a stupid, worthless, or unattractive person

"(Jerry is) an all-American schlub . . . He has turned these degradations into an animated Web site appropriately named ItsJerryTime.com, on which he battles a cast of tormentors that includes the Meal Moth, his landlord and an alleged telephone conspiracy perpetrated by a duo of old ladies" Wall Street Journal

Labels: General, Humor

Melody Gardot

"The story of vocalist Melody Gardot is as remarkable as any who perseveres against abject adversity. Born in New Jersey in 1985, she took up piano and played as a youngster on the nightclub scene of Philadelphia, influenced by jazz, folk, rock and pop musics. At age 19 she was a fashion student at the Community College of Philadelphia. But, on a fateful day, while riding her bicycle, the driver of a Jeep made an illegal turn, hurdling into Gardot and leaving her in the street for dead. Hospitalized for months with multiple head injuries and pelvic fractures, her love for music was the best therapy she could receive.
Her music could be described as a cross between Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy, and Shania Twain, but goes deeper than mere pop convention. ~ Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide"

Labels: Music

7 day URL

• Create a notebook
  
• Have a conversation
  
• Create a community

Labels: General, Links

Wash and dry

"Your computer could fry if you don't keep it clean," says Jonathon Millman, chief technology officer for Hooplah Interactive.
Dust clogs the vents behind your computer, which causes your CPU to heat up—and heat is the biggest cause of component failure in computers. Regular cleaning could save you costly maintenance fees down the road.

Labels: General, Hardware, Reference

Not just for machines

1. Freshen smelly shoes.
   
2. Remove static from clothing, hair, TV screens, and computer monitors.
   
3. Clean pet hair from the floor or furniture.
   
4. Replace a sachet.
   
5. Loosen caked-on food from a pan.
   
6. Tackle suitcase and gym-bag odors.
   
7. Prevent old books from smelling musty when in storage.
   
8. Wipe up sawdust after working in the garage.
   
9. Prevent thread from tangling when sewing.
   
10. Dust venetian blinds.

Labels: General, Reference

Hidden workings

Labels: Hardware, Reference

Photoshop tip

Labels: Graphics, Tutorials

Lullaby Baxter's Back

Montreal, 1997. Lullaby Baxter is waiting tables at Jello Bar. Coaxed on stage for an impromptu number, she sings Billie Holiday's signature song "Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)". This, her first public performance since grade school, brings down the house.

She buys a green guitar and learns "Leaving On A Jet Plane". Someone at the Laundromat says, "Anyway, try writing songs."

Labels: Music

When can you use it?

" Fair use is a copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials forpurposes of commentary and criticism. For example, if you wish to criticize a novelist, you should have the freedom to quote a portion of the novelist's work without asking permission. Absent this freedom, copyright owners could stifle any negative comments about their work.
Unfortunately, if the copyright owner disagrees with your fair use interpretation, the dispute will have to be resolved by courts or arbitration. If it's not a fair use, then you are infringing upon the rights of the copyright owner and may be liable for damages."

Labels: Copyright, General, Reference

Holiday info

The fire is the wrong place for other holiday detritus as well - der Tannenbaum, for example.

My assistant Una had an Uncle Bob, a manly man who felt throwing the Christmas tree away was a waste of good firewood. So he tossed it in the fireplace - gave him a nice warm glow.

Unfortunately

what was glowing was the roof, presumably ignited by embers.

Fortunately

the fire was small and anybody with a hose could have put it out.

Unfortunately

the hose was frozen solid and the fire department had trouble getting the nearest hydrant to work.

Fortunately

the firefighters were able to throw a ladder up against the house and put out the fire with a chemical extinguisher. They then hacked off a small hunk of charred roof with axes, peered into the crawl space, and declared the fire out.

Unfortunately,

having by now found an operational hydrant, the firemen declared they needed to hose down the roof "as policy," sending a torrent of water through the hole and collapsing the living room ceiling.

Really unfortunately,

the house that all this happened in belonged not to Uncle Bob but his in-laws. Bob bought them an RV and matters were pronounced square, but it was a lesson he won't soon forget, and neither should you.

Labels: Answers, General, Reference

It's a recommended practice

"Let's face facts. The whole low-carb craze is playing itself out. The USDA recommends that every day we eat 6 to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice, pasta, and other foods containing grains, especially whole grains. Bread is not the enemy of a healthy body, if you select the right bread.

The American Dietetic Association recommends a minimum of three servings of whole grains per day and goes so far as to recommend whole-wheat toast with peanut butter as a quick and healthy breakfast option."

Labels: Products

Drive to Save

"GasBuddy.com is the portal site to more than 170 web sites that help consumers find cheap gas prices. All web sites are operated by the non-profit organization known as GasBuddy Organization Inc.

