10. Michael Jackson (2009) – by shear news volume over trivial things. An unscientific survey found he was the dominantly covered celebrity of the first decade of the third millennium. From child-touching to baby-dangling to radical cosmetic surgery to his final death from an extreme overdose of operating-room anesthesia, Jackson dominated the decade and in [...]
What was that all about, 2009. You started out with such hope and fear and you ended with such hope and fear. Obama held the promise that he would make vegetables delicious and taxes fun. He is ending the year with W. level approval as people feel the disappointment that the second coming of Jesus [...]
So another terrorist tried to kill Americans with an airplane. This time a Nigerian with Yemen ties named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He made a bomb, but was an idiot who should have spent more time studying and less time hating on America because we are more awesome than everybody. I agree with a recent New [...]
I spent Christmas out at my Grandma’s farm on Whaletail Lake, west of Minneapolis by an hour. We made a snowman, as pictured with my sister. And with my youngest cousin, Eero. I threw my back out lifting up the second layer. The snow was ultra wet from some freezing rain and would make a [...]
I started off by missing the bus from campus to the airport. I split a cab with a fellow student who had the same flight as me. My Lufthansa flight out of Saudi Arabia to Frankfurt, Germany was delayed. I arrived a bit late and ran to the gate for my Chicago flight. I watched [...]
It is all done. Four project proding, three finals filleting, two presentations percolating, and one ticket back to Minneapolis. I have been working since the 9th, every day, non-stop. Arguable the most stressful time in my life. At least up there with IB extended essay, IB testing, and fall quarters junior and senior year at [...]
This video is why I am proud to have voted for Senator Al Franken. John McCain, 2008 republican presidential nominee and contender for Senate Kids Should Stay Off My Lawn Committee, showed how senile he is when he couldn’t remember back to earlier that day when somebody was cut off by Franken for going over [...]
Gasoline in the America should have a two dollar a gallon tax. Pollution should be taxed. Alcohol and cigarettes are taxed at a high rate as a sin tax. Why not just tax things that moral purists think is evil, but also things that cause cancer. People think something like that is ridiculous because it [...]
I recently found out that I did not have a flight back from Christmas. Denial (this can’t be). Anger (this is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass (the Big Lebowski reference)). Bargaining (what is the cheapest flight). Depression (this is my fault). Acceptance (never got here). It would have cost me [...]
Ipods can not take down an airplane. I remember a funny bit on The Simpsons where Bart has his gameboy on during takeoff and the flight attendant asks him to turn it off, he does, the plane starts to crash, she pleads him to turn it back on, he does, and the plane resumes normal [...]
The application process has started. I signed up for the GRE. I will be applying to University of Colorado: Boulder, Electrical, Computer, and Environmental Engineering University of Arizona: Tuscon, College of Optical Sciences University at Albany, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering University of Central Florida: Orlando, CREOL (optics) These are among the best schools [...]
William Shockley is the father of silicon valley and he co-invented the semiconductor – which you computer has 50 to 500 million of that do all the logic. There is a google tech talk about the secret history of silicon valley that is ridiculous interesting. It focuses heavily on how WWII was the first electronic [...]
I recently found something on the internet tubes that is awesome. It is the Texas Intruments EZ430 chronos watch. It lacks gold, 100M water resistance, and does not out of the box tell you the tide. It does have a 3-axis accelerometer, a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor, and a wireless connection to a computer [...]
The movie opens with a hummer driving down a remote desert road. It climbs over a ridge bouncing over the gravel to reveal a valley with a massive array of solar panels and a building at the center. There are no power lines going outside. As the hummer drives through the rows of glistening solar [...]