Lee.org

Today is a good day. I am cooking bacon. That is all.

I met a guy named John who has plenty of education but from a school that wasn’t accredited. Now he’s trying to get into a master’s program like I am. So he figured out how to test out of almost all of a college degree!

This is useful if you need to pick up some classes that you already know, or if you are a super genius and can study for college at home, or need just the right summer class to round out your prerequisite classes. I am in the last camp.

Here are some links that point to some great Credit by Exam resources. John used these programs to great effect. I haven’t used them yet but certainly might this summer.

great link for college degree planning       Degree Forum is the site for those people utilizing credit by exam and applying those credits to degrees

Excelsior College in Albany     The largest of the schools accepting up to 120 credits.for their degree programs

Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey  TESC also takes 120 credits toward their Bachelor’s degrees

http://www.bain4weeks.com/     The first website dedicated to Credit by Examiniation

http://www.free-clep-prep.com  An excellent resource for free   CLEP DSST ECE prep materials

Ugh. My computer has been getting slower and slower over the past few weeks. I think I figured out why. I am told by the CrystalDiskInfo program that the hard drive has a lot of uncorrectable sectors. She is dying.

I ordered a new laptop last week, it’ll be here in a week. So I decided to not write anything important to my desktop computer, wait for the laptop and make it my primary computer. I’m a bit freaked out at this. Change can be hard. Hell, I still have a land line phone.

Last week my beloved AG Neovo monitor died. I’ve had it for about 10 years. I had it repaired for $150 a couple years ago but it would be silly to spend another $150 on fixing an old 19″ monitor when I can buy a new on for about the same price.  Now this week my desktop computer is dying. It’s I don’t like it one bit.

I considered doing the following: get a small (128GB) SSD drive, a large (1TB) physical drive, reinstall XP, go from there. But why do it, really? I’m not a computer professional any more. My phone almost is as powerful as my desktop computer. I tell ya why I’d do it. Because I’m comfortable with it. It works. But the times, they change.

The dream of flight often brings tears to my eyes. Case in point:

local version:

I had been using Verdana (with a fallback to Arial and Sans-Serif) on the blog, now I’m using Open Sans (fallback to Sans-Serif) from Google Webfonts. What do you think?

Last week I tried using Vollkorn from Google Webfonts. But it was too curvy and loopy. My eyes tired quickly winding my way across the screen. I think Open Sans is the slider hamburger of fonts, it just slides right down your… umm eyes. eiw. Ok, bad analogy. ;-)

(nerd alert)
Ugh. I clicked the shiny “upgrade” button trying  to upgrade from Mediawiki 1.16.something to 1.19.something on one of my private wikis. Now I’m stuck because apparently the <Poem> tag has broken, I can’t fix the problem, I can’t go back to Mediawiki 1.16 and… ARRRGH.

There is probably some stupid setting in the stupidly lengthy and cryptic LocalSettings.php that isn’t compatible with something. All I have to do is learn up on all the changes to Mediawiki in the last 3 years to find out what settings have changed, figure out how to integrate that into my setup and… did I mention arrrgh?

This is why (insert witty defeatist linux truism here)

At XFF I donned video goggles and was asked to walk a maze. The camera was above our heads so it felt like I was playing Pac-Man with my body. Very cool.

Check out the OuterBody Experience Lab! It is fun!

The force behind OBEL is Jason FeKaylius Wilson

I got to meet more of my childhood  heroes at the XFF event. Here is Peter Conheim of Negativland and in wigglevision!

Performing at XFF:

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:-)

Here’s a glimpse of the SRL Hovercraft by day (Hi Tad!)

And some SRL bedlam by night

I was riding down a foggy, dark Berkeley hill over the summer thinking, “I can’t see the road! I’m going to get killed!” So I got a bright bike light. I only ended up paying $50 on Amazon and I’m quite happy with it.

• It is literally as bright as a car headlight! I’ve pulled up at stop lights and the light it cast is comparable to the low beams of the cars next to me. I can see the road!
• It took a full month to arrive from Hong Kong. But it looks like they are shipping from the US now.
• You definitely want to get the wide angle lens, otherwise one spot is lit brilliantly and you can’t much see the rest of the road.
• The battery lasts something like 1.5 to 3 hours.
• The ONLY problem I have is that it runs full strength until it runs out… which means it could die unexpectedly on the road. So I carry my old 1 watt light when I’m travelling a long distance at night.
• I tried to take photos of the light at night but they didn’t come out well. I’ll just say that the hard-to-believe-bright images on Amazon and elsewhere are real
• It isn’t perfectly balanced on my handlebar so when I hit a bump, it jiggles. But it’s pretty good… and just $50! Wait… they lowered the price, looks like it’s $30 + $10 for the lens…  total $40!
• $40, wow! REI sells similarly bright headlamps for around $200. I hope this one isn’t going to give me cancer or something

Here are the products:
4 Mode 1200 Lumen CREE XML T6 Bulb LED Bicycle bike HeadLight Lamp Flashlight Light Headlamp (Amazon link)

Wide Angle Lens for MagicShine, Gemini, and many other Bike Lights / Headlight (Amazon link)