The online home of Appleman1234 / Benjamin Southall

I was going to rant and release here but *meh* *sighs*

Later has come, First things first Happy Birthday Lisa. I am wondering do I wait till Australia has a national ID card, pay $60 for a Keypass card (the closest thing we currently have) or pay $24 dollars to get an 18+ card. This scenario all arose from the events that happened two days ago, which invovled me getting let into the Treasury casino on my student card, then going with Lisa and friends to the ATMs which are located in the most weird location near the rear on the ground floor at the back of a casino. Signage to them was also confusing, we finally got there got money from the ATMs (I was getting money as I would need it for the coming week.)

Then I tried to get back into the casino and was told that they don’t except student cards (apparently they are easier to fake than other forms ID…), this confused the cognisance out of me, if they didn’t accept student cards, why the first security guard at the door let me in ? We then went round the front to double check and now they wouldn’t let me in.

Those who know me, know I don’t drink or gamble, which makes the scenario more ironic. I then asked whether I could goto the Blackjacks restaurant downstairs. (which isn’t near the gambling areas and the entrances to gambling areas have more security guards), I was told I couldn’t go down the stairs to the restaurant….., My Mum has always said that if I ever needed a good meal in the City I could go to Blackjacks, but it turns out that I can’t….

It would have been much better if they had refused me correctly the first time, because that inconsistency bugs me, Getting refused initially would have been fine, because it wouldn’t be a broken standard. It is like going into the swipe card doors at uni at getting let in, and then when I want to get out, the swipe reader on the inside won’t let me out…

We ended up going to Strike bowling bar instead, and whilst it was still a nice night and Lisa still had a ball, I still feel confused and guilty. Although music from Cat Stevens and Jewel is wearing the guilt and misery away quickly and my pancake stack breakfast also helped.

So now I have to decide whether to wait, pay $60 or pay $24 dollars, to prove I am who I say I am. One of the wise or semi wise things (I sounded like Millie from Ozy and Millie) was “What is the point of being old, if no one believes you are old ?” I still looked great in my purple suit, and Dallas looked great in his suit and fancy shirt :).

This annoys me for two reasons, one the broken standard reason which I see all to often, eg Feminists want Gender Equality, and yet the government only has Violence against Women being wrong in Australian TV ads, nothing about violence or abuse in which the sufferers are men.

In my humble opinion, it should not have female actors being all victims and male actors being all protagonists. Sure statistically men are at least 70% of sexual abusers are apparently male, but if we want Gender Equality, then the Government should have Violence against People and fair advertising…, (Chaser’s War on Everything made a different but valid point / joke about the portray of actors in Government ads).

The second thing is the lack of national and international standards, this was an issue I also faced with my Senior Certificate, (I got OP score which is QLD only), I wanted an International Baccalaureate as it was an equivalent International qualification. (but it wasn’t available…) This world needs global standards, national standards, not each state having different solutions per state. Sure some things are state specific but others can be nationalised.

The state of QLD is also being very stupid with all the council amalgamations, especially by not having a referendum on the issue. If that actually looked into the problem, instead of looking for an easy way out, they would have identified the buerocratic rubbish that slows development and problem solving at the local government level, they would find the corruption and the fact that the councils we have aren’t weak just inefficient. But then again any legislative political system involving a committee prides itself on its lack of productivity or benefit to society in general .

So in short broken standards & double standards aren’t worth the legislation they are written on,(So eliminate them using proper legislation, education and training) and Certain things need to be localised and others need to be centralised and others still need to be globalised. Make sure enough though is put into which goes where.

Anesthesia is normally localised, Subversion is Centralised, and most multi-national corparations like MacDonalds and Coca-Cola are Global…

Simpler than it looks but harder than it seems ….

So if anyone has any experience with success of keypass in Queensland or states other that Victoria and Tasmania, I would love to her about it.

The question today is what would you do if you were in a world where your identity was stolen, not believed, etc ?

Have fun, Stay safe and start something

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

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,

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,

In an attempt at another short blog post, why does everyone ask what is wrong if I sigh either online or offline and when I answer a response less than great to a “How are you ?” question ? Why is something wrong ? Why are we used to something being wrong? and what makes you think that people are going to tell what is wrong especially if it doesn’t concern you ?

