http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215363,00.html
I think this is right in line with a certain picture in the CHS 2001-2002 yearbook involving a certain history teacher wearing a certain set of ethnic garb... :-P
24 September 2006
21 September 2006
Help Me Help You
Here's a thought.
Most people generally enjoy helping people. There is satisfaction to be gained from making a difference, or being kind - a certain amount of worthiness that comes from being able to serve another. (I could bring religion into this, but I won't.)
But.
I've noticed that most people also don't like *accepting * help - for reasons that run from pride to just not wanting to "put someone else out."
However, given the above, it seems that accepting someone's help is in some ways doing that person a favor. So. I think accepting someone's offer of help is one of very few, honest-to-goodness "win-win" situations in life.
Most people generally enjoy helping people. There is satisfaction to be gained from making a difference, or being kind - a certain amount of worthiness that comes from being able to serve another. (I could bring religion into this, but I won't.)
But.
I've noticed that most people also don't like *accepting * help - for reasons that run from pride to just not wanting to "put someone else out."
However, given the above, it seems that accepting someone's help is in some ways doing that person a favor. So. I think accepting someone's offer of help is one of very few, honest-to-goodness "win-win" situations in life.
Trust
We finished watching East/West in my foreign policy class yesterday. I know the professor wanted us to take away impressions of the political undertones, actions of the Russian KGB, and the general atmosphere of fear and mistrust that pervaded the USSR during Stalin's regime.
I did.
I also took to heart the message about trust that the movie brings up. I won't discuss the ending here, but I was actually somewhat surprised at the way the movie turned out. I also find myself wondering how realistic the situation was, and if the whole thing was constructed more for dramatic effect or if the charactes might actually represent something close to truth. It would be so hard to keep believing in someone after their actions seem to betray them, but love is supposed to be all-trusting and believing. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd been in the place of either main character.
Is it worse to trust in someone, and let them hurt you (perhaps repeatedly) - or to not trust someone and risk losing everything?
I did.
I also took to heart the message about trust that the movie brings up. I won't discuss the ending here, but I was actually somewhat surprised at the way the movie turned out. I also find myself wondering how realistic the situation was, and if the whole thing was constructed more for dramatic effect or if the charactes might actually represent something close to truth. It would be so hard to keep believing in someone after their actions seem to betray them, but love is supposed to be all-trusting and believing. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd been in the place of either main character.
Is it worse to trust in someone, and let them hurt you (perhaps repeatedly) - or to not trust someone and risk losing everything?
20 September 2006
Lilliputian
Update:
Big endian -> little endian ended up taking four HOURS to fix.
Things that hindered:
-Certain architectures adding sign bits to right shift
-Not realizing that I was looking at a hex representation of the number while
it was still in big-endian when I was trying to troubleshoot the little endian
representation
-Taking awhile to wrap my head around "4 bits per hex digit and don't worry about bits actually used to represent the hex digit you see; that's irrelevant anyway."
And I'm still not sure if that last one is right.
Blerg. In any case.
Big endian -> little endian ended up taking four HOURS to fix.
Things that hindered:
-Certain architectures adding sign bits to right shift
-Not realizing that I was looking at a hex representation of the number while
it was still in big-endian when I was trying to troubleshoot the little endian
representation
-Taking awhile to wrap my head around "4 bits per hex digit and don't worry about bits actually used to represent the hex digit you see; that's irrelevant anyway."
And I'm still not sure if that last one is right.
Blerg. In any case.
18 September 2006
Two Wrongs Don't Make A.....
Can I just say this.
The Pope made some glaringly hurtful, and largely inaccurate statements the other day. It was wrong. He shouldn't have said it. Etc, ad infinitum.
At. The. Same. Time.
Muslims respond by burning churches, threatening to kill him, etc?
Isn't that kind of proving his point, instead of disproving it?
I'm not saying that he was justified, but I am saying that, had they wanted to, Muslims could have seized the moment after his remarks to make a point about just how wrong he was (or could have been, depending on your perspective). In the United States, had a politician made the same sort of miscalculated and misled statement, his opponents would have secretly done backflips for JOY at the fact that their nemises had just discredited and embarassed himself, at no effort or expense to them. They would have let reality speak for itself. Isn't that what happens all the time?
I just have this feeling that until people can put aside the threatening rhetoric and violent behaviors, trying to achieve ANY sort of stability to the Middle East is going to be challenging (if not impossible). People have to be mature enough to engage in a dialogue to solve whatever differences they have amongst themselves - if not for the sake of democracy and a stable global market, then at least for the sake of whatever value one places on human life and dignity.
And if the point is that a certain group of people doesn't actually PUT that value on human life and dignity, well...
........?
The Pope made some glaringly hurtful, and largely inaccurate statements the other day. It was wrong. He shouldn't have said it. Etc, ad infinitum.
At. The. Same. Time.
Muslims respond by burning churches, threatening to kill him, etc?
