Monthly Archives: September 2005

Going electric

Electronic paper? Sounds oxymoronic, but this phenomenon a-borning could make the thought of e-books and e-newspapers more bearable. A description of E Ink’s new electronic ink display describes it as “somewhat like a miniaturized Etch-a-Sketch based on electricity, instead of magnetism.” Once the high-contrast, thin, flexible surface is “printed,” it needs no further power to

Call-’em-as-you-see-’em museum

The folksonomy juggernaut is rolling towards museums, as an intriguing article in this month’s D-Lib Magazine (“Social Terminology Enhancement through Vernacular Engagement”) makes clear. As anyone who has tried tagging images with metadata knows, it’s tricky business; opening up the effort to a collective, in its instictive wisdom, seems a path to the social engagement

Open book test

While Wikipedia is the standard reference for what wikis can do, its newer cousin Wikibooks is, in many respects, a more daring venture. This is a collection of open-content textbooks – that is, modules freely available to and updatable by anyone, covering a wide range of subjects. (General FAQs here) Material on Wikibooks is searchable

In the swim

September is the new summer. In the latest batch of merry photos Flick’d up, we travel to Cape Cod with David, park Jessica in lovely Raina’s lovely yard, and camp. Scott raises almost $1400 by powering through 1.4 miles of choppy waters in the Provincentown Swim for Life. Kate spirits us to the dune shack.

Hello Rockies

In what’s turning into something of a tradition, I made a pilgrimage to Boulder & thereby aged within the safe confines of my origin. Though it’s been overrun by money, Boulder is ever beautiful, & it’s nice to see my globetrotting parents settle back in amid the deer.

Pinpointing devastation

As New Orleans was flooding, and burning, and suffering, two young computer programmers quickly launched Scipionus – a visual wiki of the calamity, charted onto Google Maps. On this site, users mark a location and report on it. The markers are color-coded – indicating new (green) and updated (purple) posts. A snapshot: As this Wired