David Foster Wallace PowerPoint

Consider the Wallace: An Author Study

George W. Bush Presentation

Top 10 Ways To Be Really Annoying on Facebook

So I started up my old computer today to check my Facebook page.  I got on the website and checked the notifications and looked at the home page a little bit.

So, without further ado, the top 10 ways to annoy someone (or a whole bunch of someones) on Facebook.

The App Man- Sign up for a bunch of free horoscopes and other cool things like "Lover of the Day," or "Valentine of the Day."  These apps will spam the news feeds of all your friends with useless and annoying wall posts.  This affects all of your friends and makes your own profile very disgusting looking.  I would recommend this tactic if you simply want to be one of the most hated Facebook users.

The Constant Status Updater- Another easy way to annoy people is to use the "TMI" effect- too much information about your life.  Simply have a new status every 3 minutes.  The statuses can be about anything, from your own personal experiences and beliefs, or they can simply be random statements.  Ensure to tag a whole bunch of people in these statuses so some of your friends get notifications (notifications = annoyance).  Keep in mind that you will have to post around 20 statuses in an hour, which is a little less than 500 statuses in a day (assuming you update your friends around the clock).  Coming up with 500 different statuses every day can be challenging.  Here are a few sample statuses that you can use if you run out of ideas.

• "Hey"
• "I just had orange juice"
• "I just had grape juice"
• "Whats up friends?"
• "Whats up enemies?"
• "The time is now 12:28"
• "The time is now 12:29"
• "The political agenda of the far left is ultimately going to be a causation of massive government and a shift towards a socialistic regime"
• "My mother likes pizza"
• "I am going outside for a minute to check the temperature"
• "Okay I just got back inside, its pretty warm out there"
• "I'm going to go check the real temperature on the thermometer, hold on"
• "Wait, I can't find a thermometer"
• "Does anyone know where a thermometer is?"
• "No, you probably don't, because you have never been in my house"
• "Wait, @John Smith, haven't you been in my house before?"
• "@Kayln Golden, Hi!"
• "Nvm, I found a thermometer"
• "Shoot, its out of batteries"
• "I'm going to the store, I'll brb"
• From Facebook mobile: "Okay I'm at a red light right now"
• From Facebook mobile: "I just parked the car in row F.  Haha"
• From Facebook mobile: "Right now I'm walking into the store. Lol"
• From Facebook mobile: "I like shoes"
• "Hey, I found a computer at the store.  I'm using it to update my status"
• From Facebook mobile: "I bought some batteries"
• From Facebook mobile: "I'm at the same red light I was earlier! Lol!"
• "I'm home again"
• "I'm going to put the batteries in the thermometer so I can check the actual temperature"
• "The time is 12:56"
• "Oh darn, I got the wrong size batteries"
• "I'm going back to the store"

The Wall to Wall Chatter- For lots of annoyance in your friends home screens, start up a meaningless wall to wall conversation with a friend or two.  This effectively replaces Facebook chat.  Whatever you would say in Facebook Chat, write on someones wall instead.  Continue the conversations out for 100's of wall posts.  Your friends' news feeds will be filled with meaningless banter between people they probably don't care much about.  Here's a quick conversation sample.

Sam > James: "Hi James!"

James > Same: "Yo Sam. What's up?"

Sam > James: "NMU"

James > Sam: "NMU?"

Sam > James: "I already asked you"

James > Sam: "Oh haha"

Sam > James: "Right, I said NM"

James > Sam: "Lol"

Sam > James: "Haha yeah"

The above conversation can be replaced with FDA (Facebook Displays of Affection), to even further piss people off.

The Incessant Tagger- One of the more eye-rolling ways to make people shake their heads is to start random tagging.  Go to one of your friends (when I say "friends," I mean "Facebook Friends."  It is unlikely that any of your Facebook friends will even talk to you after you do these things.) and go to the pictures.  Find a picture and start tagging friends.  Even if they aren't in the picture, tag them.  Tag about 100 or 200 random friends per picture, then move on to the next one.  This will give the owner of the picture 100 or 200 notifications per picture, and will also give 100 or 200 people a random notification that will cause them to scratch their head.

