Some Blog Site

During some recent travels, I came across this sign, posted on a gas pump:

Here’s a close-up of the section of interest:

Isn’t that the point of pre-paying – that it’s beforehand?

Recommended signage: “Please pay before pumping” or “Pre-pay only”

This post was brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department

During some recent travels, I came across this sign, posted on the door of my hotel room:

Here’s a close-up of the section of interest:

Some thoughts that came to mind:
“I’m glad it’s not actually a siren – it only sounds like one.”
“But if it’s not a siren, what is it?”
“What application could have the sign ‘Loud siren sounds like a fire alarm’?”
“Why not just ‘Fire alarm is a loud siren’?”

The scene: we just finished listening to a CD of Les Miserables
Delta, singing : Do you hear the people sing, singing the song that never ends…

The scene: the kids are on scooters, and we are at the top of a big hill
Me, to Gamma : What do you do if the scooter starts going too fast?
Gamma : Steer off the sidewalk into the grass.
Me : Very good. Off you go.
Me, to Delta : What do you do if the scooter starts going too fast?
Delta : Say “Wheeee!”
That right there tells you everything you need to know about those two.

Delta : What can I have to eat that’s a donut?

Me : Ah ah ah! No punching!
Delta : I wasn’t punching. I was fist bumping
slight pause
Delta : …his face

I used to keep track of Olympic medal counts normalized to various criteria (population, GDP, Olympic delegate size, etc.)

But now, it seems that everyone else is doing that too. So why waste my time on producing information that is already produced?

In case you are interested in the old results, they are at the Olympic Results page of SomeFunSite. But that page will no longer be updated.

I finally got to experience being asked about socialization for a homeschooled child!

I was aware that the non-homeschooling crowds were concerned that homeschoolers don’t get enough socialization. But I had never experienced it first hand.

I suppose that’s a good sign that they bring up socialization, right? That means they concede that homeschooling has superior academic results.

But it’s yet another myth that must be debunked.

What happened was I met a former co-worker out and about and we were asking each other about kids and school and stuff. I mentioned the youngest was starting kindergarten and we were going to homeschool him but he would be attending a nearby Christian school for their one-day-a-week homeschool enrichment program.

My co-worker asked very quickly, “Oh, for socialization?” To which I replied, “No, for the teaching of the non-core subjects like art, music, foreign language, etc.” And the conversation continued in an unremarkable manner.

I was thinking, during the conversation, “have you not read Lord of the Flies?” That right there is an argument against schools being useful for socialization. The main lesson I remember from that story is don’t trust crowds of children. Or rather, applied to the topic of raising kids: placing an immature child with other immature children does not cause him to mature well.

If you want your child to grow into something, you need to expose him to the expected result. If you want him to grow to be a well-mannered adult, you should place him with polite adults. Not with rude children.

There are many more articles and discussions about socialization available, so I’m not going to dwell on it further. In summary: no, I don’t care about socialization. But I feel I have now been inducted into the homeschooling community by having been asked about it.

There is now a Sean Connery accent option on Accenterator. Go try it out. It’s not as fun as the Australian accent generator because the vowels aren’t as dramatic, but it’s pretty good if you get the right collection of consonants in there.

If you need suggestions, here are some phrases to enter in the translator box:

• Slow and steady wins the race.
• This time is the last time.
• Home sweet home is where I feel the safest.

In case you missed the link, go to Accenterator.com and click the Sean Connery button.

Google tries to be helpful.

Take, for instance, the auto-complete feature of its flagship search engine. You start typing, and Google provides some of the most popular searches that begin with the letters you have typed.

Sometimes it’s helpful. And other times it has me scratching my head wondering what’s wrong with people.

What got me thinking about it though was that some of the suggestions were either rude or family unfriendly. And my kids will sometimes use my phone to lookup things. And I didn’t want them encountering questionable content because Google presented it.

So I found a way to disable that feature. Now if someone uses my phone to lookup something, Google will not suggest anything. It will just accept what you type and go with that.

To accomplish that, you need to go to your bookmarks (or favorites, or whatever your browser calls them) and edit the Google URL.
Instead of just plain www.google.com,
use https://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0

That’s the easiest way to disable Google auto-compete. Then you won’t be inundated with the world’s thoughts while you’re trying to find some information.

That URL was provided in text form so you could read/copy it as needed. Here’s a link if you need that: non-verbose Google.