Studying?

Final exams have begun. I had my first one today. Physics, it was. I did pretty well, too. I got an 85. According to my calculations, this means I’ll have a B in the class, which is good. I didn’t even have to study that much. Now I need to study for Differential Equations, which I also spent time studying for last night. I’ll need all the studying I can manage to make myself do.

Last night, my roommate, Adam, was reminiscing about Nickelodeon‘s Super Toy Run, the annual sweepstakes in which the winner would go to Toys ‘R’ Us and have a few minutes to fill a shopping cart with anything they wanted. I mentioned how it reminded me of “Supermarket Sweep,” a ’90s game show which was about exciting as it sounds. For old times’ sake, we watched an episode on YouTube. Check out the description for the video. The uploader (who appears as a contestant in the episode) says that the audience consisted of paid extras who were only present for the taping of the beginning of the show. So the rest of the applause throughout the show is canned. We noticed how strange it was that the contestants would clap for themselves when they got a question right; it’s because no one else was actually clapping for them.

Boring technobabble follows.

The latest version of Ubuntu (8.04 or “Hardy Heron”) came out on Thursday. I suppose the difficulty of downloading updates when a new version is released is a testimony to Ubuntu’s growing popularity. This time, I couldn’t get through the download. It took about three hours to get a third of the way done, and then it stopped. What’s more, I couldn’t re-connect, so I had to wait. But in my Googling, I found out that you can download the alternate install CD, mount it as though you’ve burned it to a CD, and use that to upgrade. So I tried downloading the CD. It was just as slow, if not slower, until it timed out.

By that time, a number of other mirrors had come online, so I was able to choose one that was a lot closer (and less overloaded). I downloaded the CD image from Georgia Tech at a rate of 4 MB/s. Yes, four megabytes per second! The 700 MB download was done in a few minutes. (I’m going to miss having a university Internet connection, but I wouldn’t have had to resort to such drastic measures if they allowed BitTorrent traffic in the dorms.)

After mounting the CD image (sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso /mnt/) and running the upgrade utility (gksudo "sh /mnt/cdromupgrade"), I was good to go. Or so I thought. Apparently you still need to connect to a server to verify the upgrades or something like that. Since I couldn’t connect to the servers at all, it wouldn’t work. But then I thought of going to System -> Administration -> Software Sources and choosing a different mirror. I let the system choose the fastest one to me, but it didn’t seem to be working well. Russia? Belgium? I couldn’t connect to either of them. I tried a third time. Georgia Tech. Aha.

Now that the upgrades could be authenticated or whatever had to be done, the upgrade went smoothly. After the reboot, I surveyed the virtual territory. There were the inevitable annoyances. For one, my default system font (DejaVu Sans Condensed) was uninstalled, but it was no problem to reinstall the ttf-dejavu-extra package. Another annoyance was that I would get a system beep whenever the computer booted up. I managed to turn this off by adding the line blacklist pcspkr to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. I’ve also noticed a couple of times that the bootup process gets to a plain black screen and stops with no hard drive activity. A perusal of the system log suggests that this is a network problem.

The main issue (unless I’m forgetting one) is that I couldn’t have two applications using the sound card at the same time. If I were listening to music in Rhythmbox and I paused it to watch a YouTube video in Firefox, I wouldn’t get any sound from the video. After some digging, I found that installing libflashsupport fixed this problem, but I still couldn’t use Audacity if another application was playing sound. A friendly person from the Ubuntu Forums suggested I install libasound2-plugins. After doing that (and rebooting, just for kicks), I would be able to use OSS with PulseAudio, which is new in Hardy. So I set Audacity to use OSS, and when I run Audacity with padsp audacity, as suggested in the forums, it won’t want to have the sound card all to itself. Problem solved… mostly. This doesn’t work for Ekiga because I can only set Ekiga to use ALSA, not OSS, but it’s a start. I haven’t used Ekiga much lately anyway.

(Standard disclaimer: I don’t know that much about computers. I learned the above information by searching the Internet and asking people.)

