Kevin Schofield's Weblog

Congratulations to the Kodu (formerly codenamed "Boku") team on their release today.

 

Tonight on the Science Channel's show Brink, will be a story on "Microsoft's Vision of the Future of Digital Interfaces." It's gonna be cool; don't miss it.

 

I was chewed out today for not blogging enough.

 

I'm way, way behind on blogging about books I've read. I'll get to work on that.

 

In the mean time:

 

My new favorite blog: Awkward Family Photos.

 

My current favorite TV show (admittedly, an artifact of sumer hiatus): Wipeout.

 

Enjoy.

OK, generally I'm a big fan of PETA. There is far too much animal abuse in the world, and I'm glad to see an organization speak up about it.

 

But the radical lunatic fringe arm of PETA seems to be taking over. Last week they were up in arms about the fishmongers at Pike Place Market in Seattle throwing dead fish between the front and back counters (as they have for decades). This week, they're mad at Obama for swatting a fly.

 

Oh please. This is self-destruction at its worst, as they make a mockery of their own organization and shatter their own credibility.

 

After railing against the Defense of Marriage Act last year on the campaign trail, Obama's adminstration last week filed a brief in court in support of it. This has got many people on the left up in arms. More so because the Obama administration is saying that they're basically required to defend it (though there are clear precedents otherwise).

 

But what really is getting people riled up is claims that the brief compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia.

 

This is unfair; it doesn't. Really, it doesn't. But the real story is for more complicated, so bear with me here while I lay it out.

 

One of the arguments against the Defense of Marriage Act is that it violates the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the US Constitution, which requires a state to respect the laws of other states to the greatest extent possible (which is why your drivers license works in other states even if the requirements to get a drivers license are different, and why you don't need to get re-married when you move to a dfferent state. So if one state marries a gay couple, every other state should be required to recognize that marriage.

 

This is really a touchy point, as there are cases where laws conflict in different states and there is case law that resovle those situations. The Obama administration cited cases where it was ruled that a marriage in one state did not have to be recognized in another. One of those cases related to first cousins getting married, and another related to an underage woman being allowed to annul her marriage once she became an adult.

 

Those are the references to "incest" and "pedophilia." First, they weren't being compared to gay marriage; they were invoked to discuss the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution and its limits. Second, thi is about the mildest, most marginal case of "incest" you can come up wih and completely misrepresents the situation, and it's not pedophilia (defined as "the crime of having sex with a child") if they're legally married. Third, these are both practices that in earlier times were thought to be perfectly acceptable (and underage marriage was often the norm in some communities) so if there were a case of applying the Full Faith and Credit clause to changing societal norms, this is about as relevant as it gets.

 

OK, so I wish that the Obama administration wasn't defending DOMA at all, and there are many other parts of the brief that I strongly disagree with, but please, let's not mischaracterize this in this kind of inflammatory manner.

... according to the NYT, Bing does really well on travel-related searches.

This video is two and a half minutes that will change your life.

 

OK, perhaps not change your life. But you will laugh hysterically.

 

The UK government is snubbing Bletchley Park again. This is a huge shame. I got to visit there a couple of years ago, and the place is suffering mightily after decades of neglect. Many of the buildings are literally falling apart.

 

Here's a great article on how researchers are studying online social networks. It features (among others) danah boyd from Microsoft Research New England.

... it turns out it might cause muscle problems.

danah boyd is a researcher at MSR New England and studies how teens use social media. I've seen her present her work several times, and I've had the honor of several in-depth conversations with her, and I'm always blown away by the level of insights that she has.

 

Here's a super interesting summary of some of her findings as they relate to the common questions that adults ask her about teens. Enjoy.

 

Google announced a new PhD fellowship program today, and an initial cohort of fellows. Congratulations to them all.

 

What's really silly, though, is that Google is breathlessly acting like this is a new idea that they conceived out of thin air. In fact, Google is very late to the game. MSR has had a very strong, worldwide PhD fellowship program for more than a decade, and many other companies also have similar programs. Al Spector, who runs Google Research and made the final fellowship decisions, until recently worked at IBM Research and is very familiar with IBM's fellowship program.

 

I'm glad that Google is doing this because support for academia is very important, but c'mon folks...  at least be honest about its origins. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just admit that you're copying a good program that provides needed support for PhD students, and move on. Giving credit is still the rule in the research community, not the exception.

 

If you know anything about computer science and programming languages, you will find this hysterical. If you don't, 95% of the jokes in this will be completely lost on you.

 

There's a Silverlight-based web client version of Worldwide Telescope now. Check it out. It doens't do everything that the full Windows app version does, but what it can do is quite amazing.

... totally rocks. Don't let the haters tell you otherwise. Go see it, and prepare to have a lot of fun.

Dom Deluise passed away.

 

He starred in many very funny movies (and a handful of real stinkers) but my all-time favorite has got to be Silent Movie. We get to enjoy his wonderful physical comedy without the distraction of him speaking. A fabulous vehicle for him.

 

 

Bill Buxton has a great column in BusinessWeek on how engineers should think about design and designers. I couldn't agree more with his position: engineers are far too dismissive of education and experience in design, but if the tbales were turned they would be outraged.

... and she did it on the House floor. With Shepard's mother in the gallery.

 

This is truly disgusting.

 

... at one point there was $870 million in the stimulus package for pandemic preparedness. Then Republican senator Susan Collins came along.

 

Check out Collins bragging about killing it on her web site.

 

This will brighten your day. Enjoy.

My daughters' high school, Forest Ridge of the Sacred Heart in Belleuve, WA, is putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream this coming Friday and Saturday.

 

I went to the dress rehearsal last night to take pictures. The show is truly amazing -- the acting, the costumes, the makeup, the scenery are all fantastic. The acting is the thing that really puts it over the top though. Yu quickly forget that these are all high school kids. You also forget that it's an all-female cast, which leads to the always amusing situation of a woman playing a man playing a woman.

 

Shakespeare is always tough. It's very wordy, and it's difficult for the actors to infuse enough emotion and nuance into all the verbosity so that an aience can follow it and not get bored. The cast does an amazing job of this though, and brings out all the humor in the play. I laughed out loud several times, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the "play within the play" at the end.

 

If you live in the Seattle area, go see the show. You will have a fabulous time. Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 2:00pm and 7:30pm.

The Yankees had a terrible day yesterday, against the Tampa Bay Rays. So bad, in fact, that their first baseman, Nick Swisher, had to pitch the eighth inning. To his credit: after a shaky start, no runs scored.

 

The penguins in Woodland Park Zoo are checking out their new, naturalistic exhibit! (it opens to the public on May 2nd)

 

I love my country. Really. 

 

(seriously -- this is awesome)

 

... apparently they're in theaters on October 16th.

 

When my daughters were small, we had so much fun reading that book. I think I'm going to have to dig it out tonight...