mccain & obama in tonight's civil forum

Well, I watched it. I usually don't pay attention to political things, but I figured that I have a responsibility to begin thinking about who I will vote for this November, and when I heard that Rick Warren would be interviewing each of the candidates I decided that that would be two hours well spent. And it was.

First of all, I really like the interview technique used. When candidates try and debate they always get all angry and competitive and so off the point. This way, they don't know what their opposition said, so they don't get all defensive. I enjoyed hearing them just talk about things and hopefully answer honestly.

Cool points to Google for indexing things so quickly! I can almost find a list of the questions asked right now. I think for the moment I'm just going to address the ones that stood out in my mind though.

How do you define what is rich for purposes of taxes?

Neither answer was perfect, but I much preferred Senator Obama's answer over McCain's. Obama gave a number ($150,000, I believe) and said anyone below that was middle class or below, and anyone above $250,000 was rich, and that the rich should be taxed more, and the poor taxed less. Senator McCain said that it doesn't matter, he wants tax cuts for everyone and wants everyone in America to be rich. He said that he does not favor redistribution of wealth.

I disagree with McCain on this point. I don't think that everyone should be rich, and I am very much in favor of redistribution of wealth. The growing gap between rich and poor is unacceptable and one way we can balance that is through taxes.

When does a baby get human rights?

From a moralistic perspective, I agree with McCain's answer: "At the moment of conception." From a holistic perspective, though, I enjoyed Obama's deliberation: how can we decrease the number of abortions? We have a pro-life president right now and still abortion stands; I doubt it will ever change just because that's what society wants, apparently. I appreciate McCain's pro-life stance but I would like to see him address the root issues like Obama did as well. You kind of have to take what you can get. It doesn't look like abortion is going to stop so you have to move forward from that and figure out how to make the best of the situation.

Is there evil and what should we do about it?

I appreciated Obama's broad view of what evil is and his humble admission that we can't conquer it, only God can. I thought McCain's view of evil was narrow; he only addressed terrorism related issues, and said we should defeat them. I'm all for defeating terrorism but I think that evil is more extensive than bin Laden et al. .

What is your definition of marriage, and would you support an amendment to the constitution defining marriage?

Both gave good, appropriate definitions for marriage: one man, one woman. I liked that Obama highlighted that it was a sacred union as well. Personally I think I support Obama's stance in not supporting a constitutional amendment and allowing for civil unions. I think McCain said he would support an amendment, which is actually probably okay too. I wish McCain would have talked about what he thought about civil unions.

Ummm...yeah, those are the ones that stood out. Overall observations:

- McCain tended to use more of a storytelling approach, while Obama used more of a "show my train of thought and how I got here" approach. I think that these are both valid means of expression but that each may appeal to different groups of people. For example, I think college kids will be a lot more open to Obama's "showing his work" than McCain's short, pat answers, while older generations may be much more comfortable with McCain's confidence and unapologetic stances.

- They both agreed that their quest for presidency is about inspiring Americans to live for something bigger than themselves. I thought that was cool.

- Both affirmed faith in Christ as being forgiven for all their sins.

Such difficult, weighty decisions.

In other news, I'm back from Alabama, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I survived, anyhow. :) I learned a bunch and I met new people and it was good. I'm home for a few days, visiting Clemson Monday-Tuesday, and back to school the following Sunday...ahhh craziness!

More later, I'm sure.

What'd YOU think about the interviews tonight?

i'm in alabama

and dealing with a variety of social issues that literally make me nauseated to think about.

This is not like me. Generally I'm outgoing and confident and can handle pretty much anything you throw at me, but a few events that have happened over the past weeks along with my momentary disposition are just not making this a good time.

pray for me. i have three more days here.

paradox

Coming back from the Y this morning I was thinking and I realized that my current reading list will soon be God's Passion for His Glory by John Piper & Jonathan Edwards, and God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. Hahah.

I really do want to read both of them. Reading them together should make it even more interesting.

Vacation was good. I read/finished four books over the past week: Pride & Prejudice, A Prayer for Owen Meany, In the Beginning Was The Command Line, and Flatland. They were all good. I would recommend each of them wholeheartedly. Other than that, I spent a lot of time being at the beach, sleeping, spending time with family, etc. We went into Charleston a couple days. I finally got to see The Dark Knight! It was good.

Since getting back I've been working on presentations for the STARS Alliance conference in Alabama in a couple days. I'm looking forward to it; it should be fun. I need to finish my presentation. I've also been catching up with a bunch of people. Friends from Virginia were visiting Charlotte on Saturday so we went to dinner and Southpark (where there was a 50 person line for the Apple store, with it being tax free weekend and all. Craziness.). Kaci and I went to Target and the Phat Burrito on Monday, Maleigh and I are supposed to be hanging out tomorrow, and I'm going to dinner with Laura Friday. It'll be good.

