Brian's World

Think Different

I should probably be in bed trying to fall asleep right now, but I felt the need to write and hopefully relieve some of this stress before I nod off into Neverland. This week has been pretty hectic, and my wait until its due approach has not been helping. 2 tests this week, 1 in DSA and 1 in COCO, and both of these classes decided to cram in labs and homework even though we also have a test. Today was also the Senate meeting with Dr. Jackson, President of RPI, which always involves extra work. I did enjoy the opportunity to dress up more than usual.Tonight I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m thinking, strange paradox I know, but it is strange. Usually I can find a direct cause or relationship between my thoughts but right now I’m having trouble bridging that gap. I’ve decided that if you apply simple boolean logic to certain aspects of life you can find things grossly unfair. For example lets take 2 conditions, A and B with a resultant S (standing for sucess of course). The opposite of A can only yeild sucess when paired with the opposite of B, whereas A (non-inverted) yeilds sucess independant of B. Given this is an over simplified example, I imagine the opposite of A might feel left out, it only see’s sucess %50 of the time, whereas A see’s sucess 100% of the time. I would factor in the probability that the case is actually the opposite of A, which I estimate to be something below 50%, and you see an actual yeild less than %25. This still doesn’t explain all of my thoughts, but I enjoyed the process, identifing events to avoid based on a low yeild rate. Strange thoughts typically stem off something I don’t completely understand or have a grasp on, which is odd because I most certainly thought I had a grasp on the basis where I suspect these thoughts could have stemmed from. I could explain them as a hypothetical reactionary measure, but I can’t see it every going more than a thought, nor would I be able to implement if I the I ever needed to. While the reaction is almost equal, and certainly opposite, the conditions surrounding the circumstances are not; effectively limited any ability whatsoever. Strange eh? I think I might have solved it, at least temporarily. Sunglasses. That must be it.This is also one of my few blog posts written while using the Safari browser. I think I’m going to actually sit down and finish this widget I’ve been toying with, of course I have the data extraction working, its just the graphical display of the data I need to figure out. My complete lack of photoshop skills will come in handy here. Who knows where this will go. I really don’t like hair, specifically hair on me. I wish I could freeze it, click the stop button, pause. I am very peticular about my hair, I like it to be styled a very certain way. Combed ver to the right side, minimal interactions with my forehead, not covering my ears, not very far down on my neck. I do not have a preference square or tapered back, which is a little strange, but I guess I don’t look back there enough to notice. I also cannot stand facial hair, specifically the “i haven’t shaven in a few days but lets pretend you’re blind and can’t tell that” look. You can get away with it if you are growing facial hair and plan to have it there for a little while, but you may not get away with it if you are not attempting to grow any facial hair but are simply too lazy to shave on a regular “there are hair on my face” basis. I also dislike spots where hair gets confused as to which way it should be going, I have learned you can not mitigate this problem with a comb. Wow am I actually blogging about hair? I must be very tired… or crafting some secret subliminal message.Regardless sleep is needed.Goodnight moon.

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!

Don’t bother reading, I got bored

So tomorrow is the second DSA exam, I hope I’ll do well on it. I read the chapters over in the book and understood the material, hopefully it won’t go too terribly. I find most of the material uninteresting and useless, but what else is new. I registered for next semesters classes, since I’ve already taken Diff Eq I had a free chunk of class, so I signed up for Database Systems. I also registered for Intro to Perl, which is only 2 hours a week. I hear it is a lot of activities and stuff, but maybe I can learn a few useful things between those 2 classes.

Other than that things haven’t been to exciting here; classes have been the same old same old. RPI TV has been the same old same old, which isn’t something I’m particularity enthused about, but I have too much going on right now to try and change anything. A lot of my efforts have been dedicated to this project I’ve been involved with since last spring. We’ve been pushing very close to having a final product to debut any day now. There were a few challenges we knew we had to overcome, but in the process of overcoming those last few projects I feel as if we’ve fallen back to where we were last spring. Tons of code had been written, and the product doesn’t look half bad. I’m not opposed to adding features and rewriting code as needed, but I dislike scrapping everything and having to fundamentally redesign the system. I wouldn’t say it was super expandable, flexible, etc but I would hesitate to say it couldn’t be done with a little work. I dunno, I’m just frustrated over the fact we’ve spend 2+ weeks debating something that should be established in 1-2 hours max.

I’m also terrible at gifts. The holiday season will be here in 2 months and I’ll need to buy gifts; it would be much easier if people had Gift Registries all the time, not just for marriages, showers, etc. Then when I wanted something I could add it to my list and not have to worry about forgetting it later, and people could access my list at any time. I guess I’m guilty of this myself, if I’m asked what I want I rarely give a straight response, but thats because I don’t have any real wants that stand out at the moment.

I lost focus with this blog, I’m sorry.. I’ll write more tomorrow if I can. Sorry, this is a disappointment.