Across five Augusts

Change is good*, but the Change Contest is better. Make your guess by Saturday!

It’s August 6. I thought today sounded like an important date or something. Is it my birthday? No, I just had one of those. Is it my anniversary? That would be unlikely. It’s not even garbage day. I was stumped, so I did what any blogger would do and checked the archives. According to several old posts, today is my Dvorakaversary: I’ve been using the Dvorak keyboard for five years today. My fingers sure are thanking me right now. Using QWERTY really hurts my fingers after a while, but I never have problems with Dvorak. And now that I have a computer that is all mine and no one else’s, I don’t even have to have the QWERTY keymap loaded. It’s a little thing, but it means a lot to me.

Also, a year ago yesterday, a bunch of ducks showed up in the driveway.

I’ve been cleaning my room some more. What, you thought I was done? I’ve barely made a dent. (Okay, I’ve made a pretty big dent.) I can’t believe all the stuff I’ve come across: things I loved, things I thought I’d lost, things I don’t remember at all. Most of it, though, is junk, and I’m giving it away (or throwing it away). I realize that I’ve just said this, but it’s still true. Among the things I’ve found is a journal that I kept semi-regularly from 1999 to 2001. I guess it goes to show that I’ve always had a propensity to write in a semi-regular fashion. That journal is one of the few things I’m saving as I empty out my room before leaving for college.

Who needs spring cleaning, anyway? August cleaning is where it’s at. In August, I stand at the threshold of everything. It’s a time to start anew. I started blogging regularly in August 2003. Back then, I was concerned about starting high school. During this, my fifth August, things have come full circle, but in a much bigger way. I almost can’t believe I was so nervous about high school when college is looming like a giant thing that looms. I’m really in for a big change. Who knows what kind of person I’ll be next August? Hopefully one who’s working a kick-awesome job while pulling a 4.0 and being chased by da ladiez.

Read about Dead Sodas that you might remember from the past few decades.

In my last post, I mentioned a political quiz that would tell you which of the 2008 presidential candidates are most in line with your views. Now here’s a really bad way to decide who you should vote for: which operating system their campaign site’s server is running. But it is interesting to note that 69% of Democratic candidates’ sites are powered by Linux, while 70% of Republican candidates rely on Windows.

This is the first post I’ve written (partly) in a recliner. Thanks, laptop!

* For cliché purposes only

Ubuntu on Dell

My laptop shipped on Monday. The delivery was supposed to take 3-5 days, but it arrived yesterday. My sister’s MacBook arrived last Monday, but my dad wanted us to get ours at the same time. So last night, we opened them. Here’s my Dell E1505N laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed.

There’s no Windows on this laptop; it didn’t even come with a Windows CD. That’s perfectly fine with me because I’d rather not give money to Microsoft. It belongs to Dell’s new N-Series of laptops and desktops, which come with open-source operating systems (Ubuntu and FreeDOS). Here’s the page on Dell’s site where you can buy PCs with Ubuntu pre-installed.

I’m really enjoying the laptop, which my friend Luke christened “Day Tripper” (It’s a Beatles song, and it describes a computer that you can take around, like on a day trip? Ha ha? Well, I liked it.) Though I haven’t been using it for 24 hours yet, I thought I’d give my impressions of this laptop. I’ve never had a laptop of my own before, but I’ve used a few.

The first thing that was pretty annoying was getting on the Wi-Fi network. Ubuntu will prompt you for a keyring password every time you log in, and that gets annoying after a while. If the keyring password is the same as your user password, install libpam-keyring (sudo apt-get install libpam-keyring) and add the following lines to the end of /etc/pam.d/gdm (sudo gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm):

auth optional pam_keyring.so try_first_pass
session optional pam_keyring.so

If you set a different keyring password, delete the keyring in the Keyring Manager. Then, when you connect to the network again, enter the network information like you did the first time, and then enter your user password as the password. Then you can follow the previous steps for great success.

That was the only real issue I had. I haven’t encountered any bugs or other weird things; then again, I haven’t used the battery yet. Supposedly, the battery life indicator can be pretty inaccurate at times, but I haven’t had a chance to find out for myself. I’d heard good things about the keyboard. It is very good. Even the touchpad is good — I might even actually get used to it. The only thing I needed to do was disable the tap-to-click feature (it’s very easy to trigger it by accident). I edited the xorg.conf file (sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and in the section for the touchpad, I added the line Option "MaxTapTime" "0".

Another thing was that I wanted to change the computer’s name. “dell” is a very boring name. I went to System -> Administration -> Network -> General and changed the host name (to daytripper, of course). After that, I logged out, and the change took effect.

