Important note for non-gaming folks: They just fired the development team at 3DRealms because they've been taking 12 years to create this game.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
More Cool Dreams
I just woke up a little while ago, and I had a really cool dream/dreams. I was trapped in a Mall for some reason, with lots of other people. It had sort of a Mad Max feel to it, but more modern with all the electricity still working, but there was still a gang/thug feel to it. I was constantly on the move, trying to get *somewhere* cutting across courtyards, getting into fights, etc. Then I think the dream changed gears or switched, because I was outside, in the rain, so I took off my leather biker jacket and found a large, black trench coat with a hood. I put on the hood and started walking in the rain with it, but the coat was dragging behind me and was getting wet and heavy. Then somehow I came upon a Darth Vader mask, and I put it on under the hood, and then instantly I was Darth Vader with force powers and all.
I then proceeded to go through the mall, still trying to find my way to *somewhere* and eventually I accumulated followers. They weren't storm troopers, but they were the Empire officers with the british accents. The coolest part of the dream was when I came across a guy I really don't like much in real life, and used the dark side to choke him to death. I really wish I had said something dramatic like "I find your lack of faith disturbing" but I'm pretty sure I just called him a dick and flung his lifeless corpse against a wall.
This is the point where I think I started to wake up because I started to actively patrol around the place for other people I didn't like because I was going to force-lightning their asses into little piles of dust. I don't remember if I actually found anyone else before I woke up, but I have a nice idea of what it would have looked like had I found them.
I'm a little disappointed there was no lightsaber action, but I think this was more of a dream about dominance over my enemies rather than persevering through their bullshit. It may not have been the Jedi way, but damn, the dark side felt goooood. I remember hearing someplace that they discovered an evolutionary or perhaps a biological basis for the sensation of satisfaction given when one gets revenge. I agree that it feels good. But I also remember hearing someplace that the feeling of romantic love is equivalent to eating large quantities of chocolate. So who knows what's true? But I can personally attest that the dark side is seductive and that I wouldn't mind having the power to psychically choke a few assholes to death.
I then proceeded to go through the mall, still trying to find my way to *somewhere* and eventually I accumulated followers. They weren't storm troopers, but they were the Empire officers with the british accents. The coolest part of the dream was when I came across a guy I really don't like much in real life, and used the dark side to choke him to death. I really wish I had said something dramatic like "I find your lack of faith disturbing" but I'm pretty sure I just called him a dick and flung his lifeless corpse against a wall.
This is the point where I think I started to wake up because I started to actively patrol around the place for other people I didn't like because I was going to force-lightning their asses into little piles of dust. I don't remember if I actually found anyone else before I woke up, but I have a nice idea of what it would have looked like had I found them.
I'm a little disappointed there was no lightsaber action, but I think this was more of a dream about dominance over my enemies rather than persevering through their bullshit. It may not have been the Jedi way, but damn, the dark side felt goooood. I remember hearing someplace that they discovered an evolutionary or perhaps a biological basis for the sensation of satisfaction given when one gets revenge. I agree that it feels good. But I also remember hearing someplace that the feeling of romantic love is equivalent to eating large quantities of chocolate. So who knows what's true? But I can personally attest that the dark side is seductive and that I wouldn't mind having the power to psychically choke a few assholes to death.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
In your DREAMS
As of late, I've been having lots of dreams. Good dreams! It's weird. Most likely, the dramatic increase is at least in part due to the fact that I've been sleeping more. Well, "more" speaking relatively. I don't sleep much as it is, as demonstrated by my late late night posts such as this one. But when I do sleep, I've been dreaming.
I wish I had a coherent memory of all of them, but just scattered bits. I remember one where I had another kitten along with Sabrina named Vulcan. No surprise with the name because I just saw the new Star Trek movie (which was bad-ass). Vulcan was cool because Sabrina got along with him very well, and Vulcan would actually FETCH me things I want. Not things I throw, but things I want. It was cool.
I've had several other good dreams featuring friends of mine, and while *most* of the details are still foggy, I have flashes of moments where I was unspeakably happy where I was hanging out with that person or those people. And I won't lie, there were at least two moments where I was enjoying the company of a lady friend who shall remain anonymous. But I must say, it was nice. Not like hot and sweaty nice, but very comfortable, like the sort of connection I've always wanted with a woman.
But even in my dreams, I won't kiss and tell. That's private.
I'm surprised I haven't been having nightmares. I just played and beat bioshock this past weekend. It was fairly terrifying. Those little girls were creepy as hell. But it was fun, in a morbid psychological thriller action first person shooter.
My pal Iris has informed me that because I brought over my dear sweet little Princess when I was watching her boys, they've taken up marking their territory anywhere they catch a wiff of her. They've been pissing all over her livingroom. I feel bad, but that's also kinda funny. My little girl may not give off the nicest of vibes. Maybe she'd get along with other black cats. Or maybe I'm just overly optimistic, as always.
She's asleep on my chest again. That's her favorite spot. her little paw is outstretched like she wants to hit the spacebar for me. I'm glad she's happy here in the new house. I was always worried that she'd be unhappy when I have to leave her here alone, but she seems Ok when I come home. Which reminds me, the little Princess is almost out of food. Sounds like it's time for another trip to the pet store. I wonder if I can fit the food in my saddle bag?
IN OTHER GREAT NEWS, I finally finally F I N A L L Y got my motorcycle back from the shop. They had it for-friggin-ever! And the bill was not kind, but it was mainly the cost of parts, not labor. Needed a new gas tank valve, new coolant line, new rear tire, and new front brake pads. Now it's back, and I'm back in uniform. Well, black leather, kevlar armor, and carbon fiber leg guards. My Darth Vader get-up. But that is my uniform. And I'm pleased as peaches.
The weather is beautiful, and it feels VERY good to be riding again. Not looking forward to the typical, blistering-hot Georgia summer, but I'm prepared to shove an icepack inside my jacket to keep me from overheating on those 90-plus-degree days.
The summer is off to a precarious start that I wish I could explain. A friend of mine who I've made a point of being nothing but nice to spilled a drink on me. After a very snide apology, I asked her if she really was sorry, to which she responded "No! I'm not sorry!" in the absolute bitchiest tone I've ever heard her direct at me. It wasn't half a shot of vodka spilled on me. It was a glass of beer all up and down my left side. Sure, it was an accident, but only an accident in the sense that she was trying to elbow me in the ribs (hard) and hit my drink instead. Suffice it to say, I was insulted and ever ounce of dignity was running down my leg like so much BEER from my glass.
The kicker was that I turned down a chance to go to another bar to watch the midnight showing of the original theatrical release of Star Wars. I made this huge public gesture of friendship by saying that it was everyone's last night out together before the fall and that I can't leave my friends. Then I get my drink spilled all over me by my "friend" who was drunk, hyper, and so incredibly rude that she couldn't feel legitimately sorry for something that was clearly her fault. Cuz the good lord KNOWS I love to be at a bar drenched in beer, like a drunken idiot. I didn't want another beer or even a change of shirt or pants: I just wanted a goddamn sincere apology. Instead, I got up, paid my tab, and left without saying a word.
That was a bad way to start the summer. Very bad. My friend Iris has her own theories on what happened and why, but she had already left before my rude friend started flailing her arms around like a crazy person, punching people at random. She punched me in my throat earlier in the evening, but I let that one slide. For someone who practically begged me to be a nice person towards her, she really doesn't get that's a two-way street. Nobody should ever mistake my kindness for weakness because I don't tolerate disrepsect.
At least I had the chance to do a good deed before the beer-spill occurred. The flaming asshole of an ex-boyfriend of a dear friend of mine showed up at the bar... ...escorting everyone's favorite bartender to the threshold of 283. When he saw me, he took off, and with good reason. Ya see, his line of bullshit is pretty simple to explain: he's the reformed bad guy. He was addicted to heroine, bad experiences, blah blah blah. So when he meets a woman, he dumps all of his rotten life on her, tells her that he's turning a corner, and she falls for it hook-line-and-sinker. My dear-sweet friend fell for it. And so did! When he started dating her, I thought he was perfect for her. They eventually moved in and lived together for almost a solid year... ...before he started cheating on her. Sadly, he wasn't exactly James Bond about it. He left his email client open on his computer, so when she sat down to print a school paper, she found all their naughty little correspondences.
She was betrayed and devestated and it absolutely killed me. Because if you know this special dear friend of mine, you couldn't FATHOM anyone hurting her. If that wasn't bad enough, after she moved out and started couch surfing to find a new place to live, he wouldn't leave her alone. He did everything he could to torture her emotionally. He'd call her up and tell her to go buy him TOILET PAPER because he was out. And he was once downtown with his NEW SLUT, spots my friend, and decides to invite himself AND THE SLUT to join her. No shit. Who in their right mind does that? Who thinks it is OK to do that????
My friend had to make me promise I'd never hunt him down and break every bone in his body. That doesn't mean I'll let him carry around town like he did nothing wrong. And I'm certainly not going to sit by apathetically and let him do it to someone else. I was up in the air about whether or not I should go say something to the bartender, Rachel, until I had a conversation with a new buddy named Matt who frequents 283. He said she's been a part of that place for years and years, and that he didn't want to see her get hurt by some DICK in sheep's clothing.
So Matt and I went inside, ordered another couple of drinks, and spoke to Rachel. I left out a lot of the nasty details because I didn't want to start shouting. Matt laid the groundwork for what I had to say and I laid it out on the table for her. She seemed not too upset, and according to her she'd only been seeing him for a few weeks, but Matt said she was hiding it fairly well.
The good news is that she confronted him about it that night, probably after I had beer spilled all over me. The HILARIOUS news is that the dickless son of a bitch actually sent me an IM telling me to mind my own business. I didn't miss a beat: I told him I'll discuss this with him in person anytime he wants to. That chilled him out pretty quickly. I wish I still had the conversation to cut and paste here, so I can preserve it for posterity. "See kids? This is how a coward flounders when he's shitting his pants!" To be pefectly frank, I'd LOVE IT if he wasn't such a pussy. Cuz if he took a swing at me, I'd rellish the chance to beat the living shit out of him.
Oh if only. But he's only got the half-testicle necessary to take out his frustrations on women. So I left him with a warning (without directly threatening him) that he better not take out his anger on my friend, lest I "make the time" to come see him to "discuss" it with him. And he for damn sure better stay away from her or else. The most hilarious part was how he ended it. He's got such a self-endulged romantic image of himself that he said he owes lots of people "time and apologies" and I'm not one of them. Like I ever asked him for an apology! I told him to kiss my ass and to leave my friend alone. Nothing in there about an apology.
These stream-of-consciousness entries are so bizarre. I talked about dreams, cats, friends, school, motorcycles, and a real bastard. It's been a while since I put in an update. I guess I just had a lot I wanted to get down. OH WELL!
I wish I had a coherent memory of all of them, but just scattered bits. I remember one where I had another kitten along with Sabrina named Vulcan. No surprise with the name because I just saw the new Star Trek movie (which was bad-ass). Vulcan was cool because Sabrina got along with him very well, and Vulcan would actually FETCH me things I want. Not things I throw, but things I want. It was cool.
I've had several other good dreams featuring friends of mine, and while *most* of the details are still foggy, I have flashes of moments where I was unspeakably happy where I was hanging out with that person or those people. And I won't lie, there were at least two moments where I was enjoying the company of a lady friend who shall remain anonymous. But I must say, it was nice. Not like hot and sweaty nice, but very comfortable, like the sort of connection I've always wanted with a woman.
But even in my dreams, I won't kiss and tell. That's private.
I'm surprised I haven't been having nightmares. I just played and beat bioshock this past weekend. It was fairly terrifying. Those little girls were creepy as hell. But it was fun, in a morbid psychological thriller action first person shooter.
My pal Iris has informed me that because I brought over my dear sweet little Princess when I was watching her boys, they've taken up marking their territory anywhere they catch a wiff of her. They've been pissing all over her livingroom. I feel bad, but that's also kinda funny. My little girl may not give off the nicest of vibes. Maybe she'd get along with other black cats. Or maybe I'm just overly optimistic, as always.
She's asleep on my chest again. That's her favorite spot. her little paw is outstretched like she wants to hit the spacebar for me. I'm glad she's happy here in the new house. I was always worried that she'd be unhappy when I have to leave her here alone, but she seems Ok when I come home. Which reminds me, the little Princess is almost out of food. Sounds like it's time for another trip to the pet store. I wonder if I can fit the food in my saddle bag?
IN OTHER GREAT NEWS, I finally finally F I N A L L Y got my motorcycle back from the shop. They had it for-friggin-ever! And the bill was not kind, but it was mainly the cost of parts, not labor. Needed a new gas tank valve, new coolant line, new rear tire, and new front brake pads. Now it's back, and I'm back in uniform. Well, black leather, kevlar armor, and carbon fiber leg guards. My Darth Vader get-up. But that is my uniform. And I'm pleased as peaches.
The weather is beautiful, and it feels VERY good to be riding again. Not looking forward to the typical, blistering-hot Georgia summer, but I'm prepared to shove an icepack inside my jacket to keep me from overheating on those 90-plus-degree days.
The summer is off to a precarious start that I wish I could explain. A friend of mine who I've made a point of being nothing but nice to spilled a drink on me. After a very snide apology, I asked her if she really was sorry, to which she responded "No! I'm not sorry!" in the absolute bitchiest tone I've ever heard her direct at me. It wasn't half a shot of vodka spilled on me. It was a glass of beer all up and down my left side. Sure, it was an accident, but only an accident in the sense that she was trying to elbow me in the ribs (hard) and hit my drink instead. Suffice it to say, I was insulted and ever ounce of dignity was running down my leg like so much BEER from my glass.
The kicker was that I turned down a chance to go to another bar to watch the midnight showing of the original theatrical release of Star Wars. I made this huge public gesture of friendship by saying that it was everyone's last night out together before the fall and that I can't leave my friends. Then I get my drink spilled all over me by my "friend" who was drunk, hyper, and so incredibly rude that she couldn't feel legitimately sorry for something that was clearly her fault. Cuz the good lord KNOWS I love to be at a bar drenched in beer, like a drunken idiot. I didn't want another beer or even a change of shirt or pants: I just wanted a goddamn sincere apology. Instead, I got up, paid my tab, and left without saying a word.
That was a bad way to start the summer. Very bad. My friend Iris has her own theories on what happened and why, but she had already left before my rude friend started flailing her arms around like a crazy person, punching people at random. She punched me in my throat earlier in the evening, but I let that one slide. For someone who practically begged me to be a nice person towards her, she really doesn't get that's a two-way street. Nobody should ever mistake my kindness for weakness because I don't tolerate disrepsect.
At least I had the chance to do a good deed before the beer-spill occurred. The flaming asshole of an ex-boyfriend of a dear friend of mine showed up at the bar... ...escorting everyone's favorite bartender to the threshold of 283. When he saw me, he took off, and with good reason. Ya see, his line of bullshit is pretty simple to explain: he's the reformed bad guy. He was addicted to heroine, bad experiences, blah blah blah. So when he meets a woman, he dumps all of his rotten life on her, tells her that he's turning a corner, and she falls for it hook-line-and-sinker. My dear-sweet friend fell for it. And so did! When he started dating her, I thought he was perfect for her. They eventually moved in and lived together for almost a solid year... ...before he started cheating on her. Sadly, he wasn't exactly James Bond about it. He left his email client open on his computer, so when she sat down to print a school paper, she found all their naughty little correspondences.
She was betrayed and devestated and it absolutely killed me. Because if you know this special dear friend of mine, you couldn't FATHOM anyone hurting her. If that wasn't bad enough, after she moved out and started couch surfing to find a new place to live, he wouldn't leave her alone. He did everything he could to torture her emotionally. He'd call her up and tell her to go buy him TOILET PAPER because he was out. And he was once downtown with his NEW SLUT, spots my friend, and decides to invite himself AND THE SLUT to join her. No shit. Who in their right mind does that? Who thinks it is OK to do that????
My friend had to make me promise I'd never hunt him down and break every bone in his body. That doesn't mean I'll let him carry around town like he did nothing wrong. And I'm certainly not going to sit by apathetically and let him do it to someone else. I was up in the air about whether or not I should go say something to the bartender, Rachel, until I had a conversation with a new buddy named Matt who frequents 283. He said she's been a part of that place for years and years, and that he didn't want to see her get hurt by some DICK in sheep's clothing.
So Matt and I went inside, ordered another couple of drinks, and spoke to Rachel. I left out a lot of the nasty details because I didn't want to start shouting. Matt laid the groundwork for what I had to say and I laid it out on the table for her. She seemed not too upset, and according to her she'd only been seeing him for a few weeks, but Matt said she was hiding it fairly well.
