Pen and Ink

A single life's records...

Current Month

I write this book with my lifeblood as the ink. I cannot turn the pages back, but one small word may change the future...

Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 08:37 pm Catching Up

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Mood:

determined
Ambience: Advent Theme (Sins of a Solar Empire music)

Wow. So...yeah, entirely too long since I've updated this thing. I'd say the primary reason for that is that my life isn't really all that eventful anymore. That said, I'm probably going to be dumping a lot of stuff here, but keep in mind that it's condensed from about nine months of gap.

First off, I'd like to say thanks to Horizon/sherpa, who sent me an e-card for my birthday. Unfortunately, my story isn't "building tension" for anything, it's just too mundane to tell at the moment. *laughs* I also apologize for not responding to (or viewing it) sooner, but (a) I wanted to put that in here, and (b) I had no idea that the email address lingapp@livejournal.com even existed. ~~Kind of makes me wonder what else I've been missing these past few months. Maybe I should figure out how to access that. (But in the meantime, please nobody use it!)~~
Edit: I did some poking around, and the @livejournal.com email address only works if you have a "Paid or Permanent Account." I have neither, so please nobody use it. Thanks!

In academic news, I'll be attending James Madison University in the fall as a graduate student. Arranging that is going to be all kinds of crazy, as it's in Virginia. I'm not really sure how it's all going to work out, but I figure I need to get out of Indiana soon or go nuts. So I'm going to JMU, even if I have to burn my bank account to the ground just to pay for one semester.

Probably the biggest factor that spurred that decision is my current job. I don't find web development particularly satisfying, and certainly not in the environment I currently find myself in. (The company provides technical support and web services to corporate clients of various sizes, including an area convenience store chain and several area clinics; I work as a developer for the websites, primarily in PHP.) One of the clients is a "poker training site." Now, I don't really know what I want to do with my degree in computer science, but I'm pretty sure God didn't give me a natural affinity for computers and guide me through four years of computer science courses just so I could spend my days helping to write and maintain a website that charges idiots $100 plus $30 per month to sign up and talk to other idiots (who paid similar sums of money) about their trips to Vegas and to swap risqué pictures of women. *breathes*

I realize it may be a bit hypocritical to complain about unprofessionalism when I routinely wear jeans to work, but it just galls me that we have three passwords that get used for everything, for example. (When I started, I couldn't even change the password on my email account; I had to raise a fuss just to do that. They've since upgraded the Exchange server and apparently forgot to disable that option.) As another example: my project manager was dealing with a problem with a web service throwing an error (a WSDL file was involved; I don't fully understand these things), and asked the guys who wrote the web service to look into it. The guy apparently tried it with his computer, and when it worked fine the (seemingly knee-jerk) response was to tell her it was an "ID-10-T error." (I have this whole email exchange on file; he also took the time to create a shiny starburst graphic to go with it.)

I could probably talk entirely too long about my issues with work; suffice it to say that I find the atmosphere poisonous on several levels. Not to mention that the company seems to have a lackluster reputation among other tech workers in the region, apparently due to lack of quality (and general uncouthness of developers, though apparently "it used to be worse" excuses that).

</rant>

Um, let's see...

I don't know if I've mentioned this previously (probably not), but I finally picked up a copy of Sins of a Solar Empire and I have to say it is an awesome game, especially considering it works pretty well on my sub-minimum-requirements computer. (Granted, the only problem is that my graphics card is one notch too far down the scale, but still.) The only complaint I have is the lack of story to go with it (besides a few background bits), but overall I'm having too much fun driving space fleets around to care.

I guess getting game recommendations from MystBlogs is a pretty good strategy; I've enjoyed both Sins of a Solar Empire and Rise of Legends immensely.

...hold on, did I get both of those from wandering_nomad? I know I learned about Sins from him on MystBlogs, but I can't remember if he also mentioned Rise of Legends...and his (main) blog seems to be missing at the moment.

Things aren't going well on the computational front, I'm afraid. Clunker (my old K6 machine, vintage 1997, aka "I pulled this out of my neighbor's trash for you") has blown out another network card. It seems the firmware is shot. I haven't looked into the matter very thoroughly, but I don't think that's something I can reverse. While NICs are cheap these days, I can't really justify the cost and hassle, so Clunker's being broken down for parts.

Unfortunately, Grinder (my does-it-all Pentium III that earns its keep as a router, firewall, wifi access point, caching proxy, web server, file server, checkbook, and alarm clock) has developed a habit of freezing up on a frequent basis, so that's currently out of the running as well. I did get some "new" hardware for my birthday, though, so hopefully I can return my network to its former level of functionality, but the whole matter has frankly been a bit saddening.

Um...I think that about wraps things up here. Hopefully I'll have more to say (and post) in the next few weeks.

Oct. 25th, 2008 @ 04:26 pm Moving Again

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Mood:

calm
Ambience: the dishwasher

*sigh* Another two months. I've really got to get better about updating this. Anyway, here's what my life is like right now:

A couple weeks after getting laid off, I was able to obtain a position at Golden Tech back in good ol' Valpo. So I'm working there now. Not too chuffed about my coworkers, who seem a bit...rougher (high-school-ish) than I'd like, but I'll live through it. Ideally I'd be off to grad school next fall, so I have to put up with it for only a year.

Since I rapidly got tired of driving to Valpo and back each day (over an hour on the road, daily), I moved into Compass Pointe apartments, which is literally right next to Golden Tech. So, I'm living by myself now, which isn't too bad, but the paperwork is tricky. The place is pretty nice, and even came with internet (albeit a bit slow). Apparently it also comes with cable of some sort, so I need to look into a TV tuner card for my computer that works with Linux. (Since it'll be easier to buy and install one of those than to buy a TV and move it in less than a year.)

Anyway, that's where I'm at now. Hopefully I'll post again soon.

Aug. 27th, 2008 @ 11:58 pm Laid off, and NetHack high scoring

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Mood:

tired
Ambience: Harry Gregson-Williams - Only the Beginning Of The Adventure

*sigh* Two months this time. I'll have to try and do better...maybe I can make the computer bug me about it.

