yaleman.org

We are getting closer to what I have dreamed and written of before - a universal information access device that allows people to learn from wherever and whenever they are. The WikiReader is a portable, low power device which has a full copy of Wikipedia that you can carry with you and access from anywhere.

It was designed by the team that brought the OpenMoko to the world, the first true open source mobile phone. I will be interested to see what happens with the developer’s side of things - hopefully they will allow open access to the software of the device so that it can be hacked and used for other things as well. Maybe this is the cheap ebook reader I have been looking for?

A truly honest view from an enlightened person on a drug that many think is the root of all evil. Please do not take this as me encouraging its use (as I am not a big fan), but I am fascinated by how he looks at the use of mind-altering drugs.

I think this pretty much explains my views on some drugs:

…there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words…

The idea of R which he introduces late in the piece is an interesting one - and especially for those that do not have experience or knowledge of drugs. The time between taking a dose and experiencing the effects is an important thing which many people fail to understand and which can cause no end of trouble. How many times have you heard of someone taking a dose of a drug and then when they thought it was not working, taking another dose or something else before the first dose hits? How many times was this potentially (or actually) catastrophic?

If this was the first piece of education provided to people at a young age with respect to recreational or mind-altering drugs I would be quite happy. It does not promote drugs, nor does it have the normal religious or societal warnings imposed on it. The next thing I would hope for would be an honest discussion on the physiological affects, but how would we get honest discussion on drugs going in society anyway?

I like that forty years ago one of the most intelligent and inspiring people of the time was hoping for the legality “of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”

The most common way to connect a drive to a network path in Windows is this command:

net use X: \\SERVER\Share

Where:

• X: is the drive letter you wish to map the share to,
• \SERVER\Share is the UNC path to the share.

Assuming you have permissions to map drives and to access that share, it will map the drive and tell you that it mapped successfully.

If you want quick access and do not want to map a network drive, you can access a UNC Path directly from the Command Prompt using pushd.

“Saratoga Springs school district prohibits kids from biking to school, but a mom and her son defied the law. A state trooper was there to greet them.”

I’m completely and utterly gobsmacked at the nanny-state behaviour that’s happening more and more in today’s society. If a kid wants to ride or walk to school along a designated bike path with their parent supervising them no less, when does is it become the school’s choice to ban them from doing so?

Well, I should have known better than to have trusted all those in the chain that my contract paperwork had to go through in order to go from a temporary employee to the comfort of a permanent role. Of course once I had made the assumption that all would go well, it did not. Instead of attaching my paperwork along with some others, it lay forgotten in the digital wasteland that is an Executive Assistant’s computer and did not reach the appropriate people to get me paid.

I attended a wonderful wedding recently in the Bunya Mountains between two friends of mine, and it was lovely. The ride to and from there was less than fun, however.

I can handle:

• A four hour bike ride, that’s easy.
• Five or six kilometres of fist-sized gravel on a sports bike.
• The seals on my front master cylinder deciding to refuse to  live up to their name.

What I can’t handle is the terrible state of back-country Queensland roads and ending up with incredibly sore wrists by the time I was half way home. 🙁

I’ve just finished listening to an audiobook version of Orson Scott Card’s novel “Empire”. It’s quite an impressive novel, bringing together action, science fiction, politics and some modern philosophy.

It explores the idea of a red-state vs. blue-state American civil war brought about by manipulating the media and the people through some interesting psychological ploys.

As stated by the author himself, it wasn’t entirely his idea - having been approached by the Chair Entertainment Group, an American video game producer - and offered the chance to develop the game’s storyline as well as a novel to set the series into action. This is not to say that it’s not an incredibly well thought-out story, with rich character development and the just the right amount of workout for your imagination.

From here on news.com.au

The 18-year-old youth was 17 and on a learner’s permit when he stole a Holden Rodeo ute at a party at Cheltenham in Melbourne’s southeast, the Moorabbin Kingston Leader reports.

Wait, was he eighteen or seventeen? Gah, you guys suck.

Dear User,

Repeat after me: The address bar’s history is NOT your bookmark folder!

Thanks,

yale.

Good idea: Walking for fitness to lose weight.

Bad idea: Walking to Sushi Train.

Good idea: Not wearing shoes as it’s better for your feet.

Bad idea: Not wearing shoes as I twist my feet when I walk and developed two nice fat blisters last night. 🙁