Hey everyone,

Uni
Just finished really busy midsemster exam / assessment period. I didn’t do as well as I wanted in MAB220 (Numerical Analysis) exam, due to lack of study / practice and lack of time. I will make up for it in the final exam though. The ITB005 (Systems Arch. ) exam was easier and more fun.

The other assessment in assignment form has also kept me busy. I enjoy OO (OpenOffice) Math, aside from me bothering to learn Latex, it is the best solution for the insertion of mathematic syntax and symbols. I don’t enjoy Visual Studio, (Stupid irritating MS IDE), ITB003 (OOP Programming) lecturer said I would be able to the course entirely using Linux (or that anyone else would be able to use Linux, Mac, Win whatever) and yet they wanted assignment as Visual Studio solution.

I tried using a converter located at here .

I also spent lots of time completing ITB002 (IT Professional Studios) group assignment, which although we were a person or two short and Mirza and I were busy with our 4 other subjects, we managed to complete successfully, albeit cutting it closer than we had hoped.

Other stuff

I have also been doing so many other wonderful things recently which include:

• Watching Nick Stallman renovate his home computing scenario. (Lots of nice hardware and a old laptop (P2 166mhz mx), lots of fun)
• Watching Kieran Salsone nuture the development of Websinthe.org (Link is in blogroll) and Myleetjihad.com like a web gardener skilled in the knowledge of CSS and their power in creating a beautiful web garden and also skilled in erradication of the Bad Web Design bug and the pruning of the treacherous IE vine / crawler.
• Dealing with my beliefs in the topics of God , Religon, Logic, Illogic, Magic, Evolution, etc
• Found Dorian Gray’s (Alias of Raymond Marshall) Websites (which have had their domain names expired, thanks to Chris for pointing this out.)
• Found Purple Dragon’s Blog (purpledragonblog.wordpress.com)
• Officially improved my Smack talking skills @ Websinthe Forums. (I now have dangerous smacktalking mouth +12 as a secondary mouth / weapon)
• Helping numerous people with lots of different things.
• Started playing Quadra (quadra.sourceforge.net) again
• Currently working on icons for Kuroo and Quadra
• Perfecting my Gentoo install (installing software / fixing software / getting hardware support for stuff
• Got rained on whilst trying to get to library to print MAB210 (Probability and Statistics) assignment
• Postponing the writing of this post
• Being avaliable @ Websinthe forums / MSN / Jabber and numerous IRC channels (mainly on freenode)
• Wondering if God was a magical being
• Having discussions on Religon / God / etc that I didn’t have time to have
• Being me
• Realising parts of me that I thought other people broke or screwed up, that still exist
• Pining to release my creativity in the form of creating art, music,parodies, lyrics, this blog, fan fiction and poetry etc
• Wishing I had anime / manga to read or watch
• etc

My hair is growing pretty long now. It was supposed to be all braided / plaited up ages ago, but the braids / plaits fell out. I am going to need to get it replaited soon. On the holiday break I must still study, send my laptop to get repaired (Screen blotches) under warranty and have a LUG meeting.

Ohh, and Steve Irwin died . :(. Everyone seems to keep reminding me of this. It gets me thinking about life and how a freak accident can take life out from under someone just like the magicians (the performers not the real ones) take the table cloth off the table with damaging the table contents.

I also realised somethings regarding this and other stuff from watching the movie “The Beach”. With relevance to the above it examines how death is dealt with by people. In the death of people, some people just hear about the death and once the person is dead eventually forget about them. In the death of people , it is evident that those aware of the person and those who are affected by the person can’t just ignore the death of that person, in their minds that person will never be forgetten.Steve will definitely never be forgetten by Terri, Bindi and Bob as he has affected their lives immensely.

It is my hope that more people don’t forget about Steve and other people that have died, just because they are dead.

How is the relevant to “The Beach” you ask ? It might not be but it seemed to me. The movie demostrates the price of an exclusive Utopia. (to avoid mass people flooding messing it up / wrecking it) It also demonstrates the effect of death in this scenario.

*Plot spolier* Two people are attacked by shark. One dies instantly and is buried, the other is sick and doesn’t recover, the utopia nature of “The Beach” isn’t restored until the dead guy is buried and farewelled and the second guy is placed away from the camp and left to die (They can’t get help to him on the Island or their secret is given away) .

Quoting Richard (lead character played by Leonardo de Caprio) �get better or die. it�s the hanging around in between that really pisses people off.�
�it would be a lot easier to condemn our behavior if it hadn�t been so effective.�
�…out of sight really was out of mind. once he was gone, we felt a whole lot better.�
�it�s easy to turn your back.. but not always so easy to forget.�
�you can never forget what you�ve done. but we adapt. we move on.�

Near then end of the movie Sal (camp leader) gets told by drug farmers if she wants to stay she has to kill Richard, Richard is at first scared then realises the situation then knows and states to Sal “You can’t kill me now, before it was different , noone had to see, but now it is in front of everyone, everyone will remember and know the price of the secret / island (or something like that)” and sure enough she can’t shoot him.

*/Plot Spoiler*

The Beach is a great book. I enjoyed the movie (all though many other people hate it). But the theme of the cost of sacrifce in utopic societies (in true utopic societies there should be none or some depending on your interpretation of Utopia) is an interesting theme, it was good to have another source to contrast with Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984.

This blog post’s questions are “Is sacrifice required for Utopia, why / why not ? What is Utopia to you ? Does humanity deserve Utopia, why / why not ?”

Live your life

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

One Response to I kept my head above the midsemester floods and although I exchanged sleep with wet hair, I am alive

Tim Morris says: September 12, 2006 at 11:03 pm

Utopia to me is the stage when you no longer have to strugle to acheive goals, you no longer have to chase pleasures..they come to you.

Mabye utopia is meeting up with your soul mate in the after life. For those that dont believe in an after life mabye utopia is when you die peacefuly with loved ones around.

After life defined by the majority fits my idea of utopia easily, its the peaceful death that some might not believe could be possible.

Consider this, if there is no after life how will we know once dead.

I believe that IF there isn’t an after life (with God/s etc) the individual would still experience eternity. As life begins to fade durring someones death so to would their concept of time, therefore I believe that death to the individual is actualy approached and never reached. Now weither god takes over here or not I’m not sure, but if he isn’t there then we would experience our final moments (which alot of people choose to reflect on the past) to ourselves over our eternity.

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