What Brothers Lacks - Thoughts on Authenticity

Often a place or an experience is declared so [negative adjective] its [positive adjective]. To me this is a hallmark of an authentic experience. Perhaps the best illustration of this concept can be found in the bars of Champaign. The most authentic bar is by far the Illini Inn. Almost anyone who has ever set foot inside would describe the bar as so shitty its good. The Inn has graffiti on the front door, broken neon signs, a sticky floor, three beers on tap a dartboard and some really dirty bathrooms. The owners of the Inn maintain the place only to the minimum level and offer no special deals or gimmicks to get people in the door; The place is always crowded due to some unknown appeal I refer to as authenticity. Each small detail of the Inn experience would be next to impossible to reproduce anywhere else but was not even considered by the owners of the Inn. The are no deep considerations as to where the decorations were placed other than available space on the wall. The half-functioning, one bartender, drink-with-a-bunch-of-middle-aged-townies-and-retired-Chicago-firemen ambiance exudes pure authenticity.

The opposite of the Inn is a far inferior establishment known as Brothers. Everything which is right with the Inn is wrong with Brothers. After having only spent a few minutes in the bar I knew it was more devoid of authenticity than a cave is of light. The two year old graffiti of the Inn is replaced by larger than life advertisement of Brother’s drink specials. The line stretches out the door only to lead to a bouncer who charges $5 for those under 21 and nothing to those of age; a clever policy to maximize profits. Each night features a new gimmick to get people in the doors whether it be wings night, cheap pitchers or any other crafty ploy. The rail-thin, tattooed bartender of the Inn is replaced by trendy, good looking college kids waiting to serve the throngs of carousing students. During my sole attendance of this inferior establishment the experience was hollow. I felt as though I was riding the pot pie machine from chicken run. Instead of being turned into a pie, I was being sold the cookie cutter ‘good time’. The homey, dive personality of the Inn is the opposite end of the authenticity spectrum from the loud, sterile, mass produced demeanor of Brothers. Brothers is a bar which takes itself far too seriously catering to an audience of kids who take themselves too seriously.

Perhaps to provide more examples of authenticity, it would help to consider other Champaign bars. KAMS has the school spirit, UofI tradition, orange and blue, rah-rah, lets get obliterated market so far on lockdown it even calls itself 'the home of the drinking Illini'. Anyone who has seen the KAMS commercial on TV has witnessed '10,000 watts of fun' and 30 seconds of pure authenticity. JOE'S calls itself a micro brewery yet has stripper poles on the dancefloor; to my knowledge a combo only found one place in the world. Murphy's has generations of woodcarvings on every table. Even the deafening groping pit known as Red Lion shows more authenticity than Brothers. The thing all those places have in common is the lovable, so-shitty-its-fun, uniqueness only found in one place on the face of the earth. Brothers can and does exist all across the country.

The idea of authenticity is not limited simply to the realm of college bars, in fact it extends into almost every human endeavor and has been a philosophical question for thousands of years. For me, authenticity can be found when a person, group or establishment completely ignores external pressures and instead focus on what they themselves feel is important regardless of the expected result.

Under this definition questioning authenticity is self-defeating. As soon as you question it, you are considering the influence of outside pressure which by my definition yields said experience inauthentic. This ephemeral nature makes authenticity hard to identify and even harder to achieve. Perhaps the best way to achieve authenticity is to not consider it at all. Below are examples of things I consider authentic.

Authenticity is cussing bond traders (http://youtu.be/npAWlZGlqLk?t=1m35s)

Authenticity is the Illini Inn

Authenticity is beer league softball

Authenticity is trash in national parks (I'll explain)

Authenticity is NOT Brothers.

Authenticity is NOT PAUL KWIAT

Authenticity is NOT that fedora guy in your physics discussion

Authenticity is NOT putting a 26.2 sticker on your minivan after running a marathon

All authentic things have a subtle, genuine quality which cannot be quantified, and certainly not faked. One simple way of testing authenticity is to ask "If I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, would I still do this?" Some of the actions listed above would easily fail this test the most notable being wearing a fedora and running a marathon. The example of trash in a national park is a curious one and one I admittedly took from Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The the novel, the narrator visits Crater Lake national park and takes note at the museum-like preservation of the parks, particularly the lack of litter. The author notes this would be realistic thousands of years ago, but in modern society a forest absent of trash is unusual, unnatural and inauthentic. The passage is below.

