Common Sense for the Biochemist

A quick post tonight. Nothing to new to report, just a few random thoughts and links. Hopefully, I can get this posted tonight. I am working on the MSU campus tonight and the internet has been incredibly slow. It has been this way since the fall semester started. Our campus is hooked up to the Merit or "internet2" or whatever it is called backbone but tonight I think I would get better service from a 56K modem. The web-based e-mail has also been slower than Hotmail on a bad day lately. I guess the IT guys here just can't comprehend the fact that adding 40,000 or so people to a network when the fall semester starts can be a significant event. Oh well, geeze, with these last few posts you would think I have been in a bad mood lately but I am not really. Actually, these last few days have been really good. Anyway, time for the weekend link of interest and it is: The Million Dollar Homepage A student is attempting (an doing a dang good job of it) to pay his way through his undergraduate studies buy selling advertising space on his site at $1/pixel. Apparently it is working out pretty well. There is a pretty interesting gimish of adverts ranging from personal blogs and homepages to the normal casino and home mortgage spam. But hey, this may be one of the only cases where spammers are doing a good thing by paying for this guys college. You will also notice that I've made a few touch-ups to the ole' blog. I've added a random quote generator at the top of the page, hopefully I'll get it filled with some pretty good quotes. I'll be adding a few more links and blogs o' interest so be on the lookout for some news ones, and doing some general house(blog)keeping too. One last thought - I was reading an artcle over at BiotechNik's site about intrinsic stock valuations when he mentioned he was still using an old HP15C. What is it about these things that make them stick around? I guess I am from a younger generation who have never used this type of calculator. For those of you who don't know, these old HP calculators work in a "reverse polish" fashion. I can't even begin to explain how to operate this thing much less ever try to calculate something on them. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that you will see one of these in just about every lab you visit. One good thing about these calculators is that they hardly ever get "borrowed", because who would want to use the thing. Here's to a great week!