State of the PCness

In this article, a teacher "referred to 'a Little Sambo sitting in the back of the room' as an example in a discussion on gaining respect from students." She was placed on paid leave for a week.

If some teacher said a bunch of the worst non-racial curse words in the middle of a speech to other teachers, would he have been placed on leave? I really don't think so.

It seems to me that people have become far, far too sensitive about political correctness nowadays.

This is completely FREAKY.

I opened up a browser window and clicked on the home button to load our blog, and this came up. (Reloading just brought up the same thing. When I cleared my cache, it was fine.)

Really. Click on the link, and you will be as confused as I was.

That was one of the most surreal things that I have experienced this week.

Bleah bleah bleah.

Ugh. I just spent 6 solid hours (with only about 45 minutes tops of break, including supper) doing 3D vector calculus. That is to say, 12 pages of compressed vector calculus (avg. perhaps 3 problems to a page). I have a headache, and my back hurts.

And I still have to study for a NUEN 201 test tomorrow.

Ugh.

Well, thanks for reading my minor complaint (it makes me feel better). :-)

Addendum: It's not like I was putting it off until the last minute. We just learned the stuff on Tuesday, and I have had practically zero free time (i.e. time for stuff with a lower priority than next-class-due-homework) since then and until, oh, about 4 PM today. Sigh. But I'm doing okay, so don't worry about me.

Comments and not a New Poll

One fun note to Meredith's post about the new TGS issue. In most of the homestarrunner animations, there are little things you can click at the end to see extra silly stuff. In this one, you can click on the "o" and the "!"

Note: at Meredith's request I have left the Yellow Submarine post up.

Copyright issues

An insightful essay by none other than Orson Scott Card.

Woohoo!

Check out this great link for some Yellow Submariney goodness!

And I should not be wasting my time doing this! Oh well! And why am I using so many exclamation points! I don't know!

Must... conquer... desire... to... waste... time... on... internet!

Homework.

Math 253 assigns a lot of homework. Engr 211 assigned us groups today, and we have to turn homework in as a group. For some of the people in my group, I find that to be somewhat of a problem.

Oh, so I need to do stuff now.

A code of cooperation

Part of our Engineering 111-H class is to be in a four-person teams. Our professor had us write as a team a "Code of Cooperation" for the class (the idea of a code, in my opinion, is totally unnecessary, goofy, and otherwise silly). I decided to have a little "fun" with the assignment. Here is my draft.

The Code of Cooperation

• Article I - Quorums
  
  1. The Word "Quorum"
  1. The word "Quorum" shall be used as frequently as possible, mainly because:
  1. it sounds fancy.
  2. it has a "q" as its first letter (therefore endowing it with magical properties).
  3. if it is used often enough, it may appear that work is getting done.
  2. Quorum shall always be spelt with a capital Q.
  2. Quorums In Relation to the Team
  1. A Quorum of 80% of the team members must be present in order to officially start a meeting.
  2. If a Quorum is not present, the other team members may
  1. leave by a majority vote, or
  2. stay, work, and fume about the absent member(s)'s abscence.
• Article II - Duties of the Members
  
  1. The Meeting Coordinator
  1. The Meeting Coordinator (hereinafter referred to as the M.C.) shall take charge of finding a meeting time acceptable to all members.
  2. In the event that such a time cannot be found, the M.C. is allowed to break down and cry.
  3. The MC shall ensure that no member's decision-making process is impaired (e.g. through the use of druge or alcoholic beverages).
  2. The Recorder
  1. The Recorder's duty should include recording answers.
  2. The Recorder shall graciously provide duplicates (electronically, xerographically, or physically reproduced) of the homework turned in.
  3. The Timekeeper
  1. The Timekeeper's duty is to keep track of the amount of time spent by Dr. elppaztloH in class talking about his rotoRratS [names reversed to protect the innocent (me)] coroporation.
  2. At the Timekeeper's discretion, he may also note the time spent by said professor referencing various other aspects of his life (e.g. the military and his fraternity).
  3. The Timekeeper shall not annoy the other members about working "fast enough."
  4. If the Timekeeper is found to be annoying by a vote in which 3/4 of the team votes the affirmative, those voting "yea" may delegate a representative to tell the Timekeeper to "shut up."
  4. Encourager / Gatekeeper
  1. The Encourager / Gatekeeper (hereinafter referred to as the E.G.) shall "encourage the silent members and try to hold back the verbose, dominate [sic] members."
  2. Should the E.G. himself be verbose, he shall smack himself in the face and shut up.
  3. Should the E.G. be silent, he should begin talking to himself, encouraging himself not to be such a pansy and to speak out more.
  4. If the E.G. is found to be annoying by a vote in which 3/4 of the team votes the affirmative, those voting "yea" may delegate a representative to tell the E.G. to "shut up."
  5. Devil's Advocate
  1. The Devil's Advocate (hereinafter referred to as the D.A.) shall take "a position opposite to that held by the team to ensure that all sides of an issue are considered."
  2. Should the Devil's Advocate be found obviously stupid and stubborn by one opponent, they may proceed with a duel to the death to be held at high noon the next day.
  3. If the D.A. is found to be wrong and stupid by a vote in which 3/4 of the team votes the affirmative, those voting "yea" may delegate a representative to tell the D.A. to shut up and mind his own business.
• Article III - Miscellaneous Rules
  
  1. In the event that no work is done, each member shall point at the member in the counter-clockwise direction and repeat three times, "It's not my fault."
  2. No rule of the Code shall be self-referencing (see rule III.B).
• Article IV - The Code of Cooperation
  
  1. This code of cooperation shall be modified as necessary but only when a quorum is present.
  2. By a unanimous vote, the Code may be disbanded and replaced by an anarcho-syndicalist commune after the period of two weeks has passed.
  3. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
  4. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Ha ha ha ha!

Ah, this news story makes me laugh. On a completely related note, Dave Barry is so awesome.

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