I ordered a MacBook. UPS says it's in Charlotte now. *taps foot impatiently*
I also bought a new camera since I broke mine, and I got a free iPod Touch with my MacBook. I have spent sooo much money this week. Oh well, all these things are investments. I'll keep and enjoy them for a long time. (Well, as long as technology can be kept and enjoyed. I guess about three years? Four or five if you're pushing it...)

K, sorry to be boring. I'm done!

vacation(?): day one

Yes, that's right. I lied to you. I said I would not have Internet until August 2 or 3 and now I am sitting here typing a blog entry.

Sorry, the truth is, whether I have Internet or not, I am ignoring all of you this week. I will not answer my phone, I will not text you back, I'm not replying to your e-mails, I'm not commenting on your Facebook photos. Nothing. This week is time for me to get away and clear my head of all the craziness that comes with having to keep up with so many people at once.

Anyhow, for your enjoyment while I'm gone, I would like to outline the first day of my vacation so far.

I was up until 1AM last night, talking to people and completing Round 1A of Google Code Jam. I didn't get through it. I solved one small set and that's it. I had a good grasp on the third problem but my math in C++ was just not precise enough to do what I needed it to. I was also kind of close on the second one, but just unable to solve it.

So, I had another opportunity. Today at noon Round 1B happened. Actually, it's not even over yet. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning and got ready to leave because we were planning to be in Charleston by noon so I could be at Panera Bread to compete in this other round. We're driving down our road (the one we live on) and Mom says, "1:00, right, Lauren?"

"Noon," I reply. We're all quiet for a minute. And then the parents erupt into panic. We go and get my GPS from my car (we're not far away from home) and for the next hour we utilize every resource we can to figure out where I can be that has wireless access by 12:00. I text about 10 of my friends looking for a friend's number who lives in Summerville, where we'll be in about 3 hours. While waiting for their responses, we're mapping, GPSsing, 1800GOOG411ing...considering crashing in hotel lobbies, trying to find Panera Breads...it's chaos. Finally my friend from Summerville texts back and tells us there's a McDonald's with wireless just outside of Summerville. I set my GPS and we drive there (we can all finally breathe).

I sign on. And then they charge me for wireless. Whatever. $3.00 for two hours, I can deal. Much better than Starbucks or something. And I sit down with CNN in the background and a screaming baby across from me and begin to figure out these problems.

After about 45 minutes of working on a problem and looking at all the problems, I have decided that I can't solve any of them. They're hard, really hard. Last night's were much easier. These are tedious and mathematical and I don't have the capacity to figure them out, not without some friends to help me out and/or more time than two hours. I can talk about them more after the time is actually over, but not now.

* sigh *

Oh well. GCJ 2009 anyone?

But seriously, from now until August 3, I am purging my brain of all things code-related. I look forward to reading books, ignoring my phone/computer, getting a suntan, and overall just getting out of the typical. It'll be fun and really good for me.

My family will be here to pick me up soon, so I'm out! Enjoy your week.

summer

Since I left Virginia Tech, my life has degraded into pretty much sitting in front of Facebook clicking refresh, refresh, refresh until something interesting shows up.

Okay, not really, but I have spent several evenings doing approximately that. Things are boring around here. In the mornings I wake up, get dressed, and go to the Y with Victoria for a bit over an hour, then I come home, take a shower, eat lunch, and attempt to figure out what to do with my afternoon. I've been catching up with family and friends some over lunch, and I've been going to Bible study on Tuesdays at UNCC. I also went to The Cheesecake Factory with UNCC people on Saturday where I ate a 1009 calorie slice of Dulce De Leche cheesecake. 1009. That's, like, 1/2 of recommended daily intake, and probably way more than half of what I generally eat in a day. Oh well. I enjoyed it. And I've been working hard at the Y.

I've practiced piano some, read a little, fixed a few computers, debugged some code for friends. I registered for the GRE and am starting to think about graduate school--I saw Dr. Hodges on Sunday and am working through scheduling a Clemson visit with him. I really think that is where I belong, but I want to consider my options carefully as well. I know there will come a point in my Ph.D. work where I wonder why I'm where I'm at, and at that point I want to be able to know for sure that I made the best decision.

I guess I just need to start calling my friends and asking them to do stuff with me. I feel a bit disconnected from all my social groups right now: school people are at home, UNCC people are busy with their program ending, I don't fit with a lot of my old church friends any more. But that's okay; I'll get it figured out.

Google Code Jam Round 1 Friday night, then leaving for the beach Saturday morning. Yay. It'll be nice to have a week away. I hope to get a lot of reading done.

