Pen or Pencil? September 5, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: ballpoint, choice, choose, cost, cross, cursive, Debate, decision, erase, ergonomic, fountain, mechanical, mightier, notes, or, pen, pencil, print, process, school, scribble, student, style, sword, thought, versatility, whiteout, write, writing
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“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Where does this leave the choice writing instrument for various students, the pencil? For that matter, who has ever praised the pencil at all? Is this empirical proof that the pen is greater than the pencil, or is the greatness of the pencil so universally accepted that praise is redundant?
The question of pen or pencil has bugged me, and likely a few other students, for quite some time. There are multiple angles to examine this predicament by and ultimately it probably just comes down to personal preference, but I am determined to throw in my 2 cents.
“The pencil is mightier than the sword…” that just sounds silly doesn’t it?
What I Learned From Random Google Searches May 18, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: disturbing, dropdown, four, google, have, how, I, list, nipples, one, random, results, santa, searches, shave, stuff, that, three, two, weird, when, why
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Google has this neat little feature that shows a dropdown list of popular searches that have something to do with whatever you’ve already typed into the search box. Now, that’s cool and all, but sometimes, there’s some weird stuff on there. These searches are supposed to be the most popular for the term I’ve typed in. For some of these, that’s actually very disturbing. Be sure to click on the thumbnails for full-sized images.
11 Odd Google Trends May 17, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: am, awesome, bacteria, being, capitalism, communism, Debate, drunk, funny, google, hangovers, hilarious, holidays, hunger, hungover, I, no, policy, rich, school, searches, seasonal, sober, socialism, spike, subjects, sucks, trends, vista, weird, why
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Now, I had no idea before today, but after reading a blog post on Paul’s Ponderings, I figured out that Google Trends is a tool that allows you to see the search pattern of different search engine keywords. What’s the point? Truth be told, not much.
The site can be pretty funny sometimes though. I’ve collected 11 trends that I thought were, strange, funny, or just plain weird. For example:
These were searches for “vista”:
Searches for “vista sucks”:
Note how the spike in searches for “vista” magically corresponds with the spike in searches for “vista sucks,” both on New Year’s 2007, when Vista was released. What’s even weirder is that the spikes were within days of each other. Now what does that tell you about the quality of Windows Vista?
Think that’s boring and predictable? Well, check the next 11 out.
Basic Internet Manners May 9, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: 1337, 1337speak, all, caps, check, common, etiquette, flame, flaming, grammar, internet, leet, leetspeak, manners, netiquette, polite, proofread, sense, spelling, wars
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“LolZ wTf r u ta1k1ng abotu??/?///”
I hate to see that. Honestly, there is nothing in the world that will make you look more like an idiot than typing something resembling that. A message like that doesn’t make you look cool; it just makes you look like an idiot.
There seems to be no sense of manners on the internet. Go to any forum and you’ll find posts that are undecipherable, flame wars so serious they might be WWIII, and overall stupidity. It seems that nobody is willing to think about what they write before they click the “submit” button.
It’s ridiculous to me that being polite on the internet is so easy yet 90% of the people on the internet don’t seem to care. Is it really all that hard to type the few extra keystrokes so that normal people can actually understand what you’re trying to say?
“LolZ wel wut cn i do abuot ti????////”
Well, there’s plenty you can do about it:
Counting Cards in Blackjack May 2, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: 21, bet, betting, blackjack, card, casino, counting, dealer, gambling, rainman
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Surely anyone who’s watched 21 has thought, “Damn, how can I count cards?”
Well, the answer is, very easily. In fact, you don’t have to be a super-genius to count cards in blackjack, despite what all those movies will have you think. All you need is concentration and practice.
But first of all what is card counting? Well, it’s a technique to determine when to bet high and when to bet low in blackjack. The higher the count, the more you bet. Simple enough so far, right?
The basic theory behind any card-counting routine is that the higher the ratio of high cards to low cards in the deck, the worse it is for the dealer because it’s then more likely for the dealer to bust. So, any low-valued cards will drive up the count and high-valued cards will drive down the count.
OK, but then how do you actually count the cards? There are many ways, and 7 are listed in the table below (from Wikipedia).
How NOT to Look Like an Idiot on the Internet April 30, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: asshole, honesty, idiot, intellectual, internet, link, plagiarize, poison, rant, the, well
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Many people want to know how to make their blogs or websites more popular, and there are a variety of different ways. However, some of those people don’t realize that it can be the content on their sites that are making them unpopular, not that people can’t find the site. Once you get your first thumbs-down on StumbleUpon, it’s all downhill from there. It’s extremely important not to look like an idiot or an asshole on the internet, unless you plan on basing your blog on that. It’s been done before, very successfully in some cases.
4 Twitter Tools That Don’t Need a Password April 29, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: friends, grader, no, password, require, tools, tweet, tweetstats, twitoria, twitter, twitterfriends, useful
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There are so many interesting Twitter tools out there that require passwords it’s almost impossible to count them all. If you’re anything like me, you’re always paranoid that your account will get hacked. In fact, the only Twitter tool that requires a password that I use is TweetLater, and that’s all.
And so, 4 Twitter tools that you can use while sleeping soundly at night:
79 Things to Do Before I Die April 28, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: 79, before, big, death, die, do, fun, I, list, long, things, to
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You know, I would explain this, but right now I’m feeling particularly lazy.
I think it’s pretty straightforward. Hopefully your attention span is long enough to get you through all 79.
I was actually originally going to do 101, but then I ran out of ideas so I stopped at 79. Enjoy!
You know, I really had trouble deciding where to place this more tag…
Spam Email? This is Going To Be Fun… April 27, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: 419, africa, amusement, anti, email, fatou, feedback, filter, fun, hotmail, liberia, mail, mama, nigeria, pleasant, provider, reply, respond, scam, scammer, spam, spammer, start, surprise, trick, west
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Spam email is rather rare for me as I use hotmail, which has absolutely exceptional spam filters. So, as you might imagine, it’s quite a pleasant surprise for me when I do get the occasional spam message. You might think that it’s a little wierd that I get excited about spam email, but there’s a perfectly good reason for it. In fact, one single spam message can be the source of much amusement for a few weeks or even months, depending on how complicated the scam behind it is.
But first, the message I received:
Two Amazingly Useful Websites April 26, 2009
Posted by Jacky in Cream of the Crop.Tags: amazing, convert, converter, doc, docx, file, media, sites, useful, word, zamzar
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Have you ever experienced that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you’re emailed an important Word document in docx format and realized that you couldn’t open it? For me, it was a big pain in the ass whenever someone emailed me a docx file because that meant I had to email them back for a doc file that may or may never get to me.
Well, needless to say, I got fed up with that and decided to find a good file converter for docx files. I nearly slapped myself when I found a site with the first Google result. After a bit more searching, I managed to find another online file converter that was able to handle more file types.
And so, the two most useful sites ever:
