in*ter*es*ting

Research on gender and education suggests boys might compete to answer questions to show they are “better” than their peers in the room. You know like they compete playing video games, athletics, etc. Geek boys strive to be the center of attention by having the rarest toys or knowing the rarest facts. Geeks make interesting a commodity.

I want this teeshirt!

Number three is from Serenity:

Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburn: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Define “interesting”.
Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburn: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we’re all going to die?

Not everyone just… Nevermind. If you haven’t seen the movie, then you probably should.

But Sci-Fi movies with quippy dialog are like Smarties for geeks like me.

One of the tools people have for seeking a new job is their social networks and increasingly the online ones. LinkedIn seems to be the popular social network for this. (BTW, I’m glad to give recommendations for anyone I’ve worked with and seeking a job there.)

I can’t say that I would know what everyone in my Facebook “friends” list does. A possible solution is for Facebook to provide a filter displaying current employer and position similar to its phone book filter for the friends page. Users can only see phone numbers both entered and selected to be available, so similar permission-based exposing work information ought to apply.

Until then, it appears one can click on position and employer to search who else lists them. One can also edit the cp= variable in the URL. Change “System” in the example below to “Photographer”.

Example URL: http://www.facebook.com/search/?cp=System&o=2048

The o= appears to be the kind of page, so that should remain 2048 for “People”.

If your search term uses spaces, then use a plus sign (“+”) or ascii code (“%20″) to represent the space.

Example: System+Support+Specialist

I’m sure there are better ideas out there.

Southern Pages

The Georgia Public Service Commission might stop requiring AT&T to distribute paper phone books. The rationale seems to be so many people rely on the Internet and use cell phones the phone books are less useful. That only one percent of people inside the Atlanta perimeter asked for one definitely supports stopping the service. Phasing out delivery would start with with larger populations.

I have only used a phone book once in the past 5 years. I wrote about Georgia Theatre weird phone calls. The local municipal web site provided 4 generic department numbers which didn’t help me much. The last place I lived used to publish the direct line of people in the phone book, so I tried White Pages. When I also didn’t find it there, I tried the text version just in case. Sadly, none gave me what I hoped. So I ended up calling a generic number and after wasting several people’s time, left a message for someone to call me back.

AT&T is only one of three entities offering me a phone book at both home and work. Southern Pages happened to leave a bunch of them where I could take a picture. All this duplication is a waste. I feel like I should only receive at most one every few years as a backup in case online sources are down or not useful.

I would be curious how often information in the books change over a half, one, two, five, and ten year periods. I wouldn’t be surprised if 70% of numbers in phone books don’t change over 5 years.

The genetics show we are of the species. The true fear is the culture lines are blurring faster than preservationists can control. Kids dance to other culture’s music. We eat each other’s culinary master pieces. We study each other’s visual arts. Remaining separated from other cultures seems pointless in a world shrinking with every new invention and catastrophe.

Children are sponges, ready to absorb whatever culture we exposing them. Years ago that was just the values, practices, knowledge, and attitudes of where we lived. Today, with integrated neighborhoods, restaurants of every ethnicity, ease of travel to anywhere in the world, and even media, we can allow children to see so much more than our grandparents could experience. Worrying about everything a child could experience ought break down parents who cannot accept what isn’t part of the genetic background could be good too.

I was approached one day by a friend whose cousin was about to have an interracial child. The family was in turmoil over how would the child grow up by not being the correct race. My best advice to my friend was all those concerns would evaporate as soon as they saw the child. The connection to family, aka love, is what matters. All this other drivel is based on fear of the unknown.

Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms.
Abdu’l-baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha

There seems to be an odd nervousness about white parents in raising children who are not white. They fear raising their children to lose the culture behind the child’s genetics. Having not been raised in that culture, they make an effort for their children to have exposure. My very blond mother took us visit family in southside neighborhoods where she was obviously out of place. She did all this and she gave me half my genes. Mom very much realized taking me to visit museums, Kennedy Space Center, Montezuma Castle, other countries, other Baha’i communities, even huge shopping centers were also important for shaping my “culture”. The purpose was to expose me to knowledge, attitudes, and values I’d otherwise not attain from the simple school-home-friends circles I already used.

