I should be working

I've been to the movies a few times lately. I saw Star Trek with my friends the Friday before last and again just this Sunday night. I'm proud to say I'd never watched any of the shows or the other movies because otherwise I'd be someone who watches Star Trek. Anyway, from the perspective of a complete outsider, the movie was good enough for me to see twice without getting bored. My friends and I also went to the midnight showing of Angels and Demons on Thursday night/Friday morning. It was pretty fast-paced, and I liked it. I didn't read the book.

In my last post, I talked about getting a new memory card for my digital camera. Well, I've discovered another benefit of having a large memory card. If you've seen my videos, you've seen the handiwork of my digital camera. The quality is pretty good, but it only records at something like 16 frames per second, so any motion looks pretty jerky. (Mmm... jerky.) I recently remembered that my camera has a higher-quality video setting that I couldn't use with my old memory card because it didn't have enough space. My 1 GB card can hold over 12 minutes of high quality video at 30 frames per second. It looks like it's from an actual camcorder. I could reach 8 GB sooner than I think.

For my upcoming trip, I've got a computer, but the keyboard is pretty small. This would be a problem for picture-taking because I name all my digital photos and videos to include the date, the number in the sequence for that day, and a brief description. After years of doing this manually, I wrote a Bash script to help me automate the task. It prompts me for a description for each photo or video and then moves it to the proper folder. Here's the script if you're interested.

11 Extinct Animals That Have Been Photographed Alive. (Via The Presurfer)

Ah, Area 51, a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists everywhere. Some goings-on at the base have recently been declassified, so several people have gone on the record to talk about what it was like to work at Area 51 and what some of those "UFOs" actually were. (Via waxy.org)

Welcome back, Conky

For a relatively long time, I used Conky as a system monitor on my desktop. It's pretty popular among Ubuntu users and other Linux types. Eventually, I switched to Screenlets, mainly because they look snazzy. But since my Screenlets have been acting up lately (spontaneously losing their configurations when I log in), I decided I'd have enough of that. I've gone back to Conky and all its powerful features. To that end, I've spent hours on what I believe is a pretty sexy Conky setup. Click the thumbnail for the full-size version.

The wallpaper is from InterfaceLIFT. The semi-transparent background for Conky is actually part of the wallpaper. I made a transparent image with a black stripe down the side in the GIMP and overlaid it on the original wallpaper with ImageMagick, which will make things easier when I want to change the wallpaper later. As for the Conky configuration itself, it's pretty self-explanatory. Here's my .conkyrc, and here's a Bash script I wrote to make audio metadata from Rhythmbox look pretty whether you're playing a song, a podcast, an Internet radio stream, or nothing at all.

And now, the not-so-boring links:

The difference between Pixar's and DreamWorks' animated films explained.

Wrong Tomorrow documents predictions made by public figures and keeps track of whether they become wrong or right. (Via waxy.org)

NPR did an interesting story recently on how ants know when their fellow ants are dead. As with many such things, it has to do with a chemical, which you can use to really confuse them.

A minor problem

Last semester, I found out that I had to take 15 credit-hours' worth of "interdisciplinary electives," with two options: "all courses must be at the 3000 level or above in the same area (advisor approval required)" or "all credits must be applied toward an official ... minor." Well, I know what that means. I'm taking up a minor. In my studies, I mean. You know.

I have thought about it a little bit, and I've decided to minor in business. It seems pretty interesting and not too incredibly difficult. (I think business is stereotypically considered an easy major and a backup for pre-law students who are failing their pre-law classes.) With a business minor, I'll be taking such classes as microeconomics, accounting, marketing, and other stuff. Five classes, five semesters remaining: it just works out well.

Actually, the minor offers a choice between microeconomics and macroeconomics, but I've already decided which class I want to take. For micro, the lectures are taped and posted online, so you don't actually have to go to class. I overheard my roommate watching many a micro lecture last year, and I have to say... they were funny. The professor makes his lectures entertaining, mainly by engaging in a neverending mock feud with the unseen videographer, whom he simply calls the Director.

