A little bit louder and my mom got scared; she said "You're moving with your auntie and uncle to Bel-Air."
Taking five classes this time around; we'll see if I survive. 18.100B, 5.12, 18.511, 14.12, 6.001. So far, everything seems to be going fine. I still need to officially add 14.12 and drop 14.02, though. 14.12 opened with the 2/3-of-the-average game that I played multiple times during the summer. I came pretty close to the target value (15.26) with my guess of 5pi (15.7079), but there were two people who both guessed 15, so they beat me. That was unfortunate... Also, Imperiali reminds me vaguely of Rosalin from BSG.
Tried out the Chocolate Ramen recipe from
here; tastes all right, though people can't quite get over the warm ramen texture in a dessert. I'll finish it if I have room for it after Chinese takeout leftovers, but it cost maybe $1 in input costs, so whatever. I just have to remember that I suck at cooking things.
Working on starting a D&D campaign in the Guild Wars universe, which is tremendously nerdy, will probably fail to get off the ground at all, and will break multiple copyrights if I release copies of my interpretation online. I'll be very happy if things work out, though, and it certainly gives me something to work on in class (not that I'm not paying attention to lecture, heh).
It never quite struck me how lazy I can be living in EC, until I dismissed the possibility of taking a class because it was in Building 5. The rest of my classes are in 4, 2, 32, 26, and E51.
I recently Stumbled an
article on Radical Honesty. Sounds interesting, although my policy of saying "PENIS" at least one every ten minutes is working out well enough.
Well, back to not-working with me.
This one's for all you fuckers participating in Day of Silence.
Well,
not all of you suck. I'm talking about the people who simply spend a
day passing notes, IM, and gesticulating wildly to convey your meaning.
You trying to protest the widespread censuring of homosexuals, not
experiencing 24-hours as a mute. It's like watching a movie with no
audio - if you've got subtitles, the lack of sound isn't anything more
than a mild inconvenience.
Is that all this is to you? A mild inconvenience?
If
you want to make this event actually meaningful, this needs to be more
than a vow of silence in the literal sense. Obeying the spirit, not the
letter, of the law, so to not-speak. By this I mean you need to swear
off all methods of communication.
Don't sign. Don't write. Don't
point at objects, make eyes at that hot guy/girl across the room, blink
in morse code, or play charades to clue for "the intermediate value
theorem." Don't even fucking nod your head (at least, not as a "yes").
Inspiration for a more extreme protest comes from having read http://www.skyehawke.com/archive/story.php?no=2226 years ago. Yes, it's a Harry Potter fanfic- one that I found more
insightful than a flock of students passing notepads around. It's HP/DM
in the end - but you're all comfortable with that, aren't you?
I'll
be joining all of you with these rules in place. It's hardly meaningful
otherwise, since I just spend all day online most of the time, isn't it?
Recent improvements in technology show that behind the scenes, even a man like Hitler, who is characterized as one of the malevolent entities of the past few centuries, can be
shockingly normal. He's clearly a manipulative bastard, and not a stupid one either. But outside of the political arena, he confides his hopes for the future to the next generation (without the blood it will involve), flirts with his lover, and is a snarky bastard even those in his inner circle.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it hits a bit too close to home for comfort.
Why is he responsible for so much death? He's an intelligent person, so the only way his worldview could accommodate the persecution of the Jews is to rationalize them as being unhuman- savages, in a way, although the German propaganda from World War II creates a portrayal closer to "parasitic" than "savage." If only before the massacres, he'd had some kind of generic holiday to celebrate peace and prosperity and had cultivated a cultural myth about sitting down and sharing a feast of common German crops along with the meat of some emblematic bird (given that it's Germany, sausage could work just as well, but then there's kosher to worry about). Perhaps then, the Reich could have grown up to be healthy and American.
As for how he got into a program of ethnic cleansing, maybe it was just a unification effort that got out of hand. I mean, after suggesting to the German people as a whole that a certain subset was detrimental to the nation's existence, perhaps popular emotion caused it to snowball into something ridiculous – and once a genocide program gets on its way, it's not like a politician can suddenly turn around and apologize for the mistake. Politicians should always continue making ridiculous comments in support of an error, because to do otherwise would be to lose face to the indoctrinated mass of people that really do believe that the only good in the world comes from people who are like them.
All this is just speculation, of course; it's always entirely possible that Hitler's a madman like all the textbooks and quick middle-school oversimplifications say. But if he isn't, then we all need to be careful, because all it takes is a conviction and an unwillingness to examine it critically, especially at the prospect of losing the allegiance of the people around us.
I can only hope that in a handful of decades, when I'm taking over the world myself, I'll be able to call myself sane.
On a completely unrelated note, it's the abrupt deceleration that kills you,
not the fall itself.
Good news, guys! Jack Thompson is going to have debates on college campuses! These discussions with various student bodies will obviously be completely real and not filtered for people who can actually make Mr. Thompson look bad in three minutes.
Of course, I just want to make sure everyone knows that he's a very funny guy, and does some
pretty funny things, and so in the unlikely event that he does something utterly retarded, just remember that he's as hip and ironic as the next indie, and is probably being purely satirical about it.
And with regards to the line of lawsuits against dissenters - well, this isn't the first time some
fundamentalist idiot has whined about the media, and it's not
actually malicious caricature if, well, it's true.
The question now is whether it's a good idea to bother getting MIT to book him. He probably knows that he's putting himself into a bad position - I don't think even Thompson's that dense - which means that either he's fixing the debates in his favor (in which case the motion is pointless), or he's pulling some sort of profit by doing this (and MIT doesn't seem like the kind of place that rewards and publicizes idiocy).
The other thing that leaves me confounded is how fools like Thompson, Robertson, and Falwell can exist, and yet there are still people who believe them wholeheartedly, and who still think that Christianity or religion in general is necessary and sufficient for good moral fiber. It's really saddening that Americans can recognize these people as lunatics and yet insist that anything's better than an atheist as President.
Also, dammit Boston, I thought you were
above this shit.
So, I'm about nine months late in spotting
this, but it just goes to show how fucked up information distribution is in America. Our public education system is being hounded by creationism in disguise, our equivalents to folk tales are all owned by corporations, we willingly misinform other countries in order to coerce a profit out of them (see
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man), and somehow, inexplicably, there's an MIT student who believe that open source is evil and that Microsoft is made of ultimate win. And now there's a court ruling that essentially says that news outlets aren't required to tell the truth, or at least label their opinions as simply opinions. Because that's not what they're for.
...
Yay Canada!
Also,
something entertaining.
You can help fight against the threat snakes pose to humanity. Just find a place that houses a lot of them and
stab the damned creatures before they can get on our beloved planes.
For those of you who want a quick summary: The Las Cruces Reptile Rescue is currently directed by a firefighter who provides shelter for reptiles that have been abandoned or neglected by their owners - they are nursed back to health and then adopted into the community as, among other things, a way to teach people about the local ecosystem. Some time last night, his house was broken into by multiple vandals, who killed or injured many of the resident animals, including two endangered species, and abducted several others. Weapons of choice were knives, rocks, frying pans, and a fireplace poker.
The foundation is, of course, accepting donations to go toward repairs. Yes, I know, college students have an excess of cash on hand to go to good causes like this. In any case, if you wish to contribute, you can do it through
Paypal.
While we're on the topic of the effects of immature minds in America, it seems that some of us scientific folk have to start reproducing more rapidly. After all, in a sociopolitical scheme, children can be like ammunition, and the religious right is amassing
quite a stockpile. Fortunately, a completely unbiased documentary is coming out which will allow us to see what goes on in manufacturing the next ready-to-kill soldier for peace (because in war on an abstract concept, blood is never shed because abstractions don't have blood, silly); as such, we have access to the ideas and techniques for proper indoctrination.
