Peter's Place

OK, So I'm having a Twiscussion with this self-proclaimed geek from Salt Lake City, UT who developed a really cool social networking app . Seeing that he (and his company) were from Salt Lake City, UT, and knowing how the Mormons provided a massive amount of funding to support California's Proposition 8 I sent him a simple question: Did you (or your corporation) provide any funding to support CA's Prop 8? And thus began our Twiscussion (I'm coining a lot of new words these days ...). I'm glad to say that Jesse has not provided any funds in support of Prop 8; however, in our discussion, he raised a really good, and valid, point: [W]hat studies have been done to show there was money against Prop 8 in SLC? I'd venture to say none that are public. I don't know about the money but I do know that there was a rally opposing Prop 8 in SLC last year. So my fellow blogophiles, since I'm kinda spending the vast majority of my time dealing with personal and fa...

Slashdot | A Teacher Asking Students To Destroy Notes? OK, in the (likely) event that I ever pursue education in the future, I'm going to make damned sure that I enter into a written contract with each and every professor/trainer/teacher, wherein I obtain an explicit permission that any notes (note: not recordings but notes I create of my own accord based on the information presented in the classroom/labs via lecture and otherwise) I take on the presentations made during class are and will forever belong to me and that such professor/trainer/teacher shall have no right, claim, expectation or any such expectation of having my notes delivered unto them following conclusion of the course/training. Oh, and by the way, for the record, IANAL and TINLA (but I did attend law school for two years); however, in order to prevent such a thing from happening again, I suggest (in the form of friendly advice) that every student enter into such a contract. On a personal note, I really would like...

I just made a post on my Gather.com account and coined a new word in the process. That word is webtivism Webtivism is a portmanteau of "Web Activism." That is, webtivism is intentional action taken to bring about social or political change solely and strictly through the world wide web/Internet. A great example of "webtivism" is the First Virtual March for LGBT Equality . In this particular case of webtivism, participants were asked to change their profile picture on Web 2.0 sites (e.g., social networking web sites such as Facebook.com ) to one of thirteen different logos created by the web site, for a period of one week, in an effort to make a statement in support of gay rights. I hereby copyright the portmanteau word, webtivism. webtivism (c) 16 January 2009, Peter C. Frank

You may recall that I last wrote about my niece, Jennal, in October 2008 when she had a really bad episode . I haven't really been keeping up with my blog lately but something just happened and I need to do a little writing to try and remain calm. So at the beginning of the month, my niece, Jennal (pictured to the right) went into hospital @ NYU Medical Center in NYC. The purpose of this hospitalization was to induce her into having seizures, while she's hooked up to monitoring equipment, to map where in the brain the seizures are originating. Hopefully, once they find out where the seizures are originating, the doctors hope to remove those sections of her brain, provided that they're "unused" sections. Basically, they're going to do a partial lobotomy or something like that (brain surgery on a 4.5-year old). I don't think it's the greatest idea in the world and it's all very experimental but I'm not her guardian, and at least finding out whe...

This news story popped up in my Google Desktop Sidebar . What I thought interesting, apartment from being a Cadillac lover myself (my dream car being the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V --I mean, just take a look at the specs on that baby, and the baby itself (to the left!) ... too bad we all know I can barely afford a 1985 Yugo at this point in my life) was a statement made by Clay Dean, who is employed by General Motors as the global design director for the entire Cadillac division. In fact, there was one statement that he made, in particular, which caught my attention and serves as the reason for this particular blog posting. You see, Mr. Dean still thinks he has to use code-speak in order to deliver a message; he doesn't give the average consumer or--in this case--the gay consumer enough credit to know that he's talking about us. Here's the statement that caught my attention: "For GM, it's our most aggressive brand," said Clay Dean, GM's global director for Cadil...

