Category - Jordon Asks You

On Sunday, I asked a girl out to dinner. It was not the first time. I always get blown off, so the date never happens. Tonight, the tradition continues. Yesterday this girl said she couldn't have dinner Friday night because her ride was picking her up for spring break on Thursday afternoon. She offered to reschedule. We will reschedule later.

I want to have a normal love life so nobody thinks I'm a retard. Seriously, 18 and I'm going on my first date? And then I shout it from the mountaintops to all my friends, and they're all, "Congratulations, Jordan, for finally doing something we managed to do at the age of 13!" And my parents would be all, "We met in high school and got married a few years later!" If I weren't embarrassed enough before, now I have to tell everyone that I've gotten worked up for nothing. Yeah, moping in seclusion till Saturday sounds good.

Tomorrow is the last day before spring break, and unlike people who have already left, I shall be going to all of my classes as usual.

In other news, what's up with selling out? One of the things that attracted me to the No S Diet was its noncommercial nature -- one average Joe came up with this extremely simple diet plan (14 words long) and made a web page about it to promote it to other like-minded Joes and Janes. The site says, "You wouldn't take diet advice from a fat person, why take it from a fat book?" Well, the guy accepted a book deal that fell into his lap, and perhaps we can say that he has "sold out." His 14-word diet has become a 208-page book with some random nutrition expert for a co-author. If I hadn't been happily practicing the No S Diet, I might be turned off by this. What is the deal?

I sure hope I'm not a sellout because that's not cool. If there's anything sellouty about this site, it might be the store. But since no one's ever bought anything from it, I'm not sure whether it counts. On the other hand, today I rejected the umpteenth advertising offer to come my way (actually, it's probably closer to the umpth). I hate advertising, so the last place I would want to see ads would be my own site. Hooray for principles?

Okay, I want to ask you something, so I'm going to resurrect Jordon Asks You. This is a question I've been thinking about quite a bit, and I'm not sure how I would answer it myself. The question is: Would you date someone with different religious beliefs from you? Why or why not?

This might be of use to someone: this Reverse IP Domain Check shows web sites hosted on the same server as a given site.

Here's a video with a tip for shutterbugs: how to make a $1 image stabilizer for any camera.

Another one of those videos: Are Americans Really That Stupid? (Answer: It's probably just selective editing.)

Linux. I've written about it a lot in the past, but I've never actually used it. Not yet, anyway. I've been about to make The Switch for years, and now, I'm even more about to.

Why would I leave behind Windows, you ask? There's something appealing about the community aspect of free/open-source software. I'd also like to not worry about things like licensing keys and this WGA stuff. Plus, it's pretty worrying to think that Windows Vista is being released for individual use soon, even though the general consensus is that it's not much better than XP. It seems like people who buy expensive new hardware for Vista will be wasting their money.

In short, I'm tired of Microsoft's games, and I want an OS that I can control rather than one that controls me. I support the ideals behind free and open-source software. In fact, I've been using more and more open-source programs over the years, particularly Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim. They've proven to be worthy improvements upon IE, web-based e-mail, and AOL Instant Messenger, respectively. Today, I added to the stable by downloading OpenOffice.org, an open-source office suite that runs on multiple platforms (most notably, Linux). I haven't really had much of a chance to try it out yet, but the programs in it seem similar enough to Microsoft Office that I'll be able to use them without problems when I need to. (Did I mention that OOo supports Office's file formats?)

When we last left off, I had decided that I wouldn't install Ubuntu Linux on my computer due to hard drive issues (not wanting to partition the hard drive and not having the money to buy another one). Ubuntu still seems to be the best choice for a n00b like me. Since I work now, I could probably buy a hard drive, but something new is on the horizon: in a few months, I'll be out in the world (i.e., college) by myself. I'll need a computer of my own, and I won't have a lot of money. A perfect opportunity to adopt Linux? Probably. Friend and Linux-user Luke points out that system76 sells laptops with Wi-Fi support (perfect for somebody's future college campus which offers free Wi-Fi), and Ubuntu is pre-installed. This is awesome.

