Blog Jones

According to anomalies-unlimited, this is the first picture ever taken in history:

It was taken in 1826 by Joseph Niepce in France.

(Via Make: Blog)

Thanks to filosofo for pointing out that Opera is giving away registration codes as part of its 10th anniversary! Just go to the address below and give them your email address!

http://my.opera.com/community/party/reg.dml

Yay!

So, I go to the University Yard Sale webpage today to look for textbooks. I have found the following, most frustrating things:

• There’s a new history book, so I can’t give my old one to my little brother, or even sell it.
• Ditto on the speech book
• There’s also a new book for Legal Environment of the Business, so I can’t buy a used copy–half.com only has the book in Brand New condition, and that for $20 more than the bookstore.
• University Yard Sale is a poorly coded website. See below for an example:

• “Half.com does not accept checks, debit cards, or PayPal accounts.”

Less Frustrating Things:

• I was able to find my Tech Writing book, normally $80, online for $7. Big thanks to my new favorite teacher for sticking with a cheap book!

Hurricane Katrina is going to cost us a lot of money. Not only will it do immeasurable damage to New Orleans proper, but it’s going to wreak havoc with our refineries, which are already overtaxed: According to Hugh Hewitt:

Lousiana has 17 active refineries, producing about 16% of America’s fuel.

Total American refinery capacity utilization was at 93% in 2004.

American refineries are now operating at 97% capacity, processing 17 million barrels of oil a day (American consumes 20.6 million barrels of oil a day.)

If Katrina takes refinery capacity off-line, the effect at the pump will be immediate. Ther [sic] is no more capacity available to up output within the counry. Shortfalls will have to be made up from imported gasoline suppliers. They are unlikely to be moved by complaints of gauging from American congressmen.

Ouch.

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Update: The National Weather Service recently posted this bulletin:

* AT 1137 AM CDT…WIDESPREAD FLOODING WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE
PARISHES ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE PONCHARTRAIN IN THE GREATER
NEW ORLEANS AREA…AS WELL AS IN PORTIONS OF PLAQUEMINES PARISH.
THIS CONTINUES TO BE AN EXTREMELY LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. THOSE
SEEKING REFUGE IN ATTICS AND ROOF-TOPS ARE STRONGLY URGED TO TAKE
THE NECESSARY TOOLS FOR SURVIVAL. FOR EXAMPLE…THOSE GOING INTO
ATTICS SHOULD TRY TO TAKE AN AXE OR HATCHET WITH THEM SO THEY CAN
CUT THEIR WAY ONTO THE ROOF TO AVOID DROWNING SHOULD RISING FLOOD
WATERS CONTINUE TO RISE INTO THE ATTIC.

It’s that time of year again: Classes begin on Wednesday–for most people. I’m special: Classes don’t start for me until Thursday. I’ve got a great schedule for this semester, although it’s a little lighter than normal: All of my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays! Here’s what I’ve got:

• Legal Environment of the Business
• Management Policies–I’ve heard this class is a monster
• Fundamentals of Technical Writing
• Christian Living Forum
• Foundations For Biblical Lifestyle
• (possibly via correspondance over Christmas Break) Business Law

I would have taken a class on interviewing and hiring people for a business, but it was at eight in the morning MWF: If I took it, I’d have to go to Chapel too on those days, so that one hour class would have cost me 18 hours a week. (Leaving at seven to get there at eight, the class at eight, two empty hours, chapel, and an hour back, 3 times a week.) So, no dice. Oh well; guess I’ll have to find an actual book to read on the topic.

The other interesting thing for me this semester: My brother is starting at BJU this semester! He’s actually a dorm student (crazy kid!), and he’s working on campus (crazier kid!). He’s on the custodial crew cleaning up the student center (so don’t litter!).

Oh, here’s something for my fellow BJU Bloggers to watch out for: We’re on the radar. There’s a new section in the handbook about blogging which you should probably read. Basically, just behave yourselves out there.

Anyway, how about you guys: Are you looking forward to the school year? Or are you dreading it?

See you there!

From CBS News, via Catallarchy:

Hawaii will begin enforcing a cap on the wholesale price of gasoline next week, hoping to curb the sting of the nation’s highest gas costs.

The limit would be the first time a state has capped the price of gasoline–a move critics warn could lead to supply shortages.

But many Hawaii residents are just looking for some relief from soaring costs.