But one thing that's even better than dumb Director jokes is the schedule I picked out for myself for the fall semester. I usually don't look forward to picking out future class schedules because it's often too hard to find out what your best possible schedule might be. But recently, I found out about a site called Coursetopia that makes picking the perfect schedule pretty easy. You just tell it what classes you want to take, and it presents you with every possible schedule. You can also fine-tune the results, of course. And it's all done with AJAX-y magic that can remind you how slow your browser is at handling JavaScript.

Coursetopia saved me a lot of time that I otherwise would have spent making lots of spreadsheets. It currently only has class schedules for UF, FSU, and Rutgers, so if you go to one of those schools, check it out. The service is free, and you don't have to register unless you want to save your results for later.

Anyway, my cool schedule. I'll have no classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays. On other days, my first class starts at 9:35 and my last one ends at 2:45 (3:50 on Mondays). Not bad. I don't know what I'm going to do with my two free periods in a row, though, since I'll be living off campus. I could probably go back to my apartment between classes, but I don't know if it would be worth the bus trips. I'll have to ask my apartment-dwelling friends how they've tackled this question. Hey, apartment-dwelling friends, how have you tackled this question?

In the meantime, I'll have to get the signatures of the deans of the College of Engineering and the College of Business Administration to get this minor approved. Hopefully it won't be as much of a hassle as changing my major seemed to be.

For those who thought that we already know everything about our past, this will come as a big surprise: the discovery of mysterious stones in Turkey in 1994 has changed the way we think about human history. (Via The Presurfer)

Apparently, it's common for rock drummers these days to keep a consistent beat by drumming along to a click track. Some guy analyzed the time between beats in various songs to see which drummers used a click track. (Via waxy.org)

And finally, a photo gallery of crappy balloon animals. (Via The Presurfer)

A grammatical interlude

Today in one of my classes, we did something I haven't done since high school: we peer-reviewed each other's research papers. And no, I'm not talking about fact checking; I mean basic stuff like proofreading. We split into groups of three, and each person proofread the others' essays and offered comments. I bet I was the only one in the class to use proofreader's marks, which I'd been taught in sixth or seventh or eighth grade.

But anyway, I'm not a big fan of peer review in classrooms. The process is fundamentally broken; it assumes that each person knows more about writing than someone else, which is just not true. For example: a classmate marked my use of the Latin phrases per se and status quo as clichés and said not to use them because they weakened my argument. De facto just seemed to confuse the hell out of her. Maybe I won't italicize my Latin phrases in the final draft.

But the biggie came when I saw her scrawling a note in the margin saying not to start a sentence with "because." What the heck, guys.

Schoolteachers tell schoolchildren not to start a sentence with "because" to prevent them from writing incomplete sentences:

Because I like cookies.

This sentence has no main idea; "Because I like cookies" is a subordinate clause and must have a main clause or whatever it's called to go with it. (Excuse me; it's been a while. I hope this doesn't, ahem, weaken my argument.) Now let's consider another sentence with the word "because":

I bought extra milk because I like cookies.

No one can deny that that is a grammatically correct sentence. But if all our sentences looked like that, the world would be a boring place to read stuff, and we'd probably just watch more TV. So what do good writers do? They shake up their sentence structure by reversing clauses!

Because I like cookies, I bought extra milk.

"Oh noes! It starts with 'because'!" Chill. It's okay. There's a whole idea in there, see? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sentence (except that liking cookies too much might make you fat). It's just like the last sentence. There's a main idea ("I bought extra milk") with a supporting idea ("because I like cookies") backing it up.

To be fair, my classmate made valid criticisms of my 3 A.M. writing. I can't really blame her for not realizing her mistake. Not everyone is a grammar whiz, after all.

No, I think the problem ultimately comes down to English teachers. They tell kids not to start sentences with "because," a sweeping and inappropriate generalization. To make matters worse, they hardly ever seem to "unteach" it later on by saying that starting a sentence with "because" is okay if you do it right. So this "rule" remains in students' heads, standing as an artificial impediment to their self-expression.

So, English teachers, can you please stop saying that a sentence can never begin with "because"? You'd be doing your students a favor, and the rest of us would really appreciate it too.

(And yes, I realize that I've started a sentence with a coordinating conjunction seven times. Oops. Make that eight.)

I thought it was obvious, but there's a long Wikipedia article about it: the evenness of zero.

