(What I thought was) Chris Harris on Chuck Norris

I'm trying to not be a downer this weekend. I thought I'd start by going to Fools Play tomorrow night. But it turns out I'll start by pointing you all at CGH.

http://www.thisischris.com/2006/01/chuck-norris.html

Web Log: Hard Gay

I don't speak a word of the language, besides Mac-oh-do-na-ru-do (I think that's McDonald's) and nan-ji. But. You don't need lingual skills to enjoy this.

http://www.nickdenton.org/002182.html

Cute outfit. I hate to think it'd chaff.

Now this is avant-garde.

Social bookmark du jour:

http://www.theartguys.com/works/4d/music.html.

Katrina Slideshow

I realized that the kind of gallery I wanted Excess Celery to be is what Kodak's galleries are. But that's not why I'm writing this.

BoingBoing has been posting dozens of Katrina items, which I believe wholly appropriate, and much, much more informative than most TV news can deliver. Today, in one of the Katrina posts was a photo gallery, filled with about two hundred shots, of a hotel worker's account of New Orleans before, during, and after the storm.

The BoingBoing post is here, and the gallery is here.

Secrets by Post

I was reading BoingBoing tonight, and found a website to give one pause.

From the site:

"When I heard about your website on NPR it floored me. I've kept my secret for so long and many times I was so desperate to tell someone that I considered sending my secret to any random address in America. I cried when I learned that I could finally share it with someone. Reading everyone else's secrets I was surprised to find that I wasn't judging them. I realized that no painful secret is worse than another. It's the shame we all carry with us that makes our secret the worst."
-Florida

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

"I decided to tell my five closest friends about your site one night, and I asked if they wanted to each write down our biggest secret, put it in a hat, and then we could anonymously read them all. After much hesitation, nervousness, and fear of regret, we all did it. It was scary how much we hid from the people we were supposed to be able to tell everything to, but it was even scarier how similar what we hid was. By the end of the night, we each personally announced which secret was ours, for the first time ever we talked about our secrets openly. We decided it was better than any therapist session, any guidance counselor, and any medication...It was raw human self finally being released. By early morning, after many tears and much self disclosure, there were no regrets. Thank you for this opportunity, for myself, for my friends, and for everyone else."
-Maryland

Harr, dee, harr.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=115

Not a bad comic strip. It pokes fun at what I hope to be: A free-footing, free-fooding, free-floating, but carefully not free-loading, grad. student. The pregnancy during Ph. D. Thesis Defense season (this week's strips), though, I intend to avoid.

Wonderful distractions. They're why I don't sleep much; time well spent, I say.

/. Discussion: Sony and Law by Precedent

Here's something to mull over.

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144204&cid=12087488
The first forum item, and the first child are what I'd like to emphasize.

In reponse, here's an idea, though I'm just a lowly math/compusci-focused 'Greener: Why not have these laws by precedent be set only by cases won through judgement, not through mere victory in court? Victory in court, by my understanding, allows victory by defaulting (ie the defendant can't pay for any more).

Or is there something fundamental about our legal system I should know but don't?

Web Log, 20050330

• This is probably the hardest of core in paintball I've ever heard of. If you know nothing of Starcraft, or Halo, or Red Vs. Blue, you'll get a pretty good idea of how ass-kicking-centric the games are. This paintball event takes the cake in bringing that ass-kicking to real life. I drool at the prospect of driving a tank in a paintball battlefield, after all.

• I've now seen two forms of dolls in their most terrifying manifestations. One is linked here via BoingBoing, just have a look-see. Fascinating. The other, I heard about when a guy came by work to visit a few co-workers. He told us about one of his artist-girlfriend's passtimes: Making petits monstres monthly. This site also was mentioned on BoingBoing, and I hope it hasn't caused a huge deluge of orders for her; she was hurtin' for time around Christmas, as I recall.

I have some things I'm trying to write about, like a few vacations and a new & overdue XSLery entry, but the quarter has gotten awfully busy again (already). I may be implementing a neural net on FallenEarth with some JSP magic, or an applet if need be, but I can't think of an application for it so far besides just getting the net in place. Believe it or not, implementing the net wil gain me a whopping 1 credit in addition to the 3 credits I'm getting for the class "Connectionism." Well, more on that later.

And now, to wipe the ass-kicking and freaky images from above, a palette cleanser. Good night.

New Year's Resolutions, 22.7% through 2005

About five minutes after December 31^st, 2004 ended, everyone in the Forks cabin told their New Year's resolutions. Well, almost everyone did. Nick and Julie needed a little help with theirs.

I held onto the scraps of paper people used to get their resolutions out, for those who couldn't think of them without writing being done (by them or on their behalf). So, how're people doing with their resolutions? They don't even have to be written down here.

Nick:

1. Not going to drink for another yaer.
2. Capture a terrorist.
3. Wrestle someone on television.

Julie:

1. Improve relations with sister.
2. Become a hooker.
3. Make an animal species go extinct.

Nato, who actually wrote them himself:

• Central Park
• Met.
• Daily Show
• Statue of Liberty
• Broadway Show
• Nathan's Hot Dog @ Coney Island

My resolution of learning a new OS is pending Tiger's release (which should be soon).

Current Event: St. Helens (What, you missed it too?)

No original content follows.

"I live less than 50 miles from St Helens, and I heard about this on Slashdot first" (/. poster). I didn't hear about this on Slashdot, but nearly as bad, at OCO rehearsal tonight during break.

Since this won't be on the news 'til tomorrow, or maybe it was on at 10 tonight and I missed it, here's a nice shot somebody got. Good use of a photoblog.

I hope none of us here use KaZaA…

…because they have been undeniably revealed as badware.

An Archiving Question

To web-savvy folk:

Let us say I wanted to download a web site to a local location. By web site, I don't mean just page x on some site, I mean the whole little web x is built into - at least, kept locally on their site.

Clarification, since I think I didn't word that very well: Let's say I wanted to download what a blog has online (I should note that this isn't my original motive for looking for this software). For example, let's use my blog. I want to download everything at http://fallenearth.org/blogs/loup_vert, linked from the index page. By "At," I mean everything which is a stored under the blog's URL. I put this "At" clause in because this blog happens to have archived entries that link to several different websites, like Slashdot.org and BoingBoing.net, and the collection of sites those sites link to would make this little "Web" grow to fantastic proportions. And woe if I try to download half the 'net because of one link to /..

