With just over 6 hours left of 2011, I thought I'd go back and look at the year we have just finished. A year comprised of many ups and downs, both globally and locally, but one in which we've hopefully ended up better than we started.
Internationally, 2011 was a year of great change, possibly the greatest since the early 90s and the fall of the USSR. The "Arab Spring" as people called it, started in Tunisia and spread across north Africa and the middle east, rocking entrenched dictatorships. Along with Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were successful in overthrowing their dictators. With mostly peaceful protests in Egypt, and 6 months of full on civil war in Libya. And the fighting is still going on in other places, like Syria and Yemen. Will the new order be more friendly to the US? Only time will tell. I can only hope that the pro-democracy movements don't get hijacked by the Islamism sharia law supporters.
On the other side of the world, the pacific and eastern Asia saw extreme natural disasters. Flooding in Thailand, earthquakes in Japan. The death toll was large, and the secondary effects (such as rising prices for tech produced in Asia) still hasn't fully fallen out.
Closer to home, politics began heating up. In response to the tea party movement (the far right), a new movement has arisen. The Occupy movement. Occupy Wallstreet is where is started, but the protests spread across the country, targeting wealthy corporations. Granted, the movement doesn't seem to have much in the way of demands other than, we're unhappy that you have so much money and we don't.
Additionally, Washington politics grew more strained as the year went on. In the 2010 midterm elections, the GOP took control of the House and nearly the Senate. Since then we seem to have jumped from crisis to crisis, including several near government shut downs, and each party tries to blame it on the other in preparation for the larger 2012 presidential election. Overall the Democrats have won though, with Obama's ratings going up significantly, at least in the second half of the year.
The GOP primary race also got kicked off, with a string of widely followed televised debates. Mitt Romney, the assumed forerunner, maintained a steady support in the mid 20s, while others rose and fell. Pawlenty and Bachmann in early summer, Rick Perry in August, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and now there are even a few stirrings for Rick Santorum. Throughout, Gary Johnson was left out of nearly all debates and polls, and finally gave up and switched over to the Libertarian Party. Ron Paul of course was around the entire time, support steadily growing, but still too small to matter.
In a much less depressing area, tech progressed hugely in 2011. The iPad 2 was released early in the year, and the first Android tablets as well. Near summer Android finally had a decent on in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but with no marketing and a string of legal attacks by Apple, it never took off. Amazon went a different route, with a more inexpensive tablet, the Kindle Fire. It didn't seek to compete with the iPad, and has done quite well. Finally more recently, things like the Asus Transformer Prime bring the best of tablets and laptops together. Terribly expensive though, I doubt the price will let it be a huge hit.
Smart phones saw little significant change over the year. Lots of refinement, of course. Faster processors, more memory, better screens. Android 4.0 and iOS 5 can out, bringing improvements to the software side as well. No major breakthroughs though. Even the new iPhone was just an incremental upgrade. Windows Phone 7 did get some nifty improvements, and while nearly everyone who uses it enjoys it, it's got so little market share that expanding in the face of iOS and Android will be almost impossible. Nokia near the end of 2011 finally began releasing WP7 phones though, so 2012 will be the last chance Microsoft's platform has.
Down then to the personal level. Both Spring and Fall semesters were good for me academically. No grades under a B, in fact. I also replaced the F and D+ I'd gotten during the terrible fall of '10 with and A and A, pushing the overall GPA up quite a bit. Non-academically I had a good pretty decent year, though it certainly was better during summer and fall. I stayed at Purdue over the summer, working for ITaP, and teaching myself several web design languages on the side. I'm also dating someone at the moment, which is quite unusual for me, so wish me luck.
This post has gotten quite a bit longer than I originally was anticipating, so I think I'll wrap it up. I hope you all had a good year, and I'm looking forward to 2012. Happy new years!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
That Poor Jet ...
As I posted a while back, when I'm really bored, I have fun messing with the people that have destroyed Omegle and Chatroulette (ie the people who use it for cybersex). Well a friend sent me this picture a few days ago, and every time I see it, I crack up all over again.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
SOPA
I've been reading about the internet domain host GoDaddy over the past few days. They offocially came in out support of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), and then over the past week, have lost over 70,000 domains, as customers boycotted them. This isn't surprising to me, because SOPA is one of the dumbest pieces of legislation that I've seen in a long time.
