I will answer the questions about my name, sex, and age. I have utilized this data from previous censuses to track down some of my ancestors while researching my family tree, so I think these questions are reasonable.

However, there are two questions about race and ethnicity “Is this person of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” and “What is this person’s race?” for every person on the form. I might just skip these questions. Or, more likely, I will check the box “Some other race” and fill in the word “HUMAN“  to be funny about my protest.

What business is it of the government to separate us into racial categories? Are they planning on treating us differently based on this information? Was not such different treatment prohibited by Amendment XV of the U.S. Constitution?

Or am I completely off base here?

XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) is an open-standard messaging protocol, used by many different internet messaging services and many different programs. In other words, you now can chat via Facebook with all of your friends contacts on a separate internet messaging program, without being forced to browse their website.

For your chat program, I personally use and recommend Pidgin. Pidgin is a free, open-source chat program, which works on multiple operating systems and with multiple chat networks. You can set it up to work with AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live (MSN) Messenger, and more.

And now Pidgin works with Facebook Chat also. Instructions for setting up Pidgin for Facebook Chat can be found here.

Enjoy.

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt

This book should be required reading for all elected officials and government policy-makers. It is also highly recommended for all voters, taxpayers, and citizens. Basic economics is presented as simply and clearly as possible. The numbers/statistics are used sparingly. It should not be too difficult to comprehend for most idiot legislators.

The “one lesson” is explained in the five pages of the first chapter. Every act or policy has consequences: not only immediate effects, but also long-term effects; and not only effects on one particular group, but also on all other groups. The remaining two-hundred pages contain applications of this lesson on a variety of topics, where a particular policy was enacted without realizing all eventual consequences. Topics include public works, taxes, imports/exports, price-fixing, unions, and inflation.

Governments are making the same egregious errors today as they were when the first edition of this book was published over sixty years ago. Hopefully, we can fix this. Start by sending a copy of this book to your elected representatives today.

Many people consider the diversity of its people to be a foundation of the success and innovation of the State of California and the United States of America.

I am not one of these people.

I believe people should be treated as individuals, not as groups.  I am committed to teach each individual person to the best of my ability, paying no heed to their academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disabled or ethnic background.

Only by inciting each individual student to perform to the best of their ability, and by not crippling their development with collective expectations, will we maximize the success and innovation of all mankind.

Note that the Obama failure will end with the inauguration of the next president, which is scheduled to occur on January 20, 2013, at 12 Noon, Eastern Standard Time. In computer system time, this is 1,358,701,200 (seconds since Jan 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC).

The first option, if you would like a static clock, is to create it using PHP. This clock is calculated by the web server, and will only be updated whenever the web page is reloaded.

<?php
  $datearray=getdate();
  $sectot=1358701200-$datearray[0];
  $seconds=$sectot%60;
  $mintot=floor($sectot/60);
  $minutes=$mintot%60;
  $hourtot=floor($mintot/60);
  $hours=$hourtot%24;
  $days=floor($hourtot/24);
  echo($days);
  echo("d ");
  if ($hours<10) echo("0");
  echo($hours);
  echo("h ");
  if ($minutes<10) echo("0");
  echo($minutes);
  echo("m ");
  if ($seconds<10) echo("0");
  echo($seconds);
  echo("s");
?>

The second option, for a dynamic clock, is to create it using Javascript. This clock is calculated by the web browsing computing, and it will update the clock once per second.

First step, create a file called “obamacountdownclock.js”, containing the following function:

function obamaCountdownClock()
  {
  var now = new Date();
  var tnow = now.getTime();
  var msectot = 1358701200000-tnow;
  var sectot = Math.ceil(msectot/1000);
  var mintot = Math.floor(sectot/60);
  var seconds = sectot%60;
  var hourtot = Math.floor(mintot/60);
  var minutes = mintot%60;
  var days = Math.floor(hourtot/24);
  var hours = hourtot%24;
  if (hours<10) {hours="0"+hours};
  if (minutes<10) {minutes="0"+minutes};
  if (seconds<10) {seconds="0"+seconds};
  document.getElementById('obamaclock').innerHTML = days+"d "+hours+"h "+minutes+"m "+seconds+"s";
  t=setTimeout('obamaCountdownClock()',1000);
  }

Next, in the head section of your html code, add the following line to load the previous javascript file:

<script type="text/javascript" src="obamacountdownclock.js"></script>

Finally, add the following text inside your html code, where you would like the clock to appear:

<span id="obamaclock"></span>
<script type="text/javascript">obamaCountdownClock()</script>

Enjoy!

Note: If you are viewing this page through a different browser (i.e. AOL, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Safari, Opera), please close it out and reopen through Internet Explorer or all features of this application will not work.

Also, recently, I was required to complete an online orientation course for a college where I currently teach. (I will not mention the college name here, although you could probably figure it out if you view my resume.) I attempted to access the course with Mozilla Firefox, my usual browser. No good. Next, I tried Opera. No good either. By now, I was irritated. I tried both Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome out of spite. As expected, their website failed again. Finally, I turned to Internet Explorer and was able to access the course. Later, I found the system requirements page for their website, and Internet Explorer is listed as a requirement.

