Two Slashes

The calendar says February 28, and that can mean only one thing:  the Comment Block experiment has come to an end.

In case you’ve been pulling a Rip Van Winkle, I’ve been following in Justin’s footsteps by trying to provide a “meaningful” (ha!) post each day for a month.  (If you want to read what you missed, you can peruse the contents of the appropriate tag at your leisure.)

It was partially an experiment to see if it was possible for me to come up with daily original content.  While I might have managed to squeak through this shortened month, I don’t think I would be able to continue much longer.  I’ve already exhausted most of my Evernote notebook, and the remaining clips are not likely to be kept much longer.

Top top it off, I’m only partially happy with the results.  While I did manage to keep to the one-post-per-day idea alive, the posts sometimes ended up with timestamps of a few minutes after midnight (and exactly midnight in one case, though all of the posts were well within my confused version of a day ), and some of what I wrote really isn’t as intelligently written as I would have liked it to be.  I suppose it comes with the hectic life of a college student, but I think it would have been better to have given myself the time to get the post worked through to satisfaction rather than have to worry about publishing before midnight, especially considering I put more than two hours of work into some of them.

I also experimented with my writing styles and post formats a bit, trying a few ideas (most of which won’t be seeing the light of day again, I think).  I’ve also developed a few more ideas that might be more worthy (and lead to some more regular posting, too).  I threw out a few project ideas (to more feedback than I was anticipating), brought school and my blogging a little closer together, attempted to expand on my incessant tweeting (which may become a weekly feature, though I haven’t decided yet), and put good use to the review category.

If I were to do this again, I’m definitely going to be making a few small changes.  As I said before, I wasn’t impressed with some of the content I wrote, so that would be the first thing to receive some work.  I would also have to find a reasonable time limit that doesn’t trample all of my schoolwork and other projects in the process to make the posting more manageable than the midnight deadline I’ve been trying to follow for the past month.

Look forward to me trying for a more manageable and predictable post schedule.  I’ve already proved I can find the time, so it’s more or less a matter of finding topics and expanding on them.  Expect a little of everything once I recover from this past month, but in the meantime, I’ll be riding off with The Limousines.

Imagine that.  The month is almost up.  Stay tuned for the wrap-up of the previous month in pseudo-randomness, which will be arriving at some point in the near future.

Many people see their twenties as a turning point for their lives.  They’re just starting to figure out adulthood, but sometimes they’re not quite ready, like the single bunch of green bananas you always end up with at the supermarket.  Others are so ready that they end up looking like this orange by the time they leave their teens.  Either way, there’s plenty to blame for why that piece of fruit looks the way it does, and everyone comes out the tail end the better for themselves.

Posted to 20SB earlier today was a request for topic suggestions for a graduate-level writing assignment, the goal of which is to write twenty pages on life experiences.  I like the prompt, having had a similar (though much shorter requirement) for a rhetoric class I took last year:

If you had to write 20 nonfiction pages as a 20-something, what would you write about? College? Debt? Growing up?  (slightly modified for readability )

To be honest, I don’t know if I have a real answer to that question.  You’ll notice how infrequently the “Personal” category has been used since I first opened it up in December to rant about my issues with the previous holiday season.

It’s not for lack of trying to come up with anything, though, especially since I started this whole “Comment Block” project.  Granted, there are a few differences between writing a (comparatively long) essay to be read by at most a handful of people (let’s add in the point that usually you know these people in real life) and a digestible yet public blog post (potentially read by hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people you’ve never met, and indexed, categorized, and cached a half-dozen times before you even have a second chance to think about what you’ve published).  There’s a happy medium that needs to be found.  Compared to old writings from a previous blog (of which I have only scraps, sorry), I’m a lot less revealing in what I post (and at the same time a bit more boring, I assume).

I know my personal tangent there is a bit unrelated, but considering the discussion on 20SB is limited to members, I figured I’d bring the question out into a more general audience.  What would you write about if you were given this prompt?

Excuses, excuses.  I was in the middle of writing this post when I was commissioned to sit on the phone keeping people awake on their train ride home, causing me to seek refuge in silence away from a computer.

With a little nudging from Nick S., who’s busy at work on The Next Big Thing™, I ended up keeping tabs on the press conference (call) Facebook held earlier today regarding their ever-changing service agreement.  If anything, it gave me a better idea of just how generally clueless some of the people running the scenes (and even some who are not) are.  Of course, this all comes after a giant uproar over Facebook changing their terms of service such that it read that Facebook now owned any user-submitted content.  Permanently.

