God Jul

The Darkest of Winters

[instrumental]

So, I finally found a use for my Moleskine notebook: I wrote down stuff I was going to blog about. Here they are, in no particular order:

Keeping a notebook nearby is infinitely handy. Being able to write down everything running through my head (in this case, a myriad number of events that I'd been meaning to blog about) enables me to feel relieved knowing I'm not going to forget some important detail. I plan on using my Moleskine much more often once I get a pack of sexy Pilot very fine rollerball pens.

Besides the notebook, one thing I took to using much more often is the ever-useful sticky note. Sticky notes let me remember tiny random tasks that I needed to do as well as provide a much-needed catharsis once the task was completed via tearing it down and crushing it in my fist. I plan on using them much more often next semester to help my rein in my homework and project habits and Get Things Done.

Being at home now with lots of free time enables me to reflect back on the previous semester and realize how marginally awful it was. Although it seemed to finish before it started, it feels like I did far less work this semester than before; spring semester last year I busted my ass doing Physics work and everything while this semester I ended up skipping lots of (admittedly worthless) classes and studying less. This lack of work accurately reflects my grades for this semester, which, while not awful, are certainly not representative of the work I can do. I'm absolutely positive that I can do well if I put my mind to it due to my ability to perform very well on finals that I actually study for; it seems I ended up doing best on my math final out of all the tests in the class even though it was cumulative, and the same goes for EECS 281 even though the answers weren't spoon-fed to us this time. I must say, though, I'm still jealous of people - say, in the Biochemistry department - who get to take lots of classes with either no final exam or a non-cumulative final. As far as I know, I'm going to be rocking five finals next semester.

Now that school is out, however, I can enjoy the wonderfully wintry weather in Ohio (currently consisting of an overcast sky and 40° weather - it rained yesterday) and the absence of Laura and my fellow Case undergrads. I still have a few topics to touch on, but many days of winter break left. Let's not rush it, yeah?

Postscript: Demetri Martin is hilarious.

That Last Hand Nearly Killed Me

Finals done. At home. Posts later (got a list).

For the Record

I despise humanity.

I Was Born to Go Down Fighting

So yeah.

Via the omnipresent Digg: Vista is here. Who cares?

I just finished my first class of the semester, USSY 220 Digital Storytelling. All in all, not a bad course and I wouldn't mind reccommending it to other people. It's fairly work-free as far as seminars go. Plus, you get to make goofy videos (I'll resize my group's and post it eventually). The rest of the semester's classes shall proceed to pass into the night with nary a care. All I care about now is a.) finishing the season of Heroes so far and b.) exams.

Time now for c.) sleep.

Give Thanks

Eat well, everyone.

I Need Ten Pounds of Modafinil

Okay, make it twenty.

There's got to be some catch... I just don't believe that there's a pill that just lets us decide we only need to sleep every other day and our body plays right along. Not that I wouldn't love something to pull me through the next few weeks of class, but I can barely afford college, let alone amphetamines.

Also, Picard > Kirk.

And It Begins

Now I begin the arduous task of composing a rough draft for my twelve-page SAGES research paper, which includes poring through at least five books on psychology (a subject I've never taken a class on, much less written a paper about).

WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE.

Vista and PNRP

A day or two old, but interesting: every Vista computer can (via the magic of PNRP and IPv6) have its own domain name. Basically, anyone using Vista can relatively easily host their own website with a domain name using IIS, as well as access anyone else's website who is doing the same.

I'm sure someone will try hosting some awesome site with no router and their firewall turned off and no antivirus...

Chumby: Hackerdom Comes Full Circle

I stumbled upon this article at NewsForge while trawling Google Reader and immediately became interested. I'd heard about the chumby earlier when viewers of Diggnation learned that Kevin Rose was one of the lucky recipients of a test model. What really interested me, however, was this (admittedly long) quote:

"We've taken a very different approach to creating a consumer electronic device," [head of software Duane Maxwell] says. "Rather than layering DRM and fighting a losing war with hackers attempting to repurpose the device, we've decided to trust the community to an extraordinary degree. The anti-DRM crowd has waved the 'trust the customer' banner for a few years now to no avail, but we're actually going to do just that. At this point, the hackers, developers, and users can destroy chumby by doing exactly what the big media companies are deathly afraid of. So this is a grand experiment in trust to which we've committed our careers and millions of dollars."

The first thing that struck me, besides how damn cool the chumby is, is that they are essentially offering a framework - a do-it-yourself kit. I was immediately reminded of the beginnings of personal computing as we know it, when hobbyists of the 1970s were able to build their own computers from parts readily available at Radio Shack and other places and subsequently program the machines themselves. Software was distributed on discs and in magazines. It was a golden age of sharing and invention. Not too long ago I read an article involving an interview with Steve Wozniak and the history of Apple and various things like how Segways are awesome; the pertinent point was that the reason the Apple took off is that it stripped away the hobbyist element and allowed anyone with a wad of cash to have their own gosh-darned, working, mainstream computer in their home, no soldering or programming experience necessary. Now, thirty years later, companies are innovating by returning to the hobbyist roots of computing.

"Grand experiment in trust"? Please.

If you let them build it, they will come.