Sometimes you just gotta do it. You’ve got this thing going on and life is good and the moment comes and you make a commitment. That’s what I did; I made a commitment. I said it out loud, in front of witnesses, to my wife. Six of us were celebrating Cindy’s birthday. Even Cindy acknowledged […]
Casualties of War
For several years, my son planned to join the Army. As a father, I had mixed emotions: pride that he wanted to volunteer for a very tough job and fear that he would be killed… or worse. He and I had several discussions about the dangers; largely fruitless because teenagers believe they are immortal and […]
Plan would tax music downloads – San Jose Mercury News
Is a licensed, downloaded music recording your personal property? What happens when the state of California says that something is “tangible personal property” even though the EULA says that your rights are still restricted? How would California’s law impact interpretation of the first-sale doctrine as it applies to downloaded music and, by extension, software? All […]
Dream Computer
Candy and I have been watching the first season of Star Trek from Netflix. It’s great fun to see it large on the projector, and in color. Whoo hoo! David thought that Candy and I had completely lost it when we started humming along to the theme music during the opening credits: do do do […]
Man’s Best Friend
A dog is truly man’s best friend. Don’t believe me? Try this experiment: Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car. Shut the lid. After an hour, open the trunk. Observe who is happy to see you. If you try this, let me know the results.
Coming Soon: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Support for Microsoft Office 2007 Files
I run my company using OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office. It does everything we need and costs a whopping $0.00; not a bad deal for a small business. To be more specific, OpenOffice.org Gives us word processor and spreadsheet programs that more than handle our documentation needs, Allows us to open Word and Excel documents […]
The World’s Shortest Personality Test
Your Personality Profile You are happy, driven, and status conscious. You want everyone to know how successful you are. Very logical, you see life as a game of strategy.A bit of a loner, you prefer to depend on yourself. You always keep your cool and your composure. You are a born leader and business person. […]
Electronic Computers: What I Do for a Living
I have trouble explaining what my job is when I am talking to people who do not “surf the web.” Fortunately, Charlie, over at ModernMechanix.com has posted an article from the June 1958 issue of Modern Mechanix, which explains all: ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS – what they are and what they do AUTOMATION has given new importance […]
Kevin Earns His Eagle
No two ways about it, I am hugely proud of my son, Kevin, who attained Eagle rank in Boy Scouts. Last night was his court of honor. There are more pictures in my on-line gallery but here is one of my favorites: Not only is he man enough to speak extemporaneously and do it well, […]
podPress
Late last night, I ran across podPress, “a dream plugin for podcasters using WordPress. It’s so cool that Candy went to sleep… because I was donking around with the computer far into the night. I have updated my two previous podcast postings, Podcast #1 and Performance Bonuses for Politicians. If you get a chance, go […]
Podcast’s Comin’, Hide Your Heart, Girl!
I have not posted much lately because podcasting has piqued my interest. Instead of writing, I have been reading about, and listening to, podcasts (and some broadcast radio shows). My brain is full of stuff about interviewing, podcast programming, audio processing, microphones, mixers, etc. Mike Wilkerson over at 2GuysTalking deserves much of the credit for […]
Paranoia Is Not Safety
Our country is founded on several key values and two of the most important are the right to vote and the belief in presumed innocence. Several school districts in St. Charles county, Missouri, seem determined to teach some important lessons to their students vis á vis these rights: United States citizens of voting age are […]
Use Honey Instead of Cough Syrup
Staying up all night with a coughing child sucks. No two ways about it. And trying to get a kid to swallow some awful tasting cough medicine can be almost as bad. Honey A Better Option For Childhood Cough Than Over The Counter Medications, reported over at Science Daily gives hope. The study [by a […]
The Best Programmers’ Editor
I learned vi back in the bad ol’ days of 1980 when I was fresh out of college and working on a PDP 11/70 running UNIX version 6 with DEC VT100 terminals on a dozen users’ desks. Life was good. I even wrote a short book, How to Use Vi in 10 Easy Lessons, which […]
Photographs of Mercury
This morning the Gee Whiz department brings us photographs of the planet Mercury, taken by the MESSENGER probe on its first fly-by. I don’t know about you but I grew up in the stone ages, when seeing a planet meant looking at a bright spot in the sky. As a child, I never imagined being […]
Free On-line Ubuntu Linux Desktop Training
Seven months ago, I switched from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux on my primary (work and home) computer. Life has not been perfect with Ubuntu Linux (it wasn’t perfect with Windows, either) but I certainly judge the experience to be an overwhelming success. If you are considering trying Linux, and I strongly encourage you to […]
Why I Don’t Worry About Instant Messaging
I don’t worry about kids these days becoming so involved with social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and instant messaging (AIM, text messages, etc.) that they become isolated from real human contact. Why not? XKCD says it perfectly: Long distance relationships are hard. IM can turn a friend down the street into a long distance relationship. […]
“Having Sex…” on Thanksgiving
That title got your attention, didn’t it? It got mine, too. Jump back to Thanksgiving morning in the Zemon living room. I am quietly sitting in my easy chair, sipping coffee and enjoying the peace of the day before we rush into the hustle bustle of hosting the annual turkey day feast. All is right […]
Express Lanes Ignore Real Problems
President Bush announced a “plan” to get holiday travelers to their destinations closer to on-time this holiday season. CNN.com wrote it up in, Skepticism about holiday air travel ‘express lane’. Bush announced a series of technical measures Thursday to reduce air traffic congestion and long delays that have left passengers stranded and turned holiday travel […]
$1,300,000,000,000
Yesterday I discussed $20,900,000, the amount of money that the families in my sons’ high school have spent on the Iraq war since 2002. The war has cost each of the 1,000 families $20,900. Let’s try this from the Iraqi perspective. The total cost of the Iraq war will have been $1.3 trillion during the […]
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