Even More Robots!!

An on-line article titled "CMU's snooping robot going to Iraq" shows prototypes being deployed for snooping and watching, that are about to be deployed to marines. Great concept, and helps prepare for Judgement Day.

Trip Down Memory Lane: WebSE

Here's an on-line version of the Mac SE: WebSE - System 7.0 - Test Drive a Macintosh.... Emulating on the web. Even the stupid google eyeballs plug in!

Still Even More on Robots: Wired Uses Honda's Asimo During NextFest 2004

Wired News: Asimo Shakes His Robotic Rump

Hotel Charges $1,000 for Omelet

From: Yahoo! News - Hotel Charges $1,000 for Omelet.

This may be the perfect publicity stunt. Define the thing, never have to make the thing, and get some press for defining the thing.

Coming up: my press release on the worlds finest $9,000 cup of coffee.

First Lightning Bug

Summer's coming fast. Lightning bugs are out for the first time tonight.

Smarty Jones Crushes All

Smarty Jones wins the second leg of the Triple Crown by crushing the rest of the field. Wins by 11 1/2 lengths, which is a Preakness record. Some are calling this a modern Seabiscuit story, but I think its a grandson of Secretariat story (whom ESPN listed as an "Athelete of the Century").

Flyers Win Game 4

Flyers Win Game 4. Leigh and Criag must be happy!

Blog Software Alternatives?

With Movable Type looking to tighten up it's licensing into more of a commercial model, I'm looking for alternative solutions for blog editing. Blogger, of course, is great for the public stuff. But, some of the blogging is corporate in nature and needs to be on some kind of internal server, or needs heavy customization as part of some other web site.

Here's the list I'm starting:

Bblog, PHP based blogging system.
Blogger, Google's hosted blog service, no software available. You can post through FTP, however.
Blosxom, similar to MT, Perl, etc.
Drupal, more full blown content management, PHP and MySQL
ModBlog, a hosted service, no software available.
Simplog, an source forge project.
Textpattern, a PHP/MySQL based CMS system -- seems like Wiki
Thingamablog - desktop application that generates all the HTML

Many comments on Slashdot recommend just writing your own, since the data structure are fairly simple. Others recommend using more of a full blown CMS framework (some listed above).

Still More on Robots

CNN Article: CNN.com - Robots may protect drinking water from terror attacks - May 14, 2004. Unfortunately, seems more like "remote sensors" than actual robots as they only move vertically. But, maybe they'll put wheels on them at some point so they can climb out of the water and go to another lake.

Recent Indian Election Done Electronically

Use of electronic voting machines in Montgomery County seems to be a bit of a controversy, at least in some circles. The production of the machines is done by a single manufacturer, and there are some organizations looking to fight the use of them based on reported irregularities. By comparison, India’s recent national election seems to have gone off without a hitch, using machines developed in a somewhat open model. A fellow Blogger has written up a detailed comparison of methods. Slashdot has an active conversation mostly in praise of the Indian model, with some comments pointing to a relationship with Diebold management and the current administration. Details on the machine (which runs on batteries) here.

Snakehead's Latest Lair

Snakehead's Latest Lair: The Potomac (washingtonpost.com). Unusual migration? Terrorist plot? Economic protest? It boggles the mind as to why these fish are all of a sudden showing up. And who would keep a fish like this in an aquarium. These things are ugly!

They're voracious, can walk on water. A true horror! Thank goodness they're tasty!

No bounty yet, but the state DNR is asking for ethnic cleansing.

Hot Hot Hot

Nothing like that hot humid weather that starts around May in the Washington area. Especially when your air conditioning stops working.

Grrrrrrr

Testing New Email Posts

Well, if this is visible it means that the new feature to remotely enter blog entries through Email works!  Just testing…

Company Sponsors CIO Forum

My employer is sponsoring a forum for healthcare CIO's in the Washington DC area.

Roses in Bloom

The roses have opened up, and they look fantastic (I'll figure out how to post a picture someday). The plants are much thicker -- healthier looking, and lots of blooms. We're hoping that the bloom all summer this time. Plants are two years old now, so maybe that will have an impact.

Wired News: Apple Wants to Open Song Vaults

Wired News: Apple Wants to Open Song Vaults

Hmmmm. Maybe it is time to buy an iPod? Memo to Steve Jobs - lots of Miles Davis missing from the catalog (Amazon.com lists more than 400 albums)!

Changes at Blogger

"Blogging" seems to be one of the hotter topics for web content building (although it must be on its way out if I'm doing it, in an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" kind of way). There are a number of tools for building and maintaining blog content (see article below), and those that have been around are all upgrading.

There are some changes here from this. I've applied a new template to the blog, and I'm trying to add links to other news services from Bloglines which you can see on the right with the format messed up. We'll figure it out. There may be other changes as I look through the features and decide where the home for all these things goes.

For the record, I'm happy with Blogger...

The Lyle Blog Family

I'm maintaining several blogs, as some of the content is not for public consumption, or proprietary to my employer. If you think there is something you'd like to see besides this one, let me know if you don't have access to it.

There are a number of blogs right now. I'm using Blogger for this one and the travel one, the others are Modblog and Twiki based. I'm also experimenting with writing my own software for the really private stuff. And, w.bloggar is a useful tool for quickly posting, and Bloglines is a nice RSS reader for working on multiple machines.

• Public - This one. Open to the public.


• Technical - Contains details of technical projects not work related. Account required on Modblog to get in.


• Travel - Details on my travel adventures. Mostly about airplanes.


• Work - Behind a firewall, for employees only.

New Jeff Beck CD

Great birthday gift from my sister and brother-in-law! Jeff Beck's "official bootleg CD". This was a life recording at BB King's club in NYC, recorded a few days after the concert we saw at Wolf Trap. The set list they performed in concert, not counting the "bonus" songs he played with BB (I'd buy another CD just to get those 2 songs, but I fortunately have their Tonight Show appearance on video tape). Only listened to a few cuts so far, but its a blast to listen to. I think they just stuck a mike in front of his guitar amp! A must for any Beck fan, or electric guitar lover.

Frogs Back In Force

The tree frogs are doing their romantic singing in the neighborhood. The noise is amazing. I think they can give the cicadas a run for the money.

SD Cards Ever Cheaper

Buy.Com currently has Kingston 256 MB SD cards for $40.99 after $15 rebate. Probably would hold a few hours of music in my Palm!

GMAIL Account Set Up

Google is launching a new webmail service called GMAIL. It's gotten some heat because of targeted advertizing that will appear in the mail interface, but it's gotten some praise for coming with a Gigabyte of available storage for accounts. eWeek sees potential for this for corporate use, because of the indexing of messages and opportunities for RSS syndication. Extreme tech loves it and they're talking about it on Slashdot today. Right now, you can try the Email if you are using Blogger and Blogspot (at least in the second go-round -- I was prompted to set up an Email account recently and am giving it a try).

Wired News: Stealing Back the Airwaves

I was drawn to the article Wired News: Stealing Back the Airwaves after reading the blurb, and thinking this was a summer camp to teach people how to get ham radio licenses. It is actually about creating pirate microradio stations operating in the commercial FM band (the FCC actually allows Low Power FM licenses for community organizations). The tone is more about rebelling against the collaboration between the FCC and large media companies, but it reminds me of how cool it would be to run your own radio station. "Welcome to WWMD, all Miles Davis, all the time..."

More Robots: Emergency Medical Hologram on its Way

News on a kiosk that takes vitals in the doctor's office. Technology Speeds Medical Exams | theledger.com