Interesting Stuff

Tonight, Hansford, Rachel, this guy named Kyle and I were playing Scrabble (well, Hansford was playing guitar, but the 3 of us were playing Scrabble), and I actually did it – I got a 7-letter word! I built off of Kyle’s WEAR to make
SWEAR
P
O
N
G
E
D
Counting the various letter bonuses, and the 50-point bonus for using all of my letters, I scored 77 points that turn. I finished the game with 247 points. This is the first time I can remember having ever broken 200! Whee!
Ordinarily, I don’t even look for words that long, but my tiles were randomly arranged as SPONDEG, so it was easy to find this one. Once I found it, I didn’t have any place to put it (this was the 2nd turn of the game, and there were surprisingly no words that could have an S on the end). So, knowing that an extra 50 points awaited me, I passed, and got a 0 that turn. Rachel gave me a rather funny look at this point, which I probably deserved. But by the next turn, Kyle had played WEAR, and I had my chance. So, yeah. I’m pretty happy right now.

Last night, Mac, Hansford and I went to see Farenheit 9/11. In his usual style, Michael Moore discussed some things I already knew, and many I did not. It was a very intense, emotional movie, and at several points I was brought close to tears. However, this being Michael Moore, it should still be taken with a grain of salt (or as Travis said, a whole salt lick). I know that the part about the Bin Laden family still having contacts with Osama at the beginning was really edited – in early 2002 or thereabouts, I saw an episode of Larry King Live (is episode the right word? Can you have an “episode” of a talk show?) in which he interviewed Osama Bin Laden’s cousin. She said that yes, they really had kicked Osama out of the family. Nonetheless, there’s really nothing wrong with seeing estranged family members at weddings, funerals, and the like. Also, the Bin Laden family is so huge that it doesn’t surprise me at all that one or two members of it would have written to him once in a while.
I’ll have to go online sometime and read criticisms of F9/11, to learn what other things Moore has unrealistically portrayed.
One other thing I should mention about the movie – it is very emotional. So much so that I’m slightly reminded of the environmentalist movement, which uses emotion as a substitute for logic and fact. Yes, Moore puts many facts into his movie, but the emotion sort of obscures them. I wonder if the movie would be as controversial if he had scaled that back a little. But as Mac (playing devil’s advocate in the car ride home) argued, the movie is about people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a very emotional topic.
I’m rather amazed at some some of the footage in the film. There are scenes of raids in Iraq, there are scenes of President George W Bush having his makeup put on “before” he goes on camera. How does Michael Moore get these clips? If I were a large corporation/government and I owned footage like this, I would probably not share it.
All in all, it was a good movie, and I reccomend seeing it, but keep in mind that Michael Moore twists things to better illustrate his points. The arguments he makes seem to be mostly correct, just exaggerated a fair amount.

So, when Kai left, he gave me some of his leftover food, including a package of “haw flakes” (made with real haw!). Tonight, Hansford finally figured out what they are, by finding this website: http://www.cardhouse.com/a/pixbarn/p19.htm
Haw flakes are like fruit leather made from hawthorne fruit. However, it’s much dryer than fruit leather – haw flakes can chip easily, and I bet I could make one crumble. However, they’re pretty good! And unlike the website, I didn’t get any bad aftertaste or grating feeling. If nothing less, it’s an unusual thing to try.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&c=1&s=kennedy
Fucking Bush Administration. I’ve been following this for a while, but this article is a pretty good way to sum it all up (in a lengthy, not-so-summed-up sort of way). The Bush Administration has basically been saying “if the facts don’t agree with us, change the facts.” This is rather obvious with the situation in Iraq, the economy, and the US environmental policy (did you know that it is now legal to deposit mercury in landfills?). However, many people don’t seem to know that the administration has also been outright lying about science. Please, read this article, and spread the word to others! Most people don’t know that this is going on because they trust their government to tell them the truth (which, up until recently, has been a great thing to do. I hope I can trust it again soon).

