Back in 1996, I bought my first hard drive. It was an internal 400 MB unit, costing roughly $400 or 1 MB/$. It required a lot of work to install into my computer, which wasn't originally designed to recognize anything that "large."

This week I spotted a 1 TB (yes, terabyte) external hard drive with dual USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity for easy ( Read more... )

MAGIC!

Instructions for non-Russian speaking readers:

Magic Square

1. Think of any two-digit number.
   
2. Subtract both of its digits from it (For instance, subtract 5 and 4 from 54 to get 45).
   
3. Find the resulting number in the table and note the symbol next to it.
   
4. Mentally concentrate on the symbol.
   
5. Click on the Large Magic Square.

The picture posted below has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at Loma Linda Medical Center ( Read more... )

This Thanksgiving, we got something very tangible, very real to be thankful for. It is the fact that we were in Sacramento, California and not in Mubai, India, where we once had dinner at the now infamous Taj Mahal Hotel, the site of this weekend's deadly terrorist attacks. We were also thankful for not being stuck for days at the Bangkok ( Read more... )

 
"The thing about trains... it doesn't matter where they're going. What matters is deciding to get on."

-- The Conductor on The Polar Express (as seen in IMAX 3D in Sacramento)
 

Based on my dear readers' insightful comments in response to my last post as well as on some of my own freethinking ideas, I would like to present to you an updated proposal for how the law of the land in the State of California shall henceforth be amended to define the institution of marriage:

( Free Your Mind! )

Public Disclaimer: I've been meaning to post this commentary since just after the election, but chose to set it aside for a little bit due to a nagging suspicion that a lot of people might get offended by my implicitly sarcastic remarks on the highly sensitive subject of marriage. In other words, if you decide to read this post, try to take it for ( Read more... )

While I was at Columbia Business School, there was a guy in my class by the name of Luke Weil, a prodigal son of Scientific Games CEO Lorne Weil who sits on the School's Board of Overseers and sponsors an annual business plan competition. Back in 2003, Luke had a brush with fame in an Emmy-nominated HBO documentary called "Born Rich" in which he ( Read more... )

An ABC meets an OTB.

"I got ADD," says the ABC.
"I got PhD," replies the OTB.

And off they go each in his own direction.

( Click here to learn the acronyms )

Even though bon_chevalier has cautioned me that radical approaches rarely work, I am proud to report that I had enough resolve to maintain a strict vegetarian diet for full 15 days (rather than just a week as originally planned). By doing so, I have proven to myself that I could potentially stay away from meat for the foreseeable future, although this might ( Read more... )