The online home of Appleman1234 / Benjamin Southall

Hey everyone,

The last few days have been very very busy but lots of things have been happening. Uni is great, although it is only the end of the first Week, so maybe the diagnosis is a little early. Life isn’t bad, and isn’t exactly good (in the wonderful sense) but it seems to be tolerable.

It is amazing how lack or excess amounts of time can borify (coined word, meaning to make boring, I could have used dullify but it didn’t convey my mood or colloquialism as articulately) or stimulate a basic activity, like washing the dishes or cooking food, or doing study, or walking from place to place. The same could probably be said of mindset and enthusiasm for a particular task.

[Positive odds and ends, that will terrify & alienate most logical people or coldblooded bastards]

(This section is similar in form to a poem I read ages ago, but the content is different)

You should love what you do, because only once you love it, will you enjoy it and excel at it.

: You should accept what you do, because despite the fact you can do something else, or do something better or worse, it is what you do (did) not do, not what you could have done that matters , that causes reactions and opens doors and creating opportunities.

You should love who you are, because it is unique despite the social stereotypes and generalization of society, because you are special, beautiful, wonderful, terrible, if you don’t love yourself, you can never love others properly, you can never feel right, because there is always that self love missing.

You should accept who you are, because no amount of physical or mental manipulation is going to change your acceptance or lack of acceptance of yourself.

You should live , try , feel despite the results, because ultimately it is better to try , live , feel and fail / have a bad experience then it is to fail by apathy / lack of trying.

You should smile, laugh, cry, anger because emotions are normal and natural.

You should treat others as you would have them treat you.

You should accept others because while they may be different from you, they are still people too.

You should love others because it is a cold dark lonely life to be alone with nobody and nothing.

You should believe , Have faith and trust

You should learn and grow and think and question

(this part is an interesting and simple route to happiness or success or contentment or enlightenment, however it does involve going against human nature)

In order to be content

1. Have something (easy part) or have lots (still easy part)

2. Be content with what you have. (hard part)

[End Positive odds and ends]

Anyhow, enough positive glitters of what people should do in order to not lose sight of the life they are living.

I have been enjoying my life, engaged in

• Funny, interesting, detailed, mathematical, logical lectures at Uni.
• Purchasing the most awesome textbook ever. To elaborate it was bought at the second hand bookstore and it was further discounted as a new edition was out, upon brief inspection before I purchased it, I noticed it was natural bound (not rebound) back to front and upside down, so to read it properly the cover appears upside down and back to front :), the clerk at the register tried to sell (salesperson sell) it to me, but she was preaching to an old timer, that knew the faith better than her, I bought it immediately and bounced down the stairs with sheer glee spray painted all over my face.
• The second maths modeling lecture wasn’t as funny as the first, but it did have the lecturer mentioning infectious diseases as we are doing population growth models (SIS, SIR for those who are interested), each time he said the words infected, infection, either myself (who just had a runny nose from not eating enough icecream and having too much salt) or something else sniffled, sneezed, coughed or wheezed, it was the the yawn effect (one person yawns, three people yawn, etc) gone orchestral
• First Computer Architecture Lecture was great, despite the quoting of a stupid article published by APC, about Con (ck-sources guy) quiting kernel development, the article style and title were scandal style (Linux Kernel exposed, Con reveals all), the title was misquoted on Slashdot, and APC isn’t a decent Linux magazine, Linux Format could be if it didn’t cost $25 to most people outside the UK. During the lecture I learnt we were using DJGPP on Dos, and was sad I couldn’t just use native tools, but I got DJGPP working with Dosbox quite easily, so I can do assignments and such on my laptop.
• My Mathematics for Computer Graphics Tutor is really funny and seems like an awesome guy, so I am also enjoying that subject
• I spent Friday night and most of Saturday at Darren’s 21 first part organised by Elise (a good friend of mine), and met some wonderful people, and had an interesting series of discussion about society, Tesla’s lack of fame, Doctor Who, Religion, Magic, Heritages, Electronics and a series of other topics. From observation (as I didn’t participate, as I don’t drink) I conclude that turn based drinking games suck (as the rate of alcohol consumption is to fast, the fun of the game is to small, and the hangover hurts like hell) , I did suggest round based drinking games but got ignored.
• After leaving the party goers lying in the sun (at a nearby park) after we had eaten breakfast at Chermside Shopping Centre, I was determined to walk to my Grandfather’s place at Kedron, whilst being dehydrated and hot. The walk was fun, despite all the heat, hills and the surprise on my Grandfather’s face was worth it. It was wonderful to catch up with him and talk about politics, the past, how things were in his day (some of them sound so good, I wonder why they were changed) , the dust, the races (His family’s tradition), Americans, Australian story and other bits and pieces. My grandfather is so generous, he gave me Anzac biscuits to take with me , I then caught the bus into the city and got home and slept
• After that I woke up at 9pm , did some things involved movies on TV and other stuff, till 2am, and then slept again. (hence the weird sleeping patterns)