While I don’t have a personal issue with Facebook utilizing the content I have uploaded to the service (namely, the same image of myself you can find on this site or any other service I use), I have several friends with interesting and original content who might be offed by just how many rights the social networking site was granting itself with the new policy (in theory).  I know that they wouldn’t like having their content ripped off, and I’m sure most of the people reading this would have similar issues.

I find it funny that people are willing to put up with all of these antics, though.  I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised given that people deal with the Fail Whale, tolerated MySpace’s surefire “Oops, we had an error!” pages, and can generally use the Internet without the requirement of a computing license, but it still amazes me that people can be so blatantly ignorant when it comes to the things they share with other people and the methodologies they employ in doing so.  It’s because of stunts like these (alright, that’s the number two reason behind the fact that the services are designed that for reason) that I post pictures to Picasa, videos to Vimeo, and generally harbor my content all over at sites that put the creator’s rights before their own.  Besides, it’s not a wise idea to put all your eggs in one basket.

Facebook seems to be trying to take  recent events into consideration, as their latest blog post states that they’re going to try a more democratic system for some of the policy changes they enact across the site, in particular anything that might cause controversy.  Nick and I both came to the immediate conclusion that this may not be the best policy, as you’re asking the same people who have no common sense to vote one way or another.  It’s like giving a six-year-old a Presidential ballot (the fact that this is unlikely notwithstanding) – they’re ill-informed and incapable of making a sensical decision based on knowledge or reasoning, so their vote could more or less be attributed to pseudo-randomness.  Unfortunately, it’s a first-hand chance to fight for proper rights provided by few other platforms.

Like I said already, the conference didn’t exactly show a stroke of genius among either the reporters asking questions or the people in charge over at Facebook.  As an excellent example (and to end the post), I leave you with this short, unrelated question and the nonsensical answer provided straight from Facebook’s founder.  What a bright bunch.

Stacy Kramer (Paid Content): How important is this financially?
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook): This is all about trusting our users. And it will result in the best outcome: the best community.

One of Chicago’s many iconic structures could be getting a makeover, and it isn’t the bean.  If you were thinking of the Hancock or Aon Centers or Prudential Plaza, you might also want to be think taller.  You’ve got the Sears Tower on the mind?  Excellent – and keep it there.

I was going through my unread items in Google Reader and came across a blurb from Gizmodo (who got it from the Chicago Sun-Times) that the Sears Tower might be “going green” by, err…going silver.  That’s right – the Sears Tower might be getting a new coat to match the bean sitting in Millenium Park.

(Mockup stolen from Gizmodo, who stole it from the Chicago Sun-Times. Hey, there's no honor among thieves. Usually.)

It’s cool that the owners are trying to decrease the impact of the building on the environment, though they seem to believe that the only environment worth preserving is the natural environment.  What about the living and working environment of Chicago residents?  Doesn’t that count for something?  I don’t know for sure, but something tells me I wouldn’t be able to stand living around a giant metallic obelisk for too long.

If they were to go through with this plan, I wonder just how much it would backfire.  Depending upon how reflective the building ends up, I could see it as a potential nuisance for other buildings and/or the traffic below because of all the light bouncing around.  Sure, some of the other buildings are reflective, but they’re also tinted and don’t glow like they’re a more powerful source of light than the sun.  (If it were really painted to match the bean, I could definitely see this as happening depending upon the weather and time of day.)

And let’s not even get into the economic impact of having to pay for the repainting.  According to the Sun-Times article, one of the (main) reasons for the futuristic styling is to attract new tenants.  With this economy?  Good luck. Instead of stuffing away the money to repaint the building, why not put it towards the tenants’ rent so they can actually afford to take up office space?  Perhaps some interior renovations (again, something other than silver paint) are in order?

I feel as though this plan brings Chicago one step closer to becoming the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (metaphorically speaking, of course).  It’s already a mythical wonderland of entertainment, playful rivalries, and industry, and it’s a common setting for movies as-is.  The black color is recognizable (though I’m sure the silver would probably take over as the “most distinctive feature” everyone describes it by) enough.

Flipping the memory card out of and back into my Treo the other day to swap some pictures and music in and out, I was reminded of the fact that there comes a point where things are just too small to be usable.  And, almost annoyingly, it’s the direction that everyone wants everything to be going in.  Phones, portable media players, computers…everything you can think of.

While it’s a novel thought to be able to cram in all my data into something the size of my fingernail, it’s also quite unwieldy when it comes time to transfer that data to something else by swapping cards around.  And this is considering my small hands.  Yes, I’m talking about MicroSD cards (for lack of anything else I feel like ranting about tonight).

The original SD card was reasonably-sized to begin with, at least where I’m concerned.  It wasn’t bulky, and I could hold it in my hand without worrying about either breaking or dropping and losing it.  MiniSD was alright too (for the same reasons), though it wasn’t widely adopted (or that much different in overall size) so there wasn’t much of a point.  But MiniSD annoys me like none other (hence this last-minute post?).  It’s not like we’re talking differences in thickness here, either, as the only real dimension changes (at least, the ones I’m concerned with at the moment) are the length and width of the card.

My previous PDA, a Tungsten|T2, had a full-size SD card slot.  It didn’t add anything to the thickness of the device, and it wasn’t annoying to use, as you could actually grasp the cards when you were inserting or removing them.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the MicroSD-based devices I’ve had the misfortune to use.  And, even more unfortunately, it’s not going to change in a way that makes me any happier, either.

Expandability, especially in terms of storage, is a concern for most people (*cough* except iPhone users *cough*), but considering your cell phone doesn’t have the size constraint of a fingernail, there isn’t a reason why you have to pretend the extra storage you use for it has to follow such a constraint.  Why, then, do phone manufacturers think they need to blindly obey?

Forgive me for being boring and ranting about something nobody in their right mind would care about, then forgetting to schedule the post.  You can run along, now.

I don’t typically enjoy Facebook/MySpace/blog memes, but this one is more or less related to something else I wanted to discuss, so I figured I would give it a shot anyway.  And I hope I’m not going to be penalized for being a little late with the post; I just finished helping someone put together a computer science project at the last minute.

Meet Poppendorf, an alternative rock band from Chicago, recently noted for releasing their debut album, To Speak In Public.  Known for their witty lyrics (hence the name), Poppendorf has already released two singles off the album and is gearing up for a nationwide tour this coming summer…

Alright, so perhaps I suck at coming up with descriptions for bands you’ve never heard of (seeing as they don’t exist).  It’s hard enough for me to come up with a description for bands that do.

One of my interests outside of the technology world is music.  I don’t compose it – I don’t have that kind of creativity – but I do enjoy a little background noise while I’m doing whatever.  There’s the widget in my sidebar attached to my Last.fm account (that needs fixing at some point…) to prove my point.

Of course, I like a little variety in my music, and my moderately-sized collection shows it.  But getting to that point has taken some time and trial-and-error, and I don’t always find some of the stuff I like on any sites people have ever heard of.  Because of this, I figured some people might be interested in some of the out-of-the-way sites I use to find music I like.

• Magnatune – I think I’ve mentioned this site before, and even if I haven’t, it’s not a bad place to look.  While a lot of the offerings are not up to snuff, I’ve found the occasional buried treasure hidden deep within the track listings.  Magnatune even lets you listen to the entire track before you decide whether the music is worth your money, a fitting feature considering their slogan is “We are not evil.”  (Some of you might know what a full-length track preview might be good for, but I do not condone stealing.  Especially from independent artists.)
• Jamendo – Jamendo is another great hole-in-the-wall for independent music.  Originally shown to me by friend and co-host Steve from TechCentric (or at least, I think it was), Jamendo has some interesting content to offer no matter what genre you like.
• Seeqpod – Seeqpod is intended more as a search engine/playlisting site than anything, but the live search viewer is a cool way to see what music other site users are into.
• Harmonize – I probably shouldn’t be mentioning this one since it’s in private beta right now, but Harmonize is a cool way to check out some of the music your friends have an interest in.  It’s tied to Facebook, too, so any friends from the social networking site who use Harmonize are automatically attached to you.  (For those wondering, I have no idea when it goes public, though, and I can’t help you get an invite either.  Sorry.)
• Hype Machine – Hype Machine is a music blog aggregator.  What could make it easier to find something you like than a site that slaps you in the face with it?

…and for the usual (shameless) plug:

• Sweet Cinnamon Wontons – Described by my friend Don (the author) as “satisfaction for your earhole,” the music posted is definitely worthy of checking out.  Of course, I have the majority of the stuff that’s been posted already, so I wonder if he’s been leafing through my catalog…but that’s a story for a different day.

Of course, all of this discussion has left me with a single question:  Where do you get your music (and/or suggestions)?  Indulge me.  (Please?)

 Loading ...

Alright, so maybe I didn’t follow the directions for that mock album exactly as written.  It’s not like you can do anything about it.    Oh, and the image source might be a good thing to credit.

Earlier today, I had a short discussion with a friend and electrical engineering major about some of the similarities and differences we have in our respective curricula.  Somewhere along the line, we ended up discussing the fact that computer science majors at my school have to take a semester-long ethics course (for credit, thankfully), while electrical engineers get a whopping two lectures on ethics near the end of one of their sophomore-level classes (with an optional supplementary course for juniors).  Funny, isn’t it?

The summary of the CS course, reworded (for obvious reasons) but otherwise stolen directly from the course website:

The course focuses on the theory and practice of ethics as it relates to computers and information technology.  It uses group work and presentations to teach the basics of ethical decision-making.  Course topics include risk, reliability, privacy, warfare, business ethics, patents, copyright, and more. Students will be expected to write 12 short summaries as responses to reading assignments, participate in in-class discussions, and present topics to the class. Attendance is mandatory and will be factored into your grade.

I’ve discussed a few of the topics (namely, the privacy, copyright, and reliability points mentioned above, as well as others mentioned on other areas of the site like Netiquette) on this site before, with mixed results.  (I have a feeling there will be some recycling one way or another when I enroll for this course. )

Perhaps there’s something to be said here.  Are the computer science students, the same developers responsible for designing things like BitTorrent, required to take this course due to some stereotype that paints us as less honest than our electrically-oriented brethren?  Are the minds to blame for (and I can’t believe I’m using these examples again) Storm, Sasser, and the like the reason CS students have to take this course?  tI’m not entirely sure, but the posted cheating policy leaves plenty of room for improvement:

Nobody should need to cheat in a class discussing ethics and professionalism.

(Yes, it’s that pathetic, and it sounds as though cheating is an acceptable course of action in any other class as written.  Cheating is obviously not the best way to get through a course, but they might do well to reword their policy.)

The course is designed to require as much input from the students as possible.  While I don’t think this is a bad idea if implemented properly, it is almost certain to fail when most of the topics are student-taught and require the students leading the discussion to implement some form of game.  (Would now be the appropriate time to jump back to stereotypes and mention that CS students aren’t supposed to be sociable creatures in real life? )

Ethical, eh?  In what sense of the word?

I know Justin briefly went over the first episode of the show, but I have nothing else to discuss, save for the two episodes which are fairly fresh in my head.  Here goes nothing.

Before I get anywhere, I should probably mention that I don’t know that much about Joss Whedon.  I know that he’s behind Buffy and Firefly, but I deemed those shows a little too far out there for my tastes.  (I’ll probably be giving them a shot somewhere down the line, though.)  Additionally (and shockingly, to some people), I don’t really gravitate towards the science-fiction scene (which explains why the only show I watch regularly is House).  However, I caught on with the hype behind Whedon’s latest work and decided that it might be worth checking out.

The premise behind Dollhouse isn’t too elaborate, though it takes a little getting used to (at least, it did for me).  Imagine a reprogrammable human (a “doll” in Whedon parlance), one you could give any number of special abilities through the exploitation of memory (though with some foreseen, yet unknown, costs).  Now, imagine a secret organization that revolves around and capitalizes on this principle, add in the appropriate levels of law enforcement trying to locate said organization to taste, and think on it at 350°F.  Voilà, Dollhouse.

After two episodes, though, I’m wondering whether the show is going to be as big a hit as everyone’s hoping it is.  While they’re starting to get into the explanations of how the in-show “present” came about, I wonder whether the number of plotlines they’ve introduced are a great idea this early in the show (and I’m getting a vague feeling of Swiss Cheese Syndrome to match).  I won’t give anything away, but let’s just say that they should have consulted an engineer before they broke ground.

Even if Dollhouse doesn’t take off, the people involved should really be applauded for the work they’ve put in.  The acting (so far, at least) is convincing enough for me, and they’re at least mildly creative in where they draw the plots for each show from.  They could really use a new song for the opening credits, though.  I don’t know why, but it irks me. 

If you’re interested in checking out the show for yourself, both of the first two episodes have found their way to Hulu.  I suggest you watch them before Hulu pulls them.  Heck, let me know what you think while you’re at it.

Yesterday, during a math class, I was treated to the particularly laughable claims made by a fellow student in the class.  No, these weren’t claims of his potent masculinity or demonstrations of his intelligence.  This kid claimed that he was the mastermind behind Storm (I wonder what Fox News broadcast he’s been watching recently) and that he knows a super-secret backdoor into any Windows XP computer called the “administrator account.”  Pardon me for laughing.

It’s people like this that often make me wonder whether some mandatory licensing/certification scheme for computing is necessary, not only to prove you have skills, but to prove you can contribute to society by using the device in an appropriate way.

