Rosio Pavoris

So, having looked through the rest of the papers they gave me, I believe I can say with confidence that the KHL’s student body is much more inbred than the KUL’s.
On the other hand, they also seem to offer 250 MB of server space and unlimited bandwidth for 5 € per year. We’ll see.

So anyway. We ran into Kasper in Leuven. Or rather in Tienen, he was waiting for the same train we were. He was on his way to his second period exams. Apparently he had fifteen or so of them, five or so of which today. Given that he was logged into Muffins when I got home four hours later, I’m guessing they didn’t go very well.
Also saw Broos, who grew a ponytail. Men in their late 40s look odd with red ribbons in their hair.

Also, I bought a pencil. It came with an eraser.

I went to deal with enrollment today.

The building of the REGA department, which is where I’ll be spending most of my time, is a horrible failure of a building in a pauper neighborhood.
It kind of looks like our elementary school building, only without all the style and charm of a government-funded low-budget modular design of the late ’80s, and more poured concrete. Yes, I do believe it’s about as bad as you’re imagining. The rest of the neighborhood is probably worse.
It’s pretty much exactly like the buildings of the Exam Commission, with the same type of people staffing it, AFAICT. The same type of people I complained about a while ago.

The actual registering was much more old-fashioned than the KUL, of course, with physical paper and a pen I could keep.
You know how the KUL has these plasma screens in various places displaying various types of information? The KHL has a hueg CRT hanging from the ceiling in their main hall. People need to stop using those. Even if the person ordering them can’t hear the high-pitched whine, they need to realise other people can. Now I have a reasonably horrible headache, and the fact that I got up at noon (six hours earlier than usual) for this doesn’t help.
There were two computers there as well (Dells, probably old KUL equipment, by the look of them), but they were turned off and didn’t have keyboards, so I think they were just for decoration.

Once I filled out their papers and gave them my identity card so they could get my name right (”Are you sure this is a real card? It doesn’t look like a real card.”), we tried to pay them, but of course, they cannot accept cash. The woman literally went D: when I pulled out my wallet. No, only by money transfer.
They also didn’t take my picture or give me my student card, or my class schedule. No, there’s an “administrative moment” for that on the first day, being the 18th.

They did, of course, offer me a lot of information on the sports program they share with the KUL, and on Kotnet, though it took some effort to convince them that I didn’t, actually, have or want a kot (”But… there are 500 left!”).

They meant well, of course, but ugh.

They also gave me some other papers (tons of them, in fact, but no map of Leuven, even) that I’ll be looking at after I do some nappings.

I’ve been hearing arguments like these a lot (you might not have been, depending on the types of people you hang with): the various physical constants (or other factors in our environment; the people I’m around tend cite the constants, YMMV) are all such that their values are ideal for the existence of life. The odds of these constants having these values are breathtakingly small, ergo, the universe must have been created by God.

I both like and am discouraged by this line of reasoning.
I like it because it’s dead simple to refute, and I get to quote Douglas Adams while doing it. I’m discouraged by it, because it’s dead simple to refute, and anyone capable of knowing what a physical constant is should be able to figure this out on his own.

The Douglas Adams quote, then. Or rather, Richard Dawkins quoting Douglas Adams.

[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’

The actual quote goes on for a bit, but this is the bit that applies here.

Life as we know it arose in this universe, on this planet. Isn’t it to be expected that this universe and this planet are supremely suited to have life as we know it develop in and on it, then?
If they were different, a different kind of life would develop (and if they also developed intelligence [but not too much of it], they’d be asking the same question, no doubt), or none at all (in which case they wouldn’t even know, obviously).
This isn’t an argument for the existence of God. It’s an exercise in common sense, and a demonstration of your lack of it.

(I seem to link to Wikipedia a lot. Maybe I should write an extension to the WordPress parser that just converts, say, Richard Dawkins to <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins”>Richard Dawkins</a>. That shouldn’t be too hard to do.)

Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil, says Vatican exorcist.

Stalin was an atheist, of course, but Hitler was a Roman Catholic, and on numerous occasions claimed to be acting out God’s will, or at least to have based his ideas on his religious beliefs. But of course, “even the devil can recite scripture for his purpose”.
Why does the Vatican still have exorcists, anyway?

Either way, magical beliefs exonerating people from personal responsibility is never a good thing.

Turns out the thing that’s overheating isn’t the motherboard, it’s the power supply. This temperature type software has its sensors mixed up.

I’ll probably still build a new computar, but now I’m much more hopeful about being able to salvage parts from my current computer/turn this computer into a server, possibly just on a local network.

We’ll see.

2:3 ratio, azure on a Canadian pale argent, purpure pansy defacement.

I quite approve. Now I need a way to digitalisate our coat of arms, so I can actually edit that.
I can be my own authority on heraldry, dammit.

(The blue, of course, is from the flag of Tienen. I know purple is reserved for royalty, but I don’t care.)

