Category - Weird

On Saturday, I got an e-mail from a reporter from my local paper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. She got my contact information from Esperanto-USA, which I recently joined for 2008, and wanted to interview me by phone for an article on Esperanto, which I've recently gotten interested in again.

Now time for the obligatory aside. Longtime readers may have a hazy recollection that I was interviewed and photographed by the Sun-Sentinel for an article on blogs in 2003, and interviewed and photographed again by their indie-style paper's more cynical article on blogs in 2004. So I'm no stranger to being interviewed by the Sun-Sentinel. In fact, I rather enjoy it. I find that when I'm talking to reporters, I become more eloquent that usual, even profoundly so. But that was when I was being asked about myself and my blogging. This time, I expect, I'll be asked about Esperanto, which I don't know as much about as I could.

Anyway, I gave her my number and told her when I was free, and she asked if I knew of any other Esperanto speakers in specific Broward County cities. I said I did know my friend Andy, a fellow Browardite up here at college who was familiar with the language, although I didn't know what city he was from. (He's one of the friends I'm starting the Esperanto club with.) So I hooked them up, and yesterday she interviewed him by phone. She asked him for further details on Teach Yourself Esperanto, the textbook I used to teach myself Esperanto, and on Pasporta Servo, the worldwide Esperanto hospitality network, so I gave him the info. He also joined Esperanto-USA. He said he's getting really excited about the whole Esperanto club thing, which is great, because it's enthusiasm that we're going to need... since we still can't find a faculty advisor.

So she hasn't called me yet, and I'm not sure if she will. But even if not, I'm glad Andy got a chance to represent Esperanto to our local paper. Now if only the local paper up here -- or even a campus newspaper -- did a story on Esperanto, it would really be great for our nascent club.

And Friday is February 29, that once-in-every-four-years leap day. Four years ago, I thought it would be cool to document the day in photographs, and I sort of pledged to do the same every leap day afterward. I don't have the photos online anymore 'cause they're kinda dumb, but I'll probably put them back online along with the photos from February 29, 2008. It'll be interesting to see how I've changed in the past four years.

This video is from The Onion, but it may as well be true: Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early.

We've all heard of people who will do anything that scammers tell them to, but did you know that it also works the other way around? This guy conned a Nigerian scammer into copying Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by hand.

This is what passes for police blotter in Bozeman, Montana: The Best of the Bozeman Chronicle Police Reports.

If you've hung around The World of Stuff for a while, you might be vaguely aware that one of its component pages is actually a separate web site in itself: flipacoin.net.

The oldest part of TWoS, predating the site itself, flipacoin.net was released to the world on August 21, 2002, after I thought it would be cool to have a web site where people could virtually flip virtual coins on the virtual web. It soon became boring to maintain. Over the years, I added coins infrequently. I figured it would never integrate well with TWoS since its catchy name happens to be based on its separate domain name, among other reasons.

Although I still thought it was a cool idea, I decided it was time for someone else to keep the dream alive because I really wasn't doing a very good job. In December, I posted a notice on the site asking for a new webmaster. Recently, an Australian named Brandon Zubek decided to take up the offer. Effective today, flipacoin.net is no longer under my ownership or control. Wish Brandon the best of luck, and keep flipping those coins!

In other news: My suitemate never came back after his suicide attempt last month. I haven't seen him since he was in the hospital. He's withdrawn from his classes for the semester, and Evan from down the hall has moved in to take his place. Evan didn't like his roommate very much, so he decided to move out without telling him. That's pretty funny, if you ask me. He's a cool guy, and I'm glad to be one of his suitemates. (My dorm is like this: two roommates go in one room, and two rooms plus a bathroom make one suite.)

Here's a video that zooms in on a part of the Mandelbrot Set, a well-known fractal. It's at least worth listening to for the catchy tune, which is also about the Mandelbrot Set.

Use the Weird Converter to convert between weird units of measure. Did you know that a newborn baby weighs as much as 20 hockey pucks?

