Winter 2013

We here at Stanford have become a generation of beardless liberals, shorn by indifference and the unfailing belief that we’re starting "conversations."

Chris Herries (http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/02/21/bravo-vegetarians/)

I always thought that liberals needed more beards. Indifference is a horrible way to shear someone.

Someone from the Stanford Daily wanted to profile students and see all of their weird eccentricities. Being a weird and eccentric person, I volunteered. The article she wrote (also in the Stanford Daily) is below. It's not exactly how I would describe myself, but I think that she was fair.

~~~

This Stanford Life No. 1: Sam King

By Renee Donovan February 20, 2013

“I think a lot of people don’t have an ethical code they live by every day. A lot of people are apathetic. They don’t know the implications of their purchase decisions.”

The Wizard of Earthsea series is heavily influenced by nonwestern philosophy, so I wasn't expecting to see an existentialist novel by Le Guin. I enjoyed it.

I was surprised when I started the book because it had a new protagonist, and Ged, from the first book, plays a more minor role.

Where the first book was about exploring identity and values, this book was more about power. The protagonist, Tenar, is made a high priestess of the nameless ones from the earth. She has dominion over her temple, but she is bound to her role and doesn't have the freedom that would come with knowledge. Much of the book was about her coming to terms with this and moving beyond it.

There was apparently a comic in the daily that showed Pope Benedict being against gay marriage (and distribution of condoms and some other things). Then, someone write an article saying that it was offensive (http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/02/15/op-ed-the-irony-is-delicious).

Note: the following advice is applicable for a general context where someone only casually cares about their security. If you have more cause to care about security than the average person (ie, you deal with confidential information or you're a journalist in an authoritarian country or the Mossad are after you), you will need to be more rigorous. I am posting this because some of my friends wonder how I keep my passwords.

I had, for a long time, believed that driving was one of the leading causes of preventable death, but a Quora post made me realize that driving kills about 30,000 people per year in the US, which is much smaller than I had thought.

I did some math (below) and found that there is about a 1 in 200 chance of the average driver dying due to driving their car.