Sorry #1

Sorry #2

Recycling - It's Important!

In the subway ConEdison sponsors these ads about energy efficiency and consciousness. By reading these ads, I learned that recycling JUST ONE aluminum can saves enough energy to run your TV for 3 hours. Yeah. Now try and tell me recycling isn't important.

This website has a lot of other earth-friendly facts and information. I'd encourage you to take a look at it and, in the immortal words of Celine Dion, think twice next time before you toss out a can.

Krakatoa Sadness

I'm not going to lie, I'm really sad. I was reading this really good book <-- and now I've lost the book somewhere in my apartment! I had to read Kipling's short stories today on the train and they are not the sort of thing you can read idly on the train. :-( Anyhow, I really want to find my book because, shockingly, it was engrossing and I was learning a lot. Luckily, my apartment is not that large, but still it is deceptively easy to lose things in it. Boo (and not the Halloween kind).

In other Halloween news, I changed all my class web pages and tutorials so that tomorrow when students come in they will see everything in Halloween colors! I also made a tutorial about how to get a little bat to follow your mouse around on the screen, and to flap his wings whenever your mouse moves. It's pretty fun, so I did it for a pumpkin and a ghost, too, and you can choose which picture you want to follow your mouse around by rolling over the images on your page. I hope my programming two class is happy, because I did that activity just for them!!!

Also, I might have found a couch for our apartment... we'll see tonight.

Numb

Jiminy Cricket! It's freezing cold in my apartment. The temp has dropped down to 62 degrees, but I am holding out - I will NOT turn on the heat!

Here's wishing that coat I ordered arrives tout de suite.

Baking My Life Away

This video is kind of amazing.

Today Emily and Jen and I got together for a baking extravaganza! We made cookies, cupcakes, pumpkin pie, drank cider and had a generally enjoyable time watching "Practical Magic." It was a nice afternoon, but the thing is now I have about 40 billion baked goods in my apartment and it's sort of a dangerous prospect. I think I am going to peddle some of them off on my neighbors!

Today while I was in the grocery store I bought some grits. At the end of my street there is a "restaurant" where you can get a $2 breakfast. It's a dive, but the grits are DELICIOUS! I never knew I liked grits, but it turns out they are amazing. They are really easy to cook, too, but unfortunately without a lot of butter/milk/salt they taste pretty much like nothing at all. Anyhow, so I won't be eating them very often, but for $1.50 I got a whole tub of them which has about 18 servings, which makes the future look bright!

Helvetica: A Documentary Film

I really want to see this film. I love fonts, and I think I'd like to watch an entire film about them.

No need to say it, I already know.

(As an aside, one of my favorite creation stories has nothing to do with evolution or God, but rather the font Optima. Hermann Zapf - as in Zapf Dingbats - created the font by putting all the fonts he liked on top of each other and tracing the resulting outline. Pretty cool, huh? I can't find anything that confirms this - it's something my dad told me. I don't much care if it's true or not, I think it's a cool idea. Here's what the font looks like.)

---

Bonus Font Video: Broadway makes my heart pitter patter! I think the font of our generation should be Frutiger (my personal favorite) or Myriad (the standard font used in the Mac OS) or maybe Berkeley (a very nice font I used a lot this summer). I fear it might be something like Comic Sans, or *gasp* Papyrus, the world's worst, ugliest, most overused font.

Students Today

I found this video to be pretty interesting - it made me reflect on my own college experience. It does put a negative spin on technology, though, which sort of upsets me. In this video it seems to me that they are blaming technology for lack of student productivity. While it certainly is a contributor to student procrastination the world over, I don't think that makes technology inherently bad.

I agree that the fact that students read more on the Facebook than they do for class, or that students spend more time on the phone/listening to music than they do studying is actually quite horrible. However, I don't hold the technology accountable for this trend, but rather the people using the technology.

I was speaking with my roommate last night about the appropriate use of science and technology, and I told her that when it comes to such subjects, my mantra is this: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

I think the lack of formal education about the appropriate use of technology is unfortunate. People take technology for granted, and as a result they don't really stop and question if their use of technology makes sense. However, I don't think that makes technology evil - I think that makes people in today's society careless about their usage. If there were classes being taught about the internet, modern gadgets and appropriate usage, I think students (and the world of procrastinators in general) might be better equipped to handle the distractions technology delivers.

I'm not sure what my point is really, I just didn't like the subliminal negativity towards technology in this video.

I've got to find a synonym for technology.