Here's a page by a high-school student who was unhappy with the job the photographer did on his senior picture (including changing the color of his eyes) and decided to take a self-portrait that he thought was a lot better: Rip-off Photography.

I visited my suitemate in the hospital on Thursday along with some other people. His mother and his brother were there. He was asleep at first, but very slowly he woke up and we tried to make small talk. We stuck around for about two and a half hours. It was a little awkward, but I hope he enjoyed our visit. I can't imagine whether he would have or not.

He lives near me, and it turns out that we went to the same mom-and-baby-type place when we were little. Maybe we played together. Maybe our moms remember each other.

I don't think he'll be back for a while.

Thursday night was the spring kickoff meeting for Gator Freethought. It was at this place called Tim and Terry's, which is a house-turned-restaurant with just enough room for a little live music. The main dining area was the former backyard, so that's where I made my way. There were a lot of people from the group just chatting, which was the point of the get-together. I sat away from everyone else at first, but then someone beckoned me to join in, so I sat between a girl and a guy. The guy introduced himself to me, and we made a little small talk. What's your name? What's your major? What year are you? Where are you from?

I decided to initiate similar small talk with the girl next to me. We talked for a while. Then we were both hungry, so we ordered some food at the counter inside. When we brought it back outside, we found our own table and talked some more. Did we ever. She's a first-year student who lives alone in an apartment. She hardly has any friends in town. She goes home on the weekends to work, and she has a job in town during the week. She doesn't like to go to parties. Sometimes when she's bored, she makes up math problems in her head and solves them. She loves learning languages, and when I told her about Esperanto, which I studied a few years ago, she said she'd want to learn.

Almost four hours after saying hello, we were still talking as she was walking with me back to my dorm even though her apartment was really close to the restaurant. Now that I'm home for the long weekend, I'll be able to bring my copy of Teach Yourself Esperanto for her to learn from... or for us to go over together.

It's not often you can say with certainty that something is going to happen at a specific time in the future. But 30 years from today, on Tuesday, January 19, 2038, there's going to be a Y2K-like problem that will affect many of today's computers -- if they still happen to be running.

Unix-like operating systems (such as Mac OS X and Linux) internally represent dates and times as the number of seconds since midnight on January 1, 1970. On 32-bit computers, the most common kind in use today, these operating systems store the time in 32 bits. But on January 19, 2038, the number of seconds will get too long to be stored in 32 bits, so the extra digits will be ignored, and these systems will think it's December 13, 1901. In other words, it would be like Y2K, but on a smaller scale.

Don't panic, though. Not every computer runs a Unix-like operating system, and anyway, the problem is slowly being fixed with the introduction of 64-bit computers, which allow twice as many bits for storing the time. This should serve us well for about 290,000,000,000 years. But because computers can and do last for more than 30 years, there will probably be some around that will experience the bug. Hopefully, though, they'll be historical curiosities by then and not repositories of important data. Wikipedia has some more information about Y2K38.

If the text of this blog post survives 30 years, I wonder if people will read and laugh at it. I'll probably laugh. Hey 2038 people, do you guys have flying cars yet? Does everyone use Linux? Are there still ice caps? Are we in a cold war with China? Oh, the questions I would ask the 48-year-old me. Where do I live? Am I married, and do I have kids? How much money do I make? (In 2008 dollars, please, so I can understand. 2038 Chinese yuan would be okay too.)

Rolling Stone presents The Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz. I got 30 right out of 58. That's over 50%. I made a lot of guesses.

Do you know what Congress is up to? Now you can keep track at GovTrack.us.

Find out how many five-year-olds you could take in a fight with this quiz called "How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight?" at howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com. Turns out I could take 10 five-year-olds in a fight.

Tonight, Jack Kevorkian is speaking at UF. As an advocate (and erstwhile practitioner) of physician-assisted suicide, he's pretty controversial. Over the past week or so, the debate has been heating up around campus. As I walked past the facility where the former doctor is due to speak, I saw that there were seemingly makeshift "free speech zone" signs posted around. My sister reports that a plane is currently flying over campus with a banner saying that Planned Parenthood kills babies and Jack Kevorkian kills parents. I think we can expect about as much protest as there was when Alberto Gonzales spoke a few months ago. That is to say, a lot. Difference is, I'm actually going to this one.

