Jamie's Musings

Benoit Mandelbrot on TED

jamieai — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:41:07 +0000

Benoit Mandelbrot gave a fascinating talk at TED in July. I’ve been interested in fractals for many years and a big fan of Mandelbrot’s work. Mandelbrot explains how fractals describe nature in ways that other math models can not. This is an excellent TED talk.

Back in the days of floppies – the large floppies – I ran a program for many hours and many days called Fractint – the application is enchanting!

Filed under: heroes, innovation, science

Facebook is a country

jamieai — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:21:43 +0000

The Economist published an interesting article comparing Facebook to a sovereign nation. David Cameron, Britain’s Prime Minister, asked Mark Zuckerberg for input about being responsible for many millions of people. “Facebook is a device that allows people to get together and control their own destiny, much like a nation-state,” says David Post, a law professor at Temple University.

Filed under: social media

Application infographic

jamieai — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:32:16 +0000

Online MBA created a great infographic on applications:

Filed under: infographic, mobile

Best iPad decal ever

jamieai — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:37:59 +0000

If you’re a fan of Shel Silverstein and the Giving tree, this is a delightful iPad decal!

The Giving Tree

[via OS X Daily]

Filed under: innovation, mobile

Clay Shirky on Cognitive Surplus

jamieai — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:51:52 +0000

In June, Clay Shirky presented at TED Talks in Cannes about Cognitive Surplus: The ability of the world’s population to volunteer and contribute and collaborate on large and sometimes global projects. The world has over a trillion hours a year of participatory value up for grabs.

We can use this trillion hours a year to celebrate and support and reward the people with cognitive surplus to create civic value and change society.

Filed under: innovation

4 Great iPad Productivity Apps

jamieai — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:51:38 +0000

For people who want to have productivity apps on an iPad, here are some great apps I’ve been testing for a few weeks. All of these apps are great when the iPad isn’t connected to a network.

Keynote: A terrific presentation application ($9.99). This is an easy-to-use app that includes templates and themes, supports animations and transitions, autosave, and import from MSOffice. Presentations are shared via email or transferred to another computer through iTunes. Files may also be saved and shared in PDF format. Files are easily copied to the application from a hard drive or file share.

Numbers: A wonderful spreadsheet application. ($9.99). This is an easy-to-use app that includes templates, more than 250 functions, charts and graphs, and autosave. Spreadsheets are shared via email or transferred to another computer through iTunes. Files may also be saved and shared in PDF format. This is a powerful application that’s easy to use for both simple and complex spreadsheets.

Pages: Wonderful word processor for the iPad ($9.99). This app is easy-to-use, includes templates, includes a spell checker, and supports many languages. Documents automatically size to fit the iPad screen in portrait and landscape mode. Documents are shared via email or transferred to another computer through iTunes. Files may also be saved and shared in PDF format.

Goodreader: Upload and view files, including pictures, MSOffice documents (including docx and pptx) and PDF files. ($0.99). This is a great app to view and share files. Uploading files to Goodreader is easy. The app has many view options, including full-screen. Goodreader is great app to view digital content. Files are easily copied to the application from a hard drive or file share.

If you’ve used these or other productivity apps, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Filed under: mobile, social media

on pesticides, herbicides and insecticides

jamieai — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:37:11 +0000

What’s the distinction among a pesticide, herbicide and insecticide?

Pesticide
A pesticide is substance designed to control, prevent, destroy or repel pests, including fungi, bacteria, weeds, mice and insects. Pesticides work by touch or ingestion by the pest, and can kill immediately or gradually. Herbicides and insecticides are pesticides. Fungicides are also pesticides.

An herbicide is designed to control weeds and other undesirable plants. Herbicides may be selective (control specific weeds, and often used on lawns and golf courses) or non-selective (control wide variety of plants, commonly deployed in industrial areas).

An insecticide is designed to control insects. Insecticides may control insects by touch or insect ingestion. Common household insecticides are ant and wasp killer sprays, along with remedies such as beer or chewing gum. Insecticides aren’t intended to harm animals or birds.

A fungicide is a type of pesticide designed to control molds and mildew.

Article References

http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/about/

http://www.calfinder.com/blog/landscaping/pesticides-herbicides-and-insecticides-what%E2%80%99s-the-difference/

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/pesticides/index.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide

Filed under: science

2 great sky map apps

jamieai — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:15:31 +0000

Fireflies are dancing in the yard tonight against a brightly lit moon. I use two great sky maps to view the heavens:

Stellarium: A free desktop application for Linux, Mac and Windows with a catalog of more than 600,000 stars. The app displays asterisms and illustrations of the constellations for twelve cultures. Stellarium displays a realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset from your location or any location that you enter. Zoom, time control and telescopic control are included. This is a fantastic application for star gazers.

Google Sky Map: A free Android app. Orientation sensors show an accurate star map for your location. Explore planets, stars, constellations with this app. This is a terrific app from Google.

Do you use these apps, or know about other sky map apps?

Filed under: mobile, science

Fun game: Canabalt

jamieai — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:07:23 +0000

I read an article on NPR’s WAIT WAIT, don’t blog me! site about Canabalt, a free online game and an iPhone application (iTunes link – $2.99). I started playing the game a few days ago and like it a lot! Jump over obstacles and across buildings as you run. The game runs your player, so you only have to jump at the right time to avoid random chairs, boxes, falling machines, unstable buildings and other obstacles.

Filed under: mobile

Atlassian Summit 2010 videos

jamieai — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:48:28 +0000

Atlassian has posted video presentations from the Atlassian Summit 2010. The video website has a great layout, with a Fan Favorites section. The videos are informative, ranging from general sessions on Atlassian products and ecosystems, to developer resources and helpful case studies. For an overview of Confluence wiki, check out the State of the Union video.

Here are a few Confluence highlights in Confluence 3.3:

Pages can be shared among communities!
Table cells can be merged
Macros can be moved within a page, visually
The editor is richer and faster, and dynamically displays on the screen as pages are scrolled
Documentation theme is built into Confluence 3.2 (beautiful visualization in the video at 28:31)
Easy Reader theme is a fixed layout theme for larger screens
Images and text may be aligned to each other and moved on a page as a single unit

Most of the presentations are posted along with the videos, and on Slideshare (GoAtlassian). Atlassian also has informative videos in YouTube (GoAtlassian).

I’ve been using Confluence since 2007 and continue to be impressed with design and feature implementations. I look forward to strengthening and expanding the use of Confluence, and to continue to integrate with other systems.

Great conference and terrific videos!

Filed under: innovation, social media