The Pac-Man Dossier consists of everything you ever wanted to know about Pac-Man, all on one page. (Via The Presurfer)

The price of a first-class stamp is going up so often that by the time I remember what it is, it's changed again. So I guess I'm not the only person who had this idea for a simple web site: priceofastamp.com. (Via The Presurfer)

Title that will make you want to read this

To no one's surprise, the Unite Party basically swept the Student Government elections, winning the executive and treasurer tickets as well as 42 Student Senate seats. The Progress Party picked up 8 seats, while the Orange and Blue Party won none.

Also, 61% of students voted to ban SG funding for facilities that require biometric data for entry. Recently, the main student gym announced plans to install hand scanners at the entrance because they thought that showing your student ID card to an attendant would be too slow and inexpensive. In the fall elections, something like 84% of students expressed their disapproval of this incredible waste of money and arguable invasion of privacy in a non-binding referendum. This semester's initiative is binding.

The turnout was 19%, which I think is considered high. Kind of a shame, if you ask me.

Um, what else? Spring break is in a week. Yay. Um, that's it, I guess. Talk amongst yourselves.

Tupper's self-referential formula is a certain formula whose graph looks like the formula itself. The Wikipedia article makes the rationale sound simple, but I still think it's pretty wacky.

Bhutan, the quiet Himalayan kingdom that got television and the Internet at the same time, is now the world's first non-smoking nation. (Via The Presurfer)

At howoldareyou.net, you can see pictures of people and guess how old they are. You can also submit a picture of yourself... if you dare to find out what people think. (Via Atheist Revolution)

Airline food?

Today, Jordon weighs in on...

• Hot dogs: Hot dogs are like the universe. They're filled with all sorts of stuff, but it's more or less evenly distributed throughout. Also, they may contain intelligent life.
• The Middle East: Can anyone recommend a good book on the history of the Israeli conflict? I feel like it's a soap opera that I wouldn't understand unless I had started watching it years ago.
• Natasha: I want to meet my Canadian friend more than I want to go to Europe this summer. For obvious reasons, she'd prefer to visit me in my natural subtropical habitat. I hope she can this year. We could do some fun stuff.
• Vaccines: I was raised with the belief that vaccines cause more harm than good and that they can induce autism. As I broaden my horizons I notice that this is considered nonsense by almost everyone, including the scientific establishment, which has the scientific method to back it up. There must be a reason that children no longer get diseases like the measles, rubella, or polio in large numbers, and smallpox didn't just decide to stop infecting people. Also, while diagnoses of autism may be increasing, diagnoses are not equal to cases. More people are diagnosed with allergies these days also, but that's because we no longer shrug off the symptoms by just saying that little Johnny is a sickly child.
• Regime change: Last week, Archie, my RA, quit and moved out. So we were RA-less for a week, during which time I took the liberty to hang up a flyer for my Esperanto club in the common room, there being no one to stop me. Yesterday, I bumped into the new RA. Her name is Jordan, which might get confusing. She didn't know which rooms she was responsible for, so I had to tell her. Should be interesting.

There's one born every minute. Here's the story of a Canadian who lost $150,000 in a Nigerian scam. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Some people with lots of time on their hands calculated the acceleration due to gravity in the Super Mario Bros. games. (Via waxy.org)

Here's a map of the United States that shows the motto of each state. Some of them are pretty weird. Most are in English or Latin, but there's one each in Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Hawaiian, and Chinook. (They're all listed below the map.) (Via J-Walk Blog)

Play nice, kids

[Edit Tue, Feb 10, 2009 22:27 EST: Wow. Um, this post is about me getting my Internet access cut off because I was using BitTorrent. After I wrote it, I got a message saying that my access was blocked because of bad authentication - I had just changed my password, and it hadn't propagated through the system yet. So, um, let's just pretend I didn't accidentally incriminate myself.]

Brian Malow is a comedian... who jokes about science! Don't worry, his jokes are very accessible and still pretty funny.

Last year, there were several Internet outages due to cable breaks in the Mediterranean. New Scientist reports on why the sea is the Achilles' heel of the web.