Among other things, the requirements could include:

• A decent grasp of a human language. None of this “im in ur dataz lolz” crap – just plain English, Spanish, Yiddish…you get the idea.
• Aptitude in interacting with others. This probably goes along with the language requirement I just mentioned above, but there should be a reasonable level of intelligence in dealing with other people.  (Regular participation in an IRC channel might be a great way to fulfill this.)
• A reasonable level of knowledge in various day-to-day applications including a word processor, spreadsheet application, and perhaps an image editor.
• An avoidance of nuisance fonts like Comic Sans. Enough said.
• An extensive vocabulary of computing terms. This also includes knowing when and what term to use.  (That monitor on your desk is not the entire computer, you know.)

I can think of other things, but I don’t want to limit the number of people who can get a license to my small circles of friends.  That just wouldn’t be fair.  (I would love to know what suggestions you have for the list, though.)

While the kid might think he looks intelligent to the rest of the people in the class, I have not yet revealed to him that I’m a computer science major.  (I’m waiting for the opportune moment to reveal that information.  Until then, I’ll have to settle with mentally calling him an idiot over and over in my head.)  Of course, doing so might make him realize just how outlandish he appears.

I’m in support of the free access to information when the information makes a worthwhile contribution to society, but I don’t consider free stupidity to be worth anything more than a chuckle or two (or a guffaw, depending upon the act in question).

So, when can we build those licensing centers?

Since ancient times, seven has been the number of choice for everything.  After all, there are exactly seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  There are (obviously) seven days in the week.  James Bond’s agent number is 007.  (And what list of numbers would be complete without a blogger throwback to Brooke (more commonly known as Oh My Seven)?  Alright, that was corny…)

But while I’m either pleased with or indifferent to the aforementioned items, there’s one thing tarnishing the number for me.  And (to what I assume is Justin’s eternal glee), of all things, it’s a Microsoft product.

If you’re waiting on me to rant about Windows Mobile 6.5 and my Treo Pro, you would be half-right.  Literally.  Just one-half away from the appropriate version of Windows.  (Well, and a gigantic platform jump over, but who’s counting other than me?)  If you thought I willingly put myself into a position beta-testing the Next Big Thing™ to come out of Washington (other than the Mariners), you’d be right.  Seven points to you.

You might ask why I did it.  Back in October, I posted about how I have no problem whatsoever using in-development software.  (In fact, I’m writing this post using one of the latest nightly builds of Firefox, but I digress…)  Of course, that was before I willingly installed this pile of dung, and in the future I’m going to be putting more consideration into that policy.

Before you ask, it’s not the computer’s fault.  I’ve lived on Pentium 4s for the past several years, and finally decided in December to build a new Core 2 Quad desktop for school.  Of course, what would be better than loading up the test build of the operating system that it will most likely be seeing for most of its useful life, right?  That’s what I thought…

I’ve been using dealing with Windows 7 for about a month, and while I’ve taken to some of the “new” features, on the whole, I still feel like the experience is missing something.  A big something.

Performance-wise, everything seems to run at a very pleasing rate.  Even in beta, the operating system is quick to respond, and I’ve gotten used to some of the “enhancements” (read: mind-numbing changes for the worse) Microsoft made.  Things I’d also installed out of humor, like my old TV tuner, installed without any trouble.  Granted, the workflow in things like the Control Panel could be improved, but I’m going to let that one slide because it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen.

My biggest gripe is that Windows somehow seems to have lost control of user processes.  The same build of Thunderbird, for example, works fine on other operating systems (like my Windows XP-based laptop), but hangs in 7 to the point where it cannot be killed using the Windows Task Manager or even the appropriate command-line commands, and ultimately requires me to restart the machine from the front panel.  (As I write this, there is an unresponsive Thunderbird window where my desktop normally goes.)  This is on top of very annoying bugs I’ve already managed to encounter on more than one occasion.  I’ve also tried several applications that hang immediately, such as the NX remote desktop client, and plenty of applications you would expect to work (like Picasa) blow up without administrative permissions.

My next complaint is with data transfers.  For some reason, I have issues transferring files to and from removable media, though network transfers are fine, as is the removable media when used in conjunction with my laptop.  According to other people running the beta, they haven’t had any such problems, so this might be something I need to look into at a personal level, but it gets annoying that I need to transfer everything over in small chunks.

Win7’s inability to sync properly at all with my Treo is another showstopper, as far as I’m concerned.  And I would complain about power management, but I can’t say I’ve noticed any issues – my computer is kept on all the time, except when it’s being rebooted to ward off evil spirits and afflicted processes.

I’ll keep my hopes up (slightly – I wouldn’t want them dashed, as this is a Microsoft product we’re talking about) that the problems I’ve found get fixed before release.  I don’t know if I would be placing monetary bets on all of these issues being resolved before the final release, however.

What are your thoughts about the beta?