A Pocketful of Thoughts

On life, friends, and fitting in.

2009-09-18T23:45:00.002-04:00

Life is hard.
And People are complicated.
Which is certainly not a surprise for any of you.
One of the main reasons I like to blog is not just that I like talking about whatever interests me, and perhaps get other people interested in it as well (although that is one reason) it's that, I'm not a very open person, at least not right off the bat. In fact even after I've known a person for a while, perhaps even years I can't really bring myself to open up completely, to really exspose the essence if you will, of who I am. I hear this metahphor all the time, about being in a shell, or always wearing a mask in front of people, instead of letting them see your true self, and as cliched as they are, I feel that it is almost eerie how accurately it seems to parallel my life.

I'm sure there's some deep psychological reason behind all this, but from some time ago, around middle school, I changed. I went from being an overall outgoing person, to much more introverted, in fact I even started to fall into the stereotypes that would accompany it. I would get bullied,and instead of fight back (as I once did) I just withdrew further. As I grew older, things just became more muddled, I would almost be both, outgoing and closed-off, in a sort-of bipolar-esque routine of switching from one to the other.

It's kinda funny, that I seem to know a lot of people, both in high school and college. but I don't really feel like I have a lot of friends, I mean sure I consider pretty much everyone I know to be a friend to one degree or another, but I don't really feel that they feel the same about me, and beyond that even, all but a few of my friendships, actually feel real. As in, they're the type, where there's no question the other is your friend, the person, you talk to, you hang out with, you relate to. The kind of person that really understands you, who knows what kind of a person you are, and still considers you a friend, the person that forgives even your biggest mistakes, or stupidest moments, no matter how frequent.

In all my life, I don't think I've ever had more than a couple of friends like that, and it's kinda saddening.
I think this might contribute to my obsession with comics, they show a view of life, that I can relate to, but without the complexities of human-interaction, at least on my end.
I like comics like Calvin and Hobbes, xkcd, and Foxtrot, because I can relate very strongly to their characters and themes, because in some ways it helps to give me hope, that out there in that vast world, there can be understanding, even if it's only fictional.
I guess that's what I hoped for most out of college, besides the learning, the degree, I'd want most out of all of it, understanding.

In my time here at college, I've learned a great deal, but not just about physics and math and other scholarly subjects.
I've learned a little bit more about people, about life, about trying to fit in, and about failing to do so.
I've lived a fairly sheltered life up until college, up until now, the vast majority of my friends had been only at school, always in class, and always sort of separate from the rest of my life. it's here that I've found that the worlds not quite so segmented, people from school become people I see everyday, and I've found myself trying to adapt to this new situation of interacting with people, in this whole new mixed up jumbled environment.
College is unique in that while it seems to pass by so quickly, it also feels like it's lasted a lifetime.
After a year here, I've made some friends and lost some as well. It's sad to say that as I've tried to adapt, I've kinda fumbled here and there, leaving some potential friendships in ruin. Will they be salvaged? only time will tell, I suppose that's the hardest thing about people, you never know what will happen, there's no map to follow, no undo button, no way to make everything better, what's done is done, and sometimes past mistakes follow you into the future. As much as I'd like to go back in time, and change things for the better, explain myself, and hope that some understanding can be reached by all, them and I, but I can't so I've no choice but remain here, with my actions, and decisions, and hope it's not to late for things to change.

While my blog may not be all that interesting at times, or even all that good, it may never find an audience, or even be read by more than a handful, and even then perhaps never by those whom I'd hope would read it; at the very least it helps me, to sort through my mind, and communicate my thoughts, feelings and whatever else is there, in a more understandable manner, I'd like to think that doing so helps me become just a bit better at understanding others just as it helps me understand myself.
And who knows, maybe someone will read it, intended or otherwise, and maybe someday, at the end of all this I'll finally find what I've been looking for.
A little understanding.

Comics

2009-09-18T10:21:00.005-04:00

I like comics, as many of you I'm sure have realized.

I went to borders today, and it was my luck to have stumbled upon a copy "the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" in the bargain bin. So naturally I bought it. Before the comics, there's a bit of a foreword by the author, Bill Watterson.

It was a few pages where he talked about various things, relating to comics, and Calvin and Hobbes, and other related views in general. He talked aobut how comics nowadays have changed in the hundred years or so of their existence, from being merely a way to help sell newspapers to being a form of art and expression in their own right. He talked about the almost ironic change that accompanied this, of newspapers cutting off parts of comics or greatly reducing the sizes so as to cram as many as they can into as small a space as they can, ironic since the comics are perhaps the only thing that had really set newspapers apart, and makes them unique, at least when compared to television at that time as a way of getting news.
He talked about his working to keep his comics from becoming comercialized, and in doing so cheapened. It was particularly powerful to read, how instead of cash in on his success as so many have or would have done he instead fought to keep his work his, and not allow his artistic vision to be sold or in any way cheapened by the greed of others.
It was really admirable, to read. And there is no possible way for me to do his words justice I can only say to read them yourselves.

But having read them it reminded me just a little bit of why I love his comics as much as I do, long after I've grown bored with Garfield which I had loved as a child, or any of the other nameless newspaper comics whose names I've long since forgotten. There's something about Calvin and Hobbes, that really speaks to me, whether it's the timeless laughs, or the deep themes that I face at times in my own life. There's something wonderfully magical about it, that feeling that in here, there's something for me, in this the wonderful crazy mixed up world we live in, there's something that I can relate to, and it makes my life a little bit nicer for having read it.
While some might say that reading comics are a waste of time, I can't help but disagree, there's a lot to be learned and experienced from them if only you look at them with an open mind.

So with that, I'd like to share with you few strips that I found to be especially meaningful:
the first 2 where part of a story arc about a racoon, Calvin found, I'll not clutter up the post with all of them, but if you go here you'll find the others (as well as a few more very good strips) the second is unrelated to the others, but meaningful nonetheless (found in the same place).

I hope you enjoyed these comics and their message just a little bit. I know I have.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's a whole books worth of these for me to finish, along with their ensuing commentary by the author, so until next time.
Also speaking of comic collections, there's an xkcd book out, you can order it here. The profits of course go to help support this amazing comic, as well as help to build a school in laos. I'm sure it goes without saying that I've already ordered my copy.

The Future is coming, and it's ...nifty

2009-09-07T04:07:00.007-04:00

The Future of Shopping?

You gotta admit Paypal has some pretty nifty ideas for the future, and I for one am looking forward to them (I'm sure I'm not alone, I mean come on, who else doesn't like cool futuristic-like technology?)
This November their releasing a new 'flexible' API for developers to use and build on the platform set to be released on November 3rd.
sounds cool? get more details from my source here, and here both from TechCruch

Speaking of Cool Futuristic Techno-Thingies, check out this video by Microsoft (yeah you me right):

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Video: Future Vision Montage&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Now I'll admit, I feel little else save loathing when I think of microsoft, but the geek in me can't help but look on in wonder (and delight) at the prospect of such ideas.
Granted it's Microsoft, so I'm not going to get my hopes up that I'll be seeing such things in my lifetime (least not by Microsoft ....yep that's the loathing you're reading)
[found here at Digital Beat]

There's also a longer version of this video at istartedsomething.com [link here]

I'll admit that Microsoft has done some cool things in the past like the sphere computer so let's see what becomes of this.

Hope you enjoyed this short foray into the future (and all it's coolness) if you come across anything else cool and future-y please feel free to post 'em in the comments (I love reading about new or potential technology)
That's all Goodnight.

How To: Dual Boot Windows and Fedora (or Ubuntu)

2009-09-03T04:25:00.005-04:00

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you are no doubt aware of the fact that I use GNU/Linux (Fedora to be precise) as well as Windows (...damn windows only programs)
So for those of you that happen to be interested in GNU/Linux a try but aren't completely sure what to do, this guide is for you (think of it as a chance to learn from my mistakes, and all around stupidity) Also for those a little more on the fence than others just know that you don't need to actually install GNU/Linux to get an idea of what it's like, modern technology (and more specifically cheap hardware) have advanced to the point that you can simply install to and boot from a cd, dvd or even usb drive (though that one requires more work).

Please note, I'm just going to cover Fedora and Ubuntu here, mainly because they are very user friendly (and I haven't installed any other distros). Also note this guide is written with the assumption that you're currently using windows (sorry mac users, I can't really help you here).

Getting Started:
First download the iso of whatever version of either Ubuntu or Fedora you want to install.
To the newbies out there I'd recommend getting started with Ubuntu, as it's generally easier to set up and get running, it's probably the easiest to make the transition from windows to, but of course if you'd rather try fedora (as I do) if you're more on the technically inclined end of the spectrum go ahead.
*As a side note, if you happen to know someone that is GNU/linux-savvy and would be willing to help you, it would behove you to install the same distro they have, as they'd likely be of more aid than I in case you run into difficulty (I lucked out in this regard when I switched to fedora I also started a class where my professor not only uses fedora, but actually works at Redhat)

Now that you have your iso it's time to install it.
The easiest way would be to just use your preferred cd burning tool (when I first did this I used roxio creator) to create a live cd (make sure that you're burning the contents of the cd, and not the iso itself, generally if you double click on it it should load it into whatever software your computer defaults to for these kinds of things.

You can also install it to your usb drive using either Fedora's Live usb creator (which works great) or one of various tools for Ubuntu (e.g UNetBootin)

Linux Live:
Once you've got that all set up, you're ready to try out Linux, restart your computer and insert your media of choice, on the first screen you see (the BIOS page) you should see in the top right corner (usually when it's almost done loading) the key you need to press to bring up the boot menu (it's usually F10, F12, DEL, it's possible it may be different for some people, if all else fails google it) if you accidentally get into your BIOS setup page, make sure you don't screw around with anything (unless you want to break your computer) just exit without saving and try a different key until you find the one that's just right (if all else fails and you can't find the key that works for you, you can go into BIOS and change it boot order so it boots first from the usb or cd automatically (just remember to change back it later) after that you're pretty much in, select the Try without any change to your computer (or live cd) option to run the OS in live mode.

At this point you can have some fun navigating around the GNU/linux interface, which is pretty intuitive (although still noticeably different than windows) taskbar on the bottom, menus on the top, applications can be installed from what's called the repository which is essentially a store of free open source software that you can install on your computer without having to worry if it's a scam or malware, it's one of the reasons that linux is more secure than windows and the like, all necessary software are downloaded from trusted sources and have millions of eyes looking over them for bugs so that your system is kept secure You'll find that pretty much every software you use has a linux equivalent sitting in the repositories,(to use the obvious examples OpenOffice -MS Word, Firefox - Internet Explorer, etc....) I could sit here and preach to you the benefits of using Linux and Open Source Software until I'm blue in the face (and I still wouldn't be able to come up with as convincing a speech as you can find online) but it all means nothing if you don't try it out for yourself, so if you've been sitting there just reading through the article trying to see what to do only to be thinking that you'll do it later, stop reading right now (can't believe I said that) go to the website of whichever distribution you're interested in (Ubuntu/Fedora) download the iso and get installing, it'll run you 30 mins or so (might vary depending on your internet connection) and try booting up GNU/Linux, it'll be worth your time (really) try it out and see if you can get the hang of it, yeah it's different, and it's not the same ol' windows UI (user interface) you may have grown up on, so it'll take some getting used to but that's inherent in trying anything new, and you can even come back here and continue reading the article if you like (though you may want to plug in an ethernet cable if you aren't already doing so, for reasons I'll get into later).

