Grafitto.com

This is a late posting, but I just wanted to say that my heart goes out to those at Virginia Tech. I only mention it today because a bunch of us wrote letters to cnn and nytimes about the media calling the gunman by his last name first (”Cho Seung-hui”) to make him seem more Korean and less American even though he grew up (elementary, middle school, high school, college) in the US and all his official records say “Seung-hui Cho”. Today, NY times and CNN finally began to call him “Seung-hui Cho”.

So it took a statement from the family for the dumb associated press to change the name:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4735891.html

I’ve been following the story pretty closely… there’s one element to the story that keeps on coming up in my mind… where’s his family in all this? Since he rarely spoke with anyone on campus and people don’t have a great insight into his being (just his external odd, scary behaviors), I’m really curious what the police can get out of his family. He’s still in college, so I’d assume that he still has contact with his family. Besides, aren’t Asian families pretty tight-knit, especially ones that immigranted to the U.S. together? I’m an Asian immigrant, and whether I like it or not, my parents have this power over me that I can’t shake off. That “power,” mostly negativity, was of the most annoyance to me in college.

Anyhow, I haven’t heard anything about Cho being estranged from his family. That prompts me to ask… Did his family try to get him help? Did they not want to bother with their “weird” son? Isn’t the sister like a Princeton graduate or something? If the whole “pushy Asian family” stereotype rings true, I wonder how his family’s presence or lack of presence escalated his situation.

Also, his stories talked about abusive family dynamics…so I’m thinking there were dark parts to his past, so knowing his family or younger years might help with understanding the killer and perhaps prevent future incidences like this one.

Also, coming from an asian family myself, I feel like that mental disorders are taboo in many ways. There’s considerable lack of understanding (not that the general public does have a great understanding). Even with that lack of understanding, if the parents were concerned about his welfare, shouldn’t they have tried to help him?? I agree that the school, his suitmates probably did as much as they could, but what about his parents? Did they even try to get this person help?

…Anyhow, it’s a sad sad tragedy for everyone.

You know, the great thing about living in a cubicle is that you can hear everything around you. So, right now, I’m overhearing a professor on my floor having a conversation with a student. “Where do you think functions come from?” she asks.

One especially poignant hero was professor Liviu Librescu. He barricaded the door to buy time for his students to escape, then threw himself in front of the gunman when the attacker finally got through. Nearly all of his students survived…

Holocaust survivor saved students’ lives

By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer

Romanian-born Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics professor at Virginia Tech, who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre, is seen in this reproduction of an image taken in Bucharest, Romania, in the year 2000, when he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa title by the Romanian Polytechnic University, where Librescu graduated in mechanics and aviation construction in 1953. Librescu, was born in the southern Romanian city of Ploiesti, emigrated to Israel in 1978 and later moved to the United States, and received U.S. citizenship.

The e-mails from grateful students arrived soon after Liviu Librescu was shot to death, telling how the Holocaust survivor barricaded the doorway of his Virginia Tech classroom and saved their lives at the cost of his own.

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who survived the Nazi killings and later escaped from Communist Romania, was one of several foreign victims of Monday’s shootings, which coincided with Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day.

…

Initially I had thought this was a joke, but apparently two gunmen killed at least 22 people at Virginia tech today. The identities of those killed are not currently known, except it definitely include students.

UPDATE: At least 25 killed, 20+ in the hospital, fatalities expected to rise. Shootings began at 7:15, but cops did not respond in time. A second round of shooting began 2 hours later…. The police response will most likely be heavily scrutnized in the days to come.

UPDATE 2: 29 dead

UPDATE 3: 32 dead… I don’t think I am going to give any more updates on this number.. this is getting rather depressing

Shooting at Virginia Tech / Statement by President Charles W. Steger

By Larry Hincker

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16, 2007

The university was struck today with a tragedy of monumental proportions. There were two shootings on campus. In each case, there were fatalities. The university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our campus. I want to extend my deepest, sincerest and most profound sympathies to the families of these victims which include students There are 22 confirmed deaths.

