| (no subject) |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|08:49 pm] |
It's possible that the lithium is to blame for me being horribly, violently ill. Waiting for the bloodwork to come back. If it's not that then who knows! But odds are good and my dose is going down until then.
All this throwing up is getting really old. :| |
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| Sense of time = broken |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|08:32 pm] |
Today: 11/15/2009.
An old were radio show I found in my mp3s: 7/24/1999.
Super Mario Bros. 3 released in the US: 2/12/1990.
So as I sit here playing Mario 3 on my recently-refurbished NES, listening to old therian community stuff from Razza and ShadowsMyst, I realize that these shows were longer ago now, than the NES era was before them.
My mind's a little warped right now...
(Oh, and I might have pneumonia!) |
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| Ahahaha Slipknot |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|06:20 pm] |
Wow, lots of posts from me lately.
...Apparently the band Slipknot started out their careers doing Werewolf: the Apocalypse fan songs.
So awesome. (Only about half the songs are WW:tA ones, but still.)
Also seriously wtf. XD
Pentex sucks! Pentex sucks!!
They drain the life force of my tribe
Pentex sucks!
Bonegnawers suck! Bonegnawers suck!!
They roll around in garbage bins
All Bonegnawers suck!!
I'm not even joking, this is AWESOME. Now we know what would happen if the Get of Fenris started a band. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|01:16 pm] |
Just woke up from a dream where someone who doesn't normally read my LJ was trying to get ahold of me, through this particular post even. So here it is.
(Also, there was halloween candy, but that was later.) |
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| No more an engineer? |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|04:40 am] |
I'm still doing pretty good, somehow. The paranoia I was dealing with for months really does seem to be gone. The anxiety's mostly gone. I'm not quite as good as I was last entry, but it's a big difference. That last entry, I felt like an alcoholic who was sober for the first time in years. Life's not perfect now but at least I can take on the challenges I'm faced with.
Looks like I'll be looking for work again at the end of the month, if things stay the way they're going.
...I feel like I don't want to be an engineer any more. I can do it, but it doesn't hold my interest. It seems like every single time something REALLY catches my interest in computers, it's some kind of hacking-type stuff: Finding hidden webpages, figuring out a way to sneak in somewhere, trying to find data that would otherwise disappear forever. And I think that's important, somehow.
I've been on FurryMUCK again, lately, but I've been there as a historian. Piecing old maps together, figuring out which parts are gone for good and what parts can still be salvaged. Repairing old chunks of the landscape that got broken, somehow. Reading up on old plotlines from twenty years ago. Finding maps as old as I can find them, asking around for earlier ones, tracking down people through other channels, reading up on MUD history. I've got some illicit tools and techniques that I just use to learn more history.
There's still some depression, here, but I wonder if it's par for the historian course. I kind of always had this idea that I was going to turn into an awesome engineer someday, but I'm hitting my 26th birthday in a month and...well, I don't even want to go back to grad school. It doesn't seem like my kind of career any more. I'm surrounded by all these brilliant people that I'm reading about, and I'm coming to accept that I'm not brilliant in the same way that they are, and that's okay. It's HARD to accept that, but it's where I'm going.
When I was growing up, I had this pretty clear idea in mind of who I was going to be. I was going to go to MIT, for one thing. Generally ace my classes, good friends with the profs. Study neuroscience as well as the computer things. Once I was done with that, maybe work a couple years, then go back to grad school and study artificial intelligence. I'd come out with a PhD and work for IBM, and while I'd never be a big name in the computing world, everyone who studied my field would know my name.
Well, I missed the boat. I think, ultimately, it's just not what I wanted to do... but either way, 'who I am' is not 'who I wanted to be'. It's nowhere close. Half the people I've been researching in my 'early days of MUDs' thing had three degrees by the time they're my age; but now, my path is going somewhere else. I'm not sure where.
There's one key, though. As soon as I thought the words "I don't want to be an engineer", a lot of things changed all of a sudden. I've been tied to computers for most of my life, and I think that connection just went and severed itself. The projects I've been working on, some of the coding-related communities I'm in, the things that eat up all of my time? They're no longer a part of who I'm trying to be. I've just lost a lot of trappings, whatever else I may have lost. That'll make things easier. And I can still work in the computer industry!--It's not like I ever felt like I was an engineer in it, anyway. Heh. |
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| Desiderata |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|12:59 am] |
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
And remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly & clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull & ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud & aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain & bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing future of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment
it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness.
Beyond wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees & the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labours & aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
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| Future Watch: Bioengineered anti-pollutant flowers |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|02:22 am] |
I think I'm going to start making this a regular feature on my LJ, because I see it so often.
Nabbed from Slashdot: "Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere. The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota's Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan. The sage derivative's leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia's leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2)."
There's an old strategy game called Alpha Centauri that chronicles the future development of humankind on an alien planet. We're building a lot of technologies today that were a lot more fanciful 10+ years ago, when it came out... In-game technologies like "synthetic fossil fuels", "monopole magnets", "neural grafting", "doctrine: air power" with the drone aircraft we have now, and stuff like this. I think it's kind of fun to track our real-life progress in the game's technologies, especially because we're advancing faster than you'd expect to in the game itself. File this under the "Gene Splicing" technology, which is kind of old news as a basic concept--but using gene splicing for atmospheric engineering, even on a small scale like this? That's future tech.