(Don’t think that I’m a Linux wizard and that I instinctively knew how to do all that. I had to look it all up.)

The computer also comes with “MediaDirect” functionality that apparently allows you to play CDs without booting into Windows. Or something like that. Since this computer doesn’t have Windows at all, I wasn’t sure how it would work. It turns out that if you have the computer on and you press the MediaDirect button, it will start Rhythmbox (the default music player in Ubuntu). The buttons in front of the computer can be used to skip tracks, stop, play, pause, change the volume, and all that stuff.

Today I’ve pretty much been moving files from my old computer(s) to this one. It’s been going okay, my only limitation being that I’m using a 512 MB flash drive to do the work. Apparently they get worn out pretty easily? Anyway, for future file moving (there’s still quite a bit to do), I think I’ll burn them onto CDs. It’s a more robust method of transferring files, and it leaves a physical backup in case things go sour.

After I wrote that, the screen froze. It probably had to do with Beryl. Luckily, this computer boots (or reboots) quickly.

Anyway, here are the obligatory specs.

• Dell Inspiron E1505N
• Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn”
• Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (2MB/1.83GHz/667MHz)
• 15.4 Inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WXGA+
• 2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 TurboCache
• 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 24X Combo CD-RW/DVD
• Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
• 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

So far, this laptop is great, and I’d look forward to buying a computer (without Windows) from Dell again.

Here are 15 Useless or Even Dangerous Eyesight Myths.

Even if you’re not into baseball, this Java applet comparing this season’s baseball teams’ salaries and performance is very interesting. Be sure to slide the slider along the top to see changes over time.

…That I never could find

I went searching for a job yesterday, but I didn’t inquire within anywhere. In the shopping center by my house, I saw three places that were hiring: a cell phone store, a health food store, and a dollar store. Not ideal places to work at all, but I do need the money. I probably shouldn’t apply anywhere yet because if they try to contact me next week, I’ll be out of town. Plus, I turn 18 in a few weeks, and since all of the jobs probably have an age limit of 18, I might as well give it some thought and apply later. In any case, I’d say I’d have the best shot at the dollar store, if only because I wouldn’t be selling things. (Incidentally, I saw my friend Bryce working at that dollar store a few weeks ago. Did he quit?)

If you’ve been a Linux user for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard of Beryl. If not, Beryl is a window manager that allows you to customize a number of special effects relating to windows, such as transparency and animations for minimizing and unminimizing. Linux window managers typically support the ability to have multiple desktops or workspaces, meaning you can have have different windows open in different workspaces, each with its own desktop. Beryl takes the concept a step further by showing the four desktops as faces of a cube that you can rotate. It’s a great way to get used to the idea of having multiple desktops, and it looks really cool. (Here’s a screenshot from Wikipedia.)

I didn’t think my computer would be fast or powerful enough to run Beryl, and it seemed like a lot of work to install. Then I noticed it was in Ubuntu’s software repositories, meaning that I could install it (or uninstall it) with just one click. So I went for it, and it works pretty well. Beryl is beta software, so the bugs haven’t entirely been ironed out yet, but the visual effects make computing fun. I don’t go crazy with them; they’re kind of subtle. Plus, they make for a great alternative to the visual effects in OS X and Vista (are there any in Vista?) because Beryl is endlessly customizable and itself has a number of extra plugins.

I should mention that Beryl is a fork of the Compiz project, which is apparently basically the same but less bleeding-edge. It seems that the two projects are in the process of merging back into one. I don’t know when that’s going to be complete or what the new name will be, but in the mean time, you can check out more Beryly goodness by watching this screencast demonstrating a lot of Beryl’s effects. And if you want to give Beryl a try, switching to Linux is easier than ever.

From the Social Security Administration, which keeps track of these sorts of things, here’s a list of the most popular names for twins born last year. All of the top 10 pairs of names are alliterative. As a twin, I feel sorry for those kids. They’ll end up with some individuality issues or something.

Here are 10 things that have been said by nightmare web design clients. Things like: “Black on white is boring. How about hot pink on lime green? And can we make the logo spin? And Arial is boring, let’s use Comic Sans.”

Do you know what rights you have in a police encounter? Take the Flex Your Rights Quiz. I got 4 out of 8 right.

Grad party

My graduation party was on Saturday night. It was also for my sister and our friends Nick, Mark, Michael, and Kelli. As you can probably imagine, there were a lot of people there. It was a little surprising to me because most of the people I invited didn’t go (it’s the summer now, so everbody’s off doing different things). It turned out that a lot of the people were family members. Also, Kelli invited half the world, so they were there too. Half the world doesn’t like to dance, it seems. I’m with them on that one. Anyway, I had a good time, I’m glad to report. It was nice seeing everyone there, and I thank those of you who managed to make it.

