet Union as a result of entente between the USA and Franco's dictatorship in 1959.

Of course technology has moved on now. Your mobile is just as powerful.

The author adds, "Of course you may still listen to "radio liberty" or "radio free europe" here:- http://www.rferl.org/listen/."

Move over, Rover: Screen legend and gazillionaire Paul Newman, 81, ate dog food, on The Tonight Show last night.

Clip to come, I expect.

This is viral marketing, with the emphasis on marketing.

He ate Newman's Organic chicken and brown rice dog food out of a can with his picture on it. Most of the appearance was about how much money the products make for charity, with special emphasis on his daughter's organic line.

What remains is a truly twisted image of an 81-year-old man eating a big hunk of dog food from a spoon, then turning and gleefully mouthing "It's good" to us as he digs in for more. Yikes.

The dog food comes in a 12.7-oz. can that costs $1.99 and $2.42 , and 24.99 and $25.99
a dozen and $2.29 - $25.25, all plus shipping, in a quick sample.

Newman said the profits from his food businesses have provided $200 million for charity. The website adds that this figure is since 1982, and thousands of charities have benefited.

(I jumped this item because it's probably a "who cares?" story unless you watched that weirdness go down.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:01 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

April 6, 2006

'Viral' Chevy contest ads; Veggie diets shed pounds? Md. red-light cameras boost accidents; XP on Macs

Get the geeks to make commercials for you. How cool is that? "Viral marketing" -- get a buzz going on the Web -- is hot, so Chevrolet challenged online vidsters to make commercials for its giant Tahoe SUV. Slick tools and a contest with fun experiences for prizes launched from chevyapprentice.com (because they promoted it on TV's The Apprentice) . Of course, the satirists, pranksters and anti-SUV branch showed up en masse.

You can see the anti-ads at YouTube.

Entrant Eric Gundersen even put up Tuesday's Nightline segment that included a few seconds of an interview with him.

Here's one that's a hoot: tahoe's daddy. ("My Daddy didn’t love me. This is how I compensate.")

NYT: Chevy Tries a Write-Your-Own-Ad Approach, and the Potshots Fly

Mistake or not? Now you've heard of the Tahoe, right? The contest ends April 10.

Sidebar: Mark Glaser (Media Shift) interviews YouTube founder Chad Hurley about the meteoric rise of the viral video clip site: YouTube CEO Hails ‘Birth of a New Clip Culture.’ Glaser, a longtime writer for Online Journalism Review, now blogs for PBS.

Hybrid: Macs: Intel and Windows Inside. News.com does a wrapup of the hybridization buzz: "Boot Camp makes it possible to run Windows XP natively on Intel-based Macs. Will the software bring more people over to the Apple Computer side?"

Vegetarian diets cause major weight loss: This didn't get much play. Press release:

WASHINGTON--A scientific review in April's Nutrition Reviews shows that a vegetarian diet is highly effective for weight loss. Vegetarian populations tend to be slimmer than meat-eaters, and they experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other life-threatening conditions linked to overweight and obesity. The new review, compiling data from 87 previous studies, shows the weight-loss effect does not depend on exercise or calorie-counting, and it occurs at a rate of approximately 1 pound per week.

Rates of obesity in the general population are skyrocketing, while in vegetarians, obesity prevalence ranges from 0 percent to 6 percent, note study authors Susan E. Berkow, Ph.D., C.N.S., and Neal D. Barnard, M.D., of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

The authors found that the body weight of both male and female vegetarians is, on average, 3 percent to 20 percent lower than that of meat-eaters. Vegetarian and vegan diets have also been put to the test in clinical studies, as the review notes. The best of these clinical studies isolated the effects of diet by keeping exercise constant. The researchers found that a low-fat vegan diet leads to weight loss of about 1 pound per week, even without additional exercise or limits on portion sizes, calories, or carbohydrates.

"Our research reveals that people can enjoy unlimited portions of high-fiber foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to achieve or maintain a healthy body weight without feeling hungry," says Dr. Berkow, the lead author.