Can people sigh in peace ? All these trained reactions and stereotypes make us more and more like NPCs in an MMORPG. That would be fun a Real Life MMORPG, I would so want to go questing :). Cohesion is an element that is all too often lost in both reality and gameplay.

Thanks to Kerri, for introducting me to ” The Retro Toasters”, I like their music and their flickering background, although that may have been all the mushrooms I didn’t get to saunter in butter and feverishly devour.

*sigh* *smile* *giggle*

Complacency and high latency ensure redundancy especially with mood swings and ball pen dreams, can I borrow some syrup to douse the flaming pancakes in hope that they won’t be char-grilled ? Preferably not molasseses or golden syrup, maple or honey would be fine. But chances are you wouldn’t have any sweetness in that pantry of yours and if you did could you ship it in time ?

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

Lots has been happening over the last few days. I did my Linear Algera exam (*crosses fingers*), it was hard as I didn’t do enough study (as usual (as it was clustered) ) and the stuff I did study wasn’t really as relevant as I needed it to be.

The next morning (morning-after) I went to uni, to catch up with Cheater, Ruben, etc, and Cheater and I went war-walking with Cheater’s new GPS (thank goodness his blog is no longer forbidden, but it does have Paris Hilton as the latest topic, which is almost the same. *SUBLIMINAL Message to CHEATER* *Talk about your War-walking instead a stupid rich moronic drunk nymphomaniac and her apparent confessions*) (Yes I don’t like Paris Hilton, mainly because she is the poster girl for stupidity and ignorance.)

Anyhow we went war walking to try and map the wireless networks close to my home away from home, with Cheater’s laptop containing two PCMCIA wireless cards (same chipset, double the scan radius (600m :))), it was tiring but great exercise and the lopsided path we took made it all the more interesting. The laptop had Gpsdrive, kismet and festival for text-to-speech. (You know you know too much about festival when you can identify the voice types by given name ;))

We found about 260 wireless networks to add to Cheater’s collection / map. (approx 2700). We then headed back to uni to attend the Trolltech BBQ, which was awesome and was one event that made my ITSA membership worthwhile, although I didn’t eat anything as I was full from breakfast (buffet as it was my sister’s birthday :)).

I did get to meet Lorn Potter (aka ljp, aka the Trolltech Qtopia guy) , which was quite a pleasant experience, this combined with meeting other Trolltech people and observing other people playing pool (8-ball) whilst I gave one last shot at my entry for the Greenphone competition (I missed the deadline, sigh, always next time :P). (I wanted to write a bluetooth instant messaging client).

Ruben actually made it to the semi-finals, which is awesome and we found powerpoints to recharge our laptops :).
(After this)Other occurrences included catching up with Dallas and getting an unexpected gift (robin hood season 1 boxed set dvd) (Thank you so much Dallas :)), working on / looking through Plone skins and products, catching up with the Minatels and getting jumped on and licked to death by their undisciplined and large puppy :P. (they have to grow up sometime ….).

It is now the holidays and I am free, to get lots of things done hopefully, and to catch up with all the people who I have accidentally neglected because I was too busy with Uni / Life and other things that get in the way. At least that is the plan. *sigh*, I am in sighing mood this morning.

Also we had a family texas hold-em poker game or few with monopoly money. I won 3 games out of 4, and when I last played 5 card stud, I won 5 games in a row, maybe it is the mathematics :P, but I have a feeling my poker face of a cheeky grin surrounded in ever longer hair is just lucky ;).

Speaking of games, I would love to have a mao / mafia game / reunion and will add it to my todolist in Makagiga. I am glad that Chrystle is having so much fun with the Abbey Tournament / Festival preparations, she is going as a volunteer, I didn’t register and am not sure if I will attend, it will depend on how busy I am.

(I feel guility (but I shouldn’t ) that she feels guility (but she shouldn’t) over her behavior (nasty words) / sleeping when I was over / in conversation). I was apathetic (not caring about anything / numb) so nothing she said hurt me, *sighes* and she changed her morality in order to feel guility (argh at paradoxical guilt trips or guilt spirals).