Opinion: Terminally ill people in a sound state of mind should be able to put themselves out of their suffering. And why is it any of your business?

(Let the flames begin!)

From the Why-Don't-You-Join-a-Club Dept.: I went to the first few meetings of Gator Freethought hoping to have some intelligent discussion with freethinking Gators. But the meetings got increasingly boring as they tended to focus on yawners like philosophy. I didn't even go to the last few meetings, which were about morality and Nietzsche and things. Luckily, the student organization's "new year's resolution is to have more fun," and they're going to start the fun with a meet-and-greet on Thursday night at a local restaurant-type place.

The meeting after that will be just before Florida's presidential primary and will deal with how our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) will affect our choices in the polls. The next meeting will be around Valentine's day and will be a discussion on religion and dating. This is an issue that affects me (in fact, I've been meaning to complain about it here), so I'll be sure to attend... unless I have a date. In fact, I've figured that going to Gator Freethought meetings is probably the best way to meet a sweet atheist (or agnostic -- I'm not that picky) girl, so it should be really interesting to see what other people in my situation have done or are doing.

If you're a freak who notices every single little change I make on this site, you'll know that last week, I changed the Creative Commons license for this site to allow commercial use of my content. (Previously, commercial use without special permission was prohibited. Attributing to me and sharing alike -- that is, releasing the derivative work under the same license -- are still required.) Here's a brief summary of the old license, and here's a summary of the new one.

Why the change? I've occasionally gotten requests for commercial use of my images, which, because they were prohibited by the old license, had to be approved by me on a case-by-case basis. To give a recent example, the Piute County (Utah) Chamber of Commerce asked to use my image of a $1 bill signed by former U.S. Treasurer and Piute County native Ivy Baker Priest. I decided to allow their use of the image as long as they credited me and my web site. Every time someone asks for special permission to use my stuff commercially, I allow them to do it, so I figured I'd change the license to allow it in general.

Some people might be concerned about this apparent display of flip-floppery. Most of the content that was under the old license is now under the new one. Which license applies? It depends on when you accessed the content. If you saved an old copy of an article or post from this site, that copy still falls under the old license. But if you access that same sexy article today, the new license (which has fewer restrictions) applies.

You've probably heard a lot about the OOXML standardization debate, but it's all very confusing. Here's an overview of the ISO standardization process that OOXML is attempting to go through.

Read some stupid essays by some guy. They don't look like they were really printed out and graded by an actual teacher, but they're still funny.

Here's a film from 1967 (confirmed authentic by Snopes) reporting on what technology would be like in A.D. 1999.

Happy 2008, everybody. This New Year's Day has been a pretty okay one. Florida lost its bowl game against Michigan, 41-35. When you care about sports, things like that are kind of a disappointment. It was a little bit of a disappointment, especially since the game was pretty close and because I invested about four hours of my afternoon watching it.

Actually, for part of the time I was filling out my FAFSA for 2008-2009. It's something of a New Year's Day tradition for American college students who fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) as early as possible so they'll be eligible for federal scholarships and loans. Or something like that. The bulk of the information deals with your income and your parents' income.

This evening my family went to have dinner at my friend Mark's house. His mom had the whole buffet-style feast and everything, and there were quite a few other people invited. It was a good way to spend the evening, I think, until I was asked to dish out some leftovers to take home. Italian stuff with tomato sauce. Do you see where this is going? I ended up wearing quite a bit. Some lady whose name I'm supposed to know said, "Jordon, Jordon, Jordon. Jordon, Jordon, Jordon." Just like that. That made me feel loads better. Happy New Year!

One hundred years ago today, the New York World asked its readers to predict what New York would be like in 2008. Now, the New York Times has asked experts (and non-experts) what they think life will be like in New York in 2108. Does anyone care to stick around for a hundred years and see if they're right?

