Zhanga: April 2006

Entries have their own pages now. Click the date to see the entry by itself with its comments.

Sunday, April 30, 2006 (0 comments)

I'm coming home Wednesday or Thursday next week probably. My last final is on Wednesday, and that final will be the moment of truth: can I effectively write computer programs with a hangover? After that I'll be coming home, so I hope that EC has become a very exciting, not boring-to-death place in the past few months.

Originally I was going to stick around for two weeks and go to California for an internship around May 20, but UPS posted some Atlanta jobs about two weeks ago so I might not leave. But I have to get hired... I've already been rejected from a bunch of other internships. If I get the UPS one I'll probably stay in Atlanta the whole summer, otherwise I'm going to Cali.

The only reason I'm not sleeping right now is because I remembered that I haven't posted here for a week and something. But wow, I have nothing at all to say and this is the boringest entry in two months. I think it's because the past few days I've been doing work nonstop, as in two big papers due Monday. One is worth half my grade in one class and the other is worth a quarter in another class. And the next two days are going to be pure econ studying.

My mom finally mentioned the lacrosse incident yesterday when she called me. She asked me, wei, what is going on at your school? I told her some psycho bitch decided to throw stupid accusations around as a result of an unstable mental state. Wait, that sounds a lot like Marie ("Bertha" from April 10th) doesn't it?

3:16AM

Saturday, April 22, 2006 (8 comments)

Some noob turned in a lab two weeks late and expected to get credit for it. I told him we only take stuff up to a week late which is already plenty generous, but apparently he complained to the professor or something because I got an email telling me to regrade it and just take off two points for lateness. Well, ok. There's a rubric, so the guy originally had a 0/5 for turning stuff in too late. After regrading, he ended up with a -1/5. Lost 2 points for being late, and 4 more points for bad code and random stuff. Sucker. I love being a computer science TA.

I find humor in the work that some of the students do. Today I was trying to help this guy who had four nested for loops. That's a loop in a loop in a loop in a loop. I know, it makes lots of sense to me too. Anyways, within each of these loops, there were great variable names: temp, current, current2, current3, current4, keys, keyKids, ... ughhh. It turns out that current represents a parent, current2 represents a grandparent, current3... ughhh.

"What did I do wrong?"
Uh, you started programming?

I hate it when morons write retarded stuff like this, because I feel bad when I tell them to start over. They never want to give up the precious but moronic code that they've written. But if I don't tell them to start over, I have to try to understand the lack of logic that they've managed to create. Which is often near impossible. And to top it all off, I can't just say "your code makes no sense" because it makes me look like an incompetent idiot.

Speaking of incompetent idiot, the grad TA is some poser Indian guy. I don't remember if I've talked about him before, but anyways, he's a fake Indian. He is always so clueless, which in a bottom-level CS class can't be explained if he were a real Indian. One guy in the class came to my last couple of help hours and just talked about how stupid the grad TA is. It's funny to watch the fake Indian in class. Some of the students have gotten the idea that he is completely worthless, and they don't raise their hands if he is near in hopes that someone more competent will walk nearer.

By the way, I know this makes me sound like your typical douchebag TA who eats A's and sometimes B's for lunch, but I think I'm pretty nice to everyone. Besides, I can speak English more or less properly, which apparently isn't very common among TA's. Now that I think about it, I wonder how many people in that class thought I was just another Asian fob...

And speaking of Indians, I just heard my roommate say that he would "take a reasonable amount of penis in the ass" if he ever went to jail. Great. He's going to be my roommate next year too. Where do I get emergency housing change request forms?

He just came and read my screen but I don't think he read this part. Whew for now, until he gets bored on Monday in art history or whatever that worthless class is and reads this.

5:43AM

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 (1 comment)

I've been reading about lacrosse every single day now, and it's always taking up about 2/3 of the school paper. I'm getting really sick of even hearing about it. So one last post about it and then no more until something interesting happens.

A lot of you probably know that two Duke lacrosse players were indicted, arrested, and charged with some pretty serious stuff. This all happened last night and news of the arrests only came out this morning. I was in CS and looked over my shoulder -- bam, two large, fantastic mug shots of Duke guys on the front page of CNN.com. Seriously, they somehow managed to take pictures that made them look like your typical serial rapist/serial murderer. Everybody's going to want to come to Duke now.

