Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Good:

The Hunger Games trilogy sucked me in right from the beginning and had plenty of unexpected twists to keep me interested. Unlike much young-adult literature, there were no gaping plot holes, the characters were consistent, and the characters each had their own unique personalities. The characters were believable enough that it was easy to sympathize with their plights, and I found myself choosing favorites from among them, which shifted from book to book. I appreciated that the author used a dystopian-futuristic setting, but one in which there have not been absurd advances in technology and where people behave in a manner cohesive with reality. The first person narrative was appropriate in driving the fast pace of the story telling and in withholding vital information from the reader to build suspense.


The Bad:

These books are graphic and violent, not to an extreme, but enough that I question marketing them to a young adult audience. Sometimes I felt like the author killed off characters just for the shock value of losing a favorite character or to drive in the anti-war message, more than for driving the plot forward or crafting the story in any useful way.


The Ugly:

Sadly, the third book of the series was a mess. In this book, the author absolutely abuses sleeping, fainting, being knocked out, and being drugged out as a plot device. The main character spent at least as much of the book asleep or otherwise incoherent as she did actually doing anything. Unfortunately, that's not my main complaint with the third book. The worst thing about it is that the author sends the main character and chums off on an adventure in which they overcome all sorts of trials, obstacles, and enemies. The action continues to build and is just about to reach its climax when the author sends the main character into one of her stupors, then reboots the plot, throwing away everything that happened in the last hundred pages. Apparently this was supposed to be a clever plot twist, but it only made me wonder what the point was of all of the hard work and sacrifice if nothing was accomplished and the character didn't grow in any way. Worst of all, the two secondary main characters have no grand finale. They reach the end of their journey at which point they should do something great, then just go away until the epilogue. A terrible way to end what was otherwise an excellent series.


Conclusion:

The first two books in the series were fantastic and are very much worth reading. If you decide to read the third book, only do so for finality, but don't go in expecting a proper conclusion.

P.S. My favorite character was Finnick.

David: The Gatherer

The following blog post may not interest everyone, but it was a special request from Jared, so I am happy to oblige.

Today I will be talking about some of my favorite Magic decks and Magic cards that are currently in the Standard format. Let's start out with my favorite cards from each of the five sets that are currently in Standard:






Zendikar (common):
Journey to Nowhere
Steppe Lynx

Zendikar is my favorite set in Standard because it has so many powerful commons. That's also why I had to choose two favorites in this category. Journey to Nowhere goes in almost every white deck I can put it in. As creature removal it beats almost any other card that has ever been made. Not only will it get rid of creatures of any power and toughness, but it will get rid of a creature of any color, and it will exile it so there can be no graveyard shenanigans. Steppe Lynx, on the other hand, is one of the best common creatures of all time. It might look like a sissy, but it can hold its own against bombs.

Zendikar (uncommon):
Vampire Nighthawk

Flying, deathtouch, lifelink, all in one tight little package. This guy should have been rare.

 Zendikar (rare):
 Arid Mesa

There are plenty of cards that are cooler than Arid Mesa, but few that are more useful. Search my library for a land of either of the two best landfall colors which I can immediately tap for mana, trigger a double landfall, thin my deck by one, all for the cost of one life? Yes please! This card is extremely useful in any Boros (red and white) deck, but borders on ridiculous in Boros Landfall. Goblin Guide and Pyromancer Ascension were runners up for being the most damaging and the most fun rares, but Arid Mesa does so much for so little in so many decks that its economy could not be ignored. This one will be useful long after it has left Standard.

Zendikar (mythic):
Obsidian Fireheart

Maybe not the best mythic ever made, but he wins for having the best reminder text of all time and because I'm just a sucker for burn.

Worldwake (common):
Halimar Depths

A land and a Ponder in one! In most cases it will be identical to playing a land and then a Ponder because you will have one extra card in your hand in the slot Ponder would have occupied instead of filling that slot with the draw from Ponder. The advantage is that it only takes up one slot in your deck and you get to see that one extra card in your opening hand instead of waiting until you draw it. Also, its value improves significantly if you can repeatedly bounce it back to your hand.

Worldwake (uncommon):
Canopy Cover

So much fun with infect.

Worldwake (rare):
Joraga Warcaller

Joraga Warcaller might be in Standard, but it is best used elsewhere, "elsewhere" being an Extended elf tribal deck. I enjoy pairing him with Immaculate Magistrate because things get out of hand really fast and the game usually ends with someone grabbing a calculator to find out just how dead they really are.

Worldwake (mythic):
Admonition Angel

Jace and Avenger of Zendikar are both far more powerful, but Admonition Angel is more fun, oozes flavor, and has some killer art.

Rise of the Eldrazi (common):
Kiln Fiend

I throw this guy into all of my burn-heavy decks. In most situations he will double the effectiveness of your burn spells, but unlike many burn doublers such as Fire Servant and Pyromancer Ascension, Kiln Fiend comes out on turn two and is online turn three (okay, Ascension can do that, but usually doesn't). But why quibble over which card is best at doubling the burn when you can throw them all in the same deck together? Disortion Strike was a close runner up, and incidentally is awesome with Kiln Fiend.

