It's almost 2008! Kind of a cool year right? I mean, it's the number 2, followed by two zeros - which look like an nfinite - and then followed by an eight, which looks like a standing nfinite right?
2∞8 yay!
So, this will be the last post of 2007. Take your time to reflect on the past year, and look forward to the great one to come!
If you're reading this before I've updated the blog in 2008, then you may notice a missing banner. Well, I was going to create a new design today, but ended up having other more important things to attend to. So, I lost my banner in the process and forgot where I hosted the image. The original is on my PC so my laptop doesn't have it. Oh well!
Let's see, I'll try to have a new design made and implemented some time in...... 2∞8.
As for New Years Resolution... let's try for at least one post every week. That doesn't seem too out of reach right? *cough, even though I said I'd try for more posts when this blog was started, but we'll just forget about that one.
HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE! I'm off to PARTY!!!!!!!!.... in front of my TV.
31 December 2007
30 December 2007
back home
EDIT: UNDERGOING RECONSTRUCTION, SORTA
This post is just a status update. Pointless, really. I'm not dead yet though. But it's been a busy vacation: left Tuesday night; drove down and got to Cape Canaveral, Florida at around 11am; went to the Kennedy Space Center for the day until 7pm; Boarded the cruise ship the following morning; immediately went to the food area for the lunch buffet; explored the ship and stuff for the day; ship docked into Nassau on Friday; spent all of Friday exploring Nassau; formal dinner on ship; ship was on the waters all day Saturday; disembarked Sunday morning; drove back to Kennedy Space Center since the tickets were valid for two days within a 7-day time span; drove home; got home a few hours ago.
So, our family has three digital cameras: I have one, my sister one, and my dad one. I remember when taking pictures was much less fervid. We were limited by those rolls of 34 pictures. Now with these memory cards, my mom piles on the photo opportunities. Left and right pictures need to be taken. It's very time consuming - to the point of being a chore sometimes too. My dad's camera was used for family pictures, my camera was used in taking scenic pictures, and my sister's was a mix of the two. In total this holiday season (Xmas, Space Center, and the entire Cruise) we took 1308 pictures for a total of 1.61GB of images. That's just crazy. And you know what the best part is? I'm going to sort them all out.
Speaking of sorting, I still have unpacking to do. So here are my goals before the next post - things for ya'll to look forward to... I guess.
This post is just a status update. Pointless, really. I'm not dead yet though. But it's been a busy vacation: left Tuesday night; drove down and got to Cape Canaveral, Florida at around 11am; went to the Kennedy Space Center for the day until 7pm; Boarded the cruise ship the following morning; immediately went to the food area for the lunch buffet; explored the ship and stuff for the day; ship docked into Nassau on Friday; spent all of Friday exploring Nassau; formal dinner on ship; ship was on the waters all day Saturday; disembarked Sunday morning; drove back to Kennedy Space Center since the tickets were valid for two days within a 7-day time span; drove home; got home a few hours ago.
So, our family has three digital cameras: I have one, my sister one, and my dad one. I remember when taking pictures was much less fervid. We were limited by those rolls of 34 pictures. Now with these memory cards, my mom piles on the photo opportunities. Left and right pictures need to be taken. It's very time consuming - to the point of being a chore sometimes too. My dad's camera was used for family pictures, my camera was used in taking scenic pictures, and my sister's was a mix of the two. In total this holiday season (Xmas, Space Center, and the entire Cruise) we took 1308 pictures for a total of 1.61GB of images. That's just crazy. And you know what the best part is? I'm going to sort them all out.
Speaking of sorting, I still have unpacking to do. So here are my goals before the next post - things for ya'll to look forward to... I guess.
- Unpack
- Sort through 179 Xmas pictures, 334 Space Center pictures, and 795 Cruise pictures
- Pick some good ones for a web album
- See if some of the scenic pictures I took were any good for a new blog design
- Catch up on anime - one or two hours I think
21 December 2007
technology as a teacher
Before I get to the meat of my post, I'll start with an update from nfinite's alternate reality aka [Insert nfinite's birthname]'s life. So it's been exactly (in it's approximate sense) one week since classes and finals ended. I've moved all my stuff home; shifted and organized all of those belongings into different boxes and I'm halfway set to move to Virginia for my second co-op rotation. All that is left is clothes, and bathroom and laundry necessities. I've finished packing the kitchenwares and electronics. Yes, that means my computer tower is sitting in a box. Which essentially means no PC games for me as this laptop is strictly school/work related applications only. *cough* Except for maybe TrackMania and o2mania. I should probably just switch it over to Ubuntu and not be tempted by games period.
So I suppose I've been fairly productive this past week. I even managed to scrap together a "new" PC for my mom. All she really does is use the internet, but I didn't feel like an old eMachines with a 1.0GHz Celeron and 256MB of RAM certainly doesn't help with a newbie to technology (objectively speaking of course, I love my mom). As such, it's hard to tell whether the computer has frozen or is just simply being slow. So I searched around the garage, found some parts and managed to find a 2.4GHz Celeron. Oh snap! ... I guess. Still not too much of an improvement, but 512MB of RAM certainly does speed things up. Just for kicks I installed Ubuntu instead of Windows. Mainly because I couldn't find a uh, ... suitable copy of Windows. (I imply nothing here of course ;-).
So with that done as well, I spent most of my week playing Xbox.
"Altair, it seems my students do not fully understand what it means to wield the blade. Perhaps you could show them what you know?"
I decided to give Assassin's Creed another chance. I'm glad I did. At first I thought it was too repetitive. 3 types of investigation quests:
And then there's the repetitive climb-tall-towers-to-view-surroundings-then-jump-off-tower. Again, the same issue arises with repetition. There are a total of maybe 6 or 7 different types of towers with around 30 towers in the entire game to scale. (The actual number of towers is listed in an achievement, but I'm lazy). Still, I suppose this is passable since multiple towers in a city could have the same construction plans. In any case, with all of those repetitive tasks and views, I thought it would be quite boring.
You know what though? The game is actually very satisfying. Climbing the same towers in different places turned out to be amusing. Saving the citizens was amusing because of the fighting system. And the investigation quests were short (I don't think I could've done them if they were longer). I guess two things make this game enjoyable: the fighting and the freerunning. I wish I could freerun like this monkey. The fighting is pretty epic too, with the camera adjusting to a cinematic view when you deal a killing blow. It's also pretty raw; I smiled in evil delight when I witnessed Altair stab a dude in the skull for the first time. I'm not violent, honest.
"And that, my students, is how we all should fight."
I do believe I went off on quite the tangent there. Now to the point of this post's title. Technology, namely computers, teaches us so much about life's lessons as well as how to approach life. Really, I only have two examples: one for each point.
Point A: Technology teaches patience.
Ok, so you may be recalling when I was talking about my mom's old Celery based PC. Back in the day... (who am I to talk, I'm not that old) ... Let's rephrase: Back when I was a kid, I had myself a kickin' 286 that was my dad's old computer. I wasn't really old enough to know how to use the darn thing, but who cares. When I lived to the wiser age of about 8, I got a spankin' awesome Pentium S, clocked at a friggin' awesome 166MHz. Man that thing could blaze through... not much at all. I kept that Pentium until I was in 7th grade. At this point, we were at the age of the Pentium 4; and I was stuck with a Pentium. This truly teaches patience. One must not be angry with the slow speed at which the computer is processing. This only leads to frustration. This frustration generated does not change the fact that the computer is slow. Therefore, one must learn not to be frustrated. Hence, the computer has successfully conditioned us to be patient.
One would think that this day in computing, with the advent of multi-core processors at 15 times the clock speed of its predecessors, we wouldn't have the issue of slow computers right? Well I suppose that there will always be more demanding applications, but let me point us to one specific example where slowness should not exist.
Installation and uninstallation of applications on a computer. This should be relatively quick and easy right? Depending on the size and scope of the application of course. Have any of you installed any of the Adobe products lately? That new installation wizard thing is slow as BALLS. I have absolutely no idea what the darn thing is trying to do. Installation took forever. Uninstallation - one would expect to be relatively quick right? I mean, all the other programs uninstall in under 10 seconds. But no, I was uninstalling the trial for Flash CS3. It took (and I'm not exaggerating) at least 15 minutes. Core Duo @ 1.83Ghz. 15minutes *uninstallation*. That's either a very thorough uninstallation, or a very crappy implementation.
Technology teaches patience.
Point B: Ultimately, succeeding in life is all luck
Maybe this is a little pessimistic, and maybe I'm just a little mad at this little thing called Minesweeper, but this can be so true. All the skill in the world gets you close to succeeding. However, more likely than not, there is someone with the same amount of skill as you - probably better as well. What does it all boil down to in the end? Whoever is luckier gets the cookie.
I hope everyone knows the rules of Minesweeper - clear out nonlethal squares and make sure that your :-) does not become x-(.
May I direct your attention to exhibit A. Okay, I did this one fairly quickly (by my standards only, there is always someone faster). I may have been able to win this one out. The upper left corner had hope of succeeding. It's too bad that the lower left destroyed my hopes of placing my name in the High Scores for Expert of my own laptop's records. Such a shame. This didn't make me so mad. After all, technology teaches patience right? A win will eventually come to me after waiting and not be exasperated.
New exhibit: Exhibit B. This one was slower by a minute or two, but still showed promise. UNTIL THE VERY LAST MOMENT! This, my friends, is the lesson that Minesweeper has to teach us. The game is so very simple. You can think of life as such. Simplify life to the cycle of acting, gathering data, and reacting : clicking, assessing numbers, flagging mines and back to clicking. No matter how skilled one is at life, the conclusion is simply a matter of luck. Do you turn into x-(. Or shall it be a win for your next reaction.
Minesweeper teaches that succeeding in life is just a matter of luck. It seems I'm unlucky.
My family will be going on a cruise after Xmas and we'll return in time for the New Year, but if I don't get another blog post in before Xmas and the New Year, I wish everyone the best over the holidays and cheers for a new year to come. I'll be back with pictures of the cruise - sans nfinite of course - just scenery and cool things.
Until then, Happy Holidays!
So I suppose I've been fairly productive this past week. I even managed to scrap together a "new" PC for my mom. All she really does is use the internet, but I didn't feel like an old eMachines with a 1.0GHz Celeron and 256MB of RAM certainly doesn't help with a newbie to technology (objectively speaking of course, I love my mom). As such, it's hard to tell whether the computer has frozen or is just simply being slow. So I searched around the garage, found some parts and managed to find a 2.4GHz Celeron. Oh snap! ... I guess. Still not too much of an improvement, but 512MB of RAM certainly does speed things up. Just for kicks I installed Ubuntu instead of Windows. Mainly because I couldn't find a uh, ... suitable copy of Windows. (I imply nothing here of course ;-).
So with that done as well, I spent most of my week playing Xbox.
I decided to give Assassin's Creed another chance. I'm glad I did. At first I thought it was too repetitive. 3 types of investigation quests:
- Beat up people aka Interrogation
- Find benches where there's always two people sitting at opposite ends (all the benches in the entire game are like this) aka Eavesdropping
- Grab people's butts aka Pickpocketing (now that I mention it, I'm surprised you never pick the pockets of women; I suppose that's for harassment issues huh)
- Female: "Thank you, Thank you. Another minute and they would've made off with me. I'l be sure that the whole city knows of your bravery."
- Female: "Thank you; Now don't think I couldn't have handled them myself. In any case, I'll be sure to let my husband know of your bravery."
- Male: "Thank you, are they all gone? I hope so. I shall be returning home now; and don't think I'll be leaving it any time soon either. I'll find some way to repay you."
- Male: "Thank you, I wish my sons were half as brave as you. They will hear this tale and know what it is to be a true hero."
And then there's the repetitive climb-tall-towers-to-view-surroundings-then-jump-off-tower. Again, the same issue arises with repetition. There are a total of maybe 6 or 7 different types of towers with around 30 towers in the entire game to scale. (The actual number of towers is listed in an achievement, but I'm lazy). Still, I suppose this is passable since multiple towers in a city could have the same construction plans. In any case, with all of those repetitive tasks and views, I thought it would be quite boring.
You know what though? The game is actually very satisfying. Climbing the same towers in different places turned out to be amusing. Saving the citizens was amusing because of the fighting system. And the investigation quests were short (I don't think I could've done them if they were longer). I guess two things make this game enjoyable: the fighting and the freerunning. I wish I could freerun like this monkey. The fighting is pretty epic too, with the camera adjusting to a cinematic view when you deal a killing blow. It's also pretty raw; I smiled in evil delight when I witnessed Altair stab a dude in the skull for the first time. I'm not violent, honest.
"And that, my students, is how we all should fight."
I do believe I went off on quite the tangent there. Now to the point of this post's title. Technology, namely computers, teaches us so much about life's lessons as well as how to approach life. Really, I only have two examples: one for each point.
Point A: Technology teaches patience.
Ok, so you may be recalling when I was talking about my mom's old Celery based PC. Back in the day... (who am I to talk, I'm not that old) ... Let's rephrase: Back when I was a kid, I had myself a kickin' 286 that was my dad's old computer. I wasn't really old enough to know how to use the darn thing, but who cares. When I lived to the wiser age of about 8, I got a spankin' awesome Pentium S, clocked at a friggin' awesome 166MHz. Man that thing could blaze through... not much at all. I kept that Pentium until I was in 7th grade. At this point, we were at the age of the Pentium 4; and I was stuck with a Pentium. This truly teaches patience. One must not be angry with the slow speed at which the computer is processing. This only leads to frustration. This frustration generated does not change the fact that the computer is slow. Therefore, one must learn not to be frustrated. Hence, the computer has successfully conditioned us to be patient.
