Gone In 60 Seconds Car Code Names

I watched this movie again recently and thought it would be a good idea to publish a list of the cars that needed to be stolen and their code names. Anyway, here's the list:

1) 1999 Aston Martin DB7 - Mary

2) 1962 Aston Martin DB1 - Barbara

3) 1999 Bentley Arnage - Lindsey

4) 1999 Bentley Azure - Laura

5) 1964 Bentley Continental - Alma

6) 1959 Cadillac El Dorado - Madeline

7) 1958 Cadillac El Dorado Brougham - Patricia

8) 1999 Cadillac Escalade - Carol

9) 2000 Cadillac El Dorado STS - Daniela

10) 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible - Stefanie

11) 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 - Erin

12) 1953 Chevrolet Corvette - Pamela

13) 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Big Block - Stacey

14) 2000 Ford F350 4x4 modified pick-up - Anne

15) 1971 DeTomaso Pantera - Kate

16) 1969 Dodge Daytona - Vanessa

17) 1998 Dodge Viper Coupe GTS - Denise

18) 1995 Ferrari 355 B - Diane

19) 1997 Ferrari 355 F1 - Iris

20) 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB4 - Nadine

21) 1999 Ferrari 550 Maranello - Angelina

22) 1987 Ferrari Testarosa - Rose

23) 1956 Ford T-Bird - Susan

24) 2000 GMC Yukon - Megan

25) 1999 HumVee 2-Door Pickup - Tracy

26) 1999 Infiniti Q45 - Rachel

27) 1994 Jaguar XJ 220 - Bernadene

28) 1999 Jaguar XK8 Coupe - Deborah

29) 1990 Lamborghini LM SUV - Gina

30) 1999 Lexus LS 400 - Hillary

31) 1999 Lincoln Navigator - Kimberley

32) 1957 Mercedes Benz 300 SL/Gullwing - Dorothy

33) 1999 Mercedes Benz CL 500 - Donna

34) 1999 Mercedes Benz S 600 - Samantha

35) 1998 Mercedes Benz SL 600 - Ellen

36) 1950 Mercury Custom - Gabriela

37) 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda - Shannon

38) 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner - Jessica

39) 1965 Pontiac GTO - Sharon

40) 1999 Porsche 996 - Tina

41) 2000 Porsche Boxster - Marsha

42) 1961 Porsche Speedster - Natalie

43) 1988 Porsche 959 - Virginia

44) 1997 Porsche 911 Twin Turbo - Tanya

45) 2000 Rolls Royce Stretch Limousine - Grace

46) 1966 Shelby AC Cobra-  Ashley

47) 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 - Eleanor

48) 2000 Toyota Landcruiser - Cathy

49) 1998 Toyota Supra Turbo - Lynn

50) 2000 Volvo Turbo Wagon R - Lisa

Liberal Arts "Education"

I have been annoyed lately about the fact that a liberal arts education has, like so many other things, become simply a means to an end. So many employers these days like to see that a potential future employee is well rounded and is able to learn about many different things. I can certainly respect this outlook on the part of employers, but it bothers me that a liberal arts education has become so commonplace that it really means almost nothing now.

Now that a liberal arts education is almost expected from many employers and so many liberal arts colleges and university exist, the education itself seems to be much less impressive. Sure, we all still have to take a history class and a math class and a science class and an english class no matter what we majored in, but did anyone actually learn anything in those classes? It seems like the college curricula are now set up so that people can take the required classes, get through it with a descent grade, and still not really learn anything. What really bothers me about this is that people who do this get to claim they got the same liberal arts education that I did when, in fact, they didn't. I took all those classes and committed myself to getting as much out of them as I could. I actually did get a liberal arts education whereas many other people just get to say they did.

It also bothers me that we call the typical college education, an education. I know that this is being picky and most people will probably disagree with me, but this is my blog, not yours. :) What bothers me about the typical college experience being called an "education" is that it seems like the typical experience is really more of "technical training" than it is an "education."

