randomwalks/dj

Examiner column for February 25.

    How do teachers judge whether a lesson is effective? Education experts tell us that all lessons should result in demonstrable student learning. But who defines “learning”? Is it always measured by the end-of-course test?

    In my Advanced Placement literature course “Senior Seminar”, I operate with a double agenda that allows me to teach to the test and teach to the student at the same time. We read great books and write about them in essays that mirror the AP test format, and I give them several of the wickedly hard multiple choice tests that will constitute 45% of their final AP score.

    But the rest of the time I base my lessons on writing, reading, and class discussions that affect the student’s life and have fewer direct links to the test. I justify the class time by noting these lessons stimulate student thinking and ability to make connections--skills essential to both the test and success in college.

    I have no proof that spending time on college essays and discussing government surveillance (when we read “1984”) or changing women’s roles (when we read “Their Eyes Were Watching God”) directly result in higher test scores. What I do know is that students crave classroom links to the real world and, especially by their senior year, think the claustrophobic walls of the high school classroom are expendable—unless their teachers are able to convince them that what goes on within those walls is valuable after test day.

    One such class was the subject of last week’s column--a lesson plan born of necessity when I failed to get the test-directed multiple choice exam Xeroxed in time. Test prep was postponed and a life lesson on endings took its place.

    Margaret Atwood’s brief essay on “Happy Endings” was a hit with the students. In this piece, she composes several scenarios for the life of John and Mary. Ending A is the traditional 1950’s happily-ever-after ending; the others are variations that place roadblocks in the first story—derailing the fairy tale of A and turning it into a narrative that more closely mirrors the lives most of us lead. Her sobering conclusion is that the ultimate ending is always the same: “John and Mary die.” But Atwood adds that the important part is the journey--how we get to that end.

    I thought this three-page riff on endings would simply be a jumping off place for a discussion on the ending of the novel we had just finished. But Atwood’s compressed biographies of John and Mary resonated with students more than I expected and proved to be “an end” in itself.

    Cathleen commented on last week’s lesson: “It was seriously one of my favorite activities of the year. Atwood's ‘Happy Endings’ really got me thinking about how we should be focused on the journey that is our lives rather than if we get to have the house with the white picket fence, disregarding all that it took us to get to our ultimate ‘goal.’ You got me to think about life, and as you said, that's what Seminar is all about!”

    A comment like that is a teacher’s definition of a happy ending.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on February 23, 2008 6:58 PM

"Of course any comparisons between Fidel Castro and RMS are absurd. One's a bearded, long-winded Communist dictator who tolerates no dissent; the other one speaks Spanish." -- Anonymous Coward

Originally posted by Wes Felter from Hack the Planet, on February 23, 2008 9:34 AM

Even though photography is the main focus of my life right now, I’m still doing things in the tech space here and there. One place where this will show up is in the next release of Capistrano which sports a new way to associate roles with servers based on some work that I’ve done recently. It’s a simple little patch in retrospect, but was a nice piece of work to figure out. Thanks Jamis!

Originally posted by Duncan Davidson from Duncan Davidson / Combined, on February 23, 2008 9:10 AM

Buzzfeed: No One Cares: Buzzfeed collected together all of their least popular trends, based on how few people clicked on them, including Celebrity Memoirs, Green Rock Tours, and IHOP’s Pancake Day “controversy.”  The only one that bums me out: only 150 clicks for “Not Caring About New Orleans Again,” which may have just been due to a less than catchy trend title choice by the editors (whom I love, and some of whom are from New Orleans). It collected together stories about ongoing neglect of New Orleans by politicians, and is worth a read.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from shey.net, on February 23, 2008 7:31 AM

At the southeast corner of Lafayette and Spring in the SoHo-Nolita area, some sort of event (explosion?) occurred to knock off the heavy grates off the surface. The FDNY and NYPD closed down the street; it didn't look like a steampipe explosion or water main break (no water) - it looks more like an underground transformer vault (if anyone knows what these are, let us know in comments) explosion. The 6 line does run underneath, but there do not seem to be any delays.

Some of the bystanders speculated the snow and salt could have played a part in the explosion. And since this is the first substantive snow, that means possible electrocutions (dogs seem especially susceptible), though Con Ed has been working more aggressively to check stray voltage.

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 22, 2008 1:31 PM

PAPER film crazies Rebecca Carroll and Dennis Dermody give us their two cents on the upcoming Academy Awards.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from PAPERMAG: WORD UP!, on February 22, 2008 1:14 PM

For those of you who are not paying very very close attention to the MTOS repository and developers list, the details of MT 4.2 have been released and development has begun in earnest.

In summary MT 4.2 will focus on performance optimization and enhancements. MT 4.0 and MT 4.1 added a lot of great functionality and user experience improvements at a break neck speed. In all the wake of all that activity is a lot of unoptimized code. So this release is not is slated to begin addressing those issues and nothing more. (Somehow I think that will change and engineering will slip a few by product management. Just a hunch though.)

