Living in fear is no good to anyone.

This essay is excellent. Go read it:

All global ambitions are based on a definition of productivity and the good life so alienated from common human reality I am convinced it is wrong and that most people would agree with me if they could perceive an alternative. We might be able to see that if we regained a hold on a philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found -- in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends and real communities are built -- then we would be so self-sufficient we would not even need the material "sufficiency" which our global "experts" are so insistent we be concerned about.

(Thanks for linking to it pflarr)

If you don't know how to play the drums or piano, but do know how to edit film and want to make music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo

In my last post I appear to have been wrong about when Rocky Horror is. I didn't know for sure. Anyway, there will probably be a movie night October 27th and also on November 3rd. People coming down (for RHPS or otherwise) are welcome to stay at the house, as usual.

I meant to post this on Tuesday, but forgot:
All of my photos from NDK are up. There aren't very many.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jarrodlombardo/tags/nandesukanx/
baronj with a sign, Director Amanda looking Frida Kahloish, and a guy in a banana costume are in there, among some others.

It turns out the Indian Cooking class has been cancelled for a month because too few people registered. I'm trying to get my registration transferred to next month.

8500 Bottle Rockets with 1 fuse:
http://ebaumsworld.com/2006/08/bottlerockets.html

I went in to the registrar's today so I could register for the Indian Cooking class that's being offered. They had trouble getting the new version of Banner to register me (a graduated undergrad that has not applied to grad school or been enrolled as an undergrad for 1.5 years and wishes to take a non-credit class), but they figured it out after about 4 man-hours of banging on it. I went to the middle-school this evening for the class (it uses the pedagogic kitchen in the middle-school), and no one was there. All of the doors all around the building were locked and the instructor's vehicle (schlake described it for me, so I knew what to look for) was not there. I don't have the instructor's contact info, so I can't ask her what happened. I emailed the registrar, asking if they knew what was going on; maybe I'll have an answer tomorrow.

Home and in bed. Yay. First Indian cooking class tonight.

I took a few big sections out of this one to make it "for public consumption". Comments are open, as is usual.

The questions overlap, so I'm going to have a sort of overlapped answer. I don't fully know what I want from life. As regards work, I hope to keep making enough money such that I don't need to worry about money too much. I'd like to do work more enjoyable/fulfilling than the programming I'm doing now. There are other jobs in the computer field that appeal more, but I'm not really qualified for them yet. What I'm doing now can be used as a stepping stone though. I'd kind of like to eventually get an SJD and become a judge somewhere, but I don't want to go back to school for any graduate degrees until I have a much larger savings base than I currently have and deciding to go to school for another 7-10 years isn't a decision I'm ready to make right now. I'd also like to be able to make convention organization a paying job somehow, but there are location issues with that (it would be much easier if I lived in a major metro area, and NM doesn't have any of those).

The immediate plan is for me to stay at PMC and save money as well I can (I need to budget better, but even with my lax budgeting, I'm saving a sizable portion of every paycheck, 15%-40%) until near Lauren's graduation. The plan then is for me to find a better job, hopefully in the western WA area, and we would move to that job after she graduates. We don't have enough information at this time to really plan more specifically. We'll see where we are in another ~year and have more things roughly figured out.

Of the parts of the country I've visited or lived, I like the Pacific north west the best. I really dislike the climate here in NM. The dryness and altitude work together to make my lungs strain with a near continuous low level amount of pain (I'm able to ignore it most of the time, except for especially dry days, but it's still annoying). I sleep waaay better in a more humid, lower altitude place. Washington appeals to me for the general prettiness in addition to the climate reasons. The Seattle area appeals to me more specifically because I already have a bunch of friends there, through PAX and other things. Depending on where political things go, I might like to leave the country on a long-term basis. I'm not really worldly enough to go anywhere but Canada in the soon, but I think I'd have time to get ready for many places if it came to that.

I have vague plans and goals, but nothing is really very long term. I want to be happy. I want my loved ones to be happy. I don't want to hurt others to do that. I deal with situations as they come and try to make them fit the goals, though I don't just stand by and wait/hope for fortune to come to me without effort.

Many, many versions of the classic Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah. My favorite is the Jeff Buckley version. The Elisa, Chris Botti, Erik Flaa and Leonard Cohen versions are also pretty good. Most of the rest are interesting, and I could see how some would like them better than the ones I picked, but I felt they were only "eh" or worse (one, I forget which, is a shitty bootleg where the nearby people at the bar are considerably louder than the performer).

As I watched Bush deliver his Memorial Day speech at Arlington Cemetery Monday, I saw a man without an ounce of grief or remorse. Bush delivered his speech in a cold, calculated way, using a day of honor for dishonorable purposes, exploiting a time of memoriam to further his political agenda.

Blade Runner will be rereleased to theaters and DVD. (Thanks alphamajor.) I have both the original international theatrical release and the director's cut on VHS, but neither on DVD. Getting the theatrical releases on DVD will be awesome. Also, it would be cool if I could catch it in a theater, but I don't know if it'll play in Albuquerque when it's rereleased.

I'm not really looking (because I don't want to leave Socorro right now and am reasonably satisfied with my current job even though it gets me down sometimes), but I do get emails from the NMT Career Services people about jobs from time to time. This programmer/classics job at Tufts looks pretty cool except for the time limit thing.

It appears that Hasbro is selling a cum shot gun. They don't call it that of course.

This one is going around again.
( Rate My Life Meme )

I just did my final 5 puzzles. I took 40 +-1 minutes to complete all 5. The sudoku took the longest (18 +-1 minutes) but wasn't hard. The "restoration" was the hardest, but took less than 10 minutes. The other three were easy. According to the rules, whoever solves the final puzzles fastest wins. I might be in the running for the prize.

I feel tingly now, the way I've felt after taking tests in school in less than half the allotted time. I think I did well but I also think someone with more sudoku experience would have done it faster. The winner is likely to have taken under 30 minutes. Hopefully they post the winner's time once things are over.

I wrote most of this post on Friday and kept being busy with other things and didn't post it until now.

I hadn't uploaded photos to Flickr in a while. Here are some of the new ones:
Photos of NMT 2006 Graduation.
Photos of redsekhmet's wedding

I was going up to Albuquerque every weekend for over a month a few weeks ago. I was having fun, but going crazy and being frustrated with not getting any of my projects done. I need some time without traveling. This particular weekend there's no way I could have gone up because I had already bought food for Friday, I hosted a graduation breakfast party on Saturday, I went to Commencement, and king_luddite had a graduation party Saturday evening. Overall, I need to be selfish/lazy for a while to stay sane, so I won't be going up to Abq for a while.

Detailed maps of religious adherents by county in the U.S.

Anti-abortion zealots target birth control

A group of ~80 people dress up similarly to Best Buy employees and go into a NYC Best Buy. It's silly in places and also shows us how people react to uniforms as authority.

Q. What could a boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much
A simple airline stub, picked out of a bin near Heathrow, led Steve Boggan to investigate a shocking breach of security

Tyson Slocum on gas prices, Charlie Savage on Bush's signing statements. It's an episode of FAIR's CounterSpin. The interview with Slocum gives some excellent information about the price gouging of the oil monopoly.

Topato Breakfast!

Some proposals for reform
Follow the money...
Time to reclaim our America
The organization he's forming isn't "up" yet, but I'll let you know when it is.

[Dr. Shaber] is not a political activist or a conspiracy theorist; in addition to her own practice, she's Kaiser Permanente's director of women's health services for northern California and head of the HMO's Women's Health Research Institute. Yet this decidedly mainstream doctor and administrator says, "I no longer trust FDA decisions or materials generated [by the government]. Ten years ago, I would not have had to scrutinize government information. Now I don't feel comfortable giving it to my patients."

Many prominent figures in science and public health think they know the answer. "People believe that religiously based social conservatives have direct lines to the powers that be within the U.S. government, the administration, Congress, and are influencing public-health policy, practice and research in ways that are unprecedented and very dangerous," says Judith Auerbach, Ph.D., a former NIH official who is now a vice president at the nonprofit American Foundation for AIDS Research. In fact, Glamour, has found that on issues ranging from STDs to birth control, some radical conservative activists have used fudged and sometimes flatly false data to persuade the government to promote their agenda of abstinence until marriage. The fallout: Young women now read false data on government websites, learn bogus information in federally funded sex-education programs and struggle to get safe, legal contraceptives—all of which, critics argue, may put them at greater risk for unplanned pregnancies and STDs.

California court rules that the Bush administration broke the law by ignoring the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

This is a couple of weeks old, but I only just found it:
Sorry, Your Viewpoint Is Excluded from First Amendment Protection: That's what the Ninth Circuit holds today, as to student speech in K-12 schools, in a remarkable...decision

This test was really tough. I've seen easily over 900 movies in my lifetime and I hadn't seen (or sometimes even heard of) a good portion of the movies in the test.
( Actor-Movie Meme )

[Scott McClellan] wasn't put there to brief the White House press but to frustrate, and belittle it, and provoke journalists into discrediting themselves on TV. The very premise of a White House "communications" office gets in the way of understanding the strategy that prevailed from July 2003, when McClellan took over from Ari Fleischer, until this week, when he announced his resignation.

"They terrorize other government officials, and they're so secretive that their names aren't even revealed to a harmless federal employee directory. And they've helped ruin the country. Meet Dick Cheney's staff."

Ahmadinejad's Demons (bugmenot.com for logins)
An article is about the new President of Iran and the gruesome events leading up to his term.

William Stuntz's Misguided Theory of Privacy and Transparency
by Daniel J. Solove
Stuntz wrote an article arguing that privacy and transparency are bad for government and citizenry. This is Solove's counter-argument.

http://www.petefagerlin.com/
A bunch of cool "helmetcam" mountain-biking videos.

Paul Anka Spins Pop His Way with 'Rock Swings'
I ordered this CD, which should be silly/fun. The link has 3 tracks you can listen to (RealPlayer).

The Smiths. Live. 1985.
A whole concert you can download.

From http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/

2PM Mentoring Session
Tenured faculty guy: You know you really should start attending faculty meetings.
Non-tenured faculty guy: Why? I'm not allowed to vote on any departmental issues.
Tenured faculty guy: It would still be professionally instructive for you to attend.
Non-tenured faculty guy: But I'm already aware of the fact that this department is full of petulant egomaniacs.

Department of Mathematics
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Overheard by: mark mccombs

Firefly Squid

Some people are confused so I'll make it as clear as I can:

1. No Movie night this coming Friday.
2. My Birthday party this Saturday evening. Show up around 6ish. There's lots of space for Albuquerque people to come down and spend the night as usual. I'm going to make a barbecue dish of some sort (probably NC Pork).
3. Easter Dinner at 2 p.m. Sunday. I'm making hams, kielbasa and cabbage, and a Polish white soup.

A bunch of Christains are trying to get tolerance laws and regulations repealed because the believe the laws discriminate against them:

[Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor] says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

I see a very simple counter to this argument: being Christian is "a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait" so, by his reasoning, taking any legal actions to protect them is unreasonable.

...dire pronouncements about new forms of entertainment are old hat. It goes like this: Young people embrace an activity. Adults condemn it. The kids grow up, no better or worse than their elders, and the moral panic subsides. Then the whole cycle starts over.

( Real/Fake Breast Identification Meme )

Knitting needle heads after baking
Originally uploaded by jarrodlombardo.

In knitting class today, we made knitting needles. The heads shown here are clay. there are more photos in my flickr account.

Although the state curriculum guide mandates the teaching of biological evolution, teachers in Arkansas aren't doing it because of local controversy and lack of knowledge.

The usually very conservative Cato Institute released a report supporting the repeal of the DMCA:
http://doc.weblogs.com/2006/03/22#bravoCato

"One of the most venerable and well-known bylines in Vermont media was silenced today, as Vermont AP Bureau Chief Chris Graff was said to no longer be with the world's largest news gathering organization." The article goes on to say:

Mr. Graff's firing is directly linked to a certain news item he moved out to client newspapers on the Associated Press wire two weeks ago.
According to sources in the Vermont media, the item was a column written by Vermont Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy. The subject was the growing threat to our democracy by infringements imposed by the Bush administration on America's hallowed Freedom of Information Act.

