Popularity of names starting with BART
08 May 2009
20 March 2009
Why the Wikipedia is better than Knols
Head on over to the Knol site and search for Barack Obama. At this time there are 277 different results. Which ones are concise? Which ones give more detail? Which ones deal with his early life or his later life or what he's doing now or where he's traveled to or anything else on him? Nobody knows, unless they go read all 277 Barack Obama articles.
Now head over to the Wikipedia and search for Barack Obama. Take a look at a comprehensive article on Barack Obama that summarizes his life in a concise manner and which links to other pages and sets of pages in an intuitive easy-to-navigate interface that lets you delve into any situation in more detail, easily follow hyperlinked references to see other documents, and learn more about a word or term that you haven't seen before.
Now head over to the Wikipedia and search for Barack Obama. Take a look at a comprehensive article on Barack Obama that summarizes his life in a concise manner and which links to other pages and sets of pages in an intuitive easy-to-navigate interface that lets you delve into any situation in more detail, easily follow hyperlinked references to see other documents, and learn more about a word or term that you haven't seen before.
19 March 2009
Speed on a bike lately
Today, riding from my place to my Dad's office to pick my computer back up, I made an average time of ~17.5 MPH. Last night, while riding to class, I had a much lower MPH, but because of the steep roads (the last half mile is the steepest and the mile before that has a sign warning that the grade is at least 5 degrees), I'm still happy with my time. Riding out there last night, I thought I'd ridden ~12 miles, but it turns out I'd only ridden 7.1 miles, for an average of only ~10.6 MPH. Anyway, here's the route I took yesterday:
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10 March 2009
Eva Gabor
I'm now renting a room from Roger, an older gentleman. Yesterday evening I was flipping through the channels and found M*A*S*H -- TV Land was having a MASH marathon. I've always enjoyed that show. This afternoon I was waiting for an appointment and flipped on the tv for a few minutes and saw a show called Green Acres. I was stunned. Beautifully, deliriously stunned.
You remember the Disney movie The Aristocats? Do you remember the cat Duchess? Did you also watch that movie several times while growing up? Perhaps you too may once have owned the audio cassette tape of The Rescuers, perhaps it was one of the Disney read-along books that you owned? That wonderful voice, how could you ever forget it, how could you not recognize it when you first heard it in a new unfamiliar setting. But the shackles of time that so slowly fall across your memories just might be enough.
He sat there, stunned. He'd always recognized voices easily, he rarely ever bothered looking at who a phone caller was -- the usual exchange of banal pleasantries virtually always told him exactly who the caller was. But the voice he was hearing now. How could he have forgotten it? It had been so long -- he knew, with ever fiber of his being, that he knew that voice from somewhere. If not that exact voice, then it must have been something almost exactly the same. Previously, he'd have said that he could relate having heard perfect female spoken voices on less fingers than he had on one hand*, but this was a new one. There had been so many years, how could he have forgotten about this voice. He knew that he knew the voice, but he also would have sworn that he'd never seen that Gomer Pyles-like Ed fellow anytime previously.
I guess I don't have to tell you that I hit the Info button on the remote and learned that the show was Green Acres. The brief description only listed three people, two male-sounding names and one female-sounding name. The female-sounding name must be her name, with a voice like that how could she be anything but the leading lady. Those of you savvy enough to have seen Green Acres in its prime or who read the title of this post may already know who I'm talking about, Eva Gabor. As I rode around later in the day, it came to me where I knew the voice from. The Rescuers, The Aristocats. Good Heavens, I now have another person to add to the list of beautiful, perfect, spoken female voices (I can name numerous perfect singing voices, in this age of digital tweaking, it's almost de rigueur, but spoken voices almost always have some artifact in them, which is great or it would be far more difficult to tell people apart by their voices).
You remember the Disney movie The Aristocats? Do you remember the cat Duchess? Did you also watch that movie several times while growing up? Perhaps you too may once have owned the audio cassette tape of The Rescuers, perhaps it was one of the Disney read-along books that you owned? That wonderful voice, how could you ever forget it, how could you not recognize it when you first heard it in a new unfamiliar setting. But the shackles of time that so slowly fall across your memories just might be enough.
