Rantings of a New Yorker

If you can't handle swearing, get off the internet. People suck, including me, and these are my rantings.

Entries for January, 2007

The Ridiculousness of Teaching Job Applications

America faces a shortage of teachers, especially in fields such as math and science.  Yet, despite the fact that people are fleeing the profession, school districts continue to make prospective teachers jump through more hoops in order to obtain employment. Because of the shortage of teachers, school districts have made it easier for people to [...]

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Drunk Woman Causes Ruckus On Plane

It never ceases to amaze me how people continue to act like idiots.  You would think that there are enough of them out there already as examples so that people would stop and think before they start down the path to stupidity. Erin Callahan Lambert, 28, who apparently was intoxicated during Flight 179 on Sunday, [...]

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Inherent Dangers of Wikipedia

We’ve all used it. Some love it. Some hate it. We know that Wikipedia has a wealth of information but, there are inherent dangers in relying on accurate information on a website that allows its users to edit that information. Many college professors forbid their students from using it precisely because there have been too [...]

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Was Mozart A Pirate?

With the recent sponsoring of the PERFORM ACT, Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein are set to create mandatory DRM for podcasts, even if they are free or licensed under the Creative Commons, I am reminded of an early musical pirate, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who allegedly copied one of the most famous pieces of music, Miserere, [...]

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Never Leave The House On The Weekend

I keep telling myself that I should just stay home on weekends.  It’s just so much easier than dealing with the multitude of idiots who decide that Saturday and Sunday are the days they should be out exploring the world.  Today, despite my better judgment, I decided to go to the mall. The only reason [...]

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Two Proposed Laws in New York Target Violent Video Games

Two new laws proposed in New York is taking aim at violent video games.  Though neither will likely pass, it is interesting that lawmakers continue to attempt to restrict video games to minors. State Representative, Keith Wright, has introduced legislation, which would keep games that include violent crimes, suicide, sexual violence, violent racism, religious violence, [...]

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Some Interesting Time Waster Sites

This week, I’ve been wasting a bit of time surfing around the net and generally goofing off. These are some of the more interesting things I’ve looked at this week. Some are older sites, but who cares, they still wasted some time for me. A man, who has far more time to waste than I [...]

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Make Free Phone Calls

This morning, I came across a post from TechCrunch, discussing the emerging markets of free phone calls to many places in the world, particulary AllFreeCalls.net. The FCC has some very complicated laws, making it, at times, difficult to understand all the fees and loopholes that phone companies have. After some digging, I came across some [...]

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Fat-tailed Dunnart

While browsing through flickr, I came across this photo of a fat-tailed dunnart, by Peter Kelly.  He’s just so damned cute that I wish I had one of my own.

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Resting Butterfly

Photo taken by me at the American Museum of Natural History, December 2006.

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