Ok.. Ok.. I tell you to come look here and then I don’t get it updated… Well, Let me update Sunday through Friday…

Sunday (day 4) updated

Started out with a game of monopoly:

Sunday we went to the Houston Rodeo and Livestock show.  The rodeo/concert was sold out so we just went to the carnival and the exhibit hall.

I rode a mechanical bull:

Yagi-san got a cowboy hat:

got fresh lemonade

Christopher did "Mutton Bust’n"  That is where the child tries to hold on to a sheep while it runs across a pen, like a bull.  If they do it for 6 seconds then he gets a belt buckle.

All suited up, ready to hold on to the sheep.

 Not really a good picture.. but he is actually on the sheep.

 This is the picture that was taken 1/2 a second after the gate was open.  Notice the "divergence" between the location of the sheep and Christopher whose legs can be scene on the left side of the guy’s jacket.

This is what it should have looked like.  This is a picture of someone else that we don’t know doing it earlier in the day.

The children also rode a lot of rides.  We walked around a lot.  But the thing that everyone really liked was the little foot massagers.

We also went to the exhibit hall…

Today was a work day for me.  But we met at work with some people that Yagi-san knew of.  Then at night, we went to Movie Tavern to watch "College Road Trip".  The funny thing about the movie was that there were Japanese references in it.  The main character wanted to get into a program that spent a semester in Tokyo and during part of the movie the main characters are on a bus with karaoke singing Japanese people.

Played monopoly with my children and mother-in-law.

We all went to McDonalds for lunch.

Then we went to the livestock show and rodeo.  But the rodeo/concert was sold out, so we only rode carnival rides and looked at all the vendors.

So, how often have you wanted to make a short screen recording with audio?  or maybe take a snapshot of a page and mark it up to email to somebody?

Maybe you are experiencing a problem, and you are having trouble explaining it to support?  Perhaps you are support and you are having trouble explaining the solution?  Perhaps you are collaborating with people and you need a way to express your thoughts.  Well, enter Jing..  Check it out here:

www.jingproject.com/ 

There are some that think robots are going to be taking over our chores, working in our factories, etc.  While robots have made a lot of progress working on the assembly line, it looks like it may be a while before they do more than sweep our floor and cut our grass.  But I think there may be an intermediate development between now and the robot future.  Let’s run thorough some observerations:

1)   Computers are cheap, fast, and widely available

2)  High speed networks reach into most homes in the US and Europe and span into developing countries like India and China

3)  Having real time global conversations on the phone is an everyday occurrence.  And you can tell little difference between a call to India from the US and a call within the US.  The quality is very good.  Just look at the call centers that have been out sourced.

4) Streaming video around the world in real time is also a common occurrence..  Look at live news broadcasts.  Look at live, two way video conversations you can have over the Internet.

5) Our ability to create cheap, widely available machines that can move objects is developing quickly.  Look at the toy robots, remote control cars, etc.

6) It is very difficult for a computer to “recognize” objects and reliably move things around.  This makes it very difficult to create robots to fold your laundry, clean your dishes, pick up around the house, etc.

7) Humans, even the lowest skilled human, is very capable about recognizing objects, adapting, and learning.

8)  The amount of low skill, cheap labor looking for work that is within the reach of the Internet is increasing.

All of this adds up to tele-presence  is step between here and a robotic future.  I see a cheap, widely available tele-presence device being created within the next decade.  And I see a lot of manual labor being perform remotely.  You will have machines around your house to do your laundry, cook your food, pick up that will all be controlled by low skilled labor in Asia, Africa, and South America.

OLPC deployed to a school in India… worth looking at

wiki.laptop.org/go/Khairat_Chronicle

Class assignments that matter:

www.physorg.com/news113071167.html

Instead of giving people an assignment that is just going to be graded and thrown away, get students to do things that keep giving. Write wikipedia articles, document software, create a web application, moderate a news group, etc. The article linked above tells about one such experience with assigning wikipedia articles to written as an assignment.

Google OpenSocial is live:

mashable.com/2007/11/02/opensocial-now-live/
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/

code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/firstgadget.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/tutorial.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/bestprac.html

code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/readwrite.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/faq.html

20+ Tools To Sell Your Photos and Templates Online
mashable.com/2007/11/02/sell-your-photos/

9 Great tools for achieving your goals
mashable.com/2007/11/02/achieving-your-goals/

10 Effective Ways to Increase Your Energy Levels
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/11/10-effective-ways-to-increase-your.html
Actually, the Dumb Little Man , looks like a good self help site… I’ll have to check back on it…

Open Hardware
www.buglabs.net/
Modular, open hardware platform…worth looking into if you like to build electronic things…
Look like their products page:
www.buglabs.net/products

Free classes on starting a small business from the SBA
www.sba.gov/services/training/onlinecourses/index.html

Free Audio Books online
www.podiobooks.com/index.php

236 Open Courseware Collections, Podcasts, and Videos

www.dumblittleman.com/2007/09/236-open-courseware-collections.html

80 Sites to Help you Live Green
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/08/80-sites-to-help-you-live-green.html

Instant domain search (trying to find the new name for that site… use this!!!)
instantdomainsearch.com/

Disposable Phone Numbers
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/06/free-disposable-phone-numbers.html
numbr.com/

Disposable email addresses
www.dumblittleman.com/2006/06/disposable-email-addresses.html
www.pookmail.com/

Here is the toastmaster speech I gave today.

adventuresinindia.wav

mashable.com/2007/10/13/70-online-language-communities/

www.domystuff.com/

mashable.com/2007/10/23/social-networking-god/