The Ubuntu developers made a pretty controversial decision when they decided to make Firefox 3 Beta 5 the default browser in Gutsy. Beta software in a release that’s touted to be especially stable? It doesn’t add up. I did my homework and found that some of my favorite extensions wouldn’t be compatible, so I made a copy of my Firefox profile folder (~./mozilla/) before upgrading. It’s a good thing, too. While Firefox 3 did seem to use less RAM, I noticed that it almost froze a few times. It did have some cool features, like the new location bar with its frecency algorithm, the new download manager, and the ability to zoom in and out of entire pages like IE 7 (I think). But the lack of useful extensions was the show-stopper for me. I uninstalled Firefox 3, reinstalled Firefox 2, replaced my profile folder with the copy, and all is well again.

Except for the fonts. Now in Hardy, Firefox equates displays the clones of Times New Roman and Helvetica/Arial whenever those fonts are called for. Previously, it would just show the default serif and sans-serif fonts (DejaVu Serif and DejaVu Sans), which I think happen to look better. They scale better, for one, and I think they better suited for the screen. I don’t think this font thing is specific to Firefox, and I don’t know to change it, but I’ve changed this site’s stylesheet so DejaVu Sans precedes Arial. It shouldn’t make a difference to anybody except certain Linux users (or anyone else who has DejaVu Sans?), but if it has caused the sky to fall on your head, please let me know.

So, what’s actually new in Hardy? Updated versions of all (well, most of) my favorite programs, like Rhythmbox music player, Pidgin instant messenger, the GIMP image editor, and the OpenOffice.org office suite. Some of the more basic default programs have been replaced with more sophisticated ones; the BitTorrent client and the CD burner come to mind. Plus, this new Tracker search tool seems pretty handy although I haven’t needed to use it yet. I’ll probably discover more new and exciting additions as I continue to use the operating system.

Wikipedia has a list of pigs, although it also includes hogs and wild boars.

For your entertainment, here’s a slow-motion video of a tomato in a blender.

And here are some cool photos of striped icebergs that apparently look like some British candy. I wouldn’t want to eat one, though.

Almost over

Today was the last day of classes of the spring semester. Tomorrow and Friday are “reading days” to study for final exams. On Saturday, exams begin.

I can’t believe how fast this semester has gone by. But I’m more surprised by the grades I’ve been getting. I was a straight-A student in high school (except for one B), and I’m on track to get 2 A’s and 3 B’s this semester. I guess I could have studied more. But I have to study more now. I have my physics exam on Saturday, differential equations on Monday, biology on Wednesday, and programming on Thursday. Luckily, my bio exam isn’t cumulative, but the rest are.

I’ve been worried about physics all semester, but now that I got an 85 on the last test, I’ve got a B in the bag (after having a C+ most of the semester). Diff. Eq. has become the new enemy. I didn’t do very well on the last two tests, so what might have been an A can now be no more than a B+ (if I’m lucky). So I’ve really got to hit the books. In fact, the only book I really don’t have to hit is for programming, and not just because we don’t have a textbook. I’m doing so well in that class that I haven’t even checked to see how the grade is calculated. Programming really is my thing, y’see.

So, I talked to the latest girl today, and guess what? We’re going to dinner tomorrow night!

Just kidding. She said it was a “bad time of year,” with her having “three exams” in “two days” and all.

I would have asked her last week, or the week before that, or the week before that, but I was working up the nerve and I didn’t want to get rejected. My careful planning has brought about the very situation I planned to avoid. This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Moving on to important things, the next version of Ubuntu, my operating system of choice, is coming out tomorrow. It includes a lot of updated programs, including Firefox 3.0 beta 5. I just hope the update goes without a hitch. The last time I upgraded Ubuntu on my dad’s computer, there were some hitches of unknown origin. I think the system managed to fix itself, but it was quite a scare, and I don’t want it to happen with my computer. The alternative is to do a clean install and probably lose stuff like wireless and sound. Also, I’d have to put all my personal files and settings back on. I guess I’ll just take the risk of upgrading, but I’ll do a backup first in case things go awry. Wish me luck.