If you set prices artificially low, then demand will–not might, will–outstrip supply and you will, almost certainly, have supply shortages. It’s time for the legislature of Hawaii to take a basic economics course.

Another painful lesson learned,
this time courtesy of the U.S. Mint: A woman found ten priceless 1993
Double Eagle gold coins among the possessions of her late father. When
she turned them into the mint to be verified as authentic, they
confiscated them from her, claiming that the coins were “taken from the
Mint “‘in an unlawful manner’” in the mid-1930s and now were
“‘recovered.’”

Although they (according to the woman’s lawyer) have no proof of theft,
the Mint is sure that they are illegal because “the
445,500 coins minted in 1933 were never put into circulation because
the nation went off the gold standard. All the coins were ordered
melted down, but a handful are believed to have survived, including two
handed over to the Smithsonian Institution.”

When the woman discovered the coins, she and her son notified the Mint,
which asked to authenticate the coins, which then stole them after
doing so. Mint officials say that they told her “from the beginning
that the coins would not be returned because they were the government’s
property.”

What I can’t figure out is the Mint’s motivation here: Why not just
give the woman her coins back? What’s the harm? They have no plans to
sell the things, and they’ve melted down (!!!!) other such coins that
they’ve stolen in the past. Why won’t the bureaucrats just leave well
enough alone?

(Via Hugh
Hewitt, who finally has an RSS feed now.)

As some of you with RSS readers probably already know, I’ve installed a new plugin called the Postie plugin. It allows me to post to my blog via email. I’ve had a hack that did this before, but Postie is an improvement on that hack, and an actual plug-in to boot.

It can handle categories, resizes images, and a lot more. It’s very nice.

Also, here’s my dog, as a demo of the resizing ability: This photo was originally 1536 pixels wide. It’s now a mere 400 wide, which should help prevent the default skin from doing stupid things in IE.

A guy by the name of Chris Hackett has an interesting definition of art: A fully functional suitcase bomb, complete with enough TNT to “kill everyone in the gallery” and a working cell-phone detonator.

He claims he doesn’t plan to detonate it, but one look at the guy…

…makes me not so sure.

Wouldn’t that look great in the ceiling of your church?

Pretend you’re a teenager with money to burn. Are you going to buy an iPod shuffle:

Sleek, stylish, and the toy all your friends are buying. Or will you buy:

…a Sony Walkman Bean?

Seriously, it’s called the Bean.

It’s actually a pretty nifty device; it has an OLED display, a 50 hour battery life (!), and some kind of rapid charge technology that’ll give you 3 hours worth of music on a three-minute charge. It’ll play MP3s as well as Sony’s proprietary audio file format. And it comes in colors other than white.

On the other hand, it costs thirty dollars more than the shuffle. And then there’s the name, which I can’t say without chuckling.

My biggest disappointment: There’s no green Bean.

Today (August 15th) is my twenty-first birthday! Yay!

Today the final legal restrictions of youth fall away: I can now drink alcohol and carry a concealed weapon, which sounds like dangerous combination to me.

Now I can start shopping for my Mom’s birthday next week….

I mentioned the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision a couple months ago; the short version is that, according to the Court, local officials know how to develop your land better than you do. If you happen to be living on some prime real estate that the local government wants, it has the power to throw you off of your land, burn your house, and build a Wal-Mart on the ashes.

Now, from the “adding insult to injury” department (with my emphasis):

This is an absolutely despicable decision on the part of New London. I’m shocked that the homeowners haven’t exercised their Second Ammendment rights yet….

So I came across a collection of quotes (supposedly) from Albert Einstein today. They were mostly the same sorts of quotes you always see from him (although they left out my personal favorite, “Never memorize what you can look up.”).

No, what interested me was the notice at the bottom of the list: “Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)”

Exactly what did Kevin Harris do that entitles him to a copyright of this collection? Copyright entitles an author/musician/artist to protection from another copying his work; Mr. Harris–whomever he is–did nothing but copy the sayings of Albert Einstein; there was not a single one of Mr. Harris’s original thoughts in this list.

At least, there shouldn’t have been; if he did include his own thoughts, he masqueraded them as the thoughts of Albert Einstein–a far more serious crime than a mere abused copyright.