We currently are in the process of notifying families of victims. The Virginia Tech Police are being assisted by numerous other jurisdictions. Crime scenes are being investigated by the FBI, University Police, and State Police. We continue to work to identify the victims impacted by this tragedy. I cannot begin to covey my own personal sense of loss over this senselessness of such an incomprehensible and heinous act The university will immediately set up counseling centers. So far centers have been identified in Ambler Johnston and the Cook Counseling Center to work with our campus community and families.

Here are some of the facts we know:

At about 7:15 a.m. this morning a 911 call came to the University Police Department concerning an event in West Ambler Johnston Hall. There were multiple shooting victims. While in the process of investigating, about two hours later the university received reports of a shooting in Norris Hall. The police immediately responded. Victims have been transported to various hospitals in the immediate area in the region to receive emergency treatment.

We will proceed to contact the families of victims as identities are available.

All classes are cancelled and the university is closed for the remainder of today. The university will open Tuesday at 8 a.m. but classes are cancelled. The police are currently staging the release of people from campus buildings.

Families wishing to reunite with the students are suggested to meet at the Inn at Virginia Tech. We are making plans for a convocation tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon at Cassell Coliseum for the university community to come together to begin to deal with the tragedy.

—————–

Counseling is available in the Bowman Room in the Merriman Center (part of the athletic complex) for employees who seek assistance following today’s events.

Faculty and staff on the Burruss side of the Drillfield are being released and asked to go home effective immediately. Faculty and staff on the War Memorial side are asked to leave at 12:30 p.m.

—————–

Virginia Tech has closed today Monday, April 16, 2007. On Tuesday, April 17, classes will be canceled. The university will remain open for administrative operations.

There will be an additional university statement presented today at noon.

All students, faculty, and staff are required to stay where they are until police execute a planned evacuation. A phased closing will be in effect today; further information will be forthcoming as soon as police secure the campus.

Tomorrow, there will be a university convocation/ceremony at noon at Cassell Coliseum. The Inn at Virginia Tech has been designated as the site for parents to gather and obtain information.

—————–

In addition to an earlier shooting today in West Ambler Johnston, there has been a multiple shooting with multiple victims in Norris Hall.

Police and EMS are on the scene.

Police have one shooter in custody and as part of routine police procedure, they continue to search for a second shooter.

All people in university buildings are required to stay inside until further notice.

All entrances to campus are closed.

First person account from SomethingAwful

ME (1:08:03 PM): so he came into your class?
Bro(1:08:08 PM): yeah
Bro(1:08:17 PM): i didnt think there was any way id live
Bro(1:08:52 PM): he finally left and me and the one other guy that wasnt shot ran to the door and held it shut
Bro(1:09:04 PM): and he tried to come back in and was shooting through the door
me(1:09:27 PM): holy shit
me(1:09:48 PM): what kind of gun was it
Bro(1:09:55 PM): pistol
Me(1:09:52 PM): and did he line people up
Bro(1:10:08 PM): no just shooting at people on the ground
me(1:11:34 PM): do you think it was random
bro(1:12:57 PM): i dont know
Me(1:14:03 PM): so what did you do then
bro(1:14:21 PM): i just started helping people that were bleeding
Me(1:14:39 PM): my god
Me(1:17:17 PM): and then what
Me(1:17:25 PM): sorry if you dont want to talk about it
Me(1:17:33 PM): everyone wants to know what happened
bro(1:18:15 PM): its fine
Me(1:18:40 PM): so did the cops arrive quickly or did you call them or what
bro(1:19:08 PM): yeah
bro(1:19:38 PM): we called

Apparently, a student has a video of the gun shots on his cell phone and has uploaded it to CNN.

I would like to describe the simplest emotionjoy or sadnessbut not as others doreaching for shafts of rain or sun

I would like to describe a lightwhich is being born in mebut I know it does not resembleany starfor it is not so brightnot so pureand is uncertain

I would like to describe couragewithout dragging behind me a dusty lionand also anxietywithout shaking a glass full of water

to put it another wayI would give all metaphorsin return for one worddrawn out of my breast like a ribfor one wordcontained within the boundariesof my skin

but apparently this is not possible

and just to say - I loveI run around like madpicking up handfuls of birdsand my tendernesswhich after all is not made of waterasks the water for a faceand angerdifferent from fireborrows from ita loquacious tongue

so is blurredso is blurredin mewhat white-haired gentlemenseparated once and for alland said this is the subjectand this is the object

we fall asleepwith once hand under our headand with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon usand taste the earthwith their tiny rootswhich next morningwe tear out painfully

- Zbigniew Herbert

High school students who compete in math team competitions have probably heard of the American Regions Math League, or ARML for short. Many states struggle to come up with enough funding to send their kids to this prestigious competition, so I decided to look through their tax forms to see how efficient this organization is. (All non-profit tax forms are available at guidestar free of charge). The below chart is what resulted from my analysis (note this is not all of ARML’s expenses, executive compensation and conference costs have been left out on purpose):

There are several things of note here.