"We arrive at the turnoff to Crater Lake and go up a neat road into the National Park...clean, tidy and preserved. It really shouldn't be any other way, but this doesn't win any prizes for Quality either. It turns it into a museum. This is how it was before the white man came...beautiful lava flows, and scrawny trees, and not a beer can anywhere...but now that the white man is here, it looks fake. Maybe the National Park Service should set just one pile of beer cans in the middle of all that lava and then it would come to life. The absence of beer cans is distracting." (page 307)

I very much enjoy our nations national parks and have no problem to paying the permit fees to keep the trails clean and well marked. I feel the preservation of the natural wonders is important but with regards to authenticity, I agree with Pirsig's stance. It also reveals the transient nature of authenticity. What is authentic today may not be tomorrow and vice versa. As I mentioned before, people have been debating abstract concepts such as authenticity for millennia and I don't claim to have any definite answers. Except for the unequivocal fact that Brothers lacks it.

The RLA

 Synesthesia: The Reactive Lighting Array



Using an Arduino UNO, some LEDs and a bit of Pure Data I was able to hack together a surprisingly agile lighting array. The key ingredient is a wonderful library called Pduino which allows the Arduino to talk directly to Pure Data using the Firmata firmware. With this communication in place processing the audio and lucifying the sounds was no trouble at all. The RLA has a couple modes of operation, the most dramatic of which is reactive mode shown in the video above. The code is on my github under the project name 'RLA'.

Some screen shots

The setup interface 

Light controlling interface

The reactive calculations

The Seven Boroughs of Campustown

Champaign Student Housing - An Unscientific analysis.

The 7 Boroughs of Campustown

Off-campus housing is a central part of the student culture here at the University of Illinois; approximately 75% of all undergrads (everybody but freshman) live in non-university housing. Perplexed by this large percentage and intrigued by the apparent self separation of the students, I have taken it upon myself to investigate the culture of off campus housing.

The borders of campus and campus town are fairly well defined. The train tracks mark the western border, University Ave marks the northern border Kirby/Florida marks the southern border. The eastern boundary is a bit less concrete, however I have not heard of anyone living east of McCullough.

Within this trapezoid lies campus and most of the off-campus housing. It would be easy to take a random sample of 20 apartments in this box and call it a day, but to paraphrase somebody important I chose to do this not beacuse it is easy, but because it is hard.

To make things more interesting, I divided the greater campus area into 7 areas which I claim to be culturally unique. A brief overview of the boundaries of each borough as well as a couple sentences about the culture as I see it along with an average price and standard deviation for an apartment or house in that region. Details of my methodology can be found at the end of this post.


The first borough I consider is my own neighborhood, the Green Street Strip. Green Street is considered to be the social and ecomic hub of campustown. Home to many restaurants, bars, shops and a growing number of high rises, real estate on the strip is at a premium. The asute observer will notice more than just green street is included in the green box. I have taken the liberty to include the apartments above TIS, Fat Sandwich and the surrounding area as it is closer in price to Green Street proper.

Region 1: Green Street
Who Live here: Complacent rich kids
Average Cost: $668 / Person month (s = 117)
Advantages: You live on Green Street
Disadvantages: $$$

The second neighborhood considered lies just north of Green Street. I do not take credit for the name browntown; the boundaries of this borough were explained to me when I was touring a house last spring. As the name suggests, Brown Town is predominately inhabited by those of Indian descent. Due to the close location to the engineering quad and a block or less from green street, Browntown ranks as the second most expensive place to live.

Region 2: Brown Town
Average Cost: $462 (s = 112)
Pros: Close to class /bars /food
Cons: Expensive and small floor plans

Yet again a name not coined by me but rather by a former roommate of mine who once lived in this loosely defined area. It serves as more of a catch all than a definite cultural area.

Region 3: China Town

Who lives here: Those from the suburbs of Chicago or suburbs of Beijing
Average Cost: $454 (s = 95)
Pros: Close to the new ECE building
Cons: Good luck getting to the arc

The part of campustown which lies below Green, above Gregory, East of First and West of 4th I refer to as the frat borough due to the high concentration of frat houses and a park colloquially known as 'Frat Park'. The close proximity to Green Street, the ARC and the quad makes the frat borough a desirable place to live. As expected the great location pushes the average rent up. Don't expect to have quiet neighbors.

Region 4: Frat Borough
Who lives here: People who go out a lot.
Average Cost: $454 (s = 95)
Advantages. Close to most things
Disadvantages: LOUD

Known to some as senior town, I prefer to call this region the Booze Borough due to its proximity to Picadilly, DP Dough and nothing else. At just over a 0.5 miles to the quad at the closest point the Booze Borough isn't exactly close to anyones classes. Scenic features of the Booze Borough include a coal burning power plant, freight rails, a large warehouse and a gravel pit. The remoteness and overall dilapidation of this area are reflected in the average rent, the second lowest of all boroughs though new developments are driving it up.

Region 5: Booze Borough
Who lives here: DUDES
Average Cost: $428 (s = 131*)
Pros: Close to Picadilly, Beer Barn and DP dough
Cons: Class? 

