Life Interrupted

A very interesting article titled life interrupted talks about scientists and their studies into our frantic constantly interruptable life. Obviously this one hit home with me.
A fun start though, to the article is his reference to "first-ever interruption-by-email" happening at Xerox PARC. :)
My favorite quote:

"People multitask because it is expected, encouraged, and considered vital, yet cognitive scientist David Meyer reports that truly effective multitasking is beyond people's capabilities.'"

[via /.]

iPod facilitates human connection

Mitch Ratcliffe blogged about: "Our hunger to connect is tremendous". Give it a read, though it's connected in a direction i find kinda sad. The idea is solid, though. When others can more easily see into my world, they find reasons to connect. In every direction, that can only help us.

Lean Left: The Separation of Church and State

The LA Times is running a story that illustrates so clearly the need to distinguish between church and state when it comes to the daily use of power.
Lean Left said it well: "This girl was beaten over the head with religion, and made to suffer because she wasn't the right kind of person. All she wanted to do was be a cheerleader -- and she had to endure intense pressure form the person who got to decide if she got to be a cheerleader -- her coach -- because she was the wrong religion."

President authorized interrogation!

From the conservative Washington Times no less. ACLU: President authorized interrogation: "An FBI document suggests the president authorized inhumane interrogation methods against Iraqi detainees, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday."

Walking back

Here are Maggie and back from the City Center theatre. Saw 'A series of
unfortunate events'. Really enjoyed it.

But as always, the best part is walking home with Jeanne and Maggie.

Alan Kay's OOPSLA 2004 Talks

The Knowing and Doing blog has a piece on
Alan Kay's Talks at OOPSLA 2004. My gosh this guy poured a lot of great insight into this one blog post. Very cool. Please read it. :)

Most Wonderful Day, If You Survive

Christmas deadliest day for Americans according to a new study. More heart attacks and strokes on Christmas, the day after, New Years and the day after than any other days. Watch all that joy, people.

Street Drums

These guys were really fun. They had buckets out front for donations.
The three tubs read:

• college
  fund
• rent
• beer

and when someone dropped cash
in the tub marked "beer" they'd stop playing and cheer.

A One World OS?

A One World OS? discusses the possibility of Croquet as the every-platform operating system of the future. Very cool.

[Smart Mobs]

Laptops: Ouch!

Hot laptops could cook men's fertilit: "Laptops, which reach high internal operating temperatures, can heat up the scrotum which could affect the quality and quantity of men's sperm"

Dynamic Languages ARE the Future

ongoing · Dynamic Java: "It’s pretty clear that dynamic languages are a hot area, maybe the hottest, in the world of software development."

Programmer Affidavit Re Voting Rigging Software

Programmer Claims he was Paid to Rig Votes. I don't want to sway this. But go read about this.

[via /. here and here.]

Dude!

Dude! There's an article to discuss this word i overuse so much.
Dude -- professor studies 'dude': "
Linguist says word draws power from cool kinship

Too Many Computers Hurt Learning

There are always arguments about the usefulness of technology in learning. Got it. But this article points to a wider statistical sample and smarter measures to make the point that the simple presence of more computers can mark the learner for lower education performance. As a parent, that was worth noting.

[via /. via The Christian Science Monitor]

Of Colds & Celts: "I was trying to think about why every time I turn around lately there's something 'Celtic' in my field of view. Celtic books, Celtic music, Celtic chicken recipes. When did this happen? Why? I do this thing I call 'reading bookstores' -- the definition of which I'll spare you for the moment -- and when some meme shows up this big, this seismically significant, all my alarms go off at once."

Loved that. :) Looking forward to his next post on the pervasiveness of the Celt culture.

(Via Chief Blogging Officer.)

Consultant's Dinners

Here I sit, talking with Jeanne over IM on my Sidekick, listening to npr
on my headphones, drinking wine and enjoying bread and olive oil. It's
not near as lonely as it once was. :)