Algorithmically, if I had the know-how to download web sites from the command line (Linux, not DOS), this would be:

Loup-Vert's Web Crawler ("Wolf-Spider"?) Algorithm

1. Set an "environment variable" ROOT to some directory (e.g. my blog's directory);
2. Download site x (e.g. some index.html), preserving its URL with respect to ROOT;
3. Traverse x's contents;
4. Upon finding an anchor link (easily just the string "<a") or a <link> element (for stylesheets and the like), view the href attribute;
5. If ROOT is in href, or if the href is relative (doesn't start with "http://"), call this algorithm on what the href points to;
6. For all absolute hrefs that point to a file under what is the web site's root, change any absolute hrefs to become relative to ROOT.

It seems simple enough that somebody must have written it already. Or maybe it's some feature already available to Opera or something and I don't know about it.

If any of you are curious why I want this, it is to enable fast downloading of a class web-site, which has many examples I would like to download for future reference, but for which I don't have the time to manually download all the hundred-plus files.

Thank you for any help, or scorning if necessary for reasons I may not comprehend at the moment.

It's people like you who write programs that end up getting discussed in technology ethics classes. – Kobar

I welcome ethics discussions too, if necessary.

I don't know why, but I suddenly got struck with the idea that this could easily be applicable to a porn environment. But then, that idea seems rampant with technology 'round here. =)

On Poop Association

Recently, I was informed of the method to train a parrot to poop on command, or have the parrot give notice it needs to lose a gram: Basically (in other words, look into this yourself before trying it from my advice), the objective is to associate a phrase, sound, or object with the act of pooping: The association must be made while the bird's excreting.

I don't want to associate an object, as that requires the object be available at any given time I want Sherry to make a plunge. (A toilet would be amusing and appropriate, except it's fairly fatal if she were ever to fall in; it'd be a quick drowning.) So, I want to think up a phrase to get her to poop on command.

The question is, what phrase? I have three I can't decide between:

• "Polly want a crapper"
• Divebombing whistle
• "Sit"

If you had a parrot, what would its pooping sound be?

Web Log, 20050118

I've discovered Thunderbird, and its ability to harness RSS feeds, treating new articles like e-mail. Before, I only knew of Firefox's "Live Bookmark" presentation, which let RSS feeds be just a bookmark folder that would update itself. The problem I have with that is not knowing what I have and haven't looked at.

I find RSS as e-mail easier to manage...or at least, easier to hold on to things without having to bloat my Firefox bookmarks with neat BoingBoing and SlashDot posts. Speaking of which...

• The return of Tron
• Wikipedia gets pseudo-metal entries
• This makes my inner hippy weep for joy — an alternate method of making plastic. Yay for an oil-avoiding idea!
• Two words. Darth. Tater.

There's more, but I'll leave those be. There's too much funny stuff online. Actually, I can't resist plugging something from my favorite writing category: Revenge.

So I don't sound like a total Mozillaphile: I have taken a look at Opera. As far as I can tell (at the newby level), it matches Thunderbird for functionality with RSS. I haven't looked at e-mail yet, but I can already tell I don't want all this happening in one program; sorry, Kobar, looks like Mozillas at the moment.

The Mac Mini doesn't come to consumers until the 22nd, but it has already been cracked open. David assured me that the Mac community wouldn't be subjected to Apple's overcharges for memory, so would circumvent Apple's prices & services and just install memory themselves. There's a pretty fair-looking comparison of budget PCs and the budget Mac. I've been working on Macs at Evergreen, and I've decided I like the system enough that I'll get one. I just don't know if I want a Mini for cheapness, or if I should hold out for a laptop...I will at least wait until Tigre comes out. Until then, I'll just keep drooling...drooling, by the way, is quite a fun activity. Y'know the bit - men, boys, the dollars for toys...Nicholas had a hi-larious-as-usual entry on his getting a Mac, but alas, his blog was lost with his computer Bob. I'll miss you, Bob. I think I got that name right. (Oh, the sincerity, one can almost smell it...is the stink profuse enough yet?)

Something that wowed the guys at work, and definitely worth a try (requires web Java):
Visual Thesaurus

Greatly pleasing to the eyes.

The Big 'To Do'

I'm proud of how I've been spending this break. Little of it went to video games; I've had a little WarCraft 3 and Halo 2 with Damian, and I did buy and beat Mega Man X4 (took about 4 hours, and that story— holy crap), but it hasn't been like Christmas breaks past where a huge amount of time was devoted to creating a butt print in the computer chair...uh, for games, anyway.

I've found several wonderful time sinks, which I'll just list off here:

• From that side list of blogs on David's blog, I found BoingBoing.net, a blog of many, many, many wonders, including the fairly morbid bone church (follow-up article here.
• From Jen, the Acts of Gord, tales of great amusement from the owner of a video game rental store in Canada. He also has a few essays on the video game industry, written before and about the premiers of the XBox and the GameCube.
• While not actually a timesink, I saw the recording of André Rieu's performance in Cortona. This concert is breathtaking; done in an Italian villa's centre, with 3-4 story structures surrounding the stage, the Vienna Philharmonic playing (I may have gotten the group wrong), and Rieu playing while conducting...there's one song that has a soprano singing a beckoning song to her father that rips right into your mind; she becomes the daughter you'd do anything for. Oh, it's wonderful; PBS has played it before, they may again, but try to get the DVD, it's quite worth it.
• David recently (read: an hour ago) got JSP working on FE, so I shall sink a few days into refreshing my Java experience and throwing it online as servlets, getting some of that horrid working in VBScript in ASP out of my system. Theoretically, I'll be able to get XSLery comments working by the end of break, all supposing if I learn a way to interact with XML files through JSP by the end of break. Shouldn't be too hard, if work has a light week planned for me.
• Last, I suppose, I've been looking at several Jabber clients. I like including excerpts of chatlogs sometimes in blog entries, and I'd like to do it more, but I don't have simple ways to convert my chatlogs to something displayable on this blog. For those of you familiar with XHTML, or XML, take a gander at an AIM chatlog some time (just save a conversation). The markup is horrid! <body> elements control background colors, bold tags overlap other font tags, font tags are used period...writing up entry 300 was an exercise in the Find & Replace function. Well, maybe it doesn't bother some as much as me, but I don't like it. So, I've been questing for a Jabber client that works across Windows, OS X and Linux (or is written in Java; universality, essentially), and that has decent XML output. Results on that to come, I've been keeping a log.

I have ridiculous vacations. I don't think I've really had one for four years; so, it occurred to me a month or so ago to start keeping track of things I'd like to do once this Free Time rolls around next year. The list is pretty extensive; I think my 'vacation' next year will be pretty busy as well. Though, to assure I never run out (ha! Like that'll happen), I put this List into the wiki, so people can pile on whatever they want (like Leia did with Lemony Snicket, which I would indeed like to read).

