Sam's L33t Journal

Man, I can't believe I'm this busy already. In particular, MatSci is owning my life.

I'm still feeling lonely on and off, but at the moment I'm somewhat hopeful the situation will improve... eventually...

I went to Anime Club on Friday; didn't really feel like it, but I had stuff to return (I didn't get anything new, so I might not go back for a while). I watched the start of Kimagure Orange Road (a slice-of-life / romance / random psychic powers anime; I didn't like it) and the first episode of Kaleido Star (about a girl who joins the circus; quite good).

On Friday night, there was a big party in Man Hall (a floor below where I live), which was fairly fun (although I was depressed at the end of the evening). On Saturday night, David was showing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in the lounge near my dorm room (the whole season (which a bunch of people watched straight through); I watched most of it (again)). Today, there was the start of the new season of The Simpsons and Family Guy (the episodes were hilarious).

What else... it was quite a shock how they've changed Facebook around, but now that I've gotten used to it, it's more addictive than ever...

And I helped to get the article on Megatokyo up to featured status (my first featured article!).

A few days ago, on Wikipedia, I became involved in a long-standing debate on the future of the site. The debate is between two factions, Inclusionists and Deletionists. Inclusionists believe that Wikipedia should be improved based on a standard of usefulness, the greatest good for the greatest number, and thus feel that Wikipedia should include lots of articles on obscure and esoteric topics in addition to more mainstream or "notable" material. Deletionists believe that Wikipedia should be an ideal encyclopedia based on a variety of aesthetic standards, and advocate that articles that are not "worthy" or "notable" should be deleted. After consideration, I decided that I agreed with the Inclusionists.

During this time, I talked to another Inclusionist editor was facing partial banning for rules violations and alleged POV edits (his edits to micronations articles were disputed as POV because the user is apparently the Emperor of Atlantium, a micronation. I knew the editor was well meaning, but I criticized him for not controlling his temper. Even when disagreeing with other editors, I feel that it is best to view such a conflict as a conflict between teammates, not a war among enemies. After all, all the editors, except true vandals (who are very rare), share a common goal, to improve Wikipedia. Honest discourse is only productive way to attempt to resolve such conflicts.

Today, I was thinking about politics due to the recent election, and wondering why so many Americans support George Bush, when it seems so clear to me that his policies are unsound, his promises are unreliable, and his diplomacy is atrocious. It would be easy to dismiss the conservatives as evil, or simply close-minded or unintelligent. Yet I know many conservatives are none of those things. Then I thought of my recent conversation, and realized what I had said applied to politics.

Conservatives and liberals are not enemies but, rather, teammates in democracy. I honestly believe that nearly all conservatives and nearly all liberals truly want what is best for America. The two groups just have different visions of how to achieve it. Honest discourse is the only way to make real progress towards one's political ideals, not mud-slinging, demonization, or angry rhetoric. I know I must have hope, keep faith that progress will prevail, that things will improve. I will believe in the basic goodness of humanity; my trust will not be shaken.

But it is so hard to be calm. I feel the choice of the conservatives this election will have an incalculable cost. I feel I have witnessed the downfall of a nation. And that saddens me, because I love America.

And it is so hard to believe in human decency when your state, and ten others, have taken a step backwards in civil rights, showing the majority's support for callous cruelty and intolerance.

At Open today, a student stated that people need to be upset, when the upsetting issue is important. I agree: People should be upset when there is injustice. A professor stated that he wished the South had won the civil war. Someone sent to Students (the mailing list for all students) an article from 2000, fastidiously suggesting that the North should secede from the South. People feel that America is, in many ways, two countries. In many ways, our nation is already divided. Perhaps conflict is the only solution. Perhaps, as Jefferson said, a little rebellion is necessary for the government. Perhaps a little rebellion will not be enough.

So what should we do? Submit or rebel? Is there a third possibility? Can we truly unite as a team, as a nation? Together, we can achieve something great. But with such division, unity may be impossible. And united we stand. Divided we fall.

And I feel I have seen the downfall of America.

So, I've crossed over to the dark side (or abandoned it, depending on who you ask) and gotten Mozilla Firefox, which is open source and awesome and far less evil than "Internet Exploiter":



...
Today was hard. I woke up too late because I didn't realize the lecture part of Design Nature for Monday had been moved to 9:00 (morning classes are t3h sux0r for sure). The rest of the day was a blur of work.

The evening, however, was very fun. I attended a guest lecture given by Bryan Alexander a professor at Middlebury College and contributor to the book "Smart Mobs". He talked about blogging, Wikis, and other social software, technology revolving around social networks. These ideas have truly revolutionary power. Google and other search engines lend power to bloggers, who use networks of friends to share ideas. Such social software can not only change the way friendships work, but the way information works in general. History can be revitalized. Connections can found. Some of the projects spawned by this revolution are extraordinary. Wikipedia uses the power of Wikis (web pages editable by all users) to create an online encyclopedia where anyone can edit or add to any part of it (I added some information and did a little editing on Olin's entry). Wikipedia is an amazing testament to the creative power of humans using technology, evolving towards the goal of being the complete store of all human knowledge, the ultimate encyclopedia.

Later in the evening, I went to Babson with a bunch of other Oliners on a smoothie run. Yay Babson Bucks on our dining cards!