{ Monthly Archives }
May 2004
Dreaming Peacefully
Well, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and actually pay for webhosting (through Dreamhost). Previously, I’d run this site out of a server in my basement. Unfortunately, that method has become impractical. The reason I originally decided to administer this website that way was twofold: hosting isn’t free, and I wanted more experience with network administration.
The transition has appeared to be pretty straightforward so far. It took less effort than I expected to transfer the files and database, and get everything back in working order. Hopefully, from you guy’s perspective, nothing at all should change. If anyone notices something broken, please, let me know!
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588 American Casualties
As each day passes, I hear a greater number of people complaining about American casualties in Iraq. Others bemoan our occupation there, and decry it as another “quagmire”, in which countless numbers of American troops will be killed. According to antiwar.com, there have been 588 American combat casualties since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
How bad is 588 casualties, exactly? The only objective way to look at the number is in relation to other American military actions. Therefore, a good set of data to compare Operation Iraqi Freedom to is the casualty figures from all other previous wars involving America. For the sake of relevance, I’m not going to include any NATO actions, as their multinational nature dilutes individual countries’ casualty rates. As a editorial note, I’m also going to compare combat casualties rather than overall casualties. There’s no reason for this other than the fact that the data has already been calcualted (for the most part), saving me time. However, after having done some calculations on total casualties, the numbers tell the same story.
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Click It or Ticket
Georgia, along with many other states in the nation, has reinvigorated its Click It or Ticket
campaign (visit its laughable website). While watching TV recently, one of their new advertisement spots came on. I’ve been unable to find a video (however, if I’m lucky I’ll be able to make a recording). One part of the advertisement goes something like this: I finally was able to record the spot when it came on TV. A quote follows, and a picture taken from the advertisement is on the right.
…because 43,000 Americans were killed in traffic crashes just last year. And just over half of them died with safety belts unbuckled. Safety belts save lives. Five hundred police agencies are enforcing Georgia’s safety belt law on the highways where you drive. So if you don’t click it, expect a ticket. [emphasis theirs]
Google Advertisements
Well, I’ve decided to make this website “ad supported”. I’m putting it in quotes because I don’t expect to actually receive anything monetary out of the ads–the simple truth is that I don’t get enough traffic, and they’re so inobtrusively placed that I doubt few people will ever click on them. Either way, it doesn’t matter: I’m placing Google AdSense advertisements in the bottom-left corner of this page for idealistic reasons rather than economic ones.
Debian Package
Well, in addition to school, work, being a research assistant, Model UN, the Pump it Up pad, and all my other ventures, I’ve decided to make an attempt at becoming a Debian Developer. Debian is a distribution of my operating system of choice, Linux, and is always looking for more volunteers committed to writing high quality free software.
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Everybody Dance!
Most of you know I’m irreversibly addicted to a dancing game called Pump it Up. Well, the addiction continues: Nick Wood and I have begun building our own metal pads, as we’ve become frustrated with the quality of the plastic ones they provide for home use.
The trick is, there aren’t any plans available for building them. We’re basing our plans off of RipTide’s, but his are for Dance Dance Revolution–a similar game, but the pad layout is different. Since nobody else seems to have actually constructed a metal Pump it Up pad before, or at the very least hasn’t bothered to document the process, Wood and I will be taking photographs and writing detailed instructions, part lists, etc.
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