Addendum to Murphy's Laws

Sarregouset's First Law of Social Interaction
The greater the insistency of an explanation, the greater the intention of a cover-up.

Sarregouset's Second Law of Social Interaction
Amelodic humming is a sure sign of something weighing on the conscience.

Sarregouset's Third Law of Social Interaction
The only thing worse than being enslaved to someone else is to be enslaved to your own notion of their opinion of you.

Sarregouset's Fourth Law of Social Interaction
The more undeserved the compliment you are given, the more the giver wishes the same compliment were applied to himself.

Sarregouset's Last Law of Social Interaction
There are some things which a person cannot admit, even subconsciously, for it would break them. On such an issue, do not attempt to step between them and God.

Christmas is Coming!

It's ten days to Christmas, and I can't focus anymore. I've been listening to so much Christmas music I'm about max out my Pandora account. Finals seem like nothing compared to shopping for presents (which I haven't started!), and even my lab reports are starting to look like Christmas tree farms.

Aagh!

I should really write a Christmas letter of sorts here. Maybe later if I have time. Till then.

What next?

The dominant worldview in the West seems ready to shift from secularism to pantheism, or 'New Age spirituality', according to Nancy Pearcy. I expect this movement to become prominent in my lifetime, and here is one of the ways it should be identifiable:

The scientific theory of evolution will continue to be taught, but its supposed mechanism will change. Instead of primarily natural selection of genetic mutations, it will be physical forces driving the mutation of species. It will be said that the universe has an inherent property of promoting complexity, diversity, life, and and even consciousness, just as it has an inherent property of attraction of matter, called gravitation. It is already acknowledged that Darwinian natural selection is not adequate by itself, but a better successor is not forthcoming. The acceptance of this new evolutionary mechanism requires (and may encourage) the worldview shift that I foresee.

What other epistemological trends we should be watching today?

Gmail

WHY are the buttons in Gmail always changing their height? You know, the Archive, Report Spam, etc row across the top. 15px, 16px, 17 px, you think somebody could make up their own mind. I finally decided to take things into my own hands and go with 16px for myself:
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Moving, Take n+1

Well, my parents successfully moved this weekend, and now begins the long arduous process of settling in. But not for me, since grad classes start tomorrow. When I can get my head above the waters of life, the salt spray will be refreshing. But I like swimming too.

Google Earth has a Flight Simulator?!

This isn't me; my computer isn't fast enough. But this is what I tried to do.

Online Web Programming Apps

These online apps allow quick testing of web programming code. I make heavy use of them.

HTML: http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_intro
CSS: http://cssdesk.com/
(Astounding) cross-browser CSS: http://css3please.com/
JS: http://railsdotnext.com/experiment/jssandbox.html
PHP (To be honest I've never used this): http://writecodeonline.com/php/
RegEx: http://gskinner.com/RegExr/
Browser comparisons: http://browsershots.org/
Web layout (Had to throw this in there): http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/

Moving

My parents are moving across town on June 29 or not. We'll have to see. Not a big deal for most people, but for someone who has spent the last 19.5 year or 87.5% of his life in one house, it means something. Not sure what yet. We will be closer to people from church and further away from nature. I should take some pictures for historical comparison.

Then, the following week (July 5) I will head back to Lehigh to begin my graduate studies. Most of that move already happened, so hopefully it will be easier than this one.

Credit Cards

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/05/01/credit-card-concierge/ and
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/index.html
made me laugh out loud, which says something.

Forthcoming

Today I accepted Lehigh's M.Eng. program. This means I'll be returning to Lehigh by July 7th, and graduating May 2011. Two courses in the summer, three or four in the fall and spring. Some remaining questions: what do I do for the first half of this summer? take classes for fun? If not, should I take any non-major classes during the fall?

Clipboard Manager

Over the last week I have tried four different clipboard managers, and although none of them seem to work perfectly, they have already been a lifesaver. (Basically instead of hitting Ctrl-V I hit Ctrl-Shift-V and up pops a box with the last 10 or so items from the clipboard, which I can toggle through. Just think about it.) The one ended up with is called Clip-X.

Adobe

Now my professor was working from a document scanned to pdf. Every time he clicked to point something out to us on the projector, the page highlighted. Then he would grumble about "hating this blue color", scroll up, click on the previous page to highlight it instead, and then scroll back down. I wanted to scream at him: "Just click again to make the stupid blue go away!"

