No, it was very dumb. Very, very dumb. Incredibly dumb. Unbelievably dumb.

I told him he was “un-inspiringly dumb,” and was instantly proud of myself.

I think this phrase summons to mind a previously-imagined plateau of dumb, only to have a new man – undaunted by the limits of dumb, divinely commanded to go where no dumb had been before – dive off the deep end of this once-plateau, into the dark abyss that is the continental shelf of dumb.

As he sinks into the dark mirky mire, one is left only to stare and wonder… “How dumb can he be?”

Still, maybe I’ll start putting some more creative stuff up on here, or I’ll do political commentary, or whatever. If you – yes, you, random stranger! – have a preference for a certain kind of content, please leave a comment. It would be cool to see what sorts of things people would like to see here – funny stories, photography, normal day-in-the-life blog posts, etc.

Let me know!

You have embarked upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many generations. The eyes of the world have been upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere marched with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you have brought about the destruction of dangerous war machines, the elimination of tyranny over the oppressed peoples of the Earth, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task has not been an easy one. Your enemy was well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He has fought savagely.

But this is the year 2009! Much as happened since the triumph of 1776-83. The United Nations have inflicted upon warlords great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our soldiers have seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions at war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of fighting men. You have turned the tide! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. You have accepted nothing less than full victory!

Thank you! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon your great and noble undertakings.

Today is the one day – out of the the whole year – that we dedicate to you, that we honor your sacrifices.

You should know that the other three hundred sixty four days are spent enjoying what you have purchased for us.

Thank you.

This.

The eyes of the world are upon you.

In every possible way.

For me, the forces of nature conspired against my attempt to put the Windows 7 Release Candidate onto my Macbook.

Normally, this process would entail the following steps:

• Open Boot Camp, select a hard drive partition size.
• Install the Windows 7 installation from the DVD.
• Install a few drivers and enjoy.

This should be accomplished easily within an hour. Instead, the process has haunted the entirety of my existence for more than 24 hours. My list of activities is a little more complicated:

• Boot into old Windows XP installation, find, organize, and backup important data.
• Boot back into OS X.
• Open Boot Camp, and try to select a hard drive partition size.
• Be told that it can’t be done, silly.
• Run various hard disk verification/repair software, periodic maintenance cycles, etc.
• Receive more and stranger error messages.
• Boot in single-user mode and run fsck -fy to check the disk – four times.
• Delete massive amounts of data in order to make it easier to partition, despite having ample free space.
• Be told that it can’t be done, silly.
• Delete even more heaps of data, using utilities to map out hard drive size and what may possibly be taking up space. Delete important system files just to make room.
• Still be unable to partition.
• Remove more than half of the data from your hard drive, back it up to an external drive, and still be told that it is impossible.
• Delete iPhoto picture library, also known as every picture I have ever taken, backing it up.
• Finally, upon freeing 145GB, be told that while 50 GB just can’t be done, 45GB is possible.
• Partition the disk, then try to install from the Windows 7 DVD.
• Find out you get an unusable selection menu from which you simply cannot make a choice.
• Install alternate EFI software to better emulate BIOS settings.
• Finally get the Install DVD to start.
• Get the Install DVD to freeze on the first possible screen.
• Restart and change settings in order to get the Install DVD to freeze on the second possible screen.

And that’s where I am right now. Just saying.

But I’ve been worried about Up. You see, I grew up with the best kids movies ever. Toy Story, right when I was six. My whole childhood was in a period now known as the Disney Renaissance, when I had films like The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan, and the most important animated film to date at its time – Beauty and the Beast. It was nominated for best picture – something no other animated film has ever seen, which may be the result of the later “Best Animated Feature” category – as well as a grand total of six Academy Award nominations, something which only one film has ever done. This brings us back to Pixar, the creators of WALL•E – which received Academy Award Nominations for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Best Animated Film.

That’s a hard act for Up to follow.

Of course, being part computer geek and part child, I love Pixar. I consider WALL•E to be one of my favorite movies of all time – so I was worried when I saw some of the trailers for Up. It looked silly – but not necessarily in a good way.

So, here’s what Pixar has done so far:

• Toy Story
• A Bug’s Life
• Toy Story 2
• Monsters, Inc.
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
• Cars
• Ratatouille
• WALL•E

And now, Up.

So now I have seen the movie, and I was surprised.

The film is heart-wrenchingly sad at moments. Within the first ten minutes, half the theatre was crying – at one moment, the theater was deathly silent. It was unimaginably emotional for what had been billed as a family action/adventure movie – and in some ways, was brutally realistic. This from a movie about a man floating his house away with balloons.

It’s also one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen. Quite an odd combination – sad at moments, hilarious at others – but in many ways, this cartoonish animated film is very human. Even though some twists were quite predictable, they were so well presented that they were still interesting, funny, mournful, or even all of those simultaneously.

More than anything else, this movie was about growth – as a person, in maturity and wisdom. Although the ending was certainly good, it wasn’t what any of the characters were thinking of – or what the audience would originally expect. Many moments were bittersweet, and although the story itself is fairly simplistic, the extremely deep characters made the audience connect on many levels.

I had my doubts that Pixar could make another winner, for the tenth time in a row. But Up is simply an amazing movie – deep and soulful, emotional and hilarious. It’s completely worth of the Pixar name, and has lived up to my expectations and exceeded them in every way.

Although children might not understand everything going on in this film – and might be saddened at parts – people of all ages will love this movie. Despite the heart-tugging moments, the brilliant humor and deep characters will leave you looking Up.

When two people swear – before themselves and before others, (and before God, or whatever religious deities they believe in – or none at all if they’re atheist, because atheists are also perfectly allowed to marry) to affirm their love in mind and heart – that is marriage, regardless of what the state recognizes.

The state of California has neither the right nor the ability to change that.

When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, did slaves suddenly turn from property into people? No – of course not. They were always people, regardless of the legal system’s inability to classify them as such. Their current legal status had no bearing on what they are, or what they were. And in reality, even the legal recognition didn’t lead to equality – and even the beginnings of that dreamed-of condition would not seriously appear for another one hundred years.

And even then, the greatest leader of that movement was murdered.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I will never know what it feels like to be told that my love cannot result in a marriage. I don’t like living in a state – or a country – where others are not so fortunate, for reasons they cannot control.

First of all, big news today. On the bad side, a notoriously uncooperative nation has successfully (fully) detonated an atomic weapon. On the good side, it didn’t happen on my birthday this time.

Overall, not a good thing. That nation is unstable – some say that the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il has already died. North Korea has been astonishingly aggressive lately, although this could simply be an attempt to bolster the diplomatic strength of the state – a bargaining chip. Still, this is a serious problem on several levels.

The obvious problem is another nuclear state. Personally, I’m not comfortable with anyone having the capability to level entire cities. And honestly, I’m not comfortable with any nation – even my own – having the capability to destroy the entire planet. It’s just one of those things I would rather not have in anyone’s hands, you know?

Of course, I doubt North Korea would be stupid enough to actually use any. If nuclear missiles start flying into Seoul, we’ll kind of know who did it. Ever since this has started, I’d be simply flabbergasted if the US hasn’t kept at least a couple Trident submarines stationed around North Korea. I’m no expert on this, but I’d expect that it would take less than one hour for the United States alone to obliterate every single square inch of North Korea into a barren wasteland so completely annihilated that the moon would be teeming with life in comparison.

So that brings us to the second problem: North Korea selling the warheads. They’d certainly have motivation to do so. They could blame any other nation – for instance, Iran – for the deal. They are in desperate need of money and food. Actually, they’re in desperate need of pretty much everything, including (and especially) leadership.

Maybe things would be better if they didn’t insist on a proportionally insane military to threaten a country that was more than 30 times as wealthy as itself. These dictatorships just never seem to be able to create any economic success – at least, not for anyone other than the dictator and his favored elite. Enter irrelevant yet fascinating discussion about whether or not wealth is a requirement for democracy, a la Przeworski.

There also is a sinister tinfoil-hat third problem: while an ambitious North Korea could blame other countries for any suddenly-nuclear terrorist factions, this uncertainty works both ways. Any other nuclear-capable nation could use North Korea as a scapegoat for their own horrific actions. If a nuke goes off in China, some faction in Tibet must have done it through North Korea. If something explodes in Pakistan, it must be Al-Qaeda via North Korea.

Of course, the chance that US Intelligence (read: our spies and assassins) are working their best to sabotage North Korea hovers around 100%, and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a quick bombing run on any nuclear reactors. North Korea must know that it would woefully lose any attempt to invade South Korea – the real question is, would they try regardless?

Up for discussion tomorrow: the Proposition 8 appeal results in California. Also, the budgetary problems in California on Thursday.

Maybe I’ll even keep this update-every-day thing.

14 DAYS AND 2 UPDATES LATER EDIT: LOL WHAT A LIE

Life is a cyclical thing.

See you tomorrow.

See you guys in like 3 days.

OH JEEZ

Blue skies...

...Nothing but blue skies...

Pretty cool, huh?

And if you want to spend the rest of your day thinking, look at this graph.

A perplexingly common trend.

I… I’m really not going to be able to explain that. Just so you know what it is, it’s the frequency of internet searches using the word “violence.”

And it is so regular, that for every year on record, there is a growth in the first quarter, a fall into summer, a slight rise during the summer, and then a rise with at least 2 separate peaks during the late winter followed by a sharp dropoff.

I simply cannot fathom why this happens and have absolutely nothing else to add here except to restate how baffled I am.

I’ll put up some more pictures later.

Valdimontone Palio parade

The Palio is already beginning to heat up. Drago has something happening tonight, and a posted event on the 5th. It will be really fun to see this stuff happening, but I wish I could stay here to see the real event. (Drago will be in the July Palio!)

Anyway, if anyone wants something from Italy, send me an email (or just comment on this post, or on the wall.) I’m going to try to get some gifts and send them back to the states, but I’m still trying to find the best way to do that.

Nice sunset, horribly placed satellite.

Some colder, rainy weather lately, but it’s been warmer. Finals next week, things are winding down – but we’re having a great weekend so far. It’s a little depressing to see things slowing down, but the point is to enjoy it while it lasts – not be saddened by it ending.

Some day, I will deliver the near-mythical things I have been working to post here.

Class with an almost 3 hour exit exam, then a class photo, followed by English as a Second Language instruction (which the picture made me late for), then art lessons, then a giant nap from the 4 hours of sleep I was living on, then a birthday celebration with a huge dinner followed by some dancing.

Fun stuff, but I’m exhausted.

Also, if you see a bunch of ?????’s on the chat box over there:
<———–
It’s just some random spam.

I’ll post them when I like them, but busy week ahead:

First up, an opera presentation. 20-30 minutes between 4 people.

Second, posting the pictures from Lucca – which was amazing to see, especially the gardens of Napoleon’s sister. I’ll get to it soon.

Going to Lucca tomorrow morning, I’ll have pictures tomorrow. Sorry for the lackluster updates, I’m still working on stuff.

Life has an odd sense of humor.

One of the more interesting aspects of this economic recession might end up being the effect on higher education. Within a few months, hordes of new graduates will surge from the worlds’ universities, scouring the market for jobs.

The lucky ones have highly technical and in-demand skill sets. Computer Science related fields will likely be the safest employer for new graduates.

However, those who chose to pursue less marketable (or even just more liberal-arts) programs might find themselves in an awful situation – if they even find work, it’s likely to be minimum-wadge retail. Collecting tickets at a theater, flipping burgers, whatever it takes to get by.

And in itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. We have to acknowledge that this is a horrible economy and is not providing anything remotely close to an ideal job market. It must be discouraging for new graduates to have spent upwards of $80,000-$200,000 just to get to that position, but the Psychology majors, or Literature majors, or Anthropology majors (not to pick on any in particular – I am an Anthropology major) are going to have a difficult time. Not all will find work in their field. Not all will even find work.

What makes this interesting isn’t the immediate negative aspects. It’s the effect on the behavior of the younger generation.

While I always considered a college education a necessary thing, not everyone would agree with me. Some have argued that it is much better to get into the work force early to begin climbing the corporate ladder. And look at what is happening now: college graduates, with advanced degrees and advanced knowledge across all sorts of fields, will be applying to fast food places, to theatres, to jobs that require no special skill sets, no essential education, no grand prerequisites. Jobs for which it is said, with quite a negative emphasis, “anyone could do.”

And when the valedictorians and summa cum laude’s go to interview for their less-than-desired jobs, some of them might meet their high school friend who didn’t apply to colleges, their acquaintance who dropped out of community college.

For, while the ‘motivated’ among us pursued at great cost higher education, the drop-outs have already worked their way up. They too have graduated: their diploma, the white collar. Now won’t they feel smug.

This concerns me.

I have no allegiance to either group, although I certainly belong to the college students. The truth of the matter is, if you graduated high school in 2005-6, you might have been much better off going out to work immediately. There’s just not that many opportunities available; by the time the economy recovers, you won’t remember as much of your astrophysics degree as a new graduate. You won’t be as versed in French literature, nor will you be as sharp with post-industrial history.

And people will see this, and think to themselves – maybe I shouldn’t have gone to college.

And that old phrase will work its way through again, and perhaps I will hear it said of my own hypothetical children: “Maybe they should find work now, while people are hiring.”

This would be a horrific blow to the future security of our country.

Education is the best single investment a country can place upon its people. Educated people are better thinkers, independent thinkers, the workmen of democracy – and overall, wealthier. They know more, they advance knowledge, they create new markets and new businesses. Look at the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Pixar (largely funded by prodigal CEO Steve Jobs of Apple), AT&T, Intel, etc. The exploding technology sector is almost exculusively college-educated.

And look what we have today – I sit in a room on my computer, connected to the internet through a wireless router. I have my iPod (which is actually my iPhone), my cell phone, multiple headphones, a portable hard drive, a digital camera, 2 USB flash drives, an e-ink reader, my solar-powered watch, and more. I didn’t own any of these things ten years ago. Some of them did not exist as techologies ten years ago.

Almost everyone has a MP3 player, or some kind of music player. The precursor was a CD player, but the digital music revolution came with the iPod – in 2001. It has been only eight years.

You – now I adress the reader! – did not have broadband internet access ten years ago. Maybe a small handful did, but I can say with near certainty that you did not. You likely did not even have a computer 15 years ago. And now, how would you think of going day to day – without your cell phone, which you also probably haven’t had for more than 15 years?

All these extremely technical fields create real markets with real effects on our day to day lives. America grew prosperous from the success of Microsoft and its ilk. And all these sorts of companies would never hire someone who had no technical knowledge, with no technical degree.

I’m worried that, if the lesson many learn from this recession is “sometimes college sucks,” we all will lose out on the tremendous effect of education. And with the single-power dominance of the United States fading quickly to the European Union, China, and India, we really do need to re-evaluate our long-term strategy.

And to new graduates, I have this to say: Do not be discouraged. Maintain your skills and knowlege, or improve it – and be patient and opportunistic. If a French Literature graduate must flip burgers, make them gourmet; if a Psychology major must work at Target, be the most amicable employee anyone has met.

If you wish your knowledge to keep its value, all you must do is use it.

It’s okay though, I promise I’ll finish what I’ve been doing recently. I am working on a little passage that I would rather polish it a bit before I post it, and I have quite a lot of work to do if I want to make it halfway decent. I’m writing it as a speech, so it may or may not turn out well when written.

There definitely is a difference between a written text – blog posts for reading – and a script for spoken language. A speech has so much more opportunity for drama and emotion because we decide how we say it. We can add force, emphasis, or any other type of inflection. Most important is the use of pause. While I can attempt to achieve this – with minimum effect – it proves rather difficult; without copious, annoying, and distracting amounts of punctuation (the joke: I’ve already used – , ; ( and : in this sentence) you’ll get to the end and just hope there’s a pun there only to find a run-on that doesn’t really clarify what the sentence originally started speaking about, does it.

Spoken words have character in a way that written text seldom can have.

I’m not even quite sure what I mean by this little passage, but I like the sound of it so far. I’ll finish it ASAP.

I’ve got a quiz and ESL teaching tomorrow, then I can have some fun on the weekend.

So is life.

Anyway, I’ll be celebrating this week by uploading some songs, etc. onto this website. Today, I may or may not add some things – I’ll see if I can.

By the way, tomorrow this website is one year old.

What the hell? I don’t get why we pick sides on things like this.

First of all, both Israel and their various ‘enemies’ have done bad things. One magnificent example of this is the wall. Modern walls don’t keep people out; they keep people in.

In fact, walls haven’t kept people out since 1453, when Constantinople (and thus the last of the Eastern Roman Empire) fell. Gunpowder changed everything; while some attempts were made at super-fortifications, it was quite obvious by the 1700′s that gunpowder was superior to and outpacing any fortification attempts.

An easy modern wall to recall would be the Berlin wall. Think of how well that went over.

However, I’m not picking sides here. It’s easier to side against Israel for some reasons – mostly because they are a centralized group with an organized government. Bands of terrorists which are supported largely (but not in entirety) by the population are much harder to pin down; certainly they are dangerous, violent extremists, but they don’t reflect on the people as a centralized federal institution.

The popular election of a group like Hamas certainly doesn’t help anyone’s cause, though.

Regardless, really? Should we be boycotting a racism conference? Yeah, that totally is in line with our “Hooray we finally elected a black man” image. (And just to make a mini ramble, there are much larger groups that have been denied access to that highest office. There are more atheists in America than black people, for example, and women make up half the population. I’m waiting for a black, homosexual woman to be elected as President – and then having nobody notice this as particularly interesting or outstanding. That’s when discrimination will be largely over.)

First is a rather brilliant method that claims to be capable of harvesting 100 pounds of potatoes from only four square feet of space. Some real life tests of this prove that this figure is high, but an amateur’s first attempt netting 25 pounds is very impressive.

Second up is lact-fermented soda. Soda and root beer originally was a live culture, as was beer and wine. Modern necessities in shipping led to ‘fake’ solutions, where most sodas are just watered-down flavor syrup. Some people (with rather attractive website design) simply refuse to accept this.

You can make all sorts of your own drinks – from ginger ale to root beer, and I saw somewhere apple cider – from the fairly simple process. The result is a ‘live’ drink, something that my generation has scarcely tried. It’s actually supposed to be much healthier, having beneficial bacteria and minerals in it – and doesn’t appear to be that difficult to do. It would be pretty cool to have your own source of soda – you could make a decent amount every week or so for your friends and family.

Anyway, I’m busy with other things, and will update tomorrow with more political ramblings.

I suppose that’s something every generation has said – whether my repetition of it marks me as old or mature, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just crazy.

Today, the four administrators of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of “assisting in making copyright content available.” Not too surprising, considering an enterprise named “The Pirate Bay,” but it’s more complex than this.

Rewind a few decades – and look at what copyright infringement was. (I know some people will know a lot more about this than I!) Let’s look at a classic example of commercial copyright infringement – the blatant copying and reproduction of someone else’s work, to be sold for a profit. It is simply making money off of another’s work, that they are entitled to sell themselves.

Why would people buy a fake, and refuse to support the artist? For one, ignorance – perhaps they didn’t know which was real and which was fake. But far more likely is price – the fake sells for less. Seeing a designer-brand accessory for $5 should be fishy, but people would rather buy the fake than actually purchase the full-price commodity.

Remember, now, that this has some interesting conclusions. Not every swap-meet bargain-bin shopper would actually have purchased the authentic article. Also, this requires an investment from the counterfeiter.

But look at modern piracy – and the digital revolution. Now, piracy refers to many digital and digitized assets – programs, video games, operating systems, and above all else, music and movies.

The first problem is that these are digital assets, and thus are all exactly identical. There is not a “hand compiled” program in the same way that you can purchase a “hand-made” clock, or clothing. Each copy of a song from a CD is exactly identical, equal in quality to the original, and most importantly: infinitely reproducable.

Now intellectual property crime is much different. Copyright infringement is no longer commercial – it’s free, done for free – no money is involved. Nobody profits; they just don’t consume, they don’t purchase. Comparing the act of downloading a CD to the act of stealing a CD from a store, or purchasing a counterfeit copy from some back alley, is a flawed metaphor that is completely inappropriate.

I personally have downloaded my fair share of music – and note what this word means. When I say I downloaded music, that doesn’t necessarily mean I illegially downloaded it. I download music off of iTunes, which I pay for. I download music off of artist sharing sites, where artists upload their own music for others to share and listen to. I download movies that people have made to be distributed for free. All of this is perfectly legal – “downloading” is not illegal in any way, shape, or form.

What is illegal is the downloading of copyrighted content. I’ve also done this many, many times. At least I’m honest.

Although if you really want to be correct, the above paragraph isn’t technically true. What constitutes “illegal downloading of copyrighted content” is such a variable and confusing subject that entire court cases have been over this – such as the Pirate Bay’s trial.

Take some countries – I believe Germany is among them – which allow downloading of content as perfectly legal, but consider the uploading of copyrighted material as illegal. (Downloading is receiving information on your computer from the internet; Uploading is sending information from your computer to the internet. Generally, when you “download” copyright material, you “share” it, sending the parts you have downloaded to other people who want to download them.)

This seems complicated enough – differing laws on a phenomenon less than 20 years old, new methods of sending content, the digital revolution, actual “free” infringement rather than any money transactions…

Technologically squeamish readers might want to avoid this next block of text and instead pretend to have read “There are really confusing methods of using the internet that make it unfathomobly difficult to determine who is actually comitting a crime, or if a crime happens at all.

The new kid on the block is the “Torrent” file.

In the early days of digital copyright infringement – which is a long word, so I’ll use the term ‘pirating’ – people used programs like the infamous Napster (now a legal music service). Limewire is another program that functions similarly. How they worked was fairly simple: a user (the downloader) would search for a file. Depending on what other connected users had to share (the uploaders), there would be different results.

The downloader would then choose a result, and begin downloading the file. Each person who had that file – the uploaders – would try to send part of the file to the downloader. However, as the downloader began to have parts of the file downloaded, his computer would begin uploading the file to anyone else who wanted to downloda it.

These systems needed a large number of users connected, sharing identical copies of files. It was also easy to find out who was downloading – you were directly connected to the computer of anyone who was trying to download a file from you or upload a file to you.

Now, we have torrents, which have made what can only be described as a complete cluster**** out of the legal system.

To use a torrent, a user must first use a torrent tracker service. This is generally a website – such as The Pirate Bay – which has links to millions of files. A user finds the file he is interested in downloading, which is generally indicated with two numbers: the amount of “seeders,” or people who have finished downloading the file and are uploading it to other people, and the amount of “leechers,” or people who are still in various stages of downloading the file.

To put this in perspective, there are plenty of ‘torrents’ which have many thousands of users. Within 30 seconds I found one with 27,000+ seeders and 12,000+ leechers.

But here is where the legality of this becomes dubious – to download the file, you must first download the ‘torrent file,’ a very small piece of information that instructs your computer as to how to download the file. This is the file that is on The Pirate Bay’s website – no copyrighted material, just links to material that can instruct your computer as how to download copyrighted material.

That’s all that is on torrent tracker websites – little pieces of information about files, no the files themselves.

And to put this into perspective: You pay an internet service provider in order to have access to the internet. On the internet, you can commit any number of crimes, ranging from stupid pranks to national security issues. But, although someone else has provided the means – for money – how you use the service is your own issue.

The Pirate Bay offers a means to download files, many of which are perfectly legal. However, it makes no attempt to censor these files. It has always been their claim that how the people use their service is their own responsibility.

It gets more complex than this, but that is essentially what it boils down to – the Pirate Bay has a website that lets people share any type of information. Many people use their service to share files illegally.

And today, a judge found the Pirate Bay guilty of assisting in making copyrighted material available. I suppose this is true; they did ‘assist in making copyrighted material available,’ but how this amounts to a crime is in some ways dubious.

For instance, I can use Google to find illegal copies of copyrighted material. Is Google liable for assisting in making copyrighted material available?

I couldn’t download anything from The Pirate Bay without my laptop. Is Apple guilty of asssiting in making copyrighted material available?

Anything I could download on The Pirate Bay, I could download elsewhere on the internet. Sometimes, the Pirate Bay is not even involved in the tracking of the torrent files.

So what is The Pirate Bay, to me? It’s a place where I can download whatever I want. The administrators have made a forum for completely unrestricted communications. I don’t think I could blame anything I do on them; and after all, they’re just one such service in a veritable sea of identical services. Compare it to a public storage warehouse – they let people store whatever they want. If something illegal was found, are the operators of the warehouse – who were probably unaware of (and certainly not involved in) the illegal materials – in any way liable?

Of course, the main point I want to make is that – get this – piracy services help artists make money.

Read that again.

I downloaded a song I liked, once, and looked up the artist. Within the week I bought two CD’s. That never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

I download movies that I like, even if I buy the DVD. Sometimes I’ll find a movie I like and then later search for the DVD. This never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

I’ll hear of small bands I like, and tell my friends. I give free publicity that I am sure has resulted in sales – and it never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

And there are millions upon millions of people like me.

In fact, a survey was done to try to quantify some numbers for pirates. It was assumed that people who downloaded the most music never payed for anything, knowing how to get it for free. After all, why would you pay for something – if you knew a method to get it for free?

The results of the survey – a scientific study – were that the people who download the most music and the people who buy the most music are the same people. They aren’t pirates or customers; they’re music fans.

I honestly fail to see how downloading something I never would have paid for is a crime; and groups like the Recording Industry Association of America should recognize that sometimes, I find out that I would have paid for it – and then I do.

I have made music – nothing on a professional level, and nothing very good. It never would have sold. I put it online for free, and later read that someone had really liked it. Many people are beginning to understand the power of communication – it’s why some bands, large and small, encourage their fans to download, share, and discuss their music.

Piracy isn’t a crime; it’s a new business model.

That is still my preferred plan, and I still am trying to figure it out – however, the current economic problems (I’ve heard 10% unemployment in California) make this increasingly unlikely, or at least unlikely to be as beneficial to my eventual career choice as I originally intended.

Not wishing to be caught without a backup plan – should I need one – I’ve also been looking into summer courses at UCI, which I could take for the first part of the summer while looking for work. It’s very flexible, really. Depending on what I find, I’ll see what my choices are. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing tonight.

A couple of comments I got:

With the IMF discussing the sale of 400+ metric tons of its gold holdings, I’m staying away from metals.

I couldn’t agree more, at least for gold. If I had any, I’d be selling it, too. It’s just too hard to tell where precious metals prices will go – skyrocket on economic fears? Freefall from a panic buy?

I think there are a lot wiser investments to make beyond precious metals, and in most cases, gold and silver make much better insurance policies than actual sources of investment. A good portion of ‘investors’ never actually intend to sell; the reason they buy it in the first place may be to hedge against hyperinflation, or some ‘worst case scenario.’ Some just also like collecting; there are much worse ways to spend your money. Metals are safe – whatever that means to the buyer.

In some cases, paranoia and fear might play a role, but the person who bought gold for $300 an oz sure is laughing now. (Prices run between $900 and $1,000 an oz.)

Silver flows around a bit more, but a realistic price of $14 an oz for bullion investments over a past price of between $7-10 isn’t so horrifically inflated. Saying it’s less of a worse deal, however, isn’t saying much.

To put my interest in gold and silver in perspective – I also love following the stock market. But I don’t have any investments planned any time soon in either arena.

Also, a request:

Question for your blog:

Who would be more effective in fighting piracy, the US navy or the ancient Roman navy? What tactics would the Roman navy use?

When I first read this, I was thinking of internet piracy – a big issue, since the result of the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden will be announced in just a few hours. This will have a huge impact on the future of internet communications and piracy – but my post tomorrow will be exclusively on that, so I’ll hold off.

Modern piracy is quite a complex issue – this article explains why 70% of the Somali people “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.” In short, their coast has been used as a dumping ground for chemical and nuclear waste (one speciality of the various Italian Mafia) as well as been an easy target for foreign fishermen to exploit. In some ways, I think the Somali people have stumbled upon an incredibly effective solution to these problems – while certainly a violent and greedy enterprise, piracy is really the best option they have to attempt to stop what they view as injustices.

Not that I support piracy. Long term planning would have been better, since now nations will crack down on pirates – but not foreign ships that want to dump waste or over-fish. Piracy has not helped their cause, although it may have been temporarily successful and deterring foreigners.

Back to the question –  Roman navies operated quite differently. Without radar or any long-range weapons, piracy was quite a different matter; 10 men could not have quickly approached a large ship and commandeered it. A large ship would have enough men to defend itself against an attack.

Also, large-scale shipping wasn’t as common as it was today. During the height of the Roman empire, there were massive ships, and established shipping lanes, but simply nothing comparing to the size and frequency of modern shipping. In short, the Romans never had to deal with piracy the same way.

Until modern times, pirates operated in similar ways – using fast ships, usually small to medium sized, to outrun their opponents and chase down their prizes. Without modern weapons, they would need to be savage and efficient fighters, using hand-to-hand combat primarily, and some ship-to-ship combat (Greek Fire would be replaced with cannons.)

Modern pirates still use speed, but thanks to weapons technology, no longer need to be numerically comparable to their prey.

In the case of tactics, the Roman Navy would favor ramming an enemy ship. Taking prisoners alive would not be a very high priority, although the simultaneous sniping death of three pirates by what could be “even more elite, clandestine military units” might indicate we have this in common.

Ever practical, Romans saw redeeming virtues in pirates. Although they faced their share of piracy-related issues, they knew that pirates provided a cheap and renewable source of slaves (who were generally treated very well in Roman society, by slave standards). At least one source suggests that the Romans and the pirates didn’t see each other as explicit enemies – Romans wanted to make money through shipping, and pirates wanted to make money through piracy. So long as it wasn’t your problem, it wasn’t a problem to be cared about.

In comparison, the young United States hired pirates to deter the vastly superior British navy from causing problems to the fledgling nation. I suppose we both can be opportunists.

Check out this page for more information on Romans and Pirates.

This hurts me right where my dignity should be.

Luckily, it’s late and I have homework to do – in my colossal stride to do all things but those which are most important, I turn my full attention to my website.

First of all – the one year anniversary of this website is coming up soon. I know this because, if I don’t pay money to continue hosting it, it will disappear off the face of the internet, likely to be replaced by some URL-squatter. (Seriously, that’s what happens. People make businesses of trying to register literally millions of domains, and either selling them to the people who forgot to re-register them or just plastering advertisements all over it. It’s kind of disgusting, because the internet is real estate – even if virtual, it’s a place where lots of work can placed and lots of money can be made.)

Also, what did I promise? Discussion about the Great Recession? Precious metals, that’s always a fun subject. Everyone always starts paying attention when words like “gold” or “bullion” enter the conversation. And perhaps they have good reason – gold prices currently hover around $900 an oz., almost three times what it was 5 years ago. Even a 6-month investment could be looking at a 25% return – quite an accomplishment in this economy.

The spectacular preformance of gold has led to plenty of scam industries – such as the “Cash for Gold” programs. Most people don’t really know what their gold is worth, and would be surprised at even a fair price. I guarantee you, a TV advertisement is not going to offer you a fair price. People rarely know how to properly sell their scrap gold, and in this ignorance have naught but scams to turn to.

Gold as bullion, however, remains safely out of economic reach for the plebeians. For us, there is the much more interesting element – silver.

Gold is a precious metal in every sense of the world. I’ve read – without knowing how accurate the statement is – that all the world’s gold would fit into a cube 20 meters to a side (less than 66 feet). Gold has some unique properties that make it useful in electronics – check out your cables and see if they have gold-plated connectors at the end – but this is absolutely miniscule portions of gold. Silver is an Industrial metal.

