| Oh, yes. |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|05:09 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bikes | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Girl Talk - Minute by Minute | ] |
The continuing log of Mark's Stolen Bicycles:
#5 was stolen from outside my work on Friday, July 3rd. I was using the rather ratty chain that it's previous, generous owner had given me - it was only ever a deterrent to undetermined thieves.
I have already procured a replacement - it's orange! -, free as #5 was, and now need only a lock.
I just decided to take a look in the archives for other bike posts. It looks like I got 2 years of service out of good ol' #5 - a bit less than I had thought. |
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| SaskTel |
[Dec. 12th, 2008|10:24 am] |
Well, I just passed my training exam. That means I'm in. In at SaskTel.
It's kind of like the land of milk and honey. I mean, working tech support isn't exactly easy, but it's a LONG way from hard. And the wages - oh MY, the wages! And then there are the benefits package, the health package, the insurance package... let me just say, it's re-DONK-ulous. It's a public company, so I can say whatever I like about our wages and whatnot, but I'd prefer if you asked rather than just having me tell everyone. I don't want to gloat.
I am kind of relieved that I didn't get in at Access, frankly. This is so much better it almost physically hurts, except perhaps in reverse.
I'm just really, really happy recently. I mean, I'm usually what most people would call "happy" - if someone asks how I'm doing, I say "well" or "pretty decent" or perhaps "fine", though I try not to be Frantic, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. But recently? "Faaaaantastic", "Grrrrrreat!", "fucking excellent", and at least "pretty great" have been my status lines. It's kind of crazy.
Enter the next stage of my life: the making money part. Soon I will be invincible.
I wonder if I should talk to my manager about taking a class in Winter '09. I will likely need more classes to support my eventual managerial bids. Hmmm.
More updates as I think of them. |
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| Silver Linings |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|05:01 am] |
I just read a fantastic article on a possible silver lining from the fall-out: Will the Wall Street Storm have a giant silver lining.
One of the most salient bits concerns 'quants' (pay attention, you're likely to be hearing a lot about these guys soon), those MIT/Harvard physics/math whizzes who were making hojillians to cook up destructive and confusing new financial tools like derivatives. Well, around 200 000 of them are now losing their jobs, and are moving into other fields.
I find the thought of all of these quants entering other fields now that finance is not making them millionaires, and thus possibly giving us the brain-power we need to develop alternative energy structures quickly, to be ironically delicious. Oh finance. First you taketh away, then you giveth. |
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| aBLOGalypse |
[Nov. 6th, 2008|06:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | meme | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | random Bullet For My Valentine | ] |
So it would appear that the c3nobyte has tagged me in this bloggy meme-y thing. I'm not sure why she did so. Perhaps she likes giving me social diseases.
Regardless, diseased I remain. And, rather than simply ignoring this and hoping it goes away, I shall use this opportunity to share a few bits of random. Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
I have decided that my branch of this forking disease stops with me, and shall therefore tag NO ONE. That's right, bitches. And also non-bitches.
1. I have incredible difficulty waking up at any time prior to about 9am, regardless of the time spent sleeping. What would be a good night's sleep from 2am to 10am is much less so from 10pm to 6am.
2. I believe truth to be perhaps the most valuable gift that can be earned.
3. I may not always eat my vegetables, but I always eat my fruits.
4. I have a wonderful, loving family, none of whom really get me in the slightest.
5. Due to it being sized slightly incorrectly, I lost my grad ring. I am completely uninterested in acquiring more jewelery for myself.
6. I have a Java book that has been sitting on my desk for me to read for 2 months, and instead I am reading a book on Public Finance and auditing an economics course. And yes, I DO have my B.Sc. in Computer Science. |
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| There is a song |
[Oct. 22nd, 2008|10:55 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, thoughts | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  furious | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Tool - Vicarious | ] |
It is my favourite song of all time.
It is one of the only songs that immediately makes me emotional. Specifically, it makes me both furious and teary-eyed, at the same time.
