Viewpoint: Elliott Rezny

The Real Argument

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:31:00 +0000

So, a little while ago I posted in response to what I felt was a pretty rude comment in the newspaper. I recently realized that my "viewpoint" was nothing more than a smart-alec response to a argument that was a more rational framing of the issue than any other I've paid attention to.

The brief of the comment was that gay people shouldn't be able to get married because marriage is a human right and gay people aren't human.

A harsh comment, but a bit more rational then the "what's next?" argument. I think that while many of the things I write about on this blog I have a genuine interest in, nothing really hits me at a personal level like this does. Lets face it, Eli Judge could run for governor and it wouldn't have as much impact on me personally as gay marriage does. Tuition at Madison could double, but it's a hit to the wallet, not the heart.

First, lets tackle this whole "not human" thing. In general, species are separated by their inability to breed and produce fertile offspring. Whereas a donkey and a horse make an infertile mule, a gay parent and a straight parent can still have either gay or straight children. So, forget the idea of a new species, it is a complete misconception.

However, this is a good way of framing human rights. If you deny them from someone, you are essentially saying that they are not human!

Now, what makes something a human right? Really, it's a social construct. People like to believe that they will not be killed without reason. I'm sure animals think the same way, yet for some reason, I still love stepping on ants on the sidewalk. Hourly jobs are a social construct. Try telling a farmer that he can make half of their yearly income in half the time if they want too. You can't just turn a half-grown field into half of the income of a full grown field. Marriage is a social construct. Yep. People like to believe that their spouse won't leave them for no reason. Men are jealous, so here's this great social construct that ties women to men (traditionally for our society). Now, what makes this social construct a human right? Lets look deeper into what marriage is today.

While marriage used to be simply a way of holding a relationship together, it is now the determining factor in inheritance, medical rights, occupational benefits such as insurance, adoption, tax benefits, liability control, and joint ownership. How does this really effect gay people? Oh let me count the ways:

1) If a married person dies without a will, their spouse gets everything no questions asked because they jointly own everything.
2) If a married person is hospitalized and cannot make medical decisions, their spouse can step right in and make them.
3) If a married person gets insurance or other perks such as health club membership from a job, they are offered to the spouse if the spouse doesn't have the same opportunity at their job.
4) Arkansas is the only state that explicitly prohibits unmarried couples from adopting; Florida explicitly bars single and coupled GLBT people from adopting. Some states allow one GLBT person to adopt, but does not allow their partner to also adopt the child; This results in the adopted child to be torn from the family should the parent that adopted the child die or otherwise be declared unable to care for the child. Sounds pleasant, doesn't it?
5) Want to file a joint tax return? You have to be married. Want to qualify for the tax benefits? Yep, have to be officially married too. The IRS even tried to bar at least one same sex couple from filing a joint return because they didn't recognize same sex marriages. I think that whole debacle passed over quickly though.
6) If you have a car and its insurance in your name, your insurance does not normally cover damage when someone else is driving. Of course, spouses in marriage are almost always covered. Just don't forget to file the paperwork within 60 days of marriage ;)
7) I went over this one in the inheritance thing, but joint ownership itself is kind of goofy. Legally, it's almost exclusively from marriage or from legal entities that cause people to go to jail for tax evasion. Personally, its a big respect and trust thing to give your partner half of everything you own.

Well isn't that a hodgepodge of social constructs? How bout this new one: civil unions and domestic partnerships (lets call them hodgepodge just for fun). Separate but equal? Brown vs Board of Education? Wisconsin's gay marriage ban that took out hodgepodge with it? Honestly, hodgepodge would be a good consolation prize. The problem is that so many laws and policies use the word "marriage" and don't necessarily apply to hodgepodge or whatever you want to call them. Who volunteers to rewrite everything that applies to marriage so that it applies to hodgepodge too?

So, is it a human right to care for a loved one when they are unable to make medical decisions? Is it a human right for an adopted child to be adopted by both parents and cared for by either one in the absence of the other rather than getting torn away? Is it a human right to be legally recognized as a couple?

