I ran across a reference to the Who is Sick service several months back. It lets you post symptoms and associate them with a particular geographic area. You can then see if other people in the same area share the same symptoms.
Part of me thinks it's silly, but I can also see how it could be valuable. Of course, not enough people in our geographic area post to it to make it worth while, but it's still kind of an interesting concept.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thing Seven: Flickr Photo Editing
Ok, I'm supposed to blog about anything related to technology for Thing Seven. I still have Flickr on the brain, though, so I thought I would just point out that you now have access to rudimentary photo editing tools directly within Flickr.
Click on one of your photos, then look at the tool icons that appear in a row above your photo. One says "Edit." If you click on this, you get free access to a number of editing tools from the Picnik web-based photo editing service. (Picnik is another company that partnered with Flickr to make this available. Like Flickr, some of their services are free, or you can pay to access additional functionality.)
The picture at the beginning of this post is an example of an edited photo. I got rid of red eye, adjusted the colors, and cropped the photo. You can see the original photo here.
Click on one of your photos, then look at the tool icons that appear in a row above your photo. One says "Edit." If you click on this, you get free access to a number of editing tools from the Picnik web-based photo editing service. (Picnik is another company that partnered with Flickr to make this available. Like Flickr, some of their services are free, or you can pay to access additional functionality.)
The picture at the beginning of this post is an example of an edited photo. I got rid of red eye, adjusted the colors, and cropped the photo. You can see the original photo here.
Color Palette
One of my favorite things is Big Huge Lab's Palette Generator. I am really bad at choosing colors that go together, but with this tool I can find a photograph I really like, plug the URL into the Palette Generator (being sure to select the "URL" tab) then generate a palette consisting of the colors in the photo. I've actually used this technique to develope color schemes for web pages. I can see using it to help you pick "decorating" colors for your home, too!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Thing 5
I've got to admit, I love Flickr. It's a great way to see what's going on with friends and family. Even though most of my Flickr friends are fellow Lincolnites (my coworkers and my mom) and we could theoretically have shared photos prior to Flickr, we didn't. Or if we did, they were only "important" pictures.
What I think is fun is when someone posts a photo of some ordinary activity in their life. Even something like a landscaping project. It's the sort of thing you might talk about with your coworkers (yeah, we spent the whole weekend digging up our backyard and planting...) so it's neat to actually see it in process.
I also think it's really interesting to look at the popular tags page, especially the "hot tags in the last 24 hours" and the "hot tags over the last week." Sometimes they are pretty meaningless but other times, if some major, newsworthy event has occurred, you'll see tags that reflect it. And if you click on the tag you'll retrieve photos of the event taken and posted by Flickr users.
My favorite example of this is from February 2007 when there was a big recall of Peter Pan peanut butter. All of a sudden "salmonella" and "peanut butter" were "hot tags." Not that food poisoning is funny, but what an interesting cultural phenomenon that so many people took pictures of their recalled jars of peanut butter! Wouldn't a cultural anthropologist from the future love to have access to Flickr?
What I think is fun is when someone posts a photo of some ordinary activity in their life. Even something like a landscaping project. It's the sort of thing you might talk about with your coworkers (yeah, we spent the whole weekend digging up our backyard and planting...) so it's neat to actually see it in process.
I also think it's really interesting to look at the popular tags page, especially the "hot tags in the last 24 hours" and the "hot tags over the last week." Sometimes they are pretty meaningless but other times, if some major, newsworthy event has occurred, you'll see tags that reflect it. And if you click on the tag you'll retrieve photos of the event taken and posted by Flickr users.
My favorite example of this is from February 2007 when there was a big recall of Peter Pan peanut butter. All of a sudden "salmonella" and "peanut butter" were "hot tags." Not that food poisoning is funny, but what an interesting cultural phenomenon that so many people took pictures of their recalled jars of peanut butter! Wouldn't a cultural anthropologist from the future love to have access to Flickr?
Friday, February 15, 2008
7 and 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners
I just finished listening to the 7 & 1/2 Habits recording. Before I forget, I thought I'd jot down which of the habits is easiest for me and which is hardest.
The hardest habit by far is 7 1/2 -- Play!
Finding time to explore and learn about new things is almost impossible to come by. I will say, however, it helps to have colleagues who share what they are learning with me. This way, I can piggyback on their learning!
The easiest habit for me is 4. I don't think "easy" is exactly the right word for this habit, but over the years I do believe I have developed confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner.
I always did well in school, but that felt like an automatic thing that I wasn't aware of having control over. There were the subjects I was good at and pursued (English and music), and the subjects that I struggled with and went out of my way to avoid even though I got good grades in them (math and science).
Today, I feel much more confident of my ability to learn whatever I decide I want or need to know. What's changed? Not much, except perhaps attitude and experience.
One event that contributed to my increased confidence and sense of control over my own learning, was taking the GRE a second time, 5+ years after taking it the first time.
First time around I don't think I studied much; I mainly relied on the fact that I'd been a non-stop student during the preceding 17 years of my life. Second time around I was a bit more nervous, particularly about the math section since it had been years since my last math class.
I studied hard, and wound up increasing my math score by 25 percentage points. This probably didn't have any effect on my ability to get into library school, but it did have a major impact on my view of myself as someone who can learn. And this confidence manifests itself in a variety of ways--both large and small--in my life today.
I think it's why I was able to teach myself how to knit, mostly out of a book.
It's why I am willing and eager to read books on topics I know nothing about -- something I never would have done when I was younger.
And I think it helps me as a parent, since I feel like I can investigate whatever topics I need to in order to advocate for my son's needs (e.g., learning about food allergies; figuring out whether to send him to kindergarten two weeks after he turned five, vs. waiting a year; getting him glasses to help him read).
The hardest habit by far is 7 1/2 -- Play!
Finding time to explore and learn about new things is almost impossible to come by. I will say, however, it helps to have colleagues who share what they are learning with me. This way, I can piggyback on their learning!
The easiest habit for me is 4. I don't think "easy" is exactly the right word for this habit, but over the years I do believe I have developed confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner.
I always did well in school, but that felt like an automatic thing that I wasn't aware of having control over. There were the subjects I was good at and pursued (English and music), and the subjects that I struggled with and went out of my way to avoid even though I got good grades in them (math and science).
Today, I feel much more confident of my ability to learn whatever I decide I want or need to know. What's changed? Not much, except perhaps attitude and experience.
One event that contributed to my increased confidence and sense of control over my own learning, was taking the GRE a second time, 5+ years after taking it the first time.
First time around I don't think I studied much; I mainly relied on the fact that I'd been a non-stop student during the preceding 17 years of my life. Second time around I was a bit more nervous, particularly about the math section since it had been years since my last math class.
I studied hard, and wound up increasing my math score by 25 percentage points. This probably didn't have any effect on my ability to get into library school, but it did have a major impact on my view of myself as someone who can learn. And this confidence manifests itself in a variety of ways--both large and small--in my life today.
I think it's why I was able to teach myself how to knit, mostly out of a book.
It's why I am willing and eager to read books on topics I know nothing about -- something I never would have done when I was younger.
And I think it helps me as a parent, since I feel like I can investigate whatever topics I need to in order to advocate for my son's needs (e.g., learning about food allergies; figuring out whether to send him to kindergarten two weeks after he turned five, vs. waiting a year; getting him glasses to help him read).
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