I’m still eagerly awaiting my laptop, which I think I’ll call Day Tripper (thanks, Luke). It hasn’t shipped yet, it seems, but I just ordered it last Tuesday. I’ve never been that crazy about laptops (especially the whole touchpad thing — I’ll have to get a USB mouse), but I’ll have to get used to them because I have no other choice. If you’re wondering what a laptop running Linux out of the box looks like, check out some photos from some guy who just bought one. (It took the guy about 8 minutes to get up and running on his new laptop. Take that, Windows.) I, of course, will take lots of pictures of my laptop when I get it.

Hey guys in the South Florida metropolitan area: I have over 400 National Geographics for sale. You want to buy them.

I’ve previously written about the Plymouth Belvedere that was buried in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a time capsule on June 15, 1957, to be opened 50 years later. On June 15, 2007, the car was unveiled. Water had seeped into its underground bunker, causing the car to rust almost completely. Here’s the obligatory photo gallery. As part of the original publicity stunt, the person who correctly guessed what Tulsa’s population would be in 2007 would win the car that year (unless they were dead, in which case it would go to their heirs). However, the search is on for the list of entrants and their guesses, which was stored on microfilm inside the car. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

Remember when the HD DVD process key, a 128-bit integer, was made public? The incident led to a number of cease-and-desists while people questioned the supposed right to have ownership of a number. Well, now you can get your very own integer that you can forbid other people from distributing! Here’s mine: 01 56 95 41 46 ED 8B 3C 45 B9 FD EB 3B CE AC 38. Don’t copy it, or I’ll sue you.

Dude!

When you’re going to college, you should really have a laptop. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway. It would come in handy for writing, research, note-taking, and, of course, entertainment. You can’t forget entertainment. To survive anywhere these days, you need a computer, and if you’re on the go, you need a laptop. I’ve known this for a long time.

Until around six months ago, I didn’t give much of a thought about the operating system that my future laptop would run. Without question, it would be Windows, and probably Windows Vista at that. Anyway, since I’ve switched to Linux, I had thought that finding a good laptop would be a challenge. Laptops themselves are a dime a dozen (not literally), but since I don’t know that much about computer hardware (or Linux), installing Linux on a laptop might be difficult.

My dad took me to some stores to show me some laptops so I could get an idea of what I wanted, but I knew that installing Linux over Windows would not be the best way to go. Besides the fact that I don’t want to give Microsoft my money at all (let alone for a product I’d get rid of immediately), I would need to have a laptop with Linux pre-installed and the guarantee that everything would Just Work. If my computer crashed because I needed such and such a driver or the ATI or the wireless thingy wouldn’t start, I wouldn’t know where to turn to. Generally, if a company sells a computer with software on it, that’s sort of a guarantee that the software will be compatible with the hardware. Although in this case the playing field would be limited a great deal, I decided it was worth it.

Ubuntu is the Linux distribution I’ve been using, and I’ve decided to stick with it because there’s little hassle involved and everything Just Works. Probably the foremost company that specializes in pre-installed Ubuntu systems is System76. Although I’ve heard lots of good things about their products and their service, I couldn’t help but notice that their prices were quite a bit higher than the equivalent Windows systems I could find in stores. But because they offered full support for Ubuntu, I decided that System76 would be the way to go.

Then something happened: Dell decided to sell computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. Although they currently have only one laptop model with Ubuntu pre-installed, I found that I could get a better computer for less money than if I had bought from System76. Besides that, I could help show a major computer vendor that there really is a demand for Linux. On Tuesday night, my dad and I were going over the specs I wanted, and I found that the cost would come out to $1,083 before taxes and shipping. So my dad wanted to know if Dell offered student discounts. I looked around on the site but couldn’t find anything easily. He decided to give them a call.

Before I knew it, my dad was buying the laptop I wanted over the phone. After going over the specs with the sales guy, I picked up another phone so I could hear too. The guy said it was his first Ubuntu sale and that he didn’t know much about it, although he was interested in finding out. He warned us that the computer came with no anti-virus software, and that’s when we explained how Linux isn’t nearly as susceptible to viruses as Windows. He was impressed and asked us to keep in touch so he could learn more about running Linux.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM; 1 GB would be decent for now, but I want the computer to last at least four years, so I need to make sure it’ll still be decent tomorrow. So the guy doubled the RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB for free. My dad asked if there were any discounts, so the guy gave a discount and made the shipping free. Throughout the whole process, the sales guy was very amiable and didn’t try to push anything on us that would have cost more money. The final cost after tax came out to $1,088.63. He said it would ship no later than Tuesday, June 26. Contrary to my expectations, buying a computer from Dell over the phone was a pleasant experience.

