September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arrr!
So I mentioned yesterday that we had a drawing for 2 iPods for the OAs as part of the Fall Startup process. I forgot to mention that we also had 2 iPods that were being drawn for staff who volunteered to work the weekend as well. Basically, the earlier you volunteered, the more tickets you got.
We held the drawing earlier this week. The 2 iPods went to students. In addition, 3 of the 5 gift certificates went to student workers as well.
This morning, I got an IM letting me know that one of the students who won one of the iPods felt he didn’t deserve to get it as he only worked 3 hours on one of the two days. Don’t ever say that William and Mary doesn’t have honorable students. So an impromptu redrawing was held with the staff names.
I won. :)
P.S. No, I was not present at the drawing, and no, I didn’t pay off the student or anyone who participated in the drawing.
Really, I’m not. The last month has just been very busy. I will try to give a brief roundup. My birthday and associated presents was great. I got lots of cool music and books (and some yummy candy). In addition to the ones I mentioned in a previous post, I got a new copy of 1984, Invisible Frontiers, Altered Carbon, Ambient, What Einstein told his Cook, and Stop Making Sense. I am probably half way through reading things at this point. I also bought myself Thievery Corporation’s The Richest Man in Babylon. which is the group that played on the final night at the ACLU membership conference. Good stuff.
On the work front, the students are back. A coworker and I were in charge of running this years Fall Startup project. This involves organizing the process by which we get all of the freshman connected to the network. William and Mary has never done this twice the same, but I think we ran a system this year that will be the model for future years. We had wonderful cooperation from all of the OAs and things went quite smoothly. IT set up appointments with each team of OAs over the weekend following the friday of freshman move-in. At the appointed time, the OA would make sure all of their students were in their hall, and a team of IT folks would show up (in their stylish black t-shirts designed by moi) and make sure everyone was set up. The best part was we gave the OAs information on how to get their students connected prior to when we showed up and many of the halls had greater than 90% of their students hooked up before we even showed up. And to give them a small incentive, the more students they had hooked up, the greater their chances were to win 1 of 2 Apple iPods. Everyone was happy (and tired).
And with the arrival of the students is the start of classes. I am taking another graduate CS class, Network Systems and Design. It has been interesting, if not exactly educational yet. The professor is 3 years older than I am, which adds an odd dynamic to his perspective. I was looking forward to having the class be a combined undergraduate/graduate course, but with the exception of one undergrad I know, I no longer have that opinion. The undergraduates are generally annoying and I would much have preferred just having myself and the other 8 grad students than have 8 graduate students plus 40 undergrads.
The shelves! They are getting closer to completion. We are putting the finish coats of paint on now. It is a nice gloss white. All of the woodworking has been completed. But the painting is a slow process.
That is all I can think of for now.
For all those people who I pester to use XHTML. Now an easier way; HTML Tidy! For the Mac users out there, MacTidy which can either be used as a standalone application or (even better) as a BBEdit plugin! And for those using other operating systems you can look at the main page - HTML Tidy
Last year, Elizabeth gave me 11 days of birthday fun from August 1st through my birthday, the 11th. This year she is continuing the plan! Yipee! Isn’t she wonderful! So far I have gotten two presents, one in green wrapping and one in purple.
Yesterday, I picked a book shaped object and was rewarded with Body of Secrets. It is a book about the NSA. I’m sure it will make me more paranoid.
Today I picked a CD shaped object as I wanted to have something new to listen to as I worked in the office. I got promise of love by the American Analog Set.
After I opened it, Elizabeth asked me what kind of music it was and I had to answer that I had no idea. I have taken to listening to KCRW at work. KCRW is a public radio station out of Santa Monica that I listen to because they have Morning Edition on an internet stream within iTunes. I soon found their companion internet only music station which rebroadcasts their music shows all day. I particularly like Morning Becomes Eclectic; it is music I have never heard before nor would I hear it anywhere around Williamsburg. When I hear something I like I add the CD to my wishlist on the spot. This CD was one of them, so I had no memory of what it was as I had probably added it months ago after hearing one song. It makes the suprise even better; I don’t have any memory of the music, but I know it was something I liked.
But listening to it now, I am glad I added it. I like it lots. Thanks sweety!
Yesterday I received an email forwarded to me from a student who seemed to take issue with the system I ran. They responded to an email that was sent to all of the student body indicating the system would be down for some maintenance on monday. Read on for the letter.
Date sent: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:03:10 -0400 From: [name removed]@wm.edu Subject: Re: myWM Unavailable Early on Monday To: itadmin@wm.edu Wait, my.wm is going to be unavailable on Monday? Really? Like it was unavailable for a good portion of today, and the day before, and several days before that? my.wm is the most faulty system everyone I know has every encountered. my.wm is the devil. my.wm NEVER works. I have no idea why you bother sending out these emails explaining that my.wm is going to be out of commission on a particular day. We all expect, at this point, that my.wm is going to work very sporadically, and we know, without question, that when it DOES work, the layout will still suck, it will be difficult to navigate, the little System Alert button will pop up when we're in the bathroom and the middle of an email, and even its name is still going to be obnoxiously cutesy. Every professor I've visited in their office has complained about the perpetual annoyance that is my.wm. webmail worked splendidly. It was efficient and easy-to-use. I never had any problems getting into it. Its name was kind of slick and futuresque and I would marry it if I could. Please bring it back and/or make my.wm stop being quite so hideous and painful. Thank you, -[name removed]
President Bush refused today to declassify a 28-page chapter of a Congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks. He said disclosure of the deleted section, which centers on accusations about Saudi Arabia’s role in financing the hijackings, “would help the enemy” and compromise the administration’s campaign against terror. [From NYT Article]
This makes no sense. There are two possibilities here that I can see.
1. The report is acurate. If the information in the report is correct in detailing what countries are directly supporting terrorists then releasing the information to the public can in no way benefit our “enemies.” Why? Because our enemies already know who is supporting them. I am confident that the report can be redacted to remove any concerns of methods and just state the basic facts.
2. The report is inaccurate. If the report is false, and the countries listed are not supporting terrorist activity, releasing that information will not aid the terrorists because those countries won’t help them anyway.
So either way, the report could not help the terrorists. So why refuse to release it to the public. My guess is that option 2 is more likely. If option 1 were the case, there would be no negative effects to the current administration as it would show they had quality intelligence. But given option 2, it would give the named countries a solid base of information to contradict. Saudi Arabia has already made this request and seems to be confident they can dispute the facts if only they are made available.
The current refusal allows the administration to look good by saying “we know who helped the terrorists” but not actually having to prove it.
Next time I play poker, I will be taking the tactic of announcing I have a royal flush every hand but refuse to show it. Give me your money.
A well written article from Salon covering the so called “no-fly” list and it’s newly discovered companion the “you can fly after we screw with you for a while” list.
The events of the current administration have baffled and stunned me for the past several years, but the link below just stuns me. It is so appallingly wrong in a fundamental sense. I am speechless.
Pentagon Plans Futures Market for Events in Mideast
UPDATED: Another story. NYT This is in effect allowing people to wager on events that cost human lives and somehow playing it as if it was some sort of game. I just finished reading a book, Chasm City, in which an upper class of postmortal people would capture and tag people from the underclass and release them to be hunted for sport. This article just reaches too close.
Trying to make predictions on future events is one thing, allowing people to effectively bet on it is another. What the hell are we coming to?
I have been very bad this year about posting pictures I have been taking. Basically I have been too lazy to write the HTML. So I have built a second MovableType website that is just for pictures. It is pretty much set up, so go enjoy!