One look at the list, and you may think I have no clue how to have a vacation. You're probably right. Well, let's see if I take a year without school well, or if I truly did forget how to live un-busily; come next year.

*(3,(*(10,10)))

— Title is in prefix notation: I've been doing a lot of that lately. A lot. Haskell's functions are, by default, written in prefix notation, which has a certain aesthetic appeal; I may write about it some day, along with lambda calculus. Fascinating material.

Today, though, I dedicate my blog to itself, circling about for Entry Three Hundred, a number that I don't know if I should hyphenate or not. Don't think so. I recall entry 100 went to...uh, Leah's head and The Transformers, I guess, one of which is a cult icon with a far-from-but-maybe-could-be fanatical following. 200 went to FallenEarth and the girl from math, which was a cozily smaller focus target.

I hereby throw away dedications of areas I'm comfortable with: This is from Gentoo and for Schroedinger's cat.

With much help from Nicholas, and further inquisition for David (with some planned for Nathan, but he happened to be away whenever I need Linux help), I got Gentoo working on the 700 megaherter box. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I even braved several house-burnings to get things running:

…

RedDeno (12:27:03 AM): you can skip that locales shit too
RedDeno (12:28:35 AM): and don't do scripts/bootstrap -f, do the one in code listing 13 instead
LoupOrange (12:29:21 AM): Ah, you underestimate my wussiness: I did Stage 3
RedDeno (12:29:28 AM): dear lord!
LoupOrange (12:29:35 AM): Well, I wanted to sleep tonight
RedDeno (12:29:35 AM): I'm going to burn your house down

…

LoupOrange (12:48:41 AM): What's GRP?
RedDeno (12:49:03 AM): something you skip
RedDeno (12:49:06 AM): (binaries)
LoupOrange (12:49:25 AM): ah
LoupOrange (12:50:17 AM): Hmm. Looks like the end of that manual; I guess the next thing I want to do is install KDE. Where should I look for that? (I have the packages disc)
RedDeno (12:50:33 AM): use packages and I'll burn down your house
LoupOrange (12:50:55 AM): ...aww. I spent a CD on burning my house down.

…

I even managed to finish the emerge one night. Nicholas told me that after getting Gentoo going, installing the GUI would be great simplicity, if I would RTFM and let it go on autopilot. He then went to bed, and I talked with David about my accomplishments, and how I was so happy to finish my Gentoo installation, at 1 in the morning no less, that I was going to celebrate the first way I could think of: I was going to bake cookies! And they were so rewarding. But then, things took a turn, and I became a part of Physics Lectures manifest. I recounted the tail to Nicholas, but that was days later; that night, after the first ominous mishap, I had a minor nuisance shared with David:

…

LoupOrange (2:00:58 AM): All right, I'm just going to let that run 'til morning. Meanwhile, I'm going to go experiment with the adverse side effects of sleeping with chocolate chip cookies in the gut.
LoupOrange (2:01:00 AM): oh wtf...
LoupOrange (2:01:07 AM): um
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:09 AM):Hmm?
LoupOrange (2:01:12 AM): "
LoupOrange (2:01:18 AM): !!! Digest verification Failed:
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:21 AM):Cookies doing damage already?
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:27 AM):For the emerge command?
LoupOrange (2:01:38 AM): !!! /usr/portage/distfiles/X11R6.8.0-src2.tar.gz
LoupOrange (2:01:48 AM): haha that was a really well-timed pun error...
LoupOrange (2:02:01 AM): !!! Reason: Failed on MD5 verification
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:02:01 AM):Hmm, just delete that file and try again

…

I decided to ignore the possible connections between cookies, Gentoo, and Voo-Doo. One omen was bad enough.

Installing X (a prerequisite for any decent GUI) turned out to have an obstacle, inherent in my hardware. It wasn't until I saw Nicholas last that I realized Quantum Physics had entered my life, most definitely not for the last time…

LoupOrange (11:24:32 PM): Hello Nicholas
RedDeno (11:24:38 PM): Howdy Alex
RedDeno (11:24:46 PM): How goes the long haul?
LoupOrange (11:24:51 PM): Are you familiar with the story of Schroedinger's cat?
RedDeno (11:25:05 PM): I don't think so, no
LoupOrange (11:25:24 PM): It was the beginning fable of Quantum Mechanics
LoupOrange (11:25:40 PM): Schroedinger stuck his cat in a box with a cyanide capsule that would detonate at a certain time
LoupOrange (11:25:44 PM): or a certain event
LoupOrange (11:25:57 PM): The box was sealed, with no way of perceiving the interior
LoupOrange (11:26:15 PM): Once the box was closed, it was impossible to know what the state of the cat was: Alive or dead
LoupOrange (11:26:31 PM): In fact, it was both simultaneously (with a 50% probability attached to each)
LoupOrange (11:26:44 PM): And only observing the cat would determine what its state really was
LoupOrange (11:26:55 PM): Opening the box is what makes the cat's state declarable
LoupOrange (11:26:58 PM): Period.
RedDeno (11:27:07 PM): I see.
LoupOrange (11:27:07 PM): Now, why would I tell you this fable, you might be wondering?
RedDeno (11:27:19 PM): Well, I think it's relation to gentoo might be horrifying.
RedDeno (11:27:23 PM): its
LoupOrange (11:27:23 PM): Slightly.
LoupOrange (11:27:51 PM): Gentoo, after fifteen or so minutes of inactivity, goes into a Power Save mode that turns the screen black (but not off, as forum research showed).
LoupOrange (11:28:06 PM): Running "emerge kde" takes many multiples of 15 in minutes to complete.
LoupOrange (11:28:22 PM): Now, once upon an X-installing night, the Power save mode went on
RedDeno (11:28:29 PM): And froze
LoupOrange (11:28:34 PM): No
LoupOrange (11:28:48 PM): The computer was happily grinding away (or rather, putting every ten seconds or so)
LoupOrange (11:29:10 PM): However, when I pushed a key, any key (ctrl to be precise), the screen half-filled with text, output of emerge;
LoupOrange (11:29:22 PM): The Caps Lock and Scroll Lock lights commenced blinking;
LoupOrange (11:29:28 PM): And all activity ceased, save the fan.
RedDeno (11:29:30 PM): hahahahaaaha
LoupOrange (11:29:33 PM): NOW
LoupOrange (11:29:38 PM): X finally finished, after an hour or three
LoupOrange (11:29:42 PM): HOWEVER
LoupOrange (11:29:53 PM): emerge kde runs for God Knows how long.
LoupOrange (11:30:13 PM): And after fifteen minutes, the machine goes into Power Save mode.
LoupOrange (11:30:26 PM): I have no hint at all that emerge is yet running, save the occasional "blip" from the hardware.
LoupOrange (11:30:40 PM): More like a "MNriht"
LoupOrange (11:30:57 PM): However, if I ever wish to OBSERVE what is going on, the machine locks up, blinking madly.
LoupOrange (11:31:05 PM): This
LoupOrange (11:31:06 PM): is
LoupOrange (11:31:11 PM): Schroedinger's emerge.
RedDeno (11:31:26 PM): This is
RedDeno (11:31:29 PM): fascinating.
LoupOrange (11:31:34 PM): This will be
LoupOrange (11:31:36 PM): entry 300
LoupOrange (11:31:41 PM): on Forest-Shaded Howls.
RedDeno (11:31:46 PM): :-)
LoupOrange (11:32:01 PM): I plan to post it after you threaten to burn my house down again for a miswrite I had in tonight's car accident story.
RedDeno (11:32:27 PM): car accident who?
RedDeno (11:32:31 PM): *headng to FE...*
LoupOrange (11:32:34 PM): hehe
RedDeno (11:34:31 PM): sacrifices speed?
RedDeno (11:34:35 PM): it's on now beyatch