One would think that this day in computing, with the advent of multi-core processors at 15 times the clock speed of its predecessors, we wouldn't have the issue of slow computers right? Well I suppose that there will always be more demanding applications, but let me point us to one specific example where slowness should not exist.
Installation and uninstallation of applications on a computer. This should be relatively quick and easy right? Depending on the size and scope of the application of course. Have any of you installed any of the Adobe products lately? That new installation wizard thing is slow as BALLS. I have absolutely no idea what the darn thing is trying to do. Installation took forever. Uninstallation - one would expect to be relatively quick right? I mean, all the other programs uninstall in under 10 seconds. But no, I was uninstalling the trial for Flash CS3. It took (and I'm not exaggerating) at least 15 minutes. Core Duo @ 1.83Ghz. 15minutes *uninstallation*. That's either a very thorough uninstallation, or a very crappy implementation.
Technology teaches patience.
Point B: Ultimately, succeeding in life is all luck
Maybe this is a little pessimistic, and maybe I'm just a little mad at this little thing called Minesweeper, but this can be so true. All the skill in the world gets you close to succeeding. However, more likely than not, there is someone with the same amount of skill as you - probably better as well. What does it all boil down to in the end? Whoever is luckier gets the cookie.
I hope everyone knows the rules of Minesweeper - clear out nonlethal squares and make sure that your :-) does not become x-(.
May I direct your attention to exhibit A. Okay, I did this one fairly quickly (by my standards only, there is always someone faster). I may have been able to win this one out. The upper left corner had hope of succeeding. It's too bad that the lower left destroyed my hopes of placing my name in the High Scores for Expert of my own laptop's records. Such a shame. This didn't make me so mad. After all, technology teaches patience right? A win will eventually come to me after waiting and not be exasperated.
New exhibit: Exhibit B. This one was slower by a minute or two, but still showed promise. UNTIL THE VERY LAST MOMENT! This, my friends, is the lesson that Minesweeper has to teach us. The game is so very simple. You can think of life as such. Simplify life to the cycle of acting, gathering data, and reacting : clicking, assessing numbers, flagging mines and back to clicking. No matter how skilled one is at life, the conclusion is simply a matter of luck. Do you turn into x-(. Or shall it be a win for your next reaction.Minesweeper teaches that succeeding in life is just a matter of luck. It seems I'm unlucky.
My family will be going on a cruise after Xmas and we'll return in time for the New Year, but if I don't get another blog post in before Xmas and the New Year, I wish everyone the best over the holidays and cheers for a new year to come. I'll be back with pictures of the cruise - sans nfinite of course - just scenery and cool things.
Until then, Happy Holidays!
12 December 2007
w00t - no word with numbers should ever be in the dictionary.
I have to apologize ahead of time for the text formatting; I know its really hard to read, due to the text formatting. It's not well spaced and all that paragraph formatting stuff. I'm just really lazy to create my own CSS template for the blog. *sigh*
It's finals week and here I am stud....... playing games. So I just finished Eternal Sonata. That is one trippy storyline. The colors really help with the whole acid trip feel of the game too. In any case, I played the game with Japanese voice acting and subtitles, so all was happy and dandy. That is, until the end credits where the characters start lecturing you.... about ... something. Great, no subtitles in the credits. All I caught was something like, a "yume" here, "genjitsu" there, unknown verb+"shita" over yonder, all interspersed with "anata wa". I think they said something about themselves, and then asked me what I thought. I would have had a thought, if I understood everything they said. It made me kind of sad, my Japanese has a long way to go.
And that was quite incoherent. I guess my brain is shutting down for the break. Despite there being finals, the semester has ended in my mind. So, here are just some random things I had jotted down to blog about, but never had the time to blog because I was too busy... uhm "studying" - Yes.
I. Normal Conversation vs. TV/Movie Conversation
I don't really watch TV much, and movies are a once in a few weeks occurrence. But I'm absolutely positive there's a distinct line between what is normal conversation, and what hollywood/tvland thinks is normal conversation. This observation came to me while watching Heroes. So one dude is sending another dude a picture over the phone and he says: "I'm sending you a jpeg right now".
I have to admit, I have no experience in this area of phones since I rarely text message and never do anything besides ... talking on the phone (because that's what phones are for right?). So I've never actually send anyone an picture using my phone, but I know for a fact that not even a nerd like me would say "I'm sending you a *jpeg*" That just doesn't flow with normal conversation. The person I'm talking to would be like, "Jpeg, right; you're retarded for saying that, ya know?" What if the phone doesn't take jpeg pictures? What if it's old school craptacular and takes pictures in BMP? Would he say "I'm sending you a bitmap right now." Wow that sounds even more dorktastic. A map of a bit?
Anywho, I think they should've just stuck with "I'm sending you a picture".
Case #2 from Heroes.
Let's go to the tech-savvy kid of the show. Micah. He should know his stuff right? After all, he talks with computers and... tech... stuff; this means he should know what the ... tech.. stuff is capable of. So he hacked a cellphone to show the location of another cellphone. Ok, this could be plausible. You never know what kind of tracking devices they have in cellphones these days. And since he's Micah, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he can get into the phone system and pinpoint a cellphone location using its signal. Ah ah, it gets better. He explains what he did for the uninformed. (I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like this:)
"I'm tracking whatsherface's cellphone and displaying her location on this phone's GPS map. The battery in her cellphone emits a GPS signal that I can use to track her location"
Whoa, whoa whoa! Since when have batteries gotten GPS signal emitter thingies? So, what would happen if they took the battery out of the phone... uh... I know the writer's have gone on strike and all. But at least double check your sources when you attempt to write tech jargon. A GPS tracking signal ..... on a battery? You could've at least said GPS device located on her cellphone.... but battery?! That's just ignorant.
Oh and on a tangent, I love how some films have these l33t hackers just kind of slam their fingers on the keyboard and magically fifty lines of text are typed in. And then! to hack into the target system, they do this
[monkey@monkeymonkey]$ ls
and BAM! ALL ZE FILES HAS BEEN HAXXORED
Ok I'm done with that.
Next topic.
So I do a lot of walking around the campus Student Center after math lecture. I have 30mins to do nothing after dif eq class ends and the next class begins. So I noticed that some of the vending machines say $1.75 for a drink. WHAT A RIPOFF! You could buy a 2L bottle for that much - and that's pushing it still! And as if this wasn't bad enough, I had found a secret vending machine that sold the exact same drinks for $1.50! That's insanity. In the same building! Ok, so the 1.50 machine is a little bit hidden; it's in a hallway that a lot of people don't use. I thought to myself, harhar! if I should ever feel like wasting money on a soft drink, I will have beaten the system and hit up the secret vending machine! So one day, I felt like wasting money, but I was prepared not to waste 1.75. I went to that secret vending machine and behold !!! it was turned off and barred. FAIL!
But anyway, I think my brain waves must've caught up to someone. All of the vending machines across campus are now $1.50. It's still ridiculous.
NEXT!
Have you ever put on headphones with the intent of listening to music? Well, after I've typed that, it's kind of a retarded question. Of course, if you put headphones on, you're going to listen to something right? The only problem is: I find myself forgetting to press play on the mp3 player - or loading up a media player on the computer. So I end up having earbuds in my ears except there's no music playing. I've done it soooooo many times. I'll put 'em in, start walking/biking to class. I'll walk into class. Sit down. Reach for the Mp3 player to stop the musi.. Hm, it's silent already. And then I'll feel crunchy for not listening to anything. It gets worse with the laptop at home. I'll put headphones on. Then I'll get sidetracked by homework or something. Half an hour later I'll realize I never opened up my playlist and think monkeys, where's that music. But then I'll get sidetracked again. It's a vicious cycle.
NEXT
-fruit snack packs for adults
This was the bullet point I saved in this blog post's draft. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I was eating a fruit snack pack for kids (I think it was Scooby Doo fruit snacks), but then it ended too quickly. So I grabbed another pack. Such a waste of packaging. They could've just put more into the package to begin with - that way I wouldn't have to eat two snack packs. I could save face and instead of saying "I ate two Scooby Doo fruit snack packs," I could just say, "I had a pack of fruit snacks".
Well, that was quite the incoherent post now wasn't it!
OH WELL! One more final to go and then it's home for the holidays! It will probably be spent trying to pass Through the Fire and Flames on Expert. Wait wait, I first need to get 5 stars on hard. Currently at 4 stars -_-;;
I'll just stop the post before I look more like a dork than I already am.
It's finals week and here I am stud....... playing games. So I just finished Eternal Sonata. That is one trippy storyline. The colors really help with the whole acid trip feel of the game too. In any case, I played the game with Japanese voice acting and subtitles, so all was happy and dandy. That is, until the end credits where the characters start lecturing you.... about ... something. Great, no subtitles in the credits. All I caught was something like, a "yume" here, "genjitsu" there, unknown verb+"shita" over yonder, all interspersed with "anata wa". I think they said something about themselves, and then asked me what I thought. I would have had a thought, if I understood everything they said. It made me kind of sad, my Japanese has a long way to go.
And that was quite incoherent. I guess my brain is shutting down for the break. Despite there being finals, the semester has ended in my mind. So, here are just some random things I had jotted down to blog about, but never had the time to blog because I was too busy... uhm "studying" - Yes.
I. Normal Conversation vs. TV/Movie Conversation
I don't really watch TV much, and movies are a once in a few weeks occurrence. But I'm absolutely positive there's a distinct line between what is normal conversation, and what hollywood/tvland thinks is normal conversation. This observation came to me while watching Heroes. So one dude is sending another dude a picture over the phone and he says: "I'm sending you a jpeg right now".
I have to admit, I have no experience in this area of phones since I rarely text message and never do anything besides ... talking on the phone (because that's what phones are for right?). So I've never actually send anyone an picture using my phone, but I know for a fact that not even a nerd like me would say "I'm sending you a *jpeg*" That just doesn't flow with normal conversation. The person I'm talking to would be like, "Jpeg, right; you're retarded for saying that, ya know?" What if the phone doesn't take jpeg pictures? What if it's old school craptacular and takes pictures in BMP? Would he say "I'm sending you a bitmap right now." Wow that sounds even more dorktastic. A map of a bit?
Anywho, I think they should've just stuck with "I'm sending you a picture".
Case #2 from Heroes.
Let's go to the tech-savvy kid of the show. Micah. He should know his stuff right? After all, he talks with computers and... tech... stuff; this means he should know what the ... tech.. stuff is capable of. So he hacked a cellphone to show the location of another cellphone. Ok, this could be plausible. You never know what kind of tracking devices they have in cellphones these days. And since he's Micah, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he can get into the phone system and pinpoint a cellphone location using its signal. Ah ah, it gets better. He explains what he did for the uninformed. (I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like this:)
"I'm tracking whatsherface's cellphone and displaying her location on this phone's GPS map. The battery in her cellphone emits a GPS signal that I can use to track her location"
Whoa, whoa whoa! Since when have batteries gotten GPS signal emitter thingies? So, what would happen if they took the battery out of the phone... uh... I know the writer's have gone on strike and all. But at least double check your sources when you attempt to write tech jargon. A GPS tracking signal ..... on a battery? You could've at least said GPS device located on her cellphone.... but battery?! That's just ignorant.
Oh and on a tangent, I love how some films have these l33t hackers just kind of slam their fingers on the keyboard and magically fifty lines of text are typed in. And then! to hack into the target system, they do this
[monkey@monkeymonkey]$ ls
and BAM! ALL ZE FILES HAS BEEN HAXXORED
Ok I'm done with that.
Next topic.
So I do a lot of walking around the campus Student Center after math lecture. I have 30mins to do nothing after dif eq class ends and the next class begins. So I noticed that some of the vending machines say $1.75 for a drink. WHAT A RIPOFF! You could buy a 2L bottle for that much - and that's pushing it still! And as if this wasn't bad enough, I had found a secret vending machine that sold the exact same drinks for $1.50! That's insanity. In the same building! Ok, so the 1.50 machine is a little bit hidden; it's in a hallway that a lot of people don't use. I thought to myself, harhar! if I should ever feel like wasting money on a soft drink, I will have beaten the system and hit up the secret vending machine! So one day, I felt like wasting money, but I was prepared not to waste 1.75. I went to that secret vending machine and behold !!! it was turned off and barred. FAIL!
But anyway, I think my brain waves must've caught up to someone. All of the vending machines across campus are now $1.50. It's still ridiculous.
NEXT!
Have you ever put on headphones with the intent of listening to music? Well, after I've typed that, it's kind of a retarded question. Of course, if you put headphones on, you're going to listen to something right? The only problem is: I find myself forgetting to press play on the mp3 player - or loading up a media player on the computer. So I end up having earbuds in my ears except there's no music playing. I've done it soooooo many times. I'll put 'em in, start walking/biking to class. I'll walk into class. Sit down. Reach for the Mp3 player to stop the musi.. Hm, it's silent already. And then I'll feel crunchy for not listening to anything. It gets worse with the laptop at home. I'll put headphones on. Then I'll get sidetracked by homework or something. Half an hour later I'll realize I never opened up my playlist and think monkeys, where's that music. But then I'll get sidetracked again. It's a vicious cycle.
NEXT
-fruit snack packs for adults
This was the bullet point I saved in this blog post's draft. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I was eating a fruit snack pack for kids (I think it was Scooby Doo fruit snacks), but then it ended too quickly. So I grabbed another pack. Such a waste of packaging. They could've just put more into the package to begin with - that way I wouldn't have to eat two snack packs. I could save face and instead of saying "I ate two Scooby Doo fruit snack packs," I could just say, "I had a pack of fruit snacks".
Well, that was quite the incoherent post now wasn't it!
