The 200 is different from the 100, but not insanely. The 400 of course is an insane race, everyone knows that, totally different from the 100. But the 200 and 100 aren't that different. That's why people who run the 100 very very frequently also run the 200. Like Carl Lewis. Maurice Greene. Marion Jones. If non-blacks can do well in the 200, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think they can do well in the 100.
By the way, the bronze medalist in the women's 200 was from Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is right below India, and my impression is that they're ethnically similar. So again, Dave is just racist.
Dave's not the only racist, though. The white Greek guy who won the 200 was interviewed, and he said how before the race he knew he had a chance because he was white and everyone else was black.
Hello? Does this make any sense? Does this guy know Jesse Owens? Carl Lewis? And virtually all the fastest sprinters ever?
There's goes Dave's theory. A white Greek guy won the 200 at the Olympics. I guess he's just racist.
You fool, that Caedmon's Call song is a cover of a Shawn Colvin song. Shawn Colvin is well known. She won the Grammy for record of the year a few years back for Sunny Came Home. In addition, that song, Climb On, is fairly well known. The original Shawn Colvin version appears in the movie As Good As It Gets, during a kitchen scene.
In other words, it's a well known secular song by Shawn Colvin. My guess is that he knows Shawn Colvin, not Caedmon's Call. I'm basing this on the fact that after he quotes the lyric, he freaking says it's by Shawn Colvin.
By the way, Irving has a dirty mind. He was around when we saw Misty Hyman win in swimming, and he made a poor remark about her last name, something that hadn't even crossed my mind. After that, I was ruined, and I couldn't get it out of my head. All I could think about were potentially vulgar news headlines involving her name. Try it. It's not that hard. Especially since she broke the Olympic record.
Darn Irving.
It's likely that few readers have used Windows NT. Anyway, NT has a Task Manager, which is pretty nifty. One of the things it allows you to do is track CPU and memory usage and history. It's kind of like xload on the Sweet Hall machines.
Anyway, I'm looking at it, and the CPU Usage is split into two, and I keep thinking, how do I get rid of the splitter? And then I realize: I have two processors!
For nerdy people, it's pretty exciting.
As you may or may not know, Jim Rome goes on tour stops throughout the U.S. They're pretty big - in the range of 10,000 to 20,000 people show up. Anyway, the last one was in Houston, and I was kind of bummed that I couldn't be there.
But I found out the next one is going to be in the Bay Area! I'm stoked!
J.T. the Brick is also having like a tour. For the first time I can remember, he's visiting another city (besides Las Vegas). And the city he's going to?
Madison, Wisconsin.
Madison gets all the attention. Geez.
I hope they have their heavy coats and long underwear ready in hell. We're singing a fast Hillsongs song at KCPC.
Why am I so afraid of people? I hate running into people in random places. So like, when I'm taking a dump, if I'm done, but someone comes in the bathroom, I'll just sit there and wait until they leave, no matter how long it takes. Or, if I'm walking to the bathroom and I hear someone inside flush, I'll run away and come back later. I'm weird.
Here is Vince Carter slamming over a 7'2" guy. That's just wrong.
Whole in the wall???
Have I ever explained my theory as to why Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble needs to be played in D?
Here's a little secret about females when they sing - a lot of times with praise songs, when it's too high, they just go an octave lower. A lot of girls do this. Some guys do it to, like Eric Mao, who, when he sings, emits an unrecognizable low-frequency rumble. With guys it usually sounds terrible. But, the way girls' ranges are, they can sing low comfortably. That's why all the female singers you hear on the radio sing in a range much lower than what the guy singers do. They can do it comfortably and it sounds good.
When you sing it in D, you force the guys to go high, and that increases energy. Yeah, some guys wuss out and sing lower, but these same guys would be singing low anyway, so, it doesn't really matter. But if they do go lower, since it's a higher range (when played in D), it sounds better. And there's more energy. For most guys, though, you have to belt out to hit that F#, and a lot of the energy comes from that.
The critical thing though is the female vocals. When I've led this song, I've instructed the girls not to sing the same note the guys are. They should sing either an octave lower (which makes it sound like the same notes the guys are singing), or about 6 steps lower, ie. they're singing the high harmony. Does this make any sense? So, they're singing lower than the guys, but because of their tone, it makes it sound like they're singing a third above the guys.
Here's another secret. Any time you add a high harmony, it increases energy. Like with Matt Redman's Everything That Has Breath, when they go to the voices only part, this new harmony, higher than the parts that have been going on before, kicks in. More energy.
Another law is that girls should never sing a high harmony (sing above the melody), and guys should never sing a low harmony (below the melody). There are exceptions, but this is my strong strong opinion. Otherwise it spreads out the vocals across a too large range.
The beauty of Did You Feel... is that because of its unique range, the girls can an octave lower comfortably, and some can sing the high harmony by singing a third above the melody that the other girls are singing an octave lower, if that makes any sense. So it sounds like they're singing a high harmony. And, it's in a range where the girls singing the high harmony have to use a bit of energy. So guys are singing with energy, girls are singing with energy. And you have a high harmony - listen to the original Delirious? version - there's a high harmony at the chorus. But no fertile man I know can sing that high (an A). Thus, you need to use girls, and singing it in D makes this technique where the girls sing an octave lower work better.
If you go down to C, either the girls are singing way high, which sounds terrible, or they're singing slightly lower than what would be comfortable while still maintaining energy. And if you sing it in A it just sounds terrible. It will sound OK, but you miss out on the cool energy trick that the female vocals could provide. The song's a good song, so it will never be terrible, except at CFC, but you maximize energy at D.
So, a big key is that you have to force the females to sing down an octave. And in D, you guarantee this.
I could talk more about it, but that's the jist. Basically what I'm saying is that when I told Charles why it needs to be sung in D, I wasn't just being flippant. I seriously analyzed it. And whatever, it's just my opinion. But, it's been done many times in D, and, it works, so at the very least you can't say it's impossible in D.
What the heck is Scott Dollar doing on the fics alumni mailing list?
I don't know about you, but I'm watching the Olympics despite Dave Hong's (over)hype.
Take all the credit you want, but not for me. I've been watching every Olympics since Sarajevo. I can still remember the melody to the official song of the Calgary games, and also the first downhill skiing event of that games, and which country won. I can remember details about every single Olympics since 1984. Punk.
It's kind of stunning to me that we could have been watching Nate Nutter and Tim Dalrymple in these Olympics if things had worked out just a little bit differently. Can you imagine?
