Friday, April 29, 2005

Idiots!

Well, Indiana has given in to peer pressure and decided to have mandatory daylight saving time. Can you believe the governor made this "one of his top economic priorities"? How is this a) economic and b) more important than real issues?

I will continue to hate the arbitrary clock changing, even if my home state has gone insane. So, it looks like the last holdouts against it are Arizona, Hawaii, and Alaska. Alaska and Hawaii aren't in the temperate zone where DST can do any "good" anyway, so I doubt they'll ever go for it. The Navajo reservation covering large portions of Arizona observes DST, so will the rest of the state follow now that they don't have Indiana to keep them company?

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Trouble brewing at my alma mater

I was in graduate school at Indiana University when Bobby Knight was fired. A large number of students and community members complained quite vocally about this and staged a "riot." It was really sort of pathetic, after the fact, but rather disruptive at the time. I found myself wondering what, if anything, could rile up Rose-Hulman students in a similar way. Well, it looks like we've found something that can.

I have been reading the articles and forums at AboutMidgley.com after receiving an email from Claude Anderson, a former professor of mine whose judgment I respect. The message was sent to all the computer science alumni to let us know that the recent email from President Midgley was rather one-sided.

Apparently, there is a faculty meeting scheduled for next Tuesday to discuss a "no confidence" motion. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the president's actions and attitude.

The students are actually planning a rally for tomorrow. I know something is serious if the students are doing more than just complaining online. Oddly enough, I would have been going to campus tomorrow if I had decided to attend the Computer Science advisory committee meeting. Living where I do now, I find it rather difficult to actually attend those meetings now. Of course, had I gone to the meeting, I wouldn't have actually been at the rally anyway, but at least I would have been able to get a first-hand account of what is going on at Rose these days.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Tools for Thought by Howard Rheingold

An online book about the history of computer. I've only read the first couple chapters so far, but it seems rather interesting.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Why you should reread your comment before posting it

The comments on yesterday's entry amused me. I think it was the typo in the apology for the typos.

However, I do appreciate it when someone comments, so in gratitude, I shall post this link to her blog, Dirty White Pearl.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Why Nerds are Unpopular

This essay poses the question Why are nerds unpopular?:
Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?

Thursday, April 07, 2005

More on DST

I'm tired from a meeting this morning, but I'll let other people rant for me.

John J. Miller on Daylight Savings Time on National Review Online
Can we please slow down and get something straight? There is simply no way to "save daylight." People can spin the hands of their clocks like roulette wheels, but come Monday here in Washington, D.C., we're still going to have sunshine for about 12 hours and 45 minutes. The sun can rise at a time of day we call dawn or Howdy Doody Time or whatever — but the stubborn facts of astronomy are at work here and they can't be wished away.

Daylight saving time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DST is not universally accepted; many localities do not observe it. Opponents claim that there's not enough benefit to justify needing to adjust clocks twice per year. The disruption in sleep patterns associated with setting clocks forward, and thereby "losing" an hour, correlates with a spike in the number of severe auto accidents, as well as emotional trauma and lost productivity as tired workers adjust to the schedule change.

There is also a question whether the savings in lighting costs (people just home from work don't turn on the electric lights because there is enough sunlight through the windows) justifies the increase in summertime air conditioning costs (people home from work do turn up the air conditioning during the late-afternoon peak load times, because it's still warm outside). When air conditioning was not widely available, the change did save energy; however, air conditioning is much more widespread now than it was several decades ago.
There were some good comments made in response to this Slashdot article.

Man, I could use a nap right now.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

I hate Daylight Saving Time!

I had a rant about this today, about how tired I am and how annoying it is to be suddenly running late when I get up at the same time (real time, not clock time) that I was getting up before, but the network went down while I was writing it and it was lost. Oh, well. I'll just post a link to the standard time folks and call it a day.

Monday, April 04, 2005

End Daylight Saving Time!

Having just changed the clocks this weekend, it is time once again for my semiannual rant against the absurd practice of Daylight Saving Time. However, I'm tired and have work to do, so I'll just refer you do my previous complaint, instead. How can so much of the population be a bunch of clock-changing lemmings! Of course, I'm stuck changing my clocks as long as I live here, but I at least think about what I'm doing instead of just blindly going along with it. *grumble*

Friday, April 01, 2005

It's Friday!

I so need a weekend now. This past week has drained me.

In other news, I checked my vacation balance today and I have earned about 4 days worth. Next month, I'll have a whole week racked up. Knowing that I could not be here and still get paid for a while makes it easier to get through a long week.

I went out to lunch with some coworkers today. We didn't really have any plan on where to eat, so we all just piled in a car and took off with the idea of finding something nearby. We ended up at a Japanese restaurant. Quite tasty and wonderful presentation, but not exactly cheap, especially by my standards for lunch. Still, it's a place I hadn't been to before and it could be a nice treat to go there with my husband sometime when I don't have to think about programming immediately after the meal.