Category - Programming

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.

You can save $101 a week by adhering to these 101 Ways to Save One Dollar a Week.

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.

Some schools achieve glory through athletic competitions, others through academic success. Nobody expects a group of nerds to be hailed as heroes at their school. Which is not to say that they can't accomplish some pretty cool things.

I woke up early yesterday for the countywide programming competition. I knew it was far away, so, to be safe, I decided to wake up extra early rather than just early. But, thanks to my deep-seated fear of alarm clocks (or, rather, alarm clock alarms), setting my alarm to wake me up extra early caused me to wake up super-extra early so that I wouldn't have to be jolted awake by the alarm. Trust me: I'd sleep in if I could. My mind decides it would rather not have me scared awake. It is, well, frightening. I was also a little worried that I wouldn't do well at this, my first programming competition. I tried not to think about how my school placed third the last time they were at the event, two years ago. (Last year, the team wimped out at the last minute and decided not to go.)

My dad took me all the way down to Cypress Bay High, where the competition was to take place. I saw that there were tons of cars parked there and wondered how that could be; the programming competition isn't that popular. Then I realized that they were having the SAT there, and things made a lot more sense. There were lots of signs saying where to go if you were taking the SAT, but none mentioned anything else. We asked a guy how to get to the programming competition, and he asked, "What kind of programming?" Another guy said to go to the library, and that looked like it was going to be where it was going to be, but no one was there yet except a few people from the school.

After a while, people started showing up and bringing their computers. I think there were 9 schools in all. Each school's team could have as many as four people, and each team could only use one computer. I had figured that each group would bring a laptop, but some brought desktops, including one with a CRT monitor (the big kind). After a while, our teacher, Mr. Mumtaz, came with his new laptop that we were going to use. Then, the rest of Pompano's team came: Ivan, Kenny, and Tanner (filling in for Gilbert). I gave each of them a "Hello, My Name Is" sticker with the HD-DVD processing key written on it, as per Kenny's previous half-joking suggestion. I figured it would be a morale booster because we knew we didn't have a chance of winning. Most of the other teams seemed to be using the C++ programming language, which would make them very efficient for the kinds of programs that we were expected to write. Mr. Mumtaz promised he'd buy us lunch if we won 1st place, but I knew he would do it no matter what.

As the time to begin drew near, we learned that we would have only two hours to perform a variety of tasks for points. It was basically impossible to do all of them in the allotted time, so we would have to choose which ones to do. We had already decided that Kenny and Tanner would start by collaborating on the 1-point programs, while Ivan and I would write down code or pseudocode for the 2- and 3-point programs so we could type them out on the computer later. We would be supervised by another school's teacher (we got Taravella's) who would judge each program as we finished it, giving us the points if they followed the format and returned the right results. No points were to be deducted for non-working programs, so we could show our judge the same program over and over again until it was creditworthy.

We began. Ivan and I combed through the more difficult ones, all of which seemed to involve math, while Kenny and Tanner started on the simpler ones, the easiest of which was simply to some words on the screen. After a while of writing out code, an hour had passed, and Ivan and I still hadn't used the computer. Eventually, Ivan got to use it, and at that point, none of the rest of us had anything to left to do. All of the programs had been typed out, debugged, and scored; planned out on paper; or pored over intensely and cast aside. I thought it was a good idea to try to relax before it became my turn on the computer. Eventually, it was my turn, so I started with the easiest 3-point program, a quadratic solver. For my next trick, I did a 2-pointer to calculate the cost of tires according to a given formula. We were running down to the wire, and I was hoping that I could simply adapt the tire program to a somewhat more complicated 3-point version given. But the seconds ticked down and I got more nervous with each keystroke. I never thought I'd break a sweat while programming.

And then, time was called. I didn't finish that 3-pointer. We ended with 18 or 19 points, which seemed like too few. There was a brief time during which the judges met to submit the teams' scores. During that time we heard some tales about the other programs. The group next to us had closed their laptop before the end of the competition, which meant to us that they were done; however, we learned that they had apparently given up. On the other side of us, a group using C++ had failed to bring some necessary libraries, so they couldn't do anything and got no points. But certainly, we knew, that of these 8 other teams, there were many who really knew what they were doing much better than we did. I knew my school wouldn't beat the 3rd place we had achieved two years ago, so I figured we would be 4th or 5th at best, if they were even going to give an award for that.

