Here in Vancouver we have multitudes of flowering trees. At this time
of year they delight the eye, but are a challenge to the photographer.
A bit of progress on that front, with a note on infused vodka...
XML Tourist: Directory Trees to Document Trees03/30/2005 09:19 PM In this month's XML Tourist, John E. Simpsons discusses TreeSpace, a
hard disk space analysis tool that uses XML to represent data
portably.
Studies Elucidate How Flowering Plants Sidestep Self-Fertilization
« A rowan tree, heavily laden with fruit foretelling a harsh
winter. »
Talking about the weather and weather folklore has to be one of the
few universal traits that transcends race and culture. Everybody has
some goofy 'old wives tale' about a wolly worm with a full furry coat
signals a harsh winter. This year, the rowan trees
in Finland are practically bending to the ground they are so full of
fruit which I am told is part of the Finnish weather folklore and
warns people of a harsh winter approaching. I don't know that I
believe it, but with th
e geese migrating early and the generally crappy weather we've had
all summer long, I'm starting to wonder what nature knows that we
don't.
Back home, we've got lots of weather sayings and wives tales, and
some of them are pretty funny. I haven't found anything with a
collection of Finnish weather folklore, but I'm guessing that it isn't
terribly different. You have to wonder where some of these stories
came from and why people still either believe them or mention them
aside from their entertainment value.
Weather Folklore
Horses run fast before a violent storm or before windy conditions.
Pigs gather leaves and straw before a storm.
Flowers close up before a storm.
If the bull leads the cows to pasture, expect rain; if the cows
precede the bull, the weather will be uncertain.
Expect rain and maybe severe weather when dogs eat grass.
Wolves always howl more before a storm.
When the rooster goes crowing to bed, he will rise with a watery
head.
Ants are busy, gnats bite, crickets sing louder then usual, spiders
come down from their webs, and flies gather in houses just before rain
and possible severe storms.
Evening red and morning gray are sure signs of a fine day.
Evening gray and morning red, put on your hat or you'll wet your
head.
When small clouds join and thicken, expect rain.
Dandelion blossoms close before a storm.
If autumn leaves are slow to fall, prepare for a cold winter..
When the leaves of trees turn over, it foretells windy conditions
and possible severe weather.
Redbirds or Bluebirds chatter when it's going to rain.
Birds on a telephone wire indicate the coming of rain.
Before a storm, cows will lie down and refuse to go out to pasture.
When spiders weave their webs by Noon, fine weather is coming soon.
If wasps build their nests high, the winter will be long and harsh.
When it is evening you say, "It will be fair, for the sky is red."
In the morning, "It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and
threatening." Matthew 16:2
It will be a cold, snowy winter if:
-Squirrels accumulate huge stores of nuts.
-Beavers build heavier lodges than usual.
-Hair on bears and horses is thick early in season.
-the breastbone of a fresh-Cooked turkey is dark purple.
A severe summer denotes a windy autumn; a windy winter a rainy
spring; a rainy spring a severe summer; a severe summer a windy
autumn; a month that comes in good, goes out bad.
The sky turns green in a storm when there is hail.
A veering wind will clear the sky, a backing wind says storms are
nigh.
When you look out your window and see your Dogs jumping around and
ducking Its a sign that its hailing.
When dogs in your house start looking paranoid schizophrenic expect
very heavy sleet for 5 hours.
The genius of Jon Udell's work is not sheer technical
innovation (not that TransQuery amounted to anything like that either)
but rather the ability to make sense of how such technologies can be
used in simple but powerful ways over compelling content. ...
Trees, Temporarily12/03/2003 07:19 PM In his latest Transforming XML column Bob DuCharme explains XSLT 2.0's
Temporary Trees, and then he demonstrates how to use them.
Building XML Trees With PHP02/20/2003 07:01 PM Need to manipulate XML document trees, but don't have the DOM
extension compiled into your PHP build? Take a look at XMLTree, a PEAR
class
that allows you to create and manipulate XML document trees without
requiring the PHP DOM extension.
