Peter is up to this

Hello!

I will hopefully write up some interesting things that have happened to me in the last 8 months or so. Currently I am taking a year off to do research, on cochlear biophysics. Brandi is doing one too.

I am sleepy because I stayed up until 2 last night watching the Truman show. I liked that movie when it came out and I still like it.

This came out of left field buried in a times article.

"Since a federal report four years ago found that textbook prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004 — rising an average of 6 percent a year, twice the inflation rate — Congress and state legislators have been working to contain textbook costs."

http://bit.ly/2XDSKo

WHAT? Where is this report? I need to read it.

Hey guys

Listen, I uhh monetized the blog. I'm sure we'll never get any money but if we do, it's all going to www.heifer.org, my favorite charity.

The idea behind the charity is that you buy poor developing world communities livestock, which they then get trained to raise, and then use that livestock for their renewable resources (ie milk, fertilizer, wool, feathers) and then sell whatever excess they have locally to other underdeveloped communities. So rather than a handout which is basically palliative care, this charity tries to give poor people the ability to grow their own communities naturally.

Actually John, Robyn told me about way back in college (man those were the days) and I did a little research, it apparently gives around 70% of its donations to the cause, and only 30% go to overhead, which is a pretty good ratio.

So to try to drive up a little traffic to this site, I'll resume my insane rants about the news in september, tell your parents to read the blog and click the links.

How is everyone doing these days?

Sometimes

Sometimes I forget how smart my crappy little brother is. I'm driving him back from his summer class today, and I'm listening to a new yorker political podcast. On it, the guy makes an offhand comment about kruschev and some other guy, whose name escapes me. The reference flew right over my head, but Ziad picked up this guys name, and repeated it back to me saying, 'he's the guy from east berlin right?'

And I'm all, 'your stupid, this podcast is about Russia,'

And he's all, 'I know, but this is the guy who was the head of East Berlin; which was controlled by Russia , moron .' So he totally crushed me on that reference.

Then I put on a podcast about that douchebag Richard Dawkins. And my brother, before anything is said about him goes, 'I hate that guy!'

And I'm all, 'yeah like you know who he is.' And Ziad proceeds to tell me who he is, and 2 of his major books.

And just now I was thinking to myself, 'man, which 17 year old knows who the head of east berlin was in the 1990's, and knows who dawkins is?'

I mean is this what all the kids are talking about these days, fall of berlin wall era politics, and militant atheists?

Sperm bank sued under product liability law

Recently, a sperm bank has been sued by a teenager conceived with sperm from that bank. She has a genetic disorder that came from the donor, and is arguing that the DNA received from her father is faulty and the sperm bank is liable.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429596840

I can see her side of the case, but don't agree with it at all. Sure, she has a genetic disorder from her father's DNA, but she also exists because of her father's DNA. I interpret the lawsuit as the teen and her mother saying "I'd rather not have been born than have this disorder", since she couldn't have one without the other. Anyway, I'm interested to hear what all you doctors and lawyers think about it.

Make Firefox Work for you!

Hey,


Here are a whole bunch of addons for firefox that you can use to make browsing things a lot easier. I highly recommend them all and use them daily. And if you are not using firefox, SHAME ON YOU!

All of the below are FREE, and known by me to not damage your system in any way.

Click here to download and use the latest version of Firefox (AMMI DO NOT CLICK THIS!)

IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: To add whatever you want, click on the link, then click add to firefox, after you've added all the ones you like, click the restart firefox button or quit firefox and restart it.

404: file not found: uses wayback.org to find archives of pages that no longer exist. Pretty sweet.

Adblock Plus/ Adblock Filterset.G Updater/ Adblock Plus Filter Uploader/ Adblock Plus Element Hiding Helper: NECESSARY ADDON, gets rid of most ads on most websites, never surf without it.

Autopager: NECESSARY ADDON, Loads the next page of multiple pages (think google searches), no longer need to hit next on most pages (IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: everytime a popup says that it found an autopager thing, click yes.)

Bookmark Duplicate Detector: does what it says on the tin (IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: allows you to delete duplicate bookmarks, click on bookmarks and then click "search for duplicates").

Downthemall! : quicker/simpler downloading of files

FoxyProxy: (Advanced Users Only) The premier proxy tool for firefox.

GoogleGears: NECESSARY ADDON, Gmail needs this to work. (Kinda...)

Gmail Manager: A cool little app that automatically checks your gmail and popsup when you have a new email.

Image Zoom: Does what it says on the tin (IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: zooms pics, right click and go to zoom image).

Morning Coffee: HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED Quite possibly the greatest firefox addon ever; once you set it up (and no Ammi, I'm not going to explain how to set it up on this email) click on the little coffee mug and it opens up sites that you visit daily saving you time and effort.

Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar: The little thing just below your address bar you add booksmarks to can now be up to three rows long without the dumb arrow deal on the far right side. (seriously that arrow thing completely defeats the purpose of the bookmarks toolbar; uhh hello one click access to frequented sites)

Nuke Anything Enchanced: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Delete any object (text, picture, ad that slips through adblock) through context menu. (IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: Right click on the thing you want to delete and left click on "remove this object" if you want to delete some text highlight the text and follow the previous steps.)