I have also been invited to lots of different things, this seasons to be the season for birthdays, events and invitations, at least my purple suit will go to good use.

I am slowly getting world up to date with Gentoo, but haven’t got the 2.6.22 kernel compiling clean yet.

If you could play hide and seek with reality, would you and where would you hide and why ?

If you got given $100 from a stranger, what would you think of that stranger ? and what are the chances of you giving that $ 100 to another stranger ?

Best wishes, keep having fun

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

Uni is back, had my first Mathematical Modelling (mainly ODEs based) lecture today, and the lecturer who is new to QUT, mentioned over crowding and yeast that said “Life is crap, this place (petri dish) is crowded and crap, I want to die”, to which the entire lecture room laughed, and I had to suppress a shout of Emo Yeast!!.

On the last week of the holidays I spent lots of time at Ruben’s, because he had his LAN party (which wasn’t bad) and his birthday which was awesome, I met lots of cool people, demonstrated my skill or lack there of at pool / 8 ball. Cries of “Damn you Bede” were echoed in both events, and the watching of Family Guy, Firefly and Invader Zim were enjoyed all round.

I was going to upload my resume website thingy after cleaning it up, but it seems to have mystically disappeared, so I can’t do that obviously. I am currently composing / writing the verses and bridge for a song that I have the chorus for and also brushing up on my knowledge of C, C++, QT, Assembly and ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations).

I also bumped into an old school acquaintance on the train, and that reminds of my quest / task of attempting to have a reunion or Mafia or Mao game with a bunch of people, those who are interested just email me or respond to my email when I get round to emailing you.

Other interesting things that have been happening,

The Magic Train Ticket (It changed dates or something like that, as it was accepted by lots of people who asked, when I found my real / current (not old) in the bottom of my pocket I was so surprised)

The Mecure has a good steak sandwich.

The Guy on the Train, that accused me of staring at him, and then when I made sure to only look at my knees / feet, he asked was something wrong.

[RANT] Why does everyone automatically categorise and associate negative connations with certain actions, If I am sighing there is something wrong, If I look at my feet, there is something wrong, If I look in someone’s general direction, I am staring at them and thus I have a problem with them.

Where will it end, will it become like certain events in the US where if you look at someone accidentally and they interpret it as the wrong way, you get stabbed or shot ? Clarification is a very important part of communication and stereotyping people just to improve one’s self esteem or to alleviate the fear of unknown doesn’t limit that person, it limits your relationship, behaviour towards and your ability to cope with that person.

It is only when a person stereotypes themselves or believes the stereotype that their self esteem begins to suffer. Where did courtesy go ? chivalry ?

I wish people would understand that same and equal are not equivalent. Men and Women are equal but not the same,Different Ethnicities are Equal but not the same, People placed in stereotypes are equal to that stereotype (if the stereotype is logically placed without bias) but they are not the same as that stereotype.