Now lest you misunderstand me, I'm not refering to the idea of stopping online piracy. The goal is laudable. What I have a problem with is how they are going about it. It's like hitting a fly with an atomic bomb. To put it in terms everyone can understand: If SOPA passes, then Youtube and Facebook both get shut down the next day, their owners go to prison for hosting copyright infringing material.
Reason being, SOPA basically makes two changes. First, it increases the scope of copyright infringement (meaning if you sing a cover of your favorite song and post it on youtube, that's copyright infringement), and second, it makes site owners responsible for everything on their site. Meaning along with Justin Beiber, the owners of Google (which owns youtube), get put in federal prison because of his covers.
Think how many videos on are Youtube. The site already has automatic scanning of the sound in videos, which matches it against songs. If you upload a copyrighted song, it can tell and will silence it automatically. But if you are singing the song yourself, no software can tell. Every video will have to be looked at, and every single video on youtube already will have to be checked. It's almost impossible, and certainly would be impractical for a completely free site.
There will be so much colateral damage that most people are going to assume that this is all exageration. Which it's not. The worst part is that it's pointless. Putting full songs and music videos on youtube is already being killed off by the automatic scans. The big thing this will stop are things like the above, covers and over uses that somehow violate copyright. But how do those hurt the companies?
The real piracy issue that is hurting the music and movie industy is the actual downloading of songs and movies. The sad part is that 90+% of it is being done in one of three ways, and could be stopped with almost no colatoral damange.
Torrents, Filehosts, and Private Networks. Those are the three ways which combined costitute almost all online piracy. The Limewire network used to be among them, but was quite successfully shut down. Now it's those three. Private networks are hard to get at, and not worth the trouble. Torrents most people know about, it's a peer to peer technology that lets people share directly with other people. Filehosts (Rapidshare, Fileserve, Megaupload) are sites that exist solely to host movies, TV shows, porn, etc.
Torrents and Filehosts could be taken down, and with that, suddenly you've killed the majority of all online piracy. There's no collatoral damange, because both torrents and Filehosts exist only for piracy, unlike youtube which has a legitimate function. However, there are a lot of forces working behind the scenes that don't want to stop piracy. By pushing legislators into doing something this extreme, they make the anti-piracy side seem extremist and pro-censorship, and turn the public against them. And congress has fallen for it.
Now lest you misunderstand me, I'm not refering to the idea of stopping online piracy. The goal is laudable. What I have a problem with is how they are going about it. It's like hitting a fly with an atomic bomb. To put it in terms everyone can understand: If SOPA passes, then Youtube and Facebook both get shut down the next day, their owners go to prison for hosting copyright infringing material.
Reason being, SOPA basically makes two changes. First, it increases the scope of copyright infringement (meaning if you sing a cover of your favorite song and post it on youtube, that's copyright infringement), and second, it makes site owners responsible for everything on their site. Meaning along with Justin Beiber, the owners of Google (which owns youtube), get put in federal prison because of his covers.
Think how many videos on are Youtube. The site already has automatic scanning of the sound in videos, which matches it against songs. If you upload a copyrighted song, it can tell and will silence it automatically. But if you are singing the song yourself, no software can tell. Every video will have to be looked at, and every single video on youtube already will have to be checked. It's almost impossible, and certainly would be impractical for a completely free site.
There will be so much colateral damage that most people are going to assume that this is all exageration. Which it's not. The worst part is that it's pointless. Putting full songs and music videos on youtube is already being killed off by the automatic scans. The big thing this will stop are things like the above, covers and over uses that somehow violate copyright. But how do those hurt the companies?
The real piracy issue that is hurting the music and movie industy is the actual downloading of songs and movies. The sad part is that 90+% of it is being done in one of three ways, and could be stopped with almost no colatoral damange.
Torrents, Filehosts, and Private Networks. Those are the three ways which combined costitute almost all online piracy. The Limewire network used to be among them, but was quite successfully shut down. Now it's those three. Private networks are hard to get at, and not worth the trouble. Torrents most people know about, it's a peer to peer technology that lets people share directly with other people. Filehosts (Rapidshare, Fileserve, Megaupload) are sites that exist solely to host movies, TV shows, porn, etc.
