Happy Birthday!

No, not to me, silly. To Philip Glass! It's his 75th birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Anyway, by some coincidence that is completely unrelated to the fact that it just so happens to be his birthday, his ninth symphony was released on iTunes today. I haven't actually heard it all yet (am am doing so now :) ) but it seems really good so far. Get it for yourself here.

In other news, I attended another music "concert" by... some guy. Anyway, it was sort of... well, he certainly doesn't do justice to philip glass or murray gold or anyone else I like. Anyway, at the end, he said, "I'm just going to give you something to think about. I've never done drugs, I don't smoke, and I eat healthy. And I'm 73.". And then he left. (can you guess where this "concert" might have been?) Anyway, I'm not sure what his point was. Was he implying that I shouldn't do drugs, I shouldn't smoke, I should eat healthy, and I should be seventy three? Or was he saying that if you don't want to do concerts at elementary schools, you should do drugs, you should smoke, you should eat unhealthy things, and most of all you should never be seventy-three! Or had a principal or someone like that instructed him to say that? If that's the case, then I think I have reason to worried.

Drug problems?

At an elementary school?

I mean, I can understand high school, but here?

I guess there are some pretty stupid people here who would gladly take drugs.

Also, it's 2012.

But still! I don't want to be at a school with drug problems! I don't want police to be questioning me about  whether or not I'm doing drugs! I'm innocent! Unless you count Vitamin C chewable thingies. But they are legal, they don't kill you, and some people seem to think they prevent illness. I'm not so sure! And I take 2 a day, max! I'm not a junkie! AAARGGH! Those aren't even drugs! MIG!!!!!!!

Anyway. I don't like drugs. And I believe this is the first time I've actually talked about myself in greater detail, but here is a convenient, consumable summary:

I'm in eighth grade. I am thirteen years old. And please don't try to "dumb down" for me just because I'm young, because chances are I'm smarter than you. No, just kidding. But really, I am smart. Anyway. The end. Blah! Happy january! I'm not looking forward to valentine's day!

Yeah!

I was using my iPod on "the bus" today, when I saw a Wi-fi notification pop up. I didn't get time to see it, so I went into settings, and this is what I saw:

Yes. It was HILARIOUS. Isn't that a high resolution display?

Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Right?

Okay, so you may remember that in this post, I mentioned that I wouldn't announce pageview milestones unless they were in thousands, since if I were to do hundreds, I'd need to do them every few weeks (which I don't want to). But I'm breaking that promise just once. And this sort of proves my point, because just look:

That's over 300 views in a month. Whoa. That's a LOT of milestone posts, since in this month I would already have done three. And, if you read this blog even every once in a while, you'd be tired of those pointless posts. See, I don't want to lose potential followers by making boring posts like these, or, by extension, seeming like I'm boasting about how many people have seen my blog. That's not what I intended, I just wanted to share my progress with people, but it will probably be interpreted that way. Anyway, carry on. That's all I have to say.

What's Kind Of Weird

I've always found it odd that the heart is a symbol of love. I mean, it's completely arbitrary.
if anything, the brain should be the symbol of love and emotion, since it's the organ that's actually responsible for those. And this is isn't new, since until recently the brain wasn't considered important. Did you know that when the egyptians were preserving people's organs, they'd just yank it out and throw it away, but keep the rest? But anyway, this whole "Heart = Love" thing definitely isn't based on beauty, because really, what looks better, this:

...or this?

It seems pretty obvious to me. Yecch. It actually took me a lot of courage to put that picture in a post. So, associating the brain with love is pretty stupid. I mean, it's a fancy pump! What's so special about a pump? I mean, wouldn't it be dumb if people associated normal water pumps with, like, victory or something? That would be ridiculous!

"Man, I'm gonna knock your socks off!"

"Oh yeah? Well, wait till you see my new moves!"

"Well, I swear to every drop of water in my pump that I will win this match!"

"What makes you so sure! You got a pump made of plastic!"

"What did you just say?!"

"You heard me, bro! You ain't got no pump!"

"Why, you!!!"

I mean, doesn't that sound so dumb? Well, I thought so. Anyway, that's my opinion on that.

Things To Quote #1

Um, yeah. I haven't posted for a bit longer than usual now. It's because I don't really have anything to talk about. Yet. Anyway, I've decided to start making posts where I just say a random thing that you can quote. Or don't. I don't know. Anyway, today's is:

You know, you don't know until you know. You know?

External SuperDrive

As some of you may know, I currently own an 11" MacBook Air. It's a great, portable, powerful computer, but the lack of a disk drive can (occasionally) be a bit irritating. You can sort of "borrow" someone else's disk drive, but it hogs the bandwidth on that network, and it's often laggy. But anyway, I didn't really think I'd need a disk drive much, but there have been a few times where I'm sitting somewhere, and I see a DVD I'd like to watch, but then I remember, "Oh that's right, I can't.". And then I have to go get a big heavy computer that can. But now there's a solution to that dilemma:

THE EXTERNAL SUPERDRIVE.

This thing is great. It's this tiny aluminum case, with just a small slit for the CD to go into. It can read and burn CDs and DVDs. It's actually kind of neat, because it takes in the CDs a lot faster than the one on the MacBook Pro and the iMac. The first time I put a disc in, I was quite surprised when the disc just shot in there. It reads the discs really fast, and it's quite quiet after the first little bit. It's almost as if it reads the whole entire disc in the first few minutes, then just lets you watch without noise for the rest of time. Anyway, I got one, so here are some photos of it and (for the first time on this blog, actually) my computer: (I apologize that these are rather low quality images, but I took them with my iPod under low light)

There they both are.

Now the laptop is open, and the DVD for "Naqoyqatsi" is sticking out.

And the DVD being played, flawlessly.

So, summary: Another great product from Apple. Works beautifully. The end.

Oh and by the way, just a quick message, I encourage you (whoever you are) to comment! Go ahead! It only takes 30 seconds, you don't need an account, and I want to know that these hundreds of views aren't just robots that randomly browse the internet.

Rejoice!

I just checked my email, and this message was waiting for me:

Alexander,

Wow.  We just won.

From the Associated Press:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday "in light of recent events." 

So, in other words, because of all of us.  Absolutely amazing.

Demand Progress has been fighting this legislation for more than a year -- having grown from nothing to over one million members during that period.

We rely on those members to fund our (2-person) operation -- are you able to help out?

Please click here if you're able to chip in 5, 10, or 20 bucks so we can keep on fighting for Internet freedom.

Even the Motion Picture Association's Chris Dodd is awed by what just happened.  Here's what he said yesterday:

“This is altogether a new effect,” Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing “an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically” in the last four decades, he added.

Thanks so much for your work on this.  Will you consider a donation to Demand Progress so we can keep up the fight the next time the Internet comes under attack?

Please click here if you're able to chip in 5, 10, or 20 bucks so we can keep on pushing for Internet freedom, civil rights, and civil liberties.

You're amazing.

-Demand Progress

Yeah. That's pretty good. Now for some news.

You may have heard about Apple recent announcement of iBooks 2 and iBooks author.

Well, right now, I'm porting an abridged version of the Beethovenist Bible (and the Kikiwa Theorem Wiki) into an iBooks Author Project. It's sort of like a textbook, but it has questions and stuff. If you're hoping study Beethovenism. I'm sort of thinking of it as like a companion the Beethovenist Bibbl. And actually, I think the iBook might get finished first, because in the Bibbl, there are some really long sections of narrative storytelling, whereas the textbook is pure information (mostly).