Categories
Liberty Personal

[29] Of my religion is privacy

While trying to write a decent source code for my new website, a realization came to me. I could track every people, every netters that visited my site with little problems. That realization makes me to wonder, if it is so easy for me to track people down in the web, then it must be easier for not-just-everyday-net-user to track me down. This notion scares me far more than death.

I have always value my privacy. That’s way I’ve chosen to live alone instead of living in a triple room.

Privacy is important to me. That’s why most people don’t really know me. Sure they know me but their knowledge on me is just skin deep. I dare say even my parents don’t really know me. They think I am their innocent, good-hearted son. Those words make me laugh my heart out.

My religion is privacy. That’s why I wear masks. I have a scholar’s mask at home. I wear a saint’s mask in the public. I tape a joker’s mask in front of my friends. Sometimes, I borrow a devil mask. Sometimes, I wonder whether I have ever taken off my masks.
Privacy. That’s why, if you realize, I’ve stopped writing my personal feelings here.

Knowing I seldom show my face to the world, I found it disturbing that all of my preferences, my style of surfing , my ip addresses are easily obtained by anybody provided that ‘anybody’ knows how to manipulate the resources in the net.

By writing this, there is no way I’m saying I was ignorant. I know all of these violations of privacy do occur but I had never known to what extend. Now that I know, starting from this moment on, I’ll practice a very safe surfing style. Disable scripts, never accept cookies. And Cookie Monster, you better stop eating cookies or else, somebody will be stalking you virtually…

P/S – Am I writing too much? I earned a place in Blogger’s 10 Most Recently Updated Site too often a time. I’m a blogger… Ouch, that hurts.

Categories
Personal Science & technology

[28] Of the truth is out there

After such a long time of waiting and procrastination, I’ve finally, seriously started in building a homepage of my own. The design of the site has already been determined by me. Basically, the whole site will be based on the utilization of roughly 3 colors; the noon sky’s blue, white and black. Those three colors are going to be my official color. Some of the prototypes have already been posted on Geocities. So far, no problems that I can’t handle off.

The latest event is the reintroduction of SETI into my life. And yes, for those of you who were born in the eighties and believe in E.T., SETI is the acronym for The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It’s also famous for its relation with the Aceribo’s Dish in Puerto Rico. Aceribo Dish is the largest single radio telescope in the world. It could be the most well known telescope of all.

Right now, with Athlon 1.7, a processor that has a very respectable computation power for home users, I’m helping the people in UC Berkeley in their search for aliens. It’s pretty interesting. It makes my computer even cooler. When the computer is being idle, it runs a screensaver that acts as a radio transmission analyzer.

SETI was first established by NASA in their quest to answer the question “Are we alone?” The program scanned the whole wide skies for unusual radio transmissions. The idea is to send out radio signals and hope that somebody out there will return our “call”. For years now, the program has been scanning the sky without much success. A few of the researchers themselves believe the odd of finding E.T. will be as large as what 3-CPO’s calculation of getting out of an asteroid field alive.

In the beginning, there were a lot of hypes and excitement. However, the excitement lost its momentum quickly and lastly, the American’s Congress, the institution that finances NASA told NASA to drop SETI out of its program. The reason that was given – SETI program is highly expensive. Although there were a lot of objection against the Congress’ directive, NASA finally bowed to the pressure and scraped SETI.

Nevertheless, a few scientists that were involved in that program continue to run SETI on their own in hope that their energy will not be wasted. One example of these group is the UC Berkeley’s version of SETI.

Is there any intelligence life form out there? If there is, does that mean the foundation of the world’s main religions will crumble under its own weight?

Most religions say that human is the best creation ever. They’re the only intelligence species in this realm. It would be interesting to see people’s reaction if we will ever meet up with another intelligence life form. We can speculate but the truth is out there. (Does that phrase sounds familiar?)

Categories
Gaming

[27] Of Master of Orion 3

Guess what?

Master of Orion 3 is coming out. I can’t believe this. First, it was Civilization 3, now, one of the leaders in turned-based strategy will be having its sequel in less than a season. Splendid. My life will further be rotted endlessly.Even right now, I am playing Civilization 3 again.

On other note, the completed structure for my external page has been posted on Geocities. Still, more need to be posted and I suspect the site will be completed in a few month, hopefully before spring 2002.

Categories
Personal

[26] Of another pathetic test

Test 25C (This is just another pathetic test. I’ve added a few sites, one is Lada’s, one is the Univ of Michigan’s Astro Society. While the CEO is trying to figure out the vector of a comet all by himself, check the site of the week: Vector Lounge.

Categories
Personal

[25] Of the Annual Quad War

At last, the monitor has arrived in Ann Arbor after much procrastinations. With this, nothing will stand in my way.

Winter has finally arrived. Yesterday marked the unofficial opening of winter; the two famous quads in the University, the West Quad and the South Quad, wedged war on each other by lining up along E. Madison street.

While the South Quadrants pronounced aggression against us (The Great West Quadrangle), I was sleeping, too tired after trying to figure out my Computer Assisted Physics’ problems. I was enjoying my slumber with a sweet dream, resting innocently on my cozy bed. All the sudden, the tranquility of the atmosphere was disturbed by a heavy knocking on my wooden door. I quickly woke up and tried to find the most polite curse I can think of to present to the knocker of my door. Upon opening my door, I saw the residential officer, wearing thick clothing, telling me an alarm had gone off. I told him I didn’t hear any alarm but then he said the West Quad’s had been sounded. He continued by telling it was probably a hoax but it has to be treated as a real alarm.

Adhering to him, I took the stair and headed to the exit only to found out hundreds of undergraduates catapulting countless snowballs at each other. Stunt by the moment, my mind raced to enquire the situation and voila! THE ANNUAL QUAD WAR! Excited by the event, I quickly ran to the aid of my fellow West Quadrants. After a few minutes, both sides exchanged names and curses (there was no ‘f’ word used though). By the time both gone tired shouting at each other who were separated by the E. Madison St., the West Quad launched a barrage, running across the street and trying to make the kill number as high as possible. Amazingly, the pathetic South Quad didn’t charge the West Quad side. Perhaps, they ran out of snow. Hahaha, we almost ran out of snow too. Luckily, our courtyard is much bigger than theirs.

They ran out of snow. That is absurd but it’s the truth. The War was huge enough, that the undergrads ran out of ammo. Imagine the scale of the War. That’s it. I’ll stay in West Quad again for next year.

Epilogue, the Daily proclaimed, West Quadrants emerged victorious. (“South Quad, we want your daddy…”)

It’s beautiful in the winter. Although it’s cold but I’m beginning to change my perception. I love winter. I don’t care much for the cold.

As I walked along S. University St., I saw tree branches covered with the clean white snow. The wind blew blissfully, letting the snow on the branches to fall gracefully to the ground. The sight of the falling snow is enough to change my hatred into love. Before this, I hated winter. The cold was unbearable. The feeling was undesirable. The fire inside burnt mightily only to be quenched by falling snowflakes.

Thus, my love for Ann Arbor is nothing but complete. This shall be my heaven. This shall be my home.