Unfortunate

The loss of the Cavendish would be a severe blow, as I do so love bananas.

God Jul

The Darkest of Winters

[instrumental]

So, I finally found a use for my Moleskine notebook: I wrote down stuff I was going to blog about. Here they are, in no particular order:

Keeping a notebook nearby is infinitely handy. Being able to write down everything running through my head (in this case, a myriad number of events that I'd been meaning to blog about) enables me to feel relieved knowing I'm not going to forget some important detail. I plan on using my Moleskine much more often once I get a pack of sexy Pilot very fine rollerball pens.

Besides the notebook, one thing I took to using much more often is the ever-useful sticky note. Sticky notes let me remember tiny random tasks that I needed to do as well as provide a much-needed catharsis once the task was completed via tearing it down and crushing it in my fist. I plan on using them much more often next semester to help my rein in my homework and project habits and Get Things Done.

Being at home now with lots of free time enables me to reflect back on the previous semester and realize how marginally awful it was. Although it seemed to finish before it started, it feels like I did far less work this semester than before; spring semester last year I busted my ass doing Physics work and everything while this semester I ended up skipping lots of (admittedly worthless) classes and studying less. This lack of work accurately reflects my grades for this semester, which, while not awful, are certainly not representative of the work I can do. I'm absolutely positive that I can do well if I put my mind to it due to my ability to perform very well on finals that I actually study for; it seems I ended up doing best on my math final out of all the tests in the class even though it was cumulative, and the same goes for EECS 281 even though the answers weren't spoon-fed to us this time. I must say, though, I'm still jealous of people - say, in the Biochemistry department - who get to take lots of classes with either no final exam or a non-cumulative final. As far as I know, I'm going to be rocking five finals next semester.

Now that school is out, however, I can enjoy the wonderfully wintry weather in Ohio (currently consisting of an overcast sky and 40° weather - it rained yesterday) and the absence of Laura and my fellow Case undergrads. I still have a few topics to touch on, but many days of winter break left. Let's not rush it, yeah?

Postscript: Demetri Martin is hilarious.

That Last Hand Nearly Killed Me

Finals done. At home. Posts later (got a list).

For the Record

I despise humanity.

I Was Born to Go Down Fighting

So yeah.

Via the omnipresent Digg: Vista is here. Who cares?

I just finished my first class of the semester, USSY 220 Digital Storytelling. All in all, not a bad course and I wouldn't mind reccommending it to other people. It's fairly work-free as far as seminars go. Plus, you get to make goofy videos (I'll resize my group's and post it eventually). The rest of the semester's classes shall proceed to pass into the night with nary a care. All I care about now is a.) finishing the season of Heroes so far and b.) exams.

Time now for c.) sleep.

Give Thanks

Eat well, everyone.

I Need Ten Pounds of Modafinil

Okay, make it twenty.

There's got to be some catch... I just don't believe that there's a pill that just lets us decide we only need to sleep every other day and our body plays right along. Not that I wouldn't love something to pull me through the next few weeks of class, but I can barely afford college, let alone amphetamines.

Also, Picard > Kirk.

And It Begins

Now I begin the arduous task of composing a rough draft for my twelve-page SAGES research paper, which includes poring through at least five books on psychology (a subject I've never taken a class on, much less written a paper about).

WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE.

Vista and PNRP

A day or two old, but interesting: every Vista computer can (via the magic of PNRP and IPv6) have its own domain name. Basically, anyone using Vista can relatively easily host their own website with a domain name using IIS, as well as access anyone else's website who is doing the same.

I'm sure someone will try hosting some awesome site with no router and their firewall turned off and no antivirus...

Chumby: Hackerdom Comes Full Circle

I stumbled upon this article at NewsForge while trawling Google Reader and immediately became interested. I'd heard about the chumby earlier when viewers of Diggnation learned that Kevin Rose was one of the lucky recipients of a test model. What really interested me, however, was this (admittedly long) quote:

"We've taken a very different approach to creating a consumer electronic device," [head of software Duane Maxwell] says. "Rather than layering DRM and fighting a losing war with hackers attempting to repurpose the device, we've decided to trust the community to an extraordinary degree. The anti-DRM crowd has waved the 'trust the customer' banner for a few years now to no avail, but we're actually going to do just that. At this point, the hackers, developers, and users can destroy chumby by doing exactly what the big media companies are deathly afraid of. So this is a grand experiment in trust to which we've committed our careers and millions of dollars."

