Who is Darfur?

Today I went to a rally concerning the ongoing genocide in Darfur. I joined Luke, Michelle, and Megan to sell copies of The Easiest Best Thing Is Be Kind, an anthology of poetry and prose related to the ongoing events. Luke collected new and used works from his counterculture heroes and some friends (myself included).

The event was held at a temple/synagogue-type place, apparently right in the sanctuary. There appeared to be some detachable wall-type things to enlarge the room, and so when "Deadheads for Darfur" set up their booth, they (we) were all the way in the back corner. Well, all the booths were in the back, but we were next to the pizza booth. At our own booth, besides copies of the book, there was a posterboard with information on the Darfur conflict, and there were also paper dolls for kids (and bored teenagers like us) to cut out and color for an Illinois schoolteacher's project to amass 400,000 of the little guys in order to pressure Barack Obama into making a stand. Whew.

Anyway, there was a range of speakers there, mostly from other houses of worship, mostly from churches. But they all talked about how we should really do something about Darfur. There were choirs, guitarists, lecturers, people playing videos, and more. There was even a visit from our friend, newly elected Congressman Ron Klein. We had last seen him a few months ago at a rally where he was campaigning to get elected. After that rally, Luke asked him the hard-hitting questions about Darfur, so this rally seemed like a good time for him to follow up.

Luke went to one of the wings to keep an eye on the Congressman as he sat next to the lectern. But when he wasn't looking, Klein followed a cameraman out a side door. When we told Luke about it, he went to pursue the politician right away. After all, he probably wasn't leaving. Judging by the person he was accompanying, he was probably doing an interview. And that's what Luke found him getting ready to do. He presented Klein with a free copy of the book, with his home address written on a piece of paper inside. Pretty creepy? Oh yeah. Most people just write their Congressman a letter. But will it be effective? Probably more so than usual.

As for the book itself: Even though there were a lot of people at the event, we only managed to sell 10 copies, one of which was bought by my mom. Hopefully Luke (and the rest of us, if he wants our help) can sell the other 90 or so at school. And of course, you can always buy a copy in paperback ($10 US) or hardcover ($20) online. One hundred percent of the proceeds go to the Save Darfur Coalition in Washington, DC. I'm hoping that a little plug on my site will draw more attention to the book and the cause that it represents. The header graphic will be seen by tens of thousands of people and web-crawling robots over the next month or however long I decide to keep it up.

This is probably the weirdest blog in history: Running from Camera. At first glance, it seems to be a bunch of photos of someone running from a camera. But according to the site, "the rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can."

Here's a movie you almost certainly haven't seen. In fact, it might just be the lowest-grossing movie of all time. Last February, Zzyzx Road was released in a single theater in Dallas, Texas, for six days, during which it made back $30 of its $2,000,000 budget.

Popularity contests

Last week it was time for senior superlatives. Those are those categories that high-school seniors vote for, like "Best Dressed," "Cutest Couple," and the coveted "Most Likely to Succeed." Yeah, it's basically a popularity contest, but it's fun to get into. One of the categories was "Most Tattoos," which I'm pretty sure isn't a subjective matter unless the tattoos are in special places that place them in the realm of pure conjecture. I had a couple of days to come up with a guy and a girl for each category, and then it would be time for me to hand in my vote. Not surprisingly, I couldn't come up with a few. For example, how am I supposed to know which guy has the best eyes?

We did the same thing at my school when I was in eighth grade. I voted for myself for everything. We never got the results back. I hasten to point out that this time, I only voted for myself in the category of "Best Eyes." I was not-so-secretly hoping that other people would elect me "Most Likely to Succeed." That's always something you can brag about to your grandchildren, after all. In fact, I heard a rumor that Rebecca Martinez* voted me "Most Likely to Succeed"! But this week, I heard that the people who had won in each category had been notified, so I guess I didn't win any category. Soon they'll have their pictures taken for the yearbook, and the class of '07 will always remember which guy and girl had the most tattoos.

Speaking of popularity contests, another ritual began this week, this one in anticipation of Valentine's Day. It's the questionnaire-type thing they have you fill out if you want. You fill out some questions about yourself and what you want in a potential mate, and they send it somewhere to "process" the results, and they sell you the matches. Last year I was disappointed by my results, and the year before that, I didn't get them at all. This year, I decided not to fill out the form. After getting my results last year, my curiosity about who I might be compatible with has been satiated. The results weren't particularly satisfying, and besides, it's only a little questionnaire. It's not something that could tell you how things work in real life.

Remember how my friend Luke was compiling an anthology of poetry and prose to benefit the people of Darfur? And remember how I contributed a poem? Well, the book is here. "The Easiest Best Thing Is Be Kind" features some Grateful Dead-related people, my friends Luke and Michelle, some other people, and yours truly. It's available now in paperback and hardcover, and I can tell you that the book is superb. It turns out that there are some pictures too. So don't hesitate to buy the book; all of the profits go to the Save Darfur Coalition.

I'm still having difficulties installing Ubuntu on that other computer, but my dad (who actually knows about computers and is therefore doing all the work here) has discovered that the CD drive thing on the computer is most likely bad. Now, the hunt is on for a drive that works and can be connected properly. In the meantime, I'm just using the Live CD on my own computer, where it runs like a dream. There's an advantage to using a Live CD: you can't screw anything up because nothing's written to the hard drive. The disadvantage is that you can't save anything between sessions because nothing's written to the hard drive. Other than that, it's like running a full-featured operating system. If it turns out that I can't install Ubuntu, then using the Live CD should at least allow me to get used to Linux. I like that it's very easy to use. In fact, I'm running Ubuntu from the Live CD as I write this.

I've written about Princess Juliana International Aiport, the airport in St. Maarten that's right next to a beach. Here are some videos of alarmingly close takeoffs and landings (YouTube).

War can be complicated. Sometimes, the parties involved might forget to sign a peace treaty with one another until decades, centuries, or millennia later. Wikipedia has a list of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity.

* One "Rebecca Martinez" is said to be ranked #1 in the class. I've never met her, but I think I saw her once. I don't know how she knows me well enough to vote me "Most Likely to Succeed" if we've never met. But the last time I used a footnote to mention a high-ranking student I had never met, he ended up joining my circle of friends about a year later. Maybe it could happen again?

Installing Ubuntu

So I've decided to get into this Linux thing by downloading Ubuntu. It comes as a "live CD" that you can boot your computer from in order to try it out. I burned the CD-ROM and tried it on my computer. It was amazing. Even though I had heard that Ubuntu's Live CD runs like molasses, it worked like a charm for me, and it was almost as if I were running the OS from my hard drive. So after playing around with it a bit and familiarizing myself with a few things, I asked my dad about doing a dual-boot installation. He said that it was too much of a risk to the data on the hard drive. He had a bad experience once, apparently. But he said we could install it on a computer that happened to be lying around. He had installed Windows on it, but he didn't want to run it because it was going to phone home and complain about licensing keys. With Linux, there would be no such problems, and I was looking forward to that.

So we booted that computer from the Live CD. Molasses. Sure, the hardware isn't as good as my computer's, but it isn't that bad. Once we got to the desktop, we started the installation. But it kept freezing up during the part where you configure the time zone. After going through that slow, painful process several times, we checked the integrity of the disc to find that it had 5 failed checksums. This was news to me because it didn't have any bad checksums when I was running it on my own computer. Anyway, I decided to burn the CD again at a slower speed. This CD, it turned out, had 1 failed checksum, but I went ahead with the installation anyway, and this time, we got all the way through. After a while, we had installed Ubuntu on the computer.

Almost immediately, the computer informed us that there were 104 software updates available for download. We decided to download them. By now, it was late, so we decided to let that go overnight. This morning, I checked on the computer to find that one installation had failed. A 99% success rate -- not bad, I guess. After I closed the window with the error message, the installation apparently needed to continue as the screen said something about doing something else with the installed files. It was then that the computer froze completely. I saw no choice but to reboot. After that, everything seemed to be fine, although I'm not sure if the updates were installed correctly. After multiple instances of programs crashing and Ubuntu freezing, we're trying to install it again. I'm tremendously frustrated. I really want to make a nice, smooth transition to Linux, but the software and the hardware aren't cooperating, and I'm allowed no other choice.

Here's a time-lapse video (Google Video) of a Picasso painting being made.

In the 1970s, an unknown writer named Chuck Ross submitted the manuscript for a novel to a number of major publishers. Of course, they all turned it down. But the joke was on the publishers this time: the manuscript was actually a published novel that had won the National Book Award in 1969. Read a 1979 Time article detailing the proof that the system worked against up-and-coming authors.

Linux revisited

Linux. I've written about it a lot in the past, but I've never actually used it. Not yet, anyway. I've been about to make The Switch for years, and now, I'm even more about to.

Why would I leave behind Windows, you ask? There's something appealing about the community aspect of free/open-source software. I'd also like to not worry about things like licensing keys and this WGA stuff. Plus, it's pretty worrying to think that Windows Vista is being released for individual use soon, even though the general consensus is that it's not much better than XP. It seems like people who buy expensive new hardware for Vista will be wasting their money.

In short, I'm tired of Microsoft's games, and I want an OS that I can control rather than one that controls me. I support the ideals behind free and open-source software. In fact, I've been using more and more open-source programs over the years, particularly Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim. They've proven to be worthy improvements upon IE, web-based e-mail, and AOL Instant Messenger, respectively. Today, I added to the stable by downloading OpenOffice.org, an open-source office suite that runs on multiple platforms (most notably, Linux). I haven't really had much of a chance to try it out yet, but the programs in it seem similar enough to Microsoft Office that I'll be able to use them without problems when I need to. (Did I mention that OOo supports Office's file formats?)

When we last left off, I had decided that I wouldn't install Ubuntu Linux on my computer due to hard drive issues (not wanting to partition the hard drive and not having the money to buy another one). Ubuntu still seems to be the best choice for a n00b like me. Since I work now, I could probably buy a hard drive, but something new is on the horizon: in a few months, I'll be out in the world (i.e., college) by myself. I'll need a computer of my own, and I won't have a lot of money. A perfect opportunity to adopt Linux? Probably. Friend and Linux-user Luke points out that system76 sells laptops with Wi-Fi support (perfect for somebody's future college campus which offers free Wi-Fi), and Ubuntu is pre-installed. This is awesome.

The last time I seriously considered switching to Linux, I made a list of my most used programs and what alternatives I was going to need. I might as well update it and keep it here so I don't forget about it. And it would be nice to get people's suggestions on how to make this table complete.

Some of these are probably included with Ubuntu, and I'm sure the rest are conveniently available with some package like Automatix. Even if they're not, I'll know where to find them.

Once I get my own computer, I'm totally switching to Linux for real this time. Consider it a new year's resolution.

Security alert: Even when you think you've wiped your camera's memory card, the data may still be there. Make sure to clean it up right.

Here's Wikipedia's list of capitals in the United States, listing every city that has served as the capital of the U.S. or a territory/state.

Jordon Asks You!!: Do you have any suggestions on migrating to Linux? Post a comment and let me know.

Homes

Tonight my family went to Baja Café, a Mexican restaurant we've been going to for a long time. I can't even remember how long, but it's been years and years, and we've always enjoyed it. My parents are even on a first-name basis with the owner. That's how many times we've been there.

The restaurant is very close to the house where I lived until I was eight. Whenever we're leaving, we pass by our old house and see how it's doing. Tonight, we were able to get a good look. The wooden fence on the side of the yard was no longer there. Since no one was home, we stopped the car for a moment and looked at the backyard. Both of the orange trees were gone. I remember how I climbed the big orange tree one time and then hurt my elbow somehow. I still have the scar. I saw the corner of the yard, where our greyhound, Ace, would always run around in circles. In the corner, the old shed was still there. There was a motorcycle parked near it. The grass was overrun with weeds. The trees on the side and in the front were bigger than they had been. The "Beware of Dog" sign near the front of the house was still there. I picked it out at a pet store one time.

I could hardly believe the sensation of having so many memories rushing back to me. I looked at the front door as we passed by, and it seemed strange that I had gone in and out of it so many times. The memories were there, yes, but I couldn't really remember what it was like for that strange building to be my home. I remember the last time we were there. It was October 1997. The house was almost empty, and we were about to get rid of Ace. Memories like that are still with me, but it's all over. I'll never be back there again.

I won't even have the chance to see my old home anymore. My parents have decided that they've had enough with Baja Café; the food just isn't good anymore, they say.

When we got home, I took a look around and realized that a home is a temporary thing. In a matter of months, the life I've lived since I was eight years old will become a stranger.

*

Tour A Low Impact Woodland Home.

Here's one way to get rid of bees. (Disclaimer: I do not endorse exterminating bees in the manner therein described. But come on, the pictures are pretty awesome.)

Home sweet nowhere

It's another Monday off, this one for (Dr.) Martin Luther King (Jr.) Day. My sister was curious about why he was a doctor. It was because he was a minister, and he got a doctorate in theology.

So it's been a four-day weekend, and once again, I have this immense feeling of having accomplished nothing. On Friday, I went to work, so that took up a great deal of my day. Saturday, Sunday, and today, I haven't done much of anything. But it has given me time to think, I suppose. As if I didn't have enough time to do that.

All right, yesterday I wrote a program that would periodically display a random date for me so I could find the corresponding day of the week mentally. Maybe it is a stupid idea, but I hope that one day I'll be able to impress someone. Then my family went out to dinner with my aunt, where we talked a bit about things in store. My sister and I are, if all goes according to plan, going to the University of Florida in the fall, and my aunt lives near there, being an alumna herself. Yeah, that's right, I said alumna. She said that we could spend the weekends at her place or something like that. I'm looking forward to it.

For years, my parents have been saying that they hate South Florida and want to move up there to North Central Florida at the soonest opportunity -- in so many words. I'd call it North Florida, where the grass is greener and the sun shines brighter and the houses are cheaper and there's no city lights, traffic jams, grocery stores, privacy, common sense... But that's in the country. Gainesville is a city. Heck, UF is practically a city. I'd be living in there, except when I'd be going out to the country to visit my aunt. Yeah, it would be nice, I guess. So we've got this city/country dichotomy going on here. But still, my parents would be following me to college.

I just can't shake the feeling that college is for being independent from your family except when you need money from them. How am I supposed to learn how to live for myself if I once again find myself under their watchful eyes? My home will always be here in Deerfield Beach. When I want to visit my family, I want to do it in my home. But soon there won't be a home to go back to -- no room of my own to crash in like when I was living there. My dorm room, shared with I don't know who, will be it, and that's that. If they move with me, there will be no closure. So when I leave my safe, comfortable home for those myriad cold, brick halls, I will be leaving forever.

Although this is a clip from a NASCAR race, it might actually be exciting: an improbably close finish (YouTube).

A math lesson from Microsoft: Do Vampires Really Exist?

Freaky?

On Wednesday, while I was TA-ing in Mr. Mumtaz's class, a girl called me over because she needed help with her HTML. They were working on tables, and apparently some of the people didn't see the really obvious typos that were making their HTML completely screwed up. This student in particular was viewing her page in progress in IE 7, which (finally) has tabbed browsing. I happened to notice that she had some other tabs open, and on one of them I saw a familiar icon: a cursive "W." The title of the page: Dvorak Anywhere.

Hummina-whaa?

I think the first thing I said was, "You use the Dvorak keyboard?" She said that she did. I asked her how she found out about it. She said that in April, she was looking up ways to type faster, and she read how the world's fastest typist uses the Dvorak keyboard, so she thought she'd give it a try. Then I happened to mention that she was on my site, and she was amused. Think about that. A kid in one of my classes found my web site pretty randomly and was using it while I watching. Or, from her point of view, a handy web page helps her type with the Dvorak keyboard where she would otherwise have to use QWERTY, and all of a sudden, the author of the web page appears in her Web Design class. I can only sum it up with the words, "WHOA FREAKY." It's a small, small Internet.

She then mentioned that she was going to ask Mr. Mumtaz to allow her to use Dvorak in class, which is something I never asked him to do. I should wish her good luck in that pursuit. Also, the problem with her table was that it was outside the <body> tag.

My aunt couldn't come here for Christmas, but she's in town this weekend, and so we're going "to christmas." Apparently "christmassing" is a word now, meaning "to celebrate Christmas." Anyway, it's also my grandmother's birthday, or it was recently, or it will be soon, so that's double the reason for my aunt to visit her family. This is the aunt who lives near my future college, by the way, so if I'm to get any gift from her, it will probably Florida Gators-related.

Here's an interesting article about restaurants that run on a sort of honor system. Patrons pay a price they think is fair, and those who can't afford a meal can spend some time working in exchange for their meal. It happens Where "Check Please" Is Your Call.

Apparently, the late Gerald Ford was notoriously difficult to caricature, with different political cartoonists coming up with drastically different interpretations of his boring face.

It's once again time for Jordon to Ask YOU!! Jordon Asks YOU!!: Do you read any other blogs? Post a comment and let me know.

The last first day

So yesterday was the first day of the semester. I hadn't exactly been looking forward to it, of course. Yesterday and today, there have been some interesting turns of events. Read on.

I arrived at school worried. I had stupidly chosen to take AP Spanish, and I was going to have it second semester during first block (period). So I asked Mr. Mumtaz, one of the computer teachers, if I could be his teacher's aide second semester, first block. He said he could only have TA's during second block, and that was a no-go for me because of AP Calculus. He, however, suggested that I sign up to be a "tech kid," so I did it right then and there. When I made the change to my schedule in the Guidance office, they told me to report back to them right in the morning on January 9.

For the chronologically astute, that was yesterday. And so I entered, prepared to accept my fate of fixing people's computers (which is something I surprisingly don't know how to do) or something of that nature. I knew I had no chance of somehow asking to be Mr. Mumtaz's TA because I heard (on MySpace, eww, yuck, gag, etc.) that Billy was planning on being his TA during first block. Anyway, there was a group of other students in the Guidance office, most of whom I recognized. They had been told to show up there and then because they were planning to be TA's, and Billy was among them, telling others of his vague plans for TA-dom. Apparently he really wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he was only planning to be Mr. Mumtaz's TA. (That's unusual; when you ask to be a TA, you first have to get permission from the teacher and Guidance... normally.)

They dealt with the group alphabetically, so I got called up relatively early. I explained my situation. Mr. Mumtaz gave me a sign-up sheet for... blah blah blah. So I assumed that I was going to be on the Tech Team. The lady at the desk tried to reach Mr. Mumtaz, but he was late and hadn't arrived yet (typical). So I was set aside for a little while. Later, the lady got in touch with the guy who's in charge of the Tech Team, and he said he wasn't doing it this semester. So the lady asked if I could settle for being Mr. Mumtaz's TA. Could I! I did hesitate for a moment because Billy had also asked to be Mr. Mumtaz's TA. I mentioned this -- he had been called up in the intervening time -- and Mr. Pitts chimed in, "Business is business." I was called up first, so it was my choice. I took it.

Of course, this was all subject to Mr. Mumtaz's approval, but I knew he wouldn't mind. So I went up to his room, opened the door, and said, "Does somebody need a TA?" He said he didn't mind at all, so I got to TA-ing immediately. The class is Web Design II -- not a class I've taken, but you can probably figure that I have some of the knowhow. I was able to help the students with their <table>-related woes. It should get interesting as they learn Flash and other things I don't know.

Second block was the same as always: AP Calculus.

I knew that third block was going to be interesting. My schedule said it was in room 164 -- the internal suspension room (like detention, but all day during school hours). The floor your third block is on determines which lunch you have. If you're on the 2nd floor or part of the 3rd floor, you have A lunch. If you're on the rest of the 3rd floor, you have B lunch. There are no classrooms on the first floor, but apparently if you do have a class there (like Drama or something) then you go to A lunch. So I went to A lunch, and I was able to sit in the exact same place and talk to the same group of people. Funny how that worked. Well, there are only two lunches, anyway.

