Scott Adcox

Doing More With Less Since 1972

Tag: history

Daily Reading List — December 16th

December 16, 2016 / / 0 Comments

What Health Care Can Learn from the Transformation of Financial Services –

Nike Wants Athletes to Run a Marathon in Under Two Hours, So It’s Rebuilding the Race. And the Runners –

You Can Brew Beer In Your Digestive Tract – Sugar is the devil.

Virginia Schools Ban ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ ‘Huck Finn’ Over Racial Slurs – Was just having a conversation about Huck Finn with my oldest yesterday. We were talking about the fact that on one level it’s just a story, and on another level the story is just a tool Mark Twain used as commentary on the state of the culture at a specific time and place. It led to a conversation about how slavery has existed throughout history, how horrible it is, how there was a change in popular opinion about slavery in this country, whether or not people at our socio-economic level would have owned slaves during the early 1800s, etc.

Um…She’s 9.

You’d think that the fact that these words are so “alarming” to people would make it even easier for them to understand exactly why Huck was able to come to the conclusion that the “civilized” view of Jim’s condition was wrong.

You’d think.

We Survive Because Reality May Be Nothing Like We Think It Is –

Improving On-the-Fly Teamwork in Health Care –

The End Of Empires: Rome Vs. America – I want to read something that tells me how we’re NOT like Rome. Please.

After decades of dreaming, indoor location’s time has come – Fingers crossed on this one.

Another Brain Burp of Cool Triathlon Stuff

September 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Trainerroad

First things first…if you have even been considering joining Trainerroad, this is the week to do it. You can get in for $89/year instead of the usual $120. That’s good for as long as you’re a member, and it was already the best deal in triathlon training. This is not an affiliate link, and I don’t get anything for sending you to them except that I feel I owe it to them for the great strides they’ve helped me make on the bike. Their website was updated yesterday and now has even more great features.

Battle of the Bridges Olympic Tri

This is an “A race” for me, and it’s two weeks away. I only race “A” races because that’s what a race implies to me…that I’m going to do my best. The work I’ve put in on Trainerroad will hopefully pay off big here. I’ve been focusing on the run for the last couple of weeks because I have 10 weeks to go to a marathon after this race. I’m thinking the grunting, groaning, sweating, and near tears I’ve already put in on the bike are going to get me out of T2 fresh and ready for a special 10k.

Hardcore History

The best thing I’ve found in a long time to listen to while running. I love the ZenTri podcasts, but I need more hours of audio, and these are incredible. Dan Carlin is a great story teller, and this stuff is amazing. He also has the Common Sense podcast. These are going to come in very handy as the run miles start increasing for marathon season.

 

 

 

Haven’t Link Dumped In A While

December 28, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Age Of Data Wars Dawns

Cool Ironman Kona Infographic – Check out the decrease in bike/run splits. And the fairly level swim splits.

The Future Of Working From Home – Things are definitely moving this way. I’m pretty sure if I had to go back to a normal office situation, I’d struggle with it.

Chrissie Wellington: The Mind Over Body Battle – And you think you suffer? Love hearing how this affects even the super-humans.

Easily Monitor and Manage all of your WordPress Sites with WP Remote – Thanks to @mwender for this one. Great time saver

Google Turns Turtle and Takes Street View Underwater – Coming soon to iPhone5!

Alternative ways to ride The Downward Spiral – I created a Spotify playlist based on this. A couple of the songs weren’t in Spotify, but I found some good substitutes. Just reading this makes me afeared.

Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now? – Is it wrong that this seems completely reasonable (and likely) to me?

Solo or Group? Train Your Way – I’ve been opting for the solo route a lot lately. It’s quiet.

How To Determine Your Long Run Training For Any Triathlon Distance – Some really good info here. It’s hard to train for a distance event and fill like you got enough running in. The truth is, you really just can’t, but you can get the optimal amount.

Accessing SharePoint Lists with SQL Server Integration Services SSIS 2005 –

Raising Children To Become Productive Adults – In short, walk it like you talk it. Applies to pretty much everything in life.

Simple Tips to Help Your Grocery Budget – As always, thanks to @couponkatie for all the amazing tips and deals she points us to!

A Glass All Empty – When your S.O. gets on the wagon. Both of us are for the most part…one due to pregnancy and nursing, the other due to choosing brownie calories over beer calories. Must to get faster, and those calories slows me down.