The first thing that struck me, besides how damn cool the chumby is, is that they are essentially offering a framework - a do-it-yourself kit. I was immediately reminded of the beginnings of personal computing as we know it, when hobbyists of the 1970s were able to build their own computers from parts readily available at Radio Shack and other places and subsequently program the machines themselves. Software was distributed on discs and in magazines. It was a golden age of sharing and invention. Not too long ago I read an article involving an interview with Steve Wozniak and the history of Apple and various things like how Segways are awesome; the pertinent point was that the reason the Apple took off is that it stripped away the hobbyist element and allowed anyone with a wad of cash to have their own gosh-darned, working, mainstream computer in their home, no soldering or programming experience necessary. Now, thirty years later, companies are innovating by returning to the hobbyist roots of computing.

"Grand experiment in trust"? Please.

If you let them build it, they will come.

Rumsfeld to Step Down

More big news breaking; Rummy will step down after six years at the Pentagon.

Also, Keith Olbermann

He asks the questions that need to be asked.

Pertinent quote:

Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more.

He’ll get out faster than we will.

Here's to two years of Bush complaining how Congress won't let him pass bills anymore.

Midterm Election 2006

So, the results are mostly in. Notable:

• Strickland defeats Blackwell for governorship of Ohio.



• Sherrod Brown takes the Senate seat of Mike DeWine.



• Issue 2, raising the minimum wage, passed by a good margin, as did Issue 5 (SmokeFree Ohio).



• Issue 3, bringing gambling to Ohio, failed, as did Issue 4; both lost by a fairly wide margin.

Pretty exciting stuff. Now, control of the Senate hinges on the results of the Montana and Virginia races. Unfortunately for the voting public, the Virginia election probably won't be known for weeks as it's almost certain to be recounted a billion times (hello Florida?). At least the House is pretty concrete now.

Looks like the terrorists win this time, Mr. Bush.

New Vistas

I downloaded Vista 5744 and am currently trying it out on my Inspiron. All I can say is, it runs a crapton better than the first release candidate did and actually includes drivers for most of my hardware. Quake 3 won't run, though...

So, birthday. I guess I'm 20 years old now. My mom and sisters came to Case and brought some goodies as well as a present and birthday cake. The present was a pair of AKG K81DJ headphones, which are performing admirably. We then went shopping for random odds and ends (a new umbrella since my old one got shredded via wind, and new warm slippers), followed by dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I then proceeded to have the most expensve steak I've ever eaten. Spoiler: it was delicious.

Laura got me a Digg t-shirt, which is awesome.

Now to continue doing nothing...

Content

Also, happy birthday to me. Recap at end of day, possibly.

Content-Free

I was debating whether I wanted to use my Vox blog or this one. Vox seems nice but seems too group- or family-oriented and MySpace-y in the whoring of audio and movies, which is kind of a turn-off. I guess I'll be sticking with trusty Blogger from now until whenever.

Some Notes

• To the person now in posession of my laundry bag: you're welcome.


• To the accursed electric drying machines that utterly failed to dry my vestments: curse you.


• To my courses and their myriad professors: curse you guys, too. For serious.


• fenixdrakken@11:31 PM: our quote never made it on bash.org did it
  

  supcolono@11:31 PM: fuck them

A Perspective on Customer Support

Fixing computers I can do. Taking calls I can do. Talking to people I can do.

What I can't do is confront people who call asking like I have the entire work history of the company because they are very important and we had an appointment with them and this would be a disaster if it weren't academia and I'm tech support, why can't I help them?

I fix computers, I'm not Raptor Jesus.

Ludicrosity

New bill contains provisions detailing exactly why it cannot be declared illegal to pass. In fact, pointing out the obvious and stating that it is a breach of democracy to bypass judicial review could land you in jail by breaching your allegiance to President Bush.

This game sucks.

Migraines also suck.

One game that does not suck, however, is Company of Heroes. Although it's the same group that made Dawn of War, Company of Heroes just seems more... awesome and less of a chore. It's hard to explain but it involves lots of awesome.

