Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Month: May 2011

  • Terra Nova

    I saw a version of this commercial without the sneaking through the gate and most chase stuff. My first impression was, does humanity get so ignorant of the past that they are unaware of what populated the Earth 85 million years ago? After watching this version, it answered my question: yes. Anyone who read or […]

  • Guard Dead Paper?

    Seth said, “What we don’t need are mere clerks who guard dead paper.” Whenever, I read “mere”, “only”, or “just” as a descriptor, it makes me sad someone (even me) relies on obvious straw men. Librarians already do more than guard dead paper. It just makes it easier to knock them down and kick them while […]

  • Happy Towel Day!

    Towel Day is an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001). On that day, fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honour. From towelday.org. According to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar […]

  • Bb Mobile Learn Phones Home

    We acquired Blackboard Mobile Learn Powerlink version 1.1.9 to solve a problem. Something was done on the Blackboard side before our institution administrators could successfully get to the registration page. This version fixed that issue by doing a registration behind the scenes. Naturally the information it has is wrong, but at least now the institution administrators can […]

  • TED Talk: Leonard Susskind: My friend Richard Feynman

    What would be in your sandwich? Richard Feynman wrote a couple of my favorite books: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist. It was reassuring to find someone who held similar views on the world. Susskind’s The Black Hole War is on my to-read list. Guess […]

  • Browser Checker

    Mark Wescott wrote to a Blackboard Learn 9 list, Imagine a world where Bb Inc. provides browser checkers for each Rev/SP combo, and all we (aka “The Customers”) have to do is place a link on our Bb logon page to the browser checker that matches our production environment…. mmmm serenity. Said browser checkers would: […]

  • A hard thing

    A hard thing is never done by reading an article about doing it. From Michael Kopp of rands in repose fame on Twitter. I have relearned this the hard way over the past few months. Documentation and sales pitches are the same as an article. Don’t get me wrong, articles, documentation, or sales pitches are […]

  • Unintended Consequence of Ads

    My Internet Service Provider spams me about deals. Requests not to receive phone calls or emails have no effect. (I love Google Voice because I have their number on a no ring list for their robocalls.) They send emails weekly about deals I should take to pay them more than I am. Usually I delete […]

  • Summer Movie Season

    The commentary my friends made during the trailers in front of Thor inspired this post. So here are the movies coming soon this summer I want to see. After compiling the list, it is interesting how the ones I most want to see are all based on comics, graphic novels, short stories. As a kid, […]