Banks hold gold. A brick of gold will always be worth a fortune, no matter what. But silver can be quite volatile – in comparison to the ever-more-expensive gold, silver can jump from $50 an ounce to $10 in an astonishingly short time. Two months, in fact – it happened in 1980. But that was due to an attempt to corner the market.

Simply put, silver is an industrial metal with industrial uses. We used silver compounds and solutions in our high school chemistry class; it is not so expensive, less than $10 an ounce for almost the entirety of the past 20 years, and has unique properties that make it extremely useful. As such, the changing technology of the modern age has an enormous influence on the spot price of silver, as does the use of the material in various industries.

Predicting the price of silver is an exercise in clairvoyance. It relies on medicine, for it is an antibiotic; it is known by electrical engineers, for its high conductivity; it is used in photography, as silver nitrate; it is used by jewelers, dentists, smiths, even chefs. The production of silver and the operation of silver mines rely on these industries, and economic downturns can lead to sudden decreases of production; high prices can lead to average Joes selling their sets of authentic silverware.

Two paragraphs previous, astute readers will notice the use of the phrase “spot price” of silver. The “Spot” is the paper price listed for silver trading, per ounce. Right now, silver spot is $12.86, which is funny, because plenty of people are buying one-ounce silver coins at over $17. Over $20 is not completely unreasonable.

In times of recession, where total economic collapse seems to be a threat (however vague), several industries do great. First is firearms, which have turned 8-digit losses into 8-digit profits seemingly overnight. Prices are through the roof, shelves are vomiting their contents into eager hands, and generally business is good. Second is precious metals, which have quite an alluring marketability at always having value.

For people who have seen their stock market investments (or worse, their mortgage) turn to meaningless dust, something which will always be valuable is quite a convincing buy. It’s impossible to lose all your money buy buying a bunch of silver. It just can’t be done – so long as you buy in hand, and not on paper.

This is spot price – silver on paper, treated as a stock, only theoretically exchangeable for real, actual silver. To buy silver on hand, that you can take back and horde in a pretty, shiny, valuable pile – that’s a premium that people are all too willing to pay today. Despite paper silver hitting as low as $8 an oz, people have been buying it at more than twice that and calling it a steal. Panic buy? Certainly, but those who are buying and selling consider it a worthwhile investment.

This is why my favorite precious metals website, which is highly recommended by those in the market as well as having generally excellent and competitive prices, will sell silver coins from anywhere just over $14 to almost $18.

Of course, here is the big question: Buy, sell, or just stay out of the market?

Well, there are a few options for the future. We can guess that the Great Recession will hit its depths somewhere around late this summer, or at least will be in full effect at that point. How will this change silver prices?

• It could reduce industrial demand and thus strongly reduce the price of silver.
• It could reduce industrial demand, closing centers of production and raising price.
• It could lead people to buy silver as a ‘safe’ investment, leading to higher demand and prices.
• It could lead people to sell what silver they have in economic desperation, lowering prices.

So, which of these will happen?

I don’t know. Why would I know? I’m a website.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8
Delivered the day before his death.

Today,  dsgkahdsjgas fml.

Today, I went to class and got sick:( but i was a super duper trooper so i stayed in class.

That was Paige’s Post. She wanted to post a message.

Today, there was an earthquake in Italy that killed around 100 people, injured over a thousand, and has left many people with damaged or destroyed homes. It was further south of me, and I didn’t feel it in Siena – rest assured that we are safe and sound here. The same can’t be said of L’Aquilla.

I am a bit sick though… maybe I ate something bad… But everything here is fine.

Montecatini Terme to Firenze: Train

Firenze to Siena: Bus

All around Siena: Foot

I need to find some travel that can be made by blimp – then my romp across Europe will be complete.

If anyone ever goes to Mykonos, I would highly recommend staying at Mina Studios. It’s family run, the owners are the most incredibly nice people I have ever met. They drove us into town multiple times, they are friendly and helpful. The rooms are spacious, tidy, clean and comfortable, with a great view.

There’s a closeby restaurant, too, that likewise has the most friendly servers I have ever met. If you are staying at Mina Studios, Sakis Cafe-Restaurant is very near, just a short walk down the road.

The off-season is a great time to visit – you get famous beaches entirely to yourself. It’s great to rent a 4 wheeler too, the roads are relatively empty.

Edit from Mina Studios: The ferry was fully booked, so I had to do some alternative planning. Found another ferry from not too far away, got here fine. The island really is beautiful.

Staying a night at the Anita Hotel.

Also, the pictures of Rome and the Vatican are up. Check them out!

I’m not the biggest supporter of Obama. I didn’t vote for him. This is something entirely different from saying that I don’t support him, or I don’t think he is a capable and intelligent man. I just have several points on which I disagree:

• The bailout. I never thought this was a good idea, although I suppose we’ve already committed ourselves to this one. It’s like jumping out of an airplane before you know your parachute works – probably not a good idea, but by the time you’ve jumped it’s too late to worry about. By now, we just have to worry about what we have and what we can do with the strategies we have already chosen to act upon.
• What I perceive as an emphasis on appearance and emotion. If I were a politician, I would show up to debates wearing casual clothes – a T-shirt, shorts or jeans. My usual crazy hair. Politics should never be about appearances; it was never meant to be a realm dominated by charisma. Widespread democracy has had its negative effects – the temptation of being that which is negatively implied in the term ‘politician’ should never be part of what is Political Science. Our debates should be based on ideas, and integrity, and responsibly, and most of all, results. Hope is a good thing that can be horribly misused and manipulated.
• A widespread popularity that has not been properly harnessed. The way to use popularity in democratic politics is to act in a manner that the people have supported through their election of your person. A popular mandate for change has been left on the back-burner, while few of our policies are changing (or are changing as fast as they could be.)

An entirely too complex subject is the military. Again, while I never thought the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, I believe it is far too late to leave. Ironically, Barack Obama’s commitment to leave, kind of, in a few years, but to keep several dozen thousand American soldiers there (otherwise known as ‘staying’) is what I would do, minus the hypocritical terminology.

The US Armed Forces, anyway, have a crisis of leadership and an inability to properly assess either real tactical talent or their own weaknesses. One of the reasons why we are where we are is because our military thought themselves too capable, too loved, and were generally over-confident. We have been informed of our failures in the most difficult way possible; I hope, at least, that we have learned for them.

This is not to say that I have a lack of faith in our Armed Forces; rather, I hold them in high esteem as the greatest fighting force currently on the face of this planet. But, like everything else, mistakes have been made and lessons are to be learned yet.

I like to think of life in that respect: it is filled with obstacles, challenges, and inevitably failures. Nobody can avoid them; the real measure of success is the ability to learn, adapt, and strive. The real measure of character is the willingness to share collected wisdom with others – for intelligence is the most unique and valuable of all assets, which when given, only increases its own supply.

I also learned today that one of my friends has enlisted in the Army. I wish him the best of luck, although I know that his talents and facility leave him with little need for the well-wishings of others. In bocca al lupo.

And I’ve got a final on Wednesday. Going to be a quick yet painful week…

Half the pictures already uploaded. Working on the second half.

Also, here’s this week’s weather:

Non c'è male (Not bad)

 Last two weeks have been full of tests, exams, midterms, finals, quizzes, etc. I think I’ve done well on all of them… one more tomorrow, followed by some English as a Second Language instruction, followed by painting class, followed by blessed weekend. Monday has some cooking classes, as well, so I have some fun extra-curricular activities set up.

I’ve also been thinking about job opportunities… My friends back in America are doing incredibly well, and if any of you are reading this, congratulations – especially in this economic climate. Not sure exactly what I’ll do, or where knowing a little bit of Italian would help, but half of life is recognizing opportunities.

The second half is acting on them.

Also, something a bit more urban: Italian rap!

In Italia by Fabri Fibra and Gianna Nannini

We had a midterm today which went pretty well, but most commendable was the weather – excellent, sunny clear skies. Nice and warm, the Campo was packed with a bunch of people just enjoying the sun. It doesn’t sound that impressive at 60 degrees, but it’s perfectly comfortable in the sun. Maybe my California standards are just a bit off.

I swear I’ll get the high res pictures up soon.. I’m just busy and tired or busy and tired or studying or studying, busy, and tired or going out to have some fun or some combination.

Also, why do people stop having naps? They are a holy thing, a religious experience. They guard the sanctity of my soul. They make Mondays disappear. I’m going to have one right now.

I’m studying for a midterm tomorrow, sorry I haven’t had time to upload all the pictures I wanted to. I’ll try to get the Vatican pictures up tomorrow, but for now, enjoy my favorite painting:

The School of Athens, by Raphael

Funny thing, it's actually very big. Never would have guessed from the name.

So because of an incredibly busy schedule and lack of internet access, March 14th ends up being the first day I didn’t update my website. That said, it’s quite understandable.

It looks a little old.

Arrived on the 13th and saw the Colosseum, saw the forum and the Vatican on the 14th.

This picture is from within a structure that is almost two thousand years old. It still has a good view.

That view looks over the ancient Forum and Palatine hill; it offers the same view to modern viewers as it did to the Romans.

It looks dark because of the camera's adjustment to the bright day. We had perfect weather.

The most surprising thing about the Forum/Palatine Hill was how green it was. Maybe this is just because it’s springtime, but it gave the whole thing a very cool look.

It lives yet.

The buildings themselves were, expectedly, impressive.

Two millennia of war, pillaging, and erosion have failed to destroy these completely.

Beautiful area, beautiful weather, simply amazing.

I guess they can be kind of important. Kinda.

They could have tried to make it a little more impressive...

Vatican and full-res pictures will come later…

We had one white one, one desert wine, and three red wines – all of which were excellent. I don’t remember all the names off the top of my head, and unfortunately forgot my camera, but it was an amazing experience. I felt very cultured and, simultaneously, silly.

The title, by the way, means “In wine, there is truth.” It was a common Roman saying.

We also had a midterm today, which all 12 people in my Italian class think they failed. There is a strong consensus that it was incredibly difficult in comparison to other tests… I don’t think I completely bombed it, but I certainly didn’t do as well as other tests. At least I am assured that nobody felt confident; if we all failed together, I have more confidence in my own ability to do well.

Or something like that.

Enter debate on guns, violent video games, society, religion, etc. Ignore suggestion that maybe there are just crazy people on the world. Find a fault and harp on it.

Unfortunately for society (and fortunately for psychologists), people seldom have one reason to do anything. Sure, some things contribute – substance abuse, or physical abuse from others, or mental abuse. But you can’t look at any situation and say, “He did that thing because of this one thing.”

Example 1: Video games. School shootings aren’t ever caused by video games. Might they contribute? Possibly, if someone is immature, or has other issues. They might even help prevent violent actions, by diverting frustrations into a virtual reality. Of course, the vast majority of the younger generation plays video games, and the vast majority play violent games. The generational gap between older and younger people makes this a common sticking point, particularly because many older adults have never played violent video games. Obviously, toddlers shouldn’t play Grand Theft Auto… But I’ve known preteens that were more mature than twenty-somethings.

Example 2: Guns. There’s always great talk of gun control laws after school shootings. True, in America, it’s easy to get guns. This is quite the opposite in Germany, which despite having world-renown gun manufacturing companies, has incredibly strict gun control laws. The answer isn’t less guns, and more guns isn’t necessarily any better choice. The reality is simply that guns allow people to be efficient killers – quite a disturbingly simple statement, but that is the truth. People who want to be destructive will be able to get ahold of them, and this is a problem that isn’t likely to end any time soon.

All too often, the truth is either impossible to discover or unable to provide closure. Why would a seventeen year old begin killing more than a dozen of his classmates in Germany? What drives a man to murder 10 people in Alabama?

The people who commit these acts are dead at the scene. They alone held the answers. Perhaps the explanation was simply that they were crazy, and had no legitimate reason to do such a thing – as if a legitimate reason could even exist. This answer is, of course, the scariest; it offers no possible courses of action to prevent such atrocities in the future.

I was going to post at length about other issues in the United States, but I’m just not in the mood for inspiring, hope-filled plans. Mostly because a midterm is tomorrow, but the final today went well.

Sorry for the short posts, but I have a final tomorrow, and a midterm the day after. I’ve gotta study for Art History…

You’ll notice I have a fondness for older poems, as well as rhyme schemes.

Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The next poem is a classic example of satire, the poetry equivalent of A Modest Proposal. Both are politically incorrect, but stingingly on point. If you are not familiar with it, you have to read The White Man’s Burden before this – it was an oft-quoted poem used to justify imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Brown Man’s Burden, by Henry Labouchère

Pile on the brown man’s burden
To gratify your greed;
Go, clear away the “niggers”
Who progress would impede;
Be very stern, for truly
‘Tis useless to be mild
With new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Pile on the brown man’s burden;
And, if ye rouse his hate,
Meet his old-fashioned reasons
With Maxims up to date.
With shells and dumdum bullets
A hundred times made plain
The brown man’s loss must ever
Imply the white man’s gain.

Pile on the brown man’s burden,
compel him to be free;
let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don’t hesitate to shoot.

Pile on the brown man’s burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you-
Ye’ve driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.

Pile on the brown man’s burden,
And through the world proclaim
That ye are Freedom’s agent-
There’s no more paying game!
And, should your own past history
Straight in your teeth be thrown,
Retort that independence
Is good for whites alone.

Maybe more later…

Anyway, I also have a bit of a cold. This may have been exacerbated by my being out until [an  assuredly ungodly hour which is best for you not to well on] last night, but at least I have a day to rest before getting back to the four-day-grind that is the Italian Student’s Week.

Enjoy some Italian music: 50 Special, by Lùna Pop.

Woah, look at this. I’m updating here instead of making a new post! What a novel idea.

Because there were several birthdays this week, we had a kind of birthday party for everyone at a local restaurant. The food was amazing, but it was the service that was outstanding – the owner of the restaurant would sit down and talk to us (or wildly gesticulate), telling us to eat more food or drink more wine. It was a really fun dinner, for the 3+ hours that it lasted.

After it, we went to a club. It went from empty to sardine-packed with creepers in around 45 seconds. I guess there’s some kind of emergency broadcast system for the Americans.

We split up, but ended up in the Piazza del Campo, just hanging out. (It’s been relatively warm lately.) We found a group of Italians who were also celebrating birthdays, and spent an hour or so talking to them – mostly in Italian. It was really fun to be able to speak for that long, and I felt like I could actually understand and speak a passing amount of Italian.

All in all, a fun night that ended entirely too late. I think I have a bit of a cold, too. Aw well.

Great weather, dirty river.

It was the first time I’d been in the city during the daytime, and it was a treat to see. Our trip went to the art museums, but we had some free time as well. I took some of this free time to see the Florence Baptistry doors, which we were not visiting on our art tour.

They're kind of plain, just like I'm kind of sarcastic.

You can imagine what we saw on our tour, if something like that wasn’t considered significant enough.

Unfortunately, at the Uffizi we were not allowed to take photographs. We saw amazing works – The Birth of Venus and Primavera by Botticelli were some of the most famous. Of course, there were lesser known artists… Like some ‘Raphael,’ a ‘Leonardo’ who put these strange symbols in tiny parts of his paintings, and this other guy ‘Michelangelo.’

Similarly, at the second museum we were not allowed to take photographs. However, this place had mostly statues, which would not be harmed by pictures. Despite the security guards shouting “No foto!”, I artfully dodged their glances to embark on my spy mission.

Huh. What's that?

I believe this particular artwork was well worth the risk to manage to take a picture.

Target acquired.

Sneaky iPhone picture!

I need to go to sleep. I’ll elaborate later. Ciao.

I always have something to do, somewhere to go. It keeps me on my toes, literally. I’ve got a list of things to do that grows at an exponential rate, and to add to it, our teacher has dramatically increased our homework lately.

Not that I’m complaining; I love challenges and opportunities. Today we had our Art History presentation on Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus. Our group met several times to go over all the material, we prepared a computer presentation, and even rehearsed it before the class. Everyone did really well and I think we’ll all receive very high grades.

