I'm often inspired by the bloggers that I consider to be friends even though we have never met face-to-face. One such blogger is Jim hbwt Roepcke and today I was deeply moved by his openness and honesty. As I began reading Finishing what I started I realised that my students would also find inspiration from Jim's story of courage and commitment and resolved to direct them to his posting. When I reached the final paragraph I was surprised, but particularly chuffed, to see that I merited a mention. I'd be very very proud if Jim has taken even the tiniest bit of encouragement from some of the things I've posted to my weblog over the years.

The UVic Department of Computer Science will be fortunate indeed to have such a keen and committed student and I know Jim will do well. I have no doubt that he will be the sort of student that is a pleasure to teach. I look forward to the regular updates on his progress and to hearing of his graduation in due course.

Very best wishes Jim.

Joel on Software - The Best Thing on Television, Ever:

"We just finished watching Season 1 of the BBC television series The Office on DVD during our lunchbreaks at Fog Creek. WOW! Incredibly funny, incredibly touching, and supernaturally realistic. But now I'm paranoid when nobody in the office laughs at my jokes. I'm an entertainer, first, really, then a boss. Also I'll have to cut down on the army stories.

Hint to Americans: turn on the English subtitles and you'll catch twice as many jokes."

Subtitles!? Is it really true that the Americans and the British are indeed peoples separated by a common language!? Glad to see Joel's office get the jokes. I'm often led to believe that Americans fail to see/appreciate irony and subtlety in humour of the kind that Ricky Gervais excels at -- especially as portrayed by David Brent ;-)

Indirectly via Scripting News: 4/14/2004:

"A9, Amazon's much discussed skunk works search project goes live today."

I indulge in a bit of ego-surfing and from the Alexa Web Search - Results for link:smeed.org/ I checked out the Amiga.org link only to discover that several years ago one of my old students - Scott Radcliffe - nominated me for the The 2002 Computer Hall of Fame in the Amiga.org - News | Re: Vote JAY MINER into computer Hall of Fame thread. Here's what Scott had to say:

"I voted also.

In the box at the bottom, there is an option to nominate someone,

everyone, vote for my former lecturer Duncan Smeed, as creator of the bios for the old Dragon computer systems.

To top it all off, he had a run in with Mr Gates, reason enough to vote for him.

Info at: http://www.banavage.com/History/DragonData.htm

and

http://www.dragondata.co.uk/ (goto hardware then technical articles)"

I would have been mortally embarrassed had Scott's nomination bumped me into the list since _everyone_ else was far worthier than I. Fortunately I didn't even make the poll result list ;-). Not surprisingly Jay Miner was voted #1!

Update: I'd overlooked the visitors suggestions for the answer: "Write in your own nomination" list which had me as #9, 8 places ahead of Bill Gates B-)!!

macosxhints - Embed copyright notices into JPEG images

"Digital Cameras embed several types of data inside the images you take, including camera manufacturer, date the picture was taken, and aperture, shutter speed, and focal length settings. These are called EXIF tags and are also called "metadata." Here's how to take advantage of these tags to embed your own copyright notice."...

One of these days I may have a use for this. Hence the 'bookmark'.