Test Domination Part Deux

Same warning today as yesterday: skip this paragraph if you have no interest in my academic life. I have determined once again that there is a God, and the proof is in my backpack. So I mentioned my Linear Algebra test on Monday and that I was unsure of myself because I was cutting it close on time. On Wednesday he came to class upset at the results of the tests he graded so far and went over the true/false stuff. Today he finally passed back the tests at the end of class, but not before telling us that there were 7 As, 20 Bs, 28 Cs, 28 Ds,and 30 Fs. He doesn't curve tests but he said that he would adjust final grades. It was like the longest five minutes ever while he was passing out tests and people had neutral looks on their face afterwards. Half of me was praying and the other half was trying to calculate the probability that I was one of those 7 rather than one of those 20. One girl got her test and jumped up before walking out of the classroom, which meant that there were no more than 6 As left. Shortly thereafter I got mine back and saw "Outstanding" before seeing "96", and it was very difficult to hold back the biggest smile ever. I felt bad for everyone else so I didn't want to let on about my grade, but as soon as I walked out I was doing my happy dance. I even ran into the girl who did the little jump and we chatted a bit. I hate to be proud, but I came a long way in terms of understanding the material so I, being the loser I am, can't compare the feeling of being one of 7 students out of like 115 students to really earn an A to anything else.

I only ended up seeing Team America last night as Supersize Me was moved somewhere I didn't know about. That movie is definitely what I would consider to be a guilty pleasure. My friend disagrees with me, but I think that movie was really hilarious. It started out kinda meh, and then picked up hilarity as it went on. The premise is basically a team of Americans who police the globe against terrorists and actually end up wreaking havoc where ever they go in the process. It has obvious political allegories and a good amount of crude humor, but it really bodes well if you understand that the whole thing is a satire of current events as of like a year ago and more importantly of the action genre. It really earned its R rating so this is not a movie to share with your parents due to the high amount of cursing and other crudeness, but it's not overwhelming in my opinion. All-in-all it's worth a rental and will likely get you to giggle quite a bit.

Not a whole lot of tech news to cover today. Those of you with high opinions of open source software may want to read this article about how to best voice your advocacy. It's an interesting read and provides tips that could be applied to other unpopular concepts as well. We may be facing the end of anonymous internet access thanks to the research of one PhD student. He claims to have discovered clever tricks to getting information and fingerprinting a device much like we can fingerprint an OS. It's a really cool idea, but I wonder how soon it'll catch on or if it could become dangerous. CBS News put up a few viewpoints on videogames and violence that I think are worth checking out. On one hand you have a gamer (who I'm a fan of for his webcomic), and on the other side you have a lawyer. I was surprised at how much more I agreed with the former perspective mainly because he's speaking the stuff that older adults who like to bitch and moan don't like to hear. Video games don't kill people, people do. You can't blame a developer if their game, which wasn't meant to be sold to a child and was always their intent to be an adult game, falls into the hands of a child due to reckless parenting and has detrimental results. We don't live in a society where someone screws up so everyone gives up their freedoms. It's time for there to be more advocacy for training parents to realize what their kids really need: the right amount of love and social values. I really hope HB 2178 doesn't pass.

I have a healthy amount of movie news today, starting out with some videos. I'll start with the lamest one first: there's actually a teaser for the new theatrical trailer for Revenge of the Sith online. I wonder how high Fox's ratings will go up that night because of fanboys. Billy Bob Thornton's next movie is called the Bad News Bears and the trailer for that is now online. It sounds like this movie can't decide who its audience is because it's obviously not for kids and yet it involves a lot of kids and humor thats too peurile for men. I thought that Lindsay Lohan would have grown into normal movies rather than family flicks due to the comedic value of Mean Girls, but her foray into Herbie: Fully Loaded has proven me wrong as you can see here. Now for a better family movie: there's a trailer up for Kicking and Screaming and I think it may turn out to be one of those kiddie movies that adults can enjoy also. I have one more video to share. IGN managed to nab an exclusive clip from Robots, which comes from the creators of Ice Age. It's quite visually appealing, but will the plot be strong enough to make it worth watching? Moving on, I think that Sofia Coppola is a director with an intriguing style and I'm impressed that Molly Shannon will be in her upcoming film, Marie-Antoinette. The movie will obviously focus on the life of the scorned French Queen and Shannon will play her aunt. JoBlo managed to get some new shots from Batman Begins, including a better shot of the Scarecrow:



I actually have news from a few other big movies. The final poster for Sin City has been put online, but it looks strikingly similar to all the prior posters. Some French guy has told AICN that Hostage is a subpar action movie full of needless violence and underdeveloped characters. I don't know how much I trust that guy, but I really hope he's wrong. The list of directors for X-Men 3 is narrowing down and includes Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder. They're still hammering out a script though and one of the writers is Zak Penn, who wrote the masterful X2. George Lucas is still going strong with Indiana Jones 4, but without a completed script he's being very ambigious about the release date. How much longer must we wait for Harrison Ford's last archaelogical adventure?

A few spurts of randomness to conclude. Men: ever wonder if your relative finger lengths contribute to your agression? Me either, but someone seems to have found a correlation and believes that a large gap between your second and fourth fingers could mean that you're more prone to agression due to the amount of testosterone you received at birth. I don't know how much I believe that because there could be some confounding variable. She needs a larger sample to test on. Music pirates have become targetted in the UK recently and 23 violators have already paid settlements. The days of mp3 sharing seem to distant since I lost my interest in downloading songs rather than buying them. Metal Gear Solid 4 has been announced for the PS2 and I have my doubts about it because Kojima will take a much smaller role in favor of a different spin on the series. I don't think they'll be able to top the third one until the PS3 comes out.

Now it's time for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer - Who is the one person you email more often than anyone else?
I suppose I would say my brother since I e-mail him random articles and stuff. I don't e-mail people personally all that often though, but I do set a lot of random UT-related e-mail from my mail.utexas.edu account.

Soup - So far, which year of your life has been the most enjoyable?
Probably last year since not only did I graduate from high school (a day I waited for for so long) but also because my entrance to UT changed my outlook on life and has made me a much happier person. I love the free life and nothing thus far has topped that.

Salad - Name someone with whom you have lost touch but would like to reunite.
My friend Joe from middle school. He was a cool guy and though I do have loyal friends now I can't describe how comforting his loyalty and friendship was to me. Maybe I'll look him up someday.

Main Course - What was the tastiest meal you had this past week?
Probably my mom's pork sar patel! :) I can't recall anything else I've had this past week being any better.

Dessert - Using the letters in your favorite color, write three words that describe your personality.
I'm brainy (ugh), lively, unpredictable , and entertaining.

Oh and I thought I'd point out the gaming community's opinion of Devil May Cry 3's difficulty by referencing this comic.