I've been contemplating moving this blog
to WordPress for a number of months, but I've been too lazy/busy/distracted
to take the first steps to do so. Mitch
Cohen did a great series of posts
(1,
2,
and 3)
explaining how to move from BlogSphere to WordPress, and Matt
White donated his agent to export
data to the proper XML format. I also paid attention to how things
went for John
Roling and Kathy
Brown when they did the same.
So once I get the hosting piece set up, I'll start testing the move
and formatting of data. Should be interesting...
A couple of side notes...
I started blogging back in February
of 2003. Little did I know how blogging would define much of what
I've done in the last ten years, nor what and where the blog would end
up going. I've written nearly 3900 posts since then, some memorable,
many forgettable, a couple regrettable, but they're all mine for better
or worse. There are a few entries I plan on deleting from here before
I do the migration. Mostly, those posts are the daily job postings
I did on my blog before I moved that content onto a separate blog (http://lotusjobs.wordpress.com).
Since these posts have (in my opinion) no value due to the passage
of time, I'm taking the opportunity to clean them out. I may run
across a few other entries that have no value due to being time-sensitive
or whatever, but I won't be deleting anything that could be construed as
"revising history." For better or worse, I own my posts
and my words, and I'm not going to play the "I never said that"
game.
Also, my move away from BlogSphere should
NOT in any way, shape, or form be taken as a commentary on or dissatisfaction
with the blogging software or Notes/Domino in general. Declan
Sciolla-Lynch did a phenomenal
job when he created BlogSphere, and it's the reason that (again, in my
opinion) the Notes blogging community took off. I will forever be
grateful to Dec for everything he's done for the Lotus community.
So... if you try and find something
in the next couple of weeks and you find that the blog looks different...
that's why.
Book Review - What I've Learned... So Far Part III: Banjos, Boats And Butt Dialing by Mike Ball
Mon, May 20th 2013 6:52a Thomas Duff I was recently offered the book What
I've Learned... So Far Part III: Banjos, Boats & Butt Dialing
by Mike Ball for reading and reviewing. I know I end up turning down most
of the offers I get for review copies because I'm so far behind in reading
and reviewing, but it's hard to turn down a book that can somehow link
banjos, boats, and butt dialing in a title. It also helped in that he delivered
on it.
I've never heard of Mike Ball, but it's
probably easiest to think of him [read] Keywords:
96
Book Review - Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs
Sun, May 19th 2013 10:13a Thomas Duff I've always been amused by people who
are health fanatics following some particular trend or fad that promises
to fix every issue known to medical science. A. J. Jacobs decided to follow
all the health advice he could find for a year, and the result is his book
Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection.
With the type of humor displayed in his prior books, Jacobs shows just
how impossible it is to follow all the health advice out there (or even
a small part of it). [read] Keywords:
150
Sun, May 19th 2013 9:10a Thomas Duff Nate Silver is the current rock star
of statistics and predictions based on the overwhelming accuracy of his
forecasts in the 2012 election results. His book The
Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
does a good job in explaining the fundamentals of statistics, probability,
and predictions. If society understood these concepts, we'd spend far less
time arguing from polarized positions "supported by facts"...
Contents:
A Catastrophic Failure of [read] Keywords: notes
network
119
Book Review - Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles: Unexpected Gifts From the Animals of Africa by Melissa Haynes
Wed, May 15th 2013 8:45p Thomas Duff This book had me in tears, both by laughter
and emotional impact... Learning
to Play With a Lion's Testicles: Unexpected Gifts From the Animals of Africa
by Melissa Haynes. The title was enough to intrigue me into considering
it for reading and reviewing. It didn't take long before I knew it was
a great decision.
Haynes went to South Africa to volunteer
on a wild game reserve, seeking to find some perspective and purpose in
her life. What sounded like an adventure quickly turned in [read] Keywords:
112
Book Review - Judaism For Dummies by Rabbi Ted Falcon PhD and David Blatner
Sun, May 12th 2013 7:40p Thomas Duff This was a book that I had put on my
library "to be read" list, but decided that getting it via Amazon
Vine was faster and better... Judaism
For Dummies by Rabbi Ted Falcon
PhD and David Blatner. I felt this was a *perfect* example of what Dummies
titles are good for... context on a complex topic, enough so that you know
where to go for more information. Toss in a fair amount of humor along
the way, and I had a great time reading this (while learning lots).
Contents:
Introduction [read] Keywords:
125
Book Review - Tell No Lies by Julie Compton
Mon, May 6th 2013 8:40p Thomas Duff Tell
No Lies by Julie Compton is the
first of a series (two so far) of novels centered around District Attorney
Jack Hilliard and his fellow lawyer and one-time lover Jenny Dodson. That's
"one-time" as in "slept with her once", but it happened
at a time and under conditions that made the two of them front-page news.
Dodson was put on trial for murder, facing the death penalty. Hilliard
was her alibi, as the night of the murder was the night he visited her
house. He's convinced that [read] Keywords:
169
Book Review - How Data Science Is Transforming Health Care by Tim O'Reilly, Mike Loukides, Julie Steele, and Colin Hill
Sun, Apr 28th 2013 2:24p Thomas Duff How
Data Science Is Transforming Health Care
by Tim O'Reilly, Mike Loukides, Julie Steele, and Colin Hill is not a large
book... in fact, it's only 26 pages. But it's a solid 26 pages that makes
the case for how health care can (and will) be transformed by the use of
massive and detailed data on patients and outcomes. Given that you can
download it for free on Amazon, there's no reason *not* to give it a read.
It's enough to shift your view of how health care technology can be much
[read] Keywords:
135
Book Review - Storm Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers by Lee Sandlin
Sat, Apr 27th 2013 10:09p Thomas Duff Tornados... powerful, fearful, unpredictable...
and a source of controversy over the years as people tried to figure out
what they are (or if they even existed). Lee Sandlin tells the story of
those who first tried to solve the puzzle in his book Storm
Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers.
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, but it could well
be due to incorrect expectations rather than the fault of the content or
quality of the writing. I'll [read] Keywords: connections
121
Book Review - Six Years by Harlan Coben
Tue, Apr 23rd 2013 6:06a Thomas Duff I picked up Harlan Coben's latest novel
Six
Years from the library a week
or so ago. I enjoy his books, and I was looking forward to a few days of
leisurely enjoyment. What I got instead was a book I had a hard time putting
down, as Coben kept me guessing right up to the end. Granted, I read a
lot and don't necessarily do a good job of being able to remember plots
and story lines of books I read even six months ago. Still, this is one
of the best non-Bolivar novels he's written.
[read] Keywords:
157
Book Review - Calculated In Death by J. D. Robb
Sat, Apr 13th 2013 8:49p Thomas Duff Yay... another J. D. Robb (aka Nora
Roberts) novel... Calculated
In Death. This time, Dallas is
tagged on a woman's death that looks to be a mugging gone bad. Her body
is found on the street at the base of a set of stairs leading up to a building
in the midst of remodeling. But Dallas and Peabody find evidence that she
was actually killed inside, and the street scene was staged as a diversion.
Further investigation reveals that in her job as an auditor, she had just
been given three new [read] Keywords:
