RIT to Unveil Major Commitment to Hockey Arena Campaign Tonight – RIT News.
Bill Destler, president of Rochester Institute of Technology, will take to the ice of Frank Ritter Arena tonight to announce details of the latest and most significant gift to Tiger Power Play—the Campaign for RIT Hockey. His message will include an update on the overall status of fundraising activities for the new facility.
A Close up of “Skyline” by Tony Taj
This is just a superb hypertext art idea.
Tony Taj is an artist and designer from Seattle. He is taking the stories he puts in his urban and skyline landscapes into the digital realm by embedding QR codes into his artwork.
via QR Codes Embedded in Paintings | GeekDad | Wired.com.
(Embedded video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLQeqMaHVYs)
I love From the Earth to the Moon, especially this episode (Spider). This scenario demonstrates something I run into with software development all the time. Frequently, the engineers or developers working on a product come up with novel or unorthodox ideas that project leads are reluctant to go along with. In those situations, sometimes it’s best to just hammer out a prototype and demo the idea.
Just as happens in the video, sometimes work on an “unauthorized” prototype should be done outside of normal paid time, if for no other reason then as protection in case it doesn’t fly. It’s also important to understand that the lead must also sell the idea to his or her superiors, so even if you convince the lead, it may not go anywhere. I would imagine that the manager here had a hard time selling this to NASA.
I’m not saying, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission”, but if done correctly, helping them see it can produce better software and make a developer a hero in the process.
A neat feature of QR Codes is that they have error correction built in, so even if a fairly large portion of the code has been obscured or destroyed, most readers can still read it. Some QR Code creators out there will even let you tweak the error correction level (less error correction means smaller codes).
Since this correction exists, you can add an image to a code and the code will remain completely functional. I just found a page which will do this all in one shot for you; check it out: http://qr.odoa.eu/Web-QR-Code-Logo.aspx Sure, you can just create a code and paste an image yourself, but this is a bit easier.
The site is in German, but it’s still easy to figure out what’s going on. The code to the left is a shortened URL which will redirect to the ShareMyApps market page. (http://goo.gl/nGJKb -> http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps). The larger code created by the full link works fine, but less data in a QR code is usually better. The shortened URL could also be used to track scan-through rates (I may have made up that term).
As QR Codes are popping up everywhere, this is one of the many ways to increase scan-through rates for codes; it could also be used to hint at the purpose or content of the code.
I finished my first android app; Ryan mentioned that he wanted a simple app to email a list of his installed apps to friends. I got something basic up and running pretty quick, but then tinkered with it to add checkboxes so you can pick and choose apps to send around.
I’m still not happy with the actual app list that comes back; it’s still showing a few system apps but I wanted to get it out there. I’m also very bad at graphic design, so for now it just has a cheezy icon. If anyone wants to make me a nicer icon, let me know! The app is called ShareMyApps; you can search for it or scan the enclosed QR code.
Update (v 0.8): I’ve already released an update; I found the magic flag I was looking for to filter out any apps that came on the original system image, so now it should only display apps that you have installed yourself.
I was reading about stack buffer overflows, then the Morris Worm, which got me reading about the *nix finger command;
Very quick background for non unix nerds- finger is a command to find out who is logged into a machine, to get their contact info, and to read their ‘Plan’, which is like a user’s status. It was handy when working in the CS labs during college to see who was in the labs.
Anyway, I found a newsgroup post from the creator of finger talking about how and why he created it; it’s an iteresting article in general, but what stuck out for me was the following:
Some people asked for the Plan file feature so that they could explain their absence or how they could be
reached at odd times, so I added it. I found it interesting that this feature evolved into a forum for social commentary and amusing observations.
So, it turns out people were updating their status way back in the ’70s, and we’re now seeing the same sort of evolution (or devolution depending on who you ask) of away messages, statuses, and tweets. Of course, status updates and tweets today are severely lacking in ascii art.
_ ___ ____ ____
___ |\/\ | \ |_ _\|_ _\
|___\| \| . \ || ||
|/v\/|/\_/ |/ |/
___________________ _-_
\==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____
\_ \ \----._________.----/
\ \ / / `-_-'
__,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ ||
`--.____,-'
Rochester roulette:
The decision making process used when deciding whether to dress for warm or cool weather during Spring and Autumn in Rochester, New York due to the swings in temperature during those seasons.
Usage Example:
Person 1: “Why are you wearing shorts and a t-shirt? It’s only 45° outiside?”
Person 2: “I played Rochester roulette this morning and lost.”
I bought a GPS data logger this week; it also communicates with my phone, so I can use some location based services. The datalogging function is neat; I haven’t tried to tag any photos yet, but I’ve been leaving it on and tracking where I’ve been. Here’s my day:
If you zoom in, you’ll see that the times when I was indoors for long periods of time it gets really jumpy; all things considered, I think it’s working pretty well. Maybe in the future I’ll post more interesting/useful maps 
I saw the following on Facebook this morning:
Starbucks goes (RED).
Join us for World AIDS Day. On Dec 1, buy any hand-crafted beverage and we’ll give 5¢ to the Global Fund to help save lives in Africa.
5¢ is better than nothing; but really, this campaign will help Starbucks more than it will help AIDS research- maybe a better campaign would be the following:
On Dec 1, skip Starbucks, and give the $5 you would spend there to the Global Fund to help save lives in Africa
Here’s the link where you can donate: http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/donate/