The Frustrated Bunny

Technology. Science. Politics. Geek. Etc.

Personal / Politics / Technology

Third annual Georgia Tech Legislative Roundtable best one yet

In 2006, the Office of Policy Analysis and Research (OPAR), a small department within the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), piloted a conference that brought together researchers, businesspeople and legislators to discuss a handful of issues in the domain of science and technology that was of interest and consequence to the state of Georgia. I was among the small group of interns in OPAR that helped launch this event. The format has essentially remained the same: five or six state legislators, typically associated with Assembly leadership or S&T committees, sit on a panel moderated by a notable research professional from...

Politics / Science Fiction / Technology

Interesting links of the day

Some days I don’t have anything substantial to talk about. Ok, most days. But I still find things that are interesting. I usually share them on Twitter (and my latest tweet is always on the left side of the page), but Twitter moves fast. So today, I bring you two links that are merely coincidentally related. The Return of Clinton Futurism? The last time the Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, Gillian Anderson wore pants. There were two Star Trek series at once, which promoted women and minorities and looked at the dark side of the...

Personal / Technology

Live from GT Gamefest!

So I’m spending my evening at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building at the semesterly (?) GT Gamefest. In other words, I’m spending my Saturday night at a LAN party. I don’t actually plan on playing any games; it’s just as fun to hang out with the admins, eat the free food, drink the free caffeine, and watch other people play while checking out some pretty badass gaming rigs. It also continues to blow my mind that it’s possible to do serious gaming on laptops these days. It’s really surprising how many people brought laptops to game on. Speaking of laptops,...

Personal / Technology

Sometimes I have the worst luck…

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that the DC jack on my laptop was defective, and as a result had broken off from the mainboard just above the solder joint. It was fixable, and it is now as good as new, but upon plugging it back in, I discovered that I’d hit the double whammy of laptop power problems: the connector on the power cord was damaged and couldn’t sustain a proper connection. A bit of aluminum foil seemed to provide a sufficient fix, though I planned to order a new adapter (#3 for those keeping score at home)....

Personal / Politics

Learning my “left” from my “right”

So I just signed up for The Forum at CNN.com, made my badge, and realized that “leaning left” and “leaning right” have more to do with the respective parties’ positions rather than their traditional meanings. On Homeland Security, it seems that this disconnect was the most stark: I am shown as “leaning left,” when my reasoning behind opposing the PATRIOT Act, a border fence and warrantless wiretapping stems from strong beliefs in civil libertarianism (with a small ‘L,’ not to be confused with the Libertarian Party) and fiscal conservatism. The disconnect is also pretty strong on the issue of the...