Here are some fun facts you probably didn’t know about living in space.

I think I’ve posted something like this before, but in any case, here’s another password strength checker.

The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, gets a lot of nasty letters for facilitating the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted movies and music. They’ve posted a few of the many letters they’ve received, along with their responses.

Mad day in

My roommate left for class yesterday morning around 10:30 or 11:00, as he usually does on Fridays. But he hasn’t come back. I think he went home for the weekend. He might have told me about this, but it had to have been a long time ago, or I would have remembered clearly. I think Passover is starting.

In any case, I’m here by myself, and I’ve realized how boring it is without him. He usually has some nice music and/or the TV on. Or he might be on the phone with someone, or playing games on the Internet, or at least just studying or crunching data and graphs for his top-secret materials research project. In any case, he’s usually there, and now, for a little while, he’s not. It’s hard to imagine that some people live like this all the time in their single rooms. I think I’d go crazy.

It’s been a pretty stressful week. The culmination was last night, when I had a physics test. Yeah, a physics test from 8:20 to 10:10 on a Friday night. I studied a little more than I wanted to, which wasn’t much anyway, but I wasn’t completely lost on everything. I felt pretty good about it, in fact, but I was wary because I’ve gotten tripped up before. (I got a 60% on the first test and a 65% on the second one. I should have gotten a 75% on the second one, but I apparently bubbled in two of the answers wrong. Both of the scores I did get correspond to a grade of C+ in the class.) After last night’s test, I went online to compare my scratch work to the answer key. Totally unexpectedly, I got an 85%, which will be very good for my grade — provided I bubbled in the answers right.

Even though I have more work to do and more tests coming up, I’ve been taking it easy. I’ve been listening to music a lot today (even more than usual). With my playlist on shuffle, it’s like Radio Free Jordon in here. Now that I have my own computer, I have all my music available on the go (except my record collection — I’m leaving that project for the summer. Thanks to Luke for the shrink-wrapped copy of Double Fantasy. That’ll make a pretty darn good digital transfer). It just occurred to me that because no one’s around to overhear my music, I don’t have to pump it directly into my ears. My laptop speakers aren’t great, but I’d rather not have my headphones on all the time and go deaf.

I was going to do something tonight, but now I’m not. Yesterday, I asked a girl (previously mentioned) to dinner. She seemed surprised but pleasantly so. She said it was probably a bad weekend for it, but that it was okay. In what I am considering a first, she actually seemed to understand my intentions, probably because I made them as clear as possible without sounding like the completely blunt and naive person I was until shockingly recently. But she called me today and said she was going out with her girl friends tonight. I should have expected this. The semester is drawing to a close; everyone is stressed out; everyone is about to leave for the summer. Okay, how about Wednesday? “We’ll see how the week goes.” I don’t want to have to wallow in feelings of failure all summer.

Speaking of which, I’d better get on that resume. And now, the links.

Do you believe in God? There’s a poll going at YesNoGod.com. A breakdown of results by country is available.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Rate your local law enforcement officers at RateMyCop.com.

Check if a site is down for everyone or just you: Down for everyone or just me?

Hair today…

For the past year or two, my hair has been pretty long. Now it’s really long… for a guy. It’s at my shoulders now, which I think is a little excessive. I know I need to get it cut. But I’m not sure… how.

I’ve had this hairstyle for almost six years. Simply put, I part it slightly to the left and let it do its thing. (The part has drifted closer to the center over the years.) Originally I kept it pretty short, but I’ve let it grow longer and longer, and now it’s at my shoulders. It’s getting kind of annoying, and I don’t think it looks very good. Most girls wouldn’t like it either.

Since it’s this long, I wonder whether I should cut more of it than usual and try a different style. Before this ‘do, I had a plain and simple buzz cut. Before that, when I was a little kid, my hair was just kind of normal. At least, I think so. What I mean by that is that it radiated out from a point on the back of my head. That’s the normal cut for a guy. Or, at least, I thought so as I looked around.