Again, I know this is nit picking, but it seems an important distinction to me. When I think of "education" I think of people learning about something for the sake of learning about it rather than to meet some other end. The way college education is treated these days seems to be much more along the lines of technical training. People come out of college with a very specific set of knowledge based on what they want to do after graduation having either never really learned or at least not really caring about the other things they encountered during their education.

For the record, I have absolutely no idea what could or should be done to fix what I see as a problem with this terminology and such. I simply get annoyed about the way life is and the fact that nothing ever works out in an ideal manner. So many good ideas exist out in the world (like liberal arts education…….and communism) that never actually work in the real world (at least not long-term) because people find ways to corrupt everything good. Hmmm, this could probably move into being a rant about idealism and the corrupt fallen world we live in, but that's a subject for another day.

Basically, I hate it that I actually got a very well-rounded, liberal arts education and someone else can graduate and claim the same thing, when really all they got was technical training for their specific field of interest. (fyi, I haven't actually read the book shown at the right, but I like the title)

Faith Related Ramifications of Life on Other Planets

Based on problems we have seen arise in the past, I believe that we Christians need to think about the possible ramifications of future scientific discoveries. One of these possible future discoveries is that I think we should be thinking about (and discussing) is that of the discovery of life on other planets. I cannot say that I am certain that life will be found on other planets, but with the number of new planets being discovered, it definitely doesn't seem impossible. It does seem unlikely that we will not at least find some earth-like planets soon and it does not seem out of the question that life will be found on one of them.

The current NASA mission of the spacecraft called Kepler (named after the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler) has already found 1,235 planet candidates as of February 2nd, 2011. To put this into some perspective, Kepler has only been actively searching for planets since May of 2009 and it is planned to keep looking for new planets for at least 3.5 years total (expandable to 6 years). Given the rate of discover of new planets now taking place, it is my (humble) opinion that an earth-like planet will be discovered within the next few years (we'll just say 3 years). For reference, I am defining earth-like in basically the way NASA talks about it - as a planet that is half to twice the size of Earth and in a habitable zone where liquid water could possibly exist.

Not too long ago most Christians believed that there was no way God would ever let any of his created organisms go extinct. All creation is precious in God's sight and that means that there is no way he could let any of it simply disappear of the face of the earth. However, when the bones of  things like Mastadons and Giant Ground Sloths were discovered, people finally had to come to grips with the fact that there were organisms that had once existed on the earth and were now completely extinct. God had, in fact, let many of his created species disappear of the face of the earth and today we know that somewhere upwards of 90% of all species that ever existed have subsequently gone extinct. To many people, this was proof that the God of the Bible could not possibly exist or at least not be who we thought he was.

Like I have already said, I'm certainly not going to guarantee that NASA will find life on other planets or anything, but I think we should be ready for the possibility. From our current perspective, we can see that the issue of extinction did not need to pose the threat to faith that Christians of the time thought it did, but then we commit ourselves to beliefs that could create exactly the same problems for us. Where in the Bible does it tell us that this planet holds the only life God created? Why should it threaten our beliefs to think that maybe there is life somewhere else in the universe that we have never even considered (especially when we think of all the things right here on our own planet that we haven't considered yet)?

Immediately Jesus reached out
his hand and caught him.
“You of little faith,” he said,
“why did you doubt?” - Matthew 14:31

If there is a contradiction between science and the Bible, I believe that the Bible wins simply by nature of the fact that it is the inspired Word of God. We, as Christians, should not simply surrender to everything that science proclaims as true. After all, we are commanded to have faith and not to love the world, but to love the Father. However, if the Bible doesn't talk about something, that doesn't mean it can't exist. The Bible doesn't tell us about the millions of microorganisms that live inside each of us and which we would be unable to live without, but does their presence contradict the Bible? If it does, I'm definitely not seeing it.

What I'm really trying to get across here is this; would the discovery of life outside Earth cause you to question your faith? I'm not saying necessarily that it shouldn't, but I do want to suggest that if you think it would, think about why. What about a discovery like that would cause you to question what the Bible tells you? What about the discover of other life in the universe would make you think that God isn't who you thought he was (or that he doesn't exist)?