Already a new version of MTOS 4.1.1 has been release with a performance logging and monitoring framework in place. This work was closely followed by modularizing the gargantuan MT::App::CMS, a library/module that contained all the functionality of the MT CMS application weighing in at and approaching 1MB in size, in to many smaller modules. (A running log of performance enhancements are here.) Byrne Reese reports significant improvements in the memory usage and response times of early tests.

So far the previously mentioned memory leak problem does not seem to have been addressed which is a real bummer because it affects the largest most high volume installs that need these better performance the most. I could be wrong as I have not tested the latest rom the repository, but I have not seen anything in the commit logs that indicates changes have been made in this regard.

Originally posted by Timothy Appnel from Code / Appnel Solutions, on February 22, 2008 12:14 PM

As we expand UH into a resource for the talent community exploring the creative and business aspects of new media, we will post bits of news about what's going out there. Comment, question, send us posts about what you know and what you're doing, and look for the new UH: Artists l Audience l Business in the coming weeeks.  -TES

NewTeeVee writes today about UNDER THE ARCHES, a "reality" show that began as a series of short videos online and is now being turned into a "pilot" by a company called Madwood Entertainment.

NYU student Sean Patrick Murray, who created the show, describes it on Facebook as "8 college kids in NYC, the real "Gossip Girl."  You can see the 7-minute pilot there or get a taste here on the Gawker post, which described the show as "reality schtick - [all] about the fast-moving-cloud shots, the angsty Z-100 soundtrack and the whiny blond chicks" and creator Murray as "either a complete genius or a total tool."

According to NewTeeVee, the distribution plan is "to launch a video destination site that will stream ad-supported shows for free" and then “hyper-distribute the show to other video sharing-sites and social networks."

I like that plan to build audience, but whether it's already the big win Murray suggests or just the beginning of a strategy still to be tested, we'll see.  What do you think?

Originally posted by TES from unitedhollywood, on February 22, 2008 8:17 AM

As we expand UH into a resource for the talent community exploring the creative and business aspects of new media, we will post bits of news about what's going out there. Comment, question, send us posts about what you know and what you're doing, and look for the new UH: Artists l Audience l Business in the coming weeeks. -TES

NewTeeVee writes today about UNDER THE ARCHES, a "reality" show

Originally posted by TES from United Hollywood, on February 22, 2008 6:54 AM

Mets COO Jeff Wilpon was a guest during WFAN’s morning show today, hosted by Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, and had the following to say when asked about the Home-Run Apple at Shea Stadium…

“The apple, as it sits right now, is in not great repair.  So we’re probably going to send it out somewhere to get repaired.  We’re going to see how much of it we can fix, or we’re going to make a new one.”

…so, this sounds like, maybe, they’ll try to fix it and move it to Citi Field…or, this is a way to frame the apple as beyond fixing, so when if they opt to leave it behind the excuse has already been set in motion…

To listen to Wilpon’s interview, click here.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 22, 2008 6:16 AM

The public hearings have been held, the commission has approved a plan, now the votes on congestion pricing are fast approaching. As the March 31st legislative deadline draws near, Transportation Alternatives and other pro-pricing groups are ramping up the advocacy.

Yesterday, T.A. sent a message to supporters outlining its strategy. The ad to the right is part of a campaign directing New Yorkers to GetNYCMoving.org, a site run by the Campaign for New York's Future where visitors can tell their state legislators to support congestion pricing:

Last week, T.A. launched a major push for congestion pricing that plays to our strengths. With only a handful of weeks before the legislative deadline to pass pricing, we have rolled out full-page ads in 13 weekly community papers in key areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Each of the newspapers serves a neighborhood that is due for major traffic reduction and transit benefits under congestion pricing. And to extend our reach, dozens of T.A volunteers have taken to the subways with flyers letting straphangers know exactly what congestion pricing promises for their commute.

Update: So far, the form doesn't include a way to contact City Council members, who vote on the proposal first.

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 22, 2008 5:52 AM

Students of all ages may be surprised to discover that homework is a relatively recent phenomenon. In rural America of the late 19th-century, homework was discouraged because it kept youngsters from their chores. In fact, in 1901 the U.S. Congress passed an act that abolished homework for students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

It was not until the 1950s that homework enjoyed a resurgence due to Cold War fears that Russian students were outperforming their American counterparts. By the time the Cold War ended in the 1990s, homework was an entrenched institution. In fact, a 2007 University of Michigan study found that it had increased over time. According to the study, sample of students between the ages of six and nine were spending two hours a week on homework, as opposed to 44 minutes in 1981. (Wikipedia -- History of Homework in the United States)

The Fairfax County Public Library offers an array of homework resources for students from kindergarten through college. See the Homework and Student Support page on the library’s Web site to learn about Live Homework Help, Web sites on school subjects and more.

