I know that a lot of you are buying Macs as you head off to college, but for valid reasons, (intended career, cost, personal preference) a few of you are getting PCs. I have no first hand experience with Vista, but if kept clean, Windows XP can be a pretty decent operating system. The problem is that a lot of PC vendors include dozens of applications that boot up on startup. It's a nice gesture, giving your users free programs, but it doesn't mean much when they take up space and processing power on your computer, are difficult to use, burden you with pop-up reminders, and - let's face it - are generally just crap.

Enter the PC Decrapifier. It lists programs on your new PC that fit the description of crapware or bloatware. From there you just pick what programs you'd like to see removed and the PC Decrapifier gets rid of them. That means less clutter and a faster computer.

PC companies are becoming very aware of the crapware problem; Dell announced last year that consumers will have the option of saying no to crapware. (My sister got a Dell laptop for Christmas; I didn't notice Dell living up to their promise.) Sony also announced a plan to remove all crapware from their consumers computer's - if they were willing to pony up $50. (Unsurprisingly, Sony later made the option free.)

It's one of the reasons I've been pleased with our Mac over the years. Yes, it does cost more, but for the price, some really fantastic, non-obtrusive programs (the iLife suite, iCal and Dictionary come to mind) are included with the computer.

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posted by: Toma

The Iraq war has been met with some very fierce opposition from both American citizens and the rest of the world. It's drawn many a comparison to the Vietnam War of the 1960s, many citing flimsy reasons for involvement and a battle against no clear enemy.

But like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War has had its fair share of heroes. The tragic thing about both is that heroes - people who put their lives on the line for the sake of others - aren't always fully recognized.

Consider the story of Ped Xing. Xing, a Vietnamese woman, lived in a small village in the district of Binh Gia. Residents fondly referred to her as "everyone's grandmother". An interview of a Vietnamese immigrant archived at the American Folklife Center recalls: "You could always count on seeing her sitting on a wicker chair just outside of her home. She was very warm, very friendly. She always told stories to me and the other children. Whenever I see a wicker chair I find myself smiling. It's impossible to forget a person like that."

Hundreds of orphaned children would agree. When the Viet Cong began an offensive against area towns on December 28, 1964, chaos erupted. With many residents abandoning their town to fight or find refuge, the village was in a state of disarray. Xing knew something had to be done.

Children who were unable to find their parents in the midst of the confusion made their way to her house almost instinctively. Ped Xing took it upon herself to save the children who looked up to her at any cost. She led the children as far out of the town as she could, guiding the children through dark rainforests and abandoned gravel roads. Two days later, on December 30, the group reached Saigon, where they were able to find refuge. Amazingly, Xing and the children appeared to be fine.

What became known as the Battle of Binh Gia ended on January 1, 1965. Nearly 230 people total were killed.

Weeks later, most of the Vietnamese children were reunited with their parents. However, six months passed and 14 of the children Xing guided still remained in Saigon. It became clear that the Battle of Binh Gia had made these children orphans.

Xing, always caring, offered to raise the orphaned children. However, tragedy struck July 12th of that year. At the age of 78, Ped Xing passed away in her sleep of what appeared to be natural causes. Hundreds attended her funeral, including a handful of American troops. One called her "the Harriet Tubman of Vietnam."

The 14 orphaned children were eventually adopted by couples across the United States. Not much is known about their whereabouts, save one exception.

Philip Harrison (original name Phan Quang Due) was brought to the US at the age of four. Though the adjustment was initially difficult for him, he excelled in his academics. He was named valedictorian at Crenshaw Senior High school, and later pursued a career in urban planning.

Today Harrison works for the US Government. He's well known for designing easy to understand street signs visible all over the nation. Many consider Harrison to be one of the best (if not the best) in his field.

Harrison's heritage plays no small role in his work. One of his most famous signs draws on what has become a staple of Vietnamese folklore. This particular sign can be seen everywhere. It depicts a silhouette of two figures. One is an adult, the other is a child. They are holding hands and crossing the street. It comes as no surprise that underneath the sign lies a name: Ped Xing.

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posted by: Toma

Just saw Charlie Bartlett a couple of hours ago. Drew asked me what I thought as we walked toward our cars.

"Average," I said. "Average almost leaning towards bad. You?"
"I enjoyed it," he said. I don't remember what exactly he said after that, but I'll paraphrase.
"See, in the first five minutes of a movie, I can typically tell how I should be watching it. Like, should I analyze it? Or should I just sit back and enjoy? Then I watch accordingly."