1. How does the current arml.com cost $1,000 to develop and $215 a yr to maintain?
2. Granted ARML is not an easy competition to write, but does it really warrant an average of $5,000 annually to develop the competition? (That’s excluding the $2,800 paid to the head question writer annually.)
3. ARML claims to be an organization dedicated to its participants, then why is the amount dedicated to student awards so low in 2005? (2003: $11,171, 2004: $18,116, 2005: $7,566)

Outside of the purely quantitative data, I’m also increasingly annoyed at ARML’s board for making ARML a cesspool of commercial spam. At last year’s Penn State ARML award ceremony, some prizes were given alongside what amount to sales pitches for companies. If ARML is going to be TI’s lapdog, they should at least charge significantly more than a few calculators.

It is also infuriating to see teams spending significant amount of money just on traveling to one of three designated test sites. It seems like this year, two teams from Turkey will be participating in ARML via the web (news release here), why can’t teams from the US do that as well?

wow it’s been so long since I’ve done this…I haven’t pulled an all-nighter…a real one, in a while.  That was last night, for the three assignments due on Friday.  I almost fell asleep during PF that I had to get up and get a drink of water and go to the bathroom in order to stay awake.  It’s so terrible.

Ohemaa and I went to get donuts to sell.  When I left about 20 minutes ago, we had sold a total of 12.  How depressing!  We bought 36.  I also bought pretzels and bottles of water, which I think are going to go to waste.  How terrible.  I need bottles of water!!!

I have to admit that I’m pretty sad with the way things turned out tonight.  I will not deny that I fell asleep, and didn’t really do my part earlier in the night with the walking, but I did when everyone else was gone at 3am!!!  So what’s going on?  Why did everybody leave?  Wait…I mean, why did nobody sign up for our team???!!!  I was so bored when I was walking because only a few people were on the track, and I was walking alone from our team.  It was cool that some people who didn’t sign up came to visit, but then everybody just left.  We didn’t have enough people to make shifts, but we should’ve tried anyway.  Oh well…I’m starting to doze off…

Is there really higher power? I’m a pretty non-committal, only reglious at times “Christian.” But, my luck in the whole application process for MPH shows that may be there’s something… Fortuitively, I got my application on time and is now given $ to go to my favorite school. Who knows…. when we haven’t been lucky for a while and luck suddently comes, don’t we think that perhaps there’s somebody out there protecting us. Perhaps it’s just the sheer power of the human spirit to not allow people to crumble. Who knows.

< 1 month of basic sciences left! Say hurah!

Two decisions regarding technology were handed down by US courts today and I am once again disappointed by the result. Incidentally, the two cases just happen to be my two pet peeves, personal privacy and patents.

In the case of Vonage vs Verizon, a judge has issued an injunction against Vonage barring them from acquiring new customers on the grounds that Vonage has violated 3 very very broad software patents of Verizon’s. Not delving into the issue of whether software patents should be issued at all (and most of the world in fact do not issue software patents), Verizon’s own patents seem to cover nothing more than “obvious extensions” to current technology. See Clint Ricker’s brilliant analysis of the patents involved at his blog. Why can’t the US patent office do their job properly?!

In a much murkier case, a university student who was hacking sites like ebay.com was convicted based on evidence that the systems administrator of the network collected while hacking the student’s computer! Wire has published an article summarizing this case pretty well: Court Okays Counter-Hack of eBay Hacker’s Computer. This precedent can have potentially horrifying repercussions downstream. What stops Microsoft from deleting all of your files because they *think* you have a pirated version of Windows? or are we now going to let the RIAA hack computers that they *think* might contain pirated songs? Bruce Schneier, the CTO of Counterpane has written a great editorial about the subject: Vigilantism Is a Poor Response to Cyberattack.