Originally posted by Fairfax County Public Library from Fairfax County Public Library, on February 22, 2008 5:09 AM

I alluded to this in my debate sum-up below. But one of my big questions about this debate was Hillary Clinton's lack of aggressiveness toward Barack Obama. I think it spoke very well of her on a number of levels -- personally, as a potential leader, etc. She made her case on her merits and policies.

But there is no mistaking the fact that by every metric and every visible trendline Barack Obama is in the process of winning the nomination. At least conventional political logic would dictate that she had no choice but to go after him just as she has been doing on the campaign trail.

But she didn't.

Some are saying that she realizes she's losing and she wants to lose gracefully or not damage the interests of the Democratic party in the fall. Others that the tack she took is actually the best one for her to take. I suspect it's a bit of both.

But that was the big silence in this debate.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 21, 2008 5:58 PM

Profiles of 5 New Yorkers that dress in only one color.

Why gray?
I actually wore turquoise for eight years, but last September, I switched to gray. I'd had a bad year and needed to get out of it.

That's a big switch.
I like everything to be clean, and gray is clean. Gray is between black and white, so it's a noncolor, almost. I feel messy and unclean if I wear other colors.

Where do you shop?
I make all my own clothes. I can't wear anyone else's.

What about shoes?
That's hard because even the soles of my shoes have to be gray or white. I get annoyed if the soles are black.

Buzzfeed has more on monochromatic outfits.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 21, 2008 5:37 PM

Bootstrapping off of Jay’s previous post, I want to mark this with a bit more pomp and fanfare, and provide a bit of context. The short version, though, is that the NYPL’s now officially blogging.

Originally posted by Josh Greenberg from NYPL Labs, on February 21, 2008 5:20 PM

The Columbia Teachers College professor who was in the news last year when a noose was found on her office door angrily denied she plagiarized others' work. Madonna Constantine, who the Teachers College sanctioned after a year-and-a-half investigation, will appeal the charges.

Constantine, who remains a tenured professor, issued a statement, calling the memo (released to TC faculty) discussing sanctions "premature, vindictive, and mean-spirited," lacking "sensitivity and due process." She wondered "whether a White faculty member would have been treated in such a publicly disrespectful and disparaging manner." You can read the full statement, but here's an excerpt:

Evidence regarding my case will be presented to the Faculty Advisory Committee at Teachers College as soon as my attorneys and I can coordinate my appeal. It is my opinion that this investigation, along with other incidents that have happened to me at Teachers College in recent months, point to a conspiracy and witch-hunt by certain current and former members of the Teachers College community. I believe that nothing that has happened to me this year is coincidental, particularly when I reflect upon the hate crime I experienced last semester involving a noose on my office door. As one of only two tenured Black women full professors at Teachers College, it pains me to conclude that I have been specifically and systematically targeted.

Constantine's lawyer added that the investigation was "extremely underhanded" and suggested his client was the one who had been plagiarized. Additionally, he said the noose incident and plagiarism charges were TC's way to force her to leave. Paul Giacomo told Bloomberg News, "There have been attempts from the very top of the administration of Teachers College to intimidate and blackmail Madonna Constantine into leaving the college."

In late 2005, a former TC professor and students brought their complaints to the counseling and clinical psychology department, which was then chaired by Suniya Luthar. Luthar told the Columbia Spectator she informed the dean and handed over documents to TC attorneys in 2006, and in 2007 Constantine "allegedly presented her with a summons threatening legal action for defamation, slander, and libel" (see this Post story) but never followed up and eventually withdrew the complaint after the hate crime.

Originally posted by Jen Chung from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 21, 2008 5:08 PM

Compare and contrast. The CNN moderator asks about Nancy Pelosi's contention that the super-delegates should follow what the pledged delegates decide at the end of the contest.

Hillary ducks it:

Well you know these are the rules that are followed. I think that it’ll sort itself out. I’m not worried about that. We will have a nominee, and we will have a unified Democratic Party, and we will go on to victory in November.

Obama reiterates his position that the super-dels will have to follow the popular vote:

Well I think it is important, given how hard Sen. Clinton and I have been working, that these primaries and caucuses count for something. And so my belief is that the will of the voters, expressed in this long election process, is what ultimately will determine who our next nominee’s gonna be.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 21, 2008 4:40 PM

Hillary is really cranking up the attacks on -- or "drawing contrasts with" -- Obama on every front. As noted below she hit him over that hapless surrogate's inability to name any Obama accomplishment. Now she's hit him on the charges that he's "lifted" speech lines. Hillary:

Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That’s I think a very simple proposition. And you know, lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in — it’s change you can Xerox...

There is no doubt that you are a passionate eloquent speaker. And I applaud you for that. But when you look at what we face in this country...it is not enough to say let’s come together.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on February 21, 2008 4:04 PM

When I first saw this photo of "mshalalé" cheese on Marianna's blog, Swirl and Scramble, I thought it was a bundle of pasta. Marianna explains that the name of the cheese means braids/braided. The cheese, which is from the Middle East around Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, is usually served drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with nigella seeds. She describes the taste as, "not too strong, slightly stronger in taste then mozzarella, firmer and a bit saltier too."

