Brian's World

Gray

Right now it is very gray outside. The sky is gray, the parking lot is gray, the field house is gray, everything is gray. My room was gray before I turned the lights on; I like how turning on the lights removes gray and creates a warm welcoming sensation… that might be a stretch, but I do find that the lights at least turn the walls a off-white colour, slightly more welcoming than the dark white = gray that they were. If I were a weatherman I would say it feels like snow, but I’ve been in similar gray weather when it does not snow; it must be more like the transition from fall to winter.

This weekend was Veterans Day, or Armistice Day if you haven’t gotten the memo yet. RPI does not celebrate this federal holiday for some reason. I bet it relates to the closeness of Thanksgiving, but none the less I would like to extend my sincere thanks to any and all members/veterans of the US Military Services, and anyone else who fights for freedom but doesn’t have their own holiday. While I would make a pretty terrible soldier, I believe that freedom isn’t without work and that we should all do our part to help the US be as cool as it can. For me that might be as simple as putting my hand over my heart during the National Anthem or doing some community service to place flags at a Cemetery for Memorial Day. Actually, I think even voting would be one of those things we can do to, something I need to get around to registering to do at some point, stupid Massachusetts not allowing online registration.

These gray days tend to depress me slightly, not because its winter, and I like to think not because its the holidays, but because its gray. White is nice, black is black, but gray is not defined, some junk between the two, sure it can be classified light gray or dark gray, but none of that seems to matter to me; it is gray.

It got moderately dark pretty fast, I guess daylight savings time will do that to you. Right now I think the dark is hiding the gray, trying to conceal its blandness under a mask of dark dark blue. It doesn’t comfort me, I recognize the gray will be back soon. I should stop this topic, I feel like I’m analyzing some poem. Pretty bad poem I must say.

In other news I’m attempting to install Ubuntu 7.10 on the machine I pulled from the trash can, OpenSUSE was too stupid for me, I debated going with Debian, but I have access to several Debian servers if I really want to play around. My goal was to get it as a VMware server, but aftering seeing a measly 256mb of Ram I’m not sure what I’ll do with it.

I’m not excited for dinner, I find food from Commons to be very repetitive and boring. It satisfies some nutritional requirements, thats pretty much it. It does not excite my taste buds or provide anything to look forward to, just calories and vitamins. I do look forward to some cake afterwards. Katie got us a little cake and gave it to me, it shall be very delicious!

There are a lot of cool projects that I would like to work on or do things with, but I have trouble finding the motivation to do so. Don’t get me started on Digital Signage, but Google released the Android SDK today which looks very neat [If I was only a Java expert], and I also have some neat ideas for network visualization + management = coolness. Unfortunately none of these have a strong basis in PHP so I won’t be able to pull them off as quick as I’d like. My Facebook App is still under development, and I think I need to finish a few more minor things before I “Go Live” so to speak.

The semester is winding down here at RPI, Thanksgiving is next week and after that break there are roughly 2 weeks of classes left before Winter break. At this point I have 0 winter break plans which will mean I’ll likely be very unmotivated and get little done. With winter break comes Christmas, and with Christmas comes shopping. I need to figure out what to get people for Christmas, I have a little idea what I can get Mom… no clue for Dad… nothing good for Kevin.. and who knows for Katie. We’ll have to see what goes down this shopping season. I wish I could buy things online easier. I mean yes, I have a debit card to which I can charge stuffs, but the statement will be sent back to my parents for inspection. I think I know a few ideas for gifts I might enjoy, but I tend to be more comfortable picking out my own Voip phone.

I remember 2 other things I wanted to share. So I downloaded Firefox 3.0a8 today to check it out. I am fed up with Firefox 2.0.0.9 crashing every 5th website I visit. Its still better than Internet Explorer, but the crashes are really putting me off. Firefox 3 works well, there are lots of little tweaks which I really don’t care too much about [I should say they haven’t effected me enough to care] but the whole thing seems speedier. I haven’t noticed any insane memory leak reduction (as I type this I’m hovering ~ 70mb) but I haven’t noticed the browser slow down as time goes on. Kudos to whoever has been working on fixing that.

I’m also not pleased with Verizon Wireless in the least. FiOS might be neat, but their cellular service is not. I’m not a fan of any of the carriers out there right now, the entire concept of charging me an arm and a leg to talk on the phone, and then charge me more to send text messages and then even more to send data is outrageous. Sure, I should pay more than someone who just talks on the phone, but right now it is cheaper to hirer someone to speak to who can type in your web requests and read the results back to you. Now thats just crazy. My plan is up this spring and I don’t know what I’m going to do. Most of the people I talk to have Verizon (I can only think of 2 that don’t), and unlimited “in” texting/calling is great for that, but I really want to have some of the cooler phone features that are out there. Don’t get me started on Verizon saying no to the Iphone, that was just dumb. But now I see Verizon isn’t onboard with the Open Handset Alliance. To add to the stupid, I was at a Verizon store recently and a salesmen attempted to convince one of my friends that only some bluetooth would play his music, that bluetooth happen to be any model > $100. Sure, maybe only those models have the quality to make music sound good, but if all the boxes are labeled “Universal Bluetooth” how can one be less compliant than the rest. I am no bluetooth expert, I still am hesistant to think it is anything less than a way to look even stupider while on the phone, but come on Mr. Salesmen… I am not that gullible.

I should be going to dinner soon. I’ll catcha later!