Wow I am actually updating, But don’t get too excited, it isn’t about the awesomeness of Ruben’s LAN or the medieval festival or even the secrets of human relationships and love, instead I present to you …
Today on my way to my only early differential equations lecture, I was carrying the port which I was going to give to Madmockhaven, I got to Z block and it spontaneously exploded ,probably due to a crack and pressure. I managed to get it all to a bin and keep my brand new DE textbook clean, I then managed to mop the spilt port with newspapers and bin that all. I got to my DEs lecture with a bleeding thumb and a minute to spare before 8am…
Z block still smells like port, and my thumb bleed through most of the DEs lecture which was taught by the awesome Cameron. So it looks like I will need to get another bottle of port to Madmockhaven and apologise to my dad for the spontaneous expolosion / expansion of one. I also got to talk with Tim, who is in my DEs class about memory, artificial intelligence and other stuff it was good.
Got my results back earlier than expected. Got deja vu as well, degree is going to be delayed by at least year. Got lost in the darkness of suburbian, well not lost, just took the largest figure of eight of my life to date, but that kind of makes sense considering the circumstances.
I would say I don’t know anymore, but that would imply that I knew anymore to begin with …., and that would be more than a misnomer. Why my past haunts me like an apparition I don’t know.
All the movies I see, I can’t recall whether I have seen them before in past or in my dreams, it seems academic isn’t about knowledge and understanding rather what one can demonstrate on a form of assessment, and it seems that my conditioned response to this is the mathematically stutter like skat, except out of tune.
The apathy is almost returning from the fits of boredom and escapism never worked but I don’t stop trying. I wonder why everything that is set, is set in jelly. Custard creams may taste nice, but looking at one’s waste in hindsight is nothing short of paralysis.
Freedom taken, dreams taken, memories taken, innocence taken, but what is given ?
I am not sure, and am really questioning things at the moment. Any momentum I once had seems to be a memory, 3 steps forward, 1 step back. Where have the dead butterflies landed ? Where has the fun gone ? Where is the passion ? What am I seeking ? And the sound I hear is the sound of the wind, as it runs through the town, twist and spin , twist and spin.
Resistance maybe measured in ohms, but repetition leads to boredom, boredom leads to apathy and apathy brings back its own significant challenges. Mechanic diagnostics lead to the ddos of the machine, I seem to adopted as my child. As much as I want to play games or even talk, I am not allowed to. I give some empathy to those who feel this helpless with real loved ones rathered than an antropomorphised network attached storage device.
Both potential and happiness elude at present and metaprogression might be the way forward.
Why aren’t systems optimal ? Why isn’t life optimal ?
The time of disentanglement is upon us. Finally free from the multiple integrands that ranged between t =0 and t = lots, I have the hourglass worth of time to quickly jot down some notes as to how life is , has been and will be.
Assessment is all over now, it should go well. Subjects are already choosen for next semester. Thousand Parsec wxPython client manual update finally got acheived today (after several delays and some disturbances). Ivanhoe has his memory back (the hdd was replaced) but his hands are paralysed (usb devices don’t received an address and hence aren’t automounted).
Ulrica (laptop) is world upto date and the only thing bothering me other than the luck of duck tape for the DVB-T aerial, is that my webcam mic isn’t recording in arecord or Audacity. Not much is happening so any invites are welcome.
Spheres of influence are interesting things, I might resume my metamodeling if I have the time,
Its study week , the week dedicated to the cohesive repetition of techniques and methodologies that allow the recollection and presentation of fluid information or application of knowledge to take form in items of assessment.
The weather is wonderful. The cold keeps me cool, the rain keeps me wet, but not wet enough. The code keeps me focused, Gradually habits get influenced or broken, solutions to problems arise and more challenges face us as we live.
Several interesting discussions have occurred lately including the discussion about humanity’s stupidity being infinite (lets just say I disagree with Einstein and have a logical basis for doing so), the discussion about the game and double or n-think. Ignorance, discovery and recognition make for an interesting meme let alone amusement. Imagine if an IT lecturer got hold of this and hid carefully a subliminal reference to that which we lose by knowing and face palm without questioning.
Subconscious subliminal triggers could be the key to brainwashing or habbit forming the entire world, and yet my own snares lay decadent, covered in dust and spiderwebs, so sublime that they seem camoflauged in auspicious reality and never sprung even when the bait is tasty pizza or hamburgers.
Pruning is important in the maintaince of fast growing climbing species and humans are no exception, focus and willpower is required to avoid being left too long in the shade to stagnate until fermented.
