March 31, 2004

Most. Bandwidth. Ever.

Who here wouldn't like to get 2.27 Mbps? Some guys in Israel have. How, you ask? Well, by using a previously mentioned technology, the pigeon! That's right folks! For the low, low price of finding three pigeons, you too can get over 2 Mbps! Amazing! With it's modular technology, you can get much better bandwidth simply by investing in another pigeon! Astounding! This truly is a wonderous age!

Posted by Gallagher at 08:02 PM

March 30, 2004

So, long time, no see...

So we're working on our research paper for English, which is going to be the second writing assignment of the semester. Now, normally this would be a good thing, you know, composing in a composition class, but of course it can't be that simple. Batts has to lead us by the hand through the steps of writing the thing, from choosing a topic to "discovering the library" to taking notes. So here we have the first problem. We're supposed to take our notes on 4x6 cards, which have plenty of room on them for plenty of information. We're supposed to have 40 of these. There is no way on Earth that I can take 40 of those cards and turn them into an 8-10 page paper. A 20-25 page paper, sure, but that would be worse on so many levels. Thus, problem one is the sheer volume of "notes" we're supposed to take for a paper this short. Problem the second: it's such a waste of time. There is no point in copying down quotes from books onto cards when it would be much easier to simply check the book out and have it at hand when I'm writing the paper.

But enough of that. On to my day in English. Last night, when I was doing my "research" in the library, I got quite sick of it and decided not to work any more that night. Which was all well and good. In fact, I had a wonderful time sitting around Ardith's laptop with Martinez and Sharpton browsing through this semester's "speach" forums. (Sorry, Martinez. Never at Reft.) This was all nice and relaxing. However, I neglected to do the other homework I had for English today, namely critiquing a speech and conducting an interview as part of my research. Fortunately, we had to go over the speech critiques in class, so while Charissa was talking, I recalled and critiqued last Wednesday evening's chapel. I went over that next, and no one was the wiser. Then, we had to tell Batts what went well and what could have been improved in our interviews. Well, having not done an interview, I wrote that I had emailed Anna's roommate, Lily, as she's doing a history of math presentation on Newton. Everything went fine.

I'm considering not doing any homework for that class (outside of the paper), because it's really not worth it. The only things keeping me going are my GPA, my general care of doing well, and the leverage I may gain by having a good grade and still hating the class when I talk to HNRS higher-ups about the class. If I get a C in the class, they could just say that I'm bitter about my grade, but if I get an A, they may actually have to deal with it. Anything that gets me more leverage is a good thing.

Alright, time to watch The Graduate.

Posted by Gallagher at 12:42 PM

March 22, 2004

No Time Like the Present

Well, it's been a good long while since I've posted, and, having found something of interest, I may as well put it up here. For those who are into looking at stars, I point you to this and hope that the berm will provide a good enough view. We probably won't be able to see Mercury, and Mars may be rather difficult to spot with all of the lights around campus, but we ought to be able to see the others.

Now on to what I did over spring break:
I went home and did nothing of importance. As such, I felt no need to post anything over the break.

Posted by Gallagher at 12:07 AM

March 11, 2004

Coming Soon!

Just in time for the weekly Shakespeare, I present to you the following: the greatest of all programming languages, inspired by the greatest of bards! The Shakespeare Programming Language!

I'm considering learning some of this over spring break. "You are as prompt as the difference between the square of thyself and your golden hair."

Posted by Gallagher at 08:49 PM

March 02, 2004

With a little bit of luck...

Well, I just got out of Dr. Coppinger's office. Very interesting stuff, that. He obviously knew about the problems that we were having with Creativity, *but* he didn't know how little the class had to do with writing. I went in, sat down, and talked to him about the class and how it really didn't feel like a composition class, to which he said something to the effect of, "We felt like it would be good to stretch the honors students into being comfortable with new ways of writing." He specifically mentioned writing. So I showed him all the writing we had done. All two pages of it, outside of worksheets.

He was... stunned. He knew from talking with Wilson and Scholl that there were far too many worksheets, but he hadn't realized that we didn't do any writing. I think we've finally given him something substantial that he can work off of: a composition course ought to involve composition, and if it doesn't, it may be necessary to change the nature of the course. Clearly, the easiest way to do this is to change the professor, but Coppinger can't come out and tell me that, although he kept saying that they were in the process of "restructuring" the Honors composition department. Apparently, the first part of this process is dropping Comp I, which many people have CLEP or AP credit for, anyway. Hopefully, after today, the second part will involve changing professors for comp II.

One of the last things I asked him was if the change in department chair would have any effect on this, and he said that it would. However, he is in a pretty sticky situation. He doesn't want to "hurt anyone's feelings," which I completely understand; I'm bad about that, too. But I'm fairly certain that he sees the need for a change. Before next spring.

I'll be encouraging Elizabeth and Katy to stop by, and I may need to go talk to Dr. Sumrall at some point, but that'll happen in the future, if it's needed.

Posted by Gallagher at 08:17 PM

Pop! Goes the Twenty...

Now how would you like to have these twenties?

Be sure to file this under conspiracy theories...

Posted by Gallagher at 06:22 AM