mobrec

My Personal Infocloud

So
I followed the simple instructions found in Frederick Giasson's blog on Semantic Web Enabling blogging software. As I use Wordpress for this site, it was a simple matter to drop in the two required files and activate the plugin. The second step is to setup the blog to pingthesemanticweb so that the newly minted semantic data can be found.

Painless and straightforward. Now I can contribute my banal content to the semantic web. Now what is your excuse?

technorati tags: semanticweb, blogging, pingthesemanticweb, plugins, wordpress

So
A summary article over on Psychology Matters asserts that Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter. This seems somewhat intuitive as in most things, believing that you can accomplish something is the first step to accomplishing it.

technorati tags: psychology, education, intelligence, achievement

So
O'Reilly has recently spun up a new site that presents tips and techniques for Apple's Aperture digital photo manipulation software. I just recently started with Aperture and have found quite a bit of informative stuff on the site. If you are new to Aperture or just want to learn more, have a look at the Top Ten Aperture Features from the same site.

technorati tags: photography, aperture, apple, oreilly, reference

So
I absolutely agree with this article in the Guardian on how long load times drive away customers and create ill will. In fact, I gave up after about six seconds waiting for the linked site to open. I further agree with their assessment of moronic sites that require Flash for no good reason at all (which in itself sucks down the performance of a site):

Of course, speed isn't the only thing that matters: it helps if your Web designer isn't an idiot, like whoever created the Akamai Web site. This site requires users to have Flash installed in order to read a simple press release, which is the sort of thing the Web could well do without.

technorati tags: webdev, flash, suckage

So
They've made Firefox so much better, no really. Don't miss the goodness under the Features link on the left side of the page (esp RSS support).

Well done!

technorati tags: firefox, browser, microsuck, humor, fun

So
I came across this fascinating article that indicates that the brain structure of people with depression is structurally different that the brains of people who don't experience depression. It seems that depressive people have an area of the brain which handles negative emotions that were 20 percent larger than normal.

Makes me curious where they go with this observation. Is this something that can be screened for an monitored appropriately? How strong an indicator is this of depression (after all, there were only 49 people in the study)? How will this influence future treatment of this condition? More to come, I'm sure.

technorati tags: depression, brain, biology

So
A sailing crew observes and documents the birth of an island right in front of them. Very cool.

technorati tags: volcano, island, sailing

So
Check out this video from TED where Jeff Han demonstrates an intuitive interface-free touch screen device and several applications that make use of it. The photography lightbox and the NASA mapping application are absolutely stunning. Now this is some real innovation in computing.

technorati tags: ted, interface, ui, ideas, innovation

So
Step 1: Obsess about your view count while wearing a tight t-shirt

Step 2: Don't get the result you want? Show more cleavage!

Step 3: Don't know

Step 4: Profit!

(apologies to south park — I am so awful sometimes)

technorati tags: flickr, humor

So
Cornell has published research that shows a statistical link between children under the age of three who watch television and autism disorders. Maybe the television is not such a great babysitter after all.

technorati tags: autism, television, cornell