I’m Stuck in Dropquest
Online storage site extraordinaire Dropbox held their second annual Dropquest quiz today. The first person to complete the twenty-four question quiz got something like 100GB of online storage space for life. Everyone who completes the quiz gets an additional 1GB of space.
All of the prizes except for the 1GB of additional space were awarded hours ago. Answers for all of the questions have long since been posted online, so I can easily get the extra space. But I’m stuck on a question and can’t figure it out.
It is Chapter 10 of the quiz and goes like this:
Even after inviting our benefactor to Dropbox, we’ve still got no word from him. So after you suggested we do some more exploring, we headed back into the city. It’s kind of strange seeing how some everyday places have evolved over time– homes, businesses, and supermarkets all look the same, just filled with things that neither of us recognized. But one thing that I’ve noticed now that we’re out here is that all the cars are gone. I don’t see a single vehicle at all. Does this mean that everyone drove away? Or maybe there’s a smarter way to travel (a mega carpool lane?).
While doing some more scouting, we came upon a museum that I used to go to all the time as a kid. 40 years later, they have a featured exhibit on the 2010s. How convenient! While I don’t see any of the parts we need, the center of the exhibit has a strangely familiar locked box with the following etched onto it.
Something doesn’t seem to belong though…
The letters all appear to be stock symbols. And there are themes in each of the five lines. Here are the stock names:
The similarities are these:
First row: All but one have a fruit in their name.
Second row: All but one have a country in their name. And all but one have a currency in their name.
Third row: All but one have a color in their name.
Fourth row: All but one have an ocean in their name.
Fifth row: All but one have a month in their name.
I’ve no clue what the connection is, though. Any suggestions?
May 14 Update: Thanks for the comments. Between them and my wife’s help, I figured out to take the odd stock name out of each row: France Telecom, New Germany Fund, Telecom Italia, Telecom Austria, and Telecom Argentina. That group all has a country in their names and Telecom Argentina is the odd one out for the country not being in Europe. Great puzzle.
Withholding Consent
Back in January, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican from my fair state of Wisconsin, stated that he would begin withholding his consent to day-to-day business of the U. S. Senate on April 16, should the Senate not have passed a budget bill by the day prior. Here’s what he had to say then:
On June 28th last year, when we were failing to seriously address the fiscal situation of this country, I stood up on the floor of the Senate and I began to withhold my consent, to make a point.
If we haven’t passed a budget by April 15th this year, you can rest assured that on April 16th, I’ll start doing the exact same thing. I’ll start withholding my consent to draw attention to the issue that we have not passed a budget, that we are not seriously addressing the financial situation of this country. It’s the minimum that the American people can expect or should expect.
April 15 has come and gone without the Senate having even considered a budget, let alone having passed one. And things appear to move along normally on the Senate floor. Here are notes from the April 17 session.
S.Res. 420 (Sen. Burr): A resolution designating April 5, 2012, as “Gold Star Wives Day”.– Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.S.Res. 421 (Sen. Murkowski): A resolution designating April 20 through 22, 2012, as “Global Youth Service Day”.– Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.S.Res. 422 (Sen. McConnell): A resolution commending and congratulating the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team for winning its eighth Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association championship.– Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.S.Res. 423 (Sen. Murray): A resolution congratulating Western Washington University for winning the 2012 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Men’s Basketball Championship.– Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.Adjournment
By unanimous consent, on the request of Mr. Harry Reid, at 6:49 p.m., the Senate adjourned, under its order of today, until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.
On Monday, it appears the only thing done by unanimous consent was to adjourn.
I can’t find anything where Senator Johnson changed his plans and explained why he was doing so. I can’t really find any mention of it at all soon after the January press release. I sent an email to the Senator’s office today. We’ll see what comes from that.
Neighborhood Rummage Sale
The sub-division where we live is having its annual neighborhood rummage sale on May 4-5. My wife has set up a web page with information about the sale, here. She has a map set up with all of the participating families. And there will be a list of the bigger items for sale available a couple of days before the sale.
Google Search Like a Pro
How-To Geek has an article today with eleven tips for finding what you want through searches on Google. Most of them I knew, but a couple were new to me. Maybe they will be to you, too.
