| But, do you have a flag? |
[Aug. 2nd, 2007|10:42 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
Just in case you missed it in the news this week, Russia has laid claim to the North Pole. Well, more specifically, to the massive amounts of fossil fuel under the North Pole... As we all know, if you want to stake your claim to any body of land all you need is a flag and it's yours! Why didn't Canada think of doing this years ago, I wonder? ;) And more importantly, will Santa now be bringing toys to all of the good comrades of the world? :) (Maybe I'll get vodka in my stocking this year... hmm, this isn't so bad after all!) |
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| You want a way to store fat? Now THAT's a way to store fat... |
[Jun. 5th, 2007|12:30 am] |
So, apparently, Krispy Kreme is going to have their own line of ice cream now ("Ice Kreme", I'm not kidding), and they're going to promote the Doughnut Sundae at some locations, per a radio report I heard on the way into work this morning. A little snooping around Google shows that the Krispy Kreme website in Australia already has "Ice Kreme" on the menu. It's coming...
A doughnut sundae. I don't think I can imagine anything more unhealthy, or more wonderfully gluttonous :d |
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| Math challenged youth |
[Jun. 4th, 2007|03:09 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
Today I was at the fabric store, and they had a new clerk who was trying to learn the ropes and all of that fun first-retail-job stuff. I waited as the manager walked her patiently through how to do a return, then went about some other shopping. Eventually I needed a quarter of a yard of fabric cut, which she did after a little fluttering -- the poor girl had a line, and the manager was apparently the only other employee for the afternoon so they were busy with the front register.
Anyway, she couldn't have been older than 20, I'd say more likely she was 19. After she cut my fabric, she started to write it up, then got stuck and was fumbling for a chart to convert the 1/4 measurement... to a decimal. As in 0.25. She scanned up and down the chart, and I gently told her it was 0.25. She didn't believe me, I found it on the chart for her after assuring her I was right... She was not trying to be difficult, and I don't think it was the line distracting her either. She honestly did not know the decimal equivalent for 1/4!
Some friends I know who tutor 7th...10th grade students locally had mentioned this kind of problem before; and they're seeing it very often, apparently. The current crop of students have always had calculators in the classroom. ALWAYS. And so they can't do fractions at all. Some don't have any concept of negative numbers, either, so equations like "5 + X = 4" confuse them utterly when they start taking algebra.
I know I'm a math nerd and all, but that's just scary. Especially since we're living in one of the most affluent areas of the country, supposedly with some of the best school districts in the country :( |
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| Rat book review... |
[May. 22nd, 2007|09:28 pm] |
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| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
I had plenty of free time sitting around in airports this past weekend, and was finally able to read through Rat by Jonathan Burt. The book is pretty nifty if you're looking for a loose collection of factoids and stories about rats and their interactions/cultural references with humans throughout recorded history. I didn't care for the writing style, it comes off with the feel of a bad college paper rather than engaging writing to me for some reason. Lots of nice illustrations and pictures, and good references for learning more about the various topics touched upon -- I'm definitely going to hunt down some of the things mentioned in here :)
The book goes from the history of rats in Eastern and Western society from a cultural standpoint, then spends a lot of time talking about the association rats have come to have with plague, and tries to balance out the rat's image by going into detail about all of the scientific discovery and medical advances that have come as a result of rats. Then it closes with a section pointing out how rats have been (and in some places still are) both cherished pets and a food source for people (eep!)
I was surprised at how graphic some of the sections of the book are, mostly relating various religious myths about rats (as well as Freud's notes about the "Rat Man"...) Not that I didn't like those sections (really interesting stuff), I just expected the book to be more all-ages friendly.
I don't think I'd keep this out on my coffee table, but it's certainly a fun read if you just want to pick up a swath of shallow facts about rats :) |
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| Radical Demotivation -- its time has come? ;) |
[Feb. 27th, 2007|01:05 pm] |
There's a news blip out there today about how colleges are now seeing a generation of narcissistic students. In particular, there's a trend of failed relationships and other social issues arising from the belief held by these students that they're "special", can do anything they want (and are entitled to it all), etc... Which struck me as very interesting, since the thesis of the book I'm reading right now (The Art of Demotivation) is essentially that most workers are too narcissistic and believe they are entitled to all kinds of special treatment, have expectations of success that don't fit into reality, and that in general the message of the many, many, many motivational/empowerment programs out there are (mostly) responsible. That some failure now and then would be GOOD for workers, as a wake-up call and to bring them back down to reality so that they can be productive and do what they're paid to do. The book is presented as satire, but there's some truth ringing through in a lot of it (at least for me.) Hmm, maybe there's more to the idea of Radical DemotivationTM put forth in the book than first appears? ;) |
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| Gone for the holiday... |
[Dec. 24th, 2006|01:30 am] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ankhorite and I are hittin' the road in a few hours to go see the family, and I doubt that we'll be able to check LJ again until we're home after the holiday. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!
