Christmas 2009

So I guess they actually did spend twelve days celebrating Christmas back in the old days. That must have been fun. We’ve had three, pretty much. It started on Wednesday night when my grandparents came over and we had surf ‘n’ turf for dinner. We don’t have steak a lot, and I’d only had lobster once before, but I can’t remember where. It wasn’t too long ago. The archives don’t help, but they remind me that the dinner was quite bovine and homarine.

Also on Wednesday, my dad found an 1897 Liberty Head nickel in some change and gave it to me. I’d grade it as Very Good to Fine or thereabouts. Coin collecting is an expensive hobby unless you can scavenge through a lot of change.

After dinner, my sister and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which we had taped (omg you guys still use vhs vcr video casette tapes? what the heck) from a recent airing on the Disney Channel. Surprisingly, there were only three commercial breaks, and the credits were left intact. In fact, I don’t think anything was cut out from the film either. It was a Christmas miracle.

For Christmas Eve, we did the whole church thing and then went home and opened a few gifts. My dad got new cell phones for everybody. I’m evaluating mine and will let you know what I think about it later. Then we had another feast for dinner. It consisted of finger foods like wings, shrimp, and chips ‘n’ dips. What says “Merry Christmas” better than seven-layer dip? Maybe the desserts, but that’s it.

And today, it’s Christmas. The cell phone was my Big Present of the Year, but I also got some clothes and other things that are nice to have. Plus, I have more gifts coming in the mail from friends and family, so maybe we can stretch this Christmas out a little further. In a few hours, we’ll have dinner, which is the same as our Thanksgiving dinner because it’s too good to have just once a year.

And now, a special Christmas edition of Ask Jordon!

Shannon: Why exactly are you an atheist?

I didn’t ignore you, Shannon! I got this question months ago and have been working on a response. The result is a new page, Why I Am an Atheist. You can also find if you click on… can anyone guess? Yes, Articles! Good job.

I don’t have any Christmas-related links, so you’ll have to settle for these secular links that are destroying Christmas.

A song whose lyrics consist of sampled movie and TV quotes: The Golden Age of Video. (Via waxy.org)

Here’s another video with movie quotes: specifically, movie titles as spoken in the movies themselves. (Via waxy.org)

Exams are exciting

Busy times again. Yesterday was the last day of classes. Some professors decide to have their final exams on the last day instead of during exam week, so I had two exams yesterday. I had studied a lot for them the day before, so they weren’t too hard. I already know that I got an A in Statistics, which I thought would be impossible.

It kind of puzzles me that I’m still having to take classes like Statistics that really have nothing to do with my major. I tell people who go to other universities the kinds of classes I’m taking, and they’re also puzzled, which in turn makes me mad. I don’t want anyone to think I’m getting a bad education. I think I’ve touched on this theme before, but I’m too lazy to find the link.

The professor of my Data Structures and Algorithms class (the most important class I’m taking) says they don’t have time to teach us computer science and computer engineering majors everything, especially when it comes to programming languages. He suggests that we go off and learn some languages on our own. It’s not a bad idea, but I’d like to learn more than one language in school.

Isn’t it obvious why there’s no time? It’s because the university, or whoever tells them what they have to teach, insists that students have well-rounded college education. The Dutch sisters I met on the train from Venice to Zagreb this summer were puzzled by that idea. I could see their point. If I wanted to have a well-rounded education, I would have gone to high school. Oh, wait, I already did!

Sure, it would reflect well on me to learn programming languages by myself (as I actually have). And sure, it’s not the worst thing in the world to write essays about the spice trade on the Indian Ocean during the Middle Ages and early modern period (as I also have). But I daresay that time spent doing the latter when I should be concentrating on the former is not time well spent. And they wonder why they can’t teach us enough of what we need to know…

Anyway, I have an exam on Saturday and my last one on Tuesday. I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be going home yet.

Joshua reports on abuse of authority and endorsement of religion at California public school. He’s started a letter-writing campaign to stop the injustice. I’ve been too busy to write a letter, but I hope to get to that soon if it’s still necessary.

