Hallowhatever

I’m kind of ambivalent about Halloween. On one hand, I like candy, but on the other hand, I don’t like wearing costumes.

I never really have good ideas for costumes, anyway. Off the top of my head, I can remember that I’ve been a ghost, a nerd, a doctor, a Beatle, Fred Astaire, myself, and a dinosaur. I could explain some of those, but I don’t really want to. The best costume was probably the dinosaur one from when I was little, but you can only pull that off at a certain age (especially because the costume was tiny).

I’ve always had pretty lame costume ideas, and then there was a time when I thought I was too old for trick-or-treating. For a few years, I would sit at home on Halloween night and hand out candy or just chill. One year, someone (possibly another kid who lived in my house??) started a rumor that I read a dictionary instead of trick-or-treating. Actually, I was watching a football game on TV, but I guess the truth was stranger than fiction. Better yet, that story made an appearance a few years in a row. So, yeah, I was a pretty happy child on Halloween.

I couldn’t think of anything to be this year, but I figure it really doesn’t matter as much as I get older. College students just wear costumes to make their wild Halloween parties more fun. I’m going to a non-wild party, so I feel I can get away with not wearing a costume. It’s also a football party, this being a big game day, so I guess I could say I’m going as a football fan? In that case, I’m being myself for Halloween again.

After all, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched a football game on Halloween. Really.

Readers of the Independent Florida Alligator may have noticed my name in the newspaper this week. I had a letter to the editor published on Thursday in which I pulled out and picked apart a previous editorial‘s passing claim that the words “one nation under God” cannot be considered broadly offensive because they’re found in the Pledge of Allegiance. No follow-ups to my letter have been published, but the online version has attracted its share of vitriolically tangential double posts from pseudonymous capslockers.

I was pleased to see that my letter had been published and that some of my friends (and my boss) took notice of it. I had sent in an unsolicited column and at least one other letter to the editor in the past, both to no avail, so I didn’t have high hopes that this one would be printed. But I knew I had to write it anyway. If I don’t stand up for my rights, who will?

Finally, good things to know: 9 Ways Marketing Weasels Will Try to Manipulate You. (Via Get Rich Slowly)

The Gainesville experience

My parents came to visit my sister and me for the weekend. I hadn’t seen them since the start of the semester two months ago, so it was nice. We had a good time going to some restaurants and doing some shopping. Usually, I’m the one who’s visiting them, but they like Gainesville. It’s a unique place.

Yesterday, I was walking through Turlington Plaza when a guy tried to get my attention. He was dressed like an extra in a biblical epic. I had seen him standing there many times before, and other UF students will probably know who I’m talking about. I wasn’t really sure what his deal was, but I was about to find out.

The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a British accent. Next, I realized he was a Krishna guy. I wanted to be on my way, so I let him say what he wanted to say and get it over with. He said he only talked to the smartest-looking people. And so he told me, a smart person, a little bit about why his Hare Krishna beliefs made so much sense.

He said that people place too much importance on their physical bodies, and that even though I’m a good-looking version of George Harrison, I won’t always be. He asked for a donation, and I couldn’t think of how to get myself out of giving him a dollar. In exchange, he gave me, now a smart and attractive person, a book on meditation that had interviews with George Harrison and John Lennon.

With that, I had a chance to continue on my way. If his religion is so great, couldn’t he have tried to win me over without schmoozing? In any case, I need to work on saying no.

Later, I missed my bus home and had to wait for the next one, which was, of course, late. It was dark by the time the bus arrived. I had already read most of the newspaper and done the crossword puzzle, so there wasn’t much to do on the bus except look out the windows. I couldn’t even do that because it was too dark, so I had to be content with listening to people.

During the ride, a guy started talking to the woman sitting next to me. He said he had been to one of her poetry readings on campus a few weeks before and wanted to compliment her on her work. She mentioned that she had one book out and was working on a second.

I was pretty sure that she was a particular woman I had read about several times in the newspaper, a local resident who had turned to a career as a poet to lift herself out of poverty. As soon as I struck up a conversation with her, I knew. She was missing some of her teeth, a detail I remembered from the articles. She had a pleasant demeanor.

