Month: August 2006

Categories
People

Einstein is human

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Thanks to 3 Quarks Daily (again), a pointer to a story covering the press reaction to the release of thousands of pages of Einstein’s personal correspondence. Tongue in cheek, the article is titled, Einstein in Lust. In it the author, Joshua Roebke, writes:

“Phys-sex Genius” wrote the headline wizards at the New York Post. Fox News, another Murdochian outlet, posted a story by on-air personality Neil Cavuto to its website, titled, “Albert Einstein: Genius, Stud Muffin.” “E = Einstein, the galactic womanizer,” quipped The Sunday Times, UK. “Albert Einstein, sex-fiend” wrote the popular blog Boing Boing. Even a member of the extended Seed family, the ScienceBlog Pure Pedantry, included a post with the title, “Scientific Pimp.”

Einstein’s relationships with various women has never been a secret. Why this information would cause such a fooflah at a time when Paris Hilton faux pax are the stuff of legends is beyond me. Is this is supposed to make Einstein more ‘human’? More interesting? Einstein’s always been human. He’s the most human, brilliant person I know of. As for interesting, lordie, something about his work comes to mind.

Another intriguing note in the article is that while the Western publications focused on Einstein’s Love Life, the East focused on his work. The author points to his earlier work, Big in Japan, which discusses how in countries such as South Korea, China, and Japan, research scientists are hotter than rock stars.

In 2001, the Japanese government drafted a state policy that focused on winning 30 Nobel Prizes in 50 years. If the results of a 2002 poll are any indication, it might work: Japanese boys aspire to be research professors more than to be baseball stars, a level of academic aspiration not seen in the West since the space race. Science celebrity has moved East, building a culture that treats Nobels like Oscars and new discoveries like home-run records

(Hopefully, the Japanese government is also encouraging Japanese girls in science, though I’m not optimistic in this regard.)

The West might want to get its priorities straight: lust is cheap, science lasts forever.

Categories
Technology Web

Semantic CSS

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

WordPress.com has released a new paid upgrade: custom CSS. Now those who host their weblogs with the service can pay for an upgrade and customize their weblogs. To start, the company provided a Sandbox theme layout that can be altered through the custom stylesheet.

It’s interesting to read about this theme in the associated forum thread. There seems to be confusion associated with web page semantics and abstracting out the presentation from the layout. The theme creator wrote, The Sandbox is powerful because it generates semantic classes for a myriad of pages, which allows practically absolute control over the theme with CSS alone. He also wrote, The Sandbox will undoubtidly(sic) be the easiest theme for novices to write CSS for, with selectors that are semantic and logical/.

I’m assuming he means that the theme uses ordered and unordered list elements for lists, but what this has to do with CSS, I don’t know.

Quick Review:

XHTML and HTML are page elements.

Some (X)HTML elements have associated semantics, such as tables for tabular data, and OL or UL for lists. However, both have and will continue to be abused.

No matter how you push it, DIV is not a semantic element–no more meaning than the cardboard box that contained my last Amazon order.

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, have to do with the presentation of the elements. Through these, you can make unordered lists not look like unordered lists; but this just changes the presentation, not the semantics.

What’s really meaningful? Atom feeds that don’t break and that validate. Yes, that would mean a lot to me.

Categories
Just Shelley

Minnesota’s Fringe Festival

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Birdchick writes on her husband’s participation in this year’s Fringe Festival in Minnesota.

The concept of the Fringe Festival is fascinating, and I wish we had something similar here in St. Louis. I gather that every year, people submit ideas, and a lottery determines which are included in the Festival. That’s it: no juries to judge which performance is, or is not, included. The performances are scattered about the city, feature any type of art, and anyone is welcome to participate. It’s a wonderful idea.

Way to go, Minnesota. Next year, I’m spending August with the fringe, in the land o’ lakes

Categories
Photography

The normal lens

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

As part of my camera updating, I purchased a couple of new lenses.

