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The abortion debate has heated up once again, over a proposal to say that a fetus should classified as an "unborn child" so low-income
women can qualify for prenatal care. It amazes me that prenatal care can be
considered a big part of making sure a healthy baby comes out 9 months after
conception, but the "thing" being cared for is not considered human. Anyways,
it really gets to the whole crux of the aborition issue: Is a fetus a human or
is it not? As a (very strong) pro-lifer, I believe it is, and that is my entire
basis on why aborition should be illegal. It has nothing to do with women's
rights or religion, but soley on the fact that I believe that a fetus is a
person, and thus murdering an innocent person is morally wrong. Anyways, the
proposal brings up some interesting points on how different people view
fetus's.
45 minutes of Java class today, and I didn't learn a single thing. Argh!
Woo! Cold front is coming!
Super Bowl is today, and so I"m loooking forward to the commercials. Should hopefully be some good ones this year, or at least for
a little under $2 million for 30 seconds they had better be good. Too bad
Adcritic was shut down, so that you can't view them on the web anymore.
New song of the moment: 2 Unlimited - No Limit
In case you haven't seen this, the Ninja's have invaded the
internet. The internet never ceases to amaze.
Well the commercials weren't as good
this year as they were in previous years IMHO. Fortunatly the game was one of
the best in a long time, so it evened out in the end. I was rooting for the
Patriots only because they were the underdogs, and they had quite a finish.
And thanks to a bad economy, one reporter was able to get a $100
ticket right before the game. Hope everyone
had a good Super Bowl.
And speaking of ads, TechTV has an article on ad
placement in videogames. Mainly they're just used to add realism to a game,
which is fine by me. It's interesting to note though that one of the first
advertisments found in a videogame were for Malboro in an arcade racer back in
the 80's. How times have changed.
Have humans stopped evolving? Some scientists say that since almsot everyone lives, that
natural selection no longer takes place to ensure that only the best adapted
live on to reproduce. I guess only time (a LOT of time) will tell.
Over half of American's are now connected to the internet. 143 million American's
were using the web as of September, and I'm sure it's only increased since then.
You can read the official report here.
Mozilla 0.9.8 was released
yesterday. There are a few added features, and some speed and stabibility
improvements. Check it out, and remember that there is a config feature in
Mozilla that lets you turn off all pop-up ads..
The Washington Post has a 10
article series about the 10 days after September 11th. It follows the White
House as it tries to deal with the sudden shock of terrorism, and how the
policies that followed were formed. They are very very long articles, but also a
facinating look at how the government works under pressure.
Man, time sure does go by fast when you don't update your website.
Someone learned the hard way not to leave your Palm Pilot in the oven. Ouch!
Coming soon:
Political Spam! The Democratic canidate for the Govenor of Texas bought
a list of e-mail addresses of Democratic primary voters, and is sending out
emails to them to drum up support. Can you imagine what would happen if every
canidate did this? If I ever recieved an unsolicited email from a canidate,
there would be no way I would ever vote for them. You would think politicians
would have some class, but I guess not.
Had a big CIS test
today, but it turned out to be really easy as long as you memorized the notes.
Studying pays off I suppose. And then I went to the Reitz and discovered I can
consistantly pass Maniac DDR songs, so with a little bit more practice, I can
start tackeling catastrophic songs. But freestyling to Basic never gets old
either :)
Alegria is a
great movie. If you like artsy movies, then definitly check it out.
Wooooo, big Zelda
maps. Someone had a lot of time on their hands.
Major update for tomorrow. You have been warned.
Microsoft it as it again, this time with heavy lobbing, in an
apparent effort to get off easier with their anti-trust trial. They donated a
total of $6.1 million in 2000. And the most telling is this little snippet: "In
the seven days preceding Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling against
Microsoft, said Roeder, the company donated more soft money to the national
political parties than it gave to federal candidates and political parties in
the seven years spanning 1989 to 1996." Who says money can't buy you power and
freedom?
Happy Valentine's Day!
Today you get to a special update of various rantings, articles, comics,
and more ranting about life, love, and geeks. I've come across many many
different articles and writings on the net over the past year, saved all for
this special day. Whether you hate Valentine's or not, it's at least some
interesting reading.
First off, and this is the biggest, what is with the whole "I like you as a
friend" thing? Girls say they want guys who are nice, smart, funny,
charming, and sweet. But girls date the guys who are hot and cool,
regardless of how much of a jerk they are. And yet they still complain about how
terrible guys are, and "Why aren't there any good guys?" If only they would
relieze that there are TONS of great guys out there, they've just got to stop
fantasizing about every hottie they see, and start actually looking. If any girl
is reading this that is single, ask yourself, what is wrong with your male friends? How come is it, once a guy is a friend he is
automatically undatable? I guess the reason this strikes such a cord with me, is
every female I've ever met, EVERY single one,
has just liked me as a friend. *Sigh* It's as though to get a female to see
beyond friendship, you have to be a jerk. And to me, it always seemed friends
would make the best significant-others. You already established that you get
along, have common interests, can talk to one another; it just seems like it'd
be a whole lot more likely to work out than picking up some guy at a bar that
you've never met before. But should you ever try to become friends first, in
order to get to know the girl, you're doomed to friendship. Ever heard the line
"Oh I could never date you, you're too nice"?
