One more down. - 26 March 2007
Mar. 27th, 2007 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptI finally just decided to call it a day and finish up one of the papers that was just really missing an introduction and a conclusion. Finally just wrote one, which may or may not be any good. At this particular point, I’m okay if the grade isn’t that fantastic. The rest of the material should be good anyway. So now there are just three projects to go. One of which looks not to be that bad, one of which needs really to just get done, and the one that will probably cause a couple fits here and there. So the graduation track is looking good. I’m just hoping the job front starts looking good, too. Got an e-mail saying that my application was received at one of the places I mailed to.
Anyway, less second-guessing, more linking! Starting the engine and getting us off to a good start is the green racing car, composed mostly of biodegradable or recyclable materials. And it does run on biofuel and use biolubricants (wow, they’ve even got those?), so it’s a greener car than most. Of course, hopefully the processes behind the materials being used to construct the car are also nice and green.
Taking a slight detour - I’ll admit that I thought PETA was generally a harmless, if fringe lunatic-y, organization, but if these seven things we didn't know about PETA are all true, then the “harmless” part goes away and there needs to be a better thing thought of when people are thinking about donating to animal protection causes.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a spotlight on the people still here from Mountain View High School in Tucson, who have the dubious honor of being the high school with the most confirmed war dead (five). The article mentions that the war is the top concern among youth who are eligible to be called in for Selective Service and those recently out of that window. I understand why the government continues to maintain a register of those who could be pressed into military service, but with this conflict going on, despite the assurances that it would be political suicide, I still wonder if there will be a national draft to provide sufficient manpower to continue the conflict. It’s not something that stays in my mind all the time, but I do wonder. That worry is significantly compounded when stories such as How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits, which suggest the Army is diagnosing personality disorders to avoid having to pay medical costs for soldiers wounded in their tour of duty or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. And of course, there are the 3200+ military personnel who have already lost their lives in this matter.
USA Today’s poll highlights that many Americans want to see investigation of attorney firings, the administration answering all questions, and approving the use of subpoenas. Apparently, though, none of that should happen, according to the mainstream media. Liberal media, my tailscales.
A plethora of press releases from around and about regarding Science (SCIENCE!) - a technique for targeting and killing cancerous cells without touching the healthy ones, E. coli able to generate a photosynthetic process, isotope-enchanced meat could lead to a longer life (but organically-grown kiwi are better than their standard counterparts), and a possible way of doing surgery using magnets to drive the instruments.
Wow. A father in New Zealand who is alleged to have had more than four times the legal limit of alcohol for was arrested after he took a forty minute nap at a petrol station. By the time he woke up and was tested, the car had been towed and his two-year old daughter, who was in the car at the time, was with her mother.
On this New York Times Article about using human intelligence to help computers do tasks, I’m not sure whether to think that Bezos is helping people or exploiting them. The micropayments add up, I guess, but some of the stuff being done, especially like ChaCha, could probably benefit handily from people with LIS degrees. Even when I was doing work for a class answering reference questions for the Internet Public Library, the questions being answered were generally the ones where someone had an idea about the answer or felt they could find it easily. Thus, harnessing the mob is a good idea, sure, but every now and then you’ll need a specialist in the subject or a specialist in searching.
Thanks to technological upgrades, mocap is being used in a lot more places (including Wii) than previously thought. The mocap boxing and shooting games are definitely interseting, and there’s Wii, and a lot of other possibilities. Perhaps VR and mocap will become our default interface. (Of course, if it is, we’re going to have some new issues with making sure we don’t accidentally reformat our computers.)
Still not officially admitting that the Japanese military was responsible for them, Japan's Prime Minister apologized for what happened to women forced into prostitution during World War II. It’s still not the apology that the descendants and those who are still alive want to have the government say.
Being moved to the religious realms, the focus of things tends to be on Christianity and it’s various denominations and spokespeoples. This is, for better or worse, no different. A proposed bill in Poland is trying to ban even the mention of homosexuality in school. And I was hoping that this particular type of silly was limited strictly to American soil. That way, we could at least keep it contained. This does seem to be several hops backwards, though. Speaking of keeping it contained to here, if you recall BattleCry, the organization that promotes Christian rock concerts and fundamentalist interpretations, they were in San Francisco recently promoting abstinence, homophobia, and government censorship. And had quite a crowd of teenagers who went out into the streets. I wonder about the kids in the article, whether they have seen something like God is Imaginary, and what they would do in response to it. And I kind of wonder whether they’ve been to Purity Balls or have little chastity rings. (Perhaps in a more cynical mindset, I’d be wondering about chastity belts.)
It’s not all bad, though. A new translation of the Koran (Qu'ran? What is the accepted transliteration, if there is such a thing?) is changing what is traditionally rendered "beat" into "go away". It seems like a small change, but considering how people who call themselves Christian can hinge on one word or phrase themselves on dismissing an entire group of people as hell-bound sinners, this may be a good idea for the Muslim population.
And because it would be somehow remiss not to mention it, a Thai zoo that has a reluctant male panda is being shown panda porn to try and encourage some mating activity. Because everyone knows that the sex lives of everyone else is their business - including the animals. I think it’ll be interesting to see whether the panda responds.
So, before it gets too late, and so that maybe I can get up and do the work on my part of the presentation that’s going to happen in two weeks, I’m going to go to bed. (Remember that part about getting things out of the way before they become due? Yeah, that’s my way of dealing with stress - getting it at the source.)