I’ve been looking at other guys’ hairstyles over the past few days, and I have realized that everyone’s hair is different. It depends on their style and what sort of hair they have. So this has become a little more complicated than I thought. I want to look good, but I don’t want to wear someone else’s haircut. I want to have something that works well with the color and texture of my hair as well as the shape of my face (respectively: brown, fine, and — I’ve been told — diamond). It also has to be easy to maintain. If I have to do more than comb it, I won’t consider it. I’m lazy, and I’ll never buy or use any kind of gel.

That sounds like a lot to ask for, but hopefully a hair specialist can help. I think I’ll head to SuperCuts soon (either tomorrow or this weekend; probably on the weekend due to my aforementioned laziness and hesitation). In the meantime, how about some suggestions? Come on, guys, I know you can recommend something. Here’s an up-to-the-minute photo to help you out.

Security at casinos is pretty crazy. Here’s (almost) all about it.

Remember that TV show St. Elsewhere? Okay, me neither, but it was from the ’80s, and its last episode was famously cheesy. It turned out that the whole series had been dreamed by one of the characters. But other shows referenced it and its sister show, Homicide: Life on the Street, as being set in the same fictional universe. Other shows have referred to those shows. And so on, to a staggering degree. So it must be true that all those dozens of shows were also part of the dream. See the whole chart at Tommy Westphall’s Mind – A Multiverse Explored.

Okay, I just used “dozens” in a sentence, but I don’t agree with the Dozenal Society of America which advocates a base-12 numeric system. In base 12, I’d only be 16 years old. Also, 12 would be 10. (It’s one of those things that you just kind of have to be good at math to get.)

Get awarded

On Friday night I went out to dinner with some people from Get Carded, the organ donor awareness organization I’m in. After we put on our end-of-the-year concert, there was nothing left to do but celebrate. So we went to On the Border, a Mexican place that I went to once about 5 or 6 years ago.

Not everybody was there, but some people I knew were. After we ate (good food, by the way), there were the obligatory photos. Michael, one of the co-presidents, had an award to give out. Printed on his computer, was the “Volunteer of the Year” award, and it was given to… me! I couldn’t believe it. Actually, I kind of could, but it was still a little hard to believe. Apparently I was the only person who helped out at all of Get Carded’s events this year. I also got a gift card for Moe’s, which is this extremely popular Mexican-type place. Many people would envy the $10 in Moe’s cash I now wield.

But anyway, I really appreciated the award (even though Michael and Jehan, the other co-president, forgot to sign it before they gave it to me). I have it hanging on the fridge now. Hopefully there will be some competition for the award next year. That would be great for the group.

UF‘s spring football game was yesterday. It’s called the Orange and Blue Game after the school colors. The Gators split into Orange and Blue teams, and they played each other. They get a chance to show off their talent, and the fans get their football fix until August.

I figured it would be a pretty big thing, but I didn’t know it was going to be on ESPN. Actually, by the day of the event, I did know. I had planned on watching it on TV, but I decided to go instead because it was going on about a block away and, as my roommate said, 50,000 fans would be mad at me if they found out I didn’t go.

The game was pretty informal. There were 44 minutes of play, with no penalties or anything. (A referee did throw a flag once, but I think it was due to force of habit. He just picked it up without saying anything.) The coaches were just chilling there out on the field, watching each play closely. The players went pretty easy on each other, and there was no tackling the quarterbacks. (The team doesn’t want to get hurt playing against itself, you know.) After each field goal or extra point, the kicker would try it again at varying distances, just for giggles.

The atmosphere was likewise relaxed. Even though the stadium wasn’t packed to capacity, there were still a lot of people there, and I saw some people I knew. Everybody had a good time, although some people left early. I can’t blame them. The sun was bright. Even though I was wearing a hat and the game lasted less than two hours, I got sunburned like whoa. But I’m glad I went. I had a pretty good time.

The final score was Blue 28, Orange 14. Also: The Sun 1, Jordon 0.

