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A funny piece – Einstein’s performance review

I just came across “’05 Annual Performance Review: Albert Einstein” by Peter Norvig. It’s a funny piece. I particularly liked

“In addition, I would have to say your output, while at times quite extraordinary, has been inconsistent. In Q1 you managed to publish one paper in the final two weeks of the quarter. In Q2 you improved productivity, with your dissertation in April, the Brownian Motion paper in May, and the Special Relativity paper in June. Not bad for a quarter, not bad at all. But then you seemed to slump: you did finish one paper 3 days before the close of Q3, but it was only 3 pages long. I admit that some reviewers did find it noteworthy, but really, couldn’t it have been the conclusion of your June paper? It almost seems like you held it back just to have something to show for Q3. (This flippant, almost disrespectful attitude is also evident in your dissertation: when told by your respected thesis committee that your thesis was too short, you added one sentence.) And then in Q4 — no publications at all.

I was reading his essay “Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years” in preparation for teaching CPSC 401, Organization of Programming Languages in the spring semester, and thought I’d like to know more about the author. You too might enjoy visiting Peter Norvig’s Web site. While you’re there take a read of “Hiring a President. “

2006 01 03 ernie Interesting Web Sites Comments (0) Permalink

Recently added bookmarks; December 20, 2005

20Q.net
This is the classic game of Twenty Questions. An experiment in Artificial Intelligence, the program is very simple but its behavior is complex. All questions and objects were entered by other people playing the game.
ACM Queue – Social Bookmarking in the Enterprise – Social bookmarking tools are taking off on the Web. Do they have a place within the enterprise, too?
“The desire to find and share information among small groups, teams, and communities of practice has, not surprisingly, led to the development of a number of shared bookmarking systems.”
ACM Queue – Socially Acceptable Behavior – Social bookmarking is a technology whose time has come.
“One thing is for sure: Social bookmarking is a technology whose time has come, and once corporate America discovers it, advertising will surely follow. I give del.icio.us eight months before it becomes riddled with ads.”
AJAX spurs Web rebirth for desktop apps | CNET News.com
AJAX spurs Web rebirth for desktop apps | Watch out, Office. New tools and techniques are fueling a surge in hosted versions of traditional PC software. | December 1, 2005, 4:00 AM PT | Martin LaMonica
Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls
A free guide to reducing unwanted or intrusive advertising
Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere? : Technology : HBS Working KnowledgeAn article in Harvard Business Review addressing using blogs in the realm of business.
EchoEcho.Com – Web Hosting – JavaScript Tutorial – HTML tutorial – CSS Tutorial – Flash Tutorial – Online for free!
EPIC West: Electronic Privacy Information Center West Coast Office: Hoofnagle’s Consumer Privacy Top 10
FTC Study Shows Technology Gaining in the Battle Against Spam
ImageShack® – Hosting
A place to host images at no charge
Instructables: step-by-step collaboration
kiva
“Kiva provides a new, sponsor a business option for individuals to connect with small enterprises in developing countries through flexible loans.
libwww-perl: WWW Protocol Library for Perl
Mastering Ajax, Part 1: Introduction to Ajax
Ajax, which consists of HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, and DOM, is an outstanding approach that helps you transform clunky Web interfaces into interactive Ajax applications. The author, an Ajax expert, demonstrates how these technologies work together — from an overview to a detailed look — to make extremely efficient Web development an easy reality. He also unveils the central concepts of Ajax, including the XMLHttpRequest object.
O’Reilly Network: What Is Web 2.0
 
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress)
 
Putfile – Upload Video and Upload Images
Putfile is a free host. Upload video and images for free.
 
