http://blog.brokenclaw.net A personal website presented in the spirit of shared information and experience. Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:18:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en When Plaxico Burress was first indicted on weapons charges in New York City, he pleaded Not Guilty (I still don't understand the difference between pleaded, plead, and pled) . I guess he and his lawyer were going to claim that someone stole Plaxico's pistol, then stuck it down and his ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/plaxico-burress-just-a-regular-guy The idea behind six degrees of separation has been around for nearly a century, but it was John Guare's play and film of the 1990s that brought the actual phrase into public consciousness. Put simply, the concept is that any two people in the world can be connected by jumping ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/six-degrees-of-separation Today I watched The Blue Eyed Six documentary on DVD. The Blue Eyed Six were a group of six men, all of them coincidentally blue-eyed, who were arrested and indicted on first degree murder charges in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, in 1879. The motive for the murder was an insurance scheme ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/blue-eyed-six The other day I was going through some stuff, and I came across my old IBM Thinkpad 600E. The 600E is a relatively small 1999-era laptop, which was considered a solid and reliable business machine in its day. I had purchased it on eBay around 2003 as a second computer ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/reviving-a-dead-computer Watching TV on your computer is becoming more and more commonplace, but the next step in home entertainment is finding a way to get Internet video, including streaming programs, video podcasts, and paid downloaded shows and movies, to play on your actual television. While it is possible today with a ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/internet-tv Twitter is a relatively new social networking tool of the Internet which popularized micro-blogging. The main purpose is to keep friends connected, by letting everyone know where you are and what you are doing. Like other services, it depends on a technology known as SMS (short message service), which is ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/twitter-your-life-away This afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers took the lead and won the game over the Baltimore Ravens on a touchdown at the end of the game. However, there was considerable controversy over whether or not a touchdown was actually scored. The play in question proceeded in the following manner: The receiver ran ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/football-rules Need I say more? When I wrote about Sam Bradford at the end of last season, I was very optimistic, like others, about his future at Oklahoma. But it was too much to expect that he would win the Heisman Trophy in his sophomore year. But he did. Bradford followed up ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/heisman The controversy continues. Little has changed since I wrote my article before the 2007 NCAA football season. This year, we ended up with no less than 7 major college BCS teams with one loss, plus two lesser BCS teams with undefeated records. So, once again, no matter which two teams ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/bcs-playoff The University of Oklahoma Sooners were chosen to represent the Big 12 South in Saturday's league championship game. It was a most unlikely scenario which hasn't happened since... oh, wait, it had never happened before. Three teams in the South division ended the season with exactly the same won-loss record. ... http://blog.brokenclaw.net/archives/ou-big12