Here's a pretty awesome song a friend of mine wrote. We sight read it in band last year and truth be told, it's a fun read.
May 31, 2008
May 29, 2008
Hasbro Discount
I have a feeling that my discount at Hasbro could be a dangerous thing.
I get 20% off anything online and I get 50% off anything in the store at work. You know what that means? $5.00 potato heads.
This could be a very toy-filled summer.
I get 20% off anything online and I get 50% off anything in the store at work. You know what that means? $5.00 potato heads.
This could be a very toy-filled summer.
May 26, 2008
Wheels
I discovered something very important just now.
It's impossible to scoot along in a rolley chair while wearing roller blades, you end up just looking really weird.
It's impossible to scoot along in a rolley chair while wearing roller blades, you end up just looking really weird.
May 24, 2008
Weezer -- "Pork and Beans"
If you like YouTube or the internet then you'll LOVE Weezer's new music video! The sad part? I recognize every single meme on there (except for the crying emo/goth/blond girl one). Amazing. . .
May 19, 2008
Studying For Finals Redux
It's 11 PM and I'm settling down for another several hours of studying for 2.001.
I just finished a 2 hour nap, took a shower, and am almost done with a "No Fear" energy drink (Verdes got rid of the Sobe energy drinks! Grrrrrrr!). Here we go ladies and gents, this is what MIT is all about, this is the studying and the hard work you hear all about, and you know what? I don't mind doing it because this is what I signed up for and so with that, back to 2.001.
I just finished a 2 hour nap, took a shower, and am almost done with a "No Fear" energy drink (Verdes got rid of the Sobe energy drinks! Grrrrrrr!). Here we go ladies and gents, this is what MIT is all about, this is the studying and the hard work you hear all about, and you know what? I don't mind doing it because this is what I signed up for and so with that, back to 2.001.
May 18, 2008
Ring Committee
I'm still allowed to post whatever I want on my personal blog so I think this would be a great place to display what's been causing so much controversy over at the MIT blogs. Wank away dear readers.
Floating all around MIT are petitions saying something along the lines of "Do you care about ________ ? Are you unhappy about _________ ? Sign this petition!" I normally read these but don't have a vested interest and more than likely pass it up. Now a huge issue just ran smack into the face of the freshman class and I don't see any petitions so I'm doing the only other thing I'm able: putting it on the internet.
Ring Committee is a group of 12 students, chosen at the end of freshman year, who are tasked with designing the brass rat for their class. The brass rat is MIT's class ring, one of the most recognized rings in the world and a huge incentive to make it through sophomore year before dropping out (that was a joke). These 12 students are tasked with taking everything that's happened during our time here, summarize it symbolically, and display it on a ring that everybody in the class will have for the rest of their lives. It's kind of a big deal.
As you may or may not know, MIT has a lot of diversity, not just racially but also socially. The dormitories at MIT are very distinct in their reputations and personalities. The main, stereotypical (but not altogether incorrect) division made in categorizing dorms is the West Campus and East Campus split. I AM NOT trying to start a debate about West Campus and East Campus here, so if you're looking for a fight then leave it at the door, nobody cares. Here's how I describe the difference between east and west campus. West campus is where you live if you want to continue with the rules, order, and cleanliness of when you lived at home. East campus is where you live if you say "screw it, I'm doing what I want" and don't care about all of that stuff you learned at home. Both are nice, both have their upsides and downsides, and again, we're not going to argue about the differences between the two. The point is, both are very different.
50 people applied for Ring Committee and 12 were chosen. The e-mail announcing the decisions was sent out last night. Here's a pie chart that shows you who all was selected:
Immediately following that e-mail a wave of outrage swept east campus and a large portion of the freshman class. Take note, not only is almost half of the ring committee from ONE dorm, but none of the dorms from east campus are represented. At all.
Four hours after that e-mail we all received an e-mail from the class president that started with:
"Since announcing the roster of the class Ring Committee, I have been literally inundated by emails inquiring about the highly visible and unfortunate absence of "eastern campus" (East Campus, Senior Haus, Bexley, and Random) residents. "
First off, Mr. President, you don't live in Senior House, so lay off the "Haus."
He continued, throughout his incredibly long and verbose e-mail, to explain that hardly anybody from east campus had applied and that statistically it was improbable, even with a random sampling, to select anybody from east campus to Ring Committee. He argues that everything was done anonymously and this just kind of happened. He also said, in response to requests to add a 13 member to Ring Committee to represent east campus:
"To those who are fervently calling for the installment of a 13th member of the Ring Committee, I would ask that you reconsider what you are asking. Would you really be comfortable with the idea of petitioning Council to disregard the MIT culture of respecting meritocracy to use "affirmative action" on living groups?"