There were awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. They started with 3rd place first. We all knew that if we didn't get 3rd place, we weren't going to do any better than that. South Broward won 3rd place, and you could almost hear the collective internal sighs of our team. That was it for us.

In 2nd place was... Pompano High?! We walked up to get our trophies. I couldn't believe it, and nobody else could either. Second place! How? Why? It didn't matter. We had done it. We didn't think we could, but we did. We were proud of ourselves and amused by our fortune. Mr. Mumtaz was proud too. "I'll buy you lunch anyway," he said. We were so excited that we didn't find out much about the winners. I think the winning school was Cypress Bay, which also hosted the event. Ivan asked what programming language they used, and they said BASIC. Immediately, I thought of

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10

but I figured there must have been more to it than that. After all, we had also been using a version of BASIC, albeit a highly evolved one (Microsoft's Visual Basic .NET) whose number formatting functions saved us quite a few times when we needed to have numbers returned with specific formatting like comma separators or dollar signs. It also turned out that the winners scored 20 points, so if I had finished the last question, that 3-point program, we would have won. But it didn't bother me, and nobody blamed me for it. Instead, everybody blamed the clock. We had been really pressed for time, and we were glad just to win 2nd place when we would have considered ourselves lucky to get 3rd.

As promised, Mr. Mumtaz took us to Quiznos. Over lunch, he told us to bring our trophies to school on Monday so he could try to get us to appear live on the school's morning TV announcements. I doubt anyone will care, but it's nice to know that I was part of a group that surpassed all expectations and accomplished something.

Later that day I went with my dad and my grandpa to see the Air and Sea Show. It's got military stunt planes and things. I never really go to it because it costs a lot for parking and getting into the beach and buying water when you get thirsty. That's why there's another way: going by boat and watching offshore. It was such a nice afternoon to go boating. I was expecting them to put up the Bimini top, which is why I didn't put on sunscreen, but they never did, so I got a pretty nasty sunburn. I guess I should have said something. Oh well! At least now I know to put on sunscreen. And in a few days, I won't be all red and I'll be able to go outside without my arms hurting. But seriously, it was fun, and I realized that I'm really going to miss the beach when I move away.

Here's an interesting article from Nikon about the third eye.

Godchecker is your handy guide to every god ever worshipped.

As you may not recall, I decided to use my own script to count the number of Google web searches I performed in the month of April. The grand total turned out to be 468, or 15.6 searches a day. I didn't realize how much I relied on Google. It's pretty interesting.

I consider myself a pretty good computer programmer. This is a complete lie, in fact. I have much to learn and cannot write any program that people could actually use. Actually, I sort of do (see above), but the point is, I can't really write any useful applications that you would have on your desktop, as much as I'd like to. I'm in the Programming III class at school, and it's pretty enjoyable, mainly because it's at the same time as the Programming II class, which is much larger and has a lot of people I know. But anyway, this year I was asked by the teacher to be part of the school's team that will compete at the countywide programming competition that's taking place on Saturday. The team was supposed to consist of me, Gilbert, Kenny, and Ivan, but Gilbert can't make it, so he's being replaced by Tanner.

I was asked to do it when I was in Programming I, and I didn't really feel like it, but now I feel ready. I've learned quite a bit since then, and the sample problems that the teacher gave us seem really easy. Like, really easy. Basically, a lot of them involve calculating a value according to a formula: area given length and height, and so on. Other problems we've looked at were more difficult, but I'm really not sure how we're going to be. It seems, though, that we'll be at a disadvantage because we use an object-oriented programming language, while most of the projects can be accomplished quickly and dirtily with... the other kind. You know, the ones that use the command line and all.

Yesterday I found out that the HD-DVD process key had been cracked. It had actually been cracked for a while, but I'm slow to hear about these things. What it basically means is that it's now possible to remove the DRM from HD DVDs, which, although it shouldn't be illegal because there are legitimate reasons to copy movies that you own, apparently is. Yeah, they're saying it's illegal to possess a number. In protest, the Internet has been abuzz with people posting the number on sites like Digg, which eventually gave up on its censorship. The MPAA has apparently been trying to silence those who have publicized the number, but there's no way they can crack down on the 13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640 sites that have joined in on the fun.