After that, we bought my sister’s computer. She wanted a Mac so it would match her new iPod. I don’t have anything to say about that.

Now, one big question remains. What should I name my computer? Before switching to Linux, the concept of formally naming a computer was unknown to me, but it seems that there’s even been an entire RFC written on the topic. Apparently it’s common if you have a group of computers to follow a theme with their names. Even if you only have one, you’re supposed to give your next one a name in the same vein, or something like that. That’s what the cool people do. Anyway, it’s got to be something clever and not dumb. Any ideas?

Here are one guy’s memories of working at Microsoft in the early ’90s.

When people switch from Windows to Linux, they’re often concerned about things that they could do in Windows that they can’t in Linux. However, it’s a two-way street. Here are things you can do in Linux that you can’t do on Windows.

But does it run Linux?

Recently my dad got us a new TV for the living room. We’d had our old TV since before I was born (the ’80s!), so it was about time to upgrade. I don’t watch TV much, but I appreciate this new 50-inch widescreen HDTV quite a bit. The picture quality is pretty good, although when you’re watching lo-def channels, the low quality becomes very apparent on the ginormous screen. The only other real gripe I have is how the TV stretches the picture if the signal isn’t widescreen. The effect can range from hardly detectable to headache-inducing. I would prefer to watch TV with “barn doors” on either side (like the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when you watch a widescreen movie on an older TV). Luckily, though, you can toggle between display modes with a button, so that takes care of that.

When my dad was taking the TV out of the box (which is even bigger than the TV itself, if you can believe it), he had lots of manuals and documentation to deal with — it is a Sony product, after all. What he didn’t expect to see was a software license agreement, which he pointed out to me with amusement. After all, it’s a sorry state of affairs in the world today when your TV comes with a EULA, right? I took a look and saw some familiar words. It was the GPL, which is not an evil (cumbersome, restrictive) software license at all. A silly thought entered the back of my mind, and I tried to ignore it. Looking further through the documentation, though, I was right: our new TV runs Linux.

What that basically means is that the TV isn’t actually a TV at all but actually a computer. Like any computer, it uses an operating system. Rather than Windows, Mac OS, or something that the Sony developers might make from scratch in-house, the TV runs a modified version of Linux, which is the same OS I use on my computer. Sony decided it would be better to use an existing operating system as a base for this model of TV, and, because the GPL allows it, Sony doesn’t have to worry about the legal ramifications as long as they distribute their modified code to anyone who wants it. You could try running Windows on a TV, but if you could even figure out how (the Windows source code isn’t visible to the public), you’d have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft. (Plus, your TV would probably crash a lot.) Since Linux is free for anyone to use, it tends to be free in price, which is something important for any computer user to consider. So whether I’m kicking back and watching TV or doing whatever it is I do on the computer, I can be assured that Linux and other free software are making it possible, and that’s really awesome.

Graduation is only two weeks from today, so I’ve started to think about what I might say if I were valedictorian or salutatorian and had to give a speech. After all, I am ranked #2 in the class, a position that I’m hoping I can keep. As it turns out, TJ and I got called down to the office today and were told by Ms. Phillips, an assistant principal, that since we were in the top 5 in the class, we would have to prepare a speech in the event that we graduate as “val” or “sal.” (They have to look it over and everything, you know, to make sure that you don’t say anything dumb at graduation.) I was also told that I would have to meet with Ms. Petonick, the speech teacher, for input on the speech and pointers on public speaking. Fun fun? TJ (#4) didn’t seem amused, but I think it would be cool to be salutatorian.

After school today, Amanda (#3) and I found Ms. Petonick to talk to her about the whole thing. She had been expecting us but was busy, so we decided to meet after school tomorrow. She said she’d give us real speeches given by real valedictorians in the past, which should be useful because I can’t really think of anything good to say. I had been nervous about having this teacher I’d never met criticize my speaking, but I was relieved because she seemed really nice and she kind of talks funny herself. Ironic? Oh well. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Contronyms, or antagonyms, are words that are their own opposites. For example, a house might weather (withstand) many storms over the years, or storms might weather (wear down) it.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has a standard for everything. ISO 5218 sets standard numerical values to represent human sexes (for example, in national ID numbers). From the article: “The standard explicitly states that no significance is to be placed on the fact that male is encoded as 1 and female as 2.”