The death of newspapers?

Be smarter at work, slack off
In a world of too much work and too much multitasking, the best way to beat the competition may be to do less.

A cool/gross creature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina

Last year, during CS382, I got in an argument with Dr. Holcomb about copyright. I just sent her an email validating my point. Here is an excerpt (most of it):

Today I was talking to Larry Lessig (famous IP law professor at Standord) and asked him about the enforcibility of automatic versus registered copyright. He said that there are two cases: (1) a work is infringed before it is registered and (2) a work is infriged after it is registered. In the first case, the copyright holder can file suit against the infringer for actual damages, but only after the work has been registered. In the second case, the copyright holder can file suit against the infringer for actual and statutory damages. So, a creator is protected even without registering, but if they don't register, the remedy is less financially beneficial because they are not allowed statutory damages.

So, the subject line of this post is "I'm all twitchy now." The reason is Today I was talking to Larry Lessig.... Certain celebrities/idols make me nervous.

I ended up doing a lot of the driving, about half. I got maybe 2 hours of intermittent sleep during the drive up. PPlant gave us a Chevron gas card. There are no Chevron stations in Colorado, so Kevin has had to pay for gas himself, in expectation of getting reimbursed after the trip.

I've been at the con since 1200; 8 hours so far. No big fires, everything has been cool. The new hotel is much nicer, though some of the panel and video rooms are smaller. My pedometer claims I've walked 6.536 miles (18007 steps) since noon (nearly all in the hotel). I'll give an overall day total when I go to bed in 4 to 6 hours.

A friend posted a summary of her high school years. I replied with a brief summary of mine:

I can't relate to much of it personally, at least in those years. I had some similar major social problems and very few friends up through Junior High, but I forced myself to change my personality drastically and make a "new beginning" at High School. It worked, and I became a social "renaissance man": a member of none of the cliques but tolerated/accepted by all. I got a few friends and really started to concentrate on being a leader in many activities instead of a meek follower. I took on a lot of TA type volunteer jobs, assisting in some science classes and PA classes (this is a long and complicated story, but some of the PA classes needed 3-5 upperclassmen to TA for them to work). I got involved with Theatre (which helped me meet a lot of people and learn management/organizational skills) and Student Government (which proved totally worthless and I stopped after one year, 10th grade, as an officer).

I wasn't really happy during that time, but it was a great improvement over the previous years. Since then I've had many swings from ultra depressed to really great. Right now I'm pretty happy. I thought I had been in love once. Compared to my current feelings, that love was nothing. It's not perfect, because regardless of her assertions, I don't KNOW that she feels the same for me; I just THINK she does.

An article about legislative voting:
http://www.alternet.org/story/23860/

Over the past ~11 days my relationship with lalabob11 and two_pi_r blossomed a lot. I'm much happier for that; I really love her and I'm getting much closer with Pi. I also now have a friends++ relationship with someone to meet each of our physical needs.

Some bad has happened too though. When I got hired in February, my bosses told me that although the company does a small amount of classified work, I won't ever need to get a clearance because there is so much other stuff for me to work on. Things have very recently changed, so sometime in the next few months I will be forced to start the clearance application process or resign. For moral reasons, I have to resign when we get to that; I just couldn't live with myself working with the government at keeping useful scientific information from the public who deserve to know. This make me really sad because I am now so close to so many people in Socorro that I don't want to leave them.

I'm going to send out some resumes this week, to try and find something so I have a new job ready by the time I need to leave PMC. One of my prospects is in Santa Fe and another is in Albuquerque. If I get either of those jobs or some other similarly located job, I could live in Albuquerque (and, if needed, commute to work on the bus to Santa Fe like aisa0 and baronj) and come down to Socorro for weekends like baronj often does.

If any of you know of places I should apply, let me know.

If it really comes to having no other options, I could become a grad student, but not till the Spring at the earliest. Judy and Liebrock would probably get behind me if I decided to do that. I'd want to work with Mazumdar for research though; some sort of data mining or algorithmics thing.

Writing this has made me cry, but I've got to keep myself focused on having good times with you all while I can.

