My RAM was shipped from Smalldog in Vermont at 6 PM yesterday, got shipped from Barre, VT at 9:19 and arrived in Chelmsford, Mass (only about 10 or 20 miles away) at 12:33 this morning. So when will I get it? Today? Tonight? Nah, I doubt it. Its 3 day shipping, so I should get it on Friday. Well, we’ll see. Maybe UPS will surprise me. No, I doubt it. I’ll let you know.

New pictures are in my Winter Wonderland gallery. Perdy, isn’t it? I like snow. 🙂

Tired. Too. Much. Work.

EOF

Some people seem to be confused about what a hacker is, and whether I am one or not. Here is your answer: I am. And her is what that means:

hacker (hacking)[1]
A hacker is someone who is able to manipulate the inner workings of computers, information, and technology.

Consider Arthur C. Clark’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Since normal people have no clue as to how computers work, they often view hackers with suspicion and awe (as magicians, sorcerers, witches, and warlocks). This suspicion leads to the word “hacker” having the connotation of someone up to no good.

History: The word “hacker” started out in the 14th century to mean somebody who was inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity (such as a golf hacker).

In the 1970s, the word “hacker” was used by computer enthusiasts to refer to themselves. This reflected the way enthusiasts approach computers: they eschew formal education and play around with the computer until they can get it to work. (In much the same way, a golf hacker keeps hacking at the golf ball until they get it in the hole).

Furthermore, as “experts” learn about the technology, the more they realize how much they don’t know (especially about the implications of technology). When experts refer to themselves as “hackers”, they are making a Socratic statement that they truly know nothing. For more information on this connotation, see ESR’s computer enthusiast “Jargon File”.

What is Christmas? Is it a religious occurrence, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ? Is it a collective spirit of family values and caring? Or is it simply a terrible consumer phenomenon perpetrated by the retail industry? Well, its probably all three.

From: Culture Jammers Network
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 10:35:54 -0800
Subject: Calm Christmas


Did you do it? Was it more painful than you thought, or less?


It shouldn’t be too hard keep the wallet buttoned for just one day. But damned if shopping’s not a stubborn routine to break. A decaf-latte here, a video-rental there, a newspaper and a tank of gas on plastic – the routine has become unconscious. We’re slaves to our consumption patterns, and it’s hard to know how much so until we break them. That’s what Buy Nothing Day is about. It’s an experiment in self-awareness-and self-control-in the service of a broader global message. If you’re among the thousands worldwide who took the Buy Nothing Day challenge for the first time, what did it feel like?


This much we know: The experience has changed people. Maybe it changed you. Maybe you felt…lighter. More relaxed. More alive than you have in months. And maybe you want to ride that feeling right into the Christmas season and beyond, turning a thoroughly commodified holiday into something more authentically fulfilling: a Calm Christmas.


On Buy Nothing Day a small group in Fairbanks, Alaska staged a peace march right through the local mall. A group in Calgary, Alberta, heard about that and staged one of their own. (Could we have found a new use for malls?) And so the meme spreads. What we have on our hands here, quite possibly, is a whole new way of celebrating Christmas. Doing the Right Thing, surrounded by the ones you love, and quietly redefining “freedom” in the bargain. No one can say that’s not patriotic.

This was my first year of buying nothing, but it won’t be the last. And when people ask what I want for Hanukkah this year, I will respond with the truth: I don’t need anything material. Having you ask me is enough.

Basically every commercial following Sept. 11th has disgusted me, especially ones that try to work within the “new world” we have after the attacks. Some of the worst offenders: Saturn, the Travel Industry, and Ford “Striving To Make the World A Better Place” Motors.

Just now I saw the 400th cycle of the “I Love New York” commercial narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. Gotta say, their new campaign to “Paint the Town Red, White & Blue” isn’t as bad as most other things I’ve seen. In fact, while I am completely against the terrible consumerism that has engulfed America (and made our economy thrive), I do think its somewhat “patriotic,” if that is the word, to visit New York City. This city relies greatly on tourism and the terrible tragedy of Sept. 11 has decimated the city enough as it is without bankrupting another ten thousand businesses. Yeah, go to New York, have a good time, and spend your money. If you’re going to spend it anyway, this is the best place to do it.