Catallarchy links to a quote by Benjamin Frankling on arguing:

I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as “certainly”, “undoubtedly”, etc. I adopted instead of them “I conceive”, “I apprehend”, or “I imagine” a thing to be so or so; or “so it appears to me at present”.

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

– Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

It seems like good advice. I’ve noticed in some of my previous posts a tendency to word things too strongly, as in “this is the best ___ ever” or “anyone with good critical thinking skills would see that ___” or whatever. (This sort of writing is likely a by-product of my tendency to blog late at night, as I am doing now.)

Fundamentally, Franklin’s technique admits the possibility of being wrong, which I find is critical to good thinking. If you say that a thing is true and that you’ll accept no argument against it, you run the risk of being proven wrong and being unable to correct yourself later without losing face.

You ought to be very careful what you set in stone.

The other thing Franklin is advocating is respect for the opponents position. I’m glad to see that this has been the general spirit here on this site. To my knowledge, no thread has yet been reduced to a name-calling flame-war, which is unusual for a site that discusses religion, politics, and other controversial issues.

This respect goes hand-in-hand with the previous point: A respect for your opponent’s position is born out of the possibility that you might be wrong, and that he might be right.

On the other hand, even if your position is correct, if you say the opponent is stupid or immoral for holding an opposing opinion, his mind immediately closes to your argument and switches to a defensive posture. Your wisdom will fall on deaf ears.

You don’t win minds by insulting and attacking them, but by reasoning with them.

Although I am, primarily, an Opera user ¹, I do have a warm spot in my heart for FireFox. It keeps my parents’ computer relatively free of spyware, and it’s wonderfuly extensible. (I love the Scrapbook Plugin for example, and the famous AdBlock plugin is a godsend when those “YOU ARE A WINNER” flashing banner ads show up.)

So, FireFox is great–but what if you’re on a computer at work or in the BJU computer labs? You aren’t allowed to install your own software, even if FireFox is more secure than Internet Explorer. Gotta obey the rules, after all. On the other hand, you’re missing out on all the great features of FireFox that you’ve come to rely on.

The solution is a nifty program I discovered some months ago called Portable Firefox. It stores Firefox, your bookmarks, and all of your settings on a USB thumb drive (like Cruzer Micro, which is both tiny and cheap at Circuit City–a 256MB model is just $15 after rebates).

When you’re at the office/computer lab, you plug in the USB drive and open the program. You don’t have to install anything–just run Portable Firefox off of the USB drive.

Finding Portable Firefox led me, almost immediately, to Portable Thunderbird, which was at one point my email client of choice. (Opera has a built-in client that I prefer now.)

There’s also Portable OpenOffice, which is an open-source replacement for the Microsoft Office suite programs like Word and Excel.

At some point, I also discovered the Portable Freeware Collection. This is a listing of a number of portable programs that work without affecting the hard drive of the computer you’re using in any way. No installations required, just plug-and-play.

I get to use the software I like anywhere I go–all while following the rules.

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1. And I would appreciate it if you’d click this link to find out more about Opera: I’m at 40 clicks now. 210 more, and I get a free code that’ll get rid of the Google ads on top of my screen.

You may remember that I mentioned TiddlyWiki from a few months ago. Since that time, Jeremy Ruston has made some serious improvements to his already great web app, and I’ve updated my TiddlyWikiTutorial to discuss them.

If you haven’t seen TiddlyWiki before, check it out. TiddlyWiki is hard to describe; you have to see it for yourself.

My brother needed a picture of my dog for some reason. So, here’s a picture of my dog, Suzy. Or Suzie. I don’t know if we have a standardized spelling of her name. I’ll check her social security card some time.

Dawww.

Boileryard Clarke examines an issue I’ve thought about many times: Who in the world would have thought of eating the things we do? A brief quote:

Specifically… did you ever think of the first person who determined that something was or wasn’t good to eat?

Like… who is the character that looked at a hog in the mud and said “wow… I bet that’d be really tasty!”

Or… who connected the dots that started with wheat in a field and ended up with bread?

On those same lines: Who’s idea was tobacco? Who would have thought to take the leaves of a plant, wrap them up, stuff them in your mouth, and set fire to it?

*sigh*

This really, really gets old after a while. I hate comment spammers.

So, let’s try something new: I’ve installed another plugin, the Spam Karma 2 plugin. Between it, Bad Behavior, and WordPress’s moderation queue, that should get most of it.