Well, my biggest news is that I got laid off earlier this week, so I'm kind of...jobless at the moment. If anyone hears of an opening for someone with a B.S. in computer science, please pass it along. Luckily I've got an interview lined up for this Friday, so hopefully that'll pan out.

I'm also prepping grad school applications for fall of 2009 (turns out I've missed the deadlines for this coming spring, an unfortunate miscalculation). Not much to say there. I'm looking at five schools: UIUC (again), Carnegie-Mellon, James Madison University, University of Arizona, and SUNY Stony Brook (whatever that is). These were mostly pulled off a list of good computer science graduate schools, so I don't have any particular preference.

Um...I've been continuing to scan things into my "online" checkbook application, as well as putting a few minor features in. I've been making good progress. Of all the bank statements I have (and I'm missing only one), there are 673 transactions accounted for. I have entered 531 of those, so only 142 to go.

I've been trying to learn/teach myself CSS, but it's been slow going...mostly because it's a low priority at the moment. I've got a trusty O'Reilly pocket reference and complete control over a private web server, though, so hopefully it's just a matter of time...and picking out a few key core concepts that I seem to be missing. As part of this, I've been trying to put together an "intranet portal," I think is the term, which will function as a useful home page. Among other things, it has a PHP-based random fortune-cookie thing that dispenses quotes from "Words of the Watcher" in Path of the Shell.

Um...Clark's been borrowing Futurama from Brian in segments, so we've been watching that over supper of an evening. It's...um, less objectionable than I initially thought it would be, and actually pretty funny in a lot of cases.

Apropos of nothing, I got my highest NetHack score of all time a few days ago, though I still haven't made it even halfway through the game. I died of a pretty stupid mistake, too, but I was still impressed by how far I'd gotten. Here's some info:

Log file entry: 3.4.3 1060530 1 29 29 180 180 1 20080822 20080820 1000 Val Hum Fem Neu Ahnotahm,choked on a wraith corpse
Status line:
Ahnotahm the Swashbuckler St:25 Dx:18 Co:18 In:10 Wi:15 Ch:10 Neutral
Dlvl:29 $:0 HP:180(180) Pw:56(56) AC:-24 Xp:18/1290174 T:49424 Satiated Burdened
Death text:
Farvel Ahnotahm the Valkyrie...
You choked in Gehennom on dungeon level 29 with 1060530 points,
and 34758 pieces of gold, after 49424 moves.
Killer: wraith corpse
You were level 18 with a maximum of 180 hit points when you choked.

I had four artifact weapons (Mjollnir, Magicbane, Werebane, and Ogresmasher), plus my quest artifact (Orb of Fate) and had dealt with Fort Ludios, Medusa, the quest, and the castle. I also had a set of +2 gray dragon scale mail which I'd made myself (thank you very much), as well as the amulet of reflection and a couple sets of backup scales. Oh, and gauntlets of power for throwing Mjollnir.

The castle was a rough part, as this arch-lich was there and he'd teleport next to me, take one action, then teleport back to the stairs. Unfortunately, "take one action" often meant "summon nasty monsters." Unfortunately, one of the monsters he summoned was a gremlin, which promptly got into the moat and actually filled up the available space, so it was impossible to move. I used the "Elbereth" trick a lot, obviously. I finally got fed up with him enough that I fought my way back to the stairs (where he'd go all the time), chased him up a level or two, and finally took him out.

Anyway, that's enough rambling about NetHack. Bedtime for me. G'night.

Jun. 24th, 2008 @ 10:57 pm Of Computational Musings

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Mood:

indifferent
Ambience: StarGate Odyssea - Main Title (Xycril)

So yeah, I guess it's been like a month since I've written here. Honestly, my life is not that exciting anymore. I suppose I could blather on about what I'm doing with my computers in great detail, but I don't think anyone still reading this (either of you) wants to hear all about that.

Anyway, due mostly to money but also to some other issues, I have written Cornell and told them I will not be attending in the fall. Maybe if I get my act together this time I can apply for spring or fall in '09, but I have to wonder if graduate school is what I'm supposed to be doing at this point.

Uh, I guess this biggest news currently is that I finally found a pet project to teach myself some PHP. I wrote a web-based program to help me keep (better) track of my bank account. (Yeah, two birds with one stone!) I deliberately set it up so that I can upload images of receipts that I've scanned in, in the hopes that I can maybe finally throw out some of the older piles. Also, I can scan in my bank statements, and I designed the database structure so you can link withdraws/deposits with statements that have been scanned in (or no statement at all, if you want).

On a completely different note, I'm looking into setting up my network for distributed compiling, because it's honestly getting rather ridiculous when, say, a new PHP version comes down the Gentoo Linux pipe and I have to watch Grinder and especially Clunker strain to compile it. Honestly...PHP takes longer to compile than a kernel!

I'm also thinking of switching Linux distros for my main desktop, because honestly Fedora 9 was a bit of a disappointment. One of my biggest peeves is the fact that apparently the Artwiz fonts get munged up somehow, which makes a few things almost completely unreadable. Like, Fluxbox. Or, say, my system monitors. Maybe I'll switch to Gentoo here as well and add it to the distributed compiling thing...probably would help out a lot, that's for sure.

Firefox 3 is pretty awesome. That is all.

...apropos of nothing, I'm getting a bit flabby in the stomach area. I keep thinking I'm going to do something about it, but I never do. Even trying to establish daily one-hour walks only worked for about a couple of (non-consecutive) days.

Oh, one last chapter to the broken-laptop saga. It turns out that the two 512MB ram sticks I got for it didn't help at all. So one evening me and Clark sat down and played "musical RAM slots" with his RAM, my new RAM, and my old RAM. After much trial and error, we found out that (1) my old RAM doesn't work in his laptop, but may still be good, and (2) my laptop can only support one RAM stick in slot 1; as soon as something goes in slot 2, it hangs like a 17th-century mutineer. So, I basically wound up replacing the two 256MB RAM sticks with one 512MB RAM stick for no effective change. Also I have an extra 512MB laptop RAM stick. Yay.

