Halloween - Belated

This Halloween I dressed up for the first time in several years. I didn't really do much, but hey, Halloween is an excuse to put on fun costumes and demand candy. I'm not really the richest person around right now, so I gave myself a $10 limit on my costume. I ended up doing better than that, clocking in at only 4 dollars! Here's my costume:




Me and my mom put it together from a hoodie from DI and an old bent umbrella that I got to mutilate. >:] I got the instructions from the web, and overall it turned out great. It was fun to make and to wear!

PS Sadly it did not give me the ability to fly. =(

Curse of Glenstow

The morning air was damp as Darian plunged the shovel into the dirt, still muddy from last night's rain. Thick, dark clouds blanketed the sky, engulfing the mountains in their mists. Thunder was rumbling in the distance, as if to warn that the rain was not yet finished. This was to be the third grave that Darian would prepare this morning. The whole of Glenstow was frightened by what had transpired, and the piercing wails of the mourners that filled the air did nothing to soothe the fear.

A messenger sent by Father Doheny to the Church returned this morning with word that a Bishop was to be sent to aid the town. There hadn't been a bishop in Glenstow since Father Lambert succumbed to the fever when Darian was just a boy. His passing had been hard on the town, as he was very well loved by the people of Glenstow. His replacement, Father Doheny had never managed to integrate well into the community and over the years his distance wore on the town's relationship with the Church. These were dark times however, and the town was anxiously awaiting the Bishop. Where else could they turn to now, but to God?

"Darian," a firm, yet tired voice said from behind him. "Darian, you must go and rest. Let me finish the graves."

Darian pierced the earth again, removing a shovelful of mud and rocks, the load weighing on his weary arms. "No, brother. I need to do this myself."

"For God's sake man! You just lost your wife and children. You need some rest."

Darian said nothing as he continued to pierce the earth, imagining with each thrust that the world screamed out in pain, as he himself wished to do. As he worked, the rain returned, masking the tears that had begun to fall upon his cheeks. Thomas stood, watching, helpless to ease his brother's pain. He watched for a while, then took up a shovel, and together they prepared the graves to the sounds of thunder, rain and mourning.

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'Dislike This'

A while ago, I think it was my dad, commented on somebody's facebook status wishing that there was a dislike button. It made complete sense to me and I wondered why I hadn't thought about it before. I suppose it's just that I don't spend that much time on facebook. Once I did think of it though, it just seemed so weird to me for there too be a like with no dislike. Well, soon after I read that, I forgot about it completely until earlier today I stumbled upon an add-on for firefox that added a dislike button for facebook. I didn't install the add-on myself, mainly because it's still in the developing stage and the comments made it sound like it still needed quite a bit of work, but I found myself looking forward to having it in the future. This time as I was thinking about it, I got to looking around for ways to have a temporary dislike button feature.

The first thing I did was go through the alt character codes to see if there happened to be a thumbs down, as they have other images like faces and musical notes. (☺ ☻ ♪ ♫) Sadly there wasn't any thumbs down or up, so I started searching around on google. I quickly discovered that the discussion about a dislike button has been around for a while now, and I was surprised to realize, that quite a few people were against it. Up until this point the only use I had come up with for the dislike button was for statuses such as 'My cat just died' or 'My brother just ate the last cookie'. The arguments against it were all about how it would cause hurt feelings by disliking what someone has to say or disliking a picture because they aren't the most attractive person. On most of the internet, I would have to agree with them. On facebook however, I haven't ever really seen the same kind of hate that gets thrown around the rest of the internet. If someone were to use a dislike button in a rude way to me I would probably either send them a private message about it or just remove them from my friends, as they probably wouldn't have been that close of a friend to begin with. If someone else was getting a bunch of negative dislikes I would probably recommend they take a close look at their 'friends'.

I still think there should be a dislike button, though now it doesn't seem quite so obvious as to why there should be one. Perhaps it's some misplaced trust in humanity, but I like to think we are mature enough to handle one.

Drunk With Power

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't written for a while. Let's see how long I can go before I stop again!

