These DIY Toilet Tablets Bust Through Clogged Drains

These DIY Toilet Tablets Bust Through Clogged Drains: We've talked about the best ways to unclog a drain before, but these handy toilet-clearing tablets are helpful to have on-hand in case yours stops flushing the way it should. Plus, they're really easy to make. P

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Unclog a Toilet with Warm Water and Dishwasher Soap
It's something that most of us don't like to think about, but toilet clogs happen. If you don't have a plunger handy when they do (or… Read…
The folks at SavvySugar put a tried and true combination—baking soda and dish detergent—to good use in these tiny tablets that you can keep in a box or basket next to the toilet or under the bathroom sink. If your toilet starts flushing slowly or worse, doesn't flush at all and is backed up, one oft hese should clear the way. Here's what you'll need:P

Lol My Thesis

Lol My Thesis: Thesis statements summarized into a single sentence.

Just another test post.

I wonder why the post content isn't showing up, even thought {{postcontent}} is included in the recipe.

Testing If This Then That

This is just a test post to see if my "If This Then That" script works. My eventual goal is to do everything online outside of Facebook, and have the content show up on facebook.  That way I'll have searchable, open archives of the unimportant crap I churn out when I should be doing something important.

Learning to Leave Facebook.

I deactivated my facebook account a week or two ago because I have to finish this monstrous teaching portfolio and have a lot of grading to do.  Also I feel like I'm torn between two places--the U.S. and my current residence, and I have little to no interest in politics right now.  However, when I deactivate, it creates the same experience for Facebook friends as being blocked, and I start getting messages from people who wonder if I am undergoing some sort of new trauma or have blocked them.  In other words, Facebook doesn't make leaving easy.    I dislike Facebook for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that every little piece of content I put here is immediately gone and difficult to retrieve.  I'll want to follow up on something or someone will ask me about a link, and it's quite difficult to find again.  I am genetically predisposed towards hoarding, so this actually bothers me quite a bit.

The disadvantage of leaving, however, is that I lose the benefits of many weak network links--those friends who I don't converse with every day, even distant friends, who still surprise me with cool stuff or drop in to help with a question or problem.

Of course, I also lose out on all this content with alpha-friends--the people who are consistently hilarious or thoughtful, and provide that feeling of connection and whatever else that friends provide.  Because let's face it, as an almost-fifty-year-old-male, I am past the point where I make new meatspace friends.  It just doesn't happen, so virtual friends are the only game in town.

I feel like I've walked into a cleverly-designed trap, and escaping will require psychic pain analogous to quickly ripping off a band aid, followed by the unappealing idea of trying to build a community elsewhere.  And I don't have the charisma necessary to convince anyone to follow me into the desert, as it were.

So those seem to be the choices that Facebook offers, given my self-imposed discontent: A constraining friendship simulacrum or lonely freedom.  Of course, there's the third option of public hand wringing followed by inaction.  That has worked well for me in the past.

Can you tell I'm putting off marking the next batch of papers?

Anyway, if my account disappears it will be because I have decided, for the fifth or sixth time, to use twitter or blogger or nothing at all.  Perhaps I'm not complaining so much about Facebook as I am reflecting on the messiness and friction of human relationships.

No, I'm complaining about Facebook.

Thoughts on compact, micro four thirds and beginner DSLR cameras.

This is an email I wrote for a friend who asked about my camera.

Here are some camera ramblings.  Do not feel compelled to read this.

If you want a point and shoot compact that takes images that look close to a DSLR and gives you manual control, I would check out these two:

http://goo.gl/9ZQi4m

The Canon s110 is pretty amazing, and is $150 less than the newest version:

http://goo.gl/N3tl97

If size isn't an issue, The Canon T3i is just a great camera, as would be any Nikon in the same price range of $400-ish:

http://goo.gl/h1OsBa

If you don't think you'll ever change lenses, DPReview loves this camera:

http://goo.gl/9KYFAj

I am shooting with a Panasonic Lumix GX1.  I paid about $250 for the body with a 14mm lens.  The lens is fixed, and wide angle. so it is great at landscapes and for walking in close for pictures.  I really need to get something in the 45mm range so I have some versatility.  The 14mm lens also fits in that cool case.  There are always trade offs.  The body feels totally solid, as do the controls, and it does all sorts of fancy stuff that I haven't figured out yet.

The GX1 is a "micro four thirds" camera, and weird style that sits between compacts and DSLRs.  The thing is, it is still a little too big to fit in your pocket but you don't look like a National Geographic photographer when you want to take a picture of something at a Souk.

If you found a cheap GX1 body on Ebay and then got this lens, you'd have a really versatile, awesome, compact camera for about $350:

http://goo.gl/bs8XRQ

I guess the question remains as to whether it would produce significantly better results than a high-end point and shoot, or if it's just a case of the stats looking good on paper.

As far as everyday shooting goes, the Canon s110 is hard to beat for the price.  And if you are happy with an iphone, they take great pictures in good light conditions and you always have it with you!

