- Probcast: University of Washington Probability Forecast – “This website provides uncertainty information along with a probabilistic weather forecast; move the mouse over a feature to learn more about its function. “
- Web Resources Depot: 11 Syntax Highlighters To Beautify Code Presentation – “There are various syntax highlighters which can format the codes & color them appropriately according to the languages used. Whether it is a HTML page or runs on PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP, there is a suitable syntax highlighter.“
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Recruiting for Hospitality Jobs in Second Life
According to a recent article, the Australia-based Manhattan Group is using an office in Second Life to recruit people for jobs in the hospitality industry. The jobs are located in Australia, Africa, the United States, and Asia.
I am working with a team of colleagues to plan a job fair in Second Life, so I took a look at Manhattan’s office to see what was happening. Here’s what I saw:
The entrance:
Posted office hours:
Corporate information:
Information about the in-world staffers from Manhattan Group, with real and Second Life names:
Lots of jobs posted:
A real time message board driven by an RSS feed:
Even more jobs:
I’ll have more to say about the job fair I’m working on before too long, so stay tuned.
Links for Sunday, May 24, 2009
- SlogBase: Second Life Intelligence – “Slogbase is a lightweight database attached to objects in Second Life™ that provides the same functionality as Apache Web server logs. It uses ordinary LSL code in Second Life to send sensor data to an external PHP/MySQL application.“
- Field Commander Wieers: Improving Putty settings on Windows – “This is important advice. First configure your environment before you start using it. This is especially true for Putty, since you always start of from the default, it is important to configure the default entry before you create entries from these defaults. It will save you a lot of time afterwards to get things straight.“
- Ideas For Dozens: Why the Arduino Matters – “Recently, our Altair arrived. It’s called the Arduino. This is 2009 so instead of being built by two engineers in Albuquerque, it was built by an open source international cabal of programmers and professors.“
- Freelance Folder: Why You Need to Monitor Your Online Reputation – “While it might seem vain to search for yourself online, it’s actually an important step in protecting your online reputation. If you do business online, then you not only be checking on but also working to protect and manage your online reputation.“
Links for Wednesday, May 20, 2009
- Evil Mad Science: Peggy 2 Light Emitting Pegboard Kit – “Like its predecessor, Peggy 2 provides a quick, easy, powerful and efficient way to drive a lot of LEDs– up to 625– in a big matrix covering almost a square foot of area.“
- jPolite: A Lightweight Portal Framework Based on jQuery – “The target of this framework is to provide a handy tool for easy content integration. Yet I believe it is powerful enough to serve as cornerstone for more advanced portals.“
- Venture Beat: Second Life Generates 15 Billion Minutes in Web Voice Calls – “When you think of phone companies, Linden Lab’s Second Life virtual world doesn’t come to mind. But the company is announcing today that its users have used its web-voice calling feature to talk to each other for a total of 15 billion minutes since it was introduced 18 months ago.“
Links for Saturday, May 16, 2009
- New York Times: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage – “I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.“
- Seattle Times: Sammamish Trails Tied to Burke-Gilman For a Total of 42 miles – “With the opening of a 1.5-mile connector trail through Marymoor Park on Thursday, a cyclist or hiker can now ride or walk all the way from Fremont to Issaquah entirely on trails.“
- Business Week: A Bad Time to Be A Professional – “What unites all of these groups is that they are all producers of “intangible investments.” That is, engineers, scientists, computer software engineers, artists, designers, and so forth all create long-lived intellectual property which has the potential to contribute to the economy. This includes new software programs, new products, new pieces of art and so forth. Writers produce written works of various degrees of usefulness, but in the aggregate are beneficial.“
- Seattle Times: Jerry Large: A recipe for Growing Good Men – “The parts of the brain that affect focus, forethought, impulse control, judgment, empathy and insight mature later in males.” – Via Prashant.
My Son Andy Is Heading to Sao Paolo…
My 19 year old son Andy has been learning Portuguese and has booked a mid-June flight to Sao Paolo, with plans to see that city and a few others as part of a two month trip. His goal is to see the country, practice and improve his language skills, and to have a safe and fun time.
His plans are uncomfortably vague at this point, and I need some help to find accommodations and local connections for him. We know that hostels are an option for him,and we are also exploring some other options through friends and friends-of-friends.
If you know of a situation that might be suitable for him, please send email (andyasb @ u.washington.edu) to Andy. He would be interested in doing some teaching or tutoring in full or partial exchange for room and board.
Andy is currently studying Math, Physics, and Astronomy at the University of Washington.
Andy is a very accomplished musician. He plays the piano, bass guitar, and several wind instruments and would really appreciate the opportunity to do some teaching.
Andy recorded the following video to show off his Portuguese skills:
Links for Thursday, May 14, 2009
- Caleb Booker: Calling All Evangelists – “In every company there’s one person willing to bring the big ideas forward. This is the visionary, the thought-leader that wants to bring the latest technology and business practices to their stakeholders. We call these people Corporate Evangelists.“
Classic Amazon Door Desk Modeled in Second Life
I’m gearing up to do some more work in Second Life and needed to regain my building skills. This evening I modeled the classic Amazon door desk and set it up with a laptop, a hamburger, a drink, and a picture of my wife. I think it looks quite realistic:
Links for Sunday, May 3, 2009
- Bad Astronomy Blog: Launch Dates – “Planck may very well have the resolution needed to see that. Do you understand the implications? We may be on the verge of determining if the origin of the Universe was a singular event, or if it was due to some other mechanism.“
- Gax Technologies Working Worlds: GAX Technologies launches the Working Worlds 4.0 – “Encouraged by the success of its two first virtual Career Fairs the Active Communication Agency GAX Technologies is organizing a third virtual recruitment event. On May 28, the exhibition Working Worlds opens its doors again on Second Life, this time with an international dimension. Some of the biggest employers in Europe will attend and receive candidates in their virtual offices.“
Links for Friday, May 1, 2009
- Tim O’Reilly: Reinventing the Book in the Age of the Web – “The web has changed the nature of how we read and learn. Most books still use the old model of a sustained narrative as their organizational principle. Here, we’ve used a web-like model of standalone pages, each of which can be read alone (or at most in a group of two or three), to impart key points, highlight interesting techniques or the best applications for a given task.“
- Nancy Duarte: The Outlier Finds His Element – “What a dramatic impact that fluke decision to toss in a composition played. The Department Chair saw exceptional talent in Anthony and took him on as his composition student for all 3 years of high school. He made A’s in AP classes, won an ASCAP award at the age of 16 and was honored at the Lincoln Center in NYC and his Bassoon Octet composition was just picked up by a publisher last week.“