Remeber all those “In Soviet Russia…” jokes? Well, the original author is known and there is a page about him and these jokes in the Encyclopedia. ;)
One less to figure out. Stay tuned for “1..3 Profit!!!” and “insensitive clod”. ;)
Year: 2004
Orienteering and map reading
Going through the web and reading pages related to my GPS device quest, I came across a couple of interesting and very related projects – orienteering and map reading.
Here are few links for serlf education.
- Reading Topographic Maps – A Free On-Line Book on How to Read Topographic Maps and Use a Compass.
- Topo Map Reading Guide – help on how to read topographic maps.
- Learn Orienteering – site that seems to be in some reorganizing stage, but still provides some useful info on how to handle the compass and find your way around if your device doesn’t work.
- Small FAQ at some orienteering club’s web site.
Now I hope you will not get lost. ;)
More thoughts on blogging
I’ve been reading lots of other people’s blogs recently. It made me think a lot about this whole subject. Here are the questions I am sleeping on currently:
- Which is better: post rarely but with big, thoughtful, interesting posts or often with a couple of words, a quote, or a link?
- Does the size of the post matter? Do people come to read something long and interesting or just to see some proof that you are alive?
- Which is better: a standalone blog, like mine for example, or a collective site like Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com?
- Should blog authors stick to one language and/or style or use what exresses the point best?
There are pros and cons to each side. Poll won’t help here, though, so I am not making one…
Bush jokes
There is plenty of anti-Bush humour around the web. This time I even happened to find some at our company intranet. There was this joke:
George W. Bush, the American President, meets with the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. He asks her, “Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give to me?”
“Well,” says the Queen, “the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people.”
Bush frowns. “But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?”
The Queen takes a sip of tea. “Oh, that’s easy. You just ask them to answer an intelligence riddle.” The Queen pushes a button on her intercom. “Please send Tony Blair in here, would you?”
Tony Blair walks into the room. “Yes, my Queen?”
The Queen smiles. “Answer me this, please, Tony. Your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is it?”
Without pausing for a moment, Tony Blair answers,
“That would be me.” “Yes! Very good,” says the Queen.Back at the White House, Bush asks to speak with vice president Dick Cheney. “Dick, answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It’s not your brother and it’s not your sister. Who is it?”
“I’m not sure,” says the vice president. “Let me get back to you on that one.”
Dick Cheney goes to his advisors and asks every one, but none can give him an answer. Finally, he ends up in the men’s room and recognizes Colin Powell’s shoes in the next stall. Dick shouts, “Colin! Can you answer this for me?
Your mother and father have a child and it’s not your brother or your sister. Who is it?” Colin Powell yells back, “That’s easy. It’s me!” Dick Cheney smiles. “Thanks!”
Cheney goes back to the Oval Office and to speak with Bush.
“Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It’s Colin Powell.” Bush gets up, stomps over to Dick Cheney , and angrily yells into his
face, “No, you idiot! It’s Tony Blair!”
There were another few. Shorter and less funny, but all is good on this topic, isn’t it? ;)
Digital Photography Composition 101
More and more people start to realize that with the recent progress of digital photography and increasing number of chip appliances like phone cameras, key ring cameras, really good point and shoot cameras, etc there should be some training available for all those people. Thousands if not millions of below average images are getting dumped into the web each day, and yours truly is taking part in all that. :)
So there is this story at Slashdot, which links to an article that has a number of links to other places – all fast and convenient for educating yourself about the basics of photography. Comments to this Slashdot submission are also useful (for links like this and this), so take a minute and flip through them.