| < April 2005 | Matthew Loar > Blog | June 2005 > |
Well, I'm going to say it.
I'm not so crazy about Google.
Yep, that's right. There are a few reasons for this. First, I've found out that Google uses DMOZ, the most useless human-edited directory on the web, as a crutch for its web results. As a result of this, my brief stint as a DMOZ editor has resulted in my empty DMOZ bookmarks list to be replicated around the web, and Google has indexed it a hundred times. Now if you search Google for "SamAMac" the results are absolutely useless. Google also does not seem to understand that that if a page has the exact same URL as a previously-indexed page, it should replace that page in its cache, not place them both in there. Also, it doesn't agree that maybe if I search for "samamac", it should list "samamac.com" before "samamac.com/hosting."
Now if we go over to the new MSN Search and search for SamAMac, the first hit is...samamac.com! And then an indented link to another page on samamac.com, followed by a link that says something like "See more pages at samamac.com." Brilliant! Also, MSN has the ability to get an RSS feed for a specific search result.
Speaking of RSS, I just found this new thing called Plogress. It mines
data from THOMAS, the legislative information system, and gives you a feed of
what your elected representatives are doing. Cool, huh?
Yeah, so I got my grades tonight.
Well, I passed all of my classes and I'm not on academic probation. Other than that, I can' t be too upbeat.
I feel my grade in CS 231 was ridiculous. I did darn well in that class.
My dismal performance notwithstanding, somebody needs to explain to my mother
the difference between U of I and Bradley.
So I actually got up before noon to work today. Guy had both viruses AND spyware out the wazoo. That's what happens when you use file-sharing programs! Anyway, I made some moolah. My boss gets back tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to rack up some more hours before the pay period ends.
I finished putting together the new I-I Circle K site. Hopefully I'll be going to see Star Wars tomorrow or Friday.
Still dreading getting my grades.
Well, I woke up late, figured out why my internet wasn't working (they change it over the summer so that you have to use the VPN client), got my new phone number, and almost finished cleaning this place up. Oh, and I watched MacGyver.
Later I made myself some soup, watched the last JAG and the episode of Numbers I missed. Fixed my friend Sanders' internet. Now I'm watching TJ Hooker as I work on the I-I Circle K site.
What a life.
So I wake up about 12:30 despite having stayed up past 5. I shower, dress, and then lounge around.
I turn on Spike TV and discover that they have picked up MacGyver. They are now officially my favorite network.
Then about halfway through an episode I've seen probably 5 times, I get a call on the north side of Champaign. I check out the CITES truck and head on up there.
I don't get done till 5:30, at which point the office has already closed. It's Friday, so no one will miss the truck till Monday morning. So I head off to Wal-Mart, just for the heck of it. I end up buying a spindle of CD-R's, which I'll be using for work anyway. Then I return the keys.
Now I'm sitting in my room, waiting for Numbers to come on, avoiding all the stuff I should be working on, and dreading getting my grades.
Wow, today was pathetic.
Well, I just found out that Spike TV not only has Star Trek: TNG, but it also has MacGyver!
Rock on!
A "C-"!!?!?!??!?!?!?
WTF?
Here's an alternative viewer for PDFs, for those who are as sick of
Acrobat as I am.
100% on my last MP. I'm a genius.
If only I had done so well on the exams, I could blow off this final.
That's right.
I wrote a very complicated function and it ran correctly on the first try.
I'm a genius.
Well, today was Reading Day, or the Day Between Classes and Finals When You Remind Yourself Constantly That You Should Be Studying.
Well, my finals don't start till Tuesday, so I'm not in too much trouble on that count. But I do need to do some serious studying this weekend.
So today I woke up kind of late. There was an ITAB meeting at 9:30, but I didn't really feel like going anyway. I sold back my Econ book to the IUB for $60.25, then my CS book to Follett's for $56 and change (IUB was overstocked). Then I went to ask my MATH 225 instructor a stupid question just for face time.