The good news is that she confronted him about it that night, probably after I had beer spilled all over me. The HILARIOUS news is that the dickless son of a bitch actually sent me an IM telling me to mind my own business. I didn't miss a beat: I told him I'll discuss this with him in person anytime he wants to. That chilled him out pretty quickly. I wish I still had the conversation to cut and paste here, so I can preserve it for posterity. "See kids? This is how a coward flounders when he's shitting his pants!" To be pefectly frank, I'd LOVE IT if he wasn't such a pussy. Cuz if he took a swing at me, I'd rellish the chance to beat the living shit out of him.
Oh if only. But he's only got the half-testicle necessary to take out his frustrations on women. So I left him with a warning (without directly threatening him) that he better not take out his anger on my friend, lest I "make the time" to come see him to "discuss" it with him. And he for damn sure better stay away from her or else. The most hilarious part was how he ended it. He's got such a self-endulged romantic image of himself that he said he owes lots of people "time and apologies" and I'm not one of them. Like I ever asked him for an apology! I told him to kiss my ass and to leave my friend alone. Nothing in there about an apology.
These stream-of-consciousness entries are so bizarre. I talked about dreams, cats, friends, school, motorcycles, and a real bastard. It's been a while since I put in an update. I guess I just had a lot I wanted to get down. OH WELL!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
How can I eat cookies when Historical Linguistics ESCAPES ME???
As is my fate, I am awake working. I miss the days when I'd be awake watching movies. But I've resolved myself to work towards a goal. Passing. Ha!
The problem is that historical linguistics seems to be a collection of pseudo-interesting facts about the progression of language ALL OVER the friggin planet as best scholars can reason from any and all texts they can get their hands on spanning the last two thousand years. As is with anything that is interesting to hear about, but ultimately NOT my field of research, the small details like what happened to a small set of Finnish verbs 400 years ago, I'M NOT GOING TO REMEMBER THEM.
I've been laboring on condensing all of my lecture notes into a study guide that is ALMOST finished. I keep combing over my notes finding things that I *might* be tested on (which means I indeed WILL be tested on it) and thus adding it into the guide. Dr. Klein is a very nice man. I like him. But he is old-old school, which means he's not against giving a five hour exam covering everything he ever said... ...and putting notes up online is a hell-worthy trespass.
The kicker is that I have three finals within the same 30-hour time span, but Historical is the only one I can think about.
What gets me is that when I'm sitting on my porch swing enjoying the cool night breeze, I can think of all kinds of really cool ideas of things I'd love to build. I thought of a system to ontologically perceive and represent objects. I thought of a way to use a camera and three lazer pointers to make a robot create 3D maps of its environment. I thought out how to go about writing a probram that will take a sample of speech representative of a person's pronunciation of all phonemes, transitions from consonants to vowels and vice versa, and be able to recognize and perhaps synthesize their speech (minus tone). I dream about how to make an autonomous motocycle to compete in the DARPA challenge. I certainly couldn't give two shits about diachronic sound change that took place between the 1300s and 1400s when there WERE NO TAPE RECORDERS.
I care about to-date study of language variations of the english language by region! THAT is relevent to natural language perception and understanding. We won't very well get a robot to pass the Turing Test if the damn thing is constantly asking people from Boston to speak more clearly. That's why I dig accoustic phonetics and sociolinguistics. That's why I care about neuro-symbolic systems representing fuzzy syntax rules!
Quite frankly, I'm more fascinated by trying to figure out what sort of accent Wacko Warner had. He sounds like an Australian John Lenon had a child with a South African Nicole Kidman.
This only comes to mind because my Animaniacs download finished the other day, and I watched the first couple episodes.
At the very least, I'm getting my bike back tomorrow. New rear tire, new front break pads, repared coolant line, and a HOPEFULLY patched fuel leak. Three weeks ago, I would have been detonated had someone flicked a cigarette at me. I truly love my motorcycle, but it seems like it's always got something wrong with it. So I've resolved to get myself a new bike if I get into a really good school. A little graduation present to myself.
If I go Ivey League, I'll definitely go with the Harley Davidson VRSC Night Rod. And yes, I know how fallic that sounds, but the bike is so pretty. So that's something to work towards. Pricey, yes. But it's certainly not the motorcycle of a Dentist-wannabe-biker. I wouldn't go Harley to act like an extra in Wild Hogs. The engine was built in a joint effort by HD and BMW. And it's got some power to it. Vroom. If the economy bounces back and my investment has a good swelling over the next year or so, then I won't sweat the price.
I'm still nervous about PhD applications. I have to double-check to make sure the classes I need to graduate are going to be OFFERED in the next year. I'd hate to go through the motions of applying, interviews, rejection, and acceptance to have to defer my admission by a year.
The prospect of packing up and leaving Athens is both exciting and frightening. I saw leaving Gainesville and coming to Athens as a wonderful clean slate, and I was sure I'd do it RIGHT this time around. And it seems while I was resolved to only associate socially with folks in my own department, everything was balloons and happy faces. Only when I branched out did things go awry. Not fully. A solid 90% of the people I've met here have been cool. But that other 10% have been a bunch of miserable individuals I'll be glad to be rid of.
First rule: no roommates this time around. I've had some really good roommates, a couple in particular were excellent. But the others, historically, have been a pain in the ass and more trouble than they're worth. I'll do what I just did. I'll find a small house out of the way and only worry about the commute.
Second rule: beware of women... ...in general. I just revised that last sentence eight times. Beware women who LIE. Beware women who cheat. Beware women who collect ex-boyfriends. Beware women with daddy issues. Beware women who clearly suffer mental illness. Beware women who don't communicate. Beware women with no intellectual pursuits of ANY kind. Beware women who are too happy. Beware women who are too sad. Beware women who are spoiled. Beware women who treat men like a change of socks. Beware women who... ah hell. JUST BEWARE.
Third rule: establish a routine early, and stick to it. Examine all deviations as an afront to my work, my school, my health, and my sanity before breaking the routine. With a routine, things never get out of control. Things might get tight. Things might get stressful. But things will never get out of control.
Fourth rule: keep in touch with old friends, but deliberately lose touch with the ones who cause too much grief. Allow for new friends by granting a baseline of unconditional respect, but real trust is something that must be earned, not assumed or dictated. Be cautious of people who declare themselves both honest and trustworthy. Such a person will, undoubtedly, lie to and betray me. Be open to the concept of second chances, but don't shell them out like a handful of skittles from a gumball machine. Issue second chances like a socialist: only one per person.
Fifth rule: It's my PhD. Never volunteer. Time will be precious. Be more selfish than ever. Just because I can do someone a favor doesn't mean I have to do them a favor. Work very hard, and allow every other Saturday as a personal day to do nothing but fun stuff. Movie marathons, the firing range, long motorcycle rides, pleasure reading, experimental cooking, small gatherings of friends for hookah and games. The other 13 days are for school and work, so I must use them wisely.
I think those are pretty good standard operating procedures. If I can follow them, I think I can be happy and still succeed at school and work. I just gotta make sure I set it up properly the first time around. Shop around thoroughly for a place to live and work out a budget that I can stick to. Like I said, it's my PhD. It's the last leg of my education. No more screwing around. No more MOVING every year. No more drama from "friends" and girlfriends.
Anything that messes with my life will be met with cold, merciless, precise action.
The problem is that historical linguistics seems to be a collection of pseudo-interesting facts about the progression of language ALL OVER the friggin planet as best scholars can reason from any and all texts they can get their hands on spanning the last two thousand years. As is with anything that is interesting to hear about, but ultimately NOT my field of research, the small details like what happened to a small set of Finnish verbs 400 years ago, I'M NOT GOING TO REMEMBER THEM.
I've been laboring on condensing all of my lecture notes into a study guide that is ALMOST finished. I keep combing over my notes finding things that I *might* be tested on (which means I indeed WILL be tested on it) and thus adding it into the guide. Dr. Klein is a very nice man. I like him. But he is old-old school, which means he's not against giving a five hour exam covering everything he ever said... ...and putting notes up online is a hell-worthy trespass.
The kicker is that I have three finals within the same 30-hour time span, but Historical is the only one I can think about.
What gets me is that when I'm sitting on my porch swing enjoying the cool night breeze, I can think of all kinds of really cool ideas of things I'd love to build. I thought of a system to ontologically perceive and represent objects. I thought of a way to use a camera and three lazer pointers to make a robot create 3D maps of its environment. I thought out how to go about writing a probram that will take a sample of speech representative of a person's pronunciation of all phonemes, transitions from consonants to vowels and vice versa, and be able to recognize and perhaps synthesize their speech (minus tone). I dream about how to make an autonomous motocycle to compete in the DARPA challenge. I certainly couldn't give two shits about diachronic sound change that took place between the 1300s and 1400s when there WERE NO TAPE RECORDERS.
I care about to-date study of language variations of the english language by region! THAT is relevent to natural language perception and understanding. We won't very well get a robot to pass the Turing Test if the damn thing is constantly asking people from Boston to speak more clearly. That's why I dig accoustic phonetics and sociolinguistics. That's why I care about neuro-symbolic systems representing fuzzy syntax rules!
Quite frankly, I'm more fascinated by trying to figure out what sort of accent Wacko Warner had. He sounds like an Australian John Lenon had a child with a South African Nicole Kidman.
This only comes to mind because my Animaniacs download finished the other day, and I watched the first couple episodes.
At the very least, I'm getting my bike back tomorrow. New rear tire, new front break pads, repared coolant line, and a HOPEFULLY patched fuel leak. Three weeks ago, I would have been detonated had someone flicked a cigarette at me. I truly love my motorcycle, but it seems like it's always got something wrong with it. So I've resolved to get myself a new bike if I get into a really good school. A little graduation present to myself.
If I go Ivey League, I'll definitely go with the Harley Davidson VRSC Night Rod. And yes, I know how fallic that sounds, but the bike is so pretty. So that's something to work towards. Pricey, yes. But it's certainly not the motorcycle of a Dentist-wannabe-biker. I wouldn't go Harley to act like an extra in Wild Hogs. The engine was built in a joint effort by HD and BMW. And it's got some power to it. Vroom. If the economy bounces back and my investment has a good swelling over the next year or so, then I won't sweat the price.
I'm still nervous about PhD applications. I have to double-check to make sure the classes I need to graduate are going to be OFFERED in the next year. I'd hate to go through the motions of applying, interviews, rejection, and acceptance to have to defer my admission by a year.
The prospect of packing up and leaving Athens is both exciting and frightening. I saw leaving Gainesville and coming to Athens as a wonderful clean slate, and I was sure I'd do it RIGHT this time around. And it seems while I was resolved to only associate socially with folks in my own department, everything was balloons and happy faces. Only when I branched out did things go awry. Not fully. A solid 90% of the people I've met here have been cool. But that other 10% have been a bunch of miserable individuals I'll be glad to be rid of.
First rule: no roommates this time around. I've had some really good roommates, a couple in particular were excellent. But the others, historically, have been a pain in the ass and more trouble than they're worth. I'll do what I just did. I'll find a small house out of the way and only worry about the commute.
Second rule: beware of women... ...in general. I just revised that last sentence eight times. Beware women who LIE. Beware women who cheat. Beware women who collect ex-boyfriends. Beware women with daddy issues. Beware women who clearly suffer mental illness. Beware women who don't communicate. Beware women with no intellectual pursuits of ANY kind. Beware women who are too happy. Beware women who are too sad. Beware women who are spoiled. Beware women who treat men like a change of socks. Beware women who... ah hell. JUST BEWARE.
Third rule: establish a routine early, and stick to it. Examine all deviations as an afront to my work, my school, my health, and my sanity before breaking the routine. With a routine, things never get out of control. Things might get tight. Things might get stressful. But things will never get out of control.
Fourth rule: keep in touch with old friends, but deliberately lose touch with the ones who cause too much grief. Allow for new friends by granting a baseline of unconditional respect, but real trust is something that must be earned, not assumed or dictated. Be cautious of people who declare themselves both honest and trustworthy. Such a person will, undoubtedly, lie to and betray me. Be open to the concept of second chances, but don't shell them out like a handful of skittles from a gumball machine. Issue second chances like a socialist: only one per person.
Fifth rule: It's my PhD. Never volunteer. Time will be precious. Be more selfish than ever. Just because I can do someone a favor doesn't mean I have to do them a favor. Work very hard, and allow every other Saturday as a personal day to do nothing but fun stuff. Movie marathons, the firing range, long motorcycle rides, pleasure reading, experimental cooking, small gatherings of friends for hookah and games. The other 13 days are for school and work, so I must use them wisely.
I think those are pretty good standard operating procedures. If I can follow them, I think I can be happy and still succeed at school and work. I just gotta make sure I set it up properly the first time around. Shop around thoroughly for a place to live and work out a budget that I can stick to. Like I said, it's my PhD. It's the last leg of my education. No more screwing around. No more MOVING every year. No more drama from "friends" and girlfriends.
Anything that messes with my life will be met with cold, merciless, precise action.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Cider is just applejuice flavored beer
I had a double-sized black russian on the rocks with an empty stomach (count those prepositions) and I'm hammered. Geez.
It saddens me that my darling little kitten is not the most "social" of animals. I took her over to Iris's place tonight and she would have killed either of the cats there had they gotten within five feet of her. She hid behind the couch hissing like it was her JOB. She eventually relaxed enough to sit with me on the couch as I read one of Iris's many many sex books, but she wasn't having anything of the other two kitty-katz there.
She was hostile.
I wish she was more social, but it may just take some getting used to. I spoil her rotten and lavish her with attention; human attention. Other cats, obviously, freak her out. Sad day.
I say X-Men this afternoon, and I must say that it was one silly good movie. Well cast, good acting, but a much more shallow plot and the action scenes didn't give me any goosebumps, but it was still entertaining. It isn't any fault of the actors or producers. We can watch Heroes on Monday nights to see super powers in affect: we need not shell out $8 for a movie ticket to see it... ...with less character development. If they give the Cheerleader adamantium claws, Marvel Comics might as well pack it in.
Did I mention that I had one drink on an empty stomach? I'm buzzed like crazy.
I'm sure that not eating or sleeping well this week has a lot to do with it.
I'd like to share with the void my fan-state of a phenomenon called "Riff Trax" where you buy an mp3 you play along with a movie.... ...the mp3 is a few really funny guys mocking the movie you're watching. I'm currently riffing Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and I'm trying to not pee as I laugh so hard.
If I was smart, I'd throw a Riff Trax party, because I've got the riff mp3's for roughly 10 movies. They're hilarious.
As mentioned above, I was left reading sex books in Iris's house while my little kitten Sabrina threatened boys. It brought to sharp relief that I'd like another girlfriend. It wasn't a self-help book or a volume for over the hill who need to make up for the shortcomings of their 20s. It was informitive. It talked about the emotional aspects. I'd like to think about such topics as MORE THAN an mere hypothetical.
So here's a few requests to the universe:
1. Teach my cat how to be nice to other cats.
2. Let me lose 10 lbs.... tee hee hee
3. Send me a woman I can talk to... ...and do OTHER stuff with as well. tee hee hee
It saddens me that my darling little kitten is not the most "social" of animals. I took her over to Iris's place tonight and she would have killed either of the cats there had they gotten within five feet of her. She hid behind the couch hissing like it was her JOB. She eventually relaxed enough to sit with me on the couch as I read one of Iris's many many sex books, but she wasn't having anything of the other two kitty-katz there.
She was hostile.
I wish she was more social, but it may just take some getting used to. I spoil her rotten and lavish her with attention; human attention. Other cats, obviously, freak her out. Sad day.
I say X-Men this afternoon, and I must say that it was one silly good movie. Well cast, good acting, but a much more shallow plot and the action scenes didn't give me any goosebumps, but it was still entertaining. It isn't any fault of the actors or producers. We can watch Heroes on Monday nights to see super powers in affect: we need not shell out $8 for a movie ticket to see it... ...with less character development. If they give the Cheerleader adamantium claws, Marvel Comics might as well pack it in.
Did I mention that I had one drink on an empty stomach? I'm buzzed like crazy.
I'm sure that not eating or sleeping well this week has a lot to do with it.
I'd like to share with the void my fan-state of a phenomenon called "Riff Trax" where you buy an mp3 you play along with a movie.... ...the mp3 is a few really funny guys mocking the movie you're watching. I'm currently riffing Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and I'm trying to not pee as I laugh so hard.
If I was smart, I'd throw a Riff Trax party, because I've got the riff mp3's for roughly 10 movies. They're hilarious.
As mentioned above, I was left reading sex books in Iris's house while my little kitten Sabrina threatened boys. It brought to sharp relief that I'd like another girlfriend. It wasn't a self-help book or a volume for over the hill who need to make up for the shortcomings of their 20s. It was informitive. It talked about the emotional aspects. I'd like to think about such topics as MORE THAN an mere hypothetical.
So here's a few requests to the universe:
1. Teach my cat how to be nice to other cats.
2. Let me lose 10 lbs.... tee hee hee
3. Send me a woman I can talk to... ...and do OTHER stuff with as well. tee hee hee
Friday, May 1, 2009
Just what DO you do with a drunken sailor earl-ay in the mornin?
First off, tonight was a failure of epic proportions. I bought myself a ticket to the midnight showing of X-Men this afternoon intending to meet up with some old friends for the movie... ...and I fell asleep.