So after that, I headed to the IS room for Physics. I had heard it was easy, but after having the class for a day, I decided to remain undecided on that. Apparently, a science teacher from a while ago came back for this semester, and so someone in the science wing had to give up their room. Mr. Marchand, the head of the Science Department, obliged and moved his room to this tiny chamber (about two-thirds the size of a regular classroom) far away from any other classes, and especially the science wing. As for the class itself, as I said, I'll have to reserve my judgment about whether it will be easy. I think it will be as long as I do the work and study. But that's always the case, isn't it?

Fourth block, the last of the day: Programming III with Mr. Mumtaz. My schedule actually said Programming II, but I assumed that was normal because Programming II and III (and IV, if there happens to be someone who's taken the class that many times) share a classroom. Actually, it should say Programming III, so I have to get that changed; otherwise, my transcript will look like I re-took Programming II even though I got an A in it. Anyway, I was expecting the combined class to have a total of 10 people like it did last year, so I was shocked to find that the whole room was full. There are about five of us in Programming III, and the rest are in Programming II.

Unlike last year, in which we dived right into advanced topics, Mr. Mumtaz is going to spend a few weeks reviewing the basics for this large group of Programming II students, and so we Programming III people are going to have to follow along. The Programming II kids apparently don't really remember what they learned last year, so Mr. Mumtaz is reviewing the basics -- flowcharting (which we covered for the first two weeks in Programming I and never did again because they're pointless) and "Lucky Seven," the first program Mr. Mumtaz teaches you to make in Programming I. Ah, the memories. It's going to be a little slow for a while, but I'm hoping to have some interesting challenges soon.

Here's an animated map showing the History of Religion and its spread.

Google Patent Search is pretty handy. I had been vaguely aware that my grandfather had had a patent at one time (he invented a special kind of Ping-Pong table), but I could never locate it on the Patent Office's web site. Thanks to Google, I've found it: Game Table, issued August 31, 1971. (That was his also his birthday, as it turns out.)

Semester the eighth

I was supposed to go skating with my friends Sean, Nick, and Mike (and Mark, as it turned out) on Saturday night. Supposed to. But it was "Bike Night," so only bikes were allowed. We were supposed to make sure that it wouldn't be. I think someone called in advance. Last time we went, it was also Bike Night, but since no one was there, we were able to go in and skate after a little arm-twisting. But on Saturday, there were people with bikes there, so we were forced to move elsewhere.

So we decided to go to Mark's house and shoot some pellet-gun-type things. On the way, we stopped at a store to buy some plastic pellet-type things. Our battlefield was to be the park near Mark's house. The park is supposed to be closed at night, but there was a kid's birthday party going on in the pavilion, we figured it was okay. Also, we would have gone anyway. We split into teams and searched for each other in the dark. It was my job to sit behind a tree and keep a lookout for the enemy. It wasn't very long, but the psychological effects came into play immediately. I would have gone crazy if I had had to sit there any longer. Eventually, I was found and promptly shot.

Our second game had to be moved to Mark's backyard because the cops came to break up the kid's party. After some silent moments, Sean and I met and squared off, but neither of us could hit the other. Finally, while I was running backwards, trying to shoot him, I tripped, and he got me. It was fun. After that, we watched TV and did other indoor stuff. Also, nobody got shot in the eye.

Yesterday, I thought I'd get around to seeing Nothing So Strange, a movie that you can download on the Internet for a small fee. So paid for the download and... got suckered out of five bucks. The PHP file that's supposed to serve up the download isn't parsed as PHP -- therefore, no download. Filed a complaint asking for my (mom's) money back. Hopefully we'll see how that goes.