The other day I was playing Settlers of Catan with some friends. (Ronnie and his brother in law Baumer(spelling?)) So we were playing and Ronnie went mostly for development cards (like he always does) and got several victory point cards leading him to hit 10 points and win while Baumer and I were still both pretty far behind. We were all having fun, so we all decided to up the winning score to 12. The way the game was going though Ronnie won again in just a turn or two by playing a couple of knight cards and getting the largest army. Again we decided to continue playing, this time just kind of indefinitely.

It was at that time we introduced a new dynamic that, though we didn't know it at the time, would change the game dramatically. We decided to vote to make it so that Baumer and I could build our settlements only one road away instead of the normally required two roads, but Ronnie had to follow the normal rules. All of us had agreed to that, even Ronnie, though he was kind of iffy about it, and we were like, hmm maybe we should only change stuff with unanimous vote. It was working fairly well and we were all still having fun. Ronnie was still ahead by a bit and getting tons of cards especially on one number(5 I think) he would get 6 sheep cards. Well, we decided that we wanted in on that action so we decided to put in a modest tax, Ronnie would get 4 sheep cards and Baumer and I would both get one. This time however, he wouldn't vote for it, but we decided hey, we have a majority, and the 'bank' is over on our side. This changed the voting dynamic by switching it to majority rule.

Once we were allowed to make decisions with just the two of us, we started going a little crazy. First we could make any 2 for 1 card trade in without having to be on the proper port. Next we could have two turns each turn. (none of these applied to Ronnie, he was stuck with the original rules) Since we started to have so many cards, we decided that if a seven was rolled we wouldn't lose any cards. At this point it started getting pretty crazy. We had the whole pile of different resources so often we started counting each card as two resources instead of one. Baumer invented 'mega-cities' that gave four resources each roll. Over this time we slowly increased the tax on Ronnie. It got so bad that he ended up not getting any cards. He would only get a card if he normally received an odd amount. Finally he got enough cards to upgrade one of his settlements (by this point both Baumer and I were far ahead of Ronnie) but right at that time we decided that we would confiscate his cards and split them between us! Not too long after that we decided to stop playing.

Luckily Ronnie was a pretty good sport about it, and we all had fun. The whole time we were making jokes, like at the beginning saying that we could build closer together because we're just the peasants we don't need space while Ronnie's people needed to stay apart for aesthetics and tourism etc. Later on Ronnie was begging for wheat because his people were starving. It brought up some interesting thoughts for me, about majority rule and how a tyranny of the majority can come about. It all started out so innocently, and even with a unanimous vote. Once we started though, whenever we hit a problem we were just like "Legislation!" and Baumer and I would vote yes, not even bothering to find out how Ronnie voted half the time. Early on it was more about making it even, but once we got even and even passed Ronnie, we still didn't include him in the perks of the legislation. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was just a case of the 'it's always been that way' where once we made him the 'other' it was just easy to keep him there.

Thinking about this, I was reminded about how over the last couple years I've heard a lot of talk about majority vote, though not specifically talking about the idea. It's mainly been talk about 'the majority voted, and here is what came of it, and that's just the way it is now'. This bothered me, though to be honest, I don't know if I would have cared as much if I was against some of the things that got voted for to begin with. Thinking about it though, how just is a majority vote? Is it okay for 51% of the population to decide what the other 49% has to live with? I personally don't think so, especially so when the 49% are voting essentially to 'do nothing' rather than add legislation. However, if we say 51% isn't enough, what is enough? 60? 75? 100? Whatever is chosen there will almost invariably be someone opposed. For me, I think Rousseau had the idea when he professed two rules to regulate the relation between equality and unanimity:

"First, the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an instant decision has to be reached, a majority of one vote should be enough. The first of these two rules seems more in harmony with the laws, and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is the combination of them that gives the best proportions for determining the majority necessary."<sup>[1]

[1]</sup>Rousseau. The Social Contract. bk. 4, ch. 2.

That Was A Close One

Whew. I just had a close call today. It's been pretty hot here the last couple days, but earlier today it was nice and cool, there was plenty of cloud cover and a nice breeze. When it started sprinkling lightly I decided I just had to go outside and enjoy it. Naturally, I went onto the roof because that is the best place to enjoy such weather. Then all of a sudden the wind exploded. Since there are several tall trees around my house, branches started flying everywhere. It was pretty terrifying. I quickly jumped down from the roof onto our deck and rushed inside. Once the wind died down, I went back outside and took some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

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TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

Sorry in advance, but here I'm going to introduce you to another possible time sink. It's called TED, and its pretty awesome. It stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. TED is a conference that happens, I believe once a year, where some of the 'world's most fascinating thinkers and doers' come together to give 18 minute talks in their area of expertise.