There's still a major barrier, the social construct of religion (Yes, you don't need to read that again, I did just say it). I don't mean to say that the origins of religions are untrue. Its a moot point because most religions only recognize their own religion as valid. I do know that they place an awful lot of belief in the religion itself being unfailingly holy and pure while accepting changes along the way. A very generalized example, but Jesus didn't preach violence or hate over religious dissidents, yet Popes were responsible for starting wars! So when GLBT relationships started popping up, religions suddenly have an opinion on it? Who honestly came up with the opinion? A book? Unfortunately, religions are going to do whatever they want, honestly cannot blame them. Religious people truly believe their religions, it is very respectable and I will never hold religion against someone. I will, however ask for the human right that is requested in the US bill of rights. It explicitly prohibits the government from enforcing a religion on the people. Look at Iran, it's a country of liberal people governed by religious leaders. All we see over here is the religious conservative government. So, while it is respectable to not approve of same-sex marriage due to religious beliefs, it is not alright to force those beliefs upon others.

Don't turn this into the "holiday tree" mess. Acknowledging a religion is different from pretending religion doesn't exist. To make it worse, some religions teach that in order to do your duty to God, you must convert others. A respectable duty, but not so much for the sects that believe in killing those who don't convert. Luckily we don't ever really see those in the US.

So, the next time you vote on an amendment to define marriage, think about the rights that you would not want to be denied to you, then think about whether you want to deny them to others.

Blog Type - Typealyzer

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:54:00 +0000

I was kind of amused when I saw the site Typealyzer in a different blog. It analyzes the posts in blogs and offers a simple profile for the kind of writing the blog has. I was even more amused when its analysis of my blog stated what most personality tests say about me:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

So, what does your blog say about you?

New Blog in Town: University and State

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:32:00 +0000

Usually the kind of start-ups I see are small, one person projects that wind up being decent enterprises, such as CB or Fearless Sifting. Not too often do I see one pop up that seems to jump right into the big time. University and State is one such blog. Take a look at it, see if you recognize any names. You might find the author of the Critical Badger in there, not to mention some campus big names both graduated and approaching their senior year. Mostly Poly Sci and Journalism majors, plus Suchita Shah who managed to seem like one last year while graduating with a degree in neurobiology. Their combined resume is extremely impressive.

Good luck everyone at University and State, I look forward to your success!

Open Source Companies Weathering the Bad Economy?

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:32:00 +0000

I read an interesting article by Matt Asay titled
Open-source companies crashing en masse? Puh-lease! I don't know the author, but you can't deny the fact that Red Hat, one of the biggest if not the single biggest commercial supplier of open source software, has seen growth in the double digits compared to the previous year for a little while now. This correlates with a huge push in the Free Software community to capitalize on the poor economy (lol, i know, it sounds funny) and get Free Software into as many hands as possible.

A lot of innovations have come from the Free Software Movement. The Open Document Format (ODF) was created by the community, and now it's a standard almost everywhere. Russia is already making the switch because they realize that it means that no citizen would need to buy special software (ie, M$ Office for hundreds of dollars) just to read it. To top it off, all Russian schools will be using Free and Open Source Software!

So, what happens when that company you've been relying on for years to provide you with great updates falters (Vista, Office 07, IE7)? What happens when the economy goes into a slump and the company you rely on can't be as innovative? What happens when large amounts of people are laid off and pick up programming as a hobby? Free and Open Source Software is going to take off in the next few years. I wonder if Microsoft and... dangit, i don't pay for software, I don't know enough of the companies - ok, lets say Oracle and Adobe (even though none of you will know what Oracle is and Adobe will likely never die with their customer base) will be able to keep up?

In short, don't bother getting used to the new M$ Office, get OpenOffice.org. It can even open up those pesky new .docx files. Don't like Vista? Get Ubuntu. Don't like Mac OSX? (I'm sure you do like it, but whatev) Try Ubuntu!

Here's a list of the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) I use on a daily basis:
OpenOffice.org - Office Suite
Firefox - Web Browser
Thunderbird - Mail Client
Pidgin - Instant Messenger
VLC - Media Player (PS. )
Synergy - Utility to use one mouse and keyboard over multiple computers. I use it over 3 or 4 depending on the day.
VirtualBox - Open source virtual computer. ie, VMWare replacement.
And on occasion, ArmagetronAD - Fun, fairly lightweight tron game that runs on whatever computer you've got.