* the most inexpensive apartment was found here at 204/person month

Geographically speaking, the smallest of any region considered is also the cheapest. Only about 4 blocks of CS kids separate the Siebel Center from Lincoln Avenue. I guess its nice if you take nothing but CS classes.

Region 6. Siebel Borough
Who Lives here: CS kids
Average Cost: $397 (s = 122)
Pros: Close to the Siebel Center
Cons: Food?

The street signs refer to this area as 'Historic Urbana' but I prefer the more concise term hippie borough. A quick saunter through the cobbled streets will reveal houses with names such as 'The Harvest House' and 'The Painted Tree'; a far cry from the kiddie pools full of beer kegs found in other parts of campus. The hippie borough is almost entirely houses although some apartments can be found closer to Lincoln. The going rate for a house is seemingly fixed at 2000/ month so pack 'em in to save some green.

Region 7: Hippie Borough
Who Lives here? Hippies
Average Cost: $436 (s = 93)
Pros: You live in Urbana
Cons: You live in Urbana

Methodology:
I used the internet to look up the posted rent for various properties. If a range was listed, I took the average of the extremes. The commentary is from my own observations and experiences from the past 2.5 years down in the 217.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet. If you are in the crowd sourcing mood, feel free to add a pad in the proper column to extend this experiment.

The War on Unofficial

It is a fact that all big ten universities worth their salt have a drinking holiday. Wisconsin has Halloween, Indiana has the Little 500, Northwestern has Dillo Day and the University of Illinois has Unofficial St Patrick's Day. A little bit of history to get all readers up to speed: The university always schedules spring break to coincide with St. Patrick's day in an effort to make large scale drinking doesn't take place on campus. However in 1996 a creative bar owner decided that it doesn't need to be St. Patrick's Day to party like its St. Patrick's Day and Unofficial was born. Unsurprisingly, the nascent  holiday was a big hit among the student body.

Fast forward to 2013. Unofficial is bigger than ever. Unofficial buzz has been heard across the campus; from the seats of the MTD to the labs of the DCL, March 2nd is the number one topic on everybody's mind. Websites and facebook pages have been set up for peddling overpriced, unoriginal t-shirt designs, shifts for jobs have been rearranged, cases upon cases of beer have been purchased. Some students are even dedicated enough to plan their semester's schedule around freeing up March 2nd.

Unlike any of the aforementioned drinking holidays, Unofficial lacks on crucial element, central planning. From my limited understanding of the workings of the Little 500 and Dillo Day, the respective institutions or a directly affiliated group is responsible for the planning and execution of the event. Although the UW Madison Halloween party is not university sanctioned, it is one, singular event unlike the scattered, potpourri of underage drinking found on Unofficial. The is no central attraction such as a parade or a concert but rather drinking for the sake of being intoxicated. 

Much like the United States' war on drugs, the UIUC Administration employs a similar, non-compromising abatement strategy. To further the analogy, the war on Unofficial is colossal failure. The university spends copious amounts of time, money and personnel in a Sisyphean quest to fully eradicate Unofficial. About a month in advance, several warning emails are sent to everybody associated with the university. On the day of Unofficial, one can find increased Police activity in and around campus, guards in front of large lecture halls, all RAs on duty in all the dorms; some dining halls even close earlier than normal. 

Despite  the extensive measures the popularity of the holiday continues to grow. Thousands of  green-clad party-goers will still take to the streets to celebrate the death of a Irish monk from the dark ages on the wrong day regardless of  what UIUC says or does. The University fails to accept the fact that each one of us is an adult who understands there are risks and repercussions associated with certain kinds of behavior.

<possibly false economic reasoning>
From a purely economic perspective, the cross price elasticity for participation in Unofficial is very inelastic. Unofficial is weather, repercussion, price inelastic just to name a few. For example, one cost of walking around drunk on a cold, rainy day is the possibility of falling and the loss of utility (time, destruction of clothing, expense of a trip to the emergency room, etc) associated with that. By testing the limits of possible scenarios it is not hard to imagine the worse the weather, the fewer people will participate in Unofficial. The rate at which the two are related is the elasticity of Unofficial, and I claim that the weather elasticity of Unofficial is very inelastic, meaning if the weather is bad, roughly the same amount of people will participate.
</possibly false economic reasoning>

Tolono

Earlier this month, the weather was unseasonably warm for December so I decided to ride my bicycle far. My target destination was Tolono, Illinois, a small town about 10 miles south of Champaign. Now is where the rant starts. For all the people out there who claim that Champaign is not in the middle of nowhere, the rest of this post is for you . You couldn't be more wrong. On my ride, the streets stopped having names about a mile and a half into the ride; there were no buildings other than barns after about two and half. When I see like garbage like this

I can't help but cringe. These creative film maker forgot to show images like this

Those buildings you see; that's campus. Right next to the farm. If you look closely, you can make out more corn on the other side of the patch of trees that is Champaign All the people that have been down to Champaign know that south of this shot(It is a north-facing picture) is nothing but corn. And Tolono. I see absolutely nothing urban about this bucolic scene. The people who claim Champaign is a fast growing city may be correct, but in its current state there is very little urban-ness to be found here.