Our civil liberties and our ability to innovate continue to get stymied by bad policies from the US government. Perhaps 1984 wasn’t nearly as fictional as people had thought.

does ne1 read this anymore?

I started going to Starbucks regularly in the last two year and have begun to notice an increasing number of people lounging around in the back surfing the web. When I first encountered this phenomenon, I was extremely irritated at all these bums who just won’t give up their seats… sometimes for the whole afternoon. It turns out this phenomenon actually has a name, coworking.

Coworking is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents.

Apparently, many of those surfing the web not only have jobs, but are in fact working! There are quite a few bloggers and .com executives who use cafes exclusively as their offices. Now that I travel pretty extensively, I am completely sold on the idea of co-working as well. Cafes are so homely and yet usually bustling with activity it’s really quite motivating. It’s also really difficult to beat the convenience factor. I can pull up to any city’s wireless enabled cafe, grab a coffee and immediately get to work.

Heck, I’m typing this blog entry from Baltimore’s One World Cafe! (BTW, it’s chocolate chai is really quite good.).

I love it, I LOVE IT

It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how much I crave it.
so familiar yet absent and forgotten for so long

thoughts flowing fluid and crystal pure
ideas put on paper effortlessly

every answer behind every problem
like the questions are transparent

the utter calm and confidence
coupled with simultaneous exhitement

if only every test felt like this.

why haven’t tests felt like this recently?
why did today’s feel so good?

was it the perfect length and difficulty?
was i somehow miraculously prepared?

maybe it just seems great in comparison to a week of being sick and bedridden?
or did the 105 fever two nights ago wire past a mental block?

or was it sitting behind jw and having wt smile at me?
pauhaha

Students often complain they are treated as nothing more than a collection of standardized scores and their GPAs. Well, it turns out adults are similarly judged by numbers, the most prominent of which is the credit score. Everyone from employers, banks to landlords use credit scores to get a quantiative measure of one’s “trustworthiness”. Even medical schools are beginning to use credit scores to evaluate applicants. When this single number is of such pervasive influence in everyday life, one might have expected strong government oversight… but you’d be wrong.

Until recently, most consumers have no idea what’s in their credit report. The information within it can be completely wrong and they wouldn’t even know! It wasn’t until 2003 that US Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA). It finally guaranteed consumers access to one annual credit report from each of the 3 major consumer credit agencies: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. Exparian, of course just couldn’t wait to create some confusion for consumers. While the government mandated credit reports can be obtained here:

http://www.annualcreditreport.com

Experian decided they would operate a PAID credit viewing service here:

http://www.freecreditreport.com

When a service charges 13 dollars a month to view credit reports, how exactly does that qualify as free? MSNBC has even written an article on this most blatant deceptive marketing scam.

Don’t fall for FreeCreditReport.com

Also one year ago, credit bureau Experian was also slapped on the wrist by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading consumers at its FreeCreditReport.com Web site. The FTC said Experian didn’t make clear to consumers that they would be charged $79 for an annual subscription after they signed up at FreeCreditReport.com.

What the FTC didn’t say (but was abundantly clear to anyone with a brain) was that FreeCreditReport.com and Experian were benefiting from confusion over news stories telling consumers were entitled to a free copy of their credit report every year. And the site was designed to add to the confusion.

While not admitting wrongdoing, Experian agreed last August to give consumers refunds and make the terms of its product clearer.

….

Given all the confusion, and the legal action, it’s amazing that FreeCreditReport.com is allowed to continue operating. I know it continues to cause mix-ups. Earlier this year, during the hubbub about the missing Veterans Administration laptop, I heard experts testifying before Congress point to the wrong site by accident.

Exparian has even recruited other websites (including movie ticket websites!) to sign up unsuspecting consumers onto their service, hoping they wouldn’t look hard enough at their credit cards bills to notice this recurring charge:

CIC*Triple Advantage877-4816825

The few times we actually need lawyers for a class action lawsuit and they are nowhere to be found!

Yesterday I chopped my hair for Locks of Love.  Brittney held my hand.