Originally posted by Robyn Lee from Serious Eats: Main, on February 21, 2008 12:30 PM

massive compilation.

 bookmark this on del.icio.us - posted by adamrice to reference software programming handy - more about this bookmark...

Originally posted by adamrice from del.icio.us/network/sudama, on February 21, 2008 10:29 AM

At his blog for Newsday, David Lennon reports that Orlando Hernandez did not have a bunion removed as the Mets said he did.

Instead, “He had surgery to fix a dislocated second toe, which is now actually shorter, affecting his balance,” Lennon explains. “Because of that, Hernandez is lagging behind the other pitchers as he tries to adjust.”

…so, basically, the guy is hurt so often, even his employer can’t keep track of what pains him…good grief…

In a second post, Lennon recaps lunch plans between Joe Smith and Mike Pelfrey.

Meanwhile, according to Adam Rubin in the Daily News, Jose Reyes may not be doing the Professor Reyes segment for Shea Stadium this season.

“I did it two years in a row already,” Reyes tells Rubin. “But I’ll think about it.  I haven’t said no yet.”

In the report, Rubin also writes of Shea’s alternate plan, using John Maine instead; as well as the latest on Oliver Perez’s contract status; and talks, or the lack of talks, with Freddy Garcia.

Speaking of Rubin, at his blog for the Daily News, he has posted a great Q&A with Carlos Delgado.

In the New York Times, Ben Shpigel profiles Jose Valentin, who has had a big influence on Reyes. 

Lastly, at MLB.com, Marty Noble takes a closer look at Brian Schneider, who looks forward to having ‘a hand in everything.’

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on February 21, 2008 9:08 AM

A journalist recently asked what it is about Gotham that we think suits the Obama campaign. We'll defer to designers John Slabyk and Scott Thomas to make that call — they selected the font for Obama for America, we merely provided it — but one thing we can say as type designers is that Gotham isn't pretending to be anything it's not, which makes it an unusual and refreshing choice for a campaign. Political typefaces have a way of being chosen because they underscore (or imagine) some specific aspect of a candidate, working hard to convey "traditional values" or "strength and vigilance," or any number of graspable populist notions. The only thing Gotham works hard at is being Gotham.

2008 is clearly a year of unusual thinking in political circles, because none of these familiar approaches can explain the utterly confounding typographic dress chosen by Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hillary's snooze of a serif might have come off a heart-healthy cereal box, or a mildly embarrassing over-the-counter ointment; if you're feeling generous you might associate it with a Board of Ed circular, or an obscure academic journal. But Senator McCain's typeface is positively mystifying: after three decades signifying a very down-market notion of luxe, this particular sans serif has settled into being the font of choice for the hygiene aisle. One of McCain's campaign themes is "Making Tough Choices:" is this the one you would have made? — H&FJ

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, on February 21, 2008 7:00 AM

Recent reports, noted here as they broke, brought word of two intriguing developments in optics: a coating that is far blacker than any before, and preliminary successes at “cloaking” objects with strange refractions so that electromagnetic radiation (maybe, someday, multi-spectral light) flows around them. Hence, invisibility. They are different stories but they tickle similar kinds of amazement. At the Washington Post Rick Weiss took on the difficult job of stitching them together more or less seamlessly into an exploration of optical shenanigans. The result ran yesterday. It’s a good job of dropping the second shoe. After news breaks, enterprising reporters may wait for the smoke to clear and go back in to find out more of the back story, why some people care, and where it’s going. In this case, Weiss found two second shoes and dropped them together. Kudos.

Speaking of shoes, his kicker is delicious. Several reporters covering the cloaking progress news have noted that, if one is rendered fully invisible, one is also rendered blind. If photons aren’t interacting with you, your eyeballs haven’t much to work with. So much for walking unseen into some attractive person’s shower room for a boorish thrill. So how to communicate? Well, go read the kicker.
pic source ;

-CP

Originally posted by Charlie Petit from Knight Science Journalism Tracker, on February 21, 2008 6:56 AM

(ed.note: The first draft of this post was written before the publication of the Times article on McCain and Iseman. So please set aside whatever affairs or influence peddling you think McCain might be involved with to give these other issues their proper due. Thank you. -- jmm)

As I've noted a few times before, one of the key dynamics of the coming general election race is the unwillingness of most reporters to scrutinize John McCain's claims and statements to determine whether they are either accurate, contradicted by other public statements or even if they make any sense. One example is the current tussle between McCain and Obama over a pledge to opt in to the public financing system for the general election. McCain is insisting Obama honor his 'pledge' to opt in to the public financing system if his Republican opponent (McCain) agrees to do the same. Now, Obama's going to have to deal with the pledge issue on his own. But it's impossible to report on this gambit of McCain without at least one spit take. And probably a few more.