The last time I seriously considered switching to Linux, I made a list of my most used programs and what alternatives I was going to need. I might as well update it and keep it here so I don't forget about it. And it would be nice to get people's suggestions on how to make this table complete.

Some of these are probably included with Ubuntu, and I'm sure the rest are conveniently available with some package like Automatix. Even if they're not, I'll know where to find them.

Once I get my own computer, I'm totally switching to Linux for real this time. Consider it a new year's resolution.

Security alert: Even when you think you've wiped your camera's memory card, the data may still be there. Make sure to clean it up right.

Here's Wikipedia's list of capitals in the United States, listing every city that has served as the capital of the U.S. or a territory/state.

Jordon Asks You!!: Do you have any suggestions on migrating to Linux? Post a comment and let me know.

On Wednesday, while I was TA-ing in Mr. Mumtaz's class, a girl called me over because she needed help with her HTML. They were working on tables, and apparently some of the people didn't see the really obvious typos that were making their HTML completely screwed up. This student in particular was viewing her page in progress in IE 7, which (finally) has tabbed browsing. I happened to notice that she had some other tabs open, and on one of them I saw a familiar icon: a cursive "W." The title of the page: Dvorak Anywhere.

Hummina-whaa?

I think the first thing I said was, "You use the Dvorak keyboard?" She said that she did. I asked her how she found out about it. She said that in April, she was looking up ways to type faster, and she read how the world's fastest typist uses the Dvorak keyboard, so she thought she'd give it a try. Then I happened to mention that she was on my site, and she was amused. Think about that. A kid in one of my classes found my web site pretty randomly and was using it while I watching. Or, from her point of view, a handy web page helps her type with the Dvorak keyboard where she would otherwise have to use QWERTY, and all of a sudden, the author of the web page appears in her Web Design class. I can only sum it up with the words, "WHOA FREAKY." It's a small, small Internet.

She then mentioned that she was going to ask Mr. Mumtaz to allow her to use Dvorak in class, which is something I never asked him to do. I should wish her good luck in that pursuit. Also, the problem with her table was that it was outside the <body> tag.

My aunt couldn't come here for Christmas, but she's in town this weekend, and so we're going "to christmas." Apparently "christmassing" is a word now, meaning "to celebrate Christmas." Anyway, it's also my grandmother's birthday, or it was recently, or it will be soon, so that's double the reason for my aunt to visit her family. This is the aunt who lives near my future college, by the way, so if I'm to get any gift from her, it will probably Florida Gators-related.

Here's an interesting article about restaurants that run on a sort of honor system. Patrons pay a price they think is fair, and those who can't afford a meal can spend some time working in exchange for their meal. It happens Where "Check Please" Is Your Call.

Apparently, the late Gerald Ford was notoriously difficult to caricature, with different political cartoonists coming up with drastically different interpretations of his boring face.

It's once again time for Jordon to Ask YOU!! Jordon Asks YOU!!: Do you read any other blogs? Post a comment and let me know.

Today I'm going to the skate park with Sean, Nick, and Mike. We went a few years ago, and it was fun, even though my parents made me sit it out. (Something about life insurance.) Anyway, apparently I'm covered now, so I can go and break my bones as I please. I tried to get on a skateboard once, some years ago, and I almost fell off immediately. I hope somebody has some pads and stuff I can borrow. I really, really, really don't want to get hurt, and I would rather sit on the sidelines than risk it. But as long as I come home in good shape, it will have been fun.

It's good to have a little Ask Jordon every now and then.

Peter: Where are some good places to practice Esperanto? / How do you practice Esperanto?

I've been getting a bit rusty myself. I (used to) keep tabs on the news site and portal Ĝangalo, but the last news item they've posted is from last month, and it says that the site has been sold by its creator. I also used to listen to Ĉi Tie Nun, a quirky Esperanto podcast that covers strange news stories from around the world, but the guy who runs that has only come out with two shows in the past six months. Those won't help you too much, I guess, but you can always read old news articles and listen to old podcasts.