The song is Vicarious, by Tool.
I become furious because they're right. They're so right it hurts.
I become sad because there is nothing I can do about it.
Maybe its thinking about the girl I met at Chris' place last night, particularly her family. Maybe its thinking about the world economy and the nations that aren't part of the G7, and the turmoil and death that must be happening world-wide right now. I don't know. Likely some of both.
Why is it that I do NOT vicariously live while the whole world dies? Feed on tragedy? What the fucking fuck. And yet I know its true.
Much better I than you. |
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| Blogging |
[Oct. 21st, 2008|01:25 am] |
I wonder often why I created this blog.
I am not a needy individual. I do not require your vindication (though I admit, your infusions of knowledge are quite delightful).
Nor do I feel a desire to spew vitriol. Quite the contrary.
But some days, I do know why. And I am grateful to Andrew Sullivan for reminding me.
I wish I'd been blogging on 9/11. To remember exactly what I was thinking, when the 2nd tower hit? Or when I got up for breakfast and saw the 1st tower on fire, and wondered if it was real? That would be something. But I HAVE so much from my blog. These memories, with the faulty nature of my memory, would likely be lost if not for it.
I do not possess many of the facets that Andrew mentions. I do not have a bevy of readers; I do not engage in huge email debates through my blog. However, I do enjoy being able to participate in comment-fests on others' blogs. Blogging has had a wonderful effect on literacy and the overall importance of text versus video.
Thank you, Andrew Sullivan. I liked you on Real Time with Bill Maher, you have given me a small present today, and you have proved yourself worth listening to in future.
Without further ado,
Andrew Sullivan: Why I Blog |
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| Life According to Mark |
[Oct. 12th, 2008|09:03 pm] |
I swear, LJ is pretty low on my list of priorities; I ignore it so frequently. I am back for one major reason: I have been thinking a LOT about economics for the last few weeks, and I think I want to put my thoughts down into a stable form.
First, my update on own economic situation. I should be bringing in an income soon, hopefully by the start of November. I wish companies weren't so freaking slow in their hiring, but they are. I will almost certainly be coding, and I will work at it long enough to get out and do something I actually WANT to. Yay job experience! What I'll be working at in a few years is mostly mystery to me. Maybe I'll take some course and become an accountant or a financial analyst, maybe an administrator of some kind. I may transfer to being a business analyst after I get some experience - I understand the programming cycle pretty well, and that sounds like the kind of problem solving and theoretical application that I would LOVE.
The reason I'm really posting, though, is the global economy. I have to admit, I'm very excited. I wish I had years of financial experience and tons of money right now, so I could make a hojillion dollars in the stock market.
Let me explain. Now, I'm no economic genius. I could be wrong about this. But the view I have is this: there are a lot of good, solid companies out there, like General Electric and Wells Fargo and Coca-Cola, that are trading down from what they really should be. There are other, shakier companies that are WAY down from what they should be, like General Motors. We don't have 30% unemployment, like we did around the Great Depression. We don't have the kind of lax restrictions that allowed that stock crash to ripple through the US. More importantly, we have 75 years of economic advancement, and the ability for economists to hear about this plan and figure out solutions THE NEXT DAY. A week ago, Paulson was going to be auctioning off worthless mortgages or something, and now (taking the advice of bushels of economists) he's going to be doing some kind of "recapitalization:" (read: government buying the banks). The US is falling to communism! How delightful!
There are a lot of reasons this downward spiral is continuing. I don't understand half of them, I'm sure. But the important thing is that the economists do, and I know how to listen and read. What most of them are saying is that governments are going to need to buy their countries' major banks: though currently Canada and (I think) New Zealand are the only countries with government-run banks, the world is going to follow them through massive recapitalization. The UK is already there, I understand.