See you in 2007... :) |
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| Just to be difficult... name change |
[Nov. 27th, 2006|02:04 pm] |
In case you're confused... My LJ account name changed from lesscooldigit to savant_da_rat. |
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| Failure of Design |
[Oct. 25th, 2006|04:15 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Tip tap tip of keyboards at work | ] |
Glad has been advertising a new line of plasticware tubs for leftovers and snacks; the new ones have a raised circle on the top of the lids, so that you can stick multiple lids together for storage. (The plastic tubs already fit inside eachother...) This is great, except for one usability thing that I can't believe they didn't think of -- with the raised circles, filled bins do not stack on top of eachother. The original design (without the raised circle) lets the base of one tub sit neatly inside the outline of the lid of another, and you can stack them without trouble. Grr. Good thing I only bought one package of them!
I mean, it's not something poor enough to get them listed in a Donald Norman book, but it's pretty poor design nonetheless IMO.
-Digit |
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| We see the sky, we see the land... we see the water... |
[May. 22nd, 2006|10:56 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
It turns out that there's a re-relase of Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb available that works on (modern) MS Windows, Linux (x86) and MacOS X (yes, yes, I can hear people now saying "emulator", but it's nicer to have it come off a CD and run in a window without all that extra emulator setup and overhead...) So I picked up a copy for MacOS X, thinking it would be a fun game to play in all that spare time I don't have (heh.) This is a re-relase of the original game, with the original graphics (save for the program icon, etc.) -- they didn't respiff any of that... it's the original pixelated goodness :)
It looks like they used SDL for the port, which his way cool in my book :) It has options to play in a window or full-screen, and the game kind of pauses whenever the window loses focus so you can go back and forth between email etc. and not have the dialog go rambling off without you. 480MB of HDD space if you want to play without the CD-ROM in the drive, which is pretty much peanuts by today's disk standards. (There's some other goodies on the CD-ROM, too, that aren't part of that 480MB install image.) It's a CPU hog which kind of surprised me (even in window mode), which I'm guessing is just re-draws, but it's not enough to cause slowdown of any sort on my laptop (PowerBook G4.) Memory footprint is small, too, of course. Might chew battery life, I'd have to experiment to see... Regardless, it works as you'd expect on MacOS X, and since it's SDL, that means it will pretty much work the same on Linux and Windows too. Yay :)
I have the original Inherit the Earth release box and floppy disks (©1994, woot!) sitting on a shelf here; this release just comes in a slim DVD case with the CD-ROM and a brief instruction booklet. There's an additional manual and music CD they're selling on the website too, for those interested. And fan art. And a comic strip...
It's a great gamer crime of mine that I never actually played this game through... :/ I'm looking forward to doing so now, even if it's only though on-and-off playing on the laptop over the course of the next month or two. Fun fun :)
-Digit |
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| Getting rid of old software...? |
[May. 13th, 2006|05:07 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Birds chirping outside my window... | ] |
I have several dozen old software packages (we're talking MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 vintage here), much of it still sealed in the original boxes. Stuff like SimEarth, Windows 3.11, etc. that will not work (or be useful) on a modern PC environment... Anyone have suggestions on where to donate or otherwise get rid of this stuff? Unloading it on eBay for $1 is a waste of my time, but I hate to just put it out at the curb if there's some place that can make use of it...
Ideas?
-Digit |
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| Value beyond the price... |
[May. 11th, 2006|11:25 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Prodigy -- Firestarter | ] |
So, I went off to the big scary book store during my errands tonight, to try to pick up a KJV bible. Not knowing if big scary book store would even carry it, but I figured it was worth a try, since the religious supply stores were all closed at that hour.
I wandered around the bargain section, no luck...
Maybe Mythology? No, all art books...
Religious Fiction? Nope...
Religions? No...
Christian Inspiration? Ok, I have to be getting close. Maybe around the corner of this shelf...
...Holy crap! Two full bookshelf thingies of bibles. Big ones, small ones, shiny ones... I was expecting to find one that came with a blow-up ten commandments tablet or something :) Finally I found a KJV that was a decent print size, for sale at the the low, low price of $6.99. Woot. "Value beyond the price", it claims on the packaging.
Now I just need to set out a daily or weekly routine for plowing through it. "In the beginning..."
