Stephen's Untold Stories

I’ve enjoyed reading a few blogs from our soldiers in Iraq, but some of them are going to be shutting down or at least posting less often. I understand the reasons for this, but some of these folks are really good bloggers!

Frustrated by the media’s coverage of the war in Iraq, which they felt left out the good and instead focused on grim body counts and gory car bombings, two brothers from Texas decided to put out the message they thought wasn’t getting through in the form of a blog, TankerBrothers.com.

“Master Gunner” and his younger brother “Cav Tanker,” who prefer not to use their real names, are two soldiers from Texas serving in tank divisions in the U.S. Army and running one of the hundreds of military blogs, or milblogs, maintained by service men and women.

The blogs offer people back home a view of the war zone through the soldiers’ eyes. For Master Gunner, the milblog movement is a vital tool in keeping the public accurately informed.

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Okay, this may only be funny to those of you who are college football and/or South Park fans, but I am a fan of both.

80% of Americans live in metropolitan areas. This very cool map shows us where we live.

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If you are an educator in Georgia, then I’m sure you are familiar with the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS). If you aren’t, the GPS are our new curriculum standards that are in the process of being implemented in our state.

As Georgia educators are trained on the new standards, the place I work has been putting this very important training online. We started using Moodle as our online portal for the training this fall, and it has been a big success.

If you are a Georgia educator and you are interested in this training, then head over to our Moodle Server. Even if you aren’t, you can still take a look. The Social Studies 6-12 Original course is open for guest access.

Yes, it’s time to turn the clocks back an hour again. If you get really bored, you can read a lot about this concept. Personally, I’ll just enjoy the extra hour tonight.

I’ve been intrigued by FON for a while now. I have given serious thought to getting one of their routers, and it looks like they gave some away for free in San Francisco.

Spain-based telecom Fon is looking to beat Google and EarthLink to the punch and wire (or unwire) the city of San Francisco with Wi-Fi by giving away free routers.

The company staged a two-hour event in San Francisco’s Union Square and gave away free routers to anyone who showed up. The 802.11g routers allow users to share their network with anyone within reach.

Big deal, right? Anyone can do that just by not activating a password requirement on their router. The difference is a FON router has control mechanisms that gives guests on your router their own SSID. This way, any illicit activity that happens through your connection has nothing to do with you or the SSID under which you are working.

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Good news from the Caribbean!

Islanet Inc.’s plan to offer wireless broadband WiMAX throughout Puerto Rico has been successfully launched, according to an announcement Wednesday by Islanet and Navini Networks, which is deploying the service with its Ripwave MX system.

The firms said an initial phase has been deployed in greater Mayaguez where more than 600 customers have signed up for the high-speed Internet service. The service enables subscribers to use mobile WiMAX anywhere in Islanet’s coverage area.

Link to article

Yes, Google has put together a special page just for all your favorite scary stories. Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Raven are all there, along with a host (ghost) of others!

Scary Stories from Google

I downloaded it and I like what I’m seeing so far. It does seem faster, and I like the fact that the “close tab” is now on the actual tab I want to close. Here is a much more in-depth review.

The first thing that stands out in the new Firefox is the more modern, snappier look and feel. Everything is more shinny, more playful and more clickable.

Tabbed browsing was a major browser innovation that Firefox popularized – and in version 2.0 there are further improvements to this. By default, the links now open in a new tab instead of a new window and each tab has its own close button. There is also a new handy way of switching between the tabs, via a pulldown list of all open tabs.

Link to complete review

I think this is definitely worth a try. I have often thought that, in some cases, same-sex classrooms could really work.

For the first time in a generation, public schools have won broad freedom to teach boys and girls separately, stirring a new debate about equality in the classroom.

The Education Department on Tuesday announced rules that will make it easier to create single-sex classes or schools, a plan that’s been expected for almost three years.

The move comes as the value of same-sex education is in doubt. Research shows mixed results, as even the department’s own review says.

Yet Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said more parents deserve to have the option. The push began not with the White House, but rather with female senators of both parties.

“Research shows that some students may learn better in single-sex education environments,” Spellings said, careful not to offer an outright endorsement.

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This is really impressive! Here’s how to make your own.

Take a look at this.

If this isn’t a test for how the blogosphere can get things done, I’m not sure what is. As a part of this test, if you happen to read this blog entry and you have a blog, please spread the word and let’s see if the viral nature of the blogosphere can help this iPod find its owner.

Last week, I found a beautiful, sleek, black video iPod. It’s one of the 30GB models that looks very much like the one pictured to the left. The owner of this iPod has been taking very good care of it by keeping it in a case. My guesses are that the owner lives in the New England area and flew on United Airlines on or about October 9th or 10th. The reason I haven’t posted this notice until today is that I had to wait to get a hold of a charger to charge it up in hopes of finding some clue as to who the owner is.  Sadly, the owner did not elect to have any contact information engraved on the back of the device. Also, I don’t know much about iPods, but it seems as though there should be an easy way to load it with the owner’s contact information and have it “boot” to that screen.  I searched high and low through the device and about the only clue I could find was the text “De Monstrow.”

If any of this means something to you and you’ve recently lost your iPod, contact me at david.berlind@cnet.com. The photos on this device clearly have some sentimental value. So, it would be great if we (the blogosphere) can help it find its way home. Of course, you’ll need to prove to me that it’s yours which shouldn’t be too difficult.

I hope it gets back to its rightful owner.

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Awesome leaves!

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Sadly, I think I am. The first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. I guess I’ve completed step one!

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, said their telephone survey indicated more than one in eight US residents showed at least one sign of “problematic Internet use.”

According to preliminary research, the typical Internet addict is a single, college-educated, white male in his 30s, who spends approximately 30 hours a week on non-essential computer use.

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My dad and I did some photowalking and driving around Rome, GA on Saturday. Here are some of the results.

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Good news from Beantown!

Boston’s effort to deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network is beginning to take shape. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino lit two hotspots this week and then announced that work on a demonstration hotspot for citywide access is underway.

Boston’s approach is unique among major U.S. cities in that its model relies on a non-profit organization to oversee the rollout of the network. The non-profit plans to build the network and make it available to ISPs. The city expects subscriber prices for the service to be as low as $10 a month.

Link to article

This is pretty spectacular.

Scientists haven’t been able to take their eyes off a nearby stellar collision. This image, snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope and released October 16, is the sharpest yet of the merging Antennae Galaxies.

The spiral galaxies, named for long antenna-like arms that extend far from the galaxies’ centers, began colliding only a few hundred million years ago. The pair represents one of the closest galactic collisions to Earth, and one of the youngest known to science.

The reddish-orange blobs to the right and left of the picture’s center are the two galactic cores—consisting mostly of old stars crisscrossed by filaments of dust (brown).

What has researchers really excited, though, are the blue star-forming regions, which are surrounded by hot glowing hydrogen gas (pink). Billions of new stars will be formed by the energetic collision, scientists say.

The brightest and most compact star-forming regions are called super star clusters.

Link to article

I love the “Avast” key.

It’s always a good idea to check out the NASA photo of the day, and today is an especially good day!

Explanation: In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn and slightly scattering sunlight, in the above exaggerated color image. Saturn’s rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the above image. Visible in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn’s E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus, and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, visible on the image left just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

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