Eye of the beholder

"It's rude to be rude. It's not rude to be direct, especially in business situations."
phunniemee on AskMeFi

Transit on the go

I just used Nextrip Mobile from Metro Transit here. It worked great, unlike the phone version that didn't seem to think there were any more trips on the 4 after 8:50 pm. I even tried to get tomorrow schedule instead and it thought a sneeze was me saying "Eight".
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Did You Know

that you can see the Great Pyramid of Giza on Google Maps? It's the biggest one with no marker on it.


View Larger Map

globe.jpg

globe.jpg
Originally uploaded by soelo

Sigh... I wish I was somewhere over here right now.
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Gmail tip for finding archived items with no label

I have a Gmail account with over 50K messages (my rss feeds) and I sometimes read it via Gmail mobile. So, I end up with messages that have been archived but not labeled (oh no!)

To find them, search this:
"-label:inbox -label:blog -label:comp ..."

You have to add a -label:tag for each tag, so it can take a while to write. But bookmark it and you never have to write it again! I found the idea at the bottom of this thread.

Harry Potter moves away, so Twilight moves closer

Since Harry Potter has moved it's release date to July, Twilight has moved up to November 21st.

Current Events

I have updated my 101 things post, checking off a few more things while I was changing the text back to all black. I made cookies in July, took my Calc final Wednesday and got my immunizations last Thursday. I don't have my grade yet.

I start a new class, Elections and Political Parties on August 25th. In most classes there is at least one annoying person (although Calc2 was mercifully lacking one) and I just know there will be more than one in this class.

An arch in Utah's Arches National Park has collapsed. Utah was so pretty when I visited it with my mother in 2003. We talk about going back all the time.

The last item on my list of 9 things to do this summer was to visit another State Park in addition to Frontenac and Afton. When my grandfather died in June, he was buried in Fort Ridgely Cemetary, which is inside the Fort Ridgely State Park. Then when I went up to Sunset Lodge with my boyfriend and his family in July, we visited Itasca State Park and walked across the headwaters of the Mississippi. I had not even realized/remembered either of those until I pulled up the list of Minnesota State Parks and saw them both on the list.

Russia's Grizzly Coast

Russia's Grizzly Coast
Originally uploaded by soelo

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Mere katfight

Mere katfight
Originally uploaded by soelo

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The World in a Spreadsheet

The default Microsoft Excel worksheet has 256 columns and 65,536 rows. This gives us 16,777,216 individual cells. The current world population is estimated to be 6.684 billion people. So, to fit the whole world in a spreadsheet, you have to put 398.4 people in each cell.

European Population

There are many ways to rank cities by population:

-Strictly by the population within the city limits
-Include the urban area, but no "satellite cites"
-Include the entire metropolitan area: cities, farmland and smaller towns, defined in Europe as the LUZ (large urban zone).

Bucharest, for example, has the sixth largest population in the EU within its city limits. Expand the definition to urban area, and it drops to number 20. Expand it out to the entire LUZ and it drops to 23 on the list.

Those rankings are for the current EU, but if Turkey is admitted, all of those would go up by 3, since Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are larger by all definitions. In fact, Istanbul would be number one for city limit population at 11.1 million. London would still hold the top LUZ rank with 11.9 million.

Express rates of change in Pineapples

I am about to go to take the final test for Calculus 2 class. Happily I am much more prepared this time than I was the first time I took Calc2 in 2005.

As a reward for my (probably B-level) work in the class the semester, I am going to see Pineapple Express right after I finish the test. First Showing has an interview with the director David Gordon Green and another with Seth Rogen himself. James Franco gets some love, too, with this post which includes some other stories that feature him, and finally they review the film.

See The World - Gomez

Day to day
Where do you want to be?
'Cos now you're trying to pick a fight
With everyone you need
You seem like a soldier
Who's lost his composure
You're wounded and playing a waiting game
In no-man's land no-one's to blame

See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all's been said and done
It's the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned

Empty handed, surrounded by a senseless scene
With nothing of significance
Besides a shadow of a dream
You sound like an old joke
You're worn out, a bit broken
Asking me time and time again
And the answer's still the same

See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all's been said and done
It's the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned

You've got a chance to put things right
So how's it going to be?
Lay down your arms now
And put us beyond doubt
So reach out it's not too far away
Don't mess around now, don't delay
See the world..