Today Nancy Scola introduced me to a delightfully quirky character named Carl Malamud in her June 13, 2010 article entitled “Washinton’s IT Guy” in The American Prospect. So impressed was I by her description that I visited Mr. Malamud’s website Public.Resource.Org where I found a link to this video. In this amusing and informative presentation, Mr. Malamud describes his 10 rules for radicals and relates the story of his mission to make “Government Information More Accessible.”

The Public.Resource.Org YouTube channel.

Oh, by the way, in case you are wondering about the title of this post, it comes from Ms. Scola’s article. Here’s the quote:

Malamud, who has made a career of exploring and developing the transformative technology of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries, was eager to convert the job of public printer, which traces its roots to Benjamin Franklin, into an Internet-age publisher. He started a campaign for an appointment under the slogan “Yes We Scan.”

This presentation at TED is well worth the twenty minutes or so it takes to watch it.

It is refreshing to see an approach to staying healthy that is based on adding something to your diet rather than taking something away from it. Many thanks to my friend Tim Miller for pointing me to this resource.

Here are some other links (one, two) to the American Cancer Society’s discussion of this type of therapy.

Reading things online used to be a real problem. It isn’t any more thanks to this tool from Arc90 Labs.

Readability – Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

I’ve been using this tool for a number of months now and find it incredibly useful.

While the video describes how to add this tool to Firefox, Safari and Chrome, it is quite possible to add it to Internet Explorer too by just making it a Favorite and storing it in your “Favorites Bar.” It is my experience that you may have to remove some of the pre-installed Favorites that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, have determined to put there so that the Readability link will appear when you are reading a page. Also, you must assure that the Favorites Bar is visible at the top of your browser for this tool to be of any use to you.

Fortunately, Arc90 has created a video to illustrate how to install this bookmarklet into Internet Explorer too.

Readability – Installation Video for Internet Explorer from Arc90 on Vimeo.

That’s all there is to it. Enjoy.

This Frontline video from 2006 shows the impact of Methamphetamine use in this country.

This additional site was designed to aid in helping family members and loved ones of Meth Addicts understand the effects of Meth and How to Avoid becoming part of the problem. Please take a moment and READ and THINK.

Mike has come a long way since I gave him his first digital camera soon after Connor was born on May 1, 2005.

Here is an example of some of his experiments with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. I find them both artistic and pleasing, worthy to me of being made into a coffee table book with absolutely no fatherly bias having entered into this judgment whatsoever!

I believe that for best effect you should watch the video in full screen mode by clicking the icon of the arrows pointing to the four corners of the screen that appears in the lower right corner of the player once you click the PLAY arrow to start the slideshow. (Escape leaves that mode.)

Mike has his own website called Shape Shifter Images and is available for portrait and other photographic work.

The visitors have gone. Recycling to do. Stockings no longer hung. Crumpled wrapping paper in plastic bags everywhere. Managed to enjoy ourselves amidst and despite the stresses of the season wrapped as they were in a whirlwind schedule nobody could control. Ate, drank, sang, laughed, talked together. Exchanged gifts as seen on TV. Played with toys. Wasted almost no time on sleep. Wallowed in the pleasures of having visitors whom I love in my home.

Not unexpectedly, acquired three almost-certain-new clients for my tech support help who were no doubt sent by Life to help me learn even more patience.

Thanks All for giving me the gift of your visit to my home.

Just sharing Gina Trapani’s excellent video illustrating Google Wave. Thanks, Gina.

I’m enjoying experimenting with Google Wave but at this stage having trouble finding playmates for this new toy.

If you still haven’t decided what to pack in your sleigh for me this Christmas, here’s a little project I’m sure I would enjoy completing.

I could retire Deep Thought to duties associated with my HDTV and hand over the chore of controlling the stars to the new Supreme Combo.

Something about the simplicity of this video really appeals to me.

It does a good job of simulating how daughters and sons learn to cook from watching their fathers and mothers. Learning to cook is more about trying things than it is about following a recipe. As I typed the first sentence of this paragraph, I was aware that not just daughters, but also sons, learn not just from their mothers, but also from their fathers, how to cook. It serves to remind me that as time goes on, roles and families evolve.

For instance, my son Mike who lived with me from his 14th birthday forward learned to cook by participating with me in preparing our meals. Today he is the primary chef in his home and he enjoys the role. A funny aside from Morgan the other day was the one in which she asked, “Mom what did we eat before Mike was here?”

He has said he’d like to run a restaurant but I’ve always heard that is a terribly demanding occupation. Maybe Mike is channeling my uncle Pat Ross who ran Pat’s Place there on Main Street in Stone Mountain from my earliest youth until he passed away. Uncle Pat was almost always at the restaurant. I never knew of him going to a baseball game, or to a dance, or to church or going hunting or fishing with my dad; in other words, I don’t think Uncle Pat had a hobby outside of his restaurant. I suppose that is why it had better be a labor of love if one chooses to open a restaurant.

Thanks to my following Leo LaPorte on Twitter, I discovered this excellent resource today. And because it’s the season of giving and I’m feeling generous, I want to share it with you.

StartHere from ASMP dpBestflow on Vimeo.

Another digital photography resource that I’ve used for a long time is Digital Photography Review. The various topic specific forums (fora?) on that site are a wonderful way to delve deeply into a subject of interest and profit from the experiences of others. Sites like these two and a multitude of others illustrate how the computer can be a patient educator, in addition to its more common use (for many) as a source of entertainment. As I think Yogi Berra is reported to have said, “You can observe a lot by watching.”