Rise of the Eldrazi (uncommon):
Forked Bolt

In Standard, this is usually the first burn spell I throw into a deck after the ubiquitous Lightning Bolt. This card at best is a two-for-one, and at worst is a Shock, neither of which is shameful. I consider it a better card that Staggershock only because it has a cost of one as opposed to three, which is very important in a burn spell, but I usually wind up running both if I run either.

Rise of the Eldrazi (rare):
Student of Warfare

My favorite leveler (sorry Kargan) and one of the best white weenies around. If you have any leftover mana at the end of your turn, this card is the perfect mana sink. Double-strike makes it one of the best targets for equipment.

Rise of the Eldrazi (mythic):
Linvala, Keeper of Silence

A 3/4 flyer for four mana ain't half bad, shutting down the opponent's activated abilities is crazy. Also, the first mythic I ever opened at a draft (before ROE I wasn't drafting, just playing with friends).

Magic 2011 (common):
Lightning Bolt

Nothing else even comes close.

 
Magic 2011 (uncommon):
Reassembling Skeleton

This might wind up being the only black card in my list. Reassembling Skeleton is awesome because he assures you never run out of blockers, he's a wonderful target for sacrifice effects, and he's just so adorable. Also fun when someone mills him into your graveyard for you.

Magic 2011 (rare):
Mitotic Slime

My token deck loves Mitotic Slime. In that deck he is more powerful broken in pieces than he is if he's kept whole, so he's an automatic four damage per turn since no one will block him. For a mere five mana, you get at least 12 attack damage, so he is very efficient.

Magic 2011 (mythic):
Inferno Titan

Lightning-bolt-on-a-stick!

Scars of Mirrodin (common):
Ichorclaw Myr

Infect at its finest. He's cheap, he's infectious, nobody wants to block him, but everyone has to. This card really should have been uncommon, but I'm glad it's not.

Scars of Mirrodin (uncommon):
Myrsmith

The heart and soul of my myr deck, but overlooked by most opponents until it's too late. The myr tokens pumped out by Myrsmith get most of the same benefits as the other myr, but don't cost nearly as much.

Scars of Mirrodin (rare):
Livewire Lash

Makes for many fun combos in my infect decks. Pairs well with Distortion Strike or Assault Strobe. Tempered Steel is a close runner up for fun in myr decks.

Scars of Mirrodin (mythic):
Molten-Tail Masticore

Repeatable burn and very hard to get rid of. I really like the art as well. I find it's best to wait until turn six to bring him out in order to keep mana open for regeneration.






Here is my current favorite Standard deck assembled from many of my favorite cards. It has a pretty good track record thanks to its high power for such a low mana curve:

David's Boros Landfall

Land
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
4 Teetering Peaks
4 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Evolving Wilds

Creatures
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Plated Geopede
4 Goblin Guide
4 Kiln Fiend

Other
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Forked Bolt
3 Staggershock
4 Journey To Nowhere
3 Adventuring Gear

Sideboard
4 Revoke Existence
3 Arrest
3 Ricochet Trap
3 Tunnel Ignus
2 Kor Firewalker


Here is another deck that I have been using quite a bit lately. It's a rather successful deck, but it often wins on turn 3 or 4, which isn't much fun for the opponent. I enjoy it though because it's not a typical infect strategy. This deck will try to pump the infect creatures to get a ton of poison damage through on turns 3 and 4, then it uses Canopy Cover or trample damage to get the remaining poison counters in:

Gangreen

Land
22 Forest

Creatures
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Blight Mamba
4 Cystbearer
4 Putrefax

Other
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Primal Bellow
4 Groundswell
4 Canopy Cover
2 Garruk Wildspeaker

Sideboard
3 Asceticism
4 Nature's Claim
4 Autumn's Veil
4 Corpse Cur

The next deck is all about burn and multipliers with blue cards that help to set up the combos needed to win. Fire Servant can be used in place of Pyromancer Ascension:

Disco Inferno

Land
4 Halimar Depths
4 Teetering Peaks
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Terramorphic Expanse
6 Mountain
2 Island

Creatures
4 Kiln Fiend

Other
4 Assault Strobe
4 Burst Lightning
4 Forked Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Distortion Strike
4 Preordain
4 Foresee
4 Pyromancer Ascension


Finally, here is a myr deck that has been reasonably successful, but is mainly just a ton of fun to play with:

Myrage

Land
24 Plains

Creatures
4 Myrsmith
4 Gold Myr
4 Palladium Myr
4 Myr Galvanizer
4 Darksteel Myr
4 Steel Overseer
2 Myr Battlesphere

Other
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Tempered Steel
2 Myr Reservoir

The Decade in Moving

January 2011 marks ten years since I left for the MTC. Since then I have lived in many different places and for some reason I have never really settled down. Tara and I are contemplating yet another move in order to get out of Lexington and into one of the surrounding towns where we can hopefully find cheaper rent while moving into a house rather than an apartment. Thinking of moving again has made me realize that the last decade has been pretty crazy for me. Here is a list of all of the places I have lived in the last ten years:

1. Home on Reata rd. in Kennewick, WA: Jan 2001 (the last time I really lived at home)
2. Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT: Jan 2001 - Mar 2001 (bad food with good friends)
3. Marks, Russia: Mar 2001 - Jul 2001 (a small muddy town with friendly babushkas)
4. Ulyanovsk, Russia: Aug 2001 - Sep 2001 (the birthplace of Lenin)
5. Balakovo, Russia: October 2001 (a creepy town with cool church members)
6. Samara, Russia near Kirova Square: Nov 2001 - Dec 2001 (I lived here while working in the mission office)
7. Samara, Russia near the train station: Dec 2001 (great views of the city from this apartment)
8. Samara, Russia near the soccer stadium: Jan 2002 - Feb 2002 (still working in the office)
9. Saratov, Russia: Mar 2002 - Jun 2002 (springtime in Russia was awesome)
10. Samara, Russia in Bezimyanskiy area: Jun 2002 - Dec 2002 (my favorite area)
11. Kennewick, WA and Liberty Lake, WA back and forth: Dec 2003 - Mar 2003 (living and working)
12. Provo, UT at Cinnamon Tree apartments: Apr 2003 - Apr 2004 (roommates with Josh)
13. Rexburg, ID: Apr 2004 - Jul 2004 (this is where I met Tara, roomies with Isaac)
14. St. Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Marks: Aug 2004 (traveled throughout Russia)
15. Provo, UT at Victoria Place apartments: Sep 2004 - Dec 2004 (Tara and I dated and got engaged)
*Tara and I got married in Dec 2004*
16. Idaho Falls, ID: Jan 2005 - Mar 2005 (we didn't have a clear direction in married life, so we moved to Idaho to be near friends)
17. Columbia, KY at Hartland circle: Mar 2005 - Jul 2005 (moved here to try - and fail - at Nikken)
18. Nampa, ID: Aug 2005 - Dec 2005 (tried my hand at sales, hit rock bottom, then wised up and went back to school)
19. Provo, UT at Parkside apartments: Jan 2006 - Dec 2006 (Tara and I had some really good times and some really dark times here, but being back at school was a very good thing)
20. Provo, UT at the green house on 311 E 200 S: Jan 2007 - Aug 2008 (we still think of this house as home, it was a good time for us and we long to be back in a house)
21. Columbia, KY with Tara's parents: Sep 2008 (time between graduating and getting hired at Lexmark)
22. Lexington, KY at Colt's Run apartments: Oct 2008 - Oct 2009 (working at Lexmark, meh)
23. Columbia, KY with Tara's parents: Oct 2009 - Feb 2009 (laid off from Lexmark, worked on side projects until I found my next job)
24. Lexington, KY on Shoreside dr.: Feb 2009 - Jun 2009 (hired at Savi, yay!)
25. Lexington, KY in our current apartment: Jun 2009 - Present (moved to a larger apartment)

Wow, that's an average of 2.5 moves per year! We're hoping that in a  few years we can get a house and settle down, but first we need to feel that life is more stable and we want to save up a good down payment. Here's hoping the next ten years have more stability than the last ten years.

Happy Holidays

Now that I've decided to take up the mantel of the blogger once again, it's time to write an update about what we've been doing lately. The past three months have been holiday months, so here are some pictures and details about what we did for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the build up to Christmas.

In October, Tara and I decided to visit the pumpkin patch that is a short drive from our apartment. This was no ordinary pumpkin patch. Not only could you pick from a wide array of pumpkins - large and small, warty and smooth - but there was also a corn maze, hay ride, goat tower, hay pyramid, and Corn Hole range. 

Here are some pictures of Tara and I, lost in the maze:

Here is Tara playing a game called Corn Hole. If you're wondering what Corn Hole is, it's just the Kentucky way of saying Bean Bag Toss. I'm not really certain about the origins of Corn Hole, but for some reason it is associated with University of Kentucky sports as can be seen by the blue and white University of Kentucky bean bags sitting on the ground behind Tara.








This is a picture of Tara and I sitting atop the hay pyramid. It was really windy and cold up there and hay kept blowing in our faces. Climbing down was fun because wherever you jump there is a soft bail of hay to land on.

Tara attempted to find the Great Pumpkin. In the end we wound up with two warty runts that were much more lovable.

Here are some of the cool pumpkins that they were selling. We got warty ones like the one on the top row to the left of the really long pumpkin.










Unfortunately I failed to get a picture of the goat tower. It was basically a series of ramps that spiraled upward to the top of a tower, to the top of which a bucket of food for the goats was raised on a pulley. This prompted the goats to make the trek to the top of the tower, which for some reason was totally awesome.

Here we are with Tiffany and Eddie on Halloween. A little girl dressed as a fairy got scared by my Darth Vader costume. I took off my mask to show her that I wasn't really Darth Vader. In response, she said: "I thought you were the booger man!"

Our goofy jack-o-lanterns. I tried to make the one on the right look like the jack-o-lanterns in A Nightmare Before Christmas. It mostly worked out. My favorite though was the one on the left, which turned out better than I thought it would.







Here is a random barn that Tara and I stumbled upon while driving out in the country in the fall time. Tara really liked it and decided to take pictures.

For Thanksgiving we visited Tara's family and had a big feast at her aunt and uncle's house. This is a picture of the apple pie that Tara baked, which was much better than any of my apple pies that I used to be so proud of. Tara gets to make them from now on.

