(1) knowledge is power.
(2) ignorance is bliss.

(3) no power is no knowledge.
(4) no power is powerlessness.
(5) no knowledge is ignorance.

(6) powerlessness is bliss.

I suppose its an all or nothing sort of thing.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 16 February 2001 at 7:17 AM

Small things that shouldn't bother me have been really getting under my skin recently.  For example, the webpage for my Econ class is just about the worst site I've ever seen that was designed for an actual audience.  I mean, it has real, honest-to-God, useful content, but it is designed in such a way as to make that content as hard as possible to find.  What the hell does "The Answer Man" (displayed, of course, in a size 7 font) mean?  Of course, the real kicker is the fact that every graphic is a local link to the TA's HDD.

Something else that has been bothering me is my calendar.  Every year WashU gives out free calendars that cover August through May (the "school year").  The problem is that this year's calendar is incorrect.  The entire month of February has an off-by-one error.  By this I mean that every single date on the February page is one below what the correct day is.  This is causing me all kinds of trouble, as I think I have more time to finish homework than I really do, all because I think it is one day earlier than it really is.  I even marked out all of the dates and wrote the correct ones in, but the original dates are darker than the ones I wrote in, so sitting at my desk, a good 8 feet from the calendar., I only see the original days.  I could go and mark out the dates more vigorously, but like I said, I'm getting annoyed by small things, and the corollary to that is that I am resisting all efforts to fix the things that annoy me.  I don't really know why, so don't ask.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 February 2001 at 10:21 PM

I have no place to work in my room, so I've decided to devote tonight to cleaning up my desks.  I have papers and bills and Gundams piled all over the place and I need to find a place to put them.

I don't have any tests for two more weeks.  I've never gone so far into a semester without a test.  Of course, the downside to all of this is that all of my classes have tests the week before spring break.

When asked to come up with something pithy to say to our readers, Scott said "Ummm... nothing."  That's about par for the course for Scott.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 February 2001 at 9:31 PM

michael thinks the site goes down too much (i.e., the site that does our "stealth redirection" goes down too much).  I haven't noticed any problems, save for once at the ungodly hour of 3am, but I thought I would inquire of our readers (or reader, as in the post below) as to whether this has been a problem.  So, if you have had trouble reaching this site recently, please send us an email and let us know.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 12 February 2001 at 3:38 PM

I've spent the better part of the evening writing some Java™ code.  This is, of course, not all that unusual, since I occasionally pretend to be a CS major, but the strange thing is, I did all of my coding tonight at a UNIX command line.  I feel like I now qualify as a "hacker."  I mean, I didn't even use pico, I used emacs.  I even tried vi for a little while.

As a consequence of my new status as a "hacker," I now have a great deal of responsibilities.  Within the next seventy-two hours, I must initiate a Denial-of-Service attack on a major website, as well as spread a virus across the US via email.  Fortunately, we "hackers" do not sleep, so I will have no trouble fitting all of this into my already busy schedule.  Anyway, off I go to update my ".plan" file and to write some "shell scripts."

[For all of you who are going to email me for computer/UNIX help now that I am a "hacker," let me save you the trouble.  Any and all solutions can be found by reading the source code to the software that is giving you trouble.  What, your software isn't open source?  Well no wonder you're having trouble with it.]

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 12 February 2001 at 3:55 AM

it has been brought to my attention by our reader, ben ewing, that we are losing our readership to cnn.com.  this is due, he sites, in part to cnn.com's "content," which upon reflection is something negative273 lacks.  but I feel I must mention, one thing cnn lacks is insight into my personal life.  where else (besides maybe nothing is good) can you glimpse into my life?  how else can you learn that I am no longer sleeping at night or that I have so much homework to do this weekend that for the third sunday in a row, I probably will be up all night working on it?  it seems to me that cnn is a bit lacking in the "personal details about michael" department.  which is exactly why Ive decided to post that I very badly need a hair cut, I have a lot of laundry to do tonight, and my room is a mess.

by the way, dave thinks I should post more.  anybody even care?  let me know.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 11 February 2001 at 6:54 PM

If you read Slate, you probably read the article where Mickey Kaus proclaims Marjorie Williams of the Washington Post to be "the hottest columnist in the country right now."  Well, I'd like to second Mr. Kaus's assessment.  I very much enjoy reading Ms. Williams work, and would recommend her to anyone.  I should point out that she is a bit left-leaning, and I, if pressed, would admit to a bit of a conservative stance on most issues, but this doesn't keep from enjoying Ms. Williams' s columns.  In fact, her most recent column is the best opinion piece I've read about the Clinton's exit strategy (if anything as unorganized and as foolish as all of these bought pardons and stolen furniture can be called a strategy) is the best piece I've read on the subject.  Go read her columns, or read the columns of one of her coworkers.  The Post has very good columnists.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 February 2001 at 8:38 PM

Here's a very funny flash animation.  Be warned though, it's a bandwidth killer.

Here's a very funny satirical website.  It's not a bandwidth killer.

Last night michael and I purchased the first tape of Escaflowne, a very cool anime show.  Now we have to search for the other tapes.  (On an interesting side note, did you know that in Japan the word anime refers to American cartoons?)  In other news, Linkin Park will be playing at the Pageant tomorrow, and Michael and I may go see them.

