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George Eliot

Ed Smith — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:00:47 +0000

That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

–George Eliot, as quoted in Why Read George Eliot?

When the day appears dark

Ed Smith — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:46:21 +0000

In his booklet “Road Vogue” on bicycling safely, Wayne Pein quotes Sir Arthur Conan Doyal from an article published in Scientific America in 1896. Now, when you mix the author of Sherlock Holmes with science and cycling, I get all happy. The quote itself is worth repeating here:

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, whenwork becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in an 1896 article for Scientific America.

Google Graph

Ed Smith — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:04:38 +0000

Based on a Google Spreadsheet.

Bicycling to the dentist

Ed Smith — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:30:43 +0000

I almost didn’t get up in time, but I managed to out the door with just enough time to make it to the dentist by bicycle. When I got here, I realized it would have saved me no more than 10 or 12 minutes to come by car.

Red vs. Green

Ed Smith — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:12:31 +0000

The latest from Gadzooks, aka godzooks:

Call it, “Sting like a Butterfly…”

Ed Smith — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:37:29 +0000

View Larger Map

Reading Tintin with Thor

Ed Smith — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:37:03 +0000

Red Rackham’s Treasure

Cycle Fresno Urban Bicycle Tours

Ed Smith — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:05:06 +0000

I’ve had this idea in the back of my mind for the longest time. I think downtown Fresno is actually pretty cool. There are lots of interesting buildings and fun places to explore. Wouldn’t it be great to have a knowledgeable docent guide you around town, stopping at interesting places to talk about the history or significance of a certain building? Of course, the best way to do this is by bike, because there’s no way you can cover enough ground on foot. And doing this by car would be a comical exercise in frustration; hop in the car, drive, park, hop out, look, repeat.

This year I am going to develop bicycle tours for three specific events:

In May, we’ll have a fun tour of downtown, highlighting Armenian history.
In September, the second annual Tour de Fresno will include a fun tour of Old Fig Garden.
And in October, the City of Fresno is celebrating it’s anniversary with many fun activities, including a bike tour with official docents.

Next week I’m meeting with representatives from City of Fresno’s Traffic Engineering, Parks and Recreation, and Historic Preservation departments. I’ve already reserved a domain name for Cycle Fresno Urban Bicycle Tours, and when I meet with the City I intend to present a proposal for how this all can work. So stay tuned!

Using Yahoo! Pipes to generate dynamic Web page content

Ed Smith — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:43:32 +0000

I was recently asked how a user could publish dynamic content to an otherwise static Web page. The user wanted to show a list of meeting minutes on his Web page that automatically updates from a remote source. My answer was to use Yahoo! Pipes to create an embeddable widget. Once the widget code is created and inserted into the static web page, it will remain automatically updated whenever the source of the pipe changes. So far, we have created two pipes. One of them parses a Blogger RSS feed and presents relevant items in a list view. The content expert can update the blog, and the changes are reflected in the Web site without requiring a full author-edit-publish cycle. Here is the process:

New information is published on the blog.
When the pipe is next run, this change is detected via its feed.
The pipe badge is embedded in the target Web page, so it is run whenever the page is loaded.

Trip to Scicon

Ed Smith — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:27:40 +0000

Scicon is a science camp in the Tulare County public school system. School children are sent there for traditional school camp trips. They get to experience the wonder of nature in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

The mom of homeschool-friends of Thor’s used to work at this camp, and each year she returns when the salamanders are out. This is Thor’s second trip with his friends to visit the colorful salamanders, and this year they were spectacular!