tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-97443032010-02-01T14:11:07.647-08:00Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1142355854700912022006-03-14T09:03:00.000-08:002006-03-14T09:04:14.713-08:00

As I mentioned in old bits on the FoRK list, I bought the hobby kit that makes an Edison cylinder recorder that records on plastic cups. (I still haven't assembled it yet, though.) The cylinder recorder was replaced by the more space-efficient record discs, of course. (Edison fought that, as he fought many improvements of his work.) Anyway, I was just wondering what the most space-efficient

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1139641097757702012006-02-10T22:34:00.000-08:002006-02-11T22:49:29.170-08:00

Cup of java in my hand, so warm,A sunny, pinkish glow proclaims a morn.Across a Sound, Olympic pyramidsCommand a land from shiny, snowy lids.About five years ago, I wrote a few examples of what I call "doubly-maximal lipograms"; writings missing the two most-common letters in English, "e" and "t". I misplaced my notebook containing them, though.Yesterday I decided to start anew, one or two a

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1137041497188806722006-01-11T20:20:00.000-08:002006-01-11T21:03:56.296-08:00

When a singer covers a classic but wants to change something in the lyrics, it's best to sleep on it. And, usually, to forget it. Sometimes people make a change because the original is too risque, or too dated. But why did Anita O'Day feel she needed to change Cole Porter's "You're the Top"?Instead of "you're the Louvre Museum", she sings "you're the art museum". Like we're supposed to

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1130874905834015172005-11-01T11:39:00.000-08:002005-11-01T11:55:05.846-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell has a popular article called "The Social Life of Paper". It argues in part that some of the most effective people are those whose "messy" desks are actually well-structured for finding information. Or rather, much of the knowledge work we do today is better supported by piles than files. Yesterday Scripps Howard reported that a study by Pendaflex shows that the way people

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1128014975764160472005-09-29T10:22:00.000-07:002005-09-29T10:29:35.786-07:00

Thought I'd share my post to the Humanist list (use of tech inteaching and researching the humanities). The topic is needing time away from the computer, and our growing reliance on tech for memory.------------------------[Hide Quoted Text]> From: Steven D.Krause > Subject: Re: 19.304 contemplation and computing>> Of course, the problem of technology and "critical thinking" (or

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1127496885938061262005-09-23T10:10:00.000-07:002005-09-23T10:39:46.666-07:00

On October 7th, we'll see the 75th anniversary of Godel's unveiling of his (first) incompleteness. I'm now reading Rebecca Goldstein's excellent "Incompleteness", which not only explains Godel's theorems in simple language, but also provides the context both of the history of mathematics at that point, and of Godel's personality.The book raises some thoughts:* If there were no WWI, there would

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1119977101654725932005-06-28T09:08:00.000-07:002005-06-28T15:38:41.173-07:00

Wired has a piece about Applied Minds. Thinking Machines founder Danny Hillis clearly has a fondness for "Get Smart"; there's the phone booth as a hidden passage, the goofy passphrases, and even a Cone of Silence. Co-founder Danny Hillis escorts me down a hallway that dead-ends into an old-fashioned red phone booth. The phone rings. He places receiver to ear."The blue moon jumps over the purple

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1119558944257661002005-06-23T13:27:00.000-07:002005-06-23T13:35:44.276-07:00

It's been a while since I've seen a graph designed as poorly as this one.Since the final UK price is roughly twice the US price, and since the final red dot is roughly twice as high as the blue dot, then we can conclude that three years ago, where the lines meet, both a UK house and a US house cost roughly... zero dollars.

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1116526877253978412005-05-19T11:09:00.000-07:002005-05-19T11:21:17.256-07:00

1. On Attention And Respect"Why is yet another milestone. Why implies that the child understands causality. When why appears, it's very important to treat it with the respect it's due. It's very tempting to answer these onslaughts of questions with 'Because', or 'That's just the way it is.' This is a dangerous path. The child who hears 'Because' as answer to 'Why is the sky blue?' will be the

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1116436544664624572005-05-18T10:12:00.000-07:002005-05-18T10:28:01.286-07:00

You might be familiar with Print On Demand (POD) vendors like iUniverse and Lulu. They let you upload a document (say, a 300-page PDF) that customers can have printed into a softcover book on demand. The cost is only a little above the per unit cost of printing books in a traditional press run of 1,000 copies. This means you can print anything with essentially no overhead.There's a subgenre of

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1116280066153399182005-05-16T14:44:00.000-07:002005-05-16T15:00:42.560-07:00