Now if only we had more of the social techs. |
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| Roadside Picnic. |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|04:43 am] |
Because sci-fi short stories involving horrific gravitational anomalies are even better when they are (translated from) Russian. Apparently it's actually public domain, too, because it was published in the USSR which therefore owned the copyright. Awesome.
http://www.cca.org/cm/picnic.pdf
okay short is relative, it's 126 pages, but I've been meaning to read it since forever
EDIT: Oh god, what the heck was I thinking. That story is nightmare fuel incarnate. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2009|05:05 am] |
Insomnia getting worse.
>.o |
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| I'm alive! |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|01:21 am] |
For some values of 'alive', I am indeed back up here.
Internet, quite spotty. And I'm not on my own computer. But I'm around! And happy to see you!
Also: Help! I've resorted to playing football video games! I may be hiding inside most of the time but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be happier outside!
I've started (chemical) treatment for my (chemical) depression, again, too. It's pretty rough, but...what can ya do. Much <3 to my family for helping me to get back on my feet. |
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| Hooolee shit. |
[Aug. 25th, 2009|01:20 am] |
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation
That's way more dexterity than I've expected from a robot. Even its mundane tasks are more dextrous than many humans, plus incredibly fast camera tracking and tactile sensors that are comparable to humans. And humans can't dribble a ping-pong ball with a period of 100ms... Jesus, that's awesome. (at around 1:05 in the video)
Oh yeah, and it's not in that above video, but this movie of its grasping ability is clearly at a very high point on the Uncanny Valley. It seems very alive, even if it also seems more animal than human.
On the bipedal robot front, you might enjoy the Asimo walking around moving obstacles. The whole thing is good, but starting at 1:32 is my favorite part. Okay, we're in the future now. So when can I get my Asimo, equipped with that robot hand and cameras?
I haven't seen any bipedal robots that get their scene information from head-mounted cameras recently, but that's probably because, well...why on earth would you mount a camera on your head when you can mount it on the ceiling and get more information? |
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| So, uh. |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|07:10 pm] |
If anyone ever wanted all of Half-Life 2 (original + both episodes so far), and Portal, and Team Fortress 2, the Orange Box is $9.99 this weekend only. Normally $29.99. Seriously if you have a remotely modern PC, they'll all run fine on it--they did on my machine that was kind of new in 2001. Portal is a nice fun waste of several hours. And TF2 is as good as any other multiplayer FPS you're likely to play.
Steam has a habit of not repeating these sales, so it's likely your best chance to get it quite -this- cheap.
Here. |
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| Anyone remember E-Sheep? |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|02:13 am] |
It went away a couple of years ago. I lost my archives... I liked my archives.
The sacriligious, if very literal, Apocamon--episodes 1 and 2:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031120114609/http://www.saturn5.com/~esheep/apocamon/APOCAMON_1.swf
http://web.archive.org/web/20050514134852/e-sheep.com/apocamon/APOCAMON_2.swf
(Episode 3 may be lost to time; it was behind a Bitpass thing for $0.25. Bitpass kicked the bucket. Shame, it was good stuff.)
The website used to be at e-sheep.com, and is supposed to be at electricsheepcomics.com as of this year, but that never came up online.
Nevermind. There is a LIVE mirror of E-Sheep floating around.
http://e-sheep.sansara.net.ua/www.e-sheep.com/main.shtml.htm
The main page is up here but is a little broken, you need to click the "main table of contents" text link (not flash link) to make that work. OH MY GOD FULLY FUNCTIONAL E-SHEEP I HAVE MISSED YOU.
Look guys, it's like this. EVERY story on that site is required reading. A very few of them are very offensive (Apocamon), several are slightly explicit, but they are all TREMENDOUSLY good. "The Jain's Death" is required reading. "Overheard at the Rave" was a feelgood classic. "The Guy I Almost Was" made me rethink my career path. "Spiders" should not under any circumstances be missed. Don't read "Saturnalia" from work, specifically, and be careful with most of the others. Or, you know, don't.
(Oh yeah, and there's another one by the same guy here: Don't Look Back)
E-Sheep had the first really genre-transcending WEBcomics. It is still unique on the internet today. Patrick Farley defined a big chunk of what webcomics could do. |
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| Life update |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|10:27 pm] |
I'm going to the gym again!
I haven't gained any weight in the months since last time I went, I'm still around 255. And that means I must have been losing muscle mass. I'm expecting to gain ~5lbs once I get back in the swing of things, even with the quasi-diet I'm starting now.
I was in -decent- shape before, even if I was a bit heavy, and now I can tell I'm at the far end of that. Still plenty good enough to successfully work out, though. I just need to kick my sugar addiction.
I'm coping with stuff okay. It's been rough, but life is on an upswing again. If you need to know, ask outside of LJ.
Work moved me into a different, noisier cube that is near the epicenter of nerf fights. I miss my nice quiet cube, near the far-more-professional engineers (instead of "professional services"). Around July is when my temp contract expires, and they look at taking me fulltime...either that or I book it up to Seattle. Well, who knows. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|06:19 am] |
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"We're going to Monday in a handbasket!" |
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sowelu's journal
