Ethernet Card as major heat source?

My laptop runs incredibly hot, but I've noticed that it runs even hotter at the office. As far as I can tell, the only difference between that work environment and my home environment is that at the office I have an ethernet cable, and not WiFi. Could that really be the major heat source, contributing as much as 10C of extra heat to the laptop under normal operating conditions?

Gads, I am a wimp

Last night, I resumed a lighter version of my exercise routine. I absolutely must get back to doing gluteus medius exercises (GMs), because I can only do 30 reps on a side, and I have to be able to do 50 with a five-pound ankle weight before I'm allowed to do the plyometrics. Unfortunately (for me), GMs are an endurance exercise; I have to do them daily.

I also did one set of four-on-a-side get-ups (warning: video), along with crunches. Man, I am so out of shape it's not funny. Crunches and Get-Ups are strength; I'm supposed to do them every other day, maxing out weight and sets, not reps per set. (Eventually, I'm supposed to be able to do a crunch from an inverted position to a horizontal plank, arms outstretched, carrying a 10-pound weight. Uh-huh.)

Also, my scale broke. It was a brand new HoMedics 540 (models 1790) and I've only been using it for two months. Daily usage. Now it's busted. Damn. I have to mail it to them, and they'll mail back a replacement. Uh-huh. I wonder how long that'll take? Probably as long as I've had it.

The depressing state of public schools.

Omaha and I took Kouryou-chan and Storm to the high school Storm will be going to next year. For those of you tracking this saga, can you even believe that Storm will be a high-schooler next year? I can't.

We were subjected to four 25-minute presentations by the different teams that will be overseeing Storm's development for the next four years, and I have to say that I found the entire experience somewhat depressing. This isn't the school experience I would have wished on anyone.

The first presentation was for the student counselling team, and that was okay. One woman taught directly from the Powerpoint presentation, never wavering and becoming a little flustered when the machine slowed down. They emphasized how they teach manners and etiquette. I maintain that manners and etiquette are, like morals and laws, part of the spectrum of social signals on "how one ought to live," with ever-growing consquences for defiance. It seems ridiculous to me that the school concerns itself with these small details, but eschews moral instruction and abandons any attempt whatsoever to teach their charges how to understand and navigate the legal system.

They went into great detail about the Fitfolio, a program required to teach their kids how to eat and exercise. Childhood obesity being what it is, this was insane lip service given the racks of soda and chips for sale in machines in the hallway. Of the four counsellors present, three were tragically poor avatars of fitness anyway.

It occurs to me that 375 jobs per year must be found just to provide employment for the output of this one school. Are there 375 new jobs in this neighborhood, or nearby?

One presentation was given by the principal, and I'm sorry, but what I heard her say was:

Your children are the slaughterhouse tailings of society, and my job is to crank out the sausage on which our plutocratic masters feed.

She went to great length to talk about how underacheiving students would get all of the resources to succeed, but the more advanced students, well, they were on their own. The upper eschelons of merit are dog-eat-dog, I guess. She also showed a slide claiming that 2/3rds of all jobs required postsecondary education. Does this mean that 2/3rds of all jobs are so complex we require more than four years of training to do them, or are our public schools such miserable failures that students must wait until their postsecondary careers to get the targeted education they need to prevail?

Grief, one of her slides reads, "We teach kids to think out of the box." People who say that have no idea what the shape and size of the box are in the first place.

This school puts a lot of emphasis on its athletics. That's fine and appropriate, but you have to pay extra. When the athletic director, though, says in one breath, "You have to be passing your classes to play," and then, "In a lot of classes, if you show up with a pulse you'll get a D," I have to wonder what the hell they're thinking at this school. Not everyone can look forward to a career in the NBA.

On the whole, I'm disappointed. This is a school that is still oriented toward creating employees for jobs in the middle of the automation gap. Those jobs are gone, and they're not coming back.

There really is a structural problem here, and you have to be creative and driven to survive it. This school will not generate survivors. I guess that'll be up to Omaha and me.