Amy Grant is pregnant.
There is a distinct possibility that the 2004 Games will be held in Sydney again. Athens apparently isn't doing a very good job with their preparations, and might not be ready in time. And it's too late to give it to another city. So, it might be in Sydney.
Did you hear about the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea? There's a single swimming pool in his nation, at a hotel, and it's 20 meters long. He learned to swim 9 months ago. But anyway, he entered the 100 meter freestyle. The thing is, he had never swam as far as 100 meters in his entire life. About halfway through the race (I am not making this up) they called a lifeguard to watch him, as he was severely struggling. He finished the last 30 meters swimming doggie paddle style.
I just thought that was hilarious.
Uh, when do I ever talk about music?
I don't know what it is, and maybe it's just me, but there's something deeply satisfying about watching football. I absolutely love it. When I was a kid, I'd get up early to watch Wayne Walker's 49er preview every Sunday morning. And I'd watch the NFL show on CBS back when it was Brent Musburger and Jimmy the Greek. And watch the morning games until church time, and me and my dad would watch the taped 49er game at night.
I watched a lot of college football also. At bowl time, I watched every single bowl that was on non-cable TV. I still remember watching Arizona in the Bluebonnet Bowl.
Sorry, just being random.
Let me get this straight - to Dave, "personal insight" means knowing the quality of their teeth???
Sorry, but I have to tell this story. So, we (me, Henry, Jieun, Lina, Irving and Adrian) were watching the women's platform diving final in the Olympics this evening. We started out cheering for Li Na of China, because Lina was there.
But anyway, there was this U.S. diver. When we started watching, she was in 8th place. Anyway, she starts doing well, and we find out she's from Houston, Texas. Her dad is wearing this truly hideous, typically Texan hat, one side red, one side blue, and on both sids. a big white star. And she starts gaining, moving up to fifth place, and then one dive is just amazing, and incredibly, everyone ahead of her messes up badly on their dives, and she shoots to first place. It was pretty dramatic, and we started rooting for her.
Anyway, for whatever reason, we start saying that God is on her side, and that she must be a Christian. Then we start giving random justification for why she's Christian. "Hey look at the way she's smiling. She's definitely a Christian." And then we push it further, speculating on what denomination she is. "Oh yeah, look at the way she's walking, she's definitely Presbyterian." You know, just being absurd. Anyway, to skip the drama, she ends up winning (first time a U.S. woman has won in like 24 years)! And I'm continuing to be absurd, saying like how encouraged I am that a Christian won.
So they show the medal ceremony, and then NBC interviews her, and the interviewer asks her something like, what were you thinking up there on your last dive blah blah blah. And the first thing she says is, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." We were floored. She actually was Christian! Insane! We couldn't believe it.
For me at least, the interview took on this new poignancy after she said that. And I was legitimately, truly encouraged somehow. Jieun actually teared up. I mean, she had the whole dramatic thing going, having broken her foot very recently, and all this crazy stuff. And she attributed glory to God. I don't know it was cool, not because she won, but the way she gave glory to God. And also because if you had only watched swimming, you would have thought God is only enough for a bronze medal.
At any rate, it was amazing. She was Christian! We were just messing around, calling her a Christian, and she actually was! What a great interview. Didja see that live, Dave? Or were the Korean commentators too busy talking about how U.S. divers used to make the Chinese immigrants build the railroads?
Go edited tape delay!
I think one of the things I liked about the Red Violin is that they spoke 5 different languages in it. English, Italian, German, French, and Chinese. Maybe even more, but that's what I remember. I don't know, that's just bold. And, the movie was put together in an interesting way. At least to me.
Oh by the way, I loved Fight Club. Absolutely loved it. I'd say it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
There's something wrong with me. I stayed up late last night starting to read the textbook to Philosophy 160A, A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, by Enderton. Now that I'm more skilled in formal logic, I decided to try and go through the book again and see if I could understand it this time. Not just read through it, but thoroughly understand every statement, every example.
It took me more than an hour to get through part of chapter zero, an introduction to set theory, just a few pages. I was actually impressed by my progress.
Eric Mao is mentioned in the most recent newsletter sent to Stanford CS grads. Oh my goddess!
I was looking at that California Junior Miss page that Henry links off his short thoughts, that I'm too lazy to link to here.
First of all, was anyone else impressed by Junior Miss 1966? In the midst of all these white people, there's this Japanese girl. And now she's a chaplain at a hospital! She has an M.Div! She's a Southern Baptist! Wow!
Even more shocking was when I was got up to 1998. That's Evelyn Huang! She's in FiCS! She got second place in the swing competition at Viennese Ball 2000 with Conlan Ma! What the? I wonder if she ever performed in a skit for IV with a Brooklyn accent.
Anyway, the only thing I can see in common about the Junior Miss winners is that they're unattractive. Except for Evelyn and Naomi.
So Misty Hyman, a U.S. swimmer, pulled off a huge upset in winning some butterfly event, I think the 200. The Australian was highly favored, but Hyman won. Anyway, she goes to Stanford, and you can whois her! She lives/lived in Mirrielees 120! I don't know, that's just cool to me for some strange reason.
So my friend in LA moved to a place really near the LA Mormon temple. On the top there's a statue of someone pointing towards Salt Lake City. The "holiest place on earth".
I'm sorry, but I have no respect for a religion that can consider Salt Lake City the holiest place on earth. At least the Branch Davidians had the good sense to choose Texas.
I love the jack.html "community". It's just so interesting to me. Because, really, the people on it have absolutely nothing in common. Anyway, it's interesting because there are all these people having unique experiences, like Dave, Darlene, and Marshall, and reading it is just fascinting to me. It's good because, I don't know, people just have a need to share, and in some weird way sharing with the random readers of jack.html fills it. It makes no sense, but, whatever. And it's good to get interesting perspectives.
Anyway, Darlene's entry makes all of Paul's rantings against the law make a lot more sense. I'm sorry, but that's absurd. There is no way you can fulfill the law.
I don't know why, but I really hate Jerry Krause and I'm just so happy what's happening now with the Bulls. In case no one knows, Krause dismantled the Bulls championship team in an effort to clear cap room, so that this year, when a bunch of big name people became free agents, they could sign a few of them.
Except no one did. Glen Rice was the nail in the coffin. So, things have changed from what Krause calculated, and now rookie contracts are 5 years, not 3, and there are more limitations, and basically, unless the current Bulls get really good and stick around, the Bulls are going to suck for a while. And that makes me really happy.