So, go on now, go..., don't worry I'll wait ...really, go. now.
...
Back? good.

Some Side Info:
Well now that you had a chance to see GNU/Linux for yourself what did you think of it? not bad right?
Are you thinking about installing it to your hard drive maybe? (it'd be really awesome if you did, seriously ...if someone does, post in the comments I'd love to hear it)
Before you do, there are some things you should be aware of:
firstly your wireless card and/or video card may not be completely compatible with Linux, this is because certain companies refuse to release their drivers source (despite promises by developers to sign NDAs) or even release drivers compatible with linux, so it falls on linux developers to write their own.
*note it's possible other parts of your hardware may not work, but you shouldn't worry about that if you were able to boot the live installation of GNU/Linux *
The reason linux developers want open source drivers for use with linux systems is because it's more secure and stable that way, a code that is closed source provides a security risk to the computer as it could be exploited without the knowledge of the user and not fixed until the company decides to release a new update. There is also the idealogical and practical ideas behind open source computing, which I won't get into (put you can read about online if you like).
So, let it be known that your graphics driver &/or wireless card may not immediately work in linux (check here, or here to see for sure)
It's at this point that I hope you followed my advice and picked Ubuntu (unless you have a nearby linux guru who'll help you)
Because Ubuntu is a bit more lax when it comes to drivers, as in they offer a readily accessible way to change your drivers to use proprietary versions (if you want)
Fedora so far as I can tell Fedora does not (there is a workaround for most things, but some are pretty complicated ....I haven't even figured out how to do it yet)

* Now if you've decided that you don't want to go on with the installation, that's fine just exit out and continue with windows, I will make one recommendation, hold on to that flash drive/CD just in case your computer has issues and won't boot, that live install might be your only way to rescue the data on your computer (plus if you ever change your mind about Linux.....)

Installing:
So... you've made it this far, either you've decided to go through with the installation or you're just that interested in what I have to say (either way: awesome)
Before you go on, back up your hard drive, anything and everything you feel is important, trust me, it's better safe than sorry.
Now if you're still running the Live install of there should be an option on your desktop to install it to your hard drive, click that.
You'll be prompted to decide on certain configurations for your system:
Time Zone,
keyboard layout,
login username and password,
and root password (important: make sure this is a strong password that you don't forget, and do not tell anyone this password, it's important)

Fedora will also prompt you to name your computer
the default being: localhost.localdomain,
It's just how your computer will be identified if it's on a network, you can keep it as the default if you like, it won't make too much of a difference

Now the most important step.
Partitioning your hard drive.
you will see:
Since you want to dual boot and not replace windows entirely, pick the shrink current system option (or for ubuntu pick manual), and it'll prompt you to resize your windows partition, depending on how big of a hard drive you have you may want to give it around 25 or so GB, though it really depends on if you like to install other applications and the like on your computer, if you have a lot, feel free to give it more (I personally made my XP partition ~50 GB on a 149 GB hard drive) the now on the next screen, if you want to have some free space shared by both Linux and XP you can create a new NTFS partition of however much size you want, and it can house whatever data you want both to access.
The Steps listed above are pretty much the same (though a bit more intuitive) in Ubuntu, you can resize your XP partition and create a new partition to share between the two (still NTFS) *note your Ubuntu system will probably look different than that picture, as it's just an example I found online). When you're done with this STOP. If you're still reading, finish up and then close firefox and anything else you have open (except the install prompt of course) this is because when the computer is resizing your partitions and installing your new OS you don't want to touch it, at all just leave it be until it's done because messing with it then could end up screwing something up, while it's resizing the partitions or installing the OS (I think that may be why I ran into so many issues with Ubuntu).
Also make sure your computer is plugged in (if it's a laptop).

Ready?
Good, now click next and let your computer do it's work, get a drink, grab a book see what's on tv. This might take a while, every 10-20 mins or so check back up on it to see if it's finished up. After it's done, it'll power down, eject the CD and after the BIOS page you'll see a boot page for picking what OS you want to boot up (Windows would be listed under other) So sit back, enjoy and congratulations on your new Linux Installation, now make sure you're computer is connected to the internet (via ethernet cable) and install some updates to ensure your computer is running smooth, (you should be able to connect to the internet wirelessly afterwards, assuming a driver has been written for your wireless card. If you're on Ubuntu go into System>Administration>Hardware Drivers and you can pick your driver for your wireless, video (and whatever else)cards after that just have some fun, you can enable some cool desktop effects for your computer in System>Preferences> Display Effects (you'll have to first restart if you've just activated your video driver)

There are tons more stuff to do (which would probably take several posts on their own) if you're at a loss for ideas go online there are plenty of resources and information for GNU/Linux that you can use to make your experience with linux better than ever.

Hope you enjoyed (or at least benefited from) this guide, 'twas a bit wordy, and possibly preachy at times (yes even I noticed) but hopefully it wasn't too onerous, and if you've been here thus far, you probably liked it somewhat (or are an extremely nice person)
At any rate, thanks for listening. and see ya later next time.
[images taken from: here for Ubuntu, and here for Fedora]

OS

2009-09-02T03:51:00.001-04:00

*stealthily easing back into the whole blogging thing, hoping no one will notice my absence (honestly I'd be pretty shocked if anyone did)*

I recently decided to give up on Ubuntu, for my main computer at least.
It just was causing me all kinds of problems that eventually I got fed up with it and decided to try my hand at something else.
Don't get me wrong Ubuntu is great, ...just not right for me (truth be told I think my computer is to blame, I suspect that maybe as a young calculator my computer was kicked by someone that looked like me and thus holds a grudge ... of course I can't prove any of that ...yet)

I figured I'd try my hand at Fedora, it's pretty user-friendly and is very similar to ubuntu in many ways, and after getting off to a kinda rocky start with the whole installing process (a story for another time) things are going ...fairly well (despite running into some problems) ...another reason why I despise dell and especially my school's laptop program ...I swear it's like they're trying to screw people over.

Fedora like any gnu/linux OS distribution is a learning experience, luckily there are tons of documentation, online resources (google!), books, etc out there (one of my professors works for red hat, so you can be sure I'll be asking him for help on a regular basis)

I'm thinking that in my spare time I'm going to re-purpose a few computers that happen to be lying around into better, faster linux boxes, the physics dept at my school gave me and a friend a few computers that they were going to throw out, to use for projects as we saw fit, the idea at first was to create a beowulf cluster, but we probably won't do that as it'd be a lot of work for something we really have no use for (we just wanted to do it, for the fun of building something, but it's hard to be motivated if there's no real underlying purpose or use for it)

So I might try this out on a few of those computers see if I can't get them working better, and learn something in the process. The way I see it if anything goes wrong, it doesn't matter (they were garbage anyway) and so I'll try a couple of other distros like: slackware, gentoo, opensuse, debian, maybe even tip my toes into the realm of BSD OS's ...we'll see what happens.

I'll try and post some updates regarding this online (who knows, maybe it'll be kinda interesting?) and I'll try and go back to regular posting and whatnot, I've been sitting on a bunch of stuff that I wanted to post, but I just hadn't the time and/or motivation to do so, hopefully that'll change

Updates! ....Forthcoming

2009-08-05T22:09:00.006-04:00

Hey, sorry about the lack of updates recently I've been rather busy lately (ironic since I'm now done with class and should thus have more time ....funny how the world works)

I've been steadily working my way towards the improvements I've touted for the past couple of weeks, so never fear, new awesome stuff on the way. Also I've been sort of lost in a maze of articles and the like about all sorts of things, from the whole Apple/AT&T/Google Debacle, to AP's ridiculous ideas for "preventing the leeches of the internet from profiting off it's hard work" (and by leeches they mean bloggers who link back to them and give them traffic, to say nothing of this being fair use) So, In my desire to only bring you top quality (slightly above sub-par) news and facts (and lots of opinions and other whiney posts) I'm making my way through the collective stream of information to bring you the latest and most interesting news, so you don't have to.

So stay tuned, and get ready for more from my pocketful of thoughts (I really need to look into a better name than that) See ya next time...

Also if you're interested here are some links you may find interesting:
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/08/03/the_ap_will_sell_you_a_license_to_words_it_doesnt
http://daggle.com/ap-1750-quote-1261
http://daggle.com/do-newspapers-owe-google-fees-for-researching-stories-611
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/01/why-the-fcc-wants-to-smash-open-the-iphone/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/03/another-startup-falls-prey-to-the-iphonegoogle-voice-crossfire/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/new-petition-demands-an-end-to-kindle-drm.ars

Have fun (and once again, sorry about the cop-out, but I'm really quite swamped)

Sayonara.....

2009-07-31T22:58:00.004-04:00

.....Blogger
In all seriousness, I'm done with it.
I mean, it's nice and all, portable, convenient, and generally does what you need done, though that depends on what you want to get out of your blog.

I've been saying it for a few weeks now, that I'm gonna move out of blogger, and switch over to wordpress and even host the blog myself on an old comp that I'll reuse as a server. Which so far hasn't happened, mostly due to time constraints, but also since I don't currently have the comp nearby (long story). So I've been holding out on switching, so as to get it all done at once. but after today, when i was trying to get even simple things set up here on blogger, and kept running into annoying problems (text resizing out of hand, html/etc tags showing up randomly) to say nothing of the reasons i wanted to leave in the first place. So over the weekend I'll make the switch, temporarily host the blog on a free site or my laptop until I get my hands on my would-be server.

Never fear though this page will be here, so long as google doesn't delete it, and I'll look into putting in a redirect so you'll always find my page even if you come here.
Also don't get me wrong I do like blogger for the most part. and it works great for some people, just not me, it's not what I'm looking for, so it's time for me to say good bye.

Goodbye, blogger. It's been alright

Addendum:
I'm gonna be here for a little while longer it seems
This whole server thing is a bit more complicated than I'd originally anticipated.
So... while I'm working on that behind the scenes, you can continue enjoying your regular dosage of my thoughts (and whatever other crap I output)
-enjoy (...?)

A little HTML here, a little CSS there, and what do you have?

2009-07-31T10:08:00.017-04:00

A blog that's held together with what is essentially duct tape.
Which is rapidly becoming an increasingly accurate description of my blog.

I don't know html, or css or xhtml or any of the web related languages. I know a bit of Java and some C++, everything else I just sorta grope my way through. It helps a lot though that the source code for websites are freely available (at least for every web site I've ever seen), and that I know how to program so figuring out what others are doing is a bit more straightforward to me (to say nothing of having the internet available to look up everything I don't understand) So most edits I try to make to my site require a look through the code of sites that have elements I'm looking to add. Not long ago, I decided to add a few little things to my blog to make it look a bit more ....interesting.