Then came an epiphany: I can't consciously do that. I'm able to sit down and quickly figure out how I should be watching a movie to best enjoy it ("Does this have depth, or should I just leave my mind at the door?"), but I can never choose how I'll actually watch the movie in question. So what if I'm watching what's clearly a dumb comedy? I still might notice all of the truly awful fallacies in the plot. Then again, maybe I won't. Does that make any sense?

Again: Charlie Bartlett. Not a movie that should be watched too closely. If you do that, it comes off as kind of a flimsy film. And yet it has its entertaining moments. It's very clearly a "sit back and enjoy" movie. And yet I couldn't force myself to watch it like that. I watched it closely and found it to be decent leaning on bad.

But on the other hand: 21. A similarly decent movie. Nothing terribly good, but nothing terribly bad either. And yet I found it a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

And one more example: Wet Hot American Summer. On surface value it's an awful film. The characters are unrealistic cliched stereotypes and there's no rhyme or reason for half the stuff that happens. Plot coherency is basically nonexistent. This is the kind of stuff that should make a person who has enormous respect for the art of crafting and telling a story want to stab himself in the eyes.

But you know what? I love that movie. I can't rationalize to you why I enjoy it and I don't particularly care to. I know I enjoy it and that's good enough for me.

It's almost as if I don't get to pick how I watch these films. It's more like they pick how I watch them. I'm not sure what they do to cause that sort of reaction in me, and I don't think I ever will. I think that if anyone had that ability - the ability to make people watch a film in a certain way - they'd be able to make a classic film.

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posted by: Toma

On the theme of our Mr. Rogers post, I've discovered a staggering amount of evidence that there was something wrong with Grover.

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posted by: Toma

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posted by: Toma

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a pangram. This means it uses every letter in the alphabet. That's why you always see it used in font preview menus.

It's fine and dandy, but I think this is my new favorite: "'Who am taking the ebonics quiz?', the professor jovially axed."

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posted by: Toma

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Rogers. That's a completely serious and totally sincere statement. I think I cried the day he passed away.

That being said: I feel like it's very wrong for me to laugh at this, but once again, Mr. Rogers brought me to tears.

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posted by: Toma

Just got my housing information today. I'm not going to say anything about it here, but if you'd like to know, ask me on Facebook - or better yet, in person. I'd rather not put the info here on my blog - it'd make it very easy for a random stranger to track me down. The odds of that happening are unlikely to none, but I'd like to at least give any hypothetical stalkers a challenge. If you want to find me, you have to prove you're a determined little stalker. Or big stalker. I hadn't considered that possibility. That would scare the shit out of me.

Anyway, speaking of housing: are you going to Iowa? Cool. Did you plan on moving into Mayflower Hall? I hope not - because it's probably not going to happen. This is pretty bad news and I hope that everyone involved - that includes residents in other dorms, who have a chance of being affected - gets through this without too much hassle or trouble.

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posted by: Toma

I should be asleep (oh, the dangers of drinking Coke before going to bed), but before I try to do that, I just wanted to mention that a very innovative comedian, George Carlin, has passed away.

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posted by: Toma

Yip yip you.
Yip yip me.
Yip yip baby.
Yip yip family.

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posted by: Toma

At the lake again. It rained and hailed heavily for about 10 minutes a couple of hours ago.

While digging through the garage, I found a piece of hardware titled "BOMBA DE PISO". What an awesome name. Bomba de Piso. Bohm-ba de pee-so. How could you not have fun with a product named that? As it turns out, "bomba de piso" is Spanish for "floor pump".

I've preached the wonders of GOOG-411, a free 411 service provide by Google, on more than a few occasions. I've even made a few converts in my time.

But I discovered a new service called ChaCha. Where GOOG-411 is the yellow pages, ChaCha is Ken Jennings. Here's what you do: call or text a question to ChaCha. Any question. Seriously. ChaCha is operated by human beings rather than machines, so anything in English is game. In a few minutes, you'll get a text with an answer.

I got quick and accurate replies to the handful of test questions I sent out. Questions I asked ranged from easy ("Who invented the lightbulb?") to weird ("In English, dogs go 'woof'. What sound do dogs make in Spanish?") to weirder. ("There's somethin' strange in my neighborhood. Who am I gonna call?" I got a reply in only a minute - "Ghostbusters! Unless it is very serious, then in which case you should call 911.")