To be fair, it's been a rough few days. Phonetics project, take-home exam, Stats final, and a Historical Paper that I really didn't want to write. Now I have six free days to study and prepare for three finals on Thursday and Friday of next week. It's on like Donkey Kong.
Sleep is obviously for the weak, so my fail was that much worse. I was really looking forward to it, too.
At least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be good. I'm kittin-sittin for Iris and Lyndsay while they retreat into the woods for a few days. I'll get the details when they get back. They have two little cats named Daniel and Levy. I'm going to take this chance to socialize my darling little princess, Sabrina. I don't know if she'll get along with other cats. She's an only child after all, and that tends to spoil some kids.
We'll see if she gets along with them or not tomorrow night. I have a few errands to run tomorrow morning (and a friggin movie to see, damn it) and then I'm going to pack her up in her lovely little cat-bag-carrier-thingy and take her on over to Iris's place. Then I'll let her meet the boys. She's not destructive, so I'm not concerned about personal property damage, but I remember sometimes when she'd be "in a mood" and totally PWN that dog we used to live with. Cuz she's not declawed. My older sister told me how inhumane it is. I can think of more than a few people whose finger tips I'd clip off before I'd do it to an animal.
So that's how it is. That's how it's gonna be. Then the summer will arrive, and I can see if my lofty goals for exercise will actually melt the lovehandles from my waistline. The preferable state would be that I get back into the groove I once had, loose 10 bad pounds, gain 1o good pounds. That would be ideal, but I haven't fully thought through what my work schedule is going to be like for the summer.
Tomorrow morning, I'll go see a movie, pay my rent, tell my property manager that my AC is out of freon, and check on my motorcycle. Last time I called, they said "it wasn't ready yet" and I left it at that. It certainly DID need a lot of work, but they've had it for two weeks now. I want it back already. I've missed all the really mild temps and LIGHT pollen days that are ideal for riding. From here on out, it's going to be sunny, muggy, and miserable. Not to mention the fact that I hate having to drive the Tahoe to school and fight for parking.
To end on a happy note, as always, I'm constantly in awe of and impressed by my bandwidth here at the house. No joke, I think I've downloaded well over a terabyte of new shit since I moved in back in January. I have all the Star Treks. ALL OF THEM. More movies than I can count; it's gotta be over 800 since the Jackie Chan collection (57 movies) finished. And I am pretty sure I've got every cartoon series I ever watched as a child. The Smurs, The Snorks, and even SPONGEBOB will finish in a week. I'm even moving up to getting Threes Company and Saved By The Bell.
All of this is of course backed up to the six 1TB drives I keep inside my firesafe. So even if disaster strikes, I can keep these shows forever for WHENEVER I get the time to watch them. Most of them are poor quality TV-rips, but that doesn't bother me. Someday, the fancy will strike, the time will be there, and I'll be compelled to watch all the episodes of The Real Ghostbusters or Rescue Rangers and nothing will stop me. Sweet huh?
To be fair, it's been a rough few days. Phonetics project, take-home exam, Stats final, and a Historical Paper that I really didn't want to write. Now I have six free days to study and prepare for three finals on Thursday and Friday of next week. It's on like Donkey Kong.
Sleep is obviously for the weak, so my fail was that much worse. I was really looking forward to it, too.
At least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be good. I'm kittin-sittin for Iris and Lyndsay while they retreat into the woods for a few days. I'll get the details when they get back. They have two little cats named Daniel and Levy. I'm going to take this chance to socialize my darling little princess, Sabrina. I don't know if she'll get along with other cats. She's an only child after all, and that tends to spoil some kids.
We'll see if she gets along with them or not tomorrow night. I have a few errands to run tomorrow morning (and a friggin movie to see, damn it) and then I'm going to pack her up in her lovely little cat-bag-carrier-thingy and take her on over to Iris's place. Then I'll let her meet the boys. She's not destructive, so I'm not concerned about personal property damage, but I remember sometimes when she'd be "in a mood" and totally PWN that dog we used to live with. Cuz she's not declawed. My older sister told me how inhumane it is. I can think of more than a few people whose finger tips I'd clip off before I'd do it to an animal.
So that's how it is. That's how it's gonna be. Then the summer will arrive, and I can see if my lofty goals for exercise will actually melt the lovehandles from my waistline. The preferable state would be that I get back into the groove I once had, loose 10 bad pounds, gain 1o good pounds. That would be ideal, but I haven't fully thought through what my work schedule is going to be like for the summer.
Tomorrow morning, I'll go see a movie, pay my rent, tell my property manager that my AC is out of freon, and check on my motorcycle. Last time I called, they said "it wasn't ready yet" and I left it at that. It certainly DID need a lot of work, but they've had it for two weeks now. I want it back already. I've missed all the really mild temps and LIGHT pollen days that are ideal for riding. From here on out, it's going to be sunny, muggy, and miserable. Not to mention the fact that I hate having to drive the Tahoe to school and fight for parking.
To end on a happy note, as always, I'm constantly in awe of and impressed by my bandwidth here at the house. No joke, I think I've downloaded well over a terabyte of new shit since I moved in back in January. I have all the Star Treks. ALL OF THEM. More movies than I can count; it's gotta be over 800 since the Jackie Chan collection (57 movies) finished. And I am pretty sure I've got every cartoon series I ever watched as a child. The Smurs, The Snorks, and even SPONGEBOB will finish in a week. I'm even moving up to getting Threes Company and Saved By The Bell.
All of this is of course backed up to the six 1TB drives I keep inside my firesafe. So even if disaster strikes, I can keep these shows forever for WHENEVER I get the time to watch them. Most of them are poor quality TV-rips, but that doesn't bother me. Someday, the fancy will strike, the time will be there, and I'll be compelled to watch all the episodes of The Real Ghostbusters or Rescue Rangers and nothing will stop me. Sweet huh?
Friday, April 24, 2009
The year in reflection
Two years ago I was hit by a truck and my life changed. The first year was all about pain: learning to manage it, expecting it, dealing with it day to day. This past year was an attempt to not be about pain anymore and I met with both success and failure. There were mitigating circumstances stemming from the most basic tenet of the human condition, which is that people suck.
Today I almost lost my temper at someone young and naive but caught my wits before I made an ass of myself and a stain out of them. A kid, just a 20 year old child, thought that it was Ok to poke fun at me. I kept composure and played it off. After all, he's just a simple, 20 year-old gay boy. As I recall, most of the gay friends I had when I was 20 were too consumed with themselves to watch their mouths. I remember my friend Micheal made the mistake of mocking Jon Ritter the day he died. I got angry then, and he realized his mistake.
The past two years, from then until now, have been a long and tedious process. My friends now have no idea the kind of monster I used to be. I was working two jobs, taking 16 hours of grad classes a semester, running off of gasoline and adrenaline. In a single week, I wrote over 70 pages of lab reports with illustrations, wrote a 25 page philosophy paper (that I got an A on), drove SOUTH of Miami to pick up my motorcycle, spent 18 hours to-in-and-from my motorcycle course, went to GA Tech for a robotics think-tank with Microsoft, and caught my flight to Alaska to visit my parents. I slept, maybe 15-20 hours total that week, but I got it done, and I got FIVE A's that semester.
Less than four months later I was run down by a for F-150 and I went from 100mph to zero so fast that it didn't seem like reality. Friends vanished. I was immobile. My prognosis was "Let's hope you can walk without a cane." That's the short version. The long version was a $30,000 surgery, titanium, leg braces of all shapes and sizes, five months on crutches, and almost a solid year of physical therapy. I got my surgery, my bike was wrecked, I couldn't walk, I was peeing into empty orange juice jugs, constantly hungry and in pain, and it was a battle to survive just to get food or to make it to the bathroom every two or three days to clean up and resupply my meals, which were primarily cans of tuna and nutragrain bars.
That was how I spent the summer of 2007. Alone. Rehabilitating. So doped up on pain medication that I couldn't concentrate on any given task for more than 20 minutes.
Getting your knee pulverized is an interesting sensation, though. I must say. I'd never broken a bone before. Feeling bones knit back together was strange.
People were scared by my accident. It freaked them out. I made people uncomfortable. I was even asked to NOT go on a trip to Texas to visit a friend of mine. Funny how you become ostracized because your misfortune makes everyone else uncomfortable. That's probably why I bonded so much with the folks at my Physical Therapy clinic. They were used to seeing beaten up and injurred people. They still smiled when I came in. I can't even count the number of friends I lost when I had my accident. Maybe I can count the number of Facebook wall posts I got when it happened. Cuz YA. Those were reassuring.
Not all the blame was on others. I honestly don't think I wanted to be seen. I used to be the guy people called when a refrigerator needed to go up a flight of stairs. Not so much anymore with a lot of metal where all my cartelage used to be.
During my "bed rest" I lost about 25 lbs. I hadn't been down in the 170's since I was in highschool. The crutches did wonders for my triceps. And the story of "Ya, so I got run over by a truck when I was on my motorcycle" was pretty bad-ass. Then there was the $500,000 settlement my lawyer worked out for me. He took a third. I bought a new car. I built a disgustingly expensive computer. And I finally got a cat. I'd always wanted a cat.
Hell. I also got a girlfriend. My first real attempt at a meaningful relationship that would last longer than any other. I should have been more selective. Just because someone shows interest in you doesn't mean you should offer yourself up as everything she ever asked for. I was just trying to make it work. I wanted to be happy. But her motivations are now and forever will be unknown to me, and the only thing I am certain of is her selfishness. The worst thing I could have done was throw money at the problem by buying her whatever she wanted, but it didn't stop me.
I got up to use the bathroom just now and relinguish maybe 3 of the last 8 beers I've had. Yes, I've been drinking heavily. I wasn't sure if I've been drinking to enjoy tonight or to avoid NOT enjoying tonight. My reflection in the mirror is horrible. I need a shower, a shave, and a lot of sleep.
In the last year, I've lost a house, friends/roommates. I moved. I got robbed. I lost my girlfriend. Classes are a pain in the ass. I smile for people who condescend to me like I'm an idiot. I may not be the best linguist or be very well read, but at least I don't live in a paperbag world that one good storm could weaken and tear through. But hey, what can you do? We live in a society that breeds narcissism. EVERYONE is special, didn't you know that?
When I come home to my little white house and my little black cat and there's nothing but the humming of computer case fans and wind chimes on my porch, I know, in the deepest and darkest alleys of my mind that I ought not put on the show of a simplistic, square individual of basic drive and mannerisms. But I do so anyway because it's easier than operating at full capacity all day long. It's easier than calling people out for their idiocy, hypocricy, and inconsistent thoughts. What holds me back? What keeps me grounded? That's easy. I'm scared to death to think for a moment that I'm better than anyone else. I know without a doubt that I come off as very elitist and condescending if I'm just reacting. But I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be an asshole. I'm no better than anybody else.
I really do look horrible right now. My eyes are red as hell because my allergies are flairing and I haven't been sleeping. And my left eye has been twitching for a few weeks now. Don't know if that's stress or pollen.
I've got school bearing down on me like a freight train. Two of my suggested paper topics for Historical Linguistics were shot down. A topic was given to me, but it's going to end up being a paper on Language Variations, and not historical linguistics. Ask me about pidgeons and creoles having been taught by Dr. Kretzschmar? You may not like the answer, Dr. Klein.
My motorcycle is still in the shop. Fuel leak. Rear tire. Front break pads. Coolant line. They've had it for a week. I wish I could have had it to ride today of all days. Not like it mattered. I was beaten into an in-class presentation that I had to shave from 20 minutes to 15, skipping four important slides, which was directly followed by the frustration of not being able to add a computer to our lab workgroup and three hours of Historical Linguistics. My eyes were hurting as bad then as they do now.
Where do I go from here? The summer. A thesis. Another year. PhD applications. Putting myself out there, risking rejection. I need to publish more. Go to conferences. Complete the half-dozen side projects I've shelved. Study for my orals. Defend. Graduate. Move away. Start over. Me, a little black cat, and a big black motorcycle.
Sometimes I stop and look at my age and wonder why I never had fantasies of being a poet or a musician or a writer or SOMETHING other than a puzzle solver. Probably has a lot to do with the accolades I got when I was a kid and solved math problems faster than anyone else in my class. That kind of special acknowledgement, the gratification from teachers and classmates is hard to give up. It's addictive. Losing it sucks. Getting it back is alright, but being aware of it makes you think of what you missed out on.
I fear I've written a book in my drunken haze. I really ought to continue with my plan for the evening which was more beer and a couple Kevin Smith films, hopefully passing out somewhere in the middle of either Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back or Clerks II. Odds are I won't remember a lot of what I said here because judging by the sliver of a scroll bar I have there, I've said A LOT. I wonder how much of this I'll enjoy reading tomorrow and how much of it will make me depressed or mad or regret writing it at all. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
Today I almost lost my temper at someone young and naive but caught my wits before I made an ass of myself and a stain out of them. A kid, just a 20 year old child, thought that it was Ok to poke fun at me. I kept composure and played it off. After all, he's just a simple, 20 year-old gay boy. As I recall, most of the gay friends I had when I was 20 were too consumed with themselves to watch their mouths. I remember my friend Micheal made the mistake of mocking Jon Ritter the day he died. I got angry then, and he realized his mistake.
The past two years, from then until now, have been a long and tedious process. My friends now have no idea the kind of monster I used to be. I was working two jobs, taking 16 hours of grad classes a semester, running off of gasoline and adrenaline. In a single week, I wrote over 70 pages of lab reports with illustrations, wrote a 25 page philosophy paper (that I got an A on), drove SOUTH of Miami to pick up my motorcycle, spent 18 hours to-in-and-from my motorcycle course, went to GA Tech for a robotics think-tank with Microsoft, and caught my flight to Alaska to visit my parents. I slept, maybe 15-20 hours total that week, but I got it done, and I got FIVE A's that semester.
Less than four months later I was run down by a for F-150 and I went from 100mph to zero so fast that it didn't seem like reality. Friends vanished. I was immobile. My prognosis was "Let's hope you can walk without a cane." That's the short version. The long version was a $30,000 surgery, titanium, leg braces of all shapes and sizes, five months on crutches, and almost a solid year of physical therapy. I got my surgery, my bike was wrecked, I couldn't walk, I was peeing into empty orange juice jugs, constantly hungry and in pain, and it was a battle to survive just to get food or to make it to the bathroom every two or three days to clean up and resupply my meals, which were primarily cans of tuna and nutragrain bars.
That was how I spent the summer of 2007. Alone. Rehabilitating. So doped up on pain medication that I couldn't concentrate on any given task for more than 20 minutes.
Getting your knee pulverized is an interesting sensation, though. I must say. I'd never broken a bone before. Feeling bones knit back together was strange.
People were scared by my accident. It freaked them out. I made people uncomfortable. I was even asked to NOT go on a trip to Texas to visit a friend of mine. Funny how you become ostracized because your misfortune makes everyone else uncomfortable. That's probably why I bonded so much with the folks at my Physical Therapy clinic. They were used to seeing beaten up and injurred people. They still smiled when I came in. I can't even count the number of friends I lost when I had my accident. Maybe I can count the number of Facebook wall posts I got when it happened. Cuz YA. Those were reassuring.
Not all the blame was on others. I honestly don't think I wanted to be seen. I used to be the guy people called when a refrigerator needed to go up a flight of stairs. Not so much anymore with a lot of metal where all my cartelage used to be.
During my "bed rest" I lost about 25 lbs. I hadn't been down in the 170's since I was in highschool. The crutches did wonders for my triceps. And the story of "Ya, so I got run over by a truck when I was on my motorcycle" was pretty bad-ass. Then there was the $500,000 settlement my lawyer worked out for me. He took a third. I bought a new car. I built a disgustingly expensive computer. And I finally got a cat. I'd always wanted a cat.
Hell. I also got a girlfriend. My first real attempt at a meaningful relationship that would last longer than any other. I should have been more selective. Just because someone shows interest in you doesn't mean you should offer yourself up as everything she ever asked for. I was just trying to make it work. I wanted to be happy. But her motivations are now and forever will be unknown to me, and the only thing I am certain of is her selfishness. The worst thing I could have done was throw money at the problem by buying her whatever she wanted, but it didn't stop me.
I got up to use the bathroom just now and relinguish maybe 3 of the last 8 beers I've had. Yes, I've been drinking heavily. I wasn't sure if I've been drinking to enjoy tonight or to avoid NOT enjoying tonight. My reflection in the mirror is horrible. I need a shower, a shave, and a lot of sleep.
In the last year, I've lost a house, friends/roommates. I moved. I got robbed. I lost my girlfriend. Classes are a pain in the ass. I smile for people who condescend to me like I'm an idiot. I may not be the best linguist or be very well read, but at least I don't live in a paperbag world that one good storm could weaken and tear through. But hey, what can you do? We live in a society that breeds narcissism. EVERYONE is special, didn't you know that?
