Category - Programming

Over the past ten years, the term "open source" has found a place in the public consciousness. The idea got an early boost in 1998, when Netscape decided to release the source code of their flagship program, the Communicator suite, for others to improve upon. It seemed like a desperate business decision for a company that was about to be crushed by Microsoft. But the hard work that countless programmers, designers, and testers put into Netscape's code has brought us the ever more popular Mozilla Firefox browser, which is now used by nearly 20% of web surfers. (Yes, I just said "web surfers." Really puts you in the 1998 mood, doesn't it?)

Nowadays, every software company announces that it's open-sourcing this or that, always to the delight of the community. There's a large and growing number of software developers and users who support the open source ideals. But what exactly are these ideals? How did they come about? What implications do they have?

The open source movement originated from the free software movement, which was founded by Richard Stallman. When Stallman became a computer programmer in the 1970s, it was customary for programmers around the world to share the source code for their programs so that other programmers could study and improve them. Stallman saw the good things that this atmosphere of cooperation created. But by the early 1980s, it became more common for companies to distribute proprietary software, which placed restrictions on the users' ability to modify and redistribute the software for their own needs.

To combat the proliferation of software that kept its users "divided and helpless," Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985. He codified the programmer community's vanishing ethic in the Free Software Definition. According to this document, a program is called "free software" if it gives its users all of the following freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
• The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
• The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public so that the whole community benefits.

The free software movement grew slowly at first but became more popular as the the FSF's GNU operating system, combined with the Linux kernel, found its way into server rooms and onto computer geeks' desktops. The success of GNU/Linux, better known simply as Linux, had people fired up about free software. But some supporters differed from Stallman in several respects.

First, they didn't like the development model that the FSF used for GNU. The FSF had a very authoritative role in the development process of its operating system, controlling which improvements it would accept from members of the community. Linus Torvalds, on the other hand, allowed a large community of programmers to guide the development of his Linux kernel, which is probably one reason why it became so popular. In addition, the younger supporters of free software, such as Torvalds himself, grew up in a world where proprietary software was commonplace. Unlike Stallman, they weren't around to see their freedoms being taken away. They were more focused on the community aspect of software development than issues of freedom.

This led a group of free software supporters to create the Open Source Initiative and publish the Open Source Definition. Its requirements are similar enough that almost all open source software is free software and vice versa. The OSI advocated the term "open source" to make free software more community-oriented and palatable to companies that might be afraid of the word "free." Shortly thereafter, Netscape announced it would be open-sourcing Netscape Communicator, and the media ate it up. Open source stayed in the minds of the public in a way that free software never had.

Since then, the many people have moved to the term "open source" because they see it as less ambiguous than "free software." But is it really? The FSF cites cases of various authorities assuming "open source" to mean "software for which the source code is available." Those people clearly haven't read the Open Source Definition, which extends "open source" beyond its literal meaning to describe the freedoms that users have with the source code. In fact, the definition begins, "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code."

The term "free software" can be confusing because "free" can mean either "without cost" or "unrestrained." But according to the FSF, "free software" is less ambiguous: one sense of the term captures the FSF's intended meaning, but no sense of "open source" encompasses the OSI's full meaning. The confusion over the meaning of "open source" means that companies can release code under licenses that allow the viewing of source code but little else, and some people will inevitably call it "open source."

While the FSF and OSI seem to resent one another, they do work together because they basically have the same goal in common. It's their ideologies that differ. When you talk about free/open source software, you might want to consider which side you're really on. The FSF says that software should respect your freedom to do whatever you want with it. The OSI emphasizes its belief that the most valuable software has a community of users developing it.

If you haven't been able to tell, I know which side I'm on. I support the free software movement, and I recognize that without freedom, there can be no community collaboration. But if you're not sure, or if you want to stay neutral, you might like the increasingly popular term "free and open source software" (FOSS) or the even less ambiguous "free (libre) open source software" (FLOSS). In the meantime, you can browse the official sites of the FSF and OSI to get a feel for what their respective movements are about.