This isn't really relevant to anything, but it has been one year to the day since Last Contact with Miveen. I should probably take her off my IM buddy list.

Anyway, g'night everyone. Hopefully I'll update sooner rather than later.

May. 27th, 2008 @ 09:40 pm Concerning Cornell

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Mood:

depressed
Ambience: Blood Ritual (Pirates of the Caribbean)

I neglected to mention this earlier, but there have been quite a few developments regarding my search for a graduate school. If you'll bear with me, I'd like to rewind just a bit...

...to the end of April, when I get an e-mail from Cornell telling me that they're still missing one of two letters of recommendation, and that if I don't get them in by May, I'll be pushed back to the waitlist due to an incomplete application. (Thanks for keeping me up-to-date, Cornell.) So, having no other information to go on, I e-mail out to both my profs saying, "Hey, one of you guys didn't get it in a few months ago when I asked. Can you take care of that?" Turned out to be Professor Glass, actually. Anyway...

...so on the 12th (of May), I get an e-mail saying that I've been accepted (and that there's some snail-mail info on the way). Also, according to the official letter, I should indicate my acceptance by the deadline (May 19th) because the graduate program is competitive. Also, "[d]ue to the Master of Engineering Program's high level of competition, [they] are unable to offer [me] any financial support." (Heh...by the way, it's a competitive program...)

Unfortunately, that lack of financial aid is a stickler. I looked up on Cornell's site, and the grad program I'm going for is $36,000+ a year. Also, TA positions (which I might get, since it's competitive) are capped at $10,000+ a year, leaving something like a $26,000 hole I have to fill...assuming I get in as a TA, which doesn't seem likely.

So I called my folks, since the week I had to consider was shortened by the fact that I'd have to mail my response and it was required to be at Cornell by the 19th (as opposed to postmarked). Dad was away on a business trip, but after a long talk Mom advised to go ahead and accept (since I can always say no later, but I can't say no now and say yes later). So I accepted. I also noted that, at my current budget, paying off a loan of $72,000 would take me something like seven years...and I think my rent contribution may be a little cheap at the moment. (I don't think that took interest into account, either.)

Anyway, I think I'm committed now, since I sent in my acceptance. Dad didn't have much to say, since by the time he was able to get back to me I had already run out of time and made the decision (at least, I had to make it a few days early to allow for postal considerations; thank goodness I got it immediately by e-mail or I would've missed it). He was a bit concerned that the only reason I accepted was because I felt he and Mom were pressuring me to do so. (Yeah, really? I know I can't deal with that much cost...)

Mom and Dad occasionally keep saying that "God will provide," but I keep thinking that "God helps those who help themselves" and I have to wonder where a leap of faith ends and good stewardship begins. Okay, I realize the stewardship argument works on both sides...I mean, I have responsibility to develop my talent to the utmost of my abilities, but at the same time I don't think I should be depending on God as a "magic safety net" for my financial shortcomings.

...maybe I should wait and reapply to various schools next year.

I just don't know.

May. 21st, 2008 @ 10:52 pm RAM and a Birthday.

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Mood:

optimistic
Ambience: Ebla (E.S. Posthumus)

...and there I go again. So: last couple months:

I bit the bullet and bought a 4GB Asus EEE PC to replace my laptop. The thing certainly is...small. The keyboard is a little awkward, but I can type on it. Definitely don't recommend that for everyone, though; even I fatfinger it. Nearly the first thing I did was establish full-desktop mode. I wish I could change the distro, but nothing out there really appeals at the moment. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm not sure what's available...I mean, sure, there's "eeeDora," a Fedora variant, but does it use the same software repositories? Can I update? How much control do I have? Etc. etc. Maybe it'd be easier to do my own repository...

Anyway, in a nice twist of irony, it turned out Clark did have RAM compatible with my laptop, so we tested that in my laptop...and it booted just fine. Grrr. Basically the RAM went bad (which is easily replaceable) instead of the motherboard (which is not). I guess that brings my computer ownership count up to...five. Good grief.

At about the same time, I also purchased Rise of Legends, which is a pretty cool real-time strategy game. Now, keep in mind that up until this point, my sole experience in RTS games was with Age of Empires (and AoE II and their expansions). So the whole "borders" and "land area" thing was kinda new to me. Though, I have to say I wish there was more than one three-act campaign. Or that, say, you could unlock extras by playing lots of random-map games or something. I kinda emptied out all the exciting stuff in the space of two weeks. Still, I can't really fault a game that gives you the choice of steampunk, magic-based, or Stargate-Jaffa-looking races. And robo-spider things.

(Huh. There really is no apostrophe in "Jaffa." Go me.)

Oh, as some of you may not know (aka "the other reader besides Sherp"), my birthday was this past Monday. My family and I celebrated a week early, though, so I could use this past weekend to see my friends graduate. Among other things, I got a new folding computer desk (replacing the card table affair that tended to wobble too much), a copy of the new LCMS hymnal Lutheran Service Book, and a gift certificate to Newegg from the folks at work (which was used to buy new RAM, see above).

...um, I think that's it for now. Hopefully I'll be better at blogging (I say again). G'night.

Apr. 16th, 2008 @ 09:04 pm Autopsy Results: Shrieker

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Mood:

crushed
Ambience: computer humming

Subject Name: Shrieker
Aliases: Jumper, LAPPY486, "the laptop"
Manufacturer: Dell
Model: Inspiron 4150
Date of Purchase: March 2003
Operating System(s): Windows XP Professional SP1 (upgraded to SP2), Linux - Fedora Core 7
Processor: 2.00 GHz Pentium 4 mobile
RAM: 512 MB 266 MHz
Hard Drive: 30 GB
Wireless: none
Cause of Death: RAM connector failure
Comments: Subject's keyboard was damaged in late 2004. Since early 2005, subject had been emitting a loud, piercing tone during boot process.
Prior to death, subject had been occasionally freezing and becoming completely unresponsive, even to keyboard modal lights. Occasionally, subject would refuse to boot, instead flashing the "Caps Lock" modal LED for five seconds, then powering off. Important to note that LED flashing occurred prior to BIOS checks or display of DELL logo.
Research conducted on the condition indicated that reseating of the RAM modules would solve the problem; unfortunately, the situation refused to be resolved.
System was disassembled and major components examined. Large quantities of dust were removed from processor heat sink, which was itself also reseated prior to further testing. Nothing further anomalous was found. Upon reassembly, condition was found to persist.
Despite pending RAM module testing, recommend system be declared dead and broken down for parts to be considered for homebrew projects. Notably, LCD screen is still perfectly functional, but connector appears to be non-standard.