Nature vs. Nurture Fallacy

When I hear the phrase "nature vs. nurture," what I almost immediately think of is the debates that sprung up over the past years about the "cause" of homosexuality in humans. I would like to start by saying that although this may be relevant to those debates, I do not intend this to be my entry into those arguments (though, feel free to use it for that purpose).

It is important to note that when people talk about "nature vs. nurture," there are specific meanings behind these words and the phrase as a whole. These specific meanings are important for understanding the argument and the issues as a whole.

Firstly, it is important to understand that what is being asked about with this phrase is the cause of some behavior or attribute. For instance, we could look at the texture of chocolate chip cookies or the foraging behavior of honey bees. Does the nature of the cookie (the ingredient recipe behind it) or the nurture (how it was mixed and baked) determine the texture of the resulting cookie? In the same way, we could ask whether it is the nature or the nurture of honey bee workers that cause them to be foragers.

Secondly, the word nature is used to refer to the physical origin of something or the material that actually makes something up. In the case of the chocolate chip cookie, the nature of the cookie would be the set of ingredients that go into the batter to make it. In the case of the honey bees, the nature would be the genetic information that told the cells and rest of the body what to do.

The word nurture is used to refer to the circumstances involving the development of the subject to its current state. The nurture of the cookie would be the process used to mix the ingredients and bake it. The nurture of the honey bees involves all of the things that influenced it as it was being born and raised in the colony as well as all the interactions it has with other bees, it's environment, and other organisms.

The actual issue here is the fact that people use evidences of the effects of nature and nurture as proofs of what caused certain behaviors and traits. One of the most commonly used incorrect phrases goes something like the following: "There is a gene for ________ (a phenotype)." This statement implies that there is no environmental component in the existence of the particular trait within the individual. Another commonly misused phrased is as follows: "Behavior/trait __________ is a learned behavior/trait." This statement implies that there is no genetic component to the development of the particular trait within the individual. The point here is that traits themselves cannot be attributed to either nature or nurture alone. There is no scientific or logical way to say that one is the cause without any effect from the other.

To go back to our cookie example, it would be completely improper to say that the chewy nature of a particular cookie is the result of how it was baked. How could you say that when there are so many factors that go into how a cookie is made? Who is to say that the ingredients of the cookie had nothing to do with the chewy nature of it? If you say that the baking is what made it chewy, why wouldn't I be able to say that that peanut butter in it is what makes it chewy (and be equally right)? Well, logically, you can't say that the chewy nature is due to any one factor because if you took out all the other factors (isolating your single variable), you wouldn't even have a cookie anymore.

What we can do is look at two cookies that have different textures (maybe one chewy and one crunchy) and define what the cause of the difference is. If we do some experiments and rule out other factors by controlling the ingredients and mixing techniques (and other things), we can determine definitely that baking is the cause for the difference between two cookies. The same thing goes for traits within animals (including humans, of course).

If interest is shown in this post, I will consider posting more extensively about this topic in the future. There are tons and tons of studies that could be discussed with respect to the nature vs. nurture fallacy and how we actually look at differences between individuals.

Computer Display Issue

I have no idea what caused this issue to occur or even exactly what the issue was, but it seemed interesting to me because I've never seen it happen before. I was simply browsing a website I go to frequently and all of a sudden the screen went black and then came back up. When it came back, it looked very odd and the error message was on in the middle of my screen as you can see in the pictures.

Since it is probably hard (or impossible) to read, this is what the error message says: "The ialmrnt5 display driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft."

I hope it is possible to see in some of the pictures, but the most interesting thing about this error to me was what the screen looked like afterward. The resolution and proportions of things had completely changed and the coloration was not simply different, but was very weird. Instead of the colors of things being the simply changed, things that are normally uniform color, were no longer.  As you can hopefully see in the pictures, the task bar and everything at the bottom of the screen are completely discolored and crazy looking.

