The Topic of Great Randomness

[Mona0622]

Our school play/musical is this weekend. This week is the week where we have 4 and a half hour practices every day.

Mel: What play did your school do?

Our musical is Little Women.

[wolf_wizard]

Mel: good luck

so... Wolfy is tired of being stuck inside, and has decided to go for a bike ride now.
but homework is ruining my 5- second dreams...
At least it's really nice outside, so once i'm done, I can go on a bike ride...
Am I the only one who dislikes doing homeowrk more when it's nice outside then when it isn't?
except I hate doing homework when it's raining, because that's obviously the best time to read...

Two reports due monday...

Dai Stihos!

Wolfy

[Tuttle]

Food for Thought:
While people often talk about how we need to be wary about privacy so that we don't go into a 1984 society where Big Brother is watching everyone, we are actually already there. Our society itself is Big Brother, though our society is the one being affected. We (as a society) have forced this upon ourselves from our actions and inactions and whenever we're talking about Big Brother being something to avoid are in denial.

We don't need a telescreen with a big face on it watching our every move, we already have a mob doing so. If you're an individual the mob of society tries to blot you out like you are nothing, either making you like them, or making you not count to the point where they don't need to worry about you. They don't physically bring you to the Ministry of War, but they try to force you into being one of them without letting you know. And even when you know, its hard to resist. They can break you if you resist enough, not into one of them, but a broken person. We already have one opinion, we don't need Big Brother forcing one on us.

There are probably people even here who are part of this Big Brother in some ways. People who are part of the crowd who thinks that their opinion is the only right one. People who want to make everyone mindless. This group varies of course in our world depending on what we're dealing with. In high school, its the popular cliques. I'd say in the world of computers its Microsoft.

Because though I would not try to make at least most people change from using Windows (if they want to they can, if it works for what they want to they can use it), the mindlessness is there. The 'well I know how to use this so I won't change, and because I don't want to deal with anything else I'll try to force others to be like me.' This is more prevalent in Office however. "I don't want to deal with effort so I'll make everyone else upgrade to Office 2007 to be able to open my files.", "Working with just plaintext has to be too hard, we need to use excel." Even when just plaintext is no harder and works better. Everyone needs to be the way of the mindless majority.

Of course you can fight, and you'll have to deal with trying to fix what they break by existing. You can try to be an individual and not necessarily give in. But you need to know you'll be fighting an uphill battle the entire time.

And the goal of the battle it to not give in and not let them win victory over you and make you love Big Brother.

I challenge everyone here to be themselves and not let the mindless majorities make them someone else. If you like what they like, like it because you like it. If you don't like it, then don't. And don't pretend to be like them. Be an individual and be yourself. Because while we are in a dystopia, we want to make the best of our time here. And maybe in this process, you can make a difference in someone's life for the better.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by Tuttle:
There are probably people even here who are part of this Big Brother in some ways....I'd say in the world of computers its Microsoft.

Actually, the more-likely candidate for Big Brother would be Google. After all, whenever you search for something, you're adding to their database -- and there's a cookie that they put on your machine to save your preferences, but which could allow your searches to be linked back to you.

One of Google's main corporate philosophies is "You can make money without doing evil." However, we have only their word that they aren't doing evil -- and even if they were, they'd probably think they weren't. :-(

I hate when I go off into conspiracy-theory headspace: it's too easy to get stuck there.

[Tuttle]

Originally posted by Garrett Fitzgerald:
Actually, the more-likely candidate for Big Brother would be Google.

It depends what you're thinking about. In terms of always watching you, then yes it'd be google. I was more going about the mindless hordes which seem to arise from popular software. It's not because its from microsoft, so much as its what everyone uses, therefore its the only possibility to use without having to deal with people who refuse to go out of their way to make things less awkward for you.

Google does seem to always be watching us in some senses however, even getting into real life for some people (people suing about street view on google maps). In some ways this is Big Brother. However, I do not think you can apply Big Brother as a name to Google currently because of the lack of fear. If Google starting creating fear about not doing anything it disagrees with, Big Brother would be immediately applied as a name.

