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On “Stripes!”:
That sounds really cool, I can't wait for pictures. I have to ask about "idyllic Palestine of the past." When was that supposed to be? I read the bible and it seems more concerned about war than actual sheep herding. The land of milk and honey come off as not so idyllic to me, only better than being a slave in Egypt. Posted by lee at 12:37pm on 11 Jan 2010
On “Cousin Michael”:
All these posts concerning the death of Mike Blaheta need to be removed. When some of these people are searched, all this crap comes up. Posted by Erich Raeder at 2:02pm on 31 Dec 2009
There is some great info here. Maybe the cupcake one is hard to use, my cupcakes just break in half when I try and pop them out. This would be grand for making muffin tops, since it is the top that we all love anyhow. Posted by Lorraine at 6:22pm on 13 Dec 2009
One of the main things that Microsoft has done that is evil and still going on is use their monopoly to put inferior products into a market dominant position and then don't even bother to make them approach the capabilities of what they replaced.

With Office 2007, they did at least make a bold step of redoing the user interface, and abandoned the process of randomly making menu items in the standard menu not show up seemingly at random and made the standard menu options largely a thing of the past. I see this as progress, because between 1996 and now, that and the implementation of pivot tables is about all the newer MS Office had over Word Perfect and Quattro Pro. Even now, Excel seems incapable of producing readable graphs if your data has the slightest complexity, and the ability to customize graphs without using scripting is extremely limited. Quattro Pro did this with ease.

If you recall, IBM, although they let people make IBM compatible PCs, they used microchannel architecture which was incompatible with other manufacturers PCs, so their PCs were incompatible with many nifty things available for other computers. That was their downfall as much as anything else. Other PCs could do more because they could take advantage of nifty third party stuff.

For years, the saying went, nobody gets fired for going with IBM. Then Microsoft replaced them in that saying. Now, Google does seem much more likely to be the replacement in that phrase than Apple: much of their products are business focused and they personify the mythical central computer I heard about as early as 1977 that knows all about everyone. On the other hand, Apple does seem much more experienced at deliberate evil e.g. drm at iTunes.

