Brian's World

Almost winter

I’m upset at the television strike thing. I do not know the details, nor do I claim to. Maybe this is the magical time of year when TV shows end, but so many of them didn’t seem to be done with the season or whatnot. I know the Writers were on strike and its my belief the writers deserve a lot of credit. Someone has to pay attention to every litle detail to make the TV show flow from week to week. Dr. House cannot all of a sudden start wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat… well House probably could, but you follow where I’m going. My DVR has only recorded the news, which was ok. I learned a few things. Yes Charles Gibson, I will make sure I have a good night.

Things are winding down here, 2 days left in class and everything, followed by three days of finals. I’ll be home in roughly 9 days which is good. I don’t look forward to my parents being home as often as they will be. Now that my mom is “retired”she spends all of her time at home or out walking. I enjoy making my own breakfast or doing things in peace and quiet sometimes; mom is rarely quiet. I’m sure dad will take his share of days off which is okay, he works on projects and things which keep him busy. I do suspect there will be a day when he runs out of projects, I just don’t know when that day will be.

On a more eventful note, my Facebook application “Quotes” is very close to going public. I believe it has 90% of the features I want it to for implementation 1. I hope a few people use it, otherwise I will be disappointed in my lack of entrepreneurial skill (to which I probably have a negative amount of). I’m not hoping to make a fortune off this application, I’m not trying to spread it like wildfire inviting everyone’s friends under the son, I’m simply trying to provide a nice easy ‘quaint’ way to manage your quotes. If you’re interested in testing it or getting an email when I “Go Live” let me know [Comment below or email] and I can hook you up.

Back to the me. That sounded self centered.. my bad. Back to the us. That sounded stupid. This morning when walking to breakfast my right lower leg started hurting a ton. I haven’t a clue what I did to it, it wasn’t a sharp oh my there is a knife in my leg pain, more like a hrm is my leg on fire on the inside kinda pain. I limped to breakfast, limped back. I was the only one leaving footprints to Commons at 7:30 in the mornings, pretty strange. The pain went away while sitting down and stuff but came right back when I was walking to Coco.

Apparently the other students in Coco couldn’t figure out how to use 3-bits to realize you can have integers 0-7, not 0-4. My elevator was pretty good considering I figured out how to deal with 2’s compliment 30 mins before the class. All you have to do to take a 2’s compliment number to a regular number is add 1 and take the inverse. Stupid me for not thinking of this sooner. Using the ALU you just set the carry-in to 1 to add the one, and you can use an xor gate with the comparator logic to choose if u want the inverse or not.

Oh yes, one last thing. Kudos to whoever added new themes to Google IG, they’re pretty awesome. I’m excited to see the new transitions during the day/weather. While I don’t think the background on my homepage makes or breaks my day, I do think it can raise my spirits up sometimes to see something neat around all my data. Nice work!

I should be heading to bed, last busy day is tomorrow.. fun fun.

Goodnight Moon.

Stairclimbing

It is late; I woke up and just had to write a blog. Vista boot time gave me an ample period to find a comfortable blogging position in bed and plenty of time to scratch at my ear which is now bleeding. I cannot manage to get the tissue to adhere to my ear so I dab manually. Stupid lumps.

I am humbled to myself. Figure out what that means and you probably don’t have to read the rest of this. I found myself having such strong feelings in one directions that I’m not sure where I begin. I’ve tried to balance it out, finding logic opposite of what I’ve been thinking. I have trouble calling what I’m thinking logic to say the least. Have I failed to learn? Might I be entering some endless loop of unpleasantness?

I think back 3-2 years, attempting to gain insight into myself than and I am lost. I was not blogging here, I have no friends that I can say I’ve shared my deepest darkest thoughts with (Note I didn’t say secrets) and I have trouble finding any accurate statistical basis on the rumor mill. Maybe I’m going crazy, I wouldn’t doubt it to be the least. Ideally I think I would like to resolve my thoughts through a discussion with someone who can look effectively from the outside. Alas I can’t say I know too many people that would fit that spot; a clone might work.

Consultations present their own unique set of boundaries and limits, each perspective.. while very valuable, also has several blind spots and as a sum of most consultants I know, I can’t say there is any particular one who is has a line of sight where I’d really like to go. Thats probably why I talk to the internet here on my blog, but I’ve digressed. You know how they have that “WWJD” slogan [What Would Jesus Do] … (which means they have to have WWCND where CN is Chuck Norris)? I could really use a WWBD, What Would Brian Do. I mean I am him so what I choose to do will be the outcome, but its the thoughts that I’m interested in.

If I was the sole impacted I would have 0 problems making decisions, but when the impact involves others its like hrm, whats best for them.. because they are the ones I care most about. I am me, me is not important. I think I know the path I’m most interested in taking, but I can’t see how other parties will react. I’ve really never been able to predict how said parties have acted, and if my logic is correct it won’t matter what I do, failure is imminent, but its the path to failure we can effect, and how best to steer immediately before failure, aiming to control the outcome of the collision the instant we loose control.