When Calling Someone a Mutant isn't Hate

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:20:00 +0000

4th response published in the the Badger Herald Article of online comments: "Reason, reason, reason, insanity"

In response to “Proposition 8 exposes a new prejudice” by Laura Brennan:

First of all, there is nothing wrong with being anti-homosexual. It doesn’t make you a bigot, or any other flavor of the week leftist hate speech word. The argument of trying to compare alleged homosexual discrimination with that of the blacks is so flawed that I don’t even know where to begin. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality is wrong, plain and simple. Relationships are based on the hope that those involved will reproduce to keep the human species going. That obviously can’t happen with gays. I could write for hours and continue to provide facts that would allow me win this argument, but I’ve done it so many times with this paper that it is just old. The bottom line: homosexuality is wrong, unnatural, and is essentially human species mutation. Those who are don’t deserve equal rights or benefits because they aren’t humans like the rest of us, they are essentially mutants.

Thank you Badger Herald for aptly titling this comment, and thank you "bigot[s], or any other flavor of the week leftist hate speech word[s]" for creating the wonderfully inadequate arguments Laura Brennan has bought into. In fact, I aught to draft up a new amendment and start getting signatures. It'll redefine marriage as a union between two people who can procreate (having a gay child doesn't count because they are of a different species). Do you think we should start a mutant registry, or is Facebook and Myspace an adequate registry. Also, how do we deal with Gays? Should they be forced to procreate? Should we add a new species to the list? I suggest the name Homosapians. Darn, it's already taken. Perhaps we should just consider heterosexuality a mutation and call people inflicted with it Heterosapians. Also, how do we deal with animals that exhibit homosexuality? Are they invasive species?

The best part is that I've heard this "Mutant" theory before. Earth is starting to get overcrowded, so the human race has evolved to produce less offspring! Gays are saving the world! Even better, lets flip the situation. In a bleak future, nearly everyone is gay, and the world is turning into the movie "Children of Men." Instead of letting schools decay, however, they are turned into massive dance clubs, the world is fabulous. Wait a second, doesn't this scenario mean that gays don't want to raise children? Oh darn, that doesn't make any sense at all, as proven by the fact that there are legal battles in nearly every state trying to allow gay couples to adopt children.

I could write for hours and continue to provide facts that would allow me to win this argument, but I'm going to take a tip from Laura Brennan and assume that my pompus "I'm right, you're wrong... and you're unhuman" less than solid and complete argument will win over some of you readers.

Thank you Laura Brennan for showing your true colors. Now I'm off to watch X-Men and try and figure out what superpower gay people get. I hope its superhuman dancing abilities. That would be FABULOUS!

DRLI - Passed and Ready to Move

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:53:00 +0000

I'm pretty excited about Alder Eli Judge's Downtown Residential Lighting Initiative. Another step in the right direction after Judge's last great success, the Photo Ordinance. Last year I lived on Langdon Street, and this year I'm a little further away from campus, and the dark areas of the city are always the least fun (read: pretty scary) to walk through at night. Talk about a good plan too, not many people can give reasons against it thanks to its low cost to the city, low cost to landlords, improved safety for all people, and better visibility for police.

Shoot, who forgot to ask the opinion of the thiefs and muggers?

Lets fight disease!

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:10:00 +0000

There was a pretty cool article in the New York Times about Google using search data to track Influenza breakouts up to 2 weeks before the CDC can. Pretty slick. There was an article in Wired magazine about a similar sort of thing a few months ago. The Wired article is about a Department of Defense project to point out potential localized epidemics quickly. Here's my favorite snippet of the article:

"We detected a gastrointestinal outbreak in Korea," Mansfield says. "I called my boss, and he asked me, 'When did it happen?'"
Korea is 13 hours ahead of Washington. So Mansfield simply answered: "Tomorrow."

We live in a pretty awesome age.

I wonder how well this kind of aggregated data (read: grouped so that no private info is kept) could be used for other topics more interesting to mainstream America, like politics or sports popularity. Or even music popularity. At least one site uses this kind of data for Operating System popularity.

I Know the Person I'm voting for

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:40:00 +0000

Here's a response I wrote to my Step Dad about the upcoming election. He sent me a little e-mail at 3PM today.