Also, while I'm on my religious track again, I resent the implication that Christians are necessarily
ethical and atheists are not. And it's not just the secular that the thesaurus insults; "kosher" is listed as informal or slang. New Millenium Thesaurus my ass.
Finally, HOLY FUCKING SHIT
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OPENED ITS ARCHIVES FOR PUBLIC ONLINE USE
Because people at MIT blog much less frequently than bloggers elsewhere; or otherwise people at MIT blog just as frequently, but not on the blogs that are hosted by MIT... in any case, though some set of circumstances involving better things to do or other hosts to pollute, my posts seem to be staying at the top of the "Most Recent Posts" list, and so I may as well say something worth saying.
But that'd be entirely too useful.
I am amused that the linguistics department has a Professor Pesetsky. All the obvious puns have been made, and in all likeliness it's actually a mispronunciation of the name that has me amused, so I shall refrain from saying anything further about that.
The problem set for algebra is proving a bit more annoying than expected now that I actually have it in my hands (yes, that last two-sentence paragraph was some sort of transition), but I suppose I had it coming.
It may interest those who are still railing against evolution to know that lactose intolerance is a characteristic that makes for a better weapon in that battle. Apparently the intolerance gene was the original - it turned on at about four years of age in Caucasians. To this day, lactose intolerance remains most prevalent in those of European descent. The issue at hand is why humans would ever evolve a trait like that in the first place only to get noticeably (on a large scale) reversed by 4500 BCE.
Of course, the question in the opposite direction is "Why doesn't God want Scandinavians to 'get milk'?".
A more complete discussion is available
here, courtesy of Livejournal's
atheism community. Mostly I'm getting just sick and tired of the "ATHIEST HAET BANANA" argument.
Maybe more later; back to that problem set with me.
Back again.
Damn, it's been more than a year since I posted in this thing. I suppose much has changed.
For example, I wear
glasses now, due to nearsightedness. It must be all the reading and math and computer games and porn.
Mostly the porn.
Tammi has yet to try the damn things on, but then, Tammi hasn't had a
chance to check out the campus, either. At some point, I'll decide I
have the balls to cross-play in one of the Assassins' Guild events. And
then, well, to quote Brustkern:
So [we] decided that you're going to ruin some poor kid's life, who
finally at MIT decided to approach a girl for the first time ever, and
it turned out to be a man.
I'd hit that.
Also,
California wins an internet for having politicians with a sense of humor.
... planning entrances but making exits.
And so, one day after I get back home from RSI, I must repack and leave to set up my dorm in Muncie. Fortunately, most of things that I brought back from RSI will stay with me. Also, this exit is considerably less painful, since I am sick of my immediate family already. Especially my parents, who keep putting their noses where they don't belong (i.e. Helen's writing in my summerbook).
Ah, well. To Muncie!
And so, I'm back in my room in Indiana. Taking inventory of all the things I brought back with me, especially the "random junk". But you know what I mean.
Bloody hell, it's quiet...
Academy move-in Monday morning.
I love
getting naked with Zach. Hopefully there will be more people willing to get naked with us.
Brought to you by sleep dep and messed up inspiration:
"Euler? But I just met her!"
By me. "Caffiene's a diuretic, and it's starting to piss me off."
So yeah. Working hard on a final paper. And school hasn't even started yet. Wonderful.
NEWSFLASH: Italian vampires threaten to impregnate woman with Anti-Christ's son!!
Mon Jul 25, 9:04 AM ET
An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman in the Sicilian city of Palermo after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them.
The man, a cabaret singer, and his girlfriend took the money from their victim over four years by selling her pills at 3,000 euros each that they said would abort the Anti-Christ's son.
Police uncovered the fraud after the 47-year-old woman's family became concerned when they discovered she had spent all her savings, local news agencies AGI and ANSA reported.
[greeting] [trite remark] [overused witticism]
My other, more active blog is
here. That said, I'll try to keep everything up to date on both.
Right. This "work" thing.