The Gong Show

At my high school one of the requirements to graduate was that you had to carve a 12″ x 12″ x 1″ wood panel that is displayed in the hallways of the school after you graduated. (Yes, I attended one of those private schools you see in movies, like Dead Poets Society).

I recently discovered that my high school has gone digital and has now archived pictures of all the students’ panels online.

Now, I’m the first to admit that I have an obsession with Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash that borders on unhealthy. So, I carved the cover of the book into my wood panel, as pictured in the top of this post. The picture is a little blurry; if I ever go back to the campus, I’ll have to take a better one myself.

Here’s the original cover for Snow Crash that was the basis for my panel.

Georgia accused Russia of a coordinated CYBER-TERRORISM attack today… little did Georgia know, Gmail was down for all countries, not just them.

Ba-dum Ching!

Sometimes I read something that is so boneheaded that I literally smack my forehead. It happens frequently enough, that I’m going to start a series of posts on the subject. I’ll tag them all with the tag “smacksforehead” if you want to follow them in the future.

Here’s my first *smacks forehead* comment of the day, courtesy of the McCain campaign:

“You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country,” said Mark Soohoo, a McCain aide for online matters. Source: NYT

Are you kidding? You undoubtedly need to use a computer to understand it’s influence on our country. It’s like seeing in color… if you see in black & white only, there’s no way I could possibly trust your judgment on color.

*Smacks forehead*

Luckily, the second half of the paragraph from the NYT article sums up my feelings succinctly. Here’s the full quote:

“You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country,” said Mark Soohoo, a McCain aide for online matters, at a conference on politics and technology. “You actually do,” interrupted Tracy Russo, a former blogger for John Edwards.

Yes, you do.