I figured a nice RSS feed and twitter button would be a good place to start.
After an exhaustive search through many lines of code I finally got something done, though I like to think I learned something through this whole process, which I intend to share with you all:

The internet is an awesome tool for learning (though you don't need me to tell you that)
While reading random articles (today's topic was the whole Google Voice debacle) I came across this blog, which had this very cool icon for twitter on the right side of the page that followed the page as it scrolled down. I wanted to put that in my blog so I looked through the source code and found this:

<style type="text/css">
div#fixme { position: absolute; top: 200px; right:0px; }
body #fixme { position: fixed; top: 200px; right:0px; }
</style>

<div id="fixme">
<a href="http://twitter.com/riverturninc"><img src="http://www.riverturn.com/images/twitter3.png" alt="Twitter" /></a>
</div>

Now I didn't know what it meant at first. But I recognized the obvious little things like the image source or the page where it linked to. So I changed that accordingly, but i still wanted to have one for my RSS feed, so I duplicated it accordingly (changing fixme to another name for the duplicate ...took me a while to realize that) But after seeing it on the my page I realized that it was too annoying to leave as it was, so I made some modifications to change it to the way it is now, I didn't know how to. So I did what any internet addicted blogger with a goal to accomplish would do .... I turned to Google. and I found what I was looking for:
This in particular was quite handy in allowing me to change different things in the code and see what happens.
This was also quite useful by giving a quick rundown of CSS positioning.
Besides those few sites, I just messed with stuff til I got an idea of what they did
Which I suppose is in many ways the core of programming in general, getting a feel of what code does by trying it yourself, see what happens when you change certain parameters. Eventually you come to understand what each thing does on a level that can never truly be reached just by reading (note: If you do this with something important, or at least something that you don't want screwed up, back up the code first before you mess with it)
Also, credit where credit is due:
The RSS image was found here, which got it from here.
And the twitter image was from this site.

Hope you enjoyed the show. See ya and happy coding (or whatever it is you do with your free time)

The economical woes of a college student

2009-07-30T20:30:00.005-04:00

Now as you are no doubt aware, I am a college student.
And not just any college student, I am a student at one of the most expensive colleges in the free world.
And even with the help that I'm receiving from the school, there's plenty of debt left to go around, from the remaining tuition costs to room and board, to books (how a few measly little textbook can cost up to several hundreds of dollars is beyond me). So I'm taking it upon myself to try and cut some of these costs (not that I haven't done so before, I just never kept track, and wasted a bunch of money in other ways).
I've already had some minor success with curbing my future debt. This past year I worked a student job (or 2). Mainly I tutored math at my school's Math Learning Resource Center (MLRC) ...I few days ago I told my mom about what I did for my job during the school year (not sure how it came up), and she laughed at me (I felt somewhat insulted)
The working helped put a little extra money in my pocket (which since I had no method of keeping track of my expenses, shortly disappeared on stupid and ephemeral things)

So I've decided that my first order of business in this whole thing is to devise a budget (and stick to it). And then, I need to find ways to reduce my costs, the first being books. Which I'd like to think I'm already doing a fairly adequate job of doing. I almost exclusively by my books online, from sites like ebay, half.com, amazon, and others. I begin the search at Direct Textbook.com
Another good way of lowering costs for books, is borrowing/buying books from friends, which while less likely/expedient is definitely a lot cheaper. The biggest problem with that is finding people who have the exact book you need (and haven't sold it already) also, you may not want to borrow when it comes to your main classes, as you may want to have a copy for a reference.

My next problem is room and board. Room's a bit tricky for me to save on, short of moving in with my older brother (who lives not far) though I'd prefer to avoid that, as he's married with a kid, and my other brother, not to mention I get the feeling it wouldn't be much better than living at home (...). So my only other options would be becoming an RA or getting an apartment. The RA route is nice, as you get free room and board, but there's the added time drain, not to mention having to continue to live in a dorm watching over freshman/sophomores. There's always renting an apartment, though that's usually only cheaper if you have people to room with (which I don't) and it's also a hassle in and of itself trying to find one. Overall this isn't something I have the luxury of worrying over now, as I'm slated to live in the dorms this year, and it's far too late to become an RA.

Lastly but certainly not least. There is food expenses. I'm sure i don't need to tell you, but college meal plans are expensive (or more accurately a rip-off) costing on average (at my school) over 2k a semester (!!!) not to mention limited to what the school has to offer. Now earlier today I came across a very interesting story (brought to my attention by HackerNews) And it is an amazing article, the author (Andrew Hyde) basically recounts how during college he was able to live reasonably well on $36 per month on food (I know I was also astonished)
Here are a few tips he mentioned in his article:
Everything you buy, should be at least half off retail. ; cook at home ; load up on foods that are deep discounted. figure out the coupon/sales/clearance cycles of your nearby stores. pass on things that aren't sale, and keep things in your house from spoiling (freeze perishable foods, store things properly, etc) ; He mentioned several other very good tips, but I'll just direct you to the article again, rather than list more.

I know a friend of mine, Aaron who goes to my school (and has a blog himself) could really do to read this article, as he's very financially conscious himself.
Unfortunately as I'm living in a dorm this year, I've no choice but to get a meal plan, but next year! I shall put my plan into action, and save some money. In the mean time, I hope this has been at least a little helpful to you oh nameless reader. Good luck, and take care (now is where you turn the other way so I can slip away into silent anonymity) which is one of the best websites I've ever seen for finding cheap books, it's essentially a search engine (and a store) it finds prices from many different sites (including the ones I already named) it also adds in the cost of shipping making it all very nice and convenient.

Holy Crap I'm getting old

2009-07-29T10:13:00.009-04:00

At the ripe old age of 19 I look back on my life and realize just how much as changed.
While rummaging through the inter-webs I came across a interesting article:
100 things your kids may never know and as the name suggests it's a list of 100 things that will probably be (or are already) forgotten by the time you have kids (or at least older kids) reading through the article I realized just how many things I knew myself, and with it the realization that my future offspring will never know about (unless I take the old-timer route and force the info on them through tales involving cheap gum, and impossible slopes)

The list which included many things that may be common knowledge to you, but I bet won't be (for obvious reasons) in the future. After you're done reading this, go and talk to your younger relatives or friends, maybe they're your children, or nephews/nieces, cousins, even neighbors and ask them if they recognize any of the things on this list, and watch as the younger you ask, the less they'll know (if they even know any of it) obviously your results will vary depending on their exposure to technology and if they have older siblings (as I had, which is why I knew about most of those things) but odds are most of whom you ask, won't recognize more than a handful items if even that.

As I thought about all those things long forgotten in an ever changing era, what about the things we know about now? what's changing? all those things that we've taken for granted as staples of the technology industry, how long are they going to be there? and what else will come that we'll start to accept as normal? take google for example, from simple search engine to gigantic company invloved in numerous enterprises from browsers, to email to now operating systems not to mention the bevy of assorted apps that are far too numerous to name. In fact they do so much now that I have no idea what industry they may already been entrenching themselves in. On the other hand look at Microsoft, slowly but surely losing it's market share, now with the open source movement gaining more strength the tides are turning, are we going to see the day when the software giant finally topples (note that if it does I shall start every class that day with a rousing rendition of "Ding Dong the Witch is dead") It's really hard to take in all at once, but the worlds changing. And I'm coming to accept that I'm changing with it.

The headlong rush into adulthood (the real kind, not just legally speaking) that I find myself in is really starting to affect me in ways I haven't noticed til now. This fall I'll be entering my second year at college, and I can't help but marvel at the speed at which I've arrived there, why it only feels like just yesterday I was starting, or perhaps a week ago, that I was sitting in high school waiting for that day that I would finally step up and take my place in that world.

I have 2 older brothers ages 33 and 29 and when I was younger I watched them go off to college and grad school and now work (one even is married with a kid!) and after all those years I find myself actually finally here, and quite frankly it's a bit daunting. The knowledge that I have but 3 more years til I'm thrust out into the "real" world, where I have to have a job and my own place to live, now I could always go the grad school route, put off on making a decision for a few years more, but as I mentioned earlier, I'm no longer sure if that's really what I want to do anymore. So here I am, with less than one month left til school no longer certain of what I want to study, let alone what I want to do after that. and given the nature of my life so far I can expect the time to go just as fast (if not faster as I get closer to the end of college). I've never been one for an office job, while I spend vast amounts of my time at a desk at a computer, it's usually been for reasons of my own, and the idea of spending the rest of my working days in a cubicle or even an office slaving away at a desk, is just not appealing to me. On the other hand I could try research, or teaching (preferably at a college level) or even something else entirely that I haven't considered yet. But in order to do such things, I need to make sure that I'm interested enough in a certain field to actually want to put in the time and dedication to get there, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm no longer sure if I am.

I have in many ways come to terms with the growing expectations of maturity, which are in their own way becoming a bit more visible in my posts (compare my recent posts to my early posts and you'll see what I mean) I don't know what that means, am I actually growing up? or do I just think that I am? I like to think that it's a result of experiences (particularly last semester) but I can't say definitely. In a rather hilarious coincidence my post happens to falls on the same day that this xkcd comic gets posted:It's definitely one that I can relate to at the moment given my own doubts and insecurities about growing up.
As always I hope you enjoyed (or at least didn't hate) this foray into the recesses of my mind. This is my cue to leave, but if you feel like sharing your thoughts feel free to make your mark in the comments. See ya.

The woes of technology gone amuck

2009-07-28T21:31:00.011-04:00

I'm beginning to suspect that technology hates me. Despite all the love i give it in return, it instead spurns said love, trips me, kicks me while I lay there and then spits in my hair. In many ways I feel like this situation is far too reminiscent of this xkcd comic:

Now you may think that it cannot possibly be as bad as I claim, but let me assure you my dear reader, that it is as bad as (if not worse than) I claim (all the way down to the computer physically struggling with me via it's disk drive). Now if you just happen to have reader some of my earlier posts (you know the ones with the writing even worse than these ....I know I can hardly believe it myself, but my current writing may actually be an improvement over something else) you may recall this particular post where I vented my rage at dell over their shoddy hardware. Well... you may (or may not) be suprised to hear that I similar (though not exact) situation occured yesterday.

Now as I may have mentioned in an earlier post (honestly i can't remember if I have or not) for the last month I've been taking an online course in MATLAB through my school (Villanova) and yesterday happened to be the day of my final exam (you may see where I'm going with this) and during the course of said exam, I was using MATLAB (naturally) and firefox (no surprise there) now ... somehow I ended up getting MATLAB stuck in an infinite loop, which slowed down my entire comp (including firefox) a quick look at taskmanager showed that both MATLAB and firefox where using up vast amounts of my CPUs processing power, so I ended the processes, my computer was still acting wonky, so I shut it down. I turn it back on, and before it even makes it to the boot menu, it shuts down (just my luck) I try a few more times to make sure it's not just a fluke but it's to no avail. So I contact my professor, and I arrange to take the test at a later date after my computer is repaired.

