Too Much Tolerance? Another op-ed piece from my college's newspaper

It's been a truly fascinating journey for me these past few months after finding an online archive of The Pendulum, Elon University's student newspaper.  I'm finding articles written by me that I had forgotten about.  I can really see the person I was then, and contrast him with the man who I am today.  There is a lot of growth there.  Some things...

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HEIC? What the heck is THAAAAAT???

Had to take some photos with my iPhone and send them to my personal e-mail account.  But when I was about to use them I was hit with a shock: the pics were in something called HEIC format.I had no idea whatsoever what that meant.  Only that it wasn't readable by my usual image software, much less usable for most critical purposes.So I did some quick research and found that HEIC, or HEIF, stands for High Efficiency Image Container. ...

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Mythic Games: They'll NEVER deliver this Kickstarter

For a few months now I've debated whether or not to make this post.  I gave the company at issue a gracious amount of time to respond to the very MANY people who had taken them at their word and trusted them to produce a great product.However it has now been almost seven months since anything in the way of official word has been published.  That should have been...

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Tammy the Pup: Caught in the act

I really should post more pics of Tammy, my miniature dachshund.  She's just so cute and comical... and sometimes too smart for her own good.  She has also literally saved my life and sanity.  I would be a far different person - and maybe not here at all - were it not for Tammy.So last night we were getting ready for our Saturday evening ritual of tuning in...

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My Yoda puppet signed by "Weird Al" Yankovic is now listed on eBay

Well, I'm now a liar and worse.A little over ten years since I vowed that I would never, EVER do it, I am indeed selling my much-loved Yoda hand puppet signed by "Weird Al" Yankovic.It's really out of my hands (no pun intended).  For reasons which I don't care to disclose publicly, some financial resources have come to be required.  That's just the way things are...

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C'mon, Google: Allow for better review of AdSense banning

This is probably an issue I should have addressed ten or so years ago.  It angered me then but now, it's absolutely infuriating.  Not that I actually expect anything proactive to be done, of course.  But hey, avalanches start with one pebble rolling into places that a pebble doesn't belong.  So who knows?It's about Google's AdSense program.  And how...

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One day, this will be mine (I hope!)

See this?  It's an enlargement.  The originals are about the size of modern printed currency... I first saw this at a Boy Scout camporee in September of 1985.  I was a brand new full Boy Scout.  They were handing out life-size copies of this: A ten shilling note used during the Siege of Mafeking during the Boer War in South Africa.It dates back...

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Commentary: The Boredom Machine

Ruins of the Capitolfrom the video game Fallout 3It's been several hours since some semblance of a historical event transpired here in America: Kevin McCarthy was ousted from being Speaker of the House in the House of Representatives.  It's the first time that's ever happened.  McCarthy is now third place in being shortest term of office for a speaker.I've taken...

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Artificial intelligence has original singers performing "Weird Al" Yankovic's parodies... and it's pretty horrifying

This is already the scariest thing I've seen all month... and it's only October 2nd.  A terrible, terrible line has been crossed.  Advanced technology really is taking us to places that, not to put too fine a point on it, are unnatural to the extreme.Andy Baio at Waxy.org has applied artificial intelligence to a lot of songs - which are mostly parodies of other artists...

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Welcome to Matt Smith's weekly Sunday School!

Very good friend Matt Smith (no not the Doctor Who actor!) and I go back a few years, all the way to our time together at that very strange television station in Reidsville, North Carolina.  I learned a lot about video and broadcasting from Matt, and I continue to learn much from him since his becoming active with the online realm, sharing his talents and...

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Elementary school kids in Arkansas produced an AMAZING Indiana Jones fan film and you can watch it now!

This is... THE greatest thing that I have seen in a very long time.  These kids are... wow.  They are amazing!  They were able to pull off what a lot of us thirty and forty years ago were only able to dream of doing.  I know my best friend Chad and I used to plan out our own Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.  How when we grew up we would be the next...

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Trailer for Doctor Who sixtieth anniversary specials

Doctor Who needs a hard and fresh return to the franchise that that we know and love, above and away from the mess of the Thirteenth Doctor era (which if we're going to be honest really can't be pinned on Jodie Whittaker, she was just working with some really bad material).I don't know if that's what is coming in the next few months with the specials commemorating the show's...

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So, I lost a teaching job last week

How it transpired is something that a LOT of people have thought I'm making up.  But it really happened.I was on my first day of substitute teaching.  And I went into that school all shiny and shaved, shirt tail tucked into my khakis, best boots... I was going to make an impression on the students and faculty alike (say, why don't most men seem to tuck their shirt...

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Well...

 ...at least they didn't fire me for the exploding schoolhouse.Here is a tip: do not talk anymore about sodium's violent combustibility.I hope Mr. Springs would be proud of me.  This is the very first time in more than thirty years that I've used the term "valence electrons" in a piece of writi...

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Started teaching today. Here's how it went!

For now, I'm being a very active substitute teacher.  Which, well... we'll see what happens from there.  People have been telling me for many years that I would make for a great teacher.  Today was a chance to give it a shot.So I taught three blocks of high school sophomore honors chemistry class.  The subject of today's lesson was Neils Bohr, who came...

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Another article from the college newspaper. And it's not controversial either!

 See?  I really do know how to write an op-ed piece that doesn't honk off many readers!This edition of Elon's student newspaper The Pendulum came out right before spring break 1999.  I didn't want to be on the cusp of that and deliver something that would be overly provocative.  There had been an article for Christmas a few months earlier and...

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Germany 1943 or America 2023?

Found something last night while doing historical research.  It absolutely floored me to read this passage.  It could be referring to the America of today: Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and their friend and collaborator Christoph Probst wrote six leaflets in defiance of their government.  The three members of the "White Rose" were caught in February...

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