I'm ready for the semester to begin. This is going to be an intense but good year :)

things I appreciate about home: the post-VT edition

Every time I come home from a new place I compile a list (even if only mentally) of things that that place made me appreciate about home. So here is the post-Newman Hall at Virgina Tech edition of that list.

- air conditioning
- a shower where I don't almost die trying to shave my legs, and I don't have to wait for 30 minutes for the water to get warm in
- carpet
- clean kitchen (ie no bugs)
- bookshelves (there was NO space for books in my room)
- living space in general
- free laundry
- there is not a construction site in our backyard that turns on equipment at 7:40 every morning
- a variety of food (ie not D2!)
- a piano downstairs
- house furniture, like sofas and stuff (I only had bed and desk)
- real closets
- a shoe rack

mmm, I love home :D

reflection on a couple things Google

1) Google Lively

Soo Been, my roommate from VT, told me about this when it launched, and I just got around to checking it out yesterday. Pretty much, it's avatar based chat. You have an avatar that you design, and then you choose rooms to go into--but they're like real rooms. They look dimensional. You can walk in them, put furniture in them, sit on the chairs. When you type, text bubbles come above your head. It grabs words out of your text to show your character's emotion (type ROFL sometime, you'll see what I mean). You can also choose to interact with other characters with actions and not only words: right click and you can kiss, kick, slap, dance with, etc. someone.

I'm not a chat-roomer. I instant message my friends and don't have time to actually "chat" with people I don't know. But, from a HCI/virtual humans/virtual environments standpoint, I think it's really interesting. Here are some observations:

- Navigation is difficult in the rooms. Click and drag to move works okay, but the mouse was just not designed for dimensionality. This is a known problem that a lot of people are working on.

- The avatars are quite, well, lively. Motions are overexaggerated, and I think that's interesting. A "haha" typed in my chat bubble made my character bend at the waist laughing for at least 10 seconds. I wonder why the creators chose to do that. So that others were less likely to miss the cue? To promote a less serious chat environment?

- There is limited choice of avatars. I had two representations of female characters to choose from (although I could customize them a good bit). I'm guessing that's because it's fairly new.

- It's amazing what proximity can communicate. In a chat room, if you sign in and observe, it's hard to follow who is talking to who. In the Lively rooms, several times, someone would say "hi" to me, and I wouldn't be sure if they were talking to me, but then they moved their avatar closer to me and turned towards me and said "hi", it was immediately evident that they were speaking to me. Cliques formed in the rooms based on where people were standing. If I was sitting apart from the group, someone usually came into my area to ask if everything was all right. People would walk up and introduce themselves a lot as well.

- There are gender differences. In every room I visited, there were many more male users than female users (judging by screennames and avatars). But when I did come in, many times the guys paid more attention to me than to the other males in the room.

- For a two-person action (dancing, kissing, handshake), the consent of the second party was not required. So, if someone chooses to kiss me, my character kisses back, whether I wanted to kiss or not. I imagine this would make for some interesting social dynamic sometimes.

- How do people respond to actions towards their character? At one point, several characters came up to me and started kicking and punching me. Of course I didn't take it too seriously, but still, I wasn't very happy to have three avatars beating me up. I walked away from where they were and sat down so that they couldn't hit me any more. I wonder how others respond. I also wonder if having the possibility for violent action will serve to encourage cyberbullying and that kind of thing.

- How do people represent themselves in their avatar? Do they more or less look like themselves, or do they choose to look totally different?

- How do people use their avatars to interact with their virtual environment? What comes intuitively to them? What do they wish they could do, but they can't? How high is immersion?

2) Google Code Jam

Well, I made it through the qualifying round for Google Code Jam. Me and about 7000 others will be fighting for $10,000, 10 lunches at Google, and a whole bunch of cool points ;)

The first problem (the one I solved to qualify) was fairly straightforward; I solved it within two hours and not working on it all of that time. The second problem was within my reach, but some of my logic is wrong and I can't figure it out. After competition, I saw Chad's code (who also qualified) and he took a much better approach. I overcomplicated things by a lot. The third problem was way over my head. I could have worked for two weeks and never solved it.

Lessons learned:
- Use good variable names. REALLY. When you're trying to work quickly you don't want to have to remember whether you were using i or j for your loop iterator. Put in the couple extra keystrokes and make something readable.
- Debug little by little.
- Make sure you understand the problem first. The second problem kept confusing me, and I wrote bad code because I was misreading it over and over again.
- Plan first. It's tempting to immediately code but it's important to draw a few pictures, write a few formulas, etc.

What's cool about this competition is that I can go download everyone else's source now. I look forward to learning from it. I doubt I'll make it through the next round on the 25th, but I'm going to try my very best!

Well, that's it for now. If you want to track my work, my screenname on Code Jam is laurenelizabeth and my Lively screenname is lcairco. So...see you around!