Isn't that kind of proving his point, instead of disproving it?
I'm not saying that he was justified, but I am saying that, had they wanted to, Muslims could have seized the moment after his remarks to make a point about just how wrong he was (or could have been, depending on your perspective). In the United States, had a politician made the same sort of miscalculated and misled statement, his opponents would have secretly done backflips for JOY at the fact that their nemises had just discredited and embarassed himself, at no effort or expense to them. They would have let reality speak for itself. Isn't that what happens all the time?
I just have this feeling that until people can put aside the threatening rhetoric and violent behaviors, trying to achieve ANY sort of stability to the Middle East is going to be challenging (if not impossible). People have to be mature enough to engage in a dialogue to solve whatever differences they have amongst themselves - if not for the sake of democracy and a stable global market, then at least for the sake of whatever value one places on human life and dignity.
And if the point is that a certain group of people doesn't actually PUT that value on human life and dignity, well...
........?
Good
Today has been a ridiculously good day.
-I thought my networks project was "way broken", but it's actually just "kinda broken". And it's not really broken at all, I just need to fix the way that ints get represented when they're sent from little-endian machines to big-endian machines (and vice versa)...it only matters for stupid little print statements we have to show, so it's a small small fix.
-I did really well on a test I thought I completely tanked last week. That's the beauty of polisci classes.
-Brian put Kubuntu on my laptop over the weekend, so now it dual boots, and I can actually use my laptop for being productive, instead of for being non-productive and wishing it had Linux/Unix.
-We started watching 'East and West' in my foreign policy class. It's a great film (so far, at least) and brings up a lot of interesting perspectives on the Cold War and on relationships / loyalty / principles / values / trust in general. (That sounds really cliche, but it's true.)
-Signals and Systems lab was not actually painful or heinous, since I have a wonderful, easy-to-work-with, know-what-I'm-doing lab partner. Laura is awesome.
I may not sleep much tonight (finishing project), and tomorrow is way busy (somehow I got sucked into a couple events for the technical job fair here....), and the rest of the week looks really busy, but...at least things are going relatively smoothly.
-I thought my networks project was "way broken", but it's actually just "kinda broken". And it's not really broken at all, I just need to fix the way that ints get represented when they're sent from little-endian machines to big-endian machines (and vice versa)...it only matters for stupid little print statements we have to show, so it's a small small fix.
-I did really well on a test I thought I completely tanked last week. That's the beauty of polisci classes.
-Brian put Kubuntu on my laptop over the weekend, so now it dual boots, and I can actually use my laptop for being productive, instead of for being non-productive and wishing it had Linux/Unix.
-We started watching 'East and West' in my foreign policy class. It's a great film (so far, at least) and brings up a lot of interesting perspectives on the Cold War and on relationships / loyalty / principles / values / trust in general. (That sounds really cliche, but it's true.)
-Signals and Systems lab was not actually painful or heinous, since I have a wonderful, easy-to-work-with, know-what-I'm-doing lab partner. Laura is awesome.
I may not sleep much tonight (finishing project), and tomorrow is way busy (somehow I got sucked into a couple events for the technical job fair here....), and the rest of the week looks really busy, but...at least things are going relatively smoothly.
12 September 2006
Odds and Ends
There are a lot of things I want to say.
-One needs to wait a few days so I don't stick my foot in my mouth (at least not pre-emptively).
-Another: I was poking around on Xanga months ago and was reading blogs of "friends of friends" (eg, people I don't know directly). One person's contained a number of entries talking about experiences, feelings, etc. that I could really relate to. Since then, I've glanced back at it every so often...a couple times I've wanted to say something to her, especially when it seems like she's leading herself down paths that will just lead to more frustration and hurt, but at the same time...it's her life, it's none of my business, and I don't even know her! All the same...I can't wait to be old and wise, and dispensing my infinite amounts of wisdom to the youth of the next generation. Not that I don't enjoy being young and strapping...
-Another: I decided not to do FMR. For a number of reasons.
-One needs to wait a few days so I don't stick my foot in my mouth (at least not pre-emptively).
-Another: I was poking around on Xanga months ago and was reading blogs of "friends of friends" (eg, people I don't know directly). One person's contained a number of entries talking about experiences, feelings, etc. that I could really relate to. Since then, I've glanced back at it every so often...a couple times I've wanted to say something to her, especially when it seems like she's leading herself down paths that will just lead to more frustration and hurt, but at the same time...it's her life, it's none of my business, and I don't even know her! All the same...I can't wait to be old and wise, and dispensing my infinite amounts of wisdom to the youth of the next generation. Not that I don't enjoy being young and strapping...
-Another: I decided not to do FMR. For a number of reasons.