It seems like every week, I read something new about how the current government is completely screwing up this country. For instance, the Supreme Court ruled a few weeks ago that it is legal for law enforcement to demand to see your ID, even if you are not suspected of any crime, and arrest you if you do not comply. The pertinent article is here. This sort of thing has happened before, but only in countries like the USSR, Hussein’s Iraq, and Nazi Germany.

It just makes me sick. When I graduate, if I can find a job outside the US, I will almost certainly take it. Everyone – whether or not you agree with me, learn what is going on in this country, and then vote in the upcoming election!! Don’t vote for someone because your parents (or neighbors, or government) say you should. Learn what is going on, learn who is doing what about it, and make up your own mind.

So, I happened to wander across this the other day, and was immensely entertained. To quote the Wikipedia article, “Discordianism has been discribed as both an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, and a religion disguised as an elaborate joke.” While I subscribe to the former belief, I can argue both equally well. The whole thing is full of light-hearted fun-poking at “real” religion, while also hinting at more profound insights. I suppose that the basic premise is that most religions strive for order and harmony in the world, and see chaos and discord as things to vanquish. Discordianism sees order and disorder as equally useful, and tries to use both for creative purposes, with a slight emphasis on disorder to counter everyone else’s focus on order. The main text is the Principia Discordia, which was written in roughly 1959, but has had revisions up through the ’70s. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“Common sense is what tells us that the world is flat.”
“We are not really esoteric; it’s just that nobody pays much attention to us.”
“A Discordian is Required during his early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday; this Devotive Ceremony to Remonstrate against the popular Paganisms of the Day: of Catholic Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism (no meat of Pork), of Hindic Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of animal), and of Discordians (no Hot Dog Buns).”

And a wonderful parable:
“A serious young man found the conflicts of mid 20th Century America confusing. He went to many people seeking a way of resolving within himself the discords that troubled him, but he remained troubled.
“One night in a coffee house, a self-ordained Zen Master said to him, “go to the dilapidated mansion you will find at this address which I have written down for you. Do not speak to those who live there; you must remain silent until the moon rises tomorrow night. Go to the large room on the right of the main hallway, sit in the lotus position on top of the rubble in the northeast corner, face the corner, and meditate.”
“He did just as the Zen Master instructed. His meditation was frequently interrupted by worries. He worried whether or not the rest of the plumbing fixtures would fall from the second floor bathroom to join the pipes and other trash he was sitting on. He worried how would he know when the moon rose on the next night. He worried about what the people who walked through the room said about him.
“His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as if in a test of his faith, ordure fell from the second floor onto him. At that time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man was sitting there was. The second replied “Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead.”
“Hearing this, the man was enlightened.”

To learn more, go to PrincipiaDiscordia.com or Wikipedia.

So I think it’s pretty neat. If I didn’t think that the world neede more atheists, I might consider claiming to be a discordian, but for the moment I am still staunchly atheist.

Well, the 2nd graphics card I got for the new monitor isn’t as great as I had hoped. I can see why the CS department was throwing it out. So this evening, I bought a new one, that should suit my purposes quite well. It’s a GeForce 2, so it’s by no means a bad card, though it’s far from good. But I’m not a high-end gamer, so I’m happy with it. It should arrive Monday-ish, and then I’ll finally have both monitors running at good resolution.

The 4th of July passed fairly uneventfully this year – there were fireworks in the evening, and that was fun, but not much else happened. I’m still slowly moving into the double. about half of the posters/other art is up, and almost all the big things are moved in. It’s really nice that I don’t have to move it all over 1 day, and that I can spread it out over a month. It’ll get done eventually.