ResourceShelf – What to Make of Web 2.0
Yet another excellent article by Shirl Kenendy. This one about Web 2.0.
Social Security Retirement Suite
This is an official Social Security web site with information on retirement planning.
Will Fair Use surrvive

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Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that shall make you break your word or lose your self-respect. – Marcus Aurelius
2275

2005 12 20 ernie Interesting Web Sites Comments (0) Permalink

Recently added bookmarks; November 29, 2005

Baking supplies from the San Francisco Baking Institute – Baking and Pastry Arts School for Professionals and Enthusiasts San Francisco Baking Institute – Baking and Pastry Arts School for Professionals and Enthusiasts  

Computer Science Style Guide Suggestions ACM, APA, and IEEE bibliographic styles from Dalhousie University Libraries  

Looks Too Good To Be True Looks Too Good to Be True is the internet resource for information, reporting and education for consumers who may be the victim of online or mail fraud.  

NPR : Kitchen Window Kitchen Window commentaries on food and entertaining are published every Wednesday and feature recipes.  

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Search engine use Online Activities & Pursuits. Search engine use shoots up in the past year and edges towards email as the primary internet application. 11/20/2005 | Lee Rainie  

Recognizing and Avoiding Spyware A cyber-security tip from CERT, 2004.  

Webmaster Tools and SEO Software Resources :: Webmaster Toolkit “This site came into existence as a collection of webmaster tools developed to help myself and a few other webmasters with our daily webmaster chores. After creating a fair number of online tools, it was decided that we should make the site public, so that other webmasters around the world would have access to them for free. The suite of free tools and resources offered continues to grow to this day, and we aim to offer something useful for the beginner to the advanced webmaster alike.”  

Xoom.com – Webmaster Tools A collection of links to tools for Webmasters. Includes “Free Counters and Stats, Website Hosting,Free Email, Website Builders and Maintenance Tools, Clip Art and Graphics,Free Script – Javascript, Perl, Python, CGI, Tutorials for Webmasters, and Digital Photography.”  

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No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. Florida Scott-Maxwell
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2005 11 29 ernie food
Interesting Web Sites
Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

Strawberries & Pestisides & Health & Ozone Layer

U.S. Farmers Use Pesticide Despite Treaty – Yahoo! News I came across this article this evening. It was the first I’d heard about the use of methyl bromide, which is strange given it’s effects on the workers in the growing fields, it’s effect on the ozone, and the fact that a major producer is located in Virginia.

2005 11 27 ernie Commentary Comments (0) Permalink

Salmon Poached with Spinach and Bengali Five-Spice Mix

From Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen. This recipe is a favorite of ours. The end result gets rave reviews.

1 1/2 pounds salmon fillet skin removed.
salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1/8 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/8 teaspoon kalonji
A large onion, peeled and cut in half lengthwise and then crosswise into thin half-rings
1 1 1/2 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into very thin slices and then into very fine slivers
1 pound trimmed fresh spinach or chard, finely shredded
8 canned tomatoes, chopped, or fresh tomatoes, peeled and seeded
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

Cut the salmon crosswise into 5 or 6 portions. Pull out the bones with a pair of tweezers. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides and set aside for 20 minutes or longer.
Heat oil in a very large frying pan or a very wide saute pan over medium-high heat. When very hot, add the cumin, mustard, seeds, fennel, fenugreek, and kalonji. Stir once or twice and quickly add the onions and ginger. Stir until the onion just starts to brown, then add the spinach. Saute for about 5 minutes, then add the tomatoes. Continue to saute for another 4 to 5 minutes. Add the cream and 2 cups of water, cayenne, 1 teaspoon salt, and some black pepper. Stir to mix and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered, over low heat for 5 minutes. This can be done ahead of time.
Just before you sit down to eat, bring the sauce to a simmer again. Lay fish pieces in a single layer over the sauce. Spoon some of the thinner, more watery parts of the sauce over the fish. Cover. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the fish has just cooked through.

Delicious!

