FremLog

There are many ways to achieve the goal stated in the title of this post. Crime is one option. Several student bodies hold that organizations such as campus bookstores engage in it on a frequent, if not regular basis; though we can hardly blame “them.” We can, and do, blame semi-anonymous people on the internet however. People like “Thor”, who shoot lighting from their fists while cutting up cardboard yogurt boxes for use in shipping illicit materials via our great nation’s postal servicemen.

Allow me to elaborate. One of the used textbooks we bought off Amazon arrived today with the phrase, “EXAMINATION COPY” plastered in large, unfriendly letters across the front cover. An explosiony star-burst encouraged instructors to “keep the cost of textbooks down!” by “See back cover.” It was an intriguing invitation, though I am but a student. Yet, must not all good instructors frequently lower themselves to the status of student in order to expand their mind and return to professoring refreshed anew? Having thoroughly rationalized my position in the matter, I flipped the tome over. There were several lengthy paragraphs to which the star-burst indubitiously referred, but as the son of a lawyer my eyes were immediately drawn to the small print at the bottom.

Behold! Engraved in ink was a message from the publisher informing me that dissemination or resale of the work was prohibited.

I sensed irony.

A new wifi network appeared this morning, “Punknet.” Yes, Punknet. Seriously? I’m tempted to treat as I would an insolent newbie speaking in leet who endeavors to build a castle on a previously undiscovered tiny island just off the coast of my magnificent kingdom. Namely, by leading a raiding party party out to investigate and extend it either a boon of friendship or notification of doom. In this case, the signal pretty weak, so my glorious civilization and his rather less glorious might-be-mistaken-for civilization will probably be at peace. But one can never be too careful about anything with the word “punk” in it.

On the other hand, my wifi network is named after our cocker spaniel, so I suppose I can’t complain much about stupid names. Except that spaniels aren’t stupid. They’re amazing. How amazing? Cry  ’Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war!

So, there’s a third round of Hootenanny auditions. Huzzah!This means the chances of skit from James entering in the running again is much higher than it was several days ago, when the chances were zero.

We even have (extremely busy and pressed for time) actors this time.

To prepare (and because most of the penn2ers are noobs and needed to see it anyway), I watched about half an hour of the show from last year. My previous skit? Painful. Horribly painful and embarrassing. We were nervous, we fudged up lines, and most of the (extremely frequent) puns were either too subtle to show up in dialog, or not funny when they did. Overall, it just didn’t flow well at all.

Part of the issue was just how long and elaborate the lines were. Having taken speech since than, I now realize that part of the issue was that the script was not written to be verbal. One of the great and unique things about authors like Dickens and Wodehouse is that most of their work reads great on paper and sounds great when read out loud. I definitely lack that gift. Hence, the target time for this year is two to three minutes. Much longer than that, and the audience looses interest.

Another part of it was just The Stage and Preparation. Joking around and having fun with a skit while auditioning was great. We were all loose, we had scripts, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what we had was a decent skit. I was wrong, but it didn’t really matter at that point because we didn’t know I was wrong, and it’s much easier to convince people that your skit is funny if you think it’s funny.

However, as the event drew closer, I became completely immersed in the dialog. I began to doubt that it was really as humorous as I’d previously supposed. Others in the cast felt the same way, so we began to edit. Humor is so much easier to deliver if you know exactly what part is supposed to be humorous. You can build up to it, emphasize it, and all sorts of wonderful things like that. But after going through the same lines so many times, we lost track of what was funny.

The writer behind Portal was interviewed recently, and he said something that resonated with me.

“Tough guy dialogue is just about as macho the 50th time you hear it. Funny dialogue is funny once — maybe.”

I can’t really say much about macho dialog as I can’t write it without instantly deleting my work and washing my hands to get rid of the slimy cliche,  but the latter part is definitely true about humor. This year, I am relying much more heavily on 3rd parties to see how much they laugh when reading the script.

But there are still issues. Especially tying it off neatly. Everyone loves a climax directly followed by a witty comment. Do you have any idea how insane that is to write? This is why half my skits don’t even have real endings and sort of trail off into the distance, much like this post.

Ah, well. At least I can write code.

This is how I spend so much stupid time not doing homework.

1. I need to do physics homework like a good student
2. It’s online! How handy. Let’s go to Lon-Cappa
3. Hmm. This problem requires that I use the gravitational acceleration constant for the moon. I don’t know that, and it’s not stated in the problem or the book.
4. I know! Wikipedia. Not always 100% reliable, but can be handy for things like this.
5. That’s a really short article. Doesn’t have the number I need. But hey, look! It’s a reference to faked moon landings. Wow!
6. Ok, don’t get distracted. Some other website must have it.
7. Volia! 1.62m/s^2. How easy!
8. Gah! It says the answer was wrong! Stupid site gave me bad info. Good thing I’ve still got four tries left on the problem.
9. Click! I close the tab of the treacherous website. Oh, look. It’s the wikipedia page on faked moon landings.
10. Time passes…
11. Wait, it’s how late? Gah!

Tune in next week, when James SSHes to letnet… and certain doom!

Titanic: To fail horribly and miserably at something. An epic failure.

“Some guy in the dorm burned popcorn, set off the smoke detectors, and got the building evacuated. It was titanic.”

“Man, I totally titanisized on that test today.”

Ok, this is somewhat scary.

I didn’t even think about the poll until after I’d clicked an option. Should I be worried that “they” know enough about me purely from information gathered autonomously to ask if I liked a spiritual sequel to KOTOR or a game about parkour better? Both of which titles I eagerly anticipate playing within the next five years? I don’t even think I’m in a gaming group. Well, maybe I am. Crap, I’m in like five of them.

