I heard lots of people talking about htis yesterday. What is up with the massive paper waste with the Collaborative Network conference at UB? It makes me sick that no one had any environmental concerns during its production. I cannot believe the giant font and the many blank areas on 11 x 17 paper. It should have been so much smaller with the rest of it on the web. Especially considering that it is a new media conference.

And only a day after Earth Day!

Holly this one is for you. Hurry up and switch to painting. According to Reuters today ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Poets die young -- younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers, a U.S. researcher said Wednesday.

... "What I found was pretty consistent with the death finding actually, female poets were much more likely to suffer from mental illness (e.g., be hospitalized, commit suicide, attempt suicide) than any other kind of writer and more likely than other eminent women," he said.

Full story:

For once the weather on Elmwood is beginning to be pleasant. Befoer I went to bed this mornig at 5am, I noticed it was extremely foggy but without my classess I had mistooken it for heavy snow, so I was glad to see it was not when I woke up. I don't think I want to see heavy snow anymore, at least not till September.

I have so much stuff to do for other people on other timelines. I hope that I can manage it all. In the mean time Alias came out with the new version 6 of Maya .

I am beginning to question Digital Media Arts is a smart carrier choice. I mean, will I have to learn new stuff every year until I retire when Maya 75 comes out. I was kind of hoping to teach the history of Digital Media Arts as I get older. Seems like that could be safe.

I am also dying to work on more cell phoen features for the site and to read Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs, but the time is really hard to find.

I know this isn't very local but I think it is an important step in the wrong direction for the future of computers.

from CNET

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Microsoft has hired one of its worst enemies, the SuSE Linux salesman whose efforts led the city of Munich to adopt Linux and open-source software instead of Microsoft's products.

. . . The new hire will be an asset at Microsoft, Governor predicted. "He's obviously a guy who well understands the dynamics of selling to European public sector organizations, and he understands the huge difficulties that the open-source community has had in delivering on the Munich contract," Governor said. "He will make a wonderful figurehead for Microsoft."

. . . Karl Aigner, formerly SuSE's account representative for Munich, is overseeing sales of Microsoft's data center products to midsize companies in Germany. He began his new role April 1, Microsoft said Tuesday.