When I come home to my little white house and my little black cat and there's nothing but the humming of computer case fans and wind chimes on my porch, I know, in the deepest and darkest alleys of my mind that I ought not put on the show of a simplistic, square individual of basic drive and mannerisms. But I do so anyway because it's easier than operating at full capacity all day long. It's easier than calling people out for their idiocy, hypocricy, and inconsistent thoughts. What holds me back? What keeps me grounded? That's easy. I'm scared to death to think for a moment that I'm better than anyone else. I know without a doubt that I come off as very elitist and condescending if I'm just reacting. But I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be an asshole. I'm no better than anybody else.
I really do look horrible right now. My eyes are red as hell because my allergies are flairing and I haven't been sleeping. And my left eye has been twitching for a few weeks now. Don't know if that's stress or pollen.
I've got school bearing down on me like a freight train. Two of my suggested paper topics for Historical Linguistics were shot down. A topic was given to me, but it's going to end up being a paper on Language Variations, and not historical linguistics. Ask me about pidgeons and creoles having been taught by Dr. Kretzschmar? You may not like the answer, Dr. Klein.
My motorcycle is still in the shop. Fuel leak. Rear tire. Front break pads. Coolant line. They've had it for a week. I wish I could have had it to ride today of all days. Not like it mattered. I was beaten into an in-class presentation that I had to shave from 20 minutes to 15, skipping four important slides, which was directly followed by the frustration of not being able to add a computer to our lab workgroup and three hours of Historical Linguistics. My eyes were hurting as bad then as they do now.
Where do I go from here? The summer. A thesis. Another year. PhD applications. Putting myself out there, risking rejection. I need to publish more. Go to conferences. Complete the half-dozen side projects I've shelved. Study for my orals. Defend. Graduate. Move away. Start over. Me, a little black cat, and a big black motorcycle.
Sometimes I stop and look at my age and wonder why I never had fantasies of being a poet or a musician or a writer or SOMETHING other than a puzzle solver. Probably has a lot to do with the accolades I got when I was a kid and solved math problems faster than anyone else in my class. That kind of special acknowledgement, the gratification from teachers and classmates is hard to give up. It's addictive. Losing it sucks. Getting it back is alright, but being aware of it makes you think of what you missed out on.
I fear I've written a book in my drunken haze. I really ought to continue with my plan for the evening which was more beer and a couple Kevin Smith films, hopefully passing out somewhere in the middle of either Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back or Clerks II. Odds are I won't remember a lot of what I said here because judging by the sliver of a scroll bar I have there, I've said A LOT. I wonder how much of this I'll enjoy reading tomorrow and how much of it will make me depressed or mad or regret writing it at all. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Mood Swings and Bad Temperment
It probably has a LOT to do with the fact that I'm cycling back onto the pills for my knee that are supposed to increase the amount of growth horomone my pituitary gland produces (thus upping my testosterone...), but I've been progressively and consistently pissed off all day today. I haven't lashed out at anyone or anything, thankfully. But damn, I just feel like ripping the doors off a car.
All day long, anything small that would normally roll off has been getting under my skin. I had to circle for 45 minutes today looking for a parking spot to go to Phonetics, and every last spot was taken RIGHT in front of me... ...spots that I could have gotten myself if the people in front of me would get off the phone and drive, or if the pedestrians on campus would cross at crosswalks, and NOT when I have a green light and they have a red hand!!!
I barely got my stats homework completed and turned in. I completely missed the mark on the first question. But I corrected it before turning it in, as no one else seemed to attack it the right way either.
And to top it all off, tonight, after 5pm, when I FINALLY got to my lab to sit down and get some lab work and school work done.... ........the simplest task, literally the LAST thing I expected to go wrong suddenly went wrong. The LTO-4 tape drive that I finally got installed and working properly in a windows PC last week was refusing to eject the tape I inserted. I spent over two hours pushing the eject button, powering the computer on and off, pushing the eject button even MORE, and again and again mashing the eject button to no avail! I finally broke down, pulled out a screw driver and proceded to take the computer apart screw by screw. Funny thing was, as soon as the drive ITSELF was removed from the computer, I gave it power, and the tape ejected like there was never a problem. So via a dark ritual of selectively inserting and removing the mounting screws for the drive, I managed to put it BACK INSIDE the computer in such a way that it reads, writes, and YES ejects without trouble.
Do I understand why or how this problem even occurred? Do I understand why I even bothered to power it up after I removed it and hit eject once again? NO I DO NOT. I'm just slightly quelled from boiling over to just simmerring now that the damn thing is FIXED.
Seriously. All day long, in those "quiet moments" that I'm generally thinking about work or projects or thesis or papers or friends or WHATEVER normal things, all I have been able to think about were all the people I've ever known who had gone out of their way to ruin my happiness. Pathetic, worthless people. And all day long today, I thought that wherever they are, and whatever they're doing, I hope that they're miserable or dead. At one point I was hoping I'd be diagnosed with six months to live: I'd compile a list of people to go after for sweet REVENGE.
It's gotta be the growth horomone stimulators. I've been taking them again for two days and I'm raging like crazy. Then again, it HAS been a bad week. My motorcycle is in the shop because it had a bad gas leak, it needs and new rear tire, new front brake pads, and the coolant line was ripped out accidentally when the Cycle World guys were taking it off the trailor. They've only had it four days, so I'm trying to be patient.
Not having my biks is NOT helping my mood at all. The fact is that the ride to and from school and between classes is the closest thing I have to meditative Zen state. When I'm on my bike and going, I'm not thinking about anything but the road and the world around me. I have to stay perfectly focused so that if something bad happens or if someone does something stupid, then I can avoid it (if avoiding it is possible, of course). It centers me. I'm not angry. I'm not sad. I'm not even happy. I'm calm. I'm focused. Nothing else matters.
So the longer I go without that 20-30 minutes out of my day, the longer I can see me getting more and more pissed off. This must be what normal people feel like when they don't get enough sleep.
BAH!!!! I hate everything.
All day long, anything small that would normally roll off has been getting under my skin. I had to circle for 45 minutes today looking for a parking spot to go to Phonetics, and every last spot was taken RIGHT in front of me... ...spots that I could have gotten myself if the people in front of me would get off the phone and drive, or if the pedestrians on campus would cross at crosswalks, and NOT when I have a green light and they have a red hand!!!
I barely got my stats homework completed and turned in. I completely missed the mark on the first question. But I corrected it before turning it in, as no one else seemed to attack it the right way either.
And to top it all off, tonight, after 5pm, when I FINALLY got to my lab to sit down and get some lab work and school work done.... ........the simplest task, literally the LAST thing I expected to go wrong suddenly went wrong. The LTO-4 tape drive that I finally got installed and working properly in a windows PC last week was refusing to eject the tape I inserted. I spent over two hours pushing the eject button, powering the computer on and off, pushing the eject button even MORE, and again and again mashing the eject button to no avail! I finally broke down, pulled out a screw driver and proceded to take the computer apart screw by screw. Funny thing was, as soon as the drive ITSELF was removed from the computer, I gave it power, and the tape ejected like there was never a problem. So via a dark ritual of selectively inserting and removing the mounting screws for the drive, I managed to put it BACK INSIDE the computer in such a way that it reads, writes, and YES ejects without trouble.
Do I understand why or how this problem even occurred? Do I understand why I even bothered to power it up after I removed it and hit eject once again? NO I DO NOT. I'm just slightly quelled from boiling over to just simmerring now that the damn thing is FIXED.
Seriously. All day long, in those "quiet moments" that I'm generally thinking about work or projects or thesis or papers or friends or WHATEVER normal things, all I have been able to think about were all the people I've ever known who had gone out of their way to ruin my happiness. Pathetic, worthless people. And all day long today, I thought that wherever they are, and whatever they're doing, I hope that they're miserable or dead. At one point I was hoping I'd be diagnosed with six months to live: I'd compile a list of people to go after for sweet REVENGE.
It's gotta be the growth horomone stimulators. I've been taking them again for two days and I'm raging like crazy. Then again, it HAS been a bad week. My motorcycle is in the shop because it had a bad gas leak, it needs and new rear tire, new front brake pads, and the coolant line was ripped out accidentally when the Cycle World guys were taking it off the trailor. They've only had it four days, so I'm trying to be patient.
Not having my biks is NOT helping my mood at all. The fact is that the ride to and from school and between classes is the closest thing I have to meditative Zen state. When I'm on my bike and going, I'm not thinking about anything but the road and the world around me. I have to stay perfectly focused so that if something bad happens or if someone does something stupid, then I can avoid it (if avoiding it is possible, of course). It centers me. I'm not angry. I'm not sad. I'm not even happy. I'm calm. I'm focused. Nothing else matters.
So the longer I go without that 20-30 minutes out of my day, the longer I can see me getting more and more pissed off. This must be what normal people feel like when they don't get enough sleep.
BAH!!!! I hate everything.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Oh my, this was funny...
This is a facebook bumper sticker that I saw on my friend Mengles's ('s's's) profile. I'm not a fan of Twilight (books or movie). In fact, heart-throb highschool vampires is a pretty old premise dating back through Buffy and the Lost Boys. It's because so many take it so SERIOUSLY that I almost peed a little when I saw this sticker.
So of course, I sent it to as many people as I could think of who might appreciate a little thuggishness tacked onto their favorite pale-skinned star of the silver screen.
While I'm here, I might as well mention that the semester is coming to a fast close. So today, I'm going to clean my house particularly well... ...and watch it slowly get junked up again over the next few weeks as I'll be doing almost nothing but work until the close of the semester. There's a party tonight, but I put down "maybe" as an RSVP. I might get into some genius work groove. It's a birthday party for someone I don't know. I'm pals with his roommate, so my absence would go unmissed.
On a more somber note, I think I've gained an unhealthy five pounds. They must be destroyed.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Two Years Coming Up
April 23rd will be the two-year anniversary of my accident. Two years ago, I was hit by a Ford F-150 on my way to my 9am Psychology class on Riverbend Road. My knee was crushed between the truck and the gas tank of my motorcycle. My bike was totaled, and my knee was shattered. On April 25th, I underwent orthopedic surgery to put my leg back together, resulting in seven pins, a bar, and a plate of titanium.
I spent four weeks almost confined to the 10 foot distance between my bed and the bathroom. Then there were six months on crutches and almost a solid year of physical therapy. The prognosis is that I cannot run ever again unless the little bit of cartelage I have left wants to be ground up into dust. My leg gets stiff. I feel it when it gets cold and my bone constricts around the metal. On the better days, I don't feel *much* pain.
So in two weeks, I'm not sure if I want to have a party, go downtown, or stay home alone to get slowly and progressively drunk.
Last year on my first anniversary, I was forced to have a get-together. I did not enjoy myself at all. The whole ordeal, from start to finish, was very personal. I mean that in the strictest definition of 'personal'. Most of it, I'd say 90%, was me handling it alone. Truth be told, being forced to "party" last year was despicable. I resent the people who pretended I didn't exist while I was injurred and had the audacity to celebrate (in my own home) a year later.
The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards staying home and boozing. My birthday is Christmas Eve. I've never been able to celebrate THAT on my own terms. Sure, I was born on December 24th, but that day is more about my family and Christmas; always has been. My life was changed forever on April 23rd in a single instant. April 23rd is my day and no one else's.
So Ok. I think that settles that question. I have no intention of sharing April 23rd with anyone.
I spent four weeks almost confined to the 10 foot distance between my bed and the bathroom. Then there were six months on crutches and almost a solid year of physical therapy. The prognosis is that I cannot run ever again unless the little bit of cartelage I have left wants to be ground up into dust. My leg gets stiff. I feel it when it gets cold and my bone constricts around the metal. On the better days, I don't feel *much* pain.
So in two weeks, I'm not sure if I want to have a party, go downtown, or stay home alone to get slowly and progressively drunk.
Last year on my first anniversary, I was forced to have a get-together. I did not enjoy myself at all. The whole ordeal, from start to finish, was very personal. I mean that in the strictest definition of 'personal'. Most of it, I'd say 90%, was me handling it alone. Truth be told, being forced to "party" last year was despicable. I resent the people who pretended I didn't exist while I was injurred and had the audacity to celebrate (in my own home) a year later.
The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards staying home and boozing. My birthday is Christmas Eve. I've never been able to celebrate THAT on my own terms. Sure, I was born on December 24th, but that day is more about my family and Christmas; always has been. My life was changed forever on April 23rd in a single instant. April 23rd is my day and no one else's.
So Ok. I think that settles that question. I have no intention of sharing April 23rd with anyone.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Captain's Log, Star Date ... ...uhhh
These days my mad computer skillz are in high demand. I'm writing software for my old Neuroanatomy professor. I've been getting debugging emails from our friendly Finnish collaborators who are having some Java trouble. We're getting a new server at work. A friend of mine is getting blue-screens. Another friend wanted me to copy Buffy to an external HD for her. And the boy-toy of another friend of mine needs to rescue data from an alleged failed harddrive.
I'll do what I can when I can, folks. Take a number. Hehe.
I've recently realized that I enjoy the feeling of being needed. The irony is that when it gets inconvenient or too excessive, I feel put-out and imposed upon. And even more ironic is that when suddenly nobody needs me, I feel sad, lonely, and expendable. Like Rambo.
The trick is to find the healthy balance. In relationships past, I discovered that I did NOT strike a healthy balance. My guiding principle was that if you truly care about someone, you should give try to give them whatever they want. This is the road to ruin. By friends, best friends, and girlfriends, I was slowly taken advantage of and taken for granted, and summarily dismissed once my utility ran out. As I recall, the only girl that ever seemed to be OBSESSED with me is the one that I was rude towards so that she'd go away. Anytime someone wants to chime in with the explanation to that one, let me know.
I had a long talk with my friend Rob a little while ago about this. And even though he's quite a bit younger than I am, he figured out the secret of keeping the healthy balance long ago. So I'm trying to make it happen: my guiding principle in all things will be a healthy balance. Just because I CAN do something for someone doesn't mean I will.
In retrospect, even NOW, I have/had friends who I only see or hear from when they need something. It's not like my feelings are hurt. Like I said, feeling needed is a warm feeling, like I have purpose. Some of these people I miss seeing, so when the Bat-Signal goes up, I fall over myself to help them.
Eh. I can't deny that I'll leap at the chance to see a few, select persons if they ask me for help. There are a couple persons who, anytime I hear from them, the "Oh Goody!" light goes on in my brain. But beyond this fact, I no-kidding suspect that I just have issues saying NO to people. Not that I'm afraid to do so. It's not that I don't want to disappoint anyone. It's that when someone asks me for help, NO is not the first thing I think of: the first thing I do is start thinking of how I can go about getting it done, solving the problem, conquering the new exciting challenge.
I'm not like most guys like that, I guess. It's fairly masochistic. I just have to watch out that I don't spread myself too thin.
The more specific implication is that the next woman I get involved with is NOT going to be the center of my universe. Done that a few times. Not doing that again. Not going to be an asshole, but not going to White Knight it the whole time either. It's especially hard in a relationship. Probably because I feel like I should be doing MORE than what I'm doing to apologize for whatever it is that I'm doing wrong. Because I'm not evil, I'm just a little self-centered and oblivious at times.... ....translation: I can't read minds.
We'll just see. Dating will be casual if not non-existant for the duration of my stay here in Athens. Unless someone really special turns up, I do not expect to leave here with anyone except my little kitten.
I'll do what I can when I can, folks. Take a number. Hehe.
I've recently realized that I enjoy the feeling of being needed. The irony is that when it gets inconvenient or too excessive, I feel put-out and imposed upon. And even more ironic is that when suddenly nobody needs me, I feel sad, lonely, and expendable. Like Rambo.
The trick is to find the healthy balance. In relationships past, I discovered that I did NOT strike a healthy balance. My guiding principle was that if you truly care about someone, you should give try to give them whatever they want. This is the road to ruin. By friends, best friends, and girlfriends, I was slowly taken advantage of and taken for granted, and summarily dismissed once my utility ran out. As I recall, the only girl that ever seemed to be OBSESSED with me is the one that I was rude towards so that she'd go away. Anytime someone wants to chime in with the explanation to that one, let me know.
I had a long talk with my friend Rob a little while ago about this. And even though he's quite a bit younger than I am, he figured out the secret of keeping the healthy balance long ago. So I'm trying to make it happen: my guiding principle in all things will be a healthy balance. Just because I CAN do something for someone doesn't mean I will.
In retrospect, even NOW, I have/had friends who I only see or hear from when they need something. It's not like my feelings are hurt. Like I said, feeling needed is a warm feeling, like I have purpose. Some of these people I miss seeing, so when the Bat-Signal goes up, I fall over myself to help them.
Eh. I can't deny that I'll leap at the chance to see a few, select persons if they ask me for help. There are a couple persons who, anytime I hear from them, the "Oh Goody!" light goes on in my brain. But beyond this fact, I no-kidding suspect that I just have issues saying NO to people. Not that I'm afraid to do so. It's not that I don't want to disappoint anyone. It's that when someone asks me for help, NO is not the first thing I think of: the first thing I do is start thinking of how I can go about getting it done, solving the problem, conquering the new exciting challenge.