But now my mind turns to the peach and to the folk song and piano solo I know so well, for with each person comes their own mental triggers caused by emotion or illogical mental association if these were harnessed for uses more beneficial to the society, success would be eminent, however at the same time we would lose a piece of ourselves in the process, doomed to remain a broken jigsaw piece for eternity.
Why do the JW’s expect me to drop what I am doing to engage in a discussion about my beliefs, and then leave 10 minutes later, when they can’t make me an easy convert ? People are so similar, unless you act like they expect you to act, you say what they expect you to say and you fulfill their limit processes on your character instead of being free to paint outside the lines and dance in infinity, why must reality be a consensus of oppressionistic judgements rather than a fondue of perceptions with some chunks of personalisation and attitude added for flavour.
Now I am hungry, is non toxic really non toxic ? Could I eat a crayon ?, apparently they test chemicals for safety individually and not in chemical combinations because the permutations are far too numerous, and yet we will soon have quantum computing and can model all most anything approximately, but don’t as the funding hasn’t be allocated yet.
Eventually people will realise that rates of change matter to our reality and society, the total differential of human morality,Β it matters, the rate of change of the environment and ecological support systems, it matters, the jacobian of the influence of the internet on capitalistic society and people’s approach to social interaction, it matters.
The world will come crashing down, if steps are not taken, but currently that doesn’t matter, baby steps are taken, stumbling blocks are made, and yet people are not prepared to sacrifice the now for the future (and yet they unwillingly do so already) or sacrifice their freedom for reason, people value freedom more than the ability to itself live.
Thousands of people have died, so others could live free, if the rates of change and the reality calculus are ignored,we will be dying for freedoms, that the future will never get because at this rate the future will be lost or forsaken.
We could force a rollback or reversion to a previous circumstance and society, and avoid problems now, we could use what we have in multitudes to develop and implement solutions to scarcity in the context of reality, or we could sit comfortably in our lives, unaware of the dangers that lurk under the bed or in the closet, the children see it, but the parents don’t believe, choosing to forget when they were children themselves, and instead focus on their important part of existence.
Did you see their smile, did you see them cry, did you see them laughing as in their souls they died ?
If you manage to see my bubbles (they aren’t pointy), let me know ….
Hope your thinking hard and staying focused,
Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234 π
I really need to get Ivanhoe fixed and Audacity recording or mencoder recording a live video stream with sound. I walked 8 kms for Breast Cancer on Mothers Day, and an extra four km to get to and from the event. I also walked about 5kms on Saturday, so I am just walking along nicely.
I am really interested in the dispersion of food colouring in melting ice in a vacuum and the calculus (6D+ hypervolume integrals), partial differential equations and other mathematics which could model them.
I really need to get in touch with everyone, so if you want to get in touch or in contact with me, just let me know.
I should really add some discussion points, or observations up here, but if I did so, then you would all die of boredom at the sheer length of material i have accumulated since my last update.
I know what I said. No more reading extend paragraphs of text which appears to be mildly interesting or boring depending on your emotional attachment to knowledge. Instead there was supposed to a bright flash based audio player that streams my voice (not that it is really anything all that stupendous, but it is mine and parapharsing Jewel “This voice is small I know, but it’s not your’s it is my own, but it’s not your’s it is my own, I am never broken. “) to whoever wants to click the play button.
Unfortunately that isn’t the case. So you will probably have to keep on reading or fall asleep. Your choice , not mine, and entirely upto to you. If you are going to fall asleep while reading my scribbles (Well they are typed so they aren’t really scribbles or etchings, but if I had to write them up in hard copy they would be with lots of little weird metaphorical and random pictures.) , you may as well make yourself comfortable by getting a decent sized chair unlike the one I am currently sitting on, a pillow and either a sheet or doona.
Alternately if you happen to have a giant beanbag of comfyness, that would work just fine as well. You comfy yet ? When your comfy either read on or sleep your choice ;).
Life is a busy thing. My laptop is now being repaired under warranty, however they are charging me $130 for it (it should take 3 to 4 days), this means I paid $170 total ($40) for the new ac adaptor (which works but doesn’t solve the problem).
A warranty is an obligation that an article or service sold is as factually stated or legally implied by the seller, and that often provides for a specific remedy such as repair or replacement in the event the article or service fails to meet the warranty. (From Wikipedia)
Because the manufacturer of my laptop has definitely provided a remedy to repair the product if it doesn’t meet the warranty, which is exactly is what they are obligated to do. However the contents of warranty (apparently didn’t cover the pressure spots on my lcd laptop screen, which became dead pixels eventually, but by then it they said it was too late to repair under it warranty, and they could replace it for $900) don’t mention whether the remedy of any problem which doesn’t live upto the standards of the warranty is paid for by the consumer or the company providing the warranty.