Grad Bash

On Saturday, I went to Grad Bash. If you don’t know what Grad Bash is, think of it as Grad Nite, but at Universal Studios. If you don’t know what Grad Nite is, it’s a nite where they open Disney(land | World) to all the grads. It seems that most schools go to Grad Nite, but Universal has offered Grad Bash as an alternative. If you don’t know what Universal Studios is, it’s a theme park. Actually, Grad Nite occurs in both theme parks at the Universal Orlando Resort, of which one is Universal Studios. But it’s common to refer to both of them as “Universal Studios,” considering that Islands of Adventure, the other park, opened only recently, and so they didn’t need to have a vague name that would encompass both parks and whatever else they have on site. I don’t know about hotels. Disney World is like a sovereign nation, what with all its territory, but Universal is smack in the middle of Orlando, so it doesn’t have that much land. Dueling Dragons is right next to a gas station and across the street from a school, for crying out loud. But anyway…

I woke up at 6:00 in the morning on Saturday, I guess in anticipation of going on the trip. Several of my friends were going to be there, so I knew I would have a pretty good time. The bus left from school a little after 1:00 in the afternoon. The ride was pretty long, but the conversation made it go by faster. We made a rest stop on one of the uniform rest stops they have on Florida’s Turnpike, and for a moment, while everybody I was with had gone off in different directions, I walked about, looking for a familiar face in the crowd of weary travelers. And then I saw Gisela from the office, and she saw me. It was a very weird encounter, considering that we were hours away from South Florida and had been traveling in different directions. She said that she was getting back from a meeting that had kept her from being in the office the day before and that another familiar face from work was with her.

After what seemed like forever, we were finally at Universal. After what seemed like slightly less than forever but still a long time, we parked. It was very odd that they didn’t follow Disney’s lead by trying very hard to hide the inner workings of the park from us. We parked in a lot behind some of the main attractions at Universal Studios. I could see the New York facade from the side. We then were guided toward what seemed to be a warehouse and had to walk through metal detectors. It seemed a bit excessive, but since the recent shooting at Virginia Tech, everyone wants to kill everybody everywhere. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve been led to believe.

We were greeted by a party. That’s right: a Grad Bash pre-party. I had heard about this pre-party, and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like. They had closed off the entire park except for a small section, probably to create the illusion that the place was really crowded. There was a stage set up and some no-name nobody singing other people’s hip-hop hits. There were people on stilts throwing out garish necklaces like it was Mardi Gras. (That was the theme, I think.) But the best good part was the free food. There were hamburgers, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese free for the taking, not to mention chips and soda. I should add that the mac and cheese was actually good. As for the hamburgers, eh. But they had a fine selection of condiments.

By this time, I had formed a group that would remain unchanging. The people I hung out with were Justin, Megan, Michelle, Val, Baba, Kerliza, and Jennifer. It was fitting that we stuck together for Grad Bash because I had known all of them since, at the latest, the beginning of 10th grade… except for one person who I was never terribly familiar with. I’ll let you guess who!

Anyway, when they let everyone loose throughout Universal Studios, we started to go on the rides. We hit upon most of the favorites while noting that many of the rides involve some perfectly ordinary excursion that goes terribly awry and eventually involves ferocious beasts, explosions, and/or a 100-foot drop. While it’s fun to go on those rides, it gets kind of annoying when every ride follows this formula. One ride that I remember as being particularly awesome was the Back to the Future ride. Unfortunately, during my pre-trip Wikipedia researching, I found out that the ride, which had been open since 1991, closed a scant three weeks before our visit. The De Lorean, along with the train from the third movie, were on display, and the De Lorean looked pretty fake. It looked like the lettering on the tires was painted on. I’m glad I didn’t realize that when I was younger, or it would have spoiled the magic. Justin and I, however, were terribly upset about seeing the ride closed.

The great thing about Grad Bash is that you get to wander freely between both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Normally, this isn’t possible, but they opened up a passageway between the parks (and closed the regular entrances/exits) so that it would be. At first, the passageway consisted of a series of gates, which were opened in stages. At the first gate, a huge crowd of people had formed, waiting to get to Islands. After the gate opened, there was a stampede, during which my group struggled to stay together. The same thing happened with the other gates. But eventually, we were in, and we found that this hidden passageway opened right into Seuss Landing, the Dr. Seuss-themed section of Islands of Adventure. Everybody stampeded through there too. We went right to Dueling Dragons, the twin roller coasters that are so popular that there’s room for a really, really long line. It’s that popular.