The Over-Requester- Something that really annoys people is lots of requests.  Ranging anywhere from friend requests to fan pages of an unknown band to group membership to free ducks if you join Farmville.  To be really annoying, simply request that all of your friends join everything possible on Facebook.  Go to a fan page "like page" and click on "Suggest to Friends" and invite all your friends.  Make sure to include a variety of requests.  Include all the apps you can find, all the fan pages you can find, and all the groups you can join.

---

Whew.  That is a lot of annoying things to do.  I am now warning you that if you do these things, people probably won't like you as much, and may even...gasp!...unfriend you on Facebook!

So if you want to keep your friends, both real and virtual, avoid doing these things.  But why would anyone want to keep their friends? Go for it.

And yeah I know, there's only 5 ways up there.  I don't feel like thinking of 10 whole ways of annoying people, five was plenty.  I just said there were 10 because "Top 10" lists are much more credible than "Top 5" lists.  Sorry.

Going Red

The opposite of being green is being red.  When you go green you seek to help conserve the environment.  When you go red, you want to harm the environment.

More to come later.

Notice how the shirt is a variation of green.  You never see red environmental shirts.

Picture from http://rlv.zcache.com/stop_cutting_down_trees_on_my_property_tshirt-p235810715502804789y9w1_400.jpg

The Far Left

The far left is, according to Wikipedia, is...

Far left, extreme left, revolutionary left and radical left are terms which refer to extreme left-wing positions in a political spectrum. The far left promotes egalitarianism.^[1] The far left involves complete opposition and aggression towards stratified economic, political and social establishments.^[2] The far left is hostile to people associated with a stratified establishment.^[3]

At first reading this, it sounded like a bunch of nonsense.  But a simple breakdown is very helpful.  After reading this hopefully you will understand that the far left is not, in fact, California and Hawaii.

The far left promotes egalitarianism.  This long word can be reduced to lowest whole number terms to... equality.  The far left promotes equality.  They want everyone to be equal and life to be fair (in some respects).

The far left involves complete opposition and aggression towards stratified economic, political, and social establishments.  A stratified society is one with no middle class: just the rich and poor.  Because the far left wants equality they oppose these vessels that bring stratification.

Why Sundays are the New Mondays

I am sitting here on a Sunday night, very unhappy with the world.  It seems like every Sunday night completely sucks.  I wondered to myself, why? Why the hell have Sunday's started to suck so much?

Here are a few of my reasons:

-Sunday is the sabbath day.  This means that you aren't supposed to do physical labor or anything strenuous like that.  Doing physical labor and strenuous things releases endorphins. Endorphins makes you happy.  You don't have endorphins on Sunday, so you aren't happy on Sunday.

-People can get figuratively "hung over" from the weekend.  Staying out late doing things can be taxing.  Taxes must be payed, usually the next day in the form of tiredness and a bad mood.

-Homework is due the next day...

Mothers Day

A shout out to mothers throughout the world.

It is Mother's Day
Thank you Mom, for giving birth
To me, your son Mike

People celebrate Mother's Day in many ways.  Some people buy gifts, such as Pink Flamingos.  Others spend time cleaning their mother's yard.

I spent my mothers day doing various things.

Today I had my first run in with Gutter Toppers (TM).  Gutter Toppers, for those of you lucky few who don't know, are metal screens that are supposed to keep your gutters clean from debris.  They think that by screening out all the leaves and such, you won't have to clean the gutters and they won't get clogged.

These screens, however, have one crucial weakness.  Helicopter seeds, the ones you throw up in the air and they spin like helicopters, are to gutter toppers what water is to a selectively permeable membrane.

You would expect the gutter toppers to keep out the seeds, but look what happens below....