Jim vs Red Lion

For the maybe two people that frequent this blog, ya'll knew Lion was a rant waiting to happen. Last Thursday, I got my first Red Lion experience; based on the the people I was with, it was a good night to go. When we rolled up at around 11:00, the line of sorostitutes was all ready out the door and growing quickly. For most UIUC students this was the last night for (gasp) a week to get their Lion on. After about 10 minutes of waiting in the Red Line, I presented my state ID to the ID checker who glanced at it for just longer than the Planck Time. I handed one crispy Lincoln to the cashier, and I was in.

As a second year student, I have never experienced an Illinois sans Red Lion, but apparently it opened for business just months before I arrived for orientation. Keeping this fact tucked in the back of my mind I slowly inched forward in the alien world of graphic tees and "button-up, stripy, going-out-to-get-laid shirts".(Seriously, click that link) My jungle guides on this quest are a team of seasoned Lion veterans. The first thing I noticed about the bar its size. From the exterior the building doesn't appear to be spacious, but upon entrance I realized that it is simply one, large open room. Another puzzling aspect was the decor. Large pennants and flags drape from the steel rafters giving the impression that I had just walked into a Dark Age Mead Hall. I half expected to see Grendel's arm hanging from the rafters.

As a waded through the swamp of people the lights dimmed and the music became louder, as though the bar was only allowed a certain amount of power to split between the lights and the sound system. As I was bushwhacking my way, an attractive waitress offered me a shot from her tray. I declined, but took note on the apparent ease of purchasing at this fine establishment, The bar is arranged like a NASCAR track with the bar as the infield, so naturally the party-goer field exhibits vector curl. After completing one full lap, I found the urge to use the facilities. Upon walking into the water closet, I   started to become more aware of the industrial scale of Red Lion. The Men's Room was a circular chamber with urinals lining the entire wall making it the most efficient restroom I had ever seen.

Into my second lap, I had lost all of my jungle guides but two. These two were anxious to get up on the dance floor to "rub our 3/4 boners into some sloot's ass" The term dance floor is a bit misleading as there is no actual floor or actual dancing. The dance floor comprises of a plywood stage and 4 tables. Dancing is taken to mean standing and drunkenly swaying back and forth with a member of the opposite sex. A more accurate moniker for this area would be the groping tables. I was charged with the task of plowing us through the ever growing crowds. Upon arrival at the other end of the groping tables, I found myself alone; the two had been engulfed by the ever-rising tide of humanity.

I found myself alone in a hostile environment. Desperately I searched for someone, anyone I was familiar with. In a last ditch effort, I looked in the outdoor smoking beer garden to see if any of the early defectors were taking a break, A quick scan of the crowd turned up nothing so I headed back inside to resume the search. From behind me I heard my name being called. Instinctively, I turned my head and searched for the origin but found nothing, Again, I heard it and looked closer. To my surprise, the person hailing me was none other than the girl who drove me when I was a junior in high school. To make things more bizarre, she was dressed as a bunch of grapes. A brief, uneventful conversation ensued and I cut my losses and headed home.

The solitary walk back proved to be most enlightening for processing my Lion experience. Everything about the bar was designed with one purpose in mind; casual sex. Lion is a product of the raucous, contemporary hook up culture and was designed for maximum effect. Like the Chicken Pot Pie Machine from Chicken Run, Lion delivers astounding efficiency in facilitating hook ups. The low lights obscure what it is you're grinding on. The loud music makes conversation near impossible. The constant stream of cheap alcohol keeps everybody loose. Patrons circulate in loops until finally they bump into someone with whom to "dance". The whole process repeats itself hundreds of times each night. People flock to Lion every weekend with the confidence that a hookup is less than 3 beers and 30 minutes away.

Eplilouge:

I was relaxing on a couch in my dorm, when one of the people I lost at the bar strolls down the hall, girl on his side. We make quick eye contact and he only says one word while nodding his head. "Lion".

In Defense of the MRS Candidates

Why am I in college? My answer to that question is always I am in college to gain the skills and connections necessary for future economic stability and self actualization. Keep that definition in the back of your mind.

