Catching up

Haven't been able to post in a couple of days. Here's what I've been saving up for you:

I think this link shows the radio telescope in Arecibo, PR. I know it's not very close, but I think I've got this right. I looked for the VLA and couldn't get good resolution there, either.

+ I really like the concept of weekinreview, but I think it's a little slanted. Wish I had/would take time to do one of my own, but I don't really think that's a good idea.

+Tom's got a long post today on China and India (scroll DOWN), especially their big summit and agreements to work together. 2 of the world's 6.4 B people pulling together can have a lot of affect. If we know what's good for us, we'll work at 'strategic partnerships' therein. The private will happen, because they know how to please the Street by following the money. But will the public?

+ More on the China/Japan row. Japan's provoking by allocating disputed gas rights. On Japan's side, they're right in saying China's hypocritical in wanting Japan to apologize for WW2 when China hasn't apologized to its own people for all of their abuses. You sure get the sense that Beijing uses this unrest to vent criticism away from itself and keep people occupied with anger at Japan. Sure, they take some steps to ameliorate the anger, but...

These two nations could do one another a lot of good if they'd mend some fences and work together. They could fix the Taiwan thing, and North Korea (with a little US involvement), and grease the rails for a new Asian Miracle that'd knock your socks off.

+ Preemptive strike: I disavow Eric Rudolph in advance, assuming he will come out and say he was motivated by Christian conviction to blow people up. Jesus said 'love your enemies and pray for them'. There's a twisted logic to Rudolph's actions, but we do not condone it in the slightest, and you can't pin it on any real Christian.

+ Folksologies: de-idealizing ontologies. Tags make for useful organization (though not ideal). They give a lot higher return on your (meager) investment than ontologies. I agree more with Shirky than with the author of this post. By using Google (PageRank=frequency of useful linking), del.icio.us (tags - including Flickr, Technorati, gmail labels, etc.), and weblogs/rss/Google alerts (subscriptions to content of particular personal/topical interest), we can effectively sort the web a lot better than ontologies.

Then Stefano talks some about his own ontologies, and my eyes glaze over, and it's worse than..., well, any geekery I'm capable of.

+ I'm glad to report that Greg is posting again.

+ Da, da da, da da da da da. That's the sound of Iowa Hawkeye Aaron Kampman maybe joining the Vikings.

+ Hmm. Two new wishlist services. One a la del.icio.us and one more traditional (import your Amazon wishlist). Very interesting, but for now I think I'll just stick with Amazon, with Froogle as an annex.

+ Can't imagine how Google Video will be useful to me.