111110

Today is November 11th. Another binary date, 62 is the base-10 equivalent of this date. I don't really have anything too terribly relevant or impressive to report.

I'll mention something that did happen though. I was at Korenav's birthday LAN party having a moderate blast when a touch of damage came to my computer. A chair got kicked, a dongle was in the way and suddenly, BAM. Tiny blue sparks and a busted USB port. I was advised to get the fucker disconnected from the motherboard as soon as possible, and i spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to replace the piece.

We were able to find a couple of part that semi fit and would connect, but in the end, I simply decided to order a new part from the manufacturer. It got here just fine, and was a little tricky to install, but here's the thing. The top USB port works fine, and the bottom one almost works. Power flows, and I guess like 3 out of 4 pins are connected, but USB devices will not connect. I think the motherboard actually got slightly damaged in that event. It'll have to be replaced eventually, but the theory is that since I actually registered the product, I may be able to get a free replacement. Yay.

Oh well. I had eight USB port, and now I have seven. Eight is enough, that's why they made a show called that. I'm tired. Signing out.

-The0

Annuals

Contrary to my best projections, I somehow not only managed to fall happily in love with someone who is perfectly awesome, but I managed to keep her with me, and myself attached to her, for a year. It has been one year since our first date! Fantastic Joy! Yay!

Has it ever occurred to anyone but me how fluid an anniversary can be? You can celebrate the anniversary of any date you specifically remember. First email, first kiss, first date, first year going steady, first year being married, et cetera. So my question among this fluidity becomes, when a couple starts celebrating a new date of anniversary, does the old one become forgotten? Does it have a new meaning? I'm excited to see what the future holds, and frightened to think of how many special days I'll accidentally and brazenly forget.

Our entire evening started out late. we wanted to make a tradition of having drinks at the place of the previous date, a media/art event, and then finish with a dinner at a new place. Sadly, we barely made it to the Arts event in time. The Fantasticks, as presented by the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. More of a "parents" play. There was a really weird song about rape in there. But it was rape in a classical sense, which made it okay. Somehow? Anyway, we were next to the youngest people there.

Dinner we enjoyed at Brio Tuscan Grill. Great meal. Nice crisp salads, creamy pastas. slightly disappointing desserts, but I was stuffed to the gills anyway.

Enough of this Blather! Happy Anniversary, Dr. Girlfriend! I love you!

-The0

Not Smart.

I had my wisdom teeth taken out recently. You remember when I mentioned that horrible chip in a molar after I had my foot butchered? It turns out that was simply a portent into worse times to come. I went to a dentist to see what could be done, and well, it turned out that nothing could be done.

Without grossing you out too much, my mouth was apparently a mess. I can remember previous visits to the dentist, but I haven't a memory of my last dentist visit. Doctor Teeth said he wanted them removed so that he wouldn't have to end up repairing something that would probably break again. I can't afford to have any of this work taken care of anyway. I might as well have chosen to leave them in.

The oral surgeon was a good acquaintance, I learned, and after a little consultation, he went to work early in the morning. Novacain is a bad ass painkiller, and significantly cheaper than anesthesia for an hour. I was very thankful to the following things during the procedure: iMetal ear-bud headphones, for being able to overpower the grinding sound in my skull, DJ Tiësto and his continuous In Search of Sunrise track, for being a soothing yet distracting track, and the 4th generation iPod, for being easy to use when you can't move. The literal thought of what was happening as I felt the vibration was terrifying, like a good horror movie.

On the first run, the doctor missed a little bit of root on the right upper molar. He opened me back up, and drilled the last of it out. This is my main irritance, because when he did this he perforated into my lower sinus. Such a communication between my mouth and sinus makes it impossible to play my saxophone. At least, play it well. I can't build up the pressure needed to play the lower notes at all. It's maddening to have this shit not heal. I'm very concerned that I'll miss out on playing my favorite instrument forever. If I do, I'm not certain who to blame, but I promise, I'm going to burn something expensive to the ground.

After all this pudding and soft food I was required to eat, I did get a good sense of what was at stake. I had to have some meat one day. Had to, avoiding it wasn't an option. I crammed a Reuben into a food processor and ground it into paste. It was awful. Flavorless, without texture, and pretty much just sick. I ate it, but if I don't wind up caring for my teeth, I'm going have to eat that every damn day by the time I'm 50.

No thanks.

-The0

Surgery! Good times!