Here in Champaign, there are a plethora of students who work their asses off in the library striving for the 4.0. Some are active members of 10+ clubs, some volunteer 20 hours a week. These dedicated young adults definitely fit into my definition of success in college. However, there is a definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Enter the MRS candidate. 

The MRS (Master of Residential Science) degree is not easy to attain and, especially in this economy, one that has a more than a bit of risk involved. First off, the buy in is steep; probably around 30,000 a year perhaps more just to go to UIUC.  The time commitment is also incredulous as MRS candidates usually are required to go out 5 times a week. The sheer amount of time spent on Green Street may cause their gpa's in unmarketable majors to plummet leaving them totally out of luck if they fail on the in the MRS program.

In addition to the great deal of risk involved, the MRS degree can be physically tolling. Most MRS candidates are required to spend at least 45 minutes on the elliptical a day and another 45 doing glute exercises. On top the the workout regimen, the incessant over consumption of cheap alcohol and screaming is thought to cause a condition known as sorority voice. 

Possibly the most challenging aspect of the MRS degree is the sense of impending failure. From day one of their freshman year these young women only have 35,040 hours to complete their degree. In the wise words of Apollo 13 Mission Control Director Gene Kranz, "Failure is not an option". Truly the sword of Damocles hangs low above the heads of MRS candidates. 

So next time you are complaining about your ECE 534 exam, remember that you don't have it so bad. 

I-Clicker Monty Hall Problem

I was sitting in my ECON 102 lecture today when the professor posed a challenging I-Clicker question to the class. After a minute and a half he glanced at the computer monitor and announced that one of the most popular answers 'A' was incorrect. After the newly displaced answers found a new choice, he again declared that choice 'C' was incorrect, and announced that we now had a 50-50 chance of getting the right answer. I knew the professor's last remark was incorrect because I am a nerd (to be expounded upon in the appendix). I correctly identified the situation as a Monty Hall Problem, as it fit almost perfectly. The host is my professor, and the class as a whole is the contestant. I quickly crunched the numbers and found that after my professor revealed two answers were wrong, I would have a 75% chance of getting it correct if I switched to 'D'. According to the graph displayed after the question, 77% of the class answered D. I am aware that the close correlation in no way implies causation, but I found it interesting none the less.




Appendix: 
In the summer going into my junior year of high school, one of the books on the mandatory reading list was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The aforementioned novel tells the story about a severely autistic boy who has an extraordinary talent for math and his struggle to deal with his troubled home life. It is a good book; I recommend you all read it. In one of the chapters, the protagonist is explaining the powers of mathematics and he identifies a mathematician, Marilyn vos Savant, who was able to make a surprising conclusion from her solution to the Monty Hall Problem. The part about me being a nerd stems from the fact that the problem itself and its solution was included in an appendix to the novel which I, of course, read. Now, the only reason I remember the book is because of an inconsequential reference to an obscure math problem. As I previously stated, I am a nerd.

Ode to the Transportation Warrior

O mystery man sporting wilderness gear

Your latest great journey has lead you here

To the 10 East Gold, heading to class

You see open spots but you decide to pass

Your backpacking boots surely don't feign

Your preparedness for the streets of Champaign

Your keys have absolutely no chance to slip

From the climbing rated carribeaner attached to your hip

As a trail tested hiker, you throw caution to the side

Neglecting to sit down or hold handles as you ride

Your concentration is unwavering, you don't dare to smile

Your power stance is taking up the whole middle aisle

We roll past Green, you've almost made it

The 10 minute bus ride, standing unaided

With a smug sense of satisfaction you glance around

Only to to find yourself lying on the ground

If you happen to be reading this well crafted ode

Next time you're on the bus, make sure to take note

The handles on the bus are for you to hold

Unless you like the floor of the 10 East Gold

Jim vs Beer Pong

Pong. Originally a frathouse novelty, it has spiralled into a global phenomenon sparking millions of YouTube Videos, and even an international tournament with a cash prize. However, if ya'll ever plan on attending a festive gathering, avoid the BP table like the plague. Here's why...

I'll start with the name. Anyone with more than 3 synapses connected can deduce the moniker 'beer pong' was conceived in such a manner.

(Basement of a frat house. Seeking amusement that involves light consumption of alcohol and competition, two bros sail into uncharted waters)
Bored College Kid 1: Bro, I'm bored and I want to drink.
Bored College Kid 2: Ditto, my man. Lets go beer bowling on this ping-pong table.
BCK1: Chyeah... Wait, we'd waste beer on the floor.
BCK2: You're totally right, lets toss these balls in the cups instead.
BCK1: Its like ping pong with Beer.
BCK2: Yeah, its like Beer Pong
Both: Sick

The name stuck despite bearing no resemblance to ping pong except for the ball. Its like calling kickball, base-soccer. (As an aside to further the baseball - bp analogy; both games are largely spent standing around and chasing out-of-play-balls).

