El Fin Del Internet

This morning as I was driving up Central Expwy, I saw a large plume of smoke. Luckily it was just past my exit so I was already getting off the completely shut down highway. I pulled over into a parking lot and snapped a couple of pictures. From what I heard after sending my picture to the guys over at D Magazine, it was a UPS truck that went up in flames. Not good.

I’m not sure if this show is only available online, mostly because I didn’t take the time to find out. It got my attention because I love architecture. I actually did two years of architecture school at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Architecture. I loved it. Why did I quit? A few reasons, but not the most common. School was hard, but it was great fun because I loved the work.

One reason for my changing majors is well articulated by “Amarit” in the first few minutes of the video. People that are architects tell him to “get out of the game while you can”. Teachers tell them “not to expect to make any money.” That is pretty true. To get a degree at UTA, you had to complete a Master’s degree (something I never wanted to do…who knew what would one day happen with that). After you get the degrees, you have to do a 3 year internship. After that, you may sit for your licensing exam, which you have a 28% chance of passing on the first try.

After 9 years of training and testing, you will go to work making about the same thing as a teacher. In fact, at one firm I worked in, architects who had been there 20 years were making $65k - $70k. Not too bad, but not what most people think architects make. Now, if you make partner in a big firm, or own your own place that becomes very successful, yeah you can make a lot of money. But those people are the exception, not the rule.

Architecture School is about a group of students at Tulane University who are given a design project. They must create a design to enter into the contest at Tulane. The chosen design is then built by the STUDENTS at the architecture school. Another cool element is that the house is to be a prototype for affordable housing. For those of you that have the time, or interest, go to Hulu and watch the show. Good stuff. I hope there are more episodes.

This is the first year of what has been referred to as the Dallas ISD’s new “fog-a-mirror” grading policy. Basically, if you can “fog a mirror”, you pass. I have read the initial and follow up stories about the controversial grading policies, and for the most part, I think it is a plan to dumb-down academics. Like we need that. Why dumb it down? Well, because of how Texas’ scores rank in the US. For instance:

Texas is #49 in verbal SAT scores in the nation (493) and #46 in average math SAT scores (502). Texas is #36 in the nation in high school graduation rates (68%). Source

Seniors at Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas apparently get to paint their parking spots in the senior lot. Great idea, but I wonder how long the spot below will exist.

See the DISD logo on the left, then scroll down.

I enjoy reading the Fail Blog. I guess my childish sense of humor allows me to enjoy more than most I attempt to share it with, so I giggle to myself and move on. But this was too strange to let it pass.

I guess this is some kind of storage drain in the middle of a highway. Not sure what would cause this, but WOW! And I hope that is not the dirtiest of sewage. Please be storm water only…

Recently, the church I attend had a couple of laptops stolen. Last year, a teacher’s laptop at my wife’s school turned up missing. A coworker of mine had her SUV broken into and two laptops were stolen last month. This is a common occurrence. My wife and I both have laptops, and mine travels with me to work most days, so I worry about it being stolen or disappearing. I recently came across a program that will help you (meaning the authorities) recover your laptop should it ever be stolen.

I looked at Lojack for Laptops years ago but decided I didn’t really want to pay the $40 to $70 per year that the service costs. I had also heard that this type of software allows the company to track where your laptop has been, even when YOU still have it. Not that I would really worry about my privacy, but it still didn’t thrill me. And I know some people that would totally freak out that they might be tracked by “the Man”.

Adeona is a program developed by the University of Washington school of Computer Science and Engineering. According to the product description on their website:

Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner’s choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop.

With Adeona, only you (or someone you specify) can track the location of your laptop. And if you are using the software with Mac OS X, the laptop camera can be turned on to capture pictures of whoever is using the laptop (this works, I know someone who has used it to find their laptop!).