Sip

The guy has an incredible voice. I like him. Kind of seems Demis Roussosish at first but soon enough you realize he has a tremendous range.

Hopefully he'll finally get some respect now ... maybe at his funeral?

To put things in perspective, if you look on the net you will also find people who think Elvis is still alive, that the earth is flat, or that NASA made up the moon landing

Here are a few suggestions: $1 off coupon for local buffet ... hmmm that's all I can think of for now. Since it's a church newsletter, my other ideas are probably inappropriate.

There are businesses built around what you are complaining about I wouldn't call it "information overload" ... maybe it's more of a "complexity overload". They make it easy for you to walk into a situation that doesn't trap, but confuses you long enough that they can profit from it. I don't think it's a new concept either. However, although I disagree with your examples as being "information overload", there is definitely a tremendous growth in the information that is becoming available and relied upon on a day to day basis. For one thing, I don't think you'll ever see a scientist like the famous greeks for example in the past that were philosophers, astronomers, chemists, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and poets all at the same time! A guy will be lucky if he is the world's expert on soemthing as specific as different types of KETCHUP these days!!! Automation is one answer to the problem. We have ever expanding sources of data and information, but we also have much more powerful mechanisms to harness, manage, store, recall, manipulate, and communicate the information. The mechanisms are also improving and growing at a tremendous pace. My personal area of research is in sensor networks. With these, you basically can put a lot of sensors in many different environments to learn things about them. As you can imagine, there is a LOT of data that these sensors will see. The challenge is to make meaning out of them and tell whoever is asking for it the relevant information as opposed to dumping tons and tons of useless data out. The way this can be achieved is if the sensor devices themselves are intelligent enough to collectively figure out what to measure, what to compute, and what and how to return the result of interest to the user.

I thought you knew what I looked like? That pic has been in my profile for a few years now My impression for today: Life is often about finding that right balance between conflicting decisions. Like when you're cooking some chili on the stove and you just can't wait to taste it, if you go too close to avoid spilling on the stove you risk burning your face with the steam. If you stay too far above it to avoid being burned, you'll smack your forehead into the sharp edge of the vent fan on top of the stove. But somewhere in the middle ... ah! Now that's good chili and no burnt face or bloody forehead. Don't ask how I know this.

It was actually all at badlands which is like a 700 acre privately owned offroad park ... all legal to drive

I don't know much about the facts behind this story but it certainly raises an interesting question! What if the Iraqi people now vote for sadam as president? If for nothing else, just to create the funniest situation that has ever happened in history.

I'm going to teach the woman I love how to crawl over big rocks and let her drive while I spot. Funny thing is, sometimes when I'm hanging sideways in the jeep wondering whether the next move I make is going to get me over the rock or sideways and belly-up or worse, I actually ask myself what the hell did I get myself into? But then interestingly enough, as soon as I'm over the obstacle I just start craving the next one. It's worse than the worst addiction!!! Edit: Though fortunately, instead of slowly destroying my own body (well that's sometimes part of the sport), I'm just destroying the jeep and getting away from the PC screen for a few hours at least in the mean time

Hey! If I decide to kill myself, I'm jumping off a big building or a bridge. At least you'll get to experience one last rush before it's spppppppppppplat

http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1600.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1603.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1583.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1609.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1610.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1611.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/photos/IMG_1613.JPG And the "cherry on top" for the day ... 4 more hours of driving and I can sleep! The good thing is, you tend not to fall asleep in an open jeep going 80 MPH when it's 40 degrees out (that's like 5C for you non American types)!

Just a few pics from yesterday. Needless to say it was a blast! with no major mishaps. http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/photos/IMG_1612.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1555.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1562.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1563.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1575.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1577.JPG http://www.Sip.us/zr2/bl1004/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_1602.JPG

Not all the time. I prefer in person but if some sort of other communication medium is to be used, email/IM is my method of choice ... phones just scream "desparation" and/or "neediness" ... like "stop what ever it is you are doing and answer me right now".

What's wrong with asking for email?

Well it was worth the try anyway ... but I've never met a xhorovats I didn't like. Edit: Oh except that disgusting tomato xhorovats thing that people do

WOW I have to make plans to come to LA ... first Maral said she is going to make me xhorovats and show me to a nice buffet, and now this? This is great

I've had my iPaq for a few years now. I think I have actually used it for something useful twice or thrice? Something like that. The rest of the time, I just keep upgrading it, playing with it, installing new software on it ... I used to use it to surf the web at home. Now it is used as my "fancy" remote control. I have this software that I can use to learn the codes from all my remotes and then program my own macros and what not. I also have it setup to download the satellite TV program listing off of dish network. So in theory, I can browse the program listing on the PDA, and just tap a button and have it put my box on the right channel. Do I use it? Hell no. Do I feel really good the way I have it set up? Absolutely It's a geek's dream toy. So my advice is, if you actually think getting one of these is going to help you become more organized, etc etc ... I'd say don't waste your money. If you want one for the coolness, gadgety, new-toy factor and you want to play with it, then GO FOR IT. As Azat said, go for a windows CE (PocketPC) based one ... preferably something with a strongArm chip. For some reason I think you'll like that chip, even if it's just for its name's sake My organization is now done on my NEC TabletPC. I find it MUCH more useful than a PDA. All my emails, contacts, and other information is on that and I sync it with yahoo as well. http://www.nec-online.fr/LocalFiles/Pictures/news/Tablet01.gif Granted, much more expensive but would you rather spend little money and get no practical use out of it or spend more and actually see benefit? Yah life is tough ... Note also that I'm not saying a tablet PC is the way to go for everyone. It just happened to be the right one for my case. Then again, I have both PDA and Tablet

You know what's the opposite of raw food diet? Just ask Azat about his burnt tuna diet

ebay, buy.com, pricewatch.com, newegg ... yah those are the places I would start with.

Yah it's also known as the "diarrhea, salmonella, and botulism" diet

Yah because he said "God bless this country" and Kerry said "stem cel research" ... for a lot of people, that's enough to make the decision!!!

Yah I busted out laughing at that A few years ago he couldn't even name most of the countries ... but he seems to have gotten better at that ... at least he seems to get the names of the foreign leaders right!

I think the biggest mistake Bush made was to imply that he doesn't see the difference between Iraq and Osama (9/11). He actually said "they attacked us" ... even if he didn't mean it, Kerry was very smart to pick up on that. But surprisingly enough, neither made any huge mistakes or screwed up on anything too obvious. It was just on the sheer substance of what they were saying that Kerry came off waaay on top I thought. I think the "flip flop" issue basically came down to this: Bush saying Kerry is not clear on his position and you can't say things like what he is saying about being in Iraq and be a good leader... ... and Kerry pointing out that it's downright stupid to keep sticking to a mistake in order to be a strong leader. There is nothing wrong with saying I made a mistake and trying to correct it. Heck if the intelligence was wrong, it wasn't even maybe Bush's fault.

Anyone watching the debate? Man Kerry is seriously kicking some ass!!!! Bush just keeps repeating himself and not even getting close on answering back to Kerry's attacks!

Hahahahah ... that's a good one!!!! I think i'm going to use that line myself