On Monday we'll find out if we got a Parkview Properties apartment.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 February 2001 at 2:38 PM

Why don't WashU engineers do cool things like this?

The Swiss police who were protecting the World Economic Forum (Remember the riots in Seattle about a year ago? It's the same event.) had a secret weapon they planned on using against protesters: cow manure.  It seems that the police had loaded all of their water cannons with liquid manure, thinking (quite correctly, in my opinion) that being sprayed by manure would be more likely to deter protesters than being sprayed by water.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view the issue of spraying people with cow dung), the barbed wire, steel fences, and roadblocks kept demonstrators far enough away that the dung gun wasn't needed.  To quote from the Business Week article (paid subscription required) where I got this information , when asked "about it, one heavily armed policewoman in Davos [the site of this year's forum] smiled brightly and remarked: 'At least it's organic.' "

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 February 2001 at 3:59 PM

I'm intrigued by this contest being run by The Smoking Gun.

I spent the better part of the past weekend on ACM-related events.  michael and I sorted through some books that were donated to the ACM library on Friday, picking out the ones we wanted and taking them to the lounge.  On Saturday Sean, Joe, and I organized the entire library according to subject and rearranged all of the furniture in the lounge.  The lounge looks pretty good.  Of course the downside to all of this is that I didn't get much homework done over the weekend.

In other news, the weather today is perfect.  It's about 55° outside right now, and the sun is shining brightly.  My motivation to do work, which appears to be closely related to the weather outside (read: seasonal depression), has greatly increased, and I've already finished tomorrow's homework.  Of course, I was doing the homework rather than taking notes in class today, but I'm happy with the result nonetheless.

Mark your calendars: there is an all new West Wing on tomorrow.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 February 2001 at 3:27 PM

If you aren't totally burnt out on the Florida election controversy, and have a goodly amount of free time, you should read the Washington Post's seven part series on the 36 day recount.  Here's the first story, follow the links in the sidebar for the other parts.  On a related note, I really like the Post's On Politics site.  It always has very informative political articles, if you like that sort of thing.

Phil briefly returned to the suite yesterday to collect the possessions that he didn't take home with him at the end of last semester.  In keeping with the general pattern of my interactions with him, he and his family arrived at the crack of dawn (well, 8:30am is very early for me) and managed to limit my sleep to five hours.  I guess it's rather ironic that he and I can't be around each other for even a short period of time without him doing something (unintentionally) that irritates me.

On a more upbeat note, there are only eleven days until pitchers and catchers report for spring training.  I can't wait until March 2, when I can finally hear the Redbirds on the radio again.  All these fake leagues (NBA, XFL) get on my nerves, and I really need to see some legitimate professional sports real soon.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 4 February 2001 at 1:53 PM

Here's an excerpt from a White House press release that was posted on www.whitehouse.gov (which seems to be down right now, but will probably be back up soon).

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 30, 2001

PRESS BRIEFING BY
MAYOR STEVE GOLDSMITH,
REVEREND MARK SCOTT,
AND A WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL
ON THE FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE

The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

3:03 P.M. EST

MR. MCCLELLAN: Everybody set? Let me go back over the parameters. No radio, no cameras. This is a briefing on the faith-based proposal put out today. We've got with us Mayor Steve Goldsmith, Reverend Mark Scott, and John Bridgeland. The Mayor and the Reverend will be on the record. John Bridgeland you can identify as a White House official; he will be on background ...

WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: Welcome. Today the President announced and submitted to the Congress his package of proposals ...

Thanks to Slate for the tip-off.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 February 2001 at 12:25 PM

I stayed up tonight to write a story for my fiction writing class.  I had an idea for it today, and earlier tonight I was somewhat excited.  but already Ive gotten bored with it, and Im not nearly as sure that its a good idea as I was when I started.  why does this always seem to happen.  I wish the excitement would last just long enough for me to finish.  then if I started hating it, it wouldnt make a difference.  maybe Im just tired.  I think I will give up and go to bed soon.

dont worry, though.  I will have the story done by monday.  maybe before then.  Ill post it when Im finished.  dave will just have to bate his breath for a few more days.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 1 February 2001 at 5:55 AM

Estimated deaths in the Indian earthquake range from 25,000 to 100,000.  As a comparison, the US had 36,516 deaths during the entire Korean conflict (1951 through 1957, when the truce was signed).  The most disturbing aspect of all of this is the relative lack of media attention being given to this issue.  Is John Ashcroft's battle to be Attorney General really more important than the many, many fatalities on the Indian subcontinent?  Perhaps a more interesting question would be, why are Americans so much more interested in the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians than the death of 100 times as many Indians?

We seem to have very strange priorities here in the ol' U. S. of A.  I know that Americans are, historically, isolationists, but I thought that ended with the second World War.  Apparently, we are only a global community when we find it convenient, for trade purposes I guess, to act like one.

On an unrelated topic, michael claims that he will be posting something tonight.  I, for one, am waiting with bated breath.  His posting, I'm sure, will be stellar, as he's had more than three days to work on it.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 1 February 2001 at 1:06 AM