Holocaust survivor Hans Salomon, 86, will tell his story tonight with Tracy Strong, 93, the soldier who helped save him at the Congregations of Shaare Shamayim, in Northeast Philly.
Daily News: Will Bunch: Reliving the Holocaust … by re-enacting it
Inquirer: Daniel Rubin: Daniel Rubin: A survivor and an unsung savior, 68 years on
Yesterday afternoon, encouraged by Roz, I found a way to attend BarCamp NewsInnovation Philly. I’m happy I listened to her. It was a great event.
I was late, but in time for four discussions, the biggest highglight of those was TechnicallyPhilly. They gave an enthusiastic, concise description of what they do, how central community and chosen niche were to it, and even had some hints on how to earn a living doing it. Other interesting discussions included Scott Karp’s presentation on Publish2 and collaborative news rooms, and the folks behind copress.org, who while working to solve problems commonly found in college online news organizations, are inadvertently addressing many of the problems found in large mainstream online news organizations. There is another presentation, on how to make money on the Internet, that was infuriating for how it looked down on people. As Chris Krewson ponintedly asked, “The take away seems to be that the public is stupid and so are your advertisers”.
Biggest highlight for me was getting to meet Amy Z. Quinn after all these years. Amy is someone I “met” online via Philly Future more than three years ago. As were meeting Howard Weaver and Scott Karp for the first time and getting a chance to hang out and catch up with Wendy Warren, Chris Krewson, Aaron Couch, and Chris Anderson.
BTW, if you want a terrific summary of how news gets chosen for Philly.com’s (and more than likely the majority of news orgs) home page, the tensions present in its production and what drives it, Chris’s research paper: “Web Production, News Judgment, and Emerging Categories of Online Newswork in Metropolitan Journalism” is where you want to go.
Yesterday was quite a day. In the morning I went out with fellow co-workers to Hunting Park to help do some clean up and planting for Comcast Cares Day. It was a small personal victory for me. Previous two years I haven’t been able to attend due to the back pain issue. This year, not only could I attend, but I was able to assist for a few hours. There are pictures up on Flickr. Felt great to go out and lend a helping hand with fellow friends.
Boston Globe: Can’t get it out of my head: A father’s yearlong quest to grasp the infant musical mind
NPR: Bringing Up Baby, As Music Lovers Might
Muppet Wiki: Joe Raposo
Thankfully, Emma’s tastes are all over the map, like her Daddy. For example, just this morning she kept replaying The Mother of All Funk Chords – which I could listen to on repeat myself.
danieltenner.com – Dealing with impossible crises – Absolutely terrific advice for participating in group problem solving (something that many have trouble with).
The Buzz Bin – The Cultural Challenge to Integration – about breaking down silo walls.
Beth’s Blog – Silos Culture Inside the Walls of Nonprofits Prevent Effective Social Media Use – yep – they exist in non-profits as well.
Lessons Learned: Five Whys – great technique to drill down to root causes.
scottberkun.com – Top ten reasons managers become great
Matt Jones: Data as Seductive Material
Wolfram|Alpha: Searching for Truth
Artima: What I learned at Java Posse Roundup ’09 – some good advice here.
Netbeans.org: NetBeans Platform – some nice inspiration here among those using the Netbeans platform.
Hacker News: Ask HN: Is it worth a back-end developer’s time to get into web-design and HTML/CSS (yes!)
WikiWikiWeb: Specialization Is For Insects
Computerworld: Researchers: Databases still beat Google’s MapReduce
SmoothSpan Blog: AmazonFail Shows Data Matters Too
imagine27: 2009-04-09 live lisp art opengl synth sound – wow – slow build – but that’s part of why its worth it.
grok2.com: quoting Fred Brooks – Why is programming fun?
SEOmoz: How Google’s Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time
Bb RealTech: My Abbreviated Self – thoughts on the evolving HTML5 spec.
CSSquirrel: Comic Update: Madness? This is HTML5!
rc3.org: Do what you can’t not do:
So my suggestion would be find a way to get paid to do the thing you can’t stop yourself from doing. The best programmers are people who can’t stop programming. The best writers are people who find themselves wanting to write when they’re doing other things. Do what comes naturally.
btw – I’m posting regular links at del.icio.us again – here’s my programming link stream.
Harry Kalas, the voice of the Phillies, announcer for 38 seasons, and to Philadelphians a part of our city, passed away before today’s game.
Hometown Legends: Harry Kalas (1936-2009)
Philly.com: Phils announcer Harry Kalas dies
Hope you have a great Easter. Just remember that while Easter is looked at as a time to remember hope, hope is worthy of your heart every day.
Oh, and this is important, remember that the Easter Bunny hates you.
Happy 35th sweetie. I feel so blessed that you were born, that we became part of each other’s life. Emma, feels the same – you’re the best mommy a daughter can have 🙂
My thoughts and prayers are with the family, especially Emma. She got to know grandpop over the past couple months and she liked him very much.
She is blissfully unaware right now, but the questions will come. They can’t be blown off – she simply doesn’t fall for distractions so easily anymore.
How deep you explain death to a three year old – one that is intellectually curious and has the smarts to handle it – will be hard. Even if it is the simple, “he’s in heaven, with mom-mom Rita and God”.
BRILLIANT: Daily News: Will Bunch: Newspapers should give away free netbooks
MSNBC.com: Wireless carriers see net from netbooks