I’ve made some slight additions and modifications to my syllabus this semester. The biggest addition was some more text about plagiarism and what is not acceptable. Would you believe that last year I actually had students who copied and pasted full paragraphs from Wikipedia and thought it was okay? Further, they left the footnotes and endnotes in the copied and pasted text! Yeah – go back and re-read that last sentence. I’m not joking about it either. It was pathetic. Naturally, I had to add some more text to that portion of the syllabus.

The other area that received more text in the syllabus was the fact that cell phones need to be turned off or to vibrate during the class. The new language talks about how all forms of electronic communication including texts, picture messages, IMs, and e-mails are not permitted to be sent during the class session. It’s really the texting that can get under an instructor’s skin, so if you’re a student and you do that stuff – cut it out!

I’m looking forward to a great semester, but if anything crazy happens you’ll know about it!

I’m sorry.

I’m apologizing because I was that guy at the gym tonight. Yes, I was the guy on the treadmill on his cell phone holding a conversation that had nothing to do with working out. As many of you know, I serve on the Board of Trustees for a national foundation. At some point around 7pm tonight, I got on a phone call with the Executive Director of our foundation. Since my back was hurting me this morning when I woke up, I had to go to the gym after work – and since I had that phone call scheduled, that meant that I couldn’t go to the gym until after the call.

But do you ever get on those calls where you just have to stay on the line because the discussion is so good that you need to explore it a little bit further? Well, our Executive Director and I had what I thought was an excellent conversation tonight about a variety of issues (some of which were eye-opening to me). But as the call went on I began to worry about getting my workout in. So I drove to the gym and sat in my car for another hour or so on the phone (one of my roommates actually arrived at the gym after me and left before me while I was taking the call).

Then when it got to be 9pm, I knew I had to get a workout in before I was too tired to do it. So I was that guy on the treadmill on his cell phone, but it was for a good reason. And now I will think twice about those other people who are on their cell phones. On the other hand, though, I was on an important phone call and I kept my voice down. Most of those other people get on their phones and start to talk way too loud and in an obnoxious tone!

By the way, tonight marks 18 days in a row that I’ve been to the gym. Pretty good for a guy who isn’t even on a diet and is just working out for the fun of it.

New Jersey transportation officials say a year-old state law banning cell phone use while driving has resulted in nearly 109,000 summonses issued in the past 11 months.

That’s almost double the amount of tickets handed out during the previous five years for the offense.

A state law signed on March 1 last year makes talking on hand-held cell phones while driving a primary offense. That means police are now able to stop motorists just for talking on the phone.

Division of Highway Safety director Pam Fischer says the primary law is making a difference, resulting in about 10,000 tickets a month.

New Jersey is among four states and the District of Columbia that have made using a cell phone while driving a primary offense.

Alright. I call bullshit on this law “working.” What measure, exactly is being used to judge whether or not this law is working? Go ahead – go back and reread the article and tell me how we know the new law is working. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Did you see anything? More tickets being written? Yeah, okay. And? What does this prove? Nothing!

I hate this type of crap because today’s society is so consumed with doing a million things in a day that it is a rare thing to read and critically review information that is presented to us by the media. This is the main reason why the mainstream media is garbage and there is a rising class of entertainment-as-real-news that is taking over the ratings.

Most people will read this post on My FOX NY and just read the headline and scan for a quote from someone official affirming or refuting the headline. In other words, there are probably masses of people out there who saw this bogus article and now, in passing, would comment that the cell phone ban in New Jersey is working. Let’s shed some reality on this situation…

Nearly everyone in New Jersey has a cell phone crammed in their ear while they are driving or their thumbs are going a mile a minute texting away in traffic. Don’t deny it, my fellow Garden Staters – you know that you’re guilty of this in the car. Don’t deny it! And that includes some of the worst offenders – our law enforcement officers!

Anyway, this cell phone ban is not working. And for the love of God, just because more tickets are being written does not mean that a piece of legislation is success! Just like most of the other traffic-related laws on New Jersey’s books, this cell phone ban is yet another way for local municipalities to raise more money off of the already broken backs of our overtaxed population.

In the mean time, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

Do you know someone who absolutely MUST have his or her cell phone on their person at all times? Do they get phone calls on the cell phone and then run into a corner to talk to whoever is on the other line about a gigantic secret (likely what to eat for dinner that night)? Think of who this person is in your life – the person who is constantly text messaging or reading their e-mail on their phone. Now think about whether or not that person could survive without their cell phone.

Probably not, huh? Come to think of it – could YOU survive without your cell phone? The New York Times ran an article today talking about how the writer of the article voluntarily gave up her cell phone! From the article:

The first inkling that I’d stepped over the line was when my husband called Verizon to cancel my account and the service representative reacted as if we were trying to pull a fast one. My husband’s account of the call:

Rep: “Is there a problem?”

“No,” my husband said.

Rep: “How can I change your mind?”

“She just doesn’t want her cellphone anymore,” he said, adding, “I feel like I’m talking to a counselor at a suicide prevention hot line.”

The rep laughed nervously, as if hearing a rumor of the Apocalypse. “She’s really just going to switch to an iPhone, right?”

The article is pretty interesting and it got me thinking about a few things like whether or not I need a cell phone at all and, if so, then what services I need on the phone. I guess I do need a cell phone at this point in my life, but I could probably pare down the service somewhat (which is already down at the lowest level, I think). Take a read of the article, I think you’ll enjoy it!

The article makes a great point regarding the growing internet capabilities of handheld devices like cell phones and video game systems. It also points out the new abilities for digital cameras to connect directly to televisions and to printers without having to go through a computer.

Again, it’s pretty interesting so take a read if you get a chance, but from my view – I don’t think that the PC is going the way of the dinosaur any time soon. There are too many uses for the machine for it to become obsolete. I do, however, think that prices of new computers need to drop dramatically. And I’m not talking about paying $250 for a personal computer with a 15 inch LCD screen and substandard parts, either. I mean when Dell announces a new XPS and HP announces a new high-end laptop, these things can’t be priced at $2,000! There’s no way to keep the larger home computer market sustainable at that price range – it just can’t happen.

Granted, there are increased costs with creating a higher-end computer and that is understandable, but when computers that were high-end 3 or 4 years ago are still priced out of the general consumer market, that’s a problem. That said, Best Buy is offering a $200 computer for Black Friday, but the specs on it don’t look all that exciting.

First of all, it’s an eMachines computer. I know many folks (old college buddies) that have had problems with these computers, though I also know fewer folks who have not had a problem with them. As the article linked above says:

Don’t expect the world though. The PC is rumored to be powered by an Intel Celeron running at 2.66 Ghz (meaning no efficient and powerful ‘Core’ for you), comes with 512 megabytes of RAM (which is the bare minimum for doing just about anything on a computer these days), has a measly 80 Gigabyte hard drive, and it has no DVD burner.

No DVD burner? It’s 2007, right?

Anyway, check out those articles – they are pretty interesting reads.