Month: February 2004

It rung. It was apparently for me. I got up to pick it up, and dropped megatr0n AGAIN. Thank goodness it ONLY landed on the protruding wireless card and only BROKE it. Thank goodness warranties don’t cover IMPACT DAMAGES DUE TO BEING DROPPED. Thank goodness I only bought the most expensive card in the store.

FUCKING LIFE.

The past couple of days have been nice at work. And by nice, I obviously mean positively awesome, or something like that. I’ve spent many a sleepless night here over the past few weeks, and made very little real world progress. And I don’t quite know what I really mean by real world progress. It’s just, nothing I’ve been doing has felt… substantial. That’s what changed for the better yesterday. I don’t know what it is, I shut out a lot of stuff and actually worked, or probably it was the piece of validatory paper saying I’m getting somewhere, or just the sheer coolness of gdb. Maybe it was all of that. Just felt a lot more focused and driven. And happy. The kind of “I am cool” glow you get when, for lack of better ways of expressing this, do something cool.

Today I totally pampered myself. Woke rather late. Followed by an exceptionally long bath complete with all sorts of oils and salts. Followed by uncharacteristically long periods of brushing my hair (better have all my fun while I still can) and then moving on to file my… you get it. Just, nice, “relax and groom” me time. Conditioners, lotions and all that sort of thing are good for you. Or so the pretty model types in the ads would like you to believe. Why should I not trust them? It’s not like they would lie.

With that sort of start to the day, totally relaxed and calm, it went off well. I just got back from one of the most amazing spinach lasagnas I’ve ever had. And it was an extremely generous portion with illegal amounts of fancy cheeses. This was dinner at a quaint little Italian restaurant at a very nice part of town with work people. I got to wear my cream jacket. Worth it though I was freeeezing because it just isn’t warm enough for hoodless me to be that scantily clad.

This is me checking mail. Spam. Spam. Spam. Bill. Spam. Spam. Wooah!

Clickey Clickey.

I told you I will go on and on about this. And with the tripod I could shoot it in low light! (The warped colours are due jpegs screwisms while it “compresses”.)

Update: The warped colours were due to some weirdness in megatr0n’s colour depth settings. It looks quite normal now.

Update 2: Why not? Two related links. First, the obligatory ego stroker. And second, if for some reason you need even higher detail.

Not too much to really report. Either that or too much has been going on and I’d rather not remind me. Or I’ve just been plain lazy.

No, really, nothing there to report.

Of course I could whine about a few things. Our favorite show for instance. But then again, it is turning out quite legit, because she’s kicking all the extremely arrogant model types and the extremely dorky geek types. Can’t really complain there can I. Can’t say anyone else would have really done any different. There was one thing though. But that’d be nit pickey, and only because I was rooting for the guy with glasses. Not that I was under the delusion he would ever get picked in any circumstance involving anybody else. Cruel, but such be life. Puny geeks with glasses are at a disadvantage to say the least. It is bad even if they aren’t puny. Or don’t wear their glasses.

While I am on reality shows, here’s another one that I have caught a couple of episodes of. I wanted to scream, considering this boss guy’s girlfriend looks like his grand daughter, and most of the women picked for the show were model material, AND NONE of them got fired so far. Last week, all that went away. I think a reference to this old Scary go round comic is in order.

Speaking of cruel things, I don’t think I was particularly nice today to this woman on the bus. But then again, there was this need to do it. (But then again, that is just some cheap excuse to make my evilness legit.) I presume this person was from the music school, and was trying over and over to hit this sequence of notes. And obviously not being able to. I was obviously curious, and peeked into the notes. (Yes, the more obviouslys I use, the more I imagine you’ll think such behaviour as perfectly natural.) Anyway, it shocked me that I couldn’t read parts of it. That was a big deal. I haven’t seen anything of this sort in so long, I was pretty freaked out I lost it. I had to read it like I “read” Tamil. Knowing 40% of the “alphabet” and make up the words as they sound fitting if I can. Most probably misread, but that is a feature across languages, so no biggie. Anyway, listening to the attempts, some blatant confused staring, and some intelligent interpolation, I got what she was trying to sing. Fast forward in time, but this is apparently still in my head. I get off the bus where ever it is I wanted to be, and pulled off the sequence, louder and clearer than I imagined. No one has ever given me a colder glare. *Shudder*

And what is the deal with doors leading to corridors opening out into them? Needless to say I was walking close to the walls of one of the corridors when I was being me and not entirely paying attention thinking about something else. Some genius opens the door rather quickly, (and you can’t particularly blame her because IT DOES OPEN OUT RIGHT INTO PEOPLES’ PATHS) and slammed right in, nose first. It’s a good thing it was only hard wood and I have a nose made of extremely strong soft tissue.

