Except that medical grade helium and the crap they fill party balloons with are two different things.

Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner struck a huge chord with me. There's a certain amount of cruft and drama that seems to have come along with the sequels (especially the wandering through Sex.) But it distills down *very* nicely and has opened me up to some interesting changes in my thinking.

That, along with The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, are on my list of books that I absolutely hated. I didn't find any of them to be the least bit fulfilling.

Might have something to do with having at least a bit of expectation for each. But I found them all to be in the category of "great because everyone says they're great."

http://annualcreditreport.com/

You are entitled by law to one free credit report from each of the three major agencies per year. That's an actual free report, not a "free *with $160 per year enrollment in out 'service' report. So, realistically you can do this every four months, just change reporting agency.

You are also a fool if you *aren't* doing this. The first time I did this I found two credit cards that hadn't been canceled by the issuer.

Low hanging fruit. Changing the source, thanks to the will of the people, is even harder.

I'd love to see coal fired plants go the way of the incandescent light bulb. But planning infrastructure takes decades, building infrastructure takes years, and it takes about five minutes to form a "citizens united against changing the status quo" NIMBY group to raise a stink in the first place (and said group usually gets a nice chunk of change from the "I make a ton of money off of the status quo in the first place" political action committees).

We do, but it depends on the area.

For example, GP mentioned being the Los Angeles area. So Cal is very earthquake prone and, it turns out, pipelines don't react well to having the earth they're laid in shifted three or four feet in one direction so onsite facilities make a bit more sense. I live in the upper midwest in a mitten-shaped state where the trees are just the right height and the earth doesn't tend to quaketh as often, so the places I've worked were all natural gas pipeline fed.

One of our offices in Pennsylvania was strictly diesel and my understanding was that due to the hilly nature of the surrounding area, natural gas service wasn't as prevalent. Or at least, service at the CFM needed to run a good sized generator.

I picked up a Microsoft natural keyboard several years ago after getting tingling in my pinky and ring fingers on both hands that wouldn't go away. After a few weeks, the tingling went away and when I left the job a year later, the keyboard came with me. I've added in a bit of stretching, and it's really helped.

There's one Microsoft product that I'm not ashamed to use. As an added bonus, I love watching people try and use the keyboard. Anyone who types from muscle memory gets turned into an outright n00b.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Natural-Ergonomic-Keyboard-4000/dp/B000A6PPOK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347587541&sr=8-1&keywords=microsoft+natural+ergonomic+keyboard

1. It's "The University of Michigan." Not trying to be as pedantic as those who insist on THE Ohio State University (as opposed to that other Ohio State?), but no one uses 'Michigan University.'

2. At no point, in any of the three cited articles, is U of M mentioned. The QR / Currency article from engadget refers to The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, which is slightly different from umich.

It's the second cert I've ever gotten. Training didn't cost me anything, and the cert made it easy to justify to the boss. Plus it got me a week in Chicago, which was nice.

You're it, it was the 70 series, I was pulling numbers out of my ass. I did the Cert's because work was paying, not because I really felt I needed to do them. They just made for nice resume flare.

As someone who just finished an MS cert bootcamp in May, I'd say you may want to reconsider your stance. The days of the Paper MCSE seem to be going by the wayside. I did the Windows 7 Enterprise Admin course (MCITP) which is a split course.

The first part is "Configuring Windows 7", which ends with a certification exam (Microsoft Certified technical specialist, Configuring Windows 7.) I'll admit, I went into it without studying as hard as I could have, mostly because I had the attitude of "Ooooooh, Configuring Windows 7. I hope they don't ask me where the *Control Panel* is..." When I took the exam, I was promptly blown out of the water, and ended up retaking just to pass. They're pushing Branch Cache very heavily, and they expected some reasonable experience configuring WSUS via GPO.

Now, neither of those are shocking technologies, but they're definitely a *huge* step up in how they're treating the 'entry' exams. They seem to be making a big effort (according to the guy that ran the course, the questions have been changing since the start of the year) at getting away from "memorize the question, get the answer down to a 50/50, and guess your way in."

I'm not ashamed to admit that I failed the 60-686 exam for MCITP and still need to take it. Out of 11 people who took the course, all of us took the 60-680 MCTS exam, and 7 of us took either the 60-686 and 60-685 exam (combine course). I was the only one who passed *any* of the exams. We had some fairly sharp people, and the common theme was that we were all sorta surprised at how tough the exams were.

Just my two cents, maybe we were all just a class full of derps.

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/statistics/penile.htm

The rate of HPV assisted Penile Cancer in the US among the various demographics of men ranges from .4 per 100,000 for Asian / Pacific Islander to .8 per 100,000 white males, up to 1.3 per 100,000 for Hispanic males. If that's your justification for circumcision (and it's totally fine if it is) you're taking some strong proactive steps against a fairly slight risk.

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/PenileCancer/DetailedGuide/penile-cancer-key-statistics

Per year, 1570 *cases* are diagnosed, and roughly 310 men die of penile cancer. You quite literally have a 99.9999% chance of never being diagnosed with penile cancer.

So, aside from the cancer part, the overall message re: Penis isn't much different from owning a gun "Take care of it, keep it clean, and use it safely." (also, don't point it at your eye, it might go off.) It hurts me a bit to see people running around like Thomas Dolby with Echolalia yelling "SCIENCE!" in every instance of X > Y. You're right, the numbers certainly side with science. But the data provided also says that, in the Western world where things like soap and running water aren't privileges, you're pretty much (as in 99%+) OK either way, at least until the boy hits an age where a responsible parent can instill care and handling procedures to prevent later issues like STD's.

(as an aside, there is at least the smallest shred of financial incentive for Doctors to perform circumcisions in the US, but that isn't part of a grand "strip 'em and clip 'em" conspiracy, it's a fundamental flaw in the system. Somewhere along the line it was determined that insurance will pay for it, ergo it gets done. My 84 year old grandmother with cmphysema and congestive heart failure was put on Lipitor the last time she was admitted. Her cholesterol wasn't the problem, Smoking for 70+ years was. As the Doctor bluntly put it, the main reason was "Medicare will pay for it." There was was slight medical benefit. But, for the most part, it was a money move. If you try and break that cycle, though, people start screaming about "Death Panels." Sigh....)

This isn't in the same ballpark as say, not getting your kids a whooping cough vaccine. So help me if I find those fuckers at daycare who sent their little outbreak monkeys in....

....is that it is two buildings over from me. Taunting me. Mocking me.

"Hey, I know that I probably cost you some decent grades in school, but that was *YEARS* ago. How's about me and you get together for lunch. For old times sake.
Sincerely,
1943

P.S. Remember that "special" controller. I do. XOXOXO"

I can't. I want to....but I can't...Must....continue...working....soul-sucking job.....

"If a small kid ate an entire tube, it'd be time to call poison control and induce vomiting from the sounds of it."

Which you'd already have to do since most toothpaste contains Fluoride which, in addition to ruining the purity of our essence, isn't the healthiest stuff on earth to begin with.

Worrying about triclosan in toothpaste is a bit like worrying about the mercury content of your cyanide.

This technique is discussed in "Metasploit - The penetration testers guide" ( http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781593272883.do )

Excellent book by the way. After reading it, you'll never look at computer security the same way again, and may very well just switch to an Abacus with a box of crayons on top.