This is my second week working with PerceptIS (I started last Monday morning). It's... interesting. Dealing with users is always a good time, like the ones who turn their computer in on a Friday afternoon and come in Monday complaining their computer's not done yet... ahem. At least it's money, and I'm "in" the "industry" (inasmuch as technical support and counseling is the real "industry"). Woot.

I Know Kung Fu

Fearless: great martial arts movie or greatest martial arts movie?

Lazy Afternoon

Just when I thought I had nothing to blog about, I find this [maybe NSFW].

I want a Wii.

Shiny New Coating

So I switched the blog over from Blogger to the new beta. Since the template had to be converted I just decided to redo it. It looks pretty.

Addendum

I told Alex I'd post this:

Joe Wojciechowski: dude
Joe Wojciechowski: have you seen facebook
Alex Van Valkenburgh: NSA got to it
Joe Wojciechowski: oya
Joe Wojciechowski: i must be the only person who likes the new homepage
Alex Van Valkenburgh: i don't really care one way or another about how it changed
Alex Van Valkenburgh: you can kill every one of the things it says you did, anyway
Joe Wojciechowski: yeah
Joe Wojciechowski: it's really dumb
Joe Wojciechowski: this is true 1984
Alex Van Valkenburgh: NSA?
Joe Wojciechowski: facebook introduces a feature that, essentially, shows in gory detail exactly what you're putting out there on the internet
Joe Wojciechowski: and people want to revert it back to when they thought they had some semblance of privacy
Joe Wojciechowski: even though all of the privacy settings are 100% the same
Alex Van Valkenburgh: :D
Joe Wojciechowski: "oh noes suddenly people can see all the public stuff i'm doing on the internet"
Alex Van Valkenburgh: yeah, it doesn't show you anything you couldn't find out before
Alex Van Valkenburgh: not like "sent a private message to ___"
Joe Wojciechowski: the main complaint is that now it's "too easy" to find stuff out
Joe Wojciechowski: huh?
Alex Van Valkenburgh: :D
Joe Wojciechowski: so why sign up
Alex Van Valkenburgh: it should be like "this dude viewed pictures of this chick for an inordinately long period of time, leading to only one conclusion"
Joe Wojciechowski: what's the point if you're going to make changes for your friends to find out, but want to make them dig for it
Joe Wojciechowski: why not just say "you did X"
Joe Wojciechowski: because you did
Joe Wojciechowski: you fucker
Joe Wojciechowski: you fucking idiot
Alex Van Valkenburgh: :D
Joe Wojciechowski: god
Joe Wojciechowski: just pisses me off how hypocritical people are
Joe Wojciechowski: and such a large portion of the userbase, too
Joe Wojciechowski: they're perfectly fine using a social website just as long as nothing they do socially is posted
Joe Wojciechowski: ok
Alex Van Valkenburgh: :D

That basically says it.

Democracy In Action: Facebook and Privacy

I suppose that a false sense of privacy is better than none at all: Facebook has altered its privacy settings to allow people to put whatever in and take whatever out of their newsfeeds they want. I for one won't be altering mine, and it's kind of unfortunate that people will be forcing other people to dig through their profiles again to see what's going on. Once again, the privacy settings Facebook has implemented add no privacy, it simply rearranges your stuff back to when it was hard to find (when you had the illusion of privacy). If that's your bag, congratulations, you do not understand the point of a social networking website.

Hopefully most people will just turn off the timestamps and be done with it.

Spamalot

Starting a few months ago, there's been a glut of spam coming to Case email addresses (seemingly some spambot crawled and discovered case-campus at case.edu). The funny thing is, it's not spam - just random stupid emails with image attachments. Here's an example:

Subject: NASA
From: Felice Stanford (hkb@sjol.net) to case-campus

His soul may pass out of his bodywithout having any consciousness of the fact. This need of the soulis the desire to know the fundamental truths and meaning of the Universe.
And all the evils to which these twin monstershave given birth will perish with their begetters.
These two functions are sometimes found together present in one and thesame individual. Philip frequently uses the symbol of the Rose inspeaking of the Sangreal jewel. His birth, death and resurrectionrepresent the seasons.
It is quite true that executions were not carried out during the Feasts. THE SCATTERING OF THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTOn which day was the Lamb sacrificed?
This gave him theactual vision that he carried with him to his dying day. Now youknow the time at which it all happened. Now youknow the time at which it all happened. It was brought to Joseph by the Spirit of the Christ Himself. John hathtestified to all of us; that he hath seen this take place. It is possible that the narrative about Moses in Exod. The early converts to Christianity were most of them persons ina humble position in life. Inthe ordinary course of events they would not have been taken out beforethe nine days were ended.
It is possible that the narrative about Moses in Exod. The spiritual signs which come into the world come of necessityin material shape. And if the Spirit so wills it, more maybe given to anything that is precious to it.
This need of the soulis the desire to know the fundamental truths and meaning of the Universe. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition. We may conclude that the Two Tables ofthe Testimony are part of his work for Moses. It is a holyrelic and it carried with it much of the human and Divine association ofthe Christ.
We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition. The spiritual signs which come into the world come of necessityin material shape. His birth, death and resurrectionrepresent the seasons.
We may conclude that the Two Tables ofthe Testimony are part of his work for Moses.
Ye see the symbolof this in my own land in the Death of Narcissus. In moments of great emotion, Thought may create a reality greaterthan action can.
I have told you what happened at the Last Supper. Ye do know the Word that now be in the Holy Writ:THEY PARTED MY GARMENTS, CASTING LOTS.
The Spirit is not matter as is the body of a man.
The spiritual signs which come into the world come of necessityin material shape.
Strangelyenough, it reappears in our own day.
Bezaleel and Aholiab are mentioned as being inspired. Christ was sent into the world tofulfil His course as all men must. Elisha asked for a harpist, and as this minstrel played,the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha. Now as to these two functions needed for the Visitation of the Spirit ofKnowledge and.
Strangelyenough, it reappears in our own day.

Ok.

I am very tired. THEY PARTED MY GARMENTS, CASTING LOTS.

Headache

There are three simple steps to defeating a mid-day headache:

1.) Food

2.) Caffeine

3.) Drugs

Mix copious amounts of the above and intake rapidly for relief.

It's Really, Really Big

Hot damn, do I want one.

Another one, that is.

In other news, classes are boring and I have homework I'm avoiding.

In more other news, lots of idiots are up in arms over the recent Facebook changes since their perceived privacy has been blown away like the thin veil it was. More on that later.

Success Story: Or, How I Learned to Love Blogging in Class

what's she talking about

So I Have A Blog

Yup.

Summer is progressing slowly. I'm really kind of happy to be going back to school soon, except for the endless worry of needing money to funnel into the "Most Powerful Learning Environment in the World". I miss Laura. Work is boring but tolerable. I only wish I'd looked for some job at the university. Hopefully I can work something out with PerceptIS via Thomas and via my vast and limitless knowledge of OS X (kidding).

As a general announcement, I have a webserver running now on my desktop. If it's on, you can access it at http://fdrakken.homedns.org. Currently it's just a mirror of the site that exists already at http://filer.case.edu/~jxw139 but I may come up with some original content soon, like maybe an internet forum (a la uber (RIP uber (pours 40 on dirt))), imageboard (a la 4ch), or homebrew photo gallery. Maybe I'll even roll my own blog software \m/. Chances are I'll have it down most of the time now, though, since I much prefer using the wired connection on my iMac rather than our tenuous wireless connection. Soon the wireless router will know my fury.

I'm also addicted to Lost, thanks to Laura. Time to plow through more season two...

Hi

I am not dead.

For Aiur

It's got a funny name, but check out www.savetheinternet.com. Net neutrality is for serious doods.

Finale

Okay, someone was bugging me to update, so I guess I will.

School year #1 is officially over. Final grades:

Calc III: A
SAGES: A
Photography Studio I: A
Physics I: B
Chem. of Materials: C

At least I'm done with chemistry now and can actually focus on classes that have real information.

So basically my time now has been spent worrying over what to do for a summer job. Basically, I have no idea what's good to do or where's good to go to. All jobs kinda suck. I'm hoping I can get some sort of job at Case next semester or maybe apply for a job with PerceptIS. I'm trying to both convince myself to look for a job ASAP and put it out of my mind so I stop worrying, which isn't very conducive to fixing the situation or putting money in my pocket. Hopefully an opportunity will present itself.