I admit I have a tendency to be lazy sometimes, but I tend to balance this with exuberance in the approaching hours of responsibility. I have some kind of duality within me which defies funny yet sarcastic analogies here. These characteristics make life very fun for me.

Souped Up by Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille Soundtrack)

It’s my website and I’ll update if I want to.

Busy week, we’ve had our homework just about doubled. I’ve got an art history presentation tomorrow, which should be a fun. I like presentations – being able to talk, listen, and express ideas has always been more appealing for me than simply absorbing details. (Not that I have anything against absorbing details, either.)

Our artwork is Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini. It’s just in Florence, but I haven’t seen it with my own eyes yet. That will change on this week’s visit of Florence.

I also booked a bus ticket to Rome for the weekend after the coming one, so I have things to look forward to.

Enjoy more Jack Johnson:

Working on other stuff, hopefully I’ll update this later.

Tomorrow I start classes with Italian Level 3. I’ve already completed a quarter of Italian here, a third of my journey completed. And although I still feel that my grasp of the language is minimal (at best), I’m certainly learning a lot. I think I know more Italian now than I know Latin – but it’s been a few years since I did anything with Latin.

In some ways studying abroad is not that exciting. Humans, if anything, are excellent adapters. We soon fall into a daily schedule, making that which was bizarre into routine. The goal is to still remain conscious and attentive, so that we can learn from life. The hope is to maintain a routine that is engaging and enjoyable. I think I am achieving both.

I was told that studying abroad teaches you more about your own culture and society than that of your host nation. I can see how this is true. I constantly find myself making comparisons to America – “That could never happen in America,” or “I wonder why we do this that way?” – and thinking more critically of the society I am part of.

In reality, there’s no way I could learn everything about Italian culture in just a few months. I’ve lived in America for my whole life, and still don’t know everything about American culture. But being exposed to an entirely different way of life is certainly enough to notice differences, similarities, and even preferences.

Of course, I’m only in Italy. I went from one Western nation to another. Things might be very different if I had gone to China, or Peru, or Kenya. The more I think of it, the more I resolve to – someday – visit each of those places. The world is large and our time on it ever smaller; what is life without adventures?

Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson

The coming week is supposed to be warm as well – not dipping below 40 degrees – but filled with rain and thunderstorms.

It's not all that bad.

I relish the opportunity to use that Matrix-like trenchcoat I have. I also might go shopping sometime, grab a nice pair of shoes, a hat, etc. I hope to return to America with a completely Italian outfit, just to feel special.

Interesting coincidence: I received an email from Franklin College, in Switzerland. I had applied there as a Senior in high school, but going to Europe was just a silly fun idea that would never come to fruition.

Whoops. How time makes fools of us all.

Anyway, the email was about summer programs offered by Franklin College. This particular clause caught my eye:

Gee golly, that sounds new and exciting!

Topping off the list of coincidences, some of the people on the program here are in Switzerland for the weekend. I guess there’s just something about the Swiss and timing.

Enjoy some music, I’m going to go grab some dinner. There’s a great pizza place around the corner, so I’m told, and they have this half-calzone half-pizza thing…

Constellations, by Jack Johnson. From the In Between Dreams album, one of my all-time favorites.

Of course, I only said the negative things because Assisi just so happens to be the most beautiful place on the planet, and I consider my life more complete for having been there.

I’m uploading pictures as I type this, but there are a good number of them (as well as videos) so it could take a while. Check out the pictures at the gallery!

Check out the first video: (Right click and save as)
Assasi Video 1

And here’s a preview of some of the pictures:

The buildings are pretty by themselves...

Until you see what's behind them.

The Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, a World Heritage Site.

More of the landscape.

This is from a bit up the top of the hill, looking down on the main city.

Umbria stretching away.

Today’s music: Overture, from Lawrence of Arabia. Music by Maurice Jarre.

How about enjoying some foreign music? That seems fitting. Here’s Ya Rayah, by Rachid Taha.

I’ll actually put up a page (see the buttons on the top?) for music, because I’ve put up several songs so far. They are all legally purchased through iTunes, and because of the recent elimination of DRM, I’m able to put them here and let everyone listen! (I’m sure my dad could be more precise about Fair Use, but I’m not getting any takedown notices.)

So, picture time! (These are all iPhone pictures, so won’t go in the gallery because of their poor quality.)

Our painting class! You might want to skip this one, actually.

This is my actual Italian class. You can see where I'm coming from when I say it's a little kid-ish, but it's fun.

Carnivale in Piazza del Campo! They had silly string and foam everywhere, and at this time was mostly for kids.

There was even a marching band!

Although behind bars for renovations, the Duomo of Siena features (within 50 feet of each other) a statue by Michelangelo and a painting by Raphael.

Is that enough multimedia for now? No, it isn’t.

A shopping "cart." By popular request.

Hummingbird, by Sebastian Clark

Send Me on My Way, by Rusted Root

I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, by the Soggy Bottom Boys (O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack)

Take that, Web 2.0!

Tomorrow, by the way, I have the oral exam at 10:15. There’s nothing that I will be able to learn after an extra hour of studying now… I’ve already put like 7 hours into Italian today.

Ciao!

My quiz last week was an A, even before the couple extra credit points that are at the end. I think my grades have gotten better on each test… but I still fear that trend shall crash and burn in an utterly horrific end.

I’m still keeping up with American politics… The DJIA index hit a 12 year low today, from what I gather. I’ve also seen a graphic that advertises the total amount of money spent on bailouts, put in a way that is easier to understand: If you spent one million dollars a day, every day, since the birth of Jesus Christ, you would have spent less money total than Congress has – just in the most recent bailout bill. I have serious doubts about how effective this will be.

The more pressing matter, of course, is how WALL•E got completely screwed out of Oscars. I am unable to comprehend how it could not win several music and sound categories – the majority of the dialogue wasn’t even human voices, instead favoring artificially created sounds by Ben Burtt.

Anyway, I’m going to finish my homework. On Wednesday, I have the oral part of the exam, with the written part on Thursday. It’s warmer this week, at least, which seems to come with rain.

I’ve also found another good place to get pizza. No shortage of those, really. A domani!

I also might occasionally make more political posts, as I usually do. It’s fun to write and keeps me informed about current issues by actually writing out what I think of them. For example, I have quite a few things to say about proposed budgetary changes and the current housing crisis.

I’m finishing my homework, but here’s a video of something I would really like to do some day:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Requests for pictures so far: the Miniresidence I live in (I’m going to make and upload a movie for this one), the tiny wheeled shopping-baskets, more pictures of me, and maybe I’ll pick through some of the others and put more online. I’ve taken a lot of pictures, only a very small faction of which have been put online.

In fact, a quick check of my photos shows almost 800 pictures taken so far. Compare that to the 84 currently online; only one in ten make the cut.

Buona notte!

Pictures up! The opera we saw, by the way, was Pagliacci.

The Opera Theatre in Florence

I was also seated incredibly close to the stage – maybe 30 feet from the orchestra, and only maybe 50 feet from the stage.

Picture from my seat - you can see how close I was.

Completely unrelated, but here’s a cool video I saw about the current Credit Crisis:

I went to the English as a Second Language thing for the second time today, and by myself.

Now, I may seem weird to make note of doing it ‘by myself.’ After all, I’m on a different continent. It would be impossible to do something not by myself. (Not in the notion of being alone, but being independent.) But for some reason, it doesn’t seem like that.

My guess is that, because I am at a college so close to home, even when I’m doing everything myself, I got used to the idea that my family was only 15 minutes away. If I ever wanted to talk or visit, it was entirely possible. The result of being at college without being far from home is getting used to feeling at home, even when you’re independent.

In that way, being in Italy hasn’t really sunk in. I don’t feel like I’m so far away; I feel like I’m on some extended vacation or something. It’s an odd sensation to look around Siena and make a mental note of “Huh. Despite every possible sensation, I still feel like I’m in California.”

A nearby church, San Domenico. This view is from a bit away from my miniresidence, which is very close to the church.

That is, until I go outside the Bubble. With a bunch of California students living in the miniresidence here, I can talk in english, hang out with American (Californian) students who go to a UC, and even my classes are peopled by them. I see them on the streets, we hang out, go out, etc. It’s really a small city, and the vast majority of my time is spent with students like myself, studying abroad. In many ways, it’s a Bubble of the University of California system.

But when I do the English as a Second language, I spend time distinctly apart from the Bubble. I get on a bus (hopefully the right one), go a good distance outside the city walls to the school (15 or so minute bus ride), walk to the school and enter it. I get the impression that I’m the only person in a mile radius who’s actually fluent in English.

In a way, this is both intimidating and exhilarating. It’s a fun challenge. But it’s one of the few things I can do that really reminds me that I’m in Italy.

Also, I don’t think the kids know that I speak any Italian yet. I only speak in English because they’re trying to learn English, and the reason I’m there is to have a native English speaker who knows how to properly pronounce everything. The english teacher is quite proficient, but there’s a gap between proficient and fluent which I know – all too well – I shall never cross in Italian.

I have a feeling that, if I were to respond in Italian to some of their questions, they might be quite surprised. Not that they’re saying anything bad, mostly just reminding their friends what the question meant. (“Con chi? Con chi!” when someone doesn’t know how to answer “Who did you go on a vacation with?”)

Anyway, tonight I head to the Opera, so I’m going to get some good sleep and then throw on some fancier clothes. I’ll bring my camera and a fresh pair of batteries.

Today was a bit better, but I still basically had seven hours of class – 3 for Italian, 2 for Art History (visited the Duomo, but with the teacher as a guide!), and 2 final hours for an optional pre-opera trip.

Yeah, I’m going to the Opera tomorrow! Should be fun, I’ll bring my camera.

I got some good pictures of Siena today, I’ll put them up in maybe an hour or so.

Until then, here’s a song I like: No Rain by Blind Melon.

This post is just a long, rambling entree on the current political situation in California. It’s something like what I would normally have here – and thus follows my normal writing style: Sarcastic, vulgar, and bitterly irreverent. If a bit of language and cynicism doesn’t bother you, continue reading!

Right now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has approval ratings somewhere around 30%. That’s enough to make Bush cringe, but the real kicker is the legislature – which by various standards, has between a 14-15% approval rating. This is not only abysmal – it’s unacceptable.

The greatest insult to California’s dignity (as opposed to its wallet) will likely be the reelection of the vast majority. Maybe 85% could be re-elected – after all, they’ll claim it’s not their fault, your representative was trying hard.

It really stuns me to think that a 15% approval rating probably won’t significantly impact their job. If you only had 15% confidence in your employees, you’d fire all of them. But if it’s politics, it can be spun, or advertised, or simply conjured out of some mystical plane of existence.

I think there are a couple issues at play here: Ideological stubbornness on a colossal scale; Voter referendums that are inappropriately managed; and of course, a deteriorating economy with ramifications on a social and cultural scale.

First of all: Stubbornness. The Republicans are unable to accept any tax hikes, and the Democrats are unable to accept any program cuts. To make this worse, some absolute idiot actually passed around an anti-tax pledge for people to sign.

Let me count the ways this is stupid:

1. It forces those who sign it to adhere to an irresponsible state of inflexibility, or else be publicly exhibited as a liar;
2. It makes those who don’t sign it look bad, thus encouraging already spine-lacking politicians to follow it;
3. It makes taxes seem like the be-all end-all of horrors to inflict on people, somewhat akin to the 11th Plague;
4. It shows no comprehension of what taxes actually do, such as pay for things;
5. It shows a complete disregard for the knowledge that there is a $42 billion dollar deficit;
6. It is completely meaningless, since anyone diametrically opposed to any new taxes is free to vote no on each and every bill that arises;
7. It demonstrates the useless frivolity and public relations that our politicians actually spend time on, while their paychecks are funded by magic our tax money;
8. It wastes my time in actually enumerating and quantifying the sheer volume of ineptitude that our representatives possess;
9. It’s just freaking retarded in every politically incorrect sense of the phrase.

The only person who I have any respect for in this whole matter is the one and only Governator, who has shown not only a singularly unique motivation to fix the budget crisis, but a willingness to be the scapegoat by being willing to end so many jobs.

Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to be the only person who actually cares about having a balanced budget, and has reached across party lines (again) in order to hammer it through. I have a lot of respect for this man. He’s cleverly placed on the sacrificial altar the jobs of 20,000 people, and although it will be his hand which places the final blow, it will be the failure of the legislature that is primarily to blame.

No doubt this will come up in elections, and will be seen (and advertised) as an awful thing to do. But it was Schwarzenegger’s desire to motivate the legislature, even if it required them to stop him.

I’m just disgusted that they couldn’t pull their shit together quick enough to do anything worth a damn.

The legislature knew exactly what to do to save 20,000 jobs; they didn’t do it.

Next on the chopping block: Voter referendums and propositions. California has a very interesting system that allows voters to directly pass all sorts of bills.

Notice how I used the word “interesting” instead of alternatives like “smart,” “expedient,” “practical,” “useful,” “well-conceived,” “constructive,” “beneficial,” or “worthwhile.”

The problems with this are very obvious. For a textbook example of “How to screw with the public when they are given lots of political power en masse” check out Proposition 8, which not only managed to remove a civil liberty of what is likely a double-digit percentage of the population, but did it in a shit-storm of suitably biblical proportions.

Without dwelling too much on arguments that make no sense in other contexts, let’s instead focus on TV advertisements.

It is an unfortunate fact of democracy that people are feeble, weak-minded sheep who will vote for whichever ideological side has the best commercials. (If this wasn’t true… why do you think there are so many commercials during election cycles? So many road signs?)

And for a proposition that affects only those living in California, there sure was a lot of out-of-state money involved. And a lot of money, period. Almost $100 million was spent just on this one proposition – some coming from the Mormon Church, much of it coming from those whom the passage or failure would never affect directly.

What about all those other letter ones? Yes on M, No on C, Whatever You Want on H. Lots of them were school funding measures, or other similarly outwardly-simple measures. After all, who would vote against school funding? It’s for the kids! Just like Proposition 8.

And God bless that kind representative who helped with the bill. Surely he wasn’t at all interested in a “Strong on education” label or track record.

In the end, the California legislature doesn’t have much left to spend. A very significant part of the budget is already appropriated by the people – money which the legislature can’t really touch. If they want to cut back spending, they only have so much to work with. I don’t think you can really trust the people to properly manage a budget – especially when they face the heart-tuging and sentimental advertisements about their children safe in bed at night, with a phone ringing somewhere.

I don’t want caring parents managing my state’s budget. I don’t want emotional citizens who have seen the faces of those who could be harmed. I want selfish, nasty, greedy assholes, driven only the the lusty glint of gold, paid by a percentage of the money they save… Dark, soul-less creatures, so long lost to the sensation of empathy that their very heart has shriveled up and been replaced by pure, lamentable spite.

Yeah, politicians fit the bill.

Because it allows people to download copyrighted music, movies, and TV shows for free, it has been sued by almost every record label on the planet. However, the technical way that torrent files work means that The Pirate Bay never actually sends file information to users.

Today, on the second day of the court case, half of the charges against the Pirate Bay have been dismissed (withdrawn) by the prosecution. This is a tremendous and unexpected victory for the defense.

While I certainly don’t condone some of the uses of The Pirate Bay, the site itself is simply an open forum for sharing anything – and has been instrumental in the past in helping distribute important files, even politically important files that were previously unavailable. The record labels, on the other hand, are extremely well known for desperately clinging to an outdated business model; with the Internet (and sites like The Pirate Bay), their distribution monopolies are simply unnecessary.

It’s an oversimplification to say, but I am on The Pirate Bay’s side. I’m glad they’re doing so well and I’m not surprised that the music industry has already shown huge blunders and misunderstandings of how the technology of today operates.

I might eventually put up a much longer technical discussion of exactly what is involved, and why I believe what I do – but that would be boring and unnecessary right now, as I have homework to do!

Congrats, TPB! And good luck in the rest of the case. As the Italians say, “In bocca al lupo!”

The internet has been running like well-oiled molasses lately, so it will be hard to upload more pictures here, but I’ll see if I can do it. I also have a busy day today:

• 9-1 – Italian, Level 2
• 1:45-3:45 – Painting
• 4-6 – Italian Culture

All in the same classroom, so I won’t see my apartment again until 9 hours after I left… Long day. We do have an extended snack break on the longer days, though – that’s how I’m writing this right now. The class is fun, and we are learning a lot – but it is a lot of work, and requires everyone to keep up with the material.

It was great to talk to you guys last night (Mom, Paige, Blaise, and Chris) – if other people want to talk to me, I’d suggest using Skype (if you have a webcam or a microphone on your computer.) I’ll put up instructions on how to do that soon!

Instructions for using Skype:

Download from skype.com (link above). For Windows, double-click the downloaded file and follow instructions. For Macs, open the downloaded file, then drag the icon into the Applications folder.

When you run Skype, it should set up an account. Once you have it, send me an email with your account name. I’ll try to be online as often as I can so I can talk with everyone! Another way to communicate is using AOL Instant Messager, which has a similar process to set up an account.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message!

That test was worth 20% of our grade, so it was really important to do well. I’m really happy, but I’m also going to sleep because we have a cooking class at 3:30 – and I’m just exhausted from Bologna still.

Make sure to read the post beneath this one, with pictures of Bologna! More pictures can be found here.

Over and out.

Not that it’s useful anymore, but here was the (planned) schedule we had in Bologna:

Day 1 (Friday, February 13th)

• 8:30 – Meet in front of the Jolly Hotel, departure for Bologna.
• 11:30 – Drop off luggage at Hotel Holiday in Bologna.
• 12:30 – Lunch at Ristorante Matusel.
• 2:30 – Guided tour of Bologna.
• 5:00 – Check in at Hotel Holiday, free night.

Day 2 (Saturday, February 14th – Valentine’s Day)

• 8:00 – Breakfast
• 8:45 – Meet in the lobby to leave for the Ducati Museum.
• 9:30 – Visiting the Museo Ducati.
• 11:00 – Departing for Ferrara.
• 12:00 – Arrive in Ferrara.
• 12:30 – Lunch at Trattoria Il Mandolino.
• 2:30 – Ferrara guided tour and free time.
• 6:00 – Departure for Bologna, evening free.

Day 3 (Sunday, February 15th)

• 8:00 – Breakfast
• 9:00 – Hotel check-out, meeting in the lobby.
• 10:00 – Visit of the traditional balsamic vinegar factory Acetalia Malpighi.
• 11:30 – Visit of a Parmesan cheese factory, Cooperativa Casearia Castlenovese.
• 1:00 – Lunch at Corte D’aibo.
• 3:30 – Departure for Siena.
• 6:30 – Arrive in Siena.

Of course, we were running on Italian time, so for every thing we were supposed to do, we would be running 10 minutes or so late. Over time, this ended up making us about an hour late by the end of the last day. Not that I minded.

Nobody was particularly disturbed that we were an hour late at this point. Or maybe it was the wine.

Anyway, so the trip! To say the least, it was fun. The food I ate… Well, we’ll get back to that.

Here’s a picture of the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna:

Piazza Maggiore and a statue of Poseidon.

The city was beautiful, and a little more busy and populated than Siena. It’s been a major cultural center for millennia, and has been an intellectual capital since the founding of its University in 1088 – the oldest functioning university in the world, so we were told. One of the first things I noticed in the city were the sidewalks, which are either nonexistent or strongly discouraged in Siena.

This was actually just a coincidence in Bologna – to make buildings larger, they would build out from the original footprint. To keep the structures standing, they would build columns along the side of the roads, often forming dozens of arches. The result is, over hundreds and hundreds of years, the city has grown to have so many of these porticos that almost the entire city – every single street – has arching porticos on either side. While useful for pedestrians, it is quite a beautiful touch.

The next day – Valentine’s – we first went to the Ducati motorcycle museum. The motorcycles primarily used red. This is the ultimate manly way to spend Valentine’s.

Ducati Monster

I seriously want one of those.

After that, we went to Ferrara, a city similar in size to Siena, but less crowded and newer. (Siena was Etruscan in origin, going back before the Romans, as old as 900 BC – but Ferrara was only founded 753 AD.) It had a beautiful cathedral – interestingly enough, the larger and more affluent city of Bologna didn’t have as impressive a cathedral.

Ferrara Cathedral - and this isn't even the facade.

A quick note on Cathedrals – the Italian word for Cathedral is “Duomo.” If I ever write or say “Duomo,” I’m talking specifically about the Cathedral of Siena, which so far is the most impressive and amazing one I’ve seen. It’s really amazing. This isn’t just because I live here; it is really a beautiful structure that sometimes pops up in the distance with its very distinctive zebra patterns.

Here’s what the bells of Ferrara sound like:

It was fun to be in a beautiful city for a little bit, and the city was very bike-friendly. They said there is an average of 2.2 bikes per person in the city – the highest ratio in the world, and it showed. The city was flat, too, which made it very suitable for bicyclists.

Here’s a picture of the castle in Ferrara, which is notable for still having a moat:

Cool picture. We had amazing weather for the whole weekend.

We ate and headed back to Bologna. Since it was Valentine’s, I bought a box of chocolates and brought it back to the hotel for everyone to share. Really good chocolates, too – if you ever see them in the states, try a Baci. (It means “kisses,” it’s like an Italian Hershey’s Kisses – but with toffee / nut filling, and much larger.) We went out to a pub and a club, almost lost some people, found them, had a good time, and generally exhausted ourselves.

The next morning we left fairly early and hit the prime attractions: the Vinegar ’factory,’ and the Cheese factory.

To call the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar place a factory would be a grave insult to that culinary art. It was actually more of just an attic. For instance, study this picture, which shows maybe one fifth of all the vinegar in that building:

Notice the changing barrel sizes.

And then comprehend that the approximate value of just that equipment (and the vinegar it contains) is around $2.5 million USD. One single barrel, used since 1860 and never cleaned, has a value of around 20,000 euro. With the approximately two gallons of 25 year old vinegar within it, expect 60,000 euro.

The process is indescribably natural and has very strict standards. A governing body controls what can be called Traditional Balsamic Vinegar, and refuses certain bottle types or names of anything not meeting its standards. Qualifying vinegars must be aged at least 12 years, be taste-tested, use very specific types of grapes, use those grapes grown only within a certain distance (something like less than 20 miles radius in one very specific area), etc. Once all these tests are passed, the person who actually made the vinegar is still not allowed to bottle it – the DOP controls the bottling process to insure that it’s own bottles are used only for the highest quality vinegar.

When aged, the vinegar is kept in open barrels – that’s why you see the cloth covering there, allowing it to breathe without dust or flies. It is periodically changed from barrel to barrel – each barrel is a different kind of wood, and many of the barrels are ancient. The smell permeated the entire building, and was amazing.

We tasted the 6 year, the 12 year, the 25 year, the 50 year, white vinegar, and sweet vinegar. It wasn’t put on anything, we just tried a few drops straight from the bottle. It was indescribable.

Next, the cheese:

Parmesan quality standards are similarly strict, but enforced by funny and quintessentially stereotypical Italians.

At first, I wasn’t so impressed with the Parmesan factory. It smelled like rotting milk, and when it started to smell like good cheese, the smell was overpowering and almost nauseating. But the tour quickly became better with each room we visited, and each step got closer and closer to the finale: cheese tasting, with wine.

You will notice the cheese and wine tasting was scheduled before noon.

Parmesan similarly has strict standards. By law, you can only call cheese Parmesan if it comes from a certain area, uses milk within 2 hours of milking, is aged at least 1 year, etc. Each wheel is marked with the place of origin and dates of production. Once verified, it is market; once aged, it is tested. The test is simply to hit it with a small hammer and listen – great cheese sounds solid and the best is left to age. Good cheese sounds a bit more hollow and is scored down the markings, clearly indicating its status. The worst cheese sounds more like a drum and is removed of all markings, and while still good cheese (especially by American standards) must be used immediately. Although made of the same ingredients, on the same day, and aged side by side, this ‘poor’ cheese is not Parmesan cheese.

The cheese, of course, was amazing – but the wine was amazing too. We stopped in their little market in the front of the factory and I picked up a bottle. It’s very strange to be able to buy alcohol – or just have it served to me.

Speaking of food, here’s my review of the places we ate:

Ristorante Matusel – Very authentic, family-style served food. Everything was amazing and the service was great. If anyone’s ever in Bologna, I’d highly recommend finding this place if you want an inexpensive and casual but excellent sit-down meal.

Trattoria Il Mandolino – Similarly decorated as Buca di Beppo, this had excellent food and great dessert. Again, excellent service – if you find yourself in Ferrara, this is the place to go!

Corte D’aibo – Living in Italy, understand where I’m coming from when I say: Divine. Rather than describe the meal – surely an exercise in futility – I shall instead describe what qualities would be necessary to properly put such an amazing culinary masterpiece into words:

To do this meal the divine justice it requires would require an eloquence of such preposterously unimaginable scale that such an author would be known by other titles such as “Things I Need Volume 2: The Shirt Off Your Back Addendum” and “World Peace: An Autobiography of our Global Emperor.”

My life literally seems more full and complete for having eaten at this place. Its location, by the way, was where I took that first picture.

Hotel Holiday, Bologna – This isn’t for the food, but just for anyone visiting Bologna – the staff were incredibly helpful and friendly. I’ve never seen such excellent service at a small hotel, and I would stay nowhere else were I to visit Bologna again.

I think that about sums it up, and at over 1600 words, this is by far my longest post yet! I had a bunch of fun, and I hope I get to have more trips like that in the future. I have a bunch more pictures, so if anyone wants to see something specific, just ask me, and I’ll see if I have a picture of that. I know I don’t have many pictures of myself, but there actually are a lot – just taken by other people. I might put more of those up later.

Edit: It’s late at night and time to sleep while I can. Pictures are taking a particularly long time to upload today, but I’ll try my best. Before noon California time, I will have some things up, I promise!

Not much else to do, so here’s a consolation update:

Ha! I’ve still updated every day! Hahahaha!

Edit: Sweet success! I actually managed to get internet in Bologna. The city is really cool, although I think Siena has more sights to see – the Duomo is more beautiful than the cathedral here, which is also unfinished, but Bologna is pretty awesome. There’s a street where fruit is sold, and the fruit is organized by color. Here’s a picture:

Oh wait, the only thing I forgot was the cable to connect my camera. D’oh. I have plenty of cool pictures, and still have 180 free pictures. I can also pick up another memory card for pretty cheap, so it’s not that much of a problem. I did remember to bring extra batteries, though, so that’s not an issue.

The food is amazing. Our Siena Center administrators stressed that this wasn’t a “food trip,” which was a gigantic horrific bold-faced red-handed lie, because we’re visiting a cheese factory, a balsamic vinegar warehouse, and eating cornucopia-fulls of delicious, succulent Italian food.

Today was a meal and a tour, not much else. I’ll put up the whole weekend’s schedule when I get a chance. (I’ll also look for a camera to use!)

I’d heard horror stories from students who tried the program in the last week. One person, who was volunteering in a high school, said that one kid was noticeably intoxicated in class. But I seem to have lucked out – it’s a Junior High with around 20 students. They are all really well-behaved and it seems like it will be a lot of fun.

I was encouraged to speak only in English though, so I don’t think the students know that I speak any Italian. Maybe I’ll find a fun way to surprise them…

Also, it snowed a bit today. Not like “Oh, It’s snowing but melting on the ground.” It was the lightest imaginable snow, and then lighter. It’s immediate melting didn’t even wet the ground.

I didn’t even think it was that cold, but as I walked around, there was white stuff falling from the sky. Either God has a moderate case of dandruff or it was, indeed snowing. Funny weather in the early Spring, I guess.

Anyway, although I think I’ve been able to update every day so far, I might not be able to in Bologna. Rest assured, though, I will put plenty of pictures up when I get back!

And just to try something new:

(That’s Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie – if you like it, buy it and support the artist!) 

A note on copyright: I legally purchased this song and have placed it on my own personal website for my friends and family. I haven’t provided a download link for a reason, and this is a non-commercial personal use of a legally acquired product.

I believe this qualifies under applicable United States Fair Use laws. I see no difference between putting my music here, or playing it on speakers within earshot of my family.

Then at 4:30 I had an art class, which was optional. We painted landscapes, and while it was clear some people were far ahead of the others, it was still very fun. The teacher doesn’t speak any english and my painting looked better upside down, but she had a translator and I had the ability to turn it upside down, so not that bad.

At 7:00, I had an hour of tutoring, which was good preparation for the test. Then I had some dinner with friends and studied some more.

Just got back at a little past 11, and I’m going to study a bit more, shower, go to sleep, then tomorrow morning take the test. Then after the class, I will go to a Junior High to do English as a Second Language instruction, which is worth an additional 2 units and should be fun regardless.

I have a busy schedule, I guess. But there’s some good news – while the last Bologna trip was rained out for some things, we might have better luck:

That's Providence.

When it started at 2:30 P.M., someone remarked that at least we had good weather. It was sunny and warm.

Five minutes later it was hailing. I guess the weather gets like that in the Spring. (Our tour said the Sienese call it “March weather.”) It was still cool to hear about some of the history – summed up, Siena was on the French Road, connecting France with Rome. As such, it almost anyone wishing to make a pilgrimage to the Vatican, or to the Holy Land, or just go on a Crusade had to go through Siena. Going on a Crusade, by the way, was a status symbol – something you would add to your family coat-of-arms. For each crusade, you would add a crescent - one family has three crescents on their coat of arms, three being the most you can have before you call it a day and instead sack your own city, completely destroying your continent’s greatest cultural and historical heritage.

All this trade made Siena not only incredibly wealthy, but also home to banking institutions. The city of Siena at one point invited Jewish bankers to the city (Christian bankers faced certain religious restrictions and could not offer the services of Jewish bankers).

In 1472, a public bank was established, named Monte dei Pasci di Siena. It can be visited today, and has recently been in the news in regards to the global economic crisis, dishing out something on the order of 30 million Euro. It is the oldest functional bank in the world, and I walk by it pretty much every day.

We also saw the hospital right across from the Duomo, which closed 15 years ago. The hospital was moved because the old building was simply too cramped and not designed for modern equipment, being the oldest functioning hospital in the world.

We then went into the Torre del Mangia, the building at the front and center of the Piazza del Campo. There we saw some (unsurprisingly) amazing artwork. I wish I had my camera – then I could have taken the picture of medieval Europe’s first non-religious commissioned fresco. (Fonte Gaia, the fountain in the Piazza, has the oldest non-Roman nude public statues in Europe.)

I think the point I’m making is, this is an old city. It’s not really ancient, as it wasn’t a functioning Roman city. But the resident’s won’t fail to mention that it was a Roman settlement, a camp for soldiers. To put this in perspective, it probably would be fairly accurate to make a comparison to one of those random stops you see between California and Las Vegas. (You know, in that vacant, empty expanse that is home only to the constant and terrible hatred of the Sun.) There wasn’t much Roman here, but there was something, and that’s something to be proud of.

Rome was founded (in myth) by Romulus and Remus, who were abandoned as infants. (They were put in a basket and floated down a river. You may have heard a similar story before!) They were famously nursed by a wolf and survived long enough for Romulus to kill Remus and name a city after himself. Remus’ son, Senius, was a little upset by this and, supposedly, founded Siena. Evidently, the genes for “finding a good spot to build an empire” were on Romulus’ side of the family, at least for the first thousand years. Of course, Siena has Etruscan (pronounced “Before the Romans”) origins, but who ever let facts get in the way of a good story?