The strangest thing that happened today is that I got a ticket. Of course my boss gives me the most work when I shouldn't really be doing it. Anyway, I went out on that job at 2. Girl's hard drive had a head crash. Called HP and had the easiest support call ever ("Oooh, head crash. OK, let's send you a new hard drive..."). Going to install it for her tomorrow. Also meeting with Brian to go over how the timecard system works. Then, I must study.
I did a bunch of stuff today that I really didn't need to do. Namely, I finally got Drupal working on the ACM server (Clausen screwed up the config. Figures). I also upgraded Drupal on the Circle K site.
Oh, and my mouse's battery is now low. Great.
So I've decided not to take the optional Econ 303 final, and to just get my b -hopefully-not-minus. This whole situation angers me because:
It's an Econ class, and I should have done better in it.
This class really doesn't do me any good. I took it as part of my application sequence only because I needed to extend my app sequence for the James Scholar Program, which I have now given up on. Having taken Econ 302 last semester, I could have taken one 400-level Econ class and been done with it. Now I still have to take a 400-level to complete my sequence, and there aren't any that require both 302 and 303, so I wasted my time taking both.
I'm just generally angry about this whole semester.
At least it gives me that much more time to study for my other 4 finals, so
that hopefully I'll pass all my classes, and it saves me from having to get up
for one 8 AM final, what actually would have been my first one.
So on a whim, I click on the 'Froogle' link on google.com.
And on the Froogle page, they have items that have recently been found, on of which is 'ketchup.'
And I think, "Who shops for ketchup on the internet?"
So I click it, and the cheapest one is from Amazon.com.
And I think, "Amazon sells ketchup?"
Then I look at the page. Scroll down to the 'So you'd like to...'
section.
Well, I don't know if it was my latent changes to the DNS or not, but samamac.com is back up on Google!
Yay, I'm indexed again!
If you ever happen to be treasurer of a group composed entirely of nerds, you might want to watch how much you drink during their semesterly bar crawl.
You never know what could happen.
I went to see Hitchhiker's on Saturday, and I haven't given my opinion of it yet. So I will here.
It was great.
First of all, to all of the people complaining about deviances from the text, please note whose name appears under "Screenplay by" at the beginning of the movie. That's right: Douglas Adams. He wrote the screenplay for this movie before he died. Besides, the books are hardly authoritative. Originally Hitchhiker's was a radio show. Then it was adapted into novels. Then it was adapted for a TV show. Douglas Adams wrote so many different plotlines that he couldn't even keep them straight. In light of this, I think that anything he wrote is Hitchhiker's.
Secondly, I don't think the love story between Arthur and Trillian was that bad. You want a bad love story? Try Star Wars Episode II.
Thirdly, I think that the movie was very well made. It really captured the distinct Adams wit, especially during the parts where the narrator interjects with excerpts from the Guide.
**
--- SPOILER ALERT!!! ---
**
I do have some small problems with it though. Firstly, the ending was a little off. By having the Earth recreated, it did kind of destroy the underlying theme of Hitchhiker's: a lone survivor from Earth, homeless and lost. Also, Arthur's character started off the same, but as a part of the love story he did become more assertive. And the scene with the mice, was, come to think of it, a little reaching.
But I think that it can be forgiven. After all, Adams had expressed regret for making Mostly Harmless so dark, and perhaps this overly-sunny screenplay was his way of atoning for it. All in all, it was worth the $5.50, and I'd see it again.
The question remains, however, will they make a sequel, and will it suck?
Here's a list (I'm told) of the top 110 banned books. Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've partially read.
#1 The Bible
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Well, it seems I've finally found the reason why I have intermittent connection problems to this site and the other sites I host. It seems that the GTLD servers, which are authoritative for all .COM domains, are having some trouble with .COM nameservers. Namely, they don't think they're authoritative for them, when in fact they are THE authority for them. Since the SamAMac nameservers are .COMs, this causes problems. So now I have registered them as .NET nameservers as well. Hopefully this should solve everything.
It's kind of annoying, though, that nothing has been done about this problem.
Very infuriating.
| < April 2005 | Matthew Loar > Blog | June 2005 > |