The helicopters from hell

So back to my plight.  My job was to pick out these seeds, which had become lodged in between the metal pores, and throw them to the ground.  The only problem was that these seeds would not come out easily.  They were stuck in the grate and had to picked out by hand, or sucked up by vacuum.

I got out some garden gloves, a study ladder, and my leftover dignity.  A few hours later the gutters were clean, and the metal gutter toppers shone proudly before the shingles.

My task was done, and Mother's Day was a success. 

---

Pic from http://www.omahadoor.com/images/gutter_protection/Gutter_Protection_Screen_Types.jpg

All Day AP

AP season is in full swing.  Teachers push students to study.  Parents push students to study.  Even some students push each other to study.  Everyone is pushing everyone to study and do well, so they can get their 3s, 4s, and 5s and receive a little college credit.

Some people are panicked about all this, others quite frankly, don't care.  However, I would like to think that people who payed the $86 for a test want to do well and get the most value.  Some people stress trying to memorize the names, dates, concepts, and problems required to take the AP exam.  Late nights that should be spent sleeping are instead spent pouring over textbooks and review packets.  Passing time that should be spent talking with friends is spent frantically paging through flashcards.  Friday nights that should be spent...actually I would say most people don't study on Friday nights.  That's what Sunday nights are for.

A classic example of the stressed AP student.

All this scramble for AP makes me question the reasoning of the exams themselves.  Here's the concept according to a website that teaches people how to speak English:

"The Advanced Placement program is fifty years old. As we reported last week, it was created to let high school students do college-level work. They can earn college credits if they do well on an exam."

By earning college credit, you don't have to take the classes in college and can therefore save some money on tuition and even possibly cut out a semester or two of college itself.  And there is the fact that the class prepares you to do college work.

But...there are some other issues that need help.  One of the biggest problems I see with the exams is that the entire year is focused around them.  Teachers have a curriculum that needs to maximize the available time and prepare you for the test.  For many this means a very static curriculum that is often lack of discussion or new ideas.  What is on the test is taught in the class, not much more.

Occasionally there is creativity, but for the most part the classes are by the book.  You read a chapter, listen to a lecture, take a test, and move on.  At the end of the year you review for the final exam.  You take the exam, and then you're done.  Teachers generally don't continue the education of the topic after the AP test, they shift to a more relaxed and free flowing curriculum.  Often times teachers will have students do an easy project, watch movies, or grade papers.

This whole mindset somewhat defeats the purpose of AP. There is a huge build-up for the test, and then the entire subject is forgotten.  No reflection, discussion, or skepticism.  Instead there is simply a massive "we're done!" effect. (Hmmm...isn't this actually what college is like?  If you have a "useless" class that you have to pass out of to get your major?  You will easily forget this subject matter, especially if it doesn't apply to your current job/life).

So, I think we should reform the program.  The College Board is becoming too much of a powerhouse, it needs to be put in check.  The biggest controversy is over the question, how should we decide who gets college credit?  The College Board has the ultimate say over this.  To ensure that not everyone gets credit, they use a bell curve.  A certain amount of people get 1s, a certain amount of people get 2s, etc, etc.  In other words, you are competing against the other students taking the test for a limited amount of college credit (in the form of getting 4s and 5s on the exams).

This means that if everyone knows the material perfectly, can answer any question in a heart beat, and provide in depth analysis of the topic, there will still be a bunch of people who "fail" the test and get no credit. This situation would obviously be unfair for the many people who fall under the 1 and 2 category.  The College Board simply counts on a certain amount of people each year not knowing the material and doing poorly on the test.

This situation can be reversed.  Lets say that everyone who takes the test is a complete idiot.  Nobody knows anything about the subject, and they all guess on the questions and write random haiku's for the essay portions.  Around 15% of the people taking the test will get 5s, and will appear to be well versed in the material, when in fact they are simply blabbering idiots.

In response, I propose a new system.  I think we should do away with AP exams all together.  No more end of year massive final.  No more cramming the night before.  No more stress and worry.

