The Armchair Politician

And as I enter this week, I’m swamped with things to do: finish up a BASIC interpreter for one class, study for a few tests, write a Model UN position paper, continue my search for prime numbers (I’ll send you the script soon, Jordi!), and tie up other loose ends for the first half of the semester. Wish me luck, folks.

I have to say, I’m quite proud of The Economist. They’re one of the few places that’s had the guts to repeatedly, publicly, and unfalteringly defend the free market in the wake of offshoring. I’ve transcribed the article, so I’ll let it speak for itself. Any grammatical or spelling mistakes are probably mine.
Continue Reading »

For years, there’s been steam gathering behind movements to convert from fossil fuels to hydrogen-based energy systems. After all, Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, right? Not only that, but its byproducts are harmless, and even beneficial: water and heat. Doesn’t being both clean and abundant make it a perfect energy source? Unfortunately, there are many problems concerning hydrogen, which most people are blissfully unaware of.
Continue Reading »

According to the BBC (among other sources), upon takeoff, the pilot of the American Airlines flight asked Christians on-board to raise their hand. He then suggested to those without their hands up that they converse with Christians about their faith, and insisted that “everyone who doesn’t have their hand raised is crazy”.

Yeah, yeah, a few days too late. Anyways, I can’t think of a single self-respecting girl who wouldn’t want this.

I think the title of this says it all. Read below for a chat transcript or two.
Continue Reading »

Well, today just so happens to be exactly twenty years since the day I poked my head into this world. And what better birthday present than to be called by two different companies who saw and were impressed by my resume? Best…birthday present…ever.

Jordi has invited me to Orkut, an invite-only social networking service brought to us by the fine folks at Google. So far, it’s only been around for a few weeks, and it’s grown exponentially, to the point where it’s even larger than Friendster (a similar service, which has been around for awhile). It seems like it might have some interesting potential, so if any of you are interested, let me know and I’ll send you an invite (assuming you’re a friend).

In President Bush’s speech this afternoon, he spoke about the current state of counterproliferation measures in the world today. One brief organization he touched upon is the Proliferation Security Initiative, a joint venture between the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Japan, Portugal and the Netherlands which aims to prevent the proliferation of “weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and other related materials worldwide”. It intends to board ships and planes suspected of transferring these materials to countries who are of “proliferation concern”. So far, all they’ve primarily done is conduct training exercises in the Coral Sea, within spitting distance of North Korea.
Continue Reading »

I’ve officially entered in the search for prime numbers. A professor I’d had for Discrete Modeling, Dr. Joseph DeMaio, was looking for research assistants, and I signed up. As it turns out, he has some interesting theories for culling out numbers when searching for primes.
Continue Reading »