An Unexpected Ass Kicking | Blog Of Impossible Things

Magic Tree House Series For History And Making Connections

August 14, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Pea is obsessed with Mary Pope Osbourne’s Magic Tree House series right now. If you aren’t familiar with this series, the stories revolve around Jack and Annie, two young siblings who travel through history (and sometimes space) to help an enchantress collect stories and lift spells. I won’t give away more plot than that. Each book is 10 chapters long, and the “missions” they go on are in groups of four books. It’s the perfect bedtime reading for Pea. She can’t read them on her own yet, but they help stretch her vocabulary and are a great way to introduce some history. Plus, by reading a few chapters at a time we can spread the reading of stories over days instead of minutes and go through the exercise of recalling what we’ve already read before starting each night.

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And she gets completely lost in the stories. We read three or four chapters each night, and she loves to look ahead at the pictures and try to predict what’s going to happen next. At the end of each book, she loves to go get the next book in the series and see where Jack and Annie will go next.

Keep in mind, she’s five years old. Bug is three and doesn’t quite appreciate the depth of the stories yet. I think her exact words were, “Jack and Annie aw bawing!” And of course, New Baby isn’t a huge fan either since these books aren’t very chewy and don’t have large colored photos.


Last night, something really cool happened while we were reading Magic Tree House #22: Revolutionary War on Wednesday. Pea was looking at the front cover photo of Jack and Annie crossing the Delaware with George Washington, and I was reminded of this post I wrote a while back. I was telling her how I used to lie on her bottom bunk and read a big-grown-up story about the same thing we were reading in the Magic Tree House adventures.

Just like Bug doesn’t quite get the stories on the level Pea does, Pea doesn’t understand how cool it is that she and I sat in the exact same spot and enjoyed the exact same story. Isn’t it cool that she will very likely read this story at least three or four times? I have no doubt she’ll go back and read the Magic Tree House series on her own when she’s able. She’ll also learn about the Revolutionary War and the Christmas night crossing of the Delaware when studying history (non-fiction). And if I am able to influence her, she’ll also catch it again in the historical fiction version I read last year.

We’re already on the hunt for the next series of books we think she may like. Anyone have ideas for kids who love Magic Treehouse?

Your Gateway To The Pocket Chainsaw and More

June 26, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Pocket Chainsaw – Genius! Please develop a pocket band saw and forklift as well please.

A Marathon of Measurements – I’m glad someone wants to do this. Wish there were more of these guys.

2:16 Marathoner Says He Can Break 2:00 – If he didn’t have to work. I could do it too…if I didn’t weight 200 lbs, had a coach and dietitian, and more flexibility in my hips. Oh yeah, I’d like a shoe sponsor as well. Geesh.

Custom themes in Gmail – Add photos to your gmail theme…cool!

The Libraries, Studies, and Writing Rooms of 15 Famous Men – Counting down the days to the time when I will take the room I want for my office!

Choose, Lace, and Replace Your Running Shoes Based on How You Run – Hopefully this will make a bigger difference than the podiatrist did.

Twitter moves toward the news system of the future – Or, as it is known in many circles, Google+

Better With Age – This is comforting

Thinking of going this route – FIRST marathon training plan

Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City – Awsum.

A Simple, Responsive, Mobile First Navigation

Google Semantic Search: Bad for SEO, Good for You – Make your SEO money now!

Choosing Curriculum – The Never Ending Story Of History

June 11, 2012 / / 0 Comments

At our house, “school” starts at birth…at least that’s the way we look at it. But things are shifting a little these days because “real school” will be starting soon. That means paperwork has to be filled out to declare that we’re officially home schooling. But there’s more…

Curricula must be chosen.

We may have a different approach than others, but here’s what we talked about and decided on for kindergarten/first grade history.

In our estimation, reading is the key to everything. The most important thing we can teach our children are the skills to read and comprehend, and (most importantly) to love it. A love of reading opens up every other subject. We’re easing the kids into this with the stories we read to them at bedtime. Pea (the 5 yo) has moved past the Dr. Seuss type books for bedtime stories since she’s able to read them herself now, so we have been increasing the density of what we read to her, continuing to model good reading habits and challenging her with tougher content and vocabulary.