Miserable Failure

Not so much.

Still awaiting grades in three of my classes; hopefully they will be the As I require.

The last couple weeks have been rather hectic, involving much more studying than I've ever done for anything before. Hopefully, all those hours spent in the library chugging Mountain Dew will pay off (I've probably had around ten liters of Dew in the last week or so).

Summer quickly approaches...

Nintendo Wii

Long time no Wii.

According to IGN via Digg, the Revolution is officially the Nintendo Wii.

I am overwhelmed with ambivalence.

Advent

Now this is how a slow day should go. Sure I was tired at class this morning, but the rest of the day made up for it. I did basically nothing after class, ate with Laura, did nothing again, and then went to the photography lab for a few hours. I was able to finish mounting all five of my prints. This means I'll have nothing to do in class Thursday besides show up and turn in my projects.

Afterwards was a late and somewhat unfulfilling dinner, but then came the crux of the day: ultimate frisbee. We got raped and my jeans are grass-stained, but it was great fun nonetheless (not to mention the best workout I've had in a while). Back to the dorm we went, where I watched House and subsequently joined Vaso and Jon in banging our heads against the last physics homework of the semester. Nothing notable resulted, but at least we gave it a shot.

It's odd; today was both a full and yet relaxing day. I feel very little stress about the coming weeks of school. Here's hoping the levee holds.

On Death

It's been one week today since my dad passed away here at our house and things are almost returning to a sense of normalcy. It feels more comfortable being at home now, though, knowing that my family (especially my mom) needs me now more than ever. We spent a few hours last night talking about the future, about insurance money and college plans and fixing nagging house problems, and I feel a lot better about the future now than I did before. I know it won't be a smooth road, but it won't (shouldn't) be a horrible trial either.

It's just different.

Epidemic

Everyone in the world is getting sick. It started with Jon and proceeded to Vaso and now a bunch of people on our floor. Somehow, though, both Vaso and Laura have whatever's going around, yet it hasn't transferred itself to me yet. My immune system's power is awesome.

I've simply been tired often, despite getting more sleep than usual this week (possibly somehow related to Daylight Savings Time). Yesterday was fairly bad, although I think I'm gradually getting better to adapting to a heavy workload. I was effectively engaged from 9:30 AM to 9:00 PM: class from 9:30 until 12:20, then lunch, a nap to survive the rest of the day, helping Laura with photography, SAGES, dinner, and physics lab. Lab was actually a relief, though, as it seemed crazy-short. We actually spent extra time in lab after we finished the data collection to perform the analysis, so effectively all we need to do is write the report rather than finishing half the lab the day before it's due.

As for other work: my previous roll of film actually developed fine last week, but I boned up the prints I was making. Fortunately, I think I'll have every project finished (developed) as of tonight, and I'll just have to print the results. In theory, it shouldn't take very long at all (barring any more stupidity on my part like dirty negatives). Here's hoping I can pull an A in this class because I think it'll be likely that I drop to a B in Calculus.

Our Engineering test today wasn't nearly as hilarious as the previous two due to me actually having a small inkling of the material we had covered (though a few problems were complete stumpers - ENGR 145 is interesting in that you can do very very well just by having a lot of equations at your disposal and plugging in stuff but do very very poorly if you forget that one equation you thought you didn't need but is half the test material). At least I'll do better than the 55.4% I collected on last Friday's physics exam - I'll let the professor deal with that when the time comes to curve the class (class average for that test: 46%). The only things I have to deal with in the next week or so are photography tonight, a physics lab report which will be a piece of cake, and a SAGES paper due Monday on who-knows-what; I have yet to decide the topic. I'm looking forward to getting done with all of my work and everyone getting less disease ridden.

Classwork aside, the biggest news of the last few days is Apple's release of the Boot Camp public beta. Apple-sanctioned Windows XP on MacBooks = woot. Windows XP, with appropriate drivers, apparently runs about as well as a comparably powerful Windows laptop. This is excellent news; none of this Virtual PC stuff any more. All I require now is a MacBook and I'll be set.

Also, my fantasy baseball team needs to play better. First place for a day left me with a desire for fresh blood / home runs.

