Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was a very welcome break for me.  I really needed to see my family and friends.  My sister from Florida came up for her 10 year high school reunion, so I was really happy to see her.  She brought her youngest daughter, my niece, and I was really happy to see her, though she was very shy.  My oldest sister who lives in Fishers, IN, also came up to visit.  She brought both of her kids.  

My nephew was completely fascinated with my beard.  I'm pretty sure he's one and two years old right now.  It is far too hard to keep track of time, so I'm not entirely sure.  He is the happiest baby I have ever encountered.  It seems like babies don't too often want to be held by me, but he was happy as a clam when I was holding him, so that was a definite plus.  

We had an uncharacteristically small Thanksgiving dinner at our house on Thanksgiving.  My Grandfather came over for dinner, then my oldest sister joined us at the tail end of it.  After that we had a little bit of down time, but then my aunt, her husband, and two cousins came over for a little while.  We played apples to apples, and that was fun.  

I did a lot of chillaxing with friends, too.  The day I got back, I invited one of my best friends over for s'mores.  It was really good to see him again.  The whole week I'd do some work around the house, then go hang with friends, and it made for an extremely relaxing break.  The work was nice, because it was a sort of returning to the family and my place in it, while spending time with friends is always great.  

Well, now I can't wait for Christmas.  

Rat Brains?

A friend sent me this a while back. It is a demonstration of neurons from a rat's brain being used to control a robot.  I can't quite decide if it is terribly disturbing or freakishly awesome.  

On the neat side, this could be a technological revolution.  Instead of programming artificial intelligence, we can just plug it in!  According to another site I viewed, they also intend to try inhibiting the cells in ways that resemble Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.  Its medically useful too!

On the downside, what are we messing with?!?  What is to stop someone from putting human brain cells in there instead?  Why don't we just take out someone's brain, and stick them in a robot?  Why don't we have someone's brain control the robot remotely, and put guns on it so we don't have to endanger soldiers?  Who is to say that the robots won't say, "Hey, why do we have to keep listening to these people when we are so much more powerful than they are?"  What are the moral implications of this sort of thing?  

The more I think about it, the more I am scared by it.  No matter how cool and potentially beneficial this might be, I think the risk is a little too high.  

Brothels?!? Thats Terrible!

When I saw the movie "Born into Brothels" I wasn't entirely certain of the definition of the word "Brothel."  I assumed it was just a type of slum, a dilapidated part of town or something.  Then I looked it up.  Yeah, it was worse than I thought.  

I was really saddened by the conditions that the children were forced to live in.  I remember the scene where the little girl is washing the pot with dirty water.  She didn't even have a sponge or cloth to wash with.  It looked like some sort of crumpled scrap of aluminum.  There were several scenes where the kids were being chewed out by their elders; swear words and every other kind of humiliation was present.  On the flip side, the kids were remarkably happy.  After being chewed out, they just brushed it off like it was nothing.  They always had smiles on their faces.  

I think that it was an admirable effort to find a way for these children to get out of the red light district.  It was ultimately up to the children and their parents if they actually went through with it, but it gave them a chance to make a better life.  Making a movie about it does raise awareness of what goes on, but it also exposes the lives of these children to the entire world.  I don't think it is an extremely widely watched movie, but it has still been seen by millions of people.  The children probably didn't have an understanding of what kind of scale they were agreeing to, but the parents might have.  Making a movie like that takes away most of those children's privacy, but they had little to begin with, and it allows the entire world to know how bad it can be.  Hopefully enough awareness will be raised that changes can be made and people no longer need to lead that kind of lifestyle to survive.  

Mornings

I have found that one of the most challenging parts of the day is the very first one.  Getting up in the morning.  It is such an essential part of the day, and yet very few like to do it!  There is the occasional "Morning Person" who loves getting that fresh start, but college students especially dislike it.  I go to breakfast almost every day, and I've noticed that there aren't many people there, but there are TONS of people there at dinner.  And lots of people at Harrison Grill at midnight or later.  It seems to me that the nocturnal lifestyle is fairly predominant around here.  