Thats all, good morning folks!

What am I doing here?

I’ve noticed Tuesday nights tend to be the most time I question what I’m doing here at RPI. Sure, I’m feeling that way this Tuesday; but this Tuesday isn’t unique. I’ve been noticing this since last year around this time. Tuesday tends to be a pretty busy day for me here at RPI between class, filming the Senate Meeting, RPI TV meetings at night, homework due Wednesday, etc etc. There is a lot going on and plenty of work to be done.

Some Tuesday nights I hit this low for motivation, and the homework due on Wednesday is a big triggering factor for this. I do my homework, its a good way to boost my grade, reinforce learning, etc etc… but I don’t enjoy doing it very much. Last semester, in the Spring, things weren’t this bad. I had homework, and taking Differential Equations made the homework plenty difficult, but I didn’t dread doing it as much as I dread the two computer related assignments due on Wednesdays. I don’t mind math because I’m learning new techniques and approaches to problems but I can’t say the same about some of the computer classes here.

I’ve really gotten put off by the lack of enthusiasm and excitement involved. Everything follows a very cut and dry cookie cutter program, you will take this course, learn material x, get degree y. The professors do their best to add a little excitement, but the buck stops there. The course itself is designed in such a way to present information in the exact same way information was presented in the previous course, building on the foundations you’ve mastered etc etc. You all know the deal I’m sure. My problem comes in that I like to believe I’m moderately competent on a computer. I haven’t been writing code for more than a decade, but I like to think I can piece together a realistic solution to any realistic problem thrown my way. Yes, I can learn functions that may reduce work, improve runtime, be more elegant; but what matters to me is that the problem is solved.

I question why I’m here not just because of the work and learning I’m doing. I have no doubt that knowing what a Mealy versus a Moore machine might be helpful knowledge; but I find the whole learning v. everything else balance unpleasant. I would have no trouble balancing things if there was a chance, but its as if things are designed for you to not succeed. Ok that sentence may not be broad enough. Things are not designed for me to succeed. There, I’ve limited it in scope to myself. Slightly confused? Thats ok.

I rarely voice my opinion. I am terrible at debate, and lately I’ve found my public speaking skills are lacking. I dislike it when people assume I need tutorials how to give a presentation or lead a group just because I am bad at it. I am very bad at a lot of things that I fulfill the requirements to be good at. Back to my main area of focus, I find trouble arises when there are changes I’m very strongly interested in making, but I just can’t push them out to implementation because of my social failures. Its pretty safe to say RPI has its share of leaders, at least in the groups I’m involved in. Having too many leaders really makes it hard for people who have a leadership style like mine. I avoid conflict like the bubonic plague, I focus very strongly on making everyone satisfied (especially at personal expense), and I have no problem shutting up and listening. I find that if there are 800 people all trying to lead and steer discussion it makes for quite a wild ride. Off topic, I can compare MassMutual to RPI TV. Their was a saying that there were more Project managers than there were people actually working on the projects.. hrm.. Back on topic. I will never speak my mind if someone else is speaking theirs. I might think they are dumber than a brick, but they have just as much right as I do to express their dumbness. You know when several people start talking at the same time? I’m the guy who always wins the “whos going to stop talking and start listening first” race.

I consider my opinions valuable. It is no ones fault but my own for not expressing them, But it is my fault for getting stuck on them, something I definately need to improve on. Right now I tend to spend extra time focusing on whats wrong with the ideas disagreeing with what I’m thinking, and not so much time thinking about how to best use the agreed upon ideas. This goes against my optimistic outlook on life, I must change this asap.

Swinging back to Tuesdays. Walking out of the restroom I thought to myself “What am I doing here at RPI?” Well I don’t know to be honest, at least on Tuesdays I don’t know. Chances are I’ve upset people important to me, chances are I’ll be waking up at 6:30am to start homework, chances are I have not tapped on any changes for RPI TV, don’t get me started on any multitude of problems that might occur when I actually arrive back in my dorm room. I know, It doesn’t seem as bad as it does to you, and that I have much going for me and such, but I have trouble linking whats going for me to being at RPI specifically. Transferring schools is way to much work and I will not do that unless very dire circumstances arise. I’m not even sure transferring would solve that problem. Ideally I’d like to find an environment very circa freshman/sophomore year in high school. Yes, those times were terrible, but overall things went well. I can’t say I was on anybody’s hate list.. I probably wasn’t on anybody’s list at all, but classes were such that learning and doing homework consisted of actual learning, not trying to devise the fastest way to complete this assignment and get a good grade. The Tiger Times were rapidly changing, growing, etc, things were moving in the right direction.

Are things moving in the right direction here?

I’ll leave you with a quote from someone. I apologize for forgetting their name “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just stand there”.

Do think about it.