So everyone knows I'm into sports talk. I've analyzed it, and one key to a good call is being able to talk without saying "umm" or "uh". It doesn't matter how slowly you end up speaking, just eliminating those things does wonders. In fact, I think this goes for public speaking in general. If you want to be a good public speaker, just start by getting rid of "ums" and "uhs".
Anyway, in the Korean Christian world, we have the same thing, except it's "Lord" and "Father God" in prayers. And "just". Seriously, listen to a typical Korean American praying and it sounds like, "Lord we just thank you Father God for Lord just blessing us Father God in our lives Lord God. And Lord we just pray Father God that You would just work Father God in our hearts." If you want to be a better prayer, learn to pray without those fallback words. I mean, not in personal prayers, just when you pray publically. It's less distracting. That's my claim.
So, Tiger Woods' new Nike contract comes out to about $54 million a year.
That is just absolutely insane.
The weird thing about Tiger is that the more you look at him, the more normal he seems, you know what I mean? Like, the first time you saw him, he looked like, as Dave once said, a genetic nightmare. But now, you look at him, and he seems more normal. Is it just familiarity? I don't know, but it's weird.
I don't think there's any hope for the Romanian women's gymnastics team, however.
So Brittanica.com has this section where they explain Dennis Miller's obscure pop-culture and historical references on Monday Night Football. You can find it here. I think they miss the point a lot, but it's pretty hilarious.
ESPN has a page of Miller highlights also. It's pretty funny.
We watched women's weightlifting tonight and liked it.
"Give me neither poverty nor riches." I like that. (Yes, I'm behind.)
Dave's crowing about how he watched the Olympics live reminds me of that classic SNL sketch of PrimeTime Live, with Jan Hooks as Diane Sawyer and Kevin Nealon as Sam Donaldson. It was absolutely hilarious. Nealon kept going on and on about how they are live. And they'd show views of Congress, totally empty at night, but live. He'd say stuff like, "it was quite a madhouse here this afternoon. But here it is, live."
And then later: "Some of you may not believe that we're broadcasting live. To prove it, here's my watch. (shows watch on wrist) See, it shows the correct time. Now, you might say that I just set it to this time ahead of time. But, what would you say about two watches? (Pulls out watch on other wrist) Back to you, Diane."
Hilarious. I guess you had to see it.
So, there's an fics alumni mailing list now, and it's been good seeing what people are up to. Except, it's unbelievable how everyone is doing the same thing. Seriously, like everyone is in law school, med school, grad school, consulting, or a startup. It's crazy. No originality at all.
The power of my new machine at work is just ridiculous. It's got two Pentium III Xeon processors, a 35 Gig hard drive, and - get this - 2 Gigs of memory. Seriously absurd.
So, you may or may not know this, but I'm LA right now for a worship conference featuring Tommy "Mourning Into Dancing" Walker, Bob "I Led God's Favorite Praise CD" Fitts, Paul "Open The Eyes Of My Heart" Baloche, and Rita "I Will Celebrate" Baloche. Dude, it's a highlight of my life. I'll write about more later, but, at Paul's seminar, he used the phrase "passion and energy" twice. I'm a fan.
Dude, reading about the North and South Korean athletes walking together in the opening ceremony and seeing pictures is giving me tingles. I'm not joking. I think it's amazing.
Did you read about the judge's speech as he released Wen Ho Lee? People were weeping. That's out of control.
I called UPS today, and they put me on hold. The music playing while I was on hold? Christian boy band Plus One. Weird.
I'm sorry, but it's just absurd that Eric puts a version number on the jack checker. Who the heck cares? How can it possibly be necessary?
I'm getting pretty good at ping pong.
I continue to get strange results from my log dumps. Someone entered my page into askjesus.org.
I added my cousin Marshall's page to jack.html. I feel like I need to introduce him. Anyway, he grew up in Springfield, Oregon, coming from Korea during grade school. Not many Koreans in Springfield. Just a handful. Anyway, he went to UofO and is currently involved with Teach For America. He's teaching in the Bronx.
Anyway, like a lot of pages on jack.html, his experiences are a lot different than mine, so it's a good read.
Dude, some people hated the Red Violin. Whatever. I don't get critics, anyway. I like what I like, and I hate what I hate.
I didn't like American Beauty. Because it was so overdone. Henry says I like overdone things. Whatever. Anyway, AB had like every stereotype you could possibly fill. Mid-life crisis dad. Unsatisfied, driven wife. Image conscious daughter. Drug addict. Friendly homosexual. Military homophobe. I don't know, I watched it, and thought, this must be a deep film that I don't get. I kind of get a message but there must be more to it. So I scoured the web. And realized, no, I did get the point. It just wasn't very compelling to me.
According to the American Film Institute, Blazing Saddles is the 6th funniest movie of all time.
I need someone to sit with me, watch the movie, and tell me what about it is so freaking funny. I tried to watch it last night, and kept waiting for it to get funny. I waited 50 minutes (it's 93 minutes long) until I got so sleepy I had to go to bed. I smiled maybe 5 times, chuckled 3 times, and laughed not all. I'm not joking - I want someone to specifically point out when I'm supposed to laugh so I can know.
OK, now riddle me this: how the heck do I accumulate $100,000?
There's more to it also. Henry's right, but there's a psychological aspect to it as well, that I kind of alluded to. When you make a big purchase, it kind of owns you, in a way, and you don't want to lose it. Which is why in the past I've been hesitant to make big purchases. I'm just hypersensitive to it. Anyway, yeah, I could probably buy a house and sell it later. But that's harder to do psychologically. When you buy a house, you kind of want to keep it. And it's really hard, once you become comfortable with a particular standard of living, to regress from that. Psychologically.
Did you know South and North Korea are going to walk under the same flag at the Olympic Games? That's the most amazing thing I've read about in a long time. Wow.
Henry's analysis is good, but it's based on living in El Paso. Do it for the Bay Area, Henry. Do you reach the same conclusions?
When I was in Korea, I got pretty into Seo Taiji. I don't know, Koreans don't seem to value musical creativity. In fact, they seem to want all their music to sound exactly the same. I don't get it.
Anyway, at the time, Seo Taiji was without question the most creative and musical Korean star. At the time, everyone had his second album, I think even Keith Lee has this and knows the words to some songs, but people just thought his third album was weird. Kind of like Delirious? from King of Fools to Mezzamorphis. But I respected it.