Her current favorite is the Magic Tree House series, and it’s been great for introducing a little information about the histories of different parts f the world, although it’s fictional, and getting her to ask questions and wonder about different time periods and places. Admittedly, Bug (the 3yo) says that “Jack and Annie awe boawing!” There aren’t crazy pictures to look at, and they don’t do silly things like grow daisies out of their heads. That’s ok…she still listens to the stories, and she still gets her turn to pick books that are more appropriate for her.

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What we’ve decided to do to introduce history more formally is use the Story of the World books. All the reviews we’ve read lead us to believe this is the right choice for our family because it will let us introduce history as a story. What kid wouldn’t love that? We also have friends with older children who rave about these books and the results they’ve seen with their own kids. We’re hoping we can begin reading this book simply as a series of bedtime stories and letting Pea work through the accompanying activity books during the day. She loves when things “magically happen” during the day that she’s been learning about someplace else. That really helps her learn to make her own connections between what she reads and things that happen in her own life.

Feel free to share your own experiences with these books, especially if there are unseen pitfalls we need to look out for!

Link Dump From Stuff I’ve Been Reading

January 31, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Denso (and others) Plea Guilty To Price Fixing – Coming soon, “Shame on Denso” signs in front of Alcoa Highway Wal-Mart.

Has the Higher-Ed Revolution Begun? – I’ll take advantage of the CS courses, but I’d really love to see a business school offer this type of program. We may have to wait all the way until next year for something like that.

What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind? – In summary (I think), they need to be taught responsibility and experience in addition to facts.

A future President

It’s time for us to get to work. To get busy. My advisors and cabinet members are going to sit down to find ways to help get out of your way. To encourage you.

Re-elect this guy. If we ever elect him.

Whatever happened to: Rucking?

The key advantage of ‘traditional’ rucking was that it produced quick ball. It also occupied forwards who might otherwise loiter in midfield clogging up the pitch.

The game started changing in this regard as my career was ending, and I remember that feeling (we’ve all had it) just KNOWING that the boots were coming after doing something on the edge of the law in a tackle in order to steal or secure the ball for my team.

And then…nothing would happen. Occasionally someone would curse your actions, but they wouldn’t dream of chucking boot and letting you know that was not acceptable.

I do know of at least one referee who was more than happy to have the game become more about him than the players on the field and welcomed the changes in rucking.

10 Things You Can Do to Raise a Reader – On of the most important things you can do as a parent.

Sweden Plans A New Superhighway For Cyclists – Not going to pretend I wouldn’t like to see this here. Privately funded of course.

Federal government debt site – But it doesn’t track the federal government’s massive debt. Instead, it gives them information on decreasing their own debt. Isn’t that rich?!

So Why Read Anymore? – Damn. Just…damn.

Somehow we must convince this new wired generation that speaking and writing well are not just the DSL lines of modern civilization, but also the keys to self-mastery, a sort of code that one takes on — in addition to others, moral and legal — to uphold standards of culture itself, to keep the work and ideas alive of our long gone betters for one more generation — as if to say, “I did my part according to my time and station.”Nothing more, nothing less.

The Future of Personalized Medicine – Can’t wait for this to be widely available. Can I get a GPS add on?

QUnit – jQuery JavaScript Library – Free, and a time saver down the road.

Spotify Free Unlimited Music Streaming Ends After Six Month Promotion – Sadness. Extreme sadness.

Homeschooling, Robot IronMen, Unstructured Play, Plus MORE!

September 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Another link dump. I promise I’ll try to include more bloggers and less news stuff in the future.

Here’s How to Stop FB From Tracking You Online – Logging out isn’t enough.

Can We Play? – Feeling guilty because you don’t get to spend enough time on education and they are aimlessly wasting the day? Don’t.

Career Ruin: Homeschooling

I realized that public school is like Social Security. There is no money to do what we are pretending we are aiming to do. We should just grow up and admit that we cannot have effective public schools for everyone. Just like we cannot have Social Security for everyone.

Well there go her Presidential hopes.

Gamers Unlock Protein Mystery That Baffled AIDS Researchers For Years – More of this please.

Woman tries to shoot possum, shoots acquaintance instead – I wasn’t even aware @knoxvillerugby was playing in ATL this weekend.

Dubya and Me – You don’t have to be a fan of his politics (I’m not) to enjoy this great piece on W.