It's the line between useful and too far. Google is treading that line closely. There are problems by far with them having as much information as they do. However, is it worth trusting them to get the convenient side effects? It's people's opinions, but I know I trust them enough to use for even my email, but be annoyed at some of the caching, and know that if I want to search for things I want at all private, I would not use firefox specifically because it would link it to my account as well as my computer.

Computers are scary when you think about it. But are also extremely useful. Is the convience worth the risk? To me, absolutely.

[Lazy Leopard]

There's been an interesting little war of words going on in the UK media about a company currently calling iself Phorm, which has plans to operate two services. The first is to get ISPs to allow them to insert a transparent proxy on web traffic, and the second is to sell targetted advertising. Guess where they'll get the targetting information...

[Mel]

hnnnn scarryyy

on a completely different note that I'm not sure has anything to do with anything, and therefore very good for this topic.... I thought this was just hilarious. I dunno, maybe it's just me.

But anyway.

So, yeah, enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ao2FsTjq7U

EDIT: and thanks for the luck, guys! We had a blast, actually. It really was a lot of fun, and probably the best show we've ever done!

And, funnily enough, we played Red Rover....and it was awesome! There were definately like forty of us, it was amazing (though awfully painful, haha)

All in all, a successful night!

[EricG1793]

Well, this weekend was very nice for me. Well, things that were done last week led up to a nice weekend.

We completed our term papers for Reading class last week. I did the post-presidency of Jimmy Carter. The teacher said on Friday, "You folks [she always calls us 'folks'] have worked very hard over the past couple weeks, so I'm going to reward you with a movie." We watched "Summer of the Monkeys", based on the book by Wilson Rawls. We continued it today, and we'll be finishing it tomorrow. Or Wednesday, depending on how long it is. I don't know.

Last week also, we had a test on a very long chapter in Social Studies, about World War I. That's done and over with.

My music test is done and over with. (*Headdesk* The teacher showed us what we got wrong, and I got stuff wrong because I started a section that said "Write a line matching each composer to each piece [of music]." I drew one line, and then, for WHATever reason, I didn't do the others. I have absolutely no clue why, either. (A possible reason later) *

Something else happened on Saturday that I'm not inclined to talk about here that is over with.

Saturday night, my friend slept over. We went to my aunt and uncle's and played dominoes. They had been in Panama for the winter, and now they're back until next fall. So, we can get back in to the dominoes routine.

On Saturday, I took the dog's cage outside and cleaned and disinfected it. It's all nice'n clean now.

Saturday evening, I went to my grandfather's. He had cataract surgery a few weeks ago, and he only has a few more days to go until he has to stop with the eye drops completely (until the left eye is done, anyway). Also, he told me that he spend hours this week clearing off the dining room table of papers - two garbage bags full of papers that are to be thrown out. Not one single piece of paper in the dining room now. So next time I'm there, we can give the dining room a complete cleaning. We went to 6 o'clock mass last night at church, and my favorite priest said the mass. I got a meatball grinder at Subway that was perfectly put together and toasted to golden-brownness.

Today, I hardly have homework that I need to do tonight. I just have to get a quiz signed for Science, and start in to my math homework (if I feel like it, since she gives homework by the week, not by the night).

On top of all this, it's nice and cold and dry out, so I can sleep in comfort without humidity and pollen making my throat and nose feel terrible.

* She likes doing completely random questions for the bonus questions on her test. The random question for this one was, "Which color M&M was replaced by the blue one in the late 1990's?"

Anyone have any guesses? No cheating! Do you remember it off the top of your head?

-----

EDIT: A question of whether chat should come back to full-time operation was here, but I decided to make a new topic for it, and I am deleting my input in this post to save bandwidth.

