Recently, I decided to start decluttering my office. Of course this meant doing something with all of those books. I made a conscious decision to get rid of any book I haven’t looked at in the last year. The challenge became finding out *how* to get rid of them.

I started on Half.com but the hassle of putting them on Half.com, figuring out pricing then waiting until someone buys them didn’t seem that fulfilling. Anyway, I wasn’t getting rid of these books for the money.

It was then I stumbled across Book Mooch. Book Mooch is a service that allows users to swap books. It works like this:

I have a pile of books I put into the Book Mooch inventory, if someone a copy of a book, they ask me for it. I then ship it to them. This in turn earns me credits that I can use to mooch a book from someone else. The book owners pay the shipping cost and no money changes hands.

I may still go the Half.com route but Book Mooch appeals more to my altruistic nature. If you have a pile of books accumulating in your house, Book Mooch ‘em.

Remember this quote whenever you are debugging software.

I wanted to get a fresh start with the project I’m working on so I thought I’d clear out the database. Why for the life of me I couldn’t find the proper incantation to make this happen I’ll never know.

After searching for about 10 minutes I found it. I’m posting it here so I can reference it the next time I have a brain lapse.

Are you ready? Here it is…
manage.py flush

This will reset the database to the state immediately after it was created.

I have looked at the two candidates as equals for most of this race. They are of the same party and, as such, have policies that align with my political viewpoint. Recent comments by Sen. Clinton have changed my opinion.

Politics is a bloody game, and I realize that if you wish to play you might get bruised. In that spirit, I realize that much of Sen. Clinton’s behavior in recent weeks can be dismissed as typical campaigning. Her recent endorsement of Sen. McCain was a serious breach of protocol that crossed the line from politics to outright betrayal of her party’s beliefs.

Her comments remind me of what has been so wrong about our country over the last eight-plus years. It is time to say “no” to any politician who puts self-interest over the needs of the country or their party.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were bitter political rivals. When Adams lost the election to Jefferson, some wondered if he would leave office. This was the first time that a president had lost an election. His decision to leave or stay was an early test of our new republic. On the eve of Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams got in a carriage and rode away. In that single act he showed just what kind of man he was. He had faith in the system, and despite his differences with Jefferson, he did what was right.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Is Sen. Clinton really putting the country’s needs above her own?

Please reconsider your endorsement of Sen. Clinton. Do not disenfranchise the majority of people who support Sen. Obama.

Joseph Cotellese
New Britain Township

Anyone remember these statement by Paul Wolfowitz:
On the cost of rebuilding Iraq

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” (3/27/2003, House Committee on Appropriations testimony)

“The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” (3/27/2003, House Budget Committee testimony)

“Fundamentally, we have no idea what is needed unless and until we get there on the ground. This delicate moment—when we are assembling a coalition, when we are mobilizing people inside Iraq and throughout the region to help us in the event of war, and when we are still trying, through the United Nations and by other means, to achieve a peaceful solution without war—is not a good time to publish highly suspect numerical estimates and have them drive our declaratory policy.” (3/27/2003, House Budget Committee testimony)

Regarding getting other countries to help fund reconstruction after the war: “I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact.” (3/27/2003, House Budget Committee testimony)

Here is Bill Clinton’s response:

Mova is a motion capture company, whose Contour Reality Capture system uses an array of cameras to create 100,000 polygon facial models that are accurate to within a tenth of a millimeter. Unlike traditional motion capture technology, Mova doesn’t rely on reflective balls taped to the capture subject. The advantages to this are a higher resolution image and lower cost motion capture. The results are pretty wild.