...goodbye, Shrieker. It was a good five years. I don't know what I'll do without the 9-pin serial port.

Mar. 26th, 2008 @ 10:55 pm Salmon? What?

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Mood:

confused
Ambience: the aquarium waterfall filter

Not much to report on today, but I would like to share a very bizarre occurrence. I'd also like to get comments from anyone who's experienced similar AIM issues.

As several of you probably already know, I have a habit of leaving my IM client open all the time (Pidgin, currently 2.4.0 on Fedora 8 Linux). A few nights ago, as I was getting ready for bed, I received a message via AIM from someone named "ExcessiveSalmon." The message read simply "Hi." Now, I don't know this "ExcessiveSalmon" person, so I immediately start the routine inquiries (and supplemental searching on Facebook and Google).

The person on the other end claims that I messaged them first, and they don't know who I am, etc. When I copy-and-paste the fist line of the conversation, along with their screenname, they say that it was me. I apologize, wish them luck, and go to bed.

Now, this in itself is odd, but even weirder is the fact that a similar instance happened last night shortly after I posted my blog entry. However, this time the user's name was "HideousSalmon" and it happened to both my real-life and screenname AIM accounts...though we conversed only on my "online persona" account. The intro message was a little different, reading: "THE CHARACTERISTIC IS TOO WRONG, SAYS HE, BUT I HAVE ONLY TWO BASKETS AGAINST EACH OTHER!!!!!!" Naturally the subsequent conversation flowed a little differently, but the peculiarities were identical. I suggested we each perform security scans (viruses, etc.) just to be safe. "HideousSalmon" responded with, "No problem. Hope you get that figured out. I know my computer's riddled with that s***." Not very confidence-inspiring, but there you are.

It occurred to me later that perhaps these exchanges are being triggered by some sort of third party. [Assumption: the other conversant was being totally truthful.] Say there is someone out there with the AIM name "ExcessiveSalmon." This person then IM's me a random intro, then turns around and IM's my response to some unknown screenname. The true owner of "ExcessiveSalmon" does not converse, but by relaying messages back and forth masquerades as part of the conversation. This is essentially what is known in security circles as a "man-in-the-middle" attack, with a little variation.

Now, this mysterious malefactor could be a human bent on trouble, or it could be some bizarre form of malware. If it is the latter, fooling it should be as simple as asking the other person to tell me their AIM name. If it's a human bent on trouble, they're probably smart enough to filter the AIM name out of the message body as well as the header.

Regardless, I think it may be in my best interests to ignore any more of these types of messages, but I'd appreciate suggestions. I'd also like to hear if anyone else has experienced this. And for the record, searching for the screennames "ExcessiveSalmon" and "HideousSalmon" on Google and Symantec Security Center do not return any results...though I imagine this blog entry might be indexed on those keywords.

Anyway...thoughts? Comments? Questions? Similar experiences? Advice? Please share...
(Anonymous posting is always on if you feel shy...)

Mar. 25th, 2008 @ 10:48 pm Chronometric Drift

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Mood:

aggravated
Ambience: Seven Eleven (Samadhi)

So today at work was good, if only because I solved that crazy-complex issue that popped up yesterday. Here's how it goes, in a nutshell.

See, we have this list of 226 doctors that we want to import into the system as "patients" so they can see what their patients would see. Now, I had previously written a PHP script to do this, but apparently it failed to function properly (unbeknownst to us at the time) and things weren't properly entered. This is all incredibly complicated by the fact that it's operating directly on the production database (as opposed to the development database). Furthermore, our sysadmin and go-to guy for all things production systems related is on vacation in Florida this week.

The icing on the cake, of course, is that our testing/public-relations guy was going through the list of doctors and adding things in manually that the script was supposed to do automatically because he didn't know the script was supposed to do it. As such, he never told me of these failure symptoms because he never knew it was supposed to do that in the first place. We (the developers) only found out because of an incidentally related error that highlighted the deeper problem.

Anyway, it turned out that the script hadn't properly added the patient ID foreign key to the appropriate entries in the table controlling web-based logins, so any logins from those usernames didn't have any information. Long story short, I saw today about lunchtime in the script that I'd misspelled the $patientUID variable as $patientID when filling in the query. (Don't even get me started on the naming scheme around here. Luckily some of the minds involved are no longer with the company, but left behind a lasting legacy in the likes of "fk_user_id" for a foreign key and "userUID.")

So, typo fixed, we eventually got all the pieces together in the appropriate place and re-ran the script. After some cleanup, things seem to be working fine, which is good because apparently the users had to be stalled for a day and are expecting to use this tomorrow morning. I hate debugging with a deadline.

Chronometric drift...right. So I might have mentioned before, but Clunker seems to have a habit of going into deep-powersave mode, which includes such wonderful things as apparently stopping the system clock. (It's a ten-year-old IBM Aptiva with an AMD K6 processor and originally had 32MB of RAM.) I'm not sure if it actually stops clock functionality altogether, or whether Linux can't handle it, or what. Mind you, this thing has lost literally weeks of time previously when I didn't bother to bring it out of powersave mode.

So I rebooted it today because I'd rebuilt the kernel last night. While I had the chance I poked around in the BIOS, and apparently there's a "Clock Off" option under the powersave settings. So I toggled that, and hopefully it'll keep the clock going when the computer's running on standby bower. That'd be really nice, as the thing makes a fair bit of noise when active. And no, I think it has to have some actual I/O; processing doesn't seem to count, from what I can tell.

