Matt Cutts, the unofficial Google blogger, wrote on his blog the other day some helpful advice for us college students:
A few days ago I was in a college bookstore that wanted to charge $178.60 for a copy of Mathematical Physics, by Eugene Butkov. $178.60? For a used, paperback book? Grrr. I took a picture of the UPC code and/or ISBN number.
You can search for an ISBN or UPC code (e.g. [9780201007275] ) on Google or other search engines and usually find out a product pretty quickly. I found a copy for $115.34 at Amazon, plus eBay had a hardcover copy with a current bid of $23.20. For a college student, $60 to $150 is a lot of savings.
College students are known for being advocates. And we should be. The least amount of advocacy one can do is to vote. So if you are not registered, you may still have time. If you are registered, make sure to get an absentee ballot from your home state. Many states like Massachusetts have all the information online so just search Google for “absentee ballot [home state]”.
If you are still undecided on who to vote for there are one VP debate (this Thursday) and two presidential debates (Oct 7th and Oct 15th) still coming. All debates start at 9pm and last for 90 minutes. Many of the local channels should be showing them so just flip through them when the debate is about to start.
Also, you can check out Google’s In Quotes to find out what each candidate said on any issue. Image by farlane.
I had three girlfriends, but wasn’t sure which one to marry. So I decided to give each one $5000 and see how each of them spends it.
The first one went out and gets a total makeover with the money. She gets new clothes, a new hairdo, manicure, pedicure, the works, and comes back to my place and says, “I spent the money so I could look pretty for you because I love you so much.” I was very touched and aroused, and we had lots of great sex.
The second one went out and bought new golf clubs, a CD player, a television, and a stereo and brings them back to me as gifts. This sweet girl looked into my eyes and said, “I bought these gifts for you with the money because I love you so much.” I watched my new television with great enjoyment!
The third one takes the $5000 and invested it in the stock market, doubled her investment, returns the original $5000 to me and reinvests the rest. She says, “I am investing the rest of the money for our future because I love you so much.” She has enough to buy me a new boat.
I thought long and hard about how each of the women spent the money and decided to marry the one with the biggest tits.
The following is a guest post by Tom Dudeck of Campusloftbeds.com. He has some nice projects listed on his site along with loft bed plans you can buy. Be sure to check it out.
Dorm life can be difficult. It involves somehow fitting all of what once fit in multiple rooms into a space no bigger than a shoe box. To make matters worse, you have to share that shoe box with another person. So how do you make the most of a small space and still have room for all of your belongings? The answer is a loft bed. This article will review common mistakes and provide valuable information on how to construct your own loft bed.
Creating a Plan
Before you begin building, it is best to have a plan. Your plan can be fairly basic, but there are a few items to pay attention to. You should consider things such as mattress size, ascending and descending the bed, railings, and any other residence hall requirements that may exist. Some popular residence hall requirements include: clearance between bed and ceiling, leg size, and cross-bracing requirements. It is also important to remember that lumber comes in nominal dimensions. This means that the dimensions of lumber are not their actual dimensions. So for instance, a 2×4 is really 1 ½”x3 ½” in size. To view actual dimensions for a variety of different lumber sizes, see this lumber dimension chart.
Wood Design
Designing wood is a fairly difficult task. Instead of going through the rigorous process of design, some general rules of thumb can be used for your design. The first rule to remember is that even the softest of woods (e.g. Southern Pine) can carry a fairly substantial load. It is often unneccesary to design the loft out of anything than a wood such as Southern Pine. Most of your members that make up the bed can be constructed from 2×6 dimension lumber. This includes legs and stringers. Minor members that make up the loft such as ladder rungs can be 2×4’s or smaller.
Connection Design
Once all of your wood members are cut, you will have to decide how to connect them. The very best connection is made by a combination of a mechanical fastener (such as a bolt or screw) and glue. It is important to use wood glue and not the white stuff you use for gluing paper together. Wood glue can be bought at any home improvement store. It is also important to use bolts to hold together the members where connections are crucial. The most crucial connection is where the bed frame meets the legs. At these connections use a ¼” carriage bolt at a minimum, but preferably a 3/8” bolt should be used. Most other connections can be made with wood screws. The great thing about using screws and bolts is that the whole bed can be dismantled when the school year ends.
Purchasing Loft Bed Plans
Confused on where to begin or think the whole construction bit is over your head? There are a variety of vendors online who sell loft bed plans. These vendors have quite a bit of expertise and offer pretty good solutions if you are confused on where to begin.
