Does this make cents?

In Yeshiva University's original building there are a bunch of plaques dedicated "in honor of the perpetual supporters of Yeshiva University." The donations, from 1928, are measured in the thousands of dollars: $100,000 or $75,000 or $15,000 or $10,000 and so on. Except for one. The "Esther & Louis Tallerman Memorial Fund" donated $69,061.58.

Balderdash

Unfortunately since last Wednesday (end of the fall semester) I have entered an extremely vegetative state. I sleep to noon and pretty much do nothing all day. So I couldn’t think of anything to say. However something happened to change this. I was playing Balderdash with my parents, my aunt Malke and my uncle Sysfrog (long story don’t ask). During this game we came across the word Piggin, and since I couldn’t pass this one up I defined it as: A pagan sacrifice at which there is roast pig and pigeon served with gin. My mother ( The (mommy) Moot) defined it as: What pigs do to protest the living conditions in their pens. Now for next week I will have something a little bit more entertaining because I intend to clear my system of chlorophyll, shed the leaves I have grown and pull up my roots, to become active and to produce sustenance from things other than the couch in front of my TV. In short I plan I reactivating my brain (with electrodes if necessary).

Required Windows Updates

"this microsoft office 2003 update allows microsoft office frontpage 2003 to display the value of the Turkish LIra in both the old and the new Lira formats."
-Windows Update

Its about time Microsoft decided to update this. You see I always use frontpage as my web browser. Also, like the vast majority of US users, I often buy online from sites that only display prices in the new (not old) Turkish Lira format (it makes me feel richer).
thank you microsoft for making this new critical update "required"

And heres a picture of something I saw on the train:

Of subways and elevator buttons

In honor of the current MTA/TWU strike, this post is all about worker rights, evil capitalists, greedy workers, idiot socialists and a whole slew of the other ethical and moral issues that a transit worker strike raises. Specifically:
Has anyone noticed that people standing on a subway platform tend to look down the tracks to see when the subway is coming? What does this accomplish? It makes even less sense than pushing the elevator button after everyone has already done so. At least with elevators there is an off-chance that the first person to get there just stood there and didn't push the button (which, might I add, would be fun to do). Therefore, while pushing the button does not get the elevator arriving quicker, it at least ensures that the button is in fact pushed. With subway cars, however, no matter how hard you stare down the track the train will not arrive any quicker. So, I implore you: please stop staring down the track and do something productive -- like count lightbulbs, subway mice or homeless people -- instead.
PS: Wish me luck getting home. How long do you think it will take to walk from 186th street to 34th street?

Tis The Season to be Jolly

A recent news President George W. Bush announced that he authorized the NSA to monitor phone conversations in the United States (previously this was only done abroad), this announcement was only made after there was an illegal leak. So I say the US government should hire Santa Clauses PR people, not only does his organization (SCIA Santa Clauses Intelligence Agency) spy on you both day and night, they also have the right to flag you as naughty or nice. To make this whole thing even sicker, they then tell everyone about it. Not only there counterpart organizations, (CENSORED), but the whole world every single person. Now I personally don't mind the NSA listening to my phone calls, in fact I pity them, but I don't want the SCIA spying on me. Therefore to protect myself from disappearing in mysterious circumstances I am writing this from a secret bunker. Oh and to protect myself when I use the restroom I have all the newest technologies protecting me from every kind of surveillance, I can sell this equipment to you for the small sum of 1.98 billion dollars.

Evaluation Forms for Walking class.

So the semesters over and I they gave us teacher evaluations forms for my PE walking class (yes thats right, walking- it was a joke, not taking that again)

I had an answer for every question, here are a few:
Rate from 5-0

• Instructor's mastery of subject (my answer: 5, perfect form)
  
• Instructor's preparation for class (zero, often had shoes untied)
  
• . . . . . .
  
• . . . . . .
  
  
• Suggestions for the course:
  Make crawling a pre-requisite
  

Btw, I got a good grade on that matlab assignment but they didn't sign my waiver : (

I never win anything!

Ever notice how when people win a contest, or a lotto, or something on a radio station their first response is often an excited, "I never win anything!"? As if there is a group of ten to fifteen people out there who win all the contests, and only occasionally some lucky normal person slips by. In any case, I won something. A brand new iPod Nano. I got an email informing me of that fact. Now, I'm sure all of you have gotten an email, or a popup informing you that you have also won an iPod. The difference with the one I got was, that there was no need to complete an offer, rather, and I quote:

And the iPod goes to
Ticket # 7646148
#7646018
#7646086
Please stop by the Advising Center to present your ticket and redeem your
prize.
Congratulations!

