i prefer pi

Today was a good day:  FREEbirds courtesy of the Brazos Valley Cyclists and “Bike to the Bird”, my last STAT and software engineering classes, some good Smash Bros. action, Hart Java, and chilling with friends all night.  :thumbsup:

Things that remain to be done before I leave on Sunday:  Enough laundry to last me to the end of the semester, 5-6 chapters of Testing Computer Software, the RUF pic-a-nic, and a good night’s rest.

I’d like to propose an entry to the lexicon:

post?ing pa?ral?y?sis²    Pronunciation Key  (pst?ing p-rl-ss)
n. pl. pa?ral?y?ses (-sz)

1. Loss or impairment of the ability to update a web site, usually as a result of preoccupation with one’s next entry.
2. Inability to move or function; total stoppage or severe impairment of web-logging activity

I’m frequently struck by the desire to pen the perfect response to something that someone else has said.  When I continually fail to come up with one (mostly because I suck at words), I keep thinking “Well, I can’t just post about fluff now.“  This ultimately leads to long stretches where I post nothing at all.  After Zane’s comment to my last entry, I wanted to come up with clear reasoning for why I feel the way I do, probably more for me than for anyone else.  After writing for a while and stretching onto my 4th page or so, I realized that this would be a task that would take a bit longer than I presumed, but I didn’t want to leave his comment unanswered.  Friends, readers, countrymen, lend me your eyes; I come to bury my paralysis, not to to praise it.  Here’s my vastly abridged version, and I promise to put a link to the full thing once I finish.

First, I’d like to qualify the kind of file-swapping that I was talking about.  Obviously, sharing content with the band’s expressed consent is A-OK, and swapping files in the public domain is completely legit as well.  I was talking about distributing copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder.  My conclusions about those activities were based on a few assumptions, which you may or may not feel comfortable swallowing:

• first and most fundamentally, that the Bible contains wisdom and direction and commands relevant to our lives today;
• next, that the statements made by Christ [Mat 22:15-20] and reiterated by Peter [1 Pet 2:13-17] and Paul [Rom 13 specifically v5-8] about submission to civil authorities supercede non-essential freedoms that we would otherwise have;
• that infringing on someone else’s copy rights is prohibited by the law of this country [Title 17 of the U.S. Code];
• that the kind of file-swapping that I described above is not protected under the “fair use” umbrella of exceptions to Title 17. There’s a good article at the UT System’s web site (and another one here) about what determines fair use;
• that even if copyright holders are being “unjust”, we are not excused to react with injustice (the “stick it to the oppressive RIAA” argument) [Matt 5:38-42]

I’m trying to keep it brief, so I’ll leave it at those for now.  I’ve deliberately avoided analyzing the actual references so that you can look at them and draw your own conclusions; again, if you find a fault in my reasoning, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me

On a positive note, I finally have all of my travel arrangements for my Microsoft interview worked out.  I leave from Easterwood around 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, get to Seattle around 7:00 their time, have my interview on Monday morning at 10:30, then catch a redeye flight out of Seattle at 11 PM and get back to B/CS around 9 AM on Tuesday.  Now I just have to make sure that I really know my stuff… they only hire about a quarter of the people that are flown up there =\