I read an article in the New York Times the other day about undecided voters, "Sheepish, Proud or Set to Flip a Coin, They’re Still Undecided"(link 1). It started out stating:

"Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have stood (or sat) for 36 debates, endured thousands of interviews, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements and the better part of two years trying to convince voters that they are worthy of the presidency, or at least a vote.
But with only days left until Election Day, a small cluster of holdouts — 4 percent, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll — are still wrestling with the “Who are you voting for?” question.
Which raises a follow-up: What is up with these people?"

I've learned a lot from all of these things and I know who I'm voting for, but first, here's what I learned.

McCain has been doing a great job of changing his image to support his campaign. Remember back when he agreed that offshore drilling wouldn't help gas prices any time soon? Remember when he abruptly changed positions in June? Just in time for Sturges! I also remember him ridiculing Obama for saying that it would help if people inflate their tires. Too bad you can find anything a politician has said on the internet nowadays, because McCain clarified later on: (from link 2)
"And could I mention that Sen. Obama a couple of days ago said that we ought to all inflate our tires, and I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it..."

Too bad he didn't have the guts to say that on TV. We also have the great examples about siding with the president vs being different than the president. Funny how he became the candidate for change when Palin joined in. The outsiders, ready to change Washington. Really? Even the McCain camp regrets this change in image. (Check out the NYTimes article "The Making (and Remaking) of McCain"(link 3). Great article; but it may be a bit long.) How about how he is nicely moderate right now. Too bad Palin was gave James Dobson, the Christian Conservative leader a little tip (from link 4).
"She also told Christian conservative leader James Dobson that Mr. McCain would implement the Republican Party platform on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, and same-sex marriage, which in some cases is more conservative than Mr. McCain's own positions."

Speaking of Palin.... Do i really need to talk about Palin? The McCain campaign basically ignored her until she started speaking on her own. They even put her on SNL, but didn't let her speak much (link 5). She did get to dance a bit though.

Obama? Sure he doesn't have the kind of time in government that McCain has, but he's surrounded himself with some pretty bright people. Does anyone truly think that the president makes decisions on his own? Do you really think that? I guess we might as well believe so right now, but with all of the responsibilities, I couldn't imagine anyone being a good president without people who specialize in the right fields. Right now it seems that a cast of 300 helps inform Obama on foreign relations (link 6).

One more thing. I really respected McCain before the election. But he's run the same old election as everyone in the past. He had done some great things with Feingold, but even Feingold has had some nasty things to say about McCain's election. Darn, can't find a link for this one.

One last thought: This whole "screw the rest of the world" sentiment seems about as bigoted and poorly thought out as too many other mainstream America's ideas. We may not like the rest of the world, but they still supply us with oil, food, electronics, and a mind boggling number of other things our economy depends on. You don't become the leader of the free world by ignoring the rest of it. Oh shoot, now I'm confused, are we supposed to be good with foreign policy, or are we ignoring it?

36 debates, thousands of interviews, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on advertisements, and a wealth of information online about previous voting records, speeches, and commentary searchable on the internet. Do you know the person you're voting for? I sure do.

Elliott Rezny
-Just think of what I would have wrote with more time ;)

PS, good luck voting. Don't end up like Homer Simpson. (link 7)

Links
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02undecided.html
2) http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/08/07/mccain-flipflops-on-tire-inflation/
3) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html
4) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/29/palin-says-shell-stay-scene/
5) http://www.hulu.com/watch/39808/saturday-night-live-update-palin-rap#s-p1-st-i1
6) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/politics/18advisers.html
7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ

New addition to my blog

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:41:00 +0000

I'm more of an avid reader of blogs than I am a writer, and sometimes there's not much more I want to do than just share something I've found. So, Google has this cool "Shared Items" widget from Google Reader that will show recent things I've shared. Guaranteed to entertain! Hope you all are having a good Halloween weekend!

How good is voting? Very Good!

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:00:00 +0000

A quote from the Badger Herald article, Wait to vote early long, problematic:

“It was well worth it,” Lueck said. “I learned more voting and was a better person for going to vote than going to that class.”

Right. I wonder how many people will read this and inadvertently agree. Hopefully Lueck didn't miss a time management class.

