We’re not afraid of bad stuff

Last weekend, when I was at my grandmother’s house, she gave me a coin that she’d found. It’s from Hanover, and it’s dated 1841, before the German unification. It says “ERNST AUGUST V.G. G. KOENIG VON HANNOVER” on the front (along with a portrait of someone who is probably Ernst), and on the back is the coat of arms of the House of Hanover, which will be familiar to anyone who is familiar with the British royal family’s coat of arms (they’re closely related, you know). The back says “EIN THALER” and “XIV EINE F.M.,” and it’s dated 1841. Around the edge of the coin is inscribed “NEC ASPERA TERRENT,” which is apparently Latin for “We’re not afraid of bad stuff” (roughly speaking).

I’d post pictures, but I can’t get very good ones. I have basically described it for you anyway, so a picture would be overkill. So, other than that, the only question that remains is how much the coin might be worth. The condition has a lot to do with it. My experience with collecting coins tells me that this one would be graded as “Good,” which, of course, is the worst possible grade. As such, it’s probably not collectible except for the precious metal content. (I think it’s silver.) I happened to find on the Intertubes that the coin auction house Bowers and Merena is auctioning an identical coin in uncirculated (MS-64) condition. They’re valuing it between US$400 and $600. The only difference besides the condition is that that coin has an “A” mint mark, whereas mine doesn’t (unless it has worn away).

On Tuesday, I went back to Pompano to say hi to teachers and friends. I was there with my sister and my friend Justin. It was my third trip back since graduating last year. Since the Class of ’08 had already graduated, they weren’t there, but I had some ’09 friends to catch up with. My friend Andrew happened to be visiting at the same time; he had just gotten back from his first year at Cornell. Plus, I got to greet some teachers I didn’t get to check up on the first two times I went back.

While we were talking to Mr. Chandler, the freshman English teacher, my sister brought up The World of Stuff, and Mr. Chandler tried to go to it. The school’s filtering software had blocked it. Reason: porn? Well, whatever. My guess is that after many of the teachers and administrators found out about it last year, they realized that maybe people were spending a little too much time reading it? Or something? Oh well. It’s flattering that they’d care enough to block it. I’m just glad they didn’t do it while I was still a student there; otherwise, I’d never be able to blog from school like I did several times.

On Wednesday, I went to the Rapids Water Park in West Palm Beach with Mark, TJ (not that TJ), Joe, Matt, and Mark’s girlfriend whose name I am going to spell Wai. I think Mark wanted to go because (a) it’s the summer and (b) he was going to have his tonsils taken out the next day. So off to the Rapids we went. Basically, it was a day filled with water slides. I don’t see how that can’t be awesome. Actually, it’s not awesome if you fail to put sunscreen on your arms because you barely have time to put it on your face. I also kept a shirt on so I wouldn’t have to slop down my whole torso. It worked, but I’d rather not contribute to my farmer’s tan next time.

But yeah, it was a blast. We went on all of the rides. I can close my eyes and imagine going down Big Thunder (or Black Thunder, which is the same but in the dark). They’re new since the last time I went. And this time, I still failed at the feats of balance, though it was fun to try. And at least I didn’t plunk down any extra money on food.

Rolling Stone reports on China’s increasingly prevalent citizen-spying technologies that are coming from American business: “China’s All-Seeing Eye.” (Related: PC Magazine‘s “Behind China’s Great Firewall.”)

Here’s a pretty big table of Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States. It shows exactly how complicated today’s copyright laws are.

Some have tried to prove the English royal family’s descent from Muhammad, but it’s not generally accepted. However, Queen Elizabeth can more likely trace her lineage back to the Romans, or at least to St. Arnulf of Metz (582-640). Arnulf is said to be a descendant of Flavius Afranius Syagrius (born c. 345), which makes Syagrius “the earliest known ancestor of any of the royal houses of Europe. His descendants almost certainly number in the millions and include most of the past and future kings and nobles of Europe.” Imagine being that guy.

