Rinsefirst

This isn’t really a post, its just a post to say that I posted today, so it will be fast.

Nikki did well at DECA competitions, thats good. I’m glad for her, and proud of what she accomplished work wise.

Amber came over as did Sim as kind of a last minute plan at 10:00pm tonight. We watched coyote ugly and ate way to much ice cream and chocolate cigars… as i like to call them.

That’s all I have to say I guess for the night. I have a song I might post later, but for now, nah. So later.

John and I are going to try to get another game of chess in again before we leave. Hopefully I will find some way of posting the game online. Just a recap, the score between us so far this semester is Justin: 1 John: 1. So as soon as he get’s here we will begin…

2 hours later he arrived and we played… we are now Justin: 4 John: 2… Later

This post’s goal: To beat the record length on the longest post here on the site. I’m not really sure what the record is, but I am guessing that it’s up there. So what are we going to do? We’re going to write a lot, not all of it visible, but we will write a lot. That way the post gets really long *duh* and then everyone will spend hours reading it and come back probably feeling really smart because they know how stupid the post is. Either way, let’s get started with the basics.

To update from yesterday’s post, John beat me in what I would call a rushed finished game. I almost had him on time, but he got a little lucky and I missed a move. Either way, that puts us at 1 and 1 for the year. Hopefully he will enter the computer lab here shortly and be able to play me in a few games so that I can add to my score. If that happens, you’ll hear about it shortly because I am sure that I will take the stats from the game and post them in here. What else would I do with them?

I am supposed to go into work this afternoon. I will go into work this afternoon. Probably need to fix a few laptops and computers as well as do some web work for the teachers. I might try to do some of that web-work after I finish the web-work I wanted to do for myself as well. I am sure there will be a nice conversation that will continue from yesterday. Mr. Minsley and Dan would like to switch from having one static and one mobile lab to 4 mobile labs +/- 1. I told Dan that I wouldn’t support this idea, but I wouldn’t be against it either. Here’s why I don’t support it (and I am going to do this in the style of Dan’s post about the president).

It’s a fairly equal trade-off when it comes to computing power. The laptops will have just slightly less processor speed and ram than any desktop the school would buy. Therefore: the student’s aren’t losing out on the quality of the computer.

To me, static (desktop) computers will save us money in the long run. Laptops run us at least 200$ if not more than the average desktop we buy. Knowing this we have a trade off between either the number of computers or the quality of computers. I can accept the trade-off in number’s if it means that more computer’s can be in use around the building at various times. *In other words, I think having 24 to distribute around the building is about equal to having 30 in one room. However, this is my point of view, and there are situations where having just 1 more computer might save our butts.*

Also, I believe desktop PC’s are easier to work on. If given two identical computers in the same room to work on. One full size computer, and one laptop, which one would you rather work on? On the laptop you get a not standard keyboard. The monitor is probably a little to close or your hand’s are to far away, and the mouse isn’t a mouse on the laptop, it’s a touchpad or thumbpad. Again, I think the tradeoff of portability comes into factor here, but if we eliminate that, I’d take the desktop.

Desktops are maintainable. If something breaks on a desktop, I can find a part in our server room and generally repair it. If a laptop breaks, we have to send it to Dell, have them fix it, and send it back. Now there’s a fairly equal tradeoff here as well. Dell will repair our laptops for free. They will be the ones repairing them, so they have all the tools at their disposal. On the other hand, there are times where I have to accept defeat and say this computer is ‘beyond repair’. Knowing this, I’m not sure if the fact I can get a computer fix next day is better than Dell being able to fix it 5 days later. Again, it could matter in a tight jam, but not on a day to day basis.

Desktops are scrapable. That might not be a word, but let me explain. If we deem a desktop scrapable, we can take the parts out of it, put them in something else, and build a better computer. With laptops we will never be able to do that. They are sealed shut and the parts can’t be moved around. Again, this is more of a reapir issue like the last one, but either way, I think the scrapability of our desktops has proven to be useful over the last 3 years.