In any case, for those of you who also want to be better people, you can still skip class on Tuesday (or don't, polls close at 8PM), and you had better get out and vote; politicians only ignore those who don't vote! The collective student body of Madison makes up more than 12% of Dane County's voters. That's power right there!

Weird Power Outages

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:28:00 +0000

I just found out yesterday that the 3rd floor of my house has had problems with their main circuit breaker tripping almost weekly. Today I was using my computer and my battery backup kicked in - the power had gone out. Ok, so I check out the other things in my house. Living room lights work, kitchen lights work (the room nearest mine). So I narrow down the problem. As it turns out, only one outlet in my room didn't have power. To the circuit breakers! Only one is tripped, and it's labeled "3". Interesting. I chatted with the guy from 3 who came down to fix the same problem. Then I come back upstairs to find out that someone was having trouble blow-dry their hair in the bathroom.

Ha, there's our problem. The best part is, I never even noticed it. My battery backup would routinely kick in when someone used a hair-dryer and the guys from the 3rd floor would reset the breaker.

I just wonder who wired a house to have a circuit breaker for the 3rd floor connected to 2 seperate outlets in two rooms that aren't even next to each other. I love my house :)

ASM Voter Turnout = :(

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:26:00 +0000

Sound the alarms, ASM has once again failed to interest students. I'd say surprise, but nobody is anymore. I'm just curious how much progress people expected already. The funny thing about blogs and instant reporting is that people start expecting instant change and instant improvement. I'll be honest, I thought voter turnout would be higher (CB Voter Turnout Contest) with all of this presidential election stuff going on, but I didn't realize how different these two things were until I voted for ASM myself.

I try to keep myself informed on whats going on, so I kind of know the responsibilities that I was choosing someone for, but the problem is that I still have no idea who these people are. the 6 question survey didn't prepare me enough to choose the most qualified applicant. In fact, I don't even remember who I voted for anymore. The worst part is, I'm not sure that this problem can be nullified very easily. A few of the candidates were freshmen, and while we could ask for their opinion on past issues, they likely will be unable to draw a good conclusion after the fact.

Now's the hard part: we get to see what happens at the spring elections. We can't expect ASM to have new ideas tomorrow, or even next month, and we wont see results for a good half of a year. On the good side, the elections committee isn't bound by any very constricting rules about how they help inform voters, so there's opportunity for big changes.

One last question for anyone: Has anyone seen any chalking by candidates for the election? The rules state specifically:

Campaigners may use water-based chalk in areas of campus that are readily exposed to the elements. Any place where it rains is fair chalking ground, but chalking shall not be used on the sides of buildings.

Man Skills and Life

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:57:00 +0000

Popular Mechanics recently released a list of "100 Skills Every Man Should Know." Pretty awesome list. It's broken up into categories, one of which is a tools to own list.

Not too shabby of a list. The thing that caught my attention is that I learned half of the things in Boy Scouts. It was kind of strange seeing how Boy Scouts has benefited me in such a quantitative way.

IT Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:26:00 +0000

I've been meaning to touch on this subject for a few weeks, and to my surprise another significant event happened little more than a week ago. The idea is: Hacking with intent to cause damage (Ie: black hat hackers) has been mostly a for profit or fun destruction kind of job. Just like the card counting in the movie "21", what happens when a group redefines the boundaries?

We've seen it already in hacking. A long time ago there were simple worms and viruses that didn't serve a good purpose to anyone. Then came the spyware and the adware. All of a sudden there were people actually making money at the expense of millions of frustrated users. It just happened again. Hacking has been redefined.

First in War: When Russia started to attack Georgia this summer, it was preceded by attacks at the Georgian governments websites along with the media's websites. The only way the government could release information for the online media was through a Google hosted website. This is the first time an online attack had coincided with a militia attack.

First in the Stock Market: Nobody's confirmed this yet, so without saying that any hacking happened, here's what happened: A little more than a week ago, an article dated from a few years ago titled "United Airlines files for bankruptcy" pops up on a newspaper's website under the Popular Articles section. Google's search bots see it there and pop it up in Google News. Bloomberg press sees it in Google news and included the title on their headline ticker. Wall Street sees the headline and the shares of United Airlines drop from 11 to 3 dollars before trades were halted, and then still only reached 8 dollars by the next day.
One pessimistic method of investing stocks is to have someone sell their stocks under the condition that you buy it later and sell it back at the original price. Basically, if the stock goes down, you make money. So, if someone knew that a company was going to file for bankrupcy before it happenes, they could make a good bit of money (and hopefully get investigated). See where I'm going? The craziest thing about this one is that it is much easier to simulate an above normal amount of newspaper readers than it is to make government web pages crash. This could have been done by any hacker worth his salt or a determined person with the right kind of money.

