Christmas Season

Tis the season to be Thrifty, or however it is that the song goes.

This holiday season should be different from what we've experienced over the last few years. Several factors are changing our little season of chaotic spending and over-decorated holidays. Economic downturns aren't exactly the healthiest of things, especially when it comes to our wallets. In light of the crash we're going through, this season should serve as a reminder that one can have a good holiday season without blowing the savings account on all your relatives, neighbors, friends, and people you may or may not have met at a party some time. Rather than go all out on those expensive gifts, why not spend intellect first? Take some time to really think about them and what they'd use. If you really think on it enough, you'll be able to find something that they'll use, and something they'll really value.

So this holiday season, we should try to spend some brain instead of some cash.

Much delayed musings on theater

Ah, it's that time of year again. The time of year when each student is frantically scrambling to get all the papers in order before Thanksgiving and Christmas. The time of year when those few students that call themselves academically capable relax and continue to keep a sane pace. The time of year when the rest of us rush frantically to complete assignments before the deadlines.

For me that means finally getting around to writing a blog post about theater, and the recent display of theatrical prowess by the Whitworth Theater department. Be it dancing herds of upper middle class, singing law professors, or a chanting union protest, The Cradle Will Rock did, in fact, rock.

The play began with a fairly dark note, letting the audience know exactly where they players stood. Steeltown, America. Union problems, poverty, and a ruling elite class. Some very well orchestrated song and dance filled vignettes later, we find ourselves looking at the whole of the problem: the ultrarich elite (in this case, Mr. Mister) are buying up all of the local uppermiddle class in order to stave off the dreaded Unions.

All in good time, we're reminded of the joys of human perseverance, as the good guys win out and the Unions march. The marching of the unions was quite the fun scene, with singing protesters taking the audience surprise behind, climaxing in yet another shock of "audience members" standing up to join in the song.

The musical brings up several very potent points about Unions: They have the ability to protect, but also to slow progress of innovation and production. They bear a powerful double edged blade: They can save or destroy a market all based on whether or not they self regulate. A union that protects sub-par workers does nothing but wrong to the industry, where a union that regulates and keeps performance tabs on a worker can do only good for the industry.

All in all I quite enjoyed the musical. It was definitely a pleasant experience, and I look forward to the next production by the Whitworth Theater Department.

Apple and Scripting

Today I decided to poke my nose into a field I don't normally venture into: Coding. Yes, Applescripts are an incredibly basic form of coding. This was a leap for me. There's an impressive amount of power available for any Mac user in the form of scripts. They're built into the OS, and they make mundane tasks a breeze. 

Find yourself emailing files to the same person a lot, and get frustrated with the lost time clicking and writing that email? Why not write a script that shoots the file to a pre-determined address when it's dropped into a folder in Finder?

Find yourself forgetting to bring that spreadheet to class at least once a week? Use Mail and Applescripts to set yourself up a little safety net: Create a rule in Mail to run a script every time you send an email to yourself with the words FileGrab in the title, and the file path in the body. Have the script send you the file that you specified in the body. This works wonderfully well if you took advantage of Apple's back to school promo, and have yourself a shiny little iPod touch.

This isn't a how to, this isn't a technical paper either. Instead, it's a prompt. Start poking Applescripts. Look up tutorials. It's quite impressive what can be done.

Blog Entry

This is another a blog entry, simply because my mother asked me to do one. Enjoy.

Voice-recognition

At the suggestion of my freshman advisor, I decided to try out voice recognition software. So far, it's interesting. It seems to have a few flaws, but apparently it will train itself and overcome those over time. I'm curious as to how this software will help my writing clarity for papers and essays. The level of control that the software provides to you is quite unique. Also, it's interesting to not be typing while writing a paper. For example, I can write a paper at the same time that I'm reading my outline and notes for that class. This opens up all sorts of opportunities for productivity as well as clarity. This will also aid my writing voice because I'm literally speaking my words.

I plan to use this software as much as possible over the next semester or so, in order to allow it to train itself fully. The impact of a fully trained voice recognition system has the potential to be enormous. It would allow a surgeon to control a computer doing information on the vital organs, without ever taking his hands out of the patient. The benefits for the handicapped are even more prominent. If using a keyboard is no longer required to type a paper, and using a mouse is no longer required to launch an application, then there is very little standing in the way of using a computer for a handicapped person.

