Daily One Inch Button - Floppy Disk 3.5"

How solid they were. How formidable when compared to the bigger disks that preceded them, that held half as much information and yet were so much more prone to being broken. Then there was that ickle little tab that caused so much consternation - was it locked or unlocked? Could you write to the disk or not? I remember the moment when I saw that computers were no longer coming loaded with the 3.5" disk drives. I thought, how are we going to get our data from one place to another? Now there are little gadgets the size of a thumb that hold as much as a thousand of these disks. Imagine how much easier it would have been to install Space Quest IV if it had come on a thumb drive instead of a dozen of these?

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Daily One Inch Button - Tupac Shakur

Perhaps it is proper that Tupac Shakur was named after an Incan who was the leader of an uprising in Spain that led to the namesake's punishment by death. It was appropriate in that he too led a sort of revolution, although it was a musical revolution that saw him become the best selling rap artist of all time, a record which has not been yet bested to date despite his having been killed over twelve years ago.

Shakur was also the progenitor of the first double rap album, All Eyez on Me, though it was counted as two separate albums for all record keeping purposes. Incidentally, though he created and belonged to a group called "Thug Life" (which was an acronym that stood for something a little too vulgar for this family friendly blog) he understood the term "Thug" as someone who overcame difficulties in life and managed to do something positive. I guess that makes Koichi and I a couple of thugs.

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Daily One Inch Button - Vampire Bear Rays of Sun

Vampire Bear is squinting because of the sun; the rays coming down are a bit harsh, so to speak. It gave him a great opportunity to teach about a letter and a vowel in this week's edition of Learn to Read Hebrew with Vampire Bear. Those were the reish and the solid a vowel which of course has a name that I cannot remember. What a good bear he is, trying to teach people how to read Hebrew that want to know how to do it. How kind and thoughtful.

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Daily One Inch Button - Steven Keaton

Growing up, sometimes I think that I had several father figures. There was of course my wonderful biological father, without whom I would not have much of the knowledge I possess today. Then there were great inspirational fathers of the television variety; fathers that would educate us children indirectly by means of teaching their ficitonal television children.

One of my "television fathers" happened to be none other than Mr. Steven Keaton. Long before I realized how really cool PBS was, I admired his awesome job and the way he could go into a television studio to make quality programming. Naturally he also did quite a good job of instilling good values in the kids; though they opposed in political viewpoints even Alex had a great deal of respect for him.

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Daily One Inch Button - Grow a Garden

The problem with the cost of food is that it seems to be going up in price and it doesn't match how our salaries go up every year. Even I, who buys wheatberries in bulk, noticed that berries that used to cost 35 cents per pound now cost 99 cents per pound. It still ends up being a lot cheaper than buying packaged food (another button for another day) but meanwhile, what to do about fresh vegetables? How about being like these wise people and starting a community garden?

Even if you don't start a community garden, a small garden in your own home or apartment (it is possible) will yield a lot of fresh delectable food that you know is free of pesticides and chemical treatment. The next time a commercial comes on to grow fresh tomatoes in your own home, I think you will know what to do.

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Daily One Inch Button - Calculator

When I was a kid we once went to a fast food restaurant and the cashier's register wasn't working at all. The person working could not for the life of her figure out how much change to give us and it took one of my parents to tell her how much was due to us. As we drove off my father marveled at how inept the cashier must have been in the field of simple mathematics that she could not handle a simple matter of subtraction without the aid of her mechanical friend.

I think it has something to do with these small friendly devices - the calculator. Whether powered by the rays of the sun or not, the calculator has simultaneously made us a little faster and yet a little bit dumber; or has it? The bigger question is how does the ancient abacus feel about its successor? For that matter, how does one incorporate decimal points into an abacus? I guess if you eat at a restaurant that has menus with no decimal points, it doesn't matter.

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Daily One Inch Button: Independence Day

Many score (and then some) years ago, our fathers and mothers fought forth to bring us this new nation. Sure, the flag you see on the button isn't nearly the same as the one made back then but what we do know is that on July 3rd / 4th, 1776, a plethora of John Hancocks were inked on a document asserting the rights of these United States. You might be thinking that we have lost some of these rights along the way. To you I say, fear not: we have a bright Obama future to which we can look forward. I know I'm excited: are you?

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Daily One Inch Button - Vampire Bear The Thinker

Vampire Bear looks like he's really thinking hard about something. Actually, he is thinking about how he looks like the statue called "The Thinker" and how it applies to this letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Did you know that darling little Vampire Bear teaches a weekly course titled "Learn to Read Hebrew with Vampire Bear?" He does, that darling tyke. All he really wants to do is to help people. Chiefly he does that by answering questions but once a week he gets into the groove and teaches you how to read the Hebrew language.

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Daily One Inch Button - Kelly Kapowski

I think if you were to have a marathon session of watching every single episode of Saved By The Bell (including the few episodes of The College Years that were made as well as the movies; yes, there was more than one movie made) you would probably have to say at the end that it was pretty obvious right from the start that eventually, Zack would end up marrying Kelly. How could it not be any more clear?

Sure, there are numerous moments of hesitation and doubt, such as when Kelly decides that she is going to break up with Zack to be with Jeff. Who couldn't have seen that eventually he was going to turn out to be a jerk? It's a bit like when a main character says at some point in a two part episode that they are going to move away: you know that somehow they will have to change their mind.

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Daily One Inch Button - NPR & PRI

When I was a kid, I didn't know much about the radio other than it was the thing my mother frequently listened to in the car. It never occurred to me that it was a reasonable thing to do to listen to it outside the car because the television was so much more entertaining in that it had fun for the eyes as well as the ears. What really brought me back to radio listening was none other than the amazing world of podcasting, and a friend of mine recommending that I listen to a program called This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass. Since that time I have discovered a number of interesting and educational programs distributed both by NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International) - the beauty of public radio is that, being publicly funded, it does not  have corporate crass scrawled all over it. You aren't interrupted every few minutes to hear about buying yourself a hamburger.

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