I heard he made another album since then, then this new one Dave's talking about. I'm interested in it.
I hate flakes. Everyone is flaky. You know I'm flaky. But some people are so flaky that any time they say they're going to do something, you never know if it will actually happen. And that just sucks.
Here's my claim. There are these people out there who get all these spiritual visions all the time and go from activity to activity constantly. My claim is that these people will never be a part of a great work of God. Well maybe never is too strong. Rarely. Because God wants faithfulness for the long haul. That seems to be a clear pattern in the Bible.
I think the most important people in building a church aren't the charismatic or super spiritual people. They're good, but you can't depend on them, or build on them, if they're flaky. The most important people are the faithful ones - that's who you build the church on. So, I'd rather have people like Henry and John, whom once they commit to something, commit to it for the long haul, then more charismatic people who flit in and out of commitments.
I watched the MTV Music Video awards last night. Fascinating. Anyway, they had some nominee for world music from Korea named Clod or something like that. Have you heard of him, Dave?
Richard, the Survivor guy, was one of the presenters. Oh my goodness. His banter with his co-presenter (Chynna of the WWF??!!) was some of the worst I've ever heard. Terrible delivery, and absolutely, horrifyingly uncomfortable. Ack.
I don't know why, but I'm not that excited about the Olympics this year. I think the scandals have made me cynical. When I was younger, during the Olympics I would watch TV all the time. I'd stay up late and watch Pat O'Brien's late night shows. Or Bob Costas. Anyway, I don't get as excited anymore.
I also think (this is just my opinion), part of why I'm not into it anymore is because they moved the Winter Olympics so that they're not in the same calendar year anymore. I don't know, just having both Olympics in the same year just made that year kind of special, you know? You got hyped up for the whole year. Some of that's been diluted.
Anyway, there was an article in the San Jose Mercury News about Bay Area athletes in the Games, and there are a couple Bellarmine grads, one of whom was my classmate, and one of whom is also a teacher at Bell.
The Red Violin was an interesting film. Not a great film, but to me at least, very engaging.
It's the Three Musketeers, not the Four Musketeers.
Dave never ever reads his own pages. They're filled with formatting errors and link errors. It's frustrating. And I guess he didn't pick up on my hint. So to be specific, Dave's missing an ending <b> tag or something, so halfway through his short thoughts, every single word is in bold text. Argh, annoying.
You know, sometimes these movies come out that all these film critics love that the general population just doesn't get? Like, the critics just appreciate these things about the film that most poeple just don't care about. So these films are really for people who know film.
I don't know, I kind of get this feeling that Delirious? is like that with music. I'm listening to their new album, and I don't know, I dig it. It's just musically indulgent, and just a fascinating album to me. There are so many interesting, fascinating elements to it that most people I think wouldn't care about. But it just fascinates me what they do with the sonic landscape. Like, just the texture of their guitar distortion is very distinct and different in each song. And they try a bunch of stuff. So like in some songs, the guitars have this like classic rock feel, with that type of fuzzy distortion and the intervaled runs in classic rock.
Then there's interesting slide acoustic guitar in one song, and in all songs, just interesting sounds all over the place. I don't know, it's just indulgent, and to me, fascinating. I kind of want to go song by song and point out all the interesting things they do.
But anyway, that's stuff no one else cares about, so I don't know if other people will like it. Probably not, since everyone hated Mezzamorphis. But seriously, it's a really interesting album. I don't know, Delirious? impresses me. They're probably the most sonically creative band in Christian music. That's my claim. Any band that incorporates bagpipes deserves a little bit of credit.
I seriously hope cubicle walls contain farts well.
I take back everything bad I've ever said about CFC. Actually, that's not true - the praise still sucks. But dude, those two sermons on lust by Pastor Min are just incredible. I feel seriously convicted and empowered. Whoa.
So I have to confess that I haven't been on a regular read the whole Bible program for a long time, and I don't think I've ever gone through the Bible in NASB, so I guess for those reasons, I kind of get a kick out of the passages from Eric's program.
So like 1 Cor. 14:23 just kills me. "Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?" I don't know why I found that language so funny. I guess I just imagined a service like that recorded in Vineyard's Winds of Worship series Volumes 1 and 2, where the people are just going psycho. And a newcomer going and looking about him and just thinking, "Are they mad?"
Yes I can. Lillehammer, Norway.
So, I posed some questions about lust and marraige a while ago that I never really got good answers to. So I was randomly browsing the CFC web site and came across this sermon on the subject which I found really really good. I'm just kind of upset because it's the second part of a series, and the link to the first doesn't work.
Anyway, CFC is kind of cultish, and that bothers me, but I don't know, the sermons are pretty great. I'm impressed.
I think there's something wrong with me. I take at least 2 dumps a day. Frequently more. Is this normal?
A conversation I had at work today, while waiting for an IT guy:
Person I don't know: Hi, I don't think I've met you yet. My name's
Robert.
Me: Hi, I'm Danny
Robert: Nice to meet you.
Me, very casually: So, Robert, what group are you with?
Robert: I'm the CEO. So I guess I'm with every group.
Oops. What a way to meet the CEO. I felt like an idiot.
Log dumping seems to be working again, for all you Stanford stalkers. As usaul, I'm getting a bunch of hits from disturbed people, like someone from Belgium looking for "naked justin timberlake."
Disturbing.
Actually, in one day, I got hits from people looking for phalluses, Lakita Garth, Chairman Kaga, "never seen an uncircumsized", Lion's Choice, the teeth falling out dream, McDonald's Chris and Tim burger, and a Bible study on the book of Hebrews.
I actually think CS 106's string libraries are a good idea, because it
allows them to work with strings from the beginning, without having to
understand the lower level stuff. And honestly, strings in C are
ugly. Anyway, Eric's concern shouldn't even come up, if the section leader
is doing his job - students should be using only the CS 106 string
functions, not the built in <string.h> functions. So, you
wouldn't use strcat(), you'd use Concat(). Then
you don't get those problems. And you can learn about heap allocation
later, when you need to.
I encourage everyone to read the Big Brother episode summaries at Salon.com. As you all know, Big Brother is an incredibly lame and boring show. The people at Salon.com know this, but they're forced to cover it anyway. So the results are hilarious. They're just very snarky and sarcastic, and it kills me. Seriously, the summaries are way more entertaining than the episodes themselves. I guess I'm just amused by sarcasm.