We have had a lot of snow already this year. This picture just shows a dusting compared to the six inches we wound up with later. We've also had freezing rain that made all of the trees look cool.










Our apartment is all decked out for Christmas. Our wreath is now covered in icicles, which makes it look even more festive.

I took this picture of our Christmas tree this morning. It has a few bare spots, and some branches that stick out weird, but we love it for who it is. The big silver box on the left is Tara's Secret Present. If you look really close, you can see the force field.












Finally, we have A Portrait of the Chow as a Young Dog. I thought the shadow was funny.









Merry Christmas and a happy 20X1!

Welcome to 201X

Dear readers:

I am resurrecting my blog and bringing it into the (not-quite-so-) new decade of 201X. These days I am no longer studying computer science at BYU, so my blog will probably not have such a computer science focus, but rest assured that technology will still play a role.

Let's start off the new post with a list of awesome things:

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Wii

Christmas

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Netflix

Tara's secret Christmas present

The binary on Tara's secret Christmas present

Moltentail Masticore

Landfall

Snowfall

Not being at IHOP

Our fireplace

My hacked subwoofer

A job that will most likely last

Flex UI

Eclipse

Eclipse shortcuts

Chipotle (the restaurant)

Tomato Basil Mozzarella

Butternut squash soup from Kroger

Charlie the dog

Our wonky Christmas tree

Black Keys

Arcade Fire

Broken Bells

The giant window in front of my desk at work

Of course, Tara would be at the top of every one of these lists (awwww!), so I omit her from the list (booooo!) to give the other items a fighting chance.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is indeed extremely awesome. Unlike many other games I've played recently, Mario Galaxy has fresh ideas at every turn. My favorite part at the moment is the spring mushroom. Tons of fun for a girl or a boy.

Tara's secret Christmas present was a surprise to me, but an even bigger surprise to Tara. It is currently resting under our tree, awaiting Christmas Eve. Tara has no idea what's about to hit her. It's gonna be good! To make it look more secretive, I encrypted the gift by drawing binary all over the sides of the box.

I am happy that I am currently not at IHOP. Last night we went to IHOP for a very late dinner, and had the misfortune of arriving there at the same time as a business party of 30 Amway salesmen. A good comparison would be to imagine yourself trapped in the Inferno with 30 high-school drama students who are all out to impress each other with their great wit. I ate my omelette hastily.

My hacked subwoofer makes me happy. It is a computer subwoofer (seen here), that I got for $5 at a yard sale, and which is absolutely not made to work with my surround receiver. Through rather clever wiring, and maxing out the sub channel, it sounds just like a real powered sub.

The butternut squash soup that Tara got me from Kroger is exceptionally good. You may have had good butternut squash soup before, perhaps even excellent butternut squash soup, but Kroger has them all licked. Yes, Kroger, the evil spawn of Kermit and Grover, has the best butternut squash soup I have had in my life.

Welcome to 201X, courtesy of HAL 9000!

New Blog

Dear Rabid Readers,

Please check out my new blog: We, Robot. I started it for my CS 404 (Ethics and Computers in Society) class, because it is mandatory, but don't let that discourage you from reading it. I assure you that the brilliance and charm of icantdothatdave will also be exhibited in my other blog. It's also far more likely to receive updates since I'm receiving credit for it. We have a lot of freedom in selecting the topic and content of our posts, so I promise it won't be boring

Yours Truly,
The Management

Novembruary the Arth, 20X7

It's been much too long since I've written, and therefore I write. This semester has been a ton of hard work, but also very rewarding. I've been doing school work from the time I get home until the time I go to bed every day of the week including Saturdays for the whole semester. That's what I get for taking 4 computer science classes. It is, however, paying off. As it stands I have A's in all of my classes, so this could be the first time in my life I've had a 4.0. The closest I've ever come was in high school when I had a semester with one A-.

It's also paying off in other ways. This semester I've written a fully functional web server from the ground up, a 3D renderer that does lighting and shading, and a ray tracer (that's what Pixar uses to render 3D scenes) that does lighting, shadows, and reflections. By the end of the semester I will have also finished two computer games as group projects. One of them is an RC Racing game (which is starting to look really awesome), and the other is a 3D version of Tower Defense. I will also have written a database query language and a website similar to IMDB for video games. At work I just finished a tool for searching e-mail gateway log files, and I wrote a website for one of Tara's co-workers.

So no, I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been working non-stop, but it really has paid off.

This week I had an interview for an internship with Pixar that Dr. Egbert arranged for me. I think it went really well, but I won't hear back for a few weeks. It would be really awesome to get the internship, but at the same time I don't have my heart set on it because video games are what I really intend to do. Don't get me wrong, if Pixar takes me for the internship, I would love to stay and work there as long as they'll keep me, but video games are what really interest me, so I wouldn't be heartbroken. Anyway, I think they were somewhat impressed by all of the graphics experience I've been getting this semester, so hopefully I'll make it to the next round.