Back in August McCain opted into the public financing system for the primaries. Then in December he needed to come up with some cash quickly. Well, no problem. He was already guaranteed over $5 million from the feds. So all he needed to do was put that guarantee down as collateral for the loan.

Only McCain didn't want to do that because once he formally made the federally-guaranteed money collateral then he gave up his right to later opt back out of the system.

But, he really, really needed the money. So McCain, along with his campaign finance lawyer Trevor Potter (whom I've met and is a very sharp guy) came up with a workaround. It went like this. McCain wouldn't make the guarantee collateral. But he promised that if his campaign tanked he would opt out of the system and then opt back in. This would mean remaining a candidate even after he knew he wasn't really in the race in order to a) get back the public money to pay his creditors and b) assure he could sign the original loan note with the de facto collateral while nonetheless maintaining his ability to once again opt out of the public financing system at any one of many possible future junctures at which his campaign might pop back from life support and it would be in his interest to go back to raising money from donors.

Of course, McCain's campaign did come off the mat. And since he now wants to raise and spend as much as possible before the end of the summer, earlier this month he did actually opt back out. The FEC, the outfit that enforces the campaign finance laws, says McCain's not allowed to opt out. But whatever, he opted out anyway.

Explain to me how this guy gets out of the gate attacking anyone else about honoring pledges tied to the campaign finance system.

McCain's other angle over the last few days has been to call Obama naive for saying he would take military action in Pakistan, even without the Pakistanis' permission if they wouldn't give it. But according to the Post, that's exactly what the administration did only a month ago when they used Hellfire missiles to kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda commander in Pakistan. Here was McCain's response ...

Asked about that account as he drove to this small town to address a snowbound crowd at Young's Jersey Dairy, known for ice cream, McCain demurred, saying he did not know the facts of the situation. But he said Obama was still wrong in speaking publicly about the option.

"The one thing you want to do is not embarrass them," he said. "I've known these people and I have known them for many years. I know I can work with them for the good of the security of the United States. I would not broadcast to the world that I am going to bomb a sovereign nation in order to accomplish my goal."

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on February 21, 2008 6:25 AM

Setting the tone: In its performance report, DOT starts off by measuring how quickly it fixes traffic lights.

A preliminary version of the 2008 Mayor's Management Report was released last week [PDF], and the Department of Transportation section is déja vu all over again. Ten months after the end of the Iris Weinshall regime, DOT is still grading itself almost entirely according to how well it manages traffic flow, keeps highways looking tidy, and other car-oriented metrics.

Even the few new livable streets metrics in this year's MMR, like the number of speed humps installed near schools, fail to provide meaningful information. The MMR is legally mandated by the City Charter to serve as "a public report card on City services affecting the lives of New Yorkers." Yet, it tells us nothing about how the 101 new speed humps installed in 2007 have affected speeding and pedestrian injuries around schools or if more kids are walking and biking to school because of them. Rather, the report depicts a city agency that is more concerned with its own, internal bureaucratic activity than the outcomes of its policies.

The contrast with London couldn't be sharper. That city's transportation agency, Transport for London, sets targets and measures public policy outcomes, like reductions in carbon emissions, noise, particulate matter pollution, and traffic congestion -- as seen in it's detailed, 279-page, annual monitoring report on congestion pricing [PDF]. The report even goes so far as to gauge the effect of pricing on London's employment growth and economic trends, sector by sector, beginning on page 74. TfL's report does exactly what the MMR is supposed to do: It provides a treasure trove of data on how city transportation policies are affecting the lives of Londoners.

Graphs from TfL's Fifth Annual Report on congestion pricing.

Next to TfL's rigorous measurements and focus on actual policy outcomes, New York City's Mayor's Management Report looks laughably inadequate.

(more...)

Originally posted by Ben Fried from Streetsblog, on February 21, 2008 6:07 AM

The artist David Horovitz maintains a web page titled "THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU". On it he offers exchange of money for his time.

For example,

If you give me $400 I will take a train to a desolate area with a packed lunch and sit down and read Anna Karenina. I will do this for 6-10 hours. I will repeat the same thing the following days until I have finally read the entire book. Finally! I am only going to do this once, so this is an edition of one only. I will send you documentation of this from the closest mailbox to where I do this. I'll also write the location of the mailbox on the envelope if you ever wish to go to where I will have sent it to you from.

and

This one is really serious. I'm scared to do this. But I think I have to. If you give me $10 I will think really hard of someone who I need to apologize to. I will write them a letter of apology. I will make two copies of the letter. I will send one to you and one to the person who I am apologizing to.

(via jen bekman who spends most days sitting at a desk a few feet away from me in the 20x200 office and still manages to send several IMs and many emails a day)

Filed under: art
Tags: conceptual art, mail

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Heading East, on February 20, 2008 9:46 PM

Tonight is the last chance until December 2010 to witness a total lunar eclipse. This is the third such eclipse in the past year. With any luck the weather will cooperate. It looks like there will be breaks in the clouds over the city, which should make for dramatic views. Break out the tripods and cameras!

