I'm leaving tomorrow in the morning for Iowa City for AMRL. I'll be back sometime Saturday.
I barely survived those papers (just finished the last of them.) I found out today that I got a C- on my last history paper (ouch, apparently my conclusion was _very_ weak) so I really need to do well on these newer ones. I'll talk more about it later, since it's late and I need a shower.
I'll just leave you with this.
http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/ScreenshotNewBlue.jpg
PotD
That is probably the closest to photo real I've seen in a while.
So I visited the family's ancestral hometown (or something to that extent; our family grave plot is out there) which is a cool place. We visited St. Olaf and Carlton college, like usual. And then (also like usual) I went to my third cousin twice removed's (or some sort of similar nonsense) house for lunch. We also went to a classical Chinese music recital at Carlton, which was pretty cool. The little Chinese violin thing is a little bit of an ear strain, however.
And now for lots of screenshots of my computer ^^
Just sitting there.
Some windows open. Notice the transparency.
I will show Andrew, alright.
The desktop cube in action. Too bad the screenshot glitched a little. 
Window previews.
Well, you can't really see it here, but this is the scaled view thing similar to the one present in OSX. 
Just for the heck of it... Ubuntu has great language support. 
Video of the screen switcher.
Video of the wobbley windows.
PotD
This is a really thought invoking piece, I think.
Boy, I've been reading Strategies of Containment by John Gaddis, and I must say both my eyes and brain have been suffering from the strain. I just don't like comprehending the strategic options of the Cold War. I also finished reading The Dominion of War which was slightly less of an eyesore.
Other than that we had a scrimmage with a rec (recreation) league team. You might think that a traveling team should be able to utterly slaughter a poorly manned youth rec league team, but apparently this is not so. I suppose there are several reasons we only won 4-0. Among these are: a. we were missing lots of people (in fact the game started as 4 vs 7) b. tiny field c. tiny teams d. sore from yesterday e. don't feel like playing soccer yesterday f. generally lazy. We didn't take it very seriously. As a result I played forward for some time, not going to happen in a real game.
Okay, I guess I've run out of junk to talk about.
PotD
Huh, looks sort of like a pumpkin to me.
So soccer was good today. The field was much better than our last field. The rain made things a little slick, but it was okay. Anyways we won 7-0, each goal made by a different person, including one of their players. As you might be able to imagine things were pretty uneventful for the defense. The hi-light (for D) was when I "took one for the team." I did the little dance which indicates that I'm sorry I'll never be able to meet my children... It hurt like bloody hell, but whatever.
And I'm now officially obsessed (it took a long time for me to spell that correctly, so appreciate the fact that it is) with the band Scissors for Lefty.
Songs from their MySpace
Songs from their other MySpace
I guess I would loosely describe them as dance rock, but since they are indy they are quite experimental. I really like their beats, personal preference I suppose. In particular I really really like Softly The Sun Swallows The Sea (it's in the second link); never before has being killed by a great white shark ever sounded so awesome.
Ugh, I have a whole load of busy coming up. So much that I will tell you about it now, so you'll be able to tell the medical examiner my cause of death. Since I was preoccupied with my other studies I ignored physics and programming to some extent, and now it's coming back to bite me in the butt. And I've got the usual philosophy paper, 5-6 pages, however I sort of like this prompt, so hopefully it will be fine. And some little English assignment on global warming (in which I recommend not relying on trees, and actually cutting down some large rain forests.) The thing that concerns me the most is my history assignment. 10-15 pages is not a pretty sight, anywhere. Can anyone say yay for Cold War? No, because it was bleh. I had a B+ on my latest philosophy paper, which is okay since the teacher is a fairly hard grader.
PotD
That's really cool. If I ever end up super rich, I think I'll make one of the rooms of my house like that.
So I had a soccer game. We played Minneapolis Westside, which was a pretty good team. And the field was really small, a major disadvantage to us. And we lost 0-3. But they played really well, so I'm not too upset by the loss.