Born Stoned

I'm listening to my music on shuffle as I so often do. This song by The Push Kings came up called "Born Stoned." The lyrics go something like this:

I was born stoned
Stoned is how I wanna stay
...blah blah...
Stoned is just my state of mind

It's a really catchy song, and I like it a lot, but that's beside the point. (I do want to add that a lot of songs about drugs are simply catchy. Now, regardless or content, who can resist a catchy tune? I know I'm not strong enough.)

My point is - I have a lot of music relating to the (ab)use of drugs. It seems like every other song that comes up on shuffle either relates to drugs, alcohol, or something else vulgar. Is this the nature of music today, or is it just me? I fear the latter.

The Fruit of Opportunity

I was watching a show by comedic genius Demetri Martin. My favorite part was when he said that grapes were his favorite fruit because if you get one bad one, you've still got lots of opportunities to have a good one (unlike an apple or an orange... if it's bad, that's it! You're stuck with it). So if you're bored, I'd recommend watching some of his stuff.

My slide show program is getting a little out of control. Today I started working on yet another feature (a recursive function that causes the slides to flip through each other to create an actual slide show). It's pretty cool - you're going to be able to specify how long you want each slide to show for in seconds.

The problem is, I don't really know why I am working so hard on this program. It's a bit of an addiction, and I need to focus on working on OTHER class activities, but this program is all consuming! I just can't stop.

Before I know it I fear this program will also have a built in address book, solitaire for when you get bored of looking at photos, and GPS. I think I need to move on.

Happy News (Feeling Like a Dolt)

So my mother called me today and it appears that my cat just had some sort of uncomfortable butt issues and is having them, ahem, cleansed, and will be fine.

I'm feeling like a dolt a bit because I sort of jumped to conclusions, but you know when your mom calls you in tears and is like 99% certain of an ill-fate, you start to think the worst.

Anyhow, thanks for the condolences, but uh, false alarm. ;-)

Sleepless

I've been up since 3:00 this morning. That's right - 3 AM. It's now 5:50 (though the time stamp will lie - French time zone, remember?) and after sending several rambling emails, reading more of my Krakatoa book and wandering around my apartment in my underwear, I've decided to update my journal.

Yesterday was both a wonderful day and a sort of depressing day. Wonderful because my students were really good. Wonderful because I've been working on this slide show program and yesterday I made it really slick with multiple photo sets, invisibility, and organized my functions a little more appropriately. Wonderful because I got a call from one of my awesome Smith friends and I'm really looking forward to seeing her in a week or so. Wonderful because my roommate came home and I spent the whole afternoon having amazing conversations with her. Wonderful because I made a delicious dinner of crepes, chicken, onion and broccoli. Wonderful because I finished watching this documentary on the music industry that was (for silly reasons) really good.

It was sort of depressing because my mom called around 4:20 (tee hee, sorry, I'm tired and sort of delusional right now) to say that today my cat will probably be put to sleep.

That's probably the reason I can't sleep, come to think of it. Anyhow, I was just thinking about life and it occurred to me that even though I had a ton of great things happen to me yesterday (not to mention the day prior, over the whole weekend, and basically since I've come to NY), today is probably going to be dismal because of one event. It's funny how hundreds of good things can happen to you but you won't feel particularly happy... then one bad thing happens and it feels like a hundred.

I'm not meaning this to be incredibly negative or depressing (though it sort of is, now that I read it). I just hope that if you read this you'll try and focus on the good things in your life today, because I think it's too bad when one negative event makes us forget everything that is so wonderful.

"Celebrity" Run-In

I was walking down the street the other day in Manhattan. I was almost to my destination and wasn't really paying attention when I was crossing the street (I was going to the Mac store, so of course I was oblivious to everything around me). My oblivion, of course, resulted in a head on collision with another passer-by.

The uncool thing is I careened right into somebody. The cool thing is I actually knew who they were (sort of)!

Every summer my family goes to see plays at the local summer stock theatre. Apart from it being really fun, it's basically the only option for entertainment within a 40 minute drive, so yeah, we go to every play. Anyhow, the person I walked into had been in the cast this past summer. It's silly, I know, but I was a little star struck!

My New Religion

I just took a "What Religion Are You" type of test (courtesy of Brittany) and I found out that I should be Jewish. I found this a little surprising, I'm not going to lie. Here are my other top-ten options:

1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
3. Liberal Quakers (89%)
4. Neo-Pagan (78%)
5. Orthodox Judaism (72%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (70%)
7. Secular Humanism (68%)
8. Sikhism (68%)
9. New Age (64%)
10. Bah�'� Faith (64%)

Curious. I do like the disclaimer at the beginning of the test, which states:

Warning: Belief-O-Matic™ assumes no legal liability for the ultimate fate of your soul.