I'm not like most guys like that, I guess. It's fairly masochistic. I just have to watch out that I don't spread myself too thin.
The more specific implication is that the next woman I get involved with is NOT going to be the center of my universe. Done that a few times. Not doing that again. Not going to be an asshole, but not going to White Knight it the whole time either. It's especially hard in a relationship. Probably because I feel like I should be doing MORE than what I'm doing to apologize for whatever it is that I'm doing wrong. Because I'm not evil, I'm just a little self-centered and oblivious at times.... ....translation: I can't read minds.
We'll just see. Dating will be casual if not non-existant for the duration of my stay here in Athens. Unless someone really special turns up, I do not expect to leave here with anyone except my little kitten.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Study Break
In the simplest terms in the most convenient definitions of what we found out. That each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal.
Sincerely Yours,
The Breakfast Club
But seriously, folks. I'm happy to report that last Sunday I watched the final episode of Buffy. I wasn't disappointed. There were some deaths/survivals I may not agree with, and I wish Willow had a bigger part to play. However, I have to admit that of all the series finales I've seen, this was by far the most recent.
And to answer my own follow-up question, I have no desire to watch Angel. I've had my fill of the Buffyverse, and that was plenty fun by itself. No need for spin-off series or comic book continuations for me. Besides: I really don't like the actor who plays Angel.
I've been hanging out with George and Rob and Raheel a lot lately. Short spurts, mostly. I miss my grad student friends. Nobody tells obscene jokes like kids working for a PhD. I need to make a concerted effort to hang with my Ling and Psych friends more. I'm not being kept up to speed on who is hooking up with who and who we're mad at but still talking to anyway. The problem is that Psych Happy Hour is Thursdays when I have class, and Ling Happy Hour is Fridays when I'm generally exhausted and just want to go home.
Living alone again and being single again means I have a lot of time to myself. Time to myself means I lose track of the time easily. I find a project and dig into it and suddenly I don't know if I should be sleeping or going to class. This is bad, of course. This is also why I'm looking forward to the summer. If I can survive this semester, then I can concentrate on my AI thesis and study for my oral exams. After that, I can full-speed-ahead with my Linguistics degree and get my ducks in a row for PhD applications.
It's all pretty scary. Wherever I go for my PhD, it's going to be a new place, a new department, new faculty, and new friends. It'll be me and my little kitten venturing out into the unknown once again. Spring 2010 is when most decisions and offers will be made. That means, no doubt, that I shall spend at least 3 or 4 months facebook stalking people on my target campus. Fun, yes? Don't judge me!
My hope is that I'll be able to set myself up to live alone again, and this time, I'll start as fresh as possible. I'll be thrilled if I can find another little house, off the beaten path, for me and the Little Miss to live comfortably where the volume of my motorcycle will not disturb the neighbors. Setting up the house will be no problem, I'm certain. Years of moving from place to place have made me an expert in doing this. Socially, however, I just might be forgetting how to make new friends. I may turn into the ultimate loner. A rebel.
Who knows? I still have no idea where I'll be going. I'd be thrilled to get Colorado or Massachusettes or California, etc etc. I got the list widdled down to a whopping 15 target schools! I don't have a CLUE which ones (if any) will take little old me. Every single time I found a new program at another school, I'd look at the school facts, the student organization, and yes, of course, the ratio of guys to girls on campus. HEY. Come on. That stuff is important.
I'm a big fan of looking for houses and apartments online in the places I'd like to live, using Google Maps to estimate a morning commute from a house on the outskirts of town. I love to look at floor plans and imagine my furniture in there.
This is all moot if I don't get my shit done. We'll see how well I do this semester, then this Summer I'll try to put the last nails into my AI degree, and I'll go from there. We'll just see.
Sincerely Yours,
The Breakfast Club
But seriously, folks. I'm happy to report that last Sunday I watched the final episode of Buffy. I wasn't disappointed. There were some deaths/survivals I may not agree with, and I wish Willow had a bigger part to play. However, I have to admit that of all the series finales I've seen, this was by far the most recent.
And to answer my own follow-up question, I have no desire to watch Angel. I've had my fill of the Buffyverse, and that was plenty fun by itself. No need for spin-off series or comic book continuations for me. Besides: I really don't like the actor who plays Angel.
I've been hanging out with George and Rob and Raheel a lot lately. Short spurts, mostly. I miss my grad student friends. Nobody tells obscene jokes like kids working for a PhD. I need to make a concerted effort to hang with my Ling and Psych friends more. I'm not being kept up to speed on who is hooking up with who and who we're mad at but still talking to anyway. The problem is that Psych Happy Hour is Thursdays when I have class, and Ling Happy Hour is Fridays when I'm generally exhausted and just want to go home.
Living alone again and being single again means I have a lot of time to myself. Time to myself means I lose track of the time easily. I find a project and dig into it and suddenly I don't know if I should be sleeping or going to class. This is bad, of course. This is also why I'm looking forward to the summer. If I can survive this semester, then I can concentrate on my AI thesis and study for my oral exams. After that, I can full-speed-ahead with my Linguistics degree and get my ducks in a row for PhD applications.
It's all pretty scary. Wherever I go for my PhD, it's going to be a new place, a new department, new faculty, and new friends. It'll be me and my little kitten venturing out into the unknown once again. Spring 2010 is when most decisions and offers will be made. That means, no doubt, that I shall spend at least 3 or 4 months facebook stalking people on my target campus. Fun, yes? Don't judge me!
My hope is that I'll be able to set myself up to live alone again, and this time, I'll start as fresh as possible. I'll be thrilled if I can find another little house, off the beaten path, for me and the Little Miss to live comfortably where the volume of my motorcycle will not disturb the neighbors. Setting up the house will be no problem, I'm certain. Years of moving from place to place have made me an expert in doing this. Socially, however, I just might be forgetting how to make new friends. I may turn into the ultimate loner. A rebel.
Who knows? I still have no idea where I'll be going. I'd be thrilled to get Colorado or Massachusettes or California, etc etc. I got the list widdled down to a whopping 15 target schools! I don't have a CLUE which ones (if any) will take little old me. Every single time I found a new program at another school, I'd look at the school facts, the student organization, and yes, of course, the ratio of guys to girls on campus. HEY. Come on. That stuff is important.
I'm a big fan of looking for houses and apartments online in the places I'd like to live, using Google Maps to estimate a morning commute from a house on the outskirts of town. I love to look at floor plans and imagine my furniture in there.
This is all moot if I don't get my shit done. We'll see how well I do this semester, then this Summer I'll try to put the last nails into my AI degree, and I'll go from there. We'll just see.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Another Crazy-Ass Dream and Street Violence
Not even kidding. Last night I dreamt that I was on some sort of island full of folks that were trying to recolonize some abandoned island. And Jason was there. Jason from Friday the 13th. Hockey mask Jason. And I got to fight him! Not like hand-to-hand, but I used a rocket launcher to obliterate him.
I'm not shocked my dream was violent. I was downtown last night and as I was going home, I saw some sort of "business" happening a block up. I figured it was a bunch of guys being stupid, but I had no idea how stupid. By the time I got up there, 4 guys were running away after shouting "I just beat your ass so you better stay down". The guy on the ground who had obviously just been beat to a pulp was bleeding from his mouth and his eye. What amazed me is that this guy was no fighter: he was small, maybe 135 pounds, and not a fit 135. And I could see in his eyes that he didn't exactly have the eye of the eagle. This poor guy was jumped by 4 assholes who beat him senseless, probably for no good reason.
What bugs me was that there were no cops around. All the cops were probably set up to catch underage drinkers with fake IDs. I'm sure arresting sorostitutes is a profitable venture, but what happened to "Protect and Serve"? Odds are that a report will be filed, and even with descriptions, no arrests will be made. The cops in this town are good at one thing: paperwork.
In other news, I have tests coming up, a paper topic to figure out, a class presentation to plan out, and a friend in the Neuroscience lab needs some help with some software. I'll be a busy little bee for a couple weeks. That's why I'm glad I was able to relax last night, with the exception of the assault. We did a "family dinner" at Rob's house with Rob, George, Brittany, and Christine. I brought over homemade spaghetti sauce. There were appetizers, garlic bread, caesar salad, and mixed drinks. It was nice.
I'm not shocked my dream was violent. I was downtown last night and as I was going home, I saw some sort of "business" happening a block up. I figured it was a bunch of guys being stupid, but I had no idea how stupid. By the time I got up there, 4 guys were running away after shouting "I just beat your ass so you better stay down". The guy on the ground who had obviously just been beat to a pulp was bleeding from his mouth and his eye. What amazed me is that this guy was no fighter: he was small, maybe 135 pounds, and not a fit 135. And I could see in his eyes that he didn't exactly have the eye of the eagle. This poor guy was jumped by 4 assholes who beat him senseless, probably for no good reason.
What bugs me was that there were no cops around. All the cops were probably set up to catch underage drinkers with fake IDs. I'm sure arresting sorostitutes is a profitable venture, but what happened to "Protect and Serve"? Odds are that a report will be filed, and even with descriptions, no arrests will be made. The cops in this town are good at one thing: paperwork.
In other news, I have tests coming up, a paper topic to figure out, a class presentation to plan out, and a friend in the Neuroscience lab needs some help with some software. I'll be a busy little bee for a couple weeks. That's why I'm glad I was able to relax last night, with the exception of the assault. We did a "family dinner" at Rob's house with Rob, George, Brittany, and Christine. I brought over homemade spaghetti sauce. There were appetizers, garlic bread, caesar salad, and mixed drinks. It was nice.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Damn it
I started writing a long rant about how angry I am, but I deleted it. Here's the long and short of it: The detective who told me he "found my stuff" when he busted a drug dealer who had my gun was talking too fast. He didn't call me back for the last month because there was nothing to report. The stuff he found wasn't mine, it just looked a little bit like my junk and it was in proximity to the gun they found. So I'll get back my gun, but nothing else. They asked the drug dealer where he got it, and he gave them a name and a location on the person who traded him the gun for cocaine. And that's it. No more follow-ups. The cops are apparantly not pursuing the guy who traded a firearm for drugs, despite having a name and a location on the guy. The detective has completely dropped the ball.
So that was how I spent my day: playing phone-tag with apathetic cops. My day was spent thus because I woke up today sneezing and coughing uncontrollably. My eyes were too swolen and my breathing was too labored to ride my bike into school. I need to get my homework to Dr. Williams and buy some beers for my Historical friends so I can find out what material I missed.
Suffice it to say, I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to getting my toys back.
At the very least, I discovered what causes my respiratory issues. I have to keep my house better ventilated. During the winter, I didn't turn the heat on, I just ran a space heater. The cold, after all, is good for my computers. Not running the AC has kept the air in this place uncirculated and stagnant, swarming with dust. With the window in the bathroom open and the screen door shut on the carport, the air was fresher and I'm breathing better.
There was one little scare. My darling little kitten discovered she is limber enough to jump up to the window in the bathroom, five feet off the ground. I heard the sound of frantic leaping, and found my princess perched half-way out the window. She may have just been taking a look. After all, it's a solid ten feet to the ground outside. But it was still quite scary. The window is still open and Sabrina hasn't made any further bids for freedom. I'll ensure that the window stays shut when I leave the house.
So tomorrow I'll be playing phone-tag with the evidence cops in the ACCPD. I'll also be going to buy the little miss some new cat food and beef-flavored dental treats. They're good for her teeth and she loves them. And she's roughly a year old now if the dates on her adoption paperwork are accurate, so I'm going to move her up to the 1yr+ food and take her off the kitten stuff. I hope that (a) she likes it and (b) it doesn't play with her digestive tract. She gets a little gassy, and isn't so adorable in those moments.
I'll go into the office early in the morning to make up for missing work tomorrow. I'll try calling the cops in the afternoon after class to see about getting my gun back, then I'll hit Pet Supplies Plus.
In the back of my mind, I wish that I had something more epic or inspiring to talk about besides disappointment and my cat's diet. Kinda sad. The instant I win the Nobel Prize, meet a wonderful new woman, or rescue an endangered species from a sinking/burning battleship, I shall report as such immediately.
So that was how I spent my day: playing phone-tag with apathetic cops. My day was spent thus because I woke up today sneezing and coughing uncontrollably. My eyes were too swolen and my breathing was too labored to ride my bike into school. I need to get my homework to Dr. Williams and buy some beers for my Historical friends so I can find out what material I missed.
Suffice it to say, I'm disappointed. I was looking forward to getting my toys back.
At the very least, I discovered what causes my respiratory issues. I have to keep my house better ventilated. During the winter, I didn't turn the heat on, I just ran a space heater. The cold, after all, is good for my computers. Not running the AC has kept the air in this place uncirculated and stagnant, swarming with dust. With the window in the bathroom open and the screen door shut on the carport, the air was fresher and I'm breathing better.
There was one little scare. My darling little kitten discovered she is limber enough to jump up to the window in the bathroom, five feet off the ground. I heard the sound of frantic leaping, and found my princess perched half-way out the window. She may have just been taking a look. After all, it's a solid ten feet to the ground outside. But it was still quite scary. The window is still open and Sabrina hasn't made any further bids for freedom. I'll ensure that the window stays shut when I leave the house.
So tomorrow I'll be playing phone-tag with the evidence cops in the ACCPD. I'll also be going to buy the little miss some new cat food and beef-flavored dental treats. They're good for her teeth and she loves them. And she's roughly a year old now if the dates on her adoption paperwork are accurate, so I'm going to move her up to the 1yr+ food and take her off the kitten stuff. I hope that (a) she likes it and (b) it doesn't play with her digestive tract. She gets a little gassy, and isn't so adorable in those moments.
I'll go into the office early in the morning to make up for missing work tomorrow. I'll try calling the cops in the afternoon after class to see about getting my gun back, then I'll hit Pet Supplies Plus.
In the back of my mind, I wish that I had something more epic or inspiring to talk about besides disappointment and my cat's diet. Kinda sad. The instant I win the Nobel Prize, meet a wonderful new woman, or rescue an endangered species from a sinking/burning battleship, I shall report as such immediately.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cold, Rainy Days
I'm sitting here in my office watching the lights twinkle on the 3 computers, 2 monitors, and 19 external harddrives as files get backed up and transferred left and right. A few minutes ago, I meandered out of my windowless 3rd floor office and happened by a window, which I immediately rested my forehead against and peered out of.
It's raining. Not so hard to call it a storm, but not so slightly to call it a drizzle. And I could tell with my forehead pressed against the glass that it is cold out there.
Today is the sort of day you want to stay home and curl up with someone you care about while you watch movies and eat popcorn. The only part of that equation I have is the movies part. They're saved on an external harddrive here in the lab. BUT, I'm not home. I have no popcorn. And finally, I'm single. Yep. I'm spending this cold, rainy Sunday held up in my lab, all by myself, doing work for a paper I'm not a coauthor of. *sigh*
I'll probably bail in a little while. I'll hit the grocery store and at least solve that no-popcorn problem. Doubtfull that last problem will get solved at Publix, but who knows? The woman of my dreams might be trying to find the gallon of milk with the best date on it right now, at this very moment. In all likelihood this hypothetical lady is thousands of miles away, though. :(
It's raining. Not so hard to call it a storm, but not so slightly to call it a drizzle. And I could tell with my forehead pressed against the glass that it is cold out there.
Today is the sort of day you want to stay home and curl up with someone you care about while you watch movies and eat popcorn. The only part of that equation I have is the movies part. They're saved on an external harddrive here in the lab. BUT, I'm not home. I have no popcorn. And finally, I'm single. Yep. I'm spending this cold, rainy Sunday held up in my lab, all by myself, doing work for a paper I'm not a coauthor of. *sigh*
I'll probably bail in a little while. I'll hit the grocery store and at least solve that no-popcorn problem. Doubtfull that last problem will get solved at Publix, but who knows? The woman of my dreams might be trying to find the gallon of milk with the best date on it right now, at this very moment. In all likelihood this hypothetical lady is thousands of miles away, though. :(
To sleep, perchance to dream
I slept most of the day yesterday. I finished up in the lab everything I could. I set a shit-ton of data transfers to go, and then I left around 10:00am. When I got home, I figured that none of the transfers would finish for at least five hours, so I had plenty of time to sleep. My head hit the pillow and I was out. Around 5pm, I woke up and acted as if I was going to go back to the lab and keep working, but my nose started acting up (probably due to the weather change) and two benadryl later, I'm asleep once again.
I slept until midnight. Yes, midnight.
So total, I must have gotten about 12 hours of sleep yesterday. The odd thing was that I can remember some of my dreams. I hardly ever remember my dreams. Not sure why I do now.