Desktops are upgradable. This again isn’t that big of a deal assuming our rotation plan works well. If our computers are never old enough to be considered out-of-date then we should never need to upgrade them. But let’s look at the Compaqs at MSA. Yes they are horrible machines. We have all come to that conclusion. But with a few upgrades such as ram, we were able to extend their life long enough to allow us to buy our first set of laptops. I must attribute some of that to the work that we put into them at MSA, but still… Had they been laptops, there would have been no small cost solution to making them run longer.

Speaking of costs again, and this is probably the reason I refuse to support it. To pull this off with the rotation Dan and Minsley want, it sounds as iff we would need a budget increase of $5000. We already get $40,000, which is high enough and more on a percentage base than I think 833 or most other school districts put into technology. The fact that we put a lot of money there isn’t that big of a deal to me, what bothers me is that I know the finicial situation of the school. I know we are stable, I know we won’t be closed down. I also know we will probably have to take out a loan to cover our debt over the summer until Minnesota get us our cash. I also know that the bond holders want us to have 10% of our loan in our fund balance. In other words, they want us to show a stable fund balance so that the school could stay operating if say Minnesota cut our funding again for an even longer period of time. When this issue first came up, they gave us 5 years. It was a loose 5 years and we just had to be showing we were making progess towards that goal. however, year 4 is approaching it’s end and its looking like we haven’t moved it at all. As a matter of fact, it looks more like we have been moving almost in the opposite direction. Knowing this, I don’t think a budget increase in technology is something we need, especially when we have been operating above standard *new computers ever year for students, what district has that other than us?* As a matter of fact, I think if we tried, we could maintain the same quality of computers in the building with a budget of $35,000. Either way, This is my sticking point for not supporting it. If we stick to our budget of 40k, I might support it and go with it, but I don’t want it increased, and hopefully the board will agree with me.

I think I should probably mention here why I am not against laptops. I really think the portability would be a good gain for the school. It would be nice to know that any room could be serviced and that instead of moving more towards

So that’s my list and reasoning for not supporting, but not being dead against the laptops. I truly believe its a toss up that really comes down to a few key decisions that can be answered by these questions:

What do the students need?

What can we afford?

What are our trade-off’s worth?

I don’t think the three of us are the ones to answer these questions either. I think it would need to go to the board before we made any attempts to decide what we were doing.

Ok, enough on that. John still isn’t here, which is kinda a bummer. I really wanted to play chess with him. Class is now roughly 2 hours away, so there is still time. Hope he get’s here soon.

Today’s another one of those day’s where I have decided to clean out my email inbox. I again will post a few of the more interesting emails that I have sent or received. Let’s start with this one on some religious readings I have been doing into the Gospel of St. Thomas:

See what I mean… Interesting stuff there. I could probably write a whole post just on that one email alone, but I won’t. I will let you guys read it and comes to your own conclusions about it. You might want to check out that site I link to at the beginning of the email. There is a lot of interesting stuff there.

I just discovered that emacs doesn’t have a word counter. That’s kind of annoying. I want to know what the word count is of all that I have typed in. Oh well. I will just paste it into something else that can count words, either that, or just ignore the fact that I have no easy way to compare how many words this post is in comparision with the others. Maybe I should just do file size. I think the database can tell me that. That would be cool. So now onto otherthings.

Last night I went to a play with Nikki and Maria. The play was ok. They did a pretty good job with the time they had and the acting by some of my old friends was very good. I think they needed a little work on the humour, but other than that, it was just fine.

We also went to Mapplewood and went clothes shopping. I’m starting to find clothes shopping relaxing. Especially when I don’t have to do anything. I just wander the halls with the girls talking about clothes and the such and basically, that leaves my mind to think about whatever it wants. Some of the stuff it thinks is kind of funny if you could hear it. Things like, why do fake men wearing clothes not get inventoried, or why are there so many different flavors of ice cream that all taste so good. Other stuff is typical guy stuff like ‘did she smile at me?’, ‘She’s pretty hot’, ‘I want you now on the cold hard floor’. Ok, so I’m exagerating for the sake of my post. My mind isn’t quite that bad anymore. It used to be back in the days of old when Justin could be as sick as the next person at lunch. Ah yes, we call those ‘the lost years’. Either way, it was fun.

