In my accounting class, we have to pick a company to analyze. I'm picking 
Lucent because I still own a bunch of shares (and have been buying on the
way down). The competitors I'm going to analyze are:
<b>Nortel, Alcatel, Ciena, and Tellabs</b>. I picked them because each of their
market capitalizations is at least $1b, and they make the expensive equipment
found in telephone Central Offices. But of course, on second thought, I have 
most of my income and wealth dependent upon the ISP industry, so I should 
instead cover that industry (ELNK, FSST, FNT, CCZ, RCNC), although this will
be more difficult as two of the firms are also cable companies.

<p>
Last night I was doing my math homework, and I realized that I didn't know how
to write the product (the capital PI) of a function in TeX. Luckily, the <a
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-math-970515/section6.html">W3.org</a> has <a
href="../TeX/math">tables</a> of math symbols in various systems, including TeX.

<p>
More efficient nuclear <a href="http://www.caesar.umd.edu/">reactors</a> kick butt. 

<p>
As I was driving to PSU Harrisburg this evening, I turned onto the main campus road, and hidden
up around the bend was a PSU state cop sitting with a radar detector. On one side, I can see
the point of the administration, they set rules and enforce them for safety's sake. But on the 
other side, I see this as profiting from their ability to shoot fish in a barrel. 

<p>
I posit that college students are probably at the most rebellious stage in their lives. This 
rebellion and testing of limits manifests itself in many deleterious fashions (bad driving, 
chemical consumption, and generally wacky behavior), but it also manifests itself in their 
innate questioning of all that went before them. Furthermore, I conject that suboptimal 
education is correlated with schools with aggressive "crime" deterrence measures (granted,
it may be that a high-crime population creates aggressive enforcement, but as they say, 
<i>if you treat them like criminals, ....</i>).

<p>
When looking at schools, it would be very interesting to see the raw reported crime data for 
each school, as a possible measure of openness in pedagogy and culture. 

<p>