"There is evidence that a vegan diet causes an increased calorie burn after meals, meaning plant-based foods are being used more efficiently as fuel for the body, as opposed to being stored as fat," says Dr. Barnard. Insulin sensitivity is increased by a vegan diet, allowing nutrients to more rapidly enter the cells of the body to be converted to heat rather than to fat.

Much more widely spread: Healthy Eggs Hatch Success for Eggland's, in which the chickens are the vegetarians.

Detour works for me: Study: Maryland county's red light cameras net $2.85 million, increase accidents. At Autoblog:

Anne Arundel County in Maryland has been running five red light cameras for five years, during which period they raised a fat $2.85 million in ticket revenue. Unfortunately, a comparison of accident statistics shows that the cameras have increased the rate of accidents.

Immediately after installation, the cameras sparked a 40-percent increase in rear-end collisions, and never looked back, with five-year increases in accident rates far exceeding a 10-percent increase in traffic.

Unfortunately, this is hardly an isolated phenomenon. TheNewspaper.com reports similar results in the state of Georgia, where the city of Duluth's one and only camera is forecast to generate a whopping $1 million next year, at the cost of a 21-percent increase in accidents. A study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed red light cameras were linked to an increase in accidents, injuries and revenues across the state, although there is early indication that the rate of serious accidents in intersections is falling.

Critics charge that cities are at best trading one kind of accident for another, and that the proliferation of traffic cameras is really just a money generator, while advocates maintain that they encourage safer driving.

I imagine mustaches twirling, the villain saying, "We reduce broadside collisions, increase rear-enders and make a million bucks. Net gain, I'd say."

I think they may encourage "safer driving" in the guy facing the ticket, but not necessarily in the guy behind him, caught unawares when the lead car stops short.

There are more creative things machines could do to people who drive past them on red lights...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

Red light cameras boost accidents

Detour works for me: Study: Maryland county's red light cameras net $2.85 million, increase accidents. At Autoblog:

Anne Arundel County in Maryland has been running five red light cameras for five years, during which period they raised a fat $2.85 million in ticket revenue. Unfortunately, a comparison of accident statistics shows that the cameras have increased the rate of accidents.

Immediately after installation, the cameras sparked a 40-percent increase in rear-end collisions, and never looked back, with five-year increases in accident rates far exceeding a 10-percent increase in traffic.

Unfortunately, this is hardly an isolated phenomenon. TheNewspaper.com reports similar results in the state of Georgia, where the city of Duluth's one and only camera is forecast to generate a whopping $1 million next year, at the cost of a 21-percent increase in accidents. A study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed red light cameras were linked to an increase in accidents, injuries and revenues across the state, although there is early indication that the rate of serious accidents in intersections is falling.

Critics charge that cities are at best trading one kind of accident for another, and that the proliferation of traffic cameras is really just a money generator, while advocates maintain that they encourage safer driving.

I imagine mustaches twirling, the villain saying, "We reduce broadside collisions, increase rear-enders and make a million bucks. Net gain, I'd say."

I think they may encourage "safer driving" in the guy facing the ticket, but not necessarily in the guy behind him, caught unawares when the lead car stops short.

There are more creative things machines could do to people who drive past them on red lights...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments 3

April 5, 2006

Town without Pitney: Gene dies; Bill Gates: 'How I work'; Firefox extensions that leak

Gene Pitney during his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, March 18, 2002, at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Town without Pitney: Gene Pitney found dead in British hotel today:

LONDON (AP) - Gene Pitney, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whose hits included "Town Without Pity" and "Only Love Can Break a Heart," died Wednesday at a hotel in Wales after playing a show, his agent said. He was 65.

Pitney was found dead in his hotel room in Cardiff, Wales. Police said the death did not appear suspicious.

"We don't have a cause of death at the moment but looks like it was a very peaceful passing," said Pitney's tour manager, James Kelly.

"He was found fully clothed, on his back, as if he had gone for a lie down. It looks as if there was no pain whatsoever."...