The Decline and Fall of the English Major - NYTimes.com

The Decline and Fall of the English Major - NYTimes.com: Maybe it takes some living to find out this truth. Whenever I teach older students, whether they’re undergraduates, graduate students or junior faculty, I find a vivid, pressing sense of how much they need the skill they didn’t acquire earlier in life. They don’t call that skill the humanities. They don’t call it literature. They call it writing — the ability to distribute their thinking in the kinds of sentences that have a merit, even a literary merit, of their own.

Dismantling childhood

I learned a few things while taking down the play structure I had built for my kids a few years ago. 1) If you build something for your kids, make something they want as opposed to what is convenient for you. 2) Paint all exposed wood immediately or you'll probably put it off for three years and it will slowly rot underneath the simulated rainforest of suburban sprinklers 3) If you employ reusable metal corner braces, the gradual layering of wood and screws will create a puzzle that can only be unlocked with a sawz-all. 4) Good podcasts and pretending your reciprocating saw is a crappy lightsaber will make the job more enjoyable. 5) Removing a play structure is still a sad thing.

Virtual Money, Bitcoins, and perpetual motion machines.

Dedicated computers used to "mine" virtual bitcoins are being resold $30k+ on Ebay. Wait--these are just preorders, they don't exist. So, to recap: People are spending $30k+ for the promise of a machine that lists at $1500, which will be used to extract a virtual currency. The more of these machines that are employed, the less efficient each machine functions. Currently they are supposedly generating four bitcoins a day, at $80/coin. It feels like a perpetual motion machine, and is either the coolest thing ever or the end of civilization and return to a barter economy. Also, the price of gold and Apple stock is crashing. Ebay link

Debugging

Debugging

Program or Be Programmed | Edutopia

Program or Be Programmed | Edutopia

Programming Is the New Literacy | Edutopia

Programming Is the New Literacy | Edutopia

Doing a 15 Minute Presentation in 10 Easy Steps | The Other Librarian

Doing a 15 Minute Presentation in 10 Easy Steps | The Other Librarian

I'm relying on this to put my presentation together for Vegas.

PyDev Eclipse Python interpreters Error: stdlib not found - Stack Overflow

PyDev Eclipse Python interpreters Error: stdlib not found - Stack Overflow

Just working through some errors as I try to get Eclipse up and running.

Installing the Pydev plugin

I used this video to figure out how to install the Pydev plugin within the Eclipse IDE, so I can learn some Python.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACrmcGjqrJw

How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project: Teachers of low income students, however, are much less likely than teachers of the highest income students to use tablet computers (37% v. 56%) or e-readers (41% v. 55%) in their classrooms and assignments

When disciplines collide, and new forms of learning are created

This class that combines history and hacking Arduino--what a great idea. “To write their group papers, the students used a platform hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party, called piratepad,” said Famiglietti. “It’s the same site used by Anonymous and other hacker organizations to write some of their collaborative documents. I thought that was a nice touch.”

The devil finds work for IDLE...oh never mind.

I'm currently looking for an alternative to IDLE. It crashes when I go to change the font sizes. Fixing the problem involves switching to an older version of ActivestateTCL and bit of mucking about that I don't want to hassle with. http://bugs.python.org/issue15853 The author of the book I'm using also hates IDLE: http://inventwithpython.com/blog/2011/11/29/the-things-i-hate-about-idle-that-i-wish-someone-would-fix/ I googled "best free python ide os x" and came across this helpful thread, which recommends Eclipse with the Pydev plugin: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=127552

Learning Python

I'm supposed to have been learning Python since December, but just started yesterday. I thought I'd put my notes here since I'm not writing much else. It took two hours for me to figure that I have to type "Python3" to invoke the latest version of Python that I installed under OS X. Although I asked for help online, the solution was in the docs. My goal is to see how much Python I can learn in two months. Why? a number of reasons. 1. I'm trying to make myself learn to code. 2. I'd like to do something with gamification and my writing courses. Not sure exactly what. Initially I'd like to make something that let's my students rank and respond to snippets of writing. 3. I'd also like to have a tool that aggregates snippets of writing in some manner. I'm using "Inventing Games with Python" because it has gotten good reviews, is free, is project based and looks fun. The writing is clear and enjoyable.

Remixing movies

I want to live in a world where anyone can remix and recombine any art they want, if they're not making money from it. I want to start a Kickstarter for a version of VLC that lets you insert control scripts that let you move through a movie in a predetermined fashion, so you could create a phantom menace edit, for example that left out Jar Jar Binks, or a version of the The Dark Knight Rises that would allow one to decrease or increase the scenes with a particular character. Imagine good movies that were damaged by the inclusion of brief scenes that didn't work. Just download the remix script for that show. They could be stored on a website and the most popular scripts would appear in the "greatest hits" section. The second Lord of the Rings movie, with about 20 minutes less of Sam staring with concern at Frodo. Mormons taking two F-bombs out of a PG-13 movie so they could show it to their kid would just be a byproduct. Incidentally, the Cleanflix version of The Wedding Crashers is a very different movie than the original, almost absurdist. Also, Back to the Future would not have been damaged had the swears been removed. I'd like there to be some sort of universal tag that torrenters use to designate TV edits. I'd buy originals if they contained tv edits.