Once in a while I wonder about my ancestors and distant cousins. Sometimes I decide to research them. My curiosity bit me again the other day, so I decided Googling both the Croatian and English versions of my family name. I had already gotten some information together in GRAMPS, so it was just a matter of adding people to it. Before I knew it, I was finding a lot of family members through obituary records and the like.

I decided to create a Kalilić/Kalilich Family Genealogy page to document my efforts and encourage other members of the family to contribute. As it happens, I've gotten back in touch with my cousin Michael, who discovered me on the Internet a few years ago. It turns out that he's been talking to one of our other cousins in the old country, and he's going over to visit in a few months. How about that?

All the information on the web page I've been able to find on the Internet for free. I'm actually pretty surprised at how easy it is to find indexes (or indices) of obituaries and death certificates. Immigration records are even online for free at ellisisland.org; those records have been very useful in determining which members of the family came to America when and how. I guess it's especially easy for me to search for things since the name I'm looking for is so rare (and probably even peculiar to my own family). Anyway, I've ordered copies of a couple of death certificates, including one for someone I've never heard of.

I've only just begun to figure out how the American branch of the family relates to the European branch. The immigration records shed some light on common ancestors, but there's not enough information yet. I'm eager to ask my European cousins that I know of how they think everything might fit together. I wonder if they know about the member of the family who died in the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II. I guess the intrigue of genealogy is that it often raises more questions than it answers.

Here are some programming jokes. One of my favorites:

See also: Computer Stupidities: Programming.

Here's a video of Picasso's Guernica in 3-D (Flash, sound).

If I had to implement a CAPTCHA on my site (which I currently don't), I would choose reCAPTCHA. The creators of reCAPTCHA figured that all the time that people all over the world spend solving CAPTCHAs should be put toward something useful. So whenever you fill out a reCAPTCHA, you're helping to digitize old books by typing in words that computers can't recognize. (You receive two words; one that the computer knows and one that it doesn't. If you correctly enter the one that the computer knows, it will assume that you've entered the other one right as well.) So, bit by bit, you're helping spread human knowledge. And when the reCAPTCHA is cracked, spambots will coolly and efficiently help spread human knowledge.

My old high school's prom was this past weekend. The photos have started to come in on MySpace and Facebook. It looked like everybody had a good time. And of course, it got me thinking about my own prom, which was last year. I could go on for a while about how great it was. I could mention more details that I didn't add to the original post. For example, one of the songs I remember dancing to was "Hey Ya!" Everyone went crazy immediately upon hearing the count-in. I could also mention how the only regret is that I didn't get the nerve to talk to Jannike sooner. But I won't. I just hope the Class of '08 had as good of a time at their prom as I did at mine.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today was copyleft. What's that, you ask? Before we answer that question, we have to ask: What is copyright? Mr. Webster says:

For example, the above quotation is from the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary, which is no longer protected by copyright. As such, I can quote as much of it as I want in this blog post, and everyone in general can do anything with it that they please. If it had been copyrighted, I wouldn't have been able to quote very much without first requesting permission from the copyright holder and likely paying a large fee.

Over the years, copyright protection has become much more widespread in several ways. First, it is much easier for works to be copyrighted. Instead of having to file a form with the U.S. Copyright Office and include a copyright notice in your work, anything you create in a tangible form is instantly copyrighted whether you include a notice or not. Second, the control that copyright holders have over their work has been extended to include not only copying but also adapting, performing, translating... basically everything but quoting brief passages. Third, copyright terms have been extended drastically, from 56 years in 1975 to 120 years or more in many cases today. The effect of all this is that it's getting harder for people today to follow in the footsteps of generations of innovators in science, business, and entertainment, who advanced our culture by building upon material that had little or no copyright protection.

Enter copyleft. First devised for computer software in the 1970s, "copyleft" refers to any form of copyright licensing in which the copyright holder revokes some of his exclusive rights to the work and requires anyone who modifies the work to do the same. So you can be sure than any work that is covered by copyleft will always be free for other people to use, no matter how it is changed. (Until the copyright expires, at least.)

