10 Things About Me

I kind of felt like writing about something, but I had nothing to write about, so I decided to be a tool and write a 10 things about me post.

1. I tend to have negative impressions of people if they listen to excessive amounts of pop rock
2. Although some people think I'm smart, I'm really a lazy bum who spends the majority of math class playing Pokemon Emerald.
3. I wish I had more motivation to play classical piano.
4. I believe analysis of information is much more useful than acquisition of it. Therefore, I really don't care for learning languages.
5. I don't remember really liking anyone from sometime in 6th grade to the end of 9th grade.
6. As each year of seniors graduate, part of my soul wastes away.
7. Because of #6, I feel that this year is probably going to be the best of the four years of high school and senior year will be the worst.
8. Sports and anything competitive should be appreciated because of the strategy involved. Fixation on teamwork or competition can lead to a lot of frustration. A lot of my motivation to do hurdles, despite poor meet performances comes from seeing improvements in technique.
9. I believe that those who think track or cross-country runners aren't athletes should be shot on sight.
10. I am a slow writer.

The Ugly Truth

I came across this picture a while ago and realized there was a lot of truth to it. However, as a stereotype, it has a sizable "hole" where an individual of group doesn't fulfill what the stereotype predicted. This room for error ranges from stereotype to stereotype.

For example, the statement "All Americans enjoy football" has slightly more truth than a statement like "All Americans get take-out and fast food every night." Additionally, these stereotypes can be "disproved" when an individual is raised in a way that deviates from the norms of society. For example, the percentage of immigrants that enjoy football is less than the percentage of American-born citizens.

I came to understand this gap in the picture recently. A couple friends and I made a chart of various aspects of intelligence to determine who was smarter of two girls (I'm pretty sure it was way too analytical and meticulous to be mere gossip). The categories we made related to a broader intelligence, rather than the highest SAT score type intelligence. These included knowledge, analysis, awareness, intuition, social skills, neuroticism (your ability to create new rocks), agreeableness and self-management

We'd give a score of one to ten, then total it up. Then we weighted these categories so that a difference in one of them would be more pronounced. For example, multiplying the score of self-management by two for each person would give the more organized and time-efficient person a greater advantage.

At the end of this, the girls watching decided to try it out for themselves. After staring at some of the categories for a little, they decided to make their own: clothes, hair, eyes, teeth, face, personality, comfortableness around the opposite sex, cockiness and a few more. Turns out that later, they didn't finish the list. They just made matches instead.

Although, our scale was intended to measure intelligence, not attractiveness, the precision and depth of our judgment sharply contrasted with the girls'. Although, we don't exactly go around looking for girls that are very adept at creating new rocks, we aren't solely fixated on physical beauty either.

The picture gives the message that the ugly truth is that men tend to be attracted more to physical beauty while women tend to be attracted to "inner" beauty. Just from overhearing locker room conversations from track, I know that only a small amount of guys feel strongly enough about inner beauty to speak about it publicly.

All throughout history, women had been viewed as inferior to men. Eventually, marriages developed from obligatory betrothals and diplomacy to meaningful relationships. However, there are still imbalances in the way gender roles play out in relationships. Coming from a highly materialistic society that holds models and actors in egregiously high esteem, this is not a surprise. Hopefully, our attitudes and mindsets can develop to marginalize or belittle physical beauty, and thereby making the message of "the ugly truth" less veritable.

They Aren't Naked Till Their Bones Are Showing - Software Quotes Continued

How stress from AP exams affect CS students...
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campion: its a bit confusing but it makes sense to him
jason: but it doesn't work, so it doesn't make sense at all

jason: yeah down with peggle
nate: alright we get it, you have a veement hatred of peggle

jason: i think we should do a school wide survey on penis length

pranil: hey AB kids, are you guys learning stacks?
glenn: yes
pranil: then, whats a stack overflow error?
glenn: it means you fail miserably

john: huh, so taylor's on facebook in school.
victor: oh yeah, i saw your wall post. you were like, "i thought i was the only one on software who had sold their soul to facebook"
john: yeah, pretty soon he'll be taking mirror shots for his profile picture

john: jason you make me lose hope for humanity

batch: yeah, i don't want to stay after this week because i have a hefty english paper. hefty like the paper towel. you know, they pick up a lot of things

victor: i see how b works, but i don't get how a doesn't work
john: because a isn't as cool

victor: what's with south people always using facebook during school?
victor: wait, anand just posted on my wall telling me that indians like cricket as much as asians like pingpong
john: i've never heard of such stereotype before
victor: perhaps ill ask sant
sant is preoccupied playing peggle
victor: hmm, i guess i'll ask samita
john: well because samita is ostracized from the indian community, i don't think she's considered an indian
victor: well if you think about it, she's pretty much ten indians. everything she does is a characteristic of an indian intensified
john: except that no indian likes her
victor: exactly, indians by nature are isolated and quiet, so seeing as she is isolated by her own community...
john: still one person is not enough to prove a stereotype, you need more indians
victor: well like i said, samita counts as ten indians, so if she has any hint of liking cricket, we can say that indians have some inate liking of cricket.
john: but then you're assuming that ten is a sufficient test number for such a large race. the indians in india might be too poor to afford the equipment
victor: true, but we could at least prove that all indians at north like/dislike cricket becuase she makes up at least 150% of the indian population

upon reading "the indians in india might be too poor to afford the equipment"
pranil & sant: that's not true
victor: are you kidding me? slumdog millionaire?

jason: we need more sex on television; dora the explorer

jason: what's that?
john: its my submission for the Ayn Rand Fountainhead Scholarship Essay Contest. You can win $10,000.
jason: sounds like a waste of time
john: eh, samita's probably going to win it anyways
jason: she could get some good kneepad usage out of that

victor: so what were you saying about programming at school? it feels dirty?
jason: i don't remember half the shit i say

batch: are we supposed to write the answers down?
glenn: no just memorize them

campion talking about tree nodes
glenn: this is quite similar to recursion
campion: yeah tree nodes and recursion love each other, they're like married
glenn: they should get a divorce

jason: shut the fuck up about tits

campion talking about processing
glenn: ill process you
...
glenn: yes aviv?
aviv: is that a pick-up line?
glenn: no its a threat

campion: so blow up your ballons about this big
aviv: yes sant, about the size of a peggle peg

jason: maybe you should have chairs, with vaginas on them
john: how would you sit on them?
jason: you wouldn't. but we'd still call them chairs

campion: andrew why are you always moving?
aviv: he's a dynamic programmer

jason: they aren't naked until their bones are showing

sant: how do you draw a circle?
aviv: are you kidding me? g dot drawoval
sant: what are the parameters?
aviv: x position, y position length and height
sant: i can't make a perfect circle?
aviv: make length and height equal, throw yourself out a window
mike: whats a circle?