Banned Books

This interesting, The American Library Association's Most Frequently Challenged Books list - these are the books that are banned in many schools and libraries.

I look at this list and I see books that I would probably vote to ban, and then I see others that I read in school and wonder why they are banned. Is there any logic behind this, or are booked banned for no particular reason?

Books I might Ban: I agree that Madonna's Sex might be a good book to have banned, and I personally don't want my children reading Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate without talking to me about it.

Ones I am unsure of: Personally I think Goosebumps might be a bit of an extreme series for kids, which I have heard the same argument about Harry Potter, but to ban them? I have read some of the Harry Potter books, and they are not worthy of banning in my opinion. I think that the fact that they get kids reading is worth quite a bit. I can think of a lot worse things they could be doing.

Ones that should not be banned: I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men and The Catcher in the Rye, and I hope my children read them too. Not that I think they are appropriate for my kids today, but before they finish High School they should read them.

All these books I listed are just in the top 20. Further down the list we find Blubber and How to Eat Fried Worms. And to think that this is just the top 100. There may be many other books that don't even show up at this level. What are we doing? Are we trying to hide history, culture and literature from our children? This really makes me wonder if it is a good idea to ban books at all. If we cannot regulate what our children read reading intelligently then maybe we shouldn't regulate it at all. Are we really doing them any favors by candy coating the world? Whenever the topic banned books come up I think back to a TV show I saw. In it a school librarian was asked to defend a book that was being banned at her school. In the end she gave a passionate testimony where she supported the ban and suggested another book that should also be banned. She went on to describe the contents of the Bible. When you look at the Bible by what it contains then it certainly seems like the kind of book we shouldn't let our children read. But when you look at it for what it is then we can see the significance of it. I wonder how long it will take before we ban the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Useful GMail Links

This Page by Mark Lyon is full of useful GMail tools. Including importer, exporters and migrators, as well as POP3 access. Looks like a must have for GMail users.

Update: Get the GMail Helper direct from Google. It adds system tray notification and resolution of mailto links to most any Microsoft Windows system. No official support that I know of for Mac or Linux yet. I also hear that some of those unofficial tools from the previous link are being blocked by Google.

New Twist on Nigerian 419 Scam

I just received this message via ICQ:

I`m a russian web designer.I have some clients in USA,who pay for my work through the bank.I need help in trasferrin money from my clients on the account in your bank,cashing through your USA account,and then transfer to me through Western Union.My money turn over-5-7000$/month.I`m ready to offer you 7%from all the money(+all other charges).If you are interested, mail to: YouMustBeStoopid(at)mail.ru (mark your tel num or ICQ)

(e-mail address changed)

The ICQ number it is sent from is 247024407, which happens to not be a valid number, or it has already been canceled by ICQ.

I can see it now. I agree to help "genikuz" (my new friend) out. I receive a check, which I promptly forward to him in the form of a Western Union, minus my 7% and any fees. Then later I discover the original check was canceled or bounced, but Western Unions can't be canceled once they are sent, so I am out the money.

I was thinking maybe I might ask my new friend to do some web design work for me up front instead of taking 7% for my services.

Red Eye Removal

Who all has done red eye removal of photos? I am just curious what kind of software is great for this. I have used a few different packages, but I am not convinced any are ideal. Trying to clean up all the new pictures of the baby from the digital camera.

IrfanView just cuts the red in the selected area - which changes red to black. This is fine as long as the red is confined to the pupil.

Paint Shop Pro seems more effective. It requires recreating the iris and pupil and pasting a new non-red one over the top of the red one. This is really great when the red eye is really big and glowing, and actually covers the iris. The problem is matching the iris color correctly. I hate changing the eyes in the photo anyway.

I have also manually removed the red eye, but that is very time consuming, and I am not always happy with the results. Any tips would be great!

Update: I hear that Adobe Photoshop has excellent red eye reduction. Unfortunately using Photoshop to fix red eye is like using a ICBM to shoot a canary. Using Paint Shop Pro for red eye is like using a cannon to shoot the canary.

Haircut

I was getting shaggy around the edges so I went and saw my good friend for a haircut. She cuts everyone's hair in our family. Not only does she cut hair but she does a great job of helping my trim my beard. Keeps me looking sharp from the neck up. Generally if I am looking less then steller then it means I have gone to long without getting a trim.

I had just picked up my UX50 and her husband was playing with it and snapped a picture. So now you can see a rare picture of me without my glasses, while I am getting a haircut even. Pretty impressive isn't it? Gotta love technology. If you live in the Nampa area let me know and I will refer you for a great haircut.

Church Pants

Found a new interesting blog: Church Pants

Tales from the emergency department mixed with other meddlings of my mind. Some material may not be appropriate for the young blogger.

It is the blog of Adrian Church, a fairly new emergency room doctor in a rural area. If you have ever watched one of those TV shows about a doctor in a rural area then you get the general idea. He has a recent post that offers some great tips on communicating with your doctor.

As someone who has been to the doctor before I find this blog very informative and entertaining. It is so neat to see things from the doctor's point of view.

Mozilla Session Saver

I am getting closer to making Firefox (Mozilla) my browser of choice. Thanks to Jake for the link for the Mozilla Session Saver. What this extension does is save all your open tabs when you close Mozilla or Firefox so it remembers where you were when you return. That was one of the big features I liked about Opera over Firefox.

A few remaining advantages of Opera over Firefox:

• Speed - Opera is much faster!
• [Ctrl]+[Backspace] to go up a level.
• Better keyboard functionality.

BorCon2004 to feature the next Delphi

You may want to attend BorCon 2004, even though I won't be presenting this year.

"In-depth details on DiamondBack, the code name for the next Delphi release, will be shown throughout BorCon 2004 (US). If you use Delphi, you'll want to be there! "

From the list of sessions we can see that the next version of Delphi will in fact support both .NET and Win32. Looks like it will also have refactoring support. All of this in addition to the features found in the current two versions of Delphi. Sounds pretty exciting to me!

I'm Rich!

You may have noticed the button on my blog, as well as many other blogs. Blogshares is a fantasy market where you can buy and sell shares in blogs. Crazy idea. I don't really understand it all myself, but as I mentioned earlier I noticed that Danny Thorpe purchased all the publicly held shares in this Blog before I even looked at it.

Well, I did a little speculation, and one of the blogs I bought into when it was really cheap shot up to really expensive. Got a huge return on my investment. I might actually get hooked on this stuff yet!

Onomatopoeia

This morning on the way to work I am listening to NPR. They had a local interest Boise segment by KBSU talking about Kevin Kirk. It would appear that Kevin studied music at BSU. Currently he has a piece called "Lord, Have Mercy" which is featured on All Songs Considered's Open MIC.

When I followed the link for more on the CD Catch 'n' Release, which the piece came from I am taken to Kevin Kirk's home page. Here I see that the CD was actually released by Onomatopoeia, which Kevin is a member of. As I am looking at the group photo I notice that the guy in the upper right looks familiar. Turns out it is Mike Seifrit, who I know from the IT department from the Idaho Department Juvenile Corrections. I've done some software work with him. Small world.

I knew Mike played Bass Guitar. He is on a few albums with Rick Springfield and one with Stan Bush. I believe he also toured with Tina Turner and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Gave it all up to program in Delphi.