Even More Nerdiness (I can't help myself...)

 

 SWEET! 

Finally, Apple has announced the arrival date of the new operating system (October 26th) which makes me incredibly happy. I've been waiting until it came out to buy a new computer, so yeah, I'm stoked. :-)

Nerdy Mood Music

In order to make my below program work, I puzzled over modulus for a while. Here is a song entitled Modulus (by Rob Lockhurst) - I think it makes a nice, annoying background sound for you as you read my nerdy entry below. Press play before you continue on to get the full effect!

Something Nerdy

For my Programming 3 class that I'm teaching I have been working on a slide show program. It's pretty cool, actually. Think Flickr, except much smaller scale. Since we are programming in JavaScript, everything is pre-wired in that you have to set up the arrays which hold the URLs of the photos instead of being able to import all the photos in a folder, or something like that (which pains me somewhat, but oh well). Still, it's pretty cool! I've got it so that you can scroll through thumbnails of photos at the top and click on them to display a larger picture, and you can also jump to a picture using the "Jump To" feature. I think this weekend I am going to try and get it so that you can import different photo sets - the one I have now is of clouds, but it would be cool if you had the option to view different types of photos.

Anyhow, the point is... the more I think about it, the more I love this program. I'm seriously considering adopting a large-scale version of it for my own use - that way I can organize my photos and just load the website when I want to show people pictures. I can never find them in my folders, and this might be a cool way to alleviate the problem.

I'm also considering a slide show option... the possibilities are endless! I think I am having more fun than my students.

Club Penguin = Club Naked

Tonight I was directed to a website for children called Club Penguin. In the initial 7 seconds I spent on the website, I thought it was pretty cool. But then after those 7 seconds passed, I was a little horrified.

You see, all the penguins are naked. This would be fine, if all the penguins were naked all the time, like in the wild. But, for $5.95 a month, you can cloth your penguin! So some penguins are not naked on the site. The rich penguins have the luxury of clothing.

Now, I'm sorry, but I think all penguins, rich or poor, should be able to get clothes. Or, they should all be naked. That's just my personal opinion on the matter.

The Death Penalty

Earlier today I read this article, and I was absolutely appalled.

Long story short, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has questioned the ethics of the death penalty. Since the prisoner is given a sedative before they start the process, nobody knows for sure if the death penalty is painful or not.

I was really enraged this morning after reading the following part of the article:

A US Supreme Court ruling on September 25 prompted a number of states to postpone scheduled lethal injections until the Court decides on a test case, which is being brought by two death row inmates from Kentucky.

I was thinking that they were implying they were going to try killing people without the sedative to, you know, observe how much pain they might be in.

Now, after having read the article several times, I realize the "test case" is a court case. Yes, it's true, I really am that daft sometimes. Anyhow...

I'm against the death penalty a hundred percent, but for stupid, cruel reasons. If someone committed a crime so heinous that they should die, shouldn't they suffer by living a long, painful, seemingly endless life in prison as punishment? If you kill them, the suffering is over. Also, if someone commits a particularly treacherous murder and you sentence them to death, what's right about that? As my roommate said, that's like parents who hit their children and then tell them not to hit other kids. Bad news bears, as Brittany would say!

Hardee Har Har

I thought this was funny:

In other news, it's midterm report time at my school! I've been busy.

I had an awesome weekend (actually, you know? My weekends are almost always awesome here in NY). I went to a Swing dance on Saturday night which was fun and only slightly disappointing (I've got to find an activity that is of interest to other people in my generation). Emily and I wandered over two bridges on Sunday afternoon which was fun (I love wandering) and then I went to go see a Jonathan Coultan concert that evening. I had no idea who he was, but he turned out to be super funny... plus any guy who writes a song called, "The Mandelbrot Set" is OK in my book!

If you are wandering what the Mandelbrot Set is, take a look here.

Time Change

I just realized my time zone on this blog is still set for France. That would explain why I've been posting at 3 am, or on days when I don't remember doing so. Huh.

Also...

I've recently been compelled to listen to music on the subway, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I thought it might have been that I was worried about theft (but seriously that's not it - having an MP3 player these days is like having two hands - and nobody would want my ancient player), but I just had a recent revelation about my hesitance to listen to music while commuting.

The fact is, I like music too much. If I made a playlist on my iPod of songs I loved, one of two things would happen:

1. I would be forced to dance and sing along (very poorly, mind you) and would therefore be deemed "that crazy person I saw on the subway today." -or-
   


2. I would have to suppress the urge to sing along and tap my foot, which would just make me unhappy and wonder, "What's the point?"
   

