From the, “I have no idea how I wound up at this website, but…” files, a neat tale of some people waiting for a train in NYC.
Socializing in NYC
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Category Archives: Living
Mint
Kyle was raving about Mint this morning. I just came across it on Digg and looked into a bit.
It’s got a very attractive website, and PC World raves about it. It’s sort like Quicken, only Web 2.0 based, and very, very spiffy. And free.
It’ll keep up to date for you and everything. All you have to do is put in all your bank account numbers.
I’m very eager to try this service. Except that I steadfastly refuse to put all of my bank account information into a website. Especially a startup one. If Paypal provided it, I might trust it. If my bank provided it, I’d definitely trust it. But a startup? Honestly, I think it’s safe and secure. It’s got some big names behind it, and it looks too ‘big’ for it to be one scammer. But that doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to give them all my financial data.
Douchebag
Last night around 1:30, I was almost asleep when someone in a neighboring building began banging on drums and screaming very loudly. After about 15 minutes, I was getting really annoyed.
A few minutes later, it stopped abruptly. It would appear that someone who was almost asleep when they began playing the drums at 1:30 in the morning called the police. I of course won’t know the details until I’m at the station on Monday to do police logs, but it was probably anonymously reported at 1:45 a.m. by a disgruntled student in a neighboring building. And whoever that anonymous student might be, I salute you: Hero of the Day!
Rain
Do you think my professors will accept, “It’s pouring out and my umbrella is at home” as an excused absence?
Have humans always been reluctant to go outside in the rain, or are we just reaching new levels of absurdity?
P.S. – I’m not actually going to skip all my classes because it’s raining out. I’d like to, but I won’t.
My Room
Continuing the tradition of illustrated posts, here’s a few photos of where I’m living this year. I’m in Falcone, which is located at the foot of all the academic buildings. Freshman year I walked 96 steps to get to class. (I counted, trust me.) And that was just if it were on the ground floor. I’d have to go up as many as four more stories. This year I have to climb six steps and I’m there.
Here’s the view out my window:
The brick building on the left is Jennison, one of the busier academic buildings. Also visible is the library’s clocktower.
Here’s a quick interior shot, of mediocre quality:
And, facing the other way:
I also took a few shots the other day, on a very clear day, using my relatively-new polarizing filter on my camera. The effect is a little too much, I think…
I think this one might become my new wallpaper:
And illustrating a polarizer taken to the extreme… Straight out of the camera, rotating being the only post-processing done:
Sobriety Checkpoints
This answers something I’ve wondered for a long time: how are sobriety checkpoints not a violation of the Constitution?
The Constitution says that “The right of the people to be secure… against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated… but upon probable cause.” It seems pretty clear to me that the police pulling people over, even if it’s random, to check if they’re sober constitutes a search without probable cause.
It turns out that the SCOTUS has already decided this. In essence, Chief Justice Rehnquist admitted that the stops do constitute a search, but that the public good outweighs the need for probable cause. Therefore, they are legal despite being very clearly prohibited under the US Constitution.
There’s some hope, though, indicated towards the end of the linked article. The case originated in Michigan, which had ruled that they were unconstitutional. The ruling, obviously, was overturned by the SCOTUS. But Michigan’s Supreme Court ruling also said that they violated Michigan’s Constitution. Ergo, they’re still illegal in Michigan even though the US Constitution “doesn’t” prohibit them. (I never thought I’d use quotes in that way…)
The Dangerous Book for Boys
Imagine my excitement when I moved back into school yesterday and saw that Kyle had a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys! I’d posted (I think?) the other day about how I’d heard it mentioned enough that I wanted to pick a copy up.
The back of the book calls it “The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.” And it’s even better than I’d been lead to believe it was! I’m not necessarily interested in the (unusually long?) sections devoted to historical battles, but several parts seem extraordinarily interesting:
- Knots. I can tie my shoes, but that’s about it.
- The rules of soccer. Not being a soccer fan, I never really learned anything other than the extreme basics. Here it is in two pages.
- Nautical (Naval) flags (semaphores?): not useful to me, but neat
- How to juggle! They say it takes about an hour of practice until you’re able to do it.
- Types of clouds. Just the other day I was regretting having forgotten this!
- Coin tricks. I haven’t yet tried these.
- Latin phrases! Most of them I’m familiar with, but maybe that’s because I’m 21 and went to Catholic high school. Still a neat read, and really, a good refresher for those who know most of them. (I object to the pronunciation of “Veni, vidi, vici,” despite it being correct.)
- How to play poker! This is what I need!
- Chess! Once again, it was just recently that I was lementing having forgotten this skill.
It also just has a lot of neat stuff that anyone (at least in the U.S.) should read, including:
- The Declaration of Independence. Not the first few lines, but the whole thing.
- Selections from Shakespeare.
- Seven poems (Walt Whitman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, et al*.)
- The Ten Commandments, taken from the King James Bible.
- Et alia, surprisingly, is not in the book’s list of Latin phrases.
Sadly, I think everyone I know is either too old or too young for me to give this book and have it appreciated for the truly awesome gift it would be, but I think it’s definitely worth picking up a copy for yourself. (Most of this book would be just as enjoyable by girls, although I should note that there’s apparently another book, The Daring Book for Girls.)
Horror
I’m not a big movie watcher. I probably watch half a dozen movies a year. That might be a high estimate. And probably not more than 10% of the movies I watch are horror movies. But I still like them.