He sat there, stunned. He'd always recognized voices easily, he rarely ever bothered looking at who a phone caller was -- the usual exchange of banal pleasantries virtually always told him exactly who the caller was. But the voice he was hearing now. How could he have forgotten it? It had been so long -- he knew, with ever fiber of his being, that he knew that voice from somewhere. If not that exact voice, then it must have been something almost exactly the same. Previously, he'd have said that he could relate having heard perfect female spoken voices on less fingers than he had on one hand*, but this was a new one. There had been so many years, how could he have forgotten about this voice. He knew that he knew the voice, but he also would have sworn that he'd never seen that Gomer Pyles-like Ed fellow anytime previously.
I guess I don't have to tell you that I hit the Info button on the remote and learned that the show was Green Acres. The brief description only listed three people, two male-sounding names and one female-sounding name. The female-sounding name must be her name, with a voice like that how could she be anything but the leading lady. Those of you savvy enough to have seen Green Acres in its prime or who read the title of this post may already know who I'm talking about, Eva Gabor. As I rode around later in the day, it came to me where I knew the voice from. The Rescuers, The Aristocats. Good Heavens, I now have another person to add to the list of beautiful, perfect, spoken female voices (I can name numerous perfect singing voices, in this age of digital tweaking, it's almost de rigueur, but spoken voices almost always have some artifact in them, which is great or it would be far more difficult to tell people apart by their voices).
09 March 2009
ADHD & Ultrassound
I recently received a stack of Popular Science magazines from my grandmother and found an interesting note on ultrasound. Some scientists apparently put a microphone into a womb and recorded what ultrasound actually sounds like to a fetus. Apparently, it's over 100 decibels. I was somewhat surprised as my work in the construction field had already taught me that the OSHA reccomended limit of daily exposure to that level of noise for an adult is less than an hour a day.
On reading that, you too may have filed this away as merely an interesting mental tidbit until you heard a customer remark that there weren't any ultrasounds when his kids were born. You then might have drawn a mental correlation between ultrasounds and the so-called ADHD epidemic over the last few decades.
Correlation, of course, does not necessarily imply causation. The dramatic increase in both ultrasound rates and ADHD diagnoses over the last few decades may be as distantly related as the dramatic increase in both laser printers and average Japanese height over the last few decades. There have been no studies purposefully exposing a large number of fetuses to ultrasound then following the resulting children through developement while keeping a large control population away from ultrasound sources then following the resulting children through development.
I was excited to have arrived on my own at a possible correlation between two quite diverse subjects, although I must admit I was somewhat disappointed this morning when I sat down to write this article when I found that a number of people have already speculated on whether or not there is any causation between ultrasound and later ADHD diagnosis. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who has remarked on this subject -- I reccomend that you read the FCC's statement on ultrasound images for yourself. Should you avoid ultrasound if you're pregnant? Heck, I don't know. Maybe. Don't get one just for fun, but if your doctor advises you to get one, then you should probably go get one.
On reading that, you too may have filed this away as merely an interesting mental tidbit until you heard a customer remark that there weren't any ultrasounds when his kids were born. You then might have drawn a mental correlation between ultrasounds and the so-called ADHD epidemic over the last few decades.
Correlation, of course, does not necessarily imply causation. The dramatic increase in both ultrasound rates and ADHD diagnoses over the last few decades may be as distantly related as the dramatic increase in both laser printers and average Japanese height over the last few decades. There have been no studies purposefully exposing a large number of fetuses to ultrasound then following the resulting children through developement while keeping a large control population away from ultrasound sources then following the resulting children through development.
I was excited to have arrived on my own at a possible correlation between two quite diverse subjects, although I must admit I was somewhat disappointed this morning when I sat down to write this article when I found that a number of people have already speculated on whether or not there is any causation between ultrasound and later ADHD diagnosis. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who has remarked on this subject -- I reccomend that you read the FCC's statement on ultrasound images for yourself. Should you avoid ultrasound if you're pregnant? Heck, I don't know. Maybe. Don't get one just for fun, but if your doctor advises you to get one, then you should probably go get one.