Europe '09

A few months ago, my friend Mark mentioned that he wanted to go backpacking through Europe over the summer. Then he bought a plane ticket. The implication was that I was invited to come along. The more, the merrier, Mark said. Our friend Andy decided he would go along, and Dan did too. How could I resist?

Okay, I had to think about it a bit. It is a big decision to spend a lot of money traveling on another continent for two months. But it's the chance of a lifetime. Who knows how many people I'll meet and how many things I'll see and do? And when's the next time I'll be able to travel across Europe with friends?

So I made it official. Yesterday, I bought a plane ticket to London on the same flight as Mark and Dan. We're leaving May 26 and coming back July 31. Yep. Over two months.

Interestingly (I'm reminded of a professor I had last semester would stress the third syllable of that word), Mark, Andy, Dan, and I, are the officers of the Esperanto Club here at the University of Florida. We plan to do at least some traveling within the Passport Service, a hospitality network for Esperanto speakers. It'll be a great way to meet people, practice the language, and save money. We also plan on going to the International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Liberec, Czech Republic. As it happens, our club's faculty advisor teaches Czech and will be in the country then, so maybe she'll come along.

While I happen to be on the continent, I'd really like to visit my distant cousins in Croatia and see the beautiful town that my ancestors emigrated from. Also, if my friend Kevin happens to be with his family in Spain over the summer, I'd like to drop by and say hola. And if any of you want to put up four guys for a few nights, it would be much appreciated.

So, people who live in or have been to Europe: what should I see? I'll have two whole months, and I'd like to do as much as possible. What do you recommend? Do you have any tips? Also, I'll be celebrating my 20th birthday during the trip, so if you have any ideas for that, I'd like to hear them.

If you know me, you probably have a lot of questions: "What about this? What about that? What a horrible idea!" Obviously, I don't have all my arrangements made yet, but I am thinking about them. I think I want a travel-sized guitar because I obviously can't go without playing the guitar for two months. I might also bring my laptop, even though I nearly broke it last year when I took it to the dining hall down the street. If I don't bring my computer, I'll at least try to blog as often as possible. I'd also like to take hundreds if not thousands of pictures, so I'll pick up a larger memory card for my camera.

Wow. I can't wait. It'll be the experience of a lifetime.

Rejected titles for this post include:

• Go east, young man
• Eurotrip
• The World of Stuff goes to Europe
• The World of Stuff Live! In Europe
• The World of Stuff's European Vacation

Barack Obama wrote some books, and that means there are audiobook versions of his books. Here's your chance to hear the President utter some questionable quotations like "Sure you can have my number, baby!" and things you can't say on TV. (Via waxy.org)

In case you doubted it: the Top 10 Signs of Evolution in Modern Man. Pretty fascinating stuff. (Via The Presurfer)

Wikipedia has a long list of shibboleths. (There's also an article explaining what a shibboleth is.)

Everybody hates Wednesdays

Well, maybe not everybody, but I do. Tuesdays and Thursdays aren't so great either.

Why? Because I have digital logic lab Wednesday nights from 7:20-10:10 PM. Never mind that it's a three-hour lab at night, but the pre-lab assignment takes much longer than that. Besides, I rarely have much of a clue how to do anything. It's about building circuits and stuff, you see. I can connect things on a breadboard, but I feel like I missed a prerequisite for this class because some basic things about building circuits that I thought were really important were sort of glossed over.

So when none of the things I made worked quite right, I should have known that I was forgetting to do something. Last night, I spent much of my lab wondering why the thing we had to build, a 4:2 priority encoder, wasn't doing what it was supposed to. I even rebuilt it just to make sure I didn't mess anything up. As the lab period was ending, I was the one of the last two people left, and that's when the TA got a good look and realized that I wasn't connecting the input to a resistor after the switches. I totally did not know I had to do that. But I fixed it, and it worked. I was in a celebratory mood for the rest of the night. I was still in a celebratory mood when I woke up.

As much as digital logic is the Bane of My Existence for Spring '09, the prospect of building things that work is kind of... ugh... cool.

Oh, and I actually sort of did miss the prerequisite for this class, but I have an equivalent credit. Plus, an advisor approved my schedule.

Guess which regular feature I only did nine times last year... It's Ask Jordon!