Help with an article on the fate of trees...12/30/2004 11:29 AM I have agreed to write the February issue of Esther Dyson's Release
1.0, but I need your help. The topic is something like: What's up with
taxonomic trees? We used to think that they represented the actual
shape of knowledge. We generally now realize that they're "just"
tools, but they seem to be less popular as ways of browsing. So,
what's going on? Are they as important as ever? What new ways are they
being used? (E.g., they're sometimes used to disambiguate full-text
search queries.) What's being used in their place? I'm particularly
interested in vendors who build trees for...
I've started noticing these totem pole-like sculptures around
Helsinki and, I presume given the Finnish fondness for wood, that
there are plenty of others around Finland. Perhaps Finland and Alaska
could trade artists and Helsinki could get a Native American totem
pole and the Inuits could proudly display a totem featuring Finnish
ice hocky or giant makkara. :)
Updates may be light for the next few weeks as I get my brain flossed
by the nuances of louna, loukse, louta, kanssa, mukana, mukaansa,
itse, the plurals, et al. After 3 or 4 hours of homework every
evening, I'm not much for anything save staring at the TV. Pääni on
täysi.
Today I got my first article in print. My interview with Marc Canter made it into
Computerworld New Zealand (pg 16, April 19 edition -
right over the page from Jon Udell). It was one
of my goals at the start of this year to get my writing published in
the print world, so I'm chuffed to have achieved it! I'll upload a
scanned version of the article tomorrow, because it isn't on the Computerworld NZ website at
this point in time.
For those of you who may have arrived at my personal website via
Computerworld, you may be interested in reading the extended
version of the Marc Canter interview. Or perhaps pay his company
website Broadband
Mechanics a visit (newly re-designed, with my interview
linked on the homepage too. Excellent!). Or you could stick around,
make yourself at home, put your feet up and browse through my
archive of weblog writings - by date or by topic.
What the heck is Blogging?
Some of you may be wondering what all this "blogging" business is
about. The best way I can explain it is invite you to participate in
the personal publishing revolution. Firstly, to read and subscribe to
weblogs - try out Bloglines as
an easy-to-use "newsreader". You can start by subscribing to this
weblog ;-) Click here to subscribe to Read/Write Web in Bloglines. Or, see
that orange button with RSS on it - to your
left? RSS means "Really Simple Syndication". Right-click that and
copy it directly into Bloglines.
The second part of the blogging equation is the writing and
publishing. There are a variety of tools out there, including Radio Userland, Movable Type and TypePad. I currently use Radio
Userland to publish this weblog and Movable Type for my linklog (daily list of
links).
So am I really a Journalist?
Not really, but my interview with Marc Canter was an example of
journalism. The reason I bring this topic up is that there's been a
lot of talk lately about whether blogging is journalism. Jay Rosen wrote an excellent essay on this a
couple of days ago. His conclusion was that "Blogging is not
automatically journalism." There's a lot more to the debate than just
this statement, but it's all philosophical. Read Jay's post and all
the great comments others made on his weblog, if you
want the full picture.
For what it's worth, I think journalism is a craft
that must be learnt and practised constantly - much like being a Web Designer or
Producer is a craft. I can occasionally practise the craft of
journalism, and perhaps I'm even good enough to "turn pro". But the
reality is I'm an amateur Journo (sometimes) and a professional Web
Craftsman (all the time).
Tom Coates wrote an essay last year called (Weblogs and) The Mass
Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... that outlines how
weblogs make it easy for "amateurs" to publish. Nowadays anyone
can create original content and distribute it to the
world. If it gets picked up by a professional publishing outfit, all
the better for both writer and readers. It's a win-win two-way web world!
Omnivorous Trees: Part 412/05/2003 07:50 PM Here's another hungry tree. This one has a
taste for rusty farm machinery. Link(thanks,
Paul!)
Designing Trees and Hierarchies in SQL
Designing Trees and Hierarchies in SQL06/05/2002 07:50 AM If you've followed Joe Celko's columns or bought his books, he
recommends the nested set model for representing trees in SQL (he's
posted it on SQL Team a few times). It's very well detailed in the
following articles, Part I, II, III, IV, and also in his book, SQL For
Smarties, and I recommend checking it out. It's very efficient and
makes it extremely easy to pull out trees/subtrees from the table.
However (you knew this was coming!) one of the issues I have with
nested sets is the complexity required to do relatively simple tasks,
like adding, deleting, or moving nodes in the tree. Even finding an
employee's immediate supervisor or subordinates requires 3 self-joins
AND a subquery! - robvolk
"btn" Focusses on MS SQL Server, but the principles can be applied to
most databases.
