For any of you who sell on Amazon.com’s Marketplace, beware of fraudulent "buyers." In my case, someone e-mailing me using the address kenclark80@yahoo.com is definitely trying to scam me of an item I’ve got on the Marketplace. I’ll post more later. Right now, I just wanted to get the warning out there before I get ready for work.
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
Here is a video I found via del.icio.us/popular. The video is a compilation of Rube Goldberg-like machines involving inclined planes, levers, switches and other simple machines. It’s a tad bit long, but it’s a great compilation.
I’m glad that the fear of terrorism did not cause the handing out of undue punishment this time around. I forgot to post about this before when I heard about the six Ohio teenage girls who were waiting to find out if charges would be pressed for leaving "suspicious" question mark boxes (yes, the same boxes found in the Super Mario Brothers video game series) around town. Bomb squads were called in all over Ravenna, OH, to investigate these golden boxes.
The girls found the plans for an art project to construct the boxes on the internet. Being gamers themselves, they thought it would be cool to make the boxes and leave them laying around town. They came forward after finding out about emergency response related to the boxes. The prosecutor has said that no charges will be pressed, because the girls had no priors and they are writing letters of apology to the agencies that responded to the calls that day.
I’m glad somewhere out there people still allow kids to be kids.
If you haven’t been hiding under a rock in a cave deep in the ocean, you’ve no doubt heard about Apple’s announcement of Boot Camp. For those of you who haven’t heard, Boot Camp is beta software from Apple that will allow you to boot Windows XP on a Mactel machine, like a MacBook Pro with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo or an 20-inch iMac with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo.
Robert Cringely believes Boot Camp is part of a larger plan from Apple to eventually get OS X running on white box PCs:
Microsoft and Apple are happy with each other for the moment, and rather than representing some Apple attack on Microsoft, Boot Camp just represents the state of their happy partnership. But this won’t last for long. It never does.
I predict that Apple will settle on 64-bit Intel processors ASAP (with FireWire 800 please), and at that time will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware, turning the Boot Camp relationship on its head and trying to sell $99 copies of OS X to 100 million or so Windows owners.
I haven’t really been following Cringely too closely lately, but I think he’s on to something. Apple doesn’t care if you run Windows on a Mactel box, since Apple gets sales whether you run OS X or Windows. Why not go for the extra sales of OS X by letting users run it on white box PCs? I know, the Apple lovers out there will say that it’s obvious: Apple can’t control the hardware, and thus cannot control the experience of OS X on non-Mactel machines. While that might be true, a year ago Apple surprised many by announcing its partnership to Intel in the first place. Only time will tell what happens.
Update: Jacqui has a review of Boot Camp at Ars.
Bill Nye was giving a talk to children, parents and other community members at McClennan Community College when suddenly someone leaves:
The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."
He pointed out that the sun, the "greater light," is but one of countless stars and that the "lesser light" is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.
A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.
"We believe in a God!" exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.
What? That "argument" doesn’t even make any sense! The Science Guy is up there talking about the sun and the moon, and this lady is upset because she believes in a God? There are many Christians out there who can come to terms with religion and science. Why are there so many who outright dismiss what science has discovered?
In my brief twenty-six years I have made observations similar to those found at Carotids.Com. First off, we all know that I’ve had some bad bouts with insomnia lately. I try not to bring a computer into the bedroom for fear of it leading to me staying up in bed reading and blogging or worse – playing Hexic (OK, that last one has happened before 
).
In the past week, my sleep schedule has gotten so screwed up between working at 7:30 am (for many that’s no big deal, but I usually start at 9:30 am), enjoying the company of friends and trying to finish up my projects outside of my full time job. I can feel that taking a toll on me and catching up with me. I’ve got to get back to a regular schedule: getting up at 7:30 or 8 in the morning, running, going to work, not staying too late, and not eating dinner or getting to sleep too late, either. I want to get "back in the game" by the end of the month, if only to get that tiny bit healthier than I am now.
Yhis rant started going crazy again, with my short attention span (see #4 on Carotids.Com). So, I will end it with that.
So, I got a chance to watch NBC’s Teachers tonight. My first impressions are similar to the ones I had when I first saw How I Met Your Mother: I think it’s funny, but I don’t know if it will last. Thankfully, HIMYM is both funny and it was renewed for a second season (along with Ghost Whisperer).
Working in a school, I didn’t know whether or not I would enjoy Teachers. When Boston Public was on the air, I wasn’t working in a high school, so I saw it as an entertaining show. However, three and a half years of working in high schools have revealed the lack of realism on TV (yes, I knew beforehand how unreal TV is). The first episode of Teachers did not disappoint in it’s unrealistic portrayal of teaching in a high school. The plus side of Teachers is that it is meant to be a comedy rather than a drama with the occaisional funny bit. The plot of the first episode was a little mediocre, so I hope subsequent episodes get better.
Much like HIMYM, Teachers has a cast member who can be found on another hit TV series: Deon Richmond, better known as Kenny from The Cosby Show. So far his role has been a small support role, but I think he’ll probably get more dialog and development as the show continues.
Update: I just remembered the reason I wanted to post about Teachers: the intro looks and sounds like the intro for HIMYM.
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