Never understood it either. As though they only want to date mean people? And it
absolutely amazes me what girls put up with with some guys. Or maybe a girl
might see you as a "brother", which well in the South still might mean you have
a chance :) Anyways, check out the biggest and greatest
website for all the "friends" out there: How to become a
Platonic Friend. It explains the whole friend thign a lot better and in a
lot more detail than I could. The amount of Do's and Dont's
I've done is incredible :) Oh, and I like this quote: "Platonic female friends
are good for research into the females you don't want to be platonic
with"
Oh yeah, if any of my female friends are reading this, I'm not talking about
you, I'm talking about that other female friend. :) Nah, seriously, I'm quite
happy just being friends and nothing more with most of the girls I know, but
it's those few who you wish you weren't just being friends with that cause all
the problems.
Now as a related
topic, but different enough to get it's own section, is Geek
Love. I think this is the greatest, most underappricated, dating pool a girl
could ever hope for. And no, I'm not just saying this because I'm a geek :)
First off, there are a multitude of reasons why geeks make great
boyfriends. And yes, I can attest that everything said in the last link is
true. And we aren't even hard to date. There
are even a few geek girls
here and there, though I must admit guys outnumber them greatly. And they have
advantages as well, plus they can wear
cool shirts like
that one. And finally, there is the always helpful Geek
Dating FlowChart
But along with the dating game, there is always rejection which
stinks, but it's life. Some interesting observations in that link, especially
the last paragraph. Sometimes even geeks
reject each other (Who is that girl? I want to meet her! ;)) However if
you're ever feeling down (dateless for Valentine's? Join the party), check out
an episode of Blind Date, cause man,
some of the people on that show genuinely scare the crap out of me. And speaking
of dating shows, Dismissed
takes the cake for the absolute shallowest premise. Guys/Girls fight over the
Guy/Girl they havent' even met yet (!), and are then treated like posessions to
be won. But of course, coming from MTV, this isn't too suprising.
However if you ever get desperate enough, there is always the internet to help find a
date "Person to Watch Powerpuff Girls Episodes with Adam in a
Non-Committal, Un-date-like Way" :) Any takers? Or if you're
really really desperate, go to the Yahoo Teen
chat rooms, where they hit on anything that moves, er uh, types
Of course not everyone enjoys Valentine's Day, there is also all those people
who hate it, be it
because they never have a Valentine, or just the whole commercialness of it.
Other's point out that having a single day of the year reserved for romance is
silly, as true romance isn't a one day affair. And then some, like
me, don't like the heart candy
with things like "Hug Me". It's not the sayings on them I don't like, I just
don't like the taste :)
If you do happen to enjoy Valentine's Day, then
I've scoured my mp3 list for some good "Valentine's Day/Love/Romance/etc" songs.
I'm sure some on here will make you roll your eyes, but since this is my
website, I can pick whatever songs I want, Yeah!
Selena - Dreaming of
You
Selena - I could Fall In Love
Genuine - Differences
Chris De
Burgh - Lady In Red
Terra Skye - Is This Love
Tal Bachman - She's So
High
Blessed Union Of Souls - I Believe
Ataris - San Dimas High School
Football Rules
Cirque Du Soleil - Let Love Live
Chris Isaak - Wicked
Game
Nina Gordon - Tonight and the Rest of My Life
Savage Garden - Truly
Madly Deeply
Tim Mcgraw - Don't Take The Girl
UB40 - Can't Help Falling
in Love
Stabbing Westward - What do I have to do
Fragma - Everytime You
Need Me
Cece Peniston - Finally
And finally a few random ramblings: Nothing, absolutly nothing, beats a girl in
glasses and a ponytail. Intelligence is about the sexiest assest a girl could
possibly have. Geeks and nerds rule. And I hope everyone has a great and happy
Valentine's Day!
Some post-Valentine's Day notes:
Cmdr Taco, creator of the greatest website on
the internet, proposed yesterday on it. She said yes :) This is so big it's even hitting
IT
sites as "news". This is also reminicent of another proposal over the net,
this one by Penny-Arcade
back in 1999.
Also, sharks in England are being played Barry White music in an effort to get them to mate. If it
works for humans, I suppose why not sharks?
Curling is a
facinating sport. If you happen to catch it during the Olympics, definitly watch
it.
The Internation Olympics
Committee isn't happy about the blatent
patriotism shown at the Salt Lake games. While nationalism has always been a
part of the Olympics, the way they are being held and broadcast is decidely an
American skewer, instead of international. The officials accuse the event as
being proganda for America's war, and are weary of the patriotic overtones of
the opening cermony. I especially like the point about how if China had done
something like this, people would be up in arms about it. And how this could
hurt New York's chances for the 2012 summer games.