Time for another round of awesome things!:

Ray tracing
Pixar
Mario Galaxy
TES4:Oblivion
TES4 mods
Supreme Commander
Spiderman 3
Dashboard Confessional
Sufjan Stevens
Ratatouille
Smash Bros. Melee
Gray Fox
Quad core
In Rainbows (Radiohead's new album)
In Rainbows' distribution method
Live
Airwalk
Slashdot
Harry Potter 7 (again)
Signal Fire video
Ubuntu 7.10
Compiz Fusion
Amarok
C++
OpenGL
Amazon MP3 downloads
Cycling
1062 TMCB

Thoughts on Flip-Flopping

It's debate time again, and one of the most commonly used attacks in presidential debates is to call your opponent a flip-flopper. Today I would like to make it known that I find the "flip-floppers" are usually better candidates than their accusers.

Flip-flopping is the derogatory term for a political candidate who has changed their mind on an issue. My question is: what's so bad about changing your mind? If someone were to look at the history of my political opinions, I would be a flip-flopper of the worst kind. So would almost every American voter. If we don't allow ourselves the freedom to change our minds, then what good are we? The best people readily admit their mistakes and immediately change upon recognizing them. Only a fool knowingly sticks to his wrong position just to save face. I admire the candidates who are willing to candidly change their positions when new evidence shows them that they were previously wrong.

Unfortunately, some politicians flip-flop on issues because of lobbyists, and other issues of greed and gain. These are the politicians that flip-flopper accusers would have you believe the accused to be. The problem with this argument is that a politician is just as likely to stay firm to a position because of lobbyists and greed as he is to flip-flop on a position. For instance, Candidate A might be bribed by several different lobbyists over time, and therefore waver back and forth on a position, while Candidate B might be bribed by the same lobbyist for an extended period of time and therefore appear firm in his beliefs. It is therefore important to research your favorite candidate, find out who his lobbyists are, and try to understand why he votes the way he votes. I tend to be more suspicious of the candidate who never changes his opinion on any issue because this indicates he is being bribed to keep those opinions, or he is afraid of political fallout for doing what he thinks is right.

Because flip-flopping indicates corruption no more than it indicates consistency, all it amounts to is an ad-hominem attack (character assassination), and nothing more. The candidate who debates the correctness of platforms rather than trying to build a false impression of his opponent's nature is the candidate who is more likely to have the good nature I would like to see in a leader.

Ubuntu for Robots

Recently I started a new project called Ubuntu for Robots. It's a blog about how to make Ubuntu more user friendly and fun. If you are interested, go to ubuntuforrobots.blogspot.com.

At work I'm busy writing a program for the IP phones that lets you use the phones like an intercom system. It's a little bit frustrating because the documentation that comes with the phones is not well written, and the different models of phones seem to behave in different ways. It is nice to be doing some programming for a change instead of just working on IT stuff all the time.

I also wrote a program in Java that finds the fastest server in a list of mirrors. Ubuntu publishes a list of servers where you can download updates, and you're supposed to just pick the one that seems to work the best. My program contacts all of the servers and figures out which one will give you the fastest downloads. What's really cool about this program is that I made it multi-threaded, so it can be talking with multiple servers at the same time. This makes the program run about 20 times as fast as it otherwise would. It's the first multi-threaded program I've ever written, so I was happy I could get it to work.

For Memorial Day, Tara and I went to a park in Provo Canyon and had a barbecue and a campfire. It was really pretty there because the park is in a valley between some really tall tree-covered mountains, and there is a really clear stream that runs past it. We managed to get a picnic table with a barbecue and fire pit that was only 30 feet from the stream. The food was good and the fire was fun!

On Saturday we got our garden planted. It's a bit late because we had to clear and till the ground by hand. We planted lettuce, marigolds, onions, spinach, dill, tomatoes, beans, broccoli, and cauliflower. Today, only four days later, the spinach was already coming up. It's really fun to have a house instead of an apartment and be able to have a yard where we can do what we want.

Digg Rebellion

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of experiencing the Digg revolt. Digg.com is a website where the users submit and rate content. One user posted a key that cracks HD DVDs. Other users rated it highly, and it eventually made the front page of Digg. Digg subsequently received a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice from AACS. The Digg staff decided to remove the offending post to avoid legal retribution from the AACS, and eventually banned the user who posted it because of his repeat attempts to repost it. Users were angered that Digg complied with the DMCA takedown notice because they felt it violated their rights to free speech. The argument was that the key is just a number, one that took no creative input to come up with (all computer programs are just numbers, but there is a minimal requirement of creative input for it to be copywriteable), so it should not be censored from the website. Even if the DMCA covers such content, users felt that a more important law, namely the constitution, guaranteed their right to post a number. All content on Digg comes from user submissions, so censoring those users unfairly, at least from the users' point of view, is not necessarily a good idea.

Digg users revolted against the censorship and posted thousands of references to the number. Eventually, the entire front page of Digg was plastered in references to the key. Digg then issued a statement saying that they had overwhelmingly heard the users voice their opinion, and that they would allow the number to remain on the website and take on the AACS legally if it came to that.