Economy, national safety, real money? I'm scared. Lets hope companies don't try to sabatoge each other.

Voting Rights Vs Packer Tickets = Surprise!

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:47:00 +0000

I've lived in Wisconsin my whole life, and I spent many Sundays with my dad watching the Packer games. Only 3 times have I gotten the chance to see a home game, and I've even been to Lambeau Field 4 or 5 other times. It is the Wisconsinite Mecca after all.

The Wisconsin State Journal has an article about a polling company that asked "Would you give up your right to vote in this year's presidential election in exchange for two tickets to a Packers game?"

The results are surprising - to me at least. Only 5% of likely voters said that they would. Lots of people talk about how their vote doesn't really count in the elections, but this poll looks promising. People who are likely to vote actually really want to.

Or they don't like football, but who doesn't?

UW SoM Seen in the News Today

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:05:00 +0000

Straight from my Google homepage today. Notice the one about the UW School of Music.

Ok, so the title of the article was truncated, but I thought it was funny.

In reality, this is really cool. It's not too often the SoM gets multi-million dollar donations. It looks as if it could be completed in time for Humanities to be taken down. I've been wondering how on earth they were planning on temporarily holding all of Humanities elseware. At least this is a nice start.

New school year

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:52:00 +0000

Wow. Here I thought my summer was busy, and now it seems like it had been a walk in the park compared to school. Over the next few days I'm going to be blogging about some goofy things that came to my attention over the past few weeks such as what seems to be a stock scam related to clever uses of news websites - possibly run by hackers, and ways to keep track of the government that will undoubtedly be the new age C-SPAN. For now, here's my thoughts about school.

I was disappointed by departments that seem to refuse to use Learn@UW, the DOIT ran website that tracks grades, documents and files for class, and even hosts online worksheets. My physics class, for example, required me to register for MasteringPhysics.com, a website put together by the makers of the textbook I was required to buy (I'm not even going to get into that one). For anyone who bought a used textbook, like me, the site requires you to purchase a years subscription just to do your homework. Lucky for me, I got my subscription last semester and I'm still able to use it. The site uses the same questions every time, whereas Learn@UW has the ability to change up questions so that if you do the homework over, you have different problems to try. My chemestry class last year used Learn@UW and I loved it.

I live off campus this year. Far enough off campus that I ride my bike everywhere. It's nice. I live far enough off campus that my place is fairly large too. The only caveat is that I'm also in marching band and I end up with a backpack and a trombone to carry with me everywhere. Last week I biked 50 miles. In fact, I've biked 224 miles since I moved up here according to my odometer. So, as a tribute to my main source of transportation, I am putting up a ticker on the blog that will show how my total mileage since I moved up here. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I bike more than 1000 miles by the time school ends.

Notice from the UW: Don't give out your DNA

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Say whaa?
From the DOIT news story: Don't let the handshake and the smile fool you

The number of phishing attempts, fraudulent solicitations, counterfeit Web sites, and fake messages is on the rise. This is no time to let down your guard. Unless you have initiated the contact, you should never give out any of the following information:
Any user login (your UW NetID, for example) and/or password
Your Social Security number
Your driver’s license number or state identification number
Any financial account number (including credit/debit card) or any security code, access code or password that would permit access to an individual’s financial account
Your deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profile, as defined in S. 939.74 (2d) (a)
Your unique biometric data, including fingerprint, voice print, retina or iris image or any other unique physical representation
Any protected health information (any information about health status, provision of health care, or payment of health care).

Thank you DOIT. Not only am I now worried about accidentally giving out my DNA profile, I have no idea what S. 939.74 (2d) (a) is!

University Presidents Supporting a 18 Year Old Drinking Age?!

