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Sunday, April 24, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, March 04, 2011
The Runner in Winter
Running Times’ correspondent Joel Wolpert caught up with trail runner Anton Krupicka to see how he runs through the Colorado winter. As do all of Wolpert’s films, this one features local music: songs by Denver, Colorado bands The Lumineers and Paper Bird. (9:57)
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Comcast has been really bad for a couple days...
Why can't Comcast just admit that they are having local problems with Internet? Why can't they inform the people on the phones? Why do I have to navigate a gauntlet of recorded voice prompts and endure bad music with repetitive announcements when I phone them? Why do they charge $2 if you want to pay your bill by phone? Why do they lie about their download speeds? Shouldn't some of those things be illegal?
We even had a tech here today and I have a new modem and a new splitter. The next appointment on Monday will be with a "lead" tech. Hopefully he will replace the whole line from the pole, or know if Comcast's network is just screwing up.
We even had a tech here today and I have a new modem and a new splitter. The next appointment on Monday will be with a "lead" tech. Hopefully he will replace the whole line from the pole, or know if Comcast's network is just screwing up.
Friday, April 02, 2010
RUNNING HOPE THROUGH AMERICA
RUNNING HOPE THROUGH AMERICA
Amazing! Lisa Smith Batchen will run 50 miles a day in 50 states starting on April 19th right here in NJ. Only 12 days of travel/rest = 2500 miles in 3months!
Amazing! Lisa Smith Batchen will run 50 miles a day in 50 states starting on April 19th right here in NJ. Only 12 days of travel/rest = 2500 miles in 3months!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Why Google is Good
An administrator was surprised I was allowing my students to do research using Google.
Google is not the same search engine that it was way back in 2005, when the other "more scholarly" databases were "better".
I suggest you read or listen to the book Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
, by Ken Aluetta.
Actually there are several things to consider in relationship to education.
First, if we are teaching real world success, everybody Googles. Outside of school, most people don't have access to premium databases. They Google. College students Google. College professors and researchers Google. You and I Google several times per day. These facts make it even more important for students to distinguish between reliable and questionable Google results. (By the way, most Google results are no longer as questionable as they used to be because of second reason below...)
Second, Google's goal is to give the best search results possible, by cataloging the entire Internet, then using "the wisdom of the herd" to determine what is important. They call their data gathering algorithms Page Rank (after founder Page), and it really works. The best results really do come out on top. The more people use Google, the better it gets. Irrelevant results go down the list because nobody clicks them. Relevant links move up because more people find them relevant to their search terms and search history.
Third, Google really has concentrated most of its resources on free search, and wants you to find what you are looking for and get off their site as fast as possible. They have made it easier to find what you are looking for, and have made results more accurate, in order to reach this goal. It can be argued that paid-for databases have the goal to keep you on their site, so you take their results, even if it isn't what you really want and even if it is old info. Their privatized results are biased by the contributors to their sites, who are either paying or getting paid. Google isn't getting paid by anyone they link in a search result - results and placement are not influenced by payment at all. (That is what killed the other search engines.)
Fourth, Google has Google Scholar, Google Books, Google News, images and videos - all accessible by a single search. Can any paid-for database match that? Even the ads served by Google, since they are unobtrusive and contextual, can aid a search result.
Finally, we are in a budget crisis. Stop paying for databases and online reference sources, unless they are obtained via grant funds.
So when the administrator said today, Mr. G., they are Googling! I have to say, especially for a 9th grade special needs class with many students that claim to never have written a multiple page report, yes they are Googling - and it is good.
Google is not the same search engine that it was way back in 2005, when the other "more scholarly" databases were "better".
I suggest you read or listen to the book Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
, by Ken Aluetta.Actually there are several things to consider in relationship to education.
First, if we are teaching real world success, everybody Googles. Outside of school, most people don't have access to premium databases. They Google. College students Google. College professors and researchers Google. You and I Google several times per day. These facts make it even more important for students to distinguish between reliable and questionable Google results. (By the way, most Google results are no longer as questionable as they used to be because of second reason below...)
Second, Google's goal is to give the best search results possible, by cataloging the entire Internet, then using "the wisdom of the herd" to determine what is important. They call their data gathering algorithms Page Rank (after founder Page), and it really works. The best results really do come out on top. The more people use Google, the better it gets. Irrelevant results go down the list because nobody clicks them. Relevant links move up because more people find them relevant to their search terms and search history.
Third, Google really has concentrated most of its resources on free search, and wants you to find what you are looking for and get off their site as fast as possible. They have made it easier to find what you are looking for, and have made results more accurate, in order to reach this goal. It can be argued that paid-for databases have the goal to keep you on their site, so you take their results, even if it isn't what you really want and even if it is old info. Their privatized results are biased by the contributors to their sites, who are either paying or getting paid. Google isn't getting paid by anyone they link in a search result - results and placement are not influenced by payment at all. (That is what killed the other search engines.)
Fourth, Google has Google Scholar, Google Books, Google News, images and videos - all accessible by a single search. Can any paid-for database match that? Even the ads served by Google, since they are unobtrusive and contextual, can aid a search result.