Yesterday evening (actually more like the late afternoon), I got inducted into the Phi Eta Sigma honor society. It wasn’t anything big, really. They had a room that was way too small for all the inductees and their guests. Fortunately, the whole thing didn’t last very long. They said a few words, and then they called each person up to get a pin. Then it was a free-for-all as people lined up to get their certificates. My family came to the induction, and then we had dinner. I had lunch with them again today (at Moe’s) before they left.

So now I have an official-looking Phi Eta Sigma certificate and pin. I can wear the pin whenever I want to look important, and people will think I’m in some fraternity that secretly rules the world. They probably won’t know that it’s just an honor society that does community service every now and then.

Here’s an Ask Jordon question.

Carol: Is it possible for you to see when someone is visiting your site? Like me right now?

As with most web sites, accesses to files on this site are logged, mainly for statistics purposes and my own amusement. I can tell which IP addresses have visited the site, and what browsers and operating systems they correspond with (although all of that information can be faked). When you submit an Ask Jordon question, your IP address and browser/OS information are sent as well. I can tell that your ISP is Verizon and that you’re using IE 7 on Windows XP (if your browser isn’t lying), but that’s about it.

With regards to the story I posted last time about Illinois state representative Monique Davis, she has apologized — though not publicly — for her bigoted tirade.

Can’t decide between Clinton or Obama? Here’s a Democratic Primary Quiz (Flash).

Here are photos of 10 Interesting Abandoned Places.

A walking shadow

Oh, it’s you again. Come on in. Have a seat.

Apparently, at the end of the year, college honor societies send out letters of invitation to freshmen who have done rather well. I did rather well last semester, so I got a letter from one Phi Eta Sigma honor society. I checked them out. They’ve had a chapter at UF since the 1930s, and once you join you really don’t have to do anything, although you can go to the meetings if you want. A lot of other people were invited. I decided it was worth it to pony up the $40 lifetime registration fee to add this line to my resume. (Eh, what resume?)

Hm… I should (re)write my resume, especially if I want to get a job over the summer (which I do). But I’ll need some help. I don’t have a lot of impressive achievements or work experience under my belt. Maybe I’ll just use a big font.

I also got an invitation from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, founded way back in 1993 or something like that. They tried a little too hard. They sent me about 3 letters of invitation, including certificates, stickers for your car window or something, and who knows what else. Plus, they wanted $70. No thanks, guys.

So, the induction for ΦΗΣ is on Saturday night. I told my family how families are invited, so they’re all coming, even Grandma and the dog. But my $40 check hasn’t cleared yet. I hope I’ll still be able to go to the thing so they can hand me my $40 piece of paper. Otherwise everyone will have come up for nothing and I’ll be an embarrassment. But I gave them the check on time.

A few days ago, a UF student riding a bike got hit by a car and died. Turns out that she went to the high school that a lot of my friends went to, and some of them knew her. One day you’re a student who everyone likes, and the next day, you’re dead. Makes me not want to ride a bicycle. Cars are much safer but dirty. I wish I could walk everywhere.

It’s always the good who seem to die young. Whoever said that was right. They’re always bright, well-liked, and unfortunately tempting targets for an unexpected death. But the law of averages is against it. We should expect see some deadbeat lowlifes who no one likes being killed, but that doesn’t happen. Does that mean that all people are inherently good? Or does it mean that when someone dies, everyone comes up with something good to say about them? It’s an interesting thought to ponder.

Here’s a story I wish was getting more exposure: Illinois state representative Monique Davis is being called on to resign after making inflammatory anti-Semitic remarks. Sounds reasonable, right? Oh, wait. Actually, they were anti-atheist remarks. Still reasonable? Good, just checking. The Council for Secular Humanism has a press release about the incident, and here’s Keith Olbermann’s coverage of it.

Here’s a list of some of the wittiest and most scathing comebacks and retorts in history: History’s Greatest Replies.

Yet another airport horror story: My Wonderful Trip To South Africa That Didn’t Happen Thanks To The TSA And Delta Airlines.