Equality isn’t about making everyone the same, it isn’t about forced integration and interaction and facadious multiculturalism. Equality is about realising that despite our differences we are equal and tolerating those differences or even celebrating those differences doesn’t hurt a society.

I think that feminists shouldn’t misinterpret chivalry as a sexist gesture that implies that can’t do things (open doors etc) as well as men. If men are being chivalrous (which is rare enough these days), then just accept the chivalry graciously. As a sidenote to this can the idiots (normally male) who are being chivalrous just in order to get into a girl’s pants, please stop because you are ruining it for the rest of us.

The journey is more important that the destination.

*SIGH* end rant (this rant may have wisdom inside it, if you can be bothered looking)

[/RANT]

As for the Skeletal Clothing I suppose that would be skin and muscle tissue, but I was actually referring to the awesome picture on Chrystle’s LJ. (LJ is down ATM :()

Have fun,

Imagine life as a drop of rain, or a snowflake, If you could play any game on an amusement park ride what would it be and why ?

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

Here are some Indonesian phrases (almost proverbs) that I discovered, when in a semi depressed / semi concerned state based on all the emotive or argumentative MSN conversations I have had lately, they are slightly sad but do raise a philosophy question or three.

Kata semua menyakit, mengapa saya berbicara lagi ?(Every word hurts, why am I still speaking?)
Pekhiran semua menyakit, mengapa saya berpikir lagi ? (Every thought hurts, why am I still thinking?)
Api yang menyakit aku, tetapi api juga menyenyumkan aku, api teman atau musuh ? (Fire it hurts / burns me , but it also makes me smile, fire is friend or foe ?)

I also went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Chrystle and some of her friends, surprise I met Emma and realise that we have already met from TOM (Tournament of Minds) from ages ago. The night was a great night, the movie was good (yes much darker but good, and I reckon some of the casting could have been better) and the company was excellent, between Jam drops, Skittles and watching Emma and Chrystle devour ice cream, it was the most fun I have had at the cinemas in a while.

The discussion about the supposed Emo Invasion of the Sunshine Plaza was also interesting. (hehehe)

Have a lot of birthdays coming up that I have to look for gifts for, I also caught up with Pat last night on MSN, and am preparing for Ruben’s LAN. Have you ever tried chewing or sucking on icecubes with cold feet in a hot shower, the sensation is weird yet amazing ?

The question for today is What is the weirdest thing / usage of Cheezels you have ever witnessed ?

Between lighting the fire and my current pastime of cooking Chiko rolls (pan fry as apparently baking them is treason to their iconic Australianism), the closed windows because it is winter there is little piece between then shrill howl of the two smoke-alarms that do their jobs oh so well (setting off at least 8 times consecutively for lighting a fire in fireplace and 3 (make that 5) for pan frying Chiko rolls)

I prefer open fires to fireplaces as there is so much more freedom, as your not limited to a small cubic box and my Chiko rolls are much more black / charred then their advertisement claims. (My guess is their instructions don’t cover a gas stove and cast iron frying pan)

Anyways back to fry pan I go to make sure the kitchen isn’t on fire :P.

UPDATE: Their distributor has a money back satisfaction guarantee, so If I don’t enjoy my black Chiko rolls, I can get money back.

Hey everyone,

This was going to be an audio post, but I don’t feel like talking /recording at the moment.

Anyhow I have lots to cover.

First Things First (Because they can be first, second or last and it wouldn’t matter) and keeping them brief so people can’t use excuse it is too much read. *sighes*

Over the holidays so far (since after the Trolltech BBQ), I have attended a 75th birthday that was so much fun. It is really fun to be able to catch up with family friends and their family. Funny or interesting sub-events at this event included:

• The cute children and the newborn baby (terribly cute).
• Siblings and Mother arriving late after half listening / misinterpreting directions
• My reluctance to eat until the Kabana & Liquorice arrived (on the platter of nibbles we weren’t supposed to bring but did anyways)
• The early accidental unveiling of the birthday cake.
• The hide and seek / cover myself with hat and hood game, played with 2 to 3 little youngsters trying to dehood / dehat me.
• The impromptu request (as I am studying mathematics & IT) to fix someone’s palm pilot.
• The piece of cake that fell on the ground, that I bet my little brother would walk / step in, and he did.

