I have had many teachers through the course of my life, and expect to have many more as time goes on. But something I have been able to identify very quickly about every teacher I’ve ever had, are their strengths and weaknesses of teaching the topic at hand. My favorite college professor is Dale Bryant, …
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beware the fury of a patient man
John Dryden was right. A single, dedicated man is nearly impossible to stop. And one who waits a long time before exacting revenge is even harder – the target never knows that it’s coming. I took an introduction to terrorism class during the spring 2000 semester at Hudson Valley Community College. The class served as …
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government excess
According to Wikipedia, either a senator or a representative to the United States House of Representatives is paid an annual salary of $165,200. This year, the United States Senate was scheduled to be out of session for over 5 months. Even assuming they worked an above-average number of hours each week (and we’ve all seen …
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a day without immigrants?
Yesterday was the self-proclaimed ‘Day Without Immigrants’ – in which many immigrants, especially of the hispanic and latin persuasion, marched to show support for immigration reform. I have met many immigrants, all of whom have come to this country legally, and they are all working hard to make a living for themselves, and to get …
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God bless the racists
At least they’re honest. They don’t care if they offend anyone. Political correctness has no place in their minds – beyond ridicule. They’re not African-American or black, they’re niggers. They’re not Caucasian or white, they’re crackers. Racists will talk about slant-eyes, towel-heads, white trash, blackanese, honkies, red necks, wops, guineas, polacks, red men, 8 balls, …
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here and now – monopoly updated
From CNN: “Monopoly rolls dice, changes look. The legendary game, out since 1935, will have a new, contemporary version this fall.” [original story | related site] Apparently, Hasbro has gotten tired of all the special editions, the collector’s sets, agreements with Franklin Mint, and just making a bundle of money on a popular, fun, and …
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internet radio
The name’s something of a misnomer, but internet radio is very cool. As a way to listen to a wide variety of music without actually using a radio – and therefore having more choice over what you listen to – internet radio is great. I regularly use Winamp, iTunes, and Windows Media Player to listen …
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standing room only?
From CNN: “Airbus offers standing room ‘seats’ Report: Airbus in discussion with Asian airlines to offer padded backboards to have flyers stand, increasing capacity of largest jet to 853 passengers.” [original story] Here’s an interesting idea from our European friends: take a plane that will hold 500+ people seated, and install them all in a …
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nuclear proliferation
First of all, I don’t think the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons is a bad thing. Nuclear power is nearly fool-proof, runs a long time on very little fuel, and is cheap to maintain. There are potential issues with disposing of the waste from the plants, and if a catastrophe does occur, it could be …
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handgun experiences
In my recent northward foray over Easter weekend, I had an opportunity to go handgun shooting with friends, and I discovered a couple things. First, I don’t like the Smith & Wesson Sigma model. It has a two-stage trigger, so the trigger is the safety (like Glock uses), and I don’t like it. It also …
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new york international auto show
This past weekend I was visiting friends in New Jersey, and we went to Manhattan for the New York International Auto Show on Saturday. If you have never been to the NYIAS, it’s huge (held in the Javits Center), and has a ridiculous number of people in attendance each day. Food is expensive at the …
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dating sites
I’ve noticed (for a while now) that most dating and matching sites are all pay based. What I want to know is why? Yahoo! Personals, for example, requires a monthly subscription fee to use it for more than browsing. eHarmony is famous for allowing free scanning, but they charge a (seemingly high) monthly rate. Match.com …
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the society for creative anachronism
First off, what a great name for an organization.Second, I first heard about this group when I started researching knife-fighting techniques. One of the books I bought on the topic suggested that among the best ways to practice hand-to-hand combat is to join a local SCA chapter. I have spent more time recently learning about …
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containerized datacenters
Expanding on Cringely’s posts late last year (first, second), I was wondering why companies don’t offer turn-key datacenters for businesses. Imagine, for a moment, that you were in need of several servers – email, web, hr, inventory, file storage, applications – and support architecture – routers, switches, firewalls, etc. Locating suppliers for all of these …
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center creek canoes (C3)
For my senior capstone course, our professor is having us each build a mock e-commerce site. All through the semester till this point, the counter example I kept picking for questions was a canoe. So, when we were told to pick something to sell, what could be more logical than canoes? So I am writing …
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fantasy baseball
This year I am participating in a Fantasy Baseball league with some friends, hosted on Yahoo. The last time I tried out the fantasy baseball thing was 6 years ago, and I had no clue what I was doing – I just thought it was kinda cool. Well, this time around isn’t much different (yet) …
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technology and baseball
I subscribe to a slew of RSS feeds on a couple different sites, from technology to world news, sports to medicine, there’s a bunch of really cool benefits to getting news feeds. This morning I noticed an item on Wired about technology’s impact on baseball (original story). In it, Tony Long shares his love and …
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Prayer: The Nuclear Option
Prayer is lots of things to the Christian. It’s our communication line to God. It’s our way of providing support to other Christians. It’s also what some have called the ‘weapon of last resort’. Christ has called us to pray for our enemies. He rebuked His disciples for wanting to call down fire on folks …
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Prayer: Tactical Support to the Front Lines
To quote Paul, we are to be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints” [Eph 6:18]. As Christians in the world, we are engaged in a constant battle against evil. We are fighting daily to hold …
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Prayer: The Comm Link to God
I know what many who read this will think: duh! We’re told repeatedly in the Bible to pray to God. The model prayer given to us by Jesus begins with “Our Father Who art in heaven”. Jesus prayed to His Father a lot, and as “little christs”, we should be mimicking that example. The real …
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Why do atheists care?
Atheism is a belief that there is no god. Contrasted with agnosticism, the belief that we can’t know whether or not there is a god, atheism is predicated upon a basic belief held by others that there is a god. Interestingly, though, many atheists take great pains to attempt to prove their beliefs. Some say …
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RIFd by RFID
My title today is a compact pair of acronyms. From a presentation I saw this week on WalMart’s investments in RFID (radio frequency identification) technologies as a cost-savings measure, they expect to be able to save around $6.7b dollars annually in salary expenditures by moving to RFID tags and scanners to reduce theft and ease …
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Why ‘6 days’ is essential
It is essential for anyone claiming to be a Christian to believe in a literal 6-day creation timeline. Upon that basis rests the entirety of God’s revealed word in the Bible. My employer has recently added a page defending evolution on its website, and I am very disappointed in that move. Evolution cannot speak to …
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PT Cruiser and other cars
Jay Loden has an interesting journal entry from yesterday (1 Dec 05). Apparently, while in Seattle on a buiness trip, he had the, ahem, priviledge of driving a Chrysler PT Cruiser. I have driven them on a few occasions in the past when I worked for Hertz, and generally agree with him about the layout …
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A response to Dan Edelen
Before going any further, let me state the fact that I was home-schooled. For all 12 years of grade-, middle-, and high-school. My parents had various reasons for doing this, from the horrible state of the public schools in Albany NY at the time to wanting to be more involved in my education, but I …
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