So Mike Nifong is having fun again. I guess he really isn't going to give up. Well, I hope the jury comes to the right verdict. I also hope he gets un-barred or de-barred or barred from the bar or whatever it's called. Apparently, lawyers are taught to not try cases in the media (whoops!), and the NC State Bar's Rules of Professional Conduct say that the prosecutor (Nifong) isn't allowed to say anything that might sway public opinion unless they "serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose." Whoops again. It doesn't sound like Nifong violated that at all, especially not with his public statement of being "convinced" there was a rape. Another interesting thing that cropped up... Durham police entered a dorm without a warrant to question lacrosse players. That has to be some sort of violation.

Mike Nifong and his underlings are one giant collective asshole. They deserve to be sexually assaulted repeatedly by a penis the size of Mars. (I really hope my sister doesn't ever find this and wonder why I am having homosexual fantasies about Mike Nifong and his underlings.)

Yesterday there was a really funny article on the front page of The Chronicle. It wasn't supposed to be funny, but... it was. The title was "Rowdy behavior typical of lax players" and it went on to talk about how they are very disruptive. Apparently, the Duke men's lacrosse team consumes alcohol on weekends and at events such as tailgate. God forbid! Apparently, they have always been a very "visible" social group on campus. Let's think about that again... how could one of the best lacrosse teams in the nation not be visible on campus? But my favorite part of the article, by far, was its third paragraph:

Players frequently walk around with girls -- sometimes called 'lacrosstitutes' by their peers -- in tow and proudly display the Duke Lacrosse name on their chests. Most players come from wealthy Northeast and Mid-Atlantic suburbs where the bond fostered by the sport begins early.

First of all, a paragraph is supposed to contain related ideas, which this clearly does not. But let's look beyond that and begin by examining the first sentence, the one about lacrosstitutes. First, I need to assure you that this is not taken out of context. Nowhere else in the article are lacrosstitutes explicitly or implicitly mentioned, and it doesn't talk about girls and the lacrosse team anywhere else either. So... why did they even write that? Lacrosse players walk around with girls? OH NOES!!!!! teh world is going to end!!!111111

Apparently they also proudly display the Duke Lacrosse name on their chests. Well now, if you were on the team wouldn't you? They were a competitor for the national title! That means they were ranked like Duke's basketball team, except in a lesser-watched sport. What's wrong with being proud of that? I would start worrying if they weren't proud.

Is the second sentence, about where they are from, really necessary? If "the bond fostered by the sport begins early," then wouldn't it be natural that they are good at the sport? Why is it relevant at all that they come from wealthy neighborhoods? If a poor boy begins playing the sport when he's four, then why can't he be good at the sport too? I think we've all already heard enough of the rich white Duke, poor black Durham crap. Why does Duke's own newspaper put this kind of subtle but obnoxious spin on things?

5:42PM

Thursday, April 13, 2006 (5 comments)

I know I'm sarcastic a lot and I tell a lot of stories that are completely untrue, but the last two posts have been completely factual except for the names "Andy," "Bertha," and "Chris." Beyond the fictitious names, though, they're real people who live in my dorm. Also, the part where I suggested that I should become Christian, well, I wasn't serious about that in case you thought that the lacrosse thing has actually fried my brain to that extent.

I don't have much to say right now, since the lacrosse thing is looking somewhat better. Nifong has shut up. He did a lot of interviews early on in the case, but according to The Chronicle, he stopped speaking directly to the media some time ago. The paper isn't clear on when he stopped, but Nifong basically hasn't said anything since declaring that he wasn't going to release the DNA results. I think it is now clear why he chose not to. Actually, remember two posts ago, when I said I heard a rumor that all DNA tests are negative? That was five days before the official release of results. I'm guessing (read: speculating) that some preliminary test results were negative, leading to the rumor as well as Nifong's declaration that results would not be released.

