What I Learned Today

Life: Are My Friends Terrorists?

The recent bombings in Spain, originally blamed on the Basque terrorist organization ETA, got me thinking about my friends from college. I would say that, out of those I consider my closest friends, nearly a quarter of them are Basque (though all born and living in America their whole lives -- most from Idaho -- with no connections to ETA). Considering the amount of news coverage the Basques have received today, I thought I'd take it upon myself to learn a little more about their culture.

Health: I have Pompholyx Eczema

What follows is a self-diagnosis and description of a malady that has affected me since I was in high school. Some of it is graphic, and all of it is personal, so please consider this a warning before continuing on. If you do not wish to read it, please enjoy your regularly scheduled programming.

Writing: "They" is Singular?

Will Baude over at Crescat Sententia (the meaning of which will have to be a separate lesson) writes about his argument that, since Shakespeare and others used it, "they" is in fact a singular pronoun. There is a lively discussion about this very issue at Languagehat with proponents on both sides.

One of the arguments in the discussion is that one of the oft-cited writers using "they" as a singular pronoun actually uses it to emphasize his character's poor grammar. Quite interesting.

I always used "they" in place of "him/her" or "he/she" in high school and earlier due to the fear of being labelled a sexist. After reading Ayn Rand (herself a woman) and her use of "he" or "him" in every case where the person's gender is unknown, I started doing that myself. I could just as easily have chosen to use "her" or "she" as my gender-neutral pronouns, as could anyone else.

I honestly don't mind whether someone uses "they" or "he/she" or just "he" in his writing. However, my pet peeve in the "they/he/she" debate is when authors mix up "he" and "she" in alternating paragraphs (so they are not called sexist), especially when describing the same person.

UPDATE: Will, sorry for the double-ping ... I edited this post to add a link to yours.

UPDATE 2: It looks like Will's co-bloggers don't agree with his argument for using "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.

Technology: I Don't Need Tables

Like the new design? I decided to try doing what I'd done before using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) instead of tables. What's neat about CSS is that I didn't have to change anything about the site's templates, only a single stylesheet file. I'd thought about changing the design of this site for some time, but I really hadn't used stylesheets the way MovableType uses them. I'm happy with the results, and plan to keep improving on the design over the next several weeks. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to use the comments feature of this post.

Politics: My Libertarian Credentials are Obvious

Via Professor Bainbridge (who came to it via Will Baude): I scored a 48 on the Libertarian Purity Test. The test describes my score range as "31-50 points: Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on."

I can't wait until I become more extreme ... the description for the next-highest score range is "You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much," which is actually happening now.

You can see where the blogosphere scores on the test at Tim Lambert's tally.

Law: One Down, Seven to Go

I just got my first rejection letter back today. Apparently, the school received over 3,000 applications while only accepting 170 first-year law students. This school made $150,000 on applications, about $141,000 of which came from students not accepted. I'm not bitter at all ... in fact, it's given me a great idea for a business if law school doesn't work out for me.

Although, it would have been nice to get an acceptance letter before a rejection.

Law: Transactional Law Sounds Interesting

I'm not a law student yet (still waiting for those "yes" answers to my applications), but I'm constantly looking for areas of law I might find interesting. After reading Sherry Fowler's explanation of what transactional lawyers do, imagining the "worst of other people all day" sounds interesting:

"What I like about transactional law is also what I don't like about it. Your imagination gets to leap around as you read or draft something. What does this clause mean happens if X happens? If Y happens? Is that the right result? Is that good or bad for my client? Is there a different way to say it that's better for my client, but still meets the other side's needs? That part is fun -- you're imagining different outcomes, and so there's something alive in even the most apparently boring document."

How intriguing. For more of Ms. Fowler's explanation, see her post.

Technology: RSS Feeds are Neat

I've known about the use of RDF/XML for web syndication for a few months now, but I've never really used it myself. While watching a clip on TechTV today, I saw mention of Serence Klipfolio. This thing is fun, and I mean that. It allows you to grab headlines from your favorite sites/blogs and display them directly on your desktop. One thing to note: make sure you add the feed viewer so you can add your own "klips" to the program. Bonus.

Oh, and if you want to add What I Learned Today to your Klipfolio, I have an XML feed available here.

Life: Friends Rule

Never let it be said that I can't count on my friends. After giving my usual zero notice, I have a place to stay when I go back to my alma mater this weekend for some good ol' divertissement at the bars. While I may not be able to blog daily, I'll certainly have some lessons available when I get back. The trip's usually proven to be worth the drive, but I've never done it without heading back for school. I have every belief this time it will be even better than before.

Technology: Apache Is Fickle

I don't know why this happened or what the mitigating circumstances were, but my Apache web server suddenly stopped responding to normal http requests, instead popping up a "400 Bad Request" error message. All requests to port 80, the normal http port, were being redirected to port 443, the SSL (or https) port. Since the server was not configured (somehow) to accept normal http requests on port 443, it was effectively broken.

To fix the problem, I simply uninstalled Apache using the urpme utility then reinstalled using urpmi. And the best part about all this? I was able to access my Linode.com User-Mode Linux machine from Windows using OpenSSH for Windows. Fun fun.

Today's lesson: if Apache breaks, uninstalling and reinstalling is relatively painless.