I generate information for humans, not robots. I really wish Facebook had a robots.txt option.

But seriously. I answered the poll. That’s even worse! They have extracted more information from me! Soon they will derive vital information from my preference, like my secret plans to have a finger removed in order to insert an assassination blade. Airport security will start stopping everyone with four fingers and then where will I be? Not en route to stabbing evil Facebook scrubbing bots, that’s where.

In other, tangentially related, information, Nineteen Eighty-Four recently landed on my Christmas reading list. Stuff that in your hat and eat it, robot!

p.s. What happened to the last one percent, I wonder? Dead, most likely. Sad.

I have an announcement to make.

YAY! PHOENIX REQUIEM IS STARTING! w00t!!!

Ahem. I now return you to your normal blog.

A few days ago, I decided to go running. Rather than carry my keys with me and have them all jingling around in my pocket, I decided to leave them at the dorm.
This posed a problem. How would I get back in my room? Leaving the door open and/or unlocked is rarely a great idea. So I pulled my room key off my keyring and scoured the hallway outside my door in search of a good place to hide it. The terrain was sadly lacking in flowerpots and welcome mats; and I, thinking inside the box, didn’t remember that I had an entire lounge in which to deposit objects.

But behold! The venetian blind at the end of the hall. At the very top, between the frame and the top of the blind, there was a gap just large enough to insert a key. So, I did. Just to be sure I’d be able to get it back out, I used the tip of a pencil to pull it out again. Confident that my room was protected by a sufficient amount of security by obscurity, I jogged out of the building.

Returning thirty minutes later, covered in sweat and not thinking very coherently, I returned to the window blind. With the skill and precision of a ninja, I slowly, carefully, grabbed at the key. It jingled slightly as it fell out of sight, deep into the internal mechanisms of the blind. Oops.

Fortunately, I’m apathetic.

The End.

Afterward
Several hours later, armed with various tools of prying, some guys from Penn3 figured out how to dismount the blind from its lofty perch above the window, and the key was restored to it’s rightful place in my pocket. It’s really hard to remove window blinds when all parties involved are laughing hysterically.

Description: Chasing a moving vehicle through deserted alleyways in the middle of a large city.
Status: Completed

Now, to work on movie inspired fantasy #3477: Catching previously mentioned vehicle.

I have a vague idea that I’m easily amused…

I know my declared major is computer science and engineering, but I occasionally ponder whether or not I’m really pursuing the right degree. Am I actually an English major in some parallel universe? Sometimes I wonder. I’ll make a list to double check.

• I write stuff down. An immense amount. Scarcely a day goes by when yours truly hasn’t jotted something simply “because.” Over spring break, I wrote an essay at least one page in length every day. Partially for personal entertainment and enjoyment, and partially because it helps me keep a perspective on things and observe my thought process. Also, partially because “they just happened.” In addition, regular scrawling help me observe the lurking horror of my truly awful syntax, grammar, and editing errors.
• I tend to think of life in terms of what a great story it would make. Waking in a panic at 7 A.M. because of roommate’s fire-alarm clock, running to class an hour before it starts due to early morning disorientation, and holding the door for a random female becomes a decidedly epic tale of betrayal (how could you do this to me, clock?!), plot-twists (where is everyone?), and chivalry (the handicap button totally counts). I would continue with more examples, but The World At Large is probably better off not knowing exactly how I perceive things.
• On the flipside of simply enjoying life as it comes, I frequently attempt to direct and control it by composing sentences, paragraphs, and occasionally entire conversations in my head before initiating a join to normal socialness. These snippets of text frequently undergo revision a few times until I see it fit to release them into the wild. It is a jungle out there, though. There are nasty tribal people with spears who like to kill my fragile text and ideas, usually requiring me to reply shortly afterward. It’s tough to speak while mourning the loss of loved precomposed dialog.
• Perspective has a habit of killing the excitement brought on by the previous two bullet points.
• Technology interests me. Strongly. It’s the ideas of many people come together to better the world through communication, reason, and learning. Most of it is text-based. Think about it. It’s all currently about doing fantastic stuff with words. Connecting people, linking ideas, and creating new ways of thinking about information.
• That reminds me, the ultimate killer app has not yet been achieved.

Basic word processing functions

Basic spreadsheet functions

No need to save

Simple file format, pretty much just a zip file with XML and whatever inside. Images, video, MP3s, etc.

Ability to export PDFs.

LaTex support! Teh maths, they need notes about them. Kformula has a wonderful system. Embed or fork that off, maybe?

Allows text windows. Position text anywhere, take notes on images, write notes in the virtual margins etc.

Dump any file into a note in-line. Drag n’ drop from a browser, file manager window, etc.

Completely brainless outlining

WikiLike CamelCase linking

Very small and fast. Instant, if possible. If the user is coming up with new stuff faster then the program can process it, it’s too slow. Load time must be minimal, regardless of notebook size.

Open source! Cross platform! USB key compatible! Anyone should be able to use something like this. Palm, Generic Windows boxen, Macs, Ubuntu, TabletPC, etc.

Get a peer-to-peer note server going, while we’re at it. (low dev priority. SAMBA shares will hold users over in the meantime).

OneNote does some of it. Tomboy does some of it. Basket is a nice example of the whole “dumping” concept. None of them are perfect.

I shall call it “MetaApp”, and development of a prototype will commence eventually using Python and wxWidgets.

Copyright JamesGecko, 2007.

Oh, right. Enthusiasm displayed over a detailed spec list for an obscure software product targeted at a decidedly niche market. I guess I am an engineer after all.