You have to watch scary movies alone in the dark. There’s just no other acceptable way of doing it. So I just watched Disturbia. My parents described it as a modern version of Rear Window. So my expectations were pretty low.
I am now terrified. I’m lying in my bed with the covers almost pulled over my head. My closet door is partially open. I can’t really see in. Someone could very easily be lurking in there with a knife. I kind of want to shine my flashlight in, but that would almost certainly trigger them to come out. I also don’t know if anyone is under my bed. Little kids worry about monster under the bed. I’m worried that Mr. Turner might be under my bed, waiting to plunge a knife through the mattress and into my back as I lie here in utter terror.
I have my cell phone by my bed. I always keep it there since it’s my alarm clock. But tonight it’s so I can call 911 when Mr. Turner tries to kill me. Trust me, I’ll be sleeping with one eye open.
I keep a pocket knife around, as a handy tool. I kind of think I should get out of bed and get that for when he comes to kill me, but I don’t want to leave the safety of my bed.
How absurd is that? I legitimately feel much safer lying in bed, and am exponentially safer if I pull the sheets way up. My body’s natural reaction to someone (potentially) lurking in the shadows of my closet waiting to kill me isn’t to get up and get the knife just out of reach, but to pull some thin covers of me, to the extent that I can’t even see the threat coming. It’s probably the least safe thing you could do, second only to putting on a blindfold and then trying to on an offensive using styrofoam.
I tried rationalizing it. Mr. Turner isn’t real. But… I bet there are people like him in the real world. Maybe even worse. And surely, you couldn’t stick a knife through my bed and kill me, because it’s too thick. (And while a sword would do the trick, you couldn’t maneuver it underneath a bed.) But when was the last time you inspected the underside of your bed? He could easily have cut out a hole so he only an inch of mattress or so remains in one area. And, once I’ve dozed off comfortable that no one is trying to kill me, he’ll plunge the knife through my back.
It was nice knowing you all.
Besides his pasttime as a serial killer, BTW, Mr. Turner just radiated a really, really unlikable personality. He’s played by David Morse. You might recognize him. From House. He’s Detective Tritter. No wonder I disliked him.
Phishing
I realize I’m probably not the typical e-mail user, but I’m constantly amused at how pathetic phishing e-mails are. So this is a public service announcement… Don’t trust e-mails:
- That claim to be from a big, legitimate organization, such as a greeting card company or the Nigerian government, yet are mailed from something like a Yahoo account.
- That link to a random IP address as a company’s website.
- That ask you download a .exe file for no apparent reason.
- That tell you that someone you’ve never heard of has sent you agift.
- That claim that the Nigerian government owes you lots of money if only you can send some money to the guy e-mailing you.
- If you ‘win’ $2.5 million in an online UK lottery drawing that you never entered, that will be payed out from their Africa branch, after you contact their “fiduciary agent” with an e-mail address on Yahoo in Poland. (I give them credit for knowing the word fiduciary, though.)
- If e-mail from a complete stranger has nothing but an attachment. (Since I’m on Linux, where .exe viruses won’t do any damage, I opened the attachment, a ZIP file. It actually just contained a PDF with spam in it. But who (besides me) is dumb enough to open attachments from strangers that don’t even have an explanation?)
- If the Central Bank of Nigeria says you won $15 million, but that their payment system is broken so they need your bank account information.
When convincing looking e-mails come in purporting to be for a bank trying to ‘confirm details’ after ‘a problem with your account,’ I can see how some people might fall for it. But when the Central Bank of Nigeria is trying to deliver you $15 million in cash for no apparent reason, but needs your bank account information first? And the e-mail is littered with misspellings and just nonsense? How could anyone fall for that?
What If I Wanted to Break?
Last night at work, this customer came in. He comes in fairly often. He’s probably my age or a little older. I’ve noticed before that he drives a Porsche, and that he’ll come in even when we’re charging our highest rates, rack up huge bills, and never seem phased by them.
I always wondered what was up. He seemed like a nice guy, so I figured he wasn’t a drug dealer or hit man. But he seemed too young to have made millions. Maybe he was just from a rich family?
Last night he brought his laptop with him. And after a while we got to talking. He was playing online poker. (I should note that there is definitely not WiFi in our center. He has a cellular modem.) That’s where the Porsche came from. And he and his friends suggested that the Porsche was just a fraction of what he’s made.
Of course, I thought online poker had been outlawed. I looked into it a bit online last night out of curiosity, and it seems that, even after Bush signed the bill, it still exists in a gray area. (But many people are trying to pass bills allowing it. And from all over the political spectrum: a Republican from Florida, a Republican from one of the Dakotas, and a Democrat from Massachusetts have each introduced bills to permit it.)
I’m now intrigued. I’ve wanted to learn poker for a long time, just because a lot of people play it and seem to enjoy it. And while I know I’ll probably never get a Porsche out of it (I’d get either a BMW or Lexus first anyway), it’s sort of like playing the lottery: I know I probably won’t win a dime, but that remote possibility that I’ll come out ahead is thrilling and makes it worth playing once a month or so. It does seem to be a game with a high risk of addiction, but if you’re careful to just play for fun, I think it could be, well, fun. And if it ends up paying out, even better.
Of course, first I have to learn how to play poker. The good news is that, in addition to lots of tutorials online, a lot of poker sites have free, no-money versions specifically to let people practice.