In one dream I was going through an empty house, or rather, I think it was being shown to me because I was considering living there. The house had a weird layout. The kitchen was in the basement, and the basement had a back door leading into the back yard where there was a very dirty pool. But the door was just an old screen door that I felt like I could push my hand right through if I tried. The pool was dirty, so I put some bleach into it to clean it up, and like magic, the dirty water became clear again.
Another dream, I sware this is true, I was fighting ogres and monsters in a very Lord of the Rings style. It was pretty cool, but fierce. I was being chased by them and running into more as I fled, killing all that I could. I think I was using a broad sword (one-handed) and an axe in the other, just slicing through everything in my path. My hair was a little shorter than it is now, I was clean shaven, and I had on a bunch of armor and thick leather and such. No helmet.
I think this is when I started waking up because I had another dream where I was doing something boring... I can't remember what exactly, but I remember having the thought "Man, I sure would rather be killing monsters right now." It wasn't like it was a lucid dream where I was transported back to the battle field, however. Would have been cool if that was what happened, but it didn't.
Generally, the only dreams I remember are a few of the ones that I seem to have over and over again. One is where I'm in some sort of psycho Disney World sort-of park that has an old stone church in the middle that is locked up. Another is much happier in tone, but more curious because I'm in this place where there are these enormous houses up on top of the rolling grass-covered hills that seem to be miles apart. I'm not sure if I ever go inside any of them, but I do remember going across those hills with the wind blowing.
It makes me sad that I don't think I've ever had the "flight" dream, but I have had the "falling" dream that wakes you up suddenly. Maybe that was me trying to fly and it didn't work out so well.
I've been wasting time doing nothing for about 4 hours, since midnight, since I woke up, so I think I'll shower and actually GO to the lab now. I have things to do. The way I figure it, if I don't go to sleep until about 8 or 9pm tonight, then I'll be able to right my sleep schedule. So I'll go to the office and get as much stuff done as I can, then I'll come home and spend time cleaning and doing household duties until I can't stand it. Then, exhausted, I'll hit the sack. Nice, huh?
I slept until midnight. Yes, midnight.
So total, I must have gotten about 12 hours of sleep yesterday. The odd thing was that I can remember some of my dreams. I hardly ever remember my dreams. Not sure why I do now.
In one dream I was going through an empty house, or rather, I think it was being shown to me because I was considering living there. The house had a weird layout. The kitchen was in the basement, and the basement had a back door leading into the back yard where there was a very dirty pool. But the door was just an old screen door that I felt like I could push my hand right through if I tried. The pool was dirty, so I put some bleach into it to clean it up, and like magic, the dirty water became clear again.
Another dream, I sware this is true, I was fighting ogres and monsters in a very Lord of the Rings style. It was pretty cool, but fierce. I was being chased by them and running into more as I fled, killing all that I could. I think I was using a broad sword (one-handed) and an axe in the other, just slicing through everything in my path. My hair was a little shorter than it is now, I was clean shaven, and I had on a bunch of armor and thick leather and such. No helmet.
I think this is when I started waking up because I had another dream where I was doing something boring... I can't remember what exactly, but I remember having the thought "Man, I sure would rather be killing monsters right now." It wasn't like it was a lucid dream where I was transported back to the battle field, however. Would have been cool if that was what happened, but it didn't.
Generally, the only dreams I remember are a few of the ones that I seem to have over and over again. One is where I'm in some sort of psycho Disney World sort-of park that has an old stone church in the middle that is locked up. Another is much happier in tone, but more curious because I'm in this place where there are these enormous houses up on top of the rolling grass-covered hills that seem to be miles apart. I'm not sure if I ever go inside any of them, but I do remember going across those hills with the wind blowing.
It makes me sad that I don't think I've ever had the "flight" dream, but I have had the "falling" dream that wakes you up suddenly. Maybe that was me trying to fly and it didn't work out so well.
I've been wasting time doing nothing for about 4 hours, since midnight, since I woke up, so I think I'll shower and actually GO to the lab now. I have things to do. The way I figure it, if I don't go to sleep until about 8 or 9pm tonight, then I'll be able to right my sleep schedule. So I'll go to the office and get as much stuff done as I can, then I'll come home and spend time cleaning and doing household duties until I can't stand it. Then, exhausted, I'll hit the sack. Nice, huh?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Special Delivery
I went on a little bit of a spending binge, buying books and computer parts. The computer parts are going towards a media PC I'm going to build for my parents. It'll be loaded with the three terabytes-and-change of digital media I have: music, movies, TV series, cartoons, anime... The list goes on.
I also got myself a little item to aid in safe backups. It's a docking station for SATA drives. It's not an external enclosure. No no. You take a regular internal drive and drop it in the slot and turn it on. Now I can just keep a stack of 1TB drives that all my data is back up on. And in other news, my replacement safe just came in this week, so I can keep the stack of drives in their in case of fire or theft.
I only wish the Detective who told me he found my stuff would call back. I've been trying to reach him for a week now. Homeboy doesn't return voicemail messages. I'd like to know what of mine he recovered from the drug dealer's house.
I also got a student-discount version of Visual Studio 2008. I'm not sure if I want to put it on my big desktop or if I want to put it on my little laptop. After all, my little laptop is the PC I take back and forth to work with me. BUT, I'd rather have VS2008 on my big computer here at home. Maybe I can get Dr. K to get a copy for one of the work PCs.
There's also a butt-load of books on the way from Amazon:
- Connectionism and the Philosophy of Mind
- Robot Programming : A Practical Guide to Behavior-Based Robotics
- Connectionist Natural Language Processing
- Neural-Symbolic Learning Systems
- Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar
- Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology
Clearly, these won't be read until Summer. Quite frankly, I wish I had a whole semester off to read. Just read! I think I'd learn a lot more than I do sitting through classes, plucking out the parts I find useful as I go along.
I mean, seriously. I feel like the happiest time I spent learning was my last semester at the University of Florida when ALL I was doing was working for housing and working on my senior design project. It took several months, but I taught myself Prolog and created a program that solves rubiks cubes. Maybe it'll be like that again this summer when I'm working on my AI thesis and studying for my oral exams. Maybe that'll be what PhD research is like someday. We'll see.
At some point I need to fix my sister's computer. I've got two old 500gb drives to throw in there and load up with media for her. But I ought to just throw the thing in the garbage after the caniption she threw when I got robbed. Seriously. My apartment was broken into, my cat could have been hurt, and thousands of dollars of my junk was stolen... ...and she threw a FIT because I needed to use the phone and the computer to reschedule my flight and coordinate things with the police, my landlord, my catsitters, etc. etc. But nooooo. She needed the computer to chat with her friends online. I was floored. Her selfishness was astounding.
But I built her this computer, and despite her egocentrism, she's still my sister. It needs fixing because she let some stupid boy screw with it. Now it's infected with viruses and spyware. So it needs fixin. And it's up to me.
In other news, I know it's Friday night and Spring break, but I was intending to go into the office to get some work done today. BUT AGAIN, thanks to my vampire sleep schedule, I feel asleep at 9am and woke up at 5pm. So I'm going to go into the lab tonight, pack a lunch, and stay there until all my work is done. That ought to be enough to keep me awake through tomorrow night. Then I'll go to sleep Saturday night and get my sleep schedule back on track.
So I'm going to shower up and get the hell out of dodge. I'll pack a few sandwhiches and pick up dinner on the way over there. I'm sure I've got enough Mt Dew to make it through the next 24 hours. At least I hope so.
I also got myself a little item to aid in safe backups. It's a docking station for SATA drives. It's not an external enclosure. No no. You take a regular internal drive and drop it in the slot and turn it on. Now I can just keep a stack of 1TB drives that all my data is back up on. And in other news, my replacement safe just came in this week, so I can keep the stack of drives in their in case of fire or theft.
I only wish the Detective who told me he found my stuff would call back. I've been trying to reach him for a week now. Homeboy doesn't return voicemail messages. I'd like to know what of mine he recovered from the drug dealer's house.
I also got a student-discount version of Visual Studio 2008. I'm not sure if I want to put it on my big desktop or if I want to put it on my little laptop. After all, my little laptop is the PC I take back and forth to work with me. BUT, I'd rather have VS2008 on my big computer here at home. Maybe I can get Dr. K to get a copy for one of the work PCs.
There's also a butt-load of books on the way from Amazon:
- Connectionism and the Philosophy of Mind
- Robot Programming : A Practical Guide to Behavior-Based Robotics
- Connectionist Natural Language Processing
- Neural-Symbolic Learning Systems
- Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar
- Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology
Clearly, these won't be read until Summer. Quite frankly, I wish I had a whole semester off to read. Just read! I think I'd learn a lot more than I do sitting through classes, plucking out the parts I find useful as I go along.
I mean, seriously. I feel like the happiest time I spent learning was my last semester at the University of Florida when ALL I was doing was working for housing and working on my senior design project. It took several months, but I taught myself Prolog and created a program that solves rubiks cubes. Maybe it'll be like that again this summer when I'm working on my AI thesis and studying for my oral exams. Maybe that'll be what PhD research is like someday. We'll see.
At some point I need to fix my sister's computer. I've got two old 500gb drives to throw in there and load up with media for her. But I ought to just throw the thing in the garbage after the caniption she threw when I got robbed. Seriously. My apartment was broken into, my cat could have been hurt, and thousands of dollars of my junk was stolen... ...and she threw a FIT because I needed to use the phone and the computer to reschedule my flight and coordinate things with the police, my landlord, my catsitters, etc. etc. But nooooo. She needed the computer to chat with her friends online. I was floored. Her selfishness was astounding.
But I built her this computer, and despite her egocentrism, she's still my sister. It needs fixing because she let some stupid boy screw with it. Now it's infected with viruses and spyware. So it needs fixin. And it's up to me.
In other news, I know it's Friday night and Spring break, but I was intending to go into the office to get some work done today. BUT AGAIN, thanks to my vampire sleep schedule, I feel asleep at 9am and woke up at 5pm. So I'm going to go into the lab tonight, pack a lunch, and stay there until all my work is done. That ought to be enough to keep me awake through tomorrow night. Then I'll go to sleep Saturday night and get my sleep schedule back on track.
So I'm going to shower up and get the hell out of dodge. I'll pack a few sandwhiches and pick up dinner on the way over there. I'm sure I've got enough Mt Dew to make it through the next 24 hours. At least I hope so.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Where The F#!% Is Matt?
Watch this video and I dare you to tell me this world isn't a beautiful place to live in. Quite frankly, it inspires me to defend us at all costs in the event of an alien invasion.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
My Brain Is Very Strange
Once again, I'm not sleeping. I don't have a clue why I sleep so irregularly these days. It could be latent stress or a subtle indication that I need to structure my life better. Who knows?
In this late/early hour, I can only sit and hope I get tired and distract myself in the process. I watched "Brain Smasher: A Love Story" and now I'm watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." Somewhere in this bizarre movie marathon I find my brain thinking on non-monotonic reasoning, aka, defeasible logic and the implications it has on aspirations for true artificial intelligence.
For the longest time, we've been trying to get computers to be like us: we want them to be intelligent. Well think about that. Computers, as they're built now, are nothing more than symbolic logic systems. Zeros and ones, put in distinct patterns, shuffle data values that, at their core, are also zeros and ones. Mid-level abstractions of the 0's and 1's are commands/rules that are executable line by line. Zero or one? True or false? These concepts are at the core of all computers.
True and false. That's logic in a nut shell. We like to think that with tools as powerful as deduction, predicate calculus, peano arithmetic, blah blah blah, that we have the tools necessary to describe things such as concepts and ideas... knowledge! And we've had some no-shit success stories. These successes have given birth to entire sub-disciplines of AI like Expert Systems and Knowledge Representation.
Well THERE is my beef. The representation of knowledge, as we do it now (most commonly) is inherently logical. Rule based. It's still a basic facet of linguistics that our syntax can be 'adequately' described with basic axioms and recursive rules. That's the rub. Just because we CAN describe aspects of our intelligence logically, with rules, with facts, quite literally SPELLED OUT, certainly does NOT mean this is the way it should be done.
Sounds all well and good, yes? So where is my problem? Well consider a logical system. It has to be deductively sound and valid. The true things are true, the false things are false, and everything is consistent with eachother. There's no such thing as a deductively valid system that holds both P and not-P. Furthermore, a given logic system won't let me introduce a new fact or a new rule that is not consistent with the rules and facts that it already contains. For example, if the logic system contains the rule "Birds fly" and "Penguins do not fly", the damn thing will simply not allow me to tell it "A penguin is a bird."
Quick interjection: I think the beast was better looking before he got turned back into a human.
Yikes, right? Right. If I threw "A penguin is a bird" into my already sound and consistent knowledge base, then it would forward-track through its rules with this new fact and deduce "Penguins fly." But then it would have the facts "Penguins fly" and "Penguins do not fly" which will cause it to blow up (fail).
Well shit. Ok. Here we are on the edge of reason, quite literally. One of my favorite professors, Dr. Nute, was the father of the logical solution to this problem. It's called defeasible logic or non-monotonic reasoning where it is possible to have rules that are always true, rules that are usually true, and rules that are true under different circumstances. So that when one course of deduction leads to an explosion (failure), we backtrack and try again with another rule that may let us keep our knowledge base consistent. Cool, yes?
Yes, it is cool.
But what the fuck, people? Seriously? I mean, this sounds about right, doesn't it? Defeasible logic. Exceptions to rules. Default rules and alternatives. Isn't this the way we would describe our thought processes? Hell. Even the Closed World Assumption, another basic premise of logic, fits with our way of thinking. If we have no evidence that something is true, then it must be false. In other words, if I don't have a fact or a rule that asserts "Penguins can fly" I must assume they can't. This is called negation by failure. If asking about the truth or falsity of the premise "Penguins can fly" or the premise "Bigfoot is a fabulous dancer", then coming up with ZILCH, we assume that penguins CAN'T fly and that Bigfoot has two left big feet. In this case we would be right, of course.
Like I said, it all sounds groovy. All this 'adequately' describes the way we think, right? Rules. Facts. Predicated knowledge. True and false (one and zero).
Let's take a survey: How many people out there have ever cut into a sheep's brain? Relax, it was for a class. I didn't hop a fence in at a sheep farm with a buzz saw and a surgical kit. I studied all sorts of neurological structures, most of which have several names, and most of which we have some incling about their functions. We have mapped out areas responsible for vision, language, muscle control, sensory input, and yes, to a certain extent, MEMORY.
A cry out to all you neuroscientists: point out to me the part of the brain where all of these facts and rules are systematically stored, i.e., take a a scalpel and cut to the part in the brain where the "food is good" predicate is stored. It would be especially helpful if Mother Nature left them in there to find in either a numbered or a bullet-pointed list. Keep it nice and organized.
Well you can't! Our brains are connectionist models, aka, neural networks. The processing is parallel, not serial (as it is with computers and logic systems). When we have a thought or a memory or recall a fact or drive a car, we don't have to traverse a list of stored knowledge, ignoring the information that is inapplicable until we finally hit the bit of information we want. Nuh-uh.
Defeasible logic is one HELL of a great way to get around the problem. My brain can wrap itself around the Penguin issue without blowing up. At least I hope so. Well why then am I so worked up this earl/late? Easy. Just because we DESCRIBE our knowledge and language etc etc etc (adequately) in terms of rules and facts (as if they're stored in the knowledge base of our minds), that doesn't mean THAT is how they are stored! Or executed, for that matter.
We're stumbling around, frantically trying to define new systems of logic that account for the simplest of counter examples to the working theories we have. To that I say TOUGH SHIT. We may be barking up the wrong tree here. Sure, we've gotten incredible results with knowledge based systems as they are described. But what about the Penguin case? What about US? To put it bluntly, the penguins don't blow our minds. I'm going to sleep just fine (eventually) knowing that "Birds fly", "Penguins can't fly", and "Penguins are birds."
I think it was Penrose who said any parallel process can be "flattened out" in time. By that, it is simply a cold hard truth that life is just a series of moments. He was trying to get at the fact that any parallel process, when examined at the smallest increments in time, can be defined serially, because inarguably at the SMALLEST increments of time, no two events occur at precisely the same moment.
So do it. Crack open a skull and put your right index finger on their stored knoweledge.
Where is it in the brain that knowledge is stored serially and logically? AGAIN, like I've said a hundred times, just because we can 'adequately' DESCRIBE a phenomenon a certain way doesn't mean that duplicating it will. We need to process parallel in a given AI system, or suffer for it. I think Penrose would do better to argue that our current logical systems (computers) are adequate platforms for the simulations of neural networks and connectionist models, not that just because we CAN flatten things out that we necessarily SHOULD.
So if there is any hope, any hope AT ALL, our knowledge representation and ESPECIALLY our knowledge bases of facts and rules that we don't question must be somehow encoded into neural networks... I'm not entirely sure how to do this just yet, but I'm willing to take a stab at it. I just need to figure out how to standardize a list of predicates into a training data set. In the meantime, I need to clean off my buzz saw and apologize to the sheep farmer.