After this (a few days) we had two of the people (close family friends, Lisa and Alice) come for a weekend sleepover. Interesting things that occured include but are not limited to

• The poker game based on the success of my little brother’s (should I call him bother, for now he has the benefit of the doubt) flamboyant attire (suit and cane, etc, etc) in the previous game, which I was winning until Lisa asked to win some, sure enough she won the game :). (see previous post for why I find poker boring..)
• The watching of Robin Hood Season One on my laptop (Thanks Dallas so much for that….) , after the first few episodes, there were two more Jonas Armstrong fans in the house.
• The attendance of the Abbey Medieval Fair (sub-events are shown below)
  • The drive in Lisa’s car (her driving has improved, and I still don’t drive)
  • The broken CD player that would only play the first 5 or 6 songs of a CD.
  • The more comic than skilled Jester that was been very modern in handing out a business card with his Myspace
  • Getting to see two pigs and a lamb on spits
  • Asking an expert in regards to weapons used by the clergy (as originally discussed in #wesnoth @ Freenode)
  • Watching almost everyone but me get more excited over the presence of Shelley Craft than the fact they were at the medieval festival
  • Walking Lisa through a medieval market and have her not purchase any non food items
  • Looking at Germanic early cannons
  • Getting irritated at trivial and major inconsistencies made by those with the best intentions in reenacting medieval life
  • Avoiding bumping to people (Including someone from Lisa’s uni, Celeste, Chrystle ( ) and at least 7 other people)
  • Seeing how chainmail is made, after misinterpreting the location of the event (That was my fault, but we were only 10 minutes late and it wasn’t crowded)
  • Missing the oppurtunity to get better seats for the jousting, because I choose to wait for Lisa and Alice to get Snow Cones (Did they exist in medieval times ?)
  • Not dressing up and pretending to be Ivanhoe (I so wanted to…)
• Watching the wonderful French Movie “The Singer” (so sad, so romantic, so French)
• Having a wonderful brunch with more family friends (Paul, Birgit and Jessica from the Gold Coast)
  • Their story about the letter about their journey through Africa was amazing and awe inspiring
  • Oh and the food for the brunch was very very good. (not to die for)
• Having Dallas come over (Lisa and Alice left soon after.) (Dallas has a chicken and we have scraps for it to eat, it is a good arrangement, Dallas you should mention your chicken on your blog and upload a photo or something)
• Watching Jessica and Dallas play air hockey (first there was rules and order, then cheating and chaos)

After all the fun was over I got online and checked my QUT Virtual and allo and behold, my results were posted and I didn’t fail anything :). So the second Round or Third Round of Space Invaders is cleared, although without the shield bonus and gun bonus (see previous post for the in joke).

I really should be doing more with my holidays, I have lots planned and lots of planning to do and will get around to it before Uni is back. I have been playing Wesnoth, slowly translating bits and pieces of Wesnoth into Indonesian in Kate, I tried Kbabel didn’t like its obfuscating and specific interface, I have installed poEdit and am yet to try it.

I have also been chatting on IRC and MSN, one of my recent conversations was with Mircea / Danny / Rastilin (not sure exactly what his name is, he is a friend of Nick Stallman), started out a question about Debian, and became a beliefs / philosophies argument (at kept me up till 3am).

