blog.Xumo

finals week can be summed up as such



edit: first posted video was removed by youtube.

Yesterday I wanted to buy a coconut from Ralph’s. Although Von’s (aka safeway) has sentimental value to me due to my close proximity to one back in norcal, I much prefer Ralph’s to Von’s after they put in those robot cashiers. No more waiting in lines of 20+ people at that outdated Von’s. The future is now.

However, the future failed me yesterday. All i wanted was to buy a coconut, and with coconut in hand, my target acquired and mission almost accomplished, i stroll to the checkout stations all content. for some reason, all of san diego wanted to do their grocery shopping yesterday, and lines (at least 20 ppl per line with 4 lanes open) of people were piled up along each of the registers. “Ha,” i said to myself as i continued towards the checkout machines of the future. 4 of the 6 machines were out of commission and like the boring registers, and there was a massive line (if not longer than the registers) for the self checkout. Disappointed, i put my coconut back and walked out of the store.

I then went to CVS and bought an arizona green tea. All was well.

Black friday shopping is a pretty good representation of what the socal-norcal drive is like on a holiday.

I don’t know too much about how exactly the economy works, but I really hope that the people working on it do. Similarly, I don’t know too much about Java on Macs, but I hope the people working on it do.

Java running so darn slow on my Powerbook vs. Economic recession:
I don’t really know about the infrastructure of the (technology/economy), or if the problem is even something that can be fixed. What I DO know, however, is that I think that this is a faulty and inefficient process that I would like fixed, regardless of its possibilities.
Perhaps running slow is better than it not running at all? But that seems like such a retroactive way to look at it.

My point here isn’t really that things are pretty bad right now. It’s that usually when there is a problem, someone is trying really hard to fix that problem- except in the case of my powerbook, I think people have long abandoned improving such an ‘archaic’ system.
Maybe that’s whats wrong with the economy? It’s a 586 running in a dual core world (or is it quad core now?).

As I sit at home munching on Cocoa Puffs, preparing for a long night due to that exam, that project, or that paper, I hope that some guy in congress (or wall street, detroit, the finance industry, etc..) is losing sleep trying to some up with a solution to fix the problem.
I also wonder what they are munching on.

I find it very ironic that California passed Prop 2 but failed to shoot down Prop 8. I mean, fine, the treatment of farm animals might not be so great, but I mean seriously…
Here is an argument from yesonprop2.com: “We wouldn’t force our pets to live in filthy, cramped cages for their whole lives, and we shouldn’t force farm animals to endure such misery. ”
True story… but I wouldn’t eat my pet either.
Another point made is that “Prop 2 provides ample time—until 2015—for factory farms using these severe confinement methods to shift to more humane practices.”
Okay, great, so nothing changes until 2015, 7 years from now. The animals are still going to be treated the same until the last possible minute, while California just denied rights to human beings.
Talk about ‘inhumane’ and ‘cruel’… first of all, animals aren’t humans… secondly, humans happen to be. And the passage of Prop 8 is what I consider ‘cruel’ and ‘inhumane’. We are a society that is willing to deny rights to human beings while we sit around and complain about the comfort of our food. I’m not saying that animals should be treated poorly, I’m just saying that, at least, people deserve the consideration that is given to my dinner.