In this late/early hour, I can only sit and hope I get tired and distract myself in the process. I watched "Brain Smasher: A Love Story" and now I'm watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." Somewhere in this bizarre movie marathon I find my brain thinking on non-monotonic reasoning, aka, defeasible logic and the implications it has on aspirations for true artificial intelligence.
For the longest time, we've been trying to get computers to be like us: we want them to be intelligent. Well think about that. Computers, as they're built now, are nothing more than symbolic logic systems. Zeros and ones, put in distinct patterns, shuffle data values that, at their core, are also zeros and ones. Mid-level abstractions of the 0's and 1's are commands/rules that are executable line by line. Zero or one? True or false? These concepts are at the core of all computers.
True and false. That's logic in a nut shell. We like to think that with tools as powerful as deduction, predicate calculus, peano arithmetic, blah blah blah, that we have the tools necessary to describe things such as concepts and ideas... knowledge! And we've had some no-shit success stories. These successes have given birth to entire sub-disciplines of AI like Expert Systems and Knowledge Representation.
Well THERE is my beef. The representation of knowledge, as we do it now (most commonly) is inherently logical. Rule based. It's still a basic facet of linguistics that our syntax can be 'adequately' described with basic axioms and recursive rules. That's the rub. Just because we CAN describe aspects of our intelligence logically, with rules, with facts, quite literally SPELLED OUT, certainly does NOT mean this is the way it should be done.
Sounds all well and good, yes? So where is my problem? Well consider a logical system. It has to be deductively sound and valid. The true things are true, the false things are false, and everything is consistent with eachother. There's no such thing as a deductively valid system that holds both P and not-P. Furthermore, a given logic system won't let me introduce a new fact or a new rule that is not consistent with the rules and facts that it already contains. For example, if the logic system contains the rule "Birds fly" and "Penguins do not fly", the damn thing will simply not allow me to tell it "A penguin is a bird."
Quick interjection: I think the beast was better looking before he got turned back into a human.
Yikes, right? Right. If I threw "A penguin is a bird" into my already sound and consistent knowledge base, then it would forward-track through its rules with this new fact and deduce "Penguins fly." But then it would have the facts "Penguins fly" and "Penguins do not fly" which will cause it to blow up (fail).
Well shit. Ok. Here we are on the edge of reason, quite literally. One of my favorite professors, Dr. Nute, was the father of the logical solution to this problem. It's called defeasible logic or non-monotonic reasoning where it is possible to have rules that are always true, rules that are usually true, and rules that are true under different circumstances. So that when one course of deduction leads to an explosion (failure), we backtrack and try again with another rule that may let us keep our knowledge base consistent. Cool, yes?
Yes, it is cool.
But what the fuck, people? Seriously? I mean, this sounds about right, doesn't it? Defeasible logic. Exceptions to rules. Default rules and alternatives. Isn't this the way we would describe our thought processes? Hell. Even the Closed World Assumption, another basic premise of logic, fits with our way of thinking. If we have no evidence that something is true, then it must be false. In other words, if I don't have a fact or a rule that asserts "Penguins can fly" I must assume they can't. This is called negation by failure. If asking about the truth or falsity of the premise "Penguins can fly" or the premise "Bigfoot is a fabulous dancer", then coming up with ZILCH, we assume that penguins CAN'T fly and that Bigfoot has two left big feet. In this case we would be right, of course.
Like I said, it all sounds groovy. All this 'adequately' describes the way we think, right? Rules. Facts. Predicated knowledge. True and false (one and zero).
Let's take a survey: How many people out there have ever cut into a sheep's brain? Relax, it was for a class. I didn't hop a fence in at a sheep farm with a buzz saw and a surgical kit. I studied all sorts of neurological structures, most of which have several names, and most of which we have some incling about their functions. We have mapped out areas responsible for vision, language, muscle control, sensory input, and yes, to a certain extent, MEMORY.
A cry out to all you neuroscientists: point out to me the part of the brain where all of these facts and rules are systematically stored, i.e., take a a scalpel and cut to the part in the brain where the "food is good" predicate is stored. It would be especially helpful if Mother Nature left them in there to find in either a numbered or a bullet-pointed list. Keep it nice and organized.
Well you can't! Our brains are connectionist models, aka, neural networks. The processing is parallel, not serial (as it is with computers and logic systems). When we have a thought or a memory or recall a fact or drive a car, we don't have to traverse a list of stored knowledge, ignoring the information that is inapplicable until we finally hit the bit of information we want. Nuh-uh.
Defeasible logic is one HELL of a great way to get around the problem. My brain can wrap itself around the Penguin issue without blowing up. At least I hope so. Well why then am I so worked up this earl/late? Easy. Just because we DESCRIBE our knowledge and language etc etc etc (adequately) in terms of rules and facts (as if they're stored in the knowledge base of our minds), that doesn't mean THAT is how they are stored! Or executed, for that matter.
We're stumbling around, frantically trying to define new systems of logic that account for the simplest of counter examples to the working theories we have. To that I say TOUGH SHIT. We may be barking up the wrong tree here. Sure, we've gotten incredible results with knowledge based systems as they are described. But what about the Penguin case? What about US? To put it bluntly, the penguins don't blow our minds. I'm going to sleep just fine (eventually) knowing that "Birds fly", "Penguins can't fly", and "Penguins are birds."
I think it was Penrose who said any parallel process can be "flattened out" in time. By that, it is simply a cold hard truth that life is just a series of moments. He was trying to get at the fact that any parallel process, when examined at the smallest increments in time, can be defined serially, because inarguably at the SMALLEST increments of time, no two events occur at precisely the same moment.
So do it. Crack open a skull and put your right index finger on their stored knoweledge.
Where is it in the brain that knowledge is stored serially and logically? AGAIN, like I've said a hundred times, just because we can 'adequately' DESCRIBE a phenomenon a certain way doesn't mean that duplicating it will. We need to process parallel in a given AI system, or suffer for it. I think Penrose would do better to argue that our current logical systems (computers) are adequate platforms for the simulations of neural networks and connectionist models, not that just because we CAN flatten things out that we necessarily SHOULD.
So if there is any hope, any hope AT ALL, our knowledge representation and ESPECIALLY our knowledge bases of facts and rules that we don't question must be somehow encoded into neural networks... I'm not entirely sure how to do this just yet, but I'm willing to take a stab at it. I just need to figure out how to standardize a list of predicates into a training data set. In the meantime, I need to clean off my buzz saw and apologize to the sheep farmer.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Overwhelming Odds
With midterms blissfully over, I was officially on spring break as of 4pm yesterday. I mean, I've still got a lot of work to do, but I don't have to go anywhere at any specific time, which is nice.
I went home yesterday, padded around for about an hour, got some Chinese takeout, and then as soon as my head hit the pillow I was dead to the world. I woke up to a phonecall from George to go downtown with him and a small contingent of boys on the prowl. I drove. Spent most of the night swigging Red Bull. Otherwise, again, I would have been comatose. One of the guys actually picked up a woman at a bar... But I still maintain that her age was questionable. Not that she was jailbait. Quite the contrary, actually.
I'm not a frequenter of downtown as it is. MAYBE I'll go downtown once a week if I'm not too exhausted. This time was interesting in that, as far as I could see, the number of guys out last night outnumbered the women at least 3:1. I think the ladies could sense it, too. They stayed in groups and kept moving. Linger in one spot for too long and the jungle predators will attempt to pick off the weakest (drunkest) in the group. The mataphor is far more appropriate than I can adequately describe: I really felt like an impartial observer for a National Geographic documentary on TLC.
I'm shocked I had as much fun as I did, though. It's been a VERY long time since I've gone downtown with a group of guys who have the same collective thought: "Chicks, dude. CHICKS." I mean, usually when I go downtown, I go to relax and have a laugh. This was different. This was primal. THE HUNT. Well, it was as primal as it could be with text messages and iPhones.
After the night was over, I fully expected to collapse and sleep for 17 hours. Not so much. I was still awake until the sun came up. It must have been the Red Bull. So I spent a little time reflecting on girls and boys, guys and gals, men and women, ladies and gentleman, chicks and douchebags. It may have been that 3:1 ratio which put me in such a discouraged mindset, but damn. Is dating really a viable possibility for me anymore?
Finding a girl you like is easy enough, but history has taught me that simply caring for someone is insufficient to maintain something meaningful. There has to be more. Ok, ok, ok. Granted, I'm not going to meet the woman of my dreams downtown so I ought not let last night skew my perspective. HOWEVER, it does bring up the question "Where the hell DO guys like me meet women?"
It actually reminds me of something that one of my professors, Dr. Hammond, said to me once. He said that as we go through college and then grad school, moving through Masters degrees and PhDs, post-docs, yadda yadda... What occurs is that we're slowly but surely adding "more teeth to our cognitive gear-works" and that as we keep moving, it gets progressively harder and harder to find someone else that our gears can mesh with. I mean, the metaphor is ridiculously funny.
Q: "Tony, why are you still single?"
A: "I've got too many teeth on my gears."
...
It's ridiculously funny, but it's spot-on. Let's review. I'm an Air Force brat who has moved more often than a mafia target. My undergrad degrees were in Computer Science and Philosophy. My grad education is Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence, I've got an insatiable interest in Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience, and I'm shopping around for Robotics PhD programs. I enjoy riding my motorcycle, going to the shooting range, screwing with my computers, and watching movies that I haven't seen in over a decade (which, I just realized, are mostly solo activities). I'll listen to a single song on REPEAT for hours on end. And while I admire the style and class of others, I have very little of my own as I wear the standard uniform of jeans and a black leather jacket almost every day.
So I submit to the void of the internet: where is the woman whose gears mesh with mine? I sincerely doubt she's at Buddah Bar, Loft, or Barcode. Buddies of mine I've discussed this with think that the key is to simply find a girl who is as intelligent and beautiful as possible, and the other details can be worked out later. To be perfectly honest, I know lots of ladies who are both very smart AND very pretty, but I hypothesize a relationship and I just don't see it working out(for sometimes very obvious reasons).
I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel and accepting the fact that my cat is the only woman in my life who loves and understands me. ;)
I went home yesterday, padded around for about an hour, got some Chinese takeout, and then as soon as my head hit the pillow I was dead to the world. I woke up to a phonecall from George to go downtown with him and a small contingent of boys on the prowl. I drove. Spent most of the night swigging Red Bull. Otherwise, again, I would have been comatose. One of the guys actually picked up a woman at a bar... But I still maintain that her age was questionable. Not that she was jailbait. Quite the contrary, actually.
I'm not a frequenter of downtown as it is. MAYBE I'll go downtown once a week if I'm not too exhausted. This time was interesting in that, as far as I could see, the number of guys out last night outnumbered the women at least 3:1. I think the ladies could sense it, too. They stayed in groups and kept moving. Linger in one spot for too long and the jungle predators will attempt to pick off the weakest (drunkest) in the group. The mataphor is far more appropriate than I can adequately describe: I really felt like an impartial observer for a National Geographic documentary on TLC.
I'm shocked I had as much fun as I did, though. It's been a VERY long time since I've gone downtown with a group of guys who have the same collective thought: "Chicks, dude. CHICKS." I mean, usually when I go downtown, I go to relax and have a laugh. This was different. This was primal. THE HUNT. Well, it was as primal as it could be with text messages and iPhones.
After the night was over, I fully expected to collapse and sleep for 17 hours. Not so much. I was still awake until the sun came up. It must have been the Red Bull. So I spent a little time reflecting on girls and boys, guys and gals, men and women, ladies and gentleman, chicks and douchebags. It may have been that 3:1 ratio which put me in such a discouraged mindset, but damn. Is dating really a viable possibility for me anymore?
Finding a girl you like is easy enough, but history has taught me that simply caring for someone is insufficient to maintain something meaningful. There has to be more. Ok, ok, ok. Granted, I'm not going to meet the woman of my dreams downtown so I ought not let last night skew my perspective. HOWEVER, it does bring up the question "Where the hell DO guys like me meet women?"
It actually reminds me of something that one of my professors, Dr. Hammond, said to me once. He said that as we go through college and then grad school, moving through Masters degrees and PhDs, post-docs, yadda yadda... What occurs is that we're slowly but surely adding "more teeth to our cognitive gear-works" and that as we keep moving, it gets progressively harder and harder to find someone else that our gears can mesh with. I mean, the metaphor is ridiculously funny.
Q: "Tony, why are you still single?"
A: "I've got too many teeth on my gears."
...
It's ridiculously funny, but it's spot-on. Let's review. I'm an Air Force brat who has moved more often than a mafia target. My undergrad degrees were in Computer Science and Philosophy. My grad education is Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence, I've got an insatiable interest in Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience, and I'm shopping around for Robotics PhD programs. I enjoy riding my motorcycle, going to the shooting range, screwing with my computers, and watching movies that I haven't seen in over a decade (which, I just realized, are mostly solo activities). I'll listen to a single song on REPEAT for hours on end. And while I admire the style and class of others, I have very little of my own as I wear the standard uniform of jeans and a black leather jacket almost every day.
So I submit to the void of the internet: where is the woman whose gears mesh with mine? I sincerely doubt she's at Buddah Bar, Loft, or Barcode. Buddies of mine I've discussed this with think that the key is to simply find a girl who is as intelligent and beautiful as possible, and the other details can be worked out later. To be perfectly honest, I know lots of ladies who are both very smart AND very pretty, but I hypothesize a relationship and I just don't see it working out(for sometimes very obvious reasons).
I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel and accepting the fact that my cat is the only woman in my life who loves and understands me. ;)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
PhD Application List
I'm still sleepless, don't know why, watching another Bond film. So I decided to peg down, exactly, what schools are going to be in my FIRST round of PhD applications. As per the advice given to me by my friend Peter in philosophy, I'm not screwing around. I'm going to send out at least 15 applications, maybe more, next fall. Most application deadlines are December 15th, so I have between now and then to get them all done.
As you can see, I'm trying to stay in the US. After all, I have a cat, a car, a motorcycle, and a LOT of computers and stuff. I don't want to do an international move if I can avoid it. The only place I *may* be willing to do that for is Scotland.
Here is the list, in no particular order of preference. I'd be very happy to go to any of these places. Surely one of them will take me, I hope.
1. MIT - Computer Science, Cognitive Machines group
http://www.media.mit.edu/cogmac/
2. University of Colorado, Boulder - Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience
http://ics.colorado.edu/grad/joint_phd.html
3. Johns Hopkins - Department of Cognitive Science, Robotics Research Lab
http://web.jhu.edu/cogsci/PhD_Program/goals.html
http://lcsr.jhu.edu/Education/Graduate
4. Cornell - Computer Science, Cognitive Science Minor
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Research/ai/index.htm
http://www.cogstud.cornell.edu/grad.php
5. Berkeley - Computer Science, Computational Cognition Lab, Robotics
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Areas/AI/
6. Stanford - Computer Science, Robotics Lab
http://robotics.stanford.edu/
7. Carnegie Melon - Robotics, Neural Basis for Cognition
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=321 http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=327
8. Edinburgh - Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience
http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/dtc/index.php
9. University of Texas @ Austin - Computer Science, Robotics Research Group
http://www.robotics.utexas.edu/rrg/
10. University of Southern California - Robotics PhD
http://www-robotics.usc.edu/?l=Education:index
11. University of Utah - Robotics PhD
http://robotics.eng.utah.edu/
12. University of Maryland - Computer Science PhD, AI focus areas
http://www.cs.umd.edu/Grad/catalog.shtml
13. Brown University - Computer Science, AI focus areas
http://www.cs.brown.edu/grad/phd/
http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/index.html
14. UMass Amherst - Computer Science, Robotics
http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/
http://www.cs.umass.edu/grads/overview
15. Vanderbilt - Center for Intelligent Systems
http://eecs.vanderbilt.edu/CIS/cisHome.shtml
http://eecs.vanderbilt.edu/programs#grad
16. Georgia Tech - Robotics PhD Program
http://www.robotics.gatech.edu/index.php/academics/phd-program.html
As you can see, I'm trying to stay in the US. After all, I have a cat, a car, a motorcycle, and a LOT of computers and stuff. I don't want to do an international move if I can avoid it. The only place I *may* be willing to do that for is Scotland.
Here is the list, in no particular order of preference. I'd be very happy to go to any of these places. Surely one of them will take me, I hope.