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:55:00 +0000

I read about this in the Critical Badger's article, "What is UW-Madison’s position on this?"
According to the original article, about 100 school presidents from places like Duke, Ohio State, and Syracuse have come out in support of lowering the drinking age to 18.

Finally, some people with enough foresight to realize that if people can't drink in a bar, they will drink at house parties; And house parties are dangerous places, especially for binge drinkers.

Internet War Precedes REAL War

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:12:00 +0000

An article in today's New York Times, Cyberspace Barrage Preceded Russian Fighting, talks about what seems to be a new generation of fighting tactics.

The result? The Georgian government is now posting news releases on their Blogger site!

The cost? As little as 4 cents per machine. How's that for a deal? Heck, with Russia being one of the main suppliers of Georgian internet, they even had a cheap way in. Ok, cheap is an understatement. After all, Georgian internet providers are paying Russian internet providers for the service.

The real story? The sites reported down all are media related outlets. The equivalent of downing TV and Radio broadcasters. I wouldn't be surprised if the Georgian government is being attacked by hackers too. After all, my personal server is the butt of a few attacks a week. Unfortunately, we'll likely never hear about the real break-ins. The web site problems might not even be a coordinated attack by Russia's government. These kinds of attacks can easily be performed by well connected and seasoned individual hackers.

It is almost like independent terrorists working alongside their government. I'm scared. Just imagine what things will be like in the future.

A letter to Stephen Nass

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:02:00 +0000

Hello,
I'm Elliott Rezny. I am entering into my Sophmore year at UW-Madison this year, and I just read an article about comments you have made about the school. In the article, you are quoted as saying:

“Assembly Democrats say they care about students and faculty to get their votes,” Nass stated. “However, they always support outrageous pay increases for administrators, while most faculty in the classroom are lucky to get 1-percent to 2-percent pay increases. Even worse is the outright dishonesty of assembly Democrats about caring for the middle class, but supporting every tuition increase that inevitably keeps more middle class students from attending a UW campus.”

Higher education in Wisconsin would be completely futile if it weren't for the ongoing excellence of the administration and staff. Please entertain the simple solution of supporting the University more through state funds so that the youth of Wisconsin can receive the education they deserve while ensuring that Wisconsin has a strong economy in the future. It is worth it; I see it every day in my little brothers.

The same article mentioned your concern for the new chancellor, Biddy Martin. I was appalled at the blog post you circulated and your comments about her track record. I would only hope that in being the chair of the higher education committee, you would have the ability and better nature to meet with someone charged with running such a large institution before you criticize them.

The article I read: http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2008/06/13/martin-faces-public-criticism-badger-state

A concerned student and resident of Wisconsin,
Elliott Rezny
erezny@wisc.edu

Walkers have more power than I thought.

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:07:00 +0000

The Wisconsin State Journal article, Safe & Sound: Drivers must pay attention to pedestrian crossings, lists the times that vehicles must yield to pedestrians. Included in the list is when "Pedestrians are crossing a street within a marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection with no traffic signals."

I like it. Now if only I could take down all the traffic signals in the campus area.

Move Out Day

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:42:00 +0000

Wow, this year has been a blast. I seem to have this cursed blessing of getting involved in more than I know what to do with, and this year has been no exception. Between Engineering, Tau Gamma Kappa, my business, my campus committee, the State-Langon neighborhood, random personal projects like this blog, and my friends, there has been something to do no matter where I turn. I love it.

Everything seem so surreal now. I'm sitting here with a bag of chips and a half of a thing of salsa hoping that I'll be all packed by the time my mom gets here. Man this salsa is too hot for me. Besides my desk, everything still looks normal. However, anyone who knows me knows that my computers are no small deal. I just spent the last 2 hours shutting them down and packing them up - Save my laptop of course :)

Just a day ago I fell asleep in this desk chair completely exhausted from finals. Just a day ago I was eating with all of my dormmates. Just a day ago I felt like I should study some more for my exam (I didn't). Just a day ago I was riding the bus, hanging out at the Union, and enjoying Library Mall. Just a day ago Madison was everything I had gotten used to over the past 8 months. Just a day from now I will be heading to an interview for a summer job. Just a day from now I will be getting ready to host the first party of the summer. Just a day from now I will be driving, mowing the lawn, and working on my potato cannon.

