This is a little old, but it’s important. As is written in the article, some people may decry the establishment of parallel DNS systems, but I think it’s an essential step in the liberation of the internet. All of the controversy over who controls the internet is pointless, as long as someone can get ISPs to add their root DNS servers. Then, anyone can host sites or assign domain names. Right now, there’s a ridiculous set of artificial barriers to acquiring an IP address and then a domain name, and there have been controversies and lawsuits surrounding who gets which names. The story of sex.com comes to mind. (google search on “sex.com lawsuit”). There’s an energy minimum here, something that the market and the internet hasn’t yet settled to. I don’t know what it is. I can’t wait for it to happen, though.
Monthly Archives: December 2005
Green Tea in the Coffee Machine
I don’t have a tea infuser. I did — Amanda bought one for me before — but like many things it was lost in The Flood™. I do have a coffee machine, though, with a nice gold filter for preservation of flavor, and I tried making my green tea in there this morning. It seemed to work pretty well, though it’s perhaps a little more bitter than it would be otherwise. This should help me get back on track with my four cups of green tea per day.
Technorati Tags: caffeine, green tea, antioxidants, tea
Technical Writing Tips: Abbreviations and Acronyms
It’s common in science and engineering to use abbreviations and acronyms to shorten long words or terms. This comes in not only when communicating with others, but also in one’s internal communication. In our lab, we end up with tons and tons of files and directories full of simulation data. We usually give them cryptic names. “R0.1mmCV0.4x” or “CI250V5” or worse. Typing out long names all of the time is laborious, and we generally know what our own abbreviations mean. This comes into play with notes, too. I might write down CV instead of conduction velocity, LAD instead of left anterior descending coronary artery, or APD instead of action potential duration, or the more ambiguous “duration.” When thinking or writing about different sets of experimental parameters, I may refer to things with labels that are nonsensical without explanation. It’s an issue of practicality.
When communicating with outsiders, however, abbreviations can be a problem. They must be kept to a minimum in papers, abstracts, and posters. Even things that are talked about all the time in the field must be defined, as you can never assume that someone knows them. I’m working on a manuscript now, and I had to go back, count instances of abbreviations, decide which ones were worth using (used often) and which had to be spelled out (used infrequently). In retrospect — and here’s the writing tip — I should have written everything out in the manuscript to start with. It would have been easier to go back later with search-and-replace to abbreviate the most-used terms.
Technorati Tags: cardiac electrophysiology, paper, grad school, science, technical writing, writing
Why GTD lets you throw work to the wind during vacation: the Mini-Review
I read recently, I think on the 43Folders blog, about getting back on track using GTD and a mini-review. I think the mini-review, though not included in David Allen’s Getting Things Done (or is it? remind me) is the real clincher of using the GTD system. You can forget everything, spend two weeks on the beach drinking margaritas, or in my case visit New Orleans and my parents, and when you come back, a quick review of your system is enough to pick up where you left off.
You can have twenty projects. Or fifty. Each can have all sorts of actions, documents, emails, people, etc associated with those projects. You’re never going to remember all of that after a few weeks of vacation, or maybe even a few days. However, if your GTD system is kept properly up to date, it’s not a problem. You can be back in the saddle going full steam in an hour. Today, I was able to pick things up and get several hours of work done, meet with two different people, make a bunch of necessary calls, and even write this blog post, even though I basically lost track of everything for the last two weeks.
Don’t get me wrong. I did get some work done while I was traveling. It’s never as much as I’d like, though, and I certainly wouldn’t want to lose more time upon returning to the lab. This is yet another sign that some version of the GTD system is working for me. GTD is kind of like an office building. It provides the framework, the infrastructure for what needs to be done. Different businesses, however, may use that office building’s facilities in a variety of different ways, and add to them, customizing for their own needs. If you’re looking to become more organized, to clear all of the jumble out of your head so that it doesn’t cloud your thoughts, your creativity, and your relaxation, try starting with the rugged framework of GTD.
Once you have a solid system, you can take time off stress-free, knowing that you don’t have to remember anything about your projects when you return.
Technorati Tags: GTD, organization, mini-review, stress, travel
As Predicted – BellSouth Pissed About NOLA WiFi
Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.According to the officials, the head of BellSouth’s Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.
Angry BellSouth Withdrew Donation, New Orleans Says
Just as I predicted, BellSouth is pissed. I mean, it’s nice of them to donate a building, don’t get me wrong. That’s not something they had to do by any stretch of the imagination. However, this is the beginning of the battle.
technorati tags: bellsouth, new orleans, wifi, wireless, 802.11, building