Accept no substitutes

Month: March 2006 (Page 4 of 4)

Travel travails

I would have live-blogged the Consortium for School Networking’s Symposium, but the World Bank where the symposium was held had all wireless blocked and no cell access available either. I have notes on today’s talks that I’ll post later.
I spent more time on the runway than in the air today. DC is only a little over 1 hour in the air from RDU, but then the nice regional jets that give us more flight time options start piling up waiting for gates, the poor travelers, like me, end up chasing the gate changes and then sitting on the plane waiting for clearance and on landing waiting for a gate again. Result: over half a day killed for what should have been maybe 2 hours of travel time.
Michael Berube was in town and at the Chapel Hill Bloggers Meet Up at 3 Cups. Sally and Tucker got to visit with him. I managed to get there about the time things were breaking up (see above).

BBC on Blooker

Am talking with Rhod Sharp instead of Chris Vallance. I’m in DC which makes reading the Dada Alphabet subtitled An Absurdist Illustrated Primer extremely appropriate. Rhod asks about Cheeseburger Brown whose book, Simon of Space, didn’t make the shortlist. I am sad that Cheeseburger and Mimi Smartypants didn’t make the cut. He is excited by Egg Bacon Chips and Beans. We get off track when I mention that the Beans should be replaced by Grits. He is down on grits not having had them properly prepared. I say Grits are polenta before the Italians got hold of them. He’s only had soupy white grits, poor fellow. Back to Blooker. I mention several food related blooks, Julie and Julia, EBCandB, Biodiesel Power. He asks if the blooks have been edited. Most have that I’ve read so far. There are a couple of daunting fatties there tho. Unmemorable chatter and we’re done. Be back in April.

World Blank

I’ve enjoyed the conference and the people at the Consortium for School Networking, but the World Bank facilities are another thing. We meet safely underground where the cell phones won’t quite work. I can get sms telling me I have voice mail, but I can’t contact the voice mailbox. I can see two wi-fi networks, but one is password protected and one is a tease. I see it. DHCP gives me numbers. I can’t get DNS or pings or any packets out.

Wireless mooching

I would have stayed at the Marriott Courtyard instead of the Hyatt if the MC weren’t completely booked. First it’s cheaper and second the MC wireless is free while the Hyatt’s is T-Mobile for $10/day. Not that I’m all that cheap despite being Scotts, Welsh, and German — all tightwad strains –but that it galls me that a upscale hotel doesn’t see wireless as something like water (oops they charge for that too!).
But here I am in the lobby of the Hyatt waiting for check-in or the conference bus whichever comes first and I see two wireless nets. Thanks Marriott, you have a warm place in my heart. I’ll miss not having the Book of Mormon by my bed here in the Hyatt but I’ll be thinking of you.
Also just ran into Jimbo Wales and Don Baer of a UNC alum who’s with Discovery Communications (as in Channel).
The expensive crab gravy over grits (cooked in polenta style cakes) with egg over light, steamed tomato and asparagus was a good way to make up for having gotten up at 4:30 so as to get here.

Nature and Non-Nature

This morning a herd of 8 deer outside my window. Then later one then two hawks over Carrboro at the Town Hall. Both reddish with distinctly banded fan-tails. I thought Red Tail at first, but then there was a shreek and a larger and for sure Red Tail appeared on the scene. One of the smaller hawks flew over the Red Tail and drove him off. What were those hawks? Cooper’s? A little larger than that, but not as large as a Red Tail. I’m betting on the Red Shouldered Hawk.

Finished the NY Times Crossword and the Acrostic (jazz themed so easier for me). Chores and reading two of the Blooker Prize finalist (the short list will be announced tomorrow so I can’t say which these are yet).

Occupation: Dreamland filmmaker dies

Garrett Scott was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his work on Occupation: Dreamland, but he won’t at the Awards. Thirty-seven year old Scott died in an accident at while visiting his family in San Diego on . I got the news by a phone call from Michael Galinsky who has been distributing Occupation: Dreamland. The film is scheduled to be aired on the Sundance Channel next month. We had a panel discussion here in the fall with Garrett taking part.

Open Earth Archive from BBC (if you are in the UK)

Anaconda swimmingBBC’s Natural History Unit announces The Open Earth Archive in which films from BBC nature shows are release under the Creative Archives License.

Viewers are encouraged to be remixers and recreators, to use the clips to make new and imaginative works and to enter the “Wild Card” competition (rules and instructions here).

But there is a giant downside to this plan. I tried to view a clip of an anaconda swimming and I got this message:

The BBC has decided to limit access to Creative Archive Licence Campaign content to UK residents to ensure best value for the UK licence fee. Users outside of the UK are not able to access clips and programmes that form part of this campaign. Regrettably we are therefore unable to offer you content and would like to apologise for any disappointment.

SUV Hits Peds in Pit

We were walking the other way and ended up underground, when the silver SUV came around Lenoir Hall past Greenlaw then turned and sped through the large crowd standing near the Pit. James Cooley and other chased the car as he continued to accelerate past Davis Library and back on the roads. NandO reports that the driver turned himself in with a 911 call.
We were in Banditto’s and watched the news helicopter show us the Pit and yellow police ribbon.
Reports so far: News and Observer, Daily Tar Heel (notices that it was a rental car from the Enterprise store near the site of the driver’s arrest), WRAL, ABC-11, Herald Sun and of course Orange Politics (who had the first and the last word).
UPDATE: The driver was identified as a Senior Dean’s List Student from Charlotte, M R Taheriazar. UNC News Release here. Daily Tar Heel is doing the best breaking news.

Update 2: Daily Tar Heel final (maybe) story.

Digital Domain and Jones (Farnsworth v Zworykin)

Just did a short talk with Randy Stross whose Digital Domain column (unfortunately in Times Select) in the NYTimes is doing a bit on Wikipedia. I get to say something like, ” Of course, my collegues use Wikipedia. They are lying if they don’t admit it.” I also say that I require students to go to primary sources that Wikipedia isn’t a primary source. Neither is Britanica nor is World Book. Researchers should get to the primary sources.

Wikipedia does point you to great primary sources tho. And unlike say World Book, you can follow the discussions of articles in the Talk section of a Wikipedia article and disputed articles are clearly marked as such on Wikipedia.

I pointed him to the wonderful HG Wells (1937) article “World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia” which pretty much describes Wikipedia within the technological contraints on the period.

Then I expressed my doubts about the World Book entry on Television in our 1963 World Book. It’s so clearly
slanted toward RCA and Zworykin over Farnsworth. I say:

The lengthy section on television in Vol. 17 has only this to say about Farnsworth (in context so you can see how Zworykin surrounds him):

“These first TV pictures were poor, because only a few impluses could be transmitted in a short time. A more efficient system was found in the earlier work of Vladimir Kosma Zworykin of the United States. In 1923, he filed a patent application on the ‘iconoscope,’ an electron camera tube.

Another American television pioneer, who conceived of a different electronic scanning system, was Philo T. Farnsworth. In 1922, while he was a sixteen-year-old high-school student, Franswroth described his idea to his physics teacher. The Patent Office later granted Farnsworth a patent on his ‘image dissector,‘ or camera tube. He also made other contoributions to television

For the receiving end of television, in the 1920’s. Zworykin and others developed an electron tube called the kinescope. The picture picked up by the iconoscope is reproduced on the face of the kinescope.

Progress in the 1930’s. On July 30, 1930, the Radio Corporation of America and its subsidiary, the National Broadcasting Company began ….”

What follows is much more on RCA in fact most of the rest of the history article is about RCA. Farnsworth is never mentioned again or before.

There is also a table “Famous First in Television” in where there at two Zworykin references multiple RCA and NBC references and no mention of Farnsworth.

The article is signed by Jack Gould and “Critically reviewed by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin and James Robertson” No more said about any of them but you see what happened to Farnsworth (and how Zworykin was made Amercian).

Now the Farnsworth entry in volume 6. No picture. Two short paragraphs. Farnsworth was still alive then. Says he invented the dissector at 16 and 6 years later patented it. But years passed before any of his work was put into commercial use. “He licensed his important inventions to RCA and ATT.”

Zworykin, the final full entry in the final volume 19, gets a picture (credited to RCA) and 5 paragraphs. “A Russian-born American physicist and electronics engineer. He is responsible for many technological advances in radio, television, and the electron microscope.”

Compare wikipedia entries on Zworykin and Farnsworth.

The story that World Book carefully left out is clearly there. Wikipedia seems faired and more accurate and there are great links to primary sources.

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