20 January 2009
Bank Forclosures and Settlements
I'm sure many people are familiar with the following story, from the New Testament, Matthew 18:23-34. It seemed to me that banks could be "likened unto" the first servant in the story. They're receiving their "ten thousand talents" (a talent being a big lump of gold) and they were the ones who got themselves into the mess by being willing to finance people with such ridiculously small down payments, poor credit reports, etc. But are they passing their recent windfall along to us or are they coming after us for a hundred pennies?
Forget about giving the banks these windfalls, let's put out some sort of plan that would pay off 10% of every mortgage held by every person in the US or pay the monthly rate for a few months or something like that. Surely we can find a better use for all those billions of dollars than throwing good money after bad.
23) Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. 24) And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 25) But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26) The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 27) Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. 28) But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. 29) And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 30) And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. 31) So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. 32) Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: 33) Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? 34) And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
Forget about giving the banks these windfalls, let's put out some sort of plan that would pay off 10% of every mortgage held by every person in the US or pay the monthly rate for a few months or something like that. Surely we can find a better use for all those billions of dollars than throwing good money after bad.
17 January 2009
Pirates of the Burning Sea
A new little MMORPG, Pirates of the Burning Sea was mostly fun to play. The character creator was fairly good, but I'm afraid that I'll likely be forever spoiled by the sheer voluptuousness of the City of Heroes/Villains character creator. Recently, Pirates has revamped its avatar combat.
See, the way things were originally projected to go, you played as your ship. Then, almost at the last minute, they put in human avatars and a system for avatar combat. They've recently revamped this and, so their press releases state, upgraded it to no end. I heartily agree that aim.
When you play Pirates, most of us don't picture ourselves as a ship who happens to be crewed by maybe the British or the French or Pirates, we think of ourselves as a Captain, as a Pirate, who happens to own a ship at the moment. Putting more focus on the swashbuckling that we're so familiar with can only be a good thing in my admittedly relatively uninformed view.
You see, although Pirates was a fun game in the beta just before the game launched, although I enjoyed the few quests that I did, I was never able to really sail a ship. There was just far too much lag, the sail kept putting itself up or down on its own and consequently I kept running aground. Then, the ship that was supposed to be on my side kept turning and attacking me. Everyone else I talked to said that this Quisling maneuver wasn't planned, that something was just somewhat buggy. I hear that most of those bugs were ironed out the day of release, but I'm not one to jump in to throw my money at something that has never worked well for me, so I didn't buy the game.
Not to mention, Pirates is only put out on the Sony Online Entertainment platform and I'd have to pay the extra SOE fee to play. SOE charges a package price, you see -- one price to play any of their games, which they feel allows them to charge a higher price than the standard MMORPG monthly fee (even though I'm not interested in playing any of SOE's other games).
See, the way things were originally projected to go, you played as your ship. Then, almost at the last minute, they put in human avatars and a system for avatar combat. They've recently revamped this and, so their press releases state, upgraded it to no end. I heartily agree that aim.
When you play Pirates, most of us don't picture ourselves as a ship who happens to be crewed by maybe the British or the French or Pirates, we think of ourselves as a Captain, as a Pirate, who happens to own a ship at the moment. Putting more focus on the swashbuckling that we're so familiar with can only be a good thing in my admittedly relatively uninformed view.
You see, although Pirates was a fun game in the beta just before the game launched, although I enjoyed the few quests that I did, I was never able to really sail a ship. There was just far too much lag, the sail kept putting itself up or down on its own and consequently I kept running aground. Then, the ship that was supposed to be on my side kept turning and attacking me. Everyone else I talked to said that this Quisling maneuver wasn't planned, that something was just somewhat buggy. I hear that most of those bugs were ironed out the day of release, but I'm not one to jump in to throw my money at something that has never worked well for me, so I didn't buy the game.
Not to mention, Pirates is only put out on the Sony Online Entertainment platform and I'd have to pay the extra SOE fee to play. SOE charges a package price, you see -- one price to play any of their games, which they feel allows them to charge a higher price than the standard MMORPG monthly fee (even though I'm not interested in playing any of SOE's other games).
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