This is my (quite vague) prediction. This crisis is going to continue to become worse for a little while, the stock market is going to continue to drop. Eventually, some businesses will be forced to cut jobs, and their growth will go down. We will hit a global recession (that's the difficult part to understand, I think - we're not actually in a global recession yet, we're just having a lot of stock market turmoil). But then, the government buying of banks will bring liquidity back into the market (i.e., people will be able to borrow, and what's more, borrow without losing their shirt). And then? Remember those stocks I mentioned before? There are still a lot of good companies out there, and far more decent companies, and most of them will still have their doors open for business. When companies can BORROW money again from banks, and don't have to sell stock just to have enough money to continue to EXIST, they will be able to invest again. It will turn from a market of fear selling to a market that is vastly undervalued. And stocks are going to soar like there is no tomorrow.
This is a time of incredible opportunity. I don't know when the time to strike will be, but I hope that things happen a LOT slower than I think they are going to, so that I have money before things start to get better. Because, dammit, I know Jill said that there are financial analysts willing to give consultations for free. I want to be a part of this thing.
I'm afraid I just don't believe people who say that "we have a long way to go before we hit bottom". I just don't. This is unprecedented territory, true, but we've lost 40% on most world stock markets in, what, 2 weeks? 3? That isn't RATIONAL selling. That is FEAR selling. The world is still a wealthy place - the problem is that the rich people are terrified that if they lend each other money, they won't have enough to cover their obligations. Once world governments stop the markets from hemmoraging money, and restore confidence, the world will begin to heal. And in the process of healing, it will make wise investors filthy stinking rich.
I've been reading so many different blogs and news sites that its all become a blur, but one I just read an hour ago said that the risk/profit ratio on the S&P 500 is currently at around 11%. Canada Savings bonds give you, what, a bit over 3%? With nothing to help against inflation? Good grief.
Of course, what exactly is going to happen with the US is anyone's guess. They're so far into debt already that they're going to have a heck of a time climbing out. Did you hear about the Debt Clock on Wall Street being taken down? Yeah. They needed to add another digit to the debt - $9.9 trillion wasn't enough. Nice going Bush.
PS: heh. Clever music program. You always know what to play. |
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| PAX '08: Afore the Swallowing of the Mists of Time |
[Aug. 31st, 2008|10:23 pm] |
So. That was amazing.
PAX '08, my second attending of the Penny Arcade Expo, is complete. Soon I will board a plane and leave behind this beautiful coastal city for my own, less-coastal-but-perhaps-also-wonderful city.
There is so much to remember: the buying of Hero-System books that led me to actually attend the Champtions Online after-party, which in an amazing turn of events had tons of free food and booze available. The finding of random people at the after-party and hanging out in a bar(!) instead of going to see Jonathan Coulton (I'm still not sure if this was the right choice). Seeing the PAX 10, 10 different groups of developers who all managed to somehow get their games ready for PAX, playable and enjoyable, without any funding to speak of. Being at the Musical Guests panel, with its 7 bands and 20-odd people, which was barely-contained chaos. The band night I did attend, and the amazingness of the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Playing the WoW cardgame in the hopes of an iPod when apparently they were giving bunches of them away in the Expo Hall. And, of course, the Expo Hall itself, a marvel of capitalist and gaming glory.
I'm not good at this, but I'll try to tell an actual story of this weekend. Or failing that, actually evoke some memories in a format greater than a single line.
Last year, there were around 37000 attendees of PAX. This year, there were 47000 pre-registers (or so I heard). The upshot of this is that the convention was absolutely PACKED. There is a narrow hallway, comfortably 3 people or uncomfortably 4 people wide, that links the North and South sections of the 4th floor. This was a very well-used hallway. At some points of very high traffic, the smell grew rather intrusive. I started avoiding that hallway at peak-use points of the convention after that.