Now the scary part: This college offers an associate degree program in Web Development!

This aggravates me. Not everybody uses Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Depending on who you ask, anywhere from 50% to 80% of people browse the web with Internet Explorer. Or, alternately, 20% to 50% of people use a different browser; this is a significant number of people.

I’ve seen this before. Do you remember the old “Best viewed with Netscape” and “Best viewed with Internet Explorer” buttons that commonly appeared on most websites a decade ago? It was a nightmare. Half of the websites did not work properly with your preferred browser. I thought we were past these “browser wars”.

This is why we have web standards.

One of the major issues on the web is making sites available to all people, whatever their hardware and software. Presently, all modern web browsers possess decent support for web standards. Is it not reasonable to expect web sites and applications to conform to these standards?

There is no good excuse to not adopt web standards in your web development work. At the very least, you should check that your web sites and applications work properly in the five major browsers: IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari.

AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site to help you obtain your free credit reports.

Don’t forget, this credit report is free. When ordered through the AnnualCreditReport.com website, you are not required to order any credit scores or extra protection. Those cost extra.

To check your information as often as possible, do not request all three reports at once. I recommend you request one report from each of the three companies, four months apart. For example: you could check Equifax in March, Experian in July, and TransUnion in November, and repeat every year. The information in all three is essentially the same, so you will find a problem more quickly checking one report every four months, rather than all three reports at the same time once per year.

Check your credit report for accuracy. If there is a mistake, immediately notify the credit reporting agency. I have discovered errors on my credit report in the past, and they were quickly corrected. Don’t forget the primary goal of the credit reporting companies is to provide accurate information about you to your creditors.

Mathematics is based entirely upon logic; everything has a reason. The student must learn not only the proper problem solving techniques, but also the reasoning behind those techniques. When I demonstrate problem solving for the students, I not only show the proper actions, I also explain my reason for each particular action. If the student errs when attempting to solve a problem but can explain the reasons for their actions, then we can correct both their logic and their action, and the student learns. If the student can not explain the reasons for their actions, then, even if their answer is correct, the problem solving techniques appear mystical to the student, and the student does not learn.

Thursday was Constitution Day, the anniversary of the day (September 17, 1787) when the delegates at our constitutional convention approved and signed the U.S. Constitution. To celebrate the occasion at a college where I teach, booklets were distributed containing the text of the U.S. Constitution and facts about it. You can order copies of the booklet at the ConstitutionFacts.com website. (If, instead, you would like one free pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution, then visit the Heritage Foundation at AskHeritage.org.)

I opened the booklet to the foreword on page 1, and what I read angered me:

“And it is a living document. …the Supreme Court continually interprets the Constitution so as to reflect a rapidly changing world…”

I remind you that what they are doing is WRONG.

The problem is not necessarily the use of the term “Living Document”. The Constitution is able to change. It is designed to change as needed.  However, it is NOT designed to change at the whim of nine lawyers/judges. Nor is it designed to change easily.

The Constitution means exactly what it says, not what what you wish it meant. Article V states the proper procedure for amending the Constitution. It is the ONLY way to properly change the Constitution or what it means. You absolutely need three-fourths of all state legislatures to approve any and all changes. When necessary, we amend the document using the proper procedure.

If we allow anyone to impulsively modify or re-interpret it, then the document becomes meaningless. Then we become a nation ruled by men, instead of a nation ruled by law.

Any public official (executive, legislator, or judge) who does not follow the Constitution, the Law of the Land, as it is written is violating their oath to support, preserve, protect and/or defend the Constitution of the United States. This is treasonable.

What do I like most about teaching? Oh boy.

My students look to me as an authority figure on the subject matter. Many of them have never seen this material before, so for them it is difficult. They depend on me to clarify things that aren’t clear in the textbook and to point out their errors in their reasoning to keep them on the right track.

I felt a little odd starting out, because I had only taught as a teaching assistant before. Now I have nearly complete autonomy. I control everything about the class including what the class does and does not cover. But, I quickly got used to that.

Teaching college kids is different from teaching high school kids. High school kids are essentially forced to go to school. My college kids are in class because they want to be there, and they are paying me to teach them. I am trying to give them their money’s worth.

Some students obviously don’t give a darn. They don’t do the homework. They don’t study. They don’t do any of the work necessary to learn the material. (I never realized this when I was a student, but it is blatantly obvious to the teacher who does and doesn’t study.) There’s nothing I can do about that, so I refuse to let that bother me.

Some students are doing great. Some of them are picking up the material quickly. And others had learned the material previously, and only needed an easy general science course. There isn’t much I can do for them either.

There is a small core of students who regularly meet with me. They work hard, but have trouble learning the course material. They may have trouble with the math. They may have trouble because some of the concepts we are learning go against their everyday experiences. But they ask intelligent questions. And they come to see me regularly, whenever I am available to offer my help. My favorite part about teaching so far is working, during my office hours, with this small group of students. They will never come anywhere close to my understanding of physics. But it is obvious to me that they are trying their best. And I try to give every reasonable opportunity I can to help them learn it.