Random chart...

Chart showing a relationship between college enrollment and family income... Among high-school students with average math scores the enrollment is much higher as family income increases.... Source: College Attainment and Family Income

Random picture...

Britain's Antiterror Documents Photographed By Paparazzi & Posted On The Web

Bob Quick, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer was photographed entering the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street.When the photogs blew up the picture, lo and behold, they could read the secret MI-5 memo (see above). Quick subsequently resigned, and 12 Pakistani student "terrorists" were arrested 'early' due to this leak. Oh, and what is become typical British police incompetence, every one was released for lack of evidence...

Politically Timed "Terror" Arrests - the Real Bob Quick Scandal
Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith Terror Lies Revealed

Mental health break

Hoo boy..

Recently this blogger noticed a lot of traffic from New Zealand. A little digging found that the traffic was coming from NZgames.com forums, which had linked to this blog's 'WMD aren't what they used to be...' entry. Looking at the comments this blogger was struck by the one that said, "I'm not sure what's worse - the WMD charge or that the page is in COMIC SANS!" Wasn't quite sure re what this was about... this blogger kind of likes Comic Sans and uses it quite a bit (e.g. this blog, in e-mail, etc.), so chalked it up to a case of "de gustibus non est disputandum" (referring either to this blogger or the person making the comment, your choice!)...

Well, a couple of days later this blogger ran into this WSJ article: Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will which recounted the creation of this font. Apparently there are many, many people who loathe it and there is even a Ban Comic Sans movement, though this blogger is not sure whether it is really serious or more of a spoof! Visit the site and judge for yourself: Ban Comic Sans.

BB & 2D barcodes

'Barcodes of the future' is an article re the use of 2D bar codes with now ubiquitous mobile phones' cameras to provide web-based information for consumers... From the article: "Picture this: you are out and about on a Saturday afternoon and see an advertisement at a bus stop for an outdoor concert. In a corner of the advertisement are a couple of barcodes. Wanting to find out more about the concert, you pull out your 3G-capable mobile phone and take a picture of one of the codes. It transfers you to the official website of the concert, where you find out that it is to be held tomorrow night and some of your favourite bands will be performing..."

A two dimensional (2D) barcode can contain a lot more information that the "original" one dimensional barcode. It wasn't long before someone in Japan married this with the cellphone camera, so that "taking a picture" of the 2D barcode would launch the phone (mobile) browser and take the consumer to the encoded url. The number of potential applications and uses for this concept are limited only by the imagination (read the article for a number of examples...)

As with the "simple" 1D barcode there are a number of different symbologies in 2D barcodes, including QR (originally developed for inventory applications); EZcodes (developed at a Swiss university); Data Matrix (developed by Acuity ciMatrix); Microsoft's tag (see below); etc. Some applications are agnostic and can read all symbologies.

This blogger decide to try this out on his Blackberry Bold, and looked at four different software applications:

NeoReader:

First up was NeoReader, available for a number of handsets including the BB. A quick OTA download from here (i.e. get.neoreader.com) and the software was installed on the Bold. Generating a 2D barcode for this blog's url took seconds, and 'snapping a picture' of the barcode took me directly to the blog url that was encoded... (Note: this application also worked without any problem with barcodes generated on Nokia's Mobile Code site)

NeoReader home
Create 2D bar code

Microsoft Tag:

Microsoft has jumped on the bandwagon and has its own version of this software called 'Tag' which can be downloaded directly onto your phone here (i.e. http://gettag.mobi). A couple of caveats - first you have to register to use the site to download the software generate the 2D barcodes, etc.; second , they seem to have developed their own version of the 2D bar codes (see below). Note: it looks like a future iteration of the Tagreader software might be able to read their own format and other formats as well (as there is a 'placeholder' for other formats), but at present you are stuck with their barcodes (that come in color or black & white.)

As it is, you can see that 'snapping' a picture of the barcode takes one to the web site encoded...

i-nigma:

Another piece of software that is designed to do this as well is i-nigma, downloadable via mobile browser here. Unfortunately I was not able to install and try it out due to an error downloading and installing the application...

ScanLife:

Finally, one more application is ScanLife by a company called ScanBuy. It can be downloaded OTA here (i.e. www.getscanlife.com). It is necessary to register on the Scanlife web site to use the application (although non-commercial registration is free)... Also works like a charm - 'snap' the barcode and get taken to the encoded url....

Bottom line: As tested, all of the applications that this blogger managed to install worked without any problems. Eliminating the Tagreader application due to its different 2D barcode, this blogger can recommend ScanLife or NeoReader... and would probably go with the latter for very casual use since no registration is required. Now if only there were some 2D barcodes out there 'in the wild' to scan!

Random quote...

"... Yes, the shareholders will get wiped out in this scenariuo - but these companies have lost 95% of their value already. And for the consumer there won't be any difference. You won't see any interruptions of service, and your accounts will be protected."

- Simon Jenkins, Economics Profesor at MIT, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Money interview ('Nationalize the Banks, and Quick!')

Oh, please.Just because someone has lost 95% of the value of a security, that's no reason to be so cavalier about the 5% that remains. Also, the 95% value loss is the number from the stocks' high, many stockholders with holdings will have purchased at a range of lower prices (and thus have a smaller loss). Lastly, as argued before (see links below) the stockholder currently has the possibility of recovering some of the loss (or making a profit, depending on purchase point) if the stock recovers along with the economy... One would expect an economist of Mr. Jenkins' caliber and experience to know this!

Theory vs. practice - March 30th, 2009
Randon thoughts.. - February 15th, 2009
Rhetorical questions... - February 11th, 2009

Random Chart...

Average Statistics for Recessions and Recoveries, from IMF World Economic Outlook 2009