Excel SUMIFs Formula Problems
I’m trying to set up an Excel spreadsheet with a data set that includes a number with a date/time then to sum the numbers between dates and times I specify. As an example, this simple table lists home sale prices by the date on which the sale occurred.
In this example, the data table is A2 to B11 where column A is date and column B is sales price. I created the simple data analysis table in D1 to F3 where a start date is entered in D2 and a finish date is entered in D3.
The online help for the SUMIFS function defines its syntax as this:
SUMIFS(sum_range, criteria_range1, criteria1, [criteria_range2, criteria2], …)
The Excel values for the dates 01/10/2012 and 02/10/2012 are 40918 and 40949, respectively. If I create the formula in F2 using the numbers for the dates, like this:
=SUMIFS($B$2:$B$11,$A$2:$A$11,”>=40918″,$A$2:$A$11,”<=40949″)
the formula returns the correct value of $792,000. If I use cell references for the dates, however, like this:
=SUMIFS($B$2:$B$11,$A$2:$A$11,”>=E2″,$A$2:$A$11,”<=E3″)
the formula returns a value of $0.
Any thoughts on what’s going wrong? Having to hard code the dates into the formula makes this much less flexible. This is the same whether I’m using Excel 2007 or Excel 2010, by the way.
Halftime in America? – Time to Change
Even though the Packers lost earlier in the playoffs (sigh), I still watched the Super Bowl with my son Sunday. It usually is a good football game and I like watching the ads. No surprise there, eh?
The game was very good – quite a back and forth battle with coaching strategy, adjustments due to injury and performance, and outstanding play by both teams. The ads – not so much. I thought the crop was rather disappointing this year. There were some decent ads, but nothing really outstanding, as there has been in years past and as I expected this year. If you’re spending $3.5 million for 30 seconds of air time, you’d think you’d want something memorable.
I thought that Chrysler had the pick of the litter with their halftime ad entitled Halftime in America. It followed the general format of last year’s ad, Imported from Detroit, simple images of the city of Detroit, Michigan, and images of things Chrysler with a simple voice over. Last year’s ad was narrated by Eminem, this year’s by Clint Eastwood.
The ad does what ads are supposed to do, I guess, in presenting an image that the company wants to be presented. It isn’t always the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but the part of the truth they want to present in the light in which they want to present it. That’s certainly the case with Halftime in America.
Clint speaks in the ad to a city (and company) that have been beaten down and are coming back. I’m not so sure – about Chrysler at least. I am a three-time Chrysler product owner.
I will never buy another Chrysler product as long as I live.
All three of our Chryslers have been mini-vans. We had two Dodge Caravans and bought a new Chrysler Town and Country in 2006, figuring that we liked its styling better than Ford’s product and its price better than those from Honda and Toyota. The quality of our previous two had been good, too, so I figured this one would be good, what with continuous improvement efforts building on a solid foundation. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It started right out of the gate, too, with five service calls to fix one problem. It hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, we’ve already seen some of the repairs fail, suggesting problems with design as well.
My personal experience with Chrysler is that they damaged themselves by losing their way on quality. I also believe their management hasn’t been great (or even good). That is, in my mind, evidenced by their needing billions in federal government bailouts to keep the company afloat.
Halftime implies taking a brief break to review your team’s performance in the first half and make changes necessary to respond to improve that performance. Halftime implies making changes. I believe that is necessary, both for Chrysler and for the USA.
I’m out of the Chrysler picture, other than still driving my lousy quality van. But, if this is halftime in America, I believe changes are necessary to prepare for the second half. We have the opportunity this November to start making those changes by voting out politicians whose ideas and execution have caused the problems we now need to correct. For me, this starts with President Obama who admittedly started with a bad situation, but has made it much, much worse.
It doesn’t end there, however. There are many Democrats AND Republicans who need to be replaced. Federal spending was way too high during President Bush’s administration and he had help from both sides of the political aisle in making that happen. President Bush is gone, but many of the representatives and senators are still entrenched in Washington D.C. leading poorly. They need to be voted out, too.
So if it’s halftime in America, we need to plan the changes to make to improve performance in the second half. I’m starting with One and Done.
Mark Wiberg had some thoughts on this that are worth reading as well. Go and read.