A Success

Our feature presentation:

[00:19:46] Thomas Ramps: do you have a C:/CLDMA.LOG
[00:20:11] Fenix Drakken: no
[00:20:26] Thomas Ramps: then i wonder why i have an 12GB one

Went to Mongolian Barbecue tonight with my sister. It was delicious, like usual. I've been so lazy this weekend, but I've had absolutely no inclination to do any kind of work (plus I have a growing Oblivion addiction nipping at my heels). I guess it's not too bad... all I have to do this week is Engineering homework for Tuesday, a physics lab report for Wednesday, and a physics test Friday (which will bring the bonage). That seems to be a recurring issue - I lack the ability to have any sort of fun with my free time due to my constant worrying about not doing stuff. Oh well.

Time to continue the lethargy.

Oblivion

The game has been obtained via Case.

Aside from that, this is news to me: Microsoft delays Vista until January 2007. Sucks.

I saw V for Vendetta last night at Valley View and was pretty impressed with it. Hugo Weaving is still a great actor even without the use of his face, and Natalie Portman showed that she can actually perform in a moton picture with some form of emotion (she was good too).

Unfortunately, I have both SAGES and physics lab tonight. I require sleep.

This Could Make Me Like Battlefield Again

...if I had a computer able to play it: Battlefield 2142. Looks like Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun. Friggin' awesome.

Dream Theater '06

\m/

Tonight was my first time seeing Dream Theater in concert. I have to say, I was not disappointed. My back hurts from standing, my throat hurts from singing and my ears hurt from the music, but it was the best three hours ever. They played a history of their music starting way back in 1985 with a song they wrote while they were still Majesty (a song I didn't recognize, actually) all the way up until the closer, Octavarium. I was kind of surprised they finished with Octavarium; I figured they'd save it for the final show at Radio City Music Hall where they might have an orchestra. It was amazing nonetheless. LaBrie sounded amazing too; I'm glad his vocal cords have finally healed. He really slammed every note.

I'm friggin' tired. Here's to another twenty years of Dream Theater.

Oh Snap: Hundert Resigns

This is it, folks: in the face of a successful vote of no-confidence, President Hundert has officially tendered his resignation, effective September 1st, 2006. The Board of Trustees accepted his resignation and will begin the process of selecting a new president before his term is officially over. His letter of resignation in full is online at CasePoint (probably only temporarily).

The times, they are a-changin'.

Hail of Bullets

More assorted junk for the day.

• There appears to be a winner to the WinXP on Mac contest, wherein someone will win a cash pool for proving they have successfully booted Windows XP on a new Intel Mac. Unfortunately, I can't see this being very useful for the average Joe who just wants to dual-boot, but it's nice to know that it can be done anyways.



• Someone took the sounds from the classic Mario games and added them to the Gogo fight from Kill Bill Vol. 1. Hilarity ensues.



• [via Digg] Apparently, the jalapeño component capsaicin is lethal to certain forms of cancer. Ouch. I guess all those Quaker Steak wings really do help after all. Boy, are the side effects bad, though.



• Finally, from the Traumatically Ironic department, a deaf girl was hit by a train while text-messaging her family. From TFA:

  McAvoy was walking northbound along the railroad ties, with her back to the train as it approached, said Austin Police Department detective David Fugitt.

  ...

  A snowplow -- commonly referred to as "cattle-guards" for pushing items away from the tracks to avoid train damage -- was what struck McAvoy, who was estimated to be "no more than a foot" from the tracks, Fugitt said.

  Oops.

Hopefully since all the doods from OSU are arriving back today we'll be able to have some sort of shindig tonight. Tomorrow I have to do some homework and maybe pack for a bit, since I'll effectively be leaving Friday afternoon due to a sleepover at Alex's and the impending Fakeball draft (which I've done zero planning for). Then Saturday I go right from Alex's to pick up Laura at the airport, then we head back to Case where I can prepare for the Dream Theater concert the next day. Phew.

More coffee...

Another Non-Beta

Google Desktop has just left beta. So that's what, like two non-beta products they've "shipped"? Still, neat.

Website Update

I just updated my website with a link to some music that I've created in my spare time. It's kind of techno and kind of suck, so beware / please download it.