Maybe you've heard of the GPL, a copyleft software license. It's the license under which Linux-based operating systems are distributed. The GPL and similar licenses allow a group of people to collaborate on software, and that's part of what has made Linux so popular. Software development under the GPL advances rapidly because it allows people to adapt and extend other GPL-licensed programs. And there are many thousands of them. It's exciting stuff. What's more exciting (if you can believe it) is the recently released version 3 of the GPL, which closes a lot of loopholes that companies have discovered in the previous version in recent years.

Recently, it's become easy for people to apply copyleft to other works. This is largely due to Creative Commons, an organization that provides licenses for people to "easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry." These licenses can apply to most anything you create, whether it's a web site, a book, a painting, a song, or something else entirely. Say you took a photo and posted it on the Internet, and you'll let anyone use it for any purpose as long as they give you credit. Just say it's licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Then, if somebody uses your photo without attributing you, they've violated the legalese of the license, and you can sue them. Other licenses prohibit making derivative works and/or using the work commercially. There are fun mix-and-match combinations to suit just about every need.

You may notice that these requirements themselves do not constitute copyleft; that is, someone who modifies someone else's work and just gives credit or uses it non-commercially can declare "All rights reserved" in their new version. But several Creative Commons licenses require users of the work to "share alike." I used to have this site licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, meaning that anybody could use my work for noncommercial purposes if they gave me credit and released their new version under the same license. Then, I got some requests to use some of my images for commercial purposes. I had to give them permission explicitly because the license forbids it in general. But I thought about it, and I realized that I wouldn't really mind if my works were used for commercial purposes. As long as they remain under copyleft ("ShareAlike"), it doesn't harm me or the general public. So recently, I re-licensed the content of this site under an Attribution-ShareAlike license. (Check out the sidebar and the footer to see those links you've never noticed!)

But I have to admit, folks: I haven't always been this attentive to copyright issues. I wrote The Dvorak Keyboard and You almost 6 years ago, when I was 13. When I needed an image of the Dvorak keyboard layout to illustrate the article, I searched the web and found high-resolution scan that someone had made from an MS-DOS manual. I prettified it, and other people copied it when they linked to me. That's no way to respect someone's copyright, even if it is Microsoft's. Yesterday, I finally decided to correct this indiscretion. I searched Flickr for a diagram of a keyboard that I would be able to use under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike license. I found one with an Attribution license, modified it for my own needs, gave the author credit according to the license, and relicensed the new work under the Attribution-ShareAlike license. (This is allowed because the original author is still being attributed and has not restricted the right of others to require sharing alike down the line. At least, that's what this table says.) Now, if someone comes along wanting to use my modified image, they'll have to give me and the original author credit and allow others the freedom to modify it for their own purposes. That's copyleft.

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons, has some interesting things to say about copyright in his book Free Culture, which I'm currently reading. It's pretty cool stuff, but I'll hold off on it until I've finished reading it. Besides, this has been enough for one post. And now, the links.

Here's an Animated History of the NYC Subway. It's an animated map that shows each line in the order it was built.

Math humor: 36 Methods of Mathematical Proof. This reminded me so much of my differential equations professor (what with his ingenious math tricks and all) that I sent him the link. I'm not sure whether he liked it or not.

Firefox Logo Spied in Deep Space? Okay, the image is a little modified from the original, but there's still a resemblance if you look at it the right way. At least it doesn't look like a woman wearing long robes or a guy with a beard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm still alive, really. I've been busy. I present to you a post I started working on yesterday but didn't have time to finish.

Tuesday was Free Pancake Day at IHOP, and my sister really wanted to go. We went with our friend Amanda. The pancakes were good. They tasted really free. Since man cannot live on pancakes alone, I also had some eggs Benedict. The point of letting everyone have a free short stack was to raise money for charity, so we did our part. In that sense, the pancakes weren't really free.

They still tasted free, though.