So, this morning, I took off from work and head down to Villanova so that I can get tech support to help me out with this, when I get there..... the damn thing boots, no problem (except for a prompt asking if I want to start windows normally or in safe mode or something)

I swear it's like the singing frog, from the cartoons, when no one's around it just attracts problems like electrons to protons, but when others are looking, there's no problem. I really do wonder though if windows and dell really do have it out for me, I mean it's only when running windows that I run into these kinds of issues (which is why I support OSS), and only on dell hardware that things just keep breaking (which is why I hate it) whereas most of the people I know are just fine and dandy no problems. Hell even firefox acts screwy under windows, always getting to the point that it gobbles up vast amounts of system resources forcing me to shut it down.

It's things like these that makes me hate the fact that Villanova implemented a laptop program, we're stuck with the hardware they decide, and the software they force on it and then dependent on their tech support ('cause it's not like any of us are masochistic enough to try dell's support line) I think I'm going to rename my computer Michigan J. Frog, I feel it's woefully appropriate. You may remember me mentioning that I'm probably going to switch to computer science, if I do, I'm going to make sure to contribute what I can to the Open Source movement. Because I've seriously had enough with windows, if it weren't for the fact that there are certain software I need to use that runs only on windows, I'd probably just erase it from my drive completely.

I'm sure that you're all sick and tired of hearing me rant about my hatred for shoddy hardware, and shoddy proprietary software. So I'll just end it here.
Inn case you're not cool enough to know about Michigan J. Frog (or just need a refresher), take a look at this youtube video, titled "One Froggy Evening" it was Michigan's debut:

This whole blog thing

2009-07-27T10:22:00.006-04:00

Writing this blog is pretty fun, even when it seems like no one is reading.
I've routinely asked myself "why do i do this?", or "what do i want out of it?", or even "what will I write?"

What is my purpose for this blog? is it like some, a way to provide interesting and relevant news on a particular subject? or political commentary (of which I am woefully ignorant) or is it a way to garner a few extra dollars to support my education as friend of mine is doing, or could it be something else entirely?
truth be told I wouldn't mind any of those things being the focus of my blog (particularly the money thing, which would be nice) but I can't seem to lock down one particular purpose for my blog.

And I realized that, I don't need a focus, because I don't have one. And maybe it's better that way. I'm free to write whatever I want, which is a pretty nice feeling, when contrasted against years of schooling being forces to pump out tons of papers primarily of the useless and meaningless variety. While I may not have a focus i do have many interests and can highlight them throughout my blog, enabling me to bring what knowledge and experiences I have to an audience (using the term audience loosely of course)

I suppose of all the possible benefits of having a blog (which I never considered before I started) is the educational value it has for me, I've never really been "connected" to the vast majority of news/social-networking/blog/etc sites out there, so now when I scrounge about online looking for things interesting to talk about I find out a lot more about things I was once only vaguely aware of. Not to mention the fact that when typing up my more technically oriented posts (like the ones relating to routers [I,II,III])I'm learning how to do the things that I'm writing about as I write them, by searching through the sites for all these things I find out a lot more about them than if I were to just read it off of some other blog or website.

You may be wondering what brought up this train of introspection, I'd attribute it more strongly to this post I read in this blog (that I came across while searching randomly for interesting things of course) it's a really nice article and definitely rings true with regards to my own thoughts regarding blogging.
I'm definitely glad I could share my thoughts on this matter. Enjoy

A major desicion

2009-07-26T16:01:00.004-04:00

So I've been thinking a lot recently, on the direction I'm going with my college career, which has been to major in physics and minor if not major in math as well. Recent events (namely my second semester) have forced me (with no small encouragement from my parents and siblings) to seriously consider the focus of my education, and the direction I want to go with all this. Now originally I wanted to after completing college, maybe try my hand in industry or pursue graduate school, either for physics or for math (or maybe something else that I have yet to consider) the hope would be that I would eventually earn an advanced degree in one of those (preferably a PhD) so that I may move on to pursue my eventual goal of research and then teach at the university level.

Now I've been thinking for some time, whether physics was the right path for me, and with the constant badgering of certain relatives (who shall at this time remain nameless ....but you know who you are) I've come to really, dig deep and consider if I'm on the right path. Now don't get me wrong I love physics and math for that matter, and that won't change (at least not in the foreseeable future) I'm just not sure if what I want to do with my life requires me to have a physics major, or PhD or any advanced degree in it for that matter (though I someday wish to complete my studies in physics, though that's for another time) I realized today that, research (which was my eventual career goal after all this) may not be what I really want, sure I love to read and learn new things, but if I want to go into research I would need to take another 5-10+ years out of my life to even get the opportunity to really do research (with the exception of what I may do during my time in grad school) and I realized that, the idea of sitting in a lab or office (or a cubicle for that matter) just doesn't appeal to me, spending my days alone, or as a part of a team working towards an answer that may not even be there. Science is not absolute, there's nothing firm and stable to base anything on, it's all there because it hasn't yet been wrong. So even if I do, go through all the hassle of grad school, and research it may all become invalidated in one fell swoop. In fact as I think about it, if I were to do research it would likely be in math, which is (as opposed to many other sciences) very open and collaborative, not to mention sturdy and logical.

Now my decision to leave physics as my course of study is more than just "it takes too long, or my research may be futile or even become invalidated" though that has a strong influence on this decision. I have lots of interests (as you've no doubt noticed if you've read my blog) not just physics or math, but computers, and programming, and all sorts of things. So I've come to this conclusion that perhaps it's best if I not just constrict myself to this one path doesn't help me, as I begin to lose track of the other things that hold interest in my life.

Probably the most important realization of all of this, is the one that, I don't need to constrict myself to the deadlines imposed by society, I don't need to be done in exactly four years or less, I don't need to stress so much over what I major in, as if that is going to be the sole determinant of my future. And even once I graduate, there's nothing to stop me from pursuing my other interests (including physics) afterwards. I think that was the hardest part of all this, that the path that I choose now, doesn't necessarily lock me into one specific unalterable path, that I can change my mind, and that it's okay to take more time, so long as it's worth it for me to do so.

So after lots of mental deliberation I've decided that I'm going to try my hand at computer science, this next semester my schedule will contain a hearty helping of programming (which is fine by me) as well as a few humanities courses, and who know what else to fill in the blanks. Now don't look at this and think that I've completely given up on physics, just as it's possible for me to still incorporate physics in my work with computer science the converse is the same, and while this next semester I won't be taking physics I plan to do so (depending on how I fare this fall) in the spring, how knows maybe I physics might not be as far out of my reach as I've come to fear, so I'll keep in mind that just as I can switch to comp sci, I can just as easily switch back to physics (or math).

Now I realize this may have been a bit less interesting than my other recent posts highlighting different technological things of note, this was just something I felt necessary for myself (and perhaps others facing a similar dilemma)
Though never fear! my next post shall not fail to satiate (or at quell) your immense appetite for knowledge.

best laid plans

2009-07-25T23:20:00.005-04:00

so as I mentioned in several earlier posts [I,II] I've been planning some updates and projects and just all around awesomeness. I've been working steadily towards that goal, but it's been a bit diffficult what with work and school and all, but rest assured these things will happen. After all it's like the saying goes: "the best laid plans never go awry" ....that's how it goes ...right?

well at any rate I figured I'd just to update you on what's happening and such:

Blog: I'm switching from blogspot, at first I was gonna go about it slowly but recently I've become aware that I really want to change soon: mostly so that I can gain some more control over my blog, google blogspot's tools while nice are not what I'm looking for, they're just too limited for what I have in mind, and my knowledge of html is no where near good enough to edit the html directly (which is available) besides a few basic things. I'm definitely considering using wordpress, as I've heard some good things about it so far.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about hosting though, I've heard of a few very nice free online services, and registering a domain name is pretty cheap (although I can't find an acceptable one to save my life) I'm not yet ruling out the host it myself option, which while it has it's advantages, also has it's distinct disadvantages the most notable being the bandwith pull of a site in the (hopeful) future, especially since I plan on hosting more than my blog.
I'm looking into different options, I'd really like to do the server thing, if only because it'd be cool to do and I'd learn something in the process.

DIY awesomeness: thanks to some very awesome sites (most notably lifehacker) I've been getting some nice ideas for a little do-it-yourself goodness, which I plan on getting around too once I have some time and tools, the biggest forseable problem with this (besides the cost, potential property destruction/deconstruction, and lack of experience) is time, I don't have a lot of it (personally I think someone's hogging it all and just won't share) summer's ending soon, and most of my time is spent at work anyway to say nothing of my class (which'll end my monday anyway) once fall sem. hits I'll be swamped with work and things of that nature, I won't have the time to dedicate to such things, while it's possible that I may be able to accomplish one or 2 projects during the year they'd at best be small fry, not anything worthwhile, so it seems they're probably gonna be put on a sort of hiatus (at least until I have time and the server thing is taken care of)

Other: I have a few other ideas, that I'm not about to share, though I'll make sure to inform you ....in good time. Just know that they're gonna be good 'uns and rely (quite heavily on the whole hosting issue)

well that's it for now, feel free to post your thoughts in the comments (you know you have some) if you know of a good (site/blog) editior/site hoster/other awesome thing that you'd like to mention take a stroll over to the comments section and make it known.

you've been a great ~~crowd~~ ....person see ya next time

Awesomly Ridiculous

2009-07-25T22:48:00.007-04:00

After all those info heavy posts I feel it's probably a good idea to ...cleanse the mental palette if you will with a little geeky humour. Now it's no secret that I love webcomics (as you are no doubt aware...) especially those that deal heavily in things like humour, computers, science, and just plain geeky-ness so one of my new favorite comics GPF (General Protection Fault) comics just happens to have regular helpings of all that and more.

When reading through it's archives I couldn't help but fall to the floor laughing (at times literally) one comic in particular caught my attention as being especially humourus:

http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20050515

Of all the geeky comics I've ever read, this one takes the cake, truly a gem of humour (though I suppose that many might disagree) so take a look at that comic, and if you like what you see take a gander at the archives, it's really awesome (like all the comics I read) there's a lot of humour and computer references (several of which fly over my head, and probably still would if not for wikipedia) the comics also very plot intensive, much more than other's that I've read, and it may be a bit much to handle all at once (you gotta hand it to the authour he has a flair for story telling, particularly the drama-filled variety) but it's awesome in it's ways and definitely worth your time.

now if you'll excuse me I think I hear the inter-tubes calling my name.....

EDIT:

I found this on my friends fb from youtube, it is ridiculously hilarious, take a look:

more videos can be found at: www.potterpuppetpals.com/

Movin' On Up! Wireless Edition Part Last: Everything Else

2009-07-23T20:36:00.004-04:00

Okay, now it's occured to me that this series has gone on long enough, so it's time to wrap it up with a few last minute things.