Otherness

Until recently I felt that between anyone on Earth there existed strong bonds, hardwired into us, tying people together with common experiences, perspectives, understandings. I thought that if any two people from history could communicate, they could find a common ground, some shared feeling that one experience would evoke in both of them. But the latest book I've read seems to indicate that some people have lived whose circumstances are so incomprehensibly different as to make them completely other.

My old impression arose from the diverse reading I have pursued. No book I read left me completely outside, unable to identify with the author or characters. From the Iliad and the Odyssey, to Augustine's Confessions, to Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich, to the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, to With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz. You may say that what made each work last to this day was this appeal to all generations, and you would be right. But I have read such a variety, always looking for understanding, and always finding it, that I began to wonder. No longer.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, by J.R.R. Tolkien, has opened my eyes to the Elder (or Poetic) Edda, from 10th century Norse mythology. As he said, "Old Norse poetry aims at seizing a situation, striking a blow that will be remembered, illuminating a moment with a flash of lightning." It does not clearly define circumstances or people's feelings. The retelling by Tolkien which I posted on Shephanim successfully captures this energy characteristic to Norse sagas. Even once I understood the events I could not comprehend the people.

This probably only makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean that I'm also other.

Lehigh University Steam Tunnels

"Where would one find these tunnel entrances? I've been wondering since I arrived at Lehigh last year." Plm209 18:45, 14 August 2006

"I don't recommend trying it today with confined space OSHA regulations, but since you asked:
Obviously, the tunnel access doors are on the basement or ground floors of the buildings, often by stairwells. In the UC, it's by the stairwell at the east end where ROTC is now and where the radio station was. This was our usual starting point as the transmitter powering the cables was there.
After climbing over, under and through "Gertler's Dragon" (a massive underground connection that linked different pipe runs, sometimes blowing steam through a relief valve and named after a former Chief Engineer of WLRN), you could come out in Chandler in a janitor's closet under the central stairs. From there you get to the powerplant.
Or after the dragon you could go uphill through Drown and come out in Richards at the bottom of the west end stairwell. I confirmed that door still exists two years ago when my daughter was a freshman in Richards. However it's locked.
Hint. To follow the tunnels above ground (which is the only way ANYONE should explore them today) , wait for the first light snowfall and look for where it's melted by the heat. The path is very evident in the Freshman quad." GCW50 14:32, 15 August 2006

"We found tunnels like this all over our campus (Lehigh University)… we used to explore in the middle of the night.. One time we checked it out during the day and came up on a tunnel in the path to the University Center… my friend was first and popped his head up and someone called out his name.
I guess someone recognized him and was wondering what he was doing in the "sewer". That was a funny scene. A few months later there were locks on most of them, but we still managed to get in." MayaP 2006-02-13 09:36:34

"For an inquisitive child of 12 or so, Lehigh was a treasure chest. What wonderful huge Gothic buildings with
mysterious "cellars"! The Lehigh Chapel alone had vast cellars hardly anyone knew existed. Also, one could
spend an entire day walking the many steam tunnels carrying the high pressure steam pipes for heat to the
various campus buildings from the powerhouse. What a maze of ducts in the "attics" of these immense gothic
buildings—a world unknown to students and faculty, but known to me because my father had to care for, and I worked in, some." Willard Litzenberger ('41)

"Exploring Lehigh's secrets is one of my hobbies. I've been through the notorious 'tunnels', and on top of or underneath many a structure in my time here." Trevor Drummond ('10)

...  yes, I know how to get to most of these places. No; I won't tell you.

Snow

Domineering Windows

My professor's presentation today kept being interrupted by the Windows XP nag screen: Your computer will be restarted in 15 minutes.... To stop this service, open [Command Prompt] (Start>Run>cmd>Enter) and type the following command: sc stop wuauserv.

The Millennium

Believers:
Are born dead in sin
Are born again to new life (first resurrection)
Fall asleep (first death)
Are raised for judgment (second resurrection)
Live and reign forever

Nonbelievers:
Are born dead in sin
Fall asleep (first death)
Are raised for judgment (second resurrection)
Are thrown into the lake of fire (second death)

The millennium is between the first and second resurrections - now.

Who wants online privacy?

It’s worth asking, did people ever really want privacy in the first place?

http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/374/privacy-is-like-virginity-no-one-really-wants-it.html

there.is.only.xul

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Burj Dubai

No, make that Burj Khalifa, the tallest of anything anywhere.

http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2009/yurtle-the-turtle-had-nothing-on-this/

The Winchester Mystery House

http://mysteryhouseguide.com/