When I was a student in the Center, I made a challenge to myself to be the best blogger in the Center. Dr. Gillette and I would constantly try to top the blog roll. I'm not quite as active on the blogs these days, so I will make no claims about my ability to top you "geeks" (although, for one short moment, I'm on top again!!!! HA HA HA).

So, will you challenge yourself... not just to be the best blogger... but, to be the best ____ of the Center. Answer the challenge... fill in your own blank. Being the best at something, anything, will go a long way... so make yourself stand out in your own way! You can do it!

Here's another challenge... one that I personally would appreciate :-)
Cyril, from last year's "mafia" was greatly helpful, but we still never quite got there... by "there", I mean the ability to Cross-blog... see, I post here and on my personal site... Did you click the link? Sure you did... did you notice that the layout is the same? Yep... that's intentional... see, I'm going for some transparency here, but it's a little difficult... I haven't quite gotten the art of the cross-blog down yet, so I'm forced to replicate my postings between the two sites... a bit tedious, wouldn't you say? Is anyone up to the challenge to help me figure out how we can do the cross-blog tango? If so, contact me and let's dance!

At last, once final challenge... the CICSworld RSS feed... can someone take a look at it? I don't think it's refreshed itself in months, and that's frustrating! I had gotten to the point where I was using RSS feeds to read blog postings that interested me, so I didn't have to troll the site so much, but now, I can't do that! Surely there's a "geek" up to a technical challenge here! Again, let me know if you are so inclined.

Cheers!

World-renowned business strategist and author Tom Peters, who is keynoting the InformationWeek 500 Conference Sept. 10-13 at the Westin Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California, joins us on Thursday, July 6 for a unique and scintillating Webcast and answers your questions on how all businesses, large and small, can muster the resources and energy to create for themselves a living, breathing embodiment of innovation for growth. Says Peters, “…in uncertain times like ours, innovation is inarguably top management’s Job One.” Using his wealth of knowledge and experience trusted by giants like Ford, BP, and General Electric, Peters provides strategies, tactics, and actual cases that abet creation of an abiding “Culture of Innovation."

https://www.cmpnetseminars.com/BTG/default.asp?K=7AAA1&Q=466

Is Podcasting just a way for the big media players to push out extra content on a pay-for-play basis? Is it a way for people to crank out niche content with sub-par audio quality and low production value? Is it something in the middle? Or, is is something else?

I like to look at the big picture... It is time to look at Podcasting as a serious business tool. I certainly do, and I've made serious efforts to reflect that view. Are you ready?

Meanwhile, some industry news of interest in the ever-changing RFID front, as word comes of RFID viruses. Also, in the not-so-plesant news front, there is some interesting discourse over the suspension of digital rights management in times of critical need, such as life and death situations.

Of course, it's not all bad news. The growing web 2.0 concept continues to revolutinize business processes. And, in the happy-yet-offbeat front, a youth has set a new record in memorizing digits of Pi.

Because you live in Indiana, we thought you might want to know about "Integrity of Science in the 21st Century," a free conference at Purdue University on March 31 and April 1, 2006.

The conference will feature a number of experts discussing the intersection of science and policy, particularly in the life sciences, and student-led workshops on ways that students can make their voices heard on these important issues. While the conference is open to faculty members, teachers, and community members, it is geared towards students and student activism. 

Please forward this message to any students--high school, undergraduate, or graduate--who you think might be interested in attending the conference.

Dr. Arden Bement, director of the National Science Foundation, will present the keynote address. Click here to view the tentative conference agenda.

Students who pre-register will be given free meals and housing (with Purdue students). You can register here.

This is a great opportunity for students who are interested in the use and misuse of science and would like to explore how they can become effective voices for science. The conference is sponsored by Student Pugwash USA, an organization that promotes social responsibility in science and technology. Questions about the conference should be directed to Sharlissa Moore at Student Pugwash USA.
 

Regards,

Michael Halpern
Outreach Coordinator
Scientific Integrity Program
Union of Concerned Scientists

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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We are committed to protecting your privacy, your email address will NEVER be sold or exchanged.]]> http://www.tonypiazza.com/2006/03/scientific_integrity_conferenc.html http://www.tonypiazza.com/2006/03/scientific_integrity_conferenc.html Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:34:38 -0500 Once again, I find myself spinning the wheels... after months of speculation, I finally had a chance this evening to tinker with the inner-workings of the Movable Type blog set-up. What did I find? Nothing! Well, I did find something, but not what I wanted!

For some time now, I've tried to get my blog posts to cross-populate at CICS World and at TonyPiazza.com... and after multiple attempts, I get no where... this post is a result of a manual double posting, the sort of thing I'd like to avoid. Does anyone have any ideas how to overcome this issue?

In the meantime, continue to read posts at CICS World, as I will discuss issues of town and gown, Muncie, the ICT field and professional development. Read on at TonyPiazza.com for innovations I've discovered in blogging, news on multimedia integration, and updates geared toward potential clients attracted to the services I render via my professional site. (While on that subject, I also maintain a site for personal updates at ElizabethAndTony.com, which includes my picture gallery).