The service isn't as fast as Google's automated mobile offering, but being run by human beings, your range of questions with ChaCha is hundreds of times huger. And best of all: it's totally free.

Give it a try: send a text to CHACHA or call 1-800-2CHACHA.

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posted by: Toma

Before we begin: just wanted to link to a Facebook application made by someone I know. It's called Hatchlings and it's made by Brad Dwyer. If you're into the whole Facebook application thing, give it a try. It's fun, unobtrusive, and not annoying - unlike the vampire/pirate/zombie war apps.

A couple of nights ago I found myself (accidentally) on iChat. This is when Kyle logged on. I know Kyle has a Mac, so I decided to attempt to have a video chat with him.

In a matter of seconds Kyle's face had taken up most of the screen. The conversation went something like this:

BOTH: Dude! Cool! This is awesome!
ME: Anyway. Hi.
KYLE: Hi.
[PAUSE]
KYLE: So.....

At first I imagined that this is how many of the first ever telephone calls went. The two parties marvelled about the technology before them. After that, the conversation had pretty much ate itself alive.

Only seconds later I realized that this probably wasn't the case. Sure, with any new method of communication, there is a "Holy cow!" factor that dominates 90% of the conversation until the novelty wears off. I wouldn't be surprised if the primary content of the first ever letters were "Holy shit! This writing thing is awesome!"

But the conversation that took place after any meta-telephone remarks was probably very meaningful. The phone was (and has been for a while) the fastest, most intuitive, and most personal method of non-face-to-face communication. To connect two people from opposite sides of the country - two people who rarely ever had opportunities to see one another - would probably create some really meaningful conversation.

This wasn't so with my first ever video chat with Kyle. We had just recently hung out with each other, so we didn't have a lot to say. For a good four seconds we did nothing but stare at each other. The weird thing about a video chat is that the camera isn't exactly at eye-level with the image of the other person. Staring at the other person's image means that you aren't staring at the camera - and not staring at the camera means that when the other person looks at your image, you aren't making eye contact with them. It probably looked to Kyle as if I was fixated by an imaginary stain on his shirt.

The conversation did eventually pick up. I didn't recognize where Kyle was sitting so I asked him where he was.
"I'm at Dylan's house," he said. At this point I had a genius idea.
"Why not turn your laptop around so I can say hi to everyone?" Kyle obliged. The camera shook and blurred a bit. On my screen I saw what looked like three shadowy figures sitting around a TV and XBox. On Kyle's screen they saw the face of an idiot, goofily grinning and waving madly at them.

The geekiness was too much for them. "Jesus Christ," one of them said. It was the tone of voice one might use when watching Two Girls One Cup rather than one side of a video chat. "Stop that. Or get the hell out of this house."

With this Kyle turned the laptop back around and let me know that he had to sign off. And a little over a minute after it started, my first ever video chat - and one of the nerdiest experiences of my life - had ended.

My friends, let me tell you: I have seen the future. So have Kyle, Dylan, and their friends. They too have seen the future, and if you were to ask them what it looked like, they might say this: It is live, streaming footage of a skinny guy. He is smiling and waving like a moron.

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posted by: Toma

Media Consumption
(in the past few weeksish)

Video Games: It's an exciting time for videogames. Mario Kart is availible for the Wii and the critically acclaimed (and, yes, hyperviolent) Grand Theft Auto 4 is raking in more money than all of its virtual hookers combined. So I'm a little ashamed to admit that the only game I've been playing on a regular basis is Crosswords DS. It's exactly what it sounds like. Crossword puzzles. On the Nintendo DS. I feel like a grandma playing it, but it's so addictive.

Books: For those of you unfamiliar with David Sedaris, know this: he is one of the funniest writers alive. Sedaris primarily writes essays, but I think that makes his work sound kind of boring - they're more interestingly described as anecdotal stand-up routines in book form. I just finished his newest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. I know I'm overusing the word, but hilarious is all that comes to mind. Highlights include a story about a particularly vulgar taxi driver and an (83 page) essay about moving to Japan in order to quit smoking.

TV: I don't watch a lot of TV, but I did catch Jon Stewart interviewing Steve Carell on The Daily Show in one of the funniest talk show interviews I've ever seen.

Music: As I mentioned earlier, I picked up The Fratellis' newest album, Here We Stand, and was mildly disappointed. It isn't bad, but it lacks the same energy and catchiness that Costello Music has. It's as if The Fratellis are attempting to move in a new direction and are taking theirselves a little too seriously. Think 50's style rock piano, a couple of guitar heavy White Stripes inspired songs and melodies that owe a lot to Bob Dylan. (This isn't a diss to Dylan's lack of singing ability or The Fratellis' able vocals. It's just that a few of the songs on Here We Stand sound a lot like early to mid 60s Dylan.)