Yes, I have strong feelings about what should be done to the designers of these buildings. Either that or karma is faster than I thought it was.

Back home. To wireless broadband!

Which is actually not all that it is cracked up to be. For a while the network’s been running unsecured and I am guessing the neighbour people would have been having a field day with it. When I first got home, it was in this state and the connection was rocking. Rock solid stability, and blazingly fast.

And then I had to do it. I switched on 128 bit encryption and all sorts of other paranoid niceties, and in general it doesn’t seem as spiffy. That and I am having some other channel issues. Generally not as stable as I’d like it to be.

Hmm.

Update: I think it is fixed. In a moment of weirdness, it assumed one of the neighbours connections was the “preferred default”. Which meant at regular intervals it would get off this, and try to get onto that. Got booted off obviously.

It is pretty sweet.

(Yes, that is about as much Swahili? as I know.)

The world seems like a lot clearer place today. A lot clearer. I don’t particularly like what I see, but I’m happy my glasses have been wiped squeaky clean. I don’t know what it is. I wouldn’t want to appear too understanding and accepting and give off this air of strength I do not possess. I don’t want to appear all not accepting and… hurt the patient lens cleaning person who is trying. So as usual I have to pick the weird middle path which involves quite hurt struggling, but quite earnestly trying.

And getting. Along with our favourite (Swahilian?) phrase, Hakuna Matata.

No worries (or at least try). Stuff happens. I am not going to attribute it to only being an inadequacy on my part and get all mopey (or at least try).

But as Rafiki says, the past might hurt. You can run, or you can learn. I choose learn, wise monkey. (Plus running just sounds like more work than is usually my style.)

And yes, I did see the Lion King (for the 388423 time) tonight.

In happy news, megatr0n is back. Now to mock BestBu – – – .. .

This post was cut short by an unexpected (and rude) interruption from the “keep the post serious and not geeky so that it doesn’t seem like you are equating the importance of this minor event to the magnitude of other major lens cleaning ones” department. Have a nice day.

For whatever reason I can’t stand dull old north campus anymore. Not like I am Mr. Hip anything. Not like I have any problems with the rather nice home I am in right now, it’s just everything besides the home. Yes, I said home. Not house.

Old roomies suck the life out of you. Constantly interacting with engineers and scientists who see everything the way they see it is getting to me. Leave home to find nothing, no fancy restaurants, no theatres, no nothing. Only the cold efficient hum of machinery and grey people going about their efficient lives.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I need more.

Unrelated, in the recent past, I’ve said a bunch of other things too that I never ever thought I’d say.

– Hold, I am on the phone.
– Hold, I am working.
– This Limp Bizkit song is awesome. [Behind blue eyes]
(Well yes, as a matter of fact my dreams aren’t as empty as my conscious seems to be.)

… among other things.

Anyway, getting back to fixing this housing situation, I have two totally opposite option sets planned. On the one hand I have decided to shell out the 800 bucks or whatever it takes per month to find a nice studio, so I can be peaceful, alone. On the other, I am looking at fun co-ops with large odd crowds to force some amount of social interaction on me.

For next week, I am looking at three of each. This ought to be fun. For instance one of the guys who got back to me from the Black Elk seems totally nice.

… besides that, you could drop by for dinner anytime and meet some of the kids in our house. We eat Sunday-Thursday around 6:30pm, and you are welcome to come anytime. If I am not around any of my housemates will be around to show you the house. If you can make it anytime before then, I’d love to give you a tour myself. Either way you can both stop over for dinner and just tell everyone who you are and that you are interested in moving into the house. We’re all super friendly.

This ought to be interesting.

Designers of FORTRAN should be shot.
GOTO users should be shot.

Fish them and a whole lot of other people.
Hell, kill them all I say.

B4st4rds.

Yes, I am furious.

I “went to sleep” at some 10ish last evening. Spent all my time tossing and turning. It wasn’t noise. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t caffeine. I was just… disturbed to say the least. Anyway, I attempt this till some 3 AM and I can’t take it anymore. I wake and start jotting down a couple of letters. It worked. Within an hour I was peaceful and finally to sleep.

