Read. Because its free.

I like reading, when I have the time. Swer to god, mane. I like not paying for stuff too. Not in the illegal way (necessarily...) but in the poor-unemployed-college-student way.

If you like to read at all, this site should be in your bookmarks, now. Free books, multiple file types (.pdf is my flavor of choice, but you can pick what you want. Choices. The American way), multiple genres.

Banned books category, here I come!


Now for that free time thing...

Suggestions on how to refuse a breathalyzer politely.

Because I care, and, well, let's be honest, THEY know the law, THEY just assume you don't.

1) Ask if they have a warrant to perform this search (if they do, you pretty much have to. they won't have one).
2) Let them know that you would like to cooperate with them, but are concerned that you may need to speak with your attorney before proceeding in the absence of a warrant.
3) Ask what the legal penalty is for refusing (they may lie here, and this would be only goodness, especially if this is filmed).
4) Nothing else. Be sure to be respectful and polite the entire time. If they get bellicose with you, do not respond.

Dear Self,

Look on the bright side. At least you don't have any money to lose right now.

Well, minus that whole financial aid thing.

Career Fair

Where every company that you want to work for comes in and, instead of you learning more about them, things turn into a semi-informal interview.

Sweet.

Make that about 50% less stressed than college apps.... Probably how it should be.

In other news, Happy 10th Birthday Google!!

It's really sad

...and a sick commentary on this system when I feel about 200% less stressed (note: that doesn't mean relaxed...) in applying for Co-Op interviews than I did about college applications.

Need a little pick-me-up

School sucks, co-op applications suck, the work never ends.

Took a little timeout to venture over to Youtube, started at watching football highlights, then came across this Lou Holtz speech compilation (with weirdly, the first one repeated..)



From there on, took a little break to venture onward in the motivational speech realm.


Greatest sports-movie speech, IMO:



A little piece from Hoosiers, much better movie than Any Given Sunday:


I've linked it numerous times, but if this doesn't wake you up, nothing will. It gets me every time:


For this clip alone, "New Noise" by Refused will forever be a staple on my workout playlist. Every time it reaches that point I feel like I'm walking out into the Astrodome:


I know why this never made it over the pond, but damned if it isn't a great commercial. Nike's marketing department is grade A:


I think I just ran through a wall....

Psychological Warfare

I'll be honest, there have been a few times where I will go to a website or something with with a lot of flashing lights to try to scare a fly away, but this technique is just downright genius:

OBAMA'S EMAIL ACCOUNT!?!!?!?

For those of you who don't know, apparently a few day's ago the hacker group known as Anonymous (most famous for their crusade against stupidity) successfully hacked into Sarah Palin's email account. Nothing is private anymore, literally.

The blog-worthiness of all of this lies in the fact that while it took a world-renowned hacker group to break into Palin's gmail account, it only took The Onion to get to Obama's.

Hey Barry, I'm diggin the icon, mayne.

;-)

Math is fun

One thing that as been surprising to me is that in my engineering specific classes, a lot of the time there is very little focus on getting the right answer. A lot of times it is like math-light. Constants are rounded to the point to where, as one of my professors puts it, "You aren't right, but neither is thermodynamics, and at least you are in the game."

In doing math-light a lot this year (though when you are dealing with something like a Benedict-Webb-Rubin equation, not much can be considered "light" about it...) it's surprised me how easy even complex math can become but just knowing "this number gonna be really big, so screw this number, its only gonna change the final answer by like .2, oh but this number matters," and so on and so on.

This morning I saw that one of the supplies of the New York Times had not been emptied (they usually are by about 10 minutes after 8 AM, when classes start) and switched to the Science section because I'm a huge nerd and Wall Street confuses the shit out of me, only to find this article.

Basically, that sense of approximation is starting to be linked to one's mathematical ability. This seems kind of stupid and common sense-ish to me, but the WAY that they were able to test for it is really kind of cool. Basically, the test flashes a random number of circles on a screen for .2 seconds, some blue some yellow. It is your job to determine, basically off of a gut instinct, which color circles there were more of.

Sort of a why didn't I think of that type of thing...

Anywho, I like to think I have a mildly varied readership, so I'm curious how some people test. Clink the link above, go for maybe 20 or so tries, and lemme know what you get.

For the record, I went 50 times, got 76%. I'm sure at least one person will try to beat the system and play like seven times to get 100%, so ahead of time.... I win.

It's getting to be that time of year....

The crisp fall breeze is starting to show in the evenings and (sometimes) that downright cold winter chill wakes me up in the mornings. Kids are throwing footballs to their dads (and occasionally, hip moms) in backyards everywhere. Football (and with that, tailgating) season has arrived.

Just in time with that comes the homework. The papers. The projects. The tests.

Hurl.

Bare with me for a little while I spend most of my time on school work (sorry... priorities and such...), a little less time (for now) on this new thing called "co-op interviews," and a little less on my favorite season of the year (footbaw season).

No, this isn't a goodbye. It is not a "it's not me it's you..." type thing.

It's an "expect shorties like I have already been doing for a little while anyways," type of thing. I like those better anyways; I ramble too much on long posts.

Leaving on a bright note:

Ninja cat (its like an LOLcat, but a real, live, video...):

Best College Football Weekend Ever.

You know why.

That is all, for now.

YAYYYY WE SURVIVED!!!

Happy LHC Day! Were not dead

Or we are and we don't know it.

o.O

AHH!!

Holy crap...

Mythbusters is awesome and hilarious. In this I learned how helium-voice works, and why it never works for me (I exhale...)

Now, what happens if you inhale sulfur hexafluoride? (Science types, is this unhealthy??)



[EDIT]:

Chemguy, if you can sweet-talk the higher-ups, this would be a freakin sweet before-winter-break lab:

Thermodynamics is hard.

Rainy Fridays suck.

These two facts consist of my day. These made me chuckle:








^^the lulz are mild, but on topic

Irregular Webcomic! is actually pretty funny....

Death Magnetic

Metallica is about to release a new CD. Out of spite (fuck you, Lars) I have acquired it already.

They are good again.

I'm not saying they are my favorite, but Rick Rubin has definitely turned around the club. St. Anger is a thing of the past, finally.

Maybe they did nearly carbon-copy the formulas from some of their more popular songs (That Was Just Your Life : Master of Puppets :: The Day That Never Comes : One), but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

5 Straight Days of college football

and not one game i truly care about.

this is like getting a brand new car only to discover that the last person to give it a test drive let out a really good shart before giving up the keys

My not so professional opinion:

- Pitt lost to Bowling Green. Hopefully that just means they suck and not that they lost their focus already and will be perfect the rest of the season. LeSean McCoy scares me. He is good...

- Michigan sucks. No really, it's not some fun slogan anymore... from what I saw Saturday... they really really suck. Threet/Sheridan are not good throwing quarterbacks, let alone spread option running QBs. McGuffie is a freshman. If their defense lays a turd like they did in the first half, they are in big trouble.... im talking 3-9 trouble...

- I'm tired of these warmup games. Maybe Chris Wells getting hurt is karma.

- USC is going to be very, very, very good this year. Their quarterback, Sanchez, should have started all year last year. Ruh roh.