thislooksfamiliar

Super Concrete

thislooksfamiliar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:01:06 +0000

from this article by wired.com’s danger room:

After just a few hours a Pyrament runway is ready for the heaviest aircraft, reaching a strength that conventional concrete can only match after several days.

Pyrament is one type of a new technology called geopolymers. they harden faster than traditional concretes and to higher strengths. very cool technology.

as an interesting aside, it’s been suggested by one of the main creators of geopolymers that they were used to build the pyramids. even more interesting is that, according to the article:

recent X-ray and microscopic study of samples has supported the theory that the pyramids are made of artificial stone.

privitizing banks

thislooksfamiliar — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:05:05 +0000

i don’t understand why the government shouldn’t own the banks, at least temporarily. it seems like the way they are being run now, the government (and my money) take the risk when things are bad, but the banks take the profits when things are good. that doesn’t make any sense. shouldn’t the government (and my money) get some of the profit when things are good? shouldn’t the banks be forced to close up shop and sell themselves to the government when they make bad decisions?

snow day…

thislooksfamiliar — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:26:44 +0000

…which would be great excep i’m already on spring break. it figures that the only snow day of the year comes when we’re all ready on spring break.

Teacher Evaluations

thislooksfamiliar — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:10:37 +0000

after each semester, my university asks students to participate in an anonymous review of the teacher and the course. i had particular difficulty with a certain teacher last semster. the following is my review:

The strongest features of this course were:
the strongest feature of this course was the inexcusably terrible and incomplete teaching of the instructor. [teacher] clearly did not understand the material comprehensively enough to help us understand it. it is a wonder that he was considered competent to teach this course.

The best way to increase learning in this course would be to:
the best way to increase learning in this course would be to replace [teacher] with a youtube video tutorial. this is how i learned everything i did in this class. the only thing i learned from [teacher] is that sometimes life gives you shitty teachers and you need to make the best of it because no one is going to fix it for you.

Please describe the strengths of the instructor:
capable of tying his own shoes.

Please describe areas in which this instructor could improve as a teacher:
the area in which this instructor could improve as a teacher is the writing of his letter of resignation.

Please offer additional comments on the relationship of the instructor and the student.:
[teacher] did a poor job of explaining basic concepts and ideas. students had questions. [teacher] usually became irritated that students were not understanding the material and continued to repeat his previous, incomplete, explanation ad nauseum until students became aware that he had only a limited understanding of the concepts himself, and thus could not explain it to us. eventually students stopped asking questions.

fire truck in a building

thislooksfamiliar — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:03:43 +0000

last friday, january 9th, a fire truck drove into a building in boston. this happened about two streets over from where i live. this was all over the local and national news. i went over with my roommate, matt, as soon as we heard about it, which was about 20 minutes after it happened. the whole area was surrounded by emergency personnel, as can be imagined. matt and i walked down the hill that the truck went down and had a fantastic view of the scene as we did.

once we got closer, about 50 feet from the intersection it went through, the police had the area taped off. we stayed down there for only a few minutes before they started to clear that area, too, telling us that they were roping off the whole street. this was understandable because there were fresh skid marks from the truck near the top of the hill, apparently the last place the truck had brakes.

i was able to take numerous pictures while we were down at the intersection, and the Huntington News, our school newspaper, actually used one of the pictures on its front page this morning. i also posted the photos on flickr. on friday there were 400 views and on saturday, another 950.

and so the snow came

thislooksfamiliar — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:13:21 +0000

and so the snow came, furious and insistent
covering our neighborhood in a white velvet robe
erasing the scars of oil stains and potholes from the streets
and calming the built up energy of the city

Show Desktop on a Mac

thislooksfamiliar — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:38:46 +0000

i recently purchased a 24″ iMac. i love it and am very happy with it. however, this is my first Mac and the transition has hit a few bumps. it was bothering me that i couldn’t easily see the desktop without minimizing all of the open windows. i could “see” the desktop when i used expose, but you can’t click on anything, ie, folders or the HD. in windows, there is the “show desktop” button in the quick links panel down on the bottom left near the start button, ya know? but i figured out a good fix using the “active screen corners”. i set the bottom left corner of the monitor to “show desktop”, so now i just throw the cursor down there for a second, all open screens get pushed off the desktop to the edges, and i can click on things on the desktop. it’s brilliant! i was used to moving the mouse down to the bottom left to hit the “show desktop” button, so it’s very natural to move it down there. only drawback is i accidently engage it sometimes when i move the cursor.

steps:

open system preferences
open “expose & spaces”
make sure you’re in the expose fields
choose which screen corner you’d like
set it to “desktop”

on autumn’s death

thislooksfamiliar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:20:16 +0000

the leaves fell down, on me they rained,
through autumn dusk on this crisp day.
like red twirling dive bombers falling to earth,
prepared to be trampled and turned into dirt.
from beauty the colors they all go to brown,
from heights and bright majesty they die on the ground.
for a brief moment in time did this beauty exist,
and for nothing more than the knowing of this.

early obama jokes

thislooksfamiliar — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:03:50 +0000

this site has a few early obama jokes. my favorite:

“Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne Cheney, said that Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are related. She said they are actually eighth cousins. … Lynne Cheney says that Obama and Dick Cheney’s connection was the result of one of Obama’s ancestors marrying one of Cheney’s ancestors in 1650. Even more interesting, you know who introduced them
in 1650? Bob Dole.” –Jay Leno