Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to fairyshaman and bluesmancd!!!! Hope it's a great one!!

River: Anti-suicide pact

Before you get all worried, no, I am not contemplating suicide these days. I don't need this right now, though there have been times in my life when it might have helped a little, and there may be times ahead when I will need it. But I know that depression is pretty common among my readers, and this might help someone out there. So, from this post by theferrett,

The impetus came on Saturday, when I was talking to a friend and he told me what happened to Marine applicants who didn't make it through boot camp. "You have to sign an agreement saying you won't kill yourself," he explained. "Guys like that, they have a certain definition of honor, and it keeps a lot of people going." Someone else chimed in, "Actually, that's a reasonably common practice in therapy. It works." And I realized, to my dawning horror, that I actually not only could use a contract like that, but actively needed one.

I am also not in therapy, and in fact never have been. Unless you count the River, which is occasionally thereputic writing. theferrett is an odd one: mostly irrelevant, sometimes annoying, and sometimes profound. I keep him on my friends list for the profound ones. Not really a bad role model when you come down to it.

Clearing my tabs: Improving high school education

From this post on O'Reilly, a couple of good links:

First, this NY Times piece on teaching evolution in Florida, and a link to evolution.berkeley.edu for some resources.

Second, csunplugged.org -- a free high-school level computer science course taught entirely without computers. Not only possible, but fascinating.

More good links in the comments.

Ouch!

Tried the Futuro ankle stabilizer again today, this time with the Merrill slip-ons. Had to loosen it a little because of twinges in my calf muscles, but it seemed to work OK right up until I went through a section of sidewalk that was sharply tilted in the direction that put additional pressure on the inside edge of the braced foot. Ouch! Same pain as yesterday, only worse.

Verdict: they'll probably be just fine for places like airports and conventions: indoor spaces with a level surface. Forget it for outdoors. Also, they're not really what I need.

What I need is pressure across the top of that foot, basically holding down the place where I sprained it a couple of years ago. My guess is that something in there has partially torn loose and needs to be held in place to keep it from hurting. Mid-height shoes and ankle braces apply that kind of pressure. The adjustable but soft-sided Futuro brace I bought a couple of weeks ago works moderately well in that respect, but has bulky rolled edges and doesn't apply quite enough pressure. I'll keep looking; there's an Ace adjustable brace at home -- I think Colleen bought that one -- that looks promising.

Giz has looked at netbooks...

... from both sides now. From Gizmodo, a matched pair of articles titled "Why I Hate Netbooks" and "Why I Love Netbooks". Both posted by the same author, apparently.

As for me, I want a netbook with a Happy Hacking keyboard. One of the old, clicky ones. That, or just run my XO in terminal mode with a Model M, except it wouldn't be particularly portable. Which was kinda the whole point.