random digits

e-poetry

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:50:22 +0200

Knowing Peter's penchant for poetry, I thought I'd reproduce this very apt poem from a time before blogging became the flavour of the month...

We’re Coming Unwired
The freeways are humming with wireless WAPping,
And thrumming with fingers incessantly tapping
On palmtops and laptops and cellular keys,
As we drive with our midbrains and steer with our knees.

The joe in the Jag is composing an e-mail
To explain why he’s late to a furious female,
Whom he’ll presently placate by pointing his Palm
To get two dozen roses from Flowers.com.

There’s an M&A gal in a 528
Who is dotting the i’s on a deal that will mate
The nation of Greece with a content provider,
As she’s merging herself, with the center divider.

Every Jack in his Jeep, every Jill in her Hyundai,
Is communing like mad with the Spiritus Mundi:
They are holding their phones in their teeth while they punch in
The name of the joint they’re reserving for luncheon;
They get quotes from Lord Byron, or Chemdex and Chiron,
Oblivious all to the sound of the siren;
They are checking their flights,
As they whiz through red lights,
While an oncoming semi is flashing its brights ...
If you’re holding some Nokia or 3Com, I’d park it.
I’ve a feeling success has been killing their market.

Geoffrey Nunberg
April 17, 2000

Source: http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/social/poem.htm

Fantastic machine ...

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:33:44 +0100

Play the video above - it may take some time to load the first time you play it, but the speed improves on subsequent replays. The whole performance must be a computer generated animation - it's highly unlikely a real machine shooting out bouncy balls would afford the precise timing control required to play music. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic machine ...

Back in the ECML ...

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 12:09:36 +0100

The pleasant, quaint surroundings of Graz are emminently suited to the sort of cogitations which go on behind the scenes of an ECML project. No software, no matter how social, will ever replace a chat over a glass of Weissbier (or Diet Coke for Peter!) and a zanderfilet at the Ratskeller.

We´re back here reviewing the outcome of our little project and gearing up for the final publication and the dissemination workshop in June 2007. It´s good to see that some of our project bloggers are back at it after the very long hot summer (hopefully not of discontent!). Others have moved on, while a few new faces are peering hopefully from photos on blogs just out of their shrink wrapping. Peter´s vision of empty classrooms during school holidays seems particularly apt - it feels exactly like that.

Image The Classroom raytraced in POVRay by Gilles Tran.

Paid to blog!

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:44:29 +0200

While attending the CDE Fellows Conference 2006 online one Australian participant pointed me towards this delectable news item. It's amazing what new job trends they're coming up with down under ...

WAG - websites as graphs

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:03:45 +0200

An interesting project written using the art language Processing has been put online at a site called Websites as Graphs. You just supply the URL of a website, and the code reads in the site's HTML and generates a graph with nodes presumably corresponding to links. The graph appears to be acyclic, so would be better described as a tree. Still, it's pretty.

Here's the graph made from this blog (http://blogs.ecml.at/blog.asp?id=53).

RSS by email

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:17:49 +0200

There's an RSS forwarding service called (logically) RSSFWD which can be very useful for pushing news your way over everybody's favourite social software - good old fashioned electronic mail. I've added a link to the ECMl blogs which will automatically subscribe you to a blog's RSS feed so you can receive updates via email - just click on the link below the RSS icon (the one labeled RSSFWD) and supply your email address. The first time you'll be lead through a very simple email verification process, after which you will start receiving email updates (although sometimes the service takes ages and sometimes it seems to cease working altogether!)

Latest update

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Wed, 17 May 2006 07:30:21 +0200

At the latest count we have 12 completed teachers' questionnaires and well over a 100 student questionnaires - still some way to go!
The server is experiencing problems ... again! The site was down at least twice on the 16th May 2006, and has been intermittently slow since.

Evaluation questionnaire - deadline extended

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Wed, 3 May 2006 08:18:04 +0200

Because for some of you this happens to be the exam period, the deadline for completing the online questionnaire has been extended to the 31st May 2006.
There are separate questionnaires for students and teachers - in both cases the questionnaire window pops up when you log in, and will keep popping up every time you log in until you fill in the questionnaire (nag nag!). Thereafter, it is accessible from the command menu under the heading survey (or sondage). Please fill in the questionnaire and encourage students to fill in theirs - so far we have over 50 completed student questionnaires but only 3 teachers have completed theirs. Thanking you all on behalf of the project team.
Also, please email Valerie the particulars of the school, the teachers involved in the project, and the students who took part and who in your opinion deserve to receive an ECML certificate of participation. Please use the form Valerie emailed you.

Mirror world

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:50:23 +0200

A clever design ...

Server outage

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:42:13 +0200

The ECML server had problems for most of Saturday 8th April. It is back online now, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the problem recurs ...

Activity chart

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:00:14 +0200

Posts tagged Ecml per day for the last 90 days as recorded by Technorati.

Greetings from Puglia

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Mon, 3 Apr 2006 12:29:02 +0200

Valerie and I are currently at the Istituto di Istruzione Secondaria Superiore G.Salvemini in Fasano (Brindisi), in Puglia working on a Grundtvig Adult Education Project. Our accommodation is actually in Ostuni called la città bianca - the picture shows why! Yesterday we had a presentation at the Castel del Monte, and today after the meeting this morning we'll probably go to Alberobello (Valerie and I are actually thinking of buying a trullo since they're easy to maintain and clean!) or the Grotte di Castellana. But that's after lunch in Martina Franca, of course. As Peter says, hard work - but someone has to do it!

Do you Skype?

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:31:01 +0200

Do you have a Skype ID you'd like to share with your friends? Now you can enter your ID in the blog setup page and a Skype button will appear on your blog and besides your name in the online users and buddies lists so your friends can call you. If you don't have a Skype ID, get one from www.skype.com - it's free and you can phone to any computer on the Internet for the price of a microphone.

An undesirable character ...

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:38:48 +0200

Thanks to Tereza, Delphine and Helena, a bug in the post editor code was tracked down and ruthlessly eradicated earlier today at around 13:00 GMT.
The obnoxious critter, a picture of which appears alongside, craftily only manifested itself on Internet Explorer version 6 and resulted in the editor toolbar failing to load, thusly depriving honest hard-working bloggers of access to the smileys collection and the funny letters.
It is believed that the beastly delimeter crept into the works the last time the toolbar code was updated to include the image insertion and source editing facilities. A sigh of relief was heaved by all and sundry as the delete key was pressed upon the errant fellow.
The three worthy bloggers, whose vigilance and sense of duty lead to the rounding up of this undesirable character, will shortly be awarded a Blue Peter Ford badge ...

Import duty ...

mcam@acm.org (Mario Camilleri) — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:07:39 +0200

Peter mentioned the export features. I have tested the MoveableType export facility using the excellent free Wordpress hosting service at http://wordpress.com - you can see the exported blog at http://mcam.wordpress.com/. The whole process took just 2 minutes, and worked first time.
The MT export format has its limitations of course - images cannot be physically exported, only the image tag can be included in the export file, so the image physically still resides on the originating server. Also, I am not exporting pings, and some of the references use relative URLS (notably, smileys) so they won't work at the new site. Still, it's a quick and easy way to migrate an ECML blog to Wordpress or MoveableType / Typepad (I don't know whether Blogger supports MT imports).
Joanna also welcomed the HTML export feature. Once you've got the HTML export page, which includes all your posts and associated comments as well as the images you uploaded (but not your photo!) you can save the HTML page, which on most browsers conveniently saves everything, including images, to your harddisk.