And here’s A Flowchart to Determine What Religion You Should Follow. (Via Pharyngula)

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)

Summer again

Well, hello there. I’m home, and there hasn’t been much to report.

Friday night, my last night in Hume Hall, was pretty quiet. I basically spent it with my friend Andrea, who was as bored as I was. She made some food for us, but I got hungry later, as people are wont to do. That’s when I found out that all of the dining halls, convenience stores, and restaurants on campus had closed early. We went to McDonald’s, where there was a touch-screen game system presumably for the kids as they munch on their Happy Meals. After eating, we took a whack at a trivia game that was too hard for us, let alone some little McNugget-gobbling brats. It took us about a million tries to beat the high score, and we were very proud.

On Saturday, my dad came and helped me moved out. We spent the night at my aunt’s house, and then on Sunday, we took the long way home. I got home Sunday night and, well, here I am.

I’ve been working online, and that’s been pretty okay. As a webmaster, I do most of my work on the Internet, so it’s been basically like going to work, except I don’t have to walk there. That would be a long walk.

Also, I just found out today that I got all A’s and B’s in my classes. Awesome. Let’s celebrate with an edition of Ask Jordon:

Carlos: When are you coming out of beta? Flickr already did.

Well, my friend Luke, since this design looks so modern and Web 2.0 (is that still modern?), and because it’s always subject to change, I thought a “beta?” badge would be appropriate next to the logo until I have it the way I like it. The only thing I’m yet concerned about is the line spacing. Do you guys think there needs to be more space between the lines here? I’ll have to check it out on Windows and see what looks okay.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Reason, which coincides with that National Day of Prayer thing. Americans United for Separation of Church and State explains why the National Day of Prayer is a bad idea.

Here are lots of crazy McDonald’s menu items from around the world. Find out where you can get McSpaghetti.

Earth Hour was March 28. Here are some photos of cities around the world in the dark.

A sweet end

End-of-year things have been going on. Last Monday, I presided over the last Esperanto Club meeting of the year. Not a lot of people showed up, but I guess that can be expected since people had to study for exams and do more important end-of-year things. We had elections, but no one was challenged, so they were kind of pointless. Still, you’ve got to respect the democratic process.

Last Thursday, Get Carded had its year-end dinner at Bento Cafe, a hip Asian place. This year, they’d been awarding points to people for volunteering a certain number of hours at events. The member with the most points at the end of the year would get a gift card for the restaurant of their choice. I was the frontrunner all year, so Michael and Jehan, the guys in charge, already asked me what restaurant I wanted a gift card for. And on Thursday night, I was awarded Volunteer of the Year (defending my title from last year) with a gift card good for Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, and a couple of other places whose names I can’t be bothered to remember because I’m too lazy to take the gift card out of my wallet even though I could have taken it out and checked in the time it’s taken me to write this.

Saturday night was a Gator Freethought party. I was only able to go to a few of their meetings this year due to scheduling conflicts, so I thought I’d make up for it by going to a party at the former president’s house. It was fun; there were games, political debates, and s’mores. I wish I had gone to more of those parties.

Oh, and exams. My first exam was yesterday, a whole week after classes ended. I think I did well. My other two were today. In fact, the exams I expected to be harder were easier and the one I expected to be easier was harder. Is that ironic? It might be Alanis Morissette ironic, but I don’t think it’s really ironic.

For my discrete math class, we got to choose our own grade distribution (according to certain guidelines), so I took advantage of that by writing a program that would find the best grade distribution for me. I gave it a few possible values for my final exam grade and went for one of the distributions that weighed my final somewhat heavily but not as heavily as possible. It made getting an A pretty easy without the risk of getting a very bad grade if I somehow bombed the final. I shared my program with my classmates, and at least some of them used it, which was cool.

After that exam, which was my last, my roommate moved out, and I’m now left in a half-empty room till Saturday. But all is not lost. I planned a date with my new friend. We hadn’t met for a while due to various things (mainly exams) getting in the way, but things worked out tonight. We went to Chop Stix, a pan-Asian place, for dinner, and it was delightful. I’d like to see her again before I go home, and I might.

