It’s been a looong time, I know. So here is a short list of very random thoughts.

1. Is it weird if someone on Flickr classifies you as family even though you’re not (and this person is also not a close friend)? I’m thinking, perhaps the person clicked on the wrong button.

2. Has anyone else lost their Quick Contacts section in GMail? I don’t have that option anymore, using Firefox of IE. * sniff *

3. Anyone use Virb? Is it the next big thing?

• Female presidents of top ‘Ivy League’ US universities to discuss gender and education
  (IHT)
  (tags: article women academia)
• Postful
  email gets sent as letter in postal mail ($1 for first page of a letter, 25c thereafter)
  (tags: tools mail)

• How to Conduct a Job Interview
  (tags: howto jobs interviews)
• 10 Mistakes Managers Make During Job Interviews
  (tags: howto jobs interviews)

• Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers (WaPo)
  (tags: blogging women violence technology article wapo)
• Cygwin Information and Installation
  a Linux-like environment for Windows
  (tags: linux windows software)
• Eye diseases changed great painters’ vision of their work later in their lives
  (tags: art article)
• DoMyStuff
  finding help with various tasks
  (tags: outsourcing jobs)

• Professor of Hate?
  About “Kevin MacDonald, a tenured full professor of psychology who has devoted much of his work to studying Jews and what he considers the “evolutionary” way Jewish people band together, in part to undercut white society in the United States”
  (tags: article academia hate)
• Warning: FARK.com now grabbing copyrights
  (tags: copyright)
• Mii Editor: Create and Edit Mii Characters for your Nintendo Wiiâ„¢
  .. or for any other buddy icon
  (tags: fun design graphics images tools)
• Ten Steps to Cell Phone Security
  important advice for what to do if your cell phone gets stolen
  (tags: advice howto reference phones)

• Does Watching Television Trigger Autism?
  NBER paper
  (tags: research health children)
• ReadMe: software for automated text analysis
  requires R 🙁
  (tags: software research)

• Great ping pong point
  (tags: sports fun)
• Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak (Reuters)
  (tags: web20 users stats article)

• Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere (Discover Magazine)
  “Charting the network of jocks, gadget hounds, political junkies, and porn aficionados”
  (tags: blogging blogosphere maps figures visualization research networks)
• The ‘undisputed leader’ among students of children
  “Paula Fass, who helped pioneer the study of the history of childhood, will be installed in June as president of the Society for the History of Children and Youth.”
  (tags: history people article)
• Students attend school’s first integrated prom (CNN)
  “The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It’s nothing racial at all.” – Ouch!
  (tags: article race students)
• Google rises at Yahoo’s expense (CNet News)
  “Yahoo’s first-quarter revenue was $1.67 billion, less than half Google’s $3.66 billion.”
  (tags: article google yahoo search-engines)
• Origami Geometric Constructions: Five Intersecting Tetrahedra
  very impressive
  (tags: origami howto)
• Origami Star
  nice
  (tags: origami photos)
• Spidey car 🙂
  an interesting bit from Google Maps
  (tags: funny googlemaps)
• Cardstacker Gallery
  some serious card creations
  (tags: fun interesting cards photos)
• The Evolution of Homer Simpson
  first the regular Simpson intro and then a cute evolution of Homer Simpson
  (tags: funny video cartoon)
• Google Search Engine Ranking Factors
  (tags: reference google search-engines)
• Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization
  (tags: howto search-engines reference)
• The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator
  (tags: funny IT humor)
• Ragdoll Avalanche Flash Game
  a bit too graphic at the end, but otherwise cute
  (tags: games)
• 36 Hours in Dublin (NYTimes)
  bookmarked in preparation for my trip to Dublin June 2007
  (tags: tourism travel guide nytimes)

• Man kept off flight due to book he was carrying
  story from October, 2001
  (tags: article security rights)
• 4096 Color Wheel
  (tags: colors code design reference web-design)
• Magic 8-Ball dissected
  (tags: funny toys)
• MixerCast
  (tags: tools video photos edit slides multimedia)
• Make-a-Flake
  a snowflake maker by Barkley Interactive, very cute and fun
  (tags: fun decoration snow flash design)
• CSS Layouts
  (tags: css web-design)

• Savenetradio.org
  cultural diversity at risk if these changes go through
  (tags: activism music internet copyright legal politics)

• A Chain of Grief With Links On Facebook
  (tags: article facebook wapo)
• Capture Pictures from DVD Movie Scenes in Windows Media Player
  (tags: howto video edit images wmp)
• In Wake of Tragedy, Speculators Snatch Up Profitable Web Names
  “Just hours after a student at Virginia Tech went on a killing spree that claimed 33 lives Monday, speculators began snatching up domain names related to the shooting.”
  (tags: domains ebay)
• Breast Cancer Drop Tied To Less Hormone Use
  (tags: article health women wapo)

• Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks
  Pew Internet and American Life report
  (tags: research stats teens report internet users)

• Save the Internet : Fighting for Internet Freedom
  (tags: activism internet politics telecom)
• National Study of the Effectiveness of Educational Technology Interventions
  (tags: education technology ToRead research report)
• Fatal Shootings at Colleges and Schools (Time)
  (tags: reference violence)
• “Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual” by Roy Zimmerman
  (tags: video funny)
• Bush Screws The Country
  (tags: video politics funny)
• PoP! Goes My Heart – from Music & Lyrics
  super parody of 80s videos
  (tags: funny music)
• Dial A Human
  direct numbers to operators at businesses
  (tags: reference phones)

• Opening the Door to the American Dream: Increasing Higher Education Access and Success for Immigrants
  (tags: report research immigrants)

• Students give prizes for worst college rejection letters
  good topic
  (tags: article college)
• Harvard Economics Recruiting Video
  very funny parody
  (tags: video economics funny)

• UNC institutes policy to try to cut students’ textbook costs
  (tags: article education books)
• First-Run Smoking Presentations in U.S. Movies 1999-2006
  historic heights in smoking on US movie screens [thanks]
  (tags: movies health research)
• A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs
  response to the Kathy Sierra incident
  (tags: article blogs)
• Laptops vs. Learning
  WaPo op-ed arguing against laptops in the classroom; yeah, I don’t like them in seminar situations and discourage their use (although I haven’t banned them in the past)
  (tags: teaching computers article)
• 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid
  absolutely!
  (tags: grammar lists top10 tips language)

• Top 30 most popular newspaper sites
  Nielsen/NetRatings data
  (tags: stats news lists traffic)
• Sociology degrees earned by women, 1966-2001
  (tags: sociology women academia)
• Press button
  funny graffiti
  (tags: funny photos)
• Flickr Cash – Multi Parameter Flickr Search
  register now for free access “for life”
  (tags: flickr search-engines photos)
• Thrift Shopper
  US thrift store directory
  (tags: shopping directory store)
• Flickr Color Selectr
  find photos on Flickr by color
  (tags: flickr photos search-engines colors)
• When She Graduates as He
  transgender students at women’s colleges
  (tags: education college smithcollege)

Few people with an interest in space travel have the resources to make that dream a reality. In a few minutes, Charles Simonyi will be one of those people. He’s among the few space tourists who’ve paid the $20-$25 million for the experience. He has been chronicling his adventures at charlesinspace.com, an interesting and informative Web site where users can get answers about the various aspects of his preparation and travel. (You can watch the launch live here or click on the link above to choose your preferred player.)

I had the opportunity to meet Charles Simonyi last October when I was in the Seattle area giving a talk at Microsoft Research. I consider my experience a classic case of cultural capital at work. Both of us having grown up in Budapest – and it turns out just a few blocks from each other, although a few decades apart – likely was not enough of a reason for him to bother responding to my email. Rather, I suspect it was our shared interest in the Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely that prompted him to invite me for a tour of his house. It was super fun, Charles Simonyi has some wonderful works by Vasarely and others, and I very much enjoyed the opportunity to see his collection.

We also took a brief tour of his library in which he has some interesting original documents related to space travel. His passion for the topic is obvious and contagious. I look forward to the updates on his site about this amazing adventure.

In the above picture, I stand next to Charles Simonyi (he’s holding my father’s book The Martians of Science) with a Vasarely sculpture behind us. Photo credit goes to Marc Smith who kindly invited and hosted me on this visit to MSR.

• Georgetown Law School stops funding summer internships that involve abortion rights advocacy
  .. while they continue to fund other internships that are not in line with Catholic beliefs
  (tags: article rights women abortion education legal)
• Passover Tip
  Passover Tip
  (tags: video of how to split a matzah exactly in half; amusing passover holidays food)
• Highlights from the 2007 Quality of Living Survey
  Two of my favorite cities, Zurich and Geneva top the list
  (tags: travel stats)

I’ve been doing lots of fun things recently much of which I’ve documented, of course.:)

So here are some links to photo sets on Flickr. I also link to the slideshow version. I think those work best if you tweak the timing to no more than 2 seconds per image, just slide the bar in the upper right corner of the tool.

• I visited New York and New Jersey two weeks ago (had fun going to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and enjoyed some wonderful cooking such as chocolate soufflé, not by me, I’m afraid). [slideshow]
• I got to see and learn about Northern California native wildflowers at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve last Saturday. [slideshow]
• I went to San Francisco last Sunday, admired the great trees in front of City Hall, saw some great Asian art at the Asian Art Museum plus also went to catch a glimpse of the city from Twin Peaks. Perhaps not even realizing it was April Fool’s Day, we had some fun. [slideshow]