A very good question on AskMeFi:

If someone walks into my classroom (filled with students) wielding a gun, what should I do? I have received no training or input in this area, and while I cannot imagine it ever happening at my school, if it ever does happen, I’d like to make sure myself and my children see the event through safely.

Some of the answers are also good.

This is quite helpful, in fact: Bush in this video pretty clearly explains what his job, as President, is (and is not) and what our job is, as well.

I just learned about Spoofee.com, a site that lists techie stuff at extreme bargain prices. They don’t sell it, they just explain how to get it. Here’s an example:

Samsung ML-2010 Laser Printer + Phone for $10 Shipped After Rebate

Staples.com has the Samsung ML-2010 Laser Printer for only $10 shipped after rebate.

1. Go to eBay and search/buy a $30 off $150 coupon (Search “staples 30 150″)
2. Samsung ML-2010: $129.98
3. Phone Price: $19.99
4. Add a paperclip, rubberband, or any filler to reach $150.
5. Apply $30 off $150 you got from eBay.
6. Printer Rebate Price: $90.00
7. Phone: $20 Rebate
Final Price: $10 + Cost of Coupon($3~$4)

Lots of similar bargains. Maybe even something you want…

And, suitably for Linux, the lessons are free. Linux seems to be spreading fairly steadily—it’s already taking over servers—so if you’re in a techy profession, it’s good to know at least something about it.

From Wikipedia you can download a whole list of classical music files in the .OGG format. And here’s a very nice free player that will play them.

Have a relaxing, classical afternoon.

This is pretty cool: BBC on-line has a language Quick Fix, where you select the language (menu at left) and then the situation (menu across top) and get a series of useful phrases that you can hear (click the loudspeaker) or download as an MP3.

Market timing is the (futile) attempt to make money off the stock market by timing your buying and selling to take advantage of market movements. Great idea, except that market movements are notoriously unpredictable. The chart above shows the results over a decade. If your timing somehow missed the 40 best days, you’d have a 3.23% loss, compared to a 12.09% gain if you got in and stayed in.

Howard Dean got a lot of criticism from the Democratic establishment for his 50-state strategy: attempting to put in place a Democratic party structure in all 50 states. A good idea, everyone agreed, except not now. Now, let’s just focus all our efforts on the critical few states. We’ll put the resources into the other states when things are about to turn—in a word, market timing.

But Dean went ahead with his 50-state strategy, and now, with the GOP rapidly imploding, he has created at least some structure in all 50 states: organizers and volunteers who can move into action and promote Democratic candidates during this totally unpredicted time of opportunity. Dr. Dean looks prescient now, simply because he wasn’t trying to time the election market.

I enjoyed an especially pleasant shave this morning. First was the shaving stick, from QED other products (scroll down): Mocha-Java (currently available only as a stick).

Ingredients: saponified 100% food grade coconut, palm, castor, & safflower oils, with kosher vegetable glycerin, soybean protein, aloe vera extract, and essential oils, including cocoa and arabica coffee essential oils.

Essential oils are the natural extracts—fragrant oils can include artificial fragrances.

A shaving stick—a stick of solid (and, in this case, dark brown) shaving soap—is rubbed against the grain over the entire wet beard. The lather is then built directly on and into the beard using a wet shaving brush—in this case, a new brush from Superior Brushes.

The brush was a 22mm Super badger knot set into a blue handle in the Persian Jar shape (#3 on this page). These very reasonably priced high-quality brushes are made by a couple of firefighters in Clovis NM. The brush was soft—like an Omega Silvertip—and held ample water to build a really superior lather.

I shaved with a Merkur Futur razor loaded with a Feather blade: exceptionally smooth shave, due in part to the soap and lather, in part to the razor design, in part to the sharpness of the blade, but mostly, of course, to my skill and technique. I have to say that I was transported by the wonderful fragrance of the lather.

One of the guys on the shaving forums had wondered about keeping the alum bar in the refrigerator so it would be cold against the face. I have to admit that I tried that, and it was a pleasant shock rubbing the cold bar over my freshly shaved face. (I know what you’re thinking: “Why not the freezer?” Right. I’m on it.)

A terrific way to start the day.

UPDATE: I used the Mocha-Java shaving stick again today. It really produces a great lather. A couple of points: when you’re rubbing it against the grain of your wet beard, be sure to cover your entire beard—everywhere—and scrub it in good.

Then, when you start to build the lather with your wet shaving brush, spend some time scrubbing the lather around and building it up—-you want to be sure your shaving brush is fully charged with lather for the later passes.

Once more: an unusually good shave. It must be that rubbing the soap directly into the beard softens it more than usual.