How Car Commercials SHOULD Be Done

Shown to me by Oli Newsome.

This definitely one-ups that Cadillac commercial that has cars in a formal dance.

4 MB.

Beautiful.

If Banjos were Italian, they'd be Banji.

I had an idea earlier tonight: What would "Dueling Banjos" sound like on instruments without six strings? Like, a cello, or brass choir (or brass choir vs woodwind ensemble)? Would it even be possible to play? Not very likely, but I thought I'd poke around to see if it had been done. I stumbled across this entry linking, or rather un-linking, Dueling Banjos and Debian. That's fairly amusing by itself, but the link at the end of the article took the cake.

Does anybody have an .mp3 of Dueling Banjos (on any instrument) they'd be willing to send me? I hook up to file-trade services so rarely I can't justify having the software on my computer…

Upon finding an .mp3 of Dueling Banjos: I would be really impressed if somebody played an arrangement for something besides banjos. "Dueling Timpanos" would greatly amuse me if someone did it, but unfortunately it would probably require two rows of a dozen timpani to do right...along with 4-8 operators. Oh man, that would be hilarious pandemonium.

I feel quite sufficiently relaxed for tomorrow's test. Joy.

One could say that Bush is God's chosen...

...wrathing target.

I titled this entry after a quote I heard from NPR one morning, where a devout Christian said her vote was for Bush because "He was God's chosen one." Another Christian countered that quote with his own theologic commentary; other commentary is inherently obvious to some.

I would be a bit more convinced if I could see a third layer of data, the damage done by the hurricanes. It looks like St. Lucie was dealt an "Unfair" amount of wrath from Frances, and Charley missed Hillsborough. That, of course, is just considering the division lines.

Another fault in the argument could be found if one were to plot previous years' hurricane paths through Florida. If they looked similar, than the power of the image's author could be reduced by this description of Kepler:

His name was Johannes Kepler, and he had a reputation as an excellent seer who successfully predicted plague, famine, and Turkish invasions (all of which came regularly and fairly often). — Burrows, This New Ocean

FDA and Anti-Depressants

This article was published on the bottom of the front page of today's Olympian:
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040910/topstories/141385.shtml.

I'd really like to know why there is no reason given that the FDA blocked the ugly-for-business data. It truly just looks like government pushing along businss as it sees fit -- ESPECIALLY since some of the companies were considering being responsible and publishing the data.

I'm also not surprised at seeing Zoloft and Paxil in the list of ineffective [for children] drugs. I've gotten comment spam at least twice a day for two weeks now with those two names floating through it. At this point, I wonder if that spam is being generated by spammers who are maliciously manipulating Google for malice's sake, or if it's being generated by companies who really think that polluting the internet with their name will help sales. In either case, seeing that name in millions of places it wasn't expected or desired is really just bad publicity for the companies; I hope they all realize that at some point and knock it off.

Cinematic Sadness

I had just put the finishing touches on an event plug for what I thought was going to be a great movie night: Amélie and The Yellow Submarine, back-to-back. Those two movie nights had...elemental difficulties (one of which cost Way Out West an alumninum screen frame). But! they said, There'll be a double feature night!

They said that too many weeks ago. Observe the red datum at the bottom of this page. Bummer.

FireFox and XSL's Variables

(This was a comment-response to David's comment on yesterday's entry, but ended up being too big to be an appropriate comment.)

If there's one thing I'll remember from my current job, it'll be that ASP is monopolitically evil slag. I do not intend to have my photo gallery be stuck in IE specifically because I somehow convinced you (maybe by threat of nuclear war?) to install IIS on FallenEarth.

...Unfortunately, I'm almost positive that Mozilla or FireFox users won't be able to see my gallery anyway (don't know about Opera). FireFox can NOT handle calls to an <xsl:variable> element's value. The element itself doesn't cause errors, but if I ever try to use the value for anything (via the $thatvariablevalue syntax), FireFox's XSL parser says there's an error, and instead of being helpful and describing it, the error message is null. The same result comes from Mozilla.

I hate to say this, but because IE can handle the variable calls, IE has FireFox beat at this point.

Oh, and php and a database probably would be a more optimal solution (or even just downloading someone else's scripts) to creating something as common as a photo gallery, but I've been dying to learn XSL. So, I'm keeping the photos' information in an XML document that has an XSL-Transform associated with it. You should see the finished product in a couple days, I've been obsessively working on it much more than I should be.

In Other News: CEO and Photo Gallery

Well, at the very least, the CEO doesn't look like some kid with a skinny neck.

In other news: an update on the XML-Driven Photo Gallery
I scrapped the Java and XML interplay when I realized that I didn't know how to use Java in a scripting fashion period, much less on this server (if I even have that kind of user-permission), and I'm not sure I want to invest the time to learn. I went back to the ab. fab. XSLT Tutorial and got enough things working with the photo gallery that I can display the photo I want, and all of its associated data, including comments! ...Unfortunately, there are a few current snags in the project, and any help people can offer is quite welcome.