Tomato:
Another Open source third party firmware for your router, with many of the same features as DD-WRT. Tomato can be used to up your routers signal output, track bandwith uses (along with fancy lookin' graphs), set QoS rules, access restriction rules (set up rules to block certain types of browsing at certain times) as well as other useful things. Now as you may have noticed that Tomato and DD-WRT are very similar, with a few minor differences, Tomato offers a better graphical interface, while DD-WRT offers more features, though chances are a lot of the features that's not in Tomato, are not the kind that will be utilized by the average user anyway. As for which is better, that's up to you. Try one out see how you like it. if you want to see some more information on them (besides their respective sites) take a look at these lifehacker.com posts (where I originally got the info) for Tomato and DD-WRT.
also before you try to install tomato make sure that your router is supported.
you can follow the pointers for upgrading from the previous post.

Extras, Additions, and DIY's:
I found a few other interesting things you can do to help improve your router:
- Hardware DIY from the DD-WRT page.
- Expand your wireless network
- power your router with only an ethernet cable (requires soldering skills)
- DIY laptop wireless antenna
- Boost your wifi antenna

And there are so many others, my suggestion go on google or websites that deal heavily with technology or diy modifications. and go to town.

good luck, and enjoy

Movin' on Up! Wireless Edition Part 2: Firmware

2009-07-21T01:25:00.003-04:00

Now another thing that you'll want to make sure to do, is to keep your router's firmware updated.
If you remember from last time we logged into the router and changed the security setting, this time you would again log into your router and click the administration tab and then click firmware upgrade, there you will be able to load a new firmware to your router. You can download your router's firmware from the website of it's manufacturer.

You can also download an open source firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato to greatly enhance your router's capabilities.

Some things to note, before you decide to change your router's firmware:
1: make sure your internet connection and power supply will be uninterrupted
2: make sure that while you're upgrading, that you're wired to the router, don't try upgrading over a wireless connection.
3: read and follow the documentation associated with the software you're downloading.
4: Before you start upgrading reset your router to it's factory defaults, an easy way to do this is to "hard reset" your router - press and hold the small button on the back of your router for 30 seconds.
5: While it's upgrading, Don't Touch your Router or your Computer, leave them be, this is one of those times where you let your computer do what needs doing, without interference. A good idea would also be to end all programs with the exception of that one browser page while upgrading.

It's possible that while upgrading your firmware you may end up "bricking" your router, or in other words rendering it a useless hunk of plastic, so please exercise caution when it comes to this.

DD-WRT
For those routers that are supported the DD-WRT firmware adds several (very awesome) features to your router such as:

Boosting your Wireless Signal: Go to the Wireless tab, and then to Advanced Settings. Find the entry labeled Xmit Power, which is set by default at 28mW, and can be set up to 251mW.
- please note that while it's tempting to boost your signal all the way, more power is not necessarily better as too high an output will increase the temperature of your router and end up shortening it's lifespan.

I've heard several reports as to what output level is best for high range without killing your router prematurely, and it the general opinion (including the DD-WRT faq) seem to trend to 70-84 mW, although.... I hear that lower power settings give greater speed (due to their low signal to noise ratio) so choose wisely (remember there's tons of great and unable information to be found all over the internet ...just buried under the porn and download sites)

Setting up Quality of Service (QoS) rules:
Most routers handle all bandwidth requests the same, but if you set up some QoS rules you can ensure that certain programs (or IP address es) get priority, ensuring that you'll always have some bandwidth available your programs.

Much, much more
There's plenty that can be done with the help of DD-WRT, most of which are beyond my own technical understanding, if you're interested in what you've read so far you can go ahead and download DD-WRT from their site there's also a FAQ and several tutorials on their site that you can take a look at if you need help
such as what to do in case you brick your router
before you go off running to download DD-WRT, you may want to hear me highlight another (also awesome) firmware update for your router, called Tomato

y'all been great, drive home safe now, ya he'r?

Movin' on Up! Wireless Edition Part 1: Security

2009-07-19T02:20:00.013-04:00

As I've mentioned earlier that I'm planning some cool stuff for the future, one such plan is the eventual understanding and upgrading of my home's wireless network. So thanks again to the good people over at lifehacker (and the rest of the inter-tubes) I have the knowledge required to achieve these goals. Over the next few days I'm going to highlight several tricks, tips and ideas for improving your mastery over your wireless network

Part 1 - Security:
Now for those who are unfamiliar (as I was until not long ago) WEP encryption is not secure, not even remotely as recent developments make it possible for one to crack WEP in as little as a few minutes.

Though hilariously enough even though cracks in WEP were seen in 2001, and it was thoroughly broken as early as 2004, and despite being put to rest with the introduction of the IEEE 802.11i standard, it's still in widespread use.
Don't believe me? then take a look yourself, next time you look at nearby networks take a look at their encyption, I'm certain that a majority of them will be using WEP as opposed to WPA or WPA2

So In light of all this information I decided to change my routers encryption (from none) to WPA2 which, was surprisingly easy all you need to do is log in to your router.
Step by step here's what you do:
Step 1: go into the command prompt (for windows) and type in ipconfig note the number after default Gateway, and type that in your browser, you'll be prompted for a password which was originally included the box (if you forgot it, hard rest your router and then search online for the default passwords for your particular router).
Step 2: now that your in, go to the wireless tab, and click wireless security, and change the setting under security mode to your desired level (I personally picked WPA2 Persona with AES as my encryption algorithm)
Please note that the image below is an example of what the page will look like and your mileage may vary,

Step 3: Find a secure password, WPA and WPA2 have a maximum limit of 63 characters, I recommend going with that. you can even use this website to come up with a secure and random password.

Congrats you've now switched your encryption to WPA (much better than WEP)
Feel free to pat yourselves on the back, though understand: even though it's more secure than WEP, WPA is far from completely 100% secure.

Make sure to tune in next time for more on improving your Wi-fi

Updates II: "Movin' on Up"

2009-07-18T01:07:00.002-04:00

I've been mulling over these ideas for some time now, but now thanks in large to that oh so wonderful website lifehacker these dreams may just become a reality.

Now if you weren't aware, lifehacker is a website that just takes tons of useful information from all over, and essentially hands it to you on a silver platter. It's chock full of all kinds of "hacks" or tips, and tricks for many things you come across in everyday life, but especially 'geeky' things, like technology and computers, while searching through their site (which is all I ever do at work nowadays with the exception of reading webcomics) I found some, truly awesome links: "set up and host a blog on your comp", "host your domain w/free apps", and lastly "build a home ftp server"

Now I'm sure you (being the intelligent person you are) can guess what it is I plan to do. Set up a server and host my own domain and blog. Now I realize this is a pretty ambitious goal, especially considering I know next to nothing about anything that's required for this, even html. But I figure that maybe it's better I jump into things right away and learn the ropes by doing instead of roaming through tons of sites and trying to learn the things beforehand, for that way lies path of discouragement. Not to mention the timing is perfect, it's summer, my course is coming to a close in a week or so, and since my mom who had basically took over my desktop computer since I went to college and got a laptop, decided to upgrade, so I happen to have a computer at hand that could definitely act as a server (seeing as I have no other use for it, save to take it apart and put it's internal components to some other use) Also I really want to do this so that I 1 get some better control over my site, but also maybe expand into more than a blog, and all the while learn what to do rather than rely on some web service

So that's my plan for now, rig up that old comp, and see what happens, that's not to say I won't still be here for a while, it won't be set up overnight, and even once it's done it'll be some time before I feel it's ready to be moved. So never fear for I will be here, and I'll make sure to inform you my reader before I make the switch, and leave this site up so that all may know where it now resides...

Thanks again for listening, this has been your host Aemon (brought to you by the evi...good folks at Google) wishing you a good night, and a happy summer.
Join us next time for more of that dull humour you seem to enjoy.
Same site, different day.

Updates

2009-07-17T02:46:00.003-04:00

So......
sorry (once again) for the extended absence (I got distracted ....again)
I'll try to keep more regular with the posts in the future

on a bright note I finished Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture
and all I can say is ...wow, amazing book, seriously, usually I don't get so sucked into non-fiction books, but this one just sort of grabbed me and wouldn't let go
After reading it, I can only say that I'm appalled at the state of our country's copyrights laws, and the sheer abusiveness of these large companies in their attempts tp "protect" their intellectual property rights

If out of everything I ever write, you listen to one thing I say, let it be this, "Read that book" ...immediately, as in now go and download the book, and when you have a moment to spare, start reading. I said this before, but it's important enough that it should be repeated, for anyone who uses the internet, or in any way participates in creative activities (i.e. writing, drawing, filming.....etc) this book, is a definite must read, even if you don't regularly engage in any of these activities, I still wholly recommend reading it. It pays to stay informed.

Now don't worry, I'm not gonna just sit here and rant at you all day
I have better things to do (and so do you)

So, I've recently gotten into a bit of a DIY/learn stuff kick, I recently revisited a favorite website of mine lifehacker.com, truly an amazing site, and it's given me some great ideas for things to do.
I'm not going to get into to many details at the moment, since I'm kinda sleepy and I want to keep some material for future posts, but just know this there will be changes around here ...awesome changes, not to mention some more posts from yours truly highlighting some other yet-to-be-named-awesomeness.

I'm really kinda excited about the future, I just hope it'll all pan out in the end

Double Feature!!!

2009-06-30T00:50:00.005-04:00

well... not really, seeing as "technically" this post is on a different day (if you go by that whole 24 hour thing)

The purpose of this post is quite simple (not really). You can think of it as a way for me to ...cleanse the ol' mental palette if you will after that last post (though It'd probably take more than a random segue to cleanse my mental palette ....if you catch my drift) this been my long put off (relatively speaking) attempt at bringing to light the purpose of my blog.

I've been wondering about this for a while, why I made a blog, why I posted what I did, and what I intend to post in future installments (If you thought the answer was less crap, then I'm sorry to disappoint). I find it a bit odd that I started posting in a blog, as I'm a rather introverted type of person (little by little I've been changing but I wouldn't say I'm there yet) yet I've written things, personal things even in here that I'd never have said to anyone face to face, which now that I think about it, may be the reason I was able to post those things on here (granted there's tons of crap that I have yet to post... but I still have some hopes of attracting some sort of a reader base... not a horde of psychiatrists)

The Internet, provides a sort of anonymity that allows one to post without the hassle of actually facing a person and their reaction upfront; it's fairly simple to delete a comment, but not quite as easy to stop someone from saying something to your face (without coming off as a rude jerk, ....or with charges of assault).

What's kinda funny about this whole thing is that I hate to write, English was not only my worst subject, it was my most hated subject (with a few notable exceptions i.e. biology, and chemistry) yet despite my intense dislike (or what can only be accurately called borderline hatred) of writing, I've taken to posting on this blog in (what I hope will someday be) a regular basis. I guess it's more the idea of what I write and when, which makes this such an appealing alternative, unlike English class, there are no essays, no deadlines, and no prompts I'm free to write as much as I want when and how I want, I don't even need to follow the conventions of grammer (which I rarely do regardless).

