Archive for April, 2006

Suppose that people live forever.

Friday, April 28th, 2006

On the SAT test, nigh on two years ago, I had to read and answer questions about a lovely little essay on the subject of immortality. It fascinated me, and when I got home after the test, I tracked it down. It was an op-ed piece in The New York Times, entitled “A Brief Version of Time” written by Alan Lightman in 1993.

Inspired by Jess’s latest blog entry, I dug it up again. The only clean copy I could find was in Google’s cache of an old mailing list archive that has been taken down. I <3 the internet. (There is, of course, a perfectly good copy in Nexis somewhere, and since I’m on campus I have access to it, but Nexis is scary and I don’t know how to use it. I know, I’m terrible. I should go to one of the “How to do research that doesn’t start at Google and end at Wikipedia” workshops at the Library.)

Here it is, for all the world to read again, until the Times finds me.

A Brief Version of Time, by Alan Lightman.

That was fun while it lasted

Friday, April 21st, 2006

Performance Bike just called.

Both my mechanic and myself [store manager] inspected your bicycle. We got the new wheel in and went ahead to try to repair it.

Your frame was damaged so badly by whatever bent your rear wheel, that your frame is just unsafe to ride. It’s unfortunate, as much as we wanted to get this fixed and working for you, it’s just not going to happen. Your bike is damaged beyond repair, and at this point you do need to replace it.

There is no charge for any of the work we’ve done at this point, we’re not going to charge you for anything, but I highly recommend you replace the bicycle. Sorry about that, I wish there was more we could have done.

This was the original incident.

another overdue update

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

How can it already be week three? Every quarter goes by faster than the last.

Classes are going as well as can be expected. I’m struggling through Tuesdays and Thursdays (though last week I only went for six of the seven-and-a-half hours a day: still can’t stand Kube’s lecture style).

  • Cogs10 is interesting stuff. Design (user-centered); Human-tech. Design as a non-optional part of any creative or technical process.
  • Cogs101C… not quite so interesting. I might drop it, since I only need one of the “C” courses. I didn’t know linguistics was so close to computer science though: binary trees, generative grammars, and such.
  • CSE100 isn’t bad, now that I’ve mostly gotten past Java syntax. I think I’m still going to enjoy rewriting the assignments in C more though.
  • CSE105 is great fun: I have a good intuitive grasp of all the concepts we’ve done so far, especially finite state automata. Rhodes is as great as professor as I remember from CSE21 last summer. Tip of the hat to Dad for teaching me about finite state machines in a much more concrete implementation, when came to see UCSD almost exactly two years ago. I think Paul said it best: Pumping Lemma would be a great name for a band.

Has it been two years since I first saw the UCSD campus? I don’t even know what two years is. It’s nothing, it’s a lifetime. I know I’ve changed a lot since high school, mostly for the better I think. I’m certainly less antisocial than I used to be. I feel like I fit better in college than I ever did in high school. (#sdcolleges people: <3)

– this was previously semi-secret!

On Friday night, Jess and I went out to dinner. We drove around for a while being indecisive about restaurants, before ending up at Tofu House on Convoy St. After dinner we went to Nijiya and bought various Japanese groceries (Jess got a lot of candy among other things; I picked up a few bottles of my beloved Ito En O~i Ocha). Then we drove up to Mt Soledad and looked out over the lights of the city. The rain had stopped by then and night was wondrously clear and we could see for miles. The moon was something out of a song: “white and full like a pale ghost across the sky”.

All in all I had a great time with Jess, and I think (hope?) she did too.

(I think she reads this. Hi Jess! ^_^)

–so if you happened to find this semi-hidden post… well things didn’t go anywhere. but Jess is still really cool.

Ben on cake

Thursday, April 13th, 2006

<Krelbel> ooo
<Krelbel> ooo!
<Krelbel> DJ
<Krelbel> SOLIPSISM
<Krelbel> we're SO bringing that in to CAT
<Krelbel> :DDD
<Krelbel> best pointless philosophy ever
<Krelbel> right above "Deep down every human being, at his or her very core, is made of cake."

I have done it

Sunday, April 9th, 2006

I have gone an entire week without caffeine.

Wow.

Right now I’m going to sleep, but tomorrow morning I’m going to really enjoy a nice cup of tea.

I wonder if I can really quit any time I want to?

IRC bots rock

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

<DJCapelis> !lastspoke women
<numist> I don't know anything about women

Rainy day philosophy

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

For example, sunny days make you feel good, rainy days make you feel gloomy. If you are told this is so, then that is what you will believe to be so. But you can have fun on a rainy day as well. Your truth can be changed simply by the way you accept it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, episode 26

I’m insane

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

My schedule will be online real soon now (I’m waiting for the phpicalendar folks to patch a security issue).

Tuesday and Thursday:

11-12:30 CSE100

12:30-2 COGS10

2-3:30 JAPN20C

3:30-5 COGS101C

5-6:30 CSE105

That’s seven and a half consecutive hours of lecture. I’m insane.

Monday and Friday are really happy, though. And by “happy” I mean “work all day except for a few hours”.