babbling blue

The Sears Tower is officially renamed to Willis Tower today. Fuck that, man. It has always been and always will be the Sears Tower.

101 Muppets of Sesame Street | National Post.

This brings me back to my childhood. Which wasn’t that long ago…

I don’t know how reputable this source is, so take it with a grain of salt, but:

Over the last few days, I have received communication from people inside Google regarding layoffs, deep staff cuts and harsh working conditions.
…
Apparently, Google is laying off a large number of sub-contracted employees and full-time employees that manage those contractors. The layoffs are taking place in Seattle, WA and Kirkland, WA. Further, entire offices are being closed in Michigan and Texas with all employees getting laid off.

If this is true, it’s interesting. From here.

More funny from Savage Chickens.

It’s good because it appeals to multiple kinds of geeks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fractured her right elbow Wednesday during a fall, State Department officials said.

Clinton fell Wednesday afternoon on her way to the White House and was taken to George Washington University Hospital. She was treated and released, and will have surgery to repair her elbow in coming weeks.

From CNN.

Study: PowerPoint animations are comprehension killers – Ars Technica.

So, for example, on a slide dedicated to discussing four aspects of a given topic, the relevant text and images can be made to appear gradually, so that each aspect is discussed thoroughly before the next even appears. The alternative, dumping all the information to the screen at once, and then working through it verbally, would seem to have the potential to distract and overwhelm the audience. So, this seems to be a situation where animation should clearly help.

Not so, as it turns out. At least in this study. Students watched identical lectures. The only difference was one had PowerPoint animations and the other didn’t. Both sets increased their scores from the baseline (around 40%) but the non-animated group went up to 82% while the animated group only went up to 71%.

Of course this is just one study, so take it with a grain of salt. But it’s something to keep in mind next time you’re putting a presentation together and have the itch to make it fancy. I know I’ve given in to that temptation myself in the past.

Dueling technology bloggers! I don’t know if one of these was written in response to the other, or if this was coincidental, but it’s kind of amusing either way.

David Coursey from PCWorld.com weighs in with “Five Reasons the Palm Pre Won’t Prevail” (see what he did there? clever, eh?). Unfortunately he doesn’t really have simple one-sentence summaries for each of the 5, so I’ll let you go to the site and read them yourself.

Then we have Jason Hiner over at ZDNet.com giving us “Palm Pre: Five reasons to expect a homerun“. He was considerate enough to give us short versions for each of his points, so I’ll include them here.

5. Palm knows how to build an ecosystem
4. The carriers want an iPhone competitor
3. The webOS will be a strong development platform
2. Touchscreen + Qwerty
1. It is the first true multi-tasking smartphone

Who’s right, who’s wrong? Who can say? Not I. The naysayer has a bit of an odor of iPhanboy about him. An “If it ain’t iPhone, it ain’t worth it” sort of mentality. One commenter had an excellent response, but to keep this brief I’ll quote it in a separate post. Either way, the fact that the Palm Pre is stirring some debate is a good thing for Palm and Sprint, because it means people are talking about it.

Dear California Supreme Court, California Constitution and Prop 8 supporters:

Fuck You.

“We’ve done everything here. We’re leading the way with our inspector general, office of compliance, all the things we’ve done,” Daley said. “We’re more transparent than any other government. Look at it.”

“We’re doing a tremendous job here, we lead by example,” he said.

In a story last week, the Tribune documented how the Daley administration routinely cites exemptions in the state’s public records law to avoid releasing information and frequently drags out for weeks or even months efforts to get records.

Federal prosecutors convicted several top Daley aides for running an illegal hiring scheme, and a federal monitor has complained the city still is not complying with court requirements to keep politics out of hiring.

(Chicago Tribune blog)

Does he really believe the nonsense he spews, or is he just that deluded? I can’t tell.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. All hail King Richard II, King of Chicago!

I found these boxes in the back of a local Mexican restaurant. I can only assume they are boxes of swine flu.

(Click for full size)