Monthly Archives: September 2007

Two-Dollar Bills

Posted on by
1

First sobriety checkpoints, now something else I’ve wondered about for a while and finally got around to researching: Why are there so few $2 bills?

The Wikipedia article is particularly informative, but the short version is that there was a lull in production decades ago, but they now produce the $2 actively. They’re not at all scarce: they minted 61 million in 2005, for example. There are a few reasons they’re not in wide circulation:

  • Everyone thinks they’re rare, so when they come across one, they save it.
  • Not everyone seems to think that $2 bills are even legal tender
  • A big catch 22, but cash drawers don’t have a slot for $2’s, so stores don’t use them in any great volume.
  • Also a big catch 22, but banks, although they usually carry $2’s, don’t usually hand them out unless you ask.

So basically, there are hundreds of millions of two-dollar bills in circulation, but no one’s actually circulating them. They’re not at all rare, they’re just in everyone’s sock drawers.

Sobriety Checkpoints

Posted on by
4

This answers something I’ve wondered for a long time: how are sobriety checkpoints not a violation of the Constitution?

The Constitution says that “The right of the people to be secure… against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated… but upon probable cause.” It seems pretty clear to me that the police pulling people over, even if it’s random, to check if they’re sober constitutes a search without probable cause.

It turns out that the SCOTUS has already decided this. In essence, Chief Justice Rehnquist admitted that the stops do constitute a search, but that the public good outweighs the need for probable cause. Therefore, they are legal despite being very clearly prohibited under the US Constitution.

There’s some hope, though, indicated towards the end of the linked article. The case originated in Michigan, which had ruled that they were unconstitutional. The ruling, obviously, was overturned by the SCOTUS. But Michigan’s Supreme Court ruling also said that they violated Michigan’s Constitution. Ergo, they’re still illegal in Michigan even though the US Constitution “doesn’t” prohibit them. (I never thought I’d use quotes in that way…)

Windows

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been running Linux pretty exclusively lately. I copied Windows over to a partition on the new disk, but it doesn’t boot. (Apparently Windows doesn’t like booting if it’s not near the front of the disk?) So when I want to run Windows, I’ve just swapping hard drives. Tonight I had a hankering to play some Counter-Strike, so I put in the Windows drive.

Some observations:

  • It takes a lot longer to boot. (This isn’t necessarily a function of Windows itself.)
  • After starting Steam (the engine CS uses), I walked away for a minute. When I came back, my computer was showing me the school’s AUP for their network. I’d been using the network for a few days under Linux.
  • About 20 minutes into the game, I got disconnected. I noticed that my disk activity light was on solid, so I just closed the game to see what was going on. (I should note that heavy disk activity shouldn’t have been game-related: between having 2GB of RAM with nothing but CS running, having been on a small, simple map, and having been in the map for a while, there was really no reason to go to the disk.) When I closed it, I saw that the Windows firewall had decided to block “hl2.” I’m not even joking: like 20 minutes into the game, Windows decided to block it from accessing the network. At least it was kind enough to not steal focus from the game. (Others could learn from this!)
  • I still have no idea why it was going to disk.
  • Shift+Backspace doesn’t crash anything.
  • I’m getting barraged with updates to things. My wireless drivers updated themselves. Steam updated three games plus its core components. Konfabulator wants to upgrade, too. Photoshop updated itself the other day… Ubuntu and MacOS X both have a centralized ‘Software Update’ checker, which keeps everything in one place…
  • I miss iTunes. (Apple, are you listening? Wine developers, are you listening?) Linux has a lot of nice media players, such as Amarok and XMMS, but really, nothing beats iTunes. Especially when you own lots of iTunes music…

The Dangerous Book for Boys

Posted on by
4

Imagine my excitement when I moved back into school yesterday and saw that Kyle had a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys! I’d posted (I think?) the other day about how I’d heard it mentioned enough that I wanted to pick a copy up.

The back of the book calls it “The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.” And it’s even better than I’d been lead to believe it was! I’m not necessarily interested in the (unusually long?) sections devoted to historical battles, but several parts seem extraordinarily interesting:

  • Knots. I can tie my shoes, but that’s about it.
  • The rules of soccer. Not being a soccer fan, I never really learned anything other than the extreme basics. Here it is in two pages.
  • Nautical (Naval) flags (semaphores?): not useful to me, but neat
  • How to juggle! They say it takes about an hour of practice until you’re able to do it.
  • Types of clouds. Just the other day I was regretting having forgotten this!
  • Coin tricks. I haven’t yet tried these.
  • Latin phrases! Most of them I’m familiar with, but maybe that’s because I’m 21 and went to Catholic high school. Still a neat read, and really, a good refresher for those who know most of them. (I object to the pronunciation of “Veni, vidi, vici,” despite it being correct.)
  • How to play poker! This is what I need!
  • Chess! Once again, it was just recently that I was lementing having forgotten this skill.

It also just has a lot of neat stuff that anyone (at least in the U.S.) should read, including:

  • The Declaration of Independence. Not the first few lines, but the whole thing.
  • Selections from Shakespeare.
  • Seven poems (Walt Whitman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, et al*.)
  • The Ten Commandments, taken from the King James Bible.
  • Et alia, surprisingly, is not in the book’s list of Latin phrases.

Sadly, I think everyone I know is either too old or too young for me to give this book and have it appreciated for the truly awesome gift it would be, but I think it’s definitely worth picking up a copy for yourself. (Most of this book would be just as enjoyable by girls, although I should note that there’s apparently another book, The Daring Book for Girls.)