Spirals sure are pretty, but when they involve guilt, love, hatred, lust, <insert powerful emotion here> they can be painful as well. Why does Gatl never talk to me in a apathetic mood (she would like me more then) ? Such is life and irony and cheesecake, I also got exposed to Borat, and have discovered that it is not funny, just stupid. *sigh* To quote a Borat in joke, The movie was a Great Success!! ………….. NOT !!!

Also does anyone feel like a pillow fight because I feel like a pillow fight, I also got to go worldhopping right before my exam (of any night why that one) , but at least it was fun, I already missed Bo’s party and I am not sure when Ruben is having his lan, but am soon to find out…

I also recently recalled the entire lyrics of the song Silo by Judy Small, but won’t paste it all here due to copyright. (It wasn’t on several other websites due to her requests)

Suffice to say the song is about the employees of nuclear silos that are responsible to for setting the nukes off, this post’s comes from the last verse of the song.

What if we said “No!”, when the final call came
And all other Silos decided the same
If no buttons were pressed, no missiles flew
Would we be heroes or traitors to you ?

This verse and the song Silo are not mine but belong to Judy Small (My dad is like her biggest fan, and I quite like her music :))

UPDATE: I found the full Silo lyrics here

Heroes or traitors ?

Best wishes and have fun over the break,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

PS: An audio blog will be coming soon ….

Hi everyone,

Just upgraded Wordpress to 2.2.1, almost went to a BBQ with Chrystle, was quite nice and meet some wonderful people. I also had the luxury of engaging in an intellectual discussion about the state of the world (overpopulation, shallowness of people, levels of intellectualism, perception of reality, asian philosophy, the purpose of religion, etc), was both informative and interesting , all the while getting to see some pretty sketchs / pictures of Anime characters (especially Kingdom Hearts 2, see machina-maw.deviantart.com) .

Chrystle was very tired, so I hope she is sleeping well now :), earlier and as per her LJ we played a derivate of 20 questions over MSN, I was reformatting her entry to add some of my own questions (no, I won’t post the raw log) and spent 1.5 hours doing so in Openoffice.org only to lose it all when trying to export to XHTML, (fuzzle, wuzzle, fuzzle, learning to behave Java.)

I may upload the information later along with other stuff I need to get round to doing and uploading (fixing up 002 resume site and uploading, coding some nifty stuff in PHP / Ruby, etc, doing more Gimping and playing around with Inkscape, not to mention song lyrics, poetry, stories and my mental skits.)

I currently am doing my final study for my Programming Abstraction & Linear Algebra exams, so I am in the mood for Graph Theory, Data Structures, Design Paterns, Matrix Algebra & Proofs, Eigenvalues & Diagonalisation and Linear Operators. I like the usage of Linear Operators in 3D graphics engines, and am conceptualising (thinking, planning, modelling) a new way of Wesnoth Damage calculation using Linear Algebra as a opposed to the current matrix method, so that units with ridiculous health (Survival Extreme / DOTG etc) don’t take up excessive RAM.

I am also unsure if my entry for the Greenphone competition will be ready in time, *sigh* maybe next time, at least I’ll see them at the Trolltech BBQ at QUT after my exams are over.

I have also been attempting to get the Wireless Reception to work on my bed in our RAMMED earth house and(packet loss >85% ) . Today on the way home from BBQ, there were some troublemakers on the train that got off at my stop (and probably would have attempted to bash me, if not that I had a ride waiting).

These people were locals to my region (I am ashamed, it wasn’t like this in the Beginning (when I was 3), stupid population and education system creating low social economic circumstances and bored youth) and idiots (in Grade 9 to 11) looking for a fight on the train calling people faggots and trying to wake up the people that were asleep. Their ring leader was drinking Bundy Rum on the train (underage drinking and drinking on a train is $150 fine) and was calling a guy near me a faggot, after they had walked on I talked to him and realised just how lucky they were that they hadn’t attacked him. (He knew his rights and the law)

The bothered me when I got of the train, probably because I am weird and more intelligent them, with the usual faggot taunting, I said Grow Up and then got asked to supposedly repeat it to his face, but I just remained silent and kept walking. (I don’t want no trouble or wasted time)

My little brother doesn’t like living in the city, but with the low socioeconomic suburban sprawl of uneducated, immoral and bored youths surrounding the place I call home and others call home the noise, pollution and hustle bustle of the city is looking more enticing by the minute.

