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