It's called Signs of Life, not Lord Of The Dance.
There is another way. "Hi this is Larry King. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
I was listening to K-Joy on Sunday. By the way, this station is just totally dubious. Their name is K-Joy, awfully similar to the dominant Christian radio station in the Bay Area: K-Love, and their frequency is 100.7, while K-Love is 100.9. Sketchy.
Even more sketchy, I heard a commercial for this financial guru who was advocating investing in gold, as gold is poised for a rapid increase in value. And he offered more information if you called a number.
I don't know, it just made me angry. First of all, I'm starting to learn about investing and stuff, and I don't know much, but I do know that ordinary investors investing in precious metals is always risky and dangerous. And it's even more sketchy to hear about it on a radio ad. And it angered me that that radio ad was on "Christian" radio.
You know what I think would be interesting? So as you know, they're going to keep doing Survivor, in different locales. I think it would be fascinating if they eventually did a Survivor where they reunited the contestants from the first Survivor that just finished. It could be fascinating, I think, because now there's all this history and stuff.
I have zero respect for the Mercury News' weather forecasts. If you still have yesterday's paper, take a look at the weather section. They predicted clear sunny skies (with brief morning clouds) for yesterday, and clear skies the rest of the week. It freaking rained yesterday! It was cloudy all day!
Then read today's forecast. Cloudy skies and intermittent rain are predicted all week, including Labor Day.
I don't know, it just stuns me that there can be such a rapid, radical change in the weather forecast. These people don't know what they're talking about.
Krispy Kreme Mountain View opened yesterday.
I recently received Delirious?' new album, Glo, and Matt Redman's first 2 CDs, released only in England, from Acorn Direct. It didn't take that long to get here, and the price for each was $16.95, which includes tax and shipping. It's a decent deal for the Delirious album, and a great deal for the Matt Redman double CD. So, there's the link if you're interested.
Say you set up a numbering system where A=100, B=101, and so forth. If you add up the letter values in the word: Hitler, they add up to 666. The same goes for the word "Blythe," which is Bill Clinton's given surname.
And look at "Bill Gates 3." (He's the third; his dad was Bill Gates Jr.) If you convert those letters to their ASCII values, and add them up, they total 666.
Weird.
A list of Stanford Olympians. Stanford rules.
It's a small world.
So this past weekend, I went up to the city to hang out with a friend from Houston, Dave Park. Another friend from Houston was visiting. Anyway, I go up, and George comes with me, because who do we end up hanging out with? Paul Lee and Dana Yip. Random.
Anyway, we go back to Dave's place and his roommate is there. And who's his roommate? Li Ho. Li living with Dave from Houston? Utterly random.
Later we go to Paul Lee's place and his roommate is there. And who is his roommate? KCPC legend, "Food For The Hungry" Sung. And while we're there, his friend drops by and they go to a movie. And who is the friend? None other than Sang "Bus Driver" Lee. Unfreakingbelievable.
Anyway, it was a confluence of all these different people. Bizarre experience.
I love sports talk radio. JT The Brick has just exploded. He's huge. A great moment last week was when Bob Frantz (the host of the Ticket 1050 show that follows Pete Franklin from 5 to 9 PM) interviewed JT The Brick. It was just interesting seeing the role reversed for JT.
Anyway, another great thing about sports talk is the put downs. Here's a great one I heard lately. "That man is ugly. He's butt ugly. He's a 12-pack of ugly. He's so ugly, I should press his face in dough and make ugly cookies."
Nonsensical, but, hilarious.
Did anyone else watch the Simpsons last night? It was one of the weirdest episodes I've ever seen. It was quite accurately, meta. Homer's drug trip one is the only episode I can think of that was weirder.
That's an hour more than me.
The KCPC - dude, I can't even remember what to call it in English. Program? The joobo. Anyway, it listed as one of the newcomers the previous week one Daniel Chai.
That can't be right. If it is, he must be eliminated.
No one delights more in evil than Henry Hsu. The past two nights I've gone to bed at the sound of Henry typing away insults and slams at his computer, laughing evilly and heartily the entire time.
I knew the capital of Oman was Muscat.
Henry's right and Henry's wrong.
I have always been a Clinton hater. I just have less than zero respect for the man as a person. And Henry is right. I love how he's obsessed with his legacy. Because, history will revile him.
I have always been a George P. Bush lover. I don't know, I've just read some influential books about him. He's just a good man. I don't think he's a great politician, but I think he is a great man. And I am fully willing to credit the economic boom to him. Not fully, but he deserves some credit.
I can argue with him on his stand on divorce, though. His stand on divorce is a matter of principle, not theology. But that's lacking to me. Because without the theology, there's no justification for the principle. That is, sure, his stand maintains the principle, but it doesn't explain why that principle is right. It's not enough to just simply state that it should be the principle; it requires justification. And in my mind, that can't be done without appeal to theology.
His example is also flawed. Because what I'm asking is not how we should view divorce for ourselves, but how we should view it for others. I know that sounds weird, but that's what it really is. I can fully believe that in certain extenuating circumstances, extreme ones, divorce is an option. And I can simultaneously fully believe that that option should not and will not be an option for myself. Thus, believing that divorce can in an extreme case be an option doesn't necessarily imply any less than full commitment on my part.
And I don't think that's a stretch. I think there's a lot of situations where either one's spiritual maturity or spiritual gifts leads them to expect a measure of spiritual discipline of themselves, which, although good for everyone, shouldn't necessarily be expected of everyone. Say someone is led to get up for 6 AM prayer 4 days a week. That is clearly a good thing. One could argue that everyone should do something like it; or that if everyone did that, it would be good. But should everyone be held to the same commitment of doing so that the person is? Clearly not.
Obviously, commitment in marriage is not as optional as morning prayer. But you get my point. It's not contradictory to hold others to a different standard than yourself; doing so in no way lessens your commitment. So the question in my mind isn't whether we should hold ourselves to that standard, but whether we should hold everyone else without exception to that standard. Emphasis on without exception.
We don't need to do that to uphold our own full commitment, so that's not justification. It's just whether the principle itself should be defended so vigorously that divorce is never allowed. And again, to me, that's a question you can't answer without theology. Simply appealing to the principle itself isn't justification for it, and at worst, is legalistic. You have to explain why it should be upheld.