Gene Pitney and British singer Dusty Springfield wait their turn to sing at the San Remo Song Festival in Italy in this Jan. 30, 1965 AP photo.

From a profile at classicbands.com:

In 1964, Pitney's publicist, Andrew Loog Oldham, introduced him to the Rolling Stones, whom he produced. He recorded the Jagger-Richards composition "The Girl Belongs to Yesterday". Pitney also assisted in the recording of the Stones' "12 X 5" album. With Phil Spector, Pitney sat in on a 1964 Rolling Stone recording session, during which they recorded "Not Fade Away", had a brief fling with a teenage Marianne Faithfull, and recorded songs by Randy Newman and Al Kooper, long before those musicians became famous.

Wikipedia has the basics, and is updating with obit links.

Pitney's official site, gene-pitney.com is down, with a "Back shortly" note. Updating, most likely.

Always on: How I Work: Bill Gates: Not much of a paper chase for Microsoft's chairman, who uses a range of digital tools to do business. Fortune via CNN Money.

Ogle the Microsoft chairman's high-end apps, three integrated screens and paperless office:

Days are often filled with meetings. It's a nice luxury to get some time to go write up my thoughts or follow up on meetings during the day. But sometimes that doesn't happen. So then it's great after the kids go to bed to be able to just sit at home and go through whatever e-mail I didn't get to. If the entire week is very busy, it's the weekend when I'll send the long, thoughtful pieces of e-mail. When people come in Monday morning, they'll see that I've been quite busy— they'll have a lot of e-mail.

(A massive power failure would send him back to the stone age.)

Oddly related: From Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo), April 03, 2006 -- 11:12 PM EST

Okay, this is very negative reinforcement for this new thing I'm trying: flipping off all the computers and gizmos to spend evenings -- sans connectivity -- with my wife. I try it tonight. And now I come back to the electronic world to find that Tom DeLay has finally given up the political ghost and I wasn't there to see it....

Here's to the lonely spouses of the jacked-in.

(My computer is in the den, near the couch where Joe reads books and his annual New Yorker subscription. I'm interruptible, but poor company, I think. And you must know by now I don't sleep much.)

Which leads to... Health Problems Related to the Geek Lifestyle at the lovely carotids.com.

First neutron to meet Shakespeare: Professor Predicts Human Time Travel This Century: He's Ronald Mallett of UCONN, and the story is at phys.org (not a supermarket tabloid)

“The Grandfather Paradox [where you go back in time and kill your grandfather] is not an issue,” said Mallett. “In a sense, time travel means that you’re traveling both in time and into other universes. If you go back into the past, you’ll go into another universe. As soon as you arrive at the past, you’re making a choice and there’ll be a split. Our universe will not be affected by what you do in your visit to the past.”

The headline refers to a 1979 sci-fi short story, The Merchant of Stratford by Frank Ramirez. Recursive Science Fiction sums it up:

The first time traveler goes back to 1615 to see William Shakespeare. It turns out that travelers from all eras have been doing this and Shakespeare is excellent at merchandising himself. The literature he is interested in is SF because it is honest and entertaining. He particularly collects Isaac Asimov, Roger Zelazny, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison. He has spent the equivalent of forty years on the lecture circuit (post-2400). Shakespeare sells him an authorized omnibus edition of his works including a previously unpublished SF novel Go-Captains in Nostrilia (based upon the works of Cordwainer Smith). When the temporal media locate the first time traveler Shakespeare steps in as his business manager—for 40%.

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 3:7 July 1979 (pp.125-133)

Laughing Space, (edited by Isaac Asimov & Janet O. Jeppson), Houghton Mifflin 30519-5, March 1982 (pp.293-300)

Inside the Funhouse, (edited by Mike Resnick), AvoNova 76643-4, August 1992 (pp.33-42)

A lot has happened over the last six years, and the ongoing program suggestions and discussion of them has swelled the thread to 27 pages. There's new gold in here, but it may require some digging.

Some posters have nominated alternative lists, such as Freeware Reviews at FreewareWiki ("The only bad software you will find here is always part of a warning to stay away from it.")