Amazingly, I had Ticket #7646148 (try and make it out in the picture). In a "blatent attempt" to get people to sign up for academic advising, the YU Advising Center gave out raffle tickets to whoever signed up to meet with their advisor. So I scheduled a meeting with my advisor ("Yes, Eli, you should take all those physics and math courses"), and got my ticket. And won.
Unfortunately, I need a new computer to use my new Nano. Maybe the Advising Center will raffle off a computer next semester...

#include <aryeh.h>

I was watching Triple X State of The Union the other day, and in one scene there is this stereotypical college guy wearing a sweater and tie (in general looking like the kind of guy who spent most of his freshman year upside down in a garbage can, toilet or any other assorted place he probably didn’t want his head) who is hacking into the Department of Defenses database. They scroll though all the lovely screens of computers that look like they are doing very impressive stuff, and I thought I saw on one of these screens some C code and since I learnt C this year in school I decided to pause it and go back. Well looks good so far it has the necessary stdio.h library and then what’s this a function definition before a there is a function prototype, and why is there a space in the name of that function, also where are alls those variables coming from. Well the story is if I think that scene was funny I wonder what real hackers think about it.

To finish I will leave you with a joke (specifically programmed for programmers)

#include
main ( ) /*gcc compiler doesn’t demand the voids*/
{
printf(“A programmer and his wife come out of a supermarket\n”); /*shocking no bars involved*/
printf(“OUCH!!!”);
printf(“His wife realizes that she forgot to buy something and tells her husband \n”
“to watch the nine bags in their cart. When she comes back out she discovers\nhim messing around with the bags taking them out of the basket then putting\n\ them back in. She asks him what he is doing and he told her that he lost one\nof their bags, he then proceeded to count them 0,1,2,3…”);
}

/*This program was written by Aryeh Lansey on 12/13/2005 and is copyrighted and all that other legal stuff, so if you steal it we will have to kill you!!!*/

My Bike was Stolen

Coming home one day I get on an express train and pull out my laptop. I graph a couple population curves then the battery dies. For some reason, people are always fascinated by me changing the battery. The lady next to me asks curiously if I ran out of memory. I keep a straight face and kindly say "no, just changing the battery; with dell, all the parts look the same."

Anyway my bike was stolen from the train station. When a police officer stopped by to file a report I came *this close to offering him some Dunkin Donuts (left overs from an NJIT Hillel event).

Anyway, you should all call the number on this page, then tell your friends to do the same:
http://spam-spam.blogspot.com really, its the least we can do to fight spam

Hickory dickory dock

I was innocently sitting at my computer the other night when out of the corner of my eye I saw a brown blur. A really fast brown blur. For some reason my brain told me: Mouse. But I didn't believe it -- C'mon, a mouse on the 6th floor of a concrete walled building? On top of which, I really only thought I saw the blur out of the corner of my eye, right?
Then I heard the chewing coming from inside my desk. When I pulled out the bottom drawer a cute little mouse darted out, and dove under my backpack. I lifted up my backpack and the little guy went zipping (and skidding) across the floor and squeezed himself under my closet, which, needless to say, I could not lift. Later it ran across the room, and I think is now hiding under my roomate's bed.
So here's the question: How would you try to catch the mouse (ideally with something that may be lying around in a [my] dorm room) without killing it?

For a Special Treat: 2 for The Price of 1

I wasn't going to post today, but I came across a hillarious qoute in a news article about new information regarding the sinking of the titanic. At the end of the article it mentioned that Robert Ballard (he found the titanic wreck) had been unimpressed with his find and to qoute
"They found a fragment, big deal, am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there's stuff all over the place. It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it."

Plato's Dangerous Metaphors

Aryeh asked me to cover for him today. Hence, a very short post. This was part of my essay answer on an English midterm I took recently:

Plato feels that imitation of an imitation of Truth will lead man astray, leave him in the dark, and potentially even other, more dangerous metaphors.

Legal Stuff

We had a computer assignment due for math class- they made us sign our names to some legal sounding statement basically saying that we didn't cheat.

I decided to make fun of them by putting a legal statement of my own for them to sign (courtesy of Yahoo terms of service) basically saying they can't sue me if they get seizures while grading the assignment. I took a picture before I handed it in for all you blog-readers to see.


And about my last post- I was talking about planar projections with Eli when these ducks volunteered to hold the book's cover (a plane) at a certain angle for us. Thank you!

What are you up to?

On one of the few occasions when I took an elevator in my dorm building, some random person who I don't think I had ever spoken to before asked me, "So, what are you up to?"

To which I answered, "Two... .... ...Three... ... ...Four... ... ...Five... ... ...Six." And then the door opened on my floor and I left the elevator.