I was recently hospitalized and released on account of a infection. Tiny little bacteria, all swarming around inside me, began to get hunger and eat up on my flesh. I have no idea how that got there, all I know is that few would be able to make it through the multiple shifts I had to endure simply to spend a couple days off of it. At the end of my couple of days off, when it started to look more like a bratwurst than a foot, I took a roundabout trip to the surgery wing of St. Lukes hospital, via route of family practice.

After a quick look from a bevy of aghast nurses, the surgeon walked in. He took a quick survey of the area, stabbed me a couple of times with a lidocain needle, and began to slice. This was astounding. It was a world-opening pain, the kind where you don't really even feel it anymore. Needless to say, I think this guy was something of a sadist.

I was hospitalized for about 4 days, dreading the next visit from the surgeon. Rough asshole. While I was laid out on a back breaking bed, one of the molars chipped horribly. This is a molar which supposedly was supposed to be removed when I was closer to 19. I'm beginning to see why. I was accompanied near the whole time by friends and the ever-dear Dr. Girlfriend. I saw a good few movies, watched enough TV, missed a lot of work, and learned that morphine doesn't really do much more than itch. The moral of the story is...

is...

I don't know. Fuck, that surgeon fucking sucks.

-The0

Like eHarmony

Always, always always always, Always always always check the compatibility of components before you ever install them.

I still feel like I am a relatively smart person, but it's been just over 2 years since I last learned this lesson, and I've killed another computer. Happily, I decided to buy my Cassima before I did this, upon which I write now. I bought a new Intel Q9550 processor, like I've always wanted to, and promptly murdered my giant gaming rig the instant I installed it.

After further testing, it now seems that the chip itself is busted (may have been a DOA) but still, I've been planning this upgrade ever since I bought the main box. It's taken like, 3 months to save to afford this thing. I may have stepped on a couple of toes, and potentially have stressed friendships to get this thing. Now my motherboard is fried. There's a lesson in this somewhere.

But I still have friends. A couple of dear brothers feel that this is kind of unfair, and despite my own ignorance, they're willing to chip in and help me get a new motherboard. One of them has even declared that he forbids me from getting anything that isn't an upgrade. God bless you all. Or Good Fortune! Or whatever you happen to believe in. Thank you!

Check for EVERY level of compatibility, anytime you make an upgrade. My rig's symptoms are available upon request. And now, time to file an RMA (here's hoping.)

-The0

One Step Forward

In regards to the previous post, I have settled on a leg/body design for my little robot "thought exercise," (since to be considered a project, you need to actually pump some effort, thought, and money into it.) Don't get me wrong, I REALLY want a pet that I don't have to feed, fear, or actually put any effort into, but the raw cost alone will be a while of saving up, and even after that, I have to put a lot of hours into learning how to make it function.

At any rate, I know which style of legs and body I wish to implement. I have decided to let go of the hamsterball idea, because I theorize that the spherical balance process will eat to much processing power to move as well. It's kind of like a Pogo-robo, I think. One point of contact with the ground, and all 5 pounds of weight precariously balanced above it. I can't expect myself to write a logarithm to balance and move. I can barely remember my trigonometry! Any thoughts or logic against this decision would be lovingly accepted and possibly implemented.

I was browsing the internet, looking for "How to build a robot" resources, when I came across a company called Lynxmotion. They are the only people I have come across so far that offer an Erector set of servos. You can't just use motors, you know. You need a motor that can go on command and stop when you need it to do so. Automatically. Anyway, Lynxmotion's hexapod sets are beautiful and pretty much exactly what I am thinking about now. You mount a Eee PC on top of it and pray for the programming sense to make it a little autonomus, and off you go! Robopet!

On an actual thought progress note, I had an idea for an add-on to the robot idea using computer science that I actually understand. Making a robot play fetch. Half-Life 2 made an NPC do it in game, why couldn't we do the same with a physical being?

Factors in mind are:

• Item recognition (easily embraced with specific colors and good lighting)
• Item tracking (stereo cameras and blotch tracking)
• Item retrieval (a grabbing mechanism)
• Item return (simply making a log of movements and performing them in reverse should do it, I think)

What I understand about electric cameras is that codecs work mostly on recording changing colors. I saw a video of a a paintball sentry gun that worked mostly on that principle. It would track, center on, and fire upon the largest moving splotch in the still image. It should be feasible to use this to find a moving splotch of specific color, and then, well, march toward it. Grabbing would be hard to program, and I still don't know jack about programming. I can turn a wrench and read though. Let's see where that gets me. Motivational video. It would seem a powerful processor isn't necessary for the motion. Maybe for the thinking, tracking, and fetching though. I don't know, this is all way too cool. To quote Freeman's Mind, "Robots are the only friends I need!"

