Monthly Archives: December 2006

Celebrating the holiday

Posted on December 25, 2006 by Eric

Happy Newton’s Day!

Posted in General | Leave a comment

Suboptimal Retirement Plan

Posted on December 17, 2006 by Eric

Three cowororks and I from time to time “apply for early retirement” by purchasing California Lottery Super Lotto Plus tickets. Thus far our return on investment has been poor, but yesterday things started looking up. We actually matched four numbers, … Continue reading →

Posted in The Suboptimal Way | Leave a comment

What a relief!

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Eric

School’s out!  We completed the last lab assignment and final exam for General Chemistry I today.  I have an A in Chemistry and in Human Heredity and Disease, and I think there’s a good chance that I’ll have an A … Continue reading →

Posted in School & Education | Leave a comment

R.I.P. Alan Shugart, 27 September 1930 — 12 December 2006

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Eric

In 1955 at IBM, Alan Shugart was a member of the team that developed the world’s first hard drive, the IBM RAMAC, which stored about five megabytes on fifty 24-inch platters. He also directed the development of the first floppy … Continue reading →

Posted in In memoriam | Leave a comment

Robots Attack!

Posted on December 16, 2006 by Eric

I returned to a city I once lived in many years ago. I was trying to drive to a friend’s house, but the highway exits had been changed somewhat, so I got confused about where to turn. I saw a … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreams | Leave a comment

If the computer industry worked like the biotech industry

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Eric

Why there’s no cure for the common cold.

Posted in Blog/website/news comments | Leave a comment

Nonpareil status

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Eric

Several people have inquired about the status of Nonpareil, so it’s time for an update. There are major changes in progress that are mostly “under the hood.” The released versions of Nonpareil install KML, image, and ROM files in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Calculators, Nonpareil | 1 Comment

Objectivist Car

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Eric

Recently I was behind a car on highway 237 that clearly belonged to an Objectivist. The license plate said “B IS B”, and there were two large bumper stickers with quotes from the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.   … Continue reading →

Posted in Freedom and liberty | Leave a comment

Sprint Mobile Broadband (EV-DO)

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Eric

I finally decided to get a cellular data service, Sprint Mobile Broadband (EVDO). Short summary: I’ve only tried using it at my office so far, but the performance is great. I’m getting over 500 Kbps downstream, with round-trip ping times … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer satisfaction, Fedora, Hardware | 3 Comments