Maybe we will get some market diversity at long last in that they will both be 800lb gorillas. Posted by lee at 2:37pm on 11 Dec 2009
On “Two books”:
It is worth noting that Pebble in the Sky was his first novel. I think he got better at explaining stuff in a credible way later rather than relying on on almost Star Trek like science mumblings, but his romance scenes are pedestrian in that they remind me of description of someone crossing the street. Posted by lee at 11:02pm on 9 Dec 2009
Note: I *do* notice the hilarity inherent in the fact that I thank you for teaching me "logical thinking" and then mention my decision to leave Knox to join the Circus. Clown school, specifically! Posted by Molly Nicholas at 8:57pm on 2 Dec 2009
I still can't believe it. You are one of the best teachers I have ever worked with in my entire life, bar none. I left Knox to join the Circus, and now that I'm leaving the Circus to study Cognitive Science, I'm so grateful for the incredible foundation you gave me in logical thinking. I really feel that you changed my life, and I hope you find a school that appreciates your incredible talents. Posted by Molly Nicholas at 12:39pm on 30 Nov 2009
On “Three sisters”:
I have found other Chekov plays boring, or at best dreary. They generally seem like they would be better to act than to watch. Posted by lee at 11:02pm on 8 Nov 2009
On “Response”:
I was a good friend of Mike's and I recently found out about his death. I have a photo of him that I keep that he gave me and some really good memories. I miss him and my heart goes out to his family. RIP Mike Posted by Joe Newsome at 7:41pm on 6 Nov 2009
On “Dishonest graphics”:
I just assume that whenever I read a Traditional Media article on any complex subject, they're either lying or too stupid to process it correctly. Saves time. Posted by Michael at 11:38am on 6 Nov 2009
Good grief! You just brought a flood of agony-filled memories back to me. I had (blissfully) forgotten how bad it was there. I guess it goes to show that even if you have the best Computer Science professors you won't necessarily have the best IT. Please at least tell me they support OS X to some degree now. Even into 2005 they seemed to be pretty oblivious to its existence. To be fair, I could never decide if it was worse to have Windows and be "supported" or have a Mac and have to hack and juryrig almost everything. I recall at one point that in order to register a computer on the student network you had to visit a webpage that "required" Internet Explorer. Thank goodness for user agent spoofing. Posted by Brian at 6:44am on 5 Nov 2009
I bought a couple of crescent shaped roll cooker at the dollar store for a dollar each. They are small. I use them to microwave cook eggs mixed with spices and cheese. They don't stick. They wash up easy. The eggs end up having a cool looking crescent shape. Very cool cookware. Probably made in China. Posted by Chirpz at 4:11pm on 18 Oct 2009
I don't know about in your case; however, last night I found flyers lying around DePaul and lo and behold the same thing is happening to one of their faculty who has done tremendous things for the campus and university. There is a facebook group and they are even holding a protest, the faculty I have talked to seems to think this is a great way of going about it, and feel that it will make a difference. The only thing I can hope for is a positive outcome in your case as well. Posted by sis at 12:07pm on 6 Oct 2009
As the wife of a Knox Alum, I can tell you with utmost certainty your time was not wasted. My husband mentions and uses the things he learned from you more frequently than I can count. The day Knox College loses you, will be sad day for them indeed. Posted by Jenn at 10:29am on 6 Oct 2009
Well, I am not surprised that so many are shocked. Posted by lee at 8:44am on 6 Oct 2009
Take a look at http://w140.com/kurt/installing_xv_in_ubuntu.html and http://www.halibutdepot.org/xv/building_xv_on_ubuntu.html You can have xv on Ubuntu. Posted by Greg at 4:25pm on 22 Sep 2009
I bought it; I thought (correctly) that I'd be wanting to use it in fits and starts over the course of many days, rather than blasting through all my cuts in just a day or two. When the walls and floors aren't quite straight, plumb, or level, no two cuts are the same, and that slows things down a bit. :) Posted by blahedo at 11:40pm on 25 Aug 2009
So, did you rent or buy the tile saw? Posted by lee at 10:01pm on 24 Aug 2009
Hey, if you like Ubuntu try LinuxMint. It is a derivative of Ubuntu but comes with more (non-free) stuff out of the box to make a more complete system. http://www.linuxmint.com/ Posted by Chris Johnson at 7:24pm on 24 Aug 2009
I just Googled my name and was surprised to find that one of the top 10 hits was this reference to my play in your blog. Imagine that! Oh Google... Posted by Brittany at 11:21pm on 21 May 2009
I love my silcon baking set. I got some as a wedding gift. I use the cake pans for cake, brownies and such. never sticks. The bunet pan is perfect for easy molding of jello salad. I use the cupcake pans for soap molding. VERY AWESOME! Posted by angel at 8:05pm on 2 Apr 2009
On “Misogyny”:
Rush is against any agency with a coherent moral approach, however skewed we may find it; like all abusers, he seeks to limit his victims' contact with any entity which may have the capacity to meaningfully contradict him. That said, the RCC is both the institution of St. Vincent de Paul and the institution of the Kidtoucher Shuffle. One thing I've noticed -- the farther up the hierarchy, the fouler the taint. There's a lesson there, about the difference between people wanting to express their belief through works and people wanting to control that expression. As an outsider, I don't have a good solution, but step 1 is always identifying the problem. Posted by Michael at 9:27pm on 18 Mar 2009
On “Misogyny”:
I have new theory. I think that the RCC are ruling that both suicide and abortion are such damning sins because they don't want to face the people they screw over in heaven. I have heard more than one man (at least two of them were Catholic) express satisfaction at the idea that a pregnant woman who could not obtain an abortion might commit suicide.
Did you read about Rush Limbaugh taking the RCC to task for the article in a Vatican newspaper which lauded the washing machine as the greatest liberator of women? As much as the RCC stances on many women's issues piss me off, I don't see it as an institution that is irredeemably evil. To see Rush trying to whip up his ditto heads against the RCC scares me. I fear that he is trying to stir up the old fears of papists. Posted by lee at 9:57pm on 15 Mar 2009
Try amazon.com. The little downloader is very nice, the music is not DRM encoded (so you can transfer it/play it anywhere without having to FIDDLE WITH IT first), the rates are just as cheap as iTunes (and sometimes cheaper) and the selection gets better by the week. Best of all you don't have to read any friggin' license agreements. Though personally I find the 'not DRM encoded' and 'Amazon keeps track of your order history' the best, because it means that should my hard drive crash with un-backed-up music on it, I have a list RIGHT THERE of what I've bought so I can replace it. Posted by Larathia at 8:58am on 12 Mar 2009
On “Misogyny”:
It's true. I'm also getting really sick of the fact that Mass homilies have turned into anti-Obama political rallies, usually over FOCA. I hate that they put the church's tax-exempt status at risk, I hate that they polarise the debate, and I hate that they invariably come across as anti-intellectual and dismissive of reason and logic (even when they, in theory, don't have to be).