Muncie is once again in the news! A few months ago, Saturday Night Live's Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg released "Lazy Sunday", a digital short about spending a lazy weekend day eating cupcakes and watching The Chronicles of Narnia. Not the first time they released a short (in fact, online movie making is what got Samberg onto SNL), but this one caught fire.

A short time later, the "west coast response" initiated a faux-feud reminiscent of the East-West Rap Feud of the 1990s. Rapping about the joys of painting pottery and drinking lattes, "Lazy Monday" added to the humor and post-modern intrigue of online video storytelling of "Lazy Sunday".

And now we have "the middle coast response" (their words, not mine)... "Lazy Muncie", the latest post-modern entry into this carnival atmosphere, debuted only a few weeks ago and is now another popular and well-regarded video. And, in spite of a few vulgarities, the video really does well to capture the sprit of the Midwest in a humorous, tongue-in-cheek manner. References to Muncie icons such as TK Constructors, Prairie-Creek Reservoir, Garfield-creator Jim Davis and McGalliard Road abound. Perhaps you should take a look...

Where just a year ago, we had MCI, Verizon, SBC, AT&T, Qwest and BellSouth, we now have at&t, Verizon and Qwest... it sounds like Ma Bell all over again! (especially if you look at how one-time smallest "Baby Bell" SBC has devoured everything in the past few years: Pacific Telesis, Ameritech, SNET, AT&T and now BellSouth... and those weren't small time acquisitions... each of those was a major company that now operates under the banner of "at&t"... new name, same old company...)

Of course, read up on it. The analysts are saying that the real reason (and I agree) is that at&t wants total control of Cingular Wireless (probably to be renamed at&t wireless). What about #2 Verizon? Word on the street is that effort is under way to increase the 55% ownership in Verizon Wireless to 100%, with a buy-out from partner Vodafone. And Qwest? Who knows... It probably will have to morph to survive. I wouldn't at all be suprised if it is gobbled up by a bigger fish.

I was at Barnes & Nobles bookstore in the Castleston/Keystone area on Friday. It's a usual routine for my wife and I to get dinner and spend some time reading any number of things at B&N. Sometimes I find something useful, sometimes not. (Often I pickup 'mindless' reads like some of the gossip magazines or a Star Wars novel... they're good for relaxing the mind after a long week) This week was a productive one.

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers is a book by Shel Israel & Robert Scoble, with a foreword by Tom Peters. I went back to my CICS days to do a good, quick grad student read on it. It looks like an interesting work not on the tools, but on the sea change within the business society being brought about by blogging.

This book also guided me to look into an earlier work from 2000 titled the Cluetrain Manifesto, which Israel and Scoble call a bible to bloggers. Written at the cusp of what became the blogging revolution, Cluetrain hints at the changes to come from the tools we have come to know as distributive collaborative community tools. Cluetrain is an interesting work from a copyright perspective (interesting to you '642 geeks') as the work is available in its entirety online (and is not just online, but is in multiple formats... check it out). Of course, if you prefer the traditional, hard copy version, find it on Amazon.

As an aside, not to get too far off topic, take a peek at how Amazon's net incomes fell in 4Q05.

Another book (and I'm afraid I didn't catch the name of it) was all about iPods and iTunes. Nothing Earth-shattering there, other than an interesting tidbit... News to me... iTunes allows you to embed "Album Art" into mp3 files. Of course, "album art" could be on any mp3 file, not specifically an album-rip. So... I'm going to play with putting imagery into my various Podcasts, including CICS: The Podcast. This is an interesting development.

So, that trip to Barnes and Noble was one source of good news. What was the other? An e-mail.... and rarely does an e-mail make me happy (as there is so much spam to fight most days). Cyril Dangerville had written to tell me that had found a potential answer to my long-standing boggle of how to cross-post to multiple blogs on multiple servers. See what he told me...

I know it has been a long time, but just in case you haven't got any reply on your CrossBlog issue or you have not given up yet, I have an answer at least to one of your questions...
The URL to the right mt-xmlrpc.cgi that you should use for your proxy parameter sould be:
http://cicsworld.org/cgi-bin/mt-xmlrpc.cgi
It is NOT like in the example shown on the MT page or on the author's page...
The author of the plugin strongly advise to have the HighWater plugin installed as well on your personal blog...
Good luck.

I can only say, excellent! I will be experimenting with the and will post as I find if it works.

Just wanted to pass this along. The "I AM HIP HOP SUMMIT" is this coming Saturday, December 17th at University of Indianapolis. To get in free you have to pre-register at www.iamhiphopmovement.org . This is the real Hip Hop movement that captures spoken word, art, fashion, music, and much more. Check out the website and register so you can get in all the parties, panels, workshops, poetry sets, art gallery and meals for FREE at www.iamhiphopmovement.org .

See you at the Summit at 1400 east Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46227 at University of Indianapolis this coming Saturday, December 17.

Also check out: www.focientertainment.com

DON'T FORGET TO Pre-Register at www.iamhiphopmovement.org