Very near to the south end of this hallway is a Subway. Needless to say, this is a rather active Subway. I bought a sub there in the course of my conventioning adventures, which took a bit of a while due to the size of the line. There was a nice young lady wearing a t-shirt that I believe had a velociraptor inside a circle with a line through it. After mentioning how much I appreciated her choice of apparel, I was congratulated on my own choice by the fellow in front of me (somehow he had never seen the "Greater Internet Dickwad Theory" shirt). In much less time than it would have taken me to walk somewhere without a line-up to receive my food, I was the proud new owner of a chicken sub and walked off. However, as I did so I noticed that the 2 line-ups at the Subway were the same length, or longer, than when I had first come by.
I would have hated working at one of the stores in the Convention Centre over this weekend. I imagine they'll have a lot of people calling in sick next year, and quite possibly a few people who called in sick after Friday. I never saw Subway or the pizza joint on the first floor or the sandwich place in the Expo Hall WITHOUT a line-up while they were open. From the time the gamer crowd arrived to the time they closed, those people were serving subs or pizza or sandwiches like machines. There was no rush - the DAY was the rush. 'Rush' would imply that you have slow periods.
That is one thing that was in unfortunate abundance at PAX; the rush, and by close extension, the line-ups. That was certainly my least-enjoyable portion of Friday afternoon - standing in the "Will Call" line for around 45 minutes as far more pre-registered people than they were expecting showed up to grab their badges. There were some annoyed cracks made about how lucky we all were that we pre-registered, as we were getting our badges so much faster. I swear, the $10 I saved on the weekend was essentially negated by that line-up. By comparison, those arriving to buy their badges at the door had a 1-5 minute line-up.
I guess I got some reading in on The Wastelands? Yay?
Also, a note about the Will Call line; badges were mailed out to American pre-registers, but not internationals. Pretty much everyone in the line was Canadian. I couldn't help but think that this was some kind of strange prank that had been pulled on us - the Americans knew that we were too polite to complain about the bullshit they were tossing on us.
Oh, and I CAN'T let this post end without mentioning what was by FAR the most awesome thing that happened all weekend. So it's Sunday, at the 2nd Penny Arcade Q&A panel. They've been asked what the best part of being a father is, if they can give Gabe and Tycho a plushy Broodax, can they please tell this friend of mine that he should just ask out the cool gamer chick he met, etc. And they're about to stop the questions and bring the panel to a close, when the last person asks if he can run up a message to Tycho, because "it's urgent". Tycho says sure, and that then he can let someone else have a question. He gets the message, on a folded piece of paper, and the video centers on Tycho reading this. He says "What is this, Bad Horse?", and some guys at the mic break into song, singing the Bad Horse intro song (and a bit more, couldn't make it out to know what exactly) from Dr. Horrible. Around a thousand people started clapping in tune. It was quite possibly the most awesome thing I've ever witnessed.
Much more to come on this topic when I have brainpower. Perhaps I'll post a loot comparison between last year and this. |
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| So. I guess that's that. |
[Aug. 25th, 2008|05:47 pm] |
So. Baring anything else I need to take care of, I've withdrawn out of the CS Masters program at the University of Regina.
Short version: I've been kind of unhappy with the Masters program, and haven't been working well, and this is the 2nd class I'll have failed. And if you fail 2 classes, you're out. So I'm out.
Long version: I've been... well, not unhappy exactly... my happiness over the last year has been something of a sin function. I was stoked at first, but had no idea what I wanted to do for a thesis. And then I did some work with the motion detection, and that didn't go great... but then I started taking a gaming class, and it was interesting... but then the assignments got harder, and Dr. Hamilton assigned a project that was an enormous amount of work, and I picked a too-ambitious project and failed the course... but then I took an excellent Psychology of Emotion class, and got a pretty good mark in it, and earned enough marks to pass the Hamilton's gaming class... but at the same time I wasted a research term reading only a single book and getting a working model of a animated drummer, about 1/4 the work I should have done... but then I took another class and it was about pattern recognition, which was really interesting (to me)... but then I wasted too much time trying to figure out what to do for the project, and then the project was due and I wasn't done, again.