I read my warranty booklet (5 pages approximately 10 cm square) and it doesn’t mention who pays, nor did it mention any detailed expectations that the laptop is supposed live upto.
Previously when I tried to get my LCD screen fixed, I was told that if I had brought in my laptop to the service centre (which wasn’t the address I was originally given) as dead on arrival (even though it wasn’t, as it was in an operational state it just had very small (around a pixel, pressure spots move and aren’t static like dead pixels) , hardly noticable pressure spots which grew bigger later leading to dead pixels) during the first week, they would have replaced the lcd screen under warranty (not charging me).
I recently was able to get a bag replaced with a new one as part of the bag’s 5 year warranty. When this happened I took it in after two years (which is the same time as my laptop) and they were happy to replace with the similarest model to it they had (as that model was no longer in stock) after seeing my warranty card and receipt and other paperwork. They didn’t charge me, in fact as the new bag was cheaper than the original they gave me $20 credit.
What I am wondering now is , is a warranty like insurance, is it money you pay upfront or in installments so that if something happens to cause the product not to live up to the obligations in the warranty, that money covers the scenario of replacement / repair of the product, or are we as consumers expected to pay extra money for a warranty which only gurantees a solution to the problem provided we pay for it ?
But enough about my warranty queries, moving on …, Advanced Calculus is awesome. Partial Derivatives are Sexy, to quote our lecturer (He is awesome! :D). Thanks to his awesomeness , clarity and passion I finally clearly understand what a differential is, let alone the fact that I don’t have to do calculus slowly like I was taught in highschool but can speed it up (This is like being shown howto speedread when you were forced to only read aloud.).
Even though one of the lectures starts at 8am, I can think of little else to cheers me up, than some advanced mathematics (calculus or otherwise) early in the morning. On the subject of Mathematics, “Happy Pi Day !”
I have to finish coding up a prime number generator for ITB749, the tutorial exercise was just to teach for and while loops in C (which I know), but having done ITB712 and being a maths student I thought using Sieve of Eratosthenes was a bad choice given it is the opposite from an algorithim design perspective and thought the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena primality test would be faster computationally.
However after finding in implementation in C , I ran into some hiccups, it uses both the GMP (gnu maths precision library) and Maple hooks to do the required mathematics. This got me thinking and if I can find time, I may write an entire implementation in C, or alternately just use the Sieve of Atkin instead (*sigh*), although primegen (http://cr.yp.to/primegen.html) already has one for that.
I was trying to write a double sieve algorithim in my head ,but it got confusing, and while I don’t have anything yet to show for the tutorial (unlike Cheater’s quick and dirty Sieve of Eratosthenes implementation ) , I think the tutorial has taught me more than I could have ever expected it to.
Cheater needs to focus on writing the oscilloscope kernel driver for poscope anyways :P, and needs to stop playing BF1942 and Defcon. On the subject of drivers and games, I finally did the usb sniffing for my digital voice recorder (jnc ssf-22) and will eventually start writing a libusb based driver for it, and we played Inquistor at Uni on Thursday, it was epic, despite the rush to create my character, my terrible luck with the dice and my morale at the end of it. (I apologise for being so demoralised by the end, it was only because I had pumped myself up way too much at the start. Silly excitement.)
Anyhow, I also installed lots of portable apps on my usb stick so I can survive till I get my laptop back and use IRC and IM wherever I end up. I also caught up with Redhatter today and helped setup a demon laptop to smoothly run Xubuntu for Maddie, as well as honing my Python skills helping first years.
I have a busy weekend ahead of me, with some voting, some coding and lots of caculus study.
Just got back from a weekend conference on the Golden side of things. The speakers were very motivational and awesome. Despite my current lack of laptop, I feel awesome and empowered. This post was intended to be short but the best laid plans of mice and men and all that π , it would be an audio blog, but Audacity is still playing hide and go seek with the USB mic and my ac adaptor melted some of the metal of it and the new one doesn’t come to tommorow.
So I have gone the entire weekend without net and laptop which has been more challenging than anticipated. Hopefully I get the adaptor on Monday, full battery charge by end of Monday. USB floppy drive for Bios update by Tuesday and Thecus N1200 by Wednesday( I am so excited.)
Good news is DVB-T works with open source driver and new kernel and the snr issues are gone.
The Sun Seminar on HPC was awesome, especially the part on locking conditions, errors and states and stuff with autopar. But both the Sun seminar and the weekend conference I went to were riddled with Deja Vu and premonitions coming true.