He said he's going to pursue the case until he's done beating it into the pavement. Not exactly in those terms, but he did use some strong language (I don't have the quote... I threw the paper away), and I have a feeling he's going to become less and less popular as a result. His reelection stunt seems to have backfired pretty well. I think we got the worse end of the deal, though. Think about it: if the players are innocent, which seems pretty likely given current information, then Duke/Durham relations will still be on fire, and the nation's perception of Duke will still be down the toilet. What is that going to cost Nifong? Maybe the election, at worst. He might win regardless, though. Did you read about how some Durham residents are furious and stated that they "want to see those boys in jail" (I think those are exact words), which seems quite similar to what Nifong might say? They let their emotions take over their minds and they just want to see someone punished. Since some (many?) of them see Duke as a bunch of snobby white kids unimaginably richer than themselves (thanks, unbiased BS media sources...), Duke happens to be a convenient scapegoat.

Oh, one more thing. I read an article on Monday that quoted some NC Central (where the rape accuser goes to school) girl as saying that the media has reduced her sister (metaphorical) to the level of an exotic dancer. I was at the burger line when I read that, and I almost spewed Hi-C onto the fries in front of me. Was she serious? First of all, that slut reduced herself to an exotic dancer by becoming one. Wait, what? Exotic dancers can't be called exotic dancers now because they are better than that? And in any case, most of the media only mentioned the dancer's profession when it was necessary (e.g. "lacrosse players hired an exotic dancer for their party" instead of "lacrosse players hired an innocent, well-meaning mother of two for their party"), and most media never mentioned the ugly stuff about her. See the two posts below if you don't know what ugly stuff I'm talking about. Stolen car, attacking police officer with deadly weapon, ...

By the way, I got a 70% on my econ midterm. A little over 8 of those lost percents were caused by 1/10+1/10=1/20. (ARML? What's that?) I should have had some Coke before taking that test. I am so dead.

And yeah, icydog.com is taken by some Jap. That whore. I wanted icydog.com, but had to settle for this stupid icydog.net instead. Why did he steal my name almost ten years after I came up with it? Whore. I really should have trademarked it. His registration expires on in five months, though, so if he forgets to renew it I'm going to be all over it like... me on watermelon.

10:15PM

Monday, April 10, 2006 (9 comments)

When I wrote the last post, I didn't actually think the players were innocent (or guilty). I mean, even though the facts didn't add up, why would she accuse them if nothing actually happened? But now, I'm starting to believe that they're innocent, every last one of them. Yesterday, an AP story came out that says there are photos showing her already injured before arriving at the party. That creates some possible (even if not likely) reasons for her making the charges up.

Like I said in the last post, the media has portrayed her as some poor victim with two kids to raise and an education to obtain, while failing to mention a lot of not-so-good stuff about her. Check out what else the media, in general, has conveniently not mentioned. This is her attorney Woody Vann discussing her past police record (emphasis mine):

Her record primarily consisted of an incident that occurred in June of 2002, where she was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle, speeding to elude arrest, assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer, that being a motor vehicle and driving while impaired. She eventually was indicted on three felonies, along with a misdemeanor and we reached a plea agreement to where she pled guilty to four misdemeanors, one of them being driving while impaired and she was placed on probation and was requested, directed to serve a six days active in jail and ordered to pay a substantial amount of restitution for damage to vehicles.

By the way, I took this quote from my most hated "news" source, Fox "News." I guess they are useful occasionally.

Moving on to a mostly-unrelated subject... the lacrosse thing isn't all that's been making me angry since spring break. Actually, that's one of the lesser items on my mind. One of my friends (let's call him "Andy") was accused of rape and the administration is accepting the accuser's ("Bertha") word as The Truth. It's like they think she's a prophet or something. He's absolutely guilty until he proves himself innocent, no doubt partly due to the lacrosse incident. She filed charges six months after the "rape" -- coincidentally a week after the lacrosse incident. No one except (unfortunately) the judicial system has any question about whether he raped her, and I hope the judicial system sees the light soon. Whether there was rape is not even a question any more (well, it never was), and the answer to the non-question is a resounding no. But completely ridiculous things have happened nonetheless.