Anyway, less second-guessing, more linking! Starting the engine and getting us off to a good start is the green racing car, composed mostly of biodegradable or recyclable materials. And it does run on biofuel and use biolubricants (wow, they’ve even got those?), so it’s a greener car than most. Of course, hopefully the processes behind the materials being used to construct the car are also nice and green.
Taking a slight detour - I’ll admit that I thought PETA was generally a harmless, if fringe lunatic-y, organization, but if these seven things we didn't know about PETA are all true, then the “harmless” part goes away and there needs to be a better thing thought of when people are thinking about donating to animal protection causes.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a spotlight on the people still here from Mountain View High School in Tucson, who have the dubious honor of being the high school with the most confirmed war dead (five). The article mentions that the war is the top concern among youth who are eligible to be called in for Selective Service and those recently out of that window. I understand why the government continues to maintain a register of those who could be pressed into military service, but with this conflict going on, despite the assurances that it would be political suicide, I still wonder if there will be a national draft to provide sufficient manpower to continue the conflict. It’s not something that stays in my mind all the time, but I do wonder. That worry is significantly compounded when stories such as How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits, which suggest the Army is diagnosing personality disorders to avoid having to pay medical costs for soldiers wounded in their tour of duty or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. And of course, there are the 3200+ military personnel who have already lost their lives in this matter.
USA Today’s poll highlights that many Americans want to see investigation of attorney firings, the administration answering all questions, and approving the use of subpoenas. Apparently, though, none of that should happen, according to the mainstream media. Liberal media, my tailscales.
A plethora of press releases from around and about regarding Science (SCIENCE!) - a technique for targeting and killing cancerous cells without touching the healthy ones, E. coli able to generate a photosynthetic process, isotope-enchanced meat could lead to a longer life (but organically-grown kiwi are better than their standard counterparts), and a possible way of doing surgery using magnets to drive the instruments.
Wow. A father in New Zealand who is alleged to have had more than four times the legal limit of alcohol for was arrested after he took a forty minute nap at a petrol station. By the time he woke up and was tested, the car had been towed and his two-year old daughter, who was in the car at the time, was with her mother.
On this New York Times Article about using human intelligence to help computers do tasks, I’m not sure whether to think that Bezos is helping people or exploiting them. The micropayments add up, I guess, but some of the stuff being done, especially like ChaCha, could probably benefit handily from people with LIS degrees. Even when I was doing work for a class answering reference questions for the Internet Public Library, the questions being answered were generally the ones where someone had an idea about the answer or felt they could find it easily. Thus, harnessing the mob is a good idea, sure, but every now and then you’ll need a specialist in the subject or a specialist in searching.
Thanks to technological upgrades, mocap is being used in a lot more places (including Wii) than previously thought. The mocap boxing and shooting games are definitely interseting, and there’s Wii, and a lot of other possibilities. Perhaps VR and mocap will become our default interface. (Of course, if it is, we’re going to have some new issues with making sure we don’t accidentally reformat our computers.)
Still not officially admitting that the Japanese military was responsible for them, Japan's Prime Minister apologized for what happened to women forced into prostitution during World War II. It’s still not the apology that the descendants and those who are still alive want to have the government say.
Being moved to the religious realms, the focus of things tends to be on Christianity and it’s various denominations and spokespeoples. This is, for better or worse, no different. A proposed bill in Poland is trying to ban even the mention of homosexuality in school. And I was hoping that this particular type of silly was limited strictly to American soil. That way, we could at least keep it contained. This does seem to be several hops backwards, though. Speaking of keeping it contained to here, if you recall BattleCry, the organization that promotes Christian rock concerts and fundamentalist interpretations, they were in San Francisco recently promoting abstinence, homophobia, and government censorship. And had quite a crowd of teenagers who went out into the streets. I wonder about the kids in the article, whether they have seen something like God is Imaginary, and what they would do in response to it. And I kind of wonder whether they’ve been to Purity Balls or have little chastity rings. (Perhaps in a more cynical mindset, I’d be wondering about chastity belts.)
It’s not all bad, though. A new translation of the Koran (Qu'ran? What is the accepted transliteration, if there is such a thing?) is changing what is traditionally rendered "beat" into "go away". It seems like a small change, but considering how people who call themselves Christian can hinge on one word or phrase themselves on dismissing an entire group of people as hell-bound sinners, this may be a good idea for the Muslim population.
And because it would be somehow remiss not to mention it, a Thai zoo that has a reluctant male panda is being shown panda porn to try and encourage some mating activity. Because everyone knows that the sex lives of everyone else is their business - including the animals. I think it’ll be interesting to see whether the panda responds.
So, before it gets too late, and so that maybe I can get up and do the work on my part of the presentation that’s going to happen in two weeks, I’m going to go to bed. (Remember that part about getting things out of the way before they become due? Yeah, that’s my way of dealing with stress - getting it at the source.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 05:06 pm (UTC)and, while it is a interlineary translation, it is not an "authorised" version. my understanding is that there are no "authorised" translations, because the qur'aan is not supposed to be translated.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 07:28 am (UTC)re: peta. i'll be looking into that some more. like you, i just considered them harmless fringe loonies, but if those facts are true, i'll be doing some anti-peta protesting.
A Plague On Both Your Houses
Date: 2007-03-27 09:41 am (UTC)~M~
Re: A Plague On Both Your Houses
Date: 2007-03-27 05:43 pm (UTC)Re: A Plague On Both Your Houses
Date: 2007-03-28 08:17 am (UTC)~M~
Re: A Plague On Both Your Houses
Date: 2007-03-27 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-27 07:48 pm (UTC)