3 in a row??  Seriously guys…

About a week ago, you might have noticed (if you follow my little digg widget on the right religiously) that I digged a story about Joe ‘outing’ Dumbledore.  At the time, I thought, “that’s cool and seems to make sense.”  Then, today, I was talking to a friend, and she told me about how this thing has exploded in controversy on all the fansites (and many media outlets) – apparently there were many comments often to the effect of - “Think of all those times he and Harry were alone together. What if he molested Harry???!!!” 

Then there is this silly video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAhYPOoVrh – where the guys argument seems to be, “it is not good for kids…” because they might start thinking gay people can be wise and kind.  I think that by living out here, I have forgotten that things like this are still an issue in much of the country.   Ah well, I guess the crazies will now two reasons to hate Harry Potter (because the promoting witchcraft argument must have been getting dull even for them).  

Additionally, I have replaced the firmware (operating system) on my iPod with the open source firmware RockBox.  It is really awesome, something like linux for the iPod.  It is fully themable and open to a ton of 3rd party apps (games (chess, doom and 100s others), calculator, recorder, dynamic playlists creation etc..).  More importantly, it comes with the ability to play more file types .ogg and .mpg videos for example.  It is almost like I got a new awesome mp3player and it was completely free!  The best part is I don’t have to use iTunes to sync it; you can add and manage files either through libraries in many music jukeboxes or simply dragging and dropping files (you can also delete and move songs in the device itself now).  You should check it out if you want to reinvigorate your iPod.

We were technically number one in the country for 15 minutes . . . Ah well . . .

In other news, I built a bunch of a new computers for my group this week. Then, I built a beowulf cluster out of the old ones. It is pretty awesome – my own personal supercomputer next to my desk It was actually rather easy using the RocksClusters Linux distro.

I finished listening to the LOTR at night. It was a bit exhausting to be honest, because I had to keep getting up and going to wikipedia to look up all the names. It is amazing what a huge and complete world Tolkein created that is only touched upon in the movies. It is pretty incredible and perhaps the best part of his stories; however, I stand by my earlier statement that this is the one case where the movies are actually more enjoyable than the books.

Ooh, and next week Fedora 8 is released – dances around anxiously.

In one day, Cal went from being #6 in the country to number #3, and another week later, we are sitting at #2.  Is this really possible?  Anyway, some friends and I bought tickets to the UCLA away game in two weeks.  So, I guess I will be heading down to LA for a day or two in two weeks.  Hopefully we can make it to a beach while we are there.

My Birthday was pretty profitable this year… Got free dinner, drinks, LOTR trilogy, new clothes and this sign from Darcy…

I have been trying to finish two papers at work in the last couple of weeks.  I think they should be good papers, but of course this is the time that the machine decides our codes have some sort of memory leak I can’t find…  Ah well.

It is the semiannual release season again – Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and Fedora 8 both come out in the next couple weeks – is excited.

I thought I’d also include this video for completeness. It is the last 1 minute of the 1982 Cal/Stanford Game. The last 30 seconds comprises the best sports moment … ever.

From Wednesday’s ESPNU Insider Podcast:

Beano Cook: “Well, I’m just saying, LSU has to go to Alabama.  That’s all I keep telling people… The Germans had a better army, but they had to play Russia on the Road.  That’s the Easy Way to explain it.”

Ivan Maisel:  “Uh ya… and we all know Russia… long winning streak at home.”

Beano Cook:  “Oh, very long.  Ask Napoleon.”

This weeks Real Time with Bill Maher Podcast had Mos Def as one of the guests.  He pretty much stole the show.  Who could have predicted he’d be so knowledgeable – (ok, so plenty of you could have).

While talking about the Iraqi people not appreciating America’s presence -

Mos Def:  “People start to realize ‘yo, this is fucked up son’… this happens all the time… America was founded on the premise of ‘fuck this, I ain’t paying you no more money; I don’t like you; I want my own shit.’”

This one may be the smartest thing I have heard in a long time.  America is living in a culture of fear, and I think he has this point down.  If I only I had the charisma…

Bill Maher:  “But you don’t want to get blown up by a bomb…”

Mos Def: “I don’t think I’m going to get blown up.  Listen, I’m black in America, I live under constant pressure.  I don’t believe in that boogey man shit.  If somebody want to do some shit to you… they doin it.  They motherfuckin ain’t talking about it… sending you tapes, ‘I’ma fuck you up when I see you…’ No! Somebody want to get you, they going to get you.  They ain’t sending you video messages, ‘ya, bitch it’s me.’  No, I don’t believe that shit.”

Sometimes there is a lot of wisdom hidden underneath a rough exterior