So basically what I've learned is that I'm a poor to middling coder, and very bad at doing big CS projects. And as that's kind of what a Masters in CS is about, well, pwned is me.
And so, that brings us to... what do I do now?
It's hard to say, exactly. I'll apply for jobs at SaskTel, and Access, and SGI, and SaskEnergy and SaskPower and all of that. I may get a part-time job with a friend of mine doing janitorial work at the University (apparently they're finding it impossible to find enough people). I'm sure I can find a job where my knowledge of hardware and software can be used, or where the worst I have to code is HTML.
And I'll save, and maybe I'll go into something else that I've always enjoyed, like accounting, or a new love of mine, like economics. Or maybe I'll go to B.C. and study Cognitive Science at Simon Fraser, where the emphasis on the coding and projects would (Hopefully) be reduced.
But, this likely ends my association with my Alma Mater. It's been real, UoR. Peace out. |
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| Oh, and also |
[Aug. 18th, 2008|05:54 pm] |
I got my passport today! Weeeeeeee!
PAX, here I come. |
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| Holy SHIT. |
[Aug. 18th, 2008|03:09 pm] |
So, I'm reading my Freakonomics as per usual, and I come across an energy article. And then, down in the comments, I notice a comment about this new design for nuclear reactors, a much better one. And I think, "oh, that's neat - we could sure use some new designs on nuclear reactors!". And, well...
You're not going to BELIEVE this.
This absolutely blows my mind. HOW have I not heard about this before? This is practically enough to make you believe in the supernatural, because it seems like magic.
I've looked into this a bit, and I certainly don't have the physics to question the veracity of the NASA report above or the 50-year-old science behind this, but it appears above-board. I've got a few friends in physics, I'll see what they say about this later today.
Is it wrong that my first thought was "Oh man! That's perfect for that near-future tabletop RPG I'm in!" In my defence, The Phoenix Agenda is very awesome. |
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| Dammit |
[Aug. 11th, 2008|01:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | sleep | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  awake | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Regina Spektor - That Time | ] |
And last night, back to 9-9.5h slept. Where are you, rhyme and reason? Why have you forsaken my sleep? |
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| Heh. Sweet. |
[Aug. 9th, 2008|01:23 pm] |
So it seems that the reason I haven't been sleeping well lately has to do with the amount of light I'm getting. I've started setting up my blinds before I go to sleep so that I'll get a lot of light shining on me in the morning, and I've started waking up after about 7 hours, instead of 9. This makes me very happy indeed. |
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| I should be asleep. Stupid me. |
[Aug. 7th, 2008|04:14 am] |
Can't sleep. I laid down at 2am, feeling about as sleepy as I usually do when I go to bed (which is to say, not all that sleepy), and today for some reason it didn't work. Awake I lay, thinking at first about HERO system and an adventure I'm thinking of adapting to run for one of my playgroups, and then guiltily about my project, and then wonderingly that I could feel so accomplished when I'd only read 3 papers. They'd been pretty deep and extremely useful papers, but even so, that's far from great. This must say something meaningful about how little work I've been doing lately. But it did feel good to get things done, things that mattered.
I always find my bed incredibly, incomprehensibly comfortable in the morning, but now I'm either too cold from the breeze of my open window or too hot from the covers. One pillow is too hard, the other too soft. Toss, turn, fail.
Maybe eating the bagel helped. I can never go to sleep hungry.
For some reason, I started thinking of the Lorax. I thought of it the other day, and found a full page of quotes on IMDB. I don't know any other work as well as I know the Lorax, I think. I watched it a few years ago, and I knew every line. Every inflection. I think there's a good Lorax post in me, so I'll save most of my tree-speaker musings for that.
My CPU fan is likely a large part of the problem. It's obscenely loud for trying to sleep, and it's not constant. It started ... squealing? not quite that loud, and not quite grinding ... about 2 weeks ago, about when I started sleeping poorly again. At least I think they coincide. I suppose I should just shut the stupid thing off for the night. I think I'll try that, actually. I hate to pause my downloads, but I do need sleep.