Read it Later: NECESSARY ADDON, An easy way to bookmark stuff you want to read later (DURR HURR HURR) (IF YOU ARE AMMI READ THIS: Press the checkmark button on the address bar to save the site for later, and when you want to read an article you saved, press the brown and yellow button near the address bar)

Twitterbar: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Type anything into the address bar and it automatically posts it onto twitter. Add a space after pages you are on to add a comment on the link. Changes links to tinyurls to conserve characters.

As an aside, you all should download and install Digsby, it's a program that aggregates all your social sites (gmail, gtalk, yahoomessenger, AIM, yahoomail, facebook, twitter, linkedin, stumbleupoun, etc) and puts them all into one window. The best parts of Adium/Trillian rolled into one. (TECHNICAL NOTE: This program does run a distributed computing system to generate money, it is not spyware, but you should know that.)

Then follow me, EMAD06, on twitter: and I'll follow you!

All I ever tweet are interesting news stories with a pithy comment on each one. I'm like a better version of Fark

I LOVE YOU,

EMAD!

PS If anyone has some awesome firefox addons they want to share, please write me back, and I'll send it out to everyone.

Don't want to bogart the blog, but...

For anyone who wants a cool little twitter box on the side like me click;


1) Sign up for twitter (obviously)
2) this link, and click the big orange B button ont he right side,
3) Follow the instructions (you'll have to sign in to blogger to edit the blog page)
4) ???
5) Profit!

Hey dudes!

Man, it's been a long time since i posted here. That is because I've found the joy and ease of use of twitter! Come follow me for my thoughts on news highlights.

Link

Relaxing and Number Munchers

After that last video I feel the need to relax.  You should too.

Also, here is a link to play the original version of Number Munchers!

And Oregon Trail!

Don't gamble on your gg.

You Must Construct Additional Pylons!

SPCAI to humans; feral dogs are more important than you!

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SCPA) International  wants Iraqi's to vaccinate/neutrer/spay feral dogs that are literally hunting humans in packs. Look, guys, you know I have no love for dogs; but come on, if they are hunting and eating humans I'm pretty sure I'm in the right in saying strycnine and shotguns are the correct way to go. Also shouldn't any medicine going into the country be used more on humans rather than stray and feral dogs? 

Comment to tell me if I'm out of line. It won't change my mind, but it will make me hate you more.

60 cents.

Dumpster diving; not a viable alternative income!

From the Annals of "What Just Happened"

So today, I took out the trash.

This may not seem like a huge feat by any means, but bear with me a moment. The trash (and recyclables!) had been building for a good 3 weeks, so it was no easy feat bagging them all up and getting them ready for the giant landfill in the sky.

Anyway, I took down two bags full of trash to the basement, where the owners of the building have thoughtfully put dumpsters and recycle bins for just such a purpose.

On the third trip down, the recyclables trip, I chanced a glance into the bin (for what reason I can not fathom now, but it made sense at the time). Upoun looking in, I saw several movies and videogame cases in the dumpster. In the fashion of any true technophile/recyclist, I picked one off the top of the bin, opened it up, and glanced inside.

Nothing. (Obviously, right?)

Now, in an effort to be thorough, I took the next case out and looked inside; sure enough, there was a normal looking DVD in it (Pulp Fiction, I think). This set off my mind like fireworks; 'If I take all these DVD/games out, look through each, and take the cases that have something in them, I can rip whatever info I can off the media, save it to a hard-drive and then sell the discs back to GameStop or whatever!'

And that is when I decided to jump into the dumpster and do just that. After 15 minutes of pretty gross work (recyclable stuff still has sticky residue of some sort on it), I had a pile of a good 50 cases. Of those 25 bore to fruition, and I carried those back into my apartment where they sit in the entrance hall right now.

I guess I'll post back here the results of what happened to these 'dumpster DVDs' and what kind of profit dumpster diving makes.

And how was your day?

Edit: Forgot to follow Rule 10 of the Internet.

Guys I'm Married

Isn't that crazy? Anyway, the wedding was fantastic, the honeymoon was ridiculously fun (nudge nudge say no more), and now we are setting up a liveable home. Since Brandi is moving into my condo, and since apparently my standards for liveable are much below Brandi's, we've been cleaning a lot lately.

More info later, especially when I get some pics to post of Maui. We snorkeled, scuba dove, and surfed.

Begin first rotation (neuro) soon.

Peter out.

Our Great Tragedy

People say that September 11, 2001 was the great tragedy of our time, I respectfully disagree; our great tragedy was much longer in scope.

It was the years 2000-2004. Our tragedy was so bad, that it was taken from us prematurely.

In 2004 that tragedy was turned into a farce.

I give you, the Bush legacy.

Peter Married FTW!

Oh yeah!  Peter and Brandi's wedding announcement was in the New York Times!

Oh. My. God.

You guys. Peter is married. MARRIED. MARRIED!!

Feel free to comment.