Thing #10 - generators

I had a ton of fun with Thing #10 (generators). I played with several, and will spend more time with it but I don't have the right digital pics on hand to make Warholizer and some of the others look right. I did a magazine cover that I've shared with family members in magazine-cover generator. It is several of my favorite people clowning around during a family get together on July 4, I am going to share it, they will love it.

RSS Feed

I have had an account with GoogleNews for a long time to help me monitor news about my favorite library. It works great. Except for our spam filter.

I create news alerts and blog alerts. They work flawlessly for two days. Then the spam filter picks it up and no matter how many times I whitelist the address, I can't get it to work again. So I sign up for another alert. Same thing, over and over again.

I've never tried Bloglines before. Maybe I will have better luck.

Great technology -- but now what?

My daughter is a GIS specialist. She works for a nonprofit on contract to the City of Baltimore. She creates mashup maps that plot various kinds of social data to find where they intersect, and subsequently where the best places to direct grant monies would be.

It is a vast underuse of the technology, and her skills. When she was in grad school, she showed me how she could hook into satellite views and auto-map tools and look at the earth's surface, run various imaging programs and be able to interpret what was below the surface, perhaps to find buried resources or archaeological sites. It's all jaw-dropping. But...so what? You can do it, but what can you do WITH it? There are very few peace-time uses for the technology.

Oil/mineral companies can find what they are looking for with greater assurance then ever before. But that won't resolve dependence on a dwindling resource, or political tensions in the places where the reserves happen to be. It's extraordinary that I can turn on my Blackberry and read email 24/7 -- do I want to work 24/7? Jukebox phones and i-Phones -- unbelievable to have that much power in the palm of your hand. Except for the novelty, what do I need it for?

I've read that new technology enters society as a 'toy' or a 'game' because people are more comfortable playing Space Invaders on their home computers, rather than worrying that HAL will run their lives. Intelligent uses for the technology comes later. I hope so.

Week #3 - Flickr

I've gotten a little behind due to a frantic week last week, but that's OK, there's time to catch up.

A photo that really caught my eye on Flickr was http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=SA4%20048&w=all, taken by Bikebiker999. The photo is of Tres Montanas (3 Mountains) on the Rio Futalefeu in northern Patagonia, Chile. I visited there two years ago on a whitewater rafting trip. It is pristine and gorgeous, if a little chilly. The photo on Flickr was taken several years ago. There is a camp/resort looking out at that vista now but the camp blends so beautifully into its surroundings and is so unobtrusive, you would barely know anyone had built anything on the spot. It reminds me of a wonderful trip.

I posted a photo that I had taken of colleagues in CDD about a year ago. They came to work dressed in their various ethnic dress one day, and wanted a photo taken. I think it was for a presentation their department was making. They wanted to illustrate their diversity. It is posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/15434356@N05/ While my photography wasn't brilliant, I smile every time I see it sitting in our online photo file. It represents the best of working at QL. Every one in that photo was very proud of her own identity and what she brought to the whole, but at the same time, was very proud of working with the team. I admire that ethos.

7-1/2 habits

What exactly is half a habit or 1/2 a new thing to learn?

At any rate, here are my thoughts on the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners.

The easiest for me is to have confidence in myself as a competent learner. I have always believed - perhaps over-believed - that it is relatively easy for me to learn new things. This is especially true of academic disciplines that don't require much physical talent. I could, perhaps, learn to speak Icelandic if I tried but I probably wouldn't be much of a golfer. It's probably one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. I won't try to play golf because I don't believe I'd be any good at it.

The most dificult of the habits, for me, is to begin with the end in mind. I am intellectually curious. I enjoy learning and researching new things. My mind meanders, though, and I often find myself very far from where I started. I might be curious about the aurora borealis and want to plan a trip to see it, which will eventually lead to learning Icelandic. That's not where I started, though. I also find that allowing my mind to meander allows for creativity in a way that sticking strictly to goal-oriented learning does not.

Sometimes I dream new ideas or solutions to problems while I'm asleep. I don't know how that happens. I wish I did so I could make it happen at will but... I wake up, and the problem I've been wrestling with or the paragraph I couldn't write is all there for me, all wrapped up. It's quite amazing, really. Perhaps sleeping should be another habit of lifelong learners. :-)

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