-Digit |
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| Bible study accompaniment suggestions? |
[May. 10th, 2006|08:26 am] |
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| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
I had made plans to read the (King James) bible this summer. Actually, I planned to do so about two years ago, but I never got around to it. This is not for some spiritual enlightenment, but rather for just having the cultural/literary background there in my brain for reference. I was raised Catholic, you see, and so we weren't exactly encouraged to read the bible... much more of a sit down, shut up, and listen to what you're told dealio :)
So, my question for all you folks out there: Is there any accompaniment book/reader/cliff notes/etc. that you've found useful? Dearest ankhorite says I should use Asimov's Guide To The Bible as I go through it (which I will most likely.) I'm looking for guides that will help me pick up references to other works, or modern day works that are derived or have interesting tie-ins to particular bible sections, explanations of stuff lost in translation, etc. etc.
Suggestions?
Also, has anyone else done this? How long did it take you to get through the whole thing? I was going to start from Genesis and just work my way through a certain number of pages a night...
-Digit |
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| Too much to do, too little time :( |
[Apr. 7th, 2006|11:25 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ozone Cocktail -- Madame Mope | ] |
Ack, I have been totally over-burdened with RL for the past two weeks, and I am no longer able to keep up with LJ the way I like (about one to two hours a day to read everything I find interesting, post, etc.) I haven't really checked in on LJ for almost ten days.
I'm going to have to take a break from LJ until mid-May, when this semester and some other events are over. Literally, every weekend and four out of five week nights for the next month are booked for me. Too much to do, too little time :(
A vacation on a deserted island is sounding really good right now; I'm just going to hop into the Skyrunner and disappear for awhile...
-Digit |
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| Welcome to World Six... |
[Feb. 12th, 2006|10:40 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | SMB3 -- World 6 Theme | ] |
So we woke up to the results of the Snowstorm of The Centurytm... eh, not quite, but still enough to make me hear the SMB3 World 6 Theme in my head when I looked out the window :) This is the most snow we've had in a few years (looks like we got between 12 and 14 inches), but I know we've had at least one snowfall that was deeper since we moved into this house.
And, finally there's a scene bright enough that our near-dead digital camera can manage to take a picture that's not a blob of darkness!
( All it needs is penguins... (120k piccy behind the cut) )
Now, if only I didn't have to shovel the car out today... ;)
-Digit |
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| Dum de dee... |
[Feb. 12th, 2006|12:03 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Bomb The Bass -- Megablast | ] |
So you can kind of tell I went cross-country a few times from the East coast to the West...
( States I've visited chart... )
I was in Montreal for one weekend, and that's the only time I've been outside the US. I'm so boring :)
-Digit |
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| SMAAAAAASH!!! |
[Feb. 1st, 2006|12:06 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | elated | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Onett Theme (in my head...) | ] |
Can it... can it be true? Mother 3?? M3 Official Release - 4/20/06 -- HOORAY!!!
I wonder how long we'll have to wait for a translated version in the US... oh man. Gaming goodness at its best, now I have something to look forward to in life :)
-Digit |
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| Arctic penguins |
[Jan. 25th, 2006|10:57 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | silly | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nectarine! -- http://www.scenemusic.net/ | ] |
Random thought... why don't penguins live in the Arctic? What if a mad scientist tried to release a flock there -- would they thrive? Or just provide an unusual treat for polar bears?
Sure enough, a search in Google reveals that someone has already tried this! Turns out the penguins got bored and moved to Norway. Maybe Arctic Circle Candy grows better there?
I can imagine a group of polar bears gathered around a computer screen, making a website for a "Bring back the Arctic penguins!" campaign...
-Digit |
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| Adding friends filters to journal -- TEDIOUS! |
[Jan. 14th, 2006|01:07 am] |
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| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Apollo 440 -- Tears of The Gods | ] |
Click... click... click... click...
I decided this morning that I should go through and adjust each locked journal entry based on specific friends filter lists, instead of leaving the majority of my locked entries just locked to my overall friends list -- I've gotten into the habit of adding new people because I really like the entries in their journal, without necessarily having a good reason to open my own journal up to them.
And now I know why others who have done this recently (or worse yet, those who have switched their journals to being completely friends-only) whined so much. Even though I have less than fifty entries, it took me a good chunk of time doing tedious clicking to get every locked entry that wasn't already set to a specific friends filter changed. The LJ docs should make a suggestion to people to create a special friends filter when they start using LJ if they're considering making more than a few locked posts, to prevent this kind of pain down the road. Start the good habit early ;)
If you're on my friends list, reading this journal, not seeing any locked entries, and think that you ought to be, just let me know and I'll add you. I _think_ I got everyone in the filter, but... I'm also quite sleepy :)
-Digit |
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