Also Tuesday, I had my first test in my programming class. I think I got an A. It helps when you already know some basic programming concepts. Today in programming discussion, we were doing exercises with loops (which were just taught yesterday). The hardest one was to implement Leibniz's calculation of pi. I got it, and I've been playing around with it. It turns out that it converges to pi extremely slowly. With 1 billion terms, it's accurate only to 8 decimal places.

Of course, the proverbial elephant in the room is that it's Valentine's Day. You know what that means: it's my anniversary... of switching to Linux. You probably know how I feel about Valentine's Day, or you can probably guess. After reading this, you will be able to guess.

I went to a Gator Freethought meeting last night. To make things interesting, the topic of discussion was how your religious beliefs affect your views on love, sex, dating, and the like. To make things more interesting, "stoplight" dress code was made optional: wear green if you're single, red if you're taken, and yellow if you're "It's Complicated." While the people there spent the entire time debating the definition of love, I couldn't help but wonder: Why cant everyone dress this way all the time then we wouldn't have any problems or rather I wouldn't have any problems. Seriously the last 3 girls I asked out or wanted to ask out were already taken and I didn't know it at the time WTF. I hate this. I really do. And it's only getting worse. I'm just going to make this clear:

I can't get a date.

There. I said it, for everyone to hear. It's hard to exude coolness and confidence with a track record like the one I have.

However, I do have some joy in my life by volunteering for Get Carded, which gives out organ donor cards. Today we gave out cards with a Valentine's twist: "Have a heart, sign a donor card" was the slogan, and the idea drew some people. The chocolates also drew some people, no doubt. It was a productive day, though, and that's good. I like knowing that I'm helping to save lives.

Time for Ask Jordon:

Brian: Is Justin secretly Stephen Rea?

Your IP address indicates that you sent this from the University of Oregon. Is Brian secretly my friend Luke?

Dan in Japan: Did you ever read Pulp Novels? If so, did you have a favorite hero? (Example - The Spider, the Shadow.. etc.)

No, Dan the Man in Japan, I've never read those kinds of things. I think they were before my time. I thought Pulp Fiction was okay, though. By the way, your IP address indicates that you are in Japan. Good job.

Just to fit into the theme we've got going here, here are 50 Very Simple Ways to Be Romantic.

And this probably fits in too: Your Eyes Don't Lie - Reading Thoughts By Eye Movements.

I can't imagine spending two whole years running for president. In November 2006, I started hearing about people gearing up to run. Finally (well, not finally), on Tuesday, Florida has its primary, where the people will get to choose their party's candidate... or not.

Okay, so here's the deal. Certain states arbitrarily have super-early primaries, meaning that they're often the most influential. Florida wants a piece of the action, so they move their primary from March to January. The Republicans punish Florida by stripping the state of half its delegates to the nominating convention, and the Democrats decide to remove Florida's delegates entirely. So, as a Florida Democrat, my vote actually doesn't count... maybe.

To make things worse, the dude I was going to vote for dropped out of the race on Thursday. That's right: Dennis Kucinich has called it quits. I could go on like certain people about how he was ignored by the mainstream media, but it's really a chicken-and-egg issue, isn't it? A lack of support leads to a lack of media coverage, which leads to a lack of support and so on. But he probably was the most liberal candidate in the race, and it seems that you have to be close to the center to get the votes.

Way back in August, I took a political quiz to see which candidates would be closest to my viewpoints. Kucinich topped my list at 88%, which is how I actually heard about him in the first place. But the playing field has narrowed down quite a bit -- case in point -- so I thought I'd take the test again to see how things have changed.

1. Barack Obama (85%)
2. Hillary Clinton (76%)
3. John Edwards (72%)
4. Mike Gravel (63%)
5. Ron Paul (45%)
6. Wayne Allyn Root (30%)
7. Mike Huckabee (29%)
8. Rudolph Giuliani (27%)
9. John McCain (27%)
10. Mitt Romney (22%)

There were actually 31 results in all; the 21 I haven't included were people who had dropped out of the race or were rumored to run but didn't. I actually got a 0% match: Stephen Colbert.

