Slice of Light

Literally anyone can pick up a camera and take a snapshot. Most can even take a pretty good snapshot. But to take a photo­graph requires a bit more. A photo­graph does not document, or if it does, it does so only acci­den­tally. The photog­rapher must not seek to capture a scene, a moment, an object, a person. The photog­rapher, as against the snap­shootist, extracts a narrow, carefully delimited slice of light. The skill with which he carves makes him a tech­nician. The slice he selects makes him an artist.

Draw Something III

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Draw Something II

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Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition

After weeks of hunting, I am pleased to present to you the complete elec­tronic version of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, as supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor as ASCII files on 34 floppy disks. This elec­tronic version contains data published in the following print volumes:

  • Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol. I
  • Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol II
  • Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Revised Dictionary of Occupational Titles

Data published in these volumes are in the public domain and may be repro­duced and distributed without source credit. This version also includes data never published in print. These data, in the following fields, remain under copyright to the North Carolina Occupational Analysis Field Center:

  • Work Fields
  • MPSMS (Materials, Products, Subject Matter, & Services)
  • Significant Worker Functions
  • Temperaments
  • Aptitudes
  • Environmental Conditions
  • Physical Demands (except Strength)

These data may be repro­duced and distributed only with source credit.

The Department of Labor has abandoned the Dictionary in favor of O*NET. The Social Security Administration, however, still relies on the Dictionary for work char­ac­ter­istics and trans­ferable skills analysis in admin­is­tering the disability insurance and supple­mental security disability income programs under the Social Security Act (20 C.F.R. §§404.1566(d) and 416.966(d); SSR 00-​​4p).

Download: DOT.zip
(5,082,753 bytes, md5: 72c11d10fca87b03974ec050ee57febe, downloads:17)

Click and drag.

Randall Munroe of xkcd recently posted a comic that included an enormous world to explore, full of fun things do discover. He called it “Click and drag.

You really ought to explore the original for a while, because part of the point of the comic is that explo­ration takes time and effort. But when you’re done with that, check out my zoomable Google Maps version here.

All This

The heart is hard to translate. It has a language of its own. It talks in tongues and quiet sighs, prayers and procla­ma­tions, in the grand deeds of great men, in the smallest of gestures, in short, shallow gasps. But with all my education, I can’t seem to command it. The words are all escaping and coming back all damaged. I would put them back in poetry, if I only knew how. I can’t seem to under­stand it.

I would give all this, and Heaven, too– I would give it all, if only, for a moment, that I could just under­stand the meaning of the word. You see, because I’ve been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me at all.

It talks to me in tiptoes and it sings to me inside. It cries out in the darkest night and breaks in the morning light. But with all my education, I can’t seem to command it. The words are all escaping and coming back all damaged. I would put them back in poetry, if I only knew how. I can’t seem to under­stand it.

I would give all this, and Heaven, too– I would give it all, if only, for a moment, that I could just under­stand the meaning of the word. You see, because I’ve been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me at all.

No, words are a language, and it doesn’t deserve such treatment. All my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling. All this “Heaven” never could describe such a feeling (or so I’m hearing). Words were never so useful, so I was screaming out a language that I never knew existed before.

—Florence Welsh & Isabella Summers,
(Florence + the Machine),
“All This and Heaven Too”,
Ceremonials
(mutatis mutandis)
Song Album
iTunes - All This and Heaven Too - Ceremonials (Deluxe Version) Ceremonials (Deluxe Version) - Florence + The Machine
Amazon - All This and Heaven Too - Ceremonials (Deluxe Version) Amazon - Ceremonials (Deluxe Version)

WoPSR​.net, Now an Amazon Associate

So if I post a link to a product there, and you click it and then buy something, I might get a small commission in the form of Amazon​.com store credit.

I’m also working on doing the same with iTunes.

I’m going to be making a number of other changes soon as well. I need to clean up the blogroll, replace the Flash clocks with canvases, and fix the wishlist. I’m also working on a major project, based on some recent research I’ve been doing into combi­na­torial math­e­matics. That project will even­tually get some attention here, when it’s done. For now, I’m having fun learning things like “Ruby” and “Ajax” and “Twitter Bootstrap” and “Rails.” More to come.