5 years of The World of Stuff

Yesterday, I went tubing on the Ichetucknee River at Ichetucknee Springs State Park. In case it sounds moderately exciting, “tubing” just means floating on an inner tube. Which is not to say that it’s boring. In fact, it’s fun in a relaxing way. It’s “chill,” as the young people say. I was with some friends (including my roommate, Adam) and friends’ friends who were girls. We had bought our own inflatable pool rafts (Adam got a giant seahorse), while the girls rented a large inflatable raft from one of the many tube rental places near the river.

We meandered down the river at a rather lazy pace except when we were paddling out of the way of fallen branches and things. The girls in their little boat decided to lie back and not pay much attention to where they were going, so they bumped into a lot of things and often fell far behind the rest of us. But they sang. They sang “Aura Lee” in serene three-part harmony. I asked if they knew anything by the Beatles, and they tried out a few lines of “Because.”

After conquering the river, everyone left except Adam, his friend Stephen, and me. We were going to go to Ginnie Springs for even more tubing adventures, but it’s privately owned, and the admission was more than we were willing to pay. Instead, we ate at Conestogas in Alachua and then got back to campus.

Hm… what else? Oh yeah. The World of Stuff is five years old today.

Don’t look at me like that! You know I wouldn’t forget. I’ve been looking forward to the day, actually. It’s a milestone. Five years. Half a decade. It’s pretty big. Of course, I can’t forget about the chain of events that led me here.

In February 2003, I was a thirteen-year-old eighth-grader, and I had a problem. I didn’t have a single web site. I had two: The Dvorak Keyboard and You and flipacoin.net. I decided to create a new site of which both would be a part. (flipacoin.net never fit in well and was finally spun off two months ago.) Since the new site was just going to be a collection of random pages, I thought the very general name “The World of Stuff” would be funny.

The original home of the site was free, ad-supported Angelfire space that my friends and I had used to advertise our two-off comic book series, The Superbuddies (hence “superbuddies” in the original URL). They weren’t too happy about me wiping over the Superbuddies site, but I think they can agree that my site has been more successful than our photocopied comics that we had trouble selling even to our friends. (I still have a few copies of both issues; I found them recently, and they’re pretty good. I should put the scans online here. Full circle??)

On Sunday, April 6, 2003, I decided the site was ready. After writing an introductory note on the main page, I made the following announcement on the “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Forum!” Forum at Where’s George?:

Two days later, I e-mailed the link to five friends. And that was about all the publicity I had for a while.

Over the next few months, I made note of occasional updates on the main page. During the summer of 2003, the site moved to its own domain name and — to keep people coming back — evolved into one of those newfangled “blog” things. Over time, I found my style, and my posts eased into the format that you’re familiar with today. But it became tedious to manually add posts to the main page, maintain archives, and update the RSS feed. On January 2, 2005, I started using the WordPress blogging platform, which automates those tasks and allows readers to comment on each post. I also strove to give the site a polished appearance. The layout was redesigned on October 16, 2004, and again on January 1, 2006.

When blogging was still new and exciting, The World of Stuff was mentioned in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in September 2003 (“Blog Stars“) and by City Link Magazine in April 2004 (“Meet the Bloggers“). In the past four years, there has been a significant lack of press coverage. But news articles don’t really matter. In fact, they did absolutely nothing to increase the popularity of the site. But it has become more popular. People have found the blog somehow (probably from here), and they’ve kept reading. They’ve post comments and e-mailed me, and I’ve responded. So we have this cool two-way dialogue going on, me and you.

While we’re going meta, here’s an Ask Jordon question.

natasha: What is the purpose of the numbers beside the months in your archives?

The archives page has a link to each month’s posts followed by the number of posts made in that month.

And one more:

Carol: I’m new here but I’d like to know what you are majoring in.

Computer science.

Now, as I was saying, having a community of readers is a really cool thing. Sometimes I ask myself who I write for — that is, whether I would still write if I didn’t have an audience. I’m not sure whether I would. Knowing that other people are reading this gives me a sense of fulfillment. I like to entertain, inform, and provide a window on my life to others. I’m glad I’ve been doing it well enough that people are coming back for more.

