Here's the new pup

Jevin named him Spike. I would have picked a different name - but that's ok. Kathy at "All Hearts" calls his breed NSD (Northern Street Dog). Whatever - he's cute. My guess is maybe a little german shepherd with some husky and collie? House training proceeds.

Hamster power

Who hasn't joked about the hamster (or squirrel) on the wheel powering our computer (or car, or something). In this MSNBC article they built tiny little jackets containing nano-wires that generate electricity every time the hamster moves. But don't expect to be powering anything realistic with a hamster. Top power was about the equivalent of 1/20 of an AA battery (so it would take 80 hamsters to power my camera). Scientists hope to come up with a way to mass produce nano-wires to allow them to build a human sized jacket that could run an iPod within 3 years.

(picture from MSNBC article linked above)

Super fast hard drive(s)

SSD drives have no spinning parts and so they are not limited by how fast a platter is spinning. Instead it is the bus speed (how fast you can push information through the wires) that limits throughput. RAID is a technology that combines multiple disks (the I stands for inexpensive, but truly that depends) to act like one disk. Depending on the type of RAID this can also improve performance because information can be read from or written to multiple drives simultaneously (in parallel).

So what if you took the fastest drives possible (SSD) and linked them using RAID in the fastest way possible?

Transfer speed: 2GB/sec. Consider a DVD R contains only a little more than twice that, so about 2.5 sec to read the equivalent of a DVD R.

Load all the Office apps in 0.5 seconds! That's a lot faster than I can load one of them.

Open everything in the start menu - 53 apps: 18 seconds.

Video here.

Found through Geekologie.

Of Morse code and smart phones

Last year I took part in a round-table at a conference for post-secondary educators. The three round-table speakers were discussing their experiences with college programs that required students to have a laptop. Participation from the audience was highly encouraged and solicited. The round-table participants themselves all supported laptops in the classroom, but to different extents and in different ways. I was surprised at the number of audience members that were either against laptops, or against laptops except for specific purposes/lessons. For me a laptop is an expensive pen and paper + SO MUCH MORE. Like pen and paper you can use a laptop in a very specific manner (create a presentation for example) but also in very generic ways that can't be defined ahead of time. Add wireless connections and now you have the entire school library at your fingertips and far larger resources from outside your school.

Common comments were often along the line of "... but do they have to have it on all the time ..." and "... but it is such a distraction!" I expanded the scope to include other devices (smartphones, etc.) and you should have seen the resistance. A much more recent conversation helped me understand where some of these people are coming from, when I heard the comment "... but he isn't serious ..." about a blog posting looking for advice from netizens. Some people don't realize that the Internet and the uses put to it are how the current generations live. It is comparable to electricity to the previous couple of generations. Just as my parents (likely) couldn't have imagined life without electricity, many from the current generation consider instant communication and (re)search capabilities as givens. Asking them to disconnect during class probably feels like asking someone 20 years ago (when I was in school) to put away their pen and pencil, and get out their slate and chalk. A recent study puts this in perspective, but is probably not understood by those older generations. When asked, a huge majority of German 20-somethings said they would rather give up their car or their spouse than their connection to the web. 97% couldn't imagine giving up their mobile phone.

I challenge educators to find ways that their classrooms can adopt these sort of tools. This will be hard and uncomfortable for many educators as it means encouraging the students to interact outside of the classroom - and may make the educator feel ignored. However, without finding a way to include these devices in the classroom I say the students will use them anyway, but for other purposes - ones not necessarily congruent with the lesson.

And all of us from the previous generations need to start understanding and communicating with the current (young adult) and next generations in a manner they understand. Otherwise it feels to them the same way it might feel to us if someone tried to communicate with us using morse code.

Short List For Possible Pet

A short list of dogs/puppies I am currently considering. We (my son and I) may choose one on Friday. Quick note - I'm not interested in "buying" a dog, but I'm willing to pay an adoption fee. There are so many pets that need a home that I will only consider Pet Rescues, Humane Societies, etc. The information with each picture is directly from the organization itself.

Go ahead make your views known. In the end we'll go with our hearts anyway.

Jim

North Bay Humane Society

Name	Sophie
Identification #	4461
Breed	Lab Mix
Sex	Female
Age	12 Weeks
Arrival	February 26, 2009

Name	Missy
Identification #	4425
Breed	Shep Mix
Sex	Female/Spayed
Age	1 Year
Arrival	January 19, 2009

All Hearts Pet Rescue (in Powassan)

This puppy is energetic and lovable. She is aproximatly 10 weeks of age.

they are poodle and Collie/Bernese Mountain dog mix. Will be VERY LARGE

see above for information on this puppy....