Random Thoughts from a Large Head

Don’t show me this message when your page was able to load a flash ad, video player, and streaming video and all I want is some text. Maybe you’d have less traffic if you didn’t load all that crap.

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I managed to do my taxes this year a full two months before I’d normally even start thinking about them. It’s like I’m all adult or something.

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“frozen toezen” by b.c. aikman

One of the many great things about the Internet is how it helps you get back in touch with and learn more about people who may have otherwise gotten lost in from your life. Case in point: my second cousin Brent. Brent’s known about my blog for years and commented from time to time here, so he’s had the chance to see glimpses of my life. Now, Brent has started posting pictures to Flickr and I get the opportunity to learn more about a relative of mine than I normally would, especially considering the years and miles since we last met. Thanks, Internet.

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Today, I got the results back from a Myers-Briggs personality test. I am an ISTP (Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving). Some personality traits from the description of ISTP definitely apply to me:

• Act as troubleshooters and remain calm during a crisis
• Adaptable in everyday activities
• May be prone to unexpected bursts of humor, a take-charge attitude, or a sudden drive to fix whatever’s broken.
• May need to open up and share concerns and information with others

My favorite phrase from that description is “economy of effort”. I think that’s a really nice way to say I’m lazy, but in an effective way.

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The best thing about Valentine’s Day? Candy is on sale tomorrow.

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The exciting conclusion to the internet class scandal is, well, boring. No big announcement about exceptions for students who kicked off the test (I’m hoping they handled those individually with the professor). No change to the time limits on future exams. All and all, it went pfffffft.

I did score a 90 on the exam. It seems my strategy worked out pretty well. Go me.

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In a developing internet class scandal, the online course software apparently threw 503 errors (”Service Unavailable”) and had major delays (sometimes taking 8 minutes to load a question) during last night’s test. Some students had their browser crash during the test, and were not allowed back in. Others were unable to complete the exam in the allotted time. So, grades have not been released within the 24 hours promised by our syllabus. Thus far, no comment from the professor.

More to come as this exciting story develops…

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Tonight, I experienced a first: an internet class exam. I had a 15-minute window in which I had to start a 50-question multiple-choice exam. You’d think it would be easy. It is open-book and open-note, after all. The challenge is the time limit: 40 minutes.

My main strategy for the exam was to be able to access the information quickly. To that end, I created my own index: a word document of all the definitions and section headings in each chapter, along with a note of which page it was on. In most cases, I also put verbatim notes about the topic in my document. This allowed me to do a quick CTRL + F (find) in the document, locate the page, and access the information in the book quickly.

I should note that I had read most of each of the four chapters the exam covered and had done a weekly quiz and assignment for each chapter, so this material was not new to me. Creating the index also helped me review the topics that I’d read about 4 weeks ago.

We’ll see if my exam strategy pays off. I should know the grade by the end of day tomorrow.

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Tonight, we’re heading up to Denton because Jim is lighting Silence After Sundown. They go on sometime after midnight, and that just makes me feel old.

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Taking a class on Saturday mornings has its goods and bads.

On the good side, I don’t have to haul butt up to Denton after work during the week and I don’t have 16-hour-long days.

On the bad side, I lose a big chunk of time I’d normally spend running errands, it makes Friday nights much more responsible, and I don’t get to sleep in on Saturday mornings.

I have not yet determined if the goods outweigh the bads.

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