OH WELL! One more final to go and then it's home for the holidays! It will probably be spent trying to pass Through the Fire and Flames on Expert. Wait wait, I first need to get 5 stars on hard. Currently at 4 stars -_-;;
I'll just stop the post before I look more like a dork than I already am.
24 November 2007
nfinite effect
I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving day with lots of good food - whether they be "a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey or ham" or "an Asian-ized fancy dinner". In either case, I'm thankful for having you all read my blog for its amazingly average content. Here's to waiting a month for another big meal on a much grander scale! But most importantly, here's to waiting another month for... PRESENTS!
Speaking of which, yesterday was Black Friday right? Well, I have a story to share about this yearly event of mass awesomness. But before I do, perhaps I need to go into a little detour that will set me up better for the story. I was playing Mass Effect last week - this game is pure win by the way, as expected of a BioWare RPG. I'll have to admit, I stayed up one night until 4am playing this baby. In any case, at one point my character, who I named Nfinite Shepard since the last name is fixed for cinematic and cutscene purposes, was speaking to an advanced intelligent life form of sorts. The conversation went a little something like this (I really don't remember the exact dialogue. It's been a few days. I'm also not putting the NPC's name since it might be a little bit of a spoiler for those who might play it in the future. It will simply be referred to as Being.)
I digress. Now that I have touched the subject of my conceitedness, I can further boast of my glories and accolades of Black Friday shopping. I'm not sure why, but Black Friday is very exhilarating for me. Getting up early in the morning, standing out in the cold, waiting in a very long line, freezing your butt and everything in between off. These things are necessary sacrifices for the emotional rush of being a ninja. Wait, ninja? Oh yes - ninja. A nfininja™®© comes prepared to his mission. He has researched the exact mission requirements in the form of an objectives list:
Screw the shopping cart. This is the nfininja characterization prompt. You know the one that makes you distribute your stat points? If you go for all mobility, you lose storage capacity. This means you reject all forms of carrying equipment and are able to dart around using only what you can pick up for inventory space. No good. If you customize yourself for full capacity, you lose mobility. The shopping cart allows for a functionally unlimited space for the required quest items. In the process of customizing nfininja in this manner, he would lose the very meaning of his name. Shopping carts destroy mobility and maneuverability, you are limited to travel only by avenues in which the shopping cart may fit.
Aside: This post fits so well with a post back in June of mine: the random game of life. Soon my theory of life and reality shall be complete.
The compromise? Hand baskets. If this customization screen had a presets selection, the picture on the right would be what it looked like. So with hand basket in... hand, I burst through the entrance gates at a speed walk. Those who run look are ungraceful. An nfininja™®© must stay cool under all circumstance, no matter how dire it may appear. Darting in, out, between, in front off, behind, u-turning, detouring, shortcutting across the store, I hastily grabbed everything that I needed, as well as things that were cheap. Everything is fair game with one rule of thumb: Grab first, decide whether you want it later. There is no room nor time for faltering. If it's a good deal, it will be gone when you come back for it. In a counter-clockwise motion, nfininja sweeped the grounds. At one point, there were tables set up with various loot. The tables were setup in front of the desk and office chair displays. Other citizens were in the walking lanes browsing the table; nfininja went on the other side of the tables - it did not matter the price signs were not facing this side, nfininja knows a free after mail-in-rebate selection when he sees it.
But wait, what was fatherinja doing? Why, he was sweeping in the clockwise manner of course. All-in-all, we landed plenty of free after MIR items, some webcams, some graphics cards, backup battery, laptop cooler, mice, keyboards, flash drives, TV tuner, and other fun goodies. I don't really know why we do it. Most of the stuff we don't really need. Maybe it's just a bad addiction. Oh, an $8 conventional oven didn't hurt to grab either - but that was after we realized we needed to level up and rearrange our point distribution to get us a shopping cart. We no longer required mobility after getting what we needed. It's just plain fun. Ninja'ing items off shelves before other people get to it. Watch as the inexperienced look dazed and attempt to find a store assistant who in turn looks overwhelmed with requests.
Oh, in your holiday shoppings, keep an eye out for these miniature RC helicopters; they seem to be everywhere! My dad ended up getting one for $10 because he thought it was amusing. We went on to other stores like MC and C---co (even when I went to the mall that day) and they were there! They're everywhere! I guess it's a quick stocking stuffer? Who knows, but I've never seen them prior to Thanksgiving at least. Then again, I don't go shopping. They don't look quite as big as it does in that picture. It's actually quite small - about 10cm long.
Anyway, that probably wasn't as fun a read for you as it was a morning for me. Oh well, happy holidays! Don't get run over while shopping!
Speaking of which, yesterday was Black Friday right? Well, I have a story to share about this yearly event of mass awesomness. But before I do, perhaps I need to go into a little detour that will set me up better for the story. I was playing Mass Effect last week - this game is pure win by the way, as expected of a BioWare RPG. I'll have to admit, I stayed up one night until 4am playing this baby. In any case, at one point my character, who I named Nfinite Shepard since the last name is fixed for cinematic and cutscene purposes, was speaking to an advanced intelligent life form of sorts. The conversation went a little something like this (I really don't remember the exact dialogue. It's been a few days. I'm also not putting the NPC's name since it might be a little bit of a spoiler for those who might play it in the future. It will simply be referred to as Being.)
Nfinite: Who are you?This made me smile because I was thinking You bastard, you're not infinite. I'm nfinite, biatch. But my happiness was short-lived because soon after I thought this, I realized that I could not give the NPC this type of retort. I suppose BioWare can only be so good right? *sigh* I wonder if there will ever be a day when an adventure/rpg game will be able to hold this type of open-endedness. Remember back in the days of Zork when you could type in things? That would be amazing if in the future they could meld RPG and text-based adventures into one seamless speech recognition interactive RPG. That would lead to even more separation of gamers from society I guess.
Being: You cannot fathom our existence.
Nfinite: Where are you from?
Being: We simply are.
Nfinite: Who made you?
Being: We have no makers.
Nfinite: I'm going to kill you.
Being: We have no end. We have no future. We are infinite.
I digress. Now that I have touched the subject of my conceitedness, I can further boast of my glories and accolades of Black Friday shopping. I'm not sure why, but Black Friday is very exhilarating for me. Getting up early in the morning, standing out in the cold, waiting in a very long line, freezing your butt and everything in between off. These things are necessary sacrifices for the emotional rush of being a ninja. Wait, ninja? Oh yes - ninja. A nfininja™®© comes prepared to his mission. He has researched the exact mission requirements in the form of an objectives list:
- Gain the assistance of fatherinja™®©.
- Split up and collect the items of interest (10/10 remaining)
- Review mission target floorplan.
- Side Objective: Keep a watch for free items not previously researched.
Screw the shopping cart. This is the nfininja characterization prompt. You know the one that makes you distribute your stat points? If you go for all mobility, you lose storage capacity. This means you reject all forms of carrying equipment and are able to dart around using only what you can pick up for inventory space. No good. If you customize yourself for full capacity, you lose mobility. The shopping cart allows for a functionally unlimited space for the required quest items. In the process of customizing nfininja in this manner, he would lose the very meaning of his name. Shopping carts destroy mobility and maneuverability, you are limited to travel only by avenues in which the shopping cart may fit.
Aside: This post fits so well with a post back in June of mine: the random game of life. Soon my theory of life and reality shall be complete.
The compromise? Hand baskets. If this customization screen had a presets selection, the picture on the right would be what it looked like. So with hand basket in... hand, I burst through the entrance gates at a speed walk. Those who run look are ungraceful. An nfininja™®© must stay cool under all circumstance, no matter how dire it may appear. Darting in, out, between, in front off, behind, u-turning, detouring, shortcutting across the store, I hastily grabbed everything that I needed, as well as things that were cheap. Everything is fair game with one rule of thumb: Grab first, decide whether you want it later. There is no room nor time for faltering. If it's a good deal, it will be gone when you come back for it. In a counter-clockwise motion, nfininja sweeped the grounds. At one point, there were tables set up with various loot. The tables were setup in front of the desk and office chair displays. Other citizens were in the walking lanes browsing the table; nfininja went on the other side of the tables - it did not matter the price signs were not facing this side, nfininja knows a free after mail-in-rebate selection when he sees it.But wait, what was fatherinja doing? Why, he was sweeping in the clockwise manner of course. All-in-all, we landed plenty of free after MIR items, some webcams, some graphics cards, backup battery, laptop cooler, mice, keyboards, flash drives, TV tuner, and other fun goodies. I don't really know why we do it. Most of the stuff we don't really need. Maybe it's just a bad addiction. Oh, an $8 conventional oven didn't hurt to grab either - but that was after we realized we needed to level up and rearrange our point distribution to get us a shopping cart. We no longer required mobility after getting what we needed. It's just plain fun. Ninja'ing items off shelves before other people get to it. Watch as the inexperienced look dazed and attempt to find a store assistant who in turn looks overwhelmed with requests.
Oh, in your holiday shoppings, keep an eye out for these miniature RC helicopters; they seem to be everywhere! My dad ended up getting one for $10 because he thought it was amusing. We went on to other stores like MC and C---co (even when I went to the mall that day) and they were there! They're everywhere! I guess it's a quick stocking stuffer? Who knows, but I've never seen them prior to Thanksgiving at least. Then again, I don't go shopping. They don't look quite as big as it does in that picture. It's actually quite small - about 10cm long.Anyway, that probably wasn't as fun a read for you as it was a morning for me. Oh well, happy holidays! Don't get run over while shopping!
10 November 2007
LOAD Monkeys ........... STORE Barrel
I think I've been staring at too much assembly code.
Now that my brain has switched tracks from the logical computer and code side to the less logical language side, I think I'll be able to blog some. That was my attempt at very poor Japanese... I'll get to fluency eventually *sigh. Spanish is also rusty as well. My mom always says I need to practice it so that the four years spent in high school isn't going to waste. So that sentence was for her... the Vietnamese as well. The English was for.... no reason. Maybe I'm trying to redeem myself. I just read over my last blog entry, and the grammar and typos in that post are horrid. My apologies for making you try to decipher awkward sentence configurations and misplaced words.
Anyway, if you haven't gotten the general idea by now, I haven't played a single substantial game since last Sunday. I say substantial because maybe I played some Flash games in physics lecture. That's beside the point! Ok, I don't know how long its been since my last post. About a month maybe? Speaking of 'month', does it ever strike you as odd that "in exactly one month" isn't really *exact* at all? We can say "exactly one day" - and that means 24 hours. We can say "exactly one week" - and that means 7 days. What happens when we say "exactly one month"? Does this mean, the same date but increase a month? One month from today is December 10th? But wait, one month from December 10th is January 10th. How can this be exact? One is a period of 30 days, the other is 31 days. Not to mention February screwin' everything up. They need to make conventions for this kind of stuff.
Kind of like they need to make conventions for passing people traveling in the opposite direction. I know for a fact that every one of you has been in this situation:
You: Walking along sidewalk, eyes at the ground
Pedestrian: Walking opposite direction on sidewalk, also eyes at the ground.
You: Look up and notice that there is a person in front of you.
Pedestrian: Also looks up and notices you.
You: Lean towards the right to pass.
Pedestrian: Leans towards the left to pass.
You+Pedestrian: Awkward moment where you're not sure if the other person is going to correct themselves or if you have to take the initiative to go around them.
There should be a universal law:
Wouldn't it be great if people actually did this? The issue becomes particularly troublesome when one party is riding a bicycle and the other party is walking. Bicycle person is paying attention. Walking person is not. Bicycle person makes clear intention of leaning to the right to pass. Walking person looks up and decides to jump in the way of the bicycle person. Bicycle person must then make hard swerve left because any further right would result in wipeout onto turf. Walking person gets mad and curses as bicycle person. Bicycle person thinks walking person is an ingrate. Personal experience? Mine? Surely not....
On a similar note, let's talk about road ethics. This is going to be short, don't worry. Have you ever been happily driving along in your car (ドライブをする) down a bi-directional highway with a middle turning lane and then the car in front of you indicates the intent of changing lanes into the middle turning lane. Of course you have, unless you haven't driven much. Soon, however, you realize that the car is halfway in between your lane and the turning lane and slowing down considerably. If you're going to change lanes, gtfo the way! Do the slowing down after you're in the turn lane. But no, cars aren't this considerate. The car is almost stopped, however it is straddling the lane line. You now have to quickly look to your right lane to see if you can simply swerve around it. If not, you now have to brake. Stupid braking for no reason... when it could easily be avoided if the other car had changed lanes properly. Again, personal experience? Of course not. Oh, don't get me started on people who slow to a stop just to make a right turn from a main road. Your car is not going to flip over; you can enter a turn *with* speed.
Well that was an amusing rant. I had more to say, but I'm hungry now. Maybe next time. I'll note it here so I don't forget: campus evacuation (that was almost surreal for a few moments) and silent headphones.
じゃね
Hasta luego
Chao
Later
CodeMindset: JUMP CodeMindset
今週、毎日ラボにプロジェックトをしにいきました。ビデオゲームの時間がありませんでした。悲しいねえ ＝（
La semana pasada, cuando tenia tiempo libre, fui al laboratorio de computadoras para trabajar y... code-r una robusteza. Por eso, no tenia tiempo de jugar videojuegos. Estaba triste.
Tuan moi qua nay, luc nao ranh, toi di computer lab de code cai robot. Khong co thi gio de choi game het. Buon lam.
This past week, whenever I had free time, I went to the Digital Design lab room to work on the final project which involved coding a robot. Because of this, I had no time to play games the entire week. It made me sad.
