I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery.  One of the membership benefits is access to SafariBooksOnline.com, books24x7.com and elementK.com These online book services provide a large selection of current books with relevant topics that fall under Business, Personal Improvement, Engineering, IT and Technical areas.  These books, in my opinion, would be useful to just about any Information Technology or Computing professional.  One note: the selection is tailored for ACM members.  ElementK also provides online lessons for those who want to keep their programming or...

Yesterday, in my log I love teaching knots I forgot to mention the Sheet bend and the Sheep shank. Although these knots are used less frequently, they are very important knots too. The Sheet bend is used for joining two different sizes of rope together. The Sheep shank is used for shortening a rope without cutting it. The Sheep shank can also be used to temporarily work around a damaged part of a rope without losing the ropes strength. While writing this article I found two websites that had some pretty good examples of tying these knots. I Will Knot! – has little video snippets that...

Over the years, I have taught many different scouting skills to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts between 9 to 18 years old.  One of my favorite subjects to teach is knot tying. One of the main reasons knot tying is my favorite, is because once someone learns the basics, they will be able to tie more difficult knots based on the foundations they’ve already learned. The square knot is one of those classics that every scout learns first. The knots based on the half hitch are: Clove Hitch Two-half hitches Taut-line hitch The timberline hitch is one of those knots that is simple once the knot...