It's a blog, but it hasn't been updated for a while. It's still funny, though: New and Improved Stereotypes.

Here's a psychological optical illusion; your perception of the image is supposed to vary depending on the culture in which you were brought up. The following paragraph contains a spoiler for the optical illusion, so check it out before you continue.

It's totally a window. It looks all wrong for a box. That's ridiculous.

It's Christmas again.

I did go to church with my family yesterday, and I didn't feel that bad, but I won't make a habit of it. I gave gifts to my friends that I saw there. The Christmas pageant, as it were, was pretty short. Some of the kids in it were way too young; they didn't seem to know what they were doing. One girl who had a reading still had a Homestar Runner accent. "A weading fwum the lettow of Paul to..." Just no. Did she even know what she was saying? The Cowinthians wouldn't have taken her seriously. Sewiously.

I got mostly guitar-related gifts: strings, cables, and a practice amp that's small enough for me to take to my dorm. It packs a punch, though. But what else would you expect from a Vox? Okay, maybe I only like Vox amps because the Beatles used them, but my friend Sean had a Vox mini-amp that I liked. Other than that, I'm a Fender amp guy.

For the second year, my pen pal Natasha and I exchanged gifts for Christmas. I got her a plush gator that says "Go Gators" and plays UF's fight song. I also included a video greeting where I showed her my dorm and the alligator in the pond across the street. This afternoon I called Natasha to wish her a merry Christmas and see if she got my gift to her. (She did, and her gift to me should be coming any day now.) I love to hear her voice. We both agreed that we need to talk on the phone more often. I'll hold up my end of the bargain, long-distance charges be damned. Ooh, I said damn. Maybe I'll get a phone card. That probably would have been good to ask for for Christmas. Oh well. I got money that I can buy phone cards with.

And now, a not particularly holiday edition of Ask Jordon.

Justin: Did I ever explain to you my theory on the communist santa?

I think so, but I don't really remember. Let's see what I can make up: He wears red. He distributes toys equally to practically everyone. People are urged not to question him. He doesn't live in the West. And what else? I bet he has pretty tight control over the elves.

Justin: Also, do you think there may be an "Answer Jordon" component in the future?

I did have Jordon Asks YOU!! about a year ago, but I haven't done anything with it since then. It's probably because I gave a schedule to work with (ask a question every Saturday), and anyone who reads this blog knows that I don't adhere to schedules when blogging. (Remember the monthly interview series that only lasted one month?)

In Soviet Russia, Santa writes letters to YOU!!

New at The World of Stuff: Do you use Wikipedia? How about Creative Commons? Or Linux? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should consider giving a monetary donation to the organizations involved. I came to that conclusion yesterday, and to make it easy for people to donate to free content projects, I've created this page with Donation Information for Free Content Projects. As a student without a credit card, I'd like to know which free software projects I can send a check to. Hence the list. I hope you or somebody finds it useful.

Classical music is everywhere these days. We hear the same classical pieces all the time as they've become associated with a particular aspect of popular culture. Enter Kickass Classical, a list with information about popular classical tunes. Incidentally, I found this site when I was trying to find the name of the repetitive, escalating piece they use in movie trailers to indicate mounting chaos. I couldn't find it there, but I bet somebody knows the name of it.

If you grew up in the '90s, here's a present for you: a memorable sketch from All That.

Here are some vintage Images from the Tobacco Industry Campaign to Hide the Hazards of Smoking. Did you know that more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette?

Today's the first day of December. It's the last month of the year. Hard to believe, isn't it? The year's gone by so fast.

Last night my aunt took my sister and me downtown, where we checked out art galleries and had sushi at this hip, semi-fancy place called Dragonfly. The sushi was delicious, and that stuff is filling. I wasn't totally full, because there's only so much food you can buy at that kind of place. I'd have to say I was pleasantly full, though.