The elephant in the room is that today is the last day of winter break. We have to go back to school tomorrow -- those of us who didn't graduate early, that is. And it wouldn't be a new semester without having one class to worry about like crazy. This semester, I'm going to be on the Tech Team or something like that. It all started at the end of last year when I foolishly decided to take AP Spanish. Then I wisely decided not to take that. I wanted to be a teacher's assistant for Mr. Mumtaz, the programming and web design teacher. But he said he couldn't have assistants this year, so he suggested I sign up to go around and fix computers -- apparently I would be a part of this "Tech Team" I've heard things about.

I foolishly signed up. People confuse the ability to use computers with the ability to fix computers or at least know how they work. Those two things are not the same. You might spend all your time watching TV without knowing how a TV works. Computers are no different. I can do some programming, yes, and I can put together a web page, but that's just a matter of learning a markup language. It won't save you when your printer's on the fritz. I don't know what a page file is or the difference between RAM and ROM. All I'll do is tell people to reboot and see if it doesn't get better. But hopefully, if I'm to stick with this, I'll learn about computers through experience. People tell me I should go into computers as a career, and I tell them I probably shouldn't because I don't know how they work, but this just might end up being a case of people molding me to fit their expectations.

My schedule is as follows:

1. Tech Team (or whatever)
2. AP Calculus AB/BC (continuing from last semester)
3. Physics Honors (supposedly easy, even for those who haven't taken calculus)
4. Programming III (no sweat)

Top 15 Strangest Coincidences. It's worth a read, except that the Lincoln/Kennedy connections are ridiculous.

Have you ever been frustrated by a slow-loading or badly designed web site? Apparently the syndrome has a name: Mouse Rage Syndrome.

Let's go skating

Today I'm going to the skate park with Sean, Nick, and Mike. We went a few years ago, and it was fun, even though my parents made me sit it out. (Something about life insurance.) Anyway, apparently I'm covered now, so I can go and break my bones as I please. I tried to get on a skateboard once, some years ago, and I almost fell off immediately. I hope somebody has some pads and stuff I can borrow. I really, really, really don't want to get hurt, and I would rather sit on the sidelines than risk it. But as long as I come home in good shape, it will have been fun.

It's good to have a little Ask Jordon every now and then.

Peter: Where are some good places to practice Esperanto? / How do you practice Esperanto?

I've been getting a bit rusty myself. I (used to) keep tabs on the news site and portal Ĝangalo, but the last news item they've posted is from last month, and it says that the site has been sold by its creator. I also used to listen to Ĉi Tie Nun, a quirky Esperanto podcast that covers strange news stories from around the world, but the guy who runs that has only come out with two shows in the past six months. Those won't help you too much, I guess, but you can always read old news articles and listen to old podcasts.

Another good resource might be to read some Esperanto magazines. Last year I had a subscription to La Ondo de Esperanto, a magazine published in Russia that has news, reviews, literature, and so forth, but the subscription was pretty expensive (especially when I think you can read the issues online for free). You can't really blame me for falling out of practice, now, can you? Well, the big thing was that I had no one to practice it with, so I've been getting kind of bored. I'd say that the best way to practice is to have people to talk to (in person, online, or both). Maybe we could have some conversations together.

Pope Jolly Wilkins: What is the Firefox extension that finds the pages you will click onto in the future and caches them?

That feature is called pipelining, and it's built into Firefox. Go to about:config and set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true." It might also help to set the maximum number of connections per server and so forth. These preferences are also found in about:config, but I manage all this stuff with the Tweak Network Settings extension. (Here's its AMO page.)

Pope Jolly Wilkins: Also: why do boomer-folk like to say "Foxfire" instead of "Firefox"?

Boomer-folk have heard of Firefox? I thought they equated the Internet with the Big Blue E. Anyway, why do they screw up anything? It's because they're old, and their minds work in reverse or something. How many times did we have to hear "Pokey-man"?

Here's a gallery of World War II pictures in color. There are some videos too.

Watch some outtakes and goof-ups from the golden days of TV.

It's time for another installment of Jordon Asks YOU!!.

Jordon Asks YOU!!: Have you made any New Year's resolutions, and if so, have you kept them? Post a comment and let me know.