Open Source Windows offers "a simple list of the best free and open-source software for Windows." Big icons and bright colors make it unintimidating. (No HTML editor here, though.)

Vaguely related: Which Firefox extensions have memory leaks or will slow down Firefox’s performance. At CyberNet Technology News.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments 4

April 4, 2006

Wee hours clocks: 01:23 04-05-06; Hendrix '70; Forbes' Best Travel Sites; Soulclipse photo updates; To Bloggers from Borders

Too tired to tell you why I'm so busy. Just a few links before I crash...

Imminent: 01:23 04-05-06. AP.

At 1:02 a.m. and three seconds on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, it will be the first hour of the day, the second minute of the hour, the third second of that precious minute in the fourth month of the fifth year of ... uh oh. It's not really the sixth year.

It's actually 2006 — only in our shorthand is it '06.

Hendrix mp3: Band of Gypsys :: New Year's Eve 1970. Who Knows.

Urge for going: Forbes' Best Travel Sites. A deliberately quirky collection.

To Bloggers from Borders: An Open Letter from Gregory P Josefowicz CEO/Chairman of the Board/President/Director, Borders Books to Charles Johnson, Director, Pajamas Media, CEO Little Green Foosballs, Rock 'N' Roller in the Free World, Stealth Cyclist.

Here's the punchline:

Like I said, I run a bookstore not an army. You bloggers want the Muslim idiots brought under control so that Free Speech takes place everywhere and not just in the magazine section at Borders? Tell it to the Marines.

Soulclipse update: www.soulclipse.com Photo Updates Photos and video of the solar eclipse bash in Turkey from returning festival-goers. No idea what lurks behind most of these links, but what I saw looked classic -- dancing in the sun, costumes, sunburns. (Earlier: Eclipse day post.)

Bonus link: Massachusetts Sets Health Plan for Nearly All. NYT. Somebody had to start it. Good for the neighbors:

Massachusetts is poised to become the first state to provide nearly universal health care coverage with a bill passed overwhelmingly by the legislature Tuesday that Gov. Mitt Romney says he will sign....

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:41 PM | Permalink

Garden blogs: New additions to the bloomin' list

These bloggers grow, photograph, get the rest of us going and still have time to write about it all. I'm in awe of them.

They've all been added to the perennial Garden Blogs List, with my thanks for their taking the time to let me know about their blogs.

Uncle Tom's Garden is written by Jeanne Medina, from the San Francisco Bay area (probably not in the city, she keeps chickens!) Great photos, inspiring me to ...plant now!

I have a jolly buddha in my garden bed, too.

Gardening with Rare Plants: Matt Mattus of Worcester, Mass., writes,

As a certified plant geek, I decided to start a blog for those plant enthusiasts who have started to become plain-old bored. Bored with Hosta, bored with Daylilies and maybe bored with all the banality at the local garden centers and Home Centers. Gardening has been discovered by the Mass. retailers, and suddenly, everyone has exactly same material. It's Gap meets Supertunias!

Also, I avoid the trendy garden pants. So no Galanthus, or Hellebores, I want to provide information that reaches another tier, the next generation of enthusiast. These are the plants that I grow in my greenhouses and large garden.
Clearly, this site isn't for anyone, inspire gardeners who have some some plant knowledge, and greater, to explore a whole new world of plants. I call it Exploraculture.

My wish would be that gardeners who seek excellence, can again feel the excitement that they once had when they first started discovering plants.

I know exactly what he means. Everybody has exactly the same few varieties, and these are exactly what most people are asking for. I have been on some streets where everyone had the same color azalea bush from one end to the other.

Go see what Matt's raising.

In My Kitchen Garden: Susan from Missouri writes,

I would love to have my new gardening blog added to your list. It is called In My Kitchen Garden (inmykitchengarden.com ) and is an offshoot of my food and farm blog, FarmgirlFare.com. I recently started it as a personal gardening journal so that I could have a record of what goes on in my large raised bed, organic heirloom garden, but it is already blossoming into much more than just that.