1. I don't know how to set an xsl variable more than once. I tried having '<xsl:variable name='curPhoto'>13</xsl:variable>' inside a <span> element, and then using JavaScript to set the span's innerHTML to that xsl element with a different body (from 13 to 0). I get an "Object Expected" error and useless line number from IE when I click on the button that calls that script. In FireFox, I'm just told that there's an XSLT Transformation error. I hate to say it, but IE has FireFox beat at this point in testing.
2. I'm not very sure how I'm going to implement comments on an automated basis. Again, my lack of scripting knowledge comes into play. My ultimate goal is to have comment elements within the XML file, as children of photo elements. Does anybody have an idea better than just having the comment form's ACTION attribute send me e-mails?
3. Lastly, I would like to have a valid XML document, validated by a DTD (I don't know the other way of validating an XML file), but I'd also like to allow people to include their own markup in comments, like bolding, changing a font color, etc. CDATA doesn't seem to let me get away with this, nor does the "ANY" element-content type. I suppose I could live without italics tags, but it's one of those things I'd really like to have.

I wrote a while ago that I planned to have a handle on XML and XSL by the end of summer. Summer's not over yet; theoretically, I'm ahead of schedule in that regard. I wish I could say that about the rest of my work.

A Politics Plug

For reasons which probably don't need to be elaborated upon, I recall the name of johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com with great ease. I checked out the essays outlined on the left of the page, starting with the 4th ("Why This is Not the Time or the Place to Vote for a 3rd Party Candidate"), but it is unfortunately still incomplete. It probably won't ever be completed, according to what he wrote in place of essay 5 ("Why Every Conservative Should Seriously Consider Voting Democrat this Fall"). It is a link to a reputable article in the New York Press.

I found that article to be the single greatest political paper I have ever read. That may be an untrue statement, actually, but it did remind me of a quote of Raphael Clancy from my math program (of which I can only remember the gist):

"Yeah, as an anthro. major, I can feel content with knowing cool stuff about Rome, and seeing it happen again. I'll be able to tell my kids, 'I saw the transition from Republic to Empire!'"

Spread this article around if you can. I am a sincere believer that the more Bush's campaign hurts, the better; if you aren't now, you may be after you read this article. Please at least note the $10 trillion, and factor your current age and projected lifespan into the author's logic.

The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush

Also, if this link should ever become broken, please inform me (Loup-Vert@comcast.net). Thank you.

Daily Zero and a Negatory

The Olympian, Sunday, August 22, 2004: Page E1 (Business). Web archive, without pictures, here.

The question now is this: Do I write the editor and ask him to change the caption to "Nelson," or adjoin "Looking?" Actually, another question is, "How much power can I levy in Capital Medical Center?"

The answer to the second question may be "Not so much, because you walked into Group Health the day after this was published. Traitor." Oh well. An appointment's an appointment, whether or not I'm depicted to be CEO of the hospital across the street.

Forest Shade

If you don't yet see trees and sunshine -- just wait a sec. They'll grow on you, and sprout out of the banners in due seconds.

I don't care how lame the "Growing" theme of this entry is. "Growing" is really how I treated this stylesheet. I've been developing this since May, and for weeks all I could do was change a color every Saturday or so. So, really, what you see grew after around twenty weeks. I hope you like it.

In other news, I've shelved (read: made to vaporware) the XML/Java project with the camping pictures. I don't honestly think I have the time to develop a photo gallery system all on my own, and I realized I didn't have a clue on how to implement a comment system (one of the things I really wanted) without learning server-side PHP. I'm declaring my time stretched and worn, since I've been too busy with my Java ILC to do any work on my GRE studies.

By the end of September, I'll post a few of the choice shots with some descriptions in an entry here. Or, if things go much, much better than I foresee them going with my Java schedule, I'll get back to Java and XML. In the end, XML seems so incredibly useful that I'd have to mightily kick myself for not figuring out how to use it with Java. I just need more time...like, a month. That'd be the best birthday present to get: a month without hassle. I think I can wait 'til next summer for that. I find myself patient enough.

2nd-Degree Stupidity

Jen Clark: Have you seen this?

Jen Clark: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

me: Nope...

me: But I probably will have by tonight =)

Jen Clark: It's funny.

Jen Clark: Those poor tech support people...

me: ow

me: Ok, I'm not reading any more, I just smacked my head in awe at dumbness and hit my eye..

Jen Clark: lol

me: I don't feel qualified to read that stuff anymore.

On Spam

What amazes me about the most recent spam attack that hit FE was that I searched through the last 5000 posted comments through MT-Blacklist...and I didn't find all of them. The sheer mass of this crap is amazing. I've had 31 spam comments in 2 days. A-freakin'-mazing.

I wrote a little about MT-Blacklisting in a forum post here. It's sorta taking initiative away from webmaster Chen, but I prefer that people know about the de-spamming process as early as possible; pardon, Caius.

I just looked at a few things, and found them fairly amusing:

• The view count on that forum thread I linked above was 593 on July 3rd. Now, July 6th, the count has jumped up to 825. Dubious.
• The most recent spam site to attack, (in l33t sp34k so I don't give it -another- plug) |_1/\/uxw@ve$.net, is a spoof of its similarly named .com site -- only, a search for it on Google unfortunately turns it up as the second hit, a huge collection of many pornographic...adjectives. I really, really wonder why sites like that even exist -- I suspect the answer is to spread Trojans around and smear the official .com site. It's all quite disappointing, nonetheless, to see that garbage being generated.

Attention FE Bloggers

I've got bad news: Please check your archives, if possible. A spambot has hit FE -hard-. I got 7 pornographic spams in my blog, including entries from almost The Beginning. I know that Jen G's blog was also hit; I'd like to ask everyone to please use the MT Blacklist DeSpamming to remove this tasteless rape spam from their comments. This should really just involve hitting the "De-Spam" button at the top, as I've already imported the offending URL. The "Delete Comments" button at the bottom will finish the job.

(A note to David: Wouldn't the MT Blacklist ideally remove the spam from -everyone's- blog at once? The URL that hit me matches the URL in Jen G's blog, so the script doesn't appear to remove spam outside one's own blog. Or is this a user-permission, password-required issue?)

And now, for something completely different.

In other news, I saw Cabaret tonight. I'm a bit lost for words on it, so I'll just leave it at this: The boys & girls are Raunchy; Jim has an awesome trombone line opening the second act; and the first character you see is so animated, all throughout, with a sexy German/French/Belgian(?) accent. This is the last weekend of the show; it comes highly recommended.

Weblog, 20040508

I actually can't link to this, but to all of you in Oly, particularly the SPSCC people, there was an interesting Daily Olympian tidbit in Thursday's South Sound section. A Tumwater resident hit a something in the road, swerved into the next lane, and smashed head on into a cop car. No physical injuries, but the man'll never hear the end of it; he had a blood-alcohol content of .120, measured again at .117.