"zeldman.vh"
Photos: amorous trees
Photos: amorous trees12/09/2003 04:58 PM
BoingBoing reader George Perdicaris points us to the work of
photographer Yuri Dojc. His "Amorous Nature" series reveals hidden
eroticism in the world of plants. Link
Rambus Sees Logic for the Trees
Rambus Sees Logic for the Trees02/18/2003 08:22 PM The memory chipmaker introduces a new parallel bus logic interface
family (codenamed Redwood), which offers a per pin data rate between
400MHz and 6.4GHz.
The mother lode of omnivorous trees
The mother lode of omnivorous trees12/05/2003 07:50 PM Here's the site of a guy so obsessed with
"gluttonous trees" that he has a collection of pictures of them and a
book, to boot. Don't you wish someone had trained a time-lapse movie
camera at some of these trees? Links
Scoop! Trees are warm-blooded!
Scoop! Trees are warm-blooded!02/05/2005 09:53 PM The snow has melted around the tree in front of our house, leaving
about a four inch gap all the way around the trunk. The snow has not
melted around the wooden telephone pole a half block up from our
house, on the same side of the street. What other scientifical
conclusions can we draw from this shocking evidence except that trees
are our warm-blooded brethren and sistren? Quick! Call the Texas
educational system and demand that our children's textbooks be
re-written!...
Taller Trees? The Limit Is Plumbing04/26/2004 06:53 PM To find an answer to the question, "How tall can a tree get?" a
research team has performed an act of scientific derring-do.
cnn.com/2003/US/West/10/29/california.wildfire/index.html track this
site | 6 links
Prince Charles gets "confidential" trees (Reuters)
Prince Charles gets "confidential" trees (Reuters)03/24/2005 04:29 AM Reuters - New Zealand could help Prince Charles widen his circle of
confidants with a wedding gift of native trees and plants to mark his
marriage to Camilla Parker
Bowles.
Web Spawns Growth in Tracing Family Trees12/07/2003 07:33 PM Calif. "I tell [people] to go straight to Google and put a name in
they're looking for, and they might be amazed at what comes up.". ...
Drowned, Not Downed, Trees in the Amazon Get Nasty
Hammers in Trees Is Not a Good Thing (Reuters)08/11/2004 11:38 AM Reuters - Former ballerina turned hammer-thrower
Shirley Webb has slammed British Olympic training facilities in
Cyprus after being reduced to throwing into a field from a road
junction.
Woman Finds Buckeye Trees Stripped of Nuts (AP)
Woman Finds Buckeye Trees Stripped of Nuts (AP)09/24/2004 04:14 PM AP - Sarah Young woke one morning to find her buckeye tree stripped
bare of nuts. Was it the work of busy squirrels or a buckeye bandit?
Young suspects the latter. "It's nuts!" Young said. "I want my
buckeyes back."
Gallery of fake trees that disguise cellphone towers
Gallery of fake trees that disguise cellphone towers09/04/2004 12:23 PM Xeni Jardin:
Website that collects photos of fake trees that serve to disguise
mobile phone signal towers. Some disguises are more convincing than
others. Link (Thanks, Alex)
Seeing the graphs from the trees - the business model of the web is the same as its underlying structure
Turning Genetically Engineered Trees Into Toxic Avengers
Turning Genetically Engineered Trees Into Toxic Avengers08/03/2004 02:06 AM In laboratories around the country, researchers are altering the
genetic workings of forest trees to change their ability to store
carbon, resist disease and absorb toxins.
Billions of Trees Planted, and Nary a Dent in the Desert
Billions of Trees Planted, and Nary a Dent in the Desert04/11/2004 04:11 AM As part of its efforts to rein in the Taklimakan desert, the Chinese
government announced it will plant trees in an area larger than the
size of California over the next decade.
Indians 'Marry' Sacred Trees to Ward Off Evil Eye (Reuters)
Here's another hungry tree. This one has a
taste for rusty farm machinery. 
Here's the site of a guy so obsessed with
"gluttonous trees" that he has a collection of pictures of them and a
book, to boot. Don't you wish someone had trained a time-lapse movie
camera at some of these trees?