[Gryphon]

I don't like the photographs of streets. This guy who I know from school, he told me that he couldn't find a street view of his house on Google maps, but he found mine. >< I don't like that I don't have control over who has access to that kind of thing because it means that *anyone* can see it, and 'anyone' could be a lot of things. This guy is not someone who I want to keep in my life. ><

Targeted advertising makes more sense than an onslaught of everything... however, again, if I so desire, I would like the option to keep my interests to myself. Furthermore, if this means *more* ads, then... eh, yeah, lets not.

I've seen people get pretty defensive/vicious when it comes to spreading macs too. If we're talking systems, each one has a mob base.

When it comes to consumerism and mass production, it's hard to be an individual, so I'm not sure individuality applies. What do you propose as an alternative to Office 2007?

...and now for calc homework.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by EricG1793:
So. Have we, the Young Wizards Discussion Community, proved ourselves worthy again, over the past 8 months, by means of the forums and IRC channel, of a full-time chat?

I'm leaving that call for Diane. I don't feel comfortable making it myself, since it was Diane's decision in the first place.

[Tuttle]

Originally posted by Gryphon:
I've seen people get pretty defensive/vicious when it comes to spreading macs too. If we're talking systems, each one has a mob base.

I guess I'll reply as I have nothing better to do. What you're saying is absolutely true, though not quite what I was going for. Mac users are in most cases more fanatical. However, I have not personally had issues with Mac users trying to make me do work using documents and programs I cannot use that they have. I think this is because they're more aware that this would be a problem as they don't have all the windows software either.

That was the point I was making all along when using Microsoft as an example. I actually have no issues with people using Windows or OS X, or any other OS, as they do each have advantages. I only would have an issue when people are trying to make me do work using something I cannot use because they don't want to go out of their way a small amount.

When it comes to consumerism and mass production, it's hard to be an individual, so I'm not sure individuality applies. What do you propose as an alternative to Office 2007?

If you truthfully don't want to use Windows, find an alternative even if it takes effort to change over? It probably doesn't apply well but there are similarities.

As for Office 2007. Well you can use Office 2007, and save documents as the old formats (.doc, .xls) if you do not know what people your sending them to have. This is mostly an issue 'cause if you don't have Office 2007 there is no way of opening those documents. You could stay with Office 2003, which has the advantage of having fewer bugs (I think still), but doesn't have some of what 2007 has. You could use Open Office (openoffice.org) which can open up office files though default saves to a different thing. Google Documents isn't really good for writing in, but if you need to open a .doc when you cannot other works.

Really the thing is, send documents to people in a way you know they can open. I was having bad experiences with that.

---

Now why I am posting:
I is be sick. I fell asleep at 4 PM yesterday, got up at 10 for dinner, went back to sleep at 11:30, woke up at 7 when the alarm went off, brushed teeth, decided I'm not going to my early classes, went back to sleep, and woke up at 1 PM.

I'd say more, but I'm actually awake and boyfriend is poking about us getting food. I'll edit later.

[EricG1793]

Here's my Office 2007 situation. I am able to change the default saving format, so I don't have to drop down the menu and select an Office 1997-2003 format. I have it that way by default. So regardless of which program I use, another 2007 installation, OpenOffice, an earlier version of Office, etc., it can be opened.

Now if either a) Microsoft had left the saving code the way it had been, or b) Everyone who has Office 2007 do what I did and select the '97-'03 format by default, then all would be good and there would be no conflicts.

At first, I couldn't stand using Office 2007, but after a while, I have come to realize how much more sense the entire interface makes, and how impractical the old one was. With the new interface, you have the seven (for Word, anyway) ribbons, and click one, and all of the options are displayed right in front of you. On the older version, there were menus, sub-menus, etc. etc. etc. to go through, and it got very tiring and redundant if I had to do the same thing multiple times (eg. putting a "picture, from file" in to the document).

Now, as for Macs, that's too long and complicated of a topic that I think I've talked about before here....