My analysis of his approach is shown below (The full log will be shown on request only, until I am ready to a major philosophy post, this post will only have the analysis and some highlights)

(02:17:27 AM) Appleman1234: it is interesting
(02:17:50 AM) Appleman1234: whenever you deem yourself as not being victorious, you change the subject or the angle
(02:18:23 AM) Appleman1234: or when your logic doesn’t result in the conclusion you expect from me you instead resort to taunting and cheap insults
(02:20:34 AM) Appleman1234: however the method of conversation you are using isn’t exactly that of critical thinking, or that of scientific reasoning , or even that of scientific or philosophical skepticism
(02:21:23 AM) Appleman1234: it is merely I believe your belief is wrong because of Reason A and because it doesn’t match mine,
(02:21:48 AM) Appleman1234: when asked to clarify you either do so reluctantly or vaguely
(02:22:28 AM) Appleman1234: and when posed with questions, you either claim incomprehensibility or retort with an unjustified insult
(02:23:29 AM) Appleman1234: I also forgot the stereotyped
(02:24:10 AM) Appleman1234: So logically you haven’t invalidated or changed any of my beliefs
(02:29:27 AM) Appleman1234: however your style does remind me of doublethink

It makes me wonder as such (referring back to the protester and the candle, (if you know what I am talking about , you are a diligent reader of my blog and I admire you)) why people try to discredit others beliefs, to replace them with their own all in the name of criticism and critical thinking ?

Beliefs are rather important and special to a person, if you remove their belief system, what do they have to live for ? What are they to believe ?, before you attempt anything as to brash as basically brainwashing someone with their consent, at least be able to answer the question “Why should I believe what you believe”, with a better answer than “Because I said so”.

Highlights from the chatlog are shown below:

01:47:59 AM) rastilin: You want me to debunk your beliefs with illogic?
(01:48:08 AM) rastilin: Purple flying elephants!
(01:48:08 AM) rastilin: There
(01:48:12 AM) rastilin: Debunked with illogic.
(01:48:14 AM) Appleman1234: sigh
(01:48:25 AM) Appleman1234: that is surrealism not illogic
(01:49:32 AM) rastilin: Is there something wrong with my logic?
(01:51:49 AM) Appleman1234: no just your interpretation / definition of debunk, illogic and your understanding Gödel’s incompleteness theorems

(01:26:09 AM) rastilin: The hardest lesson I learned was that I was not a special snowflake or holder of unthought wisdom.
(01:26:50 AM) Appleman1234: why limit yourself through lessons, why not expand yourself instead ?
(01:27:05 AM) rastilin: Because the expansion is an illusion.
(01:27:07 AM) Appleman1234: if you have nothing to gain from a lesson , why learn it ?
(01:27:17 AM) Appleman1234: Reality is an illusion
(01:27:22 AM) Appleman1234: it is all perception
(01:27:22 AM) rastilin: Because there is something to gain, I just can’t see it from where I’m standing.
(01:27:32 AM) rastilin: That’s silly.
(01:27:52 AM) Appleman1234: faith in incorrect perception is your reasoning and yet you label me silly
(01:28:25 AM) Appleman1234: I would rather believe that I can be right, then that I am always going to be wrong from a different viewpoint

There could be more but this post is long enough already. On the bright side I visualised more of my philosophies and certain constructs and I discovered ##philosophy on Freenode, on the dark side I got 6 hours sleep this morning and I got kicked from my Wesnoth Game.

Final Note: I got phpMyID working and now I can log into LJ and post on Chrystle’s and Stephen Thorne’s LJs :). (I only took me 6 hours due to a typo…)

This blogs question is Do you belief in acceptance of others and if so or if not , then why ?

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

This isn’t the audio blog I mentioned but it is something I am pretty proud of, I actually took the time yesterday to record a basic recording of a song I wrote about 5 years ago. The name of the song is either Everyone or Why do they fly, I wrote it when I was being bullied in Year 8 of highschool on the squash courts whilst slightly bored.

It is about social conditioning, competition, reality and lots of other little things, The version I am uploading is still a little raw / rough as it has only had a normalisation and equalisation in Audacity.

As a side note, my voice is quite flexible and whilst this key isn’t the key I originally first sung the song in, it is the key / tone that I believe really suits the song. Lyrics are on the Lyrics page and I haven’t decided on the release license yet.

Enjoy or run away in terror (depending of what you think of my singing)

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234