The Professor's Notes

I continue to find it amazing that the media, and President Elect Obama insist that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression.  As I wrote previously, we are no where near the economy that Carter handed over to Reagan.  But lest my words didn’t convince, check out this great cartoon:

found at: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Carter--Who-s-the-Worst-.htm

What will they think of next?

I of course, love the line (roughyl quoting) “I will buy anything from Apple that’s shiny.”

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Ever want to listen to music, but just don’t know what you want?  Try a completely random, stream of consciousness playlist.  Go to the search window (see below) and type in the first word that comes to mind.  This will search all your songs for that word in the title, artis, and even in the descriptions.  Start the playlist, and enjoy what plays.  For an additional serendipitous variation, select randomize when playing this playlist.

BONUS:  Can you guess which songs were selected when I searched on “photo” and my library came up with these three artists?

Full Disclosure:  I have been involved in my fair share of flame wars since I was rapping through a 300 baud acoustical coupler “back in the day.”   Have personally been the victim of some pretty scurrilous, underhanded, unethical, and somewhat disturbing personal smear campaigns.  [eg crossposting threads after removing the home thread; allowing the protagonist to edit the victims comments and republish in other forums without the victims knowledge, etc.]  I am here to tell ya though- today’s level of intolerance seems somewhat intense, relative to our freewheeling chats of yore.

Maybe it’s because- in part at least- we have morphed from the Newsgroups being a “Public Forum for Discussion” into Blogs becoming “My Private [unlicensed] Broadcasting Company.”

With ownership comes, well, ownership. 

Case in point:  So there’s this blog on the internet, topic not important to the point at hand, and a dialogue gets going, point-counterpoint style.  Apparently the arguments on one side of the issue start falling apart, and more posters started coming around to the alternative point of view.  It got re-e-e-e-eal quiet from that side.  [I guess they were hunting wabbits]

[wait for it]

Surprise! Someone took their ball and went home!  The Blog “owner” shut down comments for the specific thread- of course, after posting a snarky “it’s my medium” blast of pique.

It isn’t about “dialogue” anymore; it’s about “broadcasting one point of view!”

So

Care to guess which side of the political spectrum was engaged in (polite, reasoned) dialogue . . . and which side decided that tolerance with respect to another’s ideas had gone just about as far as it was going to go, mister!?

Well, o.k., silly question . . . we all know which side of the (artificially defined by the two-headed single political party in the US today) political spectrum is tolerant/intolerant of opposing viewpoints . . .

But putting that aside

Internet: Two way communication; or just another transmission medium for digitized vomit?

Hello?

Scorch aka the other steve

Perhaps it was the time of night, or perhaps it is because I remember so fondly the renaissance of Baroque music in the early 80s. (Baroque, and Ronald Reagan but captivated the nation–coincidence?) Either way, I found this performance to be quite enjoyable which is a nice way of saying I really laughed out loud! To quote from youtube:

A comedian rants about how much it sucks to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D on a cello. Recorded live at Penn State, this piece by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian has been a favorite on the Dr. Demento Show.

Well, the next time he is at Penn State, I hope I find out! You should visit his site, too! So here–enjoy!

I have been “tagged” by my brother to do a “book” meme.  The rules:

Okay–so the book is Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies by Simchi-Levy, Kaminsky, and Simchi-Levi. (3rd Edition)

Page 123 is the first page of Chapter 4–Supply Contracts, and it starts with a case study about American Tool Works (ATW). So, without further ado, the three sentences.

The relationship between ATW and its distributors and dealers may take two forms:

• Large Distributors tend to have a vendor-managed-inventory (VMI) agreement with ATW.  In this situation, ATW monitors the inventory levels of various products at the distributors’ facilities, and makes additional shipments as necessary.

So there you have it.  Only my second meme (my first can be found here.)
I would like to tag my favorite liberals.  Fleshy, Eric from A liberal dose, and then Dean Dad at Confessions of a Community College Dean.  Not that they will ever actually find out that they have been tagged.

You all might remember my good friend Fleshy or at the liberal blog Pressing the Flesh. Well, he found a great video where a Hillary and an Obama supporter duke it out in true name-calling fashion. It was–well, judge for yourself:

Okay, so if we were to make websites actually be “people” this MIGHT be how the party would go down, eh dawg? 

I was asked the other day who I support for President. When it comes to Presidential Candidates, I am looking for really two things: adherence to solid conservative neigh libertarian principles, and a sense of humor. I have supported Fred Thompson for this very reason.

With this video, I am tempted to change my mind! enjoy!

I wondered what people were saying when they said their screen went black… mine didn’t either.