07 September 2006
Crawling Into The Fray
I know I'm going to regret saying anything, (and no offense to some of you) but....all the whining about the new facebook is kind of pointless. The point of facebook for a lot of people has ALWAYS been to be nosy about other people's lives; I know lots of people who have spent significant amounts of time each day scouring the "updated" profiles of people they are "friends" with to see what changed. I think that the "facebook" phenomenon has demonstrated nothing beyond the fact that given the chance, many people will be as nosy as they can about the lives of other people.
Complaining that the new layout "destroys privacy" and "makes it easier to stalk" is just ridiculous. I would contend that most of the reaction is from people who are now seeing, blatantly, a representation of the things they spend lots of time each day scouring around for. Maybe it's shocking, but it certainly doesn't drastically change the amount of information that some people were spending time gleaning in the first place.
(Beyond that, there IS actually a way to turn the damn things off, at least for your own actions.)
Facebook was nice for what it was on the surface - a directory, a way to keep track of networks and people. What everyone has to remember, though, is that Facebook was DESIGNED for the end client of Facebook. And I hate to disillusion all you innocents out there, but Facebook was not designed for those with Facebook pages; it was designed for the companies that BUY those pages from Facebook. I'm sure we've all read the scathing expose's in our campus newspapers by now (or the user agreement when you signed up to use Facebook, actually). Facebook, for the end user, is a way to
-observe social networks
-observe potential job candidates
-conduct advertising research
-do anything else that a person could want to do with lots of information freely volunteered by the masses...
Consider that, and Facebook's new layout as well as it's "ignorance" of people's reactions, makes perfect sense.
To Sum Up:
-Quit whining about it being "easier to stalk". Turn off your news feeds, and stop being a hypocrite about how much you were already stalking other people in the first place.
-Next Time Actually Read Your F*cking User Agreement When You Sign Up For Something As Blatantly Creepy As Facebook.
Complaining that the new layout "destroys privacy" and "makes it easier to stalk" is just ridiculous. I would contend that most of the reaction is from people who are now seeing, blatantly, a representation of the things they spend lots of time each day scouring around for. Maybe it's shocking, but it certainly doesn't drastically change the amount of information that some people were spending time gleaning in the first place.
(Beyond that, there IS actually a way to turn the damn things off, at least for your own actions.)
Facebook was nice for what it was on the surface - a directory, a way to keep track of networks and people. What everyone has to remember, though, is that Facebook was DESIGNED for the end client of Facebook. And I hate to disillusion all you innocents out there, but Facebook was not designed for those with Facebook pages; it was designed for the companies that BUY those pages from Facebook. I'm sure we've all read the scathing expose's in our campus newspapers by now (or the user agreement when you signed up to use Facebook, actually). Facebook, for the end user, is a way to
-observe social networks
-observe potential job candidates
-conduct advertising research
-do anything else that a person could want to do with lots of information freely volunteered by the masses...
Consider that, and Facebook's new layout as well as it's "ignorance" of people's reactions, makes perfect sense.
To Sum Up:
-Quit whining about it being "easier to stalk". Turn off your news feeds, and stop being a hypocrite about how much you were already stalking other people in the first place.
-Next Time Actually Read Your F*cking User Agreement When You Sign Up For Something As Blatantly Creepy As Facebook.
05 September 2006
Getting Back UP
Sometimes even when you promise yourself that things will be different, they only still turn out the same. What do you do with a day that slowly lulls you out of your watchfulness and back into the same old frustrations?
02 September 2006
Greatness
Is greatness born, or made?
There are probably a lot of interesting textbook answers to this, but given that I haven't taken any psychology or many social science courses, I'm idly wondering how much evidence there is in either direction.
More specifically, though, I'm wondering if one is possible even if the other is the "default".
Another way to state what I'm wondering: how immutable is personality? Could a person chemically manipulate his or her physiology to a point where they can build something from a "blank slate" sort of state (or chemically create certain dispositions), or do chemicals merely numb away certain extremes? Aside from chemicals, does attitude or mental drive really accomplish anything in terms of changing a person's "core" set of personality traits?
I know that answering any of those probably gets into philosophy, and that I'm not asking or wondering anything here that hasn't been asked or wondered by many (if not a vast majority of) people before. Still...I think they're all worth asking, and any perspectives are welcome. :-)
There are probably a lot of interesting textbook answers to this, but given that I haven't taken any psychology or many social science courses, I'm idly wondering how much evidence there is in either direction.
More specifically, though, I'm wondering if one is possible even if the other is the "default".
Another way to state what I'm wondering: how immutable is personality? Could a person chemically manipulate his or her physiology to a point where they can build something from a "blank slate" sort of state (or chemically create certain dispositions), or do chemicals merely numb away certain extremes? Aside from chemicals, does attitude or mental drive really accomplish anything in terms of changing a person's "core" set of personality traits?
I know that answering any of those probably gets into philosophy, and that I'm not asking or wondering anything here that hasn't been asked or wondered by many (if not a vast majority of) people before. Still...I think they're all worth asking, and any perspectives are welcome. :-)
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