Finally, we are in a budget crisis. Stop paying for databases and online reference sources, unless they are obtained via grant funds.
So when the administrator said today, Mr. G., they are Googling! I have to say, especially for a 9th grade special needs class with many students that claim to never have written a multiple page report, yes they are Googling - and it is good.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Upgraded to Windows 7
I upgraded to Windows 7 last month - and it is much better than Vista. No big problems. I have to admit that, especially after my previous post about my complaints about Vista. Windows 7 is faster and more stable than Vista. I still don't like the nag screen when starting non-native programs like Dreamweaver. But it is better than XP and I think I can live with it.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
What is up with Windows Vista?
I bought a Gateway referbished laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium. I have heard horror stories about Vista, and one of the reasons I chose this particular laptop is it came with a free upgrade to Windows 7. I am waiting for it to be shipped to me, as the Gateway web site says of my shipment: "Fulfillment in process."
In the meantime I figured I would give it a real try before succumbing to the bandwagon of Vista haters. In the past week, Vista has not been totally horrible. It looks a little slick, and feels a little like a Mac or Linux in it's differentness. But there are three things that bother me:
1. Vista misreports my hard drive size. My hard drive is 320 GB. Vista reports it at 289 GB. And, yes, I do have it set to show hidden folders and have unhidden system files. There is no other partition, and I have reset the shadow file size to 10 GB. That is a missing 20 GB. I understand they round up when hard drives are marketed, but not 60 GB of rounding. Well, it is a referb after all - maybe they messed up the hard drive formatting and it isn't a Vista problem?
2. Vista has new updates every day, and they usually require a restart.
3. Every time I start certain programs there is a nag screen that says Windows needs my permission to start this unidentified program. It happens with DreamweaverMX 2004, for example. I thought that once you told Vista it was a safe program, the nag would go away. But it hasn't. And I can't find a way to tell Vista that I don't want that warning to display.
So far, I have one piece of hardware that is incompatible; a web cam. I have not tried my printer or scanner with Vista yet, but that point is moot because this laptop doesn't even have a parallel port. I will be using those peripherals from my older desktop.
In the meantime I figured I would give it a real try before succumbing to the bandwagon of Vista haters. In the past week, Vista has not been totally horrible. It looks a little slick, and feels a little like a Mac or Linux in it's differentness. But there are three things that bother me:
1. Vista misreports my hard drive size. My hard drive is 320 GB. Vista reports it at 289 GB. And, yes, I do have it set to show hidden folders and have unhidden system files. There is no other partition, and I have reset the shadow file size to 10 GB. That is a missing 20 GB. I understand they round up when hard drives are marketed, but not 60 GB of rounding. Well, it is a referb after all - maybe they messed up the hard drive formatting and it isn't a Vista problem?
2. Vista has new updates every day, and they usually require a restart.
3. Every time I start certain programs there is a nag screen that says Windows needs my permission to start this unidentified program. It happens with DreamweaverMX 2004, for example. I thought that once you told Vista it was a safe program, the nag would go away. But it hasn't. And I can't find a way to tell Vista that I don't want that warning to display.
So far, I have one piece of hardware that is incompatible; a web cam. I have not tried my printer or scanner with Vista yet, but that point is moot because this laptop doesn't even have a parallel port. I will be using those peripherals from my older desktop.
Monday, December 07, 2009
First Snow On Saturday, 51 Miles Road Cycling On Sunday
We got a wet half inch or so on Saturday. On Sunday, by 10:30 AM the sun was shining, though it was cold. The roads seemed dry outside my house. So I bundled up for a road ride on my vintage 1986 Cannondale road bike. I purposely inflated the tires 5 PSI low for better traction and headed for the hills.
Watchung Reservation had a lot of snow in the woods and it was really pretty up there. The road surfaces were a wet in the hills for the first hour, so I was hesitant about descending fast, thinking that I might eat pavement by hitting some black ice or snow. There were ice chunks falling from the trees that kinda stung when then hit me.
The roads were mostly dry after that first hour, and I felt good, so I decided to go longer than I had planned. After a pit stop at a Lukeoil station for the bathroom and eating the Cliff Bar in my pocket, I felt even better. I saw only about 5 other guys out there for cycling workouts, even though it was a very enjoyable day.
There is still a lot of salt on my bike in the garage. Gotta get out there and wipe her down today. Here was my route:
Watchung Reservation had a lot of snow in the woods and it was really pretty up there. The road surfaces were a wet in the hills for the first hour, so I was hesitant about descending fast, thinking that I might eat pavement by hitting some black ice or snow. There were ice chunks falling from the trees that kinda stung when then hit me.
The roads were mostly dry after that first hour, and I felt good, so I decided to go longer than I had planned. After a pit stop at a Lukeoil station for the bathroom and eating the Cliff Bar in my pocket, I felt even better. I saw only about 5 other guys out there for cycling workouts, even though it was a very enjoyable day.
There is still a lot of salt on my bike in the garage. Gotta get out there and wipe her down today. Here was my route:
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