I had noticed on the way in that Dueling Dragons is at the edge of the whole place, and is in fact bordering a gas station, as I mentioned. I was also the one to notice that there is a high school across the street from the roller coaster. It turns out that it has an extensive Wikipedia article, which mentions that “[s]tudents can actually hear screaming roller coaster riders through the windows of some of the classrooms on campus.” I wondered how many students would play hooky to go across the street. Probably not many because tickets might be expensive, but it would be worth it. And that’s what I thought as I was riding the roller coaster. It’s really cool. I’m not sure which of the two tracks I prefer. I like them both. They are roller coasters, after all. You can’t be too picky with them.

As for the other rides, I won’t bore you much with the details because I’d already been on all of them except one. (The exception was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. It’s like the Dumbo ride at Disney. What? When everyone in the park is your age, and other people are riding that ride, it’s okay.) Oh, and I could also mention in this short paragraph that My Chemical Romance was playing at Grad Bash. I don’t listen to them, and I didn’t decide to start right then.

After a while of going around on rides and taking some time out to eat (I had Dippin’ Dots for the first time — yeah, I know, I’m a big loser), it was getting to be around 1:00 in the morning, which was when, we believed, we would have to meet by the Hulk (the other roller coaster) and leave. So we waited, and we waited, and we waited. We could have gone on the Hulk at this point, but I didn’t really feel like it because I was feeling both hungry and full at the same time. It’s an odd feeling. Anyway, we soon (or, rather, not soon) found out that we would instead be meeting at 2:00, so we remained sitting on the bridge that the roller coaster goes under while people walked by.

Eventually, we saw a crowd gathering, and it was getting close to 2:00, so we went there to find some people from our class. As we left through yet another random gate, we saw that the various schools’ buses were placed in impromptu sections: A, B, C, and D. My school’s buses were in section D. We soon discovered that the progression from section to section was linear, so D was the last. I thought it would be funny if our bus was the very last one in the last section. It was, and it wasn’t very funny. We were tired and had to walk a long way.

We got back on the bus. It took off, they turned off the lights, and we fell asleep. Actually, I just rested. Resting is where you close your eyes but don’t fall unconscious, so it happens in real time and seems agonizingly slow. Meanwhile, you can hear everything that’s going on, and you “wake up” feeling somewhat, but not completely, rested. I rested until we got to a rest stop, the irony of which I now realize. It was about 4:30, and I called home to let my parents know we would be getting back to school a little later than the planned time of 5:00. I was less able to rest during the second part of the trip home, and toward the very end, I just kept my eyes open to see what everything looked like at 5:30 in the morning. We got back to school at 6:00 — 24 hours after I had last slept.

I got home, had a little bit to eat, and did something very unusual: I slept. I just can’t sleep unless it’s nighttime — I can’t even remember the last time I had a nap — but I had to make an exception in this case. I slept for two hours and continued to have half-an-hour to two-hour naps till the early afternoon. I was really tired, but it was worth it.

Remember Mozilla’s successful community-driven campaign to get a Firefox ad printed in the New York Times? A more ambitious project called Tux 500 is being mounted by a group of Linux users; their goal is to have a Linux-sponsored car at the Indianapolis 500. They say: “If less than 1% of the Linux community donates $1, this will happen… will you do your part?” I’m willing to do my part, and I figured that others would too if only they knew about it. With that in mind, I submitted the story to Slashdot, but apparently it’s not going to get posted. It’s a shame, though. I hope it gets heavily Dugg. They want to raise at least $350,000 by May 21.

Gloomy soul? Not really

So senior week is over. For “Opposite Day” on Wednesday, I actually dressed emo. For this once-in-a-lifetime stunt, I borrowed my sister’s shirt, pins, and wristband. She’s not emo, but she probably could be if she wanted I also wore eyeliner. Though this picture doesn’t do it justice, the effect was priceless. (As you can see, we have to wear ID badges for security blah blah blah. If I were a real emo kid, I just wouldn’t have worn it. Actually, I wouldn’t have worn it if I were most anyone else. But I am me.)

I got some interesting reactions. Some people said that I had the look for being emo and should dress like that more often. Others said I never should look like that again. Personally, I don’t think it was really comfortable. I’m not really one to conform to a particular style; I just wear whatever’s comfortable, and I don’t really see the point in wearing pins and black clothes all the time. But it was worth it to make my friend Gilbert’s photoshopped emo Jordon picture a reality:

Other people did some crazy stuff that day. Ed (yes, that Ed) dressed as a farmer. Andrew, who’s usually into metal and stuff, wore a suit and fedora. Tyler wore a red dress, and actually didn’t get in trouble. It was definitely my favorite day of Senior Week, although the next day was interesting. You were supposed to dress up as a character from a cartoon, although some people dressed as non-cartoon characters. For example, Justin, Mark, and I dressed as our characters from Beowulf: The Movie and Beowulf 2: This Time It’s Personal.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating the new version of Ubuntu, which came out yesterday. I started upgrading immediately, and it really was quite simple. The downloading of the files was estimated to take a few hours, which was fine by me, but what I hadn’t counted on was that about a million people were going to be downloading those files at the same time. The downloading continued late into the night, and the process still wasn’t done this morning because a dialog box had come up and paused the upgrade process. So I let it finish, but I had to leave for work before it could finish. When I got back home this afternoon, there was another dialog box waiting for me, so I clicked it, and the upgrade was soon finished — all I had to do was reboot.