Nonetheless, the Sienese pride themselves on a very unique fact: There has never been a King of Siena. Although it has been conquered, seized, and sieged, Siena was a proudly independent Republic. Especially in comparison to other cities, Siena could be described as idyllic for much of it’s history. (This might explain the strongly leftist political ideology that still survives here.) There was even a resistance group that held out after the Florentines conquered Siena – to put this in perspective, for almost all of the Medieval and Renaissance history of Siena, this city was arguably wealthier and more powerful than the Florentines – including the Medici family.

When it was conquered, the Medici family put a giant copy of their own family coat-of-arms on the center of the Piazza del Campo, right on the Torre del Mangia. Modern Sienese would love to take this down and send it back to Florence, preferably with some kind of catapult or artillery or other shameful and humiliating mechanism.

We finished the tour by looking at horrifically old human remains.

http://dailymotion.virgilio.it/video/k5ZWwouQXsgNZXVhdf
(click on the HQ button for higher quality)

http://twitter.com/OHHDL 
For those who don’t know, Twitter is a micro-blogging website. Basically, you can make little, miniature posts on it. Most people use it to tell their friends what they’re currently doing, some use it for conversations, and even some news companies use it. (Rick Sanchez on CNN has one that he uses during the broadcast.) This is the Dalai Lama’s twitter account. It’s always cool to see respected (and famous) people try to be more accessible, utilizing modern tools for communications. And seriously, to dislike the Dalai Lama, you’d have to have an ice-cold heart pumping pure, unadulterated hate through your body. I have a twitter account, but use it so infrequently that it’s not even worth putting the link here.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtml
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1685055_1685076_1686619-1,00.html
Don’t click any of those links unless you have time to kill. Amazing articles, but long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXo3NFqkaRM
Watching that always makes me smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsusluZ0gM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
Other cool things on YouTube. In order, dolphins, Microlight flight, and an inspirational message.

I’ll periodically put more stuff up. As always, I love to hear feedback!

• Mexican food. Not one good place to get a taco or burrito. And I can only dream of real greasy Taco Bell crap.
• Dryers. All clothes are air-dried. I never thought I’d miss that.
• One dollar bills. Only coins, which are a little annoying to use.
• P.M. in time – almost everyone uses a 24 hour system.
• Grass – people within the city walls don’t have yards. Sure, there are parks, but no yards.
• Fast internet. Too many college kids downloading movies or something.
• Cable – very few channels, but I don’t watch that much TV.
• Soda – it’s expensive here, I’ve seen 2.50 euro for a soda can. That’s about the cost for a cheap bottle of wine.
• Streets that go in one direction for more than 100 feet.

There are other things, and I’ll add them later. Until then, does anyone have any questions for me? About life in Italy, laundry, shopping, food, etc? Feel free to post them, and I’ll be sure to answer.

Roman Theatre

And for all the full-resolution pictures, check out the photo gallery.

Surreal Tuscany

As usual, there’s a bunch of new pictures up. It really was gorgeous. It was also off the beaten path, which meant far less english comprehension and far funnier signs. The “Engrish” was often funny, with advertisements like “No change color” and the mention of “sicurity.”

When I saw this street, I said "This looks like a picture. I'll make it one."

I couldn't make this picture as beautiful as the reality.

There are plenty of good pictures up of the city, including a few pictures of the castle. We didn’t have a tour guide, but from some of the plaques, I was able to surmise that the castle held political prisoners during Italian fascism. There were several memorials to them, as well as a commemoration of the liberation by Allied soldiers in World War II, including Americans.

In Memoriam

The castle is currently a state prison. Kind of spooky, actually.

Although I didn’t even know it was there, the main attraction ended up being a Roman Theatre. It was the first authentically Roman structure I’d seen in the place it was built, and was simply breathtaking to see.

The ruins featured Corinthian columns, the most elaborate style.

It was amazing to see it in person. Even though we couldn’t go down to actually enter it, we got an amazing view of the entire structure from far above.

The Theatre proper.

It was so awesome to finally see something authentically Roman and think of the history of the structure for two thousand years. I can’t wait to get to Rome and see more structures, in particular the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Pantheon. This particular site was also pockmarked with numerous passages.

I don't even know how far down this goes.

 I normally wouldn’t include pictures that weren’t mine, but I found a great picture of this particular area on Wikipedia, so here’s the same area at winter:

Teatro di Volterra, Winter

 I’m going to upload a video as well, but as we caught the bus out, I took a picture of one last interesting thing:

Next time!

Another week of class down, one quiz down, and so far I’m still having fun. I have trouble describing what the city’s like – it’s so different in so many ways. There’s something new to see each and every day. Tonight, for instance, I tried a dessert served from the Piazza del Campo in a small shack (similar to high school portables) – it was fried dough with a sugar on top. Simple, cheap, and delicious.

I’m going to spend much of this weekend studying to make sure I know all the material we have covered, as well as trying to expand my vocabulary – which I think is my weakest point. Luckily, I have several Italian movies to watch. I’m particularly fond of children’s movies for their simplistic language and ease of understanding, so it’s no surprise that I’ve been watching Il Re Leone.

Other than that, not much to say for now. I’m certainly enjoying the siesta time to get a few extra hours of sleep when I need it, but it can be hard to find an open store some hours. Yesterday, I was looking for lunch – but was unable to find it in the several restaurants I visited. Not everything is closed – the McDonalds is open, as are some cafe’s – but many smaller restaurants will close.

Also, the posted time for opening is not very reliable. One small restaurant had a sign saying it would be open at 5; it didn’t open until sometime after 6. While this can be a bit annoying to American expectations, it’s just a different culture – I kind of like it, to be honest. I’ve seen gelaterias closed simply because it’s cold outside – there’s a relaxed quality of life that is refreshing in many ways.

It rained a little harder tonight, but it hasn’t been uncomfortable. It’s also been comfortably warm in comparison to when I arrived:

This Week's Weather Report

Mercoledi Mercato

Pretty much everything imaginable is for sale – from clothing to knives, from food to pillows, from torches to flowers.

I Fiori

They are even an equal-opportunity retailer.

I was wondering why they were advertising "old, smelly shoes."

Mostly for sale, however, were assorted knick-knacks – of which I got two:

I Miei Cani

They were pretty cheap, too! There were generally much better prices at the market than at the normal shops, although the quality was probably less too. Still, I can’t argue with cheaper.

Artistically fuzzy picture.

The weather continues to be on-and-off light rain – the city actually has a “wet city” smell. It’s kind of odd.

The ancient, the old, and the new.

Uploading pictures has been particularly troublesome today… I’m going to try to find a solution, but for now, make sure to check out the high-resolution pictures. (You can select the resolution you want in the top-right corner, I think… be prepared for a bit of a load, though!)

This morning, on the way to class, there were blue patches in the sky. I thought to myself that the weather had improved, and that thought was immediately followed by thunder. Aw well.

Class is getting more difficult, but the program prides itself on being “the best language program in America.” Having a private tutor available (who currently isn’t being used to too many people) is invaluable, especially when the all-Italian class leaves important rules or concepts in all-Italian.

In two weekends, I’ll be going to Bologna, so I’ll be sure to bring my camera!

And for those desiring my eternal shame (as well as my classmates), enjoy:

Also, here’s a picture of my class, courtesy of the Student Blog we’re using.

Level 2 Italian

By the way, there’s a tutor that will give private lessons to groups of less than 3 students, generally for 30 minute time slots. This is indescribably helpful, and currently very few people are taking advantage of this opportunity. I went today, and I plan to go tomorrow and Wednesday (the prime day: the one before the quiz) to study.

If nothing else, it’s an extra 30 minutes of studying Italian.

I’m also using the Rosetta Stone software in conjunction with my courses, as I already know it has some advantages. Because of the lack of any english-related crutch, language learned through Rosetta Stone (and particularly vocabulary) is easier to recall and more difficult to forget.

Weather’s been fine. It’s raining now – it’s only rained once before – but it’s warming up. So how’s that forecast look?

Forecast: Sun, shine, and smiles! Oh wait.

Don’t worry, that’s in Celsius. Here’s a more readable layout:

That's much better.

It was literally freezing a few nights ago (30 degrees Fahrenheit), so it’s warming up considerably. And don’t worry, it’s warm enough in here – and there are layers of blankets aplenty. It’s chilly, but perfectly manageable.

A domani!

Not sure if I mentioned it yet, but prices are always even amounts here. If a slice of pizza is advertised at 1.50 euro, then you pay exactly 1.50 euro – taxes are included, I presume. This makes using coin currency so much simpler and easier, because it’s rare to need any odd denomination coin. For instance, I was here for more than a week before I got a 5 cent piece. (Coins come in denominations of 2 euro, 1 euro, 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, and while I’m sure there’s a penny, I haven’t seen it yet.)

Funny little cultural differences make a noticeable difference in day-to-day activities. For instance, dryers are a rarity. I have forty-three items of clothing currently hanging on a rack in my room.

I like to think of the internet as a great tool of equality – after all, it’s a place of anonymity, alternate identities, and the most versatile tool of free and open communication.

But this is not entirely so.

What if I want to watch a movie?

That’s what I get when I try to watch a Family Guy video from the website of Comedy Central. Perfectly legal… for US residents. Just from my IP address, they are able to know where I am – and what content they are allowed to serve me. Aw well.

But today, Google had a blunder of it’s own.

This site may harm your computer.

The Internet, really, is still a young place. I have my own website –  not many people can say this. Even avid internet users often have been online less than a decade. So, of course, there’s still speed bumps here and there. Obviously, the marking of every single website as one which “may harm your computer” was a mistake.

I’m fortunate that I have the time (and money) to keep my own website and blog here… Even if I have the unfortunate distinction of possibly harming your computer.

• Rome
• Venice
• Athens
• Pompeii
• Milan
• Geneva
• Berlin
• Paris

I might be heading to Pisa tomorrow – If I do, I’ll post pictures. I assure you, I will take the absolutely necessary “holding the tower” picture, although I might add my own slant to it.

Not much to say now though – I might watch some TV, because our teachers actually tell us to do it. It helps with language comprehension – I have a couple Italian movies on my computer, too. (If you’ve never seen it, rent “La Vita e Bella” or “Life is Beautiful.”)

All the students were also given a gift certificate for a free meal at a local restaurant – I used it today, and in return for a mere slip of paper, I was given mountains of pasta. Delicious.

Maybe I’ll take pictures of food to make everyone jealous… Nah, that would be cruel. I wonder if there’s a way to get some Tuscan wine back to the states, though…

My classes are really enjoyable, each in their own unique way. My Italian class, for example, distinctly reminds me of early elementary school. We regularly partake in sing-alongs and assorted various games. I feel distinctly childish (appropriate, with the active vocabulary of a 2 year old), and while part of me feels embarrassed to be doing such silly things (dancing, grabbing cartoon faces off the floor, etc.) the other part of me is quite happy with being a kid again.

The art history class is awesome. I get the impression that many other people were bored. I plan to use this to my advantage, and to crush them when they least expect it. Or, just, like pay attention. Either, or.

The culture class is fun – every single person is in the class, so there’s about 50 students. Today, the teacher wanted to show us more about the Palio. She had a DVD with a full hour of Palio-related fistfights.

I know not what magical, nigh mythical vendor has access to hours of fistfights between contrade. I imagine this to be purchased in a shady alley, from underneath a squirmy, greasy man’s trenchcoat. Interested patrons approach him, referring to his ill-gotten wares with crude street-slang. They press a handful of cash into his hand. He thrusts the disk at you, turns and walks away. As he rounds the corner, he glances back at you. You see your reflection in his impossibly-tinted sunglasses. You are smiling with a primal glee.

Insert luxuriously complementary paragraph about true Italian food here.

There’s also a good mix of Californians here – I was worried that I might be in the wrong ‘crowd,’ as it were – being on the nerdy end of the spectrum, I am well aware that my breed is rare. I was also worried that there might not be that many people to begin with. But I needn’t worry – there are lots of friendly, outgoing, trustworthy people, and I’m glad to have their company and friendship.

If you’re interested, here’s the important local news of the day:

No Extra Palio: Each Contrada's Reasons

University Resignations in the face of economic crisis

This person was arrested for urinating in public

I… I didn’t know food could be… like that.

Suffice to say, I’m sorry to the billions of people on this planet that missed the dinner. I am truly sorry for your loss.

Art history class was cool, too – my high school class with Robinson and Jara is clearly paying off!

Sorry for the short post, but I’m pretty tired. I’ll put something more substantial up tomorrow.

We learned about the Palio for our core Italian Culture class. I’m convinced that there’s nothing like it in the world, and I sorely regret that I won’t be able to see it.

So to describe it in criminally-simplified basics: It’s a horse race, where the very-small districts of this very-small city all compete for a medieval and archaic glory.

I could talk about the thousand-year history of this event. But that would be boring. So let’s get to the funny stuff.

To start off, even the teacher described the Palio as equal parts religion, sanctity, and profanity. There’s an amount of teasing and bragging that goes along with it that stretches from good-spirited fun all the way to cruelty and potty humor (quite literally).

The race is dedicated to Madonna, the Virgin Mary – each of the two races is dedicated to a different specific part of the Madonna.

There actually could have been a third Palio this year – the contrade (regions) met and voted not to have it. To put the scale of this news in perspective, local newsstands prominently displayed “LE CONTRADE DICIONO “NO” AL PALIO STRAORDINARIO,” (The contradas say “No” to an extra Palio) in gigantic font as the top news story.

Right beneath it, also ALL CAPS and a large font, was the news that a lost dog had been found.

Beneath that, in the smallest font, was the final news-worthy statement (something about a bank lending 30 million euros in order to keep the economy from crashing or something but WHO CARES? No extra Palio!)

This is a race, by the way, in which the winner has to pay money. The losers get paid out of the winner’s money. This is no trifling sum, either – it’s on the order of six-digits of euros (which could sometimes get upwards of a $1 million USD). Because of this, the poorer contrade don’t always push themselves to win. Who would?

The jockeys (which the professor lovingly called “the most disgusting people on earth”) can ask for hundreds of thousands of euro just to ride a horse. They can make more than 10,000 euro for every second of the race. If a jockey, his horse, and the contrade are lucky enough to get a particular spot in the racing lineup – the one that determines when the race starts – the bribery from other competing contrade (in particular, the jockeys) is so outrageous that it’s a gentleman’s agreement to simply give the contrada 500,000 euro and consider the deal settled.

Imagine how much the Jockey keeps.

So, let’s get to the potty humor. First of all, they don’t use whips – or at leas, not regular ones. They used dried, particularly prepared, calf phalluses. In the event that the Palio gets rough, the jockeys will whip one another – particularly on the hands, because they ride bareback and are prone to falling off. Not that the face isn’t out of the question.

The proper term for a race wherein the jockeys whip one another is an “Old-fashioned Palio.”

Horses are blessed by a priest, in a church, before the race. If the horse defecates within the church, this is a sign of unexpected success – a good luck charm. The locals will step in it to insure the good luck.

Speaking of poop, the ‘loser’ of the Palio is refered to as a “purga.” This term is related to the english ‘purge’ and is a synonym for laxative. Practical jokes to pull on the purga include throwing toilet paper at them.

Not any loser can be part of the purga. Generally, there are three ways:

• You finished in second place. Shameful. You were there, you could have won – but you didn’t!
• Your enemy won. Yes, the Contrade are like sports teams – some are indifferent to one another, some are allies, and some get along like the Yankees and the Red Sox.
• You had a good horse, a good starting position, good portents – but failed, or failed miserably.

Which reminds me – there is a good amount of luck. In fact, nearly all luck. Which 10, of the 17 contrade, get to compete in a single Palio? Lottery. Which horse do you choose? Lottery. Where do you start? Lottery.

Your horse is random. Your starting spot is random. Your jockey is bribed. And to top it off, your actual ability to compete is up to chance.

When the horses are chosen, the results are announced live in the Piazza del Campo. Contrade scream and cheer, if they believe they have a good horse – they form in mass and follow the horse out of the piazza, singing their particular theme song. The horse is terrified. There are hundreds of people chasing after it, screaming and holding their hands towards the horse. It’s comparable to accidentally crowd-surfing.