TED started out in 1984 as just a conference to bring together people from the TE and D worlds and share ideas. Since that time, it has evolved into quite a bit more. There are now three TED conferences each year, the original is held in Irvine, California, with a global one held in Oxford, while the last is held in India. They also introduced the TED prize in 2005. Each year, TED chooses three extraordinary people $100,000 and "One Wish to Change the World." The wish is the big part of the prize. Each winner announces their wish and the participants of TED do their best to help realize it. Some of the wishes have led to such things as: the ONE campaign, Pangea Day, a portable device to 'erase' migraines without drugs, and more that has not been completed yet.

The big boon for us however, is in TED's website, because on their website, you can watch hundreds of the talks for free. There is a huge range of topics that these talks cover, ranging almost any topics you can think of from the technology, entertainment, and design themes. All of the talks are fascinating and highly educational. I always come out of each one having learned something new, and it's awesome! There's more though, TED offers the talks in 45 other languages as well! (Besides English) I must admit however, that's a bit misleading. Not every talk has been translated into each language. The language with the most is Spanish, with 53, but they have over 100 translators working on them.

Overall, I think TED is a great site to bookmark and check out whenever you have some free time. It's a great tool in the kit of any lifelong learner.

Why I'm a Pro-Feminist

I consider myself to be a Pro-Feminist. In this post, I'll explain a little bit about feminism, what it means to me, and why I consider myself one.

First of all, let me explain the 'Pro' part of it. Pro-Feminism is used in two main contexts. To state that you support the feminist movement, while not actually considering yourself a feminist. The other being used for men who are, essentially feminists. From henceforth, I will refer to the later. Basically, some feminists and pro-feminists believe that the term 'feminist' can only apply to a woman, as "Feminism is a movement and a body of ideas developed by, for, and about women." Thus, the men who would otherwise call themselves feminists had to come up with another term for themselves, and pro-feminist is one of the more popular ones. There is some debate among feminists as to whether requiring a different label for feminist men is antithetical to feminism in that in many ways feminism argues against biological determinism in gender. However, as I have privilege from being male in a patriarchal society, whether I want it or not, must acknowledge my privilege and accept the label of 'Pro-feminist'.

Now onto feminism itself. Feminism is a sociopolitical movement whose main goal is equality between men and women. Over time, feminism has evolved and branched apart leading to several different types of feminism. This has been caused by the constant addition of new voices into feminism, whether through women of color during the civil rights movement, or just young adults discovering feminism. Each new voice adding their experiences and questions, sometimes controversial, leading to disagreements. Overall I think I'm safe to say though, that modern feminism is now more about equality for everyone, rather than just equality between the sexes. (Yes, I do realize this conclusion is highly simplistic, but it is meant to be... If that makes sense?)

Getting into more of the meat of what feminism is, I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. From here on, I will be going into more of what feminism means to me rather than what it means in general.

Feminism relies on a key concept, one that is an echo of the founding fathers of the US; that all men (and women) are created equal. Why feminism is important, stems from this; in practice, people are treated unequally based on gender, race, and various other traits. A lot of this inequality is unintentional and in many cases hard to see. For example there are many instances in language where men are seen to be superior to women based on words we use. When we talk about a group of people, we say 'you guys', or in a broader sense 'mankind'. In both these cases being male is assumed. The female is considered to be an offshoot or subset of male, with male being the dominant part. This can be seen even in the words we use for the sexes. Man, woman, male, female, in each case the female is seen as a subset of humanity, while men are assumed to be the norm.

The goal then, of feminism, is to eradicate the inequality. This is a lofty goal, especially when we see how ingrained it is in our culture and language.(As we did above with the words) How then, when it is so ingrained are we supposed to change this? I don't know. All I know, is that I can see the inequality, and it makes my heart ache for those suffering because of these inequalities.

