The election is over and the votes are tallied. The conservative party didn’t do quite as well as some polls had predicted, but they still have the majority of seats and a minority government. Stephen Harper, leader of the conservative party and Prime Minister-designate will be sworn in as Canada’s 22nd Prime-Minister sometime in mid-February.
Thanks Jay
I had a great time interviewing on The Jay Thomas Show this afternoon. For those of you that caught the show and came here looking for some more samples of backmasking, here is my backmasking page.
Jeff Milner on the Jay Thomas Show
Today at 1:30pm (MST) I’ll be a guest on the Jay Thomas Show. I was just looking into who Jay Thomas is, and when I took a look at the google results I said to myself, “hey I recognize that guy—he was on Murphy Brown!”
I didn’t recall it right off, but he also played the zamboni smushed hockey player, “Eddie Lebec”, on Cheers (hilarious).
The following is a little bit of info from his bio:
Jay’s career highlights include acting roles on Cheers, Murphy Brown, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Mork & Mindy and The Education of Max Bickford to name just a few. Jay won an Emmy Award for playing Jerry Gold in Murphy Brown and was nominated again in 1992. Every holiday season since 1998 it’s a tradition on the Late Show for him to knock a meatball off the Christmas tree with a football (he briefly played pro ball in the World Football League).
As I’ve done more and more interviews I’m getting a lot more comfortable just going on and joking around with the host. This should be fun.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Sumo wrestlers are to teachers as real estate agents are to Ku Klux Klan members — or at least these are a couple of ideas put forth by the book I got for Christmas, Freakonomics. The book makes some startling connections between seemingly incongruent situations comparisons.
Economist Steven Levitt and journalist/contributor to the New York Times Magazine Stephen Dubner have co-authored this much talked about book from 2005. I’ve been devouring it in my spare time and I’m loving every page. It’s hard to describe exactly what the book is about because the most unifying theme one can identify within it, is that using statistics you can disprove a lot of conventional thinking.
I’m just about finished it, but in the meantime I have also been enjoying some of their other writings, both at the Freakonomics Blog and as guest posters on Google’s Blog. I have to wonder, what would Levitt do if he had access to Google’s information? Seems like there is a whole other book there waiting to be written.
If you enjoyed my previous recommendation of Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, then I definately think you should check out Freakonomics. Oh, and if you’re interested, the chapter excerpts will give you a little taste as to how sumo wrestlers are similar to school teachers.
Stardust Mission a Success
A couple of years ago I mentioned NASA’s Stardust mission and their special dust collecting material, aerogel. Aerogel is a silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure in which 99.8 percent of the volume is empty space.
Well the Stardust mission has returned and as the New York Times explains, the Stardust mission has exceeded expectations.
Science Blogs
I’m somewhat of a science junky and this morning I just discovered a new repository of science related blogs:ScienceBlogs.com.
ScienceBlogs is the web’s largest conversation about science. It features blogs from a wide array of scientific disciplines, with new voices coming on board regularly. It is a global, digital science salon.
The blog topics include everything from ethics to principles of uncertainty.
PC World Busts the Biggest PC Myths
PC World published an article revealing the truth behind some common computer myths. Have you ever wondered:
- If magnets will damage your data?
- Does using a cell phone on a plane actually interferes with the navigation and communications systems of the aircraft?
- If you don’t “eject” a USB device before unplugging it from a PC, will you really screw things up?
- Do cookies track everything you do on the Internet?
- What terrible things happen if you turn off your PC without shutting down Windows?
- Does opting out of spam gets you even more spam?
- If you don’t periodically run your laptop batteries down to zero, will you lose battery life?
Find out the answer to these questions and more as PC World exposes the myths that waste your time and money.
The Slanket
Yeah it’s pretty geeky, but nevertheless The Slanket is so weird it’s interesting.
The Slanket is a HUGE 100% polyester polar fleece blanket with oversized sleeves. They are made and tested in Maine. The Slanket is approximately 60 inches wide by 102 inches in length, with 13 inch wide sleeves, that are so large and loose that you never feel constricted and you have total control in how you use them. The Slanket is great on a couch, a chair, in a hammock, on your bed or anywhere else you care to take it.
I love fleece as a material and as long as I could get over how silly I’d feel wearing this thing, I think it might be pretty comfortable. After all, I like to wrap up in a blanket when I’m on the computer or reading a book but I often find my upper body gets a little chilly.
The Socratic Method
Rick Garlikov has written a compelling piece titled, The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling. In it he demonstrates the power of the Socratic method (teaching by asking) for both teaching and also for getting students involved and excited about the material being taught.
It’s a very absorbing read—my only complaint is that he hasn’t formatted the story into nice readable columns, but if you resize your browser window and give this one a chance, I think you may find it very interesting. It works on many levels: as a method for teaching, a lesson on binary numbers, and how important it is to ask the right questions.
Wall Street Journal Wood Print
Yesterday I received a copy of the Wall Street Journal that the reporter, Dionne Searcey, had told me she would send. (Thanks Dionne).
The wood print looks great! Here it is, scanned and enlarged. Click for an even bigger version.