Thanks

Stay Safe (I like I barely did)

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

The last few days have been relaxed and busy almost in simultaneity.

A nyhow onwards to the odds and ends….

Statistics exam is done and hopefully I did well in it. (I only forgot the proof of equal variances bit which was only worth 3 marks.)

On my way home, I was a approached by a Japanese Girl looking for directions to a sharehouse at a certain address, as I had nothing better to do I was happy to help her find the place she was looking and I walked her to it. After this I got a rhyme stuck in my head and I kind of like its message. Here it is “Random acts of kindness, go unnoticed but unpunished, so I’ll just do another one” (Yeah I know it doesn’t rhyme  but oh well)

I had the luxury of spending Friday in the good company of Ruben and Cheater (Nick Stallman), whilst Ruben was twice late and his lateness generated a ripple effect which saw me home late (missed trains), the afternoon whilst not much more than a few shared Warcraft 3 custom maps, all in all we had a wonderful time (to quote Judy Small).

On my way home I met a nice old lady on a train, who offered me a seat and we got to talking about Nuclear Energy, Human Morality, Futility and Solutions for the future. It was very interesting and enjoyable to say the least.

I spent most of Today’s at Chrystle’s (See Mdu- link on  blogroll for her LJ or here)  just catching up and having fun, this was a great experience, was quite funny and enjoyable. Topics we covered included Minti (the adorable cat), lolcats , using packaging as fake snow, the dispersion patterns of this snow for various actions like walking, running , blowing the foam etc, bananas, Ozy & Millie ,

fairies (the mythological creatures), blood sorbet, chainmail condoms, Space Invaders, Easter Eggs, Word Tennis, World Building, Pretty pictures in GIMP (see Flamingworm in Gallery) , the cuteness of foxes and cats eg animals in general, that small things amuse small minds whilst even smaller watch on (what does this say about Big Brother fans), the annoyance of Parents and Siblings, Jam Drops, the Abbey Festival, Ivanhoe, Soup, Flatuelence and the list goes on and on and on.

I also managed to do some UML study thanks to the Butterfly Ugly Betty Stick figure. Anyhow bring on the morality :P.

(Extracted from Wikipedia, in Harvard referencing form
Seven virtues, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seven_virtues&oldid=136541757 (last visited Jun. 18, 2007). )

As I don’t like APA referencing and prefer Harvard :P.

Anyhow, whilst these sins and virtues are accepted by the Catholic Church and have their specified meanings both of the the newer English words and their older latin bases, take a moment to reflect what these sins and virtues mean to you, where they stand under your current morality or conscience and have a look at which side of the balance you think you are on.

Humanity as a whole is collectively leaning toward the Sin side of the balance by focusing on the sections of human nature that have been associated with negative connotations and ignoring or misplacing the sections that have been associated with positive human nature.

If we are ever to fix any problem on this Earth or in this reality, we must fix repair the balance of our collective Morality by collectively changing our attitude and focus on human nature and morality.

Any how back to Gentoo updating, studying UML, Programming Abstraction and Linear Algebra :).

The question tonight is you had the power to grant one wish to somebody else not for your secondary or primary or nthary gain, who would you grant that wish to and what would it be ?

Best of luck and keep enjoying yourselves

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hi everyone,

Whilst I have been audio blogging, I felt that I should return to written form because I need to write / type some stuff in order to properly self express myself, as written language seems to give more freedom than verbal and less prejudices than verbal. Although I can’t really be sure. First up

Computer Science / IT / Linux Nursery Rhymes

This little piggy programmed in Lisp
This little piggy programmed in C
This little piggy programmed in Perl
and this litlle piggy programmed in CPL & basic assembly

Little miss muffet
saved to her emacs buffer
her files and data displayed
Along came a vi-er, who terrified her
and flushed the buffer away

Three MCSEs
Three MCSEs
See how they code
See how they code
They code with VB and ASP.NET
So terribly that you want to forget
Three MCSEs
Three MCSEs

Add the data to stack
Place it their in sequel
Give it some CPU time
Pop goes the weasel

Next

I was able to get in contact an old friend of mine that I meet in Yr 10 when studying Indonesian as a visiting student at USC. As I thought I had lost all contact, this is definitely something I am very happy about :). I may be able to get credit for one my Indonesian subjects I did there, and that should help my GPA.