I think that instead of the College Board being responsible for giving out credit, the individual AP teachers should be in charge.  I propose a system in which the teacher grades his/her own individual students based on fluency with the subject material, and then award college credit accordingly.

Of course, there would have to be limitations on this approach.  Teachers would have to be "registered" or trained by the college board.  It would be a similar process to accrediting a college; you are accrediting an AP teacher to give out college credit.  As an incentive for teachers to get accredited, schools could provide a pay raise or other benefits.

The teacher, once "accredited", would be allowed to give out a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 based on how well the student did that year.  The teacher can use any form of evaluation deemed necessary: discussion, exams, essays, physical activity, etc.  The teachers could simply file a report with the College Board and then the "exam score" would be given to the student.  There will bound to be a problem of teachers passing everyone in the class, to make themselves look good (or simply favoritism to students).  To counter this, the College Board would review one or two of these "reports."  If the teacher fails one of these audits, his/her accreditation could be reviewed and possibly revoked.

If the student has a terrible relationship with the AP teacher and believes that the teacher would file an unfair report, the student could request a special review with a College Board member.

This solution would eliminate the end of year exams, reduce cost, increase efficiency, and place more emphasis on free thinking and new ideas (which our society needs).

How likely is this to happen? Not even a chance.

---

Pic from http://collegejolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ap-class.jpg

Where did the .000000........000001 come from???

Just watch...

X= .99999999999....

(both sides by ten)

10X = 9.999999999......

(Subtract X (.9999....) from each side)

9X = 9

(divide both sides by 9)

X = 1

Wait... I thought X equaled .9999999.....?????

Courtesy of David Foster Wallace via Goody.

Why Change Is Impossible

I was reading a short story by David Foster Wallace called "Another Pioneer."  In this story, an entire Third World village is transformed by some sort of a genius.  This genius takes the form of a small child, and will correctly answer any question asked.

The implications of this are quite intense.  You could ask the child, for example, "What is the best way to make money?"  The child would reply with an answer specific to your question.  He would probably say something like, "Start a business that provides insurance."  If the asker of the question did this, that village will develop an insurance market.

The only problem with this is that the child is like a computer: he will answer only what is asked to him.  Nothing more, nothing less will come out of his mouth.  For example, if you ask the child "Can you tell me where my baby is?", the child genius will simply say, "Yes."  (And in the story, the child can only be asked so many times.)

To prevent wasteful questions like the one above, the village developed an entire industry-caste as an advising service.  A few people learned how to get the most out of each question and started to help other people form useful questions in exchange for other goods.  One of these new advisors would tell you to ask the genius, "What steps can I take to have my child returned to me quickly and safely?"

In essence, a new industry was formed over asking questions to the genius.

Eventually, the genius grew up and started to answer questions more thoroughly.  If you asked him, "Can you tell me where my child is?"  The genius would not only say yes, but would proceed to tell you where your child is and how to get him/her back home safely.  The genius would not only answer your specific question, but would explain all the implications involved.  The advising industry was no longer needed.  A whole bunch of people were out of a job.

This exemplifies a major problem with our job-based society.  Our economic structure is set up that if one industry goes down, we are all in trouble.

A modern day example would be the health insurance industry.  If we were to simplify health insurance and make everything more efficient, there would be a negative impact on our economy.  Thousands of people have jobs in and rely on the health insurance industry for a living.  If we were to improve that industry so those people were not needed, they're lifestyle would be destroyed.

An even better example would be the job of a computer programmer.  Computers, as they are now, need people to maintain them, improve them, and fix them.  What happens when we engineer a computer that does everything for itself?  All the computer engineers would be out of a job.  Self-induced joblessness. They will be out of a job because they did their job too well.

This concept can be applied to nearly every industry, and many of the examples involve the advancement of technology.  Teachers, for example, could be replaced by computer teaching programs, possibly on the iPad.

