As I continue on my quest to read 25 books this year, I received another recommendation that was a diversion from my list of twenty. My wife, Lisa, asked me if I wanted to read the book His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by William F. Harley, Jr. When I refused, she responded with “I read it, and I’d really like you to read it.” Being the wise man that I am, I decided to pick it up.
Recently, I took a trip to Salem, OR, and chose to stay at a La Quinta Inn. I didn’t choose it for any reason in particular. It was priced right, and the reviews online through Expedia and Trip Advisor were reasonable.
After completing my stay, I received the typical follow-up survey to rate the hotel. I figured I’d go ahead and complete the survey since things went fairly well during the visit. The rating scale was 1-10, and knowing that companies use these surveys for evaluation, I’m pretty liberal in my grading scale unless some egregious event occurs. Nearly all of my responses on the survey were between 8 and 10.
After completing the survey, I received the following email:
Since part of my science fiction reading has involved post-apocalyptic scenarios, it should come as no surprise that I happened across One Second After by William R. Forstchen. The book chronicles the events in a rural North Carolina town after a high altitude nuclear detonation hits the United States with an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). Without getting into technical details, the effects of an EMP have the potential to render nearly all electronic devices useless, including anything that relies on electronics. Mobile phones, computers, and even cars are paralyzed. More importantly, the public infrastructure that we depend upon that supplies water and electricity is also crippled.
Unsurprisingly, Pitt bowed out of the NCAA tournament with a 61-45 loss to Florida today. Unlike prior March disappointments, Pitt represented itself well this time around. They made it to the semifinal of the ACC tournament where they lost to eventual champion Virginia, and they won their opening round NCAA tournament game in dominating fashion by beating Colorado by 29.
Unlike prior seasons, expectations were not high for this year’s team. There was a lot of roster turnover in last year’s offseason, so one could consider making it to the NCAA a success for this team. However, had things gone a little differently, Pitt could have had a special season. So I’ve labeled this season “what could have been.”
In prior days, I would have believed that iPhone 6 rumors and images were true leaks. In other words, someone involved in iPhone 6 design, prototyping or production builds provided unauthorized information to a blog. After reading the Ryan Holiday book, Trust Me I’m Lying, I don’t buy that these are leaks. I believe that Apple coordinates the release of such information.
Why would a company that is supposedly so secretive and protective of their new products do such a thing? I believe there are two valuable reasons that Apple would leak information to the media.
I’ve been making progress on my 2014 reading list, already having completed the first five titles. I was hoping to stay disciplined and stick to the list, but a recommendation I got from William Hertling dashed those hopes. Hertling is the author of The Singularity Series, which is one of my favorite book series (see my reviews here and here). Needless to say, when one of your favorite writers recommends a book, it gets priority and jumps the queue. He suggested I read Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat.
I have a couple of aging computers that are still in service in my house. With the end of support approaching with Windows XP, I decided it was time to start replacing the old rigs with new ones. After replacing a 12-year old Dell machine with my first min-ITX build, it was time to replace my first DIY computer.
I built the machine back in November, 2005. It cost just north of $1,200 to build and featured a 3.0 GHz Prescott Core Pentium 4. I probably should have went dual core at the time, but dual core was just hitting the mainstream. Prices were still pretty high, and I wanted to build something that was a bit more economical as well as a bit simpler to setup. Here is the build sheet for the old machine:
I recently decided it was time to retire from coaching football after ten years. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, the time commitment became too much. There’s a lot I’ll miss about it, especially the relationships with the other coaches and the players.
Luckily, over my ten years of coaching, I had some great mentors who taught me how to instruct the game and, more importantly, how to be a coach. Under their tutelage, here are the most important coaching lessons I learned from them. The best part, these lessons can be applied to any sport, not just football.