Now you know all of the details, let me tell you what matters.
Obviously having a completely anonymous process failed miserably. Yes, congratulations class council, you voted using a meritocracy and have selected a committee that has the skills necessary to design and create a ring. You know what you didn't select? A group of people who understand MIT. You selected Baker and some other people. There's no doubt in my mind that your selected Committee has ventured to east campus or has friends in east campus, but THEY DON'T LIVE THERE! They don't understand what day to day life is, they don't understand the traditions, they (more than likely) wouldn't even understand a conversation held between ec residents due to the difference in vocabulary.
Right off, I'm not sugar coating anything. I'm not a people-pleasing council-person with a political agenda. I'm angry and don't care about being PC.
In order for our class ring to have content that represents our class AS A WHOLE then our class AS A WHOLE needs to be represented on the Ring Committee. "Affirmative action on dorms"? Absolutely! Anything that will diversify that committee needs to happen, otherwise I'm afraid that when I get my brass rat I'm going to look on it and see a bunch of SaveTFP, GoCrossCampus, and other MIT sponsored "we need to give our students something structured and exciting to do to make them feel like they belong here!" crap. What I'm afraid I won't see are hacks, spontaneous student construction projects, and other non-MIT sponsored activities.
Congratulations again, class council, you picked a council using a completely anonymous method. You also picked the least diverse Ring Committee conceivable. Fix it.
Floating all around MIT are petitions saying something along the lines of "Do you care about ________ ? Are you unhappy about _________ ? Sign this petition!" I normally read these but don't have a vested interest and more than likely pass it up. Now a huge issue just ran smack into the face of the freshman class and I don't see any petitions so I'm doing the only other thing I'm able: putting it on the internet.
Ring Committee is a group of 12 students, chosen at the end of freshman year, who are tasked with designing the brass rat for their class. The brass rat is MIT's class ring, one of the most recognized rings in the world and a huge incentive to make it through sophomore year before dropping out (that was a joke). These 12 students are tasked with taking everything that's happened during our time here, summarize it symbolically, and display it on a ring that everybody in the class will have for the rest of their lives. It's kind of a big deal.
As you may or may not know, MIT has a lot of diversity, not just racially but also socially. The dormitories at MIT are very distinct in their reputations and personalities. The main, stereotypical (but not altogether incorrect) division made in categorizing dorms is the West Campus and East Campus split. I AM NOT trying to start a debate about West Campus and East Campus here, so if you're looking for a fight then leave it at the door, nobody cares. Here's how I describe the difference between east and west campus. West campus is where you live if you want to continue with the rules, order, and cleanliness of when you lived at home. East campus is where you live if you say "screw it, I'm doing what I want" and don't care about all of that stuff you learned at home. Both are nice, both have their upsides and downsides, and again, we're not going to argue about the differences between the two. The point is, both are very different.
50 people applied for Ring Committee and 12 were chosen. The e-mail announcing the decisions was sent out last night. Here's a pie chart that shows you who all was selected:
Immediately following that e-mail a wave of outrage swept east campus and a large portion of the freshman class. Take note, not only is almost half of the ring committee from ONE dorm, but none of the dorms from east campus are represented. At all.
Four hours after that e-mail we all received an e-mail from the class president that started with:
"Since announcing the roster of the class Ring Committee, I have been literally inundated by emails inquiring about the highly visible and unfortunate absence of "eastern campus" (East Campus, Senior Haus, Bexley, and Random) residents. "
First off, Mr. President, you don't live in Senior House, so lay off the "Haus."
He continued, throughout his incredibly long and verbose e-mail, to explain that hardly anybody from east campus had applied and that statistically it was improbable, even with a random sampling, to select anybody from east campus to Ring Committee. He argues that everything was done anonymously and this just kind of happened. He also said, in response to requests to add a 13 member to Ring Committee to represent east campus:
"To those who are fervently calling for the installment of a 13th member of the Ring Committee, I would ask that you reconsider what you are asking. Would you really be comfortable with the idea of petitioning Council to disregard the MIT culture of respecting meritocracy to use "affirmative action" on living groups?"
Now you know all of the details, let me tell you what matters.