Since gasoline prices change frequently and may vary by as much as 20 percent within only a few blocks it is important to be able locate the service station with the lowest priced fuel. GasBuddy Organization web sites allow consumers to both share information about low priced fuel with others as well as target the lowest priced stations to save at the pumps!"

Labels: Cars, Help, Reference

Games for kids (and you)

"Welcome to the SchoolHistory.co.uk downloadable resources centre. This has been updated to allow quick, easy access to our resources kindly contributed by other teachers. There are now over 1,400 pages of resources available."

Labels: Answers, History, Reference

Does 85 WPM impress you?

The common short cuts are: Ctrl+X for Cut, Ctrl+C for Copy, and Ctrl+V for Paste.

These are optimized for use on the left side of the keyboard.

There's another set of shortcuts that use keys on the right-hand side the keyboard:

Cut: Shift + Delete
Copy: Ctrl + Insert
Paste: Shift + Insert

Also see:
One Hand Typing

"Computer Keyboard Shortcuts for one hand typists. Resources for vocational, occupational, rehabilitation therapists, and their clients, who have lost full, or partial use of one hand, with a special emphasis on learning to type with a standard keyboard."

"This video clip is of me, Lilly Walters. Note how I use my less able hand to do the SHIFT key. I am typing on a normal keyboard. I really do up to 85 words per minute - with enough caffeine and sleep. The keyboard shown here is a NORMAL keyboard you will find in any office, school or home. No alternative keyboard layouts. Just what all of my peers use. By the way, I type faster than most of my peers! All because I learned to type with one hand."

Labels: General, Reference, Shortcuts

For your real desktop

"A couple of months ago I bought a 17" LCD monitor (PolyView V17E). However, when I first powered it on, the thing that struck me was just how bright the blue power LED was! This power LED is just next to the power switch, immediately below the screen itself. The LED was bright enough to be very distracting, to the extent where it was just too bright to be able to look at the bottom part of the monitor without needing sunglasses.

Luckily, the LED was shining through a small plastic diffuser, mounted in the case, which had a flat surface on it. A couple of coats with a permanent marker dulled the brightness sufficiently to allow me to use the monitor without being blinded."

Labels: Products

A multidiscipline subject

Labels: Colors

Let the government help you find out

This report presents period life tables for the United States based on age-specific death rates in 2003.

Presented are complete life tables by age, race, and sex. In 2003, the overall expectation of life at birth was 77.5 years, representing an increase of 0.2 years from life expectancy in 2002.

Between 2002 and 2003, life expectancy increased for males and females and for both the white and black populations.

Life expectancy increased by 0.3 years (from 77.7 to 78.0) for the white population and by 0.4 years (from 72.3 to 72.7) for the black population.

The greatest increase was experienced by black females with an increase of 0.5 years (from 75.6 to 76.1). Life expectancy increased by 0.2 years for black males (from 68.8 to 69.0), white males (from 75.1 to 75.3), and for white females (from 80.3 to 80.5).

Labels: Reference

Is it Samuel Pepys or Robert Scoble?

Robert Scoble, former Microsoft Evangelizer:
Scobleizer
How your blog will get discovered

Here are some references to Web Logs

MSDN Magazine:

"Q - What is blogging all about?

A - First, "blog" is short for Web log. It's a medium in which an author writes a journal-style Web site with provisions for readers to respond. These Web logs are becoming quite valuable in the software community for sharing ideas."

All About Blogs and RSS
Wikipedia definition

Weblog as Online Community Management Tool

Blogger.com:
Eats, Blogs & Leaves
Blogger Basics

More on RSS (Really Simple Syndication):
RSS News you choose
About Syndication, RSS, and Other Web-Altering Chemicals
RSS: The Web's Next Big Thing?




See all Topics

What the other guy says has weight

"In my presentations, I may have several slides which feature a quote from a famous (sometimes not so famous) individual in the field. The quote may be a springboard into the topic or serve as support or reinforcement for the particular point I'm making. A typical Tom Peters presentation at one of his seminars, for example, may include dozens of slides with quotes. "I say that my conclusions are much more credible when I back them up with great sources," Tom says."

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso"

Labels: Reference

Really save useful time

"Therefore, let us keep the fall ritual as it is. However, one Sunday each Spring, let us set our clocks not one hour forward, but TWENTY-THREE HOURS BACKWARD.

Think of all the advantages. We will not lose an hour of sleep; we will gain (almost) a day of rest. It will be Saturday all over again. You will never again miss Confession, or an airplane, or the Redskins game.

Naturally, if this were the whole plan, our calendars would fall behind one day in each year. However, the second part of the Revised DST Plan deals with this. Every four years, instead of adding a day, let us SUBTRACT THREE DAYS.

Furthermore, let these be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which according to recent polls are the least popular days.