So, yeah, it took about 23 hours, but that’s only because the server was hammered and because I couldn’t supervise the computer during that whole time. If I could do it again, I would have started early on a weekend morning and monitored it periodically throughout the day. Then it would have gone faster. But I’m pleased to say that apparently nothing got borked up in the upgrade process, so things have been smooth. The new feature I’m enjoying the most are the desktop effects, where windows wobble when you move them, and your virtual desktops appear on a cube. I’m just testing it out, and if I don’t like them, I’ll turn them off. But it was very handy that Ubuntu automatically downloaded the necessary drivers to make the 3D acceleration stuff work. 15 cool points to Ubuntu. Here’s a video (not by me) of these effects in action.

At this point I’d like to mention that my friend Luke can provide those of you in South Florida with CDs of many Linux distributions, including the new Ubuntu 7.04, for a small fee or a blank CD-R. Just leave a comment, and he’ll probably read it and hook you up. Everybody say “Thanks, Luke!”

I’m really excited because tomorrow is Grad Bash, which is like Grad Nite but at Universal Studios. SOME of my friends didn’t want to go, but I’m glad some of them did because I’m sure we’ll have an awesome time. We leave tomorrow afternoon and come back early Sunday morning.

Corey Andrew of Jersey City, New Jersey, decided to write to Army recruiter Sgt. Marcia Ramode about joining the Army. She welcomed his application until she found out that he was gay. It turned out that he was just trying to see what kind of reaction he would get simply by revealing to a military recruiter that he was gay. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good one. Hey, come on, guys. This is, what, 2007, and we’re still treating people like this?

Senior week

That’s right, it’s senior week here at Pompano Beach High School. We’ve been here for four years, and this is what we’ve all been waiting for: to have a week named after us. This week, each day has a sort of theme, and the thing is that only the seniors participate. Well, yesterday was an exception to the rule because each class was supposed to wear its color for a “Spirit Day.” The senior class’s color is traditionally gold, which is pretty lame because nobody has gold (or yellow) clothes. Well, there’s a senior class t-shirt that’s gold, but I didn’t buy one because when they listed the seniors’ names on the back, they grossly misspelled my name. Seriously, it was ineffably and unforgivably misspelled. I’d like to have a word with the genius who was responsible for that one.

Today was College Day, where the seniors were supposed to “rep” their future colleges, as it were. I reluctantly wore the subtler of my two UF shirts. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t like participating in any unnecessary us-and-them type activities that only create hostility between people. Specifically, I don’t like being divisive by bragging about what college I’m going to give lots and lots of money to. (Note: this opinion will change, possibly soon. I just know it.)

What’s in store for the rest of the week? Tomorrow is Opposite Day… NOT! Actually, it is. Tomorrow is Opposite Day, when you’re encouraged to wear the opposite of the usual style. I think I’m actually going to do this one. I expect that a lot of people aren’t, though, because why would you have clothes in a style opposite of what you always wear? Most people would have to borrow clothes, which is what I’m doing. Then there are a few people who frequently wear a number of different styles. Those are people for whom Opposite Day doesn’t seem to apply.

Finally, on Thursday, you’re supposed to dress up like a cartoon character. No thanks.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot what senior week is all about. It leads up to Grad Bash at Universal Studios. And guess who actually decided to go? That’s right: me. It’s the kind of thing that a lot of my friends don’t care about, but fortunately, some of them do, or else I’d have no one to hang out with. It should be fun. We Floridians shouldn’t take the proximity of world-class theme parks for granted. I can’t imagine a school from, say, the Midwest, taking a bus ride to Universal. Well, I guess they have theme parks up there, so they probably go to those. Yeah.

If in doubt, Ask Jordon.

Peter: Can you tell me what my first comment was? And while you’re at it, what is my first Ask Jordon question? I’m curious.

Your first comment was on July 30, 2005. Your first Ask Jordon question was answered on January 13, 2006: “How did you get the code for http://www.theworldofstuff.com/blah? Is it a PHP version of Wpoison?”

Kayley: why cant people get along, especially GIRLS???