Anyway, if this works, hopefully cron jobs will get fired off properly. Next up is making sure it accepts incoming network traffic so I can (hopefully) turn it into a proper backup facility.

...wow, I'm rambling. I guess I'm more tired than I thought. G'night y'all.

Mar. 22nd, 2008 @ 11:06 pm Working Solo

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Mood:

productive
Ambience: The Stone Table (Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe)

Wow, I was actually pretty productive today, especially despite it being a Saturday. Naturally, I did laundry and went grocery shopping like every Saturday, so that isn't exactly remarkable.

First and foremost, I copied both my Linux partition and the partition storing my Linux version of Neverwinter Nights over to the newer 500GB hard drive. I'm leaving the old Linux partition on the smaller drive for now, just in case, but I think I can probably remove it soon...everything seems to be working okay.

I also kicked Clunker back to life and it's working on updates now. I think I started it somewhere around lunchtime, and it's still running. That's decade-old computing power for you, I guess. (Forgot the darn thing smells funny, too.) Something I'm going to have to look into working around is that the system seems to go into complete stasis when in powersave mode...cron jobs don't run, network listening daemons don't respond...heck, even the clock doesn't run! It still thought it was March 9 until I netsynced it! Anyway, needs work...

The most interesting thing today, however, was getting Clark's new widescreen TV set up...especially since Clark wasn't actually here. I don't know how big the thing is, but it's kinda wide. As in, the box recommends having a person lift from each end to get it out. Unfortunately I didn't have anyone helping me, but I got it out anyway...with science!

No, seriously, here's how it worked:
I knew I wasn't going to be able to lift it straight out of the box. It's too heavy and awkward for that. I did know I could pull it sideways out of the box, but they don't recommend that. So I scooted the box (with TV) over to the empty TV table with the screen facing the couch. I then opened the top flaps and tipped the box back so it rested against the table at about a 70-degree angle or so. Then, kneeling on top of the table, I reached down into the box and grabbed the lower edge of the TV, pulling it up the slope and onto the TV table. It was still heavy and awkward, but I had a good grip on it and wasn't fighting gravity directly. (That also explains the greasy forehead print on one of the box flaps.)

Anyway, everything's in place now, and I even got his Wii and PS3 hooked up and working. I even ran through some of the basic configuration options for the TV (like setting the language to English), but I figure he'll want to set most of it himself. Not sure what his other HDMI cable that he ordered is for, though.

Anyway, bedtime for me. Got Easter service tomorrow. Hopefully the upstairs neighbor's clunking won't be too bothersome.

Mar. 21st, 2008 @ 11:20 pm Miss Me?

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Mood:

hopeful
Ambience: Three 4 Ten (Samadhi)

Okay, yeah, it's been...a while. I guess once you get a little lazy you fall out of the habit pretty quick. Anyway, here's the rundown on what I've been doing the last few months:

First off, I graduated. As in, graduated college. Yep, last December—basically a seven-semester degree. That saved a bit of money, but unfortunately I have no idea what to do now, long-term. Anyway, B.S. in Computer Science.

I've moved to a town near Valparaiso University (you'll know if you need to) and I'm working for HealthCall full-time. I'm currently sharing an apartment with Clark, another computer science major who started the same time I did but graduated in three years (six semesters) instead of 3.5 years.

I've applied to graduate school, mostly so I could have a little more time in academia to decide what to do with the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have my act together and was only able to apply to UIUC and Cornell. UIUC has sent me a rejection letter, but no word back yet from Cornell.

Um...I've been borrowing Stargate from Brian, and I got Clark interested. We're currently three episodes into season 2 of Stargate: Atlantis and we'll be starting season 9 of Stargate SG-1 as soon as we finish the current disc. (Brian says they cross over, and we decided that watching them in parallel would be best accomplished by alternating discs from each series.)

I've been trying to get our D&D group back together, but by the time I got settled down it was spring break for them, then this weekend Adam's turning 21 so they're all going to that. I'm not planning on going because (a) they're considering visiting a casino, (b) dinner's pricey and reservation-based, and that's always awkward, and (c) I didn't get the invite until this evening, as passed on by Aaron because Adam apparently forgot (not that I had any plans lined up anyway).

Oh! I got a new 500GB hard drive for my main computer a little while back. Unfortunately I haven't had much chance to do anything with that; I figure maybe I can give the 80GB main drive back wholly over to Windows (excepting the boot sector) and move Linux to the new drive, then add a lab partition or two and use the rest for storage.

I also got a new graphics card because my old one contracted a terminal case of "broken fan." This one's an nVidia GeForce FX 5500 (the last one was a 5200) with 256MB of...whatever graphics cards have megabytes of. RAM, I guess. Anyway, despite the fact that I appear to be pretty much at the upper limit of what you can do with a PCI card, this one seems pretty good. I think it can handle more graphics data than the old one could before the main processor had to jump in (which supports my RAM hypothesis). Mind you, that was only informally tested on the grassy area of Noloben, which always gave me trouble.

On the downside, it seems my laptop (now "Shrieker") has developed some problems of its own. It hangs frequently and occasionally refuses to boot up (though I think I fixed that last one by reseating the RAM).

...wow, I need to vacuum out my keyboard...

Okay, off to bed. Hopefully I'll post again soon.

Oct. 7th, 2007 @ 11:13 pm "You are not as tasty as I am holy."

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Mood:

sleepy
Ambience: Out of the Hive (Uru Music)

YO
SUP
NMUCH
If Larry and I have anything to say about it, that will be the new three-way handshake in IPv6. I doubt you'll see it in any RFC docs any time soon, though.

Also, the title quote was a misunderstanding of the phrase, "these were not as tasty as I had hoped." Although in our defense, it was about 9:30 at night at Long John Silver's.

Okay, aside from random...uh, randomness, not much has been happening. I've been grinding through my physics homework, sim homework, etc. Unfortunately I haven't made any headway against the larger things I need to be doing; it seems homework takes up almost all of my time. I also seem more tired for some reason; I'm not sure I'm getting enough sleep. I don't think that's fixable, though; cutting even an hour off my evening would leave me tight for time.

