Archives
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Presentation Tips
I've presented technical talks at a few conferences. I wasn't bad, but I wasn't all that great either.
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KeePass: a Password Manager
The Code Project is a very useful site with C++, C#, and .NET tools, samples, and articles. I subscribe to their weekly newsletter, which summarizes all the new articles and tools that have been posted in the last week. About three months ago, the newsletter turned me on to a utility that has quickly become indispensible: KeePass, a Password Safe (or Manager).
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Schmies Vocabulary Test
I just found the Schmies Vocabulary Test. I scored a respectable 178 out of 200. As a teenager, I read much of Chambers Dictionary, which has left me with a large vocabulary.
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Voter Registration
Two days ago, I helped Washington Citizen Action (WCA) register some voters in the International District of Seattle. I'm somewhat shy, but having a clipboard and a purpose in hand helped me overcome my unease about soliciting strangers in the street. In a little over an hour, I successfully registered 3.5 voters, which my trainer considered better than average for a first-time registrar.
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Sensitive Reptilian Brain
In Cheney Speaks to the Reptilian Brain, Thom Hartmann makes an interesting point about Dick Cheney's ridiculing of John Kerry. Cheney deliberately takes Kerry's remarks about the need for sensitivity in the War on Terror out of context, and subjects them to ridicule with a subtext of fear. Hartmann says this is extremely hard to counter because Cheney's assertions appeal on three levels: to the reptilian brain (survival), to the limbic system (the heart and gut instincts), and to the neocortex (abstract thought).
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We Own What You Think
In the Salon article, We Own What You Think, Jeff Nachtigal describes the case of Evan Brown, a Texas programmer who has been fighting his former employer for seven years over the ownership of an idea that Brown came up with on his own time.