So, I don't listen to music on the subway. I have, however, been reading this book on the subway and I've made it about halfway through. I like reading this particular book when I'm around people because the title and the cover art gives me a huge chuckle. I hope the people who see it are too busy laughing to be offended by it. ;-)

Religion

I just read this article about a Catholic priest who was suspended because he was gay.

Lately I've been having a lot of interesting discussions with people about religion and I've decided that, often times, religion breaks my heart.

I was speaking with someone the other day who asked me if I believed in God. I said sure, because though I don't go to church or practice religion so you'd notice, I was raised a Christian and I think at the end of the day, I believe in some higher power. I let it slip, however, that in my church when they pray to Jesus I never do - on my rare praying occasions, I pray to God. Only. She told me that I can't have a relationship with God without going through Jesus. I'm sorry, but what? I simply can't, don't and won't agree with that.

Another subject in religion that really makes me mad is the idea that homosexuality is wrong. Many cite the Bible as the source for this belief because if it's in the Bible, then clearly it's law. I never really understood how people can take the Bible so seriously. I mean, for practically every time the Bible states that one thing is wrong, a few chapters later you'll read about the same behavior portrayed in the opposite light. When a book is so contradictory, how can you take everything it states so seriously? Also, the Bible was written thousands of years ago... how is it not possible to consider the ideas as somewhat outdated in this day and age?

I also hate hearing about how if you don't accept God into your life and accept your inner Christian, you're going to be damned to hell for all eternity, but that's more of a discussion than I feel like typing now.

Anyhow, the point of this ranting is that I just wish people across the board could be more accepting of other people. Strict religion often prohibits understanding and acceptance, which I guess I'm actually ok with (if it really must be that way). Religion also inhibits tolerance, though, and that I simply can't accept. It is intolerance that saddens me and causes me to become more and more turned off of religion. If being a Christian means passing judgement on other people and their chosen lifestyles, then I want none of it.

Dirty Solar System

I've been reading the news lately, and so far this week I had two chuckles. The first was over the fact that Putin met with Sarkozy. I got to thinking how the French must pronounce Putin... probably something like "putain" - I couldn't help thinking that was a little funny.

Also, there have been many stories that I've read about the solar system and planets. These articles use phrases and words such as probes, powerful jets that spray (and some that don't), geysers, timed releases, and tantalising possibilities. Please don't make me state the obvious.

Yes, this is a vulgar post.

Pointlessness

I feel like writing something but I am fresh out of ideas...

For one of my programming classes I made a recommendation program. Basically you check off what foods you like, and it will recommend sandwiches to you based on the ones that match your food interests.

That part was easy - the hard part was taking my code and deleting it all, replacing it instead with lines of instruction and explanations so that my students could recreate the code without really having to understand what's going on. The annoying part was color coding it and putting it online.

Yaddya, the point is that I assigned the homework this afternoon, and some of the students were really mad at me. The good news is they suffered and brooded in silence, so it was the best class I've had with them thus far.

(I should also add that some students really rose to the challenge, which was great! I have faith in them - I know they can do it.)

While I'm thinking on it, I'm going to test something out below. No need to pay attention to it...

(*Yeah, it didn't work.)

World News

Recently I've decided that I don't want to be as ignorant about world events as I have been, well, my entire life.

In an effort to educate myself, I've bookmarked the BBC world news website and the ABC World News Webcast.

I also discovered something called a "reader" in my gmail/google account. Basically, you can put in RSS feeds and the reader will allow you to view/read/listen to the feeds without downloading them to your computer (a disadvantage, I have found, to iTunes). I've of course added the BBC world news recap.

Tonight when I got home from work, I decided I would give the BBC audio feed a shot. I settled down by my computer for a good 25 minute listen, but alas fell asleep after about 13 minutes. I did manage to stay awake for the part about the Darfur peace negotiations, so even though I only got half of the information, I'm feeling better about my ignorance already.

Many of you have been long time followers of the news, and I would welcome any insight you have on good webpages, blogs or whatever about current events. I am not too keen on suggestions such as "cnn.com" or "The New York Times" because I often find myself seriously distracted by fluffy sections of the newspaper such as science and space and real estate, and I never even get to the important stories (the front page is flooded with them, but which one do I click?).

I would, however, be very interested in hearing about good summary types of pages (what's important that I need to know about in a condensed format), or audio/visual news broadcasts (because sound and video are simply more exciting than a bunch of plain text). I'm really in love with the google reader, so RSS feeds would be fantastic!