1. MIT - Computer Science, Cognitive Machines group
http://www.media.mit.edu/cogmac/
2. University of Colorado, Boulder - Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience
http://ics.colorado.edu/grad/joint_phd.html
3. Johns Hopkins - Department of Cognitive Science, Robotics Research Lab
http://web.jhu.edu/cogsci/PhD_Program/goals.html
http://lcsr.jhu.edu/Education/Graduate
4. Cornell - Computer Science, Cognitive Science Minor
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Research/ai/index.htm
http://www.cogstud.cornell.edu/grad.php
5. Berkeley - Computer Science, Computational Cognition Lab, Robotics
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Areas/AI/
6. Stanford - Computer Science, Robotics Lab
http://robotics.stanford.edu/
7. Carnegie Melon - Robotics, Neural Basis for Cognition
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=321 http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=327
8. Edinburgh - Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience
http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/dtc/index.php
9. University of Texas @ Austin - Computer Science, Robotics Research Group
http://www.robotics.utexas.edu/rrg/
10. University of Southern California - Robotics PhD
http://www-robotics.usc.edu/?l=Education:index
11. University of Utah - Robotics PhD
http://robotics.eng.utah.edu/
12. University of Maryland - Computer Science PhD, AI focus areas
http://www.cs.umd.edu/Grad/catalog.shtml
13. Brown University - Computer Science, AI focus areas
http://www.cs.brown.edu/grad/phd/
http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/index.html
14. UMass Amherst - Computer Science, Robotics
http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/
http://www.cs.umass.edu/grads/overview
15. Vanderbilt - Center for Intelligent Systems
http://eecs.vanderbilt.edu/CIS/cisHome.shtml
http://eecs.vanderbilt.edu/programs#grad
16. Georgia Tech - Robotics PhD Program
http://www.robotics.gatech.edu/index.php/academics/phd-program.html
Traction Control
To start this off on a good note, I've been on a binge of movies starring Pierce Brosnan this weekend: "The Laws of Attraction," "The Thomas Crown Affair," and a string of Bond films. I'm happy to report that the Halloween boxset and the Omen boxset have finished, putting my sinister little collection somewhere in the neighborhood of 750. Sabrina is sleeping on my chest and purring like a chainsaw. How she manages to rest her chin on her back paws astounds me. That would be like me sleeping comfortably with my nose pressed to my ankles.
We had a much-welcomed Snow Day today. I used it to catch up on my Adger reading and play around with Linux distributions at home. It was nice to hang around the house, not really doing anything, wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants and a 12 year old Superman shirt full of holes.
The snow was very pretty, but my motorcycle was buried under about six or seven inches of snow, which today, turned into slush, which tonight has frozen into a layer of ice... This worries me. Such a thing used to happen in Northern VA when I lived there: it would snow like crazy, get juuuust warm enough to turn it into slush, and the following night (a night like tonight) it would drop down to 20F and turn the roads into a lovely, shimmering, slippery pane of glass. We used to call weather instances like this "ice-overs."
It's 27F now. They're putting it at 21F by 5-6am. Grrr...
I am supposed to be at the lab for a staff meeting at 11am. I'm certainly NOT going in on my motorcycle. Ignoring the fact that the engine is encased in a block of ice right now, I'm not going out onto an icey road with only two wheels of traction. In a car, if one wheel loses traction, you've got three others to keep hold of the road. If you lose one wheel of traction on a bike, you're SOL. You might as well be riding a unicycle at 35mph.
It would thrill me beyond belief if school was cancelled again tomorrow, or if the staff meeting was rescheduled. My evil master plan to camp out in the lab this weekend and work was derailed by the inclement weather. Saturday turned into a laundry/housecleaning day. If I had known it was gonna snow, I would have made THAT the lab day and turned Sunday and Monday into the laundry/housecleaning days. So I don't have half the things done I wanted to get done in time for the staff meeting, ESPECIALLY considering the midterms and massive amount of homework due last week.
So I don't wanna get up tomorrow. I'm going to limp my way in to campus in the Tahoe and hopefully find a parking spot at a meter that I can keep feeding during the day. That means I'm going to need a bunch of quarters... Despite my better judgement, I'll drag myself in tomorrow, feeding quarters to the downtown Athens meter-maids (aka, the Yellow Envelope Parking Nazis).
I may try to go in early, driving slowly, and give myself a couple hours to get the tape drive working on the RHEL machine in the lab, but I doubt it.
My sleep schedule has been pretty out of whack recently. I don't have an explanation. I'm not writhing in mental turmoil. I'm not doing anything constructive. I'm tired, just sleepless. Something's up. I can feel it. What's up, I have no idea. I described it before as feeling a great disturbance in the Force. I've been up later and later, sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night, but always managing to get up and get to class on time. Midterms had an affect obviously, but it's been going on longer than that. That's how Satuday turned into a house-day: I went to bed semi-early Friday night and slept until 3pm. That didn't help.
Generally, when it comes to sleep, I'm the master of my own destiny. I've kept my Mt Dew and coffee in-take regulated so that I can sleep when I need to and so I can stay up when I need to. The system is broken right now, however. Gotta get a grip.
We had a much-welcomed Snow Day today. I used it to catch up on my Adger reading and play around with Linux distributions at home. It was nice to hang around the house, not really doing anything, wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants and a 12 year old Superman shirt full of holes.
The snow was very pretty, but my motorcycle was buried under about six or seven inches of snow, which today, turned into slush, which tonight has frozen into a layer of ice... This worries me. Such a thing used to happen in Northern VA when I lived there: it would snow like crazy, get juuuust warm enough to turn it into slush, and the following night (a night like tonight) it would drop down to 20F and turn the roads into a lovely, shimmering, slippery pane of glass. We used to call weather instances like this "ice-overs."
It's 27F now. They're putting it at 21F by 5-6am. Grrr...
I am supposed to be at the lab for a staff meeting at 11am. I'm certainly NOT going in on my motorcycle. Ignoring the fact that the engine is encased in a block of ice right now, I'm not going out onto an icey road with only two wheels of traction. In a car, if one wheel loses traction, you've got three others to keep hold of the road. If you lose one wheel of traction on a bike, you're SOL. You might as well be riding a unicycle at 35mph.
It would thrill me beyond belief if school was cancelled again tomorrow, or if the staff meeting was rescheduled. My evil master plan to camp out in the lab this weekend and work was derailed by the inclement weather. Saturday turned into a laundry/housecleaning day. If I had known it was gonna snow, I would have made THAT the lab day and turned Sunday and Monday into the laundry/housecleaning days. So I don't have half the things done I wanted to get done in time for the staff meeting, ESPECIALLY considering the midterms and massive amount of homework due last week.
So I don't wanna get up tomorrow. I'm going to limp my way in to campus in the Tahoe and hopefully find a parking spot at a meter that I can keep feeding during the day. That means I'm going to need a bunch of quarters... Despite my better judgement, I'll drag myself in tomorrow, feeding quarters to the downtown Athens meter-maids (aka, the Yellow Envelope Parking Nazis).
I may try to go in early, driving slowly, and give myself a couple hours to get the tape drive working on the RHEL machine in the lab, but I doubt it.
My sleep schedule has been pretty out of whack recently. I don't have an explanation. I'm not writhing in mental turmoil. I'm not doing anything constructive. I'm tired, just sleepless. Something's up. I can feel it. What's up, I have no idea. I described it before as feeling a great disturbance in the Force. I've been up later and later, sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night, but always managing to get up and get to class on time. Midterms had an affect obviously, but it's been going on longer than that. That's how Satuday turned into a house-day: I went to bed semi-early Friday night and slept until 3pm. That didn't help.
Generally, when it comes to sleep, I'm the master of my own destiny. I've kept my Mt Dew and coffee in-take regulated so that I can sleep when I need to and so I can stay up when I need to. The system is broken right now, however. Gotta get a grip.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Adger, it's me an you. ME and YOU.
I skipped syntax Tuesday to study for historical. Huge mistake. I find myself burning to know what was covered. And today, I was late to class becuse I had to spin around and go back home to get my homework off the printer. Grr.
It seems the only class I don't have to worry abot is Statistics. Historical was a nightmare, I could have done better on my Phonetics exam, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball in Syntax. Historical, well... That may be a lost cause, but I really LIKE Syntax and Phonetics. So I'll step it up in Historical, but I'm going to mash down the pedal in Syntax and Phonetics.
This might mean that I should pace my work in the lab a littl more to balance things out. This might also mean that I will have to spend less time at home and more time in the office. I need to sit down tonight and truly flesh out a list of priorities, make a concrete plan, and resolve myself to stick to it until Summer.
It seems the only class I don't have to worry abot is Statistics. Historical was a nightmare, I could have done better on my Phonetics exam, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball in Syntax. Historical, well... That may be a lost cause, but I really LIKE Syntax and Phonetics. So I'll step it up in Historical, but I'm going to mash down the pedal in Syntax and Phonetics.
This might mean that I should pace my work in the lab a littl more to balance things out. This might also mean that I will have to spend less time at home and more time in the office. I need to sit down tonight and truly flesh out a list of priorities, make a concrete plan, and resolve myself to stick to it until Summer.
Problem
Another sleepless night is rolling by, as usual, and I have a big problem.
I need to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, but Sabrina is asleep in my lap. There is no way for me to get up without waking her, and she is so adorable when she's sleeping... I've woken her before when I've needed to get up, and she always gives me that "You son of a bitch, I was sleeping" look that breaks me down everytime.
Frankly, this is one of those moments where I wish I was awake having profound thoughts and thustly putting them down in my new blog. But as it is, I am instead documenting for posterity my wish to pee without disturbing my cat. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll move to the foot of the bed soon.
I guess while I'm on the subject, NO, I do not know why I can't sleep. I just feel slightly ill at ease, as if there is a great disturbance in the Force. It's not as if I'm doing anything profound or constructive. I finished my homework, so I watched WALL-E as it was recently mentioned in a friend's FB note. And I have to admit it; I did get a little misty when I thought WALL-E was 'gone' after Eve fixed him. It was the same tug of the heart strings I feel when I watch the last few minutes of The Iron Giant.
I guess the only thing to do now is to decide whether to wake her and pee or try to sleep. I'll go with option A. Damn it.
I need to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, but Sabrina is asleep in my lap. There is no way for me to get up without waking her, and she is so adorable when she's sleeping... I've woken her before when I've needed to get up, and she always gives me that "You son of a bitch, I was sleeping" look that breaks me down everytime.
Frankly, this is one of those moments where I wish I was awake having profound thoughts and thustly putting them down in my new blog. But as it is, I am instead documenting for posterity my wish to pee without disturbing my cat. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll move to the foot of the bed soon.
I guess while I'm on the subject, NO, I do not know why I can't sleep. I just feel slightly ill at ease, as if there is a great disturbance in the Force. It's not as if I'm doing anything profound or constructive. I finished my homework, so I watched WALL-E as it was recently mentioned in a friend's FB note. And I have to admit it; I did get a little misty when I thought WALL-E was 'gone' after Eve fixed him. It was the same tug of the heart strings I feel when I watch the last few minutes of The Iron Giant.
I guess the only thing to do now is to decide whether to wake her and pee or try to sleep. I'll go with option A. Damn it.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Screw Labialization
I totally blanked on Labialization on the phonetics exam, which is the rounding of the lips when pronouncing words that start with a "sh" sound, like "Shhhhhit...I forgot Labialization."
Day One. Still tired from the move...
As I am supposed to be studying for the two exams I have today and tomorrow, I am, of course, not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I've been playing on facebook for at least 45 minutes. And it occurred to me that I know a bunch of folks who keep blogs. I read through a couple of them tonight and decided that it looks like a nice outlet.
After all, I'm living alone again and am freshly singled. Talking to my cat makes me feel like a crazy person, so I am instead opting to talk to no one in particular. At least now I can say what I want without fear of getting clawed later.
I guess I'll use this for life updates, deep thoughts, venting (if absolutely necessary) and as something to keep my thinking clear on matters. After all, I surely don't want to send something out into the void of the internet unless I'm positive that's how I feel.
For example, I've calculated that once my current downloads finish, my movie harddrive will be well over 85% full of JUST movies, numberring them close to a thousand. I'm amazed that in the few short weeks that I got on this kick, I've amassed over 700 movies already. I backed them up to my portable external HD and took them to a movie night for a friend's birthday party. Twas good fun. In a few weeks, when more of them finish, I'll make the main backup to the 5tb drive.
The exam I should be studying for is Phonetics, especially considering I was half-assing it yesterday and today I spent the 5 hours of GOOD studying I had on Historical Linguistics (Tuesday's Exam). I need to concentrate, but I can't get myself to focus. My first impuls is to drink another Mt Dew and get a snack to break up the time, but if I do too much in too short a time, I'll get hyper and concentrating will be impossible. Then I'll inevitably crash at 5am.
So I'm doing this instead.
In one of my bouts of NOT concentrating last night, I ordered a new black leather collar for Sabrina. I also ordered some 1/2 inch spikes to affix to it. :) It'll make for a nice little project after things calm down academically... ...and at work.
Work went from idle to overdrive in a single heartbeat. I've been cross-trained to check the undergrad's lab work (bleeping out personal info in interview recordings); not just do the computer work. Now that I've been cross-trained, I'm under pressure to alleviate the work of my officemates. However, there is now a sudden and urgent April deadline to perfect software for release in time for a conference I am not going to be attending. That means there is a very long laundry list of worker programs and file checker programs and such that I need to finish implementing SOON so that our Finland collaborators have clean data to work with. And on top of that, I'm trying to get a Quantum tape drive working on the only machine that has a PCI Exp x8 slot: a linux machine running a flavor of linux that I despise.
So I have less than six weeks to accomplish magic, and all the while, I'm being pressured to do two other peoples' jobs. I was offended when the suggestion came up that the undergrad checking load be divided up into thirds to be distributed between us. (A) They get paid more than I do, while I am the one with the unique skill set. (B) I can't divide up my hardware work, network tasks, and C# Java C++ etc programming into three parts. And (C) I'm the only person who stays in the lab past 4pm, e.g., my work isn't done just because it's mid-afternoon.
In other news, yes, I was robbed over Xmas break. The cops have arrested a suspected drug dealer, and while raiding his house, found one of my guns (definitely mine, serial numbers match) and a back room set up for gaming that was full of what may be a very large portion of the stuff that was stolen from my apartment. The detective said they'll be doing a full inventory of what they find in his place and will be comparing it to the detailed list of stolen property I gave them. Then they'll ensure that what's mine is mine, and that it gets returned to me. SWEET.
Well, I've killed enough time. A solid 20 minutes! I'm going to go back over Ch 4 in "A Course In Phonetics." I know you're jealous.
After all, I'm living alone again and am freshly singled. Talking to my cat makes me feel like a crazy person, so I am instead opting to talk to no one in particular. At least now I can say what I want without fear of getting clawed later.
I guess I'll use this for life updates, deep thoughts, venting (if absolutely necessary) and as something to keep my thinking clear on matters. After all, I surely don't want to send something out into the void of the internet unless I'm positive that's how I feel.
For example, I've calculated that once my current downloads finish, my movie harddrive will be well over 85% full of JUST movies, numberring them close to a thousand. I'm amazed that in the few short weeks that I got on this kick, I've amassed over 700 movies already. I backed them up to my portable external HD and took them to a movie night for a friend's birthday party. Twas good fun. In a few weeks, when more of them finish, I'll make the main backup to the 5tb drive.
The exam I should be studying for is Phonetics, especially considering I was half-assing it yesterday and today I spent the 5 hours of GOOD studying I had on Historical Linguistics (Tuesday's Exam). I need to concentrate, but I can't get myself to focus. My first impuls is to drink another Mt Dew and get a snack to break up the time, but if I do too much in too short a time, I'll get hyper and concentrating will be impossible. Then I'll inevitably crash at 5am.
So I'm doing this instead.
In one of my bouts of NOT concentrating last night, I ordered a new black leather collar for Sabrina. I also ordered some 1/2 inch spikes to affix to it. :) It'll make for a nice little project after things calm down academically... ...and at work.
Work went from idle to overdrive in a single heartbeat. I've been cross-trained to check the undergrad's lab work (bleeping out personal info in interview recordings); not just do the computer work. Now that I've been cross-trained, I'm under pressure to alleviate the work of my officemates. However, there is now a sudden and urgent April deadline to perfect software for release in time for a conference I am not going to be attending. That means there is a very long laundry list of worker programs and file checker programs and such that I need to finish implementing SOON so that our Finland collaborators have clean data to work with. And on top of that, I'm trying to get a Quantum tape drive working on the only machine that has a PCI Exp x8 slot: a linux machine running a flavor of linux that I despise.
So I have less than six weeks to accomplish magic, and all the while, I'm being pressured to do two other peoples' jobs. I was offended when the suggestion came up that the undergrad checking load be divided up into thirds to be distributed between us. (A) They get paid more than I do, while I am the one with the unique skill set. (B) I can't divide up my hardware work, network tasks, and C# Java C++ etc programming into three parts. And (C) I'm the only person who stays in the lab past 4pm, e.g., my work isn't done just because it's mid-afternoon.
In other news, yes, I was robbed over Xmas break. The cops have arrested a suspected drug dealer, and while raiding his house, found one of my guns (definitely mine, serial numbers match) and a back room set up for gaming that was full of what may be a very large portion of the stuff that was stolen from my apartment. The detective said they'll be doing a full inventory of what they find in his place and will be comparing it to the detailed list of stolen property I gave them. Then they'll ensure that what's mine is mine, and that it gets returned to me. SWEET.
Well, I've killed enough time. A solid 20 minutes! I'm going to go back over Ch 4 in "A Course In Phonetics." I know you're jealous.
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