A long summer

Summer has been long and dull so far this year. When I first came home, things were a bit tense between my mother and me, as I hadn’t finished many applications for jobs. We had a few disputes over the conditions of me staying home. Things got better near the end of June when I landed a weeklong job at the Oshkosh Hilton Garden Inn where I was to work as a dishwasher.

After learning that, I went to work at my grandfather’s house doing some maintenance on his driveway, tennis court, and deck, which had grown cluttered with sticks and lichen growth after a few years of neglect. As well, I helped him move a sculpture to the house of a lady friend of his that bought the sculpture, which in my opinion is a nice work. I was there for a week and a half, including my birthday and ending on Independence Day. For my birthday, I got some new rope sandals to replace my old smelly decrepit ones that I got at Sea Base a few years ago as well as some books and a travel Sudoku puzzle board with a Da Vinci Code theme (my family saw it while I was at college and apparently liked it).

Meanwhile, online, ODN has done a bit of updating. We finally have a working automated infraction system, though we will probably be making some modifications as soon as it comes back to the table. As well, Apok installed a wiki, so we can have a little ODN knowledge base known as ODNdium. Because I’ve done a little bit with Wikipedia, which runs on the same software (MediaWiki), I was able to play a large part in getting the wiki to a nice look. As well, all the moderators were promoted to Super Moderator to allow for simplified, quicker moderating. On top of that, our site has started a little alliance on OGame.org.

Of course, working during the EAA at the Hilton has interrupted my ability to participate online. The job had long hours, was fairly dull, and forced me to live most of the experience in a fantasy world to maintain sanity. To add to that, my co-worker mumbled and articulated poorly, making him understandable about 10% of the time he opened his mouth. However, I found the experience somewhat rewarding, as it broke the cycle of boredom and nagging that I had come to know.

The end of my freshman year

It is finally the end of my freshman year of college. Quite a bit has happened and I think that I have grown quite a bit as a person. I’ve definitely made some good friends, and it was a pity to see them all go for break. It’s going to be tough for the next few weeks since I feel like I’m going through withdrawal. This is a reason never to take addictive drugs. I feel bad enough leaving my friends behind…I can’t imagine what it would feel like leaving heroin behind. It’s especially tough to leave Emily.

I am back in Neenah and I just ripped out carpet from the townhouse that shares a wall with my dad’s. It was tedious but not incredibly difficult. I got paid $30, which seems fair to me, as the work wasn’t very labor intensive and I’m not exactly sure how many hours I put in, since I took quite a few breaks and some of them were pretty long. Oh well.

Wow, that was a corny post.

Test Blog entry from Microsoft Word 2007

So I downloaded the beta 2 version of Microsoft Office 2007 and now I’m testing out one of its features: blog posts. If this posts, then it worked.

Sperm Bank - Google Video

Sperm Bank - Google Video

Testing embed and Google Toolbar:

Night Runner

I am yet again starting a running regime. Yesterday the temperature rose significantly and today it is not much lower, which was the signal I needed to make the step. I will actually be running shortly after I post this entry.

I'm back as an ODN moderator and we are working on reworking the rules and setting up the Debater of the Month award again. If it succeeds, we will have the first DoM in 11 months, when CliveStaples won. I myself was the Debater of the Month in November of 2004. In addition to the restarting of the Debater of the Month award, we are trying to add a Debater of the Quarter award. Since we are starting with February, I think that it will be a two month Debater of the Quarter (so actually a Debater of the Sixth), unless we want a wierd quarter system.

School's going pretty well, though I think that I will need to be a bit more careful now that I've made a few mistakes in Chemistry, which what I am leaning toward in terms of a major.

Google

Recently, Google has been a big news item, both for its refusal to comply with a Department of Justice subpoena and its decision to censor its content in Google 中国. Google was very popular on the web for refusing to comply with the Department of Justice, but that popularity turned sour with the China decision.

Personally, I agree with Google on both counts. The department of Justice really doesn't have a reason to subpoena one million urls, as they can get more relevant information by running their own searches. The whole thing smells rotten.

As for the issue with Google 中国, Google was put in a tough situation. If they didn't comply with China, they would be blocked, which would make them a whole lot less useful. While it did ruin their image for the time being, it was the right thing to do. Resisting on moral grounds is fine when doing so does hurt more than it helps. However, if Google had done so, their services would have not been available. True, the filter does take away some of Google's utility. However, being blocked leaves Chinese users without any utility from Google and still in a censored position. Google resisting would not have done any good and would in fact be more evil, IMO. Whether they their motives were in their pocketbook or not, they did the right thing.

Table of squares

Table of squares
Originally uploaded by alethiareg.

This is an image I am using for ODN

Google Talk

Google talk a
Google Hack by
Douwe Osinga

The doldrums of winter

Winter has proven to be extremely boring.

The Holidays

I spent Christmas at my Uncle Eric's house with my mother and brothers. While it was not the ideal situation that we had during Thanksgiving, things went pretty well. The experience was soured by a fight between mom and me over her high tension attitude toward life. That problem carried out until New Year's Eve when I finally let go of my anger.

I found out my grades today and was relieved to see that I had passed Tutorial with a C+.