Lists of Things retiring

Why? I’m a bit tired of lists. And only three kinds of people read this any more:

1. Me
2. Mary Beth
3. People who Googled “I hate LabView”

But all is not lost! I have just moved my personal web page to a new server and probably shall continue to blog occasionally at http://www.josephshoer.com/blog/

Some questions for Wolfram Alpha

1. “What is the answer to the Ultimate Question?”
2. “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
3. “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

some good things

1. Passed my A exam! Now I get an M.S. in rocket science!
2. Only one final paper left in the semester.
3. Moved into some awesome new lab space!
4. Getting together with new friends.
5. The new Star Trek movie. Woah! J.J. Abrams must have been watching a lot of Galactica, I think, from the intense first fifteen minutes. Really like some of the cinematic and editing choices, too. “This year’s Iron Man,” indeed.
6. The Red Sox now lead the AL East.
7. Ithaca’s weather these days – it’s so green out there!
8. NASA.
9. Got to fly the glider recently!
10. My general emotional state right now. :)

Some suggestions for holidays that athiesm or agnosticism might have as an organized religion

• 21 March, 21 July, 21 September, 21 December – Solstices and equinoxes. Times to celebrate each season, the passage of time, events that occured in the past season, new growth, harvests, etc.
• 9 November – Carl Sagan’s birthday. A day to celebrate the wonder of the physical universe and its exploration.
• 15 February – Galileo Galilei’s birthday. A day to celebrate the ability of the human mind to investigate and comprehend the universe. Another possible Galileo-related suggestion: 31 October, the anniversary of the day in 1992 when the Vatican officially admitted that they were wrong about the Sun going around the Earth.
• The date when Roger Williams founded Rhode Island. This holiday would celebrate the independence, diversity, and tolerance of thought and philosophy.
• A day honoring Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), pioneer of the scientific method and experimental physics.

I need some suggestions that counteract my Western history educational bias…

What do these have in common?

• plain
• hog
• bell
• egg
• plant
• yam

little things that bug me

• Nobody sells “medium-tall” shirts for us tall, skinny guys.
• Every single electronic device has to have its own non-standardized charger.
• Web sites that are designed assuming I view them on widescreen monitors.  Some people don’t like having all their browser windows maximized, and some people like to use computing devices that are getting smaller.  I’m looking at you, Facebook.
• The horrible integration of Word 2007’s awesome equation editor with other Office 2007 programs.

a few things that make me think that ‘Firefly’ might be a tiny bit racist

1. Adlai Niska, uber-sadist,  as a possible Jewish moneylender.
2. The Reavers as the “wild Indians” of this “western in space.”
3. There are no Asian people on the show, despite all the Chinese and Japanese cultural influences.  Well, maybe one or two extras.

Hilrious Wikipedia pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastafarian

Really horrible applications

1. Adobe Acrobat
2. PeopleSoft
3. LabView, as always
4. Blackboard

Colin Powell is awesome

• “They’re saying, ‘well, you know he’s a Muslim.’  Well, no, the correct answer is that he’s a Christian.  But the really right answer is, ‘So what?'”