I had wanted to buy a copy of her book ever since I had read about her, so I asked if she had any copies with her. As it happened, she did, so she signed one for me, and I gave her the money. Not long afterward, the bus reached my stop, so I thanked her and left.

Here’s a browsable map of London from 1868. (Via The Presurfer)

See the first cell phone, digital camera, digital music player, and more: World’s First Gadgets. (Via The Presurfer)

Smile

Sometimes you meet someone and the thinkable happens.

It starts out perfectly simply. You get along well and become friends. But then there’s something else: their laugh, something in the way they move, or their general outlook on life really gets your attention. They don’t have to be around to make you smile.

You see and talk to them often, and you want to let them know just how you feel. What do you do? Do you become a creeper? No. You just talk openly about it when you feel the moment is right. If they’re really your friend, they’ll listen.

And what if they say they don’t feel quite the same about you? Do you stop being their friend? That’s childish. At this age, you should know it’s hardly the worst thing in the world. The truth is that you still have a good friend.

Like any friend, you want them to be happy, and the best way to help is to set an example. Smile: a good friend is forever.

And now, the links.

One of those sites that concisely answers the a question posed by its domain name: howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Apparently, baseball used to be pretty crazy. Here are the 10 Craziest Baseball Rules. (Via The Presurfer)

Get databased

As you may know, I volunteer for Get Carded, a student group that raises awareness about organ donation on Florida college campuses. It’s my third year with them, and this time, some things are different. One of the two co-directors of the group has graduated, and his would-be replacement is no longer around due to some drama that apparently occurred over the summer. It’s unfortunate because we’d all been a friendly bunch for as long as I’d been a member.

But that wasn’t the only big change to happen the summer. Get Carded’s parent organization has been put in charge of Florida’s organ donor database, and it’s now taking registrations online. In the past, we distributed organ donor cards, but now we just tell people to go to the web site (or to mail in a form). Our first tabling event was last week, and I had to update my spiel.

The tabling was part of a week-long PR blitz for homecoming week. It started on Monday night when we painted the 34th Street Wall, the only place in town where graffiti is tolerated. Our tabling was Wednesday, and the group also made itself present at the homecoming parade on Friday, although I pulled out of my commitment to that one due to unforeseen circumstances. (I’d been at probably every event for the past two years, so I felt I had the privilege. Also, the co-directors didn’t care.)

Incidentally, the new database makes the name “Get Carded” go from confusing to completely inaccurate. We were told that there was a strong push to change the name, but one of the better-established chapters wouldn’t have it. Branding, y’know.

Are you a Florida resident? Are you an organ donor? (Check your driver’s license if you’re not sure; it would say “Organ Donor” under your signature.) If you’re not, go to donatelifeflorida.org to sign up right now. It just takes a minute, and you’ll be able to edit your personal details whenever they change. (For the question “How did you learn about Florida’s donor registry?” we ask people to select “College campaign” and then specify “UF.” It make it sounds like a cheesy competition, but that’s really how the state organization judges our success.)

And if you have any questions about becoming an organ donor, just ask me.

Remember when people used more than one search engine? A lot of those old ones are still around. See Popular Search Engines in the ’90s: Then and Now. (Via The Presurfer)

For the people who are older than I am: Old Operating Systems Don’t Die.

Homegoing

It’s that time of year again. Homecoming, a university holiday, was yesterday, so I had no classes (or work, since I work at the university). I took advantage of the opportunity to have some fun. As I said last weekend,

I’m going to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens with Andrea and friends on Thursday night. I haven’t been there since I was too short or wimpy to ride the brand-new Montu, and I’ve never been to a Halloween-type event at a theme park (omg omg omg so awesome how could you not ahve ever been).

So we set off on Thursday afternoon. Once we got to Tampa, we had dinner at Friday’s, where Andrea’s friend Billy met up with us. Next, we headed to Busch Gardens. It was dark by the time we got there.

For Howl-O-Scream, the rides that aren’t rollercoasters turn into haunted houses and the rides that are rollercoasters turn into rollercoasters at night. The haunted houses have different themes like haunted prison, haunted sorority house, haunted house, etc. I didn’t think they were too scary, but some people in line behind me begged to differ. A lot. But as long as you realize that people are going to be jumping out at you and screaming at every turn, you can prepare yourself for it. (Actually, they seemed to single out the people who looked like they would be scared the most; most of them didn’t jump out at me.)