Now I'm heading ~~home~~ back to my family. Heck, I don't even know where home is anymore. I've signed a lease for a house that starts in August on the dreaded August 15th, but my lease here has ended. I've lived with my parents for a full 6 weeks in the past 8 months; I'm not entirely sure if I can call that home anymore.

I don't expect this blog to stop over the summer. I write because I have interest in these things. Madison may be gone from my surroundings for a while, but it certainly won't be gone from my thoughts. I just hope that the Madison I have grown to love doesn't leave while I'm gone from it.

This salsa is really spicy.

SigEp Fire - Devistating

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:55:00 +0000

What a horrible experience. This fire was so big that I was scared most of the time I was watching it. Many people don't realize what kind of problems happen when fighting a fire. If you look at the video you will find good examples of what I'm talking about here. First off, the water pressure wasn't high enough around here, possibly because of well #12 being shut off recently, although I can only speculate that having 5 or more fire hoses running full blast takes more pressure than a city water system is really made for. When I got back to my dorm at around 2:15 the water pressure was still low; and I ~~was~~ still am covered with soot from standing on the other side of the street for a half hour. On the soot note, not only do I still smell like smoke, but a friend of mine who lives a block away from the fire said that he thought his building was on fire because he saw smoke coming under his door from the hallway! I am not looking forward to walking to class tomorrow; and it's a final at 8am.
Now, the hoses that were running were pumping out some power. No hose has less than two people at it. These hoses are not your typical garden hose; They're at least 5 inches thick. Heck I'm not sure any normal houses have water pipes this big. There's roughly a gallon in every foot of that pipe.
The nozzles on those things are pretty crazy too. They are known to have serrated blades (yea, the same kind of serrated blades you would find on a steak knife) that pulverize the water into a fine mist to help cool the air - important because of the extremely hot fumes coming from the fire. If you watch the videos, you can see that every once and a while the fire disappears and for a second you feel at ease. Too bad, the fires just building up heat inside. The water doesn't really cool the air, just the ground it reaches. As the air gets hotter, more things in it are able to burn, then you get a jet of fire spewing from the building. It's very sudden, and almost always accompanied by a gasp in the crowd.

Those of us standing in the crowd quickly realized that the air quality had bottomed out. Every once and a while I felt like I was breathing in soot. This picture was taken from my dorm a few blocks to the North-East. You can see a water jet from the Ladder that was on the scene. This must have been a particularly tricky fire to fight because it was mostly focused on the back. There wasn't very good access to that angle.

At some point in the video, you can visibly tell that the firefighters were focusing on preventing the fire from spreading. It's a little hard to watch because even though you know they are wetting down the other buildings to protect them, you're left watching the fire go somewhat unchecked. The papers have already reported that the building is a complete loss. Also, at least one firefighter has been brought to the hospital, but the residents are all reportedly safe and healthy.

Don't mistake the streetlight for a flame. It lights up the mist and smoke to look like a giant blaze sometimes.

If you are interested in the original photos or video, please e-mail me. These photos have only been cropped and zoomed, not adjusted in any other way.

SAFEwalk "fully" staffed

noreply@blogger.com (Elliott Rezny) — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:24:00 +0000

After the whole debauchery that seems to have happened over the past few weeks, Gordon Graham of Transportation Services claims that they are back up to full staff and ready to handle all requests. In the press release it was stated that they hired replacements for all of the 11 students who left. Also, they noted that on an average day, only 1 hour of a 5 hour shift is spent walking around.

I can't believe the spin some people get away with. Just because only one hour of work is done on a 5 hour shift doesn't mean that that 1 hour of work is easy. I worked in retail for a while, and sometimes nobody would be in the store for an hour straight, then, almost magically, the store would get flooded with customers. Just because I had time to do nothing doesn't mean that I could serve 50 people at once moments later. Also, averages are devastating to statistics. I could only imagine that the workload on a weekend is greater than during the week.

Also, this "fully staffed" thing doesn't jive with any report we've had outside of these official ones. "Fully Staffed" should mean that the employees and the customers are satisfied with the service that is being done, not that the number of staff members is up to some arbitrary number.

Rather than Graham assuming that we'll trust him now, maybe he should respect the negative reports lately and prove them wrong with an outside review. After all, you don't win trust in the blogging community with press releases.