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth wedges itself between the sun and moon, casting its shadow on the latter. Unlike a solar eclipse you can look at a lunar eclipse without frying your retinas! The partial eclipse, when the earth's shadow starts to take a bite out of the moon, begins at 8:43 p.m.. By 10 p.m. the moon will be swallowed by the earth's shadow and will remain that way until nearly 11 o'clock. Bad Astronomy Blog and NASA have lots more details. As the earth's shadow creeps across the moon the moon doesn't get completely dark as you might expect, but turns brownish or even blood red. The reddish hue is because some sunlight gets refracted through the earth's atmosphere.

The eclipse will be easy to find, just look for the moon. AMNY mentions that volunteers from the Amateur Astronomers Association will be at the following locations with binoculars and telescopes:

• Carl Schurz Park in Manhattan, overlooking the East River at 86th Street (4,5,6 to 86th Street)
• Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, the now out-of-service airport. (No. 2 train to the last stop, transfer to Q53 bus)
• Park Slope at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street (F to 7th Ave)
• Northern Boulevard and 82nd St in Jackson Heights, Queens, in front of the firehouse. (E,F,V,R,7 to 82nd Street)

There will also be events at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park starting at 7:30 this evening. And, if clouds get in the way, well, there's always animations from Orbiting Frog.

During the lunar eclipse, but on the other side of the world, the Navy will attempt to shoot down a failing spy satellite filled with toxic fuel.

lunar eclipse (crop) w/Saturn?? last March 3rd by Henry C on Flickr

Originally posted by Joe Schumacher from Gothamist Weekly Favorites, on February 20, 2008 6:35 PM

I stumbled upon this 31 page 2007-08 Guatemalan Coffee Atlas published by Anacafé... a 26 MB pdf resource worth sharing.  The Search System they are developing also seems pretty compelling at first glance.

Originally posted by Kevin Cuddeback from gimme! coffee, on February 20, 2008 5:52 PM

The more power you have, the farther you are from those you make decisions for.

Originally posted by caterina from Caterina.net, on February 20, 2008 5:34 PM

In 2003, Slope, an on line poetry journal, published a special issue devoted to American Sign Language (ASL) poetry. The issue featured the winners of the 2003 Heart+Express National ASL Poetry Prize and presented their work in video format.  There is no other way to "read" this work.  Unlike Deaf poetry, which can be signed and/or written, ASL poetry is in, and only in, ASL.  At first, I assumed that the videos would feature subtitles, some printed "translation" of what the poets were signing.  This wasn't the case.  Instead, the videos are completely silent--that is, to someone who doesn't know ASL.  But it's clear from the careful hand, body and facial movements that a great deal is being expressed, and it is maddening not to be able to understand the poems. On the other hand, I think that the decision made by the Slope editors was brilliant.  ASL isn't simply a way of "miming" or literally translating English, rather, it is its own language and needs to be approached on its own terms:

ASL incorporates all the functions and structures of a fully developed language system, capable of expressing abstract ideas and poetry....Variations in handshapes, palm orientation, movement, and placement create rhyme, rhythm, tropes, symbols, stanzas and other recognizable characteristics of spoken and written poetry.  You need a video camera to publish a "book" of ASL poetry.

The judges of the contest, Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner, are also known as the Flying Words Project. For over twenty years, they have traveled around the United States and abroad sharing ASL poetry with deaf and hearing audiences.  Cook, who is deaf, signs on stage while Lerner, who is usually off stage, provides a voice for hearing audiences (you can view two of their performances on the Slope site and also in this YouTube video).  Cook is committed to sharing ASL poetry with hearing audiences but when asked if there is a sign for poetry, he draws an important distinction between "hearing" and "Deaf" poetry:

The sign for Hearing poetry is a generally traditional sign. The handshape is "P" (at dominant hand) and flat "B" (non-dominant hand). The P moves while the B stays. It is almost the same sign as for music. This sign is strongly associated with rhythms/rhyme. The other sign was created at the Deaf Way Festival at Gallaudet University in 1989 (I think)...I remember a meeting where we were discussing that we needed a sign that shows our poetry. Finally, we decided to use this sign: Handshape "S," start at the chest then move forward into handshape "5." This sign is similar to "Expression." It looks like this: HEART+EXPRESS.

Lerner's voice gives the hearing audience a sense of the poem, that is all. "My words are not designed to create the whole picture...If you close your eyes and just listen to my voice, you won't understand the poem," he says.

Amy Radil's excellent article "The cultural clamor of American Sign Language poetry" explains in greater detail the formal elements of ASL poetry:

Handshapes are at the core: They are basic forms like letters or numbers, which can be used in combination to construct many different signs. Repeated handshapes become the rhymes in ASL, while repeated signs or sequences generate the rhythm. In addition to handshape rhymes and repetition, poets can create tone through fluid or jerky movements. Two hands can perform different signs at the same time to juxtapose images. A poem can progress through different uses of space, with the performer turning to face different people or take on different personas. Signs for English letters may be incorporated into the poem, to intertwine the spelling of an English word among the signs. Eye contact, or a break in it, can signal shifts and interruptions.