As this technology advances, the amount of fields that could be used in are astronomical. However, there is still much ground to be covered as far as word accuracy and process speed are concerned.

Shaving

Shaving sets the tone of the day for many men across these united states. Whether it's spending a lot of time shaving and getting clean, or bypassing the act entirely, shaving will leave its footprint across the rest of one's day. When one wakes, there is usually some sort of routine. This is different for everyone.

For me, the morning begins with a muttered curse. It's always too early, and my eyes can barely open. The next step is to escape from my bed, which isn't exactly the easiest task. This struggle eventually leads my bleary eyed self to the shower.

The shower is where my morning really begins. It's there that my eyes finally open, and my brain finally gains complete consciousness. Usually right after the shower is when the day's tone is set. Some days, I find the time to shave. Others I'm in a rush, and my face is left scruffy and unshaven. Here is where the dichotomy of shaving enters the equation.

On days when one spends time shaving, life tends to seem kind. If you had time to shave in the morning, you also probably had time to make sure your hair was perfectly messed, so it looks nice and modern. Maybe that meant you had enough time to actually put deodorant on.

Whatever the results of the morning, the presence of shaving has always left a footprint on my day. If I spent the time to shave, my face didn't itch. I didn't get distracted by the itch during classes. Instead of having an itchy face occupying my mind, I was instead able to focus on the day.

As well as just giving one a smooth feeling face, and taking away itchiness, shaving also gives confidence. There's no feeling like that smooth, freshly shaven feeling. Some women like that feel on their cheek (or hand), and many more women like the look of a clean shaven man. It sends the message out that the man is intentional, and cares about image enough to spend the time in the bleary morning.

Whatever the result of the day, mornings spent shaving are sure to turn out better than mornings when this vital step is skipped. Shaving sets the tone of everything. Everything but my precious shower.

EVEN MOAR WOBSITE SHENANIGANS

(ps: caps lock is cruise control for cool.)

Anyway, I don't think I'm gonna be moving to www.piracyinaction.com any time soon... We'll see. Development of the real site is taking longer than I thought.

Piracy in Action

Well folks, I've begun the website migration. There aren't any nifty features on my new site, so I'd suggest still visiting this site.

Once I get some sort of RSS feed running, you'll want to change your bookmark to reflect my web change.

Wobsites

As of today I now own www.piracyinaction.com

This blog will be moving over there sometime soon, once I get motivated enough to get a blog engine running over there. Till now, the joyous ramblings will continue right here.

Addiction

Doctor, I think I have a problem. There's this habit I've got, and I just can't shake it. I think about it all the time: In class, in the dining hall, in my dorm, and even when I'm hanging out with my friends. I just can't stop thinking about ripping around a sick hairpin, muscles straining in my arms as I sail over the pavement going speeds that only a maniac would consider safe. I just can't stop feeling the urge to get up from my desk, run out of the room, and ride the concrete wave.

I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to longboarding.

Piracy.

This is one wonderful example of what's wrong with our Music industry. There are more, but this is (in my opinion) the largest and most relevant.





















Credit for the comic goes to XKCD, Randall Patrick Munroe. Go check out his site, his comics are awesome.

Three Cups of Fail: The live version

Tonight I had the pleasure of sitting through an hour of regurgitation. I attended the David Oliver Relin lecture in Cowles auditorium, and wasn't entirely thrilled. The amount of change that Relin has catalyzed in the world is definitely impressive, and I respect his accomplishments greatly. He gas reported on strong current issues, some that other news companies won't even touch, such as Land Mine victims in Vietnam.

His lecture began on a strong footing: A little bit of canned humor, a few half hearted laughs from the audience. His soft voice made it fairly easy to focus on what he was saying, but wasn't pointed enough to really draw you into his words. He proceeded to shoot off into a minute or three of the obligatory thanks that every speaker spews to the audience, showing his clearly genuine appreciation to the hosts.

