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Warning: I’m gonna talk about a lot of stupid blog stuff now

October 3, 2003 /

My RSS aggregator is now officially aggregating 39 blogs. Granted, a lot of those are dormant, but that’s still not bad for something that started as an experiment while I was bored at work.

Things I want to change about it:

  • This is a third-party aggregator, so I have to wait for it to update itself, which it does only once an hour. For petesakes, that’s a possible 59 minutes of tardiness on late-breaking bruisable news! I should either write my own or find software I can install on my own site, but I’m lazy.
  • Thirty-nine? Come on! Somebody start a new blog, I want to round it off. No, not a blogspot, they don’t let you have a feed unless you pay money.
  • (Or, if your name is Kristofer Straub, you could get on the stick already and install some journal software with feeds and also real permalinks.)

I know thirty-nine isn’t actually a particularly large field for an aggregator, but it works nicely for me. It was pretty boring when I started out, but now there’s a good chance that any hour I hit it will yield at least one new post.

October 3, 2003 /

Gonna go give blood now.

Kind of worried that it’s gonna hurt.

More worried about what all the no-sleep toxins in my blood are going to do to whoever gets it.

And speaking of languages…

October 2, 2003 /

Seriously, why not just add two more dots to Braille and make it match ASCII? Somebody should have been thinking about that.

I guess you could just have one abstract class binaryAlphabet and Braille and ASCII could both extend it, and fill the remaining abstract spaces with their own oh no my brain went object-oriented.

October 2, 2003 /

And I pulled another all-nighter (bringing our running total for this week up to–yes!–two) and I finished the whole thing this time, and it works, and it’s 18 pages of code and 10 pages of report in fourteen hours, and I am fuck yes proud of it.

Actually I’m mostly proud because last night, I learned Java. Like all of it. I’d never written anything besides a Hello World in the language before, and last night I sat down and implemented polymorphs and overrides and extensions like a fucking Sun cowboy. I’m thinking I probably won’t go to my last class of the day too often anymore, because it’s basically How To Do Java When You Only Know C++, and I think I just made that whole concept call me daddy.

It was a long night, but hell, I know a new language now. And although yes, I took a half-hour nap that turned into a one-hour nap and I was late for the class where I had to hand it in, I biked like a demon (on one hour of sleep) and got there without being too late at all. My professor didn’t seem to mind, at least. He’s bland, but he’s awfully nice.

Tonight I clean and nap and clean some more, preparing for my mother and sister to descend upon my apartment and find it wanting. Then tomorrow it’s Ian’s birthday. Happy birthday, Ian! I didn’t get you anything.

October 1, 2003 /

“Also, in an attempt to re-energize myself, I sort of scotch-taped a quart of milk to my face.”

Sometimes I think the reason the faces in AZWP are so expressive is because they are all Stephen’s real face.

October 1, 2003 /

“Coleman said he remained worried about the ‘heavy-handedness’ of the lawsuits, which carried fines of up to $150,000 for each song shared from their hard drives. When asked whether the fines were excessive, Bainwol said they got consumers’ attention and established a deterrent. ‘Public floggings would get attention, too, but we don’t do that,’ Coleman responded.”

Well played, Senator Coleman. Well played.

Meanwhile, over at Music That Is Free And Also Fricking Rocks, Amanda informs me that Jon has put new songs up on his IUMA page. (I have to find this out from Amanda because someone else never updates his blog. But I digress.) And! They fricking rock! “Later” and particularly “Gun” remind me of the reformed-ELO-fan sound of 56 Kilobit Sentinel, and the lo-fi / high harmony contrast in “Letting Go” might be my favorite moment in a Jon song yet. Plus the outro rocks like Silverchair.

September 30, 2003 /

Turns out I actually can eat lunch, read under a tree, come home on the bus, do miscellaneous home activities (like exchange heavy books), and still get back on campus in time for my afternoon classes.

Huh.

Pulled my first grad school project all-nighter last night. Because I’m stupid. I didn’t quite finish it (I wrote a predicate logic unification package, but not its extensions), but from the classroom buzz this morning everybody who did finish didn’t have the first part working, and I did. Maybe I’ll get Mickey Rooney Happy Fun Time Points.

September 28, 2003 /

Audrey and Drew. It’s all their fault. If not for their meddling influences, I could have gone to the craft store with Maria and (Illinoisan entomologist) Annie and spent a mere $20 on new Microns. Ta da! The end!

Except the aforementioned two have talked lots about inking with metal-nib pens and brushes, respectively, and I saw some of that stuff at Michael’s and got all excited and WHOOPS there goes all the money I had next month.

I’m calling it an “investment.” That makes it okay to shave a little bit off the future-budget for, oh, as long as I’m alive.

Anyway, at least I’ll be trying new art stuff. Expect to see shaky new black-and-white things in the Chalkboard as I get my… ink-legs. I guess.

Now: Kruskal’s algorithm!

September 27, 2003 /

Well heck. While I was busy nonblogging, I managed to completely miss the two-year anniversary of this journal (this past Tuesday). This is why sometimes there will be things that say “2 Years Ago” over on the right.

Yeah, that’s basically it.

I highly recommend John Allison’s Girlspy, which I just got in the maaail to-day. And it’s great! There’s popes in it.