I glommed this from a post on UCG BBS : Amount spent each year in Europe and the United States on pet food: $17 billion Cost per year to achieve basic health and nutrition for the entire world: $13 billion Amount spent on perfumes each year: $12 billion Clean water for all the world: $9 billion Amount spent on cosmetics in the US: $8 billion Basic education for the world's children: $6 billion Total amount the US spends on Christmas each year: $450 billion (or 16 years worth of food, water, and education for the world) Initial cost of the US Government bailout of failing financial institutions: $700 billion (or 25 years worth of food, water, and education for the world) Coming to grips with the alarming disconnects of our consumerist society: Priceless

Unlike most folks out there, I've decided not to upgrade to Firefox v3.0 (" FF3.0 ")just yet. You see, there are a couple of add-ons (aka extensions) that I really rely upon, and they're incompatible with FF3.0, which means that if I upgrade, I they won't be able to function anymore. So for the time being, I'm stuck with Firefox v2.0 (" FF2.0 "). The other day (I think it was Monday this week), my FF2.0 was updated to version 2.0.0.19. A message came up on the "Firefox Updated" page that that was going to be the LAST FF 2.0 release, and the further support for FF2.0 would thereby cease. In fact, here's the quote from that page : You’ve been updated to the latest version of Firefox 2. This is the last planned update for Firefox 2. That’s it for Firefox 2… Update to Firefox 3 Today! Mozilla is not planning any further security & stability updates for Firefox 2, and recommends that you upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as po...

As you may recall, my niece, Jennal, had a stroke when she was two days old resulting in a TBI; she currently is diagnosed with very severe epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Jennal has been attending the John A. Coleman School & Children's Rehabilitation Center in Westchester County , New York. Over the past month (since the new school year has started), the school has been negligent (and in my opinion, grossly negligent) in their care of Jennal by not monitoring her for seizures and by not administering medication to her in a timely manner when she has had a seizure. The latest incident left Jennal seizing for more than three hours as no one checked on her at the school, resulting in Jennal spending a few days in ICU, on a respirator, at the local children's hospital. My sister has been advised that it is too early to determine whether or not there has been any permanent damage. Thankfully, Jennal was well enough to be discharged from hospital earlier today, although she...

Six years ago, today, my grandmother's corporeal existence terminated. I know that she is still with me, in another presence, and her memory is well alive. But I miss her, terribly. I love you, Elizabeth "Betty" Zoel Frank, wherever and however in the Universe you now exist.

This morning I wrote my grandfather's obituary, based on notes that he had provided for the purpose. I went with my sister and my father's brother to the funeral home to arrange for services and what not. The funeral director made a few changes to what I had written, and added in the last two paragraphs (advising as to the arrangements that were made). It cost nearly $1,000 to run the obituary for one day in The Journal News (you don't want to know what the total cost of the funeral came to...): Sidney J. Frank, Jr. , a 60 year resident of Rye Brook, NY died at home June 28, 2008 surrounded by his family. He was born April 6, 1921 in Greenwich, CT to Sidney and Mary Selzer Frank. Raised in Rye, NY, Sidney graduated from Rye High School in 1938. He served as a corporal in the US. Army Air Corps during World War II. He married Elizabeth Zoel of Port Chester at Our Lady of Mercy Church on April 9, 1944. They were married 58 years at the time of Elizabeth's passin...

My grandfather just died. :(

My father just called me. I think I posted how my grandfather had three heart attacks and a stroke last summer. I know I've posted about his melanoma. Well after his heart attacks and strokes last summer, apparently they decided to do nothing about the melanoma. On Monday, my father told me that my grandfather went to the doctors as his legs weren't working and he was getting worse, and they "discovered" that his legs were covered with the tumors from the melanoma. The oncologist decided not to do anything about it because he's lived long enough. So now my father just called and said that the priest was coming to administer last rites and he's apparently unconscious. It's going to take me around four hours to get up there, as I have to take three separate buses. Last weekend my younger brother, John, who's a paranoid schizophrenic with bi-polar disorder, decided to self-medicate as he had stopped taking his medications. He felt a need to "become ...