Nick McKaig – A Wonderful Musician to Whom You Should Listen
Hacked IRL on The Cheezeburger Network had a video this morning of Nick McKaig covering the theme from the Simpsons TV show that was tremendous. Following the YouTube link after watching it, I learned he has a YouTube channel and has uploaded many videos of his music. Here are a few that I think are great.
This is the first one, of The Simpsons theme song.
The Longest Time by Billy Joel is a song that lends itself quite well to a cappella singing and Nick does that very well.
And, for a bit less serious of a video, The William and Tell Overture.
The Obama Economic Record
The Conservative Manifesto (update: looks like the Republican Policy Committee published the data first – use that version, it has links to the data sources) published this telling graphic about how things have changed in the United States since President Obama started his term three years ago. His record has been abysmal, the graphic just begins to explain why with numbers.
One and Done!
Dailey & Vincent at the Appleton PAC
I got back not long ago from seeing Dailey & Vincent live at the Appleton Performing Arts Center. They played a strong 90+ minute set with four band members backing them up. It started out with several songs with the entire ensemble playing, continued with a handful of songs where just the two of them sang and played, then closed out with the entire ensemble, including a two-song encore.
A few things stood out to me. First was the harmonies – they are incredibly tight. Especially with just Dailey and Vincent singing, but really with the entire ensemble, regardless of who was singing. They are singing a lot of four-part songs now – and not just the Statler Brothers songs they’re covering. They included one or two fine a cappella songs. That’s always been one of the things I like best about their music and it really stands out in their live show.
Second, you cannot really appreciate the depth and tone of Christian Davis’ fine, fine bass singing. He took the lead on two songs in the set and his voice just rumbles like rolling thunder! You can feel the reverberation in your chest – and not because of the sound system being too loud. You just can’t pick that up from the CDs.
Third, the six of them really seem to enjoy being together. You can see that in the videos they post from the road, like this one. They incorporate this into their act, with some scripted bits and some things that just happen.
They announced a 25 city or so tour later this year where the two of them will be singing with Jimmy Fortune and one other unnamed artist backed by a country band. They’re planning to sing old country hits, like Elvira and Class of ’57. They were leaning on the PAC director to book them back for that tour. I’m not a straight-up country music fan, by any means, but I’d go to that concert given the chance.
Here’s their set list from tonight’s show:
Black Eyed Suzie
Howdy Neighbor Howdy
You Oughta Be Here with Me
Back to Hancock County
John Henry Was a Steel Drivin’ Man
After A While
Going to Georgia
Thinking About You
When I Stop Dreaming
Class of ’57
Hello Darlin’
Keep on the Sunny Side of Life
Winter’s Come and Gone
Come Back to Me
My Only Love
When the Roll is Called Up Yonder
Elizabeth
Cumberland River
Fox on the Run
Thanks to Calvary
Elvira
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
I Believe
The Fourth Man in the Fire
By the Mark
Years Ago
If you get a chance to see them in concert, I recommend that you do so. It was a wonderful concert and well worth the cost.
One and Done – Three Years of Failed Leadership
Four years ago, on caucus night in Iowa, then-candidate Obama said this:
[Y]ears from now, when we’ve made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children — when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that’s a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you’ll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.
Since that time, in the three years that he’s been President, he’s failed to deliver on that and many other promises. He’s delivered a United States of America that is worse off than it was before he became President in so many ways. The soaring rhetoric of the campaign was just that – rhetoric.
That night was not the moment it all began, his campaign was in the making long before that cold night in Iowa. But it does serve as an apt starting point for comparison. Comparison of what President Obama has done versus what candidate Obama promised to do. It is not a pretty comparison.
Dan Spencer at Redstate posted today a lengthy list of many ways in which President Obama has failed the people he leads. He lists, with references (many from organizations or individuals who strongly supported him), ways he’s failed with respect to jobs, housing, spending and deficits, debt, tone, influence of lobbyists, and affordable health care. The article is well worth the time to read – and to follow many of the links.
I don’t know who will win the Republican caucuses tonight in Iowa. I don’t know who will win the New Hampshire primary next week. Nor do I know who will win the Republican nomination for President this summer. I do know that we need to work to make sure that President Obama is One and Done – a one term President.
He’s failed too much already. He’s done too much damage already. We need today to be the moment when we look back, years from now, when the damage he’s done has been reversed and the United States is once again on the right path, and recognize it as the moment when the healing began.