When rumors started flying around the internet that companies like Google and Facebook were considering a coordinated blackout to protest SOPA and PIPA, I eagerly hoped for a complete takedown of the sites. That hasn’t happened to nearly the degree I wanted, and I fear it won’t be enough to make the point. However, some…
Author: Lena
Tangled, Part 1
I didn’t get around to watching Disney’s Tangled until a few days ago. Though I missed it in theaters, it came up in a Facebook discussion about Pixar’s upcoming Brave. Reminded of it, I got my hands on it and watched it. Watching the movie, I found myself conflicted. The parts I liked I really liked. The parts…
Letter to my Representatives Regarding SOPA
In spite of being busy this morning, I took time to write letters to all of my representatives in the House and the Senate to ask them not to support SOPA. While I’m a little ashamed to admit this, I’m having trouble figuring out which side of Congress has the bill in its hands, so…
New PlayStation Network TOS
I got an e-mail from Sony today. They’re changing how PlayStation Network (PSN) is managed, and with it they’re changing the Terms of Service. The e-mail included a link to a PDF of the new TOS for my perusal. They were nice enough to make all the changes obvious. All changes are in red lettering…
What I’ve Been Up To
The following is copy-pasted from a post I just made on the NerdFitness forums. It pretty much sums up how things have been for me for the past couple of months. I dunno how many of you went, “Hmm… WTF happened to Crowbeak?” after I dropped off the radar, but I just wanted to let…
The Area of a Japanese Circle
The formula for the area of a circle is pi times the square of its radius. The Japanese government has evacuated an area around the Fukushima power plants with a radius of 40km, or 5,024km sq. Right after the power plants went critical, the US government strongly recommended (at around 3 AM) that any of…
Graduated
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t updated in a while. Plans to post papers I was writing during the school year kinda fell flat. I still may post them here later. For now, I’d like to talk a bit about the school year and having graduated. Last summer, when I decided to go back…
Airplanes and Construction Equipment
Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any…
The Molted Cicada
This was written for one of my classes this semester. The class is titled Women’s Voices in Japanese Literature. The assignment was to compare/contrast two poems from The Tale of Genji, one of the staples of classic Japanese literature. There are many tanka poems in The Tale of Genji. These short poems, each consisting of…
The MacEpic Legacy: Movin’ Up
It’s been a while since I played The Sims 3, and a while since the MacEpic family got any love. I’ve played since my last update, though I didn’t report on what happened. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but here are the basics. I went ahead and had Frederick and Elisabeth have another child….