Texas’ loss could be South Dakota’s “Boone”

Word on the street is that Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens has decided the Texas panhandle can’t accommodate his $2 billion wind farm because they don’t have proper transmission infrastructure.  The other part of the problem is that he’s already bought 687 of the 400′ tall wind turbines and, as Pickens put it: “my garage won’t hold them.”

Over 600 of these bad boys could carve out a sweet SD skyline

I don’t know all the details of the transmission infrastructure required to add 4000 megawatts to the grid, but what I do know is that South Dakota has some 200,000 acre areas with enough wind potential to make this dream a reality. If SD can support this, let’s start courting our friendly Texan oilman right away!

Greatest Competition Ever…

Sometimes the world gets me a little down.  Whether it’s the riots in Iran that will almost assuredly not result in the replacement of a corrupt dictator, or the fact that Tiger is struggling at the US open, this blue planet of ours seems to conspire against my better moods.

But, to my surprise a ray of hope shone through my mood today proving that real men yet exist.  I don’t mean real men in the sense that they respect women or in that they are good at football, but real men by the measure that has been used to measure those who call themselves men for millenia; their ability to grow facial hair.  The 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championship just ended in Anchorage, Alaska.

Though I am required to shave almost daily, I have been unable to grow any sort of facial accutriment I was satisfied with in the past few years.  Because of this, I have incredible respect for those with the gift of great beards.  Without further adieu, I present the winner of the championship: David Traver.

Manliness Defined

For more beard and moustache awesomeness, here is a link to a BBC photo set from the event.

Kim Mulkey: You Should be Ashamed

Wow.  I just finished watching the SDSU – Baylor womens basketball game and I am utterly taken aback by the completely unsportsmanlike behavior exhibited by the Baylor coach.

With around 5 minutes left in the game, a Baylor player (Allison) left the game with a knee injury.  It looked pretty bad, but she came back into the game with a little wrapping on the knee at around the 2 or 3 minute mark, so it couldn’t have been that bad.  In the last 22 seconds of the game, she was fouled when Baylor led by 1 point.

Please note that she had been in the game playing for the last 2 minutes when this happened.  It is also worth noting that she is roughly a 50% free-throw shooter.  She went to the bench complaining that she was injured and Kim Mulkey (a hall of fame coach) requested that she be allowed to leave the game because she was unable to shoot the free throws.  Baylor conviently brought on an excellent shooter to attempt the shots.

All of this seems to stink a little of foul play, but since she had left the game earlier with an injury, it was at least believable.  Not 30 seconds later when Baylor took the lead by 2 with .5 seconds left Allison proceeded to jump up and down on the Baylor sideline and run all over the court when they won.

The complete lack of class and integrity shown by Baylor tonight should be noted.  Kim Mulkey knew better, but she put integrity and sportsmanship on the back burner so that she could get a win at any cost.

The Lady Jacks put up a great showing and have nothing to be ashamed about.  They played an excellent game and Baylor had to cheat to beat them.  I pity Kim Mulkey and the entire Baylor coaching staff for failing to understand what makes college basketball a great sport.

Tablet on the Cheap!

Convinced that a tablet computer is the wondrous tactile experience you always dreamed of but worried about the price points of most popular brands?  Worry, no more: Always Innovating (I way dig this name for a company) has given us the answer in the Touch Book!

Tablet Netbook? Yes Please!

Engadget has a brief summary with a bunch of pics as well as a PR release from Always Innovating, which includes the fact that it is supposed to be priced for $299, have 10-12 hours of battery life and be able to run a wide variety of different OSes.

Be still my cheap computer loving heart…

Reading, Writing and Ammunition

There’s nothing like missing a little class in the middle of the week to go lobby in Pierre!

Today’s big cause: guns in the classroom, or more accurately from our point of view, keeping them out of the classroom.  Senate Bill 82 is a bill to apply state carry/conceal law to public institutions of higher education and prevent the Board of Regents from restricting the policy.

Today the bill was heard in the Senate State Affairs committee and was passed onto the legislature with a “Do Not Pass” reccomendation.  This doesn’t mean that bill is dead, but that in order for it to be debated on the floor of the Senate, a motion to strike the not must be made first.  This bill is likely to be considered tomorrow and my request for you, dear readers, is action.  Please e-mail your Senators and let them know that the higher ed classroom; like the Capitol, high schools and courtrooms, is no place for guns.

Today was a small victory against the bill, but tomorrow will be the true verdict for the bill.

Isaac Raymond!

Yesterday, my sister gave birth to a beautiful 6 pound, 13 ounce baby boy named Isaac Raymond Andal.  He’s a cute little tyke and because Jessica and Neil (the proud parents) live here in Brookings I’m looking forward to a whole bunch of time with the little guy.

Sorry for the low res pictures, but because my mom has slow internet she refuses to send good high res ones so I’ll have to steal them right off her camera when she comes back up, which I suspect won’t be long…

Math is Cool!

Hello again internets!  It’s been a while since my last post, but at the behest of some blogging peer-pressure, I’m back.

As some of you may know, I’m a math major here at SDSU with aspirations to go on and get my PhD in Mathematics and eventually teach college, so hopefully that will explain some of my excitement for the following discoveries.

I try to browse Snorg Tees whenever I think of it because they have some pretty awesome shirts, but today when I went there, I was surprised to see not one, but two! math centered shirts near the top of the front page.  This website is by no means a math and science based humor site (but if you’re looking for one, I would highly advise ThinkGeek), so the only conclusion I can draw is that math, or more accurately obscure math humor, is hitting the mainstream!

So dear readers, when you’re suffering through some math class trying to find meaning and usefullness in it; remember that search is probably futile, and instead search for a clever pun.

Colbert apologizes to our friends in Lincoln County… kinda

A couple of weeks ago, Steven Colbert of the Colbert Report made some jabs at Canton, SD, but has now seen the error of his ways and apologized.

My favorite line: “I didn’t mean to take the piss out of a town that had no piss to spare.”

Link to Hulu Video

Snowl – More than a clever name…

I was perusing Ars Technica today when I saw something that I got really excited about:

“Announced on the Mozilla Labs blog, the company presents Snowl with a simple question: “Could the web browser help you follow and participate in online discussions?”

I don’t know about you, but I find that more and more of my time in internet browsers is spent following and participating in online discussions.  Right now Google Reader functions as my base of operations for most of the online content I pay attention to, however it is ill-equipped to handle serious Twitter use and though it is great for reading blogs, it takes out a huge chunk of the interaction and communal feel gained from the actual site.

I really see a niche where Snowl could find a home providing a home-base for all sorts of online communications (including e-mail!).

Damn you Mozilla for feeding my incessant desire to waste time online!

Who’s excited… This Guy!

It is amazing what 5 musical notes can do for a guy. I was in the depths of one of the most frustrating and fruitless discourses about website access ever when, from behind me, sprouted the most beautiful noise I had heard all day… the 007 theme. I turned around to be faced with the teaser trailer for the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

I had heard that there was another Bond movie with Daniel Craig in the works (if you haven’t seen Casino Royale, I would highly recommend checking it out), but I didn’t know any details. The trailer seems to hint towards a healthy dose of James Bond character development. My favorite part of the first one was seeing the transformation into the suave Bond that we’ve grown to love. This one seems to promise more of that and, unless my eyes deceive me, more of the beautiful Aston Martin DBS that we saw destroyed in Casino Royale.

On a weird side note: This is one of the only titles I can find on IMDB that uses ‘quantum’ as a noun.