On a related note: XKCD though it may be, this project could take me YEARS!

Sorry for the random spattering of words here. I've been thinking way too much about this. Hope you all are well.

-The0

Better Half-Life than no life at all.

In my opinion, many things can retain their grandeur despite their age. Everyone still loves the Mona Lisa, The Godfather is still revered as the best movie ever, and as far as this list is concerned, the Half-Life series raises the bar on all video games. This is a small dissertation on why.

Let’s start with Half-Life (the first one, released in 1998). Half-Life was based on the GoldSrc engine, a heavily modified version of the Quake engine. The graphics were stunning to me, and it utterly taxed my little 233 MHz laptop. I remember the first time I played it. I was a sophomore in high school, and I had just started the storyline of the game in hopes that I might improve my LAN battle strategy, which at the time was pretty much, "run straight forward with guns blazing at everything which moves." This was the first lesson I garnered from Half-Life. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE SHOT! No sooner had Barney started speaking than I had finished blowing a hole in his skull. It was some comment about the zombies, of which he had just taken care for my ungrateful ass.

Another game-changing moment was when I had to figure out my first “puzzle.” For once I wasn’t just running through corridors shooting everything which moved. This was my second lesson from Half-Life. It’s not all going to be about getting bigger guns for bigger baddies anymore. This time I had to figure out where I was going to go and what I was going to do in order to NOT die. It was like being in Mario brothers all over again. Only this time I got to use quicksaves and quickloads. At any rate, we go onto the best thing of all. The Storytelling.

Storytelling in Half-life was unlike anything I had ever experienced in my limited catalogue of gaming. I had played a couple of the Ultima games, and even played through all of Quake, but to have the story directly delivered to me in play, and not through some text screen or in a hidden manuscript was world-changing for me. In fact, a lot of the tale was lost to me. In order to actually get any of the yarn, you have to infer a lot from your surroundings and environment. This “resonance cascade” had supposedly just happened 48 hours ago, how could they possibly have built specimen examination rooms for the monsters in such short time? Unless? The point I’m making is, I was still just shooting everything. I was murdering, not thinking. As soon as I learned my third lesson, to stop and look around, everything started making more sense. After all, VALVe had made it a point to build (mostly) realistic worlds, who was I to ignore it?

Characters are a bit lackluster at times, but at other times, they are inescapably enigmatic. The G-Man is the only real character with whom you make any lasting contact. His involvement with everything is curious, but never forgotten. One might think he’s calling the shots in everything, others may say he is simply observing. Barney (the security guard) is met time and again, and even killed multiple times. I think Black Mesa may have been a cloning facility in addition to a hypothetical physics think tank. At any rate, the main character, Dr. Gordon Freeman, never speaks but is always central. I like that. You control him, and you can choose to save others or save your own ass. You can progress through the game as fast as you want, making a mad dash to whichever way “Out” is, or you can really explore the map, and find some extra goodies. Dr. Freeman can be a free-running murderer, or a thinking fighter. It is this ambiguity that allows him to have such a strong following. Master Chief is the gaming world’s Chuck Norris, steering a bomb through space on pure baddass alone, as in Halo 2. Dr. Freeman is just a scientist who apparently reads Guns and Ammo magazine and was the right man in the wrong place. That makes all the diffffference, in the world.

Whereas this has gotten to be a very long post, be it resolved that we’ll go ahead and close up here. I'll carry on this babble into HL2 sometime soon, before the end of the month. Which means you’ll probably be reading it in August, 2010.

Oh, in case you need to be warned, this post has spoilers. Figured I'd at least mention it somewhere.

-The0

I wonder if the CIA has heard about these guys...

Recently, I noticed all the commercials for the SMS directory service KGB (supposedly an acronym for Knowledge Generation Bureau.) The idea is that you send them a text message containing your question or point of curiosity, and they respond with a text message containing the answer to your question. You wind up one fact smarter and 99 cents poorer.

I decided to test out this service and ask them a question to which I already knew the answer. I asked “What is a granfalloon?” I got a confirmation message, saying that they were researching the answer. 2 minutes later, I was given the answer, “A granfalloon, in the fictional religion of Bokononism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle), is defined as a ‘false karass’” I was impressed.