In addition to having an absolutely terrible name, BP is a monumental waste of resources. The large tables become obstacles for guests to navigate creating unwanted congestion. The snail pace of the game and the paltry amount of participants leads to the formation of large lines of prospective players. Time and space are not the only resources inefficiently allocated. Due to the messy nature of the game, many fluid ounces of beverage are lost the the ground and table.

Lastly, pong is the biggest cop out at any gathering. It is what party goers default to when they have exhausted all other options. I can only speak for myself, but when I hit the town, I hope to meet people and spark interesting conversation. Playing pong makes these objectives untenable. The competitive nature of the game almost automatically rules out fraternizing with the other side of the table. This iron curtain prevents any communication and a hint of animosity, both or which are huge dampers on any potential good time. Think back to the best time you had going out. I doubt any part of that night involved tossing ping pong balls into red cups. Now thing of the worst night in memory. Yup, bp was definitely there.

Unfortunately, I fear too many people have eaten the beer pong lotus, and the scourge will continue to live on. But now you can use your best judgement to run like hell when you see the cups being lined up.

Homecoming

Here at the beautiful University of Illinois, the fall air is crisp with homecoming spirit. While this may be a common tradition among large, state universities, UofI's is especially well celebrated because we allegedly started the tradition. While the premise of bringing alumni back to their old stomping grounds for one day to relive the glory days seems like a great idea, I find it rather depressing.

The concept upon which homecoming is based implies these, my collegiate years, are defined to be the best years of my life. While in many circumstances this may be true and  I do enjoy my activities (both academic and extracurricular) and the people here in the 217, I sincerely hope my personal halcyon is not spent here in the corn fields of central Illinois.

Being a recreational runner, I am no stranger to jeers while jogging, but today the tailgaters who 'came home' were especially quick to notice that I was indeed exercising. I would have no problem with said taunts if they came from notable alumni such as Steve Chen, Fazlur Kahn or Nick Holonyak, but instead these poorly constructed insults came from orange-clad men with substantial beer guts. The homecoming variety is the type that whose life peaked at age 20 and since has gone downhill. In a quixotic endeavor to recapture the lost days of yore, they pilgrim once a year to the place where for four years they were the coolest guy at KAMS.

While I have no clue what the future will bring, I don't foresee an annual trip to Champaign after my graduation due to the fact I will have something actually important to do.

The Five Guys You Meet In College

Hello loyal readers,

After a 8-month hiatus, I have decided to begin blogging again in order to preserve the wonderful occurrences that may fail to live on in the litany of my stories. While nothing of consequence has occurred in a while, fear not for I will always have material upon which to rant. 

In my never-ending attempt to make sense of the world around me, I have developed a taxonomy for grouping the college age males I meet on a daily basis. I call it The Five Guys You Meet In College

First Type: The Man
When you hear the term "the man" your mind may instantly equate it to 'the guy who keeps you down' or 'the guy I stick it too', however in this case the term is used completely opposite. My interpretation of the man is the guy who you and everybody else likes spending time with.

Second Type: The Great Guy
While not quite as affable as "The Man', the 'Great Guy' is yet another type which you like hanging with. Of the five types, The Great Guy probably makes up the largest percentage of the population. Most people I run into, I would categorize ads good guys, but as soon as you get to know them, they'll probably fall into the great guy category.

Third Type: The Lovable Loser
The lovable loser is that quirky guy you can't help but like. That guy in your physics discussion who makes an offbeat joke that you find yourself laughing hysterically to. The lovable loser has a bizarre personality and enjoys making astute observations from a totally different point of view.

Fourth Type: The Boner
The boner is the guy who thinks he's the man, but in reality falls far short of his own self image. The boner can is very arrogant and expects others to worship him the the way he worships himself. The boner lives in a mentally constructed world in which he is infallible and will get very upset when you correct his egocentric worldview. The boner is very polarizing. If you are good friends with the boner, you think he is a great guy or even the man. If not, he is relegated to Urchin status.

Fifth Type: The Urchin
The Urchin is the most deplorable form of existence on the college campus. The Urchin is that guy who alternates between the Dropbox shirt, the E-Week shirt and the freshman fest shirt, The Urchin is that guy who lectures you on the dangers of Polar Bear gingivitis. The urchin is the guy who brags to you about playing a drunk round of starcraft on a Friday night.

These types are not absolute and people usually switch between them depending on the situation. However I would say that 90% of the population definitively fits into one of these five types.

Astronomy Pictures

About three weeks ago, my cs homework was to impress the TA with something 'computery'. At that time I was checking out NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site and was curious to see how much space all those pictures would take up if I were to download them. Anyway, here's my writeup.

