You may remember THIS guy that over the years has gone from down-an-out, to generous local hero that salvages computer waste and repairs it to give away complete working computers for the public that may not have the opportunity otherwise.

well now his state is clamping down on him because of the letter of the law regarding waste disposal. the state is losing focus of the greater benefit of recycling the waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, and is instead focussing on short term law enforcement that means he could be prevented from cleaning up the crap that his own state produces!

it's this kind of adherence to rules and the loss of focus on the INTENT of the rules that leads to the crap that is happening to America recently regarding the billion laws that get passed that are so narrowly focussed that they miss the greater intent of such a law.
 then it takes massive resources to remember, by archiving, and then enforcing all the little laws that really cold be summed up into a handful of things.
things that you could teach enforcement officers easily, and they would have a greater success in their jobs (and hence serve the public better, isn't that the idea?) instead of trying to figure out all the little laws and who's rights overlap where.

.....we don't teach young people as they grow up to watch for every single little detail, instead we tell them loose GUIDES that they can apply to anything and remember a few good guides instead of wondering if any specific rules apply to the current narrowly defined situation.we tyell them things like "be careful" and " not too much". this is something that can be remembered and applied to anything.

---

This is an urban legend about how a student wouldn't answer a college question the "proper way", that is, the way that the college system expected him to answer to get marked accordingly. instead the student chose to answer, still in a way that is true and correct with regards to what the question wants, in a way that annoyed the tutor.
it's a great way to remember that you don't have to always give the expected answer, that what are asked is not always best answered by the rules that are ill defined to you. you can use your creativity and achieve things the best way you believe possible, even if it means doing the unexpected.

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague.
He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.I read the examination question: "SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER."
The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it,lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building." The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try.
 I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.
 In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch.Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building."
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded,and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem,so I asked him what they were. "Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "and others?" "Yes," said the student, "there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units." "A very direct method." "Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building,in principle, can be calculated." "On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building,attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession".
"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem.Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer."
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

---

this is cool, this company hack up a cat entry system that WON'T allow their cat "FLO", in to the house if the cat brings in a dead animal in her mouth!

this is what it looks like INSIDE:



this is what is on the other side:


this is what the camera hooked to the computer "sees":


if the cat is carrying "something" in it's mouth, the system doesn't let her in!

---

the water is so blue because of so little phytoplankton, which normally uses Co2 for photosynthesis. when there IS phytoplankton doing it's thing and sucking Co2 to make O2, the water is more GREEN and temperature of that environment is cooler due to greenhouse gases being less.

---

There are no comments to this entry.