Torrents and Filehosts could be taken down, and with that, suddenly you've killed the majority of all online piracy. There's no collatoral damange, because both torrents and Filehosts exist only for piracy, unlike youtube which has a legitimate function. However, there are a lot of forces working behind the scenes that don't want to stop piracy. By pushing legislators into doing something this extreme, they make the anti-piracy side seem extremist and pro-censorship, and turn the public against them. And congress has fallen for it.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Change.org
On my primary Hotmail account, I am signed up for very few subscription lists. Dominos's coupon list, because I do love Dominos pizza. Gary Johnson's news list, because I'm following his campaign. And finally, Change.org's mailing list.
Change.org is a website where people can start petitions, for or against something they've noticed. The idea being that most problems are local ones that the greater community doesn't know about. It's a way to spread the message.
Now, I rarely end up signing them. There are a lot of wishy washy liberal petitions, as well as the occasional theocratic ban evolution sort of thing. But I do find ones that I think are worth signing, such as a petition against stores opening at midnight on Black Friday. Granted, my reasons for signing that one didn't have anything to do with the reasons of the man who started it. He was an employee of Target who didn't want to have to go into work at midnight. And that's understandable, but not something which really impacted me. My reason for signing was that by opening at midnight, more people would be out shopping, which means longer lines. To get something I'd have to give up my entire Thanksgiving, instead of just getting up super early the next day.
Well today I got another one that I decided was worth signing. It reminded me of an episode Law and Order, in which a child was put in a tight bag and then pushed around and beaten, to simulate childbirth. They ended up killing the child and got charged with murder. The defense said that it was a normal therapeutic procedure. Everyone else said, you put the kid in a bag and kicked him to death .. you're going to jail. Seemed to me to be a silly episode because of how black and white it was, who would really do that? Well I owe the show an apology, because I guess it's not that unrealistic.
Basically in Kentucky a mom found out that her 9 year old autistic son has been put in a tight bag and left in a hallway alone as punishment, for talking in class and the like. Hasn't been kicked and beaten the way it was in the Law and Order episode, but being placed in a tight bag and left alone is still pretty terrible. See the full story at the link below.
Change.org Petition
Change.org is a website where people can start petitions, for or against something they've noticed. The idea being that most problems are local ones that the greater community doesn't know about. It's a way to spread the message.
Now, I rarely end up signing them. There are a lot of wishy washy liberal petitions, as well as the occasional theocratic ban evolution sort of thing. But I do find ones that I think are worth signing, such as a petition against stores opening at midnight on Black Friday. Granted, my reasons for signing that one didn't have anything to do with the reasons of the man who started it. He was an employee of Target who didn't want to have to go into work at midnight. And that's understandable, but not something which really impacted me. My reason for signing was that by opening at midnight, more people would be out shopping, which means longer lines. To get something I'd have to give up my entire Thanksgiving, instead of just getting up super early the next day.
Well today I got another one that I decided was worth signing. It reminded me of an episode Law and Order, in which a child was put in a tight bag and then pushed around and beaten, to simulate childbirth. They ended up killing the child and got charged with murder. The defense said that it was a normal therapeutic procedure. Everyone else said, you put the kid in a bag and kicked him to death .. you're going to jail. Seemed to me to be a silly episode because of how black and white it was, who would really do that? Well I owe the show an apology, because I guess it's not that unrealistic.
Basically in Kentucky a mom found out that her 9 year old autistic son has been put in a tight bag and left in a hallway alone as punishment, for talking in class and the like. Hasn't been kicked and beaten the way it was in the Law and Order episode, but being placed in a tight bag and left alone is still pretty terrible. See the full story at the link below.
Change.org Petition
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas
I haven't been active on here since coming home for break, and while I'd like to say that's because I was just too busy, that wouldn't be true at all. In fact I've been doing a whole lot of nothing, and it's been glorious. Relaxation is a beautiful thing coming off a hard fought end to the semester.
Today (obviously) is Christmas, it's my first Christmas as an atheist, and it felt quite strange. I ended up going to church with my family out of sentiment, but felt like an outsider. Which makes sense I guess. It certainly wasn't the relaxing experience it used to be. But that's life I guess.