This issue is really a deep one. It touches on several different sore spots in our legal system's relationship with digital media. Can a number be copyrighted? Should a huge company be allowed to crush a small company by pumping lawyers full of money, even if it is a miscarriage of justice? Can and should a website control user submitted content? Why are we allowing cartels (AACS, MPAA) to fix prices and attach arbitrary restrictions to content (DRM)? Why do special interests carry more weight than the voice of the people? Has America become a lawyer state? Why won't America uphold its own constitution?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I have a sneaking suspicion that greed is the primary reason why these companies do what they do, as well as being the reason that they can get away with it. I am proud of Digg and its users for choosing to stand up for what they believe in, even if it means they will be crushed.

Politics as usual

I've tried a couple of times to make an update, but each time I somehow get distracted in the middle of writing and never make a post.

Concerning the MSNBC presidential debates, my current favorite candidate is Ron Paul. He is a strong supporter of the original intent of the constitution, and he is opposed to the Patriot Act. He also wants to reduce or do away with the IRS and income tax. He also struck me as the only candidate who wasn't an actor, he was up there because he is genuinely interested in restoring America's constitutional values.

My second favorite would have to be Romney. He only gets this honor because he is LDS, which is a strong attribute in his favor. However, I understand that just because he is LDS doesn't necessarily make him the best person up there, and something about him strikes me as fake from time to time. He did reasonably well at answering the questions, but I'm still unclear where he stands on the issues.

As far as Democrats go, I don't really like any of them. If I had to pick the one that I dislike the least, it would have to be Obama, and I really hope he gets his party's nomination over some of the whackos like Clinton, Biden, Kucinich, and Gravel.

Well, enough for now. What do you think about the candidates?

An Arab take on the Iraq situation

Check it out, it's very interesting. Be sure to read it all the way to the end. It's definitely not what I expected:
http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=94673&d=7&m=4&y=2007

New Look

Welcome to the new look for icantdothatdave! I designed it with Tron in mind. If you have any trouble seeing page elements, let me know. I tend to use high contrast monitors where everything is clearly visible, so I don't know if older lower contrast CRT monitors will show everything clearly.
A quick update to a previous post: It seems that something is finally being done about the whole DRM mess. EMI, one of the four major record labels, has released their entire collection free of DRM on iTunes. Hopefully this will force the other major record labels to follow suit or be left in the dust. One of my favorite bands, the Decemberists, is signed with Capitol Records who are part of EMI. If I didn't already own all of their albums, I would be downloading them from iTunes right now. Anyway, for all who are interested, you can find out which bands are part of the EMI collection by looking on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_signed_to_EMI
If any of those bands are among your favorites, then please support the anti-DRM effort by purchasing some of their songs from iTunes.

Awesome Video

Here is an extremely funny video (at least at 3 in the morning it was!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Y4keqTV6w
Enjoy!

Password Security

A very interesting article on how easy it is to break into all of your accounts if you have lame passwords: http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/
My password for this page would take longer than the lifespan of the solar system to crack, but I have realized that some of my other passwords are deficient. Be sure to check out the link to the Microsoft password strength tester near the bottom of the page.

The good news or the bad news?

Over the weekend I was able to try out LinuxMCE. It only runs on Ubuntu 6.10, so I had to downgrade. First I tried to install from my Kubuntu 6.10 disc, but it wasn't able to set up the partitions exactly how I wanted them. Next I tried to install from my 6.04 disc, but when I tried to upgrade from 6.04 to 6.10, the upgrade ran afoul and the installation got trashed. Then I decided to download a 6.10 text installer, and this worked just fine. After installing it I ran all of the updates and started the installation of LinuxMCE. The installation itself wasn't too bad, I was just missing one package that it needed, so I downloaded it and it installed just fine. When I ran it for the first time, it took about an hour for it to generate all of the data it needed (the second time it came up quickly). Unfortunately this is where I ran into a road block. When LinuxMCE finally finished loading, it took me to a screen with some scrambled grey boxes. It took me a few hours to figure out that this was because I needed to install the fglrx drivers for my graphics card. It would have been nice if LinuxMCE had told me this, instead of booting to a scrambled screen. After I installed the drivers, I was able to get it running, but the CPU was maxed out at 100%, without letting up. Obviously they have some issues to sort out with ATI graphics cards. They provide multiple user interfaces, so I switched to a less graphically demanding UI, one that didn't use any 3D features of my graphics card. It wasn't terribly pretty like this, but from then on it ran without any serious problems. This is the first release of their software, so hopefully they'll fix all of these bugs in future releases. For the first release of an open source project, they're doing quite well. I was able to fire up a movie, and even in the low graphics mode it had some nifty features. When you're watching a movie, if you click anywhere on the screen, it will bring up a control panel, while allowing the movie to continue playing on the upper part of the screen. Ideally, if my graphics card were working, I would be able to go through all of the menus, and they would just be transparently laid over the playing movie. The solution in the low graphics mode was adequate, but nothing special. One thing that I liked though was if I left the part of the program that was playing the movie, to play around with other things like music, it would remember exactly where the movie was playing so it could be resumed at a later time. It also fetched the DVD cover from the internet and put it onto a screen where you can sort through your collection. LinuxMCE was unable to find the music that I have on my computer as well as my One Piece videos. This was very disappointing because the promotional video for LinuxMCE claimed it could find all of your media without any configuration. So much for that. I haven't taken the time to see if I can tweak it into working, but it's rather disappointing that it doesn't work as advertised. Some of the other features of LinuxMCE that look very promising are the home automation features. This is what really sells me on the idea that this will eventually be a fantastic product. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the hardware necessary to try these features, but I would still like to in the near future. With an IR transmitter attached to the computer, LinuxMCE can control all of your other media devices like televisions, VCRs, DVD players, audio receivers, etc. That way when you insert a DVD for instance, it will turn on your television, set it to the appropriate channel, turn on your receiver and set the correct inputs, and anything else that you may need. With the addition of a bluetooth transmitter, you can use your cell phone as a remote control, and it can detect when you're in the room (when your phone is in the room) if you want to set up systems to activate with proximity. I think it would be cool to have it turn on some music whenever someone walks into the room for example. If you have a light controller, it can also dim the lights when you put a movie in. Very cool. If you have a home security system, it will alert you when someone is at the door, and you can view them on the screen if you have a camera at the door. You can also unlock the door from within the program. I personally won't have need for that any time soon. Our security system consists of a dead bolt and a guard dog. Anyway, major potential in this program, but they need to focus on nailing down the basics like graphics card support and scanning for files. The reason why some of the fancier features work while some of the basics don't is because LinuxMCE is a mashup of several different programs made by other people. Those programs all work great by themselves, but LinuxMCE is trying to integrate them all into one system, and to provide easier setup and more automation. They still have a long way to go, but I'm rooting for them.

