actuality.log

One of those days again. The feeling of loss with never real gain days. They suck so much.

I’ve been trying stuff to get the picture pages automation enabled. I am leaning on original to do this for me.

It will be themed to match the site, before (if) it becomes the default picture handling thing. It took like 30s to make this gallery of images, as opposed to the hour it would have taken to do by hand. It is worth it, I think.

It’s at: /photos/

Thoughts? Before you hastily say, “it sucks”, it can be themed to be niceish. Like here. (Just make sure you’re seeing the gorilla theme.)

Update: WOAH! THIS IS HUGE. All these, “let’s keep my brain occupied so that I don’t worry about life issues” days are turning out to be:
a) too frequent for comfort
b) insanely productive! (discounting life crushing events of course)
c) the days when you get to enjoy brilliantly conceived uninteresting tech drivel because I don’t know how else to express what else is going on.

In a moment of bravery and things, made a sort of “copy” of this blog and updated that to wordpress. The theme will be reverted to this blue-grey one in time, but the backend will now move to a much newer codebase. Which I am guessing is a lot cooler, functionally.

Check it out here: beta.emphaticallystatic.org/simplicity

Please don’t comment there. Yes, you, you know who you are. The database tables will not be synced in the future when I fully move to that “officially”. Your words of wisdom will be lost. Forever.

Will someone please explain to the retarded weather fairy woman this isn’t the north pole?

But then again, it is really pretty sometimes.

Hmm. This isn’t so bad really. I am more than used to it by now. Maybe I’ll just move into some corner of the uni sometime. It won’t make a difference to anybody, and will be a lot easier on me.

General cluelessness and stupidity warning – IAJAG^*.

I think a woman and a guy can be totally happy together, purely on the basis of him being her lifelong (extremely hard to do, yet you can delude yourself into thinking you can) “do it yourself” improvement project.

And I am not kidding, I really do.

There is obviously this intense need the female has, to improve aspects of her life. It can be something relatively small, like rearranging the furniture over and over again around her nest. But the scary part is, our male friend too can be happily clubbed into one of these aspects. Things can go on quite nicely, she believing he is someday going to step into that cocoon she’s built for him, the phat slug that he is now, and magically come out all pretty and butterflyey.

It’s like, we’ve awakened their inner carpenter. And we’re their friendly neigbourhood hardware store’s “get everything you need in one box” project kits. I mean the workbench, the work material AND the tool chest. (If you’re wondering, yes. I am especially proud I thought of tool chest. And that one word, or is that two? is the only reason this post even exists.)

ALL IN ONE KIT. Now which sane project doer can pass up such a deal?

It’s like, they’re just greedy. They’re the bedrock of society, caretakers of our children, the ones who uphold our values and ensure harmony … . They get to CREATE LIFE and ensure perpetuation of the people, AND YET, there is still a lurking need to create. To make something out of nothing. To make something of their man. Sure, these occasionally lead to these spots of bother and turbulence. I mean, once in a few years you will go through the, “But but, after all I’ve said and shown you, you HAVEN’T CHANGED. NOT ONE BIT”. (At which point, you’re like.. oh..kay, so is she violent because we aren’t better men yet, or she is beating herself up for not being too good at moulding the lump of clay she was handed.) But then again, they’re patient and forgiving. So they happily assume in time things will be different. For all their intelligence and sensitivity, there are some things they just don’t get.

We don’t change. We CAN’T change. We know this. You spend all that time and effort on attempting to improve us, but we’re not budging. Even if we do, we’ll still fake being our stupid selves. Isn’t it obvious why? That was an important component, admit it or not, of the attraction in the first place. If we’re suddenly all improved and mature and sensitive and nice and caring and clean and … where’s the challenge? We’re afraid you’ll happily move along to greener, (or is that less green) grazing grounds, and set about making them green.

We’re devious about this too. We assume they will assume we will change, and be patient. And I mean very patient. Banking on this, we just be who we are. In time, biological clocks and what not, we’re hoping to hear something like “Ok, I give up, I presume this is where your evolution chose to stop”, and accept us for who we are.

But then again, like I started off saying. What do I know? IAJAG^*. We’re the ones who base our needs on extremely strong grounds.

^*IAJAG – I am just a guy.

I listen to people. People know I listen to them. Now this is all fine and good.. usually. There are times, however, when this makes events more complicated than they have to be. For instance, when someone comes up to me with a standard “Hey, how was your day?”, I cannot answer immediately with a standard canned “Decent enough”. I have to look at their eyes and body language and what not and attempt to figure out what it is they’re really trying to say.

a. I am genuinely interested in how your day went. (Seldom the case)
b. I am acknowledging your presence, and this seems like as good a way to do it as any other. (Most probably the case)
c. My day was great, and I am dying to tell someone about it.
d. My day was horrid, and I need you (or any one else) to listen to me.
e. Some other weird special case that’s hard to figure.

It’s obvious it’s mostly one of b-e, and that this isn’t about my day at all. It doesn’t have to be like this, but this isn’t the root cause of my issues. All I’m saying is I should be able to get away with something generic like a “Great. How about you?” and be able to walk off without waiting for an answer. But no, magically the world knows I cannot do this and will stop everything for them. So I have to (within the allowable 3 millisecond response time period), classify their words under a-e, and come up with a suitable tone that matches up with what they’re going to say next. Anything from non chalant, to excited for them, to sympathetic and helpful. It is so complicated.

Either I’ve been talking to a lot more people recently, or I have this huge sign on my head that makes everybody “just know” this, but this is getting to be too frequently recurring an event for comfort. I don’t know what it is. Older people, younger people, PEOPLE I DON’T REALLY KNOW seem to take comfort in the fact that relatively idle ears exist. I don’t particularly mind this, but sometimes it is a bit extreme and I begin to wonder why the hell is it that I’m still there.

I would have been quite fine with it if it stopped there. But no. In a fit of delusional warpedness, people also magically assume I am a lot wiser and possess keener foresight than I actually do. It will thus start of as a general whine, and then I will get asked for input on the most obscure life decisions, behave as a moral compass, you know, general things I do not know and have no basis for making an informed judgement on, but will have to come up with one anyway. What is this about? Is this some weird “We asked wahgnube, he says this. It will work, but more importantly (I think), if it doesn’t, he said so. It’s his fault.” thing I do not get?

Stop. You have a brain. It’s your life. Live it. Screw it up. Just be you. I can listen. Sometimes it even irritates to listen. But I can and will.

I definitely cannot make your decisions.

I’ve been sort of neglecting the web log for the past few days. I don’t know what it is. It’s not that I’ve been that busy. I guess I’ve had my fair share of humour, creativity, general release and whininess, and whatever else I use this medium for, expressed in other forms. I’ve been feeling rather spent, and can’t really put down something I don’t feel like deleting. Like today’s. Arggh.

*One hand holds the other from backspacing while hitting the submit post button.*

For some reason, I remembered the work pages that have been left in limbo for a month or so with nothing really populated. Decided to get the preliminary work for the research pages equation rendering done today. I am happy with the results. Fixed a format for the resumé too. Got the files ready to populate the publications page.

Now all that’s left is to finalize the content for the research pages.

That and to not forget what this split was really about. Sheesh.

Update: The links on the publications page are now live. There are videos and other things if you look carefully enough.

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.