In late August, yeah. My mom apparently decided to clean out a lot of junk that’s been around forever. Here’s the tally so far:

Things that have been intentionally destroyed or otherwise disposed of

• Thirty years’ worth of comics; mine and my dad’s, mostly.
• Twenty years’ worth of clothes; my dad’s and my sister’s, mostly.

Things that have been unintentionally destroyed or otherwise disposed of

• Fourteen smoking pipes given to me by Opa.
• My sock drawer; the bottom fell out.

Things that were initially reported as having been unintentionally destroyed or otherwise disposed of, but were claimed to have been intentionally destroyed or otherwise disposed of when they were brought up again a few hours later

• The bookshelves in my parents’ bedroom.
• All of my parents’ college textbooks, which were cleverly hidden vaguely in the same area as aforementioned comics.
• Thirty years’ worth of my mom’s comics.
• Mami’s old dolls, most of which qualify as antique.
• My dad’s first teddybear (though this was actually serious enough that he drove to the dump to attempt to retrieve it; dunno if he managed to)

I need a lock on my door.

I need someone to draw me a stylised pansy, vaguely like this one, only better and more pansy-like. And cleaner. Maybe vector’d, with the front three petals having left-right and radial symmetry, and whatnot. Still in just purple, though.

It’s been ages since anyone in our family had a personalised coat of arms, and I want one. O\__/O

One of our admins is Jewish and a girl. The other is black, asian, emo, and quite possibly a furry. I think “faggot” is maybe the only slur that doesn’t apply to any of us.
So why does it get thrown around so much?

Either way, Terru got to disable four accounts and I got to ban another IP. Great fun.

Edit: Oh, obviously. It’s amazing how many people suddenly have horrible friends when they get banned. Before you feel too sorry for him, though: hah.

(I agree with him as far as the badgers go, BTW. Which is why the reference to it points out it’s a tired pop culture reference. It’s been in the game since last November. This June, KoL implemented the astral badger.)

Link.

I’m not one for the glorification of the lower classes, but Mario is winar, and this particular show (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!) was awesome.
I’m kind of surprised the guy playing Mario turned out to be a professional wrestler in his late 50s. I wonder which part of his career he looks back on with the most fondness.

Actually, the only bit I remember from that TV show is this, which is arguably all anyone would need to see. Maybe it’s a good thing it got cancelled when it did.

So, I was looking at computer bits today, because I needs me a new computer, seeing as how my current one only barely survived the summer and I probably need a laptop for colleging next year.

So, I intend to get a new desktop computar, which I will assemble myself, having no prior experience with anything like this. The parts I would like to have in a computer add up to roughly $8,900, which is slightly over my budget. I believe I could build something acceptable for closer to $1,000, though, which is comfortably within it. My current computer cost about $2,200, IIRC.
Any advice, though, would be neat. I’ve been looking at Newegg, mostly, because Rouge mentions that a lot, but if anyone knows a better place, or whatnot, do tell.

As far as laptops goes, I’m vaguely undecided. This wouldn’t be my primary computer, so maybe a MacBook would maybe be a good idea. On the other hand, I have no idea what software it’ll be required to run, and I don’t know about too many decent emulators.
This can probably wait another month or so, I guess. Mh.

Like stellar evolution, this is probably something I should be researching when I’m properly awake, not at 6:40 AM.

This was on Google Video for a while, but was removed, presumably for copyright issues. I’m not sure if it was ever on YouTube, but it wasn’t anymore when I looked for it a while ago. This one is hosted by Myspace, so I don’t expect it to be around forever.
Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, on the Bible. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definitely worth watching. And if you have, it’s worth watching again.

I haven’t talked about webcomics in a while, I guess. I don’t read as many as I used to.

The one I used to read most often was Sinfest, but they’ve… jumped the shark, as it were. It’s still occasionally funny, but what the cock is this shit? It’s just too polished and mainstreamy now.

There’s Penny Arcade too, I guess. They’re mostly very deeply into the famous for being famous stage now, but can occasionally still manage to be decent.
Their old role has mostly been taken over by Ctrl+Alt+Del, which is kind of ironic. At least they departed from ripping off PA a long time ago, now.

Then there’s VG Cats. If this needs explanation, you aren’t reading enough of it. Rectify this.
Same goes for Chugworth Academy, which is considerably better than the loli prons he used to draw.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, Concerned is pretty good. It’s a Halflife 2 comic, so it’s probably funnier if you’ve actually played Halflife 2.

Qwantz is probably the best dinosaur-related art-recycling comic you’ll ever read. Read all of it. All of it.

On the topic of art-recycling, PartiallyClips is a clip-art comic. I’m not sure if the author is a decent guy who’s just a bit of an internet nubie or a pretentious cocknozzle, but if the former, it’s pretty good.

White Ninja Comics would be a lot better if it didn’t have so many idiots liking it.

The same can be said for The Perry Bible Fellowship, though that’s still pretty good.