In other news, I've decided that I hate the news. In particular, I can't stand Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. I really have no idea what their cable TV broadcasts are like these days, we haven't watched TV since December. I'm talking about their websites. All of the top stories for the past several weeks have been about Anna Nichole Smith. There are British sailors being held hostage by Iran, with the potential to ignite World War III, and that story is relegated to their little side bar. No, they know what's important. Whether or not the step aunt of a dead whore is able to sue her brother-in-law's kitten for ownership of Anna Nichole's stamp collection is likely to have a more profound effect on my life than a trifling thing called nuclear holocaust. Oh, and have you noticed that Fox has permanently devoted a block on their front page to the latest news on Britney Spears' hair? The ramifications that has on how history will be written are nearly unimaginable. Okay, tirade over. I get my news from Slashdot, Digg, and Google.

Now for good news:

Tara wants to help me build a Shelby Cobra from a kit someday
Isaac expressed interest in installing Linux
The semester is almost over
I got A's on my CS252, CS340, and History 201 midterms (still waiting on my other classes)
Nintendo Wii is selling like hotcakes
Vista is not
We rearranged our living room, and it absolutely rocks
Indian food for lunch tomorrow
I found out that I can use Gaim to chat on Google Talk
A hexagon shaped storm on Saturn was found to still be shaped like a hexagon after 15 years
Passed off a program today
Annie's new food made her stomach better
Tara got some new Magic cards
I'm tired and it's bedtime

Hum dee dum

Right now I'm putting off studying for my cs252 midterm. I've been working non-stop all week and just finished taking my cs236 midterm that I studied all day for, so I'm finding it difficult to work up the desire to spend my Friday night studying for another midterm.

Now for some blogging!

Ubuntu 7.04 beta was released today. I'm really liking this new version of Ubuntu because it's more compatible with a lot of my hardware, especially the wifi on my laptop. I also like the sleek new glossy theme. In my opinion it is the first professional looking theme that Ubuntu has ever had. Coupled with some slick communist wallpaper I got from interfacelift.com, I have one snappy machine!

I'm really excited about a new program I found out about called LinuxMCE (Linux Media Center Edition). I haven't had a chance to use it yet because their site has been dead ever since digg.com ran a story about it, but the video they have on their site, linuxmce.com, looks absolutely fantastic. Tara and I watch a lot of DVDs, and I listen to a lot of music, so it seems like something that's right up my alley. One of the coolest looking features is the built in home automation. For $60 you can get a controller from home depot to hook up to your computer so LinuxMCE can dim the lights automatically when you insert a DVD. Also, if your computer has a bluetooth adapter, you can use your cell phone as a remote control. If you have multiple computers throughout the house set up with LinuxMCE, you can set it up so that your media will follow you as you walk around the house. For instance, if I'm watching something in the living room and I walk to the kitchen, it will start playing it in the kitchen instead. It does this by detecting which computer your cell phone is nearest to.

Another thing that interests me a lot lately is the topic of ethics in digital duplication. I am not a pirate of movies, games, music, or anything else, but I am repeatedly amazed at how poorly the RIAA and MPAA treat their consumers. I am not surprised to see more people turning to piracy every day. These days, even if you purchase a DVD or a CD, you still don't have rights to the product that you have bought. It doesn't become your property in any way. The media vendors reserve the right to tell you exactly how you are allowed to consume the product. For example, two years ago I bought a Foo Fighters CD that had DRM (digital rights management) software on it that only allowed the music to be played directly from the CD, or in the form of WMA files that could only be played in Windows Media Player. If you wanted to play the music on an iPod, or in my case a PDA, you were out of luck. Why would they do this? They say it's to prevent piracy. However, that argument is absurd because the pirates will always find another way of getting a high quality copy available for download without any DRM. All that the DRM accomplishes is to thwart the paying customer from using the music in the way they would like. Who wins? The pirates! The pirates are the only people who get a copy that is completely portable. The paying customer loses because they can't use the media how they would like, and the media company loses because they drive off customers.