This is not an informative post at all, but simply an interest thing. I was really fascinated by what happened to my computer screen and wanted to share that with the wider world. For what it's worth, the problem went away as soon as I restarted my computer and I have had no further problems with this display error.

In case anyone is interested, here is what I'm running on:

Toshiba Satelite A105 S4004

Windows XP - SP3

Intel T2300 @ 1.66 GHz - 1GB RAM

Literacy (re-)Defined

Definitions of many things change over time. Literacy is something for which the popular definition really has not changed much even though the academic definition has. I would wager that most people, when asked about literacy, think almost exclusively about reading and writing. Clearly, a person who cannot read is illiterate as is a person who cannot write and a person who can do neither is still illiterate. But what about a person who can read and can write? Is that person automatically considered to be literate just based on those two skills? And at what point in the development of these skills would a person be considered literate? Shouldn't our definition of literacy have something to do with the ability to communicate? And if so, why only include the two written forms of communication?

The traditional definition of literacy basically says that if a person can communicate through reading and writing, he/she is literate. If a person knows how to spell a lot of different words, but is unable to use that knowledge to communicate through writing, he/she is illiterate. This makes sense to me, but what doesn't make sense is that we traditionally only define literacy in terms of the two written forms of communication.

If literacy is a measure of a person’s ability to communicate with other people, then many different forms of communication should factor in which have not traditionally been thought of as factors of literacy. It seems to me that literacy is something more along the lines of the ability to understand various types of communication as well as the ability to articulate one’s thoughts through those forms of communication.

One thing I think of as a non-traditional form of literacy is something often described in terms of "social cues." I hear people described often as “socially awkward,” but I would be tempted to say that a better description of these people would be “socially illiterate.” People described as socially awkward are normally people who do not pick up on normal social cues and do not use those cues themselves. This, to me, is an issue of being illiterate within a certain subject area much as many people are scientifically illiterate.

With that being said, I'm now off to call the White House and let some people know that NCLB needs to be modified to include my revised definition of literacy :)

Kinect Sensor for Xbox 360 - Product Review

The Xbox 360 is definitely one of the top two game consoles on the market with the PS3 being the obvious contender. Xbox 360 has awesome graphics and tons of great games available for play. The added Kinect hardware makes this gaming console even more desirable than it was to begin with.

Kinect for Xbox 360 is tons of fun with family, friends, kids, and really any group of people. There are already enough games available for Kinect that there is really something for everyone. It is also a surprisingly good workout. I am  not your stereotypical gamer who out of shape because of spending too much time with a bag of chips and a television. I don't work out all the time, but I stay relatively active and I was very surprised to find my muscles sore after the first weekend I had Kinect. It really works your whole body in the same way that playing most sports does.

The Kinect is also surprisingly easy to use. Both the body-controller function and the voice-controlled function are very intuitive. I have never found myself needing to contort my body in odd ways in order to get the console to do what I want it to. In the same way, I have never found myself shouting at the console or speaking in a monotone or anything else to make it understand what I am trying to say. It is very good at recognizing speech and movement the way they come naturally.

One thing to keep in mind about the Kinect is that the advertisements, like all advertisements, are misleading (my rants about advertising will wait for another day). In most of the video advertisements, you see groups of people sitting and standing at about the distance you would normally see people watching television from or maybe even a little closer. This is completely unrealistic. It takes a lot of space to play Kinect games. The living room space in my apartment is situated so that the television is in the corner of the room and my sectional sofa in the opposite corner. This makes a usable space in between the television and the sofa that is approximately 7ft deep by 10ft wide. This space is only barely passable for playing Kinect games with 2 people. With one person playing, the space works quite well, but with 2 people, the game often gets paused or just gets confused because someone stepped outside the range of the camera or couldn't step far enough back.

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The Bottom Line:

The Kinect sensor for Xbox 360 is incredibly easy to use, a good value for the price, and a ton of fun if you have the space for it, but make sure you have the space before you spend the money.

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Related Products I Recommend:

Kinect Sports - Xbox 360

Xbox 360 S - 250 GB Console