Undercover Indecision

— Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?
Stephen answered:
— I do.
Wells turned to the other fellows and said:
— O, I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.
The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:
— I do not.
Wells said:
— O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his mother before he goes to bed.
They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question?

From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, 1922.

I once read an article about Facebook, and how (according to the author) Zuckerberg thinks we should be making decisions based on what our friends think. His bankroller, the burgeoning industry of online advertising, at least agrees.

I’ll pass.

Alright, nobody took me up on my offer of responses to questions, but for once I have a few moments of free time so I’ll post a quick update.

I’m back at school (what??!), and I’m taking one more class than last quarter, and the classes I was already in have gotten more intense. Overall, it’s intense. Near the end of first week, I heard someone say, “Wow, this quarter picked up quick.” Then a third or fourth year said, “Yeah, everyone says that every quarter.” That’s how it goes around here.

Second week included the excellent tradition Kuviasungnerk/Kangeiko, which was originally created in 1982 or 83 to show off martial arts to students. It’s been well-supported by the University ever since as one of the many Winter Quarter traditions clearly aimed at reducing depression. It mainly consists of a few hundred students waking up at 5:30 AM every day of second week to do calisthenics followed by trying out a random martial art or dance style.

There are also lectures and other activities throughout the week (the ice carving looked pretty cool), culminating in a walk to the Point (which juts out into Lake Michigan) Friday morning and the nude “Polar Bear Run” later that day. Oh, and anyone who goes to calisthenics every day of the week gets a free shirt on Friday. I only went on Monday. Tuesday morning I woke up and had an epiphany: I really do like sleeping after all. Then I went back to sleep.

Also, I set up this nifty system where every time I open my laptop, it automatically saves a snapshot from the webcam and opens up a text file (new one every day) in which I write down my thoughts or interesting activities. This way I’ll have something to look over for blog posts like this one.

Well, until next time… uhhh… remind me to post here or I won’t! :D

I would like to point everyone to the last paragraph of the introductory part of Assange’s Wikipedia page and if you are really that lazy, I will paste it for you:

On 30 November 2010, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons;[13] at the same time, a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him.[14] He was wanted for questioning on suspicion of “sex crimes”; it is alleged that while having consensual sex his condom broke and he either did not disclose the breakage to his partner or continued after his partner asked him to stop. He has not been formally charged with any crime.[15] He was arrested by the London Metropolitan Police on 7 December by appointment, after a voluntary meeting with the police.[16]

This is clearly a smear campaign. If you don’t believe me, read the full details on the sex crimes case. Assange has become the victim of a character assassination, and it’s been quite successful. Now as if that isn’t enough, he has been arrested by police outside his country for questioning about an alleged crime for which there are no formal charges. If this sounds like justice to you, just wait until he is imprisoned by the US or another superpower—again, Assange is an Australian national—for something totally unrelated to the “sex crimes” for which he was originally detained.

I can’t imagine the legal basis upon which a law would be established in the US making Wikileaks illegal, but let’s say it succeeds: will the US be powerful enough to enforce this law, clearly violating the 1st Amendment, in other countries, where Wikileaks actually exists?

Now I would like to bring your attention to the nature of the Wikileaks organization. Other members have noted that the only detriment to Wikileaks itself in the event of Assange’s imprisonment or assassination is that their public face is gone. They will have to choose another. Now will this person, who likely had no part in the original creation of Wikileaks, also be held responsible by foreign governments for the existence of a website for which he is merely the public face?

In any case, it should be obvious that the real reasons for Assange’s arrest have little to do with condom breakage. Humanity will be lucky if Assange gets out of this situation alive. As soon as it is okay—and indeed, many members of the general public have expressed their support for this “solution”—to label a “terrorist”, imprison, or assassinate a foreign national who has embarrassed our country (a country fully deserving of embarrassment) then we are in for a great deal of strife. Wikileaks itself is mirrored on hundreds of hosts distributed across the globe. There are surely hundreds, if not thousands or hundreds of thousands, of anonymous members of Wikileaks who will carry on the organization if an ill fate befalls Asssange. If Assange is imprisoned or assassinated, the ONLY affect will be that it has become acceptable, in the public mind and the political sphere, to imprison or assassinate foreign nationals who do things that a government doesn’t like, and that this judgement can be based on unrelated allegations, or legally untenable charges.

Sounds fair and just to me.

Honestly, this is by far the most exciting experience I’ve had since my plane landed in Chicago.

Last night, I went to the kick-off/meet-up reception for Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), hosted by the Museum of Science and Industry in their U-505 exhibit. RHoK is a hackathon focusing on software that can be of use to disaster releif and crisis response organizations (and other such humanitarian stuff). It started today at 9 AM and ends tomorrow evening. It is a worldwide event, with this event in Chicago being only one of 22.

I have been enjoying myself immensely, I’ve met several interesting and talented people (sadly I haven’t met everyone here, or I would say many interesting and talented people).

I’m working on the “Landslide risk reduction in developing countries” project with, coincidentally, part of the team that won first place at a RHoK event last year. We are also collaborating with the other former team members and a postdoc from the University of Bristol who are at RHoK in Saint Lucia. Working on the project has been intense to say the least. I have had little time for anything else, so I’m lucky I wrote 96% of this post before the work actually started.

Verily, the holiday season has begun. While I consider myself an atheist, I attended the InterVarsity Christmas Service last night. InterVarsity is the only Christian youth organization I’m aware of on campus.

Last night’s event was their anual Christmas carol sing-along (with instrumental accompaniment, arranged by a first year from my house, for most of the songs), including a sermon by a local pastor, from Hyde Park Trinity Church as I recall.

It was heartwarming to hear the carols filling Bond Chapel, one of the chapels which is smaller and less renowned than the Rockefeller Chapel. And afterward, I made cookies in my RH’s apartment, which was almost as heartwarming—they even had a Christmas tree and stockings.

In any case, Christmas is coming, and I’m very excited.