Assorted Afflatuses

While I object to the principle of standardized testing, as it can never provide a truly accurate gauge of one's aptitude or knowledge, it is no secret that to gain acceptance at virtually any college, one must take several of these tests. So, to prepare myself for the SAT Subject tests, I disbursed twenty-some odd dollars to the College Board for a copy of Real SAT Subject Tests. According to the College Board, this book contains actual, released tests, which the organization administered at one point or another.

However, after taking one of the practice tests and then proceeding to take an actual test, I discovered that the book did not accurately reflect the true nature of the current exams. All told, there was a discrepancy of about 200 points between my practice test score and actual test score.

I figured that must have been a serendipitous occurrence. So, after taking the practice World History test (and doing quite well), I bought a copy of Kaplan's SAT Subject Test World History 2006-2007 edition to make absolutely sure that I had a reasonable chance at success when I took the actual test.

After scoring the first twenty questions of the Kaplan book's "Diagnostic Test," I discovered that I had missed about half of them - not exactly stellar. For instance, compare question 19 on Kaplan's diagnostic test with question 19 from Real SAT Subject Tests.

Kaplan:

19) Lingusts would be most apt to trace all of the following EXCEPT:

a) the route of Manila galleons
b) Indo-European migrations
c) the Bantu migrations
d) the path of the Malay sailors
e) Phoenician trade connections

Real SAT Subject Tests:

19) All of the following helped make possible the establishment of European colonies in Africa EXCEPT:

a) the steamship
b) quinine
c) chemical defoliants
d) the telegraph
e) the railroad

(Works cited after the discontinuation)

Whereas I struggled with question 19 from the Kaplan book, eventually answering it incorrectly, I instantly answered question 19 from the Real SAT Subject Tests book correctly.

This has led me to believe that either the Real SAT Subject Test book has absolutely no value whatsoever, or my Math II score was an anomaly and the Kaplan book provides a skewed interpretation of the World History test. I tend to believe the former.

After all of my whining, moaning and yelling, I have taken the plunge and listed my trusty old PowerBook on eBay. I hesitate to give my old computer a pet name now simply for the purposes of this blog entry, as characters in movies tend to have more problems parting with named organisms.

With my old computer on the auction block, I intend to buy myself a lustrous new MacBook Pro complete with 15" widescreen, 2 GHz Core Duo processor, and at least 1 gigabyte of memory. Hopefully, my new number cruncher will run Photoshop and Dreamweaver at reasonable speeds while I wait most impatiently for Adobe to release Universal versions of said software products. (Did you hear that Bruce?) Granted, other than those two applications, all of my other applications will speed along as Universal binaries.

Obligatory unpacking photos should appear on my flickr picks page and in my flickr photostream once I buy and receive my dandy new computer.

It must have been opposite day on 10 August, when British anti-terrorism officials foiled a major terrorist operation. No other path of logic could possibly have led authorities to the conclusion that they needed to ban all liquids from hand baggage in the United States, and hand baggage altogether in the United Kingdom. The successful aversion of a terrorist plot seems more a confirmation that security levels prior to 10 August were sufficient, rather than a harbinger of coming disaster. After all, the pre-10 August level of security managed to avert disaster. Unlike previous (and successful) conspiracies - where later investigations demonstrated that improved passenger screening may have precluded disaster - authorities in England would still have stopped this latest plot from taking place if air travelers could still bring hand baggage on board the aircraft.

The new restrictions on air travel merely serve to benefit pharmaceutical corporations, who can now broker deals with airlines to sell overpriced lotions and lip balm on board the aircraft for those passengers who parted with their skin-care products at the security checkpoint. Perhaps this explains the airlines surprising lack of complaint over the new security measures. With musicians and businesspeople forced to find alternatives to air travel due to the restrictions on their hand baggage, one would expect the struggling airline industry to make more of a fuss about the potential loss of a major revenue source.

Furthermore, from my experience at the airport shortly after the Department of Homeland Security put the new restrictions on gels and liquids in place, the implementation of the new measures will not, in any way, prevent a determined person from bringing liquids on board. Aside from random baggage checks at the gate, which probably screen less than 10% of passengers, other passengers could easily bring liquids onto the plane.

Opposite day is such fun.

The visually unpleasant nature of my website, which persisted until today, bothered me so much that I decided to take it upon myself to improve the aesthetics of my website at whatever cost. So, after struggling with my poor computer, I managed to crank out the rather lovely piece of work now on display. Hopefully, it looks better than the rather drab default template.

This new design is still in its infancy, so many more changes will doubtlessly take place in the coming days as I continue to tweak the design. However, due to the decaying nature of my computer, most of the other pages, in addition to the other portions of Kibeland, will have to wait until I swap hardware.

My upgrade to MovableType 3.3 has also allowed me to add tagging (as popularized by flickr) to my humble blog. Armed with this nifty new nugget and some clever logic on my part, the tagging system not only allows for a listing of the most popular subjects on my blog, but also provides a visual representation of the subjects' popularity. At the moment, the tags box (on the right of every page) is sparsely populated, and does not provide a terribly accurate visual representation of subjects' popularity. However, as I continue to both write and tag, this should become much more accurate and prove a useful tool.

As I mentioned earlier, I have recently begun to freshen up my website after my somewhat inept (or perhaps communication impaired) web hosting company finally managed to rehabilitate my website. However, now it appears that my computer would like to hinder my efforts as well. My lovely twelve inch Apple PowerBook has served me quite venerably in the last two and half years, but it has reached the end of its illustrious life, so far as I am concerned. It now strains to perform even the simplest task, making the notion of using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Safari simultaneously seem quite laughable.

If all goes according to plan, I will replace my PowerBook with either a charming new MacBook or MacBook Pro in the coming weeks. At the moment, the fate of my eBay auctions predicate my decision, though I may buy a MacBook simply because of its smaller size. I had intended to buy a MacPro, but as my PowerBook does not seem to function in any reasonable capacity, replacing my laptop seems a much more prudent course of action.

Once again, please excuse the mildly unattractive nature of my website at the moment.

After a long hard month of waiting, my website finally functions again! Unfortunately, this fresh installation of MovableType has left me with a rather bland looking default template, which I hope to have replaced in a few days time. In the mean time, feel free to peruse the vast library of archived blog entries which I have restored.

Oh, and do not forget to examine my flickr photostream at flickr.com/photos/jkibe/.