A little caption discrimination?

Schulte found this flickr picture and we confirmed that it wasn’t doctored.

The AP put out a picture of a black guy with the caption “A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store…” (emphasis mine)

The AFP put out a nearly identical picture but with a white guy and a woman of some other descent with the caption ” Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store…” (emphasis mine)

Looks a little ridiculous to me.

Hook a school up

Some of you probably know Joe, Cindy’s boyfriend. He started a school in New York City that is wrapping up it’s first summer session now, getting ready for the first full school year. They are the KIPP Infinity Charter School.

They have an Amazon wishlist you can use if you want to help buy them some materials for the school. There’s a lot of inexpensive stuff on there and it’s very easy to purchase. So, if you’re feeling generous, hook ’em up.

Posted in me |

300 Proofs that God exists

This page is pretty funny. A few of my favorites:

19. ARGUMENT FROM NUMBERS
(1) Millions and millions of people believe in God.
(2) They can’t all be wrong, can they?
(3) Therefore, God exists.

25. ARGUMENT FROM INTERNET AUTHORITY
(1) There is a website that successfully argues for the existence of God.
(2) Here is the URL.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

36. ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPLETE DEVASTATION
(1) A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew.
(2) But one child survived with only third-degree burns.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Looking for a Laptop

I’m shopping for a laptop, and one of my main requirements is high screen resolution (for the non-nerds, that means the text all ends up really small so you can fit lots of stuff on your screen). All of the terminology for screen resolutions is f’n confusing, but I’ve managed to assemble this table of what the codes mean:

Stupid Acronym Resolution
WUXGA 1920 x 1200
UGA or UXGA 1600 x 1200
WSXGA+ 1680 x 1050
WXGA 1366 x 768
SXGA+ 1400 x 1050
SXGA 1280 x 1024
XGA 1024 x 768

Seems like if it starts with a “W” that means widescreen (sweet) and if it has a “U” in it, that means it has an Ultra high resolution (even sweeter).

I want a laptop with a “U” class screen. I don’t want it to be bulky, so the monitor should be less than 17″. It should also be pretty, otherwise I won’t be the envy of all the nerds. Does anyone have any suggestions? Note the G4 PowerBook, while it looks good, doesn’t make the cut because of the screen.

I’m currently considering the Acer Ferrari 4000 (even though the resolution is WSXGA+, that’s pretty good), the Sager 3880 (pretty much a bargain for what you get), and even the always crazy, Voodoo Envy n:522. That’s a little expensive though, and I’ve heard bad things about their customer service.

Any other recommendations?

Before and After

With Callahan moving to Dallas and me moving to Seattle, we decided to have “The Goodfellas” get back together again for one last night. Since we spent most of high school together (with no girls to be found) it was only appropriate that the reunion was similar – although Allison was there as our official picture taker. She took this picture back when we graduated in 1997:
Goodfella Graduation
At that time, from left to right: Sarge was planning on going to UNH, after having gotten in to Holy Cross but screwed up the paperwork for financial aid. Deion was getting ready to go to Northeastern where hopefully he would meet his first girlfriend. Tom was going to Carnegie Mellon and I think was in the middle of a girlfriend breakup at this time. Callahan was going to UNH where he would live with Sarge because they’re BFF. Schulte was going to BC, and I’m sure didn’t believe he had any chance of meeting a woman. Ever.

Now in 2005:
The Boys
We lined up in the same order because we’re complete tools, and Allison was once again the photographer. Sarge graduated from UNH, then went to BU for law school. He’s now a lawyer in Massachusetts, he went gay, and lives with his boyfriend in Lowell (where the picture was taken). Deion spent a trimester or two at Northeastern before dropping out and working a string of wildly successfull retail sales jobs. He now works at Best Buy in Concord and seems to have a good stream of electronic toys which we can only assume were purchased legally. He finally has a girlfriend. Tom got a Master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon, and after being a total nerd on the East Coast is reloating to the West Coast to continue being a nerd, but hopefully to a lesser extent. He’s dating a girl who works at Microsoft, which isn’t a good sign. Callahan graduated from UNH then went to Harvard (after a brief bit at Stanford) to get his law degree. He is making stupid money, he’s engaged [to a woman], and is moving to Dallas. Schulte finished up at BC, better late than never, and unexpectedly was the first person of our group to get married. He lives in a house in NH, participates in a bowling league, and for all intents and purposes his life is over.

Woot

The website Woot.com is pretty cool if you’ve never heard of it. They’re an electronics store, but they only sell one thing per day. If they sell out, day’s over. If they don’t, new product next day and no more chances to buy the first one. The stuff is typically heavily discounted… it’s a good site to add to your morning website routine (also available in RSS).