Another good resource might be to read some Esperanto magazines. Last year I had a subscription to La Ondo de Esperanto, a magazine published in Russia that has news, reviews, literature, and so forth, but the subscription was pretty expensive (especially when I think you can read the issues online for free). You can't really blame me for falling out of practice, now, can you? Well, the big thing was that I had no one to practice it with, so I've been getting kind of bored. I'd say that the best way to practice is to have people to talk to (in person, online, or both). Maybe we could have some conversations together.

Pope Jolly Wilkins: What is the Firefox extension that finds the pages you will click onto in the future and caches them?

That feature is called pipelining, and it's built into Firefox. Go to about:config and set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true." It might also help to set the maximum number of connections per server and so forth. These preferences are also found in about:config, but I manage all this stuff with the Tweak Network Settings extension. (Here's its AMO page.)

Pope Jolly Wilkins: Also: why do boomer-folk like to say "Foxfire" instead of "Firefox"?

Boomer-folk have heard of Firefox? I thought they equated the Internet with the Big Blue E. Anyway, why do they screw up anything? It's because they're old, and their minds work in reverse or something. How many times did we have to hear "Pokey-man"?

Here's a gallery of World War II pictures in color. There are some videos too.

Watch some outtakes and goof-ups from the golden days of TV.

It's time for another installment of Jordon Asks YOU!!.

Jordon Asks YOU!!: Have you made any New Year's resolutions, and if so, have you kept them? Post a comment and let me know.

You know what's great about spending a lot of time at home for winter vacation? That's right: watching movies. Especially when you and your sister have Blockbuster gift cards and coupons to use. And then there's the library. Yes, it turns out that my local library has an extensive collection of DVDs (more extensive than they used to have, anyway), and you can borrow as many as you want for free. Consequently, the place has gone crazy with movies. I think we've got a total of 15 borrowed or rented right now. I don't know when they have to go back.

Anyway, people are always telling me to see this movie or that movie, and since I don't watch as many movies as they do, I keep track of which ones they tell me to see. I use this site that I've gone on a lot about before called Movietally, and it's pretty handy for keeping track of movies that I've seen, movies that I want to see, and movies the site thinks I should see. This is the first time I've used its recommendations, so I had my sister comb through the recommendation list and name some of the movies she thought I might like. I haven't seen enough of the movies I've rented to know whether the system works or not, but it's interesting to try.

Although I've gone on a temporary escape from school, trying to escape my future of going to college appears futile. The other day, I got a bunch of college-related things out of the way, particularly, applying to UF's Honors Program (what's the catch? what's the catch?) and signing up for housing at said university. It's kind of weird that I'm planning my future this far in advance. I mean, the things I do right now will affect me years and years into the future. But I guess that's true for most, if not all, decisions.

I'm going to try something new here. Ask Jordon has been very slow lately, but I've come up with a way to spice things up. So, I introduce Jordon Asks YOU!!. Every Saturday (maybe), I'll ask a question for you to answer in the comments. Does it sound cheesy? Maybe, but I think it'll be a hit. I did a similar thing on the Where's George? forums every day for several years, and, well, I guess it was popular.

This is your chance to speak out! So let's begin:

Jordon Asks YOU!!: What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

As for me, I think I'm going to go to my grandmother's house. Not too exciting, but I guess I'll manage somehow. Maybe I can talk to my friends on my shiny new cell phone.

PlateWire is "a public repository and electronic forum of drivers by drivers" that uses license plate numbers as IDs. "How Am I Driving?" isn't just for trucks anymore.

Here's an interesting Newsweek article about how Jesus came to be portrayed as white even though he obviously wouldn't have been in real life.

One year ago: "Maybe I could run away to Afghanistan."
Two years ago: "So tonight my sister and I pitched the idea to our parents. I think we caught them in the wrong mood. They laughed it off."
Three years ago: "Thanks to 'all' the 'great many people' who 'racked their brains' to 'help us out.'"