Joohan Park: My teacher said you were in her classroom before but I don't believe it.Her name is Mrs.Sgroe.Did you have classes with her when you were young?

Yes, Mrs. Sgroe was my teacher for 5th grade (1999-2000) and 8th grade (2002-2003) at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School in Pompano Beach, Florida.

This might be handy for some of you Americans who hate looking like tourists: via The Presurfer, it's How to Avoid Looking Like an American Tourist.

This might be handy for some of you Americans who hate using nonsensical units of measure: from the hilarious webcomic xkcd, it's a guide to converting to metric.

This might be handy for some of you Americans or non-Americans who hate not being able to take good photos at concerts: from Jenny of Cool Cherry Cream, it's Concert Photography Tips and Tricks for Non-Professionals.

Now it's time for me to eat dinner and then do hours and hours of digital logic homework worth 0.4% of my grade. I hate Thursdays too!

Stream of consciousness VII

Last weekend I was watching TV with this guy from down the hall. He had been having a pretty bad week. He had lost his student ID card... and his backpack. I don't know how, but there you go.

A few days later, Jon asked me if I knew what had happened with him. "Oh yeah," I said. "He lost his student ID card and his backpack." "No, not that," Jon said.

Apparently he was hanging out with another guy in the parking garage behind the building, and they were on the third floor, and he was sitting on the edge and fell off. I was told that he was pretty intact, but an article in the major student newspaper said he had suffered injuries to his face. They also said he had been smoking marijuana but printed a retraction the next day. They didn't, however, correct their statement that he was a 20-year-old sophomore when he's actually a 19-year-old freshman.

That's probably a good reason not to wish for having an interesting life. You just might get it. (Or, you might not. Whatever. No one's just granting you wishes.) Anyway, he's a great guy and I wish him a speedy recovery.

Why else am I here? Oh yeah, to talk about other stuff. Of course. This is The World of Stuff, after all.

Here is a stuff. It's a fun fact. (Yes, I did mean to say "a stuff." I used to talk to a Korean girl on Skype and she spoke perfect English except she would say "stuffs" instead of "stuff.") Anyway, here's an interesting foodstuff: I have not engaged in any courtship-related activities this year. And by this year, I mean this school year, beginning in August. And by courtship-related activities, I mean August. No. Damn it. I mean no dating. (Ah, my consciousness. It is such a stream.)

I really have not met anyone that I would be interested in dating. And by be interested in dating, I mean would be able to ask out. I know a lot of interesting girls. And by a lot, I mean some. But they have boyfriends or whatever. It's always something. "It's Complicated!" Oh, whatever.

The other day it occurred to me that I am now 19 and a half years old. It's less than six months till I'm in my twenties. I know I shouldn't be thinking this way, but I sort of feel like the clock is ticking. People my age are tired of high-school games. They want to meet someone to settle down with in a long-term relationship or something. I know people who are married.

So one time I apparently blinked and missed learning how to go about with dating and stuff. I am still learning. But now that I know that you should not just ask an acquaintance on a dinner date, I haven't had a chance to use that information. What is it, you meet someone and you just sort of click with them and you hang out a few times and then you go to the movies or whatever and it's magical and I don't even know what comes after that. But I just can't make it click. (Sounds like a personal problem.) I wish I had spent more time interacting with people rather than just chillin'.

In spite of these impediments, I do imagine that I'll have kids someday. I guess it's inevitable to imagine that, whatever reality seems to be indicating. But anyway, Jordon Jr. is not going to get a children's encyclopedia. He's going to get a baseball glove. And relax, I won't name him Jordon Jr. Jeez.

Okay, hive mind, help me out here: you've all mostly probably maybe met someone you find special in that special way. Even if you hate them now, you probably still like the memories, perhaps. Was there a moment where you "clicked"? Or, you know what? Just tell me how you met your significant other(s) and how they became attracted to you or vice versa. I will be using this personal information for my personal gain, and I will credit you if you wish. This Awkward Placing Of My Arm Around Your Shoulder Is Brought To You By [your name here]!

This is already running long, but I have to have one, so: a crazy PDF chart showing radio frequency allocations in the United States. It is pretty crowded. (Via J-Walk Blog)