Three Market-Based Solutions To Pull People Out Of Poverty – More of this too!

Robot Triathlete Will Complete An Ironman? – These things don’t have the greatest form, but I’m not one to talk.

What Your Kids See You Read

December 28, 2010 / / 2 Comments

George Washington Crossing The Delaware

I’ve read articles before (someone can provide links in the comments) about how important it is to have books around the house and to set an example for your kids by making sure they see you reading. But I’ve always looked at that as a general idea–just make sure they see that you read, and the magic will happen later on. Last night I got my first glimpse of how it can affect them in ways I hadn’t considered.

I’m currently reading To Try Men’s Souls, which is a historical novel about George Washington and the Continental Army’s crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. The cover of the book features the famous painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. Yesterday afternoon, Pea was looking at the cover and asked, “Who’s that?”. I told her it was a painting of George Washington crossing a river in a boat, and the book is a story about him going across the river. She’s familiar with George Washington because she’s seen another painting of him when going over the Presidents of the United States with Ana. She immediately said, “Look Mami! Daddy’s reading a book about George Washington! He’s one of the Presidents in my pictures!” She looked through the pages for a little while before putting the book down. I assume she was looking for more pictures–that’s what I did when I was little. It didn’t take long for her to get bored and go play with something else.

We read books together before bed every night, then Pea climbs up to her top bunk and looks at books in her bed before she goes to sleep while I hang out on the bottom bunk and read. Last night, as she was looking at her books and going to sleep she whispered down to me, “Daddy, are you looking at the book about George Washington in the boat?”

Cool! She just made a connection between two paintings she’s seen at different times and something the person in those painting did, and it’s stuck in her memory! She also understands the that I’m reading the story (learning) about what happened from the book. Hopefully this will lead to more questions about George Washington in the future. Maybe she’ll even ask me to tell her the story.

Stuff You Should See– July 31st through August 16th

August 17, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Disney Princesses, Deconstructed – All you can really do to fight it is to push a fascination with ocean dwelling killing machines instead of Princesses. But it’s an uphill battle.

Muscles Remember Past Glory – I strongly suspect fat bellies have the same memory ability.

Thanks No For Skipping Your Immunizations! Whooping CoughIs Back – I wouldn’t let Jenny McCarthy give me dating advice when I was 19. Why would I listen to her parenting tips?

What Happened to Yahoo – Bottom line–nothing was happening at Yahoo, so things started happening to Yahoo. And why is that when I change my Yahoo! password, my Del.icio.us password doesn’t change. Exhibit A.

Ragnar Central Florida – Always wanted to do one of these…I may have found a team!

Endless Bummer – Don’t worry, it’s safe for work.

Unsuck It – Pretty useful, especially if you are low on bandwidth and need to bucketize terms.

The Third Stage of Personal Finance – Good motivator to start your day.

Facebook bug spills name and pic for all 500 million users – Uh….awsum?

Complete Guide to Maximizing Your Android Phone’s Battery Life – When following these instructions, make sure you’re holding the phone correctly.

14 Famous Man Caves – And not one has a spin bike or a punching bag. Where does all the anger go?

7 Discipline-builders for Remote Workers – I found this article very distracting. 🙂

Girl quits job on dry erase board – I like TechCrunch too, but if you spend an hour a day there, you must be reading at a remedial level. It’s not Faulkner.

Michael P. Fleischer: Why I’m Not Hiring – Interesting…and I thought it was just because he was a racist.

The Great Reset of Urban Development in Economic Downturns – Metropolitan corridors. I don’t like the sound of that.

Internet gambling freedom boosted by House committee vote – It’s comin’….

Rdio – Even more music.

Zone 12 Project gang: Little Blue Egg – I will put this right next to the outdoor shower. Or maybe inside the outdoor shower.

Build Your Own Outdoor Shower – Coming soon to a side of the house near me. I hope.

Stuff You Should See– December 30th through January 3rd

January 3, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Do More, Buy Less – A huge positive from a recession. This goes hand in hand with the fact that people are saving more. I’m still amazed that people at the top continue to contend that the answer is to “get credit flowing again.” Well, I’m not really shocked that they say it. That’s what benefits them and their friends. But I am amazed that so many people buy it hook line and sinker.