Yesterday I saw an advance screening of "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith" (RotS). There were several hundred game company employees and their guests, and I shared the general verdict that it was one of the better Star Wars movies. Lucas has tied the loose threads together reasonably well, I think, considering the corner into which he had written himself with the other five films. While the

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1115136844544274682005-05-03T09:13:00.000-07:002005-05-03T09:14:04.546-07:00

A very cool service just started. I got on their email list a few weeks ago, and today they launched their new service, Backpackit.com. Go to http://backpackit.com and sign up. The "free" tier gives you plenty of services.You can see the examples page for the kinds of things you can do.It's for keeping notes, journals, to-do lists, email reminders, photos, files, etc. It can be for your

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1113424495333391322005-04-13T13:31:00.000-07:002005-04-13T13:34:55.333-07:00

Cookie Monster is being recast as a responsible monster; Sesame Street quotes Cookie as saying that cookies are now only a "sometimes" food. Everyone seems to be aghast, so I'll play the contrarian.I don't know how many kids are cookie-crazy due to Cookie Monster, but I wouldn't be surprised if Sesame Workshop has researched it. A generation ago, they decided to out Snuffy's existence,

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1112740506444665022005-04-05T15:33:00.000-07:002005-04-05T15:35:50.660-07:00

Ron Reagan had a column on foie gras recently. Someone then pointed me to Guillermo's site, www.sonomafoiegras.com, as an example of the pro-foie gras argument. Sonoma Foie Gras describes how it lets ducks run around free-range, until they're old enough for the feeding tube. It also says that ducks naturally gorge themselves before migration, implying the tube is just an acceleration of

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1112729782023814882005-04-05T12:33:00.000-07:002005-04-05T12:36:22.023-07:00

I'm glad Google incorporated Keyhole images into Google Maps. However, if you're at close zoom levels, you'll see there is vertical distortion in the images, so streets don't quite match up unless you are looking at the center of the screen.The images are not squished in the Keyhole app. They are only squished when they show up as the satellite photos in Google Maps. The problem seems to be that

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1112048906010009612005-03-28T14:27:00.000-08:002005-03-28T14:28:26.013-08:00

I've decided to try blogging again, after a two-year hiatus. Old posts were in a content management system of my own, but I'll try Blogger for now.

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1112048379054726472005-03-28T13:44:00.000-08:002005-03-28T14:19:39.056-08:00

Steven Landsburg argues in Slate that Terri Schiavo essentially stopped living years ago, and that it's now "frivolous to care about what she might prefer."His cost-benefit analysis shows no value in a husband honoring a wife's wishes: "while I'm alive, your promise to enforce those preferences is unlikely to change my behavior in any socially useful way." He makes the same argument about a

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1103754929427281442003-03-05T14:34:00.000-08:002004-12-22T14:35:29.426-08:00

Which Price is Right? (from FastCompany) "Monroe tells a pricing story that shows how even the simplest situation can confound accepted wisdom about prices. "A company is making two versions of the same product," says Monroe. "One has a little more gold and foil on it, but they're essentially the same. One is $14.95; the other is $18.95." Not surprisingly, the $14.95 item is selling better.

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1103754854073182232003-03-05T14:33:00.000-08:002004-12-22T14:34:14.073-08:00

Laptops Win Over the Skeptics, Even in Maine "These laptops are changing the way learning happens and the way teaching happens," said Chris Toy, principal of Freeport Middle School. Such a transformation, Mr. Toy said, can happen only when each student has a computer. "We don't have a pencil lab or put eight pencils in the middle of the room and have kids take turns using them, Computers are

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1103754756448471442003-02-25T11:13:00.000-08:002004-12-22T14:32:36.446-08:00

Back in 1953, amateur astronomer Leon Stuart photographed what he claimed was an asteroid-sized rock smashing into the moon. Now NASA says the crater has been found. Such a collision only happens about once every 50 years, they estimate, meaning that Stuart is probably the only person in history to witness and document the creation of a moon crater.

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1103754651765304212003-02-06T07:31:00.000-08:002004-12-22T14:30:51.766-08:00

Explains relativity in words of four letters or less. Give it a try yourself for one paragraph, before reading Brian Raiter's Short Words to Explain Relativity. [from Metafilter]

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9744303.post-1103754535632736512003-02-04T23:09:00.000-08:002004-12-22T14:28:55.633-08:00

[This is my first post on the new blogging system. It's actually a re-post from last year.] Only a sliver of everything published before the Web is currently on the Web. While some folks want to scan in whole books, I'd like to start a project for scanning in only the indexes at the back of non-fiction books. Authors and editors have already spent much energy in indexing the texts, and the scans

Matt Jensennoreply@blogger.com