The first is the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 super wide-angle lens. I’ve been wanting to experiment with a wide angle lens, but didn’t want to spend the thousand or so dollars on Nikon’s comparable lens. The Tokina is the one I had been after, but that one has been back ordered for months. Additionally, the Sigma is supposedly a sharper lens, though it does have some vignetting (light fall of at the edges). The Sigma is also a lightweight lens, which isn’t a bad option if you’re out trooping around taking landscape photos.

(When you’ve trucked around with a heavy lens for a while, you learn to appreciate small, and light.)

The second lens is the 50mm f/1.8. The so-called ‘normal’ or ‘primary’ lens. Other than my 60mm macro and my older Sigma 400mm, I’ve always used zoom lenses. I bought this 50mm lens for a couple of reasons: it’s small and lightweight and can be used for most photographic conditions, including low-light; it’s also supposed to blow the doors off the zooms when it comes to sharpness.

When I tried the lens, wow! Unbelievably sharp. Tiny little thing, almost looks like a toy. And cheap! (Well compared to a lot of other lenses). This is an amazing lens.

I already know that I’m using it exclusively for dusk and night shooting without a tripod (ghost walk next week comes to mind). I wonder about using it for more of my photography. Rather than move a zoom back and forth, or switch lenses all the time (resulting in dust on the sensors), try working with one fixed lens. To learn to depend on myself, rather than my lens, camera, and PhotoShop making the picture for me.

That’s a novel idea.

It won’t do closeups, but I’ve been concentrating on these too much lately. It won’t take a bird’s eye at 1/2 mile, but I’ve been focusing on these types of shots too much lately. It will take street scenes, landscapes, people, and buildings–all the things I’ve been putting off, because these are the type of photography that I’m not that great at. Which means I should be working with these types of pictures, rather than hiding behind my specialized lens.

There’s a dozen more lenses I’d love to have, but my camera budget for 2005-2007 is exhausted. Darnit.

Categories
History

Missouri: A land of firsts

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I love history. Not necessarily the big stories: the world wars, and tales of kings and queens and daring do. No, I like the stories of people who do acts of normalcy that end up creating waves that ripple from small to large to larger until an ocean of change sweeps across the age and the land; leaving the debris of old ways, fractured customs tumbled about like the broken pieces of concrete that are left when the Mississippi swells its banks.

Did you know that the first formalized woman’s suffrage movement in the US originated in Missouri? That Missouri was the last state to be admitted to the Union as a slave state, but the first state to free slaves, even before the 13th Amendment was passed? That the first woman lawyer practiced law in this state? Her name was M. Lemma Barkeloo. She was also the first woman lawyer to participate on a case in Federal court.

The James gang plied its nefarious trade in Missouri; the Pony Express started here, as did most treks west. The first steel bridge was created here, the first steamboat race ended here.

The worst earthquake in history, in terms of strength and potential damage, as well as sheer impact on the geology of the area happened here. Luckily it was before all these red brick buildings were built.

The first woman to sue to be allowed to vote was Virginia Minor here in 1872.

On October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor tried to register to vote in the upcoming election, but was refused by St. Louis’ sixth district registrar, Reese Happersett. Happersett refused to register Minor because she was female, thus provoking a civil suit brought by Virginia and her lawyer husband, Francis Minor. Minor’s action was part of a nationwide pattern of civil disobedience, in which hundreds of women across the country attempted to vote. Susan B. Anthony led a small delegation of women to the polls in Rochester, New York, and was successful in casting her vote for Ulysses S. Grant. Three weeks later, however, on Thanksgiving Day, Anthony was arrested on the charge of voting fraud. Anthony was a celebrity who was used by the judicial system as an example and a warning to all women in the United States. When Anthony’s case came to trial early in 1873, the judge had written his opinion before the trial started, and directed the jury to find a guilty verdict. Anthony was ordered to pay a fine of $100, which she refused to do.

The list goes on an on. In terms of sheer social upheaval, Missouri is literally the epicenter of change in our history.

It’s the little facts I like. The ones that make great stories. The best possible event that can happen to a history buff like me is discovering a historical fact that has the potential to be a great story, and to realize that no one has told it yet. No, not even Wikipedia.