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I’ve been threatening to clear my Facebook account for a while now, and with the EFF’s latest revelations of how the site attempts to “zucker” private information from its unsuspecting users, today seemed like as good a time as any. And so it is done: zero friends.

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This past fall I began taking art classes again, with the hope of finishing a picture I’d started in ye olde 2004 or so.I thought it would be cool to photograph it after each session to track the progress. While the shots aren’t consistent enough to do a true time-lapse, I think it will be interesting to see how the picture develops. Continue Reading »

Even as content industries, patent trolls, and cretins shamelessly abuse their monopoly privileges, some of their behavior filters down to creators with even less to gain from such behavior. The false concepts of idea “ownership” and permission culture are a flesh-melting venom chewing away at our creative body. Continue Reading »

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy reading Tycho’s writings over at Penny Arcade. His command of vocabulary and rich, fantastic metaphor fills me with a tingly delight. After finishing Lolita, I think Vladimir Nabokov tops it, like a Tycho writing in the 1950s if Tycho was a trilingual synesthete. Continue Reading »

Over the weekend Rachel and I drove up to Penn State Hershey for the College of Medicine’s second look day. The whole thing was organized by the med students, and while they did squeeze a lot of information and activities into the day, I was impressed once again. I was also quite surprised by how many parents were in attendance alongside prospective students. They actually had a session for parents while the “kids” were sampling the school’s problem-based learning assignments. Continue Reading »

There’s been quite the foofaraw surrounding the leak of the latest iPhone prototype (Spoiler: one of the employees left it at a bar, a guy found it, Gizmodo bought it from him and posted a teardown). It’s the expected incremental upgrade scheduled for release this summer that continues the process of making the iPhone more like what people thought it was going to be when it released, making the ballyhoo surrounding the story even bigger than the story itself. Continue Reading »

A while back the leasing office started advertising a “breakfast on the go” event for this week. It sounded great and the time included when I normally leave for work; unlike most events, I planned to avail myself of it (this was assisted by the placement of the ad above my mailbox). The night before it was supposed to take place, I even bragged to Rachel that my cereal and yogurt would be supplemented with free goodies the following morning. Continue Reading »

Perhaps more interesting than the construction on my road is my small mishap in one of the animal facilities the other day. Unbeknownst to me, the welding on one of the rat cage lids had partially separated, loosening the seal and enabling the cage to be opened from the inside. Inquisitive creatures that they are, it doesn’t take rats long to figure out things like this. Continue Reading »

I got accepted at Penn State University! This means that I now have choices for where I begin the next phase of my education this fall.

On a more trivial note, I live off of a road that desperately wants to be gravel when it grows up, and thinks that if it just accumulates enough potholes, the transportation gods will grant its wish. Naturally, driving on it tests both reflexes and vehicle suspension. Continue Reading »

It might ruffle some feathers, but the more I think about it, the less I understand how a “Christian Right” can exist in politics without serious cognitive dissonance. In the all the seething furor against so-called socialism in the United States, they seem to have forgotten that egalitarian values predate Marx. While I’m no theologian, excerpts from the Bible demonstrate support for equality in the teachings of Jesus himself (and in the practices of his early church). Continue Reading »