Rabbits of Mind

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:35:53 -0400

Betteridge’s Law of Headlines is an adage that states, “Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’”.

One thing though: This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no”. The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it. - Ian Betteridge ^[1]

Combat ridiculous email disclaimers

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:42:51 -0400

Are you as annoyed as I am at annoying email disclaimers that don’t mean anything. I like this parody.

Disclaimer:
By sending an email to ANY of my addresses you are agreeing that:
I am by definition, “the intended recipient”

All information in the email is mine to do with as I see fit and make such financial profit, political mileage, or good joke as it lends itself to. In particular, I may quote it on usenet.

I may take the contents as representing the views of your company.

This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may be included on your message.

Found here.

Checking Facebook access and adding Login Approvals.

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:05:00 -0500

A couple of friends recently had their Facebook passwords compromised. And recently I have seen some strange activity in my Facebook account (not the usual strange activity). If your password has been guessed, or discovered in a brute force attack, you’d never know until the hacker spams your friends. But there are ways to see if you have unauthorized logins and prevent it from happening in the future.

Here’s how.

Go into your Facebook Account Settings.

Open the Active Sessions to see where your logins are coming from. If you see any suspicious ones, you can stop them from right there by clicking “End Activity.”

[Click the image to see a bigger, more readable version]

While you’re there, you can also turn on “Login Approvals.” This feature will send a text to your phone every time you try to login on a new device. The text contains a code you’ll need to enter to complete the login. If a hacker gets your password he still won’t be able to login unless he also has your phone.

While you’re there, it might not be a bad idea to delete any suspicious or old “recognized devices” and change your Facebook password.

Here are a couple of additional sources of more information about how login approvals work.

Stay safe!

Unsub Month

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:51:36 -0500

I don’t know how I accumulate so many email subscriptions, but most seem to be marketing related. January and August are the two months I spend time actually unsubscribing from lists rather than just deleting the email.

And if I continue to get emails after unsubscribing, I start sending them to GMail’s spam folder. I don’t care if the unsubscribe robot warned me that I might still get a message or two. A warning is not the same as having my permission to spam me. Off to the spam folder you go.

Truly, it is such a pain in the neck to delete all the useless email I get every day. I could just ignore the mail I get that gmail tells me is unimportant (it’s pretty accurate) but it bugs me to have a bunch of unread mail lying around.

So I slog through these unsubscribes, which usually last at least a couple of weeks before I start to see a drop in the flow of garbage. In the end, it’s worth it to have more useful email again.

A Nation's Education Left Behind

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:59:06 -0500

A Nation's Education Left Behind:

In a book published last year, I said that I was wrong. I was wrong on every count. Testing should be used for diagnostic purposes, to help students and teachers, but it has turned into a blunt instrument that is used to reward and punish teachers and schools. Charters should serve the neediest, but, with some notable exceptions, they have become aggressive and entrepreneurial. Instead of seeking out the neediest students, many of them exclude the neediest students and skim the best. In some states, like Michigan, most of the charters are for-profit, with big dividends to the investors; their profits come right out of the public school budget and into the pockets of shareholders. In some states, like Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, virtual charter schools are making millions of dollars for their owners, while children sit home alone in front of a computer. These cyber charters get full state tuition, but they have no buildings, no playgrounds, no library, no custodian, no nurse, and few teachers. They often have one teacher to monitor 100 screens. For investors, it’s a great business, but the educational results are awful. In Colorado, for example, only 12% graduate from the Virtual Academy, compared to a statewide graduation rate of 78%.

We have had a full decade of No Child Left Behind, and we now know that the law has been a disaster. True, it has documented the shocking gaps in passing rates between different groups of children, but it has done nothing to change the conditions that cause those gaps. We know the gaps are there; actually, we knew about the gaps long before NCLB was passed. Yet Congress is still patting itself on the back for identifying a problem and doing nothing meaningful to solve it.

Many children are still left behind. We know who they are.

"To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and..."

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:25:35 -0500

“To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.’ We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.”