As a self-proclaimed denizen of the digital age, I should have no qualms with readily accessible information, but something irks me about this service. First, I know I’m not the only one who remembers that Russia’s Committee for Governmental Security (founded in 1954) was called the KGB. What if it’s a front? Am I supposed to let these guys just hear my deepest (or most recent) curiosities? What if they’re creating a psychological profile of populations? Wait…Are they even our enemy any longer? Maybe I should ask them that.

Second, what’s wrong with popping on the internet on your phone and finding your answer yourself? If you’re going to pay a buck for an answer, you might as well get an internet plan and ask all the questions you damn well please. It would seem some sort of cost/time analysis is in order. It did take me about 5 minutes to find the same answer, given the benefit that I knew the avenues I would have to search to find the answer. The big thing about this is that these guy probably just sit around and Google the answer as I would have. A cool product, but I think it’s a bit overpriced for the convenience.

Sorry about the hiatus. I have been very busy. I was planning on posting this long ago (hence the date maybe,) and I had a draft of it, but a LOT of business came up. I shan’t bore you with the details. That’s for tomorrow’s “Update” post (for anyone who is still reading.) Thanks for following, anyone who is still out there!

-The0

Deus Ex Kayceedee

It’s been a good week for me, relatively speaking anyway. Now don’t get me wrong, bills still suck and I’ve been exhausted all week, but I’ve had a number of great experiences that I plan to share with you. Followers of XKCD will nitpick me, and people who have no clue what it is will have a hint at how to learn and follow this glorious mindset.

The most exciting one comes first. In my eHarmony profile it says “I’m kind of looking for an XKCD girl,” which can be kind of vague, not to mention esoteric. That’s the beauty of it though. According to the way XKCD followers work, and indeed, as the rest of the techno-savvy world works, if you don’t know what XKCD is, you’re not an XKCD girl. The glory of this little diatribe is, Miss eHarmony Match did not know precisely what XKCD is or means. Does she give up and ask me about what the hell I was talking? No, no she did not. She googled it. She doesn’t even know that what she did there, perfectly qualifies her. I really hope I can win this time around. It’s been harrowing, and a hot nerdette is hard to come by.

Then there’s the second achievement this week. It can define the movement of the techno-savvy as well the self-motivated person who won’t let financial or technical restrictions stand in the way of what he wants. I was chatting with a friend who informed me several times during the chat of what she was doing at the time. These all involved different locations of a house or apartment. I was confused, and then she explained that she was on a wireless laptop. It made me jealous. I wanted to be able to type in bed, or look up recipes in my kitchen. I used to be a die-hard laptop user, but tides changed. I can’t remember why, but I’m positive it had something to do with gaming. My last laptop was purchased for me in 2000 as a reward for good academic performance. It was shuffled around family hands for a bit, and it was my college laptop from 2003 to its death in 2005 from unknown complications. It sat dead and awaiting parting in various boxes until a couple weeks ago, where I had this conversation with my friend. I wanted a laptop again. I disassembled the laptop in a last ditch effort, and located the problem, a destroyed power jack. Though a network of great friends, not only did it get repaired, but rebuilt and upgraded. I type tonight on a 9-year-old resurrected laptop. Total cost to me on this project? $0. That’s living the life in my book.

My cell phone also ceased to operate this week. I was cut off from my constant texts, emails, and my link to my electronic dharma. It really made me realize just how connected I felt to my small egocentric world and how lost I felt without my material trappings. My mother and I went to see how to get it working again, and found out that it would be an asinine amount of money to replace my phone (side note, everyone should check with their extended warranty or insurance provider on their cellular phone. I was apparently dropped the instant I got my last replacement.) We decided that was just wrong, and to search for parts online. We went and bought a cheap little Nokia to act as a “spare tire” that could be used by the family lines should anyone else’s phone break. I eventually learned that what kept me from fixing the phone myself was that I was simply doing my hard reset incorrectly, and I reset my phone. I did lose all my data though. Numerous text sessions from special people, phone numbers, recipe notes and addresses, all lost. The bittersweet lesson is that now though I have my window to my world repaired, I have lost my view. If you’re going to collect data, back it up, daily.

So, the week in summation. I like this girl a lot and I really hope she really reciprocates, because she’s my kind of people. I have built from ashes a new window to my electric nirvana. I have suffered information withdrawal, and I have learned the hard lesson that if you’re going to be the self-motivated information seeker with an unquenchable thirst for new technical, scientific and practical knowledge, do be certain to have multiple copies of it, aye? Live, learn, and love, ladies and gentleman!

-The0