That said, the line Henry draws isn't as absurd as I think he presents it. It's really no different from any other sin. We should always say to people, never steal. And vigorously uphold that. (Although one might argue that even for this principle, there are extenuating circumstances that make it OK.) But after they've stolen, given their repentant heart, we should forgive them immediately. The only thing with the sin of divorce is that it tends to have deeper and longer lasting ramifications than other sins.
Do you know how many people watched Survivor last night? An estimated 51 million. That's just absolutely insane. This thing was a phenomenon, and I honestly don't think it's going to be repeated again. It was just a combination of things that made this one special, in particular the novelty and the mix of people. I don't know if it can be this good again.
I for one, am glad I got to be part of the ride. I don't know, it was just immensely entertaining to me. Especially last night's episode. I was very into it. Seriously, that was just an incredibly entertaining TV show. Very well done. The amazing thing also is how much suspense there was throughout the series. To the very end, it just kept you on the edge of your seat. That's just amazing to me.
The other great thing is how true to character everyone was to the very end. Like it or not, everyone was consistent.
Of course I'm stunned by the result. But whatever.
Anyway, I don't know, maybe I'm making too much of this, but I really think it was just a special TV series, and I don't know if it will ever happen again. I'm glad I was a part of it. I love Survivor.
The San Jose Mercury is a great paper. There were a couple really good articles in yesterday's paper. One was about Koreans and how they love to sing. Hence the whole NoRaeBang culture. They called Koreans the Italians of the East. It was an interesting article.
The more interesting article was on menstruation. The thesis of the article is that controlling menstruation through drugs, so that women only menstraute 4 times a year has many benefits, including reducing the risk of ovarian cancer, other gynecological diseases, anemia, and saving a bunch of money on feminine products.
The article states that women were not meant to menstruate as much as they do. In older times, women began to menstruate later, stopped menstruating earlier, and had a lot more children and breast fed more so they didn't menstruate as much in between. So in their lifetimes, women go through 3 times more menstrual cycles than they used to.
And this is bad for some reasons listed above. In particular, anemia, which a lot of women suffer from, and ovarian cancer. Releasing the egg apparently involves rapidly dividing and developing cells or something like that, which is prone to cancer, which is why limiting that (via birth control pills or whatever) has been shown to reduce to the risk of ovarian cancer.
I don't know, it was just an interesting article.
The surest way to get me to not go to something is to send me an e-vite.
GNU make is pretty cool.
Britney Spears' guide to Semiconductor Physics
Don't read this if you haven't yet seen the most recent episode of Survivor.
So, I realized that predicting the Survivor is pretty much impossible now. The reason being, nearly everything depends on the immunity contests now. The importance of these is just insane. It affects literally everything.
So, I don't think Rudy is going to win anymore, because he's never won any kind of contest. Not even close. He was absolutely freaking hilarious on the last immunity contest. Hilarious. He has no chance.
So now, who survives really depends on how the immunity contests go. So here's my analysis. There's no way Rudy is winning anything, so I'm not even going to list it as a possibility.
You have to read the Survivor episode summaries on salon.com. They're freaking hilarious, and they generally sum up exactly how I feel. Good stuff.
Roger Mar-Tang was nationally ranked in ping-pong during high school.
There is a great classic paper in cognitive psychology by Kahneman and Tversky on the use of heuristics in cognitive reasoning. It's an absolutely fascinating paper I had to read for both Psychology and Philosophy classes, and it turns out to be relevant in a surprising number of fields, including AI and finance. Anyway, I highly recommend you read it, somehow. It's very insightful as to consistent logical errors human beings make.
One thing about going to Stanford is you know a lot of quasi-famous athletes. Like, I remember the first winter break from Stanford, I watched a girl from my dorm on TV, in the NCAA women's volleyball final. Anyway, the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials are going on right now, and I perused the results to see if there was anyone I knew.
Obviously, there are tons of Stanford swimmers competing. Apparently, one of the top competitors was this guy that was in my frosh dorm. Also, another guy I TA'd in several CS classes. I don't know, it's just weird to see their names in the paper.
Whoa. Christian boy-band Plus One is singing at the Democratic National Convention. Bizarre.
I realized that I talk to myself. It kind of goes along with my terrible habit of putting my own amusement first. So there was this Simpsons episode which involved the Japanese Yakuza and the Italian Mafia fighting on their lawn. Anyway, the funniest line of the episode was the very last one, where a Yakuza member flies through the window, gets up, bows and says, "forgiveness" with a Japanese accent and then goes back out to the yard. Hilarious.
Anyway, since then I've been saying "forgiveness" at random times to amuse myself. The thing is, I didn't realize I was doing it until a couple of people asked what I was saying. Then I realized, I've been talking to myself for amusement. Weird.
I'd say about 95% of all girls look comfortable dancing. I'd say about 95% of guys look uncomfortable dancing. I wonder why that is.
So this weekend I was at a wedding, which was great. Highlights included dancing to 'N Sync with Jieun's mom.
The lowlight also occurred at the reception. So the DJ was getting people to do stuff, like the electric slide, etc. So he gets people to go up to do the Macarena. And you know, it's their wedding, you don't want nobody to go up. So Jieun is one of the first people up there, so I go up too. You know, just for them.
So we do the Macarena. About 15 people on stage. Everyone else is watching. And whatever, it's fine the first 3 times. But the song goes on and on. He apparently had an extended remix going. Argh, the horror. So I was stuck there doing the Macarena for minutes on end, the same thing over and over, this uncomfortable dance that involves wiggling your butt, with many people watching, and I can't escape. And I keep praying to God that the song will end, but it just doesn't. It goes on and on. And eventually, every time the song keeps going I start yelling visibly and audibly in pain, crying out to the Lord my God that this madness would end.
It was not pretty.
While driving in LA, I saw a car that had a bumper sticker: "Jesus worshipped on Saturday. Shouldn't you? The Seventh Day Adventist Church." Umm.
I'm against doing overly complex things for people, when it can be done more simply. For example, the traditional FiCS slide show. It's just way too complex, and extra trouble for it. At the YAG dinner last year, the youth group teacher Steve did this slide show that took like 30 minutes for him to prepare. Just very simple and basic. What's wrong with that? Why digitize video? The cost/benefit ratio is poor.
In any case, I'm in favor of just setting up a camcorder, playing a stereo in the background, and then placing pictures one by one in front of it. Dave thinks we should go further. Just play music at the appreciation night, and have some guy (or girl) in the front holding up the pictures for everyone to see.
Anyway, too much work is lame. That's my opinion.
They sell hard DDR pads here. I'm seriously thinking of buying it.