And then I went to the chapter meeting, which was good fun. The only problem was I was so thirsty that I drank around 3 to 4 cups of pop, leaving me quite bloated. Also, Mafia is better when the average attention span of the players is great than 5 seconds.
Instead of a PotD I'm posting the Star Craft II CGI announcement
About time.
Anyhow, tomorrow we have the chapter meeting at Divani's! Pizza's on the chapter! So you should all go. And I have a soccer game, so I'll be late to that.
I got onto the ARML team! I was one of the three students in training to be selected. Go me! I'm actually really excited, so yeah. You might be wondering what I'm so excited about. Well the answer is I get to go to a math competition. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Okay, I lied. It doesn't sound fun at all. But it is fun! At least for me anyways.
But first the always dependable (sometimes dependable) POTD. I think I'm officially changing the capitalization to PotD to make it more correct. After all nobody writes POTC. Well, almost nobody.
POTD
I like this piece, it's got a nice authoritarian feel to it. Sort of like my nationstate. Only so far I've managed to resist the temptation to become a dictatorship, right now I'm just an inoffensive centrist democracy.
So, the soccer game (incidentally my first game, and my team's second), which will obviously be the hi-light of this post was very good. Very good as in we won. The score was 6-0 in fact. The last game was 1-2, so one might ask, what was the difference between the two games? My presence, of course. Just kidding. I think our team played very well actually, and we applied a lot of effort, which is always good. The other team was more than slightly demoralized by our 4-0 lead at the end of the first half, so they didn't put as much effort into the game. I'm really glad we snagged several of the Hopkins players from the Hopkins team, because one of those players scored four goals today. And I got my first few slide tackles in today. It's truly a great feeling :P
POTD
Had my timing been better this would have been shown on Easter, but oh well. I hope you guys had good Mother Days, they certainly deserve the appreciation.
Well today I had the AP Physics B exam, as many of you already know. I did do about as poorly on it as I had expected. After taking so many standardized tests I've gotten a sense of what I'm ready for and what I'm not.
Then I went on to soccer practice. Endurance is clearly an issue for me. Killers (run to the middle of the field, and back, then to the end of the field, and back, rinse and repeat) should not be as hard as they are, but oh well.
Btw, I would recommend reading Reinventing the Bazaar by John McMillan. It's an interesting (and sensible (hard to believe when it's philosophy, I know)) blend of Robert Nozick's libertarianism (minimal governmental intervention in lots of things) and other philosophers that want a more socialist state. Yes, it's true I did recommend a book from my philosophy course, odd as it is. Actually this guy is pretty readable. Unlike a certain John Rawls.
One other thing. I nominate Bingo for world's most terrible game. Who wants to play a game where all you can do is passively read numbers off the charts? There is no way you can actually influence the outcome of the game. And if you had managed in anyway to find a "strategy" to use during a game of Bingo, you would be promptly accused of cheating. I mean, how more boring could it get. You might as well just play a game of flip the coin, or roll the d20. Playing bingo was pretty much the hi-light (other than the good food) of our mother's day celebration. Our game of Apples to Apples Junior was almost as bad, since I could predict my cousins predictable (yes, I do know I'm being redundant) decisions a year before they happened. Apples to Apples is one of those games where the amount of fun is linked directly to who you are playing with, and in this case it wasn't too fun. The silly Junior part also made it impossible to create fun by creating twisted and perverted meanings. So pretty much, it wasn't too fun.
POTD
Hmm, this is a weird picture.
Well, when EPGY first conceived their new high school I don't think they remembered to adjust for the fact that their students would be way more busy than the distance learner taking an odd class here or there. As a result everyone in the high school is behind in either a math or a physics class, sometimes both. Unfortunately I'm one of those people, so I'm not prepared for the physics AP test tomorrow. Oh well.
Just got their self entitled CD. The singing style is freaky to begin with, but the band's good stuff. They have some nifty sounds going, they must have some electronic stuff.
POTD
I wish I had a pet like that. Life just ain't fair, is it?
Well, I found something cool out. There are four empty slots on the ARML team, and five students in training. So I should have a very good chance of making the team. Today's practice was pretty good. Although I did rather poorly on the individual rounds, apparently so did a lot of people. However I wrote two proofs for the power round, and my relay team ended up with full possible points.