So, Tuesday is the first time I vote ever. I've decided who I'm going to vote for instead. I mean, I wouldn't feel bad about voting for Kucinich just to show my belated support, but it doesn't really matter anyway.

I knew my Greasemonkey user script MySpace Ignore Bulletins was popular, but I didn't know until recently that it was given a 5-star rating in a review on About.com. The reviewer calls it "handy," "easily configurable," and "a nice ability to have for any MySpacer." (Not "fun for the whole family"?) I'm surprised at how good the review was, especially since it doesn't make reference to even more convenient features I've added (probably after it was written). The only bone I have to pick is that he says "The instructions in the show/hide box are slightly misaligned in My Bulletin Space." It's aligned that way for a reason: so you can still right-click and copy your friend's profile link when the box is open. But oh well. It's a pretty nice honor. The article has even been Dugg. My next two most popular scripts also have reviews: MySpace Birthdays on Homepage earned a 4/5 and MySpace Go Right Home got a 3.5/5.

This guy made up a detailed list of every Bush scandal. The result: a 60-foot-long scroll. (The list is here. Some of them aren't very scandalous, and some aren't his responsibility, like #81: "Selling creationist materials at the Grand Canyon gift shop claiming it was 6000 years old." But many of them are egregious.)

I bet you've always wanted to read a list of animals named after celebrities. Well, here you go. Thanks, Wikipedia!

Here are some fun examples of folded currency.

Dorm life just got interesting. (Well, more interesting.) We have a new RA this semester. I didn't get to meet her until Wednesday, when we had a mandatory floor meeting. Her name is Zannia (rhymes with "mania," although she's not particularly manic), and she was apparently told that she had to plan lots of activities for everyone to do. Shannon, our RA from last semester, never did anything like that, so when Zannia asked us for some ideas for fun activities, we were a little confused. Someone (I won't name names) continued to draw inevitable comparisons to Shannon whenever Zannia said anything, leading to the outburst, "Do I look like Shannon to you?"

I suggested we have a Super Bowl party. "Right here," I said, referring to the common room. I don't know why everyone laughed.

Since it's the beginning of the semester, there have been inevitable shakeups in the dorms. Besides having a new RA, a few people have moved out. Several have yet to be replaced. Other than that, everything's been pretty much the same. People playing cards in the common room at every possible opportunity... a bunch of people in the next room being loud at 2:30 in the morning... and, of course, doing fun stuff or just hanging out -- "bro-in' out," as my suitemate Cameron would say.

Programming class is pretty awesome, even though we haven't really done anything yet. It just gets me pumped. The lecture hall only has one computer (for the instructor), so we've just had to write down his instructions or follow along on our own laptops. (I haven't brought mine to class yet.) Since we'll be programming in Java, we were supposed to download JDK 6 from Sun's web site, but I found it as sun-java6-jdk in Ubuntu's "multiverse" repository. The teacher showed us how to write a "hello world" program in Java, and I managed to write and compile it on my own computer.

Lots of people have brought their laptops to class, and, as a Linux user, I've found it interesting to note the share of operating systems. This is Programming I for Computer Science Majors or something, so we're talking about computer people here. The distribution doesn't seem much different from your average randomly selected group: mostly Windows and a few Macs. Yesterday I happened to see that someone was dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu. (He chose to boot into Vista.)

Using Linux does have its advantages for this class, though, and not just because the JDK was easy to install. The teacher had to explain how to get the "java" and "javac" commands to work outside the directory where java.exe and javac.exe were located. I didn't have to do that on Linux. And while the teacher was going over Windows command-line basics, I already knew how to get around with the command line on Linux. It turns out that I won't need to use Windows at all because the computer labs, where we'll meet once a week, use Linux. So I won't need to pay much attention to the Linux command-line lessons either. I can show off my relatively mad Linux skillz.

