Linguistics, Dancing, and a Few Good Books

14 March 2003

I am now the proud owner of a brand new 10G iPod. Words simply cannot describe my coolness.

"I was under the impression [Bush] was fairly up front about his advisor-happy leadership style. If I didn't horribly disagree with his basic goals, I'd probably find it commendable." --Jonathan Prykop

Posted 2:01 PM [+]

13 March 2003

I should not be afraid to use my computer. I should not have to worry that if the hard drive runs out of space, I'll lose files that are already safely ensconced on it. It is a basic notion of software engineering that you don't remove the old version until you're sure the new version is saved. That's something I expect out of a class project, and you better believe I expect it in production software.

Which is why it's so desperately frustrating that so much of Apple's software seems to violate these expectations. I have now lost all the comments I typed into iTunes, my entire calendar that I'd stored in iCal, and 40 photos off my camera with iPhoto. I've posted complaints, as non-nasty as I could bear to make them, in the Apple discussion forums; we'll see how that goes.

"It's wishful thinking to hope that American fascism will be anywhere near as stylish as conventional fascism. I see a future filled with red white and blue jumpsuits." --Jonathan Prykop

Posted 11:48 AM [+]

12 March 2003

I went to daily Mass today. I can't even put into words why, but I just really wanted to do that before I called in my acceptance. It's a lot of things, I suppose; this job is quite potentially the only real job I will ever hold, and I may well hold it for upwards of forty years. The decision to take it is Significant. And as I was at Mass, my thoughts were running to things like the worldwide-ness of the Church, and the fact that it is one of the most---perhaps the most---ancient institution in the world, and I'm part of it. So maybe that's why. I dunno. I'm glad I did, though.

Also, I called in my acceptance. It's official. (Well, technically I guess it's not official until I sign the contract, which I'll get in a few days, but you know what I mean.)

"I am absolved of my sins every time I clear my browser history." --Sam Walker

Posted 12:45 PM [+]

And today, because two regions of instability weren't enough for the world, Serbian prime minister Zoran Djinjic was assassinated. It's difficult to fathom the mindset of a person that would kill the man largely responsible for stabilising the country and improving its economy and the quality of life of its citizens.

*sigh*

"The Creator definitely intended for breakfast cereals to only be brown." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 10:52 AM [+]

11 March 2003

I sent out an email about ten minutes ago mentioning that I got the job, and I've already gotten five congratulations, two by phone, one in person, and two by email. Talk about living in the digital information age.

Another email arrived as I was typing this. I love it.

"There is a direct correlation between the development of the United States and the underdevelopment of Native America." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 3:02 PM [+]

I just received an offer for the position of Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. For form's sake I didn't accept immediately, but I'm having a difficult time envisioning possible worlds where I didn't accept it. I suppose maybe I should wait for the email with details to arrive before I call to accept the offer.

Yay!

"Sacajawea and Pocahontas---why is it that Americans know those two? Those would be the helping-out-white-guys women, hmm?" --Winona LaDuke

Posted 2:37 PM [+]

Note to self and all programmers: if you have a memory leak, and you are using inheritance anywhere, make certain that your destructors are virtual. Stupid C++.

By the way, the last few and next few quotes are from a talk I went to last Monday by Winona LaDuke, an all around cool person. At this point she's probably best known for being VP on Nader's ticket, but she's long been an activist for native rights and environmental causes. She's also very smart and very funny, and if you have a chance to see her talk, do so.

"You probably already go a little bit outside your arena of comfort---go a little bit further. That is what activism requires." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 11:15 AM [+]

10 March 2003

I hate computers.

I've spent all day trying to track down a stupid bug in memory allocation; there is clearly a leak somewhere (the memory usage keeps going up) but every place I'm allocating I print out the pointer value, and it keeps being the same one---meaning that the previously-allocated pointer is in fact getting deleted after all. And yet the program keeps sucking down memory. Grrr.

"I think patents are for toasters. They should not be for life forms." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 8:31 PM [+]

Apple clearly has a bunch of FUCKING MORONS working for them. I just went to download the 100 or so pictures from my camera from the second day of the comp; the download failed partway through but iPhoto still told the camera to delete ALL of the pictures. GOD DAMMIT. We've known since, like, the SEVENTIES that when you are moving files from one place to another, you copy them, make sure they've arrived, and ONLY THEN do you delete them from the source. (iTunes actually suffers from the same problem with regards to its index file, but that at least can be rebuilt.)

