Commentary about those things I find interesting.
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There was a time when my secret project, the thing that brought me in to work ever day and probably why I stayed till 8pm, was attempting to end the error_log from have anyone ever hitting the 404 page. It was after making the 404 page funny. Only no one got the joke.
If the below video does not work, then try Renny Gleeson: 404, the story of a page not found.
Eventually I did give up and focus on helpful things such that people could get where they needed to go.
My jaw dropped at the end of this blog post Cloud Hosting and Academic Research.
There is a value in keeping significant old systems around, even if they no longer have active user bases. A cloud hosting model seems so right to me–it’s scalable and robust. It just makes sense. But the hosting costs are a problem. Even if the total amount of money is small, grants are for specific work and have end dates. I can still be running a 10+ year old UNIX box, but I can’t still be paying hosting fees for a research project whose funding ended years ago, no matter how small that bill is. Grants end–there’s no provision for “long term hosting.” Our library can help us archive data, but they are not yet ready to “archive” an interactive system. I hope companies that provide hosting services will consider donating long-term hosting for research.
Opening up a new area of digital archives by preserving the really cool works of the faculty seems like something I might enjoy.
My mentor in web design and server administration might have been described as a pack rat. He… Well, I guess, we kept around versions of web pages a decade old. Nothing really found deletion. The public just missed it by use of permissions.
When building my portfolio, my mistake was not gathering up the whole files to replicate the sites I designed. I’m no longer doing web design or even programming. So it is okay.
A professor in Geology had a pretty cool Virtual Museum for Fossils. The site moved around a few times, eventually ending up on the main web server also hosting WWW. Of course, HTML, images, and Flash files are easy to archive. Take the files and place them on a web server. Since they are static, it is easy to keep around for a long time. As long as the standards remain honored, they should be good. Developers of web browsers have pressure to go for the new, which potentially abandons the old eventually.
Scripted web sites using Perl, PHP, ASP, or JSP, JavaScript, or AJAX require a working interpreter. Still, some things might not be backwards compatible.
About a year ago my mother ran across 8mm video film. An uncle found a place who converted it to DVD. Will we even be using DVDs in a decade? Maybe the 8mm needs to go on Blueray?
Going back to the scripted web sites, should an archived web site’s code be updated to work on the new version of the interpreter? Maybe. If makers of the interpreters allowed for running in a backwards compatible mode, then all would be good. Even better, to be able to add to a script a variable that tells the interpreter which back version to pretend to use. For administrators, they could have the programmers check non-working scripts by just telling the interpreter to simulate an older version.
Everything is out there. From the most profound to the most mundane, whatever I need to know when I need to know it.
Last week I set my DVR to record a series. I knew it was in re-runs and British. The DVR sucks in the sense it gives an original air date but not an episode number. The first episode I got was not called “Pilot”. At this point I had no idea whether I have the first, the sixth, or the eleventh.
So I toss the show title with episode list into a Google search. It pulls up several sites with episode titles and their dates. I could have just gone to imdb.com. Turns out I had the third. (Plus there are places offering to let me watch the series online.)
Probably I search too much instead of going to specific sites I know first.
There is something rewarding between hitting the button and seeing results. It feels so good.
The unity of science and religion is an important concept in the Baha’i Faith. They are two sides of the same coin. One side looks ahead with faith. One side looks backwards without faith. One is impatient while the other is deliberately slow. Where the two agree is the sweet spot of true knowledge. There is a stage in the scientific method full of looking forward with faith: Ask a question.
Asking a question is the. most. important step. Everything depends upon it. Not asking the right question ensures nothing will be tried. And humanity suffers. Unless someone else gathers up the faith to do so.
Also, I am apparently a fan of spoken word artists. There is something about the cadence and flow that I like.
If the above video does not work, then try Equal Parts Science and Magic.
If this is right, then money can buy happiness. The problem we create for ourselves is spending the money on expensive things we like. Happiness may come through spending money to help others. Look at charity giving statistics by people in the United States. I hope though as people discover things like Kickstarter, people find funding small projects makes them feel good as well.
If the above video does not work, then try How to buy happiness.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. — Jimi Hendrix
Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. — Maya Angelou
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. — Barbara Kingsolver
Thanks to all the friends who shared quotes: Myk
Human relationships are rich and they are messy and they are demanding and we clean them up with technology.
— Sherry Tuckle
Technology is the great deceiver. We can use it to craft how we present ourselves to others.
Unfortunately, we lose the connections. As a university campus webmaster, I most preferred meeting in person. Phone was second best. Email only was least. At the time, I thought it a James Borg thing that 93% of communication is non-verbal (words). Email only interactions usually suffered from misunderstandings. People with whom I had single meeting were more understanding and less problematic.
Now days, I think oxytocin generating trust is responsible. Email is just text and misunderstandings happen when the reader has assumptions to mistrust the writer. That meeting in person creates the necessary trust.
Technology does enhance our relationships when used to augment in person interactions not replace them.
If the above video does not work, then try Connected, but alone?
William Shakespeare’s bithplace and home in Stratford-Upon-Avon. (Tourist trap) I took this in March 2002 when I was in England.
That was a fantastic trip where we got to see lots of interesting places.
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