My google plus page is at https://profiles.google.com/nate.radebaugh and that is where I’ll be putting my pictures from my trip at germany. You’ll have to create an account and add me to a “circle” if you’d like for me to share my pictures with you!

Much has changed since my original post. View the original post The Difference Between “Droid” and “Android” here.

Recap:

In short, the only “Droid” devices you will see are owned by Verizon. Verizon has the licenses with Lucas Films that allow them to use the term “droid”.

What has changed?

At the time that I wrote this article, the Moto Droid was the only Droid on the market. The Motorola Droid was the first android phone marketed heavily by Verizon as a Droid. However, these days Verizon has many android devices, all under the “Droid” family, such as the Droid, Droid 2, Droid Eris, Droid Incredible, Droid X, Droid Pro, and Droid Charge.

A note on 4G:

While the Samsung Charge may be “the first Droid to be infused with 4G LTE power,” it is not the first android device to utilize 4G. In fact, Verizon Wireless marketed the HTC Thunderbolt as their first 4G LTE device altogether, so perhaps they do not consider the Thunderbolt in their “droid” family.

T-Mobile had devices on their own 4G HSPA+ network much earlier than Verizon (myTouch 4G). Similarly, Sprint has been boasting their 4G Clear network even before T-Mobile (HTC Evo).

All 4G networks are not created equal, but both the HTC Thundebolt and the Samsung Charge use Verizon’s same 4G LTE network, so you can expect them to perform on the internet equally fast. This difference is merely for marketing.

• Store all portfolio entries in a MySQL database.
• Backend/login system for adding, deleting, and editing portfolio items.
• Choose a random color each time the page loads.

Click the following image to see my unboxing images.

CR-48 unboxing

This device is a developer’s dream and nightmare computer. The shell doesn’t offer vi, vim, gcc, javac, or any other basic programming tools. Sure you can install arch linux packages, but you’ll need to install the xz tool first. But if you DO accidentally delete the /etc/ and /lib/ folders and their entire contents in the middle of trying to install vim… it’s quick and easy to boot from a USB and start over from scratch!

For connecting to PAL2.0 at Purdue University with your Google CR-48, check out this script written by myself and Matt McCormick and others. http://pastebin.com/LaR1jQm9

The forum began with the introduction of the proctor. I was quick to learn that this discussion was one of prestige and insight. The proctor, by the name of Moira Gunn, is a NPR hot of Tech Nation and BioTech nation. The man introducing Dr. Gunn went on to cite her many degrees and accolades. I was blown away by her prestige; my father has always listened to NPR since I was little and her presence at this event served to lend credence to the forum. Peter Berger, author of The Sacred Canopy, would describe this credence as legitimation. In the way that religion tends to act as a legitimating force in society, Dr. Gunn acted as a legitimating force to this global warming forum.

After Dr. Gunn was introduced, she introduced the four panelists. Two of the panelists, Susan Avery and Robert Socolow, supported the idea that global warming is indeed a problem caused by humans. On the other hand, Fred Singer and Kenneth Haapala argued that although there may be an increase in temperature in the world, it is not particularly harmful to the ecosystems of the world. The two opposing sides of the debate serve to act as good and evil in our cosmogony, with Dr. Gunn as our deity figure. In the beginning, as with many cosmogonies throughout history, there was only chaos. Eliade would equate this chaos to water for its life- giving tendencies and its live-taking tendencies. Berger would relate this lack of social order as anomy or a lack of a nomos.

Avery begins her part of the ritual through a presentation of the seemingly obvious facts about CO2 and its long lifetime. She explains that climate science is like a jigsaw puzzle and not a deck of cards. Particularly, that there is a range of uncertainty. However, Avery argues that there is no doubt that the planet is warming faster than ever before. Similarly, population growth is also increasing faster than every before. Singer takes the stage as an opposing viewpoint, arguing that nature, not human culture, rules the climate. After all, Singer proposes, the climate of the world was changing since before humans and since before SUVs, so why, Singer asks, would it not continue to change? Singer cites data supporting his claims, hoping to legitimate his nomos and downplay Avery. After this, Kenneth Haapola joined the cosmogony to offer yet another viewpoint on the climate change, siding with Singer when he suggests that CO2, while it may be increasing, is actually of benefit to plants and ultimately our food. The ritual continues with the Robert Socolow’s arguments on how to solve the climate problem.

