News & Views from an Embedded Systems Designer
There’s a movement starting to bring back the The Office of Technology Assessment, read about it in these posts.
denialism blog : Bring Back the OTA – Bring Back Evidence Based Government
denialism blog : OTA Thread II
If you think it’s a good idea to get Congress some non-partisan scientific help, go sign the petition.
No we aren’t invading Iran this weekend, Ken Burns latest documentary “The War” starts this Sunday evening on PBS. Here’s a brief description from the web site:
THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns. The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history. a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America, and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.
Ken Burns has been my favorite documentary filmmaker, ever since Brooklyn Bridge debuted in 1982. If you haven’t seen that Academy Award nominated film you can see it on PBS 10/21. I’ve watched and enjoyed all his work so, I’m really looking forward to seeing his take on WWII.
Ahoy! buckos, today be Talk Like A Pirate Day. Visit t’ official web site for details.
Aarrr!!
Now that I’ve upgraded WordPress, I added a number of plugins. Many of these I heard about from a post at Greg Laden’s fine blog, Evolution – not just a theory anymore .
| Plugin | Description |
|---|---|
| Blog Copyright | Display dated copyright mark. Post/Page (post date or custom field) and archive aware. By Kaf Oseo. |
| Chunk Urls for WordPress | This plugin shorten urls in comments so that they won’t break your site. By whoo. |
| deUncategorize | Deselects the default category (commonly Uncategorized) upon selecting a different category on new posts (makes use of JavaScript). By Daniel M. Gattermann. |
| Get Recent Comments | Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar. By Krischan Jodies. |
| Lucia’sLinkLove | Where a commenter has commented at least some number of times links are made dofollow. By Lucia Liljegren. |
| Rodney’s Search Widget | Adds a Sidebar Widget that properly implements a search form for you sidebar. By Rodney Shupe. |
| Search Meter | Keeps track of what your visitors are searching for. By Bennett McElwee. |
| Subscribe To Comments | Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess By Mark Jaquith. |
| WordPress.com Stats | Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key. By Andy Skelton. |
| WordPress Database Backup | On-demand backup of your WordPress database. By Austin Matzko. |
Tonight’s News Hour on PBS had an interview with Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture”. He comes across as someone I would never want to talk to or read anything he’s written. Basically he looks and sounds like a grumpy old man screaming “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn”.
More info on Keen and his book:
Keen’s “The Cult of the Amateur”: BRILLIANT! (Lessig Blog)
EdCone.com: Not so keen
commonground : Blogs Suck, Who Cares?
EvolutionBlog : The Importance of Bloggers
There’s a new version of my favorite FTP client out, FileZilla v3.0.0, give it a try. Note for those upgrading, to get your settings into the new version simply choose “Edit – Import…” and point to your old FileZilla.xml configuration file.
Lately I’ve been getting quite a few blog spam comments that try to insert links to hacked university web sites. One of the hacked systems was even loading and displaying porn photos on their forum software, ouch. All the systems seem to have suffered from SQL injection vulnerabilities in forum and calendar software.
I’m now trying to pay attention to where the spam links are pointing when I review the spam bucket. When I see a .edu domain I make the effort to e-mail the university web master to let them know they have been hacked. So far the sites I’ve reported have all been repaired and I’ve gotten a couple of thank you replies in return.
I’d like to suggest that all the blog owners out there try to keep an eye out for hacked .edu domains showing up in their spam bucket. Then let the university know so that they can get it fixed before they get into trouble.
PZ posted this morning about an organization that sounds great, DonorsChoose.org. From the home page:
DonorsChoose is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack.
Here, teachers submit ideas for materials or experiences that their students need to learn. Individuals like you can choose a project and make it a classroom reality.
Dr. Free-Ride (Janet D. Stemwedel) has a blog post, Finding cash to make learning happen, that gives a more detailed summary and some good pointers for teachers.
If you live near a needy school, volunteering your time to the school is great way to help out but, if like me you don’t live near enough or have the free time to volunteer then DonorsChoose.org lets us help out via the internet.
I’ve finished the upgrade and it seems to be working OK. If anyone spots a problem please leave me a comment so I can fix it ASAP.
I’m trying to get this blog updated to a new version of WordPress. It may not be fully functional for a few days. 😦
Paul Hutchinson's Blog 