And, well, that’s basically it. I guess it’s time to put this year to bed. I’ll be moving out on Saturday, and I’ll probably get home Sunday.

If world leaders were on Facebook, they would probably have a Facebook group for world leaders.

The Benny Hillifier makes any video sillier by substituting the audio with that sax tune from The Benny Hill Show.

You know you need to put your comic strip to bed when you reuse artwork and/or jokes from decades ago. Recently, Blondie and The Family Circus have been caught doing just that. (Via J-Walk Blog)

More things that have nothing to do with each other

Last time on The World of Stuff: I was looking for a way to notify readers of new blog posts by e-mail. In an update to the post, I mentioned a WordPress plugin called Subscribe2. At first I thought it wouldn’t meet my needs, but I’ve figured out how to make it work. The plugin automatically generates the subscription/unsubscription form on a WordPress page. This is what I didn’t like. But then I realized I could just copy the form manually and put it on the sidebar.

Subscribe2 is probably better than RSS-to-e-mail (or RSS-to-email) services because it can send out e-mails right after every post is posted. Plus, there’s no third party involved to collect addresses and send out notifications. Just me with your e-mail addresses, and you can trust me. The only minor downside is that I’ll get an e-mail for every post I write. That’s not too much of a problem because I can just have Thunderbird delete them automatically. [Update Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:48 UTC -5: By default, a single message is sent with the recipients in the Bcc: field, and the admin's address in the To: field. If you set the number of recipients per e-mail to 1, each recipient's address will be in the To: field, and you won't get a copy of the notifications.] So anyway, you’ll be able to subscribe by e-mail soon. Yay.

I’ve been to the movies twice since I’ve been home for the break. I saw Yes Man last week. It was actually pretty good — vintage Jim Carrey — and might be characterized by some as “cute.” And yesterday I saw Valkyrie, the true story of Tom Cruise as a one-eyed Nazi who tries to kill Adolf Hitler. I had never heard of the actual story, but if it’s anything like the movie, it’s pretty interesting. Despite that you know the ending (because Hitler wasn’t assassinated), there’s still a good deal of suspense. Oh, and Terence Stamp is in both movies. Not that I knew who he was before IMDbing them.

I’ve had another what-the-heck moment. Actually, it happened a few months ago. There’s a Norman Rockwell calendar on the fridge, featuring one picture each month from the prolific artist. Several of his earlier works are included, each with copyright notices like “Copyright 1917″ or “Copyright 1921″ along with the name of the alleged copyright holder. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing published before 1923 is still copyrighted in the United States. Plus, Bridgeman v. Corel sets down that faithful photographs of two-dimensional works that are in the public domain are themselves in the public domain. The copyright holder of Norman Rockwell’s post-1922 works is claiming exclusive rights to art that belongs to everyone.

(Something I learned while I was looking that up: Only works created by humans are eligible for copyright. So paintings by animals and the computer-generated gobbledygook in spam e-mails are in the public domain. All right!)

Anyway, this isn’t the first time that a company has tried to exercise control over works that are probably in the public domain. I mentioned seemingly recently the case of “Happy Birthday to You,” which makes Time Warner millions each year. And remember that “This Land” video of Bush and Kerry from 2004 and how JibJab, the creators of the video, got sued by the copyright holder of “This Land Is Your Land”? In defending JibJab, the venerable Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that the song has been in the public domain for decades, yet JibJab still had to pay up, I think.

Is there any whistleblowing blog that calls out corporations for claiming copyright over public domain works? I would like to see one if there is. But hopefully there aren’t enough cases to warrant creating a whole blog.

‘Tis the season: Patron Who Complained About Indiana Library Nativity Faces Retaliation. What was it doing there anyway?

These shoes aren’t made for walking

If I seem a little sophomoric lately, it’s because I’m now in my sophomore year of college. I haven’t felt this way in four years.

But seriously, my first day of classes wasn’t so bad. Well, the classes weren’t, anyway. There are no labs the first week, so I didn’t have to wake up at 6:45 for my Monday Morning Physics Lab from Hell. (That’s right, I said “hell.” HELL!) My first class was physics at 12:50. Right after that, I had programming, and then I was done for the day. Both are continuations from classes I took in the spring. I have the same lecture hall for physics and the same lecturer for programming. The lecturer is cool. After a long weekend (or a summer), he asks the class how they spent their time away. He spent his summer not shaving, and now he has a cool beard.