That guy also happened to be the full-time economics professor at SPSCC. His classes were cancelled that day; "The professor's ill," read notes on his classes' boards.

I'm going to sleep without a bandage on that middle-finger cut tonight, and hope that it heals over conveniently. I plucked a little bit on Damian's viola yesterday, and didn't feel any twinges through the bandage; I haven't tried bowing notes yet, that'll be tomorrow's Ultimate Test. Should it fail...I've got the coach's phone number. She'll sit in first chair and take over my ...what was it, 12 measures of solo in Babar. Nothing drastic...except I'll be in the audience instead of on stage.

Minus side: It'll be the first concert I've missed in at least six years, perhaps ever, and it's an end-of-the-year concert to boot.
Plus side: I've never really heard the Conservatory orchestra play, without being in the group. It'd be a nice chance to get perspective on the group I've been performing with for 3 whole years, and a fairer comparison with the CAYSA orchestra I'm seeing Saturday; I've heard they've been sucking since the getting-too-distant past, but never verified this for myself.

By the way, CAYSA's having their concert next Saturday night at the Washington Center...I'm not sure what time, since their website accidentally omitted that detail. Clever. Andrew Yu's mom stopped by my house a couple weeks ago and dropped off a few vouchers, so hey! why not? And they're playing...jeez, their site is sure awfully informative. No listing of pieces they're playing...I know they'll be doing:
-The Moldau, by Smetena
-Light Cavalry Overture, by von Suppe
-...uh, something else. It didn't sound too high-level-y, though; Russian Sailor's Dance, perhaps? It sounded like something SOGO's Academy orchestra would do (high middle school-beginning high school level students).

Interestingly enough, SOGO played the first two pieces 2 and 1 years ago, respectively. So, I know the parts that can Easily Go Wrong: violas' evil, evil, evil "Running Water" sequence in the Moldau, and the violins' "Lookatme, I can play notes on every square inch of the fingerboard" runs in the Light Cavalry. Ah, but I can't wait to hear the homophonic section of the Light Cavalry Overture again; I love that part.

I've started waddling about. I remembered hearing Aaron's favorite song on Raymond Scott's Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights was "The Penguin," but couldn't remember how the tune went; so, I played the song in my living room. It encourages waddling, and if penguins could break-dance, that would be what they'd break-dance to. Scott's awesome.

I can't whole-heartedly recommend Microphone Music, the two-disc collection of his works. A lot of the songs are from Reckless Nights, and seem...kinda rushed. The "Quintette" doesn't seem to take its time and enjoy the music as before. All the songs on the album are "re-tooled," and the majority seem to be for the Quicker.

I've found a new source of Swing music, though. The soundtrack to Metropolis captures the wonderful "Party that is the '20's" sound that attracts me to Swing music. Never before have I been so happy to hear a fire.

And now I'm going to try to scab over. G'night, everybody.

Ahem. Kidangel.

*Clears throat*

Well, I got Firefox. Whither yon endorsement? I see no secret blog...though my eyes may be playing tricks on me with a hallucinetic menu that tells me its a hallucination...

Foxy

Well, I've finally gotten FireFox installed. I went to Cassie's after Fools Play Saturday night, and she wowed me with an on-the-fly CSS Style-editing software bit. I've done a little tinkering with my blog...I'm itching to throw in background images, at least for the sake of throwing. (Cassie, what happened to that blue-green-purple splash you uploaded for me? "For loupvert.jpg"? I seem to have lost it.)
I've noticed that the CSS quick-edit plug seems to flub around some colors.

Otherwise, I'm happy with the software. It functions on all...uh, 5 websites I visit, and I can do some quick color-flipping. Thumbs up, I s'pose.

Blog entries to come, if I can get myself to write them:
*Flopjacks
*Infinity and xi
*"My Favorite Food Ever," or "Rampage of the Anti-Social Vegetables"
*A picture of a tree between the Evergreen labs on a clear day; it'll make sense when you see it.
*Proper lobbing of Damian's Pesky
*Retroactive blog about my last blood donation, and the floor of the downtown Blood Center

I'll most probably finish the blood donation one first, as I'm curious what Hannah will say to this one. I still don't know how to interpret that last comment about me traversing six feet in the bathroom to reach the shower with one leg.

Double-You Tee Eff

This may cause an aneurysm. I managed to make it to the line "po-go stick chase sequence!" before my brain submitted in writhing agony. The confused, screwed-up look on my face threatened to lock my jaw sideways into my skull.

Double-You Tee Eff.

[Update; fixed link]
I remembered another demeaning-to-women "Entertainment" item that Damian showed me last year, and I consequently showed to Aaron. Actually, it wasn't the product so much as the wonderfully devastating review that holds a place in my heart. At least there are some thoughts possible with this "Babe" article, as opposed to the cognitive-thought-ceasing Cheerleader Ninjas above. Huzzah for reviews of crap.

Weblog, 20040303

This entry is comment-closed due to asinine blogspamming, which has hit this entry alone 7 times. E-mail me if you wish it to open again.

As a bona-fide weblog entry:

° The Superdeformers webcomic I had linked to is now dead. The runner (Matt Nelson, no relation) suddenly became unable to upload anything new to his website, and announced through his forum [after a couple weeks] that he was giving up on the project. Perhaps he found someone to host his archives...I hope he did, and I hope they get easier to find on Google than not-at-all.

° Transformer Mugshots are still online; a gem to any Transformer Fan. I don't know how much longer they'll last though, since the site has a slight advertisement plague and hasn't been updated in over a year. Well, enjoy it while you can, I guess.

° I had an Impulse buy a couple days ago. It was the damndest thing; I was watching Judgement Day on G4, and Tommy, the grumpy Italian, gave the game a perfect 10 where Victor gave it a 9.5, which was the first time Tommy perfed something over Victor. But besides that little nuance that probably doesn't interest anyone who doesn't watch the show, the game was really pretty-looking, and the review was glowing. (No pun intended.) I checked on Amazon out of curiosity, hoping to see a $50 price tag and become discouraged from thinking about it on the spot.
° I did see a $50 price tag, but it was marked down to 20. Two clicks in as many seconds later, I had ordered it.
° Now Damian and I can say that we don't own an X-Box specifically for HALO. Sure took us long enough.

________

As an online journal entry:

The Advanced Calculus exam is tomorrow. Once again, it should be the easiest of the three exams we have; I like saying it like that. "Advanced calc? Pssh. A breeze." I can only get away with that because most of us have already seen most of the material in other classes, so a sizeable chunk of the class was review.