I guess that adds up to a reasonable amount anyway, but most of them don’t update very often.
If you’re only going to read one of them, read Qwantz.

Skadhi’s dadday was on InfidelGuy yesterday. Download the recording here. Don’t let the Stickam applet scare you off.

It’s over 50 minutes long, and nothing new is being said, but you might learn a few things, about ID creationism if you aren’t a regular reader of Pharyngula or whatnot, or some biological trivia otherwise. Worth listening to either way.

I think this blog needs a new name. Rosio Pavoris is vaguely emo, but I mostly picked it because it sounded neatly erudite, in that it’s Latin and the choice of words is archaic enough that a lot of smaller Latin dictionaries won’t be able to translate it.
Of course, if I make the politics and religion posts a recurring theme, it’s pretty apt. Dunno.

It’s interesting how people don’t register anymore. I guess I don’t require registration for commenting, but I never did, and in the first few days something like half a dozen people (my loyal readerbase twice over, at that point) registered, while after that, literally nobody has. Go register, kids, and log in before commenting. It makes controlling spambots a little bit easier for me.

I’ve enabled pingbacks and trackbacks from other blogs (edit: apparently these are standardised protocols, and should be capitalised as Pingback and TrackBack, respectively; live and learn). I wonder if that will change anything. I don’t do pingbacks and trackbacks myself, and I’d assume most people don’t. Either way, there shouldn’t be a huge number of people linking to my posts.

This camembert is really good.

I’m not even talking about how the past two presidential elections have been manipulated; while disgraceful, the system itself doesn’t encourage that kind of abuse. I’m talking about the fundamental flaws of the existing system that pretty much guarantee you’ll end up with a shitty government.
There are more, of course, but here are three of the most obvious ones:

1. No compulsory voting. I know a lot of people see this as a good thing, because it means they don’t have to get up to go vote every so many years or face a fine. This leads to mostly just the people who feel very strongly about their political views voting, and these are often not people you want to see running your country. I’m not saying everyone who votes out of their free will is an extremist, but forcing everyone to vote will get more moderate voices out, and will reduce the effects of partisan polarisation.

2. Speaking of Joe Lieberman, the plurality voting system, also known as the first-past-the-post system. This ensures, simply put, that only one party is in control of the White House (though it’s not just used for presidential elections) at any given time. The downsides of this are highlighted by, indeed, the Joe Lieberman thing. He lost the Democratic primary and decided to run as an independent, thereby splitting the Democratic vote and practically guaranteeing a Republican victory. It reduces the richness of the political landscape, very often (though not always) bringing it back to just two major parties.
People argue that allowing more than one party to be in charge at any given point reduces efficiency and wastes time bickering and reaching for compromises. The reduction in efficiency is vastly overstated, and what exactly is wrong with taking your time to reach a compromise everyone is happy with as opposed to jumping head-first into decisions that will probably be mostly undone after the next elections? Some type of party-list proportional representation system would be much better.

3. Privately funded elections. That’s just asking for corporate lobbyists to take over. Should taxpayer money go to fund election campaigns? Probably not, but there’s no better alternative.
I understand this is actually happening on the state level in some places in the US now, which is a good start, but just a start.

Yes, it’s easier to criticise from the outside. That doesn’t mean the criticisms aren’t valid.
Feel free to refute.

I guess I’ll go to KHL, then.
I’ll get my Bachelor’s there, and then move on to the KUL for my Master’s. So, three years at the KHL, one at the KUL, in theory.

The downside of this, of course, is that I can’t pick a minor, so no molecular biology for me. ;__;

Also, apparently my mom thinks the only reason I wanted to go to the KUL is because their classes start a week later. Seriously, what the fuck?
I’d be offended, but I can’t be bothered.

I think I’m going to readjust my sleep schedule, what with classes swiftly approaching (moderately swiftly to very swiftly, depending on whether I pick KUL or KHL; still hasn’t been resolved) and there not being anything interesting to do anyway.
The main reason I switched to my current 9 AM-6 PM schedule was so I could talk to Maia more, but she hasn’t really been around for almost two months now. I’m switching back to 4 AM-12 PM now.

Also, I don’t get why noon is 12 PM. It should either be 12 AM or 0 PM.

I upgraded to a newer version of WordPress, which takes forever because of the large number of files being transferred over a protocol that’s relatively unsuited to handling it (namely, FTP), and after starting over a few times (because FTP likes to crap out, of course without remembering where it left off) managed to get the update script running.
Of course, something broke. Blah. Now I get a notice telling me some template or other can’t be found whenever I access my post-writing pages. I can’t imagine this isn’t a common error that is documented somewhere on some WordPress forum, but I can’t be bothered to look for a solution.

There should be upgrade packets that only include the files that were changed, instead of the entire thing. If that already exists, someone should point it out to me.

Dunno if the option to password-protect a post is new, but I can imagine that could be handy.