I have three 7:30 classes, so I am forced to get up early and regularly.  Many nights I don't get more than a few hours of sleep, but I can usually make up for it because I don't have classes very late in the day most of the time.  I like naps.  Then again, a nap introduces something of a second morning.  You have to get up again!  

I've found that the only way I can consistently be roused by my alarm clock is to set it to radio, turn the volume most of the way up, and put it most below the foot of my bed, on my desk.  The radio is so that it isn't the same sound every morning, and I never get used to it and sleep through it.  It has to be at the foot of my bed because that makes it physically impossible to snooze it or turn it off without getting up.  You might ask, "Well, why not just put it under your bed?  Its still out of arm's reach, and you probably wouldn't have to turn it up so much."  The only problem is that my alarm clock has a wonderful/terrible feature on it.  It has a motion sensor on the front, so anything that passes within about three inches of it will hit the snooze button!  That's great if you have the time to snooze it, but terrible if you don't.  I found that I would use my pillow as an extension to my arm, and just hold it in front of my alarm clock for a second, and it'd snooze!  I had to put it somewhere where I had to get down from my loft, waking me up enough to have the willpower not to go back to bed.  

My mom always called it the "Heroic Moment," and I fully understand why.  

My Ecological Footprint

Tim's Footprint Reults:

Carbon Footprint: Mine/43.8 Acres; U.S. Average/91.4 Acres

Food Footprint: Mine/65.7 acres; U.S. Average/65.7 acres

Housing Footprint: Mine/28.3 Acres; U.S. Average/31.6 Acres

Goods and Services Footprint: Mine/17.4 acres; U.S. Average 57.7 Acres

Total: 155.26 Global Acres

In other words, it would take the resources of 4.00 EARTHS if everyone on the planet lived as I do.

According to this site, the average united states resident lives a lifestyle that would require the resources of five earths.  I thought that was pretty outlandish, so I tested the site to see how honest they would be.  I went through and answered every question in the most environmentally friendly way possible, just to see if you could get below one earth.  Well, it turns out you can.  It spit out that we'd only need 0.39 earths.  Ok, so it sounds like it is possible.  I agree that many people use more resources than is necessary, and the world could not currently sustain such usage if it were more common.  What this doesn't take into accout, though, is that we will become better at producing food and the like with what we have, and that as more people gain the use of higher technology, production will increase as well.  Granted, there is only so much iron or aluminum on Earth, so we will eventually run out, but that will be hard to do.  

One thing that does concern me, though, is the space that is being used for trash.  There are very few ways to make trash dissapear once it has been generated.  I have heard, though, that there are some new factories that produce ZERO trash.  There isn't even a trash can in the place.  Thats very cool.

I think that Americans can be very much over the top.  My brother in law works for a landscaping company in Florida, and it is simply insane.  He helped with the landscaping on one house that had three tiers, each with its own swimming pool surrounded by palm trees that were paved in.  Another house had a garage with a turntable for all of the cars.  Yes, it would spin and spit out whatever car you wanted to drive from one place.  And they had more that one car, so they actually used it, too.  Disgusting.  

On the other side, my aunt owns a health food store, so I can definitely see the eco-friendly American as well.  There was one point where she was considering replacing part or all of the parking lot with grass-covered structurally sound pavers.  They just got solar panels installed on the roof, too.  Its a really neat place.

I think that Americans are capable of it, and the way things are moving right now we'll probably see a greener America in the near future.  

Mac vs. PC vs. Linux!

     Many people have strong emotions about their preferred OS (Operating System).  Mac advocates seem to be the most passionate, though, so I'll start there...

     It seems to me that Mac is widely considered the "expensive" OS.  Its for those rich people who don't know what they're doing, or the super smart people who really know what they're doing.  I'd say that has some truth, but not quite to that extreme.  Mac seems to be the most capable OS to me.  Its only drawback is that it doesn't have many games.  This can be good or bad.  You won't be tempted to play games, but you won't be able to if you have the time, either.  I've noticed that the price is reflected in the computer specifications, balancing out their cost.  There is no such thing as a puny mac computer.  The only ones that lack processing power are more than five years old, which is old by any computer standard.  Mac has jumped several compatibility hurdles by making their new computers with intel processors, just like PCs.  On campus, I've seen just about as many macs as PCs, so I think they are slowly taking the lead in the computer world.  Apple is also very nice about customer service, too.  Viruses are not enough of a issue to worry about, which is very nice.

     PCs.  Windows.  Everyone is familiar with it, because it is everywhere!  There are no compatibility issues, because everyone uses it!  The only problem with Windows is that it the most highly used, and the most attacked by hackers.  I'm told that the programming behind Windows is worse than terrible, but I can't say that with complete certainty.  It does seem to crash quite a bit, and have all sorts of general problems, though.  Then again, its easy to find help because everyone uses it!  I'm sure all of you use Windows on a regular basis, so I'll leave it at that. 

     Linux.   No one quite knows what it is, it seems.  The general understanding is that its that "Other OS" that remains a complete mystery.  In fact, Linux is just the name for the core building block upon which many Operating Systems are made.  Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, SusE, Lindows, and others are all grouped under the general umbrella of "Linux."  I have personally used Ubuntu (which uses GNOME as a GUI [Graphical User Interface]) and Kubuntu (Which is basically the same as Ubuntu, but uses KDE instead of GNOME).  I personally like Kubuntu better, but that is entirely personal preference.  The nicest thing by far about Kubuntu and the like is it is completely and totally FREE!!!!!  I received a Windows computer that had been totally loaded with viruses, and they said I could do whatever I wanted with it.  I put Kubuntu on it, and it is still running now.  Kubuntu seems to be the least stable OS, but it is also the most customizable.  If you break something, then you have to fix it yourself, but it isn't as hard as it may seem.  It is designed to be altered and changed, so it is very user friendly in that way.  It isn't nearly as user friendly if you're just trying to use it, though.  It isn't too much like Windows or Mac, but it isn't totally dissimilar, either.  I just had to figure it out, but that wasn't too hard.  All of the programs are free, games, word processing, graphics editing, media playback, you name it.

    Kubuntu is probably my favorite OS, but it isn't very compatible, so I got a MacBook.  I really like it, but I did install Windows on a partition so that I could do some gaming and other Windows-only stuff.  If I get the chance, I'm going to put another partition on it and put Kubuntu, because its just so much fun to play around with.  

A W;tty Encounter

     When I heard that Margaret Edson was coming to Purdue, I was amazed.  I don't know why, but I've always thought that authors are very rarely seen.  They just sit in some strange corner of the universe and write, and write, and write.  When I learned that she is actually a teacher, and that this is her only work, I was dumbfounded!  How could this brilliant person come out of nowhere, write this awesome play, and then teach little children...  I guess teaching small children takes more brainpower than I thought.  

     When I first saw her, I thought she looked like the picture of a schoolteacher.  I am reminded of Miss Minchin from A little Princess, though Edson is much nicer than she was.  Another thing that intrigued me about her was her outlook on the characters.  She, the author, used everything in the play to pull and sway Vivian, the protagonist in W;t .  It was almost as if Vivian was a living person who had to be lead by Edson acting as "God" in this situation.  I was amazed with the depth and clarity with which the play was brought to life, while this is her only work.  

Amazing...

     I suppose the only question I would ask is what influenced her to write with that perspective.  Did it just come naturally?  Was it almost like leading one of her brilliant but relatively stubborn students?  Was there a specific person who she wanted to get through to, so she let it out on paper?  Whatever the motivation, I think it is very cool.