Now I realize that what I'm saying is just a tedious, long winded statement of something that "everyone" already knows, but I think that's the core of what I want to do here, make my thoughts, opinions, and ideas known, and have others comment on it, so that there's someone to discuss with, over a common interest (not a bland restatment of obvious things ....smartass). While not all my posts will be as interesting as the one on Free Culture, I'd like to use this blog to explore topics of all kinds, whatever enters my mind (mostly only those things interesting enough and not too offensive to post)

You could say that essentially I'm putting my self online, piece by piece, and only time will tell what will result

Free Culture

2009-06-29T21:40:00.006-04:00

Earlier today (or perhaps yesterday) I started reading Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. I first heard about it in the comic xkcd, and finally decided to take a look at it.

There are "no words in the vernacular can describe" how great of a book it is.
Now I'm bad at summarizing, only exacerbated by the fact that I have yet to finish this novel, yet I'll try my best to give a general idea of what this book is about;

Essentially the novel (so far as I've read it) is a critical examination of copyright law, in the context of modern society. Lessig basically begins with an overview of our society's culture (with regards to media) and takes us the reader through history through many fundamental times in history where the actions of government and copyright worked to come up with a way to preserve authors rights to their work, while at the same time not stifling future creativity and growth. Throughout history there have been many monumental discoveries and inventions that from their inception have changed and shaped the world we live in. From Radio, to Film, to television and now to the internet, each time there was, what I feel can only be properly called a paradigm shift in the way intelectual property has been handled, and rights afforded to individuals over this property.

Through many kinds of tecnological advances, copyright has changed whether it be from the advent of photography as mainstream which could very well have gone an entirely different way had the judges of the time decided that one needed permission before they would be allowed to photograph any particular thing, the same kind of thing went with the phonograph (used for recording music) radio, and cable tv, vcrs.

A bitter gem of irony found in Lessig's work is that many of the established industries today (record, movie, and tv industires) were in fact established by "piracy" (I'll leave you to find out the details in the book) In much the same way that the internet is now changing the way information is spread and content created, those inventions had shaped their times and with them brought massive (or miniscule) changes to copyright laws, and the rights of authors

Now Lessig doesn't advocate piracy (and neither do I), at least not in it's literal sense, as stealing the work of another without compensation or credit, nor does he advocate the idea of authors not being granted compensation for their work, or rights over their work. Lessig, points out many of the flaws in today's system, that allow large corporations to misue today's laws to essentially stifle the creative flow of authors over the internet, like many companies abuse of the DMCA to exert their will over content on the internet which they should not have control over [related articles here, here and.... here]

There is far to much in Lessig's book, for me to just state in one blog post, or even several, but I definitely feel that this book is one that definitely should be read, especially by those like myself who have come to rely on the internet as an integral part of our life.

There is so much more that I could write, some of which just makes me mad when I think about it, but I'll leave that for you the reader to find out (and I'll almost certainly post more on the subject, especially once I'm done this book, and/or start the other related literature piling in my hardrive.

some links to keep you occupied:
Free culture website
Link to download book (found on the site above)
Students for Free Culture
Lawrence Lessig's Blog
Cory Doctorow's Blog
Free Software Foundation
Creative Commons

Life, the Universe and Everything

2009-06-27T22:42:00.005-04:00

I think a lot, all the time, about many things.
Most of them are pretty unrelated, many come and go, passing through my mind like rain through the sky.
But there are a couple of things that constantly drift into my thoughts.
Life... Death... the Universe, and God, among other things.

Recently my thoughts have meandered to the subject of god.
Now I should mention that this reflects my own personal ideas of god or anything else for that matter (which are quite muddled to say the least) they're just the ideas that I've been mulling over recently.

I wonder sometimes, what if god instead of being some ethereal super being watching over all the cosmos, knowing all, seeing all; was actually the universe itself. Much in the same way that we humans are made up of trillions of cells and even more atoms (and subatomic particles) god could be some massive organism, a sum total of all matter in the universe.

god would be all seeing all knowing, in all places at all times, as it would consist of the sum total of all knowledge in the universe. Many believe that our lives are predetermined (although I have some thoughts regarding that which are at the moment irrelevant) which would make some sense if this were the case, much in the same way that blood cells are "destined" to follow along certain paths to get to certain parts of the body, we humans may have our own predetermined route, although I'd like to think that it would be on more of a macroscopic scale such as planets (like psychohistory, in Asimov's Foundation Series) in that way the individual movements which aren't predicted doesn't necessarily impact the route life takes, the way it evolves.

Now of course this idea has some problems, like if god is all knowing why would there be things god couldn't predict, which is possible (that god would predict them) they're just unlikely in the context of my metaphor (or simile (I can never remember which is used for what)) and of course there is the age old question that plagues every attempt at answering the question of god.... the beginning, was it created? if so then what created that? and so on ad infinitum, forever and ever searching for the start, the instigator, the prime mover. What started everything? if god created the universe, then where did god come from, at what point? if the universe encompasses everything and before it was nothing, then where was god before the universe? why were we all created? the questions are numerous, with answers (or evasions) a plenty, but hardly a satisfactory (by the standards of being provable, accepted or scientifically feasible).

If god were the universe, then what would the big bang be? it's birth, or an act by god, with god having been the singularity, or whatever may have been before that. Needless to say this idea is no closer to solving the issue of god or the beginnings of the universe, but at least it's something interesting to think about.

some assorted things

2009-06-22T14:41:00.007-04:00

So.... I'm back,
it's been some time since I've last posted
I recall having posted that the postings would increase.... but I seem to have lied (evidently)

but it matters not now, I'm back, and posting ...not like anyone noticed the absence (even I forgot this was still here)

so.... I post today from the frothy depths of the underworld (i.e my job)
I am once again working for the government... the army in fact as an "engineering technician" now don't let the fancy title fool you, it is unbelievably boring; currently my duties consist of going through ammunition contracts and summarizing/updating them, although I guess that's better than last year, when my duties primarily consisted of scanned volumes upon volumes of papers to put on the server, shredding papers, or making copies.

Essentially I was (and still am) a clerk, ...or lackey, ...or as it is colloquially referred to in the common vernacular: the office bitch. This year shows little promise for an improvement upon the situation, but do have hope that I may be given an opportunity to become involved in a task that actually requires brain power.

Well enough about that, I suppose I should get on with something a little more interesting....
like the internet!!! or even more interesting web-comics!

I for one am a lover of comics, be it in written or internet form.
from calvin and hobbes to xkcd from dilbert to PvP or Real life comics and many more

I've recently been catching up on many of my favorite webcomics
and it got me thinking about making my own comic.... of course then I remembered that I can't draw to save my life or write worth a damn, so I figured I'd try and find a way to online community as a whole... 'til I realized I have no means of doing that short of :
a) joining forums - which I'd like to avoid, due to the habit of most every thread being reduced to stupid-ness
b) create my own website and fill it with something interesting that would garner readers, but seeing as I know about as much html as a rock, and have neither the time nor commitment (nor material enough) necessary to go through with making one

I figured the best I could do was continue with my blog, in the hopes that I might someday garner a reader base ...someday. I mean I'm already up to "almost" 1 whole reader so it'll only be a matter of time before that fraction of a reader turns into 1 (....right?), and then to 2, and who knows... maybe someday even 3* whole readers (though I wouldn't "bet the farm" on that , even if I did own a farm)

*note: these numbers do not take into account those few that wind up here by accident (i.e those that wind up here looking for porn or something)

Whoosh.....

2009-05-07T07:29:00.004-04:00

I had a whole long post written up for this but I scrapped it to bring you this:

I hate finals week
I hate finals and find them to be primarily useless
I really hate essays (with the burning passion of 1000 exploding suns)
I like the wind (unless it's already really cold ....like negative degrees)
music is awesome, I've recently been listening to a lot of Rise Against songs
essays for math classes doubly suck (although technically it pushes)
I think I'm losing my mind (or whatever that thing was)
A part of me wants to erase my earlier posts...
and another part doesn't...
while both hope that eventually they'll be enough posts that they'll be buried forever
bunnies are fluffy (I think.... I haven't seen a bunny in forever)
this semester while chock full of all that math and science-y goodness that I love, is slowly killing me inside.
I find it kinda humorous that there are so many blogs by people I know popping up
i fear that there may be another dot-com bubble burst in the near future.
I wish that summer break was in winter and winter break in summer, then I could enjoy all the snow and coldness without school and then have the sunny days and nice weather in school.
I have no idea what a Markov Chain is, but it sounds cool
I may repost the thing that I had written but then deleted for this post (it wasn't all that interesting but.. meh)
I have a final in a few hours, and then another after that
and I'm not done studying so i'm gonna go back to doing that

the title is a reference to something I'm sure, I just don't know what....

Please stay tuned for updates (among other things)

2009-05-05T04:38:00.004-04:00

I'll eventually get back to posting on here, once finals are over that is (they're taking up a ridiculous amount of time)
I can't wait until the summer when I'll finally have time to do all the things that I've been neglecting this year like read, or sleep
expect lots more updates once summer hits (that is until I get lazy again)

I'm looking forward to this summer, even though I'll be working in a job i hate doing something completely insignificant (which is almost ironic since I'll be working for the government) i won't have any classes too ...well except for summer classes, but they won't be too bad, and it's not for another month after school ends
mostly I'll spend my summer reading, and trying to learn some new things (like juggling, and math)

earlier today (well... yesterday) my friend and I had to present our final project for modern algebra
ours was on braid groups, which are very interesting
while I was researching I came across some interesting (and mathematically difficult) applications of it, like cryptography, quantum mechanics, topology, knot theory, and so much more, seriously the stuff was awesome, although I understood maybe a small fraction at best, so over the summer I'm gonna look over the stuff some more (and my modern algebra textbook) to see if I can finally understand these things (and perhaps more!)

ah well.... back to essays, and tests ....and lab reports, and other annoying school crap

*tips hat* au revoir

Ants Marching...

2009-04-13T01:45:00.004-04:00

I've been listening to the song Ants Marching by the Dave Matthews Band not long ago.
and it got me thinking about the message in the song

about people just going through the motions day in and day out, lost in the monotony
just drudging through their lives missing the important things

so I wonder...
how similar am I to the people that he's mentioning in this song?
at first I just reassure myself, saying that I'm not like them, I'm different, I know what's important, I don't just follow along the same path everyday, mindlessly going through the motions
but then... I realize, that I'm no better than they. in fact I may be worse, because I fool myself into believing that I keep the important things in mind, and that I'm no mindless drone programmed by habit.
yet day after day my schedule is more or less the same, wake up, class, hw, go on the computer, eat, sleep and the cycle repeats itself with classes being cycled out on the weekend in exchange for sleep or hw or some other such thing.