Labels: Calendars, General, History, Reference

Be cool in the office

What is Pentrix? Pentrix is the new and improved version of Pentix - The Art of Pen Spinning web site. Pentix has been around since January, 2000 and has grown in popularity among pen spinners ever since. The mission of Pentrix is to teach people how to spin their pens.

Labels: Activities, General, Tutorials

By Chandler Burr

"You may have noticed that if you breath through your nose, you tend to breathe through only one side of it for a while, then for a while through the other. . . When you smell information on the right side, you send it to the left side of the brain and vice versa, and you find a statistically significant increase in verbal scores when you breathe through the left side of your nose."

Labels: Books

Fold it all up

Labels: Art, Free Stuff, Tutorials

A collection of sources

Labels: Links, Reference

One Stop OneLook

"If you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation, we'll quickly shuttle you to the web-based dictionaries that define or translate that word. If you don't know how to spell the word, we'll help you do that too. No word is too obscure: More than 5 million words in more than 900 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook search engine.

What can you do at OneLook.com?

Define words:

Type a word into the search box on the front page to retrieve a list of dictionary web sites that define that word. Be sure "Find definitions" is selected.

Translate words:

Type a word into the search box and select "Find translations" to retrieve a list of dictionary web sites that have translations of that word into other languages.

Find words:

Type a pattern consisting of letters and the wildcards * and ? to retrieve a list of words matching your pattern."

Labels: Answers, Reference

Not Birders - Butters?

How many kinds of butterflies are there?

There are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies in the world. About 725 species have occurred in North American north of Mexico, with about 575 of these occurring regularly in the lower 48 states of the United States, and with about 275 species occurring regularly in Canada. Roughly 2000 species are found in Mexico.

How many kinds of butterflies can I find near where I live?

In most parts of the United States, you can find roughly 100 species of butterflies near your home. The number is higher in the Rio Grande Valley and some parts of the West, somewhat less in New England. As one goes northward into Canada the number decreases, while as one goes southward into Mexico the number greatly increases.

How long does a butterfly live?

An adult butterfly probably has an average life-span of approximately one month. In the wild, most butterflies' lives are shorter than this because of the dangers provided by predators, disease, and large objects, such as automobiles. The smallest butterflies may live only a week or so, while a few butterflies, such as Monarchs, Mourning Cloaks and tropical heliconians, can live up to nine months.

"Just living is not enough, said the Butterfly. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. "

-Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875)

Labels: General, Links, Reference

More symbols and letters

Labels: Reference

Casino tutoring

Teaching probability can be challenging because the mathematical formulas often are too abstract and complex for the students to fully grasp the underlying meaning and effect of the concepts. Games can provide a way to address this issue. For example, the game of roulette can be an exciting application for teaching probability concepts.
In this paper, we implement a model of roulette in a spreadsheet that can simulate outcomes of various betting strategies. The simulations can be analyzed to gain better insights into the corresponding probability structures. We use the model to simulate a particular betting strategy known as the bet-doubling, or Martingale, strategy. This strategy is quite popular and is often erroneously perceived as a winning strategy even though the probability analysis shows that such a perception is incorrect.

The simulation allows us to present the true implications of such a strategy for a player with a limited betting budget and relate the results to the underlying theoretical probability structure. The overall validation of the model, its use for teaching, including its application to analyze other types of betting strategies are discussed.

"An in-depth but easily readable guide on probability theory, covering various aspects of the theory with a bias to gambling games and strategies. Includes working examples in an excel spreadsheet."

Labels: Activities, Reference, Tutorials

DaVinci and friends

Labels: Art, Books, General, Links, Reference

A wiki for the people

1. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
   
   
2. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms within militias coordinated by the States, shall not be infringed.

It is increasingly difficult for the average person today to participate in shaping the public agenda. Most policy initiatives are drafted in back-rooms with a few individuals providing all of the input; the public is rarely involved in this process; outreach to others is not a standard practice.
Along with these imposing barriers to entry, television, radio and print meda are largely accessible in only one direction, with little interactivity or opportunity for everyday citizens to contribute ideas.
In contrast, more perfect offers an open public forum where everyone is a potential contributor and participants create their own content. By focusing on the written word instead of the 20-second sound bite and enabling anyone to contribute to the public discourse, more perfect offers a unique opportunity to re-invigorate the marketplace of ideas originally envisioned by our founding fathers.

• Rewrite the Constitution of the United States
  
• Edit the Bill of Rights
  
• Tweak the Washington State Constitution
  
• Help define the Priorities of Government for Washington
  
• Revise Washington State Party Platforms: Dem/Rep

Labels: General, Reference

Shape the Zeitgeist

The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields.

SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while simultaneously illuminating, reflecting, and shaping the universal Zeitgeist.

Labels: General, Humor, Reference