Woke “early” (by the sleep time standards) with extreme body ache, my head was killing me and my throat decided to spontaneously sympathetically fail. Dragged myself to the shower. And an hour of steam later, I can move.

I have been trying real hard to get something down here today. I want to say it. But I don’t know what it is that I want to say. I think I get, but I can never be sure. I am a male, and not a very bright one either. I’ve been typing and backspacing so much the key is stuck. So I decided not to talk about things I can never be sure I understand. During this period, I found this woman’s photolog. Apart from being very good, strangely enough, (her take on?) patterns soothe me and make me smile. You have to check it out. It was a little slow when I tried it, but totally worth the wait.

Since I was having so much trouble with things probably beyond my realm of comprehension, I decided to stick with what I think I do know.

As was noticed (rather quickly I might add) and pointed out on quickies, parts of the picture pages were left broken last evening. Firstly, I was shocked that I left it in that state without realizing. I have never done something like this before. I am usually quite thorough, at least when it comes to things like this. Apparently, yesterday was not the greatest of days to attempt to forge ahead with the move.

What move?
The move out of the uni servers to the wahgnube.org domain. Here are some highlights of what has been/will be going on in the near past/future.

Over the past few weeks, I have been slowly migrating the base template (this ultra hip… not, blue and grey style for the pages) to a set of PHP files for the header/footer/side boxes/navigation menu etc stripping down each page to just the essentials like a title and the content. All the other brouhahah like the overly complicated table system to draw the elements of the interface have been encapsulated into those PHP files.

There are some nagging concerns remaining, like the automation of the picture page. It is currently an absolute pain to update, and as a result doesn’t get updated, as I’ve now started pushing image content onto the weblog. That has to change. I have been trying out gallery and original. For now, both suck. If someone knows a better alternative, I’d like to know. My primary requirement is it should be customizable enough to fit into the site like any other page.

You may have also noticed I am slowly stripping away my name and real life contact information from the pages in the interest of privacy. Many a clueless anonymous email has been answered, and I think I have had enough. It’s kind of weird when you know who I am but I don’t have a clue about you, and yet have to respond appropriately. Plus there are issues relating to separating work and this, which has gone better than I imagined. There will eventually be no obvious way of getting between the two. Which now means I have to find a decent site counter other than the umich cgi I use now, and a new guestbook provider that fits within the framework of the site. The ones provided by my host, 1and1, look cheesy and just plain off. So suggestions for those are open too.

I have new plans for entropy, and have thought of some fixes to aggreg8. Minor fixes and updates to the other pages are also being carried out or have been marked to be carried out. Two sections, the older site news, and my resume section (obviously) have been deprecated. Older site news entries now merge into the weblog archives.

This site will then be its own entity, fully residing under the wahgnube.org domain with no obvious connection to the uni servers, and consequently the real life me. Except of course my obscure point of view, whininess and other general meisms on the weblog and everywhere else.

Change needn’t be bad.

Did I really think you cared to know all of this? Course not. This is my way of talking without saying anything. And now, after ages, I go home early. I get to see Friends. If it’s a repeat I will be mad.

Actually, no, I won’t.

The post monster, the evil twin of the cookie monster ate the post that was here.

Thank you for the comments and emails.

:|

Usually.

I do love mocking things. I am not talking about “point and jeer kicking sand in their faces” mocking. I am not talking Sienfeld style “what’s the deal with mayonnaise” style humour either. I prefer a more darker and drier approach. Sounding perfectly normal and rational, just highlight a blatantly obvious (to me) observation related to how stupid we really are. Something like an understated Simpsons episode without the gore. Usually bordering on cold or hurtful, but never, primarily because it isn’t directed at anything or anyone in particular. Just the generic dummy who fits that description, who everyone shrugs off as the “other guy”.

Therefore, society and me are my favourite targets. My safest targets. I tend to offend no one in particular, and if I do, it’s just me.

Then there are some days when people make it so easy I can’t help it. I know I am being mean, but I can’t stop because they’re sitting ducks holding a gun pointed at themselves AND hypnotising me trying to get me to pull the trigger. And I oblige. But only because they made me.

It’s hilarious. Hilariously rude, but hilarious none the less.