Now that my brain has switched tracks from the logical computer and code side to the less logical language side, I think I'll be able to blog some. That was my attempt at very poor Japanese... I'll get to fluency eventually *sigh. Spanish is also rusty as well. My mom always says I need to practice it so that the four years spent in high school isn't going to waste. So that sentence was for her... the Vietnamese as well. The English was for.... no reason. Maybe I'm trying to redeem myself. I just read over my last blog entry, and the grammar and typos in that post are horrid. My apologies for making you try to decipher awkward sentence configurations and misplaced words.
Anyway, if you haven't gotten the general idea by now, I haven't played a single substantial game since last Sunday. I say substantial because maybe I played some Flash games in physics lecture. That's beside the point! Ok, I don't know how long its been since my last post. About a month maybe? Speaking of 'month', does it ever strike you as odd that "in exactly one month" isn't really *exact* at all? We can say "exactly one day" - and that means 24 hours. We can say "exactly one week" - and that means 7 days. What happens when we say "exactly one month"? Does this mean, the same date but increase a month? One month from today is December 10th? But wait, one month from December 10th is January 10th. How can this be exact? One is a period of 30 days, the other is 31 days. Not to mention February screwin' everything up. They need to make conventions for this kind of stuff.
Kind of like they need to make conventions for passing people traveling in the opposite direction. I know for a fact that every one of you has been in this situation:
You: Walking along sidewalk, eyes at the ground
Pedestrian: Walking opposite direction on sidewalk, also eyes at the ground.
You: Look up and notice that there is a person in front of you.
Pedestrian: Also looks up and notices you.
You: Lean towards the right to pass.
Pedestrian: Leans towards the left to pass.
You+Pedestrian: Awkward moment where you're not sure if the other person is going to correct themselves or if you have to take the initiative to go around them.
There should be a universal law:
If one finds oneself presented in a situation where one must move in order to pass another person...
a) If you are already slightly off center of the person, go in the direction that will result in the least side displacement.
b) Turn slightly right. If both persons follow this universal law, many awkward moments can be averted.
Wouldn't it be great if people actually did this? The issue becomes particularly troublesome when one party is riding a bicycle and the other party is walking. Bicycle person is paying attention. Walking person is not. Bicycle person makes clear intention of leaning to the right to pass. Walking person looks up and decides to jump in the way of the bicycle person. Bicycle person must then make hard swerve left because any further right would result in wipeout onto turf. Walking person gets mad and curses as bicycle person. Bicycle person thinks walking person is an ingrate. Personal experience? Mine? Surely not....
On a similar note, let's talk about road ethics. This is going to be short, don't worry. Have you ever been happily driving along in your car (ドライブをする) down a bi-directional highway with a middle turning lane and then the car in front of you indicates the intent of changing lanes into the middle turning lane. Of course you have, unless you haven't driven much. Soon, however, you realize that the car is halfway in between your lane and the turning lane and slowing down considerably. If you're going to change lanes, gtfo the way! Do the slowing down after you're in the turn lane. But no, cars aren't this considerate. The car is almost stopped, however it is straddling the lane line. You now have to quickly look to your right lane to see if you can simply swerve around it. If not, you now have to brake. Stupid braking for no reason... when it could easily be avoided if the other car had changed lanes properly. Again, personal experience? Of course not. Oh, don't get me started on people who slow to a stop just to make a right turn from a main road. Your car is not going to flip over; you can enter a turn *with* speed.
Well that was an amusing rant. I had more to say, but I'm hungry now. Maybe next time. I'll note it here so I don't forget: campus evacuation (that was almost surreal for a few moments) and silent headphones.
じゃね
Hasta luego
Chao
Later
CodeMindset: JUMP CodeMindset
22 October 2007
confusion
Ok, so maybe I've neglected to post to this as often as I originally stated I would. I'm not gonna lie - I'm so lazy. But I'm just going to proceed where I left off as if this past month or two(?) never happened. Sound good? Sure it does!
It's 12:40 now. I'm blogging tonight. But the weird thing is, it's already tomorrow right? So, is it tomorrow's night? Or is it tonight's tomorrow? This is why I believe in going to sleep before midnight; it eliminates confusion. When someone asks you, "When did you sleep last night?" - and you slept after midnight - the answer becomes complicated. Should you say you didn't sleep last night? Because last implies the preceding day. However, the nighttime of the preceding day did not include any activity labeled 'sleep'. So can you say "I didn't sleep last night, I slept this night."? That doesn't work because it seems like you've broken some kind of time-space continuum in the process. You can't say "I didn't sleep last night, I slept this morning" because that makes it sound like you started to sleep at 4am or something. (Unless you really did do so).
I realize that this all revolves around one assumption that does not necessarily need to be assumed. But for the sake of having something to write about, I went ahead and was ignorant of the fact that last night does not imply yesterday night. It must be trippy when you live somewhere in which 'night' is actually 24 hours a day. You know, those regions at the poles that have 24hour night-days and sometimes 24hour sun-days. Then you'd really be confused when someone asks you, "So when'd you sleep last night?"
I was considering racing games earlier. Just pondering the features of today's racing games. They seem to feature collision modeling. DiRT had pretty sweet car deformation, the new NFS:Pro Street looks pretty sweet as well with its touted procedural damage model on the cars. This leads to one huge predicament though (at least in my mind).
Racing and crashing are mutually exclusive in these games. Some games less so than others, but for the most part, this holds true. (I'm leaving out Burnout, but I'm taking into consideration that FlatOut, even if it has destruction modes, is affected by this predicament). Anyway, back to the paradox. These games have beautiful crashes. It's just *so* much fun to crash cars and watch them bounce around, flip over, break windshields, lose tailpipes, and dent large pieces of metal. The problem is... it's a racing game - the goal is to actually PASS the finish line... preferably undamaged since undamaged = faster. (Or something like that). So I was playing DiRT the other day. And the whole time I was cruisin' over hills and driftin' through corners, there was that primal desire to absolutely destroy the car and view the replay in slow motion. But alas, I needed to beat a best lap time. Taking a crash would be detrimental to that goal.
Why oh why must games tempt me to lose so much! I don't enjoy losing. I enjoy crashing, because they made the crashes look amazing. I don't enjoy losing. Life is so cruel.
That being said, racing games that have no damage system look dumb. So they have to implement a good one. But doing so creates the race/crash paradox.
Good night, it's not almost 1am. Nobody better ask me what time I went to sleep last night... this morning... this night...
It's 12:40 now. I'm blogging tonight. But the weird thing is, it's already tomorrow right? So, is it tomorrow's night? Or is it tonight's tomorrow? This is why I believe in going to sleep before midnight; it eliminates confusion. When someone asks you, "When did you sleep last night?" - and you slept after midnight - the answer becomes complicated. Should you say you didn't sleep last night? Because last implies the preceding day. However, the nighttime of the preceding day did not include any activity labeled 'sleep'. So can you say "I didn't sleep last night, I slept this night."? That doesn't work because it seems like you've broken some kind of time-space continuum in the process. You can't say "I didn't sleep last night, I slept this morning" because that makes it sound like you started to sleep at 4am or something. (Unless you really did do so).
I realize that this all revolves around one assumption that does not necessarily need to be assumed. But for the sake of having something to write about, I went ahead and was ignorant of the fact that last night does not imply yesterday night. It must be trippy when you live somewhere in which 'night' is actually 24 hours a day. You know, those regions at the poles that have 24hour night-days and sometimes 24hour sun-days. Then you'd really be confused when someone asks you, "So when'd you sleep last night?"
I was considering racing games earlier. Just pondering the features of today's racing games. They seem to feature collision modeling. DiRT had pretty sweet car deformation, the new NFS:Pro Street looks pretty sweet as well with its touted procedural damage model on the cars. This leads to one huge predicament though (at least in my mind).
Racing and crashing are mutually exclusive in these games. Some games less so than others, but for the most part, this holds true. (I'm leaving out Burnout, but I'm taking into consideration that FlatOut, even if it has destruction modes, is affected by this predicament). Anyway, back to the paradox. These games have beautiful crashes. It's just *so* much fun to crash cars and watch them bounce around, flip over, break windshields, lose tailpipes, and dent large pieces of metal. The problem is... it's a racing game - the goal is to actually PASS the finish line... preferably undamaged since undamaged = faster. (Or something like that). So I was playing DiRT the other day. And the whole time I was cruisin' over hills and driftin' through corners, there was that primal desire to absolutely destroy the car and view the replay in slow motion. But alas, I needed to beat a best lap time. Taking a crash would be detrimental to that goal.
Why oh why must games tempt me to lose so much! I don't enjoy losing. I enjoy crashing, because they made the crashes look amazing. I don't enjoy losing. Life is so cruel.
That being said, racing games that have no damage system look dumb. So they have to implement a good one. But doing so creates the race/crash paradox.
Good night, it's not almost 1am. Nobody better ask me what time I went to sleep last night... this morning... this night...
30 August 2007
[picking up noise]
Prepare for random.
So I was sitting in Physics II lecture yesterday - boring lecture since he basically repeated what he said last lecture. I saw someone walk out the door. That got me thinking: I wonder how those people have the balls to do that. Just walk out on someone as they're talking. I, for one, am the type of person who can't really walk out of a lecture out of respect for the professor - even if the professor doesn't deserve it. I either show up, or don't show up - walking out on a class is extremely rude to me. In any case, it got me thinking... What if it was possible to just disappear out of the class. What if you could run out of the class so fast, that no one could see you do it. (mind you, maybe it was too early for me to thinking about teleporting out of the class, but rather, I thought about moving extremely fast).
Superman could do that right? He does do that in comics and movies and other forms of media, right? HALT! my brain shouted at me. There's no way you could open that door and close it in a split second. Well, is that so? (This is me contemplating the possibility of opening and closing a door in a very short amount of time). I guess I was also being influenced by the fact that I was sitting in a physics lecture: The door would have to travel a finite distance in a very very very short amount of time. Therefore, it's velocity would be extremely high. By the same token, it would reach this velocity in a very very short time, and thus acceleration would be extremely high as well.
Consequently, if you think about the two step processes of leaving a room, there is the opening, and then the closing of the door. Meaning that the same magnitude of insane velocity and acceleration will be observed - only in the opposite direction. This extremely fast change in acceleration from one direction to the other will cause an insane amount of jerk. Thus, my brain told me: if Superman were to leave a physics lecture without being noticed, he would blow the door to bits and pieces while trying to open+close it.
Then I questioned myself - made sure my inferences were correct - which I'm still not certain if this would happen. I'm pretty sure it would. And then I realized I'm a total dork.
NEXT SUBJECT!
Flat and sharp can have the same meaning. I found this thought amusing because in music they definitely don't. Flat - lower pitch, Sharp - higher pitch. How much more opposite can you get than that? b < #. Sorry 'b', but '#' is greater than you. You will never be able to win the race. But you can tie! In a round-about manner... I suppose. I'll be there at 9 o'clock sharp - which is in 3 hours 35 minutes 44 seconds flat. See there buddy! You're equal to sharp! Yay!
NEXT!
Gatorade, Powerade, and the like disturb me. Have you ever seen those guys in the university cafeteria's - dining halls if ya wanna be fancy - who have the two glasses of Gatorade? It's not hard to find them: Just follow the neon glow of their trays. What's up with that anyway? These drinks disturb me because I feel like I'm drinking radioactively infected water or something. They even have electrolytes! Super! Another term that makes me feel like they first put it through shock treatment, and then exposed it to a nuclear reactor. Do the colors need to be vibrant!? I always found it amusing that people would have one glass of blue neon water, another glass of red neon water, oh, and throw in another glass of yellow neon too! I know that the contents of [blank]ade is not that color... It's just not natural. I can understand cranberry juice being deep red. I cannot understand manufactured sports "thirst quenchers" to come out looking like that. Unless... they do treat it with nuclear byproducts!
I'm not ignorant, honest! You're simply picking up random thoughts that come to my mind.
So I was sitting in Physics II lecture yesterday - boring lecture since he basically repeated what he said last lecture. I saw someone walk out the door. That got me thinking: I wonder how those people have the balls to do that. Just walk out on someone as they're talking. I, for one, am the type of person who can't really walk out of a lecture out of respect for the professor - even if the professor doesn't deserve it. I either show up, or don't show up - walking out on a class is extremely rude to me. In any case, it got me thinking... What if it was possible to just disappear out of the class. What if you could run out of the class so fast, that no one could see you do it. (mind you, maybe it was too early for me to thinking about teleporting out of the class, but rather, I thought about moving extremely fast).
Superman could do that right? He does do that in comics and movies and other forms of media, right? HALT! my brain shouted at me. There's no way you could open that door and close it in a split second. Well, is that so? (This is me contemplating the possibility of opening and closing a door in a very short amount of time). I guess I was also being influenced by the fact that I was sitting in a physics lecture: The door would have to travel a finite distance in a very very very short amount of time. Therefore, it's velocity would be extremely high. By the same token, it would reach this velocity in a very very short time, and thus acceleration would be extremely high as well.
Consequently, if you think about the two step processes of leaving a room, there is the opening, and then the closing of the door. Meaning that the same magnitude of insane velocity and acceleration will be observed - only in the opposite direction. This extremely fast change in acceleration from one direction to the other will cause an insane amount of jerk. Thus, my brain told me: if Superman were to leave a physics lecture without being noticed, he would blow the door to bits and pieces while trying to open+close it.
Then I questioned myself - made sure my inferences were correct - which I'm still not certain if this would happen. I'm pretty sure it would. And then I realized I'm a total dork.
NEXT SUBJECT!
Flat and sharp can have the same meaning. I found this thought amusing because in music they definitely don't. Flat - lower pitch, Sharp - higher pitch. How much more opposite can you get than that? b < #. Sorry 'b', but '#' is greater than you. You will never be able to win the race. But you can tie! In a round-about manner... I suppose. I'll be there at 9 o'clock sharp - which is in 3 hours 35 minutes 44 seconds flat. See there buddy! You're equal to sharp! Yay!