Not too much else going on. My newest game project is actually progressing somewhat well. Maybe at the end of the summer I'll have a game complete. Maybe.
I had a review session today the hi-lights were working on ARML problems and eating pizza. I got 30 and 27 today, and for the first time ever I beat my classmate Michaels homework score!
I suppose I never even talked about ARML yesterday... So on Saturday I went to the Minnesota team practice. Six and a half hours of intensive math practice. Unfortunately I'm still technically a "student-in-training" but since four members of the full team have declined to join I have a very legit shot at making the team. Blah, I keep using the word legit after those gov tests. Then after ARML I went to my teammate Nick's house for a party. And yeah, that's all.
Well I haven't died yet. I also don't think I did poorly enough to merit a score of 3 on either of the tests, so I feel happy. I guess I'm not really suppose to talk about anything else on the tests, so whatever. Although I have to say the proctor was really cool, because she speed read all the dumb parts of the rules. Maxadogabore had me all scared of her, but she was really nice actually. Umm, yeah, that's all.
POTD
I'm not exactly sure what the function of anything in this picture is, but it looks pretty cool. Sort of like iPod meets five tons of stainless steel.
Well, I'm now entering the week of terror. Tomorrow I'm taking AP US Gov, and Comp Gov in the morning and going to UMTYMP for a review session, and then I'll be missing my soccer practice.
And then Tuesday is relatively peaceful...
And on Wednesday I'm doing the AP Calc BC exam, and then straight onto my linear algebra final. And I'm missing a soccer game. This point in time would be a very good one to crack a joke about my participation in sports :P
And then I get some peace again before more exams.
POTD
Architecture, not much else to say.
I'll spare you all the recounting of my adventures in Linux, since it will probably bore everyone but Andrew to tears. So, on to the music.
Mmhmm by Relient K
Well, this album is generally good. A few songs sound a little bit generic, but whatever. I have to say this isn't a terribly experimental band. Oddly enough I actually like the acoustic versions of their songs better than the usual one, maybe it's because I heard the acoustic versions first, or maybe it's because I'm not particularly impressed by their electric guitar. Despite all this, I still like the album. And yes Andy, if you remind me I will bring the CD over...
Is This It by the Strokes
The singing in this album is terrible to be frank, but singing has never been the Strokes' strength. However I just happen to like something about this band (I think it's the guitar, or was it the bass?)
So after editing both my xorg.conf file and the system BIOS about fifty times over I finally fixed my stupid graphics card setup, and nVidia driver. This means that I can finally use Beryl with Ubuntu. The funny thing is that with the settings turned up all the way (which I don't) it looks better than Windows Vista. Here are some screenshots of my current set up.
http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/ScreenshotBeryl1.png
Yay for full window transperancy!
http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/ScreenshotBeryl2.png
Some windows which I don't want to be transperant (such as graphics applications) I leave opaque.
http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/ScreenshotBerylSwitcher.png
Beryl's Alt-Tab gives a preview of the window you are switching to.
http://mkbunday.googlepages.com/ScreenshotBerylScaler.jpg
Mac users try to deny this fact, but Linux has the cool application switcher also.
And I'll try and get some screenshots of the very cool desktop cube soon. Later today I'l post some other stuff.
By the way, I found this quote to be awesome. Some of you may have already seen it.
"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week."
I spent a lot of time working on my history project, so no full blown post tonight.
I got a thirty on the UMTYMP homework today. Always cool. I turned in the last two UMTYMP assignments ever.
And I fixed my Ubuntu! The graphics card and drivers work! And I installed Beryl (screenshots coming up)
And I'll do more tomorrow.
Sweetness
I watched this like five times over, very awesome. Also very reflective of humans actually. So very moody ^^
I'm doing away with the whole one post a day thing, and becoming a more conventional blogger. (I might have to turn off email posting) I'm basically going to post on whatever I like whenever I like, so expect to see more than one post a day, depending on the day.