A successful jockey gets the same treatment – in the video we saw, he doesn’t get off the horse. He is literally dragged off it by hundreds of hungry hands. It’s like straight out of some zombie-horror movie, or cannibalistic ritual… He’s dragged away, only to disappear in a sea of flesh, occasionally resurfacing as an arm or leg, or simply tattered clothing.

And yet, despite all the confusion and simply random nature of it, I have never thought 50,000 people could put so much into it. From the night-before-the-race ‘rehearsal victory party’ to the outright tears of victory – I want to see the Palio.

Speaking Italian would be a good place to start, though.

When to watch for updates: (It’s not a schedule, but generally I’ll update at around these times.)

9:00 am in Italy, midnight at California: If I have time before my classes start, I might get in a small update.

2:00 pm in Italy, 5:00 am at California: After my morning class, before my afternoon classes. Again, if I have time… Really, what are you doing awake at this hour? Go to bed.

7:00 pm in Italy, 10:00 am at California: After my classes, towards the end of the day.

10:00 pm in Italy, 1:00 pm at California: At the end of the day, before I go to sleep. This is probably the most common update time, and the most likely to have pictures.

A domani.

For example, after first introductions and such, we had a handout with lists of food. To help our vocabulary, the whole class (10-15 people) went out to the local market,  and ran around trying to write down names of common items.

Later, we sung a song.

It’s the same thing I loved about my Italian class at UCI – it’s almost like Kindergarden or Grade School activities, but for people my age. It’s fun and helps towards the memorization. Our textbooks and workbook were also given to us, so it’s good that we don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for those.

It’s raining now, and pretty cold, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was supposed to be. It should be raining well into tomorrow, though.

I think I’m going to go grab some pizza… At some point, I was thinking of dragging my camera with me through the daily activity of going to grab some pizza. I could put it on YouTube or something – I’ll see if I can do it sometime, but I guarantee you it’s not that exciting. It is a beautiful city, though.

Also: Thanks to everyone who’s reading this! Keep on using the wall, it’s a great way to send me a message (I check the website frequently, and I might add more features in soon. Ends up this trip has been quite useful in getting me to fully working on my website, and it’s improving quickly.)

The menu is the most noticeable thing. Six sandwiches, three possible sides (including fries, and seasoned fries), and five types of soda. Compared to the intricate and varied American menus, this was little in the ways of choice.

Then the actual ordering… Prices must include tax here. I’ve yet to get anything less than 10 cent pieces back – everything that says 1.20 is actually 1.20 to buy. If it says 3 euro for something, then you can pay with three euro – which makes a lot of sense. Especially when 1 and 2 euro pieces are only available in coins – there aren’t one-euro paper bills.

But when you order in McDonalds, you aren’t given a number and wait for your food. You stand at the counter and the person runs to get all your things together. It’s much quicker for you – but the people behind you have to wait. It’s like having a personal waiter, who gets all your food together first.

And the food, while more expensive, is much better. It was actually very good food.

The crowd is young and lively; the furnishings modern and clean. A very different experience from ‘fast food’ in America – and honestly, I think I like it more, even if it is more expensive.

I also can’t argue with the location, which is within 50 feet from the exit of my residence. Just far away enough so that the smell doesn’t reach us, but literally within a stone’s throw if we want to run over to grab something. Not that I anticipate spending much time in McDonald’s; with the endless availability if pizza, gelato, and panini in what seems like every other store, there’s simply too much to explore. And I’ve already found a great place for gelato and pizza – not that there isn’t room for experimentation.

A domani! And I’m really glad so any people are reading my blog, it makes the time (and money!) I put into this website worth it!

I think I’m finally over the jetlag, but I’m also in for some wild weather tomorrow. There were hurricane-force winds in France and Spain, and there will be rain here Monday/Tuesday-ish. The weather used to say thunderstorms tomorrow, but now it just says heavy rain. I guess we’ll see soon enough.

But for now, I’m just going to watch a movie.

Oh, and here’s something interesting: I’m actually not eating that much. The food’s delicious, but in fairly small portions – the result is that I’m eating amazing food, but less of it. I guess the smaller-portion thing is part of European life… I can start to see why our ‘supersize’ is ridiculed.

Not that I’m starving myself. Dear god, the pizza… Last night, for example, I grabbed some dinner for 2.50 euro… Like $3.25. Huge slice of pizza. I thought it was ham in cheese, but it was just tomatoes - raw tomatoes instead of sauce. I was disappointed until I started eating it.

So yeah, I’m good with just eating whatever is served. It hasn’t failed me yet.

Holy shit.

This is just the outside.

I have never seen anything so beautiful or awe-inspiring in my life. The pictures just don’t do it justice.

This is the ceiling of one room. Unbelievable and indescribable.

The cathedral was constructed in the 1300′s, and was undergoing further construction. At that point Siena had a population of 100,000 and was a rival to Florence – in fact, it was larger, richer, and more influential, and the new Duomo was to represent all of that.

The Zebra Cathedral

Then the Black Plague entered Siena.

Within a short period, Siena’s population dropped from 100,000 to less than 30,000. The population has never recovered to pre-1300′s levels – that gives you an idea of how strongly the city was hit by the plague. (Current population is around 50,000 – 60,000)

This whole area (I'm standing on something, so those cars are maybe 30-40 feet from me) was supposed to be part of the Duomo.

You’ll notice that the walls there (which are more than 50 feet away from the Cathedral) have the same black and white pattern. That was the construction area which was supposed to be a new part of the Duomo.

Looks like a truck hit that side of the pillar.

You can see an example of the stonework where it has crumbled… The black pieces were large, think slabs carved to fit exactly into the curved white surface. The exterior was then polished… it’s almost seamless work, just sitting in a parking lot, where construction stopped in the late 1300′s.

I won’t waste any more of your time, head over to the Duomo photo page.

This blog is run using WordPress, which is a very awesome set of software that makes blogging like this incredibly easy. It looks like this:

This is what I see as I'm typing.

This makes it just entirely too easy to have this whole website up. It manages almost everything, including RSS feeds.

The RSS feed is something that the more up-to-date browsers support, as well as third party programs. It’s basically a news list of these posts, without the website formatting. This can be very useful if you want to quickly see if something has been updated. Nobody needs to use it, though.

So, who does read my website?

A list of the countries viewing my website.

Ends up, a lot of people. Some are ‘robots,’ search-engine computers that ‘crawl’ the internet to index files. Basically, companies like Google or Yahoo that have search engines have to essentially memorize the internet. They have computers that just randomly click through the entire internet, saving files as they go. That way, when someone does a Google search for “Thought is Quick,” (as if) the Google servers will know what you’re looking for.

But looking at the data, some things become clear: I’m on my website a lot from Italy (makes sense,) a good number of people are watching it from the US (makes sense,) and Romania / Canada / The Netherlands are my other primary audience, with a few hits from elsewhere. I’m really surprised, even if those are bots… But if you are reading this from somewhere, feel free to leave a comment below! I’d honestly be pretty flattered if someone across the globe was reading this, every once in a while.

And total stats:

Total hits, visits, page-views, and bandwidth.

Don’t worry about the mumbo-jumbo words that might not make any sense – this data is hard to interpret anyway. But basically, what this information says is that most people who visit are reading a couple things before leaving. And they’re downloading a good amount of information (even if the vast majority was from the video I posted earlier.)

Anyway, if you have any questions about the website itself, feel free to ask them!

So here’s a basic layout of how my day has gone, so far:

8:00 – I get up. Hardest part of the day, but the last remnants of jetlag are helping me today. I get dressed and have some oatmeal for breakfast. (Obligatory “Thanks, mom!”)

8:57 – I leave for the placement test.

9:00 – I take the placement test. I think you can tell how close I am to the classrooms! I finished around 10:30 or so with the written part, and I schedule myself for a 1:05 oral test, which is just a few minutes of talking to the instructors. I lounge around my room for a few hours.

1:20 – Done with the test! I head back, but stop at the market for the first time. It’s fairly small, and the baskets have wheels on them – you drag them around the market with you. I grab bananas, apples, yogurt, powerade, and orange juice. (I hadn’t had much fruit).

2:00 – Head down to the Piazza del Campo with some friends. We hang around and take silly pictures for a bit, being obvious Americans. Then we get some Gelato – I got pictures! – and some pizza at a little place I found. At 3:30 or so we head back, because it’s starting to sprinkle, but it isn’t raining.

I think it’s a good idea to find a local place to frequent. We’ve been told that Siena is big on community and family, and as such it’s good to be involved in the local life. I found a nice little bar yesterday that is a local student hangout. (Note: A bar in Italy isn’t an alcoholic place, although it does serve alcohol. This bar, like most, sells pizza, sandwiches, and different kinds of coffee. They even have sodas and fresh fruit. It’s more of a cafe.)

It’s also cheap – only 1.20 euro for a decent-sized slice of cheese pizza. (That’s like $1.50)

I’m continually awed by the streets. It’s funny how pedestrians reign supreme, but cars have the right of way. It’s not anything to be afraid of, though. The cars are like lawnmowers with seats. Even the ‘trucks’ – such as a garbage truck I saw yesterday – look exactly like their American comparisons, but about 60% smaller. They’re actually kind of funny or even ‘cute’ looking.

Anyway, fun day today. I’m getting to know the layout of the city better and better. Maybe later tonight I’ll go to the Duomo, I haven’t seen it yet. Until then, keep an eye on the photo page for updates!

Piazza del Campo

(right click and Save As)

I saw something really funny today in Piazza del Campo. A man gave his young son silly string, and the boy then went hunting for pigeons with it.

The boy (who must have been around 10 years old, maybe less) tried to sneak up to pigeons, holding the precious can of silly string behind his back. He then bolted at them, spraying at the pigeons as they flew away. Judging by the kid’s face, it was as fun for him to do as it was for us to watch.

I also grabbed some pizza, which was as delicious as it was cheap. But dear God, the gelato…

The stores didn’t have some multi-gallon jug from which they scooped undignified-looking scoops. They had towers. Literal towers of each flavor, neatly piled and covered in purely aesthetic decorations. Fruit flavors had fresh fruit slices on them.

I felt like the 2 euro cost was just to see what was in front of me.

And I’m not even going to bother describing the taste.

I also almost got lost heading back to my apartment from the Piazza del Campo. But it ends up, I actually took a more direct route, albeit one I hadn’t taken before. So maybe I know how to get around better than I think.

Or maybe I’m lucky, or can just read Italian signs. Or have some instinctual draw to the stench of McDonald’s.

The student orientation was today – the director told us a few horror stories that all ended in “and he wasn’t exactly sober.” We got some general tips and rules, most of which were already known or common sense stuff, but it was actually kind of funny to hear the silly things people had done in the past. It was useful to hear, though, and we got a small tour of the city. I feel like by the time classes start (9:00 AM on Monday) I’ll probably know my way around the area from my furthest north-class to the Campo, a distance Google Earth tells me is .4 miles or .65 kilometers. Even with the winding roads, you could get from one end to the other in less than 10 minutes, and still have time to grab some pizza.

A domani

They didn’t tell the American students that the interviews would be in Italian.

So that was interesting.

Also, it isn’t called the Big Mac. It’s the Big Tasty. That just doesn’t sound right.

By the way, pictures are here.

It wasn’t a picturesque bright-green everywhere amazing – but the ivy and mold on trees made everything seem a bit murky and dark, as well as giving the area some kind of natural camouflage.

I also managed to get on the Siena Rapida bus, despite my best efforts. At least I got a good luck at Florence, as I dragged my luggage around a couple blocks.

The room is dorm-sized, nothing fancy or elaborate. The several men who run the two-story mini-residence act like a bunch of brothers and seem almost stereotypically friendly. They also can get deals on local attractions, which is always great.

The layout is about six rooms on a floor, with two bathrooms and one kitchen for the 10 or so people to share. Everyone has a class that starts at 9:00 AM,  so the shower arrangements might be a little difficult, but it’s nice that everyone will go to class together. There aren’t normal classes on Friday, although sometimes there might be some kind of field-trip activity.

It takes around three minutes to walk to class. To put this in comparison, I had to take around 20 minutes to get to my computer science classrooms from my dorm freshman year. The city is really small, and all the important buildings are really close together.

This was an informative and yet incredibly boring post.

Of course, the food is awful. Until you get on an Italian airline, at which point the food becomes amazing. And the plane becomes late.

The flight from LAX to Munich was pretty uneventful. I didn’t get to sleep much, despite my efforts, but I was luckily amused by the amazing screens which greeted me – a touch-screen video on demand in every seat that put even Jet Blue to shame.

Flying Air Domiti was an interesting experience. At one point, the fog was so thick that I could not see the propellor or wing – either of which was less than 10 feet from my head. When the pilot started making maneuvers, part of me feared he would try to land in a white-out.

Thankfully, we popped out of the clouds and into the clear, giving me my first glimpse of Italy.

Florence looked nothing like any city I had seen before. Absent were the straight roads, the city grid, the urban sprawl of Southern California. Instead, roads snaked around hills, looking for all the world like a river filled with christmas lights, twinkling as they flowed. These rivers flowed around and through hills and valleys, finally draining together in a basin that was the city proper.

I guess Italy makes you poetic.

It wasn’t exactly all cobble-stone paths and ancient buildings, but it certainly was European. Where there should have been streets, there were alleys; where there should have been alleys, there were sidewalks; and where there should have been sidewalks, there were freeways.

We landed, picked up all our stuff, and got to our hotel fine. Hopefully we’ll get a good night’s sleep before heading out to Siena.

A domani,
Luke

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which you have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of loving family everywhere march with you. In company with our brave friends and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the worldly education of the global population, the elimination of single-minded tyranny over the ignorant peoples of the world, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your hosts are different-mannered, culturally diverse and possibly critical. They will appear strange.

But this is the year 2009! Much has happened since the letdowns of 2005-06. The United Nations have inflicted upon the world great ambitions, in open discussion, man-to-man. Our information offensive has seriously reduced their strength online and their capacity to restrict adventure on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in emotional support and communication ability, and placed at our disposal great reserves of our parents’ money. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in education. We will accept nothing less than full Diplomas!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Signed: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s plagiarized ghost.

Unfortunately, it was a modified theme. Someone had edited the copyright notice to link to an advertised website. I learned about it from their own blog, which was unsurprisingly critical of the faux pas.

I am really sorry that this happened, and I should have been more careful. I apologize to the creators of the theme – check out the work of Stucel – and I hope to avoid these problems in the future.

January 1, 2008

Well, the New Year has come and gone. I encountered a strange thought while celebrating it.

I live in the USA, and the past years haven’t been friendly to us or many other nations. We’re in a long and dirty war in Iraq, and while gains have been made, there are many difficulties ahead. Our debt is climbing ever higher. More concern is being heaped upon our effect on the environment. And we have the world’s most powerful likable idiot running our country to top it off.

Benazir Bhutto was murdered just days before the New Year, but Osama bin Laden is still alive (presumably).

And frankly, any way you put it, there is a crapton of suffering all over the world. Whether disease, starvation, murder, war… there aren’t too many places in the world that are generally nice to live in. Sure, some are better than others – I myself am very grateful that I live in an area where I do not fear for my life when I walk outside, where electricity and food are not a day-to-day concern that’s always in the front of my mind.

And in return, they’re almost never in the front of my mind. We seem to take for advantage that which we should never take for advantage.

Anyway, while at a celebration of the new year, I saw about a thousand people at the event I was at and they were all cheering, happy, probably drunk, and there definitely was a lot of pot in the air. But regardless of all factors, almost everyone was generally happy.

Not that I was sad. But it occurred to me that, while this wasn’t a bad year for the locals around here, it wasn’t that good. Things have been better, a lot better.

And that’s when it occurred to me. I was thinking of it the wrong way the whole time. It wasn’t celebrating the year past… it was celebrating the year to come. Humans like having a future. When we put some arbitrary marker on our solar revolution, it gives us something to look to. “So what, I gained 20 pounds this year? I have the whole of next year to lose it, and more!”