I may be a bit of a cynic, but Relin's lecture seemed to draw the bulk of the ideas from Three Cups of Tea. However interesting the book may have been, and however relevant the topic is to our modern day, we DID read the book, so spending the better part of an hour telling us the story that we just read doesn't exactly accomplish much.

However, Relin did have a story that resonated with my cynical little mind. When he graduated, his parents gave him a plane ticket to anywhere he wanted to go in the world. He chose India, in order to experience a totally different culture. The next six months were spent riding a motorcycle of questionable mechanical fortitude around the country, immersing himself in the local culture, and gaining experience that would become valuable for a job as a foreign correspondent.

It is my goal to some day be able to travel with absolute freedom, without any schedule or obligations. I believe that immersing oneself in as many foreign cultures as possible yields a stronger and more complete person, as well as a more deeply developed world view.

The rest of Relin's lecture consisted of him paraphrasing his book, along with some slides. Might it have been more effective to have us just attend the lecture, or read the book, and not require both? Both had 90% similar content, and so the redundancy was a mite bit aggravating.

My personal views aside, David Oliver Relin is a skilled speaker, and an even more skilled writer. I thoroughly enjoyed his book, but not entirely his lecture.

Or maybe I'm just too much of a cynic.

Anything.

If you could be anything, anything at all, what would you be?

(Seriously. If you're reading this, it takes like 3 seconds to comment. And I'm curious. So what would you be?)

Money (yum)

Money. Money is the cornerstone of this chaotic existence we call social order. At the base of nearly everything lies our joyous sheets of green paper, and little discs of pressure-formed slag. In order to eat, you need to pay for your sustenance. In order to get to the store to buy food, you need a car (or bike, or bus pass), and that costs money. In order to drive car, you have to pass through an education system. And that costs money.

So all this money, how do we get it? By working. This concept of work is much less concrete for our world than the concept of money. For some, it's sitting and talking. For others, it's bending down for hours to pick tiny hunks of fruit for the enjoyment of someone they'll never meet. So why do we work? Because our system is based around these tow concepts: Work and Money.

If you work, you get money. If you don't work, you don't (Welfare doesn't count). For me, working was sitting around and fitting the correct piece of athletic apparel to people who would never use them. I was a running shoe salesman, one of the best in my store. We didn't actually do much, except when a customer came in. It was all joking, idle banter, and current sports discussion, until a sales prospect came in the door. Any talking ceased, and we were all professional. We went from throwing a crumpled ball of paper around to dusting shelves, checking inventory, and being helpful to the customers.

If you were interested, from three steps I could tell you more about your own foot and legs than you could find from walking on them for years. That nagging pain in your arch? I could make it go away when you ran. That soreness you got on the back of your ankle after any hill runs? A few suggestions and workouts from me, and you'd be cured.

I spent a whole summer doing this cycle, rapidly switching between a shoe specialist and a friend to my co-workers. So what did I get out of it? Money. Money to buy food, longboards, and shiny things that gathered my fancy. But most of it got put into a bank account.

From a functionalist perspective, I worked just to hide my cornerstone, and not build my life on it according to what the world prescribes. But hey, I made it. Money, that is.

Community (or lack thereof) Building

Whitworth University has a wonderful tradition called Community Building Day. On this day, all of the little wide eyed freshmen go to buses, and are carted off to help their community through pre-planned service projects. It's a wonderful idea, having the normally looked down upon College Students reach out and stretch their fingers in the local community. My involvement and opinions on CBD (Community Building Day) are as follows.

I first learned about CBD about two hours after it was over. Being a freshman myself, I was expected to show up bright and early (8am, the proverbial "asscrack of dawn"), and hop on a bus. This might have gone better had I known about the event. After speaking to a dorm mate about their experiences (and wondering where everyone in my Freshman Seminar class had gone), I learned that an email blast had been sent out to alert the students as to the existence of this fabulous event. I hadn't noticed said email, and so I went to my gorgeous little hunk of silicon to investigate. I checked the email folder; Nothing new for days.

My brain followed this general thought train: "Odd, no email... In days. Huh. Whitworth normally spams me (almost literally, I had to create a mail filter to stop the .whitworth.edu domain from being blocked) with emails. Something must be up. Ok, let's check what's going on. Settings. Hm, my password seems right... Oh wait, I had a problem getting to my email in the library on tuesday of last week... Had them reset my password. Wonder if I forgot to update it in my Mail program settings? Hm, yep, that was it."