ABC has a news
article that pretty much states the obvious, but it's always nice to get
reminded about: social
cruelty among kids. I was in that lower 20% for most of my childhood, so I
can relate to a lot of the stories. Thank goodness most people mature by
college.
The Department of Justice has released 47 "major" public comments on the Microsoft anti-trust case. According to federal
law, people have the right to comment on a case, and have their opinions read by
the judge. So they have posted to most detailed arguements to the website, with
the rest to be published on CD-Rom and put on the web later on. They recieved
over 30,000 comments about the case, with a 2-1 ratio against Microsoft. I still
love the idea of forcing open all the API's so that competitors can create "Windows clones" that
run Windows programs, but aren't made by Microsoft. Seems the fairest to
me.
CNN has an interesting article about how langua
ge could mutate on a long space trip. Becasue the travelers would be outside
of human contact for so long, they would eventually develop their own dialects,
and given enough time, would evolve into a completely different
language.
And speaking of space, NASA is working on how to keep alien samples safe from earthly contaminates. The standards for
cleaness needed is extraordinary, and everything possible is being done so that
we don't contaminate other planets with our bacteria. All this is neccassary so
that when (yes, when) we do find evidence of life on other planets, it can't be
dismissed as just earthly contamination.
This is a little late for Valentine's Day, but I like it.
:)
I'll let the email speak for itself:
Believe it or not, 8.02 pm on 20th February this year will be an historic
moment in time. It will not be marked by the chiming of any clocks or the
ringing of bells, but at that precise time, on that specific date, something
will happen which has not occurred for 1,001 years and will never happen again.
As the clock ticks over from 8.01 pm on Wednesday, 20 February, time will, for
sixty seconds only, read in perfect symmetry 2002, 2002, 2002, or to be more
precise - 20:02, 20/02, 2002. The last occasion that time read in such a
symmetrical pattern was long before the days of the digital watch and the
24-hour clock - at 10.01 am on January 10, 1001. And because the clock only goes
up to 23.59, it is something that will NEVER happen again!
So keep your eye out for this tonight.
You can now buy one of the first Segway scooters in an Amazon.com auction. At the time that I'm reading this, the
price is up to $50,000. What normal person in their right mind would ever
seriously use this?
Weezer in one day! Yes, tomorrow I"m
going to go to my first "real" concert to see Ozma, Saves the Day, and the main
act: Weezer! I can't say I've been a diehard fan, as before the Green album came
out, I'd only heard Buddy Holly, and since I never heard of them after that I
figured they had broken up or something. But low and behold they're still making
great music, and going on tours. Woo!
Broke a new personal high score in bowling last night: 149. I finished the last
5 frames with spares on every one, which helped out a lot. And then got a few
strikes in there as well. Good stuff.
In sadder news, Chuck
Jones died yesterday of heart failure. He created many of the famous Warner
Bros cartoon charcters like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner. I actually never
really liked those cartoons very much, but they're classics so of course
I watched them.
Weezer rocks! The concert was awesome and I had a blast. I managed to
avoid getting smooshed too much, and I ended up about 30 or so feet from the
stage. Anywho, Ozma opened up, and they absolutly rocked! They get bonus points
for singing a song about the cutest girl alive (Natalie Portman) and playing an
incredible rendition of the Tetris theme song. Next was Saves the Day, which I
didn't really like. They're only good song was At Your Funeral. Then finally
Weezer! They sang 3 songs off of Pinkerton which is apparently pretty rare for
them, and then some of my favorite
songs like In The Garage, Why Bother, and of course Buddy Holly. And they
also sang about 4 new songs off of their forthcoming new album. We were on the
floor, which was a lot of fun even though it was hot and we were packed like
sardine's. I did help some people get up to crowd surf though, so that was
cool. I also became deaf after the first set, but that's part of the
experiance. And for goodness sakes, they should crack down more on smoking,
cause it made it smell awful half times. And I managed to stay away from the
mosh pits, as I don't like getting hurt. Overall I had an absolute blast, and I
definitly want to do this again. Here's a few pics from the concert:
Crowd
shot
Only in Dreams
set
Rivers!
Weezer
sign
A few days ago, we celebreated the
40th anniversary of American's orbiting the earth. And suprisingly enough
we're still doing it today, and with our former enemies Russia. How the world
has changed. Now if only we could get back to the moon, and then on to
Mars....
And as I discovered this weekend, it IS possible sleep 6 people in one dorm
room. Just not very comfortable.
I stumbled across the latest net craze the other day: Google Whacking. It's where you put in
two search terms into Google and try to only
come up with one result. Fun stuff if you're bored, or up for a
challenge.
A new version of Crossover was released
yesterday, this time adding support for Windows Media Player 6.4. So now you can
play wma files in Linux. The program is really quite cool, as it also support
Quicktime and Shockwave files as well, which are pretty much the only reason I
go to Windows anymore. Unfortunatly for some reason, running Quicktime
totally freezes my computer, but that's not typical.
Laundry is definitly the worst part about college.
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