Also, rollercoasters. I finally did ride Montu (and Kumba as well). The rollercoaster enthusiasts of us also wanted to go on SheiKra, but it would have taken an hour and a half to wait in the line, so we decided to go to some more haunted houses instead. Maybe next time. Rollercoasters are awesome at night.

The lines seemed to get longer and longer as the night went on; Andrea said it was much more crowded than it was when she went last year. At 00:30 (yeah), the park started closing, so we headed out. After parting ways with Billy, we headed to Andrea’s house in Lakeland, where we spent the night.

The next morning, we enjoyed some doughnuts (courtesy of Andrea’s parents) before setting off for Gainesville. The traffic in G-ville was terrible, probably due to the homecoming pep rally, Gator Growl, which was that night. I didn’t go, as usual, but at least they got a comedian I had heard of. Today’s football game is designated as the homecoming game, which doesn’t really mean anything (I think) except that we’re really supposed to win.

Anyway, I had a good time with Andrea and pals, and I’d be glad to go on some kind of trip like that again.

Here’s a funny letter (supposedly) from John F. Kennedy. (Via J-Walk Blog)

The BBC has an interesting article on Samuel Johnson’s influential dictionary of the English language.

Review des extensiones

Two months ago, I wrote about some Firefox extensions I had installed. Now it’s time to check back in and see if I’m still using them!

• BetterPrivacy: I’m still using this one. It’s one of those set-it-and-forget-it extensions, and it’s doing its job well.
• Ghostery: I uninstalled this extension and subscribed to the EasyPrivacy filterset for Adblock Plus instead. The filterset is updated regularly, and I was already using ABP anyway.
• Perspectives: This one hasn’t come in handy yet, but I like to think it will be useful sometime.
• Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (TACO): I uninstalled this extension for reasons I will explain below.

Since then, I’ve installed the following security-related extensions:

• CS Lite: A simple extension that lets you manage your cookie settings from the status bar and offers more options than Firefox does by default. I have it set to block all cookies except from sites I’ve specified. For some of those sites (e.g., Wikipedia, The World of Stuff), I’ve allowed cookies to remain till they expire. For others (e.g. Facebook, my bank), I allow their cookies to stay until my browser session ends. CS Lite also lets you allow cookies from a site for the current session only, which can be useful for sites like nytimes.com (which still makes you register to read certain articles) or my high school’s web site (which ingeniously redirects to itself if cookies are disabled). Since I now use CS Lite and EasyPrivacy, I don’t feel TACO is necessary.
• NoScript: One of the most popular Firefox extensions, it blocks JavaScript on all sites and allows you to set exceptions for sites you trust. It takes a little while to set it up if you visit a lot of script-heavy sites regularly, but after that, it’s not too much trouble. In fact, it makes many sites zippier, particularly blogs that are weighed down by tons of crap scripts. NoScript contains a lot of other security features like protection from cross-site scripting attacks. It also lets you block plugins like Flash and Java on untrusted sites, which makes sites like my high school’s web site a whole lot more bearable. I never installed this extension before because I thought it was incompatible with Greasemonkey, but NoScript now allows most Greasemonkey scripts to run.

I could probably get used to using CS Lite and NoScript, but some web sites that rely on JavaScript or cookies don’t tell you to allow them, and that can be annoying at times. Web designers shouldn’t just assume that visitors will have JavaScript and cookies enabled.

I haven’t actually tried this, but it sounds interesting: Omegle lets you chat with a random stranger. Exciting?

This is pretty epic: a non-traditional visualization of Beethoven’s Fifth, showing each note and instrument. Of course, there’s audio too. (Via The Presurfer)

Dinner at Andrea’s

Now that I attend a university with a top-ranked football team, I watch a lot of football games. Usually, I watch them alone because everyone else is going to the game or going out drinking or just doing something else entirely. That’s all fine and good, but it’s nice to actually socialize once in a while.

