As in many homes with kids, Halloween is a rather big deal in our household.  One of our annual traditions is to host a pumpkin carving party at our house every year.  As family traditions go, you could do a lot worse.  We had over 30 attend this year and lots of nice pumpkins carved.  I always try to join in the fun but wasn’t able to get to my pumpkin until yesterday and was up until midnight finishing it.  Got it in just under the wire, but not in time for trick or treaters to enjoy it.  So here it is for you to enjoy.  More Halloween pics will be up in a later post including more of the carvings and my kids costumes.

Steve

So, I can’t sleep and I moseyed on over to the tax foundation where I am reading a comparison of the candidates tax plans. And I keep reading that Obama want’s to make a lot of new or existing Tax Credits “refundable”. And I think to myself, “what they heckfire does that mean?”. (Normally I wouldn’t say heck-fire but I am tired and I think maybe Joe Biden might end up reading this and he thinks I’m a redneck because I believe in gun rights.) But I digress.

Any guesses? What is a refundable tax credit? Don’t cheat. Just guess.

Seth

HERE

EDIT: On a slightly related note, if after 3 weeks of computational physics, including several lab sessions and a whole bunch of example codes that I let you download and study, you still can’t write a single line of working Matlab code, maybe this class isn’t for you. Oh, and that computer science minor that you’re planning on? Well, if you can’t figure out how to write a single line of Matlab code, maybe programming just isn’t for you. Yes, I’m well aware that CS majors don’t do many assignments in Matlab, but the basic concepts of handling arrays and creating loops and logical structures and functions that call other functions are all pretty universal. I’m just saying.

See that computer science major sitting next to you? When he makes a mistake it’s because he decided to streamline the calculation and while farming out different parts of the calculation to different functions he forgot that certain steps of the algorithm need to share some intermediate variables. That’s the sort of mistake that some of my students don’t even know enough to make. He gets an A just for making that mistake. You made a mistake because you haven’t figured out what a FOR loop is. You get an F just for making that mistake alone. Capisce?

Oh how I wish I could teach college. Or maybe not.

The whole things is HERE.

Scott

Have stolen OUR IDEA!!

But really it’s a cool site. I’ll be makin’ me some Obama pumpkins this season, which will surely be moved to the front of the “pumpkins to smash” list by the late-night hooligans. Because I can pretty much guarantee you that in my town even the hooligans are McCain supporters. (Note!!! I am not saying that McCain supporters are hooligans)

Scott

What is IT? I don’t know. I just liked the metaphor. What do you think it is? Or should be?

Steve

I’ll bet he doesn’t erase these when he is done.

Steve

HT to JT

LINK

These two links were sent to me from a loved one (thanks L).  Lots of fun.

Music using Windows XP sounds only:

and

Animator vs Animation

Steve

Update:  They were also posted by my brother in an earlier post.  Great minds think alike.

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/077/2/e/Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker.swf

A cool flash animation.

HT again to my sister-in-law Lynn.

Seth

See I told you Microsoft Windows is great.

HT to my sister-in-law Lynn.

Seth

I took the family camping at Devil’s Fork State Park on Lake Jocassee this past weekend and we did the same thing these guys did (at a place on the lake called The Wall) but without the beer tossing.  It was a huge blast.

Steve

Actually, the movie could be about anything.  I don’t have a particular story or plot in mind.  Although, it would certainly have to be a comedy as will become obvious in a moment.  What I would like to see is a movie involving a high speed chase involving two of these (below the fold):

(more…)

Watch Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry discuss language:

Total HT to AP at 22Words