All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

     Hilton has been “blogging” about his project, Genesis (thank you, my idea!) and in general sounding all professional and stuff (minus the comments.  We do a pretty good job of shattering that image).  While I actually boast a larger readership, with three persons not known to me actually coming in and leaving comments (Hilton did have someone unknown to him leave a comment…or two or three, but they weren’t welcome), his, I have to admit, seems a little more noteworthy, substantial, and in general not a waste of cyber-space.  I have secretly been jealous of this since I don’t really have anything important or even semi-important to inform the world about, but all this has changed.  For now I, too, have a project.

     Unlike Hilton, though, I’m not going to keep mine a secret on the Internet.  It’s called Project Eden and it is my genealogical research and creation of a new genealogy program.  No wait, sorry.  That was my last project that I gave up on after it became an insurmountable task.  This one is totally different.  Totally.  This project is my garden, or rather what is going to become my garden (and then the garden itself).  And like all of my experiences, this one has a long, drawn out, and uninteresting story that you now get to read.

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     The following is a selection from an e-mail I sent to a friend of mine (outside “our” little group).  It details a couple of experiences I’ve had at Heritage and working with horses that I decided would actually make a good blog entry.  So here it is in unedited form.  It should still make sense even with it being taken out of the context of the e-mail.  Of course, there may be some mistakes or outside references I’ll fix later.

     I had “enough” time on Thursday to go back to Heritage, actually.  By enough, I mean I just said “screw it” to what I needed to do and put on my work clothes and went out.  I forgot how cold and…aromatic that place was.  But it was sooo worth it.  I didn’t get to ride, as I had remotely hoped, but I still got to work around with the horses/students quite a bit.  Working with the kids can be a variable experience, depending on whether or not they care that day and whether or not you, personally, are scum.  For the most part I am able to joke around with them enough to prove I am not scum, but it’s no easy task.  And there is nothing I can do if they have just decided that they don’t care.  My philosophy is if they are willing and want to work with me, then great!  But if they don’t want to, then it’s their loss and they can just sit out and do something boring (or nothing).  Unfortunately, this usually isn’t an option (though sometimes I think it should be).

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Har har.  Macs are pandering to people too timid to accept life as a fully technological experience.  PCs used to pander to specialized nerds, but they’re getting better.  They still have a ways to go.

The KISS mode of thinking (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is a good thing to follow.  But don’t go so far overboard trying to keep things simple that you actually fall into thinking KISS: Keep It Stupid Simple.  Some of the programming traditions, such as the loading screen that my friend and cousin Hilton, describe as being blindly followed, exist for a reason.  They work.  Admittedly there are some that probably could be tossed, or at least reworked.  While I haven’t been in the world of programming and programmers for long, I am certain that there are a multitude of the programmers he described that put out…less than optimal programs.

The problem with making computers and programs think like a person is that they don’t.  On the very fundamental basis of its existence, computers think differently than people.  Our languages and our very thought process is built on the basis of assumptions and our ability to handle imprecision and ambiguity.  Our current computer model cannot handle situations that have multiple interpretations.
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I uploaded a slew of pictures I have taken of my two cats, Janus and Minerva.  You can go to the Wiki page to find them:

http://wiki.nucleartoiletpaper.com/index.php?title=The_Kitty%21_Series

I just have a quick link to a blog entry of Dave Barry’s (which incidentally also contains a link).  His brief, two sentence summation does what pages of my rambling could never do:

 http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2006/02/why_the_world_n.html

OK, so I try to keep these posts reserved for serious thought, but this is SO COOL!  I want one!  And if you think mopeds are cool, PSH!  As if!

Keep in mind, this thing is only around $3600!  And check out the speed and mileage it gets.  It can get to 30-35 MPH with that same range in distance.  For simple trips around town that is more than ample.  Sure your electric bill is going to go up, but I’m guessing that it costs way less to power it by electricity than by gasoline.

 http://www.mitsuoka-motor.com/english/lineup/microcar/index.html

Oh, and so you know, the English is terrible.  You can tell there are parts where they hired a fluent speaker and others where they got Bob-san in accounting to do it.

Well, I was hoping to build a ham radio and tune into SuitSat to hear its message and perhaps even get the picture it is supposed to be sending.  Unfortunately, I did not foresee the “Week of Pain” coming.  I have had way more to do than I have had time to do it, plus having to readjust my sleeping schedule to accomodate my new job at 7am didn’t make things easier (lots of naps).  Apparently the SuitSat project turned out to be a bust anyways:

SuitSat

I’ve read that it has sent signals since this article was published, but all of them have been exceptionally weak.  With such a radio intensive area as the valley is, I doubt I would have been able to pick anything up even if I had built a radio.  Alas.  I still would like to construct an amateur radio from scratch as a test of my electrical engineering skills, and for pure unadulterated fun, but it will have to wait until time is not such a precious commodity.

In happy news, I have had a total of three visitors not previously known to me that have come to my blog and left comments so far.  That’s right, THREE!  Two of them commented on my entry about the Mohammad caricatures and one commented on my “Social Contact” entry.  That one appears to be from Australia, and the two more recent ones hail from Chicago and Amsterdam.  How exciting is that!  It is truly thrilling to know that people are slowly trickling to my blog on occasion even without my advertising it.  Whether this leads to me being a respected blogger on the Internet or not remains to be seen (my money is on the not, but I can always dream).

Also, I changed the theme due to formatting errors on other computers.  I loved the Neptune one, but it just wasn’t very adaptable and caused problems in viewing on other computers.  Perhaps I’ll get back and try to get another one that actually works and everything.

This is truly one of the better attempts at relationship advice I have seen. It’s short, so you can actually go read it without my summarizing it. I can not add anything to it:

WCM Method

My title might sound all deep and technical, but it’s over a recent diplomatic “crisis” that has anything but “deep” basing.  Perhaps you have heard of the riots and protests surrounding a Denmark newspaper publishing twelve drawings of the prophet Mohammad?  In case you haven’t, the following is a link to a CNN story on the subject: Mohammad Cartoon Article.  I also recommend this article for some more information: Mohammad Cartoons.  Yes, I will be providing a brief summary but go read the articles anyways.

For the sake of my discussion, I will summarize as follows.  In September, a Danish newspaper published twelve political cartoon-style drawings of the Muslim prophet, Mohammad.  So what?  Well, in Muslim law, it is blasphemous for anyone to create any depiction of any religious figure, especially Mohammad.  There are a few variations of this throughout the various sects of Islam, but all clerics are united in the interpretation of the Quran that forbids the depictions.  The reason for this is to avoid falling into idolatry, which seems reasonable enough.  Though my personal views would disagree with the execution, it is not my place to criticize a religion for a belief it has and is prima facie why I am not a Muslim.

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The management would like to apologize for the atrocity that was this post.  They decided to read their own writing and were appalled.  In our defense, this entry was written when their mind was of a “fragmented state” (it’s something that can only be described as that.  It happens on occasion) and so the entry reflected that. 

This post has been sacked.  It will be replaced with something that, hopefully, resembles a coherent thought process with defined arguments and maybe even a point.  We apologize for the mental trauma undoubtedly suffered by anyone who read it.
Sincerely,
The Management