Fun times
Thursday morning I went to the Adult and Commuter Students free breakfast. They had orange juice, coffee, cinnamon rolls, cake-like stuff, and more. Only one thing I eat/drink though: orange juice. Oh well. She was asking people what sort of things we eat, and I told her my brother and I are vegetarians who don't eat sugar and drink coffee, so maybe the next one will be better. She mentioned eggs and bacon as a possibility. They're doing this once a month. Fun!
Later, I got free pizza from the TECS departments. They had pepperoni and plain cheese. And it wasn't one tiny piece per person. I got four pieces. So yayness. They only had bottled water, Pepsi, and Mountain Dew to drink, so I went without. But that's okay.
And later that afternoon, the school ('Campus Living') was breaking the world record for the world's largest gingerbread man (theirs is ~15ft) and they gave out free chips (Frito-Lay cheese chips containing sugar), Pepsi, Mountain Dew, gingerbread cookies, and I believe Orios (they had an Orio-stacking contest; I assume people also ate them.) They also had a nice meal thing with hamburgers and hot dogs, but that required a meal card, I discovered. Still, absolutely nothing I eat. (I was going to just get a hamburger bun with onion, lettus, and mustard, but again, meal card. Bah.)
So I got an immoral bag of chips for my sister. (Minor confession: I ate a bag too. I didn't check ingredients or producer beforehand.)
Philosophy club that evening was about computer ethics. It wasn't terribly in-depth or anything--more of an overview of the topics--but Dr. Hull (the philosophy professor presenting it) knows all about this stuff (MOOs, the EFF, the Sunny Bono Copyright Extension Act, and everything else Open Source culture cares about), and tends to agree with the hackers. I was initially unpleased because he said, for example, 'on Usenet, which was what they had before the Internet', and used the term 'hacker' for 'cracker', but I think that's basically because he didn't want to give us a lecture on proper usage of the terms and just wanted to avoid confusion.
Anyway, he used to teach Computer Ethics where he was before coming to ECU. Currently, ECU has no such course; all CS majors are required to take professional ethics, which doesn't really have any computer-related ethics beyond 'when/how is it okay for employers to monitor Internet usage'. I really think the CS department should talk to Dr. Hull about teaching Computer Ethics. I may mention that to Dr. Wirth at some point, but first should probably discuss it with Dr. Hull.
Oh, one more thing: Dr. Hull says the best (essential) text book for Computer Ethics is Lessig's book. This Guy Is Good.
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