- Jean Vanier (via azspot)

animalstalkinginallcaps: LISTEN TO ME. PLEASE. YOU HAVE GOT TO...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:03:31 -0500

animalstalkinginallcaps:

LISTEN TO ME. PLEASE. YOU HAVE GOT TO STOP POSTING QUOTES ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT VERIFICATION. YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE THE QUOTE IS AN ACTUAL QUOTE AND NOT AMENDED, WARPED, OR PATENTLY FALSE. YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE THE SOURCE IS CORRECT. YOU CAN’T JUST SEE A STRING OF PRETTY WORDS AND THEN SPREAD THEM LIKE SOME SORT OF VIRUS THROUGH MILLIONS OF LAZY, IMPRESSIONABLE BLOGGERS SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO -AT THE VERY LEAST- GOOGLE IT. CHECKING IN AN ACTUAL BOOK WOULD BE FAR TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU. I KNOW YOU’RE JUST ‘TUMBLING’ OR ‘TWEETING’ OR WHATEVER, BUT DO YOU KNOW THE OLD SAYING? A REPORTER IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS SOURCE? IT’S LIKE THAT. YOUR CREDIBILITY IS AT STAKE, AND YOU ARE MAKING THE WORLD STUPIDER.

WHO SAID THAT THING ABOUT REPORTERS?

OSCAR WILDE.

IT’S PRETTY SMART.

OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU.

Vacuum Coffee

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:41:02 -0500

Vacuum Coffee

A story about my grandmother and my daughter. (Click image to...

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:34:22 -0500

A story about my grandmother and my daughter. (Click image to read)

You like awesome popcorn?

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:32:00 -0500

+ +

Note: the chipotle seasoning has salt in it, so don’t go nuts.

That’s Fiesta Lime Mrs. Dash and Konriko Chipotle Seasoning.

[Photo credit: Popcorn photo by *Micky]

Soda Machine

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:49:19 -0500

Dear soda vending machine operator:

I noticed you hiked the price of a 20 oz. bottle of soda to $1.75. Good luck with this new get rich scheme. You will probably still get people to buy the soda, since they can no longer steal soda from the fridge (we don’t leave 12 packs of soda in the fridge anymore). However, I will not be using the machine unless I am desperate, considering these facts:

You never have my favored soda flavors in your machine. If you had Coke Cherry Zero in there, I might pay the ridiculous price once in a while. Here is a short list of some of the sodas that I would rather have than the soda you have stocked in your machine: Coke Cherry Zero, Coke Zero, Diet Mountain Dew, Pepsi Max, Dr. Pepper Ten. [As an aside, I do appreciate that you stock some ginger ale.]
I can take the 60 second walk down to the cafeteria and pay $1.55 ($1.66 with tax) for the same bottle of soda. Better still, there’s a better selection there. So, I could actually have a Coke Zero. And pay less.
Right now, there are 2 liter bottles of soda on sale down the street at Stop & Shop for $1.50. To get that much soda out of your machine would cost $6. Put a different way, if I buy a two liter bottle and drink a 20 ounce serving from it, I’ll spend about 45 cents on my serving of soda. To put it a third way, you’re charging 4 times as much for this soda.

Some people will probably shell out the cash. And you can charge whatever you like. But then, I can also print this post out and tape it to the wall next to your machine.

I love this.

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:10:54 -0400

I love this.

Red Eye

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:10:33 -0400

Red Eye:

My new favorite coffee drink is a Red Eye. It’s a regular brewed coffee to which a shot or shots of espresso have been added. There are a number of names and variations for this concoction, but I think my favorite name for it is “depth charge.” If you use a pumpkin coffee, the name for it is “Jack o’lantern,” which is also awesome. I think I will make and bring one of those to the math seminar later today.

Photo

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:24:19 -0400

Moroncycle on 146

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:08:00 -0400

On Columbus Day weekend you’re bound to see plenty of bad driving, and today was no exception. We headed out on a brief jaunt to Sturbridge for Maggie’s annual birthday visit to Old Sturbridge Village and the traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as we’d expected, though we did see many out of state plates tailgating and lane-hopping to get two cars ahead before they had to slam on their brakes, soon relegated to the low speed lane where they were trapped between a semi and a couple of minivans.

But an incident on the way home definitely took the cake.

Heading south on 146 near Purgatory Chasm, we were cruising along on cruise control in the right lane. The surprisingly sparse traffic meant fairly smooth sailing. About a tenth of a mile ahead, a fellow on his bike with a woman passenger was riding very close behind a white sedan, but nobody else was in sight.

At least, it was that way until a police cruiser approached us rapidly from behind with lights flashing. Since we were in the rightmost lane, we just watched as he zipped by, remarking at how many cruisers we’d seen today with their lights on (at least 4, I think). As we observed, the cruiser quickly began to overtake the motorcycle and sedan. I was surprised to see the motorcycle begin to weave a bit (he was considering passing the sedan, is my assumption).

