In Honor of Apollo

The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has come and gone. With all of the coverage, I was feeling like a kid again. This find was especially impressive: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged all but one of the Apollo landing sites. Keep up the good work, NASA.

Poetic Proof

If you're a computer scientist, then you've heard of the halting problem. If you're a mathematician or even a middle school geometer, then you've heard of proof by contradiction. If you're an English-speaking child, then you know Dr. Seuss. Put them together, and what do you get? An amazing Seuss-esque poetic proof of the undecidability of the halting problem, one of the most famous results in mathematics and computer science. Look here: http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/loopsnoop.pdf . Wow.

Thou shalt blog

Elder M. Russell Ballard, as a leader of and spokesman for the LDS Church, encouraged members of the Church to share their stories and feelings about things that matter in life here on the web. I'm not a frequent blogger (check the dates of my posts!) and my predilection is for privacy, but I am happy to share glimpses of the reasons for the hope that is in me, even if only in small ways. (Here's the full speech.)

John Dehlin Stirs it Up

My friend John Dehlin is a prolific blogger and podcaster and occasional screencaster. His primary topic of choice? Mormons and their stories. For a view into the diversity of Mormon people, their hopes, their challenges, their contrarians, and their stories, check out John's blogs:
http://www.mormonstories.org/
http://www.mormonmatters.org/
and
http://www.johndehlin.com/
I wish I could keep up with it all.

Free Web Content Filter for Home

I have encountered plenty of material on the web that is unsuitable for my family. We're now using a free web filter from BlueCoat called K9. It appears to use a registry of rated URLs and to provide on the fly page classification. BlueCoat's focus is the corporate market, so it's a nice gesture to provide a free, professional package for home users. Here's the link: http://www.k9webprotection.com/
ContentWatch has a respected product as well.

Before Braille in Seattle July 2005

I put up some photos from the last time I saw my brother play with his band Before Braille before they parted ways. Great show. Brandon S. showed up to play a few numbers on the bass to relive old times.

Before Braille Seattle July 2005

History of the Near East in 90 seconds

I have been reading for years now about the Ancient Near East and the texts it has produced. The Holy Scriptures and related documents are an important part of my life, so I have a healthy curiosity for how they came to be. That said, it can be downright fun to step away from scholarly books and their extensive footnotes, at least for a moment, and to see history portrayed in an accessible way. This Flash illustration of the imperial conquests of the Near East, into modern times, speaks for itself. Enjoy: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Clear Context Revisited

ClearContext continues to help me prioritize my email in meaningful ways. I'm using it together with the excellent SpeedFiler from Claritude Software (http://www.claritude.com/ ). Combining Outlook, Windows Desktop Search, plenty of RAM, and these two Outlook add-ins has enabled me to plow through email, remain responsive, and keep a large and useful email archive.

I like CC enough that I'm including a plug for them here: If you're interested in trying ClearContext, you can save $15 on your license by using the following coupon code: CC15-15400. The code is included with permission from the ClearContext folks.

State of the Art in Desktop Dictation

Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking v. 9 receives an excellent evaluation at ArsTechnica: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/speaking.ars . I notice the excellent facility for training and updating the recognizer's language and acoustic models. Almost makes me want to try to use speech recognition on a day-to-day basis again. The last time I tried a few years ago I was not sufficiently productive to make it worth my while.