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We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy. – Cyril Connolly
2225

2005 11 25 ernie food
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Pew Study: Search still solid second to email

A study released today by Pew Interenet & American Life Project Search engine use shoots up in the past year and edges towards email as the primary internet application described searching as a close second to email.
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Architecture is frozen music. – Goethe.
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2005 11 20 ernie About the Internet and the Web Comments (0) Permalink

Recently Added Bookmarks; November 19, 2005

Bookmarks added this past week:

‘Tagging’ gives Web a human meaning | CNET News.com ‘Tagging’ gives Web a human meaning | A growing number of Web sites are implementing tagging systems as a way to bring order and organization to information. | November 15, 2005, 11:18 PM PT
43 places “43 Places helps you make a list of the great places you want to visit and share stories and photos of the places you’ve been.”
Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages
A report by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen giving some metrics fro usability studies regarding following their recommendations in an article mentioned below.
Create Your Own Internet Search Engine with Eurekster Swicki Make your own search engine for your site or blog with Eurekster Swicki. You are in charge of the search results, the search terms, and how the search engine looks. Find out what a Swicki is and see if it’s something you might want to place on your own website or blog.
Developing Web Applications with Ajax, Part 3 – WebReference.com The third in a series of articles about using Ajax. I’ve got to get on this stuff!
How to Write for the Web (Full Paper) From Jakob Nielsen’s site useit.com. All the good tips about writing for usability by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen
I want to – a page of utilities that help you do stuff you want to Web 2.0 applications From Phil Bradley.” “I want to…” or “I need to” or “How do I?” These are all questions we all ask all the time. This is a small collection of resources that will help to answer those questions. It is not complete, nor will it ever be. I will be adding to this on a regular basis, so feel free to bookmark it and come back and visit. Now listing over 200 applications.”
Linux.com | My sysadmin toolbox “By: Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier
Every administrator has a set of software tools that he just can’t live without. These are the utilities that you install as soon as you log into a new machine, to help make day-to-day tasks a little easier. Here are my top 10 tools. ”
Mashups a Go-Go! New Mashups from MSN Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps
From SearchEngineWatch. A list of some recent mashups
Slide
A public photo share that includes easy ways to make a slide show.
thefreecountry.com: Free Programmers’ Resources, Free Webmasters’ Resources, Free Security Resources Free programmers’ resources, free webmaster resources, free security and privacy resources

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In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us. – Dag Hammarskjold

2200

2005 11 19 ernie Interesting Web Sites Comments (0) Permalink

Update on itoa() and atoi()

Last October I wrote an entry About converting from ASCII to integer, integer to ASCII, and casting ints as chars and chars as ints. The reference to more information has changed and I’ve found some other code that may be helpful.

Some helpful examples are contained in Converting Strings To/From Ints: atoi, itoa, sprintf and sscanf
A version of itoa() is posted by Marcelo Cortes in comp.lang.c++

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Tell the truth and you won’t have so much to remember.

2005 11 16 ernie Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

Recently Added Bookmarks 11/11/2005

AgeLine Database Database maintained by AARP on issues of interest

Ambient Findability: Findability Hacks Web Design to support a usable information architecture. An exerpt from Peter Morville’s book Ambient Findability

Edge: TURING’S CATHEDRAL by George Dyson
Einstein Light: a brief illumination of relativity
Geek’s guide to working out@Everything2.com
Medical Dictionary, Hospitals, Pharmaceutical Company and Medical Associations Searches Medical Dictionary, Worldwide Pharmaceutical Company Search, Hospitals Directory and Other Medical Searches

memeorandum
My Web 2.0 BETA – Tools – Yahoo!
Never build a website for no reason
Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Science & Technology Web Awards 2005 — Our editors name 25 of their favorite sites
Search Engines and Directories A to Z Search engines and directories profiled from A to Z. Includes information, updated news, commentary, and how to use them.

tech.memeorandum— 2140
And today’s special is ..
One real world is enough.

2005 11 11 ernie Interesting Web Sites Comments (0) Permalink

Can You Trust Wikipedia?

Just yesterday in CPSC 104 we were discussing whether it was appropriate to use Wikipedia as a reference. This article addresses that issue. Several experts rate some of the entries. Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Can you trust Wikipedia?

2005 11 04 ernie About the Internet and the Web Comments (0) Permalink