STARTER-PACK - My personal Common Lisp
This is an attempt to help Common Lisp newcomers getting started. The aim is to quickly set up a comfortable working environment which includes a couple of useful and/or popular open source libraries. It is targeted at the Microsoft Windows platform (but see below) and obviously heavily influenced by the author’s personal preferences.
Edi Weitz — Only windows?!? … hang on, read the next item.
It only runs on Windows (yuck, petuwee) at the moment, but I recently was able to try it out on a Windows box and was really impressed by how easy it was to get a productive CL development environment setup. I made a few tweaks to Edi’s code and got it to run on my Mac as well
Bill Clementson's — Way to go Bill!
Experts Float Explanations for Swimming's High Tide - washingtonpost.com
Sixty percent of all the men’s and women’s [swimming] world records on the books were set in just the past two years. The oldest men’s swimming record has been around for barely seven years. … Fifteen of the 24 world records in men’s track, for example, were established before 2000.
Washington Post — I used to swim competitively, so I’m interested in this stuff. A few reasons given in the article:
And the one that is so obvious to me: rule changes. For example, backstroke and even breaststroke have been relaxed. Look at the kicking off the wall in backstroke, and the turn – you wouldn’t believe how slow and awkward the old backstroke turn was. Sounds subtle, but it makes a huge difference with the top swimmers.
It would be quite interesting to look at the top 8 or 16 swimmers. bet you’ll find that everyone is speeding up, it isn’t new swimmers leap-frogging the old.
Ten Important Differences Between Brains and Computers
Although the brain-computer metaphor has served cognitive psychology well, research in cognitive neuroscience has revealed many important differences between brains and computers.
Developing Intelligence
Yet Another JavaScript Library Without Documentation
Just what the world needs, another JavaScript library.
Dean Edwards — Well, maybe this one. Makes browsers javascript work the way it is supposed to work. Don’t know how completely it does this, but sounds like things will be better with this library than without.
Initially, the BoKlok team turned not to architects but to researchers. They tracked trends in the dwindling size of the average Swedish household, and identified the model BoKlok homeowner: a female single parent with one child, no car and an average income. They then studied how much she could afford in rent, and set their budgets accordingly. Surveys conducted at Ikea stores across Sweden revealed their potential customers’ housing priorities: the desire to live in secure, small-scale surroundings; proximity to the countryside; contact with neighbours; and homes that were light, well-planned, functional and furnished with natural materials.
Guardian Unlimited Arts — Sounds like a good idea to me.
Red meat vastly increases breast cancer risk
Post-menopausal women who ate as little as 57g (2oz) of beef, pork or lamb a day had a 56% increased risk compared to those who ate none, according to researchers at the University of Leeds.
Guardian Unlimited — This is not sounding good. Of course more study is needed, but the direction is set.
Nail House Gets HammeredJosh Spear — More photos.
Bob is a java software tool that I am about to release.
Tim Washington on thebox — Tim is about to release his take on the xampl thing that I wrote. This’ll be worth investigating.
Media Ignoring Madagascan Cyclone Disasters
But when Madagascar gets struck by a record six tropical cyclones in one season, killing hundreds and displacing perhaps as many as a hundred thousand, not to mention jeopardizing food supplies for many more, does it garner major and sustained U.S. press coverage?
My recent Lexis-Nexis searches suggest no. Indeed, just ask yourself: Has the press made you aware of the disaster in Madagascar right now? I think the answer is dead obvious.
The Intersection
Merb (and why you potentially should care)
[Merb is] a small Model-View-Controller framework similar to Rails in many ways, but with some features that make it superior for some tasks, like handling file uploads.
Rail Spikes — I’ve used Merb to build tthe tool that I use to write this tumblelog
Some notions about the 'Net Gen Learner'
“A wave of young people empowered to create knowledge, not merely absorb it, now flows in and out of the classroom - calling into question the convictions and processes that have served as the foundation of traditional higher education. It remains to be seen if traditional higher education will adjust sufficiently to truly engage the net generation.” … Surprisingly, the “net gen” doesn’t necessarily crave more web-based e-learning. … “Traditional age students often say they came to college to work with faculty and other students, not to interact with them online,”
Student Self Directec Learning — Nice overview article. Could use some comment moderation.
Monster Smart Car on Unimog Chassis
This lovely bit of engineering combines two DaimlerChrysler classics: the smart forfun2 and a Unimog 406 series.
Dethroner — (photo)
research at the University of NSW, Sydney, Australia, claims the human brain processes & retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time. more of the passages would be understood & retained if heard or read separately. “The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster,” Professor Sweller said. “It should be ditched.”
information aesthetics
Jennifer Mather suggests that octopi may also possess consciousness, despite the vastly different architecture of their brain. If two very different neural architectures can both support forms of advanced cognition, then the similarities between them may help clarify the computational requirements for intelligent behavior.
Developing Intelligence — Nice summary article of a really interesting subject.
Basic Connectivism - Or 'Connectivism for Dummies'
Knowing and learning are today defined by connections. Connectivism is the assertion that learning is primarily a network forming process.
Sharon Peters