I just realised last week that I could do speed caculus, talk about a wake up call. That is like going from reading slowly aloud, to speed reading :).
It is late, so I am going to head off.
Did you ever miss out on an oppurtunity because you couldn’t encourage yourself to take it ? How did you reckon this lack of catching that butterfly (see previous post to understand reference / metaphor) affected your feelings and life ?
Remember to just keep swimming (like Dory says) but make sure you head upstream. Because only dead fish swim downstream (something I heard at the conference.)
I normally apologise for delays, but I am not actually sorry. Any how lets get down to updates which I really wanted to record, hence giving you a video or audio blog instead of what has been referred to by my readers as addictive useful random junk and mountains of monotonous ramblings that cause sleep.
University is back. I am doing 5 Subjects. 2 Maths and 3 IT. So far they are all equally awesome. I am doing TCP & IP , Unix Network Admin, Scientific Programming (aka C & C++), Data Visualisation & Analysis and Advanced Calculus. (dealing with multi variable and differential beasties)
As I have some prior knowledge in parts of the IT subject material, this makes them more enjoyable then if they were brand new. Uni is ok , I guess, the social side of it is confusing with lines between colleague and friend blurred, the lines between colleague and person who insults or teases me Gaussian blurred and the lines between social interactions, emotive relevance and personal satisfactions not actually lines at all but complex illogic hypersurfaces in n dimensional hyperspace which is littered with off cuff remarks, pop tarts and indirect misinterpretable offers of what appears to be positive or negative or sarcastic gestures.
I would elaborate in more detail but since, this isn’t an audio blog or a video blog and since most people can’t visualise social modeling and psychology above 4d hyperspace with hacks, I simply won’t bother.
Other things that are going on include the GIR Cluster, which is the development a supercomputer comprised of a cluster of lesser computers, that a bunch of QUT students (which I am part of) are building and configuring a cluster of computers that we hope to donate to the University to decrease the supercomputing deficient between QUT and UQ.
More info about the GIR Cluster can be obtained via comments, email to me or joining #GIR_Cluster on Freenode via IRC.
I also have a report to finalise for the vacation research project I was engaged in during the holidays, a game manual to update and append for Thousand Parsec, A transition period in the becoming a Gentoo Developer Process (I do work, and then mentor looks at my quiz), A excel calculator to finish, A web solution to develop, A eeepc that isn’t mine to setup the vpn on and lots lots more.
Frankly I am quite busy and need to focus on achieving things, which is hard when the amount of stuff that you want to communication is approaching several gigabytes and noone has time to listen, and your brain can either parse your thoughts in self reflection or it can focus on other scheduled tasks.
I also seem to be running late, which is probably due to a dodgy internal CMOS battery :P, or some other reason, mainly being that I need to get everything off my mind before full processing and memory access can be dedicated to the scheduled tasks.
If the above is technobable to you, then it is ironic that I am using computing metaphors and to deanthropomorhise my brain as to actual explain the mental and social conditioning it uses is quite complex and verbose. I did manage to achieve some things on the supposed break (which was only really a break for doing 4 or 5 uni subjects), which include giving out a birthday present, catching up with a relative that has just got back from Las Vegas and numerous software updates for my laptop and organisational updates for my person.
Family is mostly in City now and at the other unit, a Chinese exchange student is being hosted (not some sort of server, an actual awesome human being), She seems like a wonderful person, She currently owes me twenty dollars and she is doing Year 12 at the same school as my brother (although he is doing a different year level).
I have also volunteered to assist in the administration of a LAN that is happening at the RNA showgrounds in April 12 to 13. I have the 8th and 9th of March booking a conference at the Golden side of things. I am really missing not having Vovage of the Damned as I wanted as a birthday present and have waiting 2 months with no avail.
If you want to catch up with me just contact me and I am happy to let you know my schedule via email, if you want to contact me you know how to reach me. Audacity doesn’t record because of Portaudio ALSA issues, which will take a while to get in tree and OSS just freezes up with USB microphone.
Libsoup is also broken, and I got Skencil to build with Tcl 8.5 but it has runtime issues, I could just merge upstream’s patches but I will wait. Things on the Tcl and Tk front should improve as 8.5 is now stable. Otherwise emerge -avuD world works fine.
I am also tutoring Maths B and Physics and helping out lots of people with lots of stuff, if you are looking for help or tutoring on anything just let me know. Favours are great fun. π
I was going to deliberate into something a little more ravenous but as I will be leaving soon, I will instead take the shallower path, only postponing the inevitable.