Matt Luce

I found this great company called Green Disk that will recycle my technology trash. Unfortunately, their site is a bit klunky. When trying to place an order, I received the following error:

Credit Card Authorization Failed. The following field(s) are invalid: (totalGrand)

For some reason, the items I had ordered did not save to my shopping cart. I was able to overcome this issue by clicking “update cart” before checking out. This saved the items in my cart, and allowed me to place the order. I’m posting this because I get the sense that many users are experiencing the same problem (based on my conversation with green disk tech support). I like what they are doing at Green Disk, so I am hoping this post will help someone else to use their site. Maybe Green Disk will read this and actually fix the problem.

I’ve got the photos from our trip to Seattle organized into a set on Flickr. Take a look.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Tom Crean has left Marquette for Indiana. Though he will be missed, it does open up an opportunity for me. I’ve decided to enter my name as a candidate for the position. I know that the average basketball fan probably thinks that I’m not qualified. Well that’s not true. There are two similarities between myself and Crean. First, Tom Crean never had a head-coaching position at the collegiate level before Marquette, and neither do I. Second, he was only 33 years old when he started, just 1 year older than me.

While I have no formal coaching experience, I do have a lengthy basketball resume.

- 4 years of basketball at St. John’s Lutheran Grade School (5th through 8th grade)
- 1 year of freshman basketball at Baraboo Junior High
- 1 year of junior varsity at Baraboo Senior High
- 4 games of varsity at Baraboo Senior High
- 2 years of intramural basketball at Baraboo Senior High
- 2 summers of 3-on-3 basketball in the Noah’s Ark Employee league
- 4 years of Intramural basketball at UW-Whitewater (3-on-3 and 5-on-5 full court)
- countless hours of pickup basketball at UW-Whitewater and the Baraboo Civic Center

As you can see, my credentials are quite impressive. So, Marquette, I’ll be waiting for your call.

Sorry to go off on a rant here, but I’m so tired of seeing the word “definitely” misspelled. There is no “A” in the word. I can’t believe how many people misspell the word. I find it funny when spell checkers suggest “defiantly” and the author accepts. Anyway, if I can help just one person to start spelling “definitely” correctly with this post, I’ll be happy.

Well, I’m changing jobs. I’m headed back to the world of high finance. This time it’s hedge funds. This was the shortest tenure I’ve had at a job, but I know that making the change is the right thing to do.

This may be hard to believe, but I have had dysentery for the last week. I’m taking antibiotics now, and they seem to have cleared it up. I’d have to say it was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. The worst part was that I had to cancel my trip to Seattle this weekend.

I finally organized the photos from my trip to France/Germany in April.

View them here.

Hola Amigos! I know it’s been a long time since I blogged at you. My first photo has been “published” online. It’s only a matter of time before National Geographic comes calling :). The picture they used was from my first trip to New York City. It’s a view of Madison Square Garden from my hotel room.

See it here on Schmap.com

The subtitle of the book sums it up pretty well: “How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them”. A decent book. It really pointed out how ridiculous the fear of terrorism is. The chances of dying in a terrorist attack are microscopic. For example, you are much more likely to die in automobile crash, so why don’t we have a “war on auto accidents”?. The book also goes through similar historical examples, such as the communist scare during the cold war. One point the author makes, which I completely agree with, is that you can never get rid of terrorism. Just like you can never completely get rid of crime. Terror is simply a tactic. The best thing you can do is to fight “terror” itself, which means stop the overreactions and unjustified fears resulting from terrorism.

A pretty quick read and quite interesting. Puts a lot of things in perspective.

This is the second book that I’ve read by Richard Dawkins, and I have to say, I’m becoming a big fan. Admittedly, most of the book was “preaching to the choir”, so I was a bit reluctant to read it. Despite this fact, I still enjoyed it immensely.

I had always considers myself an agnostic rather than an atheist, as I felt I could never disprove that God exists (of course, I can’t disprove the existence of the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy either). After finishing this book, my mind has been changed, I would classify myself as an atheist (or the new euphemism: “bright“). Just because we don’t have the answers for existence, doesn’t mean we should simply give up and say, “well, there must be a higher power responsible”. That is quite lazy. There is an answer to be found.

Intelligent Design is another issue I was somewhat ambivalent about as well. While I do “believe” in evolution, I never considered the two to be mutually exclusive. The main argument behind ID is that the natural world is too complex to for it not to have been designed. But, based on the line of reasoning that complex things need to be designed, then the designer itself must also be complex (more complex than what it designed), and therefore it would need to have been “designed” as well. Then who designed the designer? This creates an infinite regress.

One of the chapters also covers material in the bible. It doesn’t take much to debunk the bible, but it is always entertaining to read some of the things in the old testament. Some of it is quite appalling as well. I really wish more Christians would actually read the bible. The ones I know, seem to know very little about the contents. They only know what has been cherry-picked for them by their respective church. I highly recommend “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine for the most thorough debunking of the bible. It’s the book that “saved” me from my religious upbringing.

The book covers many more topics about religion, but I won’t go over them all.

I would challenge anyone of faith to read this book.

Merry Winter Solstice!