I'm at my brother's house today, I've been here since thursday it's the first time I've been over since Spring break which ended over a month ago.
I'm here because about 2 weeks ago my brother and his wife had a baby.
So I'm here visiting, along with my sister-in-law's relatives

and I wonder... why haven't I stopped by before?
my school is about 5 miles away from my brother's house, yet I haven't visited in month's...

which leads me to wonder if I truly have my priorities right.
and I'm beginning to see that I don't
I do homework, but later, I keep procrastinating, even now (and yes I realize the irony)
so then all my work builds, and then you find me like I am now, swamped with work, without hope of reprieve, because as every day passes I find myself with more work to do, but not having accomplished the work I've been meaning to do for so long

So, now I'm forced with this dilemma...
how can I refocus my life to take of the priorities without tripping up on the lesser yet still important details

because... I find myself, due to the situation that I've put myself in missing out on so much.
besides the opportunity to visit my brothers, or now my newborn nephew, but the time to spend with friends, or learn, or play, or sleep, or just to enjoy life in one form or another

not long ago, I decided to try my hand a juggling, I started to get the hang of it, yet I haven't been practicing for weeks, due to having other things needing to get done.
I joined the tango club at my school, it was fun, I haven't been to the last 6 or so meetings
for the same reason.
it's the same situation with, EMT class, VEMS (villanova EMS), VTV (villanova TV), and other clubs that I'm a part of, or other hobbies that I want to pursue but haven't the time for.
I wouldn't mind as much if I felt I was making any progress with my school work, but it seems that with every step forward I take, I end up falling behind 3

so I've decided that I must really get a handle on this, before this semester ends, I need to have a day in which all my work is done, and then.... I intend to fly a kite all around campus, visit my brothers and my nephew, then spend some time with friends, and finally... sleep

and everyday will be a new day, I can't keep forgetting the importance of living life
of spending time with those I care about, and those who in turn care about me
of finding time to stop and enjoy the present even if only for a moment
the world stands still for no one, if you miss it, it's gone

there are many a time that I wish that I had known when I was young what I know now, but the most i can do is try and remember what I've learned so I'll know it for the future.

I don't want to miss any more of the world than I already seem to have done.
while I can't change my past, I can shape my future and I intend to do just that.

by the way here's the video of the song for those that want to hear it as well:

thoughts of the moment

2009-04-10T02:44:00.004-04:00

I feel that I both have way too much time, and way too little time on my hands all at the same time

I would love it if time would slow down for me, but I'm a very poor runner so likely that's not gonna happen...

...although time has no problem speeding up on me when I have something important to do, yet little time to do it in

I know I shouldn't be wasting my time writing in a blog, but I also feel that doing so helps me to in a way retain (a semblance of) my sanity

I'm 3 hours into the second full day of easter break, but I haven't gotten any work done, and it kills me...

...on the otherhand I've read a lot of comics, talked to friends, eaten food, slept, tinkered with my computer, and done any number of things that I haven't done in ...ages.

does that make it justified?

I like to think that I'm getting better at figuring out linux, yet it still took me a half an hour of concentrated effort (well... semi-concentrated effort) and internet searching to figure out how to get root privileges...

....I'm making a list, and when I get back to campus, I'll remember what I need to ask the people that actually understand all this ubuntu stuff

I've taken up a new hobby:
asking people random questions
one such question: "if you ruled the world, what would you do first?"
the answer suprised me.
...interestingly I can't think of a suitable answer to the question myself

what would be the point in ruling the world? eventually it would get boring as you have to manage all those people, and resources and worry about getting killed or betrayed, or something.

personally I'd much rather have my own area, off to myself, where I can live as I will without the rule of governemt or the threat of anarchy, just live according to my own laws, with my family, and have a means of reaching friends.
I'll sit, and read, and learn, and perhaps program, and of course sleep
even watch tv or movies if I get too bored.
it would be a nice life, one of semi solitude.

I wonder what it would be like to live a life alone, with out any type of interaction with other living beings, they say we humans are social creatures, and I'm inclined to agree, but I have no way of knowing... how do we know? I've read plenty of books on philosophy and so people say so many different things, yet one can't help but ask the question how do these people know?
because they were here before us? that's not a valid argument.
during class discussions I hear people (my professor in particular) bringing up things that other philosophers said as a means to back up his point, but I'm compelled to wonder, "how does that help your arguement?"
if one dead philospher said it, it doesn't make it true.
how do we know that humans are social creatures?
or that animals feel pain or don't feel pain.
or that sociaty is good, or society is bad.
it perverts us, it protects us, it aids us, it frees us from our animal nature.

what all these books on philosophy I've read, or discussed say is that something must be how they describe it, and they know it, without proof, or even legitimate justification. from the point of view of one man or woman, you can't see all the world, you can't tell the nature of every human, or every animal.
you can give opinions, but they will always be tainted with your perspective. which is what is inherently wrong with trying to find an end-all model for human behaviour or anything that implies a global scope or even a scope that extends outside that of a normal human.
we can't leave ourselves, there's no feasible way of looking at things outside of our own perspective, no matter where we go we keep that with us, and it forever has and will affect the world as we see it.

Sometimes...

2009-04-05T22:05:00.003-04:00

Sometimes... I wish I was by myself, all alone, with no other person nearby to intrude on my solitude.
Sometimes... I wish I understood those other people better.
Sometimes... I wish they understood me.
Sometimes... I wish I understood me.

I feel like I'll never understand others, and they in turn will never understand me.
I came to college, hoping to find that it would be better than high school, in that I would have the opportunities that I hadn't before, such as the opportunity to study what I was interested in, or the opportunity to meet and become friends with others that were similar to I.
Yet it seems that the more time I spend with these people, the more strained my relationships with them become.
I generally try to avoid antagonizing against people, and while I have been known to annoy people at times, I've gotten better at not doing that, yet nonetheless people slowly but surely begin to dislike, then detest and even hate me, for reasons I have yet to find out, and perhaps I never will.

I hoped college would be better but sometimes I feel that it may be worse, there are times that I actually begin to miss high school if only because there were people there that genuinely thought of me as their friend.

My thoughts are so jumbled now, I'm not really sure anymore of who I am, or where I'm going.
Is the problem with me? or with them? or perhaps with us all?
they say you "find" yourself in college, yet all I've done is become lost
I hear you make your true friends in college, yet I have met no such person
It's almost the end of my second semester, I'm having trouble seeing the light at the end of this tunnel.
as the days go on, I find myself more and more considering transferring among other things
I... don't know what I should do, is this normal? do others experience this same thing as well?
or am I alone in this as well?
will things ever change? will they get worse?

college is such an adjustment, it's hard to believe it's only been a few months, when it feels like I've been here for ages. I hold on to the (perhaps forlorn) hope that this is all only because I people haven't known me long enough to get used to the way that I am, or to get over their first (or second) impressions.
how do others do it? how is it that in such a short time they are able to relate to others here, and even, somehow find a way to not only get along with others, but to really be friends with them, in a more than "passing hello way" (of which all my 'friendships ' here seem like )

it's a little ironic, when I started I loved it here, especially because of the people, I neither missed home, nor my high school. yet now, I find myself desperately hoping for the relief of summer, not just because of the lack of classes, but because I feel that things just might be different after summer.
I dunno...

I'm not sure why I'm here ranting about all this, I just felt that I should in some way or another, discuss this, else I'd probably go crazy. this just seemed to be the proper outlet

If there's anyone out there reading, let me know, I'm curious to see if this thing is actually read by someone, and if you have any comments I'd like to hear them

Busy, Busy, Busy.....

2009-04-02T03:24:00.002-04:00

So it's been a while since i've last posted, mostly due to me just being so overwhelmingly busy what with hw, and tests, and labs, and programs and EMT class.....urgh

In retrospect I probably should have made better choices when it came to class registration and other stuff.

for instance taking 3 upper level math courses (2 being the prerequisites of the other) was Not a good idea (Modern Algebra kicks my ass)
and on top of that a Physics course... 2 labs, and our humanities seminar course

and then throw in my EMT class on top of that, and you're looking at overkill, the EMT class by itself takes up 6-14 to even 22 hours in a week, for just the class! not even counting studying for tests... running shifts for local ambulances all to take the State Exam in April (I've been in this class since October)

that's why about a week ago, I made a painful decision ...to quit EMT class, I figured that it was just not worth the impact it was having on my Grades, my sleeping pattern (which may never be saved) or my health. it sucks to be quitting now, with only a week left till the exam, but I'm confident I made the right choice. this way I have time to focus on my classes during this last month of the semester, while not having to juggle that and ride times (which are 12 hour shifts....) and hw, and studying.

I'd like to think that, college has taught me something really important: the ability to make tough choices, as much as I'd like to continue with the EMT class this semester, I really don't have enough time. so it came down to a choice, my GPA or EMT certification, and do feel I made the right decision, I just wish I realized this sooner, maybe things wouldn't have come to the point that they have.

So, I gotta get back to work, and then sleep, gotta get up for lab in the morning (oh joy)

I hate Dell (with a Vengeance!)

2009-04-02T02:54:00.007-04:00

So... I'm really beginning to hate computers (and I think that they may hate me as well) and here's why:

see... a week or 2 ago, the windows OS on my laptop broke (don't ask me how, I don't know... but it did) and so I figured that this would be a perfect opportunity to install ubuntu (it wasn't) as I've been meaning to for some time.

So... I install ubuntu (at 4am no less) and spend most of the weekend configuring it, and then... somehow it dies as well (...yay)

not one to give up... I install it again, and it worked for a bit, though I couldn't get it to connect to my school's wireless network, no matter what I did, or who I brought it too nothing and no one helped
and then tragedy struck: the screen went completely white and gray ....every time I turned it on (fuckin' dell (1))

so, I bring it to our school's tech support (we're required to get these computers as a part of our school's laptop program ....fucking villanova)
they replace the system board and the lcd, and give it back to me "good as new"
now I still had linux when I got it back and I wanted to dual boot windows
(cause I need it for a couple of programs) so as an alternative to having to install windows and all it's damn drivers (damn windows) and updates from scratch I had them reimage my drive so I could then dual boot linux from windows
simple, no?

No.

today (well... yesterday actually) I got my comp back I was trying to install linux and every time I tried to boot from the cd the comp shut off, again, and again..... and again, until it just kept shutting of every time I just turned it on (fuckin' Dell (2))

it turned out that the "refurbished" (read "defective") system boards dell sends our school to use as replacements, don't allow you to boot from anywhere but the hard drive or it shuts off (fuckin' dell (3))
So the guys at tech support (who are pretty cool) decided to just give me a new comp (since they couldn't fix my old one)

...and so that's what I've been doing most of today, trying to figure out stuff and reconfigure my comp.

The moral of this story you ask? Dell Sucks

...btw if any of you out there is good with linux (or even computers in general) and you have any suggestions you'd like to give on ...pretty much anything, post in the comments please
I'm still trying to get the hang of linux so any and all advice is greatly appreciated

did I mention I hate dell? cause I really do... (fuckin' Dell (4))

Farewell...

2009-03-20T05:49:00.000-04:00

So I found out today that a friend of mine passed away last week.
And really got me thinking about how short life is, and that in a moment's notice it can end.
I haven't really thought much about death since the last time someone in my life has passed away, and I think that, that may be a mistake, because when you forget that your time here will run out, you tend to lose perspective on what's really important in life. Without that perspective it's easy to miss out on all that life has to offer.

now I'm not going to get all philosophical on you and start getting into my thoughts regarding life or purpose or what have you.
I just feel that I should take this moment, and perhaps you should too, to reflect on how short life can be.
The fact is we won't always be here, and while no one likes to contemplate their own mortality and many refuse to come to terms with the fact that they may very well pass away at any time, sooner or later. Life doesn't discriminate, we all will end up dying, the question is inevitably what will we do til then.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

-excerpt from The Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon

Rest in Peace Jeffrey
1974-2009

The Woes of a Procrastinator Extraordinaire

2009-03-16T05:00:00.003-04:00

The internet... what a wonderful place it is, chock full of all kinds of information, and the like. Yet it is also a powerful tool of procrastination that any who have spent countless hours browsing through Wikipedia can attest to (i.e. everyone).