The art galleries were hit or miss. There were some where the artists were presenting their work in their studios. There were nice. Their works were of typical subjects like landscapes, still lifes, and nudes. (If you did nothing but look at art all day, you'd probably get the impression that women like to strip naked and lie around the house with thoughtful looks on their faces. It isn't so.) Other places had artsy-looking people looking at odd sculptures.

But my favorite artists were the two who were spray-painting on a street corner. One had canvases, and the other was working on paper, but they could turn out an otherworldly landscape (each in his own style) in about 10 minutes. My aunt was looking at a large canvas that had some mountains and interesting Chinese-looking characters. She had a conversation with the artist about tai chi and ended up taking the painting home. The smell of spray paint filled the car, but it was worth it. It's just one of those paintings you can spend hours looking at.

Today I finished the first draft of my research paper for America in the Fifties. It took me many weeks of procrastination and a few weeks of on-and-off work. I finished it after a marathon writing session that lasted all afternoon and into the evening.

Anyway, it's about teenage drug abuse in the 1950s. It's called, "The Teenage Drug Abuse Epidemic of the 1950s: Menace or Myth?" I added the alliterative rhetorical question (always a favorite of people who title things) after I found that my sources conflicted about whether or not there was a drug menace at all. I make the point that it was more on the menace side. The draft is 17 pages with 79 citations from 20 sources. I hold here in my hands (while I'm not typing) the draft, and it's pretty fat. It's definitely the longest paper I've ever written, and after I revise it, it'll probably be longer. Hopefully it won't ramble, though.

I have to present it tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, Sunday. That's what happens when your class runs out of time to present papers. I have to deliver a presentation based on the paper to whoever feels like showing up to our meeting that is technically optional. Then a classmate whom I've sent my draft to will present a critique. After everyone else has presented, we'll have lunch and do some additional research, I think. It should be pretty cool, but I'm not keen on having to meet at 10:30 in the morning.

I hope the professor thinks my paper is okay. I probably should have written on a topic he knows nothing about. One girl in the class has an advantage there because she's writing about cars. But the prof is a historian, so he can find a way to make the psychology of the 1950s American car-buyer tie into other contemporary attitudes. You know how it is.

For those of you looking forward to Christmas, isitchristmas.com will tell you whether it's Christmas. There's also an RSS feed so you can keep track.

Looking for photos you can use? Try flikrCC, which searches for Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr.

Here are 15 examples of manipulated photographs.

On Monday night, I went to see Less Than Jake play a show on Flavet Field, which is a short walk from my dorm. I'm not that big into ska, but my friend Sean is, so he came all the way up from UCF to see them for the seventh time. Since Less Than Jake was the headliner, I first listened to the opening acts, which were The Expendables, Reel Big Fish, and Pepper. Of those three, I had only heard of Reel Big Fish, but they all put on a good show. Between the second and third acts, I got hungry and went to the dining hall for a bite to eat. I didn't miss much, though.

But yeah, Less Than Jake was a real crowd-pleaser. Sean was up in the front the whole time, and he almost got to go onstage. They were picking out a random single guy and girl from the audience. They asked the guy and the girl to make out while they were playing a song, and the two strangers obliged. Then the girl pulled another girl onto the stage and they started making out. Such is the power that ska has over people. I must say, it does get the toes a-tappin'. I really had a good time, even though I didn't skank. I'd probably see Less Than Jake again.

Speaking of bands that I really don't know that well: about a year ago, a waitress at Chili's said I looked like Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance... "when he had dark hair." Not like I was familiar with the guy anyway. And what's stranger is that a few other people I met also thought I looked like him. Have a look for yourself:

The other day, I was walking back to my dorm from class when a guy on a bike stopped beside me and said I looked like Adam Jones of Tool. He said that with my long hair and everything, I could pass for the guy's brother. I didn't know who Adam Jones was, but I mentioned that some people thought I looked like the guy from My Chemical Romance. He didn't know who Gerard Way was either. But I do kind of look like Adam Jones:

(Oh yeah, and there's a picture of me on the About Me page.)