It almost makes me think that we should look forward to every day like this. Every day is a new opportunity, every day is a new tomorrow that we have so many opportunities to change for the better or enjoy as we please. (At least some of us in the more fortunate parts of the world.) It doesn’t matter what we did, because that can’t be changed.

But we can take what we learned, what we did right and wrong, and use it to make tomorrow better. Or the next week. Or month. Or year.

So happy New Year, TWC. May we learn from yesterday to excel tomorrow. Because that opportunity is certainly worth celebrating. 

I guess I just wanted to share my ramblings. Thanks for reading, and please share your thoughts.

 

Well, here’s to opportunities.

Unsourced, but I thought this image was worth sharing.

The 5th for 3rd Parties

I may not have agreed with or voted for him, but he ran an excellent campaign. I wish third parties weren’t marginalized the way they are today, but that’s what you get in a Single-Member District Plurality system. (Look up Duverger’s Law)

The first person to make cookie dough-flavored cookies will be a millionaire beyond belief.

Aw well, at least I can savor my bacon.

The day passed in chaos as rumor after rumor spread. Outright lies were indistinguishable from news. Most focused with local incidents; LAX had been hit, Los Angeles was somehow a target. The ultimate truth, however, was that we were spared. The suffering – though near universal in effect – had been focused on New York, New York.

People showed us something admirable and inspiring. They also put on a display of seemingly peerless cruelty and barbarism, inhumanity and savagery. That was what made the incident so powerful, so evoking; this was not an act of God, nor nature, nor horrible random chance. This was a human act, a horrible vengeance enacted by one man upon another. There clearly was an Us verses Them mentality from the moment the second plane hit – there was an enemy, it was on purpose, it was an attack, they struck a terrible blow upon us. But in the months and years to come the realization would come, that our enemy was as human as we were, that we were as capable of evil as them.

They weren’t evil. They were human, and great evil is as much a capability of humanity as is great good.

And we saw great good; man rushing to save man, even to his own selfless death. We cried together in the ultimate evocation of empathy. We saluted each and every fallen as heroes. We saw people rise to the occasion, to throw themselves with every ounce of certainty that they were doing the right thing, and they were. But we are not immune to evil.

By the end of that day, we were as filled with hate as were our new enemies. Savage hate-fueled attack begat savage hate-fueled attack. Even with only the basest of understandings of our tormentors, we turned against each other. Within America, innocent people were targeted for race or religion – or worse, perceived race or religion.

It is hard for me to say what that day said about humanity; whether good and kindness will prevail and endure the toughest times, or whether hatred and violence is so ingrained into human nature that it is contagious. And perhaps that is something we will never know.

But I don’t believe the ultimate question is about the nature of man. I think that the real question of humanity as a whole boils down to the individual as a person: in the critical moment, what do you choose? The path of forgiveness, empathy, mercy, understanding, kindness, and selflessness? Or the path of hatred, vengeance, violence, and cruelty?

That day didn’t answer any of our questions. If anything, it gave us opportunity. The stage was set and we were players.

Some of our actions I am proud of. Some shame me. But even the most well-intentioned can make mistakes; the point is not to dwell on them, but learn from them.

And that day offered plenty of lessons. I hope that we have chosen to learn from them, as humanity has a knack for one-upmanship for both acts of compassion as well as acts of cruelty.

This applies to those who blindly follow a god or none at all, or anything for that matter: politics, personal relationships, trends. “Doubts are such tiny things; those who have no room for them must have no room for thoughts either,” and it is a dangerous person who can be so certain of one thing that mere facts can not shake him.

I would argue that, in order to truly believe in something, you must at some time have questioned it. If you do not doubt, you accept as true; it is only through looking at it, thinking of it in multiple perspectives, that you may finally come to believe in it – for belief in any thing implies non-belief in the opposite. If you have never considered that which you rule out through your conclusion, then your conclusion is faulty.

I don’t know where I stand on the issue of religion. There are some fundamental problems I have with condemning people; I can not imagine a god so vindictive and malevolent that he would condemn to eternal punishment the majority of the globe (and for most religions, the vast majority.) Even if irrefutable proof of His existence were given to me, I would not worship a God I consider cruel. This singular point makes me believe that if there is a God, then the only qualification for acceptance is being a generally good person; and I can’t help but wonder if that is the goal anyway – a goal that many religious people seem to miss by a large mark.

I have the rest of my life ahead of me to decide, but I have resigned myself not to accept. I will question, because only questions bring answers.

• Make it faster;
• Make it cheaper;
• Make it better.

Almost every industry was effected with this mentality, turning out more and more products. As work shifted from the work of a pair of skilled hands to the teeming masses of unskilled labor under mechanization, things were indeed produced faster and cheaper – but at a cost.

Part of that cost was to nations who saw their land and peoples exploited, but another cost was in quality – both of life and of product.

It does seem counter-intuitive: how can a large number of hands, working to accomplish a task quickly and cheaply, compete in quality of product with the long work of skilled and knowledgeable workers? Take a mechanical clock – that great symbol of the industrial world and factory life. Would not the great skilled builder make a timepiece that is of superior quality to the one that is mass produced?

Perhaps he would; but then again, time is a human invention (or more accurately perception) and even if every factory-produced clock ran an hour short every day, they would all do so identically and thus be dependable for the purpose of setting appointments or arriving at work. Even if it is the wrong time, every clock would display the same time.

There are still more precepts, I would argue – here is my complete list.

• Make it faster;
• Make it cheaper;
• Make it better;
• Make it now;
• Make a profit.

The addition of “Make it now” reflects another critical mentality within the Industrial Revolution: Power and control. There is an urgency in production that is reflective of a demand for obedience – in a competitive market, products must be timely. This also influences transportation, which is itself a rapidly mechanized product.

And of course, “Make a Profit” dictates one very human element encapsulated within mechanization: Greed and exploitation.

Possible future topics: The origin of Better and the future for an industrial world.

But realistically speaking, it does matter. With increasing phrases of “I’m the better candidate” being tossed around, how does the Red-state democrat vote impact the nomination?

To win the election, in normal circumstances the democratic candidate will take the blue states and have to be popular in the swing states. Now that most primaries are over, it is possible to see how the delegates stand.

Of course, these delegates are not the best way to count support. Adding up the numbers doesn’t always work; I’ll add more analysis in coming posts. One such problem with simple delegate counting: If Obama were to win two states by a small margin over Clinton, but lose one state by a large margin, he wouldn’t have as many delegates from these states as Clinton would have. But in a general election, there’s a chance that he will win those two closely-divided states where Clinton would not, garnishing more electoral votes than Clinton would muster. Again, I will add more in-depth analysis in further posts – but feel free to comment on this below.

I calculated the number of pledged delegates each candidate has received from what are considered the “blue” states, as well as the swing states – those contested states that could go either way. The results were surprising. Data is as follows:

The Blue States

New York

• Clinton 139
• Obama 93

California

• Clinton 203
• Obama 167

Washington

• Clinton 25
• Obama 53

Oregon

• Clinton 31
• Obama 21

Minnesota

• Clinton 24
• Obama 48

Illinois

• Clinton 49
• Obama 104

Maryland

• Clinton 28
• Obama 42

Delaware

• Clinton 6
• Obama 9

New Jersey

• Clinton 59
• Obama 48

Massachusetts

• Clinton 55
• Obama 38

Rhode Island

• Clinton 13
• Obama 8

Connecticut

• Clinton 22
• Obama 26

Vermont

• Clinton 6
• Obama 9

Maine

• Clinton 15
• Obama 9

Blue State Totals:

• Clinton: 675
• Obama: 675

Holy crap, a tie! Obama and Clinton have both received the exact same number of delegates from the blue states! This is a less important number than the swing states, because either nominee is almost guaranteed to win these states – and their electoral votes in the general election. But by delegate count, there is no strong preference (or even a preference at all) between the candidates in the strongly blue states. This indicates several things: Clinton and Obama have very closely divided the party in their support, and no candidate has an overwhelming support in the strong democratic base of the blue states.

Michigan

• Clinton 69 (HALF VOTE)
• Obama 59 (HALF VOTE)

Florida

• Clinton 105 (HALF VOTE)
• Obama 67 (HALF VOTE)

New Hampshire

• Clinton 9
• Obama 12

Pennsylvania

• Clinton 85
• Obama 73

Arkansas

• Clinton 27
• Obama 8

West Virginia

• Clinton 20
• Obama 8

Virginia

• Clinton 29
• Obama 54

Iowa

• Clinton 14
• Obama 27

Missouri

• Clinton 36
• Obama 36

Ohio

• Clinton 75
• Obama 66

Wisconsin

• Clinton 32
• Obama 42

Colorado

• Clinton 19
• Obama 36

Nevada

• Clinton 11
• Obama 14

New Mexico

• Clinton 14
• Obama 12

Totals (Pre-Michigan and Florida)

• Clinton: 371
• Obama: 388 (+17)

Totals (Agreed Michigan and Florida Rules)

• Clinton 458 (+7)
• Obama 451

As of today, these numbers indicate that Clinton has stronger support in the swing states. This means that Obama has received disproportionately strong support in the ‘red states’ – delegates whose voice will not alter the electoral result in a general election.

This, of course, seems inappropriate; surely, in a democratic system, it is a critical assumption that all votes will be counted. After all, ignoring any votes on a technicality isn’t very democratic – right?

Go talk to Florida and Michigan about that one…

Totals: Swing States + Blue States, Michigan and Florida Compromise

• Clinton: 1133
• Obama: 1126

Totals: Swing States + Blue States, Michigan and Florida Full Count

• Clinton: 1220
• Obama: 1189

Anyway, the conclusion of this number – based solely on the number, and not individual states – is that Hillary Clinton is a more strongly-supported candidate in the swing states. Obama’s support is strong from red states, which will not contribute to a democrat in the White House.

There are plenty of problems with this assumption – method is just one complaint. Obama is a strongly supported candidate in many states, and he is leading in almost all national polls. These numbers do raise questions about him though – similar to the issue described in the beginning of this post.

If Obama had received every delegate from all of the red states, and only lost many other states by a small margin, he would have an overwhelming majority of pledged delegates – but be an incredibly poor choice for a nominee, unlikely to win in a general election. Of course, there are provisions against such a thing happening to the Democratic party: superdelegates. They are free from public opinion for a reason – to counter just such a happening.

I know this post is coming across as heavily pro-Clinton, and I will admit – I support her over Obama. But the current (and badly wanting in future analysis) statistics indicate that Clinton may well be a stronger candidate in the general election.

Comments are welcome!

Numbers pulled from CNN. Please tell me if any values are incorrect; I’m human.

Of course, originally life was simply surviving. Finding food. Finding mates.

So at some point we learn to farm, not just hunt and pluck. We tame the soil – not all at once, but we figure it out.

Why?

Well, first, we’re clever enough to do it. We’re smart, that’s for sure, dangerously smart. It’s why you don’t find Mammoths in zoos. We aren’t physically threatening, but we are mentally capable and determined little bastards.

And second, we’re damn selfish. Greedy. We want more food. We want easier food. We want tastier food. This is all animal in nature – we are genetically disposed to wanting to survive and reproduce, and if we can make it easier and safer then so be it. But there are other creatures – even insects – that can “farm” to some degree – we’re not 100% unique in that arena. So why us? Why did we make life?

Third. We want things. Stuff. Other animals want things to survive, to attract a mate, to show their physical or mental prowess. But humans have a strange, strange desire to own, to possess – even when we are not using it. We could assign that abstract concept of ownership to inanimate objects – sticks and stones first, then maybe bows or spears, and later other people, land, air. We want to own Life.

And, food. So we farm. And we get better at it, learn more things, eventually make civilization, the Minoans, Greeks, Romans (all owners or richness in culture and gold), Huns, Mongols, Vikings (… so we declined a bit?) and later the French, British, American.

And that’s just part of one hemisphere.

Of course, the practical significance of this is that we now have cars and planes and computers and the Internet. All because we had enough food to sit our clever, greedy, ownership-paranoid asses down for long enough to shit out technology.

And now we have jobs and money and toys. And our entire daily lives revolve around exchanges of things – we work and exchange our time for money, use that money to purchase whatever we want – we transfer ownership of things many times a day. To us, this is mundane, an everyday thing that we are familiar with. What we consider interesting is the scale of ownership.

We care about how much we own. We care a lot. We care enough to kill each other over the differences in ownership – from petty thieves to revolutionaries, we are willing to die over things we could live without. More specifically, to remove property from those we view to have unfair amounts of it. And we even view liberty and freedom as a thing to have, to own.

There is unfortunately only a limited amount of wealth in the world. Most of the parts of the world that humans actually care about, they already own. It is distributed unevenly, of course – more even in some areas than others. But some areas possess far less wealth on the whole than others. It’s as if a handful of salt was thrown into the wind, and billions stretched up their hands to grab at the grains. No rhyme, no reason, some patterns, but for apparently the sake of randomness some people got a lot more than others.

And, being clever little greedy bastards, we want it. But we’re also smart enough to know that just taking it whenever you can would be anarchy, and anarchy is generally bad because people generally get killed.

The strong don’t like government because it impedes them, but the weak love it because it protects them. Or it is supposed to. Banded together, the weak hold collective power (which is better than no power). The strong dislike working together because it communalizes their strength, which reduces the individual’s worth among the weak.

But how in a society do we divy up the toys? Who gets what? Are there exceptions? Free for all? Predetermined? How do you maintain equality while providing for hard work? Is equality even important? Should we maintain a concept of ownership when it is what causes the majority of human conflict? How does this merge with the way a society forms?

The big question is: How do you form a society where people get along?

And as most big questions go, it is absolutely necessary to fall into a more complex subject in order to attempt to answer a question that will ultimately bring up more questions in the quest to answer it than actually answering it would solve.

New blog theme, actual homepage, improved forum, and (wish and a prayer) an actual direction for this horrible misadventure-to-be.

Enjoy.

Forget the kids on the computers. Half of them are playing solitaire anyway, or on Facebook, or some combination of the both. For every one of the functional uses of a computer, there are dozens of distractions. And the students with the pencil and paper are probably doodling anyway, just writing down the occasional important-sounding phrase that the professor repeats several times because he knows what you know: attention is minimal.

Seriously, look at the books people have. See any underlining or highlighting? Do they even have the book? I doubt they read everything required. Probably the majority of students aren’t doing non-graded course work. And the majority of the rest just skimmed through it.

This is why I have enormous respect for the students staring idly into the distance. They aren’t trying to fool anyone. You wonder why they’re here if they aren’t paying attention? So do they! That’s what they’re trying to figure out! That’s what they’re looking in the distance for!

You know what the difference between you and them is? They don’t bullshit their way through things. They show up and proudly exclaim, “I didn’t do the reading! I don’t know the professor’s name, and he will never know mine! I don’t know the date of the next exam, I didn’t bring anything to class with me, and I’m not even registered for this class!”

And you just have to admire that lazy leech because deep down, even though he doesn’t know where he is, he is a hell of a lot more focused on where he is going.

Unfortunately, just like everyone else, he’s lost.

Such are commonly the thoughts of men that are not only without company, but also without care of anything, though even their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony, as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man, or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind, a man may oft-times perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another… and all this in a moment of time, for thought is quick.  

-Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter III Section 3

I found it rather amusing that, as I sifted through the mists which cover these digital lands, it appeared that resources were abundant, if not infinite. Competition for resources is negligible when resources are so easily required – indeed, they are being increased in quantity faster than they are depleted. Even the quality of resources grows as the technology backing them becomes more and more advanced, renewing capability with each generation. The lack of competition thus drives each individual to his own Natural Law, which he may follow vigorously, although there are still those who seek their own gain. Interestingly enough, I find this to not necessarily be rationally self-interested; their resources would be better spent claiming their own void than attempting to gain sovereignty over others.