The cosmogony reaches realization when Dr. Gunn returns to the stage to, acting as the deity figure in our cosmogony, separates the two opposing forces of the supporters and detractors, restoring order to the cosmos, as Eliade would argue. To Berger, the nomos has been successfully repeated in this ritual. I have experienced a rite of passage during this global warming forum; I was separated from my homework and my every day life. I then suffered a ritualized death as my assumption that everybody believed in global warming was destroyed, and I finally reached acceptance and a new mode of existence through rebirth. Peter Berger and Micea Eliade helped me to truly understand and accept the wonder of the Global Warming Forum at Purdue University on September 27th, 2010.

Kieckhefer begins by outlining the history of magic, shining knowledge upon the ideas of demonic magic, which is serves to exploit the power of demons, natural magic, which exploits hidden powers found in nature. He then kindles the idea of angel magic, which Kieckhefer eventually explores as bright magic, which exploits the power of angels. Theologians, however, have for centuries attempted to quell the fires of this “angel magic,” saying that the angels that one conjures are actually demons behind an opaque disguise.

Kieckhefer goes on to expand his idea of “bright magic,” citing texts and their ideas that support his electric enthusiasm for this magic. The Book of Angels, Rings, Characters, and Images of the Planets, by Bokenham describes planetary angels, assigning natural magic to angel magic. The Sacred Book by Honorius of Thebes suggested neutral angels, discussing its Jewish influence and the issue of neutral angels. Another key text Kieckhefer thought would help to show a glimmer of “bright magic” is the Holy Almandal, who used a wax alter to invoke and conjure angels, often a young child with a red face and an armed knight. The text Notary Art, Kieckhefer argues, discusses the relationship between magic and the scholastic environment.

The key points Kieckhefer points out vividly, and almost blindingly, that scholars were still in the dark about angel magic and did not know what to think about it. In fact, both the practice and the condemnation of angel magic were innovations of the time. The history of angel magic was not welcomed well. Angels were famous for being fallen angels disguising themselves as unfallen angels or even disguising themselves as Mary or Christ Himself. On the other hand, we must realize that there were other types of angel magic around at this same time, which was the official cult of angels, which had Saint Michael on one end and the guardian angels on the other end. However, after knowledge about “bright magic” caught flame, there were time-honored ways of telling good spirits from evil ones. Conjuring of angels was an important issue, as well as the way that angels could, or should, be conjured in order to rekindle one’s relationship with the “bright magic” of Kieckhefer’s exploration.

I hope this paper helps to shine light on the Black Magic, White Magic, Bright Magic presentation I attended.

I can’t wait!

Happy Holidays

Read about my latest experiences with android by visiting http://naterad.com/android/

Love Nate

That is all.

For centuries, privacy has been, to many, a natural right. Your neighbors, when prompted, would never give out your information. Privacy was shared and, after all, as the dictionary itself says, privacy is when “one is not observed or disturbed by others” (Holtzman). Neighbors and friends have long valued their privacy and, in turn, given privacy to their neighbors and friends. But all of that is drastically changing. The sense of camaraderie is quickly dissolving and being replaced with selfishness for frivolous technologies.

Namely, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace ask you, the user, to willingly expose information about your “neighbors” and “friends” for the betterment of the technological “tool” of “social networking.” Cihan Kaleli, author of, “Providing Private Recommendations on Personal Social Networks,” suggests that, in order to be a good neighbor, we must also consider the idea of keeping the century-old idea of privacy by keeping “attributes about a user protected” (Kaleli). Xintao Wu, author of “A Survey of Privacy-Preservation Graphs and Social Networks,” report the very real threat of our online identity becoming too personal, arguing that the information often presented on a user’s behalf in social websites can be used by attackers to estimate a person’s social security number and thus exposes him or her to identity theft (Wu). However, in a world increasingly tending towards technology, ensuring privacy becomes an increasingly futile effort due to both the ignorance of the average internet user and due to the unrelenting hand of social internet companies.

Three conditions. Nine digits. One identity. Upon birth, a mere three conditions create the digits that define your identity, as defined by your social security number. First three digits: based on the zip code in which one is born, often reflected by the hometown listed on your “profile page.” Next two digits: assigned according to a predictable “temporal” order. Last four digits: defined based on a progressive serial number depending on the person’s birth date (Gross). By using a publicly available “social security death index,” one can accurately estimate the final four digits. Therefore, our most private of attributes, our identities, are what is at stake as we sacrifice our privacy online.