Boredom Overwhelms

Not much going on the last couple days. Been reading House of Leaves regularly, although it's absurdly slow reading due to the nature of the print.

Hmm, what has been going on? Interesting personal things, to be sure, but this is not the place.

• Slobodan Milosevic died in his prison cell awaiting the finishing of his trial. A slew of news resulted, most involving the strange nature of the drugs he did and did not take.



• Conditions in Iraq are going down the shitter.



• Menstrual blood is apparently a great source of stem cells.

Now, to resume reading / thrashing in anticipation of the Dream Theater concert Sunday.

Spring Break

Wow. I just checked my Engineering 145 grade on a whim... and discovered that I didn't fail the last exam after all. In fact, after extra credit, I got an 83%. This means I'm officially getting a B in 145. Ridiculous!

I went to Borders today since my mom wanted to get a book. I ended up getting House of Leaves. Seems to be quite an interesting book.

My ability to obtain rest is totally broken. I slept for eight or so hours last night and all I've wanted to do all day is pass out. Seems like it's a bad idea to run on four hours of sleep a night for a week.

Oh, what a week.

(Dis)Approval Rating

Just felt that this was somewhat relevant. Not the usual content of this blog, but entertaining nonetheless.

Also it's fucking 4:24 AM thanks to five hours of physics homework. Thank god we go on break after tomorrow.

I want a MacBook Pro.

Physics and Firefox

Six hours of physics lab finished.

Cool hax: Firefox 2.0 Alpha 1 should arrive soon. Wewt.

Futurama time.

I'm So Tired (Haven't Slept A Wink)

Seven hours of sleep in two days...

Physics lab is due tomorrow. I'm attempting to pound it out now, as a three-shot grandé mocha pumps through my arteries. Wish me luck.

Microsoft Backs Away?

Microsoft appears to be backing down from the aggressive search stance they took against Google not a few days ago. It certainly seemed like they were barking up the wrong tree on that one.

No Confidence

Wooo, we hate our administration. The faculty commenced a vote of no confidence in Case President Edward Hundert (passing 131-44) and Provost John Anderson (passing 97-68), though the exact ramifications of this remain unclear as of yet. Essentially, it means that the faculty at Case has no faith in the administration any longer.

Unfortunately, it may not (read: likely will not) have any effect on the running of the university as it currently is; the president, love him or hate him, simply implements whatever policies the Board of Trustees pays him to implement. As the Board of Trustees is the only body that can remove Hundert, and he's doing his job for them very well, it seems very unlikely that any sort of noticable change will occur in the (mis)administration of Case for some time.

Sigh.

As a completely unrelated note, Engineering 145 is worthless.

Newsvine Out of Beta

Excellent news: Newsvine has finally completed its eight-week beta and is freely accessible. In short, Newsvine is sort of a Digg for general news: Associated Press articles, plus user-created and user-endorsed news. Definitely looks like a daily to-read to me; I plan to hit it as often as I Digg.

W-W-W-Wednesday: Microsoft

Woo, Wednesday night. I get to sleep in tomorrow, then finish my photography stuffs and do Physics homework.

Some interesting stuff:

• So, the Origami rumors were true. Could be interesting - but tablet PCs are old hat now. Maybe I'm just jaded, but I'm much more excited for an Apple tablet/slate than anything Microsoft could dish up.



• Also, Microsoft claims that it will surpass Google in six months. From TFA:

  "What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
  
  "The quality of our search and the relevance of our search from a solution perspective to the consumer will be more relevant," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.

  Everyone knows that Google's been a thorn in the side of Microsoft for years, but can they really back this up? Do people actually want Microsoft's search? I honestly haven't used anything but Google for my searches in what must be years. I just don't see a reason.



• Lastly, yet more loony allegations from the RIAA. Some day, they'll understand - but for now, it's much too entertaining to watch them flail about and sue grandmothers and nonsense.

We shall see what the rest of the night brings.

Headache

Boringness.

Also, the guys at PA won this. It's awesome.

Amerikkka

Just related to me by Alex: apparently, the best way to get information on people is to ask them for it. How quaint.

Bah

I would've posted earlier but the internets were not moving in my favor.

