What is the cutest, best and most awesomest kids TV show of them all? If you know me, then you might expect me to say "Hello Kitty" and that would be the end of it.

Well, you'd be wrong. The cutest, best and most awesomest kids show is Pocoyo. Bar none. It is the kind of show that I can sit down with Harmony to watch. Harmony loves it, I love it, it's good.

First off, it is very cute in that heart-warming-make-you-smile way, versus the too-sugary-sweet-need-insulin way; it is not like Hello Kitty (the TV show) in it's cuteness. Second of all, the message of each show is really quite good. As an example, Barney the dinosaur has a very superficial message, like: cleaning is fun because I say (sing?) so, whereas Pocoyo will show you how to have fun cleaning up.

But the charm of this show is more then how the message is presented, it is also the quality of the message that is presented. While Barney is singing about brushing ones teeth, and Cailou is busy whining about how scary the next door neighbor is, Pocoyo is learning about how some things (like skipping rope) are hard, and how it takes time, practice, help and most importantly, the ability to ask for help. My favorite episode is called The Key to it All, and is worth watching whether you have kids or not. I've posted the YouTube in the extended body of the entry, so if you wanna watch it, click on the read more link below.

The final statement of that episode sums up why I enjoy this show so much: "This is the best treasure of all isn't it, after the fun we've had today: opening doors, asking questions, and exploring your world. That is the key to it all!"

Over on the BPS Research Digest, they have an article on the Line Between Artist and Madman. Apparently artists and schizophrenics share a lot of similar experiences, with a single exception. Apparently the line which separates an artist from a mad(wo)man is introvertive anhedonia—a condition where one lacks motivation and emotion.

As an aside, check out the Art of Louis Wain, an Artist who started out "normal", but developed schizophrenia as he aged. Pictured to the right is a 'stage 2' drawing of a cat. Check the link for even crazier kitties.

I've been playing around with Gambit lately. Just recently I posed a question to the Gambit list, because I wanted access to the default exception handler. the response I got was... Mind-blowing.

Where I got directed was something a little different. Gambit defines the primitives ##cmd-b, ##cmd-e, ##cmd-y, etc. Each of these primitive procedures are equivalent to the interpreter commands prefixed with a comma. So just like in the GSI interpreter ,b will shoot you a backtrace, ##cmd-b will do the same.

If you are at all interested in becoming a Gambit hacker, these routines are a MUST-LOOK-AT. For instance, dynamic inspection of the current environment now becomes possible. On top of that, there seem to be a host of interesting functions like:

1. ##continuation-count-interesting [continuation]
2. ##continuation-creator [continuation]
3. ##procedure-name [continuation-creator]
4. ##continuation locat [continuation]
5. ##decomp [interpreted-continuation-code]
6. ##dynamic-env->list [macro-continuation-denv]
7. ##decompile [obj]
8. ##exception->kind [exc]
9. ##exception->procedure [exc] [cont]
10. ##exception->locat [exc] [cont]
11. display-exception [exc]
Anyway, these all look really interesting. I am exceptionally excited at being able to inspect the backtrace of a continuation. Imagine saving a continuation at some point in the program, only to inspect it at some radically different part in the program. Wow.

I think it is time to transfer the Gambit source to my PDA for long-time bus related browsing.

And the code? Damn readable.

This has GOT to be one of the coolest wedding cakes I have ever seen. Awesome.

Technorati has a new service up, the Contacts Feed Service, essentially this simple service will scrap a website, and pull out any hCards, and turn them into vCards for address book insertion. Very cool. How do you use such a service? Easy! Just pass it the URL of the screen to scrape, and away you go. For instance, to get my address book entry, just click on this link:

http://feeds.technorati.com/contacts/http://portfolio.jonnay.net/contact/

It is a very simple web service. A simple GET request returns a piece of data. It by virtue of its simplicity is RESTful. This is what REST web services really are all about.

LightCone is an interesting little dynamic RSS feed that tells you when light from the moment of your birth hits stars from within our local group. Why is this important?

From the moment of my birth, light (that I could have influenced) has been expanding around the Earth and light (which could influence me, from an increasing distance of origin) reaching it -- this ever-growing sphere of potential causality is my light cone.

On Saturday, my light cone has hit Beta Comae Berenices.

Okay, maybe it isn't important or even useful, but it is interesting.

Here is a tastey list of SXSW podcasts that I ahve been enjoying. A lot of them are surprisingly non-techie, and will be enjoyable for most anyone. Checkem.

In July the podcast where I am mentioned goes up. I'll keep y'all posted. Man, such an attention whore.

• How to Create Passionate Users
• How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times
• Beyond Folksonomies: Knitting Tag Clouds for Grandma
• What is Hot in Web Applications
• The Wisdom of Crowds
• Bruce Sterling Presentation: The State of the World