So continues my yearly assessment of who I talk to the most on AIM. A new factor in this year's assessment is that I'm now using Trillian, which saves my chat logs in a different format, so it's not directly comparable to previous years. However, Trillian does allow me to include MSN conversations in my totals, although none of people I talk to through MSN made it to the top six.
Robert finally lost his long held top spot as living with him gave me little reason to IM him. Kate and Helen have also fallen out of the top six. First and second place now belong to new entrants, Veronica and Mai-Anh, Celeste has dropped to third, Kimberly reentered the list at fourth, and Joseph and Carl make up the remainder. This leaves Celeste the only person to be in the top six all three assessments. I find it funny that Joseph made the list despite the fact that he was my roommate and had no reason to IM me and I had him blocked much of last semester for previously stated reason.
The amount of my chats with my top six has once again risen to just over half of all my IM conversations. At this rate, in five years, I will only talk to six people via IM.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Recording Industry Hates its Customers
Something Awful
Pandora is an internet radio site that tries to find music listeners might enjoy based on their preferences. It recently sent an e-mail out to its international users telling them service will be cut due to licensing issues. What I don't understand is why the recording industry thinks it necessary to shutdown a site that promotes music. It's basically free advertising. Listeners can't buy the songs from Pandora and they can't play songs on demand. All Pandora does is give listeners a preview of music they may have never heard of otherwise. I wonder why it's not treated like a regular radio station.
Pandora is an internet radio site that tries to find music listeners might enjoy based on their preferences. It recently sent an e-mail out to its international users telling them service will be cut due to licensing issues. What I don't understand is why the recording industry thinks it necessary to shutdown a site that promotes music. It's basically free advertising. Listeners can't buy the songs from Pandora and they can't play songs on demand. All Pandora does is give listeners a preview of music they may have never heard of otherwise. I wonder why it's not treated like a regular radio station.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Predictions for France
I'm becoming somewhat annoyed that the list of popular baby names has not been updated yet so I can see how my predictions stand up to reality. So now I'm going to try and predict something that will be settled very soon, May 5th in fact, the French election.
The first round saw Sarkozy and Royal win, so now the second is just between them. Presumably, rightist voters will support Sarkozy and leftist voters will support Royal, that just leaves the votes from those that voted for Bayrou, the centrist candidate, up in the air. The prediction is that Bayrou supporters will split 50/50. So using this information, I predicted what the result of the French election might be.
The support of the combined right-wing parties was 43.85% in the first round.
The support of the combined left-wing parties was 36.44% in the first round.
So Bayrou supporters splitting 50/50 gives Sarkozy the presidency.
Just for fun, I made a map of what the predicted election map would be with these assumptions. Red and Pink are for Royal and Blue and Light Blue are for Sarkozy.
What I find interesting is that it is pretty much the same as the map of the first round of voting, as only in two departments did the other ten candidates act as spoilers, one of which Bayrou won in the first round. Not that it really matters as the winner is based on total votes not by how many departments are won.
Leaving some room for error, the Pink and Light Blue departments are ones that respectively favor Royal and Sarkozy by a margin of less than 5%, and could go either way. In fact it seems likely that Royal may fair better than predicted. Although Bayrou will not endorse either candidate, he has been more harsh of Sarkozy. Also Le Pen has asked his supporters, who will likely vote for Sarkozy, to abstain.
Just for fun, I made another map in which Bayrou beats Royal in the first round. The required 5% boost in support of Bayrou only gives him nine departments though. Bayrou departments are Green.
If Bayrou made it to the second round, he would very likely win as he would get most of the leftist votes in addition to those of his own supporters.
The first round saw Sarkozy and Royal win, so now the second is just between them. Presumably, rightist voters will support Sarkozy and leftist voters will support Royal, that just leaves the votes from those that voted for Bayrou, the centrist candidate, up in the air. The prediction is that Bayrou supporters will split 50/50. So using this information, I predicted what the result of the French election might be.
The support of the combined right-wing parties was 43.85% in the first round.