On a scale of ridiculousness 1-10, infinity plus one happened yesterday. Andy and Bertha are on a no-contact order, so he can't approach her general vincinity. What happens if he wants to eat lunch? Well, here's what happens. Our dining hall has the food in the middle, and two sections on the left and right with tables to sit at. But only one of these is open for lunch (they close the gate on the other one). There is only one entrance to each of the two sections, and at this chokepoint there is an island with silverware. It is the only place to get silverware, and obviously he needs to go there if he wants to eat anything. It just so happens (hmm.) that Bertha sat down/camped at a table next to this island/chokepoint. He got his silverware and walked down to the other end of the dining hall, away from her.

He was thrown into jail last night for that. For coming near her. This morning he wore orange and handcuffs.

This guy... I mean, seriously. if you don't know him, take Yujing, make him white, make him less rosy-cheeked/huge-eared, make his hair a little more shaggy, and make him better at frisbee. Now put him in jail. Wtf?

In another fun incident, Bertha accused one of Andy's friends ("Chris") of making a Facebook group about her even though she had no evidence. Chris didn't actually make any Facebook groups about her -- it was someone else, and she happened to have guessed wrong. Yet just because she accused him with Her Holy Word, Chris was slapped with a restraining order. Bertha did also manage to put a restraining order on the creator of the Facebook groups, plus yet another one on yet another guy for asking her some questions about the case. That's 4 restraining orders, 3 for ludicrous reasons (or lack thereof). Facebook groups? Come on, seriously. You don't deserve to live if you go around putting restraining orders on people for making Facebook groups about you. Same goes for the people in power who are approving these restraining orders. Oh, one more thing about Facebook. The rumor mill says that she's going to sue everyone who joined any of the groups for slander (that's a lot of people). I kind of want to become Christian just so I can believe in hell and watch her burn for eternity.

This girl has moved Kelly Bryan down to #2 on my list. Can you believe that? I actually hate someone more than Kelly Bryan.

Since the world around me apparently defies logic, truth, and concrete evidence, and is built on hearsay, assumptions, and blind faith, I guess becoming religious would better align me with reality. I've found that a hard part of growing up is letting go of the ideal I once dreamed the world to be.

5:13PM

Wednesday, April 5, 2006 (5 comments)

First, I apologize in advance for writing one of my occasional serious posts. If you're looking for a laugh, wait another three weeks or so when either I've come up with something funny or last.fm suggests that I listen to gospel music.

Just about everyone in the 50 states has heard about the Duke lacrosse crap by now. If you haven't, I'll provide you with a brief summary.

The lacrosse team had a party on March 13th at 610N Buchanan Blvd. They hired a black stripper/dancer/other deplorable whore-type from NC Central University. She was found by a Kroger security guard a few hours after the alleged rape occurred.

The victim said that she thought she was being hired for a small party, but instead it turned out to be several dozen people. She said some of the men got aggressive and that she was raped by at least three members, all white, of the lacrosse team. Some robbery, strangulation, and assorted other charges were thrown in there, but obviously, the rape charge is the most important one. A hospital did find some sort of vaginal trauma, but was unable to determine whether that was caused by rape or other means. The 46 white members of the 47-man team (yes, somehow there is only 1 black guy on the team) were ordered to give DNA samples, whose results are supposed to be in sometime this week.

The same night of the party, an unidentified woman called 911 and claimed to be in front of 610N Buchanan. She claimed that people yelled racial slurs at her and that made her so angry that she didn't know what to do besides call 911.

I think those are the basics. Now my thoughts. If you know me at all then you should be able to guess what I'm about to say.

I am really pissed off that just about everyone acts as if the lacrosse players are guilty of rape. They haven't even been charged. Read: the police don't even have enough evidence to charge the suspects. That's a far cry from being able to convict. And whatever happened to innocent till proven guilty?

Here are some facts.

The first 911 call, the one with the woman in front of 610N Buchanan, occurred about an hour before the alleged assault. Here are three snippets from the transcript (the call is 94 seconds long; the snippets are in order):

Hi, I don't know if this is an emergency or not necessarily, but I'm in Durham and I was driving down near Duke's campus and it's me and my black girlfriend and the guy, there's like a white guy by the Duke wall and he just hollered out "nigger" to me and I'm just so angry, I didn't know who to call.