So I was pretty pleased when my friend Andrea invited me over to watch the game. A few of her other friends came too, and we watched (in HD) while having some pizza and snacks. I actually got there way early and stayed way late (through Saturday Night Live), so there were a lot of good times to be had. Well, I thought so, anyway.

The game itself was good too. The #1 Florida Gators’ star quarterback had suffered a concussion in the previous game, and no one knew if he would be able to play in this, the biggest game of the season (at #4 LSU). He was finally cleared to play, and he lead the team to its fifteenth straight win by a score of 13-3. College football = epic drama.

During the game, the announcers offered a trivia question (brought to you by Aflac): when was the last time LSU hosted a game between Top 5 teams? I impressed or creeped out everyone present by knowing not only the year but also the teams, rankings, and score. (1959, #1 LSU def. #3 Ole Miss 7-3.)

I had read it in the newspaper the day before. I swear, they must get all their trivia questions from the college paper because that’s not the first time that’s happened. Anyway, I happened to come across that fact in an article, and I thought, That’s interesting; I’ll absorb it with my mind. Maybe it’ll come in handy someday!

Anyway, it looks like the fun times will continue because I’m going to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens with Andrea and friends on Thursday night. I haven’t been there since I was too short or wimpy to ride the brand-new Montu, and I’ve never been to a Halloween-type event at a theme park (omg omg omg so awesome how could you not ahve ever been). Friday is Homecoming, a school holiday. Nice.

From Rocketboom: Know Your Meme: FAIL. (Via The Presurfer)

Birds on wires = music notes on a staff? See what some birds sound like when they’re turned into notes. It’s actually quite nice. (Via waxy.org)

Mind mashup

One of the organizations I’m involved with is Florida Free Culture, UF’s chapter of Students for Free Culture. On Tuesday, we had an event called Mind Mashup. It took place in the main library on campus and was organized with the help of the librarians. Thanks, librarians!

At the event, we explained the concepts of the public domain and Creative Commons, demonstrated some free software for editing photos, audio, and video. We also presented a list of public domain and CC-licensed resources for people to mash up. In our advertising for the event, we had suggested that people bring their laptops so they could follow along and start right away. Some people did.

The event was actually pretty well attended, particularly by student journalists. I got pulled aside to talk to an Alligator reporter’s microphone, and an Alligator photographer got some shots of me.

The brief article appeared the next day. Of course, the only photo they published was of our only demonstration of a non-free program, viz. Adobe Premiere. I wasn’t quoted, but they did post some of my sound bites with the online version of the article, so you can hear my all of my hemming and hawing.

When the Mind Mashup was over, I hurried to the building next door to get to the Esperanto Club meeting, where Andy was giving a lesson in my absence.

In other news, I met my new roommate on Monday night. I haven’t seen too much of him around, but he seems like a good guy. I think we’ll get along well. But here’s a funny thing: remember how I said, like, last week that people shouldn’t assume that everyone is straight until proven gay? Well, I assumed my roommate would be white, but he’s black. All I can say is: daaaang.

Pretty interesting: some irate messages hidden in old video games by their developers. (Via waxy.org)

What the Internet Knows About You can tell you what popular web sites you’ve recently visited. Find out how it works for the details of this clever exploit. (Via waxy.org)

The information superhighway

Once in a while, I post ridiculous things I wrote during the pre-World-of-Stuff days. Sometimes I’ve found them written on posters or in notebooks, but quite often, they’re sitting right here on my computer. My “documents” folder has tons of old things, some of which I don’t even remember writing.

In the year 2000 (as opposed to, you know, the color 2000 or something), my school, St. Elizabeth’s, still didn’t have a web site. This document, dated March 7, 2000, provides a solution that was apparently dreamed up by me.

Why
Saint Elizabeth
Needs a
Web Site.
|————————-//————————-|
An Essay by Jordon Kalilich, Fifth Grade.

I am tired of other private schools being on the Internet when we are just here, moping around. Highlands Christian and Pine Crest are leaving us in the e-dust. There are several items to consider before making a Web site for a school, and I will dicuss some of them below:

I. Convenience
A Web site is very convenient, especially for a school. Instead of having to phone the school and pay for the costs, one could log on to the Internet and find information there. Aside from saving money, it’s quick and memorizing long phone numbers is not needed.