NEXT!
Gatorade, Powerade, and the like disturb me. Have you ever seen those guys in the university cafeteria's - dining halls if ya wanna be fancy - who have the two glasses of Gatorade? It's not hard to find them: Just follow the neon glow of their trays. What's up with that anyway? These drinks disturb me because I feel like I'm drinking radioactively infected water or something. They even have electrolytes! Super! Another term that makes me feel like they first put it through shock treatment, and then exposed it to a nuclear reactor. Do the colors need to be vibrant!? I always found it amusing that people would have one glass of blue neon water, another glass of red neon water, oh, and throw in another glass of yellow neon too! I know that the contents of [blank]ade is not that color... It's just not natural. I can understand cranberry juice being deep red. I cannot understand manufactured sports "thirst quenchers" to come out looking like that. Unless... they do treat it with nuclear byproducts!
I'm not ignorant, honest! You're simply picking up random thoughts that come to my mind.
24 August 2007
nfinite anger
Beware of rant that follows, if you don't like rants, don't read. I just want to type this sh*t out. I don't know why I'm *ing out profanity, it doesn't really make a difference when you read it. Maybe it's just to retain a little bit of my decency and maybe sanity. In either case, I usually don't use profanity; when I do, you can be damn sure that they are necessary to express my anger.
Last year we were required to buy these PRS (Personal Response System) transmitters. These retarded f*ckers were something like $25 or $30 to buy at the store. There was no option of buying used ones because each IR transmitter had its unique serial number that went along with it. This transmitter was necessary for ONE (1) class - Chemistry. There were in-class quizzes that required us to transmit our answer in order to receive participation points. Ok, Ok, I had to buy it because it was for my grade. Fine.
This semester, they (I don't know who this 'they' is, but someone decided to do it) decided to switch to an RF transmitting scheme. One that required a totally new line of PRS units. Their rationale for this switch was that RF transmitters are omnidirectional (an improvement over the directional IR transmitters) and that you receive feedback right on the unit itself since these new units have a built in LCD display. Whoop-dee-f*cking-doo. Price on these new units? $50. Well sh*t. And the only class I need this new retarded unit is in Physics II. Yet again, another mandatory piece of junk that's required for a portion of my grade. Why don't I just pay off the school to give me an A? It'd probably cost as much as I'm paying for books and sh*t right?!
Oh, *whew*, at least the Barnes and Noble of my university is allowing me to get a refund for my previous unit. They at least have some compassion, right?
But wait, of course they're not going to let me go that easily, now are they? How much do batteries cost? Bear with me, this is pertinent.
Ok, $0.15 according to Froogle for some very generic pack of 2 AAA batteries.
The lady at the cashier makes sure that the PRS transmitter works, but of course, I took the batteries out already. She says that I won't get fully refunded for my PRS since the batteries are missing. At first I was outraged by this, but then I thought to myself, I guess that's somewhat reasonable since I bought the thing with generic crap batteries, they should get their full product contents back. So I replied, that's fine. She said, "You won't be getting two dollars back."
Last year we were required to buy these PRS (Personal Response System) transmitters. These retarded f*ckers were something like $25 or $30 to buy at the store. There was no option of buying used ones because each IR transmitter had its unique serial number that went along with it. This transmitter was necessary for ONE (1) class - Chemistry. There were in-class quizzes that required us to transmit our answer in order to receive participation points. Ok, Ok, I had to buy it because it was for my grade. Fine.
This semester, they (I don't know who this 'they' is, but someone decided to do it) decided to switch to an RF transmitting scheme. One that required a totally new line of PRS units. Their rationale for this switch was that RF transmitters are omnidirectional (an improvement over the directional IR transmitters) and that you receive feedback right on the unit itself since these new units have a built in LCD display. Whoop-dee-f*cking-doo. Price on these new units? $50. Well sh*t. And the only class I need this new retarded unit is in Physics II. Yet again, another mandatory piece of junk that's required for a portion of my grade. Why don't I just pay off the school to give me an A? It'd probably cost as much as I'm paying for books and sh*t right?!Oh, *whew*, at least the Barnes and Noble of my university is allowing me to get a refund for my previous unit. They at least have some compassion, right?
WRONG.
No school supply company ever gives a damn about their students. They're only interested in the $$$ and think Rape the kids for all their moneys' worth... and then some! So today I had some free time in between classes to take a trip to the Barnes and Selfish on campus to buy the new PRS and get a refund for my old PRS (because, well, I have to for my grade). So I get the unit (which, by the way has been out of stock since the beginning of the week, and I called to make sure they had a new shipment of the damned units) and I walk to the register - which can also be thought of as an ugly prostitute: f*cks you for all of your money, and you don't feel any bit better when the deed is done. The transaction needs to be done in two parts. First, I buy the $50 blasted piece of plastic. Then I get money (but of course not all) back for the old PRS. Fine. Fine.But wait, of course they're not going to let me go that easily, now are they? How much do batteries cost? Bear with me, this is pertinent.
Ok, $0.15 according to Froogle for some very generic pack of 2 AAA batteries. ...
nfinite's brain
...
nfinite's brain
...
Wait, 2 f*cking dollars! Did I hear this lady right? TWO WHAT? TWO CENTS? No I'm pretty sure she just said DOLLARS. TWO DOLLARS? ONE AAA BATTERY IS NOW ONE DOLLAR? HOLY SH*T! I'm getting f*cked and I can't do a damn thing about it. Maybe I should have given her dead batteries. Wait, no, that won't work. She'd say the PRS is broken and can't refund me. I can't make a big deal out of this since Barnes and Retard could just as easily decide not to refund my PRS.
...
back to reality
...
back to reality
...
I mutter this is ridiculous under my breath, but I say "... o...kay". I can't get mad at the cashier because she is just the messenger. I always see other people blow up in the cashier's face over something that's not the cashier's fault, and I feel sorry for the cashier. So I needed to be nice. After getting raped in the a$$, I walked away from the cashier and proceeded to bike back to the apartment.
Fifteen cents for two AAA batteries. 7.5cents for 1 AAA battery. They said 2 dollars for 2AAA batteries. 1 dollar for 1 AAA Battery.
Fifteen cents for two AAA batteries. 7.5cents for 1 AAA battery. They said 2 dollars for 2AAA batteries. 1 dollar for 1 AAA Battery.
1/.075 = 13.33
They're making a 1233% increase in profit - at the student's expense.
My bank account was raped, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Rape is such an appropriate description: helpless throughout the entire process.
They're making a 1233% increase in profit - at the student's expense.
My bank account was raped, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Rape is such an appropriate description: helpless throughout the entire process.
23 August 2007
settled in
So it's been over a week since I last posted, sorry for the delay. I'm finally moved in and settled (almost, I still have a few textbooks to go before I'm truly settled, but I'll get to that in a bit) into my apartment room on campus. It's a pretty sweet place; having a room to myself is awesome and the commons area in the middle is pretty spacious - it even has a nice bay window overlooking into the grassy quad area. Pictures of just my room here: Before and After shots as well.
Classes this week have been pretty slim. I haven't had to go to any of my three labs since it's the first week of classes. But I can tell that after this week, it's going to be quite a workload with three lab courses. Instead of worrying about labs this first week, I get the enjoyment of textbooks raping my back pocket. My credit card, check card, and wallet are all crying out in pain over the exodus of dollars from their grasp. It's seriously disheartening to see receipt statements that say:
Seriously! What the balls! 8% tax! I thought it was only 6% tax. But it seems they are further shafting us poor college students for all our money's worth. That's only 2.5 of my classes! I still have 3 more classes. (Yes if you add it together, that makes 5.5 classes, since one of them I have to buy an extra digital circuits kit - another $45 hit to my bank account). Enough of this, I know a lot of you are in the same situation and possibly even worse.
Speaking of getting shafted, why does being good in games always means you get screwed? Take for example: The Jedi Knight games (the ones where you had to choose if you wanted to be light side or dark side - mainly Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy though). The light side always got screwed with crappy force powers whereas the dark side had all the kickass skills. Light side had skills that would just absorb dark attacks, protect from laser fire, and see through walls. What's the fun in that?! Where's the incentive to be good when you could go around gripping baddies and throwing them against walls, force lightning the balls out of them, and going into a rage that made you super fast and strong at the same time! Light side really gets shafted in games. It's almost as if the games want you to follow the dark path. Tsk tsk on them, teaching kids that evil > good.
The only reason I thought about this was because I've been playing BioShock. (Okay okay, so maybe I haven't been that busy as to not get around to blogging...) I finally got my hands on BioShock at school (after waiting a week at home) for the 360. It's so frickin' awesome! But like I said, these games seem to tailor themselves toward evil being the cooler path. You have to make a choice to save these little monsters (*cough girls) or harvest them for the slugs that lie in their brains. (Pretty intense eh?) Well, you only get 80 Adam for saving them, and 160 Adam for harvesting them. The Adam is used for buying upgrades for yourself. Why wouldn't you want the full amount of Adam for the work you did to kill the little girl's body guard. Plot points? Blah, I guess I'll have to go back and play the game again once I beat it and be a good boy. *sigh, being good is so boring.
Time to go to math class. The professor looks like he's fresh out of college... from China. His accent's a little hard to understand (and thankfully I'm Asian and more accustomed to accents than others) and I still haven't figured out if he will be a good professor or not. He's really really young looking. Anyway, that's my short post for now. I'll try and be more active with posting.
Classes this week have been pretty slim. I haven't had to go to any of my three labs since it's the first week of classes. But I can tell that after this week, it's going to be quite a workload with three lab courses. Instead of worrying about labs this first week, I get the enjoyment of textbooks raping my back pocket. My credit card, check card, and wallet are all crying out in pain over the exodus of dollars from their grasp. It's seriously disheartening to see receipt statements that say:
Seriously! What the balls! 8% tax! I thought it was only 6% tax. But it seems they are further shafting us poor college students for all our money's worth. That's only 2.5 of my classes! I still have 3 more classes. (Yes if you add it together, that makes 5.5 classes, since one of them I have to buy an extra digital circuits kit - another $45 hit to my bank account). Enough of this, I know a lot of you are in the same situation and possibly even worse.Speaking of getting shafted, why does being good in games always means you get screwed? Take for example: The Jedi Knight games (the ones where you had to choose if you wanted to be light side or dark side - mainly Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy though). The light side always got screwed with crappy force powers whereas the dark side had all the kickass skills. Light side had skills that would just absorb dark attacks, protect from laser fire, and see through walls. What's the fun in that?! Where's the incentive to be good when you could go around gripping baddies and throwing them against walls, force lightning the balls out of them, and going into a rage that made you super fast and strong at the same time! Light side really gets shafted in games. It's almost as if the games want you to follow the dark path. Tsk tsk on them, teaching kids that evil > good.
The only reason I thought about this was because I've been playing BioShock. (Okay okay, so maybe I haven't been that busy as to not get around to blogging...) I finally got my hands on BioShock at school (after waiting a week at home) for the 360. It's so frickin' awesome! But like I said, these games seem to tailor themselves toward evil being the cooler path. You have to make a choice to save these little monsters (*cough girls) or harvest them for the slugs that lie in their brains. (Pretty intense eh?) Well, you only get 80 Adam for saving them, and 160 Adam for harvesting them. The Adam is used for buying upgrades for yourself. Why wouldn't you want the full amount of Adam for the work you did to kill the little girl's body guard. Plot points? Blah, I guess I'll have to go back and play the game again once I beat it and be a good boy. *sigh, being good is so boring.
Time to go to math class. The professor looks like he's fresh out of college... from China. His accent's a little hard to understand (and thankfully I'm Asian and more accustomed to accents than others) and I still haven't figured out if he will be a good professor or not. He's really really young looking. Anyway, that's my short post for now. I'll try and be more active with posting.
14 August 2007
streaming from the nfinite
I realize that I have not posted in some time. What's today, August 14th, 2007; last post: August 06th, 2007. I'm behind on my schedule it seems. But I have a valid excuse this time! (Not really, but it's a better excuse than usually). It's been a hectic weekend.
Friday:
Finished my co-op term for the summer.
Packed my things after work and through until sleep time.
Saturday:
Drove/sat in a van for 10 hours driving home from Virginia to Georgia.
Got home Saturday night at 8:30ish.
Unloaded.
Ate.
Slept.
Sunday:
Moved some of the stuff I could into the apartment at school.
Got back at 11pm.
Slept.
Monday:
Organize.
Anticipate the night.
Meet with my special someone.
Get home at 1:30ish.
Tuesday:
Oh that's today.
Blogging.
Thinking that this blog will essentially be a stream of thoughts from my head.
There is no real structure to this post, no fore-planning nor ideas to talk about.
Friday:
Finished my co-op term for the summer.
Packed my things after work and through until sleep time.
Saturday:
Drove/sat in a van for 10 hours driving home from Virginia to Georgia.
Got home Saturday night at 8:30ish.
Unloaded.
Ate.
Slept.
Sunday:
Moved some of the stuff I could into the apartment at school.
Got back at 11pm.
Slept.
Monday:
Organize.
Anticipate the night.
Meet with my special someone.
Get home at 1:30ish.
Tuesday:
Oh that's today.
Blogging.
Thinking that this blog will essentially be a stream of thoughts from my head.
There is no real structure to this post, no fore-planning nor ideas to talk about.
So to distract you for a few moments while I think of something to type about. Here are three pictures that I took in the van driving home. I thought the mountain landscape was pretty. Unfortunately, they plant trees to hide the view. When we actually got into the mountains to go down (on the Z-Axis) and down (the Y-Axis), it was my turn to drive. I didn't find it prudent to drive down a mountain and take pictures at the same time. But it was really pretty, looking off the mountain-side into the city below. I wish I had been passenger so that I could have taken pictures of the view.
