Bar codes

April 19th, 2007 1 comment

Determined not to learn from history, Microsoft is pushing a new barcode called HCCB, which will allow about 3.5kbytes to be encoded in a square inch of multicolored waste. It seems that somebody over in Redmond thought that consumers would want to go through the hassle of scanning/photographing those patches just to see “promotional material” — probably some form of advertising.

Sorry guys, consumer-oriented bar codes have been done numerous times, and the markets have always rejected them. Remember the CueCat? How about the Cauzin Softstrip? Didn’t think so.

(This post is part of the 100/100/100 challenge)

Morning

April 18th, 2007 Comments off

Woke up. Clock said 4:30. Couldn’t sleep, but wasn’t uncomfortable. Mind was a sea of a thousand ideas. Blamed quadruple-shot of espresso from night before.

Got up. Took shower, then ate breakfast. Fiddled with Rails. Answered email.

Watched sun rise. Got dressed, chose new shoes.

Looking forward to the day.

(This post is part of the 100/100/100 challenge)

TED

April 17th, 2007 2 comments

A few days ago, TED released videos of a number of talks that were previously unavailable to the public. Of the one hundred now on the web, all very high quality, I have watched only eight so far. Everything I have viewed has been excellent, but I found a special attachment to these three:

I should like to attend TED in person someday.

(This post is part of the 100/100/100 challenge)

Forget the textbooks

April 16th, 2007 Comments off

Stephen Leacock wrote:

If I were founding a university … I would found first a smoking room; then when I had a little more money in hand I would found a dormitory; then after that, or [perhaps] with it, a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had money over that I couldn’t use, I would hire a professor and get some text books.

Little of my classroom education can be directly applied to my present job. What, then, was valuable?

  • Learning how to learn
  • Collaborating
  • Socializing

The institution was more important than the classroom.

(This post is part of the 100/100/100 challenge)

100 days. 100 posts. 100 words.

April 15th, 2007 4 comments

Brevity is the soul of wit, and writing is good for the soul.  From these two maxims, I put forth a challenge to myself: write 100 blog posts on 100 topics in 100 days and let no post exceed 100 words.  Should the concept intrigue you, I invite you to participate in kind either in your own blog or in the comments of other blogs.

The journey shall start tomorrow.