From CollegeHumor, it’s humor about college: Honest College Ad (NSFW dialogue).

News on the march

Yesterday I went to my friend Kim’s graduation party. Actually it’s more like my friend Mark’s sister Kim’s graduation party. I hadn’t seen Mark in a while, so it was good to see him. He’s grown out his hair and lost weight, so everyone’s saying that he looks like me. I do like to think that I served as the inspiration for his hairstyle since it does look exactly like mine. He’s growing sideburns as well. Maybe I’m starting a trend!

Ever since I’d upgraded Ubuntu to version 8.04, I’ve encountered a problem with a certain font in Firefox. When the default sans-serif font (DejaVu Sans) is in a justified paragraph, the lowercase letter “f” overlaps with the letters around it, making words like “office” annoying to read. It’s only for justified paragraphs, and only with that font. I should have realized sooner that the solution is to change Firefox’s default sans-serif font. Bitstream Vera Sans is practically identical, except that it doesn’t suffer that problem. Just thought I’d throw that out there for anyone else who may be experiencing the problem.

News out of Eugene, Oregon: On Friday, a peaceful demonstration against pesticides turned ugly when a protester was subdued and tasered. It started when a University of Oregon student wearing an exterminator suit was spraying water at his surroundings and asking people if they’d like to be sprayed with poison. A plainclothes police officer who was driving by told him to stay off the street, so walked out of the street to sit down. As he was sitting, police officers allegedly dragged him away by his hair. They tasered him at least twice. Two others were arrested for trying to stop the police officers’ actions. The young man and one of the others have concussions. The reasons for his arrest are ambiguous.

Now, Crazy People for Wild Places, a student group at the university, is trying to get the protesters’ charges dropped. My friend Luke is friends with some of the protesters who were present. He calls the actions “politically motivated” and “uncalled for,” and he’s helping to get the word out by starting a web site for the CPWP.

In my opinion, this all really boils down to one issue: Is saying that you’re spraying poison the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater, or should the context matter? After all, my parents always said, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” This young man was dressed as an exterminator at an anti-pesticide rally. It would seem to me that poison would be the last thing he’d want to be spraying on a city street, and my gut reaction is that the police took their ever-expanding authority too far. Power corrupts, my friends. This I have learned. Even if they police are legally right, I believe they’re morally wrong.

Once again, here’s the link for Crazy People for Wild Places, and if you’re in the greater Eugene area, check out the list of their upcoming events and media appearances.

[Update Tue Jun 3, 2008 19:50 UTC -5: Here's a video that features eyewitness testimonies and footage of the incidents.]

Okay, now this is pretty ridiculous. You all know Digg, right? It’s a social bookmarking site. You bookmark a site with Digg, and other Digg users can comment on the page and vote it up and so on and so on. Okay, so Wikileaks posted a copy of Kappa Sigma Fraternity’s secret book of secret rituals, and one person Dugg it. But it was enough for Kappa Sigma’s lawyers to send Digg a takedown notice because they were linking to a page that was linking to the copyrighted material.

Incidentally, I know a guy who joined that fraternity. He wanted to show me what they did to his dorm room right after he was initiated. They completely trashed it — mattress on the floor, flour in the dresser drawers, papers everywhere, posters torn down, tiny objects on the floor that you’d have to pick up individually because they’d break the vacuum, etc. — and left him to clean it up himself. They also marked the place with “ΚΣ” and the initials of the secret motto. It was about 3 in the morning when he showed me, and he was drunk and still working on cleaning everything up then.

On to lighter topics: How about Office Space recut as a thriller? Watch the fake trailer. There are a lot of crappy recut trailers, but this one’s pretty good. I promise.

And finally, some Intricate and Realistic Lego Creations. My favorite is the Lego portrait of The Beatles from the Sgt. Pepper album. It’s very well done. I wonder where they got the idea…