[seabiscuit1009]

Umm...don't know much about Office 2007. Or, really, computers in general. I can use one, and that's about it. XD

So, Sea's got a major problem. Tomorrow, she has an interview for a big deal local scholarship-it's $2500 a year for 4 years of college, and I'd love to get it because, obviously, that's a lot of money. There are only 11 people who got chosen for interviews besides me...one of them happens to be my cousin/best friend, but that's not really the major problem. No, the problem is that Sea has a major cold combined with allergies...and basically has lost her voice. I've got an interview with 7 people at 4:45 on Wednesday, and I can't talk. I need to at least get my throat cleared up, (the nose clearing up is secondary at this point.) Any ideas? Because I think it'd be hard to get a scholarship if I can't talk. Liquid's not helping either, since I drank three Nalgenes of liquids today, plus a few random cups of Gatorade. Helpppp...

On the plus side, I visited my college again on Monday, and realized that it is the best place I could have ended up from the places I applied to, so that's good.

We had an assembly about prom today...fun stuff. We're getting tuxedo t-shirts. Long story, but it's an inside joke among our class.

[Angel_Star]

My boyfriend uses Office 2007 and likes it. However, I haven't ever used it, so I don't know anything about it besides what I've just read here and a few things he's said.

I'm dating a total computer nerd, so everything he says about computers goes totally over my head. Well, most things, anyway. I know enough to function, but not much after that.

So, it's spring break. Annnd, it was Mia's birthday yesterday, J's little sister. She's two. I was over at his house for most of the day, and I gave Mia a little puppy stuffed animal. She liked it. J and I went to Dairy Queen with her to get some lunch and ice cream. He just loves to make us look like Mia is our kid... Which makes for awkward situations sometimes, but most of the time, it's just funny.

I'm glad I don't have to worry about finding a date for prom. That kind of bothered me earlier in the year, because my guy friends take a sort of hands-off approach to me because they're all friends with my ex. And the only other guys who would ask me to prom would have been senior band guys...who I'd rather not go to a dance with. But all that isn't an issue anymore. I've had my dress since this past summer 'cause I found it on clearance. However, I have about a month to find shoes and jewelry. I might skip on the jewelry, though, and just look through what I already have.

J came with me to the zoo today. Mom actually suggested having him come with us. So, we wandered around by ourselves because, apparently, my mother was embarrassed to have us around her. lol. That was probably the most enjoyable experience I've had at a zoo. We got to feed some of the birds...lorikeets. Two or three landed on my head, lol. They were so pretty. One liked J a whole lot and just sat on his hand for a while, even after his nectar was gone.

I'm still putting off college stuff. I know where I want to go...but it really depends on scholarships. Money is starting to become an issue. My parents said that they would pay for my first car, as long as I pay for gas and insurance. However, I'm not working enough hours right now to pay for either. I know I have an easy life, and I don't have to pay for all that much myself...but the easier I can make paying for college, the better. I'm nearly positive that I can get some sort of scholarship as long as I stay in-state.

I hope you feel better, Sea! I don't have any suggestions...just get lots of rest. I hope your interviews go well. *hugs*

I'm going to go ahead and end this here. I'll be homework-ing for a bit, then go to bed...hopefully. lol. Adios, mis amigos.

[magicalmike]

Ok lets see first hungrey : HOT tea is your friend, at least it works for me. Other than that good luck. I hope you get the scholarship.

Angel: Thats nice. sounds like you had a fun time Though i still dont see all the fuss people make about prom, but oh well. Enjoy.

So on my side of life, it has been, well, interesting. A couple of life alltering months. Wont go into all the detales(mainly the personal ones) but its being a rollar coster of up and down. I have been reading lots of philospihy latley to help make sense of life. Its odd but hopefully ill mind some meaning out off all this. At the same time my best guy friend( and only guy friend) seems to be haveing some sort of crisis right now and wont talk to me. I feel like all sorts of things are going on arund me but my eyes are taped shut. Frustrating. Confuesing to. Well happy news time. I get my braces of tomorow. and its my birthday at the end of the month. Yay 16!

Ok nonsensical ranting aside, lifes been : WEIRD

Off to read more books and then sleep. Dai. - MagicalMike