Incidentally, Dolly Parton's "The Bridge" should be required listening for anyone who is anti-choice and claims that this is not a misogynistic stance. Then again, they'd probably just miss the point.

Posted by blahedo at 2:23am on 12 Mar 2009
On “Misogyny”:
I find the church's stance distressing and largely inexcusable. They have set abortion in a unique positions above all other acts which do now have some direct connection with a religious person, rite or act. It has been placed with physically assaulting the pope or heresy in that having an abortion is on the list of acts which result in automatic excommunication. Couple this with the recent article in a Vatican paper praising the washing machine as the greatest liberator of women and it paints a bleak picture indeed of what the Church thinks of women. Posted by lee at 6:28am on 11 Mar 2009
I have purchased silicone bakeware and am now going to begin conquering the baking process :) Posted by barbie at 8:07am on 28 Jan 2009
We wanted to thank all of you for your great information and comments(except tom of course) We have several of the spatulas and we love those, so we thought about going to silicone bakeware but wanted to check it out first. Have any of you heard about the twist test to see if you have a pure silicone bakeware item? "twisting a flat surface to see if white shows through - if so, filler has been used and the product may not be uniformly heat resistant and may impart an odor to food." We would appreciate any help on this. Thank you all very much. Scherry Posted by Scherry at 4:50pm on 27 Jan 2009
Hey you. Long time no peer. Drop me a snail mail address sometime wouldja? Posted by Shalom at 12:22pm on 2 Jan 2009
On “Finding my money”:
Some transactions today that are done through online are quite uncertain to do, because of some hacking issue. But then, doing this is much better since it saves your time and effort. In the wake of sudden expenses, some people are lucky enough not to have to look into options like payday loans. It is a fact of life that some are far better off than the majority, but there is a more disturbing fact that is becoming more and more evident every day. It seems the super wealthy seem to think that the rules don't apply to them, and some of them seem to think that they should be allowed to get away with it. Pertaining to Merrill Lynch, just recently, the investment giant had to be sold to Bank of America to avoid bankruptcy in the wake of the subprime mortgage collapse. An article in the Wall Street Journal reports that Merrill Lynch CEO, John Thain, has asked for a $10 million dollar bonus for the year, after he had to sell the company to Bank of America to avoid bankrupting it. In order to save his company from bankruptcy, he cam up to this decision, furthermore he said that he deserves a bonus. The Attorney General of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, termed his request as "nothing less than shocking," as it seems callous to even ask for a bonus of that size when his company is barely able to stay afloat. Now here is the funny thing – any other ordinary company employee, if they failed to make money for the company they worked for, or failed to complete the tasks set them, they get reprimanded or fired. Perhaps those at the top of the ladder don't think that the same rules apply that apply at the bottom, and perhaps they should. However, the rest of us don't have to sell ourselves to Bank of America if we have a financial crisis suddenly – we have options, such as payday loans. Click to read more on Payday Loans. Posted by Lisa O at 3:23am on 13 Dec 2008