I saw Karate Kid Part 3. I liked it. Well, not really. My dad did, though. I saw it as part of a double feature at the old UA cinema I think on Blossom Hill Road, near the Marie Callendar's. The other featured movie was UHF, starring Weird Al Yankovic.
Did you know you can type in "link:[url]" in Google to find out what pages link to that page? You can also type in addresses to get directions. Lots of cool interesting stuff there.
This site is one of the most useful sites for sound that I have come across.
I'm sorry, but my recent rsg posts have just sucked. I think I need Dave and Andrew to post more. I play well off them, I think. Regardless, my recent ones have been crap. I just post to keep it rolling.
I just saw Survivor. To say I'm angry would be the understatement of the mid 2000s. Argh. People are so stupid.
My job is pretty much perfect for me. Intellectually interesting, laid back, and everyone leaves by 6. Many by 5.
It appears the most valuable class I took at Stanford for my job I also took the last quarter I was there. CS 224N - Natural Language Processing. I'm glad. My job is actually intellectually interesting.
There's an Asian hair salon in Houston that I've been to where they wash your hair before and after your haircut.
ChickaBunniRoachamin. That's pretty brilliant. Especially since it's not bawdy.
So in the past two days I've been confronted with the book of James and the Beatitudes. I can't think of a more powerful way of being rebuked about your behavior and character. I don't know, my world has been rocked.
So someone wrote about me that I try really hard to sound sophisticated, or use higher language or something like that. I don't know, that disturbed me. First of all, because it's untrue. I wrote once about my stream of consciousness style, and why it's the best, and Henry astutely pointed out at root, I'm just lazy, so I just write and nearly never edit. The point being, the way I write is just the way I write, the way it comes out. It would take effort to write in any other style.
So it's depressing because it means how I really am is apparently aristocratic and such. That doesn't strike me as good. But what can I do. It's just the way it comes out. As long as my writing philosophy is guided by laziness, I don't know how I can change that.
I love playing in weddings. I don't know, there's just something really cool about it. Being in the rehearsal, going to the dinner - you just get this feeling like you're participating in a very very special day, and there's something nice about that. It's a really good feeling. Anyway, for some reason it's happening more and more to me, and it's pretty cool. I know it's not because I'm a close friend, just a musical mercenary, but I don't really care. It's very nice to be part of someone's special day. A cool feeling.
So if you want me to play/accompany someone at your wedding, I'm there.
The rate of autism is increasing also. Such that it will be more prevalent than childhood cancer and Down's syndrome.
Did you know Palos Verdes High School is prominently featured in Lethal Weapon?
Disturbing. This link from the San Jose Water company, indicates that there's a link between drinking a lot of tap water in Santa Clara County, and a higher rate of miscarriage.
Here's another story
Why do people stalk me? Two random people have recently linked me their pages. I never ask people to do this. Anyway, one's from Northwestern, "Benji," and the other is Eric Lindsay. That's right, I'm on to you people.
Is spelling "publicly" as "publically" a valid poetic device?
I ran into Stephen Chang at church today, and he saw the jacked bulletin board t-shirts that Liz made, and wanted to know what it was. I really didn't know what to say. How the heck do you explain that without sounding like a loser?
I'm a terrible electric guitarist. It's not that I don't know how to play it, it's just I don't know how to get the sounds I want. That's as important if not more than playing skill. Even worse is that I can't hear a thing at KCPC. When I practice at home it's not the same, because I can't crank it up, and as you know, how it sounds at a really low volume and at a high volume can be really different. Anyway, if you have feedback into how the electric sounds on Sundays, and what can be different, let me know.
One of the first special praises I did for KCPC was at a joint FiC, I think. Me, Dave and Leo did it. I still remember meeting with them in Leo's Roble Quad, neither of them knowing the song, and me trying to teach them. As often happened, I made Dave memorize it in a couple days. And, another bad thing about me is that I often want all the control and none of the responsibility. So, like with this song, I chose it, and taught it to them and basically owned it, but I made Dave introduce it before singing.
But what the heck did he know about the song? (All The Way My Savior Leads Me - Rich Mullins) Just the random factoids I had told him. So, this was his introduction, in its entirety:
"Uhh, this song was written by a blind woman."
At any rate, it was the hope of some that this trio would be a regular team, so we were given the catchy name: DLD. It may have even been written like that on the program. DLD.
The reason I'm not sure it's the first I did is because I'm not sure when Soli Deo Gloria was in relation to that. I believe SDG was before, since we have a picture, and Leo's not in it. SDG by the way, was great. It was at Berkeley, and Stanford did a little song, one that Big Dave wrote. But it's the performers that's great. Dave and Ohms(!) sang lead. I played guitar. Jane Kim played keys. Crazy.
So Keith's word of the moment is "tight." Or he spells it "tite." Whatever. At any rate, he uses it about every other sentence, even more than he says, "Dude, Dave Hong is the..." Anyway, when I was in Houston, I found out all the kids are saying it. Meaning, it's not obscure. (By the way, the context in which I heard it: "Dude, your bass playing was tight.")
When did I become so out of touch with youth culture? And how is Keith so in it? How can I get back in? I want to be "tite" myself, if that is in anyway possible.
What else are kids saying these days?
OK, I am hard core into Survivor now. I just watched the 4 most recent episodes and dude, it's just an incredible show. I love it.
Anyway, if you're interested, and you're probably not, since I'm the only loser, but there's a forum about Survivor on Salon.com. Interesting stuff.
Not to toot my own horn, but jack.html is becoming rather powerful. Seriously, when people get linked from it, their hits go up like mad. And they always find out they've been linked. I don't know how. But it's happened twice recently.
Dave writes: "all of them are a lot older (not a lot) than i am..."
If I ever comprehend this sentence, I'm sure the world will end. It's that confusing.
On a similar note, I watched A Better Tomorrow last night, and argh the subtitles were so bad it was so hard to comprehend what was going on. Here is a verbal exchange, verbatim:
"Don't angry."
"Nothing."
Umm.
America West gets my vote for worst airline. Going to Houston, I arrived late, at 2 AM. Coming back, I arrived late, at 1:30 AM. The worst thing is, they don't update their screens to reflect this. In Phoenix, when I looked at the departure times, it all said on time. That's because they removed all the delayed flights from the screens. How convenient. They of course blamed the SF weather, which I'm sure was valid. It's just, walking through the terminal, every single flight was delayed. I'm not exaggerating. Amazing coincidence.
