“Fathers’ involvement [with their children] seems to be linked to improved verbal and problem-solving skills and higher academic achievement. Several studies found that the presence of the father is one of the determinants of girls’ proficiency in mathematics. And one pioneering study showed that along with paternal strictness, the amount of time fathers spent reading with them was a strong predictor of their daughters’ verbal ability. For sons the results have been equally striking. Studies uncovered a strong relationship between fathers’ involvement and the mathematical abilities of their sons. Other studies found a relationship between paternal nurturing and boys’ verbal intelligence.” —David Popenoe
“Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster.” —C.S. Lewis (translating the Devil’s words), The Screwtape Letters
Well, not that far past. October 2001, to be exact, but rather timely since there is new gun regulation being discussed in the wake of the DC metro serial sniper attacks:
“There are so many laws concerning the purchase and use of guns, including background checks, that it is hard to understand why any more are needed. Guns will always fall into the wrong hands, and criminals are not going to be governed by any of the gun laws. The gun laws have but one purpose: to discourage honest citizens from purchasing and owning firearms. No amount of laws will ever prevent someone intent on getting a gun from doing so.” —Dick Boland, nationally syndicated columnist
Jim McKenna and John Lieberman have begun a campaign to send back 1 million CDs to snail mail spammer AOL. Just send Jim and John any AOL CDs you have received (yes, at your own expense), and when they collect 1 million of them, they plan to drive to AOL headquarters and dump the load at the front door.
AOL is not the only ISP that engages in this practice — AT&T and Earthlink are guilty, as well as others — but AOL is by far the worst abuser. Most people who receive the AOL CDs in the mail, or in a magazine, just toss them. The campaign is to simply ask AOL to stop sending out unsolicited CDs and contributing to more waste in landfills. Address info is at the aforementioned site.
Thirty-eight inches long. Twenty-four inches wide. Over 3,100 pieces. Twelve-hour minimum build time. I must have one. Perhaps someone will buy it for me for my birthday or Christmas?
John Gruber has uncovered the lies Microsoft is putting forth to cover its previous lie of a Mac user switching to Windows XP.
What’s so hysterical is not that the fake switcher was outed as a publicist working for a Microsoft-hired PR firm, but that she was exposed through examination of a Word document, posted on the original Microsoft switcher page. Yes, “Microsoft’s own crappy file format” is responsible for their being caught in a lie to cover the previous lie. As John says, “Everyone loves a story about people fishing personal data out of Microsoft’s own Word files.” And yet another reason to not use Word for your own, or your company’s, word processing usage. There are alternatives, people. . .
Bill Fox of Macs Only! has concluded testing of the PowerLogix PowerForce G4 Series 100 800MHz upgrade card in his Power Mac G4 Cube, and has posted a full review.
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpentry shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.
When the tide of popular opinion turned against him, his friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies. He was tried and convicted. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never went to college. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness.
Yet all the armies that ever marched, and all the governments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, have not affected life upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.
—Author Unknown—
And He rose again on the third day, conquering Death, Hell, and the Grave, so that we all may live forever in His kingdom, if we only put our trust in Him. (Philippians 2:5-11)
“After 19 months of study, experts convened by the National Research Council, an arm of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, concluded that ‘national security is too important to be left to such a blunt instrument,’ and noted pointedly that ‘no spy has ever been caught [by] using the polygraph.'”
You can read more in William Safire’s outstanding editorial. (free registration required)
Apple comes out with a kick-butt ad campaign called Switch, an ad campaign that utilizes real people who have switched from Windows-running PCs to Macintosh.
Microsoft sees said ad campaign, notices that Apple keeps bringing out more and more people to appear in its tv ads. So what does Microsoft do?
It comes out with its own switcher story. Hmm, nothing at that link, eh? That’s because since it was exposed as a load of hooey, Microsoft took the page down. Fortunately, for us, Google has it cached, and just in case, here’s a screenshot; and the HTML source. See the nice lady who claims to be a writer that switched from Mac to Windows XP? She’s a model from a stock art collection. Notice on the Microsoft switch page, there is no name for this fictitious writer, either. Note on Apple’s Switch page that there’s a name for every face, and they are all real people. Where are Microsoft’s real people?
I’m not saying that people have not switched from the Mac to Windows; I’m just saying that apparently none of them want to admit it.