Now that I think about it, I'm surprised I haven't been kept up more nights because of that stupid fan. I've never found it easy to get to sleep. Maybe that's why I've been staying up to 4am all the time lately - I've been going to sleep exhausted, because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until then.
Need to do more tomorrow. Need a passport before the 27th. Might be able to get everything together for it tomorrow. And then phone AirMiles, and then try to get this project together in 3 weeks. Ugh.
I wish I could somehow get by on 5h of sleep a night like my roommate Ben on his vegan diet. Or less like my friend Kyra. I think I might need to pull some very late nights in the next 19 days. I should put my name on the list to see a sleep specialist after that. I might have mild sleep apnea or something.
I think a lot about sleep. I read a book a year ago that stuck firmly in my mind, entitled Between the Strokes of Midnight. The main character's mantra was "sleep is the enemy" - she was cool. Curse you sleep. Give me back those years of my life. I wish I could practice what she preached, and take them back.
I probably shouldn't post when I'm this stupid with tired-ness. Maybe it'll amuse me when I'm awake. Or maybe I'll find my stream of consciousness, my duration exposed, to be disturbing and irritating. And strangely Adaptation-esque.
Heh. You're funny, Brian Eno. Also, my cat is 'numb', yet crying. Silly kitty. |
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| memery contracted, as usual, from the c3n0byte |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|02:19 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | meme | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the Darke | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Goo Goo Dolls - Stop the World | ] |
I suppose I shall also bold those especially with cowbell.
( Memery )
Much cowbelling was accomplished this day.
I find it interesting how much of this test is basically "you don't understand me and my feelings and special needs". I don't get that at all. My feelings are probably some of the easiest to understand you're going to find. And my needs are pretty straightforward too.
Also, the picture SUCKED. If I had 40 billion dollars, you can be DAMN sure I'd have it for a long long time. |
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| Intelligent Design & Science in general |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|08:11 pm] |
My position on science is difficult for me to explain. And I just saw a video that I thought illustrated one of the bigger issues at play, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.
First, you might want to watch THIS , so you have some idea of what I'm talking about.
The argument that Kenneth Miller puts forth is an interesting one: that teaching intelligent design is tantamount to providing welfare support for substandard science. I feel it's a powerful argument that sheds light on some of the contradictions in the Conservative position.
But I'm most interested in the greater philosophical positions here. The point that Kenneth makes in the NPR clip is a point that I feel is imperative to repeat: that science is fair. We can argue about whether science succeeds at being an objective search for truth if you really want, but I've gone through those arguments that this makes science "less powerful" somehow, and they aren't very powerful ones. Most of the people I've met don't make very solid arguments here at all, when arguments even come up - the best ones I've heard are that science needs to be open-minded. And I don't feel that science requires me to be narrow-minded. I don't feel that being a Computer Scientist means that I can't follow my ideals. I would go far as to say that narrow-mindedness makes one a POORER scientist.
The fact of the matter is, science has proven itself as no theory can. Even if real objective truth is unattainable, the inductive method has seen an undeniable level of success. The proof is in the pudding, and science has made an awful lot of pudding at this point. You can doubt its attainment of philosophical truths as much as you like, but are you REALLY going to question that your pen will fall when you drop it?
If I ever were to move to the United States, it would have to be Seattle. With regular trips up to Vancouver, and preferably as little contact with people as ignorant as that representative from Louisiana as humanly possible. The United States has seemed to me to be going down an unscientific road for years, and this just brings it home; frankly, the thought that we would teach unscientific theories in a science class makes me absolutely furious. You can question evolution if you want, and if you find evidence to convincingly disprove it, great! But don't tout your shitty science at me and tell me it's good, or get your shitty teachers to try to teach it to me.
Wow, if I had children in Louisiana, I'd be PISSED. |
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