Interesting IT experience.

Well, I’m at it again. I’m in class and I’m making a post. I’m doing it on one of the schools library laptops. It’s really interesting, because before, I overheard the head of the IT department a couple years back saying that the school wouldn’t be having any laptops for student use because they were too big of a liability for the school due to the fact they can use the wi-fi and can’t easily be tracked all the time. That’s a completely legitimate argument, in my mind. I still think it’s asinine to think that laptops weren’t coming to the campus because of liability. Of course, our campus now has a bunch of laptops for student use. On top of that, these laptops have FireFox installed on them (unlike the desktops). Unfortunately, it’s FireFox 1.0. You see where this is going? It’s just like the Prince of Persia series or MLA format for citing resources in papers: For every step forward taken, they take a step back. It’s quite annoying. Also, the wi-fi keeps kicking me off. It’s nice that they finally upgraded to wireless-G here in the school, but it shouldn’t keep kicking me off every 5 minutes. I talked to one of the IT department people, and they recommended a Power Cycle (which is where you turn everything off for a little bit, then turn it back on). After hearing that, I recommended that they go screw themselves (in the nicest way possible by saying “I appreciate you telling me that, but I’ve done it already and cleared my cache”). Then, they finally relented and said they had new equipment and were still working out the kinks in the system. Finally, some honesty from someone at this school. I’m really glad that they are actually working on it, so I can’t wait for us to have wi-fi everywhere on campus (though we are close to it, there are waaaaay too many dead spots). More to come.

Outed in Class

Class today was just plain awesome. We had an ideological discussion about poverty as a function of society or the individual. I knew as soon as it was announced last week that what I was going to say to the class would piss off pretty much the whole entire room, including my professor. Why did I know this? Because my ideological leanings when it comes to almost everything are really, REALLY far Leftist. I’m actually a little anarchist in the making. I’m Marxist by ideal and practice with most things in my life.
Just like I thought, too. I DID piss everyone off when I made my points. Someone said that someone who’s a manager of a Wal-Mart or a McDonald’s hasn’t tried as hard as someone who is a doctor, so they don’t deserve to make as much money as one. Of course, this nearly activated my Troll Button. I threw her argument back at her, though. I loved it. I like Texas and all, but I’m sorry, you people are freaking crazy. Blaming the victim for their shortcomings? That’s asinine. I LOVED throwing her argument back at her.
“Well, what if both of those people went to the exact same college? What if they made the same grades, and graduated close together within the top of their class? What if they applied to the same medical school? What if one got accepted and the other didn’t? So now…..one is a successful doctor, and the other is a manager at Wal-Mart. Sooooo…..it’s that other one’s fault for not trying as hard as the other guy to get in? It’s his fault that the medical school didn’t take him because his credit wasn’t ask good as the other guys, but they tried the same?”
Her: “Well, the should both get in because they did the same work.”
Me: “Yet, one works at Wal-Mart and doesn’t deserve it just because he didn’t get accepted?”
Her: “…..”
Me: “Sounds like the system is broken to me.”
My professor chimed in at this point. He raised the point that I was making was an incredible Marxist one. He agreed with me, because he’s Marxist in most ideals. To just about every point made, I brought it back to the fact that the system is broken, pretty much calling it that. Yeah…I just about pissed off every right-wing nut job in class today. I think I about outed myself, though. I said we need to rid ourselves from the system we were currently in. I said capitalism within itself has the tools for its own destruction (taking from Karl Marx, of course). Yeah….everyone thought I was insanely crazy. My professor himself even said he was going to distance himself from me. It was SOOOO righteous. I loved it. I’d rather people think I’m crazy for being honest than sane for lying. That’s just how it is for me. I’m a man of the people, so everything I do it for the people, for the little guy. Anyways, that’s what happened in my Social Problems class today. Just thought you’d like to know.

iPhone Apps of the Week 2-1

Well, instead of posting a mass recommendation queue of iPhone applications for you guys, I’m going to start going to do them a few at a time. This is mostly so I can post more efficiently and regularly. Also, it lets me give you guys my initial reactions about an application without the editing (which I do quite a bit of in the mass updates) taking so long. Anyways, for those of you familiar with the process, keep on reading, and for those of you who are new….what took you so long to get here? Welcome. Now, here are some of my iPhone muses of this week.

Gowalla – This application was recommended to me by a couple of my Twitter friends that I met at a networking event called a “tweetup”. Gowalla is the companion iPhone/iPod Touch app to the popular social networking trek website. Gowalla is a mixture of Loopt and role-playing game elements. Why do I say it has role-playing game? Because you collect stuff as you tag your locations. You can also become a founder of a spot by dropping one of your items for someone else to pick up. I really don’t know the reason for picking up items, or how you gain credit, experience, or gold, but it still has my attention. The location aware portion of the app is decently accurate, though a little slow sometimes. Many spots that you visit will be on the Spots list, but if you don’t see where you are, then you can create and found a new spot. You may not have to, as the spot my show up if you just wait. There are also things on there called “trips”, which are places that you need to visit in order to earn a badge. Hence the RPG (role-playing game) elements. You are basically on a social networking quest. The ability to post tags and check-ins to your Twitter and Facebook feeds is really helpful, too. You get to go travel and see places, leaving your mark, and you can collect stuff. Yeah, it doesn’t seem like much to you now, but this can be really fun, especially in really popular places. Who says being adventurous requires camping? Price: Free.

AAA Roadside Assistance – The reason this app is my app of the week (and possibly the year) is because on MORE than one occasion, this app has saved my life. If you don’t know, my car really sucks. The battery randomly dies because the lights randomly click on. I used the AAA Roadside Assistance app to request a jump start many a time. You, of course, can request any service that AAA offers from this app. The app is actually incredibly intuitive, linear, and simple. Once you enter your account number, it saves it for later requests. You can even use the app to describe the location that you are making your request from. I’m actually waiting for a jump start right now, as I’m typing this. Yes, you read that correctly. No, I’m not making this up. Yes, I’m doing this right now. The app even allows for you to save your vehicle(s) and account(s) so you don’t have to keep searching for your AAA card every time you have some trauma. It even has a “Call 911″ function if you are in an accident and need to do so. This app is a must have for anyone with a AAA card and a car. The price tag is nothing to complain about, either. Very useful for even finding places to get your car repaired. Price: Free.