Despite all I have to do, I have been steadily chipping away at Stargate. I've been able to download and watch several episodes from the third season. I also clipped out some Stargate sound effects. Now, whenever somebody IM's me, it sounds like the wormhole opening.

Oh, in other news, I've finally finished my oxy-core runaround in Kingdom of Loathing. (Sorry, if you don't play it, you won't know what I'm talking about here.) I've ascended each class on an oxygenarian/hardcore track. Now I'm going around again, but this time just on a hardcore track. Dunno how long that'll take me, though.

Um...yeah. So Saturday morning, this guy I used to know in high school IMs me. Now, bear in mind that I haven't seen him since I graduated high school more than three years ago (May '04) and we have not communicated at all since then, up until the beginning of September of this year. (And, given my interactions with him in high school, my first thought was not, "oh, an old friend!" but instead "now what does he want, after three years of silence?")

Anyway, in this particular instance he had (apparently) just woken up from a night of heavy drinking and was talking about how he did stupid stuff when drunk, but it's not his fault because his friends kept buying him drinks. Not feeling particularly sympathetic to this point of view, I asked him if perhaps his "friends" were merely inviting him out simply because he was cheap entertainment. He then told me that they were also drinking and providing him with entertainment. In his own words, one of his friends "scored with some 40 year old in the bathroom." He added that "she was not attractive either." No matter what I said about this, he seemed to think it was hilarity of the highest order.

This guy used to be a Christian. Sure, he wasn't the best guy around, but he at least had some moral sense when I knew him in high school...if I knew him in high school. Granted, looking back on my experiences in high school, I believe he thought (and maybe still thinks) that being friends with someone means tormenting them to just shy of breaking. Personally, I would be perfectly happy if I never had to deal with any of my high school ghosts again. Anyway, I pretty much told him off at the end (while still trying to be polite):

[Me] Well, I see it as boiling down to one of two things.
[Me] Either you have completely discarded the sense of ethics I observed in you in high school...
[Me] ...or your "friendships" are very tenuous indeed, as apparently you hang out with people to laugh at them. Which probably isn't that far from the truth, as I look back on my high school experience.
[Him] i didn't laugh at you too much in high school dude
[Him] only when i tried to set you up with girls and you got mad
[Me] No, you used me as a punching bag, both physically and--as you just pointed out--socially.
[Me] Luckily I have found friends here who--in a word--laugh with me instead of at me.
[Him] not so much a punching bag... i just didn't understand someone not wanting to be social
[Me] And in your ignorance struck out, and tried to mold me into your own "ideal" of a human being, instead of accepting my oddities and personal boundaries.
[Him] never said i was bright in high school
[Him] lol
[Me] Here, I know people who do accept me, and don't pressure me into activities I feel uncomfortable with.
[Me] Who do you think I count as friends?
[Him] ha, dude, ok you've made your point
[Him] laters

So I guess my question is...Why do I feel like scum for finally telling him what an ignorant jerkwad he was all those years, and he gets to laugh it off?
Also, how do I disconnect from him without actually being a jerk?

Anyway, I'm off to bed; I've got physics at 9:00 tomorrow. G'night.

Sep. 29th, 2007 @ 10:42 pm All up in my Busyness

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Mood:

busy
Ambience: Nineveh (E.S. Posthumus)

Well, so much for regular updates. It's been...what, three weeks? Yeah. Granted, part of that is because I don't have much of anything noteworthy going on. Also I've been busy.

So yeah, apparently taking only 13 credit-hours a semester doesn't guarantee that you have less homework (go figure). Physics, for instance, isn't too difficult, but it's one big algebraic drudge. Sociology is a lot of stuff I can't really absorb all that well, so studying for it probably takes twice as long as anyone else. And we're not exactly coding in either of my CS courses; the closest is in my sim course, but we're just building models with drag and drop—drag and drop!—interfaces.

Add to this whole mess that I got sick last weekend, and wound up blowing my way through two entire boxes of tissues...yeah, not fun. Still have a bit of a cough, but I'm doing fine now. Allergies seem to have slowed up a bit, too, thank goodness.

Larry has made some progress in moving items into storage; unfortunately, the room is still largely full of boxes. We're working around them, though. Plus, we can get to the fridge now.

Oh yeah, I bought a replacement USB memory key. This new one is 2 GB, which is incredibly huge compared to any other one I've owned. I've already visited portableapps.com and installed portable Windows versions of 7-zip and ClamWin. However, I can't seem to find a good portable encryption program. I'd like something that:

has Windows and Linux versions

is designed to be portable, or can be easily adapted, and

doesn't require administrative privileges to use.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find anything that matches all three criteria. (If you find something, let me know.) I've looked at TrueCrypt, which seems useful but requires administrative privileges on Windows systems...which means I can't use it in the school computer labs. I've also looked at GnuPG, which is handy, but that doesn't seem to be designed with portability in mind. Professor Caristi suggested something Java-based, but that just means I have to ensure Java is installed. I'm thinking it might be easier to code my own thing, I dunno.

I've also been trying to find the time to put together a D&D game, but without much success so far. I did acquire a copy of Unearthed Arcana, though, which has been rather interesting. It's basically a book of rule variations, some of which I might try out if I ever find the time to put something together.

Oh yes, registered for the GRE as well. That was a rather painful process, especially since I got in just under the mark. Unfortunately the defining factor was transportation to the testing site; apparently Valpo doesn't offer GRE proctoring. So yeah, I had to make sure I had a ride with someone else, for an event two months ahead of time. I get a feeling that the test itself is going to be easier than the registration process.

Anyway, I think that's it for the night, so I'm off to bed. G'night.

Sep. 5th, 2007 @ 10:43 pm Deepening the Groove

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Mood:

cynical
Ambience: Larry's playlist

So yeah, not much to report at the moment. Classes are carrying on, and things are settling in.

We've got...rather a large amount of stuff in the room at the moment, thanks to the building RLC who decided Larry needed to move all his stuff out of storage instead of, y'know, just letting it all stay there since most of it's going right back in anyway. It's been here a few days, maybe a week. Anyway, just tonight we heard that storage will be opening up Monday evening. Yeah, fun.