The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
Bahá’u'lláh

Parents should stop thinking in terms of one culture vs. another culture. We have the amazing opportunity to take the best of all cultures.

On the promenade in Tel Aviv, we walked by a store who claimed the style of the season was white and black. Everything in the store used just those two colors.

Back here in the US, I looked to see if the same trend existed here. Truly people here are a rainbow of color.

I do think the absence of the rainbow of color started to bother me.

And… Yes, there were quite a number of really attractive women which drew my attention. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Both think the problem must be the other’s fault. Because you know… Their product is perfect. They never have design issues. Ever. So it must be someone else’s fault.

Problem 1:

Upon loading the zip package into the CE/Vista SCORM module, the end user saw:

The SCORM package is not compliant with SCORM Ver 1.2 Conformance Requirements. All supporting schemas must be at the root of the package; the following schemas were not found at the root: [adlcp_rootv1p2.xsd, imscp_rootv1p1p2.xsd, imsmd_rootv1p2p1.xsd] As a result, the package may not perform as desired. Are you sure you want to continue?

I actually feel bad for not immediately recognizing this meant these XSD files needed to be in the zip file.  Blackboard ought to feel bad for having the response this means the imsmanifest.xml in the file was written for a more current version of SCORM than the rather ancient 1.2. I could understand that response if specific items in the file are only relevant in the current version. I don’t understand that response when the same file which works with Vista 3 (created about the same time as SCORM 1.2) works and Vista 8 doesn’t. Sounds more like something changed in Vista 8 to make it more strict.

Fixing the missing XSDs files resulted in a new error:

The SCORM package could not be imported because it does not comply with one or more specifications within the package. The following error was produced: **Parsing Error** Line: 7 Message: cvc-complex-type.2.4.c: The matching wildcard is strict, but no declaration can be found for element ‘lom’. Please inform the SCORM vendor and try again once the problem has been resolved.

Is it wrong to be excited about an error? Dropping the problematic items from the imsmanifest.xml file produces new errors. After five iterations, I don’t seem to be making much progress.

Problem 2:

This SCORM module simply passes to an HTML file with JavaScript some variables to send the user off to the QuestionMark site. It should not this big of a deal.

Somehow Vista 8 is calling the file where it doesn’t exist for the QuestionMark SCORM module but not other modules.

QuestionMark addres:

/webct/scorm/viewer/perceptionSCO.htm?call=scorm&
session=9999999999999999&
href=https://ondemand.questionmark.com/delivery/session.php&
lang=-&customerid=mcg

Known good SCORM module address:

/webct/RelativeResourceManager/999999999999/filename.html

The number after RelativeResourceManager typically can be found under “View File Information” in the file manager. The file name after the number is the name of a file in the zip. Copying the address for the known good let me view it. At this point it seemed logical I could just build the address to the QuestionMark zip manually and see it as a designer (maybe not as a student). Unfortunately, this gives me system exception errors.

Last Solutions:

In trying to solve two problems with one stone, I took the imsmanifest.xml for the known good SCORM module and just changed the href= for resource and file to use the perceptionSCO.html file name for QuestionMark. Still failed to find the file.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT…

I removed all the variables after the perceptionSCO.htm. Now Vista finds the file. It gives me errors about not having the values in those variables, but it found it.

This is stupid.

Perfect Fit

Originally uploaded by Ezra S F

One of the gems from the photos I took in Haifa. Having not taken my dSLR, I am rather pleased with the photos I managed to take on this trip with a little digital point-n-click. Guess that shows: 1) How beautiful were the surroundings, 2) Equipment only gets one so far.