Thanks for your continued readership and support over the past five years. I love you guys!

Lifeapalooza

When we left off last time, Get Carded, the organ donor awareness group of which I am a part, was getting ready to hold their second annual Lifeapalooza concert for organ donor awareness. Last year, it seems, the first annual Lifeapalooza — held in a ballroom in the student union — received virtually no promotion, and as a result, the attendance was “like, 10 people.” This year, we handed out lots of flyers around campus and advertised on banners.

This year’s Lifeapalooza was last night at the Orange and Brew, a cafe on campus. Of the three musical acts (and several organ recipients as guest speakers), we expected a lot of people would come to hear the main act, which was a pretty popular group. We Get Carded volunteers had to get there about an hour early to help set up, but there wasn’t too much to do. We just set up our tent and tables in front of the entrance so we could tell everyone coming in about the benefits of organ donation. I was given the task of counting people who came in: my job was to make a mark on their hand (so they wouldn’t be counted twice if they left and came back) and click the counter thingy so its count would increment by one. Not a bad job.

Most people didn’t mind having their hand marked. Some of them were confused because that’s the kind of thing that’s done at a bar or other drinking-type establishment. I had to explain to people that no, we’re just counting people, so if you leave and come back, we won’t count you twice. A few still wouldn’t have it, though. Come on, guys. I’m making a little line on your arm with a marker. Oh yeah, that too. I started by writing an X, but it took too long, so I reduced it to a single line. Then, when I would explain that we were counting people, they’d look at the line on their hand and say — dead serious — “Oh, am I number 1?”

So that’s how we spent a lot of the time. Eventually, the opening acts were done, so it was time for us to take everyone out of the Orange and Brew, give them a T-shirt and a glow stick, and have them form a human ribbon for our camera. We managed to get a lot of them out, although a lot of them stayed inside. (When I saw how many people remained inside, I realized how many people you could pack into the place.) After posing for the picture, they went back in to hear Umoja Orchestra, the main act. They’re this big Latin ensemble. Not cogito ergo sum Latin, but Hispanic. I was told that they were like Santana, but they sounded like a more typical Spanish group, like music you’d put on if you were having tacos for dinner. (My family does this, okay?)

I didn’t actually get to stay in the cafe for more than a few minutes because I had to man the tables outside with everyone else. But I could hear the music from within, and I could see people dancing. A lot of people were dancing to Umoja. It looked like they were having a good time. And I do think everyone had fun. I was glad to see that a lot of people came out, including some of my friends. Before the T-shirt thing, we counted 348 people. After that, we stopped counting; I don’t think anyone came after that. (Later, somebody played with the counter and messed up the count; Mike, one of the co-presidents, would later claim that the attendance was “close to 500.” He could be right for all anyone knows.)

After Umoja Orchestra finished, the show was over, and people left. We thanked them for making our year-end event a huge success. Of course, the real measure of success was the number of people who signed organ donor cards. Our tally at the end was 38 or 39, and we probably gave out even more cards than that.

It was 12:30 A.M., and I had class in 8 hours. After cleaning up, So, we took some pictures, and just before adjourning, Mike said that we’d probably go out to dinner in a few weeks to end the year. I’m looking forward to it. It’s been really rewarding being a part of this group, and I’m looking forward to helping out again next year.

Okay, guys and girls, let’s have a little discussion here. I want your input.

There’s this girl who I have three classes with. In differential equations, we sit near each other. Lately, in physics (a large lecture class), we’ve been sitting next to each other. I want to ask her out on a date. Sound simple enough?

Problem: My previous four attempts at asking girls out have all ended in abject failure: either the girl either doesn’t realize my intentions, or she just ignores me. (It’s not my imagination; both of those scenarios have happened twice.) This time, I want to make absolutely sure that she knows what she’s getting into: that is, that I would like to go on a date with her, not just a friendly thing. (I don’t want to ease into it. I don’t want to spend four hundred afternoons just “hanging out” with someone only to ask them out on a date and get rejected.)