Our jaws dropped in amazement, however, when the motorcycle chose to pass precisely as the cruiser was occupying that same physical space. The cycle changed lanes, apparently oblivious of the police vehicle, cutting the officer off. I don’t know how the fellow maintained control of his vehicle, but with the sedan in the right lane his only choice was to put two wheels onto the grass of the median, kicking up dirt and dust as the motorcyclist finally took note of the flashing lights and swerved, now nearly cutting off the sedan.

As we all advanced forward, the police officer abandoned his previous emergency to pull over the cycle. We caught up just as both vehicles were at a full stop. Now passing, we saw the officer spring from his vehicle, plant his feet, and slam his door so forcefully I imagined I could hear the window breaking. We exited with the sight of him stomping towards the bike looking a bit on the emotional side.

Somewhere out there, I am willing to bet a motorcyclist is not having a very good evening. It’s probably the most stupid thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in the presence of a police officer, with my own eyes. I can only wonder what he got cited for.

Hank Williams Jr. Report Card

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:59:00 -0400

HISTORY

“It would be like Hitler playing golf with Benjamin Netanyahu,”

Hitler died in 1945. Netanyahu was born in 1948.

Grade: F

———

MATH

“Obama! And Biden! Are you kidding? The Three Stooges.”

Obama + Biden = only 2 people.

Grade: F

———

CIVICS

“They’re the enemy.” [Referring to the president and vice president]

Grade: F

———

“I’m not going to sugar coat it, we’re polarized.”
Um… Science? Home economics? We’ll just give him a C there, for “confusion.”
———
I’m still not sure this isn’t just one of Will Ferrell’s characters.

The News In Beer

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:27:10 -0400

Two beer-related stories.

1) Suction from Grain Causes Brewery Silo to Cave In

I don’t remember when it was, but I remember a discussion of this possibility with friends sometime in the past year. Perhaps it was at Coastal Extreme brewery? In any case, round cylinder silos like this are vulnerable to a vacuum being formed internally when material spills out of them. As you can see here, the difference between the internal vacuum and the external air pressure can crush the thing. That’s why they need vents.

You can see the same thing happen if you fill a plastic gallon jug (a milk jug is thin enough to do this) with water and then turn it upside-down to allow the water to run out. If you don’t let air in, it will start to crush the jug.

2) Study Shows Drinking Beer After Exercise Hydrates as Much as Water

All I have to say to this is that I know a researcher who was aware of this long before this study was completed.

wallabri: So Liam and I started watching Doctor Who…

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:45:08 -0400

wallabri:

So Liam and I started watching Doctor Who…

Ran over a Squirrel

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:09:08 -0400

When we’re in our last quarter mile of most of our “out and back” type runs, there is a small hill we have to run up. We think of this area as being “in the chute,” which is a term inspired by my mother-in-law who identifies the very last part of a long Disney amusement park ride line as “the chute.” It denotes the very end of a long wait.

On day when we’re running hungry, we get more focused on finishing when we’re “in the chute” and we run faster despite the hill, shortening our stride and attacking it with vigor. This is great for getting you home quicker and improving your finish time, but you tend to block out the rest of the world.

On today’s run, which was only 4 miles following a relatively long run yesterday, we were “in the chute” when there was some sudden commotion around Maggie’s feet. It looked as though she had kicked some sort of long stick, because leaves began rustling and moving.

What had actually happened was that we’d startled a squirrel who was hiding in a small leaf pile. In his excitement he’d tried to escape to the street, but Maggie’s feet were suddenly in the way. He ran into her with his tail flailing madly about, caromed off her sneaker and towards me. I strode over him, and that’s when I saw what he was. He careened off once again towards the road, angry and twitching, in an arc that brought him back to the curb before a Sunday driver could flatten him in an automobile.

Add this to yesterday’s encounter with a bee-in-the-mouth and a large family or turkeys, it’s been quite a weekend for wildlife out on the road.

Mai Tai

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:56:30 -0400

Here’s how I make a mai tai:

First: mix up some mai tai syrup
- 1/2 cup of simple syrup or agave syrup
- 2 tsp orange extract
- 1 tsp real almond extract

Fill 2 glasses with crushed ice

In a cocktail shaker, shake:

- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 oz Lemon juice
- 4 oz dark rum
- 2 oz previously prepared syrup
- a few ice cubes

Shake, then strain into your glasses.

Garnish with cherries and pineapple, unless you’re too thirsty to wait.

Sip while listening to jazz, lounge music, or tiki drums.