reflections

Will Faught

October 2007

Wine Burn

Wine burn is the point where you’ve drunk enough wine that your mouth feels dry and wines taste the same. I had that today. Yay wine tasting!

burn dry life reflections tasting wine

Will Faught

1 minute

September 2007

Mound

bind -> bound find -> found wind -> wound Shouldn’t it be mind -> mound?

english life mind mound reflections

Will Faught

1 minute

Prison Hypocrisy

I was watching a Law and Order episode in which someone who framed an innocent person was sent to prison because the framed person was killed in prison. The prisons were so dangerous that the district attorneys considered it a heinous crime to send someone there. It’s ironic that many states do not use the death penalty but use prisons that can accomplish the same thing as well as reinforce aggressive and violent behavior.

hypocrisy irony law and order life prison reflections

Will Faught

1 minute

August 2007

Electronic Voting Is Stupid

The problems with electronic voting machines are threefold: Your votes can be changed and there’s no record if they’re changed. Pen is permanent and cannot be hidden. Your votes cannot be authenticated. It’s difficult to forge a signature and impossible to do on a large scale. The process by which votes are tabulated is not transparent. Counting by hand is understandable and easily verifiable. We should use paper ballots with ink circles to indicate our votes and ink signatures to authenticate them.

electronic ideas life problems reflections tabulation voting

Will Faught

1 minute

Let The Market Work Its Magic

Most computer users probably assume that their computers are secure. They don’t see the complexity and brittleness of the hardware, the operating system, the network, and the applications because it’s hidden under a pretty user interface with abstracted toy operations. They never considered evaluating security when purchasing software; they assumed it would just work. It’s understandable if they get upset when something goes wrong. It annoys me, however, when lawmakers see this and decide to fix the problem from their end.

computers innovation laws life reflections security

Will Faught

2 minutes

Teach Them English Already

It strikes me as ironic that some have argued that the growing prevalence of Spanish in America, or at least the west and southern states, threaten American culture while there is little effort to teach immigrants English. NPR was reporting a little while ago that in New York City, it’s almost impossible to enroll in an English class because they’re so impacted. I believe they said conditions were similar in many other places.

america classes english immigrants life new york city npr reflections spanish

Will Faught

1 minute

Flammable = Inflammable

If invalid, informal, and injustice are the opposites of valid, formal, and justice, then why does inflammable mean the same as flammable? Since English is my first language, I obviously prefer it to any other language, but damn, English sucks. One thing I’ve always appreciated about Spanish is that you can look at any word and know immediately how to pronounce it correctly.

definitions english flammable inflammable life reflections

Will Faught

1 minute

Street View Rocks My Socks

If you haven’t done so already, check out Street View on Google Maps. Google rocks!

cool google life reflections street view

Will Faught

1 minute

July 2007

Patience, Monty…Climb The Ladder

I love the character Auntie Muriel in the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She uses her age like some kind of free pass that entitles her to boss those younger than her (everyone) around. To paraphrase, “Give me your chair, I’m one hundred and seven years old.” Awesome! It’s like everyone is obligated to be her bitch. There should be more age-based benefits. I would want cuts in line.

harry potter life old reflections seniority

Will Faught

1 minute

March 2007

The Onion’s Article Titles Are The Best Part

Honestly, I think I enjoy the titles of The Onion articles more than the actual articles. For example: Actress’ Abortion Written Into TV Show High School Student Council Passes Nonbinding Resolution Kindergartner Being Groomed For Line-Leader Position Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll Anchor Ad-Libs News With 97 Percent Accuracy

funny life quotations reflections the onion titles

Will Faught

1 minute

January 2007

Presentation Tips

If you ever have to give a 40+ minute presentation about a paper you don’t adequately understand, the following tips may help: Copy every major idea verbatim into your notes and read that to your audience. Ask your professor to explain the things you didn’t understand whenever possible. Waste time by copying every example from the paper onto the board and explaining them in detail. Have a partner and alternate talking about topics.

life paper pater landin presentation reflections stories tips

Will Faught

1 minute

Boilerplate Manners

When I was young, I wished I could write all my Christmas thank you cards using mail merge and get away with it. Good manners, bah! I think if I did do it, the electronic or printed format would give me away. Maybe if I printed using a cursive font?

christmas life manners reflections templates thank you cards

Will Faught

1 minute

December 2006

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I had a great night. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera and snap a few shots of my friends and I. I guess one of these days I’ll remember. Maybe if I get a slimmer camera. My watch was off by about half a minute from the cell phone network time again, just like last year. The people around me were counting down to my watch while everyone else was staring intently at their cell phone screens, waiting for the minutes to hit zero.

dancing life new year's eve reflections resolutions stories watch

Will Faught

1 minute

November 2006

My Thoughts On The Harp

I bet it’s pretty hard to express your anger as a musician if you play the harp. I just don’t see it happening. Whatever you did, it seems like it would come out cheery and sweet. Bummer.

anger expression harp life musician reflections

Will Faught

1 minute

October 2006

Why Can’t I Be Bombable?

I just got my first care package in the mail in years from my grandma. Mmm…cookies! I forgot how nice it is to get this stuff. Incidently, I was drinking a beer at the time, so I decided to combine the two. Not bad.

beer care package cookies grandma life reflections

Will Faught

1 minute

Stupid NFAs

Have you ever taken a test and been stumped by the easiest thing on it? No? Er — me neither. But if that ever did happen, I would think that would suck. On a related note, it’s very satisfying to ask a prof, just before his exam, to show you how to solve some problems that turn out to be on the exam.

class life midterm nfa reflections theory of computation

Will Faught

1 minute

Learn By Doing…It Yourself?

I feel like an unacceptable portion of my class experience has been learning the material on my own. Granted, being able to learn something on my own is a good skill, but that’s not what I’m paying these people for. I’m sick and tired of walking out of lectures wanting my 50 minutes back. It’s such a relief to get a prof that I can understand. When will they learn that even though you have a PhD in something, you aren’t necessarily qualified to convey that knowledge to others.

bad cal poly learn by doing life reflections teaching

Will Faught

1 minute

Lost Is Back!

Lost is back, baby! Season three kicked off a few weeks ago, and so far it’s off to a good start. I watched seasons one and two again with my mom this summer, so I’ve got everything fresh in my mind and ready to piece it all together. I’ve been listening to a really good podcast for Lost at deltaparkproject.com/lost. Sadly, the season premiere wasn’t as good as season two’s, but oh well.

delta park project desmond dharma initiative life locke lost mom reflections season

Will Faught

1 minute

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