Kindergarten Placement Test
Today I want to tell you about the Kindergarten placement test. My son has just taken this test, and it truly upsets me. The 1st thing that upsets me is they ask my son to count as high as he can, well he can count to 50 easy, when he gets to 29 he can’t remember 30. So they then mark that he does not know his 20′s…. O.K. I can see that they could mark not knowing 30′s but to say as high as he can count is 19, that’s not right. The 2nd thing they did was pointed to body parts, She pointed to her cheek, he said cheek, they marked it wrong of course cause he did not call it a jaw. She pointed to her ankle, he said foot. So it is wrong. Now he is marked saying he does not know any body parts. This again is wrong. They showed him his ABC’s on flash cards. he missed 3 lower case letters. Guess what….. It is now marked that he does not know any of his alphabet. So to all the parents with a little one going into kindergarten, beware the placement test. Also to the people and the government who made these test. This is not right. Something has to be done about the way you test our kids.
Flight Lesson 2 – Pictures & Comments
Had my second flight lesson today from Knoxville Flight Training Center. As with my first experience, the flight crew there is top notch, very friendly and know what they are doing. We took up an old 1977 172 SkyHawk. We took off from DKX, landed at GKT then after a few turns and basic plane handling/feel training headed back for a landing on runway 26 of DKX. Most exciting part was finding out AFTER the lesson that my instructor wasn’t even assisting but just laying his hands on the yoke!! He knows I have several hundred simulated flight hours, but he has more confidence in my flying than I do I think 
, either way, we didn’t die, or even hit hard, no bounces and even had a slight tailwind in the final approach, although I could have hit the runway center-line a bit better. For a second flight hour and 3rd landing, I suppose I’m already farther than most, I can’t say either way, anyone with any comments, experiences etc., for flight schools or flight in general are welcome to comment. I am currently looking for financing if anyone has experience or advice in that area for flight training.
Enjoy the photos, working out the bugs, but hope to have thumbs here with full size on click, that probably won’t work out the way I want it yet though, I only have limited time to work on this blog right now with the kid and the girl to manage, plus finals to help her with this weekend. Hurray for Contract Law….
Demonoid Account Request
Posted by Zeno in General, Technology on May 17, 2010
I have been trying to become a member to the Demonoid.com torrent site for over four years it seems. And with my always hectic schedule I haven’t ever managed to get on during one of their very very short sign-up time’s, which if I remember right was like between 4PM and 5PM -8:00 GMT only.
So without blathering on anymore, Registrations are Closed and the only way to get a usable account now is with an invitation code, which I assume comes from a current member.
So, I am asking that any member that has an account on Demonoid.com and would be willing to lose one of there’s, to please send it to me at the listed Blog email. Place some obvious subject line to weed it out of the spam filter and my own “Auto-Deleting”
The torrent searching sites around out there these days have really went to shit, and I would really like to be able to check out Demonoid being that 90% of torrents I download come with their tagged text file.
You may directly email me any codes to zenosxr@yahoo.com. NO spam please, or I will just block your entire domain.
Man at LHC claims he’s from the Future (Funny)
Posted by Zeno in General, Media, Technology, Videos on May 7, 2010
Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future
A man arrested at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe was recently arrested “attempting” to shut down the project, claiming he was from the future where it was a “Chocolate Dictatorship Hell Hole”. This story received over 3,700 hits on Digg.com where you can read the full story.
Here is the embedded video from Revision3.com.
Here is a link to the video on Revision3.com – Diggnation Episode #250 with the full story.
It’s the second story if you don’t want to watch the full episode (highly recommended to do so, as well as subscribe, Diggnation Rocks!)
You can Read the full story here on Cnet.co.uk which I highly recommend doing as well. Pass this on, it’s hilarious!
FSX Tips, Tweaks and Tricks
FSX Tips, Tweaks and Tricks
I found this document a long time ago, and have found quite a few items in it that have helped eek out a few more FPS from my flight simulator. I hope someone else can benefit from it. Unfortunately I cannot remember or find the site from which it was downloaded or give credit to the original author who I assume will contact me if there are any issues (See Note at Bottom).
Please note that you take ALL risks upon yourself when making system changes, and there are no guarantees that any of these tips will do anything at all as the “art” of tweaking FSX is varied, opinionated, and most I’ve found do not help at all, or actually hinder performance.
Use tweaks Sparingly at first, and test each and every one before moving on to another one. This makes it a very lengthy process, but also allows you to easily undo anything that causes issues, crashes etc. Take it from me, after installing several addon’s and tweaks, and then getting a CTD on Every load no matter what settings that took me several days and several re-installations to repair. Use common sense, and enjoy!
FSX Tweak Guide (Click to View in PDF Format)
Note To Author: I acquired this document some time ago, and was unable to find any contact information to ask for republish permission, or the original link to this document. I reproduce here in all respect, and give credit where credit is due. Please contact me for credits, or other issues related to this document.
Aspartame & Your Health
This is in fact a very old issue, which has been in debate for decades now. However, after doing just a few minutes of research on this chemical food additive, I was surprised and appalled that any such substance could ever be approved by anyone for use in extensive amounts of food supplies. Only the US Govt, and the FDA could get away with such blatant poisoning of millions I suppose.
Below you will find many links to various sites and articles, quotes, etc., almost all of which were written by respected research or university doctors which weren’t paid by the chemical producer for skewed research results.
