Posts from — May 2004

So somebody decided to puncture one tire on each car parked on 8th street two nights ago, mine included. While I’m not happy about this, I’m not going to bother getting upset about it. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m not going to start parking somewhere else. EJ showed me how to change the tire today, so I got something out of it. I’ll go get things fixed tomorrow morning if everything goes according to plan. Not fun, but no use complaining.

Tim made a good point when we were talking about this. He and I are with cars in the same way most people are about computers. We don’t really know how things work, we just use it and hope it keeps working. We probably do things wrong, and when something goes wrong, we’re unable to help ourselves. If someone who loves cars tells us that some other car is better or something, it doesn’t really matter unless it’s more reliable. Good role-reversal.

If you’re curious about Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 check out this article. Some pretty cool stuff coming. Apparently .NET isn’t in the name anymore… I could have told them that was a stupid idea years ago.

I’ve been using windows a fair amount lately since that’s what we use on most computers at work. Things have been going pretty well, but I still don’t understand why I have to talk to an animated dog to find files in a professional product.

Whoa…

The “Alumni” group on my buddy list just doubled in size as I moved nearly 15 people tonight. Most won’t be too far away next year, so I hope they all visit. The couch will be open at 333 Vine!

I went to graduation today. It was long, as expected, but I enjoyed spending some time outdoors with friends. Pete and the marching band earned praise from President Farrington in his opening speech (for playing for the Lehigh alum’s funeral)… it was great to get that sort of recognition, I’d imagine Pete’s quite proud.

Kurt Vonnegut was our commencement speaker. A synopsis of his speech is online, but it seems to focus on my least favorite parts. He was so much smarter than the audience (myself included), it was funny. He spoke quickly, using metaphor and allusion throughout. His topics ranged from enjoying life, pursuing the arts, and politics of war. One of my favorite lines was “John F. Kennedy was martyred by the second amendment”. It took me a few moments to realize what he was saying, and I’m convinced most of the audience didn’t even try, but it was entertaining (and creative). My favorite line was (paraphrased) “No matter how bad things get in the world, we always have great music”. He pointed to the music of the Vietnam era as an example, and he’s right. I’m not sure why that fascinates me, but I like how it could imply music’s use as an escape. (Lines from The Shawshank Redemption come to mind, but I won’t quote it now)

Like most summers, my contact with the real world has increased (meaning I’ve been paying more attention to the news, etc). Chris Granger pointed to this article that discusses a potential draft next year. I sure wish this were an election topic if it’s going to become a topic in the future, as it would pretty much determine my vote. Regardless, I can’t imagine something like that getting enough support to happen.

The bill would “provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”. I can’t imagine they would recruit 50% women. I’m not trying to be chauvinistic, and I do appreciate the effort to apply gender equality more fairly, but that just doesn’t seem feasible.

I’d like to read more news stuff over the coming months, but I get frustrated because I don’t trust anyone (for good reason).

I made the first version of my new personal site (NOT personal ad). It’s available at http://www.lehigh.edu/~mrc8/index.html

I made all the CSS myself… I’d like to brighten a few of the colors, but I think it’s generally good. More content will be on the way, let me know if there’s anything I should change.

A neat article about the GPL, BSD licence, and software in general.

Jon Stewart’s commencement address at William and Mary. Very funny and thoughtful.

I’m feeling very motivated to work on a personal for myself right now, but I can’t figure out what to put on it. Most of my thoughts go here, I wouldn’t have enough hosting space to put a full photo gallery on there, and most of my projects aren’t usable by other people. (Most of my programming is done so I can accomplish a task on my own computer)

Thoughts? Ideas?

I made a few changes to my journal’s design last night. The links now have underlines and are more brightly colored than before. It used to be hard to tell what was a link and what wasn’t, but I think it’s better now. Also, the right side of my journal has an interactive calendar (you can browse it without reloading the whole page). Maybe I’ll customize a bit more later. One of the perks of a paid account… more control over the style.