Google and HTC Working On a Chrome OS Tablet – Want.

Crunchy French Toast – This is now the official French toast recipe of our household. We’ll only be using the cream after long runs though.

50 Things we know now that we didn’t know this time last year – To be honest, I’ve suspected at least 34 of these things for a few years. I just wasn’t able to prove them.

Global Warming Won’t Prevent Ice Age – If it ain’t one thing with these climate fanboys it’s another.

Four UT basketball players face drug and weapon charges – I have an idea for college basketball players with aspirations of making it to the NBA. Lay off the weed for just four years. Once you get into the NBA you can do pretty much anything you want. I don’t really care what you do as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, but if you’re going to take the money you have to play by the rules made by the people who write the checks.

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine – What we really need is a Web 2.0 homicide machine. Only those with strong passwords survive!!!! I predict Web 2.0 homicide will be a big trend in 2010.

Delicious Link Dump– December 22nd through December 28th

December 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

2009: The Year of the Failed Narratives – I love story time! I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed that none of the stuff they are trying to sell us involves dragons or unicorns. I mean, if we're going to write fiction, let's go all the way with it.

Ghetto Kool-Aid – The word "ghetto" is over-used. The word "Kool-Aid", however, is not.

The New Flight Security Rules, So Far – When you can count on showing up for a flight four hours early, not being allowed to access your carry-ons (the whole purpose for carrying things on when you have children), not being able to hold objects in your lap (try explaining that to a toddler), and not being able to go to the restroom for the last hour of the flight…why on earth would anyone fly anywhere with kids? This will definitely be changing our travel plans in the future.

Is cable worth it? – Not even if they paid you to watch the commercials

Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For You – I don't set things on fire and put them in my mouth, so weed is out. Can I double down on the beer instead? And I won't need the LSD to counter the extra beer for a few years. I won't knock the maggots until I've tried them.

Obama, Left Behind – What he really needs to fix this is a new web site and a fresh Twitter account. They'll be back in no time.

Mortgage Applications Drop to 2-Month Low – I have to believe this is mostly due to the fact that people are hanging out waiting on short sale approval letters. *hint hint*

Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem – Shake it baby! This is the first and only shoot 'em game I ever bought, but it was pretty good. I'm not that into video games, so I didn't really keep up with the drama that was the continual delayed release of the sequel.

Stripper For Christmas – Ho Ho Ho! Yeah, that wasn't very original.

Delicious Link Dump– October 20th through October 23rd

October 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

VS 2010 Code Intellisense Improvements – This is really good for me. I’m still not familiar enough with the C# namespace, and I’m not in it enough every day that that will be improving any time soon.

Notes from the Road – Really nice travel/photo site. I could spend lots of time here.

UK’s streets of no shame – When I was in Cardiff, it was only the men who were acting like this. How times have changed.

Bing Twitter – Test drive Bing’s real time search of Twitter here. It’s about to get interesting.

We’re Not The Men We Used To Be – The average man was faster than Usain Bolt 20,000 years ago? Man, I miss out on all the good stuff.

35 Year Ban Proposed For Offshore Bottom Fishing – This doesn’t sound good. I thought we only had 50 days to do something about climate change. Now we’re thinking about 35 year bans?

iDrinkCoaster – “I’ve seen koalas drink faster than you”. Technology is a beautiful thing.

Delicious Link Dump– October 5th through October 6th

October 6, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Promiscuous dispersal of your email address – "Sure, you'll get a lot of spam, but deleting spam is a lot easier than finding customers." Wow.

Playgrounds From the 70’s – Totally Awsumness

20,000+ Gmail, Yahoo, AOL Accounts Compromised [ALERT] – No one needs your password for anything. Period.

Plot to Stop Using The Dollar? – I was just thinking the other day that I may be better of getting paid in cigarettes, potato liquor and Levis.

Space Program Needs A Plan, And Fast! – Hmm….maybe we should wait a year or two to buy a house here?

Message In A Bottle Found This Weekend – Pretty cool. I hope my Star Wars action figures wash up some day.

Man arrested for tweeting G20 Pittsburgh cops’ location | No Silence Here – If the police don't want you to know where they are, they should wear invisible cloaks. Duh!

No Sympathy For Polanski – Newscoma – I can't believe even one person on the planet would defend this guy. Good for 'Coma!

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