Before making the trip, my life had settled into a funk. Back in 2005, Lacey invited me to her wedding in Chicago at the Bahá’í House of Worship. At the time, my life was mired in a similar funk and experiencing a whole morning praying there gave me both a warm calm and bubbling turmoil. It was the calm before the storm as during the next several months my grandmother lost two brothers sending me on driving trips to Arkansas twice, my gall bladder failed, and I landed a job prompting a move to Athens.

Returning from Chicago, I held no answers… just bouts of turmoil and using thoughts of my time in Chicago to produce serenity. Returning from Haifa, I feel more turmoil and serenity! Instead of a warm calm, I’m feeling like a stranger in my own home, driving my own car, chatting with my own friends. It’s like for a couple weeks I got to experience a different life and feel disappointment returning to my own.

Miscellaneous observations:

• Pictures of the places I visited in no way prepared me for the experiencing the Bahá’í holy sites.
• Clementine juice in particular is genius. Citrus products in general are fantastic.
• Israelis know the name Ezra particularly well, so they expect the bearer to know Hebrew. Security  officials often wanted to know why I have the name.
• As much as I read, I ought to read more Bahá’í works.
• I expected to suffer greatly climbing anything more than a couple floors equivalent as the most exercise I get is just a single floor of stairs a few times a day. So we did quite a bit of walking down which was enough to make my calves burn. The trips up were shorter.
• It is a teeny tiny Bahá’í world. I knew Mojan, Eric, and their son were in Haifa. Another 3 Bahá’ís from Georgia happened to be serving there. A couple others, Delara and Marla, happened to be in the my pilgrimage group as well.
• Kat recognized me from somewhere upon sight of me in orientation. We didn’t figure it out in our 9 days together. Previously life? Or a connection to people serving or previously served in Haifa?
• Shawarma… who knew?
• I was told I am not fulfilling my potential. Instead of working with computers, I ought to be an educator.
• Mom thought Ezra Jack Keats, my namesake, was black because he used a black child as the protagonist. Guess the web site didn’t exist back when I was born. I’ve known he was originally a Katz for almost a decade.

For a good description of the pilgrimage experience, see Myk’s pilgrimage blog postings.

If the aftermath of this pilgrimage is anything like my visit to Chicago in 2005, then I’ll experience some change. I don’t intend mistake attraction for Haifa as destiny to live there. My attraction to Chicago has never culminated in my living there, so I’m not holding on to imaginations I’ll miraculously move to Haifa. Something like serving at the Bahá’í World Center would be the kind of change I foresee. We’ll see. I’m not keen to completely disrupt my life at the moment. Hopefully events will not conspire against me to force my hand.

“The way to make better decisions is to make more of them” -Anthony Robbins

We do learn from retrospective analysis of effects. I question the need to make our own bad decisions in order to learn. We ought to be able to watch others make mistakes and avoid them.

Go on…. I’ll wait.

Remember the one on Scoble and Facebook? Good. For a while, I fastidiously ensured my number of friends stayed below 150 because I took the idea of Dunbar’s number as a life strategy. Then I let it slip to 200 which I pared back down to 150. My laziness let it hit 500.

It appears Robin Dunbar is now studying Facebook users to see ‘if the “Facebook effect” has stretched the size of social groupings.’ He says despite the large number of friends people only interact with about 150 of them. Maybe like most of psychology, the subjects are college students who supposedly are almost all on Facebook. In the real world, most of the people with which I have regular interaction, exactly those Dunbar’s number covers, are not my Facebook friends.

My Facebook friends instead are my information buffet. Social networks are how we keep in touch with what is happening in the world. My information technology friends provide me what is happening in my career field. My photography friends provide me with useful tips for a big hobby. Also, the bigger our social network, the more opportunities for help from or being consequential strangers. Social networks are a strategy not a replication of the brain.

The term “friends” used by Facebook, I think, is a brilliant marketing ploy. People would much rather show up as my friend than my contact.

The possibilities are:

1. Browser: Use a different one which doesn’t complain.
2. Settings: When it comes to security settings, I’m hesitant to recommend thousands of users change them without being extremely sure doing so is safe. Seems to me having it ignore the issue exposes users to danger. Rumor is also Windows Updates can revert the settings back to defaults.
3. Content: Change how the content is delivered to avoid the issue.

