Author Archives: Robert Reddick
Base Jumping 2.0 (video)
From the new kings of Ski Videos – Matchbook Films
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1778399&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
You thinking wifi photo frame?
You might be thinking again if you expect elegance out of Microsoft’s FrameIt.live.com service.
Gifts (somewhat) abound this season including a setup I built for friends using two wifi photo frames. The build I assembled included using FrameIt for the final RSS push to the photo frames. Here’s what I discovered in the process.
- Finding frames in stock anywhere was job one – nice to see a these products taking off.
- My setup used Smartparts SPX8WF frames, which have a nice UI – fairly stable, though they tend to lockup in RSS mode – daily – but I suspect that will ease. SmartParts frames have email (nice), but cannot “blend” media (local, email, and RSS) into a common presentation.
- The real challenge with my build seemed to be with Microsoft’s FrameIt, which re-formats inbound RSS feeds – in this case, a Picasa RSS feed, and an Astronomy Picture of the Day stream.
- The challenge with FrameIt seems to be the TTL, or Time To Live settings on MS’s side. As an example, using Microsoft’s own weather feed shows time delays from hours to “overnight”. My suspicion is that MS built the thing as beta, and hasn’t touched it since (May 08′). In the case of Picasa, the Google’s feed updates instantly, but Microsoft’s takes a dozen hours.
I’m sure lots of folks will be pounding the tech support lines this season with similar concerns. Hopfeully MS will get the message and finish what they started with FrameIt. When it works (ignoring delays), it works very well.
Personally I contacted MS, and two “partners” on the project to help drive the train. Besides the glitches, I tried to point out that as partners, all these “brands” are now linked – that failure to fix means they are a sinking ship together – hopefully that will juice the process.
Peace on earth Ya’ll.
Welcome to Lazy-School and the New Old South
December 9th, 2008. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Schools voted to relax graduation requirements last night from 28 to 24 credits. Three hours later, San Francisco CA’s school board voted to require ALL its’ high schoolers to pass 15 college prep, or AG courses.
In Charlotte only Larry Gauvreau and Kaye McGarry opposed with Gauvreau stating (recalling from the video tape), “How sad is it that I have to raise my hand at a school board meeting to oppose lowering education standards”.
Well-said Mr. Gauvreau. How on earth can anyone involved in US education support lowering standards.
I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers where he reflects, “Success is a product of opportunity”. In one section he examines what happens to elementary kids reading scores during summer holiday. I’ll paraphrase his findings…
From May to September, poor kids learn nothing, less than 1% improvement; while wealthy kids scores leap by over 50%. Gladwell attributes that difference to the opportunities, and parental push wealthy kids have during the summer.
The “opportunity” for our kids is orchestrated in part by our school boards through policy and funding decisions. On December 9th, 2008 two districts went head to head. Here in Char-Meck, ignorance prevailed.
On a related note, here is Bill Gates speech from last month where, in part, he and Melinda note that not everything they’ve tried is working. Nice to see a true – learning organization.
Yes, we have to try new things, but it doesn’t take a middle-schooler to know that lowering standards is not one of them.
Arianna Huffington gets passionate
Blogging the meltdown.
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More Change.gov
The untold story of last week and the Sunday talk shows was the change.gov website. Last Thursday the new administration deployed the progressive .gov site post-election. The site includes a number of feedback forms including:
A Google News count shows around 680 stories containing change.gov versus over 90,000 for the phrase “president-elect”.
robertreddick.com 