Work has turned frustrating once again. I need to write 4 more FORTRAN subroutines, but these aren’t documented in the user manual (they’re mentioned in passing in a table). I have a sample file of what they might look like, but the comments are written in German. BabelFish has helped a bit, but not much, as it doesn’t do technical mathy words. And Prof. DePillis was out of the office, so I couldn’t ask her for help. Hopefully tomorrow. *sigh*…

Today is Rachel’s birthday, and everyone is here for it! Her family drove in from Texas, and Robert, Amanda, and John came to visit too. Last night we all (12 of us) went to Buca’s to celebrate, and it was wonderful. That place has such a fun atmosphere. And the food! We had a large enough group that we could order a bunch of things, and everyone could have a little of everything. We were all stuffed by the end. Then, we went back to Case, and talked and stuff. Then, Rachel had cookie-cakes for us to eat (I don’t know what they’re really called). It was a cookie that was the size of a large pizza. We each got a slice, and some ice cream. Things were pretty great. We played some pool, and I got to show off my mad jumping skillz (ok, they’re not mad, and barely skillful, but I can consistently jump the ball now! Aiming is another problem altogether, though…).

For the record, I did get one screen window up before Robert arrived. He was quite pleased with it, and I think it’s really nice. Rachel’s sister is sleeping over in Rachel’s room, so Robert slept in here. We know that I like the room warmer than him, but wow! The AC was blowing the entire night, and I was freezing. So today I made the chance discovery that the thermostat that we’ve been playing with only controls half of the AC in the library, including the air vent by my bed, but not the one by Robert. This explains why he thinks it’s so hot while I’m shivering. We’ll use the other thermostat today, and see if things improve.

Well, I’m slowly but surely moving my stuff out of Kenny’s room and into mine. I’ve gotten all of the important stuff out, and I’m going through the unimportant bits now. It’ll be done by the time summer is over (at least it better be – Kenny wouldn’t like moving in and finding my stuff all over).

On Tuesday, Andrew and I went to the ACBL sectionals tournament. We were in the stratified pairs competition, so we were only competing against other players with less than 20 masterpoints (I have 0 and Andrew has 5). We did pretty well – we took 5th place out of 7 partnerships overall, and took 2nd out of 3 in our stratification. I’d like to go back soon. We’ll see.

Mac bought the car he’s been looking at for a bit – it’s an offwhite Toyota pickup that seats 2 and a half. 4 cylinder engine with a lot of pick-up. I got to ride in it a bit because we did errands and bought stuff tonight. Food, power strips, and some mesh to make screens for the windows. It’s summer, so the bugs are out in force. Being a college student, I’m up late and keep my lights on after dark. Let me tell you, when the windows are open, the bugs come in droves! I figure that with mesh, velcro, and a liberal application of duct tape, I should be able to make screens for the windows and keep the place mostly bug-free. Robert is coming on Friday for Rachel’s birthday, so I hope I can do this by then. I doubt it, but it’s nice to have goals. As Douglas Adams once said, “I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.”

Oh! I now have 2 monitors hooked up to my computer! I got the 2nd monitor from Travis at the start of summer, and had been looking into getting a graphics card. Then, yesterday, Mac mentioned that the CS Staff had been cleaning out the machine room, and were going to throw out a bunch of 2nd-rate graphics cards, and I should go get one first. I only wanted a crappy one anyway, so I got it. The one I picked out happened to not work, but a second card did, and life is good. At 1024×768 it can only support 16bit color, but I don’t really care; I’m not using the 2nd monitor for raytracing or games.

On the academic side of things, Clair finally got DIRCOL up and working yesterday, so I can start building a model in that. Now I just need to talk to Prof. DePillis a little about the finer points of the system. Raugh thinks I will have a paper to publish by the end of the summer, but I’m not so sure. Time will tell. and it would be pretty neat. Tomorrow’s a Stouffer talk, so I won’t get too much done in the morning. Still, I’ll be getting paid to eat food and listen to a prof talk about what they’re doing this summer, which is always interesting.

So… yeah. All in all, life is pretty nice right now. Having said that, I’m going to sleep.

Well, I’ve been meaning to make one of these for a while, and I finally have. More to come soon!