Eopoint Articles

iWoz

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:18:17 +0000

If you're reading this, you owe it to a guy named steve. If you're peering at this through a finger-smudged screen, thank Steve Jobs. If you have a crumb-filled keyboard in front of a display, you owe Steve Wozniak.

According to his own account in iWoz, everything in his life groomed him for his role in shaping the personal computer. His father was an engineer for Lockheed that instilled him a love of technology and a strong moral compass. He could see from a young age that computers were something great, even though in those days the main way to interact with them was enigmatic switches and lights. He never had the money to play with them directly, so he read about them, learned the logic behind the chips they used, and made a game out of improving the design of each new computer. He did this for years, playing a secret game of making the designers look like fools by tweaking their designs and reducing the complexity and cost of the design without sacrificing function.

Build Your Vocabulary

Mr. Encyclopedia — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:03:47 +0000

You picture is in the dictionary under "Avuncular" (CC BY-NC-SA Andy Chase)The rise of the internet has highlighted a fall in the useful english discourse. To encourage this fall, here are some useful words along with their defintion and example of use that will make you seem like somebody that spent too much time in a thesarus.

Animadversion

N. A contentious or heated opinion. "Your animadversions of this Evangelion version are abominable aspersions of anime perversion."

Avuncular

Adj. Having the properties or characteristics of an uncle. "Uncle George is about as avuncular as a Tardigrade."

X-words

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:51:49 +0000

(CC BY-NC-SA Tom Magliery)It has come to my attention that most alphabet teaching aids get lazy near the end. This is especially noticeable for X, whose examples are invariably an obscure instrument and a form of radiation. Frankly, before X-rays there really was no point in keeping the X, a proposition Benjamin Franklin lobbied for extensively. Since then the philosopher/poet Mitch Hedburg proposed we change it to Z-ray and be done with it.

This may be a bit drastic. There are plenty of useful words that use X. First grade teachers, feel free to include one of these in your classroom.

Vital Knowledge: Methods of Escape

Mr. Encyclopedia — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:01:23 +0000

Escaping Objects

Escaping Boomerangs

Do not panic when the boomerang approaches. Turn and walk briskly directly away from the oncoming boomerang. It will eventually tire of the chase and return to its owner.

(CC BY-NC-ND B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure)

Escaping Rocks

Rocks are everywhere. The average distance between a person and the nearest rock is about 1.4 meters. There are some places where rocks are less common, however. The top of a skyscraper can put up to several hundred meters between you and the nearest rock, but the CEOs that can be found at the tops of skyscrapers often maintain Zen gardens or have a pet rock, both of which are against our purpose. CEOs are less common on commercial airplane flights, but little children can be found and many have rocks in their shoes or their heads. The ice floes of the arctic can be many miles from the nearest rock, and are usually devoid of children or CEOs. The arctic is inhospitable, however, and often marauding tribes of polar bears can savage even the most intrepid explorers. Interstellar space seems the most reasonable choice to avoid rocks. Often many cubic miles of space can be devoid of any matter larger than uh, quarks. Or cosmic rays.

Vital Knowledge: Economics

Mr. Encyclopedia — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:50:40 +0000

A piggy bank? How original. (BY-SA Skrewtape)

Few things that don't exist cause as much discord as Economics. You have something, I want it. I have something, you want it. How do I get your thing? How do I keep you from getting mine? This conflict has caused more pain and anguish to humanity than even the toughest heat-sealed plastic clamshell packaging. The most common resolution is the same, though: screaming, sharp objects, and blood.

What if there was a less violent way to open blister packs, though? And a less violent way of everyone getting what we want? It sounds Ludacris, but it's actually quite simple. You see, you may have noticed a certain symmetry in the quandary I presented. In other words, we each have something to bring to the bargaining table. You want my thing, so my thing has worth, and we can work with that. I give you my thing, you give me yours, and maybe we're both happy.

In an instant, Economy is born. It's not much, sadly, but people are pretty creative. Let's say instead of a thing, I give you a service in exchange for goods. I become an employee. What if we get sick of bartering with goods, and instead trade something symbolic of worth, which can then be exchanged for other goods and services later on? Now we're getting to the root of it.

Let's Brew Beer: Part 3

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:52:39 +0000

After a disturbingly long period has elapsed, it is finally time to put my potentially delicious brew into bottles. Here the yeast will give its last gift: delicious carbonation.

Vital Knowledge: Tipping

Mr. Encyclopedia — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:48:31 +0000

(BY-NC-ND Joel Motylinski)Tipping, like rollerskating, cheesemaking, and pipe smoking, is a dying male art form. Gone are the days of old when large groups of burgeoning mathematicians and economists went to restaraunts for the sole purpose of attempting to equitably split the bill. In this computer age with its slide rules and its included gratuity few know how to properly leave a tip. After doing much research in ancient ettiquite tomes I have compiled the following list of tipping guidelines, from common to esoteric.

Vital Knowledge: Trivia

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:53:45 +0000

(BY-NC-ND by Amy Groark)

The creature in the Taco Bueno symbol is none other than Cthulhu, taken out of an ancient Aztec version of the Necronomicon.
Wolves will not chase you across moving water.
Yosemite Sam's original name was Anti-Semitic Sam.
If a frog egg hatches on land, it will be a frog instead of a tadpole.
Ginger Ale does not contain Ginger, nor is it Ale.
Mister Spock from Star Trek was originally supposed to wear red face paint, but it caused Leonard Nimoy to break out in a face-paint-like rash.

Let's Brew Beer: Part 2

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:52:58 +0000

It's been two weeks a while since we boiled the wort and set it to ferment, so now we'll take hydrometer readings to see if the initial fermentation process has ended. We have here our testing column with hydrometer, and of course, our fermenting beer.

Catch-22

Mr. Encyclopedia — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:07:31 +0000

Catch 22 is the most accurate depiction of military life ever written. No, I take that back. Catch-22 is the most accurate depiction of life ever written.

You may think I'm as crazy as the eclectic cast it boasts, but I can't be crazy, since anyone with good taste enough to enjoy this book is surely in their right mind. When I say it's the most accurate depiction of life ever written I mean that it takes all the minor absurdities, illogic, and bureaucratic nonsense of life and distillates it down to a thick delicious liquor of dry humor and witty irony. You feel like a newcomer trying to catch up with a long-established group as you hear tantalizing hints of events that are revealed later on. It draws you in with its humorous scenarios and scenes driven by the eccentric cast's interactions, then draws you slowly, inexorably to the darkly logical conclusions of these scenarios and lives.