According to the Wikipedia article, the key has been revoked, and no new discs will use it. But it's only a matter of time before the next key gets cracked. Why do they bother? Oh yeah, that's right: so they can try to sell you the same content over and over again.

When I found out about the infamous number yesterday morning, I wrote it on a piece of paper and pinned it to my shirt. Two people actually got the reference, which was pretty satisfying to see. I figured the guys in my programming class would be the ones who would appreciate it the most, and I was right. They wrote it on the board for all to see, and some of them tried to commit the number, represented in hexadecimal form, to memory. Kenny suggested that the programming competition team write the number on those "Hello, My Name Is" stickers and wear them to the competition. It sounds like a great idea; I'll just have to see if I can get the stickers. Where do you buy those things, anyway?

From the Journal of Irreproducible Results: All Theories Proven with One Graph. There are even calculus jokes in it. Yes: jokes, plural.

From the YouTubes Internet tubes: How to paint the Mona Lisa with MS Paint. Quite impressive, if you ask me.

It's dark out. I've been sitting here at the computer for a while -- in fact, pretty much all day. I'm on spring break right now, and I'm trying to enjoy it. Sure, I have lots of calculus homework to do, but I want to wait. I'm looking forward to staying up late over the following week to watch The Daily Show and Colbert, neither of which I've seen in months. What can I say? I go to bed early because I wake up early. I don't want to wake up early, but I do. I woke up exceptionally early this morning -- 6:30, to be in fact. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. I must have thought it was a Friday (when I wake up at 6:30 to go to work), but more likely the dust in my room was irritating my nose.

I haven't really done much today at all, as I said. I did trick out Ubuntu quite a bit, though, by adding a new login window and splash screen. Some people may wonder why it matters, but I did it to go with the theme that I've made up, which is predominantly blue. I hope soon to get to the point that working at Ubuntu becomes transparent -- i.e., I don't use it, thinking, "Hey, this is Ubuntu instead of Windows, which is what I'm used to." That probably won't happen soon, though, because I read somewhere that it can take a year or more for someone to know the ins and outs of a particular operating system. Oh well. I'm enjoying the Linux experience.

And as my mind inevitably turns to the future, I'm thinking about what kind of laptop to get. Obviously, one that runs Linux, as the main reason (or one of the main reasons) I switched to Linux was for the cost (usually free). It's my understanding that laptops with Linux preinstalled (they do exist, keep reading) are cheaper than equivalent laptops with Windows. Actually, they may not be, but with Windows you have to pay for a lot of the software, but on Linux it's mostly free. Besides that, I really don't know how the cost figures into things -- or, rather, how things are figured into the cost. I need to do my homework when it comes to hardware and stuff. I just found out recently that this computer is, by the standards of March 31, 2007, slow and old.

Anyway, when researching laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed, System76 immediately emerged as the definitive leader. They apparently have great customer support and are determined to help you when you buy from them (or even when you don't). Plus, they have guaranteed hardware support, which is a must when Linux hardware support is kind of patchy and unpredictable. Supposedly, System76 laptops come with Wi-Fi working out of the box, which is pretty neat because I think there's a wireless Internet connection thingy in my house.

I want a laptop that won't get outdated quickly and that looks slick. Obviously, affordability is important too. My friend Brian says he just got a laptop from System76, so I have to check it out for myself to see what I could be getting. He said he got the cheapest one, which does look pretty cheap. I'd like something a little nicer and sturdier with plenty of room on the screen to see stuff (a big screen, I mean). And I don't want their expensive white one that looks like a Mac. I think a white laptop would just get dirty and ugly over time. Besides that, I don't want people to think of me as an artsy, turtleneck-wearing, cappuccino-drinking Mac user if they see me with such a laptop. I am incapable of being that smug, and I know more about computers than that. (But I still don't know a lot.)

Speaking of knowing or not knowing a lot about computers, my latest Greasemonkey user script is a masterpiece, and I anticipate it becoming a big hit. It's gotten about 75 installs in the past 24 hours. It's called Google Search Counter, and it is intended to satisfy an idle curiosity I've had for a long time. How many Google searches do I perform a day? In the 24 hours since I've been using the script, I've made 50 searches, and that's just the main web search (which is all it counts, for now at least). I plan to have it count how many searches I do throughout the whole of next month. It should be interesting to see.

For nerds only: HTML Tags Illustrated.