I really enjoyed the clouds that day. They were very natural (if that makes any sense at all, because clouds should always be natural...).
It's very fun driving down a mountain. You only have to worry about one pedal. No, not the accelerator. But also, our van we rented had one of those consoles that showed various informations - odometer, heading, temperature, and (my favorite) the mileage meter thingy. (I wonder if it's called kilometerage when talking about kilometers per liter in standard units. Anyway, mileage in miles per gallon was fun to toy around with. It was especially fun on the mountain side; the reason: reset the tool while you're coasting down the mountain side. I wish I could have taken pictures of the console - I was doing like 900MPG! That's some good mileage. I could've made it home with that kind of efficiency in one gallon! Oh well. I averaged 26.9MPG in that van lugging all my housely possessions, so I guess I did OK.
Trip was ~700miles. Divide by 27. 26 gallons. Price for gas: ~$2.85/gal. = ~$75 for the trip home. Monkeys, gas prices stink.
Speaking of gasoline, that reminds me of this stuff that my parents put in my food for me to try yesterday. No, they didn't put petrol in my food. But it did smell a lot like methanol or some similar alcohol. The thing is, it's housed in this tiny bottle and applied to food with a dropper. Not only this, but the box that it's in states only to use 2-3 drops. Those 2-3 drops are rreeeeeeally potent. Because all I could taste after 2 drops was the stuff. So I asked what it was (after it was already put in my food of course). It's an extract from a bug. Cà cuống. That's all they could tell me - my dad clarified, the bug is in the same family as a cicada. The box says "Mangdana Essence" along with a lot of Thai characters.
All I could come up in my mind, though, was the Mandragor mobs from Guild Wars... Close enough right? So I looked it up on Wikipedia - Ca cuong.
*Skimmed it. [...Giant Water Bug...] ... [...bug's essence...] ... [...small glass containers...] ... [...bug is scarce...] ... [...demand...high...] ... [...mostly imitation...] ... [...is in fact a pheromone...] ... [...males...] ... [...attract mates...] ...
So basically, this meant three things to me:
In regards to my DS project that I've been brainstorming about, I believe I shall attempt to design some clone of either R-Type or Ikaruga. I think I'm leaning towards an R-Type clone. The thing is, I'm still brainstorming on how to creatively use the touch screen. Cloning a game is (relatively) easy. Reinventing game-play by using the DS's capabilities, however, is something that is truly difficult, but is the only way to make an impact in the community. Only time will tell if I can actually pull through with this "project". Art direction might be an issue for me since I'm artistically retarded. Maybe I'll give nien a nudge if this project gets anywhere.
I leave you with two pictures. This is all I need to survive - minus clothes and food and a house to put this stuff in.
Just the boxes, and stuff; the shelves and things are not my stuff that I moved.
Take cares! and enjoy the time left of your summer. For school starts in under a week for me! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I really enjoyed the clouds that day. They were very natural (if that makes any sense at all, because clouds should always be natural...).
It's very fun driving down a mountain. You only have to worry about one pedal. No, not the accelerator. But also, our van we rented had one of those consoles that showed various informations - odometer, heading, temperature, and (my favorite) the mileage meter thingy. (I wonder if it's called kilometerage when talking about kilometers per liter in standard units. Anyway, mileage in miles per gallon was fun to toy around with. It was especially fun on the mountain side; the reason: reset the tool while you're coasting down the mountain side. I wish I could have taken pictures of the console - I was doing like 900MPG! That's some good mileage. I could've made it home with that kind of efficiency in one gallon! Oh well. I averaged 26.9MPG in that van lugging all my housely possessions, so I guess I did OK.
Trip was ~700miles. Divide by 27. 26 gallons. Price for gas: ~$2.85/gal. = ~$75 for the trip home. Monkeys, gas prices stink.
Speaking of gasoline, that reminds me of this stuff that my parents put in my food for me to try yesterday. No, they didn't put petrol in my food. But it did smell a lot like methanol or some similar alcohol. The thing is, it's housed in this tiny bottle and applied to food with a dropper. Not only this, but the box that it's in states only to use 2-3 drops. Those 2-3 drops are rreeeeeeally potent. Because all I could taste after 2 drops was the stuff. So I asked what it was (after it was already put in my food of course). It's an extract from a bug. Cà cuống. That's all they could tell me - my dad clarified, the bug is in the same family as a cicada. The box says "Mangdana Essence" along with a lot of Thai characters.
*Skimmed it. [...Giant Water Bug...] ... [...bug's essence...] ... [...small glass containers...] ... [...bug is scarce...] ... [...demand...high...] ... [...mostly imitation...] ... [...is in fact a pheromone...] ... [...males...] ... [...attract mates...] ...
So basically, this meant three things to me:
- It came from a bug.
- The Thai text that we can't understand probably says something like: Imitation. This is actually methanol. (I knew it)
- I'm putting sex liquid in my food.
In regards to my DS project that I've been brainstorming about, I believe I shall attempt to design some clone of either R-Type or Ikaruga. I think I'm leaning towards an R-Type clone. The thing is, I'm still brainstorming on how to creatively use the touch screen. Cloning a game is (relatively) easy. Reinventing game-play by using the DS's capabilities, however, is something that is truly difficult, but is the only way to make an impact in the community. Only time will tell if I can actually pull through with this "project". Art direction might be an issue for me since I'm artistically retarded. Maybe I'll give nien a nudge if this project gets anywhere.
I leave you with two pictures. This is all I need to survive - minus clothes and food and a house to put this stuff in.
Just the boxes, and stuff; the shelves and things are not my stuff that I moved.
Take cares! and enjoy the time left of your summer. For school starts in under a week for me! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
....man I started this post at 11:01, and its now 6:00; interrupted by dentist appointment and kitchen work - fail.
HHHHHHHHHHHHH!
06 August 2007
time flies
...when you're having fun. Was your summer fun? I hope it was. My summer was pretty good. I was very productive this summer - which is a change from the norm. I'm starting to feel cocky with my programming skills. Why you may wonder? So my co-op job has me dealing with code for pretty much the entire workday - with pauses to ask questions of co-workers about concepts that the code is implementing. The entire summer I've dealt with mainly JAVA and C code and I've learned a ridiculous amount about both languages. It's true what they say: real world experience and practical application is so much better than a classroom environment.
Classrooms may be nice for theory and stuff (that kind of thing is fine and all, I believe it's important to know how the language works) but you only really get to know the language once you sit down and code things that are useful. This may sound as if I know already what all classroom environments are like; but I only speak from the experience of two programming courses - both of which were tailored pretty much for n00bs. Those tasks they teach in class aren't useful. (Hmm, I've noticed this has turned into somewhat of a rant... so if you want to avoid being bored, skip down to the paragraph with Nintendo DS in it: no promises for excitement there either, but have at it anyway!).
Ok, so I had introductory courses in MATLAB and C. I'm only speaking for these introductory classes - it may very well be different in higher level classes. The examples and assignments they give in this class are ridiculously stupid. Let's introduce structures: Well, let's say a structure represents a person. This person has a boss. Let's say you were coding a program that looks for the hierarchy of bosses. Do it. I know I know it's meant to teach you what structures are and how to access them... but honestly, can't you come up with better and more realistic examples? It can't be that hard. Here, I'll think up one on the spot: You are making a character stats calculator for [Insert RPG]. Have the user input data for various stats: name, class, hp, str, agi, etc... And display this information back to the user in a suitable manner. The user is able to make multiple characters this way. Granted, it's not the best example. But hey, it's interesting and this would be a viable solution should you ever want to make a character stat calculator. But whatever, I digress a lot.
I started off the summer with very little JAVA experience and no object-oriented knowledge. My most recent task was generating an automated test application that interacts with hardware, and parses the debug messages received from the hardware in semi-realtime - in a JAVA app. Works like a charm! Maybe classes should take this approach. Class time should be devoted to the quirks of the language - things that are special and specific to the language, concepts, and general usage of things. And homework should be projects that are fun and challenging. There should be no guidelines for the projects, so long that it works decently. I hated the test scripts that the classes used to grade homework - it was too nitpicky. It pretty much tested for what the person who made the script wanted. It didn't matter that you got the code to work in a different manner, it was wrong if it wasn't they way they wanted it. I say BS.
This is a horribly unorganized post, so I shall attempt to redeem myself:
By wooing you with a picture of my DS bwahhahaha. Well, I just got a Nintendo DS. And this sweet little machine is the reason why I started this post. I was about to post my friend code for Pokemon, but uh... I decided it's better if you message me for it if you want it - don't want freaks friending me on Pokemon or something, being like, "Let's fight! Loser has to cyber"... or something... Nevermind.
So anyway, I also bought a Slot1 Flash Cart for my lovely pocket gaming device and I've been reading up on homebrew stuff. It looks like the language of choice (and the tools tailored towards) making homebrew stuff is C. This is where my cockiness comes in. So with all this newfound job experience in coding, I'm thinkin': piece of cake, I could write a DS app or even a game. With that thought in mind, I now wish to write something for the DS. The problem is: I'm horribly uncreative. And I have no idea what to design.
I want to do something not already done before, something that, should I succeed well with it, I can actually release to the outside world and say: Look at how cool I am, this is cool.
The problem is I have no ideas. Please help! If you could leave suggestions of things that you think would be interesting/fun/useful! Maybe in half a year I might actually finish doing it...
Anyway, this concludes my very boring post. Thanks!
Classrooms may be nice for theory and stuff (that kind of thing is fine and all, I believe it's important to know how the language works) but you only really get to know the language once you sit down and code things that are useful. This may sound as if I know already what all classroom environments are like; but I only speak from the experience of two programming courses - both of which were tailored pretty much for n00bs. Those tasks they teach in class aren't useful. (Hmm, I've noticed this has turned into somewhat of a rant... so if you want to avoid being bored, skip down to the paragraph with Nintendo DS in it: no promises for excitement there either, but have at it anyway!).
Ok, so I had introductory courses in MATLAB and C. I'm only speaking for these introductory classes - it may very well be different in higher level classes. The examples and assignments they give in this class are ridiculously stupid. Let's introduce structures: Well, let's say a structure represents a person. This person has a boss. Let's say you were coding a program that looks for the hierarchy of bosses. Do it. I know I know it's meant to teach you what structures are and how to access them... but honestly, can't you come up with better and more realistic examples? It can't be that hard. Here, I'll think up one on the spot: You are making a character stats calculator for [Insert RPG]. Have the user input data for various stats: name, class, hp, str, agi, etc... And display this information back to the user in a suitable manner. The user is able to make multiple characters this way. Granted, it's not the best example. But hey, it's interesting and this would be a viable solution should you ever want to make a character stat calculator. But whatever, I digress a lot.
I started off the summer with very little JAVA experience and no object-oriented knowledge. My most recent task was generating an automated test application that interacts with hardware, and parses the debug messages received from the hardware in semi-realtime - in a JAVA app. Works like a charm! Maybe classes should take this approach. Class time should be devoted to the quirks of the language - things that are special and specific to the language, concepts, and general usage of things. And homework should be projects that are fun and challenging. There should be no guidelines for the projects, so long that it works decently. I hated the test scripts that the classes used to grade homework - it was too nitpicky. It pretty much tested for what the person who made the script wanted. It didn't matter that you got the code to work in a different manner, it was wrong if it wasn't they way they wanted it. I say BS.
This is a horribly unorganized post, so I shall attempt to redeem myself:
By wooing you with a picture of my DS bwahhahaha. Well, I just got a Nintendo DS. And this sweet little machine is the reason why I started this post. I was about to post my friend code for Pokemon, but uh... I decided it's better if you message me for it if you want it - don't want freaks friending me on Pokemon or something, being like, "Let's fight! Loser has to cyber"... or something... Nevermind.So anyway, I also bought a Slot1 Flash Cart for my lovely pocket gaming device and I've been reading up on homebrew stuff. It looks like the language of choice (and the tools tailored towards) making homebrew stuff is C. This is where my cockiness comes in. So with all this newfound job experience in coding, I'm thinkin': piece of cake, I could write a DS app or even a game. With that thought in mind, I now wish to write something for the DS. The problem is: I'm horribly uncreative. And I have no idea what to design.
I want to do something not already done before, something that, should I succeed well with it, I can actually release to the outside world and say: Look at how cool I am, this is cool.
The problem is I have no ideas. Please help! If you could leave suggestions of things that you think would be interesting/fun/useful! Maybe in half a year I might actually finish doing it...
Anyway, this concludes my very boring post. Thanks!
31 July 2007
the little things in life
Ok, this is going to be a little post. Mainly because it's an impulse post. I'm just sitting here bored really, but nothing substantial has come to mind for a good post. Just another thought, I still need to design a true layout; but my uncreative mind can't think of anything fantastic just yet. Yes, it needs to be fantastic - just like the owner. I kid! I kid.
Right then. On to what I originally meant to post about.
So today I received my microSD card in the mail. Fairly large package actually. A full sized envelope. Why do they need to do this anyway? The thing is huuuuge for something small and simple like a package for an SD card. I'm sure you know the size, it's about the size of your hand. In any case, it's fun to get big packages, because they make you feel important. When you come home and see a package on your front porch, it makes you all excited. It's like Christmas every time you receive a package. Looky! That might be for me! Unfortunately, it's also like Christmas in that not all the presents are for you. ... Well, you can't win them all.