My idea was to download all the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (apod) pictures However, I had a feeling that that would be a massive undertaking. In order to see exactly how much disk space it would take, I decided to take the first picture from each month, multiply it by 30, plot it on a graph, fit a function to it, integrate that function and I’d have a rough estimate of how much data I’d be dealing with. To access each of the web pages, I wrote a BASH script that took advantage of wget, a command line download manager.

#!/bin/bash

for ((i=1996; i<2012; i++))

do

  

    for ((j=101; j<113; j++))

    do

   for ((k=101; k<132; k++))

   do

   #k=101

       istr=${i:2:2}

       jstr=${j:1:2}

       kstr=${k:1:2}

       

       echo "http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap$istr$jstr$kstr.html" >> url2011.txt

       wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.jpg "http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap$istr$jstr$kstr.html"

       #done

done

done

If you notice, the commented out sections would be the date of the month, but I changed it to the first. (You may notice the strange variable modeling. Starting at 100 and using the last two digits was my quick and dirty was of getting the zero in front of the dates that needed it. ) After about 2 minutes of downloading, I had the first of each month in a directory labeled as that month after a little bit of bu action piped into a MatLab array, I had all the data necessary to find the total disk space required. I loaded my matrices into MatLab, plotted a graph and used the polynomial fit to turn it into a 7th order function.

Using MatLab’s polynomial integrator I was able to determine the area to be around 10 gB of memory required for all 15 years worth of pictures. However enticing that may sound, I ended up getting only the pictures from the year 2011.  To test the effectiveness of my method, I decided estimate the size of all the files in 2011 the same way. Again, I used a simple BASH script to get the file size and saved it to a matrix. Using the same technique described above, i estimated the total 2011 file size to be 512,233 kilobytes. To check, I summed the matrix to get a an actual total of 473,210 kilobytes which meant my experimental error was 7.62%, not bad.

I never ended up downloading more than the 2011 archives, but I was able to find some pretty cool images.

T Shirts Day IV

The old Brownsea staff tshirt. 

Date Obtained: June 2010

T Shirts Day III

Todays shirt is a plain grey shirt. Nothing really to say about this one
Date Obtained: July 2005

T Shirts Day II

Todays t-shirt is the majestic 'Three Wolf Moon' What better way to celebrate the first day of school than such a beautiful shirt.
Date Acquired: December 25, 2011 (A generous gift)

T-Shirts Day 1

I was moving back into my dorm, unpacking all my things when I realized that I have far too many t shirts. I came to the conclusion that the best way to see exactly how many t shirts I have is to wear a different one each day until I run out. Each day, I'll take a picture and give a little bit of history about the shirt I am wearing.

Day 1
Shirt: Bold, Italicized and Underlined Illinois.
Date Obtained: Accepted Student Day, June 6th, 2011.

Sports Night Bathroom

Good morning,


During another night of copious rest, my subconscious has again dazzled me with fantastical occurrences. This one was one continuous dream, but again unique as it featured environments from previous dreams. Here we go...

I was in the rather large gymnasium of my elementary school. Apparently it was a sports night because a bunch of random people and I were playing floor hockey. The person in charge of this scrimmage was the draconian gym coach, Mrs. Beese. Side note :(Of all the gym teachers I've ever had, Mrs. Beese was definitively the absolute worst of all of them. She threw me out of 3rd grade intramural dodgeball for 'giving her sass') Mrs. Beese was being her normal, annoying self by telling us exactly how for out of position each one of us was on each play in the floor hockey game.

After the game had ended, all of the people who were in the gym retired to the men's locker room. This was no ordinary locker room, this was quite possibly the nicest locker room in existence. This is the environment I mentioned before that has appeared in multiple dreams. When I walked in I was confronted with a wall of mahogany stalls with bronze door handles. As I followed the room further back, I turned a corner to find a wall of sinks and mirrors with a staircase leading up to another level. The stairs rose above a wardrobe that looked like a gateway to Narnia. I continued on past another bend to find a grand piano. Not just any grand piano, the most beautiful piano i had ever seen in my life. It was all plated gold with white accents and the keys were made of real ivory and ebony. The closest ting to this piano is probably the concert grand in the ballroom of the White House.

I touched my finger to middle C and instantly the most pure tone I had ever heard rang throughout the entire room. I was elated, and sat down to play more. However, as soon as I sat down, the piano and I were moved into a courtyard garden with ivy hanging from those open ceiling frames they have. I looked at the piano to find that it had been covered with things people find when cleaning up ghetto beaches. There was about a foot of sand, broken bottles, syringes, broken bricks, dead animals,cigarette butts, seaweed and a bunch of other trash covering this beautiful piano. I tried hard to clear all that clutter off and play this gorgeous instrument, but it was to no avail.

