Last night, I played a game unlike any other game I’ve ever played. It’s only about a megabyte, is an executable without an install process, and plays for exactly five minutes. I hesitate to mention it or recommend it, but in a way, I can’t help recommending it. Some people won’t understand it, some will hate it, and for everyone else, it will be ( Read more... )

I was chatting about politics with my parents today. I try not to do that, but sometimes I have politics on my mind and I feel masochistic. The conversation always turns to either the upcoming or previous presidential election, and it always turns to either the upcoming candidates or President Bush. They start complimenting so-and-so or criticizing ( Read more... )

I alternate between amazed and a little annoyed with the crowd of Ron Paul zealots that dominates so many news aggregating websites lately. I’m really surprised by how readily his supporters advance and accept the position, “He thinks it should be left up to the states or local governments,” or, “He’s personally against it, but he doesn’t think the ( Read more... )

I read a pretty interesting observation in Time a couple of weeks ago during all of the Harry Potter fanfare. While magic and the supernatural feature prominently in the Harry Potter universe, there is never any mention of any kind of deities at all; the closest Rowling gets to a spiritual element is Love. The article's author find this silly and ( Read more... )

There aren’t too many events in the news that I actively try to keep up with. Sure, I read story after story about the war in Iraq and a few about the various scandals in the Bush administration, but it would be difficult to avoid that kind of news. There are a few news stories, however, that I’ve tried to track over the years, but most of them ( Read more... )

I’m as bad as anyone I know when it comes to compulsively checking the news - hittiing refresh every few minutes, or just wiling away the hours by rotating among Fark, Digg, Reddit, and company, sometimes stooping pretty low and reading stories that didn’t even make the front page (which are just even more stories about Ron Paul this or Ubuntu that ( Read more... )

Well, it looks like I’ll be going to Michigan next fall. The decision was pretty painful. OSU offered a lot more money, is about three times closer to Sowmia, and has on faculty two of the best scholars in my current research interest. On the other hand, from everything I’ve been told and have learned, Michigan’s program is somewhat more rigorous ( Read more... )

I got back from Brown quite late on Sunday night. I had a delightful time, although the experience was exhausting. Indeed, I’m still exhausted, but I’m leaving for Michigan early tomorrow morning, and I’ve been desperately trying to pull myself together. Sitting in on classes and meeting with professors was not especially tiring - after all, I’ve ( Read more... )

I think about time travel often, and sometimes I feel like I can indeed travel through time. Only forwards, of course. I look back on my life’s best moments and my life’s worst moments, and sometimes they seem to have gone by like the blink of an eye. Experiences I’ve had in the distant past seem like yesterday. The weeks, months, or even years ( Read more... )

My one and only contribution to Wikipedia may be getting an article deleted. Interestingly, the reason I feel so vehemently about it is because I find it so intriguing.