A Series of Tubes

Well The fake Steve Jobs posted about the whole think secret going down thing. Then they posted about how they were getting sued and offered money to take their website down as well. The thing is that like much of the fake steve jobs stuff it was all a big hoax. The fake steve jobs got people all angry at the EFF because they refused to support the fake steve jobs blogger. I guess it was kinda funny to see how many people would automatically side with him, but in the end I think the fake steve Jobs just likes to play pretend way too much.

So Apple computer has been able to sue the website think secret in order to have it shut down. The owner of the website for some reason seems to think that this is an “amicable settlement”. He better be writing that on a chair made out of $100 bills. I don’t think that apple suing a website and getting it shut down is a good precedent to set. It also makes apple look bad and I hope it affects their sales, but I doubt that people will change their consumer habits because of apple’s suppression of free speech.  You can see articles and posts about the shutdown, such as why apple was suing, here and here.

There was a meeting for grad students and representatives of the University to discuss the LRDP and the tree sitters. The meeting was interesting and illuminating because the officials revealed the position of the University and its thinking in regard to the tree sitters. First off the University is worried about avoiding a tent University type of situation. Tent University was sort of an outdoor camping/teaching thing with tents set up at the front of campus. There was complaints from neighbors about late night noise. The police were called and the police used strangling techniques to render people at Tent university unconscious so that they could be easily removed. This was an obvious excessive use of force. Hoping to avoid a violent confrontation force has not been initiated by the University police with the current tree sitters although it was discussed as an option.

I expressed to the University officials that I felt that the students concerns were not listened to or their concerns were not acted upon during the LRDP drafting procedure. From two different officials I got two responses. The first was that there was the Strategic Futures committee that preceded the LRDP. Many of the issues about where the University should expand and if it should expand were discussed a lot in this committee, or so I have been told. So if I as a student wanted to have my concerns heard I would first have to have heard about the strategic futures committee and then attempted to contribute to it. This is unacceptable. The planning of the University should be a open and democratic process. The second response came from the Associate Vice Chancellor/Dean of Students who was more concerned that student voices were not heard in the LRDP drafting proceedings. She seemed very willing to hear student concerns and work with students to form a solution. This was very encouraging and instead of providing excuses why student voices were not heard, instead wanted to plan a way forward where student opinion is heard. The tree sitters should sit down with her if they are serious about negotiating and getting their demands met (once they actually have demands that the University can meet). Read more

Here is the best use of your next 15 seconds of your life:

You are welcome.

Found this on the Interweb. I thought it was pretty hilarious:

So I’m all set to get a new desk for Christmas. There is not a whole lot of secrecy in my family’s christmas gifts. Normally a kid would write to santa when they want to ask for what they want. In my family we email our wish lists to each other. There is less surprise when you get exactly what you asked for but it turns out that you open presents that contain exactly what you want. Anyhow my big ticket item is sucking up most of my christmas gift fund, and it’s a desk. So my requirements were that it be as sustainably made as possible (Using FSC wood), made as close to me as possible (I didn’t want one made in china), of good quality so that I don’t junk it in a few years, and one that I can easily move into a new apartment (easy to go around corners and doesn’t require me to find 3 friends to move). I tried craigslist, but everything on craigslist failed miserably on at least one of my requirements along with sometimes being a just plain bad desk. So I decided on a legare desk.  It meets most of my requirements except it is made in Texas which is a bit farther away than I had hoped.  Other than that it seems to be the perfect fit.

It’s kind of like legos but at the end you have a desk instead of a small plastic Castle.  I guess the desk could be used to hold your plastic castle because lets just face facts here: castles are cool.

So a guy who posts as rx2008 on you tube is awesome at editing the words of famous people into the lyrics of songs. His latest is bush singing it’s the end of the world:

He also has a video of Mike Gravel, the crazy Democratic candidate that has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination. Gravel is an interesting character. From what I know of him he basically doesn’t do anything other than show up to the Democratic debates. He really doesn’t campaign much. Because of that he has been puled from some of the debates. The official reason reported that “NBC News and the Democratic National Committee excluded former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska on grounds that he did not meet fundraising and polling thresholds.”

Well enjoy the video and check out rx2008’s others here.

This short animation from a VFS student has two very awesome things. The first is the pirate. The second is…the ending: