Last night was the start of season 9 of MythBusters, and I missed it. I blame FaceBook. I don’t blame FaceBook because I was busy playing Bejeweled Blitz or Hidden Chronicles. I blame FaceBook because some time ago, it decided to stop showing my the MythBusters feed, despite the fact that I am “subscribed” to it. You see, I use these feeds to know when new seasons start, since we don’t watch a whole lot of TV. In my mind, it wasn’t time for a new MythBusters yet because I hadn’t seen anything on FaceBook about when new episodes started.
Archive for October, 2012
Blog Feature: Len Penzo dot com
06
Oct
I should have featured LenPenzo.com a long time ago. Not because I have been reading him for a long time, but because I should have been reading Len for much longer than I have been- if for no other reason than that he does a weekly 100 Words On post (there are other reasons). That is right- he uses this format, too.
I had a chance to meet Len at FinCon, and he is a great guy. Unsurprising that he has a great blog and makes use of a fabulous concept. This week’s 100 words was on avoiding burn out.
Your Money Friday: Company Charity Drives
05
Oct
It’s that time of year again, the time when charities really ramp up their efforts to get people to donate. For some people, it’s not enough just to know which charities they personally support and are willing to give money to- their companies also have charities they partner with. And those companies sometimes push donations, setting high company wide participation goals.
So how do you decide where you charitable dollars go? If you don’t donate to your company’s chosen charity, do you think it might hurt your chances of career advancement? Should companies ever even ask their employees to donate?
Out of the Closet, In the Ring
04
Oct
Boxing isn’t a sport I follow, but I’ve seen enough posters to know who Orlando Cruz is. As the World Boxing Association’s #4 featherweight, his is one of the few widely recognized names in boxing. And that makes yesterday’s press release an even bigger deal.
What press release? The one where he came out to the world as a gay man.
Here he is, a professional athlete at the height of his career, in a very “macho” sport, and he’s coming out to the world as gay.
Thank you, Orlando Cruz, for having the cojones to be true to yourself.
Free Education
03
Oct
I have written a lot about Coursera and EdX at other places, but not here. I am currently taking a free course on Operations Management from Coursera, taught by a professor out of the Wharton School of Business at theUniversity ofPennsylvania. It’s free, so I am not getting any kind of credit, but that’s okay, I’m not taking it for credit.
University of Washington also offers classes through Coursera. They are hoping to soon add the option of paying a fee to get actual credit, which, depending on the price point, I think will probably be really popular.
Going Boating on a Moon
02
Oct
We have landed multiple rovers on Mars with great success- including the rovers having longer life spans than originally planned for. So what is next? While it does not come out of NASA, there is a group in Europe (Spainmostly) that is currently presenting the idea of landing a boat in one of the large lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
If we can land cars on a planet, why not a boat on a moon? We know Titan is covered in lakes and rivers (of methane, apparently, not H20), which makes it a possible location for microbial life.
Movie Review: The Avengers
01
Oct
Because we are behind the times at our house, when Avengers was coming out last summer, we had people telling us- Oh, you need to see Captain America before Avengers. Last night, right before we watched it, J asked to make sure we’d seen Thor, as he felt that was the most important prerequisite. We had. We’d also seen the Ed Norton Hulk (I loved Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner), and the firstIronMan.
Honestly, I don’t really think we really needed to see any of them. They added something, but the movie stood on its own just fine.