Written by I don’t usually watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but I saw this clip over at The Agitator and I liked it:
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| Indecision 2012 – Corn Polled Edition – Ron Paul & the Top Tier | ||||
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Posts in category Activities
Jon Stewart talks about Ron Paul
Programming away
Lots of good stuff over at the Non-Programmer’s Tutorial for Python. I have learned much. I’ve learned about lists, dictionaries, reading and writing to files and importing modules to do most of the stuff you want to do.
I use Ubuntu, but I think I want to learn Visual Basic next. It’s a popular language and from what I’ve read, it’s supposedly very easy to learn. My dad has a laptop with Windows on it, so I’ll probably borrow it from him to learn VB. But there’s also MonoDevelop, which apparently supports .NET framework, so we’ll see. I still have more stuff to learn with Python anyway, so that’s what I’m focusing on for now.
Fibonacci numbers
I’ve been watching videos on khanacademy.org. I went through all the Computer Science videos, which is a basic introduction to Python. Apart from what I learned about Python, I learned about Fibonacci numbers, which go like this: The first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1. The next Fibonacci number is the sum of the previous two Fibonacci numbers. So the sum of 0 and 1 is 1. The next one after that would be 1 + 1 = 2, and the next one after that would be 1 + 2 = 3. Next would be 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21, 13 + 21 = 34, and so on. So that short list of Fibonacci numbers is: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34. A neat thing about Fibonacci numbers is that when you divide one Fibonacci number by the next smallest Fibonacci number, the result is very close to the Golden Ratio. And the larger Fibonacci numbers you use, the closer their quotient is to the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is about 1:1.618. It actually goes out to a great many more decimal places. So let’s look at that list of Fibonacci numbers and do the math:
- 1/0 = Can’t divide by 0
- 1/1 = 1
- 2/1 = 2
- 3/2 = 1.5
- 5/3 = 1.667
- 8/5 = 1.6
- 13/8 = 1.625
- 21/13 = 1.615
- 34/21 = 1.619
Each quotient in that list is closer to 1.618 than the previous one. Pretty neat, huh?
Are you happy or sad the Space Shuttle has been retired?
This post is in response to The Daily Post.
I can’t really say that I’m happy or sad, but I think it’s probably good that the shuttle program is ending. NASA spent a lot of my money on it. According to the Boston Globe, it was expected to cost $90 billion, but more than doubled that projection with a total cost of about $196 billion. With twice their intended budget, they only made half their intended space flights. The space shuttle program was a financial failure, another typical government-run program. It seems to me that companies like Virgin Galactic are better suited to continue space exploration because they have the incentive of profit to motivate their efforts.
My earliest memory
I think I was either 2 or 3. I was standing in a field with my dad and a friend of my parents named Lloyd Hartgraves. Lloyd is dead now. But we were standing in the field and there were cattle around us. My dad picked me up and put me on a cow. The cow walked into a barn and started licking a big gray block. I asked my dad what it was and he said it was a salt lick. I asked him why the cow was licking salt and he said the cow liked the way it tasted.
This post is in response to The Daily Post.
A Life Ended Here
I’m starting work on my new blog, alifeendedhere.com. It’s an aggregation of roadside memorials with photos and whatever other information I can find about them. I’m going to spend my weekends traveling around, looking for these shrines, taking photos, then post them on the site. Readers will be able to submit their own photos and stories, and I’m going to try to learn some Google API so each entry will have a map with a pushpin displayed for anyone who wants to visit the memorial.
I think it’s a nice way to compliment the efforts that people make to honor loved ones whose lives are tragically cut short.
One Year of Analytics
I started using Google Analytics not long after I started this blog. Here is how things look for the past year:
Google Analytics for March 10, 2010, through March 10, 2011
These are numbers that I feel I can be proud of. I know there are many many other blogs that have started and gotten much higher numbers than I have, and in a shorter amount of time. But for just doing this as a hobby, I have no complaints. I like that the site has gradually started gathering more traffic. I’m not so proud of my 75 percent bounce rate, though.