The day after tomorrow, two wonderful things will happen:
- I won't have to study calculus [in a single variable] again, unless I have to take a grad. school refresher/equalizer course.
- Friday's class will have a potluck. I'm bringin' waffles.

All right, I've farted around long enough, back to work I go.

[Post-script: I bashed Ali here and feel like it was just a dumb thing to say. I tried to follow in Miranda's footsteps (since I like echoing people's styles) and have a funny jab at Ali, like "Take that, Ali's beliefs!" But since I commented after -quite literally- 9 hours at Evergreen, it didn't come out right -- stupid, even. Sorry, Ali. Make hugs, not war.

Though, Leah seems to have had her fill for the moment. 417. Yeesh. That's love in a sufficiently massassive quantity to crush her.

[Post-Post-Script: Where did Miranda say "Take that, Ali's beliefs!"? I can't remember for the life of me what inspired me to talk ghetto.]]

Slow Ascension from Gutter

All right, since the Calculus thing I've had a dirty streak about me, and I thought I would put it to an end...

...by making it scholarly.

The plural from of "octopus," "cactus," and a few other -us words not only sounds cool, but will make you seem smarter by using them. Throw "Octopi" around a dinner conversation, and your perceived IQ goes up a few notches. Neat social trick, yes?

Well, the trick fails if you make the pitfall of saying "Peni," because it's penis. I've been trying to come up with what the proper plural form of the word is for months now, off and on (mostly off, and yes, thinking about it once is more than anyone should, I admit). I finally found it, care of a CNBC article on the CEO that made a buck a year:

Penes.

Logical citation: The word crisis becomes crises when pluralized.

So, that's one more mystery of life solved. Go on, now, try to use it around the dinner table: Your perceived IQ will be sure to rise in the eyes of others. In fact, why stop at a dinner table--proudly proclaim your newfound knowledge in as many public venues as possible! Go forth, lingual scholars!

Disclaimer: I force nobody who has read this entry to "Go forth" and have phallic conversations with any people, be they family members, other loved ones, friends, or people walking around college campi. Any and all who do can not sue me for social damages, lost relationships, or vomit induction at social dinner gatherings. Though, in all fairness, when Zach starts using this newfound piece of knowledge, any and all may feel free to discuss my loosing of knowledge upon communities.

SPSCC Professors

One of my viola teacher's students is commencing Running Start this year, and asked me for a few good professors. Instead of write her a nice, long letter on who kicks ass (and who fails to), I'll just keep a list up and going here. All who were or are at SPSCC, feel free to add to this.

In particular: Jim and/or Nathan, could you give a little schpiel on DeStasio and Calculus? Thanks.

I will also keep a link to this entry on the sidebar of the main blog page, if you ever need a quick opinion on a professor you're considering.

From my experience, I reviewed:
-Alforde, Nicholas
-Born, Darrel
-Bowe, Stephanie
-Ganns, Richard (from opinions I harvested with dangerously little effort)
-Keeler, Steve
-Kellet, Lara
-Lawrenson, Lisa (I realized I left her blank on accident; she's well-evaluated now.)
-McNamara, Molly
-Murray, Michael (Arlo)
-Nelson, Harold
-Newsome, Oli
-Notenboom, Gayle
-Schneider, James
-Smith, Paul
-Swenson, Walter
-Villasana, Cesar
-Vosper, James

From the experience of others, these professors have [additional] notes:
-Carey, Pat (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Destasio, Doug (by Jim Farley, first comment)
-Dixon, Ericah (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Doss, Diane (by Jen Clark, third comment; Leah, fifth comment)
-Dragoo, Judy (by Sarah, eighth comment)
-Elliot, Clare (by Beckah, seventh comment)
-Ganns, Richard (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Gove, Sally (by Beckah, seventh comment)
-Hannon, Carol (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Johnson, Don (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Lara, Carlos (by Leah, fifth comment)
-Louie (by Jen Clark, sixth comment)
-Rushton, Lynnette (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Strong, James (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Teed, Deborah (by Jen Clark, third comment)
-Welch, Don (by Beckah, seventh comment)

Angela Lee decided to post her own list of professor reviews. I'm a happier man with the source consolidated, but anywhoo, here's a quick plug to her opinions on professors.
____

Note: When I say essay and give a page length, know that colleges consider pages to be double-spaced. Else, professors' eyes would implode, leaving jelly in several inconvenient locations.

Nicholas Alforde (History): Neutral
I took this guy for a Western Civilizations Telecourse, where the class met once a week, taking a test every other week--all in all, maybe a half-dozen lectures. He was a fun guy to listen to, but I know nothing of how he teaches day classes.

Darrel Born (Music): I don't think I can recommend him anymore; but I would if I could.
Darrel recently received the position as head of the music department at St. Martin's. I believe he'll still be at SPSCC to conduct the Wednesday Night choir, but I can't say I'm sure. In fact, I can't recommend him to those of you seeking music credits, since the night choir is Community Education--I'll have to point you in the direction of Molly McNamara.

Stephanie Bowe (Computer Information Systems, in databases): Recommended
The SQL class I took from her was really easy, yet not boring. She did the course really well, keeping it technically-minded and extremely applicable. You can tell she's a mom by the first example of her class: A soccer-team database. And she'll tell you she's a soccer mom, too.

Ganns, Richard (Mathematics): Not Recommended
I have not actually had this guy as a professor, but I have yet to have met anybody who didn't hate his class. From several different people, I've received the thumbs-down on this guy, and I pass it along.

Steve Keeler (Computer Information Systems): Neutral
I had the guy for UNIX, a three-credit course. The class wasn't unbearable, but the lectures did go quite slowly...I can't full-heartedly recommend him because UNIX is a fairly low number in the CIS section, and thus is geared towards people who don't have too much experience on computers. If you don't have an attention span, you will check your e-mail during his lectures, and you might end up on Yahoo! Games during lectures--I watched a few guys do that in the class, and still pull A's. I doubt they remembered the material real well after either of the two tests, though.

Lara Kellet (East-Coast Swing and Beginning Lindy Hop): Recommended
If you need a way to start your college day, and don't yet know how to dance, Lara's class is a pretty good set of East-Coast lessons. I don't disapprove of her introduction to Lindy, either, but I would recommend Idaho Dave as your teacher after East Coast.