I am a 37 year old Northern California native who escaped to the country life in 1994. I now naturally raise everything from llamas and lettuce to sheep and Swiss chard on my 240-acre remote Missouri, USA farm.

If you're trapped in a cubicle, Susan is probably living your fantasy. Nice blog, as is her food and farm blog.

Nancy's Garden Spot: Nancy in Houston has tomatoes on a plant planted in July that overwintered and "just won't quit." Here in New England, I can't imagine that.

Even more interesting, Nancy is a teacher recovering from spinal surgery:

I could work in my garden a little. If I sat in a small stool, I could gingerly lean over and weed a little, and dig a hole with a long handled scoop before I plopped in a bedding plant. I couldn't do many at a time, but I was happy when I could do it.

This is from a post last month in which she shares some of her story. It's worth a read. Nancy, I hope you have the school begging you to come back and tell them about your marvelous gardens and how you grew them.

In the garden with Humblesnail: Great blog name. Rhondi in Olympia, Wash., has a Tuscan garden gate.

Reading Dirt: Karen Bledsoe writes, "This is a blog for literary gardeners, reviews of garden books and garden-related literature, as well as news from my garden and the gardening world in general. And a rant or two, just for good measure." Karen gardens, writes and teaches in Oregon.

Sigruns German Garden: Liz Donovan, a blogger at the Miami Herald, sends word of this blog, saying, "It came to me thru
a comment on my photo blog. Sort of neat..." It seems to be Sigrun's photos of others' gardens, largely in England, but they're very nice and good inspiration if you need to get yourself going on this year's garden.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

April 3, 2006

Free mp3s: Rolling Stones live; Science Art; Ronnie Spector; Peeps, cooked

Rolling Stones:Live’R Than You’ll Ever Be"Live at Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California, USA, Nov 9, 1969, SECOND SHOW. Remastered from the original 5 inch master reels." 16 tracks. Free downloads for a limited time.

ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin] at BigO Magazine, Singapore.

Doily pecking: The Top 10 weirdest keyboards ever

Interview: Ronette Ronnie Spector. Guardian (U.K.)

Biotech pets: They may re-create dragons. While we are still crunchy.

Science art: Loes Modderman Science Art photographs what's under the microscope. Vitamin C at the left there. They're all that amazing.

Sun roof: Treehugger reports that SolarCentury has designed the "Complete Solar Roof" that integrates solar electric and solar thermal technologies in a tile that is installed like a conventional roofing tile.

Easter basket leftovers: Culinary Creations using Marshmallow Peeps® includes some vaguely Oriental main dishes.

Dosbox: THE tool to run abandonware games on various platforms (SDL backend) has been updated after 2.5 years of CVS builds. Get it while it's hot!
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

April 1, 2006

April's Fools: Google Romance, pink Slashdot, hoaxes from the past

Journal / Sandor Bodo
Providence fools: A 2002 grand opening ceremony for the Fool's Ball Studio, incubator for costumes for the annual event at Providence art space AS220. That's a Big Nazo puppet in your face.

"Pin all your romantic hopes on Google Romance?

Learn more: Take the Tour, Press Release, FAQ

Slashdot is pink today.
(Their demographic is 98.3 percent male, so they want to entice me with "OMG Ponies!")

There's no fool like an old fool . . .: Glorious Hoaxes from the past, in the Cambridge (U.K.) evening news. The first few:

Hundreds of Panorama viewers were duped into thinking spaghetti grew on trees in 1957, with Swiss farmers expecting a bumper crop following the elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil.

n The 3000-year-old village of cartoon hero Asterix had been found, The Independent told readers in 1993. The expert opinion of an Oxford academic was used to back up the hoax.

n Three years ago, the Cambridge Evening News reported Cambridge scientists had come up with a way of growing 'chips' in potatoes. Readers were told that Cambridge Research Initiatives and Special Projects (CRISP) expected the worldwide market for their product to be worth $30bn.

Wikipedia is collecting the pranks: April Fools hoaxes in 2006

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:41 AM | Permalink