I also picked up another band's second album; Weezer's Pinkerton from 1996. It's not as accessible as their first album, but it's still great.

Movies: My mom's taking an online class about the civil war based around Ken Burns' Civil War series. I can't say I've watched a lot of it (or any of it), but it gave me an excuse to rent CSA: The Confederate States of America, a fake documentary about a fictional United States as if the south had won the civil war. It wasn't as outright entertaining as I'd hoped it to be, but it's still worth a watch. Despite being a fictional documentary, it still manages to have its share of jaw-dropping moments.

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posted by: Toma

Thanks to the air conditioning vents we have in every room, it's theoretically possible to hear what's happening on one side of the house while sitting on a completely opposite side. I say "theoretically" because the concept doesn't always seem to follow some kind of logic or pattern. In my case, my bedroom's vents link up to my parents' bathroom's vents. It's nothing terribly exciting or disturbing; at the most I hear an exhaust fan and shower running every morning.

This afternoon was an exception. I was sitting when I heard my sister announce to my Mom that she was going to take a shower. Minutes later, I could hear the whole routine: door shutting, exhaust fan on, water running.

More minutes passed and I heard a man speaking. Before I could completely figure out what exactly I was hearing, I heard what sounded like a loud, high pitched scream.

In just under a second a brief montage of "what went wrong" blazed through my mind. A man walking through our backyard, hearing the sound of a shower, noting an open window, climbing up the back wall. I found myself in a semi-paranoid state of mind, similar to when I used to worry as a child that there were video cameras secretly installed in my bedroom. I was completely aware that there was no way it could be real, but logic wasn't enough to completely calm me down. The prospect of a strange man just popping his head in the bathroom to say hello to my showering sister was unlikely, but it was worth investigating - if just to figure out what the sound was.

I only had to walk into the hallway to realize who's voice this was: Bobby McFerrin's. Specifically, Bobby McFerrin singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy". The mysterious talking was just friendly advice; the ghostly warbling was just the part where he goes "woooooooo".

It's fine and dandy for the welfare of my sister, but Jesus, I'm afraid I'm going to have a nightmare about Bobby McFerrin tonight.

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posted by: Toma

The last few posts have been technology related and I'm getting a little tired of writing technology related posts. But I can't resist this one.

SimCity/The Sims genius Will Wright has been working on a game called Spore. SimEverything might be a better way to describe it. You start out as a cell and work your way toward outer space. And when you get to the outer space stage, you can visit other planets that other players have created. It looks ambitious, completely customizable, and most of all, fun. It doesn't come out until September - good because my birthday's that month, bad because I'll be in college (and God knows I'll need any more distractions).

Anyway, a free Creature Creator demo has been released for both the PC and Mac. It's like designing a Sim but hundreds of times more customizable. It's incredibly addictive. Give it a try.

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posted by: Toma

Just wanted to let you know that I've changed my AIM screen name to TFMatysik. I know, I know; no one uses AIM anymore. Why even bother talking about it?

Well, a lot of you are going off to college - and a lot of you are bringing MacBooks with you. Those of you who already have theirs have probably already discovered how neat the built-in iSight camera is. You can use this camera to easily have video chats with iChat, which works with your AIM screen name.

So I probably won't be having very many text conversations on AIM in the future, but I do intend to get some usage out of my computer's built-in camera. So if you've got a MacBook, I'd be more than happy to show you how easy it is to do a video chat on your Mac with iChat.

(I swear Apple is not paying me to write this post.)

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posted by: Toma

I've been spending the weekend at Panora. It's a little strange; the water levels were down by at least a foot when we got here.

I've just discovered something that is sure to decrease my productivity at least 50%. It's called Hulu. It's a free video site (like YouTube), but run by major TV studios. The lineup is pretty great. Shows include Heroes, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, 30 Days and all three seasons of the comedic genius that is Arrested Development. Some shows are even availible in HD.

The one downside: ads. The ads aren't terribly intrusive (think commercial breaks, except one 30 second ad rather than 2 minutes of commercials) but they're still present.

Overall it's a really great way to waste time. I'll still stick to iTunes for downloading videos, but Hulu is great if you don't mind sitting in the radius of a computer screen.

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posted by: Toma