It rained a lot last week. Like, a lot. I had to do some walking around, and I got pretty wet. My tennis shoes (sneakers) also got pretty wet. I thought they would dry out eventually, but they didn’t after a few days. They also stank like whoa. My roommate and I decided that I should toss them in the dryer, but as I was leaving with them, I caught a glimpse inside. Now, I’d never looked at the insides of my tennis shoes before, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be bright yellow with black spots.

Today I had to get up early for my technical writing class. After putting on my only remaining pair of shoes (a pair of sandals that aren’t comfortable for walking long distances), I made my way toward the class.

“Excuse me. Do you know what you have to do to get to heaven?”

I’d had a year of mental preparation for this, but I was surprised that they were just stopping passersby rather than just talking people who were sitting around and doing nothing. Last year, I took the bait to avoid being confrontational and to get a sense of the guy’s argument. Since then, I’ve decided that I’d be more frank in future meetings.

“I don’t think heaven is a real place.” The bespectacled, well-dressed young man smiled knowingly. “But,” I added hastily, “that doesn’t mean I think people should go around doing bad things. I think people should do good things for the sake of other people.”

“So you don’t think people should go around killing each other?” he said with a chuckle.

“No, no.” I shared the laugh. “People should be good to each other.”

“Do you know what the Bible says about what you have to do to get to heaven?”

“I think so.” Last time, I had been quoted to, chapter and verse.

“It only takes a minute, and I could walk with you.”

“Sorry, but I’m going to be late to class,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

I was early to the tech writing class. It was an honors class for engineering majors, so I wasn’t surprised when my former floormates Cameron and Jason showed up. (Also, they had told me they’d be taking the class.) Then class started. The professor was a woman; I’ve never had a female professor. She went over the basic rules: no cell phones, no tardies — and at that point, someone came in late. Then a co-worker came in to tell her something, and she asked to use someone’s cell phone. She had to call the other professor, who had gotten into a car accident on her way to work. After that, she went over the course material with us. This was a tech writing class, but it was also a speaking class. She would be teaching us the speech component, she said. She had a slight lisp.

We did an ice-breaking activity where we each wrote facts about ourselves on a piece of paper and then swapped with other people and initialed by the things that we had in common with them. By that time, the other professor had come in. She said she was still shaken and that the other driver was “an illegal Nicaraguan who didn’t have a driver’s license.” She spent the rest of the class giving us some basic rules of writing. I think I’ve probably broken about ten of them in this post. We already have an assignment: to write about a scientific topic in a way that a junior high school student (11-14 years old) can understand. It should be about something we already know; researching isn’t the point. I wonder what I could write about.

Here’s this year’s Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2012, describing the world as it is to incoming college freshmen who were born in 1990.

You’ve probably seen some of these hilarious exam answers before, but I got some big laffs out of the new ones.

It’s hard to believe that students are still harassed at school due to their sexual orientation. At one Florida high school, the perpetrator was the principal. Here are details from the court ruling on this criminal activity.

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.

Nothing has changed, it’s still the same

I visited my old high school today, less than a year after graduating. I was with my sister, my sister’s friend Jennifer, and the (in)famous Ed. My friend Nick and his friend Tyler also joined us. This trip had been in the planning stages for a few days, but the timing was a little unfortunate. This week there was standardized testing in the morning, so we were limited to visiting in the afternoon. Actually, that wasn’t so bad, since I don’t think I would have been able to wake up early enough to visit in the morning. College does this to you.

So it was about maybe 1:30 when we got there. Ed said he had gotten immediately kicked out when he tried to visit twice in December, but we encountered no problems with anyone. We just went around saying hello to the teachers we wanted to see: Dr. Singkornrat, Dr. Shipe, Mr. Mumtaz, Ms. Scott, Ms. Boudinet, Mr. Chandler, Ms. Zambrano, Ms. Zolna, and maybe some others that I forgot. (Sorry, others!) They were all the same as ever. They tended to ask the same questions about college life and things like that. And when I told them I was majoring in computer science, they all said, “Oh, of course!” I’m smart, so I must be a computer nerd. Isn’t that a stereotype?

