North Carolina offers to replace 10,000 “WTF” license plates

I really want one of these.

Clinton supporters move to Obama, and yet…

“It sounds to me like a Middle Eastern type of name and whether or not he’s born here in the United States, he doesn’t seem like, to me, somebody who is trustworthy. You can’t trust anybody these days, so who’s to say he’s not a terrorist and we just don’t realize it yet?”
- Kirstie Hartle (From New York, which will definitely go democratic)

“I refuse to vote for an Arab to be in my White House. That is the only factor. Otherwise, you couldn’t break both my legs and make me vote for a Republican.”
- Dean Johnson (From Alabama, which will definitely go republican)

Both quotes are from this article, which is otherwise about the swing in voters who previously stated they would never vote for Obama.

Hopefully, this type of talk will die down as his biographical ads start to make their rounds.

Math Should Be Taught Differently In Schools

The majority of people who learn mathematics in school (K-12) will only use a very small subset of what they learn. This makes perfect sense; if you’re not a mathematician or engineer, when are you going to use trigonometry or solve systems of equations? We carry our arithmetic skills (and some algebra skills) into the real world, and that’s that.

A large amount of the mathematics learned in schools really just provides a foundation of knowledge for mathematicians and engineers, and is discarded by the average person. We could do away with that portion and teach it to the engineers/mathematicians in college. There are problems with this, related to time spent in school and the interest that people may not show until the more advanced stuff, but they’re not the point of this article.

Despite all this extra math, I think there’s one really important real-life math skill that’s lacking or missing from grade school mathematics: estimation.

Why Doesn’t Microsoft “Open Up” Internet Explorer?

At the time of writing, Internet Explorer just finished Quarter 2 of 2008 a 74% market share among web browsers, with Firefox in second place with 18%.

If you aren’t a web developer (or a computer geek of any kind), you’ll probably look at this figure and go “Wow, Microsoft sure is dominating the browser market.” And you’d be right. But you’d also be missing a key fact. Take a look at this table of browser usage. Just four years ago (Q2 2004), IE had a 95% market share. That’s over 5% loss per year.

I think that quite a bit of this has to do with web developers. I don’t know any web developers who use IE as their primary browser. The vast majority of us do our development in Firefox, then cross our fingers and see how it looks in IE. There are two major reasons for this.

Follow-Up on Lil Wayne and Tha Carter III

I was listening to the radio this morning, and one of the hosts was plugging her section on the station’s website by talking about the Poll of the Day. The poll was:

Now that Lil Wayne has sold one million albums in the first week, do you think he deserves the title of “greatest rapper ever”? (yes/no)

I almost crashed into the car in front of me when I heard this. Greatest rapper EVER?! She didn’t say “best rapper alive” (which might have been a valid question, just because he calls himself that in his songs), she said “greatest rapper ever.”

50 Cent went platinum in his first week with The Massacre. Eminem came 200,000 short of going double-platinum in his first week with The Marshall Mathers LP. Are they also the greatest rappers ever?

*NSYNC sold 2.4 million copies of “No Strings Attached” in its first week. Are they the best band ever?

Lil Wayne Lazily Lobs Out “Tha Carter III”

Better wear a latex
Cuz you don’t want that late text
That ‘I think I’m late’ text

There. I just saved you over $10. That’s the only decent line that Lil Wayne has on Tha Carter III.

Obama Tells Black Guys to be Better Dads

Since I’ve only made one post before this, I suppose it’s important for me to be perfectly clear: I’m a huge Barack Obama fan. I’ve been following the election very closely since late 2007, and I strongly believe that Obama will be a great president.

That being said, I have mixed feelings (surprise!) about Obama’s calling of absent black fathers to task.

Introduction

Well, here I go.

I’ve started a lot of blogs in my life. Probably at least five. I get inspired, post every day for two weeks, and then lose the inspiration and stop. But not THIS time (ha ha).

I think my problem has been the audience I’ve targeted. I’ve somehow found ways to convince myself that I have some insight to offer in some specific field. I tried blogging about the New England Patriots before realizing I’m nothing more than a normal Boston sports fan with no privileged information to share. I tried blogging about programming before realizing I’m a junior in college with minimal programming experience compared to the average software development blog reader. I tried blogging about rap music before realizing I’m a white kid who could only be considered “knowledgeable” about rap in comparison to his friends who know next to nothing about it. I tried… you get the idea.

Because of who I am and the stage of life that I’m in, I’d be hard pressed to find any one topic where I have enough expertise or experience to make my insights interesting to readers. But I believe this realization has allowed me to stumble upon something I am very good at: fence-sitting.

I’ve long believed that the best way to develop a good opinion on something is to consider both sides. A lot of people say this, but I think that few actually do it, and even fewer do it as rigorously as I do (given my paragraphs of bashing myself, I hope this doesn’t make me come off as cocky). I’ve spent nights arguing with myself about abortion, and while I’m currently pro-choice by a hair, the slightest breeze could push me in the other direction. I’m an Obama supporter, but not without recognizing and sharing many of the concerns and reservations that cause people to prefer John McCain. I’m… you get the idea.

I believe that this point of view is something people would like to read. In most areas of current events, people have the choice between opinionless news articles and extremist personalities. I believe that there’s room out there for a fence-sitter, because I know I’d like to read one myself.

I intend to write about my opinions on (and experiences with) the four areas of current events that are most important to me: technology, politics, sports, and music, in that order. And occasionally movies and television, on the unusual occasion that they pique my interest. I guess that pretty much covers every possible topic one could write about, doesn’t it?

And if people don’t like it, or I lose my inspiration, who cares? Writing about my thoughts helps me flesh them out, so in the worst case scenario, I’ll have unusually fleshed-out thoughts for the next two weeks.