It's intrinsically related to why I am still up at 4:30 am ...well that's not only due to Wikipedia, xkcd plays a large part in it as well (from whence most of the pictures in my blog, and all the ones in this post have come)

Frankly I'm not sure why I'm still procrastinating, seeing how I have a mere 5 hours until my first class and I've little to no work done to show for my lack of sleep throughout this weekend.

On the bright side though I did get some other things done, like learn how to juggle (...well sorta, I have very bad hand-eye coordination) and tango (...kinda), and just hang out w/friends (that I haven't seen in a while (due to my recent bout of reclusiveness) and the like, ...granted none of that has helped my homework problem but that doesn't mean these things are any less important.

In fact in my time here at college I've come to realize that as important homework is, the way you live your life is just as important, sure you can spend all your time studying and get good grades, but what do you miss out on? All those opportunities that you've turned down because you were too busy, lost in your work, losing the chance to even stop and smell the roses or take in the scenery.

The path of life is grand, whether it be long or short, and what you do as you make your way down it defines you, and the world around you.

It's easy to fall into routine, and to forget the importance of impromptu, it's easy to take advantage of what you have and forget that it might not be there tomorrow, it's easy to pass up that opportunity for adventure, excitement or success, because it's risky or if you're not sure you'll succeed.
Sometimes you won't know how things will turn out until after you've taken that step, don't let a lack of knowledge hold you back, but let it drive you.

So you should just take wrong turns, talk to strangers, open unmarked doors, have an adventure, learn something new, take chances, have goals, pursue dreams, explore the world around you, because it and you won't always be there.

Remember that with every step of your life you make up your future, so go out and make it grand.

Lost in the world that is myself

2009-03-15T04:06:00.000-04:00

As I get older and more experienced with the world, I find that for everything I come to understand, there are twice that many more things that I don't.
And as I find myself sitting here at my computer desk at 3:30 am, 3/4's of the way through my freshman year of college, I can't help but wonder if there will ever be a time that I will really understand or find for that matter my place in this world.
It's like I find myself at a crossroads in my life, wondering where I'll go, and how I'll end up there.

I find myself compelled to examine my relationships with the others around me, and I wonder... how have I made my mark in this world, and in their lives? If I were to just disappear in the next moment, what would I be remembered for? or would I even be remembered? I like to think that my family and close friends from highschool would be affected in some way or another, but what about the people I've met in my time here? what do they even think of me now?
Now I'm by no means the kind of person who hinges upon the opinion or approval of others, but that doesn't mean that not unlike most humans, I seek some acceptance and acknowledgment from others, in my life. Which might in turn be the problem; I find that I end up going from being too shy to too unreserved when it comes to meeting new people which in turns ends up having the opposite of the intended effect.

And so I wonder if perhaps our reliance upon first impressions is riddled with fallacies, we never truly understand someone when we meet them or even after we've know them for months, because everyone has some reservations, everyone keeps that mask that they hide things behind, and there lies their true character. Even after a few months when a friend turns from very introverted to extroverted, it doesn't mean that, that's who they've always been or all they always will be, but it is how they are at the time. And so I can't help but wonder if we aren't in general too hasty in our attempt to classify and judge others that we miss out on who they truly are, and lose out on the opportunities of ever knowing them.

So reader if you're still with me up until this point, I'd like to ask you to do something:
take a moment out of your day, and try to reach out and connect with someone that you don't really know all that well, now I'm not saying go up to some stranger and try to be their best friend right off the bat, but that you just try to understand someone and let yourself be understood by someone a little better, it may end up being that defining moment in which you make your mark upon someone else's life, or perhaps they make their mark on yours.

Life is short, so let every moment count

"I am the Lorax, and I speak for the Trees!"

2009-03-14T20:16:00.007-04:00

So, I'm not entirely certain sure how, but somehow I found myself watching a video on google of one of the old cartoon based on Dr. Seuss's book The Lorax.
And it got me thinking about the message of that book.
That progress has a cost, and sometimes in our haste to make a expand, profit or exploit some new resource we forget that and the environment and ultimately ourselves and our children pay the price.
I hold on to the hope that with our society's increasing focus on the environment and the effects of industry on our world, and the onset of increasingly green technology we'll someday arrive at that balance between development and nature, but at this moment it seems that we're still a long off.

Now I'm sure that I'm telling any of you nothing you don't already know.
And I'm sure you might have read the Lorax, long ago, perhaps when you were a child, but I wonder if you still think about it, and that it seems is where the danger lies, when people don't think of the effects or remember the consequences of their actions.

So take some time out of your day, and maybe pick up that old book, give it a read or even watch the video:

and perhaps you'll think about it every now and again, and remember it's message: your actions no matter how insignificant they may seem at the time have consequences in the grand scheme of life.
And I feel that as long as people keep that in mind, the world may just become a better place for all.

Creative Commons

2009-02-24T15:06:00.003-05:00

So I was randomly searching the internet, and I came across this awesome song, on an even awesome-r website:
CCmixter or Creative Common Mixter
is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Music on the site is licensed under a Creative Commons license. And you're free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs though might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses, and each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it.

And so on this site I found a really amazing song that I would definitely recommend to anyone out there that enjoys good music

feel free to post links to any other good songs you find in the comments

Pirates Ahoy!

2009-01-20T00:37:00.003-05:00

For those that like pirates (or at least numerous pirate-y references) and have plenty of time to waste (or do anyway even if they don't) then allow me to direct your attentions to a little site that has occupied much of my time over the past several months

a interesting MMO (massively multiplayer online game) that's about (you guessed it) pirates in space. you can be as deeply invested in the story as you wish or not at all, due to the lack of graphic visuals the game fosters a strong community focus on RPing (Role-Playing) to create a story line around which one can follow, at times the administrators of the game (who play themselves) take ideas from the RPs and incorporate them into the actual gameplay in the form of NPCs (non-player character) or items.
the game is free and can be played without paying a cent, although you can pay to obtain certain goodies that can aid in your advancement, with the money going to support the game
there's not enough time for me to go over everything about the game, but if any of what I wrote sounds interesting I urge you to check out the above link, and give the game a chance.
maybe you'll run into me there

The War of The Sciences

2008-12-24T05:40:00.000-05:00

As was reading xkcd I came across what was possibly one of the most hilarious comics I've seen in a very long time

It reminded me a bit of a friend of mine from school.
Doug, or as he is known by the majority of those on our campus: Mendel Doug.

He was a physics major (like myself) who graduated last year or maybe the year before that (I'm not quite certain)
yet he still shows up on campus from time to time

he's also well known for his profound hatred of chemistry (and he's not alone), and is famous for perpetrating many an attack against chemistry labs and majors alike
(I've heard tales that he would hide in the bushes and attack unsuspecting chemistry majors with a lightsaber, and I've personally witnessed/participated in his attacks against their labs)

On a side note he and several other friends of mine are working on a movie which centers on the conflict between the forces of physics (good) and the forces of chemistry (evil)
(one friend created this preview for said movie.)

The Sword of Truth Series

2008-12-24T03:27:00.005-05:00

So, I've recently finished reading the last book in Goodkind's the Sword of Truth series: Confessor.
And like the rest of the series it is a very good book.

One of the things that I really like about the series, is how every book has a satisfying ending.
If you look at each book as a sub-plot of the greater story then you'll see that with each book in the series there is a particular mission or objective, there is a goal that must be acheived, an enemy that must be vanquished and a world that must be saved.
So as each next book in the series builds upon the story of the books before it they also contain within them their own consice story a sub-plot if you will of the whole, that at their end resolve nicely in a way that doesn't leave you waiting for the next book in the series for a conclusion to show itself (with the exception of the last 3 books which were a sort of mini trilogy in the entire series).
I like the way that the story seems to through little curveballs at you, it changes around in ways that you wouldn't expect (although at times it's quite obvious what's going to happen) most times what you think is going to happen isn't the case as something new turns up that changes your guess, and in the ned even that is wrong as you find what you had thought was not what was meant.
It's really quite interesting, kinda like an agatha christie novel

Despite the twists and turns the books generally end up on a more positive note (which I'm a sucker for) and there's always a lesson that's learned in the form of wizard rules, although there are more to be found (some not quite as obvious as others)

the books, seem to rely on the works of others as much as it is an original owrk, I've particularly noticed that the 6th book especially relies heavily on the on the philosophy of Ayn Rand (not that that's a bad thing), which is pretty obvious to those that have read the series as well as the Rand's The Fountainhead.

All in all the books are very good, and are guaranteed interesting read for those with the time
granted the first book, is a bit slow at times, particularly in the beginning as it contains lots of detail, but if you give it time it'll definitely pick up.

The complete series is as follows:
Wizard's First Rule
Stone of Tears
Blood of the Fold
Temple of the Winds
Soul of the Fire
Faith of the Fallen (one of my favorites)
Pillars of Creation
Naked Empire
Chainfire
Phantom
Confessor

there is a short story that goes along with the series as well: Debt of Bones.

All in all the series is compelling read, definitely a must read for fiction/fantasy lovers everywhere.

And with that said... I think I'm gonna go reread the series, au revoir!

Winter

2008-12-24T02:18:00.004-05:00

So I found this during one of my random meanderings through the inter-webs

It's a very nice poem by Adam D Walsvik entitled "Ode To Winter"
Since I love winter and since it's winter now, I feel it's only appropriate that I share this with you all:

Ode To Winter
by Adam D Walsvik
________________________________________
Years of moments condense into one
Propel me into the dawn
My hopes rise ripe with the song-singing sun
My fears are politely gone

A breeze blows bare bows of beauty bold
Leaves in an eddy wave back remembering
October is lovingly November’s to hold
As November thinks of Decembering

Snow descends softly and gathers , gains ground
Just a skirmish nipping at the heels of a war
Soon legions of snowflakes shall our best efforts drown
Yet wielding our shovels we’ll settle each score

The chill winds shall blow from deepest north
Tiny daggers shall stab at our faces
Wrapped up in layers we’ll bravely go forth
From oasis to warm oasis

Yet Winter has an aesthetic sense all her own
There is beauty in her wrath
She sends her children Snow and Cold
To make cryptic art of our summer path

Ahoy!

2008-12-23T01:42:00.002-05:00

Greetings Sir and/or Madam! and welcome to my blog!
*raucous applause*

if you're reading this (as I hope someone might be) then feel free to take a gander at any of the random posts that contain things that I am/will be ranting about, perchance you will find them interesting, perchance not ...either way they're there!

and with that I go, farewell........