Obviously having a completely anonymous process failed miserably. Yes, congratulations class council, you voted using a meritocracy and have selected a committee that has the skills necessary to design and create a ring. You know what you didn't select? A group of people who understand MIT. You selected Baker and some other people. There's no doubt in my mind that your selected Committee has ventured to east campus or has friends in east campus, but THEY DON'T LIVE THERE! They don't understand what day to day life is, they don't understand the traditions, they (more than likely) wouldn't even understand a conversation held between ec residents due to the difference in vocabulary.
Right off, I'm not sugar coating anything. I'm not a people-pleasing council-person with a political agenda. I'm angry and don't care about being PC.
In order for our class ring to have content that represents our class AS A WHOLE then our class AS A WHOLE needs to be represented on the Ring Committee. "Affirmative action on dorms"? Absolutely! Anything that will diversify that committee needs to happen, otherwise I'm afraid that when I get my brass rat I'm going to look on it and see a bunch of SaveTFP, GoCrossCampus, and other MIT sponsored "we need to give our students something structured and exciting to do to make them feel like they belong here!" crap. What I'm afraid I won't see are hacks, spontaneous student construction projects, and other non-MIT sponsored activities.
Congratulations again, class council, you picked a council using a completely anonymous method. You also picked the least diverse Ring Committee conceivable. Fix it.
May 17, 2008
Never thought I'd say this
I miss writing papers. I keep hearing people complain about papers they have to finish and I think to myself "Writing papers is so nice! You can just sit wherever with your laptop and type. You don't need to spread out paper, notes, books, use a pencil, or mess with anything else. It's just you, Microsoft Word, some music, and a couple of nice solitary hours typing. I haven't had to type a single paper all semester and I kind of miss it.
Luckily, due to my lack of taking a real HASS class this semester I get to take two next semester so that'll be a good time.
2.003
2.005
Digital Poetry
Intro to Western Narrative
I haven't completely abandoned you writing, I promise!
Luckily, due to my lack of taking a real HASS class this semester I get to take two next semester so that'll be a good time.
2.003
2.005
Digital Poetry
Intro to Western Narrative
I haven't completely abandoned you writing, I promise!
May 11, 2008
May 08, 2008
Stupidity
Chalk one up for tech support stupidity.
Instead of sending me a new hard drive they sent me a DVD with an operating system on it.
Useful.
Instead of sending me a new hard drive they sent me a DVD with an operating system on it.
Useful.
May 06, 2008
Computer Problems
I'm experiencing problems with my laptop right now. It got really laggy last night and stuff started to freeze and lockup. Thinking that the resources were running low I tried to restart but the start button had frozen. I did a manual shutdown and then turned the computer back on.
It made it halfway through the restart before restarting again, this time displaying a screen telling me to do an Operating System Repair Sequence. I ran it and it doesn't appear to have helped because now when I try to boot my computer it just sits there on the Windows is Loading screen. I'm running diagnostics and tests on it now.
I'm thinking a couple of things could be wrong:
1) Hard Drive just died :(
2) Overheated, killing hard drive :(
3) Virus that appeared very suddenly (like, while I was working on my computer) :(
4) Bad voodoo
I figure the worst that happens is that either Dell fixes it or replaces it because it's on warranty. Just more stuff for me to deal with as finals approaches I guess. Luckily (amazingly luckily) we were given Macbooks for Toy Design (to create presentations on) so I actually do have a laptop right now (it just happens to be a laptop with a crappy OS, but I'll cope). If you see a decrease in blog frequency it's because I'm between computers and it's inconvenient. Sorry about that!
It made it halfway through the restart before restarting again, this time displaying a screen telling me to do an Operating System Repair Sequence. I ran it and it doesn't appear to have helped because now when I try to boot my computer it just sits there on the Windows is Loading screen. I'm running diagnostics and tests on it now.
I'm thinking a couple of things could be wrong:
1) Hard Drive just died :(
2) Overheated, killing hard drive :(
3) Virus that appeared very suddenly (like, while I was working on my computer) :(
4) Bad voodoo
I figure the worst that happens is that either Dell fixes it or replaces it because it's on warranty. Just more stuff for me to deal with as finals approaches I guess. Luckily (amazingly luckily) we were given Macbooks for Toy Design (to create presentations on) so I actually do have a laptop right now (it just happens to be a laptop with a crappy OS, but I'll cope). If you see a decrease in blog frequency it's because I'm between computers and it's inconvenient. Sorry about that!