Category: ranting

Random thoughts, frustrations, ideas and opinions. Quality not guaranteed, consume only under adult supervision

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ranting

Nobel Prize Winners – 2002

The Nobel Foundation had awarded all of this years Nobel Prizes:
Physics: Raymond Davis Jr., Masatoshi Koshiba and Riccardo Giacconi
Chemistry: John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka and Kurt Wüthrich
Medicine: Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz and John E. Sulston
Literature: Imre Kertész
Economics: Daniel Kahneman, Vernon L. Smith
Peace: Jimmy Carter Jr.

Head over to the Nobel e-Museum to read more about each and past winners. It’s a great site just to browse and learn something.

The wording of that award very clearly stabed at Bush’s warhawking saying;

“In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international co-operation based on international law, and respect for human rights.”

I should also point out that one of the winners of the Economics prize is a George Mason professor. This is the second person in the GMU Economics department to win a Nobel Prize. I went to Mason for three years and never met any Economics students…. Now I know why, all the professors where doing research rather than teaching!

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ranting

radio station

Why do radio stations play thier ads in big 15 minute long marathons? That’s how they lose people to other stations. I know a lot of people don’t bother changing the station when the ads come on but a lot of people (especially those in cars) do change it. You’d think the advertisers would know this and tell the radio stations not to do it. I think it makes much more sense to play a song then an ad or two and then another song or two. Mix it up, so that listeners know that if an ad comes on they only have to listen to it for a minute or two. That would make me less likely to change the channel, which I do now when the first add comes on.

Just a note: most of the time when I am in C’ville I listen to the greatest radio station on Earth 91.9 wnrn! And you can even listen over the net…

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ranting

ted rall’s war cry

Ted Rall has posted a great article on Yahoo News entitled War Cry. A great political satire where Iranian President Mohammad Khatami makes the case for military intervention against the tyrant of America, George Bush. You have to read this.

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ranting

journal problems.

I spent today looking for a good solution to the issue I have with Livejournal, not being able to go back more than 75 entries on my page. I have not found a nice solution yet. I looked at a bunch of weblog authoring systems but the biggest problem is embedding them in my system. I think Movable Type is my best bet, but I am having some problems with it. Mostly with trying to import my old journal—half of that is because Livejournal does not have a nice way of exporting my old entries.

I guess I could just start over, but there are a few old entries I really want to keep. Also not having the old entries kind of goes against the whole reason for keeping a journal. I will look into it some more. If I had a linux box set up and a high speed connection I would just write my own system I think. But here at my parents house I only have dial-up access and Windows…

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quotes ranting

some quotes…

Bored, so I will just post some cool quotes that I have lying around…

An idiot throws a rock into a well and ten smart people have to do their best to get it out.

Romanian proverb

I don’t necessarily agree with my own opinion.

Order is for idiots, genius can handle chaos.

If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times

Oscar Wilde

Time is just a window someone forgot to close.

Aika

Life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

Voltaire

To achieve success: Break all the rules.

Robert de Wolf

Reality is that which refuses to go away when I close my eyes.

It IS as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you.

Truth stands when the world is burning down.

Normal is a setting on a washing machine.

A clean, neat, and orderly work-place is a sure sign of a sick mind.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.

John A. Shedd

While we are not ideal people, we must be people of ideals.

The mockingbird can change its tune eighty-seven times in seven minutes. Politicians regard this interesting fact with envy.

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn’t have that dangerous beak.

Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?

Why is it that when you transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?

Why do we drive on parkways and park in driveways?

livejournal
I found a flaw in using Livejournal to post my thoughts on my webpage today. If you press the ” Previous 2″ link at the top to go back over and over again, to come to a point where it no longer says ” Previous 2″ but “Previous Day.” At that point pressing it will just bring you back the the same entries over and over again. The issue is that Livejournal to keep load on their servers down archives everything 75 entries and older. This means that the script I use to access my entries does not know how to handle anything older than 75 entries ago. You can still see the old entries over at beggs.livejournal.com but I don’t like that.

So, I have been thinking that I may sit down and so some work on writing my own database and scripts for my journal and the comments. I really like the comments, it’s the interaction that makes the whole journal thing worth while. The problem with leaving Livejournal is that there is no longer a login option to identify a commenter. But I have to think on how much that is an issue given the number of people who actually comment on my journal.