Cook thinks of the process as creating a "language sculpture" that can be experienced as a pause or in motion. I think that attempting to translate these details of motion and gesture in writing would encourage written poetry to move in new and surprising directions.   This certainly was true of translation into ASL.

In 1939, Eric Malzkuhn ("Malz"), a graduate of Gallaudet University, translated Lewis Carroll's poem "The Jabberwocky" into ASL. His masterful translation is regarded by many scholars and poets as the beginning of ASL poetry:

[Malzkuhn's] ASL translation walked the same line between known signs and previously unimagined combinations. Not only was it a hit with audiences, it awakened Deaf people to a new dimension of their language. The performance helped ASL speakers in the audience see their language's potential to astound, to transform normal communication into something else entirely.

I wanted to see if I could locate a clip of Jabberwocky in ASL and found Carl Schroeder's version on YouTube.  From the comments left on his blog, I gathered that his version differs from Malzkuhn's but I recommend that you check it out.

Jabberwocky has been translated into many languages, and in most cases it requires that a translator really push the limits of the target language and, ultimately, embrace the creation of total nonsense.  This means, of course, that what results is not really a translation but a new poem entirely.  The same is true, I imagine, with the ASL translation(s) of Jabberwocky.  In Schroeder's version, his hands seem to fuse into each other in constant flows of movement.  In ASL, which Cynthia L. Peters calls a "visual-kinetic vernacular," Carroll's linguistic hybridity and play is animated, activated in ways that seem to me to be very true to the original.

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on February 20, 2008 5:22 PM

You may have read that a lot of prominent people have recently moved to Git and are loving it. I too am one of those who fancy this new kid on the block but never got very far with the bundle I started for it.

Fortunately Tim Harper recently picked up on my initial efforts and have done a great job at not only making this bundle functional but also downright impressive :)

The much improved Git bundle can be found at Gitorious and discussion about it can be directed to its Google Group.

For those too lazy to click the link above, here are the short install instructions:

mkdir -p /Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles
cd !$
git clone git://gitorious.org/git-tmbundle/mainline.git Git.tmbundle

After having installed it you can press ⌃⌘T in TextMate and enter git to find the “Administration → Update Git Bundle” action. Use this to update the bundle (it will automatically reload after having performed the update).

Originally posted by Allan Odgaard from TextMate Blog, on February 20, 2008 1:46 PM

When Apple first announced the iPod, way back in 2001 (!), I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t get it. It’s embarrassing, because to me the iPod now seems so obvious. Of course you want 1000 songs in your pocket. Who wouldn’t? For people who still don’t get it, I find it impossible to understand them. What is their life perspective that this device hasn’t transformed it?

The very first iPod looks sort of monstrous compared to today’s sleek beauties. An awkwardly mechanical scroll wheel, surounded by buttons with large enough gaps to gather dirt, sand, and who knows what. A monochrome LCD display takes up perhaps only 25% of the front surface of the device, looking tiny and ineffective on the cigarette-pack-sized case.

The lettering etched into its shiny metallic back reflects its originality: just an Apple logo and the word “iPod.” Branding for a product that stands alone in its market, one that doesn’t need to differentiate itself from the capacities or capabilities of a sibling product. An iPod exists. It holds 1000 songs. And you can buy one.

So I bought one, in spite of not getting it. The truth is, as an Apple employee I was given an offer I couldn’t refuse. Instead of paying the list price of $399, Apple would be offering all of us a one-time half-off deal. Putting a bunch of MP3 files on a portable device and walking around listening to them was the last thing I saw myself doing, but $200 for a 5GB hard drive seemed like a decent deal at the time. I bought the original iPod because it seemed like an affordable hard disk!

How could I not get it? I loved music, and still do. I should have been the ideal target market. But to me, listening to music meant selecting a CD or stack of CDs from my shelf, and carrying those scuffed plastic cases with me wherever I waanted to be entertained. Disorganized stacks were piled on the surfaces around my home stereo. A pile was routinely moved from the front seat of my car to the back, making room for a passenger. If I had a full load, they migrated further to beneath my seath. Pure convenience.

To me, there was nothing more liberating than a CD. The CD represented listening to my music wherever I was, whenever I wanted to. What did I need with MP3 files and a little device that forced me to transfer files to it? That sounded awkward to me.

I was suffering from a major “getting it” gap. My impressions of what I needed were so distorted and abused by habit, that I was blind to the notion that a new device and music in this new format might revolutionize and enhance my life.

What’s interesting to me about this nostalgic trip down memory lane is not so much that I was dense about the iPod and what it could do for me, but that Apple went right ahead and developed the thing anyway. I imagine that most people suffer from this same habitual resistance to new ideas, especially when the new ideas are trying to replace habits that people believe are already optimal. The density I describe here represents serious marketplace inertia for any company that develops game-changing products. How does an innovator convince ordinary people that they’d be happier on the other side of this mental gap?