Ignoring the seemingly negative sides of social networking, such as privacy and the dangers that come with it, social networking has created an entirely new medium for gaining and sharing knowledge. Users of sites such as Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn are given “recommendations” for likely friends, increasing the interactivity of the website. In fact, techniques such as “collaborative filtering,” as suggested by Kaleli, present fairly accurate recommendations by filtering results through grouping of users together based on their interests in up to six degrees of separation from the original user (Kaleli). Keeping in touch or reuniting with old friends is a valuable service social networking websites offer. As most of these websites offer their services for no monetary cost to the user, the true cost is that of the users’ privacy. For instance, while Alan Mislove, author of You Are Who You Know, celebrates the technological accomplishment of billions of people actively engaging in social internet sites, he suggests that users have no choice but to forfeit some privacy in return for key advantages such as enhanced user experience through guided search results, suggested user links, or grouping of users (Mislove). Kate Greene, writer for Technology Review, acknowledges the importance of social networking, in particular location-specific information as it relates to social networking. For instance, Greene cites the success of image-hosting website Flickr as one of the pioneers of “geo-tagging,” which is, in this case, the act of placing geographically linked attributes to a picture for view on a map (Greene). While Flickr was one of he pioneers of the idea of “geo-tagging,” location-aware services have picked up the pace in the past few years. Kai Rannenberg, author of Privacy by Design, extols location-aware devices such as “Child-Watch,” a watch designed with a Global Positioning Device (GPS) to help parents keep track of the location of their child. GPSs have drastically improved over the years to be a crucial element in today’s cellular “smart” phones. This technology has developed further to be included in location-based social services such as Twitter and Foursquare, two applications designed to share information, in real-time, to the public (Fletcher). Foursquare, for instance, specifically helps users by giving “recommendations” to people based on reviews and popularity of a restaurant. Mobile social applications can inform users better about their surroundings by giving them specific information depending on their location, whether it is in finding restaurants, going shopping, or trekking through traffic. I agree with Krishna Puttaswamy, author of Preserving Privacy in Location-based Mobile Social Applications, when he argues that location-aware services are useful in work, persona, health, and travel situations (Puttaswamy). Furthermore, and perhaps less specifically, location-aware devices such as laptop computers with Global Position Devices and, “web-cams,” provide a means of keeping track of a device, as Lower Merion School District of Rosemont, Pennsylvania used. Without the ability to keep track of the users of the computers and thus the devices themselves, many students would not have been able to learn with the aide of the technology (Robbins). Location-aware services have permeated into our lives, like a stream through a desert, via our phones and our computers.

While few have questioned the validity of technology as both a teaching mechanism, as in the case of the Lower Merion School District, and as a means of communication, as in the case of Twitter and Foursquare, I assert that technology is evolving at so rapid a pace that it is uncontrollable. Most users today, being brought during the advent of the internet, view the internet as a crucial part of their life, but also a mere part of their life. For instance, creating an avatar in the online world should have no effect on their life in the “real world” to them. I believe it is by this mindset that users have taken their security for granted and thus have become ignorant to their privacy. Ralph Gross, author of “Information Revelation and Privacy,” regretfully asserts that people are generally oblivious, unconcerned, or pragmatic about personal privacy (Gross). Xintao Wu, author of “A Survey of Privacy-Preservation Graphs and Social Networks,” corroborates with Gross’s accusation, citing “only a small number of Facebook members change the default privacy preferences” (Wu). While social networking sites such as Facebook offer many ways to seemingly limit access to personal information, Alan Mislove’s report You Are Who You Know claims that a full 70% of users publicly share information about their university, employer, interests, and hometown location (Mislove). While this information is not immediately apparent to be sensitive, as the title of Mislove’s report suggests, “you are who you know.” Keeping this title in mind, it is somewhat contradictory to the idea of privacy that 95% of users public share his or her “friends list” with all users on the internet (Mislove). It is, therefore, ironic that a study by researcher Janice Tsai titled, “The Impact of Privacy Indicators on Search Engine Browsing Patters,” suggested that users indeed value a website with a highly rated “privacy policy,” despite the users themselves not taking advantage of privacy-ensuring options on their Facebook pages. While users seem to value their privacy outwardly, it seems the values of increased interactivity outweigh the cost of giving up information believed to be insensitive. Perhaps, as Daniel Lyons of Newsweek contemplates, “privacy has become a kind of currency,” acting as, “what we use to pay for online services” (Lyons). However, Mislove asserts that 30% of users value their privacy enough to change our privacy settings (Mislove).