Buchanan, off of Buchanan [Blvd.]? it's right in front of 610 Buchanan [Blvd.] and they came ? I saw them all come out like a big frat house and me and my black girlfriend are walking by and they called us "niggers."

It's right in front of 610 Buchanan. I saw them coming out of this frat house ... 610 North Buchanan, I'm sitting right out in front of it right now.

First of all, do people seriously call 911 to report the use of "nigger"? The citizens of our nation depress me. Anyways...

In the first quote, notice how she is driving with her girl friend and got "nigger" yelled at her. But in the second one, she is walking. And the third one is even better -- she is sitting right out in front. Of course, "sitting" doesn't necessarily mean sitting down. But it does seem to imply that she is not moving. If she was so angry at being called "nigger" that she called 911 then what was she doing "sitting right out in front"? Letting the men continually harrass her? By the way, the time between the first mention of 610N and the point when she said she was "sitting right out in front" is about 50 seconds, so by her account, she should have been in front of that house for at least this amount of time. Finally, the recording contained no perceptible background yelling/human noise of any sort. It is hard to make a phone call "right in front of" a house where a huge party is taking place, especially if people are outside yelling racial slurs at you, and have the other end not be able to hear any of it.

Another point to mention is that, according to a Chronicle article, there are no visible numbers outside 610N Bunchanan. At night, the lack of numbers would be even less visible. How did she know she was at exactly 610N?

These inconsistencies suggest to me that the call was fabricated for whatever reason. I mean, seriously, people don't suddenly become confused about whether they are walking or driving. There's a pretty clear distinction between the two. And if this call was made up, then who knows what else could have been made up?

The second 911 tape is the call by the Kroger security guard that found the victim. Here is a quote. The security guard is speaking:

The problem is it's a lady in somebody else's car and she will not get out of their car. She's like intoxicated or drunk or something and she won't get out of the car, period.

A few seconds later, the guard mentions that the woman is so out of it that she is "barely talking."

So apparently, she was drunk and driving a stolen car. Does the media ever mention this? No. The media mentions that this single mother of two, working this side job to make enough money to support her family, was allegedly raped and whatever. They completely ignore her being found in a stolen car completely wasted. Oh, that and the fact that she's a druken whore.

Moving on... now let me flame Mike Nifong, the district attorney. So far he's done an excellent job of stirring town-gown and racial tensions to a level that I've never felt before in my life and hope to never feel again. He has mentioned that he is "convinced" that a rape occurred. Sure, he can express his opinions, but he's a government official and he's not exactly serving his people by making them all riled up. How is he so convinced? He's been talking about the DNA tests for the past week or two, and then yesterday announced that the DNA results are not going to be released. What, is he afraid now that the results are all negative?

And speaking of DNA tests, what the heck is up with that? 46 out of 47 players? Only three of them were accused by the victim. Forcing 43 extra players to give DNA... ughh. I would be exploding right now if I were one of them. By the way, I heard a rumor that all the test results are negative. It's just a rumor, though. I heard it from a girl who supposedly knows one of the lacrosse players, so I can't be sure at all.

Back to Nifong. According to a Chronicle article today, he hasn't personally taken a case for five years. It seems to me that Mr. Nifong is, for whatever reason, obsessed with proving the Duke players guilty. And now, he has to. He's going to look like a bumbling fool after all his statements if it turns out that the lacrosse team is innocent. Besides, he's up for reelection soon. So even if he finds out/has found out that the team is innocent, he still has to push the case to avoid being labeled a moron.

I should also mention that the lacrosse team has publicly stated that no rape occurred that night. At all. If rape or sexual assault of some sort occurred, then why would they flat-out deny everything? They knew that DNA was being processed. Surely they'll be caught if anything happened, so at least they'd try to spin some story about how it was consensual or something. Complete denial would be really stupid if they were guilty.

Writing this is making me sick. It just makes me more angry. I'll finish with one more point regarding the case, and then an example of how people are reacting stupidly to this whole mess.