Oh, I got my CS 325 textbook yesterday evening, which takes care of that. This afternoon I installed the softare on my laptop. Sadly, it's Windows-only. Student edition, which means some limitations. I also got a couple portable applications (7-zip and ClamWin) for my memory key.

I'd really like an encryption program for it. Nothing fancy, just something I can run, give a password/phrase to encrypt/decrypt files. Ideally something that has both Windows and Linux ports. I thought about TrueCrypt, which allows you to create and manipulate virtual volumes with on-the-fly encryption, but it requires administrative privileges on Windows (which kind of defeats the portability if you have to interact with "public" computers). The only other program I can think of is GnuPG, which unfortunately doesn't cut it either. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful program, but it doesn't seem intended to be carried around on a thumb drive. (Plus, there's no Unix/Linux universal binary thingy.)

Oh yeah, apparently the thumb drive came with something called U3, which is this disturbing little bit of software installed on it that auto-runs on Windows. You can't get rid of it by deleting files, either. (And believe me, I tried on both Windows and Linux.) I finally got rid of it by checking on Wikipedia and getting a removal tool from SanDisk.

Anyway, I should probably get to bed. I have to finish up my physics homework tomorrow, as well as take an online quiz in the evening, plus e-mail my folks. G'night.

Sep. 2nd, 2007 @ 08:53 pm Clunker

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Mood:

geeky
Ambience: The Swamp (Myst IV: Revelation)

So I guess now is a good a time as any to fill everyone in on "Clunker."

Clunker is my latest, uh...let's say computational acquisition. Craig (who worked at the same company I did this past summer) had found it in his neighbor's trash, fished it out, and given it to me. It's a "headless" computer, meaning no monitor/keyboard/mouse, like "Grinder." (Actually Grinder has a keyboard, but it never really needs much interaction.)

As far as I can tell, Clunker is about ten years old, based on BIOS information and online manufacturing information for certain components. Clunker has an AMD K6 processor running at 233 MHz. It has 32 MB of RAM and came with a 3GB hard drive. I replaced it with a 4GB hard drive we had sitting around the house because I thought originally that some problems stemmed from a failing drive, but that turned out not to be the case. Clunker originally ran Windows 95 before I wiped it.

Now, I'd love to turn Clunker into a firewall computer by installing Linux, but there's a bit of a problem. I'm not picky on distro, but obviously it has to work with those specs. I'd also like a way to keep software relatively up-to-date. And lastly I'd like a modern kernel (i.e. 2.6 series, preferably 2.6.20 or later) with iptables for firewalling.

I've checked distrowatch.com and a lot of the "old computer" distros either run kernel 2.4 or haven't been updated in a long time.

Here's the big kicker, though: almost every single distribution out there that's aimed at Intel or Intel-like chips (like AMD chips) is intended for i586-designated chips or earlier. This is understandable, since the i586 instruction set was introduced with the Intel Pentium in 1993. In fact, every Linux distro I try on Clunker identifies the AMD K6 as an i586-compatible chip. Unfortunately I have strong reason to believe that it is not fully compatible with the i586 instruction set. Long story short, I need something compiled with the 486 instruction set in mind, coupled with an installer that lets me choose a 486 kernel.

My latest experiment was with Gentoo, which I heard compiles a lot of things from source during installation. They even had a minimal install CD which was 486-compatible, which basically just booted and then downloaded source from the servers. Unfortunately the latest issue seems to be that the PCI network card I installed in Clunker is undetectable. I connected it up this evening, and both the card LED and network switch LEDs indicate a working connection...but Linux can't even seem to find anything installed in the PCI slot.

Back to the drawing board.

Aug. 30th, 2007 @ 11:21 pm Reports of my Death...

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calm
Ambience: AC running

Wow, it's been a while. Hopefully I'll update more often now that I'm back in the dorms (and not mooching off an anonymous neighbor's wireless).

Anyway, things went well this summer, and I'll be working part-time remotely for HealthCall this fall when I get VPN access details and whatnot.

I'm settling back into the dorms for my senior year (hopefully only one semester!). There's still a little unpacking to do, though. It's going to be busy; on top of homework and working for HealthCall, I have to figure out about graduate school applications and taking (the?) GRE and everything. Mom thinks I can start in the spring semester, but I'm pretty sure it's too late to do that in a timely fashion; I'll probably begin in the fall. Spring'll be working and/or obtaining certification...assuming my "application for graduation" form goes through.

This week itself has been kind of lackluster, though. I think my power strip got nuked by a stray surge that went through with all the storms a couple weeks ago; the "surge" LED on it is lit up, so it probably needs replacing. On top of that, I lost my USB memory key (which might've had a copy of my résumé on it). So I need to get another one of those...the 16MB one isn't going to cut it in some circumstances.

Furthermore, the bookstore wasn't carrying one of the textbooks I needed, so that's coming in the mail in a few days courtesy of Amazon. Unfortunately the software is Windows-only, which is going to make things all kinds of nuts here.

Oh, and my allergies have been kicking me in the head nonstop since move-in, it seems. Although lately it's been confined to mornings only. Unfortunately, that's when I have almost all of my classes, so...yeah.

On the upside, I got Sunbird compiled and installed. Yeah, for some reason the pre-compiled binaries that Mozilla distributes often depend on an older version of the standard C++ libraries than the one that comes with Fedora. Hence, the necessity for recompilation. But it's cool now, and I've got it pulling schedule info from my Google calendar...although I haven't quite updated my LinguistApprentice one yet.

Anyway, time for bed. I've got physics tomorrow morning. G'night.

Jun. 25th, 2007 @ 09:45 pm Burnt Bridge

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Mood:

sad
Ambience: I want to Walk as a Child of the Light (VU Chorale)

So yesterday evening I got an e-mail from Miveen. She wanted me to delete mention of her from my LJ profile page, since it was showing up on Google, "which [she] would rather it not with that information."

