Semagic, the best livejournal client for Windows, is now also a decent general blogging client. Works with MSN Spaces, Xanga, and others. I’d wish it fetched my WordPress categories automatically, though.
Seymour Hersh and the Iranian Nuclear Standoff
[note: older topic, but still relevant. I didn’t want my link gathering to be placed behind a Blackboard wall]
In my College Writing class, we’re discussing the Iranian Revolution and how it transformed a country that basically tried to emulate the United States into one of the countries in the “Axis of Evil.” Recently in the news, there’s been talk about Iran now having nuclear technology and what the US had planned to do with it. In particular is an article by Seymour Hersh who claims that Washington had planned to take down Iran’s nuclear program using a nuclear weapon. Here are the articles I’ve gathered on this topic:
LiveJournal introduces a new account level
LiveJournal introduces a new account level: Get access to some paid account features (more customizable styles) in exchange for displaying ads. Haven’t seen how the ads look, but I’m still intrigued, even though I’ve been able to make due with basic free customizations.
The “danger” of Online Surveys
So we’ve all done a few of those surveys and our friends do that too. But did you know those kinds of survey’s could lead to people *gasp* finding out our interests *gasp*, particularly *gasp* online predators *gasp*?
From a Dateline NBC article on Myspace:
Stafford: You don’t think you gave him any private information?
Amber: No. I don’t believe I did.
Stafford: But what did you find out about Amber?
Det. Dannahey: Her real name. Your birthday. And you have a 377– question survey in your page,
Amber: Oh! I forgot about that.
Det. Dannahey: … which if I really was a predator, that would be just the kind of information that could maybe years ago, take me months talking to you to get that kind of information.
*Dun Dun Dun* The survey exposed that girl to a predator. *Dun Dun Dun*
Alright all kidding aside, predators are serious business and teaching kids to protect themselves is important. But seriously, the way these kinds of shows make everything seem so dangerous (which I know has been going on for years so don’t tell me that) is crazy. And then take a look at this sample profile that lists all the common mistakes of Myspace users, all the fun features are considered dangerous.
Major Major Major
So once again I’ve taken a long break from updating this thing. I guess it’s time I do so.
I did what I normally do during Spring Break, which was go home and see my family. My father’s side of the family always gathers together during break time, so I definetly had to come down for one day. Plus I’ve had a great deal of paper writing to do this semester, so I had to make sure to get a great deal of that done, and vacationing somewhere would not have allowed me to do that. All that paper writing, though, made me wonder what it would be like if I majored in a more paper orientated major in the humanities or something.
After spending 4 years on the Berkeley campus, I’m honestly starting to hate the whole concept of majors. For people who pick them well, that’s great. However, I’d honestly like to do a variety of things, but majoring makes people so focused in things that it seems to make people study something so much that just grow to hate it. Or sometimes they get so into their major, they seem to devalue everything else. I don’t know. Perhaps if I tried a more flexible major (i.e. Interdisciplinary studies) maybe I could avoid this conundrum and strike that balance. Or maybe I’m just dreaming.
I loved how Ed Helms of the Daily Show describes how he picked his major at Oberlin.
I was a geology major through my sophomore year. That took me to the Bahamas for a month for “research,” which was great, but it also showed me how completely uninterested I was in geology. I wanted to change majors, but I had limited options because I had been through two years of course study already. So, out of desperation, I opted for Oberlin’s “Design Your Own Major.” I cobbled together a number of theater, computer science, film studies, and art classes in a Hail Mary attempt to graduate in four years. Somehow the committee bought it and thus “Film Theory and Technology” was born. I am the only person in the world with that major…and for good reason.
Donate to my Relay for Life Team
So as I’ve done in the past, I’m doing Relay for Life this April 28 and 29th in Berkeley. It’s a charity event that raises money for the American Cancer Society, that consists of a number of events such as running, concerts, and a special luminaria. It’s also loads of fun.
If you’d like to help me raise money for the event, donate to my page.
Donate to my Relay for Life page
So as I’ve done in the past, I’m doing Relay for Life this April 28 and 29th in Berkeley. It’s a charity event that raises money for the American Cancer Society, that consists of a number of events such as running, concerts, and a special luminaria. It’s also lots of fun.
If you’d like to help me raise money for the event, donate to my page.
Survey of Possessions
So I guess this survey is for rich high school kids, or people who think they’re rich high school kids (particularly girls).
Protected: Outage
My tribute to Arrested Development
So the best comedy on TV just got canceled. I’m talking about Arrested Development, a throughly intelligent and clever comedy. It also happens to be incredibly dirty, self-referential, and quite possibly characters that are too out there for some people, but all of it make it just incredibly funny.