A search warrant was applied for on March 27 on the basis of an email. I didn't find this out until today, and I am absolutely stunned. In the request for the seach warrant:

On 3/7/2006 Sgt. Gottlieb was contacted by a confidential source. The source provided Sgt. Gottlieb a copy of an email sent by email address ryan.mcfadyen@duke.edu. The email dated March 14, 2006 at 1:58am stated:

To whom it may concern

tommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex.. all in besides arch and tack please respond

41

Ryan McFadyen is one of the lacrosse players, but not one of the three accused by the victim. 41 is his jersey number.

I am shocked that a search warrant can be issued for this kind of crap. Let's think about that one more time. An officer was contacted by a "confidential source." Hmm. This source provided a "copy of an email." Hmm.

What does that mean? The "source" forwarded a copy of the email? Emails are one of the easiest things to forge. Ever. In fact, just go to Outlook or Thunderbird or whatever and change your email address to be "billgates@microsoft.com." Send an email and check it out -- you're Bill Gates now! That can be detected, but with just a little more sophistication, one can forge email headers and such to be very difficult to distinguish from a real copy. In addition, from the text of the warrant application, it appears that the "source" forwarded a copy of this email to the officer. That's even easier to spoof. All you have to do is put a line that says "On March 14, 2006 at 1:58am, Ryan McFadyen <ryan.mcfadyen@duke.edu> wrote:" in front of the text, and then type whatever you want for the body. There aren't even headers and such to worry about. How can that be treated as any sort of grounds for a warrant?? Ahhhh!!

I'm really sick of writing this by now, so I'm just going to finish up. Sorry to pick on ASA, but they are acting just as stupidly as everyone else. Here are parts of an email they sent that really irritated me:

President Brodhead has not responded to a call to ensure that Duke students are informed ANY crime affecting their safety within 48 hours of its occurrence, whether students are victims or perpetrators.

Are we overreacting a little here? How is this plan possible? Let's say I punch my neighbor in the face and give him a bloody nose. It is now the president's responsibility to make sure all Duke students know about this within 48 hours? What if I trip over a poorly constructed sewer grill and scrape my arm? (Answer: Then I'm a huge idiot and no one should ever find out about it.)

President Brodhead has repeatedly either responded negatively or declined to respond to calls from students to institute a mandatory RACIAL/SEXUAL SENSITIVITY/DIVERSITY PROGRAM. It has been suggested that this take the form of a 'Diversity 20' class, mimicking the mandatory 'Writing 20'. As Dean Sue Wasiolek said 'conversations are not enough'.

I hate Writing 20 because I hate English, but at least I see why it's a required course. For people who suck at writing, like me. But a racial/sexual sensitivity/diversity program? What are we in, third grade? That kind of course has no academic merit at all. This place is a school for a reason. Besides, what would one do in that course? Talk about racism? I can imagine that being a deadly combination of AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Micro, and AP Lang -- sleep, sleep, sleep, and completely worthless.

And finally, the one that pisses me off the most:

The Duke administration, represented by President Brodhead, has not responded to demands from the Duke community. We are not prejudging the outcome of the criminal case, but we demand measures be put in place to ensure that we never see this again.

If you're not prejudging the outcome of the case, then you want measures to ensure that we never see... what again? Measures to ensure that this type of accusation doesn't occur again? Right. The word "this" obviously refers to rape, especially against a black woman, and "again" clearly implies that it has already happened. This is exactly the kind of prejudging that has been really irritating me for the past two weeks, except that here it comes in the second half of a sentence which begins, "We are not prejudging."

Everyone should just chill out and wait for the results of the case. Why have the general public and the media charged, convicted, and condemned them before anyone is even formally charged? Think about the position they're in. Let's say they're guilty. Durham residents will probably stone them. On the other hand, what if they are innocent? Well, they're still guilty. Because everyone has already made up their damn minds about the team's guilt. And what about all this racial tension? Is it going to go away? Thanks for being such a great public official, Mr. Nifong. And thank you, media, for providing coverage that is objective and isn't sensationalist crap.

10:59PM

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 (1 comment)

Yujing's here. He's right next to me watching the second Russell Peters video (the one in NYC). He just made a farting noise but I don't know if he really farted or if his foot just squeaked against the floor or something.

Ok he just moved onto my bed and farted massively.

2:32AM

Older posts can be viewed through the links to the left, under the main menu.
5290 hits since May 1, 2006.