Note To Self...

If using Skype to take part in a teleconference with several professors and industry partners, be sure to turn off your e-mail sounds. Otherwise everyone in the conference call will hear

"Hens love roosters, geese love ganders, everyone else loves Ned Flanders."
"Not me"
"Everyone who counts loves Ned Flanders."

when you get an e-mail.

At least it provided some comic relief.

Dichotomy

Technology used for good:

Cool Touchscreen GUI (I know this one's been around a while now, but they seem to have made some cool improvements...including the new giant screen)

Technology used for evil (sort of):

New US Military Heat Ray: this thing heats it's targets skin to an 'uncomfortable' 130F. Ouch.

Shocking!

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

"Half of all children are below average in intelligence"

Well, thanks for the tip Captain Obvious. Did you know that 25% of people in Canada make up a quarter of the Country's population? I bet you didn't.

Link (found on Fark)

(BTW, I'm aware that technically average!=median, but still, it doesn't matter how smart the kids are...even if the average IQ among school children was 250, half of the kids would still be below average.)

No wonder Bush wants to ask the question "Is our children learning?"

A 'Good' Post

I'm guessing this is another one of those things that bothers me and no one else on the planet (I should really start a list), but does it bother anyone else when people misuse quotation marks?

Here's an example of what I mean. It's a story about a new police dog in Essex County. The first line of the story is:

There's a new 'dog' in Essex County.

Why is dog in quotation marks? Shouldn't it just say "There's a new dog in Essex County."? What makes this canine a 'dog' instead of a dog? Is it really a cat in a dog collar? Can it fly? Is it part horse? Does it shoot lasers out of it's mouth when it barks? If not, then it's a dog, not a 'dog'.

Leave it to me to find fault in a 4 line story.

Brrrrrrrr

It's teetering around 0 degrees right now, and the university has the freakin' AIR CONDITIONING ON!

I'm wearing a sweater and a jacket and my hands and feet are freezing. Seriously, wouldn't it save the school money to not be air conditioning the school in the beginning of January? This is why I laugh when people from other departments complain about the bad conditions in their buildings, we don't even have control over the temperature anywhere in the building!

Whoops

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to wish everyone a prosperous and happy new year. I'd also like to share the following video gem Matt and I were shown (thanks Joe!) on New Year's Eve (via the Church of Bob Saget):

Rollin With Saget (audio is not safe for work)