Another thing that concerns me are the random lawsuits being filed by the RIAA. They will sue absolutely anyone, it doesn't matter if the person being sued has ever used a computer or even listened to music, they are a candidate for a lawsuit. What really concerns me is that the government has done nothing to stop this flood of random lawsuits. Apparently, anyone with enough money for the lawyers can file as many lawsuits as they can fund. If it turns into a profitable business for them from the few that they win, then so be it. Statistically, they're likely to win some of them whether or not they're based in fact (most people use computers and most people listen to music), and they also have other financial incentives because the campaign of terror will keep many would-be pirates buying CDs rather than downloading.

Well, like I've said, I'm no pirate, but I also have no love for merchants of greed. I appreciate people like those who contribute to Ubuntu and Linux in general who are willing to allow duplication of digital information without reservation. I understand that artists must be paid, but let's be honest, they're not the ones pocketing most of the money. Some of them make millions of dollars, but considering that they sell multiple-millions of albums, that's a drop in the bucket. I think Linus Torvalds (the founder of Linux) is one of the greatest people of our time, mainly because he established the precedent for truly free information in the main stream.

Alright, time to put that tirade to rest.

I watched a really interesting documentary last night about black hole theory. It was mostly about the information paradox. The example that is used is that if you are an observer, and you watch someone fall into a black hole, you will see them disintegrate at the event horizon (well, actually they'd disintegrate much sooner, but this is just an example). The even horizon is the point of no return where even light won't return from once it has gone beyond that point. From the point of view of the person who is falling into the black hole, however, they will pass beyond the event horizon and nothing will happen, no disintegration. So technically the person would be both dead and alive at the same time, right? Actually, the person never disintegrated at all. It is impossible for information to disappear from the universe, which is what would happen if the person passed beyond the event horizon. The person does pass beyond the horizon, but the information about that person remains in the universe, smeared across the surface of the event horizon. That's the theory anyway, but I'm not going to volunteer to be the one who tries it out.

I've been doing some interesting programming lately. For the first time ever, I've made a program that saves data by serializing it (a better way to save data that just writing it to a text file), and also I've made a program that can launch other programs. In Java, these are both very simple procedures, and I'm surprised that it took me this long to learn how easy it is. Pretty soon I'll be making the program send out e-mails, which is also a simple procedure in Java. Still, it's exciting because I've often wondered how to do these things.

Well, I'm done for now. I think I might be able to get some studying done now that I've had a little time to do something else. School is great, but I'm getting burned out. Good thing the semester will be over soon!

My Life

What is my life like? I'm glad you asked!

I live in a house in Provo with my wife Tara. It's a green house. It's a good house. We're renting it for $475/month, which is an awesome deal. We have a dog named Annie who is a Maltese. I go to BYU where I am studying Computer Science. I also work at BYU in the Office of Information Technology as a Student Programmer. Tara just got a job at Pinnacle Security as a Scheduling Manager. She is really enjoying her new job.

My daily schedule is something like this:

wake up
shower
take Annie for a walk
ride my bike to work
work for about 2 hours
go to class for 3-5 hours
do homework/programs/tests at school or home until midnight or later
somewhere in the homework time I spend some time with Tara and have dinner
go to bed
repeat

On Fridays I usually ditch homework entirely, unless there's a pressing need, and Tara and I have a date night. On Saturdays we do errands and I do more homework. Sunday is our day for spending some real time together and relaxing after the arduous week. We have church at 11, which is awesome since I've had it at 9 for the past seven years. We also try to have FHE on Mondays, but sometimes my professors don't care if I have time for FHE or not.

For hobbies, I play around with my computer, play Magic the Gathering, and listen to music. My favorite music right now is The Decemberists, Interpol, Final Fantasy 12, and other various video game music.

The classes I'm taking right now are:

CS236 - Discrete Structure
CS252 - Intro to Theory
CS340 - Software Design and Testing
English 316 - Technical Writing
History 201 - World Civ

I really like CS340 because we're working in teams on one semester-long project. It's fun because we actually get to simulate the full design process of a complex program from start to finish.

I want to take Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning courses, but I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with that yet. I've always wanted to make video games, but there are other applications for AI that would also be really cool, especially in the area of robotics.

Let's play favorite things! A game where I spit out a random list of things that make me happy!:

Tara (duh)
pizza
Indian food
weezer
Magic
Civilization 4
compies
lappies
elliott smith
slashdot
ign
annie
our house
my speakers
video game music
hazelnut bread
more Indian food
more pizza
FF12
pell grants
tara's new job
my bicycle
my new keyboard (my hands don't get fatigued from typing so much)
firefox
ubuntu
linux
beryl (when it works)
my shoes
vegetarianism
world history
harry potter
one piece
roots
russian music
cayenne pepper
clear skies on cold nights
summer
church
family
finishing a program
gmail
amarok
x-fi
uccu
jeremy
isaac
staying up late doing compy stuff
my wii jar
fridays
a day without homework

Okay, I've done enough damage for one day. Later!

New Blog

Welcome to my blog! It is the endearing tale of the life of a Geek.