In better news, gifts were successful on both sides. I got several really cool things, including a brother pig t-shirt that my epic graphic designer friend made for me using the iron on shirt stickers.
I also got the limited edition of The Art of Building Worlds, number 400 something. AWESOME book, hardcover with real signed prints as well.
I did have a screwup in my own gifts to people. Two of my friends are now dating, and so I got them a pair of shirts. For her, a shirt that said, I Beat My Boyfriend at Video Games, and then for him, I Let My Girlfriend Beat Me At Video Games. Funny right? They thought so. But then we looked at the sizes. Turns out I flipped them. The XL was a S, and the S was an XL. Oops.
The extended family came in wonderfully as well, I got just over a hundred bucks in cash from the extended family, grandmas and aunts and the like, which went right back out to pay for my $140 extra charge on the cell phone bill for extra texts ....
Here's hoping your own Christmas was as fun. Merry Christmas, and to all a good night.
Today (obviously) is Christmas, it's my first Christmas as an atheist, and it felt quite strange. I ended up going to church with my family out of sentiment, but felt like an outsider. Which makes sense I guess. It certainly wasn't the relaxing experience it used to be. But that's life I guess.
In better news, gifts were successful on both sides. I got several really cool things, including a brother pig t-shirt that my epic graphic designer friend made for me using the iron on shirt stickers.
I also got the limited edition of The Art of Building Worlds, number 400 something. AWESOME book, hardcover with real signed prints as well.
I did have a screwup in my own gifts to people. Two of my friends are now dating, and so I got them a pair of shirts. For her, a shirt that said, I Beat My Boyfriend at Video Games, and then for him, I Let My Girlfriend Beat Me At Video Games. Funny right? They thought so. But then we looked at the sizes. Turns out I flipped them. The XL was a S, and the S was an XL. Oops.
The extended family came in wonderfully as well, I got just over a hundred bucks in cash from the extended family, grandmas and aunts and the like, which went right back out to pay for my $140 extra charge on the cell phone bill for extra texts ....
Here's hoping your own Christmas was as fun. Merry Christmas, and to all a good night.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Final Week - Finals
Well hell week is done. Thermo, DiffyQ, Soils, Pavement ... all finals and all unpleasant. But all finally finished.
I woke up early Monday to take the 8am Thermo exam, and did well. I got a 74%, which when added up gives me an A in the class. Pretty excited about that. Then I had a couple days off, and on Wednesday night, I took DiffyQ. I holed up in the Math Library for a good 7 hours leading up to the exam, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Then back home and right to bed, because I had the soils exam early Thursday morning. That one I'm also feeling pretty good about. I actually finished it, which is saying a lot for that class. It's not terrible material, it's just that the professor doesn't understand the concept of time, and her exams are always too long. But maybe she took our feedback into account, since I was able to finish the final.
I had the rest of Thursday to study for pavement. It was an open-book open-note test, and I went all out, I printed out every single packet of notes we'd had for the entire semester. And it's a good thing I did. Most pavement design problems require tables and charts. In other classes, those would be provided. But when he said open-book, open-note, he meant that he wasn't providing anything. So, good thing I the notes and tables myself. With it all, I'm pretty sure I got an A or B. Without, it would have been something like a 10%.
I woke up early Monday to take the 8am Thermo exam, and did well. I got a 74%, which when added up gives me an A in the class. Pretty excited about that. Then I had a couple days off, and on Wednesday night, I took DiffyQ. I holed up in the Math Library for a good 7 hours leading up to the exam, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Then back home and right to bed, because I had the soils exam early Thursday morning. That one I'm also feeling pretty good about. I actually finished it, which is saying a lot for that class. It's not terrible material, it's just that the professor doesn't understand the concept of time, and her exams are always too long. But maybe she took our feedback into account, since I was able to finish the final.
I had the rest of Thursday to study for pavement. It was an open-book open-note test, and I went all out, I printed out every single packet of notes we'd had for the entire semester. And it's a good thing I did. Most pavement design problems require tables and charts. In other classes, those would be provided. But when he said open-book, open-note, he meant that he wasn't providing anything. So, good thing I the notes and tables myself. With it all, I'm pretty sure I got an A or B. Without, it would have been something like a 10%.
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