Things I don’t care about in this presidential race

Top 3 things which I don’t care about:

1. The cost of any of the candidate’s haircuts
2. Any of their pastors’s soundbytes, co-professors’s political actions, or spouse’s affairs
3. Their clothing

There are so many interesting issues–health care, tuition afford ability, constitutional preservation–that these quick print issues are just, well, irritating.

Inspirational Quote:

“Everyday throughout America, the Overspeeder runs over somebody and ‘escapes.’ That is the way it reads. At present the ‘mobile numbers are so small that ordinary eyes cannot read them, upon a swiftly receding machine, at a distance of a hundred feet–a distance which the machine has covered before the spectator can adjust his focus. I think I would amend the law. I would enlarge the numbers, and make them readable at a hundred yards. For overspeeding–first offence–I would enlarge the figures again, and make them readable at three hundred yards–this in place of a fine, and as a warning to pedestrians to climb a tree.”
- Mark Twain, “Overspeeding,” Harper’s Weekly, 11/5/1905 (from a letter to the editor dated 10/18/1905)

Press Release for Saltnote Stageworks Festival

Shameless self promotion, but I am really exited about this festival, so here goes:

PS: I am playing the 3rd Genii in The Magic Flute, and expect to be in the choruses for Carmina Burana, Pagliacci coro, Ragtime, Sour Angelica and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

Come watch!

Huge Month-Long Music Festival Coming to Maryland

Stageworks Festival is new and it’s exciting!

The PROGRAM is the largest Young Artist Festival in North America, with over 100 participants from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia uniting to present 17 consecutive evenings of performances in opera (Carmina Burana, The Magic Flute, Pagliacci & Suor Angelica), musical theater (Ragtime), jazz (with highlights from Porgy and Bess), Big Band, chamber works (Mostly Mozart), cabaret and more! All this with Grammy-Award winning conductors, Broadway directors, a music director from LA Opera, faculty from The Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Kennedy Center, NYC Opera and leading universities and conservatories throughout the world, and world-class guest artists, Michael Maniaci, Rebecca Turner, and Stephen Reid.

The PERFORMANCES are local (Village Green in Indian Head, Maryland) and economical ($5 tickets for Monday-Thursday evening programs; $8-$10 for Friday-Sunday evening programs).

The PARTICIPANTS include youth, adults, faculty, students, technicians, paid staff, and volunteers.

The PROMISE is one of world-class professional entertainment for our community while promoting, encouraging, and training emerging young artists!
The young artists who will be attending and performing in Stageworks Festival possess the raw talent and strong desire necessary to succeed as the musicians and performers of tomorrow. Providing these young adults with the training and opportunities that will be afforded them this summer is the dream of Artistic Director and Waldorf resident, Lisa Kay Morton. Her goal is to make Stageworks Festival an annual event in Indian Head, Maryland: top-notch training and performance opportunities for young artists, while simultaneously giving the local community 17 consecutive evenings of world-class, but low-cost musical entertainment!

While the participants converge upon Charles County on June 6, 2008, the concerts won’t begin until June 13th, but run each evening thereafter through June 29th.

Details about Stageworks Festival can be found at www.stageworksfestival.org

Inspirational Quote:

You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”–George Bernard Shaw

Overheating labtop mini-hack

ok, so I know it’s because Amelia (my Macbook Pro)’s fan is not so effective right now. And I will take her to an Apple Store when I get home to CA. However, until then, I didn’t like how her screen froze and her fan whirred and she got hotter and hotter. I was scared for my Amelia. So I thought. And thought. And it was 6am and I needed to finished my course registration so I stopped thinking, and I got my medical icepack out of the freezer, put it on my bed, put a tarry cloth on top of it and put Amelia–battery squarely on the icepack–on top.

At that point she was nearly uncomfortable to touch she was so hot, but as I was adding and moving classes I could feel her body cooling dramatically. And now she is good!

Inspirational Quote:

“The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.” - Mike Krzyzewski

A Cool Way to Prep for Finals

One of my friends recently blogged about limiting his “infoporn” intake which I thought was an interesting idea. I have limited my access to novels before (during the crunch weeks of college admissions) but never thought to limit my “trashy news” input. Here is his interesting post called Going on an Information Diet.

Inspirational Quote:

If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Ok, this looks pretty hilarious. Somehow these two goofballs (ok, they’re actually intense actors but they usually play goofballs) have managed to take some of the most contentious issues of today–Guantanamo bay, racial profiling, racism, police and governmental bias, airport security, citizen’s rights, and include them in a real way in a movie about two college students going to Amsterdam to get high.
However the only pickle in the pudding came when I tried to view an alternate trailer–because the first one was hilarious and I wanted more free funnies. When I clicked on it I got the following message:

You little pervert, are you over 17?

The MPAA has concluded that this film contains some adult content (theme, language, violence, nudity, sex and drug use are among the contents considered). In order to show you these materials, we must verify that you are aged 17 years or older.

To ensure verification, please provide information as it is listed on your current Driver’s License or State-issued ID.

First Name:
Last Name:
Date of Birth:
Zip Code:

By clicking the “submit” button, I agree that I am at least 17 years of age, I authorize you to confirm my age by checking the accuracy of the information I have submitted against the government-issued identification, and I agree to the Terms of Use government this website.

To the information
First: “Heck”
Last: “No”
DOB: “121280″
Zipcode: “94303″

I received the message “Sorry, we can not verify your age/identity at this time…”

Now, back when Congress was trying to legislate morality with the Children’s Defense Act, the Children’s Internet Protection Act and the Child Online Protection Act. From Reno v ACLU (1997) we get this quote:

“Commercial pornographic sites that charge their users for access have assigned them passwords as a method of age verification. The record does not contain any evidence concerning the reliability of these technologies. Even if passwords are effective for commercial purveyors of indecent material, the District Court found that an adult password requirement would impose significant burdens on noncommercial sites, both because they would discourage users from accessing their sites and because the cost of creating and [*857] maintaining such screening systems would be “beyond their reach.” (Page 15)

So the Supreme Court of the United States has already said age verification is not a viable form of CYA for purveyors of censored material. I believe this technology may still “impose significant burdens on noncommercial sites” but Harold and Kumar has money to spend. I believe because this is censorship imposed by the MPAA, it is unamerican but not illegal. However the greater issue for met is the statement “I authorize you to confirm my age by checking the accuracy of the information I have submitted against the government-issued identification” because that means a third party, for-profit business with no legal mandate my personally identifying information–apparently a form of my US ID.

My information is verified by Integrity Services who say they get their information:

“Using publicly available data that is digitized, indexed, formatted, and enhanced with other commercial data sources, Integrity uses the Aristotle COSMOS™ global database to power its age and id verification solutions. We provide full coverage for the United States and coverage for 157 nations abroad.” (FAQ: What are your data sources?)

There is a database with the first, last, birthday and current zipcode availible which is easily accessible to some random company? Because here’s the thing: I live a lot of places. My name has changed in the past few years. How often is this information updated? What right have they to keep my information? Maybe this is all naive, but I am so not ok having people like this knowing where I am, when I was born etc–talk about identity theft.

So let’s review.

1. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay looks hilarious and politically stimulating.
2. Someone on their publicity team has decided to let the MPAA determine who visits parts of their sites.
3. The MPAA is forcing the implementation of a technology specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court as unreasonably restrictive (though since the case is over a decade old, maybe they figure the spirit is as outdated as the technology mentioned–bad news for the US legal system).
4. A for-profit company has a database of the personal identifying information of all US citizens and citizens of 157 other countries in a database so that our age can be verified so we can watch a movie with cussing and nudity.

Riiiiiight.

Inspirational Quote:

“Nothing will work unless you do.” - Maya Angelou

Photo Project gone silly–Humanities Scholars Programs, Images of Modernity

These images are from our textbook (ok, their from Google Image Search, but their real home is our textbook):

John Szarkowski, et al. The Photographer’s Eye. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007. Paperback. ISBN 087070527X

Lilly and I chose these photos:

And asked our classmates to guess the context. We, with Leenie, are giving a presentation based around the question (which we came up with): does a photographer document or manipulate their subjects?

Then get got silly:

PS: the reason Lewis Pain’s demotivator is “Mentors” is that his lawyer used the defense that Pain had submitted his will to John Booth (the man who assassinated President Lincoln) while they plotted to throw the union into chaos. He was hanged for attempted murder of the Secretary of State under Lincoln.

PPS: the other photo is tiny because I couldn’t find a bigger version of it. It is a picture of a famous photographer of cathedrals standing near gargoyles while being photographed.

These are based on the famous demotivators:

from despair.com

Inspirational Quote:

He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit. -Sir Walter Scott

Explanation of my Blogroll

ok, so this is part of my learning experience as a blogger. I am slowly discovering how cool a lot of the WordPress interface is, and wanted mention one of its hidden uses: I use parts of my blog as my long term memory. An interesting article I enjoyed? If I write a post about it, I will forever be able to find that link again. Find out a friend has a blog? Add them to my blogroll and avoid having to coordinate clunkly “bookmark” lists across computers. But I’m not sure if connection between a given blog and its placement on my blogroll is obvious to the casual reader, so here’s my explanation:

• Brian’s blog

This is a friend from middle school’s blog. Go here for interesting insights into fabulous fanime costumes and Solaris installs.

• Eleanor Dickinson’s Blog

This is not really a blog, but my grandma’s website for which I am the webmonarch (for what a webmonarch is, see my post on the subject).

• Eric Allen’s Blog

This is another friend from middle school’s blog. He writes some pretty amazingly insightful sociology from a geeks point of view, or, how a thinking person programs.

