The title says most of it. It's supposed to be officially signed and enacted this weekend in a special ceremony. For new readers, you might notice in the sidebar a banner asking people to take action against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (also known as ACTA). Clicking on the banner will explain it to you a lot better than I ever could, but basically, there are so many problems with it, like the way it places liability on different people, how it allows for punishment just through accusation (without a fair trial), and stuff like that,...
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
I'm sure many of you have heard the news about the neutrinos that supposedly traveled faster than light through rocky material (though this is all still slower than light through a vacuum, which is still the ultimate speed limit). Given that I'm taking a class on relativity right now, this has made our class even more interesting than before. Our professor sent us all an email a few days ago echoing what I thought before: it would be really cool and interesting if these superluminal neutrinos weren't just an experimental error but were the real...
Sunday, 25 September 2011
There were two posts that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll try to repost most of those. Star Wars and George Lucas's OverreachReader T_Beermonster had this explanation: "It seems fairly straight forward, George Lucas really likes money. I and many others really like Star Wars. If George Lucas wants to sell a 1080p immortalization of my happy memories in a format I can watch (so not blu-ray obviously because only a handful of people on earth own or want a blu-ray player) then I'm more than happy to hand over some cash. On the...
Thursday, 22 September 2011
I did it today! Woot! (And I got a picture with him!) Although he is specifically a physicist, most well known for his seminal textbook on quantum computing, he came to give a colloquium about open science in general, and it's doubly cool for me because I'm interested in both physics and things like open science. (Also, before the talk, I mentioned to him that I first read about him on Glyn Moody's blog, which you should totally read. That's how Dr. Nielsen figured out I'm a free software kind of guy. He also told me that Mr. Moody's a cool guy...
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Oh man. I've wanted to do this post for quite a long time now. And now I can! So here it is.Main Screen + System MonitorRegular readers of this blog know that Linux Mint has been releasing snapshots of its rolling-release Debian-based distribution alongside its fixed-release Ubuntu-based distribution. A few days ago, the newest snapshots of the GNOME and Xfce editions were released. Furthermore, even before that, the developers changed from simply...
Monday, 19 September 2011
Recently, George Lucas has made news in the tech world by announcing changes to some of the dialogue in the original Star Wars movies to make the plot and background more complete. The reaction, at least among those who watched the original movies when they were released in the theaters, is that he is needlessly meddling with the movies they love and remember so well just to satisfy his own desires, and it's time that he opened it up (Will Gompertz, BBC News) to the fans to modify and redistribute.I agree with most of the arguments presented in...
Sunday, 18 September 2011
There was one post this past week that got a couple of comments, so I'll repost all of those.Revisited: Fuduntu 14.10.1An anonymous reader had this tip on how the web applications are created with Google Chrome/Chromium: "Windows user here. Google Chrome, Menu, Tools and here the first entry enables me to make a "Das U-Blog" App. Suppose it works the same with various Distros. Have a nice day."Commenter FEWT, who is also the creator and lead developer of Fuduntu, said, "Firefox 6, LibreOffice, Thunderbird 6, and lots more apps are available in...
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Main Screen + GNOME Main MenuIt has been almost exactly 6 months since I looked at Fuduntu. Since then, it has had one new minor release (version 14.9 became version 14.10) and an update to that release (version 14.10 became version 14.10.1). You would think that not much would have changed between then and now, so what's making me test this?Before that, I apologize for the recent dearth of posts here (aside from the very recent one). First, I've...
Friday, 16 September 2011
I apologize for not having posted anything in a while. For one, I've already become quite busy, so I haven't had much time to do stuff like this. For another, I have been (and still am, as of now) sick for over a week, so I've just been trying to rest whenever I can.This week, though, I started my first UROP! Yay! It regards modeling new thermophotovoltaics (thermal solar cells) that use photonic crystals. Photonics are to light what electronics are to electrons, so the idea is that photonic crystals will give enough fine-grained control over photons...
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Today was the first day of my third semester at MIT! I was excited to start with the classes that I want to take (and am not just taking to meet some requirements). This semester I'm taking classes in wave mechanics, special relativity, thermodynamics, and microeconomics.There are a couple new things I noticed. First, there seems to be a lot of restoration work. I wonder why, given that the sesquicentennial celebrations have come and gone. Second, I've noticed that a lot more on-campus Athena computers that previously used Microsoft Windows now...
Sunday, 4 September 2011
There was one post that got quite a few comments this past week, so I'll repost a few from that.Review: Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen"Reader DarkDuck said, "I also tried to create Live USB for Mageia and failed. It was Live CD for me that time. 400Mb is way too much even for KDE version. My Mageia only takes ~170Mb freshly booted."Commenter Mechatotoro, whose blog about Mandriva you should all read, said, "Thanks for the review. I installed Mandriva 2011 and I'm giving it a test drive. I must say that I'm not crazy about the ROSA panel, but it the...
Friday, 2 September 2011
My summer has finally come to an end. Tomorrow, I'll be headed back for college, where the classes of my third semester will start next Wednesday.All in all, it was a great summer. I was able to participate in a really fun internship at NIST for 12 weeks. I was able to hang out with friends a lot. I was able to spend a lot of time with immediate and extended family during the two weeks after my internship ended. And this last week, I was able to relax quite a bit. Now I can't wait to get back to college and meet up again with friends from last...
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