BYU Idaho -- ha ha ha

My sister attends BYU-Idaho. She got into BYU, but not the music program, so she went to BYU-I to be in the music program. Regardless we like to poke fun.

We were sitting at Taco Bell yesterday talking about how they've switched to the equal length trimester schedule, and that she gets out of school at the very beginning of April. To which I responded: "Ah, BYU-Idaho, half the coursework, two-thirds the time--- Wait, will they even know they're being insulted?"

Earlier my Mom was telling my Dad that my sister was going to be taking a Math class. My Dad apparently said, "Are they going to teach her how to count? One potato, two potato..."

That's my family, we get together and make fun of each other for two weeks, make sure everyone stays humble.

CS470 Final Tournament

We ran the tournament today for the Final Project in CS470. It was run in World Cup style where teams were divided up in pools, and then played each person in the pool from both sides of the map. I won 5/6 games in my pool, and moved on to the 2nd round. Unfortunately, I lost a few games in round 2 because my damping code was primitive, and my tanks ended up in orbits around the enemy flag before finally taking it. This delay cost me the match at least twice. But the 2nd round was such that we had a circular winning cycle (think rock, paper, scissors). I could beat 1 guy, but he could beat the 3rd guy, but the 3rd guy could beat me. So after a 1st place winner was decided the remaining teams were played again to determine 2nd place. There were 3 teams, and we played on the Pacman world, so good path-planning was absolutely necessary. I won 5/6 games in this round as well and took 2nd place. So I'm pretty happy with that.

Come to find out the guy that won is actually a grad student, and this is his only class. So it was a bit of an unfair advantage since he was taking 3-credits total, and I'm taking 16. If I had that much time, I probably could have beaten him. Oh well. I did well. I'm happy.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra == Awesome

Last night Lexi and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. It was the most incredible concert I've ever been to. It was a little on the pricey side, but that's because of the ridiculous amounts of equipment they have, and the 65 people they need to make sure it gets set-up/run/taken-down properly. They have lots and lots of lights, lasers, strobes, and pyrotechnics.

My favorite songs performed: Wizards in Winter (Opening number I believe), Christmas Eve / Sarajevo, An Angel Came Down.

Our Saturday evening concert reports will continue next week when Lexi and I attend: Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square featuring Sissel.

Sorry all

I apologize for not being very blog attentive the last bit. My secret identity blog is suffering the same fate. I had a crazy two weeks or so: Big project due Tuesday (started on Saturday), very important paper due Friday (started Thursday), really important project due Monday (started Saturday, turned in Tuesday), plus all the regular homework and quizzes, as well as cooking dinner for my dinner group yesterday. When I went to sleep last night I had been awake for 40 of the previous 43 hours.

I still have two projects and a paper revision due before the last day of classes, so I won't be terribly blog active; but I might post a little bit more often than I have.

Sadly, I have nothing profound to say at the moment, except I learned how to make a Fusion Bomb, and a Nuclear reactor this week... if only I could get my hands on 35 pounds of weapons grade Uranium....

Wow

I glanced down this page and noticed that 5 of the last 7 posts start with "So...". Perhaps I should come up with a new way of starting casual topics of conversation... because I believe I do this when speaking as well, if I want to just say something randomly it will be along the lines of, "So I was walking to...." or whatever. How about that.

An awesome idea

So I had a brilliant idea come to me today while sitting in my Operating Systems class. It was this amazing idea that would have been so cool to implement. So I pulled out my Palm Pilot and started typing this awesome idea in. So the plan was to be able to use an SSH program to backlink from an open server to the client that resides behind a NAT-ed router, so you can talk to it from any machine that can talk to the open server. I had these plans for how I could code it to. Somthing I could do with what I know right now.

Then I started researching, and found it it was already done around 1999-2001-ish. It's called "Reverse SSH Tunneling" And boy is it slick...

Oh well, hopefully I get another great idea in my life.

Go

So I met with Wally III to play a game of Go on Tuesday. The plan was that I'd grab lunch in the Cougar Eat after my classes (so around 2) with my Go Board, while wearing my Board shirt. He would come find me and provide chocolate chip cookies. And he did, as well as Yellow, who watched. Tangerine was apparently invited as well, but didn't show. I only had about 30 minutes before I had to leave, so we played one game with a quarter of the board. Wally III won. We plan to have a rematch sometime. Hopefully after I've had a chance to play some more, since I hadn't played for about 6 months, and that was when I learned how to play. It was a fun game though.

Slow on the draw

So I was going through my mail today, and I get an envelope from New Jersey with no information on it. I find this intriguing so I open it up, and out slides: "ETS GRE PowerPrep Software - Test Prep for GRE General Test" provided free with test registration. Thanks ETS, I took the test what like 3 months ago. And registered another month before that. So 4 months later they get the free prep software sent out. How far ahead of time do they think people register for these things?


Also, Random quote from Physics 222:

Dr. D: So they fold up lead bags, cool them down until they superconduct, then unfold them so that at the end there is an extremely weak magnetic field left inside.
Student: How exactly do you make a lead bag?
Dr. D: Well... out of lead.

Apartment Dynamics

I've just witnessed an interesting development in the apartment dynamics. See there's this roommate, E that I don't particularly get along with, and who's a little anal about things, like my whistling in my room with my door closed while he's trying to sleep - in his room - 20 feet down the hall - with his door closed. So anyways he gets out of bed to tell people to stop doing whatever it is that's bothering him at the moment. He just came into the living room to tell the people watching tv to be quiet, but when he saw it was roommate J, he didn't say anything and instead just turned around and went back to bed. So apparently E is afraid of J, interesting...

Final Cut was awesome, Lexi and I went to Program A on Thursday night. Our favorite was Der Ostwind.

Dancesport was also quite amazing. We went and saw my roommate D perform for cha-cha, quickstep, and pasa doble. He did quite well, and reached semi-finals for pasa doble, and the finals for quickstep.

On Saturday I made an Egyptian Chocolate Cake, modified to contain hot chocolate and nutmeg instead of coffee, it's pretty good.

Lexi Khan is awesome

So, I was sitting in my kitchen eating breakfast on Saturday. There's a knock at the door. The possibly dead Mr. Fix-it answers it and proceeds to give Lexi's roommate a hardtime. Eventually he lets her in, and she declares she has a delivery for me. Lexi burned me a CD of amazing songs, wrote me a note, and then had her roommate deliver it. It was awesome. If I hadn't screwed up my physics test later that day the day would have been great.

Update: Another one arrived via roommate mail just a little bit ago. This one is filled with various churchy music. :-)

Halloween

So Halloween has come and gone for another year. The Great Pumpkin provided me with sugar cookies and my wallet provided me with candy. The evening was a grand success with a viewing of Arachnophobia out on the lawn. It was cold, very cold, but many blankets made it comfortable.

I checked my grade for Modern Physics today, and found out I'm actually doing quite well. I have an A- at the moment and am ranked 9 out of 22 students. I was surprised at this because I almost always feel like I have no idea what's going on; but apparently most of the class has even less of a clue.

Lexi Khan leaves the state tomorrow. I will be bored and lonely for many days this month. I do have to take a test on Saturday, and Monday, so there will at least be something to partially distract me from my boredom... Maybe I'll get some work done on my projects that will be coming up due sooner than I think.

A Particle Filter Haiku

Little dots go far
Tracking some noisy data
Thanks to you Bayes

It's been awhile

I'm sorry blog, I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy. I'll make it up to you with an anecdote.

Clear reminder that I'