Monthly Archives: February 2006

Do we assume that because we have difficulty learning a thing the children will also have difficulty?

I bought this Listen & Read Uncle Wiggily Bedtime Stories for the girls. Turns out the 2006 Honda Odyssey does not have a cassette player. We hadn’t noticed.

One of the first things that children learn through instruction is to recognize shapes, both plane and solid, though they are not often given the names of the solids. Now that they recognize the shapes, why do we not procede … Continue reading →

You can’t get fired for buying Microsoft I hear through the grapevine that there is evidence that the postulate is false.

So Google has a personal web page product, aside from Blogger. Apparently it’s a little over-loaded at the moment. Somehow I think the implementation will be much better than the rest of them. I know our page editors have been … Continue reading →

Interesting show on the History Channel about the effects of the Little Ice Age. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has a disturbing collection of papers about the present situation.

I turned off auto-run on my Windows desk the other day. Auto-run is a feature which permits the operating system to start an application when a disc is inserted into the CD-ROM drive. Some discs use the feature to start … Continue reading →

The Eljer Patriot toilet has no power. It stops up — frequently. Unless you love plunging after each attempt to flush, and have a mop, avoid it.

We saw Curious George on my birthday. It’s funny! Roger Ebert doesn’t think it appeals to all members of the family, but I do. Maybe he needs a toddler. During the title sequence I was laughing so hard my sides … Continue reading →

Damn. I got caught; Rick tagged me! Four jobs I’ve had Cashier Secretary Pre-Press Operations Sysadmin Dad Oops, that was five. Four movies I can watch over and over Watching Groundhog Day once is not unlike watching it over and … Continue reading →

I ran across a blurb in the paper about Louisville’s new art museum, by the same firm which worked on Seattle’s public library. It will be housed in a radical-looking 61-story skyscraper that’s … an eye-catching example of modern architecture. … Continue reading →

Whilst reading the HTTP/1.1 specification for something else, I noticed that the Retry-After header may be used with 3xx redirection status codes. This field MAY also be used with any 3xx (Redirection) response to indicate the minimum time the user-agent … Continue reading →

Avoid Folgers French Vanilla. It has a smell I can’t place, but isn’t coffee. Perhaps ground wood chips? Perhaps an inferior bean? Perhaps unfair trade? Anyway, it stinks.

This quiz at Manor House doesn’t have my father’s profession. What? Clergy don’t have children?

If you’ve an interest in historical trivia, the United States Census Bureau has a very interesting series called Profile America [podcast]. Monday, January 30th, was Inane Answering Machine Day, in which I learned that Americans make 1.5-billion local calls and … Continue reading →

World oil prices peaked in real terms in 1980 at about $90 per barrel. In 1977, U.S. imports were 6.6 million barrels per day. By 1985, imports had been cut in half to 3.2 million barrels. Why? Simple economics: Higher … Continue reading →

Tom Evslin opines on the attempt by

You know those stickers the grocers put on the fruits and other produce because the cashiers are ignorant of the prices and names of the fruit, and have to type a number into the register? I think it’s a bit … Continue reading →

Mark Cuban notes that the National Association of Theatre Owners has issues with the simultaneous release of Bubble in multiple distribution channels, and discussion on Fresh Air with Terry Gross mentioned that attendance at movie theaters is down. The drop … Continue reading →