Oh, and at least two people recognized me from Beowulf: The Movie and its sequel, which are now shown to every senior English class (except for the AP classes). Me and my Beowulf buddies are basically school celebrities. (Nick, who played Beowulf, says people recognize him all the time.)

Besides teachers, I had meant to see a few students, but I couldn’t find the class they were in. I did, however, run into Allison, who I had lunch with over winter break. She was getting ready to go to a track meet.

After that, we went to lunch at Bru’s Room, a sports bar. It was pretty empty, which meant no one was using the pool tables. We played Cutthroat, and through sheer luck, I won the only game that I took part in. (I’d previously had a 1-1 record.) The food was good. I’d only ever played pool there; it was my first time eating there.

Then Nick and Tyler had to part with us. On our way out, we saw Ms. McFadden, a guidance counselor of sorts, enter the restaurant, so we talked a bit and had that same old conversation about colleges and things. Then we went back to school (though classes had ended) because Ed wanted to see some coaches (he’s an athletic guy). As we parked, a giant Bronco with huge tires came up. It was Reed, who went to our school a few years ago but dropped out or something. Last I heard (a few months ago), he was making money street racing, and he had a bunch of cars. Well, that was one of them.

While Ed and Reed chatted it up (or played monster truck derby), my sister, Jennifer, and I all roamed around school again. I met up with Susann, whom I was trying to find during school. She took me to Gaby, who practically tackled me with hugs. (They love me there.) Jen and Danae were also there, along with this guy Richard and some other people I didn’t know as well. I had about 10 minutes with them, but then it was time to go, and that was the end of my big day visiting high school. I wish I could have seen more people, but hey, that’s what the Internet’s for, right?

Tomorrow: the beach!

You know, Christians and atheists do have a lot in common. Here are a few Gods We Don’t Believe In.

Here’s one of those crazy stories that you just can’t believe: Retired Teacher Reveals He Was Illiterate Until Age 48.

Popular Science has a ranking of America’s 50 Greenest Cities. Not surprisingly, Florida isn’t represented at all.

Looking forward to Friday

So, I took pictures documenting my February 29th as I said I’d do. I don’t think I’ll put them online right away. They’re mainly awkward photos of classrooms and me eating things. That reflects pretty much all I did on Friday. As I keep saying, they’ll be interesting in about twenty years, so you can expect to see them online then. Maybe earlier if I feel like re-posting the photos from February 29, 2004, along with them.

(Actually, I did have a rather interesting Friday night because my suitemate Evan realized his dream of putting a kiddie pool in the bathroom and having a jacuzzi party. It’s not against the rules, but it will be when the wrong people find out, so we kept it hush-hush. I didn’t take any pictures because they might be incriminating once having a jacuzzi party in the bathroom is a crime. I didn’t get in the water, but I hung out. There was music playing and everything. It was fun.)

(Oh, that Evan is quite a character. He also recently realized his dream of buying a gorilla suit. Will hilarity ensue? Most probably.)

I was just reading some old posts, and I noticed how much funnier I was in them. Like in this one. And, you know, other examples. Just go to a random post in the archives and you’ll see what I mean. Have I grown up and stopped being funny? I hope not. I think I just have more serious things to talk about. Like philosophy.

Still, there are overarching themes that continue to this day. And speaking of rejection, last night (actually early this morning) I asked out a friend via IM an she totally said yes. I feel compelled to add at least five exclamation marks here (such was my feeling after my über-cool roommate helped me with the asking-out process), but I say it with cautious optimism. Every time I ask a girl out, something happens and/or I just get the cold shoulder. Fourth time’s a charm? We’ll see.

And now, the links.

If this doesn’t make your blood boil, check your pulse: Complaining About God in School Can Have Dire Consequences.

From the guy who brought you Human Space Invaders, it’s Human Tetris.

In Manchester, there’s a street with no name. They call it The Street with No Name, so I guess that means it has a name.