One of the undocumented chores of being a student at a university (who puts up contact information at too many places) is answering emails from clueless blokes. I am, if I do say so myself, very good about it. No canned answers. I do my research, take my time, and answer them aptly and to the best of my abilities. I maintain a kind, understanding and generally helpful air. These people have a whole lot of nonsense to deal with after this. Last thing they need is a rude / hope crushing / generally evil / misinformed email from me. I have never really received a decent thank you note, or seen or heard from these people ever again, but I do it like some karmic duty. It’s not like I ever mailed anybody when I wanted to know something. But then again, I am I. I was “too cool” for that, and “just knew” all that I needed to know.

Anyway, there are a few of those sitting duck cases here as well. And somehow, an impersonal email to someone I probably won’t ever communicate with ever again makes me feel a whole lot less guilty when I rip them to shreds over the smallest of things. A bunch of typos and flawed grammar say. I don’t intend to. Sometimes their demanding tone just puts me off, and I strongly dislike the person. I am in no frame of mind to tone down inherent impulses. Therefore I mock. Mocking plays a huge role in my “dealing with” and “putting things in perspective” abilities.

For whatever reasons (the uni webserver providing it as a free service for one) I have a guestbook for this site. Not that too many real people use it anymore. It now functions more like a spam honeypot. I rarely check it. But for some reason I clicked it today and woah.

Monday, February 02, 2004 — 10:18:46 (EST)
Name: Obfuscatedforhisprivacy SINGH– Email: Obfuscatedforhisprivacy@yahoo.com
(Of course, I said his. Obfuscatedforhisprivacy sounds like a him. Besides, women aren’t stupid.)
Location: jamshedpur, jharkhand india
# i want to know that my admit card has been mistikaly printed as all the suvject in my previous records but i want to give onlymathematic as my subject please make me the corection

Now I have nothing particularly against Singhs, or people from “Jharkand”, or people who don’t know the difference between an academic service office contact addresses and random website guestbooks, or people who can’t spell for nuts, or people who don’t know of the existence of punctuation, or people who don’t believe in capitalization (on top of not knowing the existence of punctuation so that I can at least figure out when a sentence ends and another begins), or have extreme grammar issues, or don’t realize it might be better to insert spaces between words, or lack the time to proofread JUST A LITTLE, or blatantly attempt to not make sense.

I have no idea what this person was trying to say. But it is just all so easy isn’t it?

Like I said, I am not an evil person.

Usually.

(Hmm. In moments of even more weirdness, I have to post pictures that led to this tomorrow. Am I doing this to keep you curious and coming back for more? No such thing. Somehow, I feel I am being kind to low bandwidth people by not piling too many images per post. (Not like it matters, considering the posts pile up for a bit before they leave the front page. But that’s the most legit reason I could come up with. Deal with it.) Moving your mouse over the images should popup a little one liner.)

So here I am, figuring out what it is I am doing at a museum. I mean, I’ve been to many before, but for some reason I have to find purpose, and patterns. So I begin to look around.

Within a bit, I found this:

Apparently, they were smart and got it. All the (female form related?) art in that exhibit mirrored the words used in this description.

Moving along, I found art from the renaissance period. Now admittedly, most of this stuff wasn’t “positive” (in a yay, our world is so peachy way), but it was easily the most realistic in its depiction of things. Obviously, this was with respect to everything, but I am going to stick to the topic of the day. So, through their eyes:

Achievable dimension proportions?

Now I wasn’t kidding when I said they were realistic. I am being mean, but apparently the richest and vainest nobles weren’t the most attractive.

Or spent so much on cosmetics, they couldn’t afford the best painters.

Kidding. What I am getting at is this set called it as they saw it. Not some obscure what they wished it to be.

Now as we start moving towards the Asian section of the exhibit, particularly (Cambodian?) areas influenced by Indian art, things start looking a little different. To put things in perspective, these are like toned down, “realifieder” versions of the Indian art counterparts. (Like the sculptor’s wife hit him on the head with a club until he changed things.)

And for my final exhibit, here is a female form sample from ancient Indian art.

The article below this sculpture was raving about how her proportions are so well defined, right down to the diameter of her ankle and the lengths of her toes. What it didn’t talk about is how much freaking plastic surgery one needs to go through to get to this point.

So there you have it. There were always those that got it, and those that didn’t.

Do you?

Apparently, unrealistic expectations isn’t some new fad plaguing just today’s society.

Of course, there were tons of other such patterns related to kind of materials used, or the level of detail, and other things I’d love to go into. But who really wants to know such things? And this entry just seems incomplete without a plug to this person’s page where she posts snippets related to gender and technology.