In the process I noted she's deleted her LJ accounts (yes, the three of them). Furthermore, the e-mail I received appeared to be from a temporary-account service, which indicates that she's closed her Miveen account on Gmail as well.

Now, she didn't say why she was doing all this, but I'm probably not far wrong in saying that she doesn't want anything more to do with me...or at least doesn't want me contacting her anymore, as I don't have the means to do that. (I haven't checked AIM, but I think I can guess the pattern here.)

I'd hoped we could still remain friends on good terms, as she'd written last week, but apparently that was just words.

For those of you who also now have no way to contact Miveen...I'm sorry. Our failed relationship cost you a friend.

Goodbye, Miveen.

Jun. 15th, 2007 @ 02:32 am Status Update and Such

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Mood:

sad
Ambience: AC grinding

So yeah, I guess I haven't updated here in something like a month or more? Whoops. Although I haven't been doing much that I can post about...I don't know how much of my work I can discuss, since I'm programming for a medical company. I can't really post details about prepping for a D&D campaign since some of the players read this. And nobody really wants to know about the little joys of living by yourself in an old apartment building. (Oh look! The kitchen sink backs up into the bathtub when I let out the dishwater! Joy! Okay, seriously, that's the most interesting thing that's happened to me.) Also, internet access isn't totally guaranteed. I'm currently "borrowing" bandwidth from a neighbor's unsecured wireless connection, using a laptop wireless card that Craig from work loaned me.

Work, as much as I can talk about it, has been going pretty well. We're using this language called Lasso, which does a lot of what PHP does, only without the elegance. Or, y'know, the competitive price tag. (That's right, this language actually costs several hundred dollars. It's nuts.) Combine that with the fact that one of the previous programmers decided he was going to go on this complete abstraction spree, and it's just nuts. But, I'm working through bugs rather rapidly, and I've even been given permission to add a small bit to the site. Even after three or four weeks, though, I'm still occasionally frustrated by the codebase or by the finer points of interaction and programming on Macs.
(No right-click or scroll wheel! Argh!)

As I might have posted earlier, I'd been in contact with Miveen recently. We'd sort of put off making any major decisions about our relationship (i.e. whether or not we were going to be back together) until later this summer when I would go and meet her in person.

Today I got an e-mail back from her as part of finalizing the plan for visiting her. After some thought, she says it would be better off if we stayed just friends, and given what has been said, I'm inclined to agree. Obviously I won't be traveling to visit her in August.

Other than that, I really don't know what to say about the matter, so I'll close here for the evening.

May. 17th, 2007 @ 04:05 pm Summer Plans

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relaxed
Ambience: none

So a few of you have probably wondered where I've gotten to. Well, I'm going to tell you. Keep in mind that this all happened very quickly.

So, Brett (a CS classmate) worked at a company in the area called HealthCall. He put in a good word for me (or more likely several by the sound of it), and I was interviewed for a summer internship, possibly continuing into the fall. Apparently they liked what they heard, as they brought me on.

Not only that, they're paying for an apartment for me for the summer. Here in Valpo! Yeah, incredible. The trick is it doesn't have internet. Also, I don't have a car. However, Brian lives in the area and will be carpooling me there when he works. (Brian was our old ACM president before he graduated.)

My parents helped me move things from the dormitory to the apartment yesterday. They also bought a lot of stuff, including some food, a small microwave, and a bike. I don't have any furniture, though, so I'm not exactly going to be entertaining people any time soon...basically one chair, a card-table desk for my computer, and an air mattress is all I have.

It turns out the public library is only a couple blocks from the apartment, so I went down and got a library card from them this morning. Papa John's pizza is a couple more blocks beyond that.

For internet, I'm bringing my laptop over to the campus library (not the public library). That way I can download things (like last night's episode of Lost) without too much worry. Obviously this isn't the best method of internet access, but it's the best I can do. E-mail is still good, I just won't get it right away.

I start work on Wednesday, so we'll see how that turns out. Anyway, that's where I'll be this summer, and I'll be sure to post anything significant.

May. 1st, 2007 @ 10:48 pm Status Update

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Mood:

stressed
Ambience: Beyond Gira (Uru Music)

Just wanted to make a few notes on what's been going on lately before going to bed.

The programming project for CS 358 is coming along better than I expected. Hopefully we can get that finished up before the end of the semester. It's going to be a close call, though, so I'm not sure. If we do well I should bring in donuts or something for the group. That'd be cool.

I've made a start on the poli-sci essay questions, though I might have to put those on hold again for a bit because they're due at a later date than the rest of this stuff.

Professor Glass wants me to do up a presentation on fuzzy clustering for Monday's class...preferably with a working demo. Considering I'm 0 for 1 on programming functional fuzzy clustering, this may not be a good thing. I'll try anyway, though. Maybe working on it in Java with some visual feedback will give me a clue to what's wrong with the 3-dimensional Python implementation.

Haven't even started my theology paper yet. Preliminary presentation-type-thingy due Tuesday. Paper itself due a couple days after that.

Oh yes, Professor Glass also wants a report on the past year's progress for the research project.

I've put in a couple more job applications at companies here in the Valpo area. I also submitted the form to change my degree from a BA to a BS, so we'll see how those turn out.

Move-out deadline is May 16th. After that, I don't know what I'll be doing or where I'll be or how often I'll be online. I'll try to post updates as things develop.

And now for things really good and really bad:

Miveen and I have been talking again, which is excellent. I really missed talking to her (almost didn't realize how much so). I'm hoping to go down and see her over the summer. I talked to my parents and they're (surprisingly) amenable to the idea, although travel arrangements are going to be tricky, apparently.

On the other hand, according to Larry's blog and so forth he's been feeling disturbingly suicidal. You (almost) wouldn't know it by interacting with him, though...or at least I wouldn't. (Also, he doesn't talk to me much about these things.) He started on Friday afternoon/evening, but the counseling center is apparently closed on weekends. I was going to go there yesterday afternoon, but he seemed okay over the weekend...but Andrew and Jeremy dropped by and pointed out a comment on his blog that he'd made...anyway, visiting the counseling center tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck.

Anyway, bedtime for me. G'night.

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