Random fact generators are great. Via Chrononautic log I found this Bruce Schneier fact generator. A few refreshes produced these favorites:
There is an otherwise featureless big black computer in Ft. Meade that has a single dial with three settings: Off, Standby, and Schneier. There is no Information Theory. Just data that Bruce Schneier allows to be quantified and transmitted on a channel. Bruce Schneier got a perfect score on his comp-sci degree.
I’m feeling a bit surly and miscellaneous today. No particular reason that I can identify. Miscellaneous, an interesting word. My computer dictionary says it comes from the Latin miscere - to mix. It fits.
So here’s a mix of recent readings.
The neoeconomic consensus is beginning to fall apart.
David Sirota starts it off with a broad summary New Democratic Network has some nifty graphics. I especially like the disconnect between productivity and wage growth.
I’ve got nothing to say today. My news reader light is blinking furiously, the unread count continues to grow. I’m about to pull the ‘mark all read’ switch and just let it go for a day.
So apropos of nothing. What is it with all of the custom tshirt business that I keep finding on the web these days? Is it new or just another manifestation of Web 2.0 goodness?
It’s been a long day. My book group discussed The Innamorati by Midori Snyder tonight. Very interesting. I hope to have some thoughts here within the next few days, but tonight I need to get some rest. So to inspire myself and you to greater thoughts I offer a few links that have been especially piquant these last few days.
Some cool weblogs:
Out of the Past, on film noir.
It’s tax day and the marching morons at the Taxpayers League of Minnesota are protesting at the capitol. In the interest of creating some counterprogramming I’d like to list some of the things I’ve been glad to pay for with my taxes over the last year. Most of these organizations are federal but that’s only because they are the ones with which I’m most familiar. And the large local expenses for education and transportation didn’t go unnoticed.
Having created a couple of different weblogs over time I wanted to highlight this Perl module for aggregating rss feeds. I’m hoping to use this on my homepage soon as part of larger reworking of my site. xml rss-aggregate perl module
The Theory and Practice of Online Learning was recently published by Athabsca University. I found this via the consistently brilliant OL Daily by Stephen Downes.
I’ve also worked in tech support so I could relate to this story in Salon, “We don’t support that.” Working on internal support meant that I never had to learn the Mantra, but the overall process could be just as disappointing.