The people have spoken! Just in time for the holidays, you can get World of Stuff gear at the World of Stuff Store. Available for purchase are T-shirts, tank tops, and sweatshirts with the "Property of" design I posted recently, but if people will actually buy this stuff, maybe I'll think of some other things to add.

And for your information, here's how the store works. It's run by CafePress. You order through them, and they fill the order -- I have nothing to do with it except that I get a cut of the profit. All the money I make will go toward running the web site. So check out the World of Stuff Store and see what I currently have to offer.

Here are 20 weird English words with their definitions. I had heard of about three of them. Number 7 should be "limerence."

When you call someone, isn't it considered polite for them to, say... call you back?

I count this as number four. Time to move on. What does the world have against Jordon Kalilich?

Just before I left home on Monday, I decided on a whim to take up the shovelglove again. I briefly took up this form of sledgehammer exercise two years ago but stopped after I overexerted myself. Since then I've been lazy/trying to forget it/afraid of exercising. But for some reason, I remembered it and decided to give it another try.

I brought my 4-kg sledgehammer and have started doing some movements with it in the morning. A 14-minute session is recommended, but I think I'll work up to it this time. Last time, I tried to do the whole 14 minutes too soon, and I couldn't move my arms for a few days. I'm doing the same movements I did last time: shoveling, churning butter, chopping wood, and flipping the lever. I think I'll try the Ab Killer as well.

Do check out my online HabitCal (habit calendar) on which I'll mark my successes and failures. (The color code is: green = success, red = failure, yellow = exempt day.) Right now I'll count doing the movements as a success, but when I can do the full 14 minutes, I'll be tougher with the definition.

I am Jordon. People ask me things. I answer them.

Michael : I would like to know the truth about the Beatles 1964 coin that is resurficeing,. Who made it, Why and Who were they given to. I Thank you, Mike

Hm. I know about the Beatles, and I know about coins, but I don't know about Beatle coins. A quick Google search suggests that some bronze coins were made to commemorate a visit they made to the United States in 1964. Since I didn't bother to go past page one of the Google search results, I don't know who would have issued them, and it's possible that some or all of them were made years after the fact.

Tim: How much does it need to go to Ameryca one time?

Tim, thankses, to ask to me over a travel towards the Ameryca. It is a beautiful station of job, that the sure one is that estimated. The Ameryca, For Your Information must once be a lot. I hope that you he find it valid.

Here's a fine example of stop-motion animation with real people: Tony vs. Paul.

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Nothing.

Here's a list of most common nicknames for first names based on 1990 US Census data.

Snippets from an IM conversation with my friend Sean on Thursday:

Jordon: today and tomorrow are when the honors students register for their honors courses
Jordon: you register online, it goes from 9-5 each day, and you can only register for one class per day
Jordon: so at 9:00 this morning everyone on my floor was going crazy because they couldn't register for their class
Sean: that sucks
Jordon: I was trying too because they get filled up pretty quickly, but I couldn't do it, and I was going to be late for class, so I hurried halfway across campus (a 20 minute walk) to my class where I was going to have a quiz
Jordon: on the way, I realized that the guy who sits next to me always has his computer, so I figured by then it would be working, so that made me go even faster
Jordon: so I get to the class (on the third floor), panting and out of breath, asking to use someone's computer, and everyone's like staring at me
Jordon: and I'm like, "honors registration, man... it's crazy"
Jordon: so I use that guy's computer, and I'm able to register for my class, so mission accomplished
Jordon: I just got an e-mail apologizing for the delay

I'm pretty excited today: not only about today's Florida-Georgia Game, but also about Bill Nye coming to speak next Tuesday. I used to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy all the time when I was a little kid. He made science fun! If you don't believe me, here's a clip. And who could forget the theme song? My sister and some of my friends are also planning on going. And why wouldn't they? Science rules!

Here are The 10 Strangest (Real) Things in Space. They're all real.

And here are the 30 Strangest Deaths in History. Who's the authority who decides what the strangest things are, anyway? I should come up with a list of the strangest things so other blogs can link to it.