January, 7, 2003 archives

well, safari seems pretty spiffy, so far. renders this site and the mysql site just fine, as far as i've noticed. the 17" tibook just looks insane, but the 12" tibook is intriguing. still waiting for ogg vorbis support in the ipod.

(oh, reading aaron's comment about not missing tabbed browsing reminded me of that common complaint. as i think i mentioned before, the whole tabbed browsing thing just doesn't appeal to me, so i certainly don't miss it. the spellchecking is cool, although i wonder why it isn't turned on by default.)

in his answer to the 6th annual edge question, mit professor of psychology steven pinker writes: … little in instructional practice has been evaluated using the standard paraphernalia of social science—control groups, random assignment, data collection, statistics. Instead, classroom practice is set by fads, romantic theories, slick packages, and political crusades. i would note that educational software is much the same, unfortunately. (or at least it was a few years ago, and i assume little has changed since then.) i think an educational software company that actually invested in even minimal research to support the efficacy of its products would find that investment repaid in the marketing value of that information. and they may even end up with better products. (link to pinker's answer via the volokh conspiracy.)

my news aggregation page pops up links into new windows. when those windows are closed (or focus otherwise returns to that original window), safari recolors the links to show they were visited. that's cool.