Of the 92 listed symptoms for aspartame intake by humans, not only disturbing in themselves being that there are 92 of them for a food additive, the ones that stand out to me right away are, four different kinds of seizures including Grand-Mal (Tonic-Clonic), Dizziness or Problems with Balance, Diarrhea Seizures and Convulsions, Difficulty Breathing, Petit Mal (Seizure), Partial Seizures, and DEATH! Remember, this is for a FOOD additive, NOT a drug that was approved after over 16 years of non-approval by the FDA, and only was approved after Donald Rumsfield made it to Washington, appointed a new FDA commissioner, and had President Reagan write an Executive Order that the FDA couldn’t make any decisions about aspartame until he came into office.
Some of these reports are like most legal documents, but are most certainly worth reading if you have any doubts about the consumption of this product.
First off, is an actual scan of the 92 listed side effects and reports directly from the FDA.
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html
http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Aspartame-Adverse-Reactions-1993.htm
http://www.dorway.com/bressler.txt
http://www.wnho.net/fda_92_symptoms_on_aspartame.htm
http://www.dorway.com/raoreport.txt
I am sure most of you will find the above data to be either conspiracy theorist in nature, or just incorrect data. I offer anyone to do research on the topic and not find that aspartame which is used in maybe thousands of daily ingested food products by the American public from young children to the elderly, to be anything less than harmful, or at the least, untested. Results published from the multimillion dollar production company are most certainly tampered with as history has showed that almost all large company’s will skew their research when profit margins are involved. By law their stock has to rise in value, and admitting to putting a dangerous chemical in hundreds to thousands of food products doesn’t help their bottom line.
At the least, I hope even just one person prevents their children from ingesting this dangerous chemical, and hopefully stops ingesting it themselves. Those diet cokes aren’t going to help you lose weight, just contribute to a possible nasty tumor in your later years.
Think about it…..
New Wines
Posted by Zeno in Wine & Liquor on May 6, 2010
Bogle – Merlot – California – 2007
I found this to be a very pleasant wine, definitely one of the better wines in the under $12 price range. While it certainly was beat by the Rosemount Merlot listed below, I would most certainly purchase this wine again. (8.5 score / $10.99 avg/US)
Rosemount – Australia- 2007
This was by far, one of the best Merlot wines I have had in a long time. Unlike most of my reviews, this wine isn’t in the under $10 category, but
isn’t much higher at an average price of just $12.99 US. Fruity taste, with an excellent tannis. Highly Recommended for a great wine that won’t bust your wallet. (9.5 score / $12.99 avg/US)
Check back soon for more reviews. I am trying to get the blogs back up to speed after a significant absence. For those still subscribing thanks!
My Take on Relationships
First off it is work. Second,opposite do NOT attract. If you have nothing in common it will never work. You have to be able to talk. Even when you want to scream, take a deep breath and really talk. Fight fair. Talk about what bothers you. Not what he/she did 6 months ago. Only what the current issue is. You have to have compromise. Pick your battles, don’t fight over every little thing. A good relationship is give and take.
Be willing to experiment in bed and in life. You never know, you may have the time of your life.
Make time for each other. No matter what, find time in the day for just the two of you.
Make sure your partner knows how you feel about them, and you know how they feel about you. Know what your partner wants in a relationship. There is no need in moving on with the relationship if you want different things.
Long time No Posts
Sorry for the extended absence for any that did in fact register to the RSS for these blogs. I have been incredibly busy with a 5 yr old, a new girlfriend and various other day to day things that only gives me a few hours a day tops of free time that I usually devote to other matters
I will try to get back to blogging some, and posting the usual reviews and such.
I plan to write a review soon for several MS Flight Simulator add-on’s that I have tried recently as I have finally gotten back into flying which has always been a life long passion of mine. Reviews will include the FSX aircraft from PMDG Simulations, Flight1 Software, AES, Aerosoft, Nemeth Designs and others. I hope to include as many screen shots as possible, and I also have a nice PDF for FSX tweaking that I am looking for permission to republish since there aren’t that many around the net, and FSX is a notoriously CPU/GPU hungry application.
I am also in the process of migrating all my production machines to Windows 7 which is another undertaking as I have refused to run Vista since it was never a very polished product from the get go, luckily they finally seem to have hit the nail on the head so to speak with Windows 7.
My recent netbook included the horribly crippled Starter edition which I promptly upgraded to Ultimate a few weeks later. There are so many reviews on the Acer Aspire One netbooks that I haven’t planned to post a lengthy article on it at this time, unless there are comments that would request yet another review of the product. I am running the newer 532h-7352 version with the Intel Atom 450 CPU.
For those still subscribed thanks for sticking around, stay tuned for more reviews, video’s, guitar tablature, and now a soon Flight Simulator section for those interested. As always comments are always welcome, although flames, jerk offs, and spammers need not apply, you will be auto-deleted anyways, don’t waste your time (or better yet, go ahead, your time deserves to be wasted).
Lastly, Don’t Forget guys, this Sunday is Mothers Day, get those cards, flowers, and gifts in order less you hit the doghouse for the upcoming week!!
Microsoft Flight Sim FSX White-Screen Issue Fix
I searched until I found the fix for this issue, which others are having a lot of issues with, including changing every possible computer setting other than the Games video settings.
The issue is on non-native aircraft, getting white-out screens in various views, sometimes it will dissapear and come back, sometimes it will not, VERY annoying to say the least.
The fix, VERY easy. Graphics settings, Turn OFF Light-Bloom. Done, Finite.
No, you do not need to change FSX CPU priority, lower video settings lower, change resolutions or anything else, just uncheck that ONE box.
Note that there is also another issue with the cockpit tool-tips causing this as well, so uncheck both if you still have issues after doing the above.
Good Luck and Happy Flying!