Military pilots are slowly getting replaced by unmanned aircraft fighters.  And yes, right now they still need a pilot on ground, but what happens when technology advances to the point where a pilot is no longer needed?

An obvious criticism of all this is, Won't new industries simply pop up in response to the new technology?  Such as during the industrial revolution?  Couldn't there be another similar technological revolution?

I suppose that is a possibility, but if the technology can create, repair, and improve itself, this seems unlikely.  I can't help but see a matrix-like future where the obsolete computer programmers try to take down their own creations, who in turn respond aggressively to the human threat.

Eh.  Best not to get too worried, it shouldn't happen for a while.  Humans are still in business...at least for now.

I didn't realize they were all holding hands.

Image from http://lmtimebank.org/images/tb-group-people.gif

Because Tonight...I Cleaned Out My Closet

I have recently been debating the benefits of a walk-in closet.  Most people that I talk to generally wish they had a walk-in closet, but after what happened today I'm not so sure they're right.

I got up on this fine Saturday morning to the sound of chirping birds and buzzing bees.  I thought to myself, "Wow, what a nice day.  I want to enjoy this day."  I had no plans but I could just tell from the moment I woke up that I would be pleased with the outcome.

A few minutes later I went upstairs to have breakfast out on the deck.  The sun was shining, the moon was fading, and the neighbor's dog was barking.  The peaceful calm surrounded me in an essence of glorifying beauty.  I ate my buttered bagel with a slight hint of condescendancy.

After breakfast I glanced at the clock above the stove and saw the time.  10:42 AM.  What a great start to the day.  I was going to head downstairs and get dressed (I was still in my flowing blue robe) when my mother stopped me and gave me specific instructions.

She told me that because it was a Saturday and had nothing better to do, I was to clean my closet.  Hmm, this doesn't sound too bad.  I can clean my closet pretty quickly, I thought.  I opened up my closet door and saw a big mess.  Despite this, my hopes remained optimistic (when are hopes ever pessimistic???).  I got started by picking up all the clothes and either hanging them up on the shelves or placing them carefully in the laundry basket for them to be laundered.

Once this was done I realized that the clothes were not the problem.  The clothes were the secretive agent concealing the true mess that lay underneath.  Multitudes of quotidian objects littered the floor, once underneath the uneven clothes.  I saw three suitcases, two unopened Christmas presents, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I checked out the Christmas presents and saw two sweaters along with some cologne.  I wish I would have had these when the weather was appropriate for that sort of attire. I suppose a walk-in closet has its disadvantages.

By the time I had the second layer of mess unearthed, it was already noon.  I had spent over an hour on merely the floor of the closet alone.  I quick checked over my work and noticed a large chest sitting underneath the second set of shelves.  The lid of the chest was pushed up, as if filled with too much sports equipment.  The excess matter was not round objects, however, but reams upon reams of school paper.

My chest wasn't quite this old.

I dragged out the chest and opened it up.  Math homework from 5th grade came sliding off the top, having been held in place by the rusty top of the chest.  I glanced at some of the problems.  I wondered why I had decided to keep these papers for the past six years of my life.  Did I honestly think I was going to look through math homework from years past?  Was I expecting an ice age to dawn upon mankind, and that my ancient math papers could be used to fuel a dying fire?  Maybe I was simply hoping that one day I would be famous, and that the general masses would be scrambling to get a hold of anything by me.  Or perhaps these papers simply had sentimental value, which is often the case with math homework.

Despite what reasons I had back then for archiving my work from 10:00 to 10:45AM in 2004, I had to move on.  I could not keep these seemingly extraneous papers for much longer.  They had to go.  I went upstairs to get the small white recycling bin and started the massacre.  I threw the papers in the bin with a sigh of mixed emotions.

What if someday I become famous?  People will not have access to my math homework from years past. I have a feeling most people could handle that.  How many celebrities do you know who saved their math homework from fifth grade?  In fact, maybe its a good thing I'm tossing it.

The end.

Old chest picture from http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/DRE1042.jpg.