On Monday, we'll be counting in binary, which is something else I know how to do. (One of my crowning achievements in high-school programming was making a program that converted numbers between binary, decimal, and hex while everyone else was having problems just going from decimal to binary.) In fact, the other day, I converted numbers from decimal to hex on paper because I had showed up to a class early and was very bored.

Strictly No Photography features pictures of places where photography isn't allowed.

What does it feel like to be lashed? Find out.

In Croatia, there's a sea organ, a unique musical instrument played by waves that flow into the organ and push air through different holes. That page has a beautiful sound clip; here's a short video with more.

I'm home again for the long weekend. Ubuntu has been giving me problems. I thought Compiz was stable on this computer, but it's actually less stable than Beryl was on Feisty. If I had wanted my computer to freeze and shut down at random times, I would have stuck with Windows 98. So I've switched back to Metacity, the default window manager. The screen brightness changes when I don't want it to and doesn't change when I want it to -- unless I adjust it myself. Plus, I once again have to enter a password to use the Wi-Fi at home; the fix I used before is now ineffective. Other than that, everything is fine. (If you didn't get that, here's a summary: the computer's slightly wonky but mostly hunky-dory.)

I've often wondered how many words I've written in this here bliggity-blog. Of course, I could copy and paste the text of every post into a word processor and have it determine the total, but that's not how I roll. No, instead I decided to write a quick JavaScript script that would count the words in the 869 entries I've written before this one. It's not a perfect script, of course; I think it tends to overestimate slightly. But its result is telling: the previous 869 posts contain about 470,264 words. Remember that time I tried to write a novel? How about that other time I tried to write a novel? If this blog were published, it would be the length of about 9 novels. Whoa. How many volumes could you split that into? Samuel Pepys, eat your heart out.

A few weeks ago I was tossing around the idea of selling World of Stuff t-shirts through a site like CafePress. I even made a mock-up design. Imagine this emblazoned across your chest:

Apparently, the design can only be as wide as 10 in. So on a large t-shirt, it would be rather small (some might say discreet). On smaller shirts, however, it would look just right. The solution is obvious: I have to get lots of girls to buy and wear these shirts. If I decide to sell them.

Okay, let's have a poll. Would you buy this shirt?

Are you a web lingo expert? Apparently I'm not. I only got 70% of the questions right. I think some of those abbreviations have never been used by anyone ever.

A collection of your favorite Internet phenomena set to an infectious tune: The Internet Stars Are Viral.

Here are some fascinating facts about food coloring!

With college coming soon, I've actually been thinking about college and how much money everything's going to cost. Take food, for example. When I think of the cost of living, I don't even think to factor in food. But the university's meal plans run in the thousands of dollars per semester. That's nothing to sneeze at. Then there are the textbooks, which may not actually be worth their weight in gold but are usually sold as such. Not to mention housing, which is also thousands per semester, even if you're living in a room that would, if you were an animal, outrage PETA.

That's why I think it helps to work a summer job before college, and that's why I think I need an another job. Yeah, I have a job, but I barely make minimum wage working less than one full day a week. Actually, after taxes and Social Security and stuff, I earn less than the minimum wage. I'd estimate that in the past month of working, I've bought about one textbook. And I work infrequently because my work is too far away. This cannot continue. Unfortunately, upcoming travel plans mean that I can't apply for a job now if they're going to contact me next week, and I can't work next week if they want me to. I'm still stuck in a rut.

I guess I should start looking for jobs within walking distance of my house (and there should be a few). The supermarket is always an option as I think it's a teenage rite of passage to bag groceries, but I'm not keen on going through all the training nonsense and wearing a funny name tag and uniform. I just want to do stuff and get paid for it; I'd only have the job for about a month, anyway. I think I'll go around and look for a job right after I post this. I doubt I'll find anything, but it's worth a try. I need the money. Yes, I do.

Greasemonkey users, behold my latest user script: MySpace Birthdays on Homepage. How many people here use Greasemonkey and have a MySpace? I don't know, but just in case there's anyone, I just wanted to announce that.