The new photos are up in “Winter Wonderland.” I didn’t have a huge amount of them, but there are some good ones. I still encourage others to submit photos. And yeah, Peter, you emailed me a few, sorry I didn’t get them into this collection. I’ll drop them in when I find them. 😉

I could move forward with my vision of setting up some kind of funky servers on my OS X box to consolidate all of my email, web, and planning stuff into one place (LDAP, whatever you use for calendars). Or I could just write that I’m thinking about it, and perhaps this more limited action will give me respite enough from my visions so that I can continue with my preparations for finals and my last research papers of the semester. I hope this works.

My last USEM class was today, and most other classes are ending next week. Its kinda sad, you know? I feel like we haven’t really gotten closure in some of our classes. At least in News On Screen we’ve made it to the Internet, but I still feel we havn’t talked enough about how public spheres relate to the new interconnected world, and sadly it is now impossible to do so. In conspiracy we’ve gotten to alien abductions, but we still haven’t talked about the newest conspiracy theories and the latest research. But still in Consipracy at least I feel that we’ve done a pretty good overview and are basically finished, or at least enough so that we can end it. Philosophy will never end, but since I didn’t put enough effort into that class, it is probably best that I can start over with a new philosophy class in the future and devote more time to it. I still haven’t learned anything valuable in Intro CoSi, and I don’t plan to, I must simply do another of the dreary web projects using Scheme, and must content myself that at least I konw more about UNIX then 90% of the class.

I went into CS expecting something like my high school MST (Math/Science/Technology) class. Learning how computers work, yeah, I’ve done that, but its okay. What I really wanted to learn was how to use UNIX and *NIX derivatives, to understand more about OOP, the latest web standards (XML, etc) and protocols. I got none of it. But perhaps I aimed to high. Ah, well. Conspiracy class looks set to begin, so I’ll finish up here.

I have a bunch of classes next semester but I don’t know how many of them will stick over winter break, I might be changing things, so I won’t list them now. All in all though, a productive and fun first semester. Here’s hoping semester 2 of my college career is even better.

Before I spent the time hacking up PHPix to handle my image gallery, I probably should have just done a little digging. This is very intriguing. Searching! Passwords! Captioning. Hmm…

And yes, I will have new photos on soon, perhaps tomorrow. But I have other priorities.

My sustenance for the day was doughnuts and Cheet-Os ™ provided by Sara at the Mock Trial thing. Thanks a lot, Sara. Sigh.

Oh God. FX is doing a series called Rampart. Yeah, that’s not going to be controversial or anything.

Rachel:	You should be at Screw!
Me:	So should you.
Rachel:	Where’s your partner?
Me:	I don’t have one.
Rachel:	Did you DITCH her???
Me:	No, she ditched me!
Rachel:	Okay, good.  Bye.

Just finished watching the Pulp Fiction DVD I had lying around, and frankly I’m stumped. I’d heard a lot of people say it was amazing, then I saw it and said, “huh?” So I checked out IMDb, and there is much more of the same. The most brilliant film of all time. A true masterpiece. Whatever. I mean, I don’t get it. Okay, the storyline is non-linear, or something. Big whoop. The dialogue is interesting and adds depth. Yeah, okay. The three stories have potential. But what is the point? What happens? One guy gets shot, one guy gets rich, one guy finds God, one guy gets even, and one lady gets a hole in her rib cage.

And what is up with that damn bible passage? I mean, quote the scripture then let some idiot thug and his psychotic girlfriend leave with all of the innocent customer’s money? That is really the way to prove you’ve changed to The Good Side.

So perhaps someone can tell me what makes this movie so incredible, because I can’t really see it. And I know that it is cliche to say this is the best movie of all time, and saying otherwise is blasphemous, but please, what do you see in it? Besides great acting, I mean.

I was checking my stats today and found something funny. In my three months at Brandeis I have used 14.98 GB of incoming bandwidth. On 11/23 I had 4884.6 MB come in. On that day alone I accounted for 1/3 of my total bandwidth for the last three months. Wow. It’s cool when everyone goes home for Thanksgiving and you have the entire internet connection to yourself! 🙂

It is good to remember people’s names. That helps you identify them.

