Thursday, November 7, 2013
While I’m by no means an expert on Rubik’s cube solving, I’ve been able to solve it since a babysitter taught me how as a teenager. It’s also a nice party trick if you can solve it.
My son recently showed an interest in solving the cube, and so I figured I’d document the process as I remember it.
First, you have to be able to solve the top-level of the cube, including all corners, so that each side makes a small “T”, like the photo at right. (Continued)

El Ankle Brokeno
I broke my ankle the day after Memorial day last month. I did it when I slipped on a diving board and the board cracked my right fibula. Huge bummer.
Here’s what you start to appreciate once you’ve gone through something like this:
- Your spouse who brings you food while you recover from surgery
- Wheelchair accessible ramps
- Stairs with hand rails
- Friends who ask how you’re doing, and even kind enough to drive you around
I was “out of commission” for about a month and a week, and my ankle has since been recovering slowly. I can’t run, still, and the ankle still seems swollen (I’ve been assured that this is something that takes up to 6 months to resolve.)
The biggest issues has been that I was unable to exercise for about 6 weeks, and because of that I’ve started developing lower-back problems. What I’ve found is that when my back hurts, the best thing is to get some exercise and when you get your blood flowing, most body aches and pains dissipate.
Thursday, October 28, 2010

Adobe Software Plagued with Bugs?
I’m starting to think that Steve Jobs is right, mostly about reliability, security and performance of Adobe products. Maybe I’m just following his lead, but for the money I’ve spent on their product (Continued)
Since I enjoy the discussion of privacy, especially with regards to the internet, and have serious concerns about the number of large corporations which now track every single page view of internet users, this article by Daniel J. Solove regarding surveillance is really compelling.
It focuses on the claim of surveillance advocates, “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.” (P.S. Thanks to Bruce Schneier for the link.)
The argument goes like (Continued)
My wife (and her entire family, actually) have a penchant for making the most hilarious puns, usually unintentionally. Her most recent contribution:
“I would love to see the Columbia River Gorge. It’s gorgeous!”
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Should we legislate home schooled children?
I was notified of an article posted in the Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly from the University of Maryland. An article “The Harms of Homeschooling“, authored by Robin L. West, begins with specious arguments and then digresses into the ridiculous, and finally argues against his/her own points.
First, let me give a caveat: Ms. West is concerned about the devout, fundamentalist Protestant home schoolers, not the “rest of us.” But given her target, she is doing more of a disservice to all home schoolers in her arguments.
For those who don’t want to bother reading this (Continued)
Traveling is an inherently stressful endeavor. During the holidays, more so. We just took a lovely trip to beautiful Denver, Colorado from our home airport of Philadelphia, PA. Outbound flight was on United, return was on a “partner airline”, US Airways.
To our chagrin, two days before our return flight, my 3-year-old daughter came down with (Continued)

Now he's watching every domain name I look up?
Google recently added a Public DNS service. For a good definition of DNS, check our new wiki. In short: DNS is how your computer figures out where a web server is located when you type in any web address by your computer, meaning: (Continued)
Thursday, November 12, 2009

Is that my cell phone he's holding?
As of August 25th, 2009, Google Alerts now tracks links from emails through the google.com domain.
Previously, they didn’t. (Continued)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Ah. The Google Books fiasco. I’ve seen it in the news, have been quietly monitoring the situation, but I just read (Continued)