• Katy’s Blog

This is my mom’s blog. I am constantly linking here for both her stories and her prolific pictures. We were the mother-daughter blogging team of the Grace Hopper Conference.

• Little Dead Girls–Sinead Toolis Byrd’s webcomic

This is my friend from high school’s webcomic. She is an incredible artist and I can always see her in her work–funny too!

I never actually feel bad about shamelessly plugging my friends’ blogs (which includes my family’s). I know people find my websites looking for recommendations and information and hopefully they know everything here is my opinion. I know I am missing some blogs but I just haven’t been linked to them yet–however, since I treat my blog as a non-static medium, I will quickly add them as I discover them.

All in all, blogging is a great way to keep track of people and ideas.

Inspirational Quote:

“Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.” -George Bernard Shaw

Family Lol “I wants teh bird”

My Mom made a Lol! Go “I Can Has Cheezbuger”!

moar funny pictures

Inspirational Quote

Would those of you in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.
- John Lennon

Lazarus Long on Specialization

This post is based on my Inspirational Quote from my critique of the MPAA:

a human being should be able to
change a diaper, (* peninsula school, red cross baby sitters course)
plan an invasion, (* last november, thanksgiving trip to washington dc)
butcher a hog, (! yet)
conn a ship, (* peninsula school, our cabin at loon lake with an 18 foot lazer)
design a building, (! yet)
write a sonnet, (* harker 10th grade, english class. I also wrote a poem based on “the passionate shepard” to his love” called the “pomeranian to his love”)
balance accounts, (* carnegie mellon university, I use quicken to manage my spending and income)
build a wall, (* peninsula school, I built forts and dams)
set a bone, (* peninsula school, red cross training for disasters)
comfort the dying, (! yet for humans, several birds and mice)
take orders, (* pacific martial arts, finally I learned to do this in my karate classes)
give orders, (*harker wrestling team,
cooperate, (* peninsula school, the whole time we were taught to respect each other and work in teams)
act alone, (* peninsula school, we were also taught to act individually and for causes we thought were right)
solve equations, (* harker school, AP Calc and such)
analyze new problems, (* peninsula school, we fundraised for camping trips and dealt with problems as they came up)
pitch manure, (* peninsula school, dog manure as part of my chores)
program a computer, (*! harker school, I can program on a computer however I think mr heinlein was talking about something more elementary like building an os which I need more work on my computer skills to do)
cook a tasty meal, (* harker wrestling team, when you’re losing weight you need to cook your own good food to control the contents)
fight efficiently, (* pacific martial arts && harker wrestling, we know about self-defense)
die gallantly. (! yet, I am pretty sure I cannot practice this)

Specialization is for insects.

– Robert A. Heinlein

My ability to fill out this list has a lot to do with my amazing middle school, Peninsula School in Menlo Park. Being a generalist is part of being a Humanities Major, but it is also part of how Peninsula taught me to live happily. I enjoy almost all of the skills I have gained (pitching manure isn’t much fun) and I look forward to learning how to do all of them (except the last one :-D).

Inspirational Quote:

Passionate Pomeranian to his love

Come live with me, and be my bitch,
Away from me you’ll never switch
Through the dog days and the rain
You will never cause me pain

Together we will lounge sheepskin mats
And I’ll spend the hours chasing cats
You’ll sit under the shade of parisol
While gazing upon me, your manly furball

I’ll give you collars of roses and love
Spikes and leather, soft as gloves
And combs of ivory, to twirl your hair
Which will soon adorn my manly lair

I will make you a sleeping pad
With embroidery, never plaid
Feed you food fit for a poodle!
Not a Man’s left over noodles

I’ll feed you fresh veal,
Which will never congeel
Like that stuff your master gives you
And in this way you I’ll woo

Your leash will be a silken rope
Shiny so you’ll not mope
With a steel core, so it’ll not fray,
You’ll be mine me ‘till your death day

We will frolic through the park
And at the pesky squirrels we’ll bark
Though your fleas will make me twitch
Come live with me, and be my bitch

By Jessica Dickinson Goodman for Mr Hufnagl’s class, Harker, 2005

icanhascheezburger branches out to political/graph humor

When will Lolcats/Lolpolitics/Lolgraphs stop being funny? Because they still are. Here is the website that started/organized it all: ICanHasCheezburger:

see more crazy cat pics

Now for political wonks, there is a political humor version (which don’t imbed the same way as the other sites apparently):

More political pictures

There is a lot of sexist issues here (both Ann Coulter and Hilary Clinton are made fun of for being too masculine. *sigh*. But you know what? That’s a pretty accurate description of how both women are portrayed in some circles. Punditkitchen definitely has a liberal bent, but they make fun of all the candidates equally.

And for math/stats geeks, there is a graph version:

I love how a lot of these graphs are about music. I have to include a second one:

This is a graphical representation of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”.

Have fun!

Inspirational Quote:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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