And most interestingly of all, how does an innovator convince themselves there’s a gap, and that getting people over it will change the world? I only got over the iPod gap with the benefit of a physical object I could hold in my hand, a set of headphones, and some seriously rocking tunes. Apple got over it considerably sooner than that.

Many of us consider ourselves innovators, albeit on a smaller scale than a company such as Apple. So try to imagine a product, a philosophy, or a way of life. Hold it in your hands and examine it carefully. I know you’re sure you don’t need it, and you can’t imagine what you would ever use it for. Neither can anybody else. But in a few years we’ll wonder how we ever lived without it.

Now all have you to do is get over the gap and build it.

Originally posted by Daniel Jalkut from Red Sweater Blog, on February 20, 2008 1:43 PM

Computers used to control the safe cracking device in Die Hard.

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on February 20, 2008 12:53 PM

Did Alexander Graham Bell drink Elisha Gray's telephone-flavored milkshake?

On May 22, 1886, The Washington Post published a shocking front-page scoop: Zenas F. Wilber, a former Washington patent examiner, swore in an affidavit that he'd been bribed by an attorney for Alexander Graham Bell to award Bell the patent for the telephone over a rival inventor, Elisha Gray, who'd filed a patent document on the same day as Bell in 1876.

Even though Bell has been legally vindicated on this issue, Seth Shulman's new book, The Telephone Gambit, suggests that he did in fact steal a key idea from Elisha Gray. (via house next door)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on February 20, 2008 12:47 PM

In August 2006, I wrote “Highly Selective”, a detailed critique of the way keyboard-based multiple item selection works in most Mac OS X software. In short, there are two models for multiple item selection, anchored and unanchored:

ANCHORED: The selection grows in one direction, and shrinks in the other. In the anchored selection model, if you select two or more items in a list using Shift-Down, then pressing Shift-Up will deselect items from the bottom of the selection range. (And vice versa: if you start by selecting items with Shift-Up, Shift-Down will deselect from the top of the selection.)

UNANCHORED: The selection grows in both directions and never shrinks. In the unanchored selection model Shift-Down always extends the selection range downward and Shift-Up always extends it upward.

My argument was that anchored is better, because it allows you to correct for mistakes without switching to the mouse. E.g. if you press Shift-Down four times but realize you’ve selected one too many items, in the anchored model you can simply press Shift-Up to deselect the last item; in the unanchored model, pressing Shift-Up adds another item at the top of the selection range. The problem was that most Mac apps used the unanchored model, because it was the default for Cocoa’s NSTableView and Carbon’s Data Browser.

Key word there being “was”.

In Leopard, Cocoa’s NSTableView changed to the anchored model. You can see this in just about any Cocoa app that has a list that supports multiple selection: Mail’s message list, iChat’s Buddy window, Safari’s bookmarks, and Address Book are just a few examples. Regarding third-party apps, I wrote:

There’s certainly a consistency argument to be in favor of using the Apple-supplied default selection behavior, regardless whether you personally agree with it. The idea being that by using the default behavior, list selection will work the same in your software as it does almost everywhere else. And if Apple does change the behavior in some future version of Mac OS X, your software will pick up the new default behavior “for free”.

That’s exactly what happened — all apps that use Cocoa’s NSTableView, not just Apple’s, picked up the new anchored selection model for free on Leopard.

So if you’ve noticed this change in, say, Mail, it’s not Mail that changed, but rather the underlying NSTableView list control used in many Cocoa apps. Which is why the behavior did not change in apps that use the Carbon Data Browser control (the equivalent in Carbon to NSTableView in Cocoa). The Finder and iTunes are Apple’s two most prominent Carbon apps, and both still use the unanchored selection model. You can also see this in third-party Carbon apps like Interarchy.

I have no idea who pushed for this change at Apple, nor whether my essay was influential in the decision. But whoever you are, I thank you.

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on February 20, 2008 11:23 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Monoscope, on February 20, 2008 11:02 AM

A California judge ordered earlier this week that the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, be taken offline. The site allows people to anonymously post classified documents in hopes of discouraging unethical and illegal behavior of corporations and governments. A Cayman Island Bank, Julius Baer, took the matter to court after classified documents were posted on the site that contain, “what are alleged to be highly damaging documents about the bank's offshore activities," according to Wikileaks. The court papers stated that the stolen documents were posted by an angry ex-employee trying to harass the company, which violated confidentiality agreements and bank laws, The New York Times said today. But the court case only seems to have given Wikileaks more publicity. I didn't even know that the website existed until countless news sources and blogs began writing about it. The folks at Wikileaks were prepared for something like this to happen; though Wikileaks.org is shut down, the website can still be accessed as it was put online at other locations. A simple Google search and you can easily navi