Month: December 2006

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Merry Christmas

Well, it’s been a long two weeks, yo… Quick recap:

a). I took a 5.5 hour final two weeks ago. I found out this week that we all passed. Therefore, I don’t have to take it again in a few weeks… 😛 Therefore, I don’t have class until January 29th and I’ll be trying to get some work done in the lab while I don’t have studying to deal with…

b). We are almost moved in to our new place in Soulard (just south of downtown St. Louis) and we’re very excited about it! There are plenty of restaurants/bars in the area, we have much more room now, and we have a washer/dryer so we don’t have to go through quarters nearly as quickly. Our lease is up at the old place on the 31st, so we’re just trying to get things cleaned up over there, but almost everything is out. Anyway, come visit sometime… For New Years’ Eve, perhaps? We’ll have pics up of the new place once we get everything settled in their proper places…it’s still kinda a mess right now, but we’re making it…

c). Arie, Jeff and I went to Jason Mallory’s wedding in Louisville, KY over the past few days. Check out a few pictures here.

d). I’m planning on chilling in Columbia this week between Wednesday and Friday. If you’re around, gimme a call (although, my cell phone has been acting up recently, so be patient if you don’t get through…).

I guess that’s about it. Anyway, it’s been nuts for the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to a break soon, yo…

Regardless, merry Christmas and happy New Year…or whatever you celebrate this time of year!

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Don’t hold your breath…

…but keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer for me.  I’m hopefully closer to a good change than I’ve been so far (as long as my assumption that mentally handicapped people are easier to deal with than delinquents!).  Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

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Don't hold your breath…

…but keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer for me.  I’m hopefully closer to a good change than I’ve been so far (as long as my assumption that mentally handicapped people are easier to deal with than delinquents!).  Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

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Well, that was interesting…

So, the few of you who check this blog occasionally may have noticed that it wasn’t there for a few days… Here’s the story:

I had Xgl/Compiz installed on my Linux box. When it’s running, it gives Unreal Tournament 2k4 graphics problems, so I decided to remove it. While removing it, I ran into various issues such that I figured it’d just be easier to reinstall Linux, instead of fight with the removal of the program… So, I back up the WordPress database(s) to my laptop, move over the pertinent files to a different hard drive on my desktop, and begin the format. No big deal. Done it many times before.

I walk out to the living room and look at my laptop. It has lovely colored bars running up and down the screen. This isn’t normal, of course… It actually happened earlier in the day, again while I wasn’t looking at it and not really doing anything…but earlier, it restarted and worked fine…this time, not so much… I don’t know if the screen saver somehow triggered the problem (unlikely…) or what, but it went nuts…

Anyway, I tried turning it off and on…no help…  It wouldn’t even show the BIOS screen, let alone get to Windows… I tried plugging it in to my desktop’s monitor to see if it’s just the laptop LCD. No dice. Soooooooooooo…that didn’t sound good…and to make matters worse, some of my music library wasn’t backed up to my Linux box (the music from iTunes) and the most recent WordPress databases for the website(s) were on it as well. Not cool.

So, I pull the hard drive out of the laptop, only to find that it doesn’t have a standard IDE connection…thus, I can’t just open ‘er up on the Linux box and pull files off. Thankfully, there are adaptors that exist to convert a 2.5″ laptop hard drive to a 3.5″ desktop hard drive. I ordered one from Newegg, got it working, and pulled the files off. (Note: that also rules out the hard drive as being a problem for the laptop).

Soooooooooooooooooooooo, to make a long story short(er), the laptop has some issues but I’ve got all the data off of it and my desktop works just fine. Thankfully, the laptop still has a year left on its warranty (w00t!), so I’m going to take it by a repair place tomorrow and will hopefully have it back by Christmas. If it isn’t the LCD screen and isn’t the hard drive, then I’m afraid the problem lies somewhere on the motherboard…and that could take awhile to fix…who knows…

At least it’s under warranty…  If you’re in the market for a laptop that’s worth anywhere near $1000, please get a warranty!!!  It’s worth it!!

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Who exactly is “rich?”

So, a study was released today from the U.N. and mentioned on plenty of different news sites, but the Bloomberg article brought something a little more interesting to my attention. Essentially, the study says that the richest 1% of the world’s adult population comprise 40% of all global wealth. I mean, that alone is pretty nuts, but further on in the article, they get a bit more specific…

Apparently, if you have $61,000 in assets, you’re in the top 10%. That’s not $61,000/yr…that’s assets…so if you own a house, chances are that you’re in the top 10% of all global wealth. These figures come from the fact that the average adult wealth in the U.S. is $144,000, while in places like India, it’s $1000.

Now, my man, Ben, made a similar point on his blog a few days ago, and I’ll reiterate: what exactly does this mean? I mean, isn’t it rather depressing that owning a house means you’re richer than 90% of the world’s population? Billions of people? Can anything be done, or will the rich keep getting richer and the poor continue to get poorer?

I guess we should all just keep stuff like this in mind as we head through the Christmas season… As you think about financial gifts you give to the needy, realize just how good you have it compared with 5.4 billion other people…

Posted on

Who exactly is "rich?"

So, a study was released today from the U.N. and mentioned on plenty of different news sites, but the Bloomberg article brought something a little more interesting to my attention. Essentially, the study says that the richest 1% of the world’s adult population comprise 40% of all global wealth. I mean, that alone is pretty nuts, but further on in the article, they get a bit more specific…

Apparently, if you have $61,000 in assets, you’re in the top 10%. That’s not $61,000/yr…that’s assets…so if you own a house, chances are that you’re in the top 10% of all global wealth. These figures come from the fact that the average adult wealth in the U.S. is $144,000, while in places like India, it’s $1000.

Now, my man, Ben, made a similar point on his blog a few days ago, and I’ll reiterate: what exactly does this mean? I mean, isn’t it rather depressing that owning a house means you’re richer than 90% of the world’s population? Billions of people? Can anything be done, or will the rich keep getting richer and the poor continue to get poorer?

I guess we should all just keep stuff like this in mind as we head through the Christmas season… As you think about financial gifts you give to the needy, realize just how good you have it compared with 5.4 billion other people…

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Al…most…there…

So, I had my last regular exam of the semester today, and I think it went pretty well… That makes 6 exams I’ve completed this semester (and about a million flash cards)… Regardless, I’m done with classes until January 29th (w00t!) and I have a comprehensive final on December 14th. That test is an attempt to get us “thinking integratively” so that we don’t separate each physiological system and think of them from a “whole body” approach. In particular, it’s because we get a preliminary thesis proposal in about a year when we’re given integrative questions, to make sure we know all that there is to know about physiology. Anyway, I can’t decide if this test will be hard or not, ’cause I’ve done relatively well all semester. It’s just that we haven’t had that much practice on such things this semester. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt much.

Otherwise, Brooke and I are preparing to move to Soulard (neighborhood in the City of St. Louis) from our current apartment. For nearly the same amount we’re paying now, we’ll have two floors (plus basement storage), a washer/dryer in the apartment, a much larger deck (on the roof), a wood stove, and within walking distance of bars and restaurants in the Soulard area. The only real downside is that it’ll be on-street parking, so getting out in the winter will be a bit harder. Oh well! Anyway, our lease starts on Dec. 15th, so we’ll have until the end of December to move everything over…

Other than that, life is good… We’re hoping to publish a paper including the research I’ve been doing for the past 9 months, so I’m going to use the month of January (sans classes…) to get some work done. It won’t be too busy, but it’s still rather daunting to take care of the volume of data I’ll be accumulating, let alone what I’ve already accumulated…

Such is life…