Ah yes. BMW came up last night as well. Two good episodes. The first one has to probably be one of my favorite episodes. It’s the one where Topanga runs away from home to be with Cory after she moves away. She stood in the rain for him. She cuddled with him. She rubbed his tummy. They were in love, and Feenie believed it! Such a good episode. The second one was good as well with Cory trying to learn how to make-out.

Ok, so I don’t know how long this post is, but I have to get to Csci then off to work, then perhaps something else, then church. Cool cOoL, I’m Out.

Science is something I generally find fun. I think it’s pretty cool what you can do with electricity and a few transistors that cause a calculator to work. I think it’s pretty cool to know that if I drop a bowling ball and a ping pong ball from a tall building, both will hit you in the head at the same time. It’s all very useful information. However, there are two things I don’t like about science, or at least the school systems version of science. They train you do to lab books, they train you to do lab books a certain way. Now, I understand the need to document what your doing. Why do you think I have this site? I know you need to remember how to reproduce it. But really, why do I have to answer the same question 3 times for their needs to be satisfied. I suppose the reason is, this is college, get over it. So thats what I am doing. I am doing a lab manual. At least we know that when it’s all said and done, I will have a good understanding of gravity and how to write books to make people happy.

At the same time I thought I would show you the other side of my schooling: The programming. I don’t have that much time until lab, but here goes your first lesson in C. I believe the best way to learn C is to look at C code, so we are going to go through this program line by line so as never to forget it.

#include

main()
{
printf(”Hello,JJ’s World!\n”);
return 0;
}

Now I fear part of that may have been lost to the formatting of html… Imparticularly the include line… But, I’ll fix it later… Let’s look at it line by line now…
#include : This line includes a well known, very basic, standard input and output class. In other words, it allows us to use fuctions like printf() which we will see in just a minute.
main{: is the primary and opening function executed by C. It is required for all C programs as an entry point for the compiler to come into. In other words, this is the starting point of all programs.

printf(”Hello,JJ’s World!\n”);This line as you probably have already guessed prints text to the screen. The \n is the character to mark a new line. There are some other tricks to this function that I don’t want to get into right now. The ; at the end of the statement is just that, a marker for the end of statements.
return 0; this is the standard return to the operating system to let it know that the program finished ok. If you returned anything else, there’s a chance that the OS would think the program crashed or failed to really end, for it has no clue what to do with a 1 if the program sends it a 1. In other words, this just lets the OS know we are done.
} closes main.
Now wasnt that simple?

Ok, screw that. I have to get to lab and then come back here to play a game of chess with John. I am sure I will probably try to post then as well. I will be missing computer club today which is a little annoying, but on the upside, there might be enough snow to go sledding here shortly. Still don’t know if I am going to see formentioned one-act play.

Outie!

This is one of those posts where I am not in the best of moods so most of it will be cut and pastes… But eh, BMW is on in like 30 minutes, so it can’t be all bad. So let’s start with school.

Nothing to big at school, it was a standard, normal, day. Physics had us rolling balls. Calculus was a room change so that I don’t have to walk half way across campus. Computer Science was some Pringles, a couch, 4 guys, 1 girl, and a professor trying to add 1’s to 0’s. I think the homework is posted for assignment one, which is good considering that will take my attention away from trying to operate the heavy machinery associated with C *AKA: The Compiler*. Either way, I will probably do that tomorrow as well as my Physics lab which I have to do tomorrow as well by like 12:20… I really should take a look at my schedule for tomorrow so I know where I have to be. Which reminds me, I ride the bus tomorrow as well for the first time this year. I think I should lighten the load in my backpack for that mission, as well as put some new batteries in either my Gameboy or a cd player.

Because I didn’t bus today, I drove, I got home around 1:50. I decided not to hang around my house but instead go visit church so I could pick up an antenna that I left there as well as show Derek a video game we had talked about the last time we had one of our chats. What I ended up doing however was discussing myself, semantics, god, faith, walks, donuts, relationships, fun, history, knowledge, the bible, binary, work, and life. This went on for 4 some hours or there abouts. Nikki came and we took off to go get Maria and find Amber. We ended up at Damons and of course I continued my trivia spree. Food was good, service was good. Company was good. There is talk about going to see some play tomorrow. Perhaps I will go, not much else to do on a Tuesday night.

So while I was out I got this post in reference to This Post, AKA Yesterday’s 300th post. It looked something like this…

I just thought I’d compliment you on how you and Rich sounded, it wasn’t nearly as bad as you made yourselves out to be, I thought it was quite impressive.

I took that as quite a compliment seeing as we really didn’t think we sounded that good. Rich is looking to continue this, I probably am to, but my current mood is putting music in my head, not taking it out from it. Either way, thank you very much for the compliment, and if you wanna see the pics or the music, check yesterdays post!

Now for that music quote to fill the post… I think this was even one of my old profiles in my profiles section:
It’s not
What you thought
When you first began it
You got
What you want
Now you can hardly stand it though,
By now you know
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up

You’re sure
There’s a cure
And you have finally found it
You think
One drink
Will shrink you ’til you’re underground
And living down
But it’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up

Prepare a list of what you need
Before you sign away the deed
‘Cause it’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up
No, it’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up
No, it’s not going to stop
So just…give up

Good ol’ Aimee Mann from Magnolia. Good soundtrack. Or how about this…

It’s A Fine Day
People Open Windows
They Leave Their Houses
Just For A Short Walk

They walk by the garden
They look at the sky

It’s Going To Be A Fine Night To Walk
It’s Going To Be A Fine Day To Walk
It’s Going To Be A Fine Night To Walk
It’s Going To Be A Fine Day To Walk

it’s going to be a fine night tonight
it’s going to be a fine day tomorrow
it’s going to be a fine night tonight
it’s going to be a fine day tomorrow

Little Miss Jane and Alice Deejay there… Eh. Good stuff… Nice beat. Techno… All started back when Napster was a friend to my computer… Now it’s just a solid love for all types of music, even country!

Either way, BMW is in like a few minutes so I will probably go watch it, this is going out to Amber BTW:

Shawn: Poetry in motion eh Frankie?
Frankie: I see you have an appreciation after all. So the two in the ring, how many rounds do you think they’ll go?
Shawn: Those two? Ah, their going to go the distance.

Night All…

So today was the Superbowl. Today was Sunday. Today was a day to Jam. Today was also host to the 300th post on this site. How fitting considering the whole day was great. Ok, so let’s try to explain the most cool part of today.

As we all know, the Superbowl was this afternoon. For the last two years now, the Benson’s (Sim, Mel, and their parents) come over and we bake pizzas and watch the game. This is what we did, but this time, Sim brought his baby. No he doesn’t have a kid *at least not one he’s told me about*. We hooked it up, pulled out the drum set into the main room, and just started playing like two people on a mission. We really didn’t have a mission, and we didn’t really play that well, but it was a blast.

We set up a video camera to record us while we were playing so we have soundbits and screenshots from everything that we did. The picturers were uploaded to the photos section and the sounds are listed right here. Yes, we know we ‘have potential’ or in other words: we suck. But hey, it’s your fault for listening to them! Oh yeah, that stuff you hear in the back is the football game, not fans cheering us on.

Jam 1 - Not to shabby

Jam 2 - Hear that beat? (What Beat?)

Jam 3 - Simple is better

Jam 4 - Whoops, I made a mistake again

Church was ok, got to see Amber. Church has taken a weird turn for me. I’m questioning some things a lot more. I don’t think that any of them are leading me to lose faith, but rather, I am finding strongholds in what I already know and becoming more aware of my own beliefs because of it.

Oh, played UO again. I am really getting into the whole Blacksmithing thing again. I don’t know how long it will last, but hey it’s all good. Well I want to get this post up before midnight so here goes…