Bing, I had 57 new emails from Whitworth. The little bouncing icon on my screen reminded me of the wonderful community that had been built during my technical absence from the mail list.

The moral of the story? Don't check your email from the library, and if you do, remember to keep all password entries the same.

Four Years

Four years. Four years ago I wanted to be an engineer, the head of my own cutting edge robotics company. Four years ago I joined the Robotics club, and started learning in an attempt to make this a reality. Four years from now, I'd like to be that wide eyed young adult with an idea. An idea, and almost no means to solve it.

I thrive for the challenge. When things are too easy, I get worried. It's tucking down and bashing your way through trials that make me feel confident in my achievements. So in four years, I'd like to be struggling to make an idea become reality. I'd like to be meeting with venture capitalists, and being denied until I find the right one. And then, when the time is right, I want to start my company.

What I'll call it, I don't know. I do know that we'll be doing something new, something that the world hasn't seen before.

Professor Edwards: A preliminary review

I'm currently taking Romans with Professor Edwards, and I couldn't be more thrilled. He's a teacher who actually cares about his subject, which makes a difference as clear as night and day for the class. So far, we've barely covered the introduction to the book of Romans. However, Edwards has already fired up an interest for the history surrounding the book, writings, and author of Romans. It's wonderful to learn from someone who is incredibly passionate for their subject.

Freedom, and related musings.

It's late nights (or extremely early mornings?) like this that get me thinking. This time, it's about freedom. What is freedom? In the absolute, freedom is simply the lack of restriction. Freedom does not entitle an individual to DO anything, it only protects others from limiting said individual. In the modern sense, freedom is the lack of an overt system of control. What we call free seems to change from day to day.

No longer does freedom apply as a unilateral term addressing our lives. Instead, freedom seems to have been sectioned, and portioned off in smaller sections. For example, an individual is free to drive whichever car they like. We see here freedom of ownership. In a unilaterally free system, we would see this also apply to guns, as well as any other object. Instead, our modern system has chosen to apply freedom to only aspects which do not interrupt the norm, or shatter the perfect script of our daily routine.

So what do we do with this? We can keep freedom sectioned off, and go about our daily lives, all the while allowing small chips to fall away from the grand statue of our liberty. We can ignore those little chips, such as the PATRIOT act. Or we can take a proactive stance, and begin gathering knowledge, and preparing for change. We can begin to pick the chips off the floor, and re-establish our freedoms in a move unlike anything our world has experienced.

Or maybe I just spent too much time thinking about the movie I just watched, V for Vendetta...

Prior Planning, or the lack thereof

So, tonight was supposed to be a Bingo game of epic proportions, with prizes as nuts as a 42 inch flatscreen TV. Sounds great, right? Here's the issue: ASWU (or whoever was running the stupid thing), didn't do very well at basic math. We arrived about five minutes before the event was supposed to begin, and assumed we'd be able to take part. Much to our surprise, they were already out of Bingo cards. Ok, we assumed this was because the room was full. So, out of curiosity, we stuck our heads inside, and found almost a third of the auditorium unfilled, and attendents apologizing left and right for being out of cards.

So what happened, ASWU? If you're going to advertise an event to EVERYONE, you might as well AT LEAST be able seat as many as the auditorium has seats for. Instead, you managed to tick off many of your students.

One last thing: Maybe that 35k a year you've spent to be in a position of Student Gov't should have gone towards a few more math classes, so you could fail less.

Convocation: Praise and Criticism

Today we attended the Annual Convocation Ceremony. To be honest, it was not as boring as I thought it would be. My expectations were to sit through a boring speech about how proud Whitworth is of the new class, as well as some "inspirational" Quotes for the seniors. Instead, it began with an interesting twist.

A horn section opened it up with very Medieval sounding music, as all of the Professors marched in behind Whitworth flags. Each prof was wearing a black robe, with some color and flashy ties, much like you'd see at a typical graduation. As the first speaker ascended the stage, we learned this was the 119th Convocation, as well as Academic Year.