Lisa Lawrenson (Writing): Recommended
For so generalist a teaching topic as writing, Lisa focused really well on writing elements, including easily-missed grammar notes (the 4 pluralizations, theses, explanatory depth, etc). She will remind you about the essays and their quite-rapid due dates, in a neutral yet non-evil sort of way.
My favorite part of her class was a way she ensured students got their essays at least partially done before the due date: Peer review sessions on their essays thus far, usually held a day or two before the turn-in day. Thus, your obligation to write a decent paper is not only to the professor and her pen, but also to fellow your classmates. All the more reason to sound intellectual--there's no fun in subjecting classmates to four pages of bullshit that you've called an essay.
And, on a side note, she thought my self-evaluation essay was the funniest one in the class. I, uh, poked (/stabbed) a bit of fun at a crappy high school English teacher I had, with great results.

Molly McNamara (Music): Neutral
I can't say anything about her in classes, I've only had her as a choir conductor. She can play piano, and does a fairly good job as a conductor--though I think her musical selections are a little too "gorgeous" sometimes. Strictly the opinion of an off-beat bass singer.

(Arlo) Michael Murray (History): Recommended
The bad quality of this guy is all in the first day of his 111 class (US History 1). His first lecture isn't specifically related to history, but more about challenges of college, and reminders that you're not in high school anymore. The lecture made me feel like I was in High School, Mark 2 (which some of us call SPSCC anyway). However, after day one, he is a great orator, and has a well-set lecture plan. The homework's a hefty amount of dry reading, but you should expect that signing up for a history course. His tests are also quite fair, and multiple-choice--not a single essay in the class, though there is light writing.

Harold Nelson (Microeconomics): Recommended
I wish I could say something about this man, mainly because he's my dad. However, I have not once in my life attended a lecture of his. He does a fine job of teaching (professing ideas and such) in one-on-one sessions, but he lectures on Economics. As with all Econ. professors, make sure you enjoy the material.

Oli Newsome (Psychology): Recommended
I love this man. Not only does he teach Psychology, he is the advisor for the Psychology Club (scholarly) and the Jitterbug Club (not-so-scholarly). Joining at least the Psychology Club will definitely earn you points in his book; no, he does not use favoritism at all, but he will involve you in the lectures every now and then. I was particularly prominent in class whenever eating crickets came up.
He gives three tests for each of his classes, excluding the final. If you miss a test, the final is weighed that much more into your grade; if you take all three tests, you don't take the final. Which can be pretty darn good, considering the last two sequential quarters, his final day came the day after his third test day.
His class is a fun one to get involved in; it's probably still fun if you just listen to the lectures, too, though I wouldn't know. Also, his tests are quite rewarding--they're multiple choice, and some of the answers involve spiders in his "enchanted" trousers. All I recommend is take good notes, and you'll do fine in his class.

Gayle Notenboom (History): Neutral
I just had her for a history telecourse, where I saw the professor once a week. Thus, I don't know too much about her lecture style; I do know that she is harsh with essay deadlines (harsh to the half-second).

James Schneider (Writing): Recommended*
The * is for those of you who still believe in the concept of free time.
James Schneider's Writing 102 course is, above all, immersive. You will be absorbed by the work in there, but it is all worth it. Just consider the course to be a 10-credit class (though you only get 5), and if you need a breakdown on why:
1.) Every week, you read an essay or three and write a 3-page response essay, which was posted on-line in a Yahoo! group in the class I had with him. In addition, after the first week you respond to three of the previous weeks' student essays (about a page/page and a half per essay). Writing is, after all, a social act.
2.) For the quarter, you write an (approximately) 20-page researched, persuasive essay on a Topic of Social Relevance (I chose K-12's Zero Tolerance policy, for example), broken up into four parts to make it seem like a continous series of essays: Prospectus, Contextual Background, Analysis, and Call to Action/Conclusion (one of these due every two weeks, in that order). This, as far as I can tell, is done universally in WRIT102 classes at SPSCC.
3.) The in-class work is independent of your other essays, and for my class included an outside-of-class survey and a group research presentation.
4.) The last two weeks of the quarter are devoted to student presentations on their research findings, lasting 10-12 minutes apiece. (As if writing the essay wasn't enough, eh?)
After the last class finishes, you will be left with an after-sex sensation, and probably want a nap. Take the nap; you'll deserve it. James definitely teaches one of the hardest classes at SPSCC, and he does a great job of making time be used efficiently. Besides that, his voice is enchanting to listen to for an hour or two; it has a hint of an Indian accent("Dances with Dots," not "Dances with Wolves," as someone else on this blog site said earlier).

Paul Smith (Computer Information Systems, Mathematics): Recommended
This man is a genius. WHENEVER you get the opportunity to take a course from him, be it math (Statistics and I believe College Algebra) or programming (Programming Logic or C++), carpe diem. He really knows what he's doing as a teacher.

Walter Swenson (Economics): Not Recommended
I've written a few blog entries on this guy already; if you really want to see them, you can do a search off of my main blog index. When I had the guy, he was a new professor--I learned this, of course, after I scored him low on the Professor Evaluation and filled the entire comments page on how I did not like his lecture style. To keep my (now-iterated) criticism short, this was my least favorite part of the course:
For homework, we would go home and read a chapter out of the book. This was a twice-a-week class, so that was fine by me. But...
For the lecture, he then lectured us from the book, almost paragraph for paragraph. And he wasn't a fast talker.
Those two-hour class sessions were brutal.

Cesar Villasana (Developmental and Post-Calculus Mathematics): Recommended
Cesar is a gentle man from Mexico. He puts a lot of care into the problem selection for homework, and lectures fairly well (though, if you take Linear Algebra, you probably will not pronounce the word "Echelon" English-correctly for a month after the course; I'm still not sure if I know how). His tests come from the book, in that the questions are selected exercises from the text, and he picks'em really well. If you're ever looking over my Linear Algebra notes, though, you may notice a little note:
"Cesar believes himself to have been Cleopatra in a past life. Do not question."
Past existences aside, he knows math really well, too.

James Vosper (History): Recommended (for Sociology: Neutral)
You'll always hear this about Dr. Vosper: He gives some really easy quizzes. Reason being, he has a copy of the quiz in front of him, and gives a mini-lecture for each question, sometimes reading the question in the affirmative or negative for true/false questions. What you need for day-to-day survival is a good short term memory. That is based off of a history class with him.
In any of his classes, he requires a term paper, of about ten pages in length. You can write this as a high-school level report (elongated, of course), and get an A on it. I wrote mine the night before (actually, the night after) that it was due, turned it in feeling crappy about it as a college-level writer, and got a 92%. (Another note on the term papers: In History, there aren't truly outstanding topic choices on the list. I chose the Battle of Gettysburg.)
His tests are part multiple choice, part T/F, and part essay. He definitely teaches a more involving course. (I haven't had him for Sociology, so I don't know what to say there.)