The content is being put inside HTML files rather than using the Web Link tool to open a new window with the video. Even using a Web Link tool to show the content inside the same window causes the IE complaint.

All three will cause a ton of work to address the issues. In my opinion wrangling designers ought to require the least amount of work of the three. Though I guess that would depend on the popularity of IE and neediness of the users.

Say what? We had over 22,000 active sections last term? We have 40 institutions and dozens of professional designers and thousands of faculty designing their own classes. Cryptic emails about being frustrated with Vista means I have to contact the sender, find out what institution, class, problem happened and send that to an institution person who has to figure out which designer to direct it. I’m too far removed to be useful for these requests.

Solutions:

1. CE/Vista ought to keep a broken link report. It would record to a log in the Designer Tools reporting which addresses resulted in errors and a list of the referrers, how many times requests came from each referrer. This gives designers something they can use to address the problems. Maybe give the designers the ability to reset the log on a page when they think they have fixed it. Give them an icon in the class list to see when there are unhandled cases.
2. Assuming the above is too hard, this mailto link should be a form recording the learning context involved, referring page, browser, user, and file which failed the request. The message could go to the mail tool for the designers.

Since Facebook copied the Twitter Retweet feature, I was looking for something worthy of letting all the others I know see. Somehow I was surprised to find my News Feed was missing about half the Links my contacts posted? My first reaction was to put My Friends’ Links in Thunderbird’s RSS Reader (where I put my feeds I don’t want strangers subscribing in Google Reader). Then it dawned on me.

At the bottom of the News Feed is an Edit Options link. A while back there were Facebook chain-statuses about editing the settings here because it controls which of my friends I see. On the first page, one can put how many of my friends I can see vs which I don’t. Also, there is an option for explicitly naming which I will see.

It seems I set specific names which at one time was everyone. However, as I added new people, I never went back and added the new people. All these new people were the ones posting the missing links. Doh! So, I’ve set Facebook to show me the top 9999 people. (The highest it will go.) I’m hoping this will fix it.

Why should we love our enemies?

The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiples hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims.

But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy be getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

A great example of how the above is true can be seen in the media reports about the vitriol passing between the United States political parties over health care. The reactionary climate resulted in counter-productive posturing and slowing the process. Of course, no one physically assaulted others or shot them in a duel, so I guess things are civilized… Just full of hate. We all suffer because these people take opposition personally. That is easy to do when their best arguments are ad hominems.

Maybe 50%+ (House) and 60% (Senate filibuster proof) are too low of a threshold to get consensus. What about 66.7% like that for amendments or 75% or 80% as the necessary threshold? Even better? Since the issue here is the parties don’t work together, maybe the solution is passage requires 10% more votes over the membership of the majority party?

This led to this gem:

For the first time, many of us Google converts feel like the cloud, where Google wants us to organize our personal and professional digital lives, is less secure than that encrypted hard drive under the desk.

Sounds like Douglas Rushkoff didn’t understand the Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or even GeorgiaVIEW for which I work didn’t invent impenetrable computer systems for developing the cloud systems. There are best practices which may or may not be followed. There are code improvements to counter known security holes which may or may not be applied. Personally, I think the public is doing well just to be informed there was a security breach.

Security isn’t about absolutely preventing someone from getting the data. It is about placing stumbling blocks in the way to make attempting to get the data so difficult the perpetrator moves on to an easier target. An extremely determined person or group could unwind the layers of the best security.

Gmail does encourage encryption of POP3 and SMTP. I wonder though how much communication between email servers operates through encrypted SMTP? In general, I figured email to be sent via plain text. Which is why if something is sensitive or super important, email might not be the best medium through which to transmit it.

Conceptually, I like the idea behind it. Rotating the “TV” and Nintendo system makes for a very different approach. However, I didn’t like so much the vertigo.