The Freshman class was asked to stand. We made up the majority of the audience. After we sat, the returning students were asked to stand. Rather than be overwhelmed by the population, all I could notice was the difference in numbers. I couldn't help but wonder if this reflected a conflict of interest, or a "burning out" of older students. But more to come on that as the year progresses.

The President of ASWU (Associated Students of Whitworth University), Obe, read a verse from Ecclesiastes. After this, the highlight of the ceremony ascended the stage; The great B-Rob. A President like I've never met before, B-Rob proceeded to deliver a powerful speech (with which I only found a few small flaws, but more on those later in the post). His humor was wonderfully mixed in with his seriousness, which made the speech easy to follow. There were seven main points he was imparting, all of which stemmed from this quote: "Esther, could it be that you have come to a royal position, for a time such as this?"

His seven points of advice are as follows:
1. Don't answer this question too quickly. (this one is sort of obvious)
2. When you know the right thing to do, you cannot be intimidated by the consequences.
3. "Such a time as this" means risks, but not Stupid Risks. ("Dumb risks are Dumb." -Bill Robinson, Sept 2008)
4. Underestimating Smart women is ALWAYS a stupid risk. (this was met by loud, female sounding applause and cheers)
5. There are moments in time when greatness will come within reach. (they're not always there, so you need to wait for the right moment)
6. Behind all greatness if faithfulness.
7. "Such a time as this" is almost always revealed in the form of something challenging.

After B-Rob was done with his message, a hymn was sung to close the ceremony.

On to the less positive: My criticism of the ceremony. B-Rob made a point to say this, and I quote: "You must respect differences, and push for equality." Now, I agree whole heartedly with this idea. Without respect of differences, however core they may be, equality and tolerance cannot happen. Here's the flaw: This is from the same man who has refused to allow a GSA club on campus, or to be official. I see a conflict of interests here. Some people may try to say that a GSA is "different" somehow. However, no matter how you examine this issue, there is a conflict of ideals here. If you wish for true equality, and constantly preach tolerance and acceptance, maybe it's time to have some of your own, Whitworth.

Internet Restrictions and Other Shady Shenanigans

Having now been at Whitworth for a total of six days, I feel I am entitled to my first official complaint-fest. Here's the only few issues that I've found with Whitworth, hopefully laid out nice and neatly.

Article One: Internet Restrictions. If the goal of a college is to brew Adults, and brew individuals who are world-conscious, as well as upright and strong individuals, then this filtering seems counter-intuitive. Rather than prepare a college student for the real world, filtering simply holds back some of the less happy parts of the world until graduation. Now, I have read B-Rob's justification for this filtering, and some of it makes sense. Assuming the individual is never going to leave this school, that is. His reasoning (and if I'm wrong, please correct me) seems to be that filtering helps those who have pornography issues. Now, I understand how this could be a problem for someone. But the answer should not be the stock Christian (yes, I said it. If you don't get what I'm talking about here, the book unChristian might be good to read, it's got a wonderful section all about this) response of isolating and denying. (note, this is not ALL Christian's response, it just has been an underlying theme that I've noticed)

It is precisely this attitude towards negative aspects of life that have caused me to draw away from the church. Instead of simply blocking the bad things, and hoping they won't touch the inside of our precious Pine Curtain, why not educate and advise? Put in a few days (or even weeks) of education about the Evils of this world. This way the shock of entering the real world even more than we already are will be less shocking for the sheltered little denizens of Whitworth.

Article Two: Wireless/Internet ease of use. Yes, I understand that security is important. But it IS possible to be secure while not being friggin retarded. Seriously. You shouldn't need a machine-side client to simply sign in with WPA (which is what the client does...). So, if a Whitworth IT guy reads this, here's some advice: Break your crack-like addiction to WIndows based security and switch to something more usable. You might have to actually learn some coding, but in the end it will be less painful for your student population.

I have a feeling this Blog will end up with more articles, be they in contention, or in support of Whitworth. Overall, I'm loving this school. Till next time, keep that flag hoisted, and keep on Plundering.

First Post

This is the first post, hopefully one of many, to my Whitworth Blog.