All posts by dispar

South Station Pulsepoint

South Station Pulsepoint
There's an open WiFi network in Boston's South Station. It's not connected to the Internet itself but it represents a neat concept for location-specific networks. It's not available from the outside world (i.e., you need to be in the South Station to access it) but it can connect people who just happen to pass by the South Station, a major hub for those traveling to and from Boston with bus lines, subway lines, Amtrak trains, and commuter rail all in the same place.

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(Spoof) Native-American Realtor Doesn't Believe In His Job | The Onion – America's Finest News Source

(Spoof) Native-American Realtor Doesn't Believe In His Job | The Onion – America's Finest News Source
Broadcast in late September but quite relevant in the context of Columbus Day along with the upcoming U.S. Thanksgiving Day.
(Canadian Thanksgiving Day, which happened yesterday, on the same day as Columbus Day in the U.S., doesn't necessarily carry the same narrative about relations between Native Americans and European settlers.)

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Outlining

ATPM 11.10 – Outliners: TAO and OmniOutliner Pro
Comparison between two approaches to outlining. Some interesting comments about outlining usage.
As academics often need to write structured texts, a good outliner should really be a part of any academic's toolbox. Ted Goranson's column on outliners frequently contains insightful ideas about computer-assisted writing.
This specific column could use a bit of editing, though.

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Columbian Green Coffee Beans

Joe Ferrante's looking for bloggers interesting in columbian green coffee beans

Thanks for the comment, Joe! I guess the reason you got here was that I do occasionally blog about coffee. Unfortunately, I haven't been tagging most of my posts here. I do have another blog where I posted a café review. I also reviewed the same café on WikiCities. Not necessarily because it's the most awesomest place in the world but they had wireless access and it seemed like a good opportunity to start reviewing cafés…

Now, Columbian beans. Well, I do homeroast and often use Columbian beans as a base. What I like about them is that they're quite consistent in quality, fairly versatile and fairly flexible in terms of roast. It seems Columbian beans are the ones people use to try out roasting methods. Ken Davids said something like that in his homeroasting book…
At the same time, Columbian beans aren't the most surprising beans around. Actually, some Columbian beans I've had were very aromatic, even while green.

Joe: Is there a specific reason you're interested in Columbian beans rather than other beans? Are you in the coffee business? If so, what do you think of CoffeeGeek?

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Sur la bonne voix?

Skype se tourne vers les services vocaux. Peut-être l’avénement de cette intégration technologique autour de la voix? La voix, comme interface, a son importance. Mais elle nécessite certains traitements (reco, TTS…). Reste à voir ce qui va se passer dans le domaine.
N’empêche, l’influence Skype, qui est désormais un grand nom, saurait se faire sentir.