I tend to get along with almost everybody, and I’d say it’s because I’m pretty laid back and quiet, so I don’t really have much of a chance to disagree fiercely with anyone on anything. If I think someone’s annoying, I won’t tell them so, but I’ll just try to avoid them. I’d imagine that girls are more social than guys in general, so when something happens, they don’t try to work around it or stay cool, but they get confrontational trying to defend themselves. This is all speculation, of course. I could be wrong.

Tux: What do you plan on doing on April 19th?

Oh, I’ll tell you, anonymous 64-bit Linux user. Since I switched from Windows to Ubuntu Linux two months ago, I’ve been anticipating the upcoming release of Ubuntu 7.04, codenamed “Feisty Fawn,” which is due out on Thursday, April 19.

Among the new features in Feisty are better support for wireless networking (which will undoubtedly make my future Ubuntu laptop experiences easier), easy installation of proprietary codecs like MP3 (which should be handy if I come across some of the lesser-used media formats), and a few advanced desktop effects. The effects are from a program called Compiz, which basically allows you use your graphics card to its fullest potential by introducing realistic 3D effects to your desktop. I understand it’s not easy for n00bs like me to install, which is why I’ve shied away from it. (That, and this computer is kind of slow.) With Feisty, I’ll be able to try out a few of the effects just by clicking a checkbox, and if I don’t like them or they break my computer, I can turn them off easily too.

Upgrading to Feisty will be easy. It will appear as a software update, just like the other updates I get once in a while. I think all I’ll have to do is click to install it. Try upgrading to Vista that simply.

A photo gallery from Wired: The Evolution of the Computer Mouse.

Us and them

It’s still spring break, believe it or not, and boy, do I need this break. I think everybody should get breaks like this; not just students. Well, actually, working people have things called “vacations,” but they don’t really get enough of those. And the result is that they hate their job and yet they have to keep doing it if they don’t want to risk being unemployed for who knows how long and hoping that they can actually get a job that pays better.

A few months ago or whenever it was, the University of Florida beat Ohio State University in the football championship. Now they’re at it again, but with basketball. So everybody (well, not everybody) is asking me if I’m going to be watching the big game. After all, UF is my future alma mater, so I have to support my future team, they say. So, am I going to watch? Hint: it’s on right now, and I’m writing a blog post.

I don’t care about sports. Depending on my mood, I might even say that I don’t like sports. I really don’t see any redeeming value in them other than giving people with muscles something to do. They’re a big waste of money — have you seen how much athletes get paid? — and they just create more walls for us to put between ourselves. Fans heckle and boo each other; they hiss and spit and cuss and fight. And who knows which is which and who is who? If you like Ohio State, is there any reason I should boast about the Gators to you if they win? Is there any reason for you to do the same to me if your team wins? No. It doesn’t mean anything. Allegiance to a particular sports team doesn’t make anyone a better or worse person, so there’s no sense in acting as if it does. I understand that not all sports fans are positively rabid, but if you plaster your car with your favorite team’s paraphernalia, how are you not saying “Look at me, I’m better than you”?

Of course, you are free to debate this point, and you may do so if you like. That’s the great thing about this World of Stuff of ours.

I’ve been using Ubuntu happily for about six weeks now, and I’ve been happy with the things I can do with it. The things I can’t do are generally limited to my lack of expertise (my friend Luke had to explain to me how to get out of less) and by the physical limitations of this computer. Most notably, this computer doesn’t have a printer hooked up. Luckily, I haven’t really had to print anything for any of my classes this semester (programming, physics, and calculus), so it hasn’t been much of an issue, but I’d like to know that I can print from Ubuntu if I need to.

That’s where my other computer comes in. It runs Windows XP, and there’s this network thingy between them so that they have the same DSL router or whatever. After searching the web quite a bit (and that’s what you do if you want help with most Linux distributions without having to pay for anything), I found out how to print from Ubuntu to Windows XP on a local network. I followed the directions there, and everything worked. However, there were a few quirks in the process that I thought I should explain for those who will be using that guide in the future. Copied directly from my response to the post, here they are.

So now I can print from Ubuntu. It was actually very easy to do because it recognizes most printers. After setting up the printer, the only snag I hit was in the Gimp, where printing is configured separately. To set up an existing printer in the Gimp, all you really have to do is select the model of the printer, and you should be good to go. Actually, I think there was a little more to it than that, but it wasn’t hard to figure out after going through the process of setting it up with the OS.

Apparently it’s possible to get some Super-Close Google Maps Zooms. We’re talking privacy-breachingly close here — in some cases, at least. Have a look for yourself. (And just think: if private satellites can zoom in this close, imagine what secret government technology can do…)