On the 8 Spot

The point of this story, I think, is that you should consider spending less time talking, and more time prototyping, especially if you’re not very good at talking or powerpoint. Your code can be a very persuasive argument.

Paul Buchheit: Communicating with code.

Wow excellent news!

A $3 Billion Bonanza for NSF?

Officials at the National Science Foundation are still pinching themselves over the agency’s high profile in the $825 billion package of proposed tax cuts and new spending that Democrats introduced in the House of Representatives yesterday. The basic research agency is slated to get a $3 billion temporary bump up–half its current $6 billion budget–to spend in the next 20 months on research, training, instrumentation, and infrastructure projects. If the money materializes, the challenge for NSF officials will be to avoid a boom-and-bust cycle like the one being endured by its much larger sister agency, the National Institutes of Health.

A $3 Billion Bonanza for NSF? – ScienceInsider.

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A Little Proof reading/Fact Checking Please. Kate Winslet was nominated for “The Reader”. I’ve had long talks with chuck about this, but If we can’t trust the press with simple things like these, How can we trust them with the bigger issues and the hard stuff that they have to get right? Oh Why Cant We Have A Better Press Corp.

Oscars best actress nominees

Agence France-Presse

First Posted 22:01:00 01/22/2009

Filed Under: Entertainment general, Cinema, Awards and Prizes

BEVERLY HILLS—Best actress nominees for the 81st Academy Awards announced Thursday:

• Kate Winslet “Revolutionary Road”

• Meryl Streep “Doubt”

• Anne Hathaway “Rachel Getting Married”

• Angelina Jolie “Changeling”

• Melissa Leo “Frozen River”

Oscars best actress nominees – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

A National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation

Moments ago, in his first official act since taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation, calling on Americans to serve one another and our common purpose on this National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation. Check it out below, or read it on the WhiteHouse.gov proclamations page.

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

- – - – - – -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright — it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

The White House – Blog Post – A National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation.

• During one of his messages, Peter Denning showed the familiar quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over again, expecting different results,” as a motivation to change. But I think there is more to it than that. I was reminded of a recent Frazz comic, in which the precocious Caulfield pointed out that the world is always changing, so it is also insanity to do the same thing over again, expecting the same results. The world is changing around computing and computing education. There is no particular reason to think that doing the same old things better will get us anywhere useful.

Knowing and Doing: January 2009 Archives.