"Old Folks at Home" has long been Florida's state song, but that is soon going to change. Even though the lyrics usually sung today are less racially offensive than the originals, the original lyrics are still offensive. Something had to be done. Just Sing, Florida! is the name of the contest that will determine a new state song. The contest runs through October 1, but one question remains: will the new state song be as catchy as the current one? Come on. Let me start you out: Waaay down upon the Swaaneeeee Riverr... And there you go. You will have it in your head all day.

Graham's number is the largest number that has ever been seriously used in a mathematical proof. How big is it? It's described as the 64th number in a particular sequence which grows very rapidly. The first number in the sequence is greater than the number of atoms in the universe. You couldn't write every digit of Graham's number even if you had the whole universe as a piece of paper. It's a big number.

Kenny, Tanner, Ivan, and I won second place in the programming competition, and Mr. Mumtaz, our programming teacher, had promised us some recognition on the school's morning TV announcements. I had never been on the show live before, so I thought it would be interesting. Plus, since nobody seemed to know that the programming competition existed, this would be our chance to let them know. But it turned out that we couldn't do it on Monday because there was no show. There was no show because there was AP testing in the library, which is right next to the TV studio.

There was, however, a show on Tuesday, and I was determined to go on, even though it meant I would have to miss part of a senior class meeting. We all brought our trophies and met Mr. Mumtaz at the door outside the TV Production studio. With him was Mr. Gordon, the principal. He congratulated us on our accomplishment, and then we all sneaked onto the set while they were on the air. It's a bit more cramped than I imagined it to be, but this is not CNN. Mr. Gordon told the camera that these fine students had won 2nd place at the programming competition, and then he had Mr. Mumtaz give our names. And that was that.

We slipped back outside the studio, and Mr. Gordon shook our hands once again. He was a intrigued by our unexpected almost-victory because he hadn't known that the competition existed. We told him how we were presented with problems to solve with computer programming. We also explained that we had to work as a team because the four of us could only use one computer. He was impressed. Later that day, in programming class, we had our photos taken for the yearbook -- my senior yearbook. My future kids are going to see that picture one day and find it amusing.

Today my AP Calculus class culminated with the AP Calculus test, which is what I've basically spent all year studying for. But it goes back further than that: I had already known for a long time that I was going to take calculus in high school, and I rose to the challenge of taking two years' worth of high-school calculus in one year. It all led up to this. And you know what? I think I did well. Some parts actually seemed... easy. I feel as though I was very well prepared, and I have Mr. Gates to thank for that. He had us work rigorously so that we would be very familiar the material. Mr. Gates didn't waste a second teaching us and drilling us. And tomorrow, in true Mr. Gates fashion, we're launching into new topics. I can't wait.

Wikipedia actually tells me some interesting facts about the AP Calculus exams. (There are two: the first level is called "Calculus AB," while the second level is "Calculus BC." I'm in a special AB/BC class, so I learned the material from both exams in one year and took the BC exam.) It turns out that the BC exam has the highest average score out of any AP exam (and there are many). Last year, 41.9% of test-takers got a score of 5, which is the highest possible on a scale of 1 to 5. Also, it seems that the AP Calculus exam has the distinction of being the only AP exam to figure centrally into the plot of a film: Stand and Deliver. What makes that more surprising is that I actually saw that movie and didn't know it was about AP Calculus. What makes that less surprising is that I saw the Spanish-dubbed version in Spanish class three years ago. No hablo español.

Anyway, I find out my score in July. Yeah, July. The free-response portion of the exam is graded by hand, so they actually have math teachers look at dozens of these things and grade them according a strict rubric. You can actually find out your score on July 1 if you want to shell out the money to hear it over the phone, but us working folk have to wait a few weeks to get our scores in the mail. I hope I get a 5.

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Wikipedia has a list of satellite map images with missing or unclear data which exist mainly because governments have asked satellite map providers like Google Maps to obscure sensitive areas. In the article, you can find out which country has not asked Google Maps to censor anything for fear of drawing attention to sensitive locations.