Here are some of the things that make me see feminism as important:

• Women earn only 77 cents per dollar that men do for equal work.^[1]
  

• 1 in 3 women are beaten or abused by an intimate partner.^[2]

• 1 in 5 women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.^[2]

• Rape is used as a weapon of war.^[2]

• 5,000 women are killed in 'honour killings' each year.^[2]

Those are just some of the reasons that I am a pro-feminist. I realize I've jumped around a lot this post, if you have any questions about a particular point, I'd be happy to elaborate. Also, sorry about the serious post, I'll try to get back to some humor in my next one. ^_~

^[1]Wikipedia: Male-female income disparity

^[2]UN: Violence Against Women Fact Sheet(pdf)

The Horrors of Stumbleupon

Look I'm updating my blog! So soon too! Ok, lets get to the point of this post. The majority of my future blog posts will most likely be on topics found by stumbleupon. In this post, I will tell you all about stumbleupon, what it is, why its awesome, and why you should never use it.

Stumbleupon is a toolbar for your internet browser. Now, normally I am against adding toolbars to your browser because they are fraught with spyware and just aren't useful. Stumbleupon is different however, I haven't had any problems with it adding spyware to my computer, and it's highly addictive. Now, onto what it actually does.

Stumbleupon is a web based application(or a webapp) that is designed to bring you to websites that interest you. To start using stumbleupon, you go to their website, make an account(they're free) and start setting your interests. There are over 500 interests for you to choose from, however last time I checked there was a limit of 127 per account. Anyways, once you choose some interests you can start stumbling.

Here is the important part of the StumbleUpon toolbar.

Now, what stumbleupon does, is, whenever you hit the 'Stumble!' button, it will take you to a random web page that matches the interests you chose. So, say you chose Food, Art, Movies, and Photography as your interests; when pressing the button, it would take you only to sites related to those topics. Where it gets interesting is the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. See, topics like food, art, movies, etc. are pretty broad topics, and you may not enjoy every webpage related to them. So, If you enjoy a website it takes you to, you click the 'I like it!' and it will add it to a list of your favorites accessible on the stumbleupon website and will show you more webpages like that. If, however, you do not enjoy it, for whatever reason, you click the thumbs down and it will stop showing you sites like it.

As time goes on, more and more of the sites you visit through stumbleupon will be of interest to you. This is where the horror of stumbleupon comes in. It's just so hard to stop stumbling. It's so common in fact, that should you choose humor as one of your topics, you'll frequently stumble onto webcomics or pictures making jokes about losing sleep or productivity because a 'just one more stumble' mentality will take hold.

I am quite addicted to stumbleupon and am constantly finding interesting topics or articles on a myriad of interests. These will most likely be the fodder for my posts, which is why I've introduced you to this horror. Stumbleupon can be an amazing tool, but it can kill productivity and make you a slave to the toolbar. Use at your own risk.

Disclaimer: StumbleUpon is an awesome webapp and I am in no way against it, I think its awesome and you should all use it, theres nothing wrong with it at all. (Or is it making me say that to get you hooked too? You'll never know!)

I'm Starting A Blog

Starting with this post, I am officially entering the world of blogging. I have for some time held off on creating a blog for several reasons. Mainly, I just didn't really think I had anything interesting to write about. To be quite honest, I still hold to that opinion. I just decided that I'd like somewhere to store my random musings where someone may possibly make use of them.

I'll be honest the main readership of this blog, if it has any, will likely be my mom and dad.(If even them.) That being said, I will probably write as if the entire world cares what I write. I don't actually think they do, I'm not quite that narcissistic, but close. ^_~ It's really just because I like writing in a somewhat grammatically correct fashion and using big words. The purpose of which is that it makes me sound all intellectual and as if I actually know what I'm talking about. =b

Once I post this blog, I will likely go out and send my family emails telling them to come check out my awesome blog and read it, and then most likely forget I have a blog and never update it again. Now, I'm not saying I intend to introduce you all to my blog then never update it, all I'm saying is it's a possibility. Nevertheless, I will try my best to update it... every once in a while.

Now that I'm done yammering on about my new blog that is quite empty, I will post this and invite you all to bookmark then forget about my blog. ^_~