The support of the combined left-wing parties was 36.44% in the first round.
So Bayrou supporters splitting 50/50 gives Sarkozy the presidency.
Just for fun, I made a map of what the predicted election map would be with these assumptions. Red and Pink are for Royal and Blue and Light Blue are for Sarkozy.
What I find interesting is that it is pretty much the same as the map of the first round of voting, as only in two departments did the other ten candidates act as spoilers, one of which Bayrou won in the first round. Not that it really matters as the winner is based on total votes not by how many departments are won.
Leaving some room for error, the Pink and Light Blue departments are ones that respectively favor Royal and Sarkozy by a margin of less than 5%, and could go either way. In fact it seems likely that Royal may fair better than predicted. Although Bayrou will not endorse either candidate, he has been more harsh of Sarkozy. Also Le Pen has asked his supporters, who will likely vote for Sarkozy, to abstain.
Just for fun, I made another map in which Bayrou beats Royal in the first round. The required 5% boost in support of Bayrou only gives him nine departments though. Bayrou departments are Green.
If Bayrou made it to the second round, he would very likely win as he would get most of the leftist votes in addition to those of his own supporters.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
A Viking Funeral
The Local
The motorized viking ship that they had in Stockholm was recently destroyed in a fire. I never rode on it, but I was always entertained by its presence. I hope they build a new one.
The motorized viking ship that they had in Stockholm was recently destroyed in a fire. I never rode on it, but I was always entertained by its presence. I hope they build a new one.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Giuliani Loses my Vote
Politico
Giuliani was the last Republican candidate I would have considered voting for. Well he lost my vote when he basically said voting for the Democrats in 2008 will lead to more terrorist attacks. This is the kind of argument I expect to hear from a high school drop-out, not someone who deserves to be president. Islamic fundamentalists don't attack because they "hate freedom". Of course, if they hated freedom, maybe we should vote Republican so that the Democrats don't give us more freedom by "[cutting] back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation".
In anycase, Obama gets brownie points for his reply, "Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics. America’s mayor should know that when it comes to 9/11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure. I think we should focus on strengthening our intelligence, working with local authorities and doing all the things we haven't yet done to keep Americans safe. The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punchline of another political attack."
Giuliani was the last Republican candidate I would have considered voting for. Well he lost my vote when he basically said voting for the Democrats in 2008 will lead to more terrorist attacks. This is the kind of argument I expect to hear from a high school drop-out, not someone who deserves to be president. Islamic fundamentalists don't attack because they "hate freedom". Of course, if they hated freedom, maybe we should vote Republican so that the Democrats don't give us more freedom by "[cutting] back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation".
In anycase, Obama gets brownie points for his reply, "Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics. America’s mayor should know that when it comes to 9/11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure. I think we should focus on strengthening our intelligence, working with local authorities and doing all the things we haven't yet done to keep Americans safe. The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punchline of another political attack."
Monday, April 23, 2007
Maptastic Day
Strange Maps
It's been awhile since I've updated. I've been meaning to share this site for awhile. I think it's pretty interesting. There are not just strange maps, but maps of places from history that we never hear about.
Electoral Geography
Another fun one that I found looking up information on the recent French election. Click on "Statistics" and it takes you to a list of countries which they have information on and usually maps.
It's been awhile since I've updated. I've been meaning to share this site for awhile. I think it's pretty interesting. There are not just strange maps, but maps of places from history that we never hear about.
Electoral Geography
Another fun one that I found looking up information on the recent French election. Click on "Statistics" and it takes you to a list of countries which they have information on and usually maps.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Shanghai!
Global Cities: Shanghai
I'm going to Shanghai tomorrow! I'm going with a group of students who are doing research of some form. I'll be studying how people in China interact with the internet, online games, and the virtual economy. I should probably pack.
I'm going to Shanghai tomorrow! I'm going with a group of students who are doing research of some form. I'll be studying how people in China interact with the internet, online games, and the virtual economy. I should probably pack.
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