That said my mood is currently conflicted after watching two movies (WarGames, Rage in Placid Lake). The theme question of WarGames regarding futily of war and other things (What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? ) makes me wonder how many other strange games there are in Life, in thought and in everything else ? The second movie talks about a semi social outcast and his efforts to attempt to normalise himself, it hit very close to home, as the main character’s situation reminded me of my own slightly, and also caused more thought and consideration into previous memories , decisions and actions.

Hope however is a marvelous thing, because despite everything from illogic, philosophical questions about life, busyness caused by my university situation and my current mood, hope allows me to attempt to pull myself out of digging my own grave of despair mode and attempt to refocus and restabilise / justify who, why and what I am to myself and the world around me. Thanks for those have been supporting and inspiring me, it is greatly appreciated.

If it is better to have loved and lost then not to love at all, does that mean that love isn’t a strange game ? Big Brother is a strange game however, because despite the prizes at the end, both the contestants and the spectators lose their dignity in exchange for a million, a holiday and car …., nothing changes the romans enjoyed watching the gladiators, now the people enjoy reality television which is in fact one of the biggest oxymorons that I am aware of.

I am not doing too badly at Uni, although I would have liked to have done better on my Statistics Midsemster, and provided I do better on the final exam, I should have no issues, I also have to focus on getting the outstanding assessment commitments done, so I can study for exams. I have examined my degree pathway and am a little annoyed that MAB580 isn’t offered anymore, but as I have identified a valid secondary pathway (Plan B ) I should and will be fine.

In all the reflective learning we have done in MAD (Modeling Analysis and Design), I have come to the same conclusion as a both my team members that most systems are much easier to just lightly plan and develop as opposed to using the techniques taught by the subject. Whilst I am sure UML will come in handy, I prefer Petri Nets and State Machines and other more mathematical ways of modeling. On this note Umbrello and Dia are really good tools for UML modeling, but both still need a few more improvements.

People having being shoving Discworld (Pratchett) references in my face and it reminds me of the amount of stuff (Discworld,C, C++, Emacs, Vi, Language / Linguistic skills, Rollerblading, etc, list goes on) that I learnt or mastered a long time ago but need to brush up on. I am most likely going to enter Trolltech’s Greenphone competition (I have the SDK, and am brushing up on my C++, both for comp and Wesnoth, and my QT). As probably aforementioned I really like the greenphone and winning one or even having the chance to develop apps for it and QT, is a great oppourtunity.

Also wanting to get WINE to link correctly on my Gentoo 2007.0 (originally from Sabayon), which doesn’t seem to want to link wine to right libraries without a custom ebuild or an EXPORT statement. It would be nifty if WINE was slotted so I could do the regression testing on WinMX a fare bit faster / easier.

I also have to study up on Networks, UML, Abstract Data Types & other concepts, Linear Algebra and Statistical Analysis for my exams. Wish me luck. My emerge world is all done now (finally, kde-meta 3.5.7) except WINE but that will be fixed shortly. The Syntek Driver for my Webcam has version 1 release out, and it is a noticeable improvement in webcam quality. My apologies to the people I unintentionally irritated this week, group assessment creates short fuses…

The Asus Acpi also has new driver out that turns my previous always off wireless led to always on (bug filed), it should be changeable like the mail led using echo, but for some reason it is not. Make 5 Wishes Manga also reminded me of Rage in Lake Placid, and also helped me related to myself.

I am virtually sick of games without good or innovative game play, we need to revert to the classics or to innovate lest people die of boredom. (ET Quake Wars is going to be awesome when it comes out.)

This blog’s questions are related to both WarGames and the song lyrics of AT 17 (remember those who win the game, loose the love they thought they gained),

Is love a game ? Is life a game ? Are either of them strange games ? Is winning everything ? anything ? Is it better to roll the die or pass, fold or hold, take a chance or sit on the fence ? Are the sacrifices worth the victory ? How many sacrifices can one make and still win or draw the game ? What the game fun ?

Best wishes
Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Hey everyone,

Here is my second audio blog.

Have fun listening

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234