Bamboozled lately ?

Indeed you have been if you've done any of the following:

• paid taxes
• are married
• have proceated
• bought a non-winning lottery ticket
• looked at pornography
• called Ms. Cleo to find out your future
• voted for Dubya
• watch American Idol
  

What is bamboozled, what a funny word you might say ...

bam·boo·zle /bæmˈbuzəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bam-boo-zuhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -zled, -zling.

–verb (used with object)

1.	to deceive or get the better of (someone) by trickery, flattery, or the like; humbug; hoodwink (often fol. by into): They bamboozled us into joining the club.

2.	to perplex; mystify.

3.	to practice trickery, deception, cozenage, or the like.

[Origin: 1695–1705; orig. uncert.]
—Related forms

bam·boo·zle·ment, noun

bam·boo·zler, noun

—Synonyms 1. gyp, dupe, trick, cheat, swindle.


Ha-Ha, you've been bamboozled!

Do it yourself DNA extraction ...

Finally someone has publish a simplified way to extract DNA from living things. Who needs restriction endonuclease and gel electrophoresis? If for some weird reason you've been craving some good ol' gel electrophoresis or you want to extract DNA from living things other than veggies, click here. Enjoy !

Why taste the bitter taste of defeat?

Does the human being need to occasionally sample from the sour loaf of defeat? I think defeat helps shape our inner most conscious. It allows us to find out who we are, what our breaking points are, and what we can over come. Never confuse me with the facts, here are some quotes on defeat from some individuals that most consider to be more intellectually enlightened than the average person:


"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"You don’t have to fear defeat if you believe it may reveal powers that you didn’t know you possessed." ~Napoleon Hill

"It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life.The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders." ~Ben Stine

"Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. " ~John F. Kennedy

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure . . . than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." ~Theodore Roosevelt

"Man is not cut out for defeat. Man can be destroyed but not defeated." ~Theodore Roosevelt

The point is, it is good to experience defeat periodically. However, don't let it trip you. Simply brush your teeth, and proceed with caution...

OCD rears it's decontaminated head again ...

More and more I've noticed that my obsessive compulsion to cleanse, purify, perfect, sanitize, organize and otherwise bring order to every environment I come in contact with manifests itself in my programming habits.

I first came to this realization after listing my 2 favorite web 2.0 technologies AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). Then I considered where I focus most of my time and energy while working. I'm constantly writing functions to clean-up stuff, of course named things like "sanitize($this)" and "nuke($that)". If not working on some bot to clean-up some kind of data, then I'm organizing my personal files or organizing my own existence via DSOrganize (http://dragonminded.com).

In conclusion I'll say being a father seems to only magnify the compulsive behavior. Whether in the real or virtual world, I always strive to make sense and use of the space around me. This means the space must always be (or appear to be) free of clutter and decontaminated. I've also noticed that other people share in my sterilized revelry with their anti-bacterial wipes and germ-X. So germs, bacilli, microbes, pathogens, and all sorts of viruses, physical and digital, be afraid ... be very afraid ...

Wealth Smealth ...

To say one is wealthy implies what? Does this mean that the said individual is having great monetary wealth and all the nauseating material bliss the follows with the average definition of wealth? Wealth is defined as wealth = income - expenses. One of the wealthiest people in the world, William H. Gates III (aka. Bill Gates) was estimated to be worth around $56 billion in early 2007. 10% of that works out to be around $5 billion. Now, imagine what might happen if the 10 richest people in the world spent %10 of their wealth on critical world issues. You know the AIDS crisis, malnutrition in under-developed countries, global warming, etc, etc ...

It's always the unexpected things...

I find it amusing how easily unexpected events catch us unexpecting them. If only we all could somehow control our environments everything would be better right? Wrong! The only product from that would be eminent fear, uncertainty, and doom (aka F.U.D). So how do you cope knowing unexpected events will catch you off guard from time to time? Two obvious ways to approach it are:

1. Attempt to calculate every possible event that might ever occur at that instantaneous second in time and have a plan to deal with it (deterministic thinking).
2. Attempt to be fluid and do whatever is necessary to quickly and intelligently respond to unexpected events (non-deterministic thinking).

This concept has been a hot AI topic for some time now, but who cares right ? When I get caught off guard (rare), I try ignorance first and if it remains, I use #2 above. No matter which path of thinking you choose, force that spongy mass you call your brain to analyze what startled it. Then, use your common sense and understanding of the physical world around you to stop being a wuss. Remember kids: cool-heads always prevail ...