Twitter highlights: April 10-16, 2011

More news theme geeking

When I moved to the Bay Area from New England, I noticed that KGO 7, the ABC station in San Francisco, used the same theme song and logo as WABC 7 in New York. Here’s a KGO “open” from 1989:

To my surprise, the theme song is from the movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman. It’s amazing how a 10-second clip became the basis for newscasts around the world.

Most TV stations now use themes only reminiscent of the original, after the composer of the soundtrack, Lalo Schifrin, demanded higher royalties. (Schifrin also composed the theme song to Mission: Impossible.)

Choice words from Bob Taylor

Back in May, Bob Taylor spoke with Guy Raz at the Computer History Museum about his days at ARPA, funding visionary projects such as Douglas Engelbart at SRI and the ARPAnet, and founding the Computer Systems Laboratory at PARC. Here are some of my favorite quotes of Bob Taylor from that conversation:

  • Computers were abominable to use. (To the audience) How many of you have punched holes in cards? (Most of the audience raises their hands.) You look a lot smarter than that.
  • There are four people that claim to be the father of the Internet. What does that say of the morals of the mother?
  • “Mission-oriented research” by definition can’t be research.
  • (Someone who questioned the importance of the research Taylor was funding said to him:) “If what you’re working on is so important, why isn’t IBM working on it?” What do you say to an idiot like that?

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-11-14

  • (2 wks ago) Got back from Pittsburgh yesterday. The pilot announced that the Giants were going to the World Series! #
  • Great talks yesterday at #baychi @egoodman on IxD practices in the field, Xianhang Zhang on social software design. http://bit.ly/a93Tv9 #
  • I'm starting to dig through and reorganize all the computer files I've accumulated over the years. Oldest: 1987 (GWBASIC program) #
  • And with DOSBox on my Mac, I can still run that GWBASIC program, 23 years later. #
  • After "Helvetica", what's the next movie for font geeks? "Linotype: The Film" comes out in fall 2011. http://linotypefilm.com/ #
  • New version of Freebase Gridworks, an open source tool that cleans and enhances data sets. Now called Google Refine. http://goo.gl/wHKUX #
  • Surprise: geocoding photos by hand SUCKS. Time to get a GPS data logger. I've heard good things about Amod: http://amzn.com/B000WO6HJW #
  • Apple has been experimenting with tablet computers since 1979. Here are some amazing concepts and prototypes: http://bit.ly/cCtA6n #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-11-07

  • @jeffbigham Don't know. Personally, I'd like "Delay by", and so far haven't felt the need for "Delay until". Time for a user study! 🙂 in reply to jeffbigham #
  • #SFGiants #49ers and #Raiders all win on the same day. When was the last time *that* happened? #
  • YEEEESSSSSS!!!! After 56 years, the #SFGiants have run the World Series! Woooooooooo!!!!! #
  • And the first time since the Giants moved to San Francisco! woooohoooooo #
  • (1 wk ago) Visited CMU today and yesterday, talked with lots of profs and grad students about their work. Good times! #
  • (1 wk ago) Also went through funky new Gates-Hillman CS building and took the Pausch Bridge to rest of campus. Randy, your legacy lives on. #
  • @jeffbigham I'm paranoid about my privacy, which is why I delay my travel tweets. I don't know how many tweeters like me are out there. in reply to jeffbigham #
  • @jwnichls More than 2 years ago? That's sad (but not surprising). in reply to jwnichls #
  • While I'm delay tweeting by a week, the NY Times is delay blogging the Civil War by 150 years: http://nyti.ms/9X9BKu #
  • McRib returns to McDonald's for 6 wks. LA Times: http://lat.ms/cvZbYd Reminds me of Homer Simpson lusting for a Ribwich. http://goo.gl/fyKOC #
  • BART, Caltrain, freeways, ferries completely jammed for the #SFGiants victory parade. Wish I could be there. #
  • Hey GOP, for all your talk about repealing health care reform: you only control *one* chamber of Congress. #
  • Watching the #SFGiants parade on http://cbs5.com. Freakin' unbelievable! #
  • (1 wk ago) At Google's new Pittsburgh office in Bakery Square, an old Nabisco factory built in 1918. Wow, this space is really nice! #
  • More proof that California is different from the rest of the country: Democrats won 8 out of 9 statewide races; AG is too close to call. #
  • @jeffbigham I'm now using slowtweet for its intended purpose, to avoid swamping my followers. It's great! #
  • @jwnichls Good point, although I still think we can do better. 🙂 #
  • Google Pittsburgh is in East Liberty, which suffered from urban decline in the 60s-90s but is making a comeback. http://nyti.ms/aXzqos #
  • After #SFGiants won the World Series, I can't get "Don't Stop Believing" out of my head. Maybe it's because of: http://youtu.be/_P-DpMFd8_A #
  • (1 wk ago) It's funny to think that after a long day at Google, the place to hang out is the game room — at Google. Time for Rock Band! #
  • Whoops, just realized all those "1 wk ago" tweets were really 2 weeks ago. Ugh. I really need an automated program to do this for me. #
  • @ArsTechnica has wonderful in-depth reviews. Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) – http://t.co/CmZXkt6, Windows Phone 7 – http://t.co/mLflJOO #
  • Sigh, twitter.com doesn't parse the ArsTechnica Ubuntu 10.0 review URL correctly, let's try again: http://t.co/CmZXkt6 #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-24

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-03

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