A couple of notes:
1. The first spike in traffic was when I posted photos of people crashing at the 2010 Joe Martin Stage Race. I plan on attending every day of the race this year, so hopefully I’ll get some more good photos for you to look at.
2. The second spike is from my post with photos of the record snowfall Fayetteville had in February. So looking at those two spikes, I reckon that current events is one thing that brings in traffic.
3. The post that gets the most views is about Layer Masks in Gimp. I guess that’s a subject people want to learn about.
Goals for the second year:
1. Lower my bounce rate. I think getting it under 50 percent would be a good goal. I should be able to accomplish this by raising the quality of my content, and to post more frequently.
2. Continue growing. I’m getting about 50 visits a day now. I’d like to see that number climb to an average of at least 100 a day, maybe even 200 a day.
3. Completely design my own theme from scratch. I’ve been reading up on this and I’ve been following tutorials and I’m learning. I still have a ways to go, but I have some ideas in my head now and I’m excited about the possibility of making a WordPress site that looks like no other.
Thanks:
Thanks to Christopher Spencer of Ozarks Unbound for turning me on to WordPress, and for organizing WordCamp Fayetteville. Christopher has, on many occasions, taken time from his busy schedule to answer my questions and offer a wealth of information to me.
Thanks to wpbeginner.com and Syed Balkhi. Syed runs wpbeginner, and there is a ton of free information there that I try to put to use every day. I met Syed at WordCamp Fayetteville last year and he was really awesome and helpful.
And thank all of you for looking at my blog. I love it when you leave comments and write to me and whatnot. I also REALLY REALLY love it when you click that Facebook Like Button.
Now here is an open call to all the WordPress and SEO gurus out there: What advice would you offer me? What actions should I take to reach my goals listed above? Please be kind and leave a comment below.
DHL Is Insane
I bought some RAM from newegg.com (great site) and chose their Egg Saver shipping for $1.99. It was attractive to me for a couple of reasons: 1, the price; and 2, the package would be delivered to my mailbox instead of by a courier on my doorstep. DHL takes the package and moves it from the shipping origin to my area, then hands it over to the Post Office. So today I looked at the tracking number to see if my package would get here before the weekend. I don’t think it will. Here is a screenshot of the tracking info:
Just to be clear, Hebron, Kentucky is just outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Here’s a map of my package’s journey so far:
Memphis is 317 miles by car from Fayetteville. Hebron, Kentucky, is 714 miles. I think DHL is taking the scenic route.
I’m not really complaining. I know DHL has their routes and whatnot and they have it all figured out on getting the package to me in the fashion that is most fiscally advantageous to them. I’m not faulting them for that. I just think it’s kind of silly to be moving my delivery farther away from where it’s headed.
Lots of snow today
We get a little bit of snow here in northwest Arkansas, but usually not this much. We got at least 6 inches today. Here is a video I made with my HTC Evo phone while driving to work today.
Barrel House Marketing Group
I set up a WordPress site for my friend’s business. It’s fairly straightforward with just a few static pages and one dynamic page for photo galleries of promotional events that he holds. It was really fun. I made a child theme of the TwentyTen theme and did just a little bit of tweaking in the style sheets. If you want to check it out, it’s at barrelhousemarketing.com.
Building a “Fish Attractor”
Sorry it’s been a little while. Here is a video of someone building a “fish attractor” in a drained lake.
Did you know you can embed YouTube videos in a WordPress post by simply copy-and-pasting the URL into the post editor? It’s that easy.
Registering to leave comments on blogs? Bologna!
2011 Leave a Comment
I was reading a post by Darren Rowse over at problogger.net, and he was talking about ways to get more comments on your blog. My blog is sadly lacking in the comments section. But when he started talking about requiring someone to register on a site to leave a comment, I wholeheartedly agree with what he has to say here:
I absolutely hate sites that require you to register to leave a comment. I have never registered just to leave a comment on a site, and I never will. In fact, I will probably not visit that site again.
So I pledge, right here and now, that I will never require you to register on my website to leave a comment.
Now, please leave a comment below to show your support for registration-free websites.