"I have been trying to work on Ralph for years, on his wardrobe. I was thinking a cape. With a big R on it." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 1:25 PM [+]

I just read an interesting column in today's BDH: College education an opportunity, not a reward. It brings up some interesting points that aren't often mentioned in the affirmative action debate; when we hear people say things like "that minority person stole the spot of a more-qualified white person", why is it that we never question whether the white person was in fact more qualified? What, really, are the qualifications one needs to get into college? Certainly one would hope for some amount of basic, general knowledge, but that often seems to be a convenient bonus rather than a prerequisite (God knows that even the good schools don't seem to be teaching kids how to write well anymore). If we assume for the sake of argument that motivation and intellectual curiosity are the dominant, or at least major, factors in "being qualified" for college, then grades and scores are at best a poor proxy for this information, which may approximate the motivation and curiosity of people of some backgrounds (i.e. well-funded suburban and magnet schools), but works considerably less well for others.

Much of the rhetoric about affirmative action---both pro and con, actually---regards college primarily as an entitlement of those who got the best grades in high school. The pro-AA folks may have missed the boat by allowing this as an axiom of debate and settling for the weaker argument, which boils down to "sure, we're violating the entitlement, but it's worth it in this case." They should consider the bolder but truer "no, college isn't an entitlement for anyone, and the prime qualifications are not measurable quantities---we think that race and economic background should be used to help interpret the grades and the scores when trying to determine whether someone is motivated and intellectually curious enough to attend college."

"You want to hang out with Dick Cheney and Doctor Evil, or you want to go hang out with the Indians, and ice cream?" --Winona LaDuke

Posted 10:55 AM [+]

09 March 2003

This weekend I was at the Harvard comp... it keeps getting more prestigious each year. This year they had an octifinal at the open level in latin---33 couples competing. God, that's huge. As usual, our team washed out of latin without placing, although we (meaning Dave, mostly) placed some in the other sections. As a whole, the team placed 5th in the American team match, from a field of 18 or so, which is quite good. (We even beat out MIT's B-team by several points, which was cool. Susan and I made finals with our tango, which was quite a pick-me-up! :) I have about a million (ok, maybe only two hundred or so) pictures, which I'll post sometime this week---I love my digicam, it takes great shots and the ability to delete makes you really fearless on snapping a lot of shots, so you really get some good ones in there.

I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that I'm really content with the possibility of not getting a job right off. For one thing, it takes off the thesis pressure; if I finish in September, eh. As such, I'd be able to ease up a bit for the next month to dedicate lots of time to practicing for MIT comp; I'm really into ballroom again (it was fading a little last semester), and it kills me that I don't have time for it right now. Maybe if I practiced enough, I could get a first place ribbon in something; I've never done that before. And without a job, I could spend next year travelling: I could make that Europe trip that I've been claiming I'd do someday, and I could spend some more time visiting Mike in Hawai`i again, maybe this time when school's not in session.

Of course, I'm not going to complain if I do get a job, either. I'd buy an iPod to celebrate, and then I'd hunker down and see about writing two theses in a month. I should find out soon, either way, and I'll be sure to let y'all know.

"Actually, the Democrats took a lot of votes from the Greens." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 8:56 PM [+]

This weekend I was at the Harvard comp... it keeps getting more prestigious each year. This year they had an octifinal at the open level in latin---33 couples competing. God, that's huge. As usual, our team washed out of latin without placing, although we (meaning Dave, mostly) placed some in the other sections.

I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that I'm really content with the possibility of not getting a job right off. For one thing, it takes off the thesis pressure; if I finish in September, eh. As such, I'd be able to ease up a bit for the next month to dedicate lots of time to practicing for MIT comp; I'm really into ballroom again (it was fading a little last semester), and it kills me that I don't have time for it right now. Maybe if I practiced enough, I could get a first place ribbon in something; I've never done that before. And without a job, I could spend next year travelling: I could make that Europe trip that I've been claiming I'd do someday, and I could spend some more time visiting Mike in Hawai`i again, maybe this time when school's not in session.

Of course, I'm not going to complain if I do get a job, either. I should find out soon, either way, and I'll be sure to let y'all know.

"Actually, the Democrats took a lot of votes from the Greens." --Winona LaDuke

Posted 8:49 PM [+]