Oh, wait…nevermind. False alarm. Go back inside from the rain, go back to sleep. Sorry. Stupid prankster pulled the alarm. We are now organizing a posse.

Sigh.

Mock Trial tonight, and it didn’t go as well as the previous meetings, but good enough. We had a lot more people with “experience” show up then I expected, and naturally our demonstration of a witness examination was therefore often interrupted by objections and criticism. It was all productive and all, but I wish I had prepared more, or stresses that this was not the real thing. It was all a bit odd.

After MT I got to see the last 2 hrs. of JFK, which was assigned for Jerry Cohen’s class and was being shown – again for the third time – on the same night as a Mock Trial meeting. Worse still, he thought that he had reserved our room! I made him move to Brown 316 (heh) and then went to talk to the people at Kutz. They gave us a printout of the confirmation form that “proved” the room belonged to us on Wednesdays at 7. Wow…I feel so…powerful. Or not.

Despite my reluctance to attempt a “dance,” I have been apparently setup for the Screw Your Roommate dance with a female unit under the name of Monisha Cherayil. Doing my general background research on anyone I hear about (namely, typing the name into Google and seeing what comes up) I found a few essays by Monisha on one of her friend’s blogs. This led me to explore the blog and find out a bit about Tingting and then find her college rapsheet. It is instructive. Here I feel bad about my lower test scores, less activities, or whatever, and then I look at where she got in and I realize it all is kinda a wash. Tingting has much higher test scores then I do (and mine are none too shabby), more APs, more cool positions, but ultimately we got in to most of the same schools and rejected from the same, with one notable exception. Guess which. Yeah, yeah, MIT. But we both got into Berkeley and UCSD, I didn’t apply for UCLA or Wellesley but did apply to Brandeis, obviously, and got in like she did, and we both got our rejections from Yale and Stanford, and I got one from Princeton while she got one from Harvard. She appears to be more mathematically apt then myself, so I wish her well at MIT, and am still content with my school.

What was I talking about? Oh, nevermind, I’m going to sleep. Or to catch up on some reading.

Two new essays posted in the essays section, although the Philosophy one will be difficult to understand without the topic…

I have a clothing thing. Not really sure what to call it. Sensitive/dry skin, discomfort, whatever. So I need very soft, very specific clothes. Nothing can cling, everything has to lay nicely without stretchiness. No stiff collars. Nothing that can’t be tucked in (meaning pretty long). And everything at least somewhat loose and baggy. So it is almost impossible to find me clothes.

Linda and I went shopping yesterday for winterware. See, when you live in New England, you need cold-weather clothes. Like, uh…pants. And long-sleeve shirts. And boots. And I really had none of these things. So we went on a bit of a spree. I found my new favorite store, Timberland, with very wonderful soft shirts (that I will be sure to use lots of fabric softener on to keep them comfy) and some nice shoes and a jacket. My biggest problem was really pants. After a few stores Linda figured out what I don’t like, and she stopped suggestion most normal fabric things.

We found a nice pair of cords in black, but nothing really superb. Finally, at the last store, Abercrombie & Fitch, right before we were going to leave, on my final pass, I saw a side rack that wasn’t part of any display. On it I saw one pair of very nice wine-colored pants. They looked thick and warm, but comfortable. I could tell instantly that they were perfect.

But one pair! No way they could be my size! But I knew they were, and they indeed were, and they were the only pair in the store, and they were perfect!!! The pants gods were shining down on me, or I am just incredibly lucky, but I now have a new favorite pair of pants. Yay! *smiles* And now I’ll stop laughing at people who wear the stupid $30 Abercrombie t-shirts. I still think they’re stupid (the shirts, not the people), but I like that store now.

I’m just not getting the whole train concept. I got up early after spending the night in my room (instead of going back to the hotel) and got ready so as to make the 9:06 Commuter Rail into North Station. Only, oops, its a saturday! There is a 7:36 and a 10:16. Sigh. So after a 15 minute walk in the cold, I had to make a 20 minute walk back to the dorm. Sigh. Well, at least I have some nice new a capella music to listen to…