New Apple products, yay. Intel Mac Minis, software updates, leather iPod cases (for a whopping $99), and the iPod Hi-Fi all were announced. Still waiting for more laptops...

I made prints for one of my projects today at the photo lab and they turned out okay. They're, uh... mostly grey, but probably usable. Oh well. I blame the limitations of greyscale photography. Oh yeah, and I left my Case ID at the photo lab (sign-in requirement is to leave your ID with the assistant) and didn't realize it until I was back at north-side. So, we had to run all the way back down to the lab to get my ID and run all the way back. Hooray, I feel like death.

I'll probably have to start Physics homework tonight too. Bah.

No Means No

Slow Tuesday.

I made it to my recitation on time, handed in my homework and took an easy quiz. Success. Later I get to go back to the photography lab and do two more prints; only then will my midterm be a success.

Developing photos sucks.

Also, our housing form was turned in today by I. Hopefully all will go as planned and we'll all get Clarke Tower. I don't want to be stuck on South Side...

Pure Morning

Continuing the song titles... it's late, and here are some quickies.

• The Playstation 3 will apparently be delayed again as Sony tries once more to force its proprietary media format on an unsuspecting market. The DVD format wars are getting to be even more ridiculous than the +/- debacle of yesteryear.



• Speaking of debacles, instead of creating a simple-to-understand, definitive version to buy, Microsoft has proclaimed that Windows Vista will have no less than six boxed formats available for purchase. Honestly, we've got things called DVDs now. Linux can somehow cram more setups than you can shake a stick at on only one disc (though, given, Linux is much more segmented and chop-friendly than Windows could ever aspire to be). Now we need six separate, empirically different versions of the same operating system? I can only imagine this being a support nightmare as the techie on the phone tries frantically to figure out the differences between Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium.



• From the Who-Didn't-See-This-Coming Dept. comes news that, due to financial difficulties (surprise!), the Phantom game console has been put on hold for an indeterminate period of time while they lose money elsewhere. I can't believe Penny Arcade didn't get wind of this earlier and really dig into them, knowing their history with Infinium Labs.

That's all for tonight. I'll already likely be sleeping through my recitation this morning, though I desperately need the information. We shall see what transpires in the later morn.

Tripwire Garden

Little to talk about.

Wang showed me a game he discovered based on the hidden minigame in Project Gotham Racing 2 called Geometry Wars. The game's called Grid Wars, and it's addictive as all hell. The description that everyone seems to agree on is "Asteroids on crack", the first thing I said to Wang when he showed me it (we then Googled a review of it and the summary was exactly "Asteroids on crack", by an interesting coincidence; in fact, a review of Geometry Wars is the first search result for "Asteroids on crack"). Just goes to show that gameplay is once again > graphics.

In other news, Google now offers a hosting service for members of Gmail. 100mb of space, ad-free... sounds like a deal to me. This essentially doubles my available web space (including the 100mb provided by my university), which is certainly nice. What'd be even better is to scrounge up another hard drive and run my own web server, but Case's outgoing speed may be prohibitive to that sort of endeavor...

Regardless, I have reading to do for SAGES now that requires my attention more than the intertron. With photography trouble and now drama with regards to our housing situation for next year, things have been a bit hectic. Time to sit back and fall asleep doing my reading assignment.

Fotografía

Stress...

I realized upon developing my latest roll of film that I'll have to redo one of my projects and fiddle with another to get a workable picture. Photography is definitely my most stressful class, for some reason. I'm pretty confident in Physics, Calc and SAGES now, and I don't really care about Engineering 145 one way or the other. It's a bullshit class for a Comp. Sci., anyways.

I'm slowly but surely working on code for MY WEBSIGHT. I've always been meaning to learn CSS, but I never really had any reason to because all free hosting system available sucked. Now I've got university bandwidth to waste, plus possibly a Google Page for extra storage. I might as well dig into PHP, too, while I'm at it... maybe SQL if I'm feeling daring. Not like the resources aren't available to me here to learn it.

Today I am to develop pictures after classes... hopefully they'll turn out better than the last batch. Fingers crossed.

1, 2, 3

This is a test of the emergency civil liberty removal system. Anything you say can and will cause us to destroy your home and kill your family. You cannot run, and you cannot hide. Bend over.