When my sister came to pick me up, the screens all said on time. So they went to the gate and the people there didn't know what was going on. The employees there made a call in which they asked, "where's our plane?"
What a great airline.
I'm back at 420 James Road, and I'm freezing in here. In Houston, my mom leaves the temperature at 85 degrees. I got used to it. Oh my goodness, I'm seriously freezing my butt off.
Don't get the Carrot Cake Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. It's a loser.
I have mixed feelings about X-Men. I think I need to see it again. What I do appreciate though is the little details they had that only fans of the comic could pick up on. Really subtle things.
Here's a review for X-Men. Looks dope. I can't wait. Incidentally, the first X-Men comic I bought was a Fall Of Mutants issue he mentions in the review. It featured Colossus. I wonder how much it's worth.
If I recall correctly, Brian, and I very well may not, but I believe there was talk about putting a tax on CD-Rs to account for the piracy use. Again, I have no idea where this is coming from, but I thought something like this came up.
Are all VBS in the world coordinated? I think the VBS at my church in Houston also had the theme Running the Race. They did this song on SUnday with all the kids doing motions. Weird.
There's an article on the front page of today's Houston Chronicle saying how home prices have soared to a median price of $122,000.
Swing is dead. The new thing is Salsa. In case you hadn't already heard.
I don't know what it is, but Survivor is addicting. It's just fascinating now, because now there's all this strategy and politics involved. Big Brother, on the other hand, is absolutely boring.
Did you know the rate of Alzheimer's is increasing? The rate, not just the incidences. They said by like the mid 21st century, if this rate continues, it will rival cancer.
That totally scares me. Cancer, you have vague ideas how to prevent, and how to treat it. But Alzheimer's, you don't know why it happens, nor is there any cure. Frightening.
I'm sorry, but the Simpsons is just the funniest show ever. The great thing is, in Houston they've been showing all the episodes with the songs from that CD we listened to. So today I saw the amendment to be episode. Oh my goodness, I almost died at the wit. Worst Western Motel. I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm. When Lionel Hutz calls all his secret witnesses, and the two fattest twins on bikes from the Guinness Book come in. Brilliant humor.
A brother of a classmate of mine died recently. I met him once, and it's just incredibly sad to me. I hate unexpected deaths. And a friend's mom died recently also. Life is short. Remember that.
I think every guy has to play basketball. It doesn't matter if you suck (like me) or not, you just have to play. It's just, nearly every guy plays basketball, and there's something about it that just builds camaraderie between guys. It's how a lot of guys bond, and something you miss out on when you don't play. I've just seen a lot of cases where guys build camaraderie and familiarity through basketball, and if you're not a part of that, you lose something.
For some reason, when I sweat in Houston, I smell way more than when I sweat in California. Is it the humidity? Whatever it is, it's disgusting.
I'm one of Clara's inspirations. I'm kind of surprised. In a good way.
I think I have a pretty good idea who I want to accept dating advice from and who not to.
Praise God. I got a speeding ticket in Kansas, but somehow, by the vagaries of the Kansas legal system, was able to get it changed to a nonmoving violation. Whew. Now it doesn't go on my record.
I disagree with Eric's July 3rd. I'm not sure if I presented DeCSS and Napster as being analogous; my point was that them standing behind the argument of free speech is ridiculous, and that's clearly true (to me) in the case of DeCSS. I wouldn't argue that it's totally "legit" either. They essentially took a trade secret and made it public, due to the stupidity of one company. Yeah, the lack of Linux DVD software is a gross oversight, but I still don't know if dubious methods is justified. But whatever, I don't even really care. It's just not free speech at all.
I also disagree with his dismissal of arguments that DeCSS as a piracy tool. As it stands, yes it's true, but it seems a bit shortsided. It's less important what happens now, since DeCSS is relatively unused, but it's more important to consider what will happen in the future, when it could potentially be more widespread (I'm assuming in other applications) if it isn't controlled somehow now. And it's clear that in the future, everything he says is less true, and it's use as a priacy tool is a very real possibility. Rather, it is an inevitability. I don't know whether DeCSS is right or not, but I think it's clear that eventually, perhaps sometime soon, it will be used for piracy. Also, one should be aware that even now, you can download DVDs from the Internet, so it's not so farfetched. Some people actually do have the time, space, and bandwidh.
Furthermore, you can't ignore clips, rather than full movies. Yeah, having the whole movie is a little unwieldy, but you can get clips with perfect video and sound with DeCSS. And as numerous Iron Chef sites know, companies don't like that, and it's possibl illegal. That's piracy also.
So, I don't know if DeCSS is right. But it will lead to (and already has led to) piracy, without question. And it is most definitely not a matter of free speech.
So Eric's random story generator is actually funnier than I thought it would be. Except Michelle and moo (aka kirei)'s posts totally kill it. Go back and read the stories. Every time some momentum starts to build, they kill it with these posts that you can't continue. Dave's right. Give us a story with just me, Dave, Eric, Andrew, and Gus, and I think it would be great. George and deetee are actually fine, but they haven't posted a lot.
In case you haven't heard, Stanford has a 3 tournament streak going in the PGA Tour. That is, Stanford grads have won the last 3 tournaments. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open, then Notah Begay III won the next 2. I don't know, I just think that's cool. Even cooler is that neither of them are white, breaking into a traditionally white male dominated sport.
I once read something that I thought was extremely enlightening. I think I've written about this before. But it said how if you want to know how someone really is, or rather, how they will be with their future family (i.e. how good a father or mother they will be) you need to look at how they are with their current family. Because how they are with their family is how they are when they're unguarded, with people they've known their entire lives. It's much more accurate than looking at how they are with their friends. Obviously, there are exceptions to this, but I think there's some wisdom in it.
Conversely, I think you can tell how you will be with your family based on how you are with your family now, in large part. Meaning, I think it's fallacious to say, oh, I have trouble communicating with my family now, but with my own family, it will be much different. I don't know, I just think to make it true with your own family, you have to make it possible with your current family, else it will just be a repeated cycle. Maybe you're not with me on this, but I just think it's faulty to think that's it's impossible now, but it will be possible later.
Like I said, I think there's some wisdom in that, and it means I better be a better son.
I saw this apartment complex today called Walden Internet Apartments. Huh? I thought Walden was Thoreau's essay on escaping civilization and being one with nature. How does that relate to the Internet? And regardless, what the heck is an Internet apartment?