I don’t want to mess up this time. So I thought I might try to think of what I would instinctively do and then do the opposite. But then I thought I’d just ask the readers. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before? So, tell me, readers, how can I make it crystal clear to this girl that when I ask to go to dinner with her, I want to do so in a romantic sort of way?

Oh, life. It’s a palooza. And now, the links.

Lots of things are transported by truck. Sometimes, trucks crash. Then: Truck Spills.

Here are some fun presidential facts. Some of them probably aren’t true.

When you save all your gas receipts for years, you can make graphs. Some guy did just that. Here are his gas price graphs from 1979 to the present.

Advisers and fliers

Scheeze, April already? Back in January, I had the idea to start an Esperanto club on campus, and I got some of my friends interested. I haven’t mentioned it much since then. What happened, you ask? Well, I certainly wasn’t just sitting around, that’s for sure. We’ve been trying to find a faculty advisor, which is required for starting a club. I’ve been e-mailing professors in the foreign language departments, but the few who have replied did so in the negative. People might find the job interesting but are frequently too busy. It was discouraging.

Andy came up with the great idea to ask the linguistics professors. Ah, linguistics. Odds are, they’ve all heard of Esperanto, so maybe they’d be interested in the idea. I e-mailed them and struck gold. Within days, e-mails came sort of pouring in. Not one, but two linguistics professors expressed interest in being our advisor. A third said he’d told the others in the department and that he’d get back to me with a good candidate. A fourth said that if we couldn’t find anyone in the linguistics department, she would help us look for someone. And a lecturer from the Romance languages and literatures department sent me a reply, six weeks late, saying she would also be interested in being our advisor.

Not all responses were positive. One guy said Esperanto was a useless waste of time. But I didn’t let that get me down. Instead, I worked out times to meet with the faculty members who thought that Esperanto was a useful non-waste of time. Andy and I met with the first professor on Monday morning. He’s an African guy whose main interest is the extinction of languages, and he seemed to recognize Esperanto’s potential for saving the many tongues around the world whose speakers are dying out. I’m supposed to meet with the other professor on Friday. It should be interesting.

Unfortunately, we probably won’t have time to officially start our club this year; we’ll have to wait till the fall, which means we might have to get off to a small start. Well, I was figuring we’d get off to a small start anyway, but the club approval process supposedly takes four to six weeks, and there are only… four weeks left in the semester? Well, maybe there’s some time. It’s worth a shot, anyway, if we can name a faculty advisor by next week. I’ll have to ask the people who deal with approving clubs and see if there’s time to squeeze in the approval. Then we can hit the ground running next year.

That’s not the only thing I’ve got going on this week, though. Get Carded, the organ donation awareness group I’m a member of, is having its second annual Lifeapalooza event tomorrow night. A pretty well-known local band called Umoja Orchestra will play a free show, along with a couple of opening acts. There will also be organ recipients talking about why organ donation is so important. It’s going to be at a cafe on campus called the Orange and Brew (because our school colors are orange and… blue… ha ha?). Anyway, we’re also going to give everyone a free t-shirt and have them form a human ribbon outside (because every cause has to have a ribbon, you know). It should be a great way to end the year.

To help get the word out, I’ve been passing out flyers (actually cards) on campus. If you walk around college campuses a lot, people probably hand you a lot of glossy cards, about the size of a large index card, that tell you about upcoming concerts or parties or what have you. I’m passing out those. I spent about two hours Monday and Tuesday doing it, and I have a few more to give out tomorrow. Hopefully I’ve gotten some people interested. Although a lot of people avoid me as I stand in the middle of a foot thoroughfare, most people take the cards I put in front of them, and a few even come up and ask for one. It all adds up. I think the turnout at Lifeapalooza tomorrow will be great.

The call to End Software Patents is pretty common among the nerdy set. Find out what it’s all about.

Want to celebrate your next birthday with class while trying to hide your age? Get Roman Candles for your birthday cake, so you can party like it’s MCMXCIX.

Someday, I’m going to get a job. I want to work for a company that’s friendly to Linux and related software projects. Here’s how a number of major companies stand.