I got annoyed last night.  Annoyed at me, really.  I was in a situation where a group of people that I genuinely enjoy being around were about to take part in some activities that I didn’t think were either permissible or beneficial.  And rather than stand up to say something, I quietly excused myself from the room and walked home.  Why didn’t I speak up?  I know the reason, really;  I was afraid of the way that I would be perceived (as being legalistic or stodgy), I was afraid of the backlash that would come (it’s inevitable; I’ve been in a simliar situation on the other side of things) and I was simply afraid that they wouldn’t want me to be around anymore.  I’ll dispense with the abstracted “aloof-ities”; at least two of you reading this were in the room.  Here’s what I would have said if I wasn’t so concerned with keeping up appearances:  For the first two years that I was here at school, I fought an off-and-on battle with digital content piracy, usually copying and distributing music, movies and software with abandon.  I knew that it was wrong, I knew that I was furthering and being a big contributor to a culture that doesn’t value or respect the rights of copyright holders, and I believe that by willfully indulging in acts that are prohibited by law, I was sinning.  I knew that it was a problem, but I minimalized, rationalized and ignored it as best I could, because everyone else was doing it anyway.  As followers of Christ, though, we can’t live that way.  It hit me pretty hard when I realized that my friends couldn’t hear what I was saying about Christ because I’d see them the next day and ask if they wanted a copy of whatever new film had come out that week.  How can anyone see the Christ in us if we’ve so conformed ourselves to the way that everyone else behaves?  The Lord really put this on my heart over the summer, and it’s only by his power that I’ve been free from piracy for the last nine months.  It hasn’t been easy; I stopped and tried to stop several times before and always let myself back into the same selfish patterns, and yes, I’ve had to give up a lot of things that I enjoyed.  But it has been worth it.  There’s an amazing freedom that comes from resolving my cognitive dissonance, from throwing away activities that aren’t ours in which to indulge.  I’m sorry if I sound preachy.  Like I said at the beginning, I’m not writing this to indict or guilt anyone; I’m all too aware of the amount of content that I took without permission, and it’s just one on a near-endless list of the ways that I’ve rebelled against the standards of living that have been set out.  But because I’ve seen the negating effects that it (and any habitual sin) has had on my relationship with the Father, I ache when I see brothers and sisters diving into it headlong.  I can’t help but feel that a lot of the problem is that no one is saying anything:  I read articles like this one and find out that the problem is as widespread as I suspected, and wonder why no one is bringing up the subject of one of the most widespread and invisible areas of struggle that students are facing today.  Given the opportunity again, I would have talked about it last night, rather than excusing myself without leaving an explanation.  To those that were there, I deeply apologize; I thought that you were about to partake in something harmful, and I said nothing.

EDIT:  If I’m wrong, or if I’ve gotten off track somewhere, or if I am just being stodgy or rule-based, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.  I’d really like to talk about it.
On a completely unrelated and rather embarassing note, I found this page from last year when I was using a WinAmp plug-in to do smart playlist generation.  I have no idea what posessed me to listen to “Wannabe” that many times.  (Disclaimer: Yes, this was when the majority of my music was obtained through illegal means, and I know now that the artist that recorded “Brandy” was Looking Glass, not Dr. Hook)

Total number of hours: 100

Hours spent in class: 16
… asleep: 22
… on AI & SE projects: 31
… doing STAT homework: 1.5
… doing Logic homework: 0 :-\
… on RA stuff: 5
… in meetings: 4
… eating meals: 10

Number of LAN parties attended: 0.6

% intake of RDA of calories: roughly 9 million

New AIM buddies added: 3
Old AIM buddies removed: also 3

Date Microsoft set for my flight and interview: they haven’t yet

and probably a million other equally-uninteresting incidents

• Projects completed: 1
• Heuristic evaluations performed: 1.5
• RA group meetings attended: 2
• Event planners filled out: 0
• Classes skipped: 2
• Meals at Rumours: 4
• Aggregate sleep: 8.25 hours

I frequently complain that people in LibArts classes aren’t in the same boat as CPSC people, my justification being that they never spend 3 hours on a paper and then have the words fall off of the page, or realize that they can’t read it, or have to deal with their paper randomly crashing while they are reading it, all of which being things that I have to amend when I think I’ve “finished” an assignment.  Apparently, though, sometimes English majors get to the end of a paper and realize that it just doesn’t work.  Interesting…

The forecast is looking like no likelihood of sleep tonight (Tuesday), with marginal amounts of slumber coming in during the mid- to late-morning hours.  I should be partly grumpy with a chance of naps late Wednesday afternoon, increasing as we push on into the early evening.

I made the mistake of telling Dimitri this morning that I was quite literally going to have the busiest week of my life this week.  Then I went to software engineering today and found out that I need to scrape together another 10 - 15 hours between now and Friday to work on a project deliverable.  Whoopee!  So yeah; now I’m really having the busiest week of my life

Since everyone else is doing it and since I’m such a conformist, here are my Mr. Picassohead masterpieces.

So after deliberating for a while, I realized that everyone I’ve ever known (with the exception of the 6 or 7 people on my LiveJournal friends list) has a Xanga account, and I’m a pushover when it comes to social interaction.  So, uhh… here I am…

Quite frequently, I’ll open up my LiveJournal updater and begin to type an entry about something that I suddenly feel is profoundly important. After going at it for a while, I’ll pause, think for a while, then eventually give it up; I’ll either realize that I suck at writing (most frequently :)), realize that someone has already said what I wanted to say and done so much more elegantly, or come to the realization that I don’t really know what it is that I’m trying to say. So my little missives and treatises go unpublished, but I’m starting to understand that I do a lot of “mental hygiene” just by starting to talk about them. Thanks for being my unwitting audience
Listening to:
Current mood: ponderous