Last night was the CS/IT/Management Commencement Party at Denny Peterson's house. Here are some emails related to it that happened today:

Dr. Sung,
Last night, at the party, you asked me who my advisor was. When I answered "you are" everyone got a little laugh and you were a little shocked. Don't feel bad about not knowing I was one of your advisees. I chose you as my advisor because I specifically wanted and advisor that wouldn't get personally involved with me. I knew what classes I needed to take when and all I needed was someone who would sign the forms. You did exactly what I needed, and I thank you for it.
--
See you later,
Jarrod Lombardo

Hello Jarrod,
Thanks for the message, I appreciate it very much!
I am still apologetic, but very glad that you have now completed your degree without any need for help from your advisor, so you are a truly exemplary student, from my standpoint as an advisor :)
Congratulations again and I hope to see you tomorrow in the Commencement.
Best Regards,
Andrew H. Sung

All of my grades were in by this morning. I got 2 A's and one A-. Dr. Soliman said I had the highest final grade in Programming Languages. I did really well on everything in Databases except the project, so that's why I only got an A-.

My parents should be here in about an hour. We are going to go out to dinner with lalabob11, her mom, two_pi_r, and his mom, brother and cousin.

From campus: head south on Neel. Go through the dip. Get on hwy 60. At the big 4 way stop with the orange flags, make a right onto Spring street.

From California street: head south. Make a right onto Spring street (it is a bigish intersection, with a light, and is the southernmost light in town).

From Spring street: head west (toward the mountains) for a while. There will be a weirdly shaped intersection shortly after a bridge. Make a left here, onto Evergreen. The house is nearly all the way up this road, on the right. 1704 Evergreen. Brian's highway-construction-orange pickup truck will be out front.

I took 3 classes this semester. Since I am graduating, my grades are due at 1700 today, which you'll notice is NOW. 1 of my professors has submitted a grade. Now Kim Eiland gets to kick some CS professor ass (she didn't use those words when I asked her what would happen, but that's what she meant).

I've been really good the past few days:
Once I was done with the databases project, everything has been pretty smooth. We got the grading for cs382 all figured out and the grades look reasonably good. My two finals were not very hard and I think I did really well on them. Nice social things (*squeeze*) have been happening too.

Thursday will be my last day at PMC for a while because of my various trips. We're going to work out the details of my employment and probably not much else since I just finished my last assignment and it is probably not a good idea to assign a new one to me that I won't be able to work on again for a while.

Also, lamasong gets in on Thursday, and seeing her will be fun.

My parents get in on Friday. We'll be going on a road trip around NM for about a week. I'll post some stuff from the road.

8 keys.
These 8 keys are the most difficult thing between now and my graduation.

On my keyring:
Speare exit
Speare office
Macey exit
Macey office
Recital Hall exit

Somewhere in my house (hopefully):
Workman exit
Workman stairs
Workman 246

I wonder how much it costs if I can't find the 3 keys. If they follow the policy, it should be the number of locks multiplied by $50. There are eight locks for those three keys, so I would owe $400. They don't usually follow the policy though, so I'll probably only need to pay $50 for each key. We shall see.

This morning I was talking at a friend. She wasn't responding, but, that's ok. Here's the conversation with horrendous spelling intact.

[09:14:15] jaberwocky says:
89.5 is doing ane awesom live 80's mix
[09:14:38] jaberwocky says:
you shouldt turn it on
[09:14:55] jaberwocky says:
my spelling is the shit (like from the butt) today.
[09:17:06] jaberwocky says:
Cure -> Modern English segue was just awesome.
[09:17:59] jaberwocky says:
I'm having a really good morning. Tasty breakfast (spicy potato soup), good music and the papers I'm grading are well written and interesting. Woo.
[09:41:48] jaberwocky says:
Herbie Hancock "Rock It" -> Frankie Goes to Hollywoo "Relax". Incredibly well done, interseting segue.
[09:42:26] jaberwocky says:
You probably don't care, but it makes me feel good to be telling someone.
[09:56:35] jaberwocky says:
a break-beat version of "Girls just wanna have fun", nifty.

The 80's mix ended at 1000.