II. Cost
Creating a Web site is usually free. There are Web sites that allow individuals and orginazations to create Web sites. One such service is at http://www.angelfire.com . To make a URL (Web site address) easier to remember, a domain name can be bought. Most domain services charge the first year free, the second year $70, and $35 each year thereafter. Of course, most schools wouldn’t have a hard time getting that money. One of the most popular domain name services is at http://www.register.com .

III. Advertising, Etc.
One cannot just make a Web site and expect a thousand people to come. Web sites need to advertise to be visited. One such Web site, http://www.safe-audit.com , works with banner ads and advertising. Search engines are another key to popularity. Registering on search engines will help boost any Web site’s visits, especially when you can register to 30 of them at one Web site. This can be done at http://www.addme.com .

IV. User-Friendliness
If one could name anything, it could be put on the Internet. Many things can be customized on a Web site. Using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), things that could be customized include, but not limited to: Font, text color, text size, background color, hyperlink colors, and things concerning images. A Web site with basic HTML tips is at http://www.htmlgoodies.com and http://www.htmlclinic.com .

That is why we need a Web site, how we can get one, and what we could do with it. Let this be brought to the attention of the principal, the staff, the student council, Ms. Ewing, and the entire student body. Thank you all and have a nice day.

I don’t remember ever delivering that address (if that’s what it was supposed to be). Eventually, the school did set up a web site. The URL was a third- or fourth-level domain name that was impossible to remember because it had nothing to do with the name of the school and, in fact, no apparent meaning at all. The site was also private; each family had to create an account and log in. It was not ideal.

And almost ten years after writing that, a lot has changed about the way people run personal web sites. We let Googlebot find our new web pages. CSS makes styling pages easier. theworldofstuff.com costs me $7.99 per year. And I hate advertising.

Nowadays, my old school has a new web site that uses a customized version of MediaWiki. And it’s open to the public, so I can see which of my teachers are still there! It’s kind of interesting to see how things have changed in the six years since I was a student there.

Thank you all and have a nice day.

The Katzenklavier is a theoretical musical instrument that’s a sort of piano with cats inside. Instead of strings, each hammer strikes a cat with a different tone of voice. It sounds like something out of a cartoon, but it was described in the 18th or 19th century by some guy who thought it would be a great way to cure people of ADD. You can’t make this stuff up! I wonder if anyone’s ever built one.

From mental_floss: 10 Secret Menu Items from restaurant chains around the US.

The fourth man

Recently, I moved into an apartment with a couple of friends. At the time, I wrote,

There was room for a fourth person in the apartment, but we ended up not finding anyone to join us, and they didn’t assign us another roommate. We’re locked out of the fourth bedroom, but we don’t have to pay extra or anything.

And that was that… or so I thought.

One of my roommates hit me with the news on Thursday while I was studying on campus. Our fourth roommate would be moving in on Wednesday. I had to take a study break.

I was already used to our three-person arrangement, and I wondered what would happen if an unknown person were thrown into the mix. And then I got to worrying. And then I realized that I shouldn’t worry because it wouldn’t do me any good, and things would turn out fine. I like to think I get along well with people. My previous random and quasi-random roommate assignments worked out just fine, and our new apartment complex actually matches people up based on compatibility and common interests.

Which is good, because we got another notice yesterday that our new roommate would instead be moving in on Monday. It also said that there would be an inspection of our common areas about 24 hours in advance of him moving in, and if anything wasn’t cleaned up, they would clean it at our expense. So it’s been a cleaning day.

All they’ve told us about him are his name and phone number. Maybe we should call him to introduce ourselves and make the moving-in process easier for him. It must be hard to move in to a new place where everyone else already knows each other.

When you think of health care reform, think of my friend Joshua McGee, who reminds us that those who stand to benefit from it the most are real people like you and me… and him: Health Care Reform Beneficiaries Are Not Anonymous.

You know how broadcasts of pro sporting events include that warning against rebroadcasting or describing the game without express written consent of the league? Major League Baseball seems to be the most infamous for this. Some guy decided to write to them for permission to describe a game to his friend. Find out how things went down. (Via J-Walk Blog)