Thursday Night Activity?

Great Music You Should Hear

Sometimes I buy really horrid music on a whim. Lately, however, I've been on a roll! Now, assuming you like upbeat, happy sounding music, you should really look into the following artists:

Eric Hutchinson: I mentioned him before. Again, he's amazing, links are in a previous post.

The Last Goodnight: Amazing. Their single was free on iTunes this week and since their whole CD was cheap, I decided to buy the whole thing. It's fantastic! I love every song. Their website.

Jon McLaughlin: I can't really say anything about his whole CD, but his song "Industry" is excellent. There is some pretty great piano playing on this track, and I would recommend it based on how much I love the piano only. His song "Industry."

Everybody Else: I may revoke this statement later on because I have not really listened to their whole album yet, but so far, so good! Their website.

Sorry, but I've got no good female artists to report on at the moment (besides Regina Spektor - I've still got to break open her CD, but I've got a good feeling about her). Care to make some suggestions?

My Bubble

I've been thinking about how I go about my day to day life, and I've determined that I seem live in a bit of a bubble. Many of you are probably familiar with a college bubble, a bubble of friends, and of course the very similar "own little world." So yeah, it's basically the same idea.

When I'm in my bubble I sometimes don't notice what is going on around me. I focus on what I'm thinking, where I'm going, make to do lists in my head and so on. People sometimes talk to me and I don't even realize they are talking to me until it's too late to do anything about it. I don't notice people, buildings, my phone ringing. I also look frightfully sad - I put on this sort of blank stare that I am sure is not too pleasant.

Many people think I enter my bubble a lot, but the truth of the matter is about 80% of the time when people think I'm in my "own little world," I am actually paying close attention to what's going on around me. To those around me, I'm in my bubble. To me, I'm acutely aware of my surroundings and the events taking place. This is my fake bubble, a state I like to be in so people won't bother me.

Two events made me realize that living in my fake bubble is not a good idea. The first less embarrassing incident was when students were playing computer games the other day during the school day (a big no-no). I know I'm a teacher, but these kids were not my students, and I felt a little uncomfortable investigating and dealing with the situation. So I just retreated into my fake bubble. I feigned ignorance when really I knew exactly what was going on. This is obviously not cool and something I need to get over right away.

The second event (and the one I feel terribly bad about) happened when I was walking down the street the other day. I was running a bit late and was in a hurry. I was also in my fake bubble. I saw a dog running down the sidewalk straight at me, and I heard someone yelling something. The thing is, I realized a few seconds before the dog reached me that the shouting was a woman, and she was yelling for her dog to come back. I should have just grabbed the dog, but instead I let him run on by. When the woman ran past me she was sobbing and could barely breath, and I felt like such a shit. What was I thinking? That's the worst thing I've done in a really long time.

I've come to realize that entering into the real bubble is inevitable. Everyone does it, and sometimes there is no avoiding it. The fake bubble is a sort of protection against my mistakes - if I was not aware of the situation, how can someone hold me accountable? I hate the fake bubble... what an awful way to be.

I've decided to desert my fake bubble as much as I can. I'll be a better person for it! And I've been trying to not exactly smile when I walk down the streets or wait for the train, but to look like a pleasant, friendly person. I think it is working, as I had three people ask me for directions today. It's a start. :-)

Today...

... I had a really nice day. :-)

Why You Should...

I just found the coolest website!

WHY YOU SHOULD

I think everyone in the world should start a list. Go start one now (because, why not?).

If you've ever wondered why you should not monkey around with the authorities or why your should date Jean Luc Pacard, this site might be an invaluable resource to you.

I swear, this is the last...

Chipmunks

I've always found that speeding the sound up on things makes the mundane really hilarious. Here's a video that's living proof:

Testing Techniques

A useful tip for students at large universities:

Super Cool Webpage

So I was futzing around on the internet (the story of my life) and one thing led to another... long story short, I found this website. Though horribly outdated, I think it is still a really cool page if you've never seen it before.

YouTube Friends and Eric Hutchinson

I don't get it. I never post any videos on YouTube. I never leave comments anywhere (well, except that one time when this guy was complaining about how his x-rays cost about 30 dollars at the dentist... that's like pocket change where your teeth is concerned - how could I not comment on his pointless whining?), and I never message people for any reason. Hell, my profile barely says anything.

So people, please stop asking to send me videos and requesting my friendship. I know it's fake friendship and probably just part of some grand popularity contest, but you can look elsewhere.

In other news, check out Eric Hutchinson. His music is now my new favorite music.