So upon bringing it into the house - excited the entire way to my room - I greedily opened the package. Fun stuff, the opening process. I'm sure if you were calm when opening a package, things would go much faster. But that's never the case; you're always trying to tear it open even if you don't have the proper tools. I don't need no stinkin' knife; I shall rip it open! So that phase passes and you look inside to find the item you were eagerly awaiting. Then, you admire the packaging of the little bugger for a few minutes. You don't open it up yet because you want to savor the newness look of the item still in its manufacturer's package. Wait wait, scratch that. You don't open it up yet because the manufacturer's packaging for electronic accessories are always a major pain in the butt to open. They use that ungodly difficult plastic and seal it off on all sides. There's no where to pry open with your fingers. There's no possibly way to tear it apart with your hands. They even deceive you. You'd think that after one end has been cut off (through much toil with the scissors) that you could simply just peel one side of the package from the other.
No.
It always starts morphing and bending and you end up partially ripping it. Then the hard part comes in because you don't want to try harder for fear of cutting yourself on that newly created rift in the package. Instead you think to yourself: that should be enough of an opening for me to pull it item out. And so you do. You try and bend the package this way and that way so that the opening is large enough for you to pull off the item. And they even make this hard to do because the item is always embedded in the plastic somehow.
Back to the SD card. This thing is TINY (i guess putting tiny in all caps is a bit counter-intuitive). This thing is teeny. Not even the size of my finger! And what's more, this thing is 2GB! To put it in perspective, here are two more pictures:
Right then. On to what I originally meant to post about.
So today I received my microSD card in the mail. Fairly large package actually. A full sized envelope. Why do they need to do this anyway? The thing is huuuuge for something small and simple like a package for an SD card. I'm sure you know the size, it's about the size of your hand. In any case, it's fun to get big packages, because they make you feel important. When you come home and see a package on your front porch, it makes you all excited. It's like Christmas every time you receive a package. Looky! That might be for me! Unfortunately, it's also like Christmas in that not all the presents are for you. ... Well, you can't win them all.So upon bringing it into the house - excited the entire way to my room - I greedily opened the package. Fun stuff, the opening process. I'm sure if you were calm when opening a package, things would go much faster. But that's never the case; you're always trying to tear it open even if you don't have the proper tools. I don't need no stinkin' knife; I shall rip it open! So that phase passes and you look inside to find the item you were eagerly awaiting. Then, you admire the packaging of the little bugger for a few minutes. You don't open it up yet because you want to savor the newness look of the item still in its manufacturer's package. Wait wait, scratch that. You don't open it up yet because the manufacturer's packaging for electronic accessories are always a major pain in the butt to open. They use that ungodly difficult plastic and seal it off on all sides. There's no where to pry open with your fingers. There's no possibly way to tear it apart with your hands. They even deceive you. You'd think that after one end has been cut off (through much toil with the scissors) that you could simply just peel one side of the package from the other.
No.
It always starts morphing and bending and you end up partially ripping it. Then the hard part comes in because you don't want to try harder for fear of cutting yourself on that newly created rift in the package. Instead you think to yourself: that should be enough of an opening for me to pull it item out. And so you do. You try and bend the package this way and that way so that the opening is large enough for you to pull off the item. And they even make this hard to do because the item is always embedded in the plastic somehow.
Back to the SD card. This thing is TINY (i guess putting tiny in all caps is a bit counter-intuitive). This thing is teeny. Not even the size of my finger! And what's more, this thing is 2GB! To put it in perspective, here are two more pictures: 
Oh it looks like I need to cut my nails. Hmmm... Oh right, tiny. Yeah, look at that! It's so cuuute. It's as if two SD cards had a baby or something. That got me thinking, that microSD card is about a quarter of the size of a regular SD card. The microSD's capacity is 2GB. 2GBx4 = 8GB. That means 8GB SD cards should be pretty easy to make right? I even know there are 4GB microSD cards - meaning 16GB regular SD cards should be a cinch! Apparently I'm wrong, and there aren't that many 8GB and 16GB SD cards to choose from. And they're monster expensive too.
Oh well, time to cut my nails.
Oh well, time to cut my nails.
27 July 2007
uber lulz
Facebook is cruel. If you read my complaint about Facebook, you already know I don't like it. What makes it worse is that if anyone contacts you using Facebook, there is no escaping touching the site. Sure sure, they'll send you an emailing telling you that someone PM'd you... or "wrote something on your wall". But it will not let you in on the secret unless you log in to the site. That's just stupid. They could just as easily send you the message posted or PM'd to your email. But no, instead, you have to log on to your Facebook account just to read a useless PM that says: Come to my birthday party! ....... in New York!.... No thank you. You waisted my precious time. Wait wait, backtrack a bit. What exactly is a "wall". Why do you want someone writing on your "wall". Isn't that called vandalism in some states? It's more like "someone has graffiti'd your wall". Because graffiti is sometimes good, but mostly useless. "Happy birthday!" I would never have known it was your birthday today, but oh well!
Authors note: Facebook is a source of lulz.
What do you spend the most time touching in a day? Aside from your bed. And get your mind out of the gutter, kthx. For me: computer keyboard. I was just thinking, I spend a big amount of time in front of the computer, and for most of that time, my hands are on a keyboard. So anyway, I'd like to discuss the four different types of keyboards (maybe even five) that exist in my mind. Ok, so my two favorite types of keyboards are the classic really really old ones. And the ones that are like the ones on laptops.
I. The Really Really Old IBM Keyboards
The picture I found from Google Image Search summed it up the best. The image name was: ibm-clicky_keyboard.jpg If you've ever had the enjoyment of using one of these keyboards, that filename about describes it perfectly. I love those keyboards so much that I wish I had one right now. It feels so good to type on it; not only is there tactile feedback because of the distance the keys have to travel to be pressed, but there's also auditory feedback. The satisfying *click*click*click* as the smooth plastic keys hit the board really says "I'm typing, and I'm cool". Maybe I'm just weird, but I love the feel of these keyboards.
II. Laptop keyboards and the like
These keyboards are fun to type on because they are speed demons. Not quite as satisfying as the old IBM keyboards because sometimes you're unsure of whether you really typed something or not. But the fact that they're soft is fun. Seems kind of counter-intuitive that my two favorite types of keyboards are on opposite sides of the spectrum in regards to button depth, but oh well.
III. Generic Keyboards
These are the kind you get for $5 at Wal-Mart or something. They don't look fancy, they don't have any fancy buttons, they just type. But you know what? They do the job, and I commend them for that. Despite being generic, at least they don't malfunction (that often). You know what? I bought a generic-keyboard to play o2jam. Do you want to know why? My old multimedia keyboard didn't have n-key support. Meaning, I couldn't press all 7 buttons at the same time. It would just say, "No, screw you, you're not really pressing 7 buttons, you just think you are. Therefore, I am better than you and will not send the computer those keystrokes." My generic keyboard, however, isn't that smart. It simply did as it was told. (Okay not really, but I like to make up things).
IV. Natural Keyboards
I like to think of them as very unnatural. For a true-to-the-definition touch typist, maybe the keyboard is natural; however, for me, someone who was influenced by computers since I was a wee little kid (I think I have a picture of toddler-me crawling around a 286 somewhere), I learned how to type by doing what felt right. It was only after I was comfortable with a keyboard that I used typing programs. But even then, it was only to see how fast I could type and not necessarily the "correct" hand position. So anyway, these natural keyboards annoy me as I attempt to push the letter 'b' with my right hand.
V. The Keyboard That Really Isn't There At All
I've never actually seen this one in person, nor do I know if it even exists. But I don't think I'd like this type of keyboard. I mean, have you ever tried to type without a keyboard in front of you? The physical feeling of the buttons is what aids you in moving from one letter to the next right? Try just typing on your desk in front of you. At first you think you're doing fine, but I don't think that it would be as easy if you were actually trying to type something. Who knows, this keyboard could be ultra-sweet! It sure does look like it. But looks are deceiving, because IBM keyboards look old, but despite this, they're really cool.
Speaking of imaginary things... how about them hand-brakes in a car. You know, those things you pull to keep your car from rolling downhill? Aren't they also called emergency brakes? e-brakes, hand-brakes, park-breaks, etc... Anyway, I think they are mislabeled. It's a cause-and-effect misnomer actually. You see, emergency gives rise to panic. I think these brakes should be called panic brakes. Why, you ask? Have you ever driven off with the parking brake on? There are only two possible reactions when you do this:
Hmm, my car is acting oddly today. It accelerates just a little slower than normal.
or
What's that smell?
There is never the realization that, Oh my word, my parking brake is on! Because you *don't notice its effect at all*. Maybe it can be labeled correctly as a parking brake since you do put it on when you park. HOWEVER. It should not be called an emergency brake. Emergency brake implies that you should use it in emergencies - you know, when your normal brakes fail. That would be all and dandy IF IT WORKED. But you see, it doesn't work. I don't know why, maybe I've ridden in only old beat up cars, but I'm sure you've had experiences similar to what I'm saying.
My ride and I were in the his car and his brakes have been acting up so he decided to test out the e-brake as we were parking in front of the house. Alright, let's do this. *pull* .............. "Dude I think I just sped up when I put that brake on."
This is why emergency brakes should be renamed to panic brakes. In the event of an emergency, you reach for your emergency brake. But you fail to remember that it is no longer an emergency brake. The moment you pull that "e-brake" you realize your mistake. You just pulled the panic brake. Time to panic: it didn't slow you down.
Here's to hoping your e-brake is truly a brake for emergencies. Enjoy life!
Authors note: Facebook is a source of lulz.
What do you spend the most time touching in a day? Aside from your bed. And get your mind out of the gutter, kthx. For me: computer keyboard. I was just thinking, I spend a big amount of time in front of the computer, and for most of that time, my hands are on a keyboard. So anyway, I'd like to discuss the four different types of keyboards (maybe even five) that exist in my mind. Ok, so my two favorite types of keyboards are the classic really really old ones. And the ones that are like the ones on laptops.
I. The Really Really Old IBM Keyboards
The picture I found from Google Image Search summed it up the best. The image name was: ibm-clicky_keyboard.jpg If you've ever had the enjoyment of using one of these keyboards, that filename about describes it perfectly. I love those keyboards so much that I wish I had one right now. It feels so good to type on it; not only is there tactile feedback because of the distance the keys have to travel to be pressed, but there's also auditory feedback. The satisfying *click*click*click* as the smooth plastic keys hit the board really says "I'm typing, and I'm cool". Maybe I'm just weird, but I love the feel of these keyboards.
II. Laptop keyboards and the like
These keyboards are fun to type on because they are speed demons. Not quite as satisfying as the old IBM keyboards because sometimes you're unsure of whether you really typed something or not. But the fact that they're soft is fun. Seems kind of counter-intuitive that my two favorite types of keyboards are on opposite sides of the spectrum in regards to button depth, but oh well.
III. Generic Keyboards
These are the kind you get for $5 at Wal-Mart or something. They don't look fancy, they don't have any fancy buttons, they just type. But you know what? They do the job, and I commend them for that. Despite being generic, at least they don't malfunction (that often). You know what? I bought a generic-keyboard to play o2jam. Do you want to know why? My old multimedia keyboard didn't have n-key support. Meaning, I couldn't press all 7 buttons at the same time. It would just say, "No, screw you, you're not really pressing 7 buttons, you just think you are. Therefore, I am better than you and will not send the computer those keystrokes." My generic keyboard, however, isn't that smart. It simply did as it was told. (Okay not really, but I like to make up things).
IV. Natural Keyboards
I like to think of them as very unnatural. For a true-to-the-definition touch typist, maybe the keyboard is natural; however, for me, someone who was influenced by computers since I was a wee little kid (I think I have a picture of toddler-me crawling around a 286 somewhere), I learned how to type by doing what felt right. It was only after I was comfortable with a keyboard that I used typing programs. But even then, it was only to see how fast I could type and not necessarily the "correct" hand position. So anyway, these natural keyboards annoy me as I attempt to push the letter 'b' with my right hand.
V. The Keyboard That Really Isn't There At All
I've never actually seen this one in person, nor do I know if it even exists. But I don't think I'd like this type of keyboard. I mean, have you ever tried to type without a keyboard in front of you? The physical feeling of the buttons is what aids you in moving from one letter to the next right? Try just typing on your desk in front of you. At first you think you're doing fine, but I don't think that it would be as easy if you were actually trying to type something. Who knows, this keyboard could be ultra-sweet! It sure does look like it. But looks are deceiving, because IBM keyboards look old, but despite this, they're really cool.
Speaking of imaginary things... how about them hand-brakes in a car. You know, those things you pull to keep your car from rolling downhill? Aren't they also called emergency brakes? e-brakes, hand-brakes, park-breaks, etc... Anyway, I think they are mislabeled. It's a cause-and-effect misnomer actually. You see, emergency gives rise to panic. I think these brakes should be called panic brakes. Why, you ask? Have you ever driven off with the parking brake on? There are only two possible reactions when you do this:
Hmm, my car is acting oddly today. It accelerates just a little slower than normal.
or
What's that smell?
There is never the realization that, Oh my word, my parking brake is on! Because you *don't notice its effect at all*. Maybe it can be labeled correctly as a parking brake since you do put it on when you park. HOWEVER. It should not be called an emergency brake. Emergency brake implies that you should use it in emergencies - you know, when your normal brakes fail. That would be all and dandy IF IT WORKED. But you see, it doesn't work. I don't know why, maybe I've ridden in only old beat up cars, but I'm sure you've had experiences similar to what I'm saying.
My ride and I were in the his car and his brakes have been acting up so he decided to test out the e-brake as we were parking in front of the house. Alright, let's do this. *pull* .............. "Dude I think I just sped up when I put that brake on."
This is why emergency brakes should be renamed to panic brakes. In the event of an emergency, you reach for your emergency brake. But you fail to remember that it is no longer an emergency brake. The moment you pull that "e-brake" you realize your mistake. You just pulled the panic brake. Time to panic: it didn't slow you down.