Thats all.

Fish Dreams

To My Loyal Readership,
Thanks to you, I have accumulated over 125 page views in only a week of blogging! I apologize for not posting the past few days. With finals comes less sleep, and less sleep means less dreams. I thought 'Maybe i'll post about something else' but soon realized that my life is pretty boring. But I got a solid 11 and 1/2 hours last night, so I have a dream to share.

As I mentioned in the first post (creatively titled 'First Post') the reason I've been having all these crazy dreams is because I am on the top bunk. We rebunked our beds because of a baller fish tank so the dream about fish I had last night makes it all come full circle. sorta.
<dream>
The dream started in a fish tank in my basement. Since my room mate couldn't take care of our fish, I had to baby sit them over the Christmas holiday. But there were some amazing  looking fish sitting in plastic bags over the tank. One fish looked like Gill from 'Finding Nemo' another looked like the rainbow fish they show on National Geographic. These were beautiful animals, so I decided to put them in my fish tank.

I was very pleased with these fish, and my cousins were too. Until my little cousin asked me, "Why is that big one eating all the other fish?" I looked over to see a huge grouper with the Moorish Idol in his mouth. I had no clue how the grouper got in there but I looked closer to see that there were actually too. One was blue and the other one was yellow. Both the large, hideous fish were eating all the small beautiful fish untill there were none left.

At that point, when all the other fish had been eaten, the two huge fish went after each other, biting each others mouth untill they both floated to the top dead.

Then I was backpacking through the great Northwoods of Wisconsin. A thin, windy trail lead me through the towering hardwood forest. As to looked up to admire this pristine wildernere, I took a deep breath to have the cool, clean air fill my lungs.

</dream>
Of all the dreams I've had, the first part of this last set could be the only dream where there exists an interpretation beyond 'this kid is crazy'. I thought for a bit to what that could refer. Is it the devastating impact of invasive species? Do the beautiful fish represent the small business that multinational corporations wipe out? I'm not sure, but I have some chem to study, so I'll catch all y'all later.

-Jim

The State Capitol

Greetings!

This one is on par with some of the other rather crazy dreams that have been posted before. This one is going to be the longest yet, so I might as well jump  right in.

I started on the steps of the state capitol building in beautiful Springfield, Illinois. I walked in and took a very nice elevator up to the top floor. When I arrived at the top, it was different than I remember; instead of a tall chamber culminating in a dome, each level had a floor that was shaped like a huge funnel with a small hole in the bottom. I remember thinking that I would be screwed if i were to fall through that hole, seeing as there is another identical setup on the three floors below me. Taking that into consideration, I slowly and cautiously proceeded into a white room. The floor, the ceiling and all the walls were painted a stark white. There was no furniture in this room, but there was a small slit that ran the length of the longer wall and a window looking at the train station. Curious, I walked over to see why a slit had been placed in this otherwise empty room. Upon further inspection, I realized that there was a conveyor belt that ran behind the slit and my purpose for coming to this room was to get as many things off the conveyor as possible

At this point, I wasn't alone any more. I was joined by two of my fellow conveyor-belt cleaners who were charged with the same task. As we stuck our hands into the dark slit, we were all surprised to see what we were scooping out. The damp, warm colorful material on that belt was like nothing any of us had ever felt or seen before. The closest comparison I have is multi-colored and good smelling wet Styrofoam. All of us them knew that the substance on the conveyor could have been far more disgusting, so were glad to handle this excellent goo.

We grabbed that paste of the conveyor belt for a solid five minutes before I realized that if I was to get back home, I could not miss the train at any cost. I kept on glancing out the window, to see if my train was at the dimly lit station. I glanced at my schedule a to see that the next train boarded in 5 minute, I had to get out of there, So we vacated that strange white room, and headed back into the hall, ever weary of those dangerous floor-funnels. When we reached the bottom floor, it had turned into a sports bar with very high ceilings. The ceilings were made of a whiteboard material and people were writing their names on them with yellow markers. With no time to lose I ran right out of the sports bar / State Capitol and rushed to the train station.

NOTE: this next part was weird because it was light out during this, but the rest of my dream was at night.

If you aren't as intimately familiar with the geography of downtown Springfield as I am, it would behove you to know that about a block away from the current capitol building is the 'Old State Capitol'. I rushed to that building only to find it had been turned into a shopping mall. I walked in to the Sports Authority and my olfactory glands were tickled with the scent of freshly poured PVC. Not in the need of any sporting equipment, I left that store then I came to the realization that I had missed my train.

Its nighttime again:
I ran to the station platform to see it bare. I had missed the last train of the night, I was stranded in Springfield for the night.


 Thats all.