Using EOM to make email more efficient

Use the subject line for the content of your email message, and end it with EOM. Get the full story in the article at LifeHacker.

Speeding Evacuations

Nicole sent me a link to an article at Scientific American about improving evacuation capacity: Limiting the number of pedestrians that approach an exit at once can have beneficial effects.

Pizza Night

Over at Good Bite, Molly has an article describing how to make a healthy, delicious pizza at your house.

Star Wars Greatest Hits

Star Wars Main Theme

Throne Room theme

Princess Leia's Theme

The Imperial March

Horse Country

In Ireland we saw horses in two settings: (1) the Irish National Stud, where horses for racing are bred near Kildare, and (2) the Dublin Horse Show, which included a large number of events, including world-class show jumping competitions.

Late summer diversions

A couple of things:

My Uncle Eddie winning a soapbox derby in Dade City, Florida, in the late 1940's. (via Barbara Sutton)

A web page poking fun at the design of objects in Star Wars.

Round Towers

In Ireland, some of the old monastic sites have round towers that were used to watch out for invaders and as refuges from them. We saw four at Monasterboice, Kildare Town, Glendalough, and Kilkenny. We got to climb two of them. Here is the one at St. Brigid's Cathedral in Kildare :




and the view from the top (the Wicklow Mountains are in the distance):

How to make a decision

The Art of Manliness blog has a post on how to make a decision. The post mentions Ben Franklin's two-column approach and a basic weighted sum multi-criteria approach. (Thanks to Adam Montjoy for the pointer.)

A Taste of Ireland

We saw a good deal of Dublin last week - we concentrated on the city center around Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells and the Long Room. We saw some of the old churches, including St. Ann's, St. Theresa's, and St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, where we went to Mass. Ate lunch at a pub but also found some familiar chains from home. Tossed a frisbee at St. Stephen's Green during a glorious sunny lunch hour.

We went to the Dublin Horse Show at RDS and saw some amazing show jumping and a highly-entertaining hunt race. The first was a very serious international competition, with riders from across Europe, the U.S., and Egypt. Everyone was reserved, gasping when a horse knocked down a rail from a fence and applauding when one cleared all of the fences with no penalties. The last was a more relaxed team competition, almost like a relay race, with teams from different parts of Ireland, and the fans were whooping and hollering like a college basketball game. The RDS is a unique agricultural organization that sponsors a variety of events related to agriculture, arts, industry, and science. Hint: if you ever visit the Dublin Horse Show, the nicest bathrooms are near the RDS library.

We also made it out to Kildare to visit the Irish National Stud, a horse farm where we saw various stallions, mares, and foals enjoying the nice weather in their paddocks. The horses there are mostly bred for flat racing (around a flat track), not show jumping. We also visited St. Brigid's Cathedral and climbed the round tower for an excellent view of County Kildare.

Make You Feel My Love

The terrific (and often-covered) Make You Feel My Love by Bob Dylan. (The "video" is just the song title.)

Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel

The remarkable, tradition-inspired Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College in California.