Here's to hoping your e-brake is truly a brake for emergencies. Enjoy life!
22 July 2007
this is unfair
I don't know six people that well on blogger, not to mention, I don't even think six people read my blog. But oh well, this post will only be the game, I haven't come up with anything worth typing yet for a normal post:
Rules of the game:
Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts, as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs!
That's what you get for making me post so soon. Crappy quirks. But, anyway, now that that's done... time to choose six... Why's it gotta be six people anyway? Is this some kind of remnant of the Pokemon days? You know, only getting 6 Pokeballs? I choose you.... six!
Rules of the game:
Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts, as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs!
- I don't watch TV. I personally don't find this weird, but some others do apparently.
- I have a weakness for speakers. In the past few months there have been amazing deals on tech stuff: plenty of low latency 2 x 1GB RAM for under $100, 400GB+ SATA HDDs for under $100, Nintendo DS for ~$100; but I said no, I will be strong and I will not waste money. But then these speakers came on sale... retail $100, after sales and rebates ~$30... so I bought them.
- I look forward to school. (But then when school actually starts, most of my classes end up being not as cool as I had anticipated)
- I haven't seen a movie at a theater in about 3 months.
- I can't refuse someone asking for help (though I need to learn how).
- I take a stance against drama. Therefore, my personality is set up to avoid conflict. I avoid being an enemy at all costs, it's the best solution to be free of drama.
- I want a badass looking trench coat... and a mask... nevermind. I think it'd be cool to run around and dress up like this: Picture 1 / Picture 2
I guess the weird thing is that I could probably pull it off if I wasn't such a lamer. - I get the urge to jump off of things a lot. Maybe I've seen too many free-running videos
- Most dogs make me nervous. To me, they seem a little unpredictable. Also, you don't know when they're going to lick you. And that whole licking thing is a no no for me. I have no idea what else that dog has gotten in his mouth. I mean come on, they smell each other's butts - who knows what happens with their mouth.
- Sometimes I shake uncontrollably. It's not a huge flail thing. But it's a constant shudder - I think it happens because I'm nervous, but sometimes there's nothing that I need to be nervous about. I also thing that being in an awkward physical position triggers it too. This one time I was at a restaurant and the table was a little high. And while eating I started shaking and it was annoying. So I had to sit back to eat to stop from shaking. I don't really know when it started, which bothers me as well.
That's what you get for making me post so soon. Crappy quirks. But, anyway, now that that's done... time to choose six... Why's it gotta be six people anyway? Is this some kind of remnant of the Pokemon days? You know, only getting 6 Pokeballs? I choose you.... six!
- Rainy
- Nienners
- Xian
- Polarpuff
- ... who else has read this blog
- I guess I will have to go into battle with only 4 pokemans.
19 July 2007
good for the heart
I think this shall be another short entry as I'm running out of stuff to say... maybe. So for those of you who know me, you've heard the phrases, "monkeys!" and "Oh balls" quite a bit I'm sure. Used in the right situation, it can turn any disappointment into an instant smile don't you think? Don't monkeys make you smile? Doesn't the word 'balls' just have a funny ring to it? No I'm not a homosexual nor a homophobe, but balls is just a funny word. And Monkeys are just funny! So the next time you mess up something, instead of saying " Oh *@!#" , try "OH BALLS!" You'll instantly feel better because balls is a funny word. If balls aren't your thing, how about monkeys? Everyone loves monkeys, and they're just funny! So, instead of "!@#$", try "MONKEYS!" and that should alleviate some of the frustration. Expletives tend to throw off a bad aura, makes you feel more frustrated. You mess up, !@#!, and saying that only makes you more frustrated.
Don't look at me like that, I'm not that weird for my phrases am I? Ok ok, if neither monkeys nor balls floats your boat, think of a funny word. Something that rolls off the tongue easily and make it your own exclamatory phrase. Let's brainstorm some good words: puffbombs! cheesemonkeys! balls! oh wait... ok ok no more of those... muffins! I'm not good at this brainstorming thing; I keep returning to monkeys. Go to nien's blog, there's a monkey on there that will make you happy! Yay! They're good for the heart, those creatures are.
Also good for the heart is exercise. I personally enjoy bike riding. Well, I suppose I only like half of bike riding. The best part about riding a bike is going downhill. The wind through your hair (scratch that, safety first ladies and gentlemen, always wear a helmet), the thrill of keeping out for random people on the street, random cars. Oh and I love turning when going really fast, because then you can imitate those MotoGP racers that lean all the way down to the pavement on their turns. So hardcore. The feeling that your center of gravity changed positions is so awesome. Why am I talking about this? I don't really know. But now that leaves the other half of biking and that is going uphill.
See, riding a bike is all about looking cool right? ... right? So going uphill, you can't be caught doing the cheap way of standing up on the pedals and shifting your weight - plus that applies too much pressure on the pedals .. or something like that. You need to sit, pedal, and look like it's effortless too. But on the inside, you're just thinking, oh dear, when will this hill ever end. I don't know if i can make it to the top without looking tired. Hm.. maybe I'm unfit. No that's not it. I will blame it on the hills being ridiculously unrelenting.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a perpetual downhill ride? Like the infinite staircase you see in optical illusions - the ones that keep going and going. How sick would that be if there was an infinite downhill slope. Imagine the speeds you could pick up going down that thing.... zoom zoom.
Ok, while my imaginary self is cruising down that nfinite hill I shall impart upon you some final thoughts of mine. I was studying a bottle of whiteout today at work. I thought to myself, white-out is so paradoxical:
Item: White-out
Usage: Paint over mistakes
Purpose: Make errors disappear
Actual real-world effect of using white-out: Highlighting the fact that you screwed up
The way I see it, you use white-out for things written in pen. Usually things written in pen are important documents. What if you're turning in an application or something. White-out basically says to the person reading it: Hey, I can't properly fill out a form. Look, I'll make it even more apparent that I screwed up and was too lazy to fill out a new form.
White-out should hide the fact that you made an error, but in reality it only highlights it... and makes the paper bumpy. So from now on, I shall name white-out bottles "paradoxical eraser." Oh oh, and I love how sometimes it's called correction fluid. What's up with that? Putting it on my paper doesn't correct jack - all it does is ... well nothing. Imagine if it did correct things... I bet they'd be banned from test environments....
I'm done
Don't look at me like that, I'm not that weird for my phrases am I? Ok ok, if neither monkeys nor balls floats your boat, think of a funny word. Something that rolls off the tongue easily and make it your own exclamatory phrase. Let's brainstorm some good words: puffbombs! cheesemonkeys! balls! oh wait... ok ok no more of those... muffins! I'm not good at this brainstorming thing; I keep returning to monkeys. Go to nien's blog, there's a monkey on there that will make you happy! Yay! They're good for the heart, those creatures are.
Also good for the heart is exercise. I personally enjoy bike riding. Well, I suppose I only like half of bike riding. The best part about riding a bike is going downhill. The wind through your hair (scratch that, safety first ladies and gentlemen, always wear a helmet), the thrill of keeping out for random people on the street, random cars. Oh and I love turning when going really fast, because then you can imitate those MotoGP racers that lean all the way down to the pavement on their turns. So hardcore. The feeling that your center of gravity changed positions is so awesome. Why am I talking about this? I don't really know. But now that leaves the other half of biking and that is going uphill.
See, riding a bike is all about looking cool right? ... right? So going uphill, you can't be caught doing the cheap way of standing up on the pedals and shifting your weight - plus that applies too much pressure on the pedals .. or something like that. You need to sit, pedal, and look like it's effortless too. But on the inside, you're just thinking, oh dear, when will this hill ever end. I don't know if i can make it to the top without looking tired. Hm.. maybe I'm unfit. No that's not it. I will blame it on the hills being ridiculously unrelenting.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a perpetual downhill ride? Like the infinite staircase you see in optical illusions - the ones that keep going and going. How sick would that be if there was an infinite downhill slope. Imagine the speeds you could pick up going down that thing.... zoom zoom.
Ok, while my imaginary self is cruising down that nfinite hill I shall impart upon you some final thoughts of mine. I was studying a bottle of whiteout today at work. I thought to myself, white-out is so paradoxical:
Item: White-out
Usage: Paint over mistakes
Purpose: Make errors disappear
Actual real-world effect of using white-out: Highlighting the fact that you screwed up
The way I see it, you use white-out for things written in pen. Usually things written in pen are important documents. What if you're turning in an application or something. White-out basically says to the person reading it: Hey, I can't properly fill out a form. Look, I'll make it even more apparent that I screwed up and was too lazy to fill out a new form.
White-out should hide the fact that you made an error, but in reality it only highlights it... and makes the paper bumpy. So from now on, I shall name white-out bottles "paradoxical eraser." Oh oh, and I love how sometimes it's called correction fluid. What's up with that? Putting it on my paper doesn't correct jack - all it does is ... well nothing. Imagine if it did correct things... I bet they'd be banned from test environments....
I'm done
15 July 2007
your numlock is off
Made ya look!
I think this entry will be sort of short, since it's not so much a planned out post, but more of a "I just thought of something, I might as well jot it down since, a) I'm bored, and b) I might forget. I've always wondered about those age restrictions at websites. No not porn websites, get your mind out of the gutter. Let's say... a trailer for a movie that's rated R or something; or maybe a site for a game that's rated M. You know the ones where it asks for your birthday? It always amazes me when I see the default setting as:
| January |▼| | 01 |▼| | 2007 |▼|
Wait... 2007? I knew that as a species we should be getting smarter and all, but seriously, that's not even 1 year old yet! That's amazing. You know what I think? I think if someone enters an age under.. 2 or 3 years old, they should be let in the site or view the video, or whatever. Hell, why not just give the person a million dollars! That'd be the smartest baby the world may ever know! Is it really that hard to set the cutoff to say, 3 years? I honestly don't think any 3 year old is going to be browsing the internets - and even less so: be able to understand that you need to be 18 or older AND put in your birthday. If the 3 year old can handle that, I say, give him/her the content.
This leads me to my next point (well it doesn't really lead me, but I thought it'd be a good transition point as I was just repeating myself). I never understood what's to keep people from just putting in a random date. Yes, yes, formalities and law and all that jazz. But do you really think teens are going to abide by it? You might as well have a button that says:
"If you're under 18 GTFO. If not, press continue. Have a nice day!"
It would save both the designers and the users some time. Designers wouldn't need to code 3 stupid pull down boxes and a function that checks to see how old it would make the person. And the user wouldn't need to select their day, month, and year from those stupid dropdown menus. It sucks even worse when your day is in the middle of the month and you need to scroll down some distance. (and it gets worse when the dropdown boxes are in Flash and instead of just typing the number, you actually have to select it). A [Proceed] button would make both lives much easier - it's essentially the same thing. If the user wants in, all they need to do is turn themselves into a 107 year old. You know, bottom of the list kinda stuff. The internet is a wonderful place. I think, though, putting in an age older than the oldest person alive should raise a red flag. But,... nevermind, you know where that was going.
It just boggles me that someone could be so gullible.. or innocent. Speaking of which, I don't think any commercial for products (I'm excluding movies and games) has ever made me want to go buy it. It's interesting to think that there are people in the world who are influenced by cheesy commercials. If I'm talking about you, no hard feelings eh?
Ok I think I'm done. Time to make dinner. Have a nice day!
I think this entry will be sort of short, since it's not so much a planned out post, but more of a "I just thought of something, I might as well jot it down since, a) I'm bored, and b) I might forget. I've always wondered about those age restrictions at websites. No not porn websites, get your mind out of the gutter. Let's say... a trailer for a movie that's rated R or something; or maybe a site for a game that's rated M. You know the ones where it asks for your birthday? It always amazes me when I see the default setting as:
| January |▼| | 01 |▼| | 2007 |▼|
Wait... 2007? I knew that as a species we should be getting smarter and all, but seriously, that's not even 1 year old yet! That's amazing. You know what I think? I think if someone enters an age under.. 2 or 3 years old, they should be let in the site or view the video, or whatever. Hell, why not just give the person a million dollars! That'd be the smartest baby the world may ever know! Is it really that hard to set the cutoff to say, 3 years? I honestly don't think any 3 year old is going to be browsing the internets - and even less so: be able to understand that you need to be 18 or older AND put in your birthday. If the 3 year old can handle that, I say, give him/her the content.
This leads me to my next point (well it doesn't really lead me, but I thought it'd be a good transition point as I was just repeating myself). I never understood what's to keep people from just putting in a random date. Yes, yes, formalities and law and all that jazz. But do you really think teens are going to abide by it? You might as well have a button that says:
"If you're under 18 GTFO. If not, press continue. Have a nice day!"
It would save both the designers and the users some time. Designers wouldn't need to code 3 stupid pull down boxes and a function that checks to see how old it would make the person. And the user wouldn't need to select their day, month, and year from those stupid dropdown menus. It sucks even worse when your day is in the middle of the month and you need to scroll down some distance. (and it gets worse when the dropdown boxes are in Flash and instead of just typing the number, you actually have to select it). A [Proceed] button would make both lives much easier - it's essentially the same thing. If the user wants in, all they need to do is turn themselves into a 107 year old. You know, bottom of the list kinda stuff. The internet is a wonderful place. I think, though, putting in an age older than the oldest person alive should raise a red flag. But,... nevermind, you know where that was going.
It just boggles me that someone could be so gullible.. or innocent. Speaking of which, I don't think any commercial for products (I'm excluding movies and games) has ever made me want to go buy it. It's interesting to think that there are people in the world who are influenced by cheesy commercials. If I'm talking about you, no hard feelings eh?
Ok I think I'm done. Time to make dinner. Have a nice day!
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