An interesting split of values -- business interests versus a certain conception of individual liberty. Another move in the game of chess.. One game or many, depending on perspective. I hope they just chop the exception for charitable groups -- I don't want the Salvation Army calling me any more than I want RandomCorp calling me.

Yesterday, in Psych class, while covering perception, there was a short video where they demonstrated certain features of selective attention. It was really interesting -- many trivial details of the film changed from shot to shot, and unless one looks specifically for the changes, they're not easily percieved. Imagine a film, where from shot to shot, each character is played by someone different, but strongly resembling the previous actor. An analogy for politics on the larger scale, or perhaps even continuity of the illusion of self.

Yeah, yahoo's gone from gaim, and for the time being, I'm using the official yahoo client for Unix. And, as I suspected all along, it really sucks. Not only is the window big, white, and ugly (a Tk app would be prettier, if you get my meaning), but it also cares about my yahoo email account. Hell, I forgot that I even had a yahoo email account, and this blasted little window pops up in the corner of my screen (the main window being on another workspace) telling me that I have X new messages. Looking through the preferences, there isn't a way to turn that off. Nice design, yahoovians. Hell, if there were an easy way to do so, I'd paypal some money to the gaim developers to get yahoo working again. And to those who are curious, I think it's different to donate money to get something you want to happen, and to support the IP system. I buy CDs and books, just like you, I just have no qualms about copying them or anything, should someone ever ask. I've been keeping an eye on the gaim IRC channel to see if/when there's news on the yahoo front.. Mhh.

Oh, turns out that I'm the one who made a mistake on the most recent homework for philosophy class -- I was looking at the homework due next week, which I stopped by the library yesterday to get the materials to do, and turned in at classtime. So, the homework actually due yesterday I didn't turn in. Oy, what a mess. How the heck did I misread the due dates for each assignment? I must have been to that page 5 or 6 times, working frantically on next week's homework, each time indexing by due date. Either the prof has been messing with it, or .. well, I just don't see how I could make that error again and again. I guess maybe the brain can be funny like that.

Yesterday was a good day for conversations. I first spoke with an ... acquaintance that I don't speak with too often, and although it wasn't a long conversation, it did bring up some interesting things for me to chew on. Hopefully for them as well. Then, at Coffee Tree, I met up with an interesting couple I sometimes see there, and we talked for about 2 hours. It was a bit odd though -- they fought a little bit, and I got profoundly uncomfortable. It reminds me of another conversation I had a few days ago with an old friend I haven't physically seen for years, on the nature of friendship and relationships. I've always been frightened by the fragility I percieve in such things, and like some other social phonomena, I just don't see how they manage to sustain themselves as much as they do. Oh, and then I saw two people walk by that I know from Zets... one of them being the person I had serious beef with for how they treated another member of Zets in a relationship. Thinking about it, maybe I overestimated how much I should judge her -- my judgement was based on information that was rather limited, on how she thinks about the whole thing, and so I really should back off and take a wait-and-see attitude again.

An old hornet that I thought I had driven off is back, and I must confess that it has me stressed.

Oh, yes, I'm *so* sure you want to hear about some more news, eh? How about this? In summary, the Israeli military is dismissing some military folk who refuse to take part in some actions they consider unjust. Let's look at this apart from the actual actions, where my opinions are probably already sufficiently clear. Should a military boot people who disobey orders because of moral convictions? There are at least two lines of reasoning here. The first is a concern for practicality -- a military where people are permitted to choose what they'll get involved in has less personell-efficiency, and requires them, perhaps if the practice becomes widespread, to ask around for people willing to do X to get it done, rather than making a topdown decision. A second, that the milfolk are voluntarily making themselves less useful to the military. A third, opposing, that not permitting such demeans the character of the military, making it into an area where people are just machines, devoid of the capability of moral choice, either driving off the folk capable of acting on their convictions (bad) or removing conviction from them (worse). I guess it really depends on how we view the military, what we consider important in it, and whether keeping good character of the milfolk is more or less important than having high efficiency. I've made it sufficiently clear that I dislike the military, from what I know of its structure. I think I likely suggest that dissent be permitted, within certain bounds, with consequences being present to discourage frivolous 'no's (pay differences or something else). But I'm not really certain on this. One thing I am sure of, though, is the attitude of "I'll do anything my country asks for, even if I think it's wrong" is one of the most disgusting personal philosophy positions I've heard outside of some of those inspired by religion.

One of the things I love about CMU ... $4 lunch at the trucks. Tasty. Speaking of which, time to go partake!