Even for the few that actively attempt to keep their privacy by changing their privacy settings in social networking websites or by creating “user groups” with different viewing privileges as offered by most networking websites, it is in the best interest of internet companies to group users together, to force interactivity, to ultimately earn a profit from your interaction. This past year, popular social networking website Facebook has changed its privacy policy to reflect a more “open” viewpoint, publicly publishing most of a user’s information by default (Facebook). While you may suggest that this is for the betterment of the service, sensitive information is often kept private for a reason and any college or high school student using Facebook should have concern for who controls their private information. Similarly, Google’s new social service called Google Buzz was announced in February to give a socially interactive layer to Google’s emailing client Gmail, and, by default, published a list of “frequently emailed” users to the public. James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Google has been accused by the San Jose federal court of sharing personal data of users without their consent, claiming, as I also believe, the publication aided stalkers (Lyons), jeopardized journalistic sources, and even hinted at extramarital affairs (Temple). Another recent outbreak of a company willingly jeopardizing the privacy of their users is Classmates.com, a social networking website that allows high school and college graduates pay a fee to help reconnect with people who went to school with them (Singel). As Ryan Singel, writer for Wired News, reports, Classmates.com published information about all of their paying customers to the public in an attempt to mimic some functionalities of rival networking website Facebook (Singel). These cases are particularly relevant because, as I believe, they show that a user’s control over his or her own privacy is quickly being lost. As some may suggest, these websites do offer the option to not participate in, or “opt out” of, the sharing of personal data, but, as Temple suggests, privacy forfeiting services should be opt in, not opt out (Temple). A further example of a loss of privacy that is uncontrollable relates to the Lower Merion School District, where the school district spied on students by using remotely activated web-cams on school-provided laptops (Robbins). In this case, Robbins’ lawyers cite a plethora of legislature supporting the privacy of individuals. Namely, the “Electronic Communication Privacy Act”, the “Stored Communications Act”, the “Computer Fraud Abuse Act”, the “Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act”, and the fourth amendment of the United States constitution act in favor of Robbins. There are indeed laws in place to prevent companies and governments from divulging user information (Robbins).

Surely, you may suggest, there is a way to protect your information about yourself. However, at this point in the evolution of technology, even if one wanted to preserve their data or remove it from a website, it is nearly impossible. Krishna Puttaswamy, author of Preserving Privacy in Location-based Mobile Social Applications, suggests the culprits are the companies that treat your personal data with menial care, giving way to easy leaks by means of software bugs or hacking attacks, which are effectively unavoidable (Puttaswamy). In fact, Puttaswamy argues that the larger the company, the larger the risk of information leaks, giving way to large-scale privacy compromises, even with the use of several location and content “cloaking” techniques (Puttaswamy). As a whole, these cloaking techniques, “fail to protect users’ privacy,” and users’ information is often gathered through unsolicited marketing, through government surveillance, through profiling users, or through other malicious methods, all without the knowledge or consent of the user (Kaleli). But why are you unable to merely delete your account and be done with it? Well, Holtzman’s Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy suggests that most companies only mark accounts as “inactive” rather than deleting your information (Holtzman). With companies keeping complete records of all changes to your data, and your information, it is impossible to even delete all of your data and retrieve your own personal data back from one of these social networking websites. And if that was not bad enough, Holtzman goes on to insist, when you are no longer a customer, companies can sell your information for prices ranging from $60 for social security numbers to $200 for your cell phone numbers (Holtzman).

Up to this point, you may have followed along with the argument that you are indeed giving up your privacy, and perhaps you have decided to change your personal settings in the social networking websites you may use. However, this is not enough to keep your information private. The true danger of networking websites is the information that can be inferred without you entering your information into the website. For example, using the same technology as presented earlier in this paper to provide recommendations for “friends” or “groups,” social services, and attackers, are able to infer certain attributes with 95% accurate from a group with only 20% of a group’s information (Mislove). Private “networks” or “groups” can be easily circumvented or joined by adversaries (Gross). Even without your information publicly available, your “friends list” is enough to reveal your identity, private attributes, and sensitive relationships (Wu). Therefore, as Mislove argues, it is not sufficient to make one’s attributes private, but rather, he asserts, both attributes and the list of users’ friends must be marked private to ensure that a users’ attributes can not be inferred from adversaries (Mislove). Dangers brought about by giving up your information can economic, physical, and legal (Puttaswamy). We must learn to become good neighbors again. But I fear it is too late. You truly do not own your own information, nor do your own your own privacy. Technology has tripped us down a slippery slope. And there is no getting up.

“Privacy Policy.” Facebook.com. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.

Fletcher, Dan. “Please Rob Me: Site Shows Dangers of Foursquare, Twitter.” TIME, 18 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2010.

Greene, Kate. “Putting Pictures in Their Place.” Technology Review. 5 Sept. 2006. Web. 18 Feb. 2010.

Gross, Ralph and Alessandro Acquisti. Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks. ACM, 2005.

Holtzman, David H. Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

Kaleli, Cihan, and Huseyin Polat. “Providing Private Recommendations on Personal Social Networks.” Advances in Intelligent Web Mastering. Ed. V. Snasel. Vol. 2. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2010. 117-25.

Lyons, Daniel. “How Google & Facebook Violate Your Privacy.” Newsweek. 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2010.

Mislove, Alan, Bimal Viswanath, Krishna P. Gummadi, and Peter Druschel. You Are Who You Know: Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks. New York: WSDM, 2010.

Puttaswamy, Krishna P. N, and Ben Y. Zhao. Preserving Privacy in Location-based Mobile Social Applications. U. C. Santa Barbara, 2010. Annapolis: HotMobile, 2010.

Robbins vs Lower Merion School District. Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 11 Feb. 2010.

Singel, Ryan. “Classmates.com’s Facebook Mimicking Prompts Privacy Suit.” Wired News. Condé Nast Digital, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.

Temple, James. “Local class action complaint filed over Google Buzz.” SFGate. San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2010.

Wu, Xintao, Xiaowei Ying, Kun Liu, and Lei Chen. “A Survey of Privacy-Preservation of Graphs and Social Networks.” Managing and Mining Graph Data. Ed. H. Wang and C.C. Aggarwal. Springer Science+Business Media, 2010. 421-53.

Much has changed since my original post. View the update post Revisited – The Difference Between “Droid” and “Android” here.

What’s going on here?

The purpose of this article is to act as a stepping stone to properly educate users on the differences between the classifications of cell phones and their meanings. Mainly because it is a pet peeve of mine to hear one over the other. While it’s not a huge deal, there is a meaningful difference.

While many believe “Droid” to be the proper shortening of “Android,” I would like to present to you, the reader, the important difference between the two when relating to smart phones. In a nutshell, “Droid” is the name of a specific phone offered through Verizon online, while “Android” is the name of the operating system that runs on the “Droid” (and “Droid Eris”, and any other future Verizon phone with the Droid name as licensed by Lucasfilms) and a plethora of other phones. This article attempts to compare the “Android” operating system with the “Motorola Droid”, ignoring the “HTC Droid Eris” for increased clarity.

Why is this?

The root of the confusion between Droid and Android begins with the misunderstanding of the workings of a cell phone. In today’s world of technology and evolution, cellular phones are resembling personal computers more and more. This being said, we can relate the inner workings of a cell phone to the inner workings of a personal computer.

Can you tell me more?

A personal computer has three main attributes by which it can be classified: the brand or company that sells and distributes it, the operating system that runs on the device, and the “nickname” of sorts by which the individual models are known. In the case of a personal computer, the “brand” can be something like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Apple, or Asus. The “operating system” of a personal computer is generally a version of Windows, Macintosh, or a type of Linux. “Nicknames” are very diverse, from the Eee PC 701 to the Macbook Pro. So you would say your “Dell” made “Inspiron 1000“‘s Operating System is “Windows XP“.

A cell phone, similarly, has three main attributes by which it can be classified: the brand or company that sells and distributes it, the operating system that runs on the device, a “nickname” by which the individual models are known, and also the company that sells the “service plan,” (the service provider), often including minutes, data, and text messaging. “Brands” of cell phone include names such as Apple, Motorola, Blackberry, HTC, Samsung, or Nokia. The operating systems of these phones range from Symbian, Bada, Android, RIM, or iPhone OS. The “nicknames” for phones are also very diverse, ranging from the Wave to the Dream to the iPhone 3GS. Often, there are multiple “nicknames” of a single phone, depending on the distributer. Being a telephone, the fourth attribute is the service provider of the phone. The four main service providers in the United States are Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

What does this mean?

Generally, there is an overlapping hierarchy of these classifications ranging from broadest to most narrow. The hierarchy is overlapping because the same operating system can be used on multiple phones on multiple different service providers. Similarly, the same “brand” may create multiple phones, each using different operating systems, also on multiple service providers. However, more often than not, the “nickname” of a phone is specific to one set of attributes.

For instance, the “G1″ is a phone with the following characteristics: Brand-HTC, Operating System-Android, Service Provider-T-Mobile. By saying the nickname of this phone, it is understood that the previously mentioned attributes hold true. As mentioned earlier, some devices also have more generic nicknames. For example, the “G1″ can also be referred to as the “Dream.” This holds true because the “Dream” is the name the physical creator, HTC, gave this device. The “Dream” is marketed both in Canada by the service provider “Rogers,” under the “nickname” “Dream” and in the United States by the service provider “T-Mobile,” under the “nickname” “G1″. The “T-Mobile G1″ has one specific set of attributes, while the “Rogers Dream” has another specific set of attributes.

How does this relate to Droid and Android?

Now that we have addressed the meanings behind the names of some phones and attempted to address some generalities, we can address the difference between “Droid” and “Android”. In the case at hand, “Droid” is the “nickname” for a particular set of attributes. This set is as follows: Brand-Motorola, Operating System-Android, Service Provider-Verizon, Nickname-Droid. The “Motorola Droid” is also sold in Europe and Canada as the “Motorola Milestone,” another nickname with a specific set of attributes.

The Operating System of the phone is called Android. The “Nickname” of the phone is called Droid.

But why does it matter?

There are many devices that run the Android operating system. However, there is only one device that is known as Droid. For this reason, calling every “Android Phone” a Droid both belittles the Android name and unnecessarily bolsters the reputation of the Droid.

It is my belief that global warming is an idea brought about misconstrued data and is not a real problem. While Al Gore urged us to act for fear of the dangers of continual destruction of the earth, his complicated charts and graphs unmasked more information than his words. The data Gore asserts in his “Inconvenient Truth” documentary contradicts his argument that humans are the sole cause of global warming due to the cycles of heating and cooling as corroborates with the findings of many reputable sources. Global warming is a hoax for the ill-informed.

Close your eyes and imagine the most pristine work of art reflected on the canvas of your eyes.  You see an orb of beauty, the color of your favorite plant’s leaves.  But these leaves leave you.

In an instant, your perfect world shatters.  Winter has come much too early.  The leaves instantly fade to red as fall passes.  The blood orb of dispair takes control as life accells to a halt.  You and the rest of your mindless lemmings aquiesce to the blood overlord.  Hell has the wheel.  But in another instant the table turns as the dealer slips you an Ace.

You are the first in line to kiss the feet of the demon orb.  But as you see the sphere in line of your destination, you realize an oppotunity is present: to join!  Join the tyranical ruling of the lemmings with the power of the death orb!  Or you can continue to be a follower, a slave to the light of blood.

You seize the day.

As the years progressed, my curiosity took hold of me as I began creating websites at a rapid pace. Before I knew it, I had harnessed the ability to create and manipulate websites using the programming languages HTML and CSS. With more advanced sites came the need for more advanced features only offered by the use of JavaScript, another programming language.

My next major feat in programming came in the form of a C++ class offered at a local community college. The skills I had acquired from building websites aided me greatly in my ability to learn C++. Unfortunately, after this class, I was not competent enough to find it in my abilities to create any software that was useful or worthwhile.

The year following 8th grade posed my next major accomplishment: the creation of Deenly, a massively multiplayer roll play game. With many hundreds of hours spent creating the game, I conquered the computer languages PHP and MySQL, both very useful languages for the creation of interactive websites.

We will meet again soon.  I hope to see you again soon.  If I can afford the time to expose my emotions.  Time will tell.

As linked on the NateRad.com home page and now here, school tools has been added! Currently only the math and english sections exist.  As new tools are made, they will be uploaded and made available for use.  http://naterad.com/school/ is where it’s at!

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1-3 weeks from school
8-12 weeks with this back brace
6 months until I can do anything physical.

Visitors are more than welcome!

I guess you can smile and pat yourself on the back for sending your son.
But then again, you fought against fighting for absolutely nothing.
When the bombs of Vietnam blew your friends to tiny bits.
Where is your picket sign now? Your peace protest?
If only you could open your eyes to the futility.
Another Vietnam, just another Cold War.
Like any war, with eyes closed.
Never tell me the truth.
Don’t admit mistakes.
We cry out now.
For escape.
Patriotic.
Truly.

Sad.
Eh?

Never since the dawn of mankind has a subject dominated the lives and wellbeing of the human race like religion. Be it in the monotheistic Christians, Jews, Muslims, or the polytheistic religions of ancient and present days, man has used the presence of a “higher being” to dominate the lives of humans and the world.

For those of you who are atheist, I can’t wait until you die and figure out that Hell you’ve been joking about is right at your doorstep.

Or perhaps you are correct in your hopeless belief that after life is nothing. That you’re sent to earth to suffer in the monotony of all this and that’s it. And if you believe that there really is no place to go, and there really is no reason for everything, then what’s the point?!

For those of you who take the Bible literally, do you not understand that it was written many many years after the events which took place? If the events even took place. Perhaps all those symbols and parables of Jesus really are symbols and parables. Perhaps it never even happened. The truth is, we will never know whether or not Jesus was the messiah, or if it was Muhammad or an unknown prophet. What we do know is that these stories are real. The people in these stories are real, we have physical evidence of their decedents and the places in the stories. It does not matter if these events took place. It does not matter if your Jesus was the son of God. It does not matter if your Muhammad was sent with God speaking through him. It does not matter if your prophets truly spoke with God. What matters is the meaning behind it, the symbolism, the logic, the morals, the faith. Because what else is there?

The same goes for the Koran and every other religious work.

No matter what you believe, you can not deny the impact that religion has had on the world. Ohne religion, efforts to help starving countries and helpless victims of pain and suffering would be nonexistent, for churches and other religious groups send food and money and volunteers to help. Without religion, there are no laws and anarchy is rampant, for without the morals and fear of Pergatory and Hell, there is no reason for being kind to one another.

Without religion, one is ohne hope. And without hope, why go on?

But hope is here.

Your mind dull and closed. So many ideas flood your head, not yours. Never yours. Your thoughts don’t matter.

No time for your thoughts. No time for your beliefs, your ideas, your motives.

Glazed mind. Glazed world.

They silence you with work. They silence you with hopelessness. Days flood by. They never took your mind, just hid it away. Your world inside is still inside. You would write if you could. You would express if you could. But they take away your ability to think for yourself to express yourself with the words of others they inject into you like a virus. They expect your retention to keep your silent. But it remains.

You sit and stare devoid of emotion. But you have emotions. If only you had the time to express them.

That’s the effect school is having on this blog. I will write when I can. My apologies for the lack of posts.

Every student entertains the idea of using the least amount of effort to achieve the highest amount of payout. Apathy overflows. Driven for knowledge? No. Driven to satisfy the purpose of education, to better society? No. Driven to better oneself? No. Driven by maniacal parents? Yes. Driven to be good enough for that college? Yes. But driven to be better than expectations? Never.

So there we go. With our faces to the books just enough to survive. To appease the masses.

When did we lose sight of the realities of education? I blame those who say curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity is what SHOULD drive education and life. Lack of curiosity kills education.

One of the great selling points of Pandora is that it is free! Applications such as Rhapsody and Napster require you to pay for their services. Pandora, on the other hand, is funded by ads. Also unlike other free radios, there are no ads in the actual audio of the radio. Instead, the background and parts of the web page are changed to display the ads.

The lack of ads in the audio in addition to streaming, free music may remind you of Last.fm. One major and defining difference between Pandora and Last.fm is that Pandora is web-based and therefore does not need to be installed or downloaded; Pandora can be used on any computer with Flash.

Another useful feature of Pandora is the ability to use stations to listen to music. Like your car stereo system, stations can be “programmed” and saved. Pandora uses the “Music Genome Project” to use keywords and your own input to play music that you will like. Additionally, the music Pandora plays for you to listen to will be more and more accurately enjoyable to you. For each song that plays, you can say “I like it” or “I don’t like it” and the program will find trends in the songs you enjoy and the songs you don’t enjoy and will find other songs and bands that follow the same patterns.
With no obtrusive ads, free service, and no downloads, Pandora is truly the greatest radio player to use. The patterns and variety in the possibilities of stations make Pandora a worthwhile radio player. Stations can be set to find songs of a similar genre, artist style, or even style of a song. Whether you are interested in constant critique of songs or you would just like to have the music playing in the background, Pandora easily molds to your mood and sets the scene the way you want it, without you even having to tell it to.
So check it out. Pandora Radio. Listen to Free Internet Radio. Find new music. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Let me just say “TWLOHA” is probably the greatest organization I’ve heard of in a long time. For those of you that don’t know, TWLOHA is an acronym for “To Write Love On Her Arms” and it’s all about hope and love for people who are suicidal and self-mutilate, etc.

The way this organization is a lot different than others is that it’s spread via bands. Many bands are a part of the organization and sport TWLOHA t-shirts. Although wearing a shirt may not seem very impactful, this spreads the organization. Also, money from selling the shirts goes to a variety of other organizations that help suicidal/SI people.

www.twloha.com

LOVE is the movement.

Here sit I, enjoying a “Monster” trail mix bag filled with peanuts, raisins, m&m’s, chocolate drops, and peanut butter drops. I’ve already eaten half of the bag in this one sitting, just so you know.

What gets me going most of all about this trail mix is the presence of “chocolate drops” and “peanut butter drops”. I’m quite bothered about the idea that Archer Farms, owned by Target, deems themselves too cool for “chocolate chips” but instead has “chocolate drops”. What the heck?

If I ever become the owner of a trail mix company, I will definitely include pretzels and also marshmallows in the mix. I think that would be the most pleasure-inducing snack of the century.

Yum.

In a nutshell:
This is a movie about a girl named Juno who gets pregnant by her friend and the events that follow. It’s not a serious movie, nor is it a comedy, nor is it a psychological movie. However, this movie will make you cry, laugh, and question. Juno has an indie feel to it, accented by its perfect-fit soundtrack, which makes it very easy to relate to for viewers of all ages.

My biased opinion:
As I feel strongly enough to write a review about Juno, my opinion is obviously extreme. In the case of Juno, I believe this movie to be an absolute gem. The first time I saw the movie, I walked into the theatre with no idea what the story of the movie involved. From the first scene, I was transfixed. I was concerned about the morality and the outcome of the events that occurred, and found myself caring about the lives of the characters in the movie, a feat not many movies can pull off. The next day, an opportunity presented itself for me to see the movie yet again, in another theatre; being thoroughly in love with Juno after the first viewing, I found myself in the theatre. While waiting for the movie to begin, I was very afraid that it would not live up to the expectations I had from the day before; I thought perhaps that it had been a fluke or a matter of circumstance that left me leaving the movie so satisfied. Luckily for me, the second time watching the movie resulted in an even more satisfied Nate than the first viewing had. I found myself even closer to the story because I knew how the things I had found disturbing the first time through ended. I also could pay more attention to the dialog, rather than laughing over the words.

The soundtrack of this movie is one of the greatest soundtracks I have heard. With each new scene, I found myself loving each song, and that I would need to get the soundtrack to listen to. As I write this entry, I am listening to the soundtrack of Juno, and have been since I got the soundtrack yesterday.

Check out the soundtrack on amazon.com.

In Review:
Juno is an amazing movie. Go see it. Buy the soundtrack. Bring your family, bring your friends, everyone’s gonna love this one.

DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER… IT WILL SPOIL A LOT OF THE FUNNY PARTS AND THE PLOT OF THE MOVIE…

Laser Quest (http://laserquest.com):

This extreme version of laser storm is set in a huge warehouse. With 30+ people playing at a time, this insane free-for-all battle is one of the most high-pace laser storm-type games I have played. The most interesting part of the place involves the actual arena where the game is played; there are 2 floors of gameplay. The arena is littered with walls, windows, and mirrors to heighten the rush of the game. When you are “tagged” by being shot in one of the sensors on your vest, your gun will read the location of being shot and also the nickname (chosen by the player prior to playing) of the player who shot you.

I highly recommend this game to anyone in the Reading Pennsylvania area who is looking for a great way to spend the afternoon. I do want to caution against playing at odd times in the day, as the likelyhood of having an enjoyable experience is highest when there are more players present. That is to say, the more players, the better it is.

Another important thing to note is that I will be out of town from Thursday the 27th until Monday the 31st, so no updates can be expected. I’m sure there will be much to tell about when I return.

See you in the new year!

Isn’t it interesting how family can take a simple, peaceful thing such as this winter break and turn it into the most time-consuming chaos imaginable? I think it’s interesting.

Take my family, for instance: a winter break 11 days long split between 5 days of complete and utter blissful quiet and peace and 6 days of family-dominated chaos and forced encounters with apathetic cousins.

The juxtapose of such occurrences is enough to make blood boil. The idea that winter break is less than a break and more of what ever the opposite of a break is is interesting.

Not good, not bad, just interesting.

This chaotic peace.

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Happy Christmas to all!