The first breath after a coma is something you never really want to experience. Try to picture waking up from a dream, a dream where you are everything you’ve always wanted to be. A world in which you are the center of everything and everyone, a world revolving around the innermost desires of a star crossed mind and a benevolent heart, a world in which you are the creator and destroyer, the omnipotent hero and vengeful libertine. Imagine shaping a person in your own image, letting them live a beautiful and endearing life, then crushing it in a fraction of an instant. This isn’t a sad moment, it’s a beautiful recollection of the human spirit. You may feel sad for him, but you don’t because without you, he wouldn’t have ever existed. A frame of reference, of reality, is nothing without something to perceive it, to shape it, to create it. How can something actually exist if there is no one there for it to exist for? That’s what it’s like in a coma. You are everything. You are the life force for everything. A world you created to suit your every need and propensities, the only emotion is bliss, the only struggle is one of gratification, the only reality is your own.

Then it happens. A gaping black hole in the sky sucking everything up, a bright light and a flash of red. Screaming, unendurable pain and strange men standing all around you. A shock of lightning to the chest and that first excruciating breath of air, encompassing the body, the suck of death into the deepest pit of lungs. A cold, black numbness sweeping over your body. You try to stop it but you can’t. Your world slides away with each gasp, it’s like drowning in a sea of blurred nothingness, of something beautiful that once was, each breath brings you closer to the surface and further away from where you want to be, of where you actually need to be. Clutching at dying flowers you’re dragged away, engulfing death with each passing breath, scared and alone again in a cold, dark world.

So you lie in bed staring at the ceiling. Weeks have passed, months and years roll by. Tears stream down your face as you wait. Wait for that gaping hole in the sky to suck you out and for your reality to vanish, into the ether of an eternal mind, forgotten into nothingness, a fleeting moment of someone else’s life. And you think, maybe dying isn’t that bad after all…

via A-punk on reddit (edited slightly for grammar/spelling).

https://github.com/StevenZezulak/xkcdscraper

It’s a really simple tool, but I’m particularly proud of it since it’s my first public Python project I’ve released into the wild. This, of course, means the code quality is probably not the greatest. I’ve been working with Python for a relatively short period, and I’m sure there are better ways to do things. Feel free to fork and improve it!

In fact, I’ve been using it almost nonstop since I tore it out of Apple’s expectedly beautiful and minimalistic packaging. Since it’s my first iPad I can’t really compare it to the previous models, but I can tell you that the screen is just gorgeous. It’s unbelievable how sharp text and images are, and it’s incredibly fast. I’ve been using it in place of my usual laptop, and I can’t see myself using my laptop anymore, other than for papers and essays for school, programming, music, and Photoshop.

Since there is a Kindle app available, I loaded up several of my favorite and to-read books. I’m pleasantly delighted how easy on the eyes the screen is, and can’t wait to dig into them. I recently decided to read at least one book a week; surely carrying around several of them can’t hurt that resolution! In fact I’ve already made significant progress on the third Hunger Games book, Mockingjay.

At some point I’ll probably decide to make a video review or something, as I just can’t stop marveling at the thing. It’s a fantastic piece of technology.

Community is one of my most favorite television shows ever, at times outranking Breaking Bad and Arrested Development. As a devout fan, and one with decent web development skills, I decided I should start a fan site. Usually fan sites end up devoid of new content and are left to simply rot away into the depths of Google’s search results, so I decided I wasn’t going to do a traditional fan site; with a little inspiration and encouragement from the fantastic reddit community over at /r/community, I started work on what is now called Critical Community Studies, a quote and music database for the show.

Essentially, what I hope to create is a thriving community built around sharing witty one-liners and hilarious conversations from the show, as well as a method of cataloging all the fantastic music used in the series. I think it could definitely pan out into a successful community, or, if it doesn’t, be a useful personal database to keep my favorite quotes handy.

Of course, being my usual self, I’ve already restarted development once after realizing I could do much better. I’m well into this iteration, though, so I should finish at some point in the near future. I’m really excited about it as I’m using new technologies and frameworks I’ve never heard of or used in detail before. For the front-end I’m using the brilliant CSS framework Bootstrap from Twitter. I finished the final design within a day because it streamlined so much of the process. As a prerequisite for some of the nicer features of Bootstrap I’m also using the beloved jQuery Javascript framework. For processing and storage I’m using the familiar PHP and MySQL combo which I’m slightly regretting, but I doubt my skill level in Python is high enough yet to use Django or Pylons. Finally, for the actual community part (and handling database transactions and user management) I’m integrating MyBB.

So far it’s going quite well. I was spending most of my time porting over Bootstrap into MyBB’s (unfortunate) mess of a templating system, but I started programming the beef of the site today and finished a large portion of it. I figure I can go live without the community if I have to while I finish theming it.

I should also mention I preordered the new iPad. My shipping confirmation e-mail arrived today letting me know my shiny gadget is on it’s way from China, and I can’t wait to fire it up and see how it works. The biggest thing for me is going to be the e-books and textbooks; as much as I love physical books (which I’ll always have around), having my entire bookshelf (and the stacks of books around my room that don’t fit on the bookshelf) on one device will be awesome. And that’s not even mentioning the incredibly cheap school textbooks available now.

And for some unknown reason the universe continues to hate me and I’m still plagued with abnormal levels of phlegm. Surely I can’t still be sick?

Obviously the common flu has mutated into a superbug.

Seriously, though, how long can this last? I don’t think I can take this for much longer. Although I’m back to being an active member of society (well, however active leaving the house twice a week for classes is), it just isn’t the greatest thing in the world to always be slightly sick. Here’s to even more drugs, and perhaps a cup of tea or two.

Almost a month ago, though, I had ordered tickets to a lecture at the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall at CU Boulder given by one of my most favorite contemporary astrophysicists and politically-relevant activists, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. If I had to have been wheeled in on a stretcher I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The talk was on the subject of the United States’s struggle into space. Appropriately titled “Failure to Launch,” Tyson spent almost an hour essentially destroying the US and discussing our government’s inability to understand the importance of science. If you’ve ever been to one of Tyson’s lectures, or seen clips of him on YouTube, you’ll know the guy is absolutely hilarious as well. After the actual talk was over, the Q/A portion of the event started. Unfortunately, time ran short and not many people were given the opportunity to ask him a question, although the event was still very satisfying as the questions which were asked were very thought-provoking and elicited great responses from Tyson.

So, that’s all for now. I’ve been rather apathetic regarding an essay for class, so I’m off to crank it out now as I cough the last dregs of sickness up and away.

Until tonight. For some reason I experienced a sudden and rather strong urge to pick it up and give it another shot. I found an app called “Cleartune” which uses your iPhone or iPod Touch to aid in the tuning process. With my newly tuned guitar in hand I searched the seas of YouTube for beginner guitar lessons and came across this fantastic site. It didn’t take long for my fingers to start throbbing; they were being lacerated by the strings as I struggled to get the chords fingered properly, but I powered through the first few lessons.

Thirty minutes later, I can play the D, C, and E chords pretty well. I’m feeling pretty good about learning this time, so I guess this is one of my belated New Years Resolutions as I never did come up with any of those.

First, if you haven’t already, take some time to read through Google’s official announcement of the changes, the new policy overview portal, and the actual text of both the proposed privacy policy and terms of service.

This is about consolidation

Google operates an alarming number of services from search tools (web, images, maps, news, videos, books, etc) to communication (Blogger, Groups, GMail, Talk, Voice, etc) to entertainment and media (Picasa, YouTube, etc) and even office and work solutions like Docs, Calendar, and Fusion Tables. Currently, each of those services are treated almost like a separate company; each has its own privacy policy and terms of service, but they all say essentially the same thing, and they all conform to Google’s comprehensive self-regulating corporate philosophies (ten things, software principles, privacy principles, design principles, no pop-ups, and security).

This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google.

(Official Google Blog)

The new privacy policy solidifies and clarifies the policies you’ve already been agreeing to, and incorporates your information stored across Google services into one Google account.

Google is not “tracking” you

One of the major arguments is that by consolidating their privacy policies and terms of service agreements, Google is going to start “tracking you across services,” and you can’t opt-out. This is a very clever use (or misuse) of the word “tracking” meant to mislead you. The entire point of the consolidation is to allow Google services to communicate your data between each other in order to improve your user experience.

Think of it like this. You subscribe to three services: cable television, digital phone service, and high-speed internet, all through one company we’ll call NewAge Technologies. NewAge is treating you as one customer across their different services in order to consolidate your bill into one, as well as to streamline and improve customer support in case you have a problem with your cable or internet. If NewAge had to send you three separate bills for each service, and had three different customer support numbers, you’d probably be frustrated and move to another service provider. This is how Google is operating right now, and what they’re trying to fix.

Whether or not Google’s structuring decisions were good or bad in the past, as they’re expanding and innovating they want to make it easier for them to provide a better service, and the first thing they need to do is treat you as one customer across the board.

Your personal information is safe

Google is one of the more personable corporations, and they’ve managed this by treating their customers and users properly. If you’ve taken the time to read the new privacy policy as well as browsed through their corporate philosophies, you’ll know they explicitly state they will never sell or distribute your personal information to third-parties unless they have your consent or, in the case of analytics, require the affiliate to adhere to their privacy policy and strict confidentiality and security measures (bold emphasis mine):

Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:

• We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
• We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
• We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

If Google becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, we will ensure the confidentiality of any personal information involved in such transactions and provide notice before personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

(Privacy Policy)

The only thing you need to worry about is if you’re breaking the law and a court orders Google to divulge your information. They also state it plainly in their FAQ:

Will Google sell my personal information to third parties?

No. We don’t sell our users’ personal information. It’s simply not how we operate.

(FAQ)

You have nothing to worry about

From a Washington Post article:

“There is no way anyone expected this,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group. “There is no way a user can comprehend the implication of Google collecting across platforms for information about your health, political opinions and financial concerns.”

There is no “implication” concerning privacy about Google’s services sharing information with each other. Google is one company that offers access to services from one account, and each of those services have very similar privacy policies. This consolidation is nothing more than Google telling users that their information from different services (which Google already has access to) will serve a better purpose when tied to one account that each service can access.

Google will never sell or distribute your information without your consent, the way it always has been. Nothing is changing except for a consolidation of information. You have nothing to worry about.

Further reading: Forbes: Internet Freak-out Over Google’s New Privacy Policy Proves Again That No One Actually Reads Privacy Policies

I guess I could tell you a little bit about myself. That’s what people do with personal websites, right? I’m 18, currently attending college for Computer Networking Technology, I’m fairly good with computers, and I enjoy reading. Sometimes I like to write, too, but the occasions in which I’m actually willing to focus and not going to ramble about things for pages are few and far between. Someday I’ll get around to writing a book. It’ll be a best seller.

Media is a big part of my life right now. I have a fairly extensive music library that consists of pretty much everything except country, polka, and pop. I tend to like more depressing and meaningful music, and find the current music trends repulsive. I watch a lot of movies and television shows; some of my favorite movies include Into The Wild, American Beauty, Fight Club, V for Vendetta, Snatch, and It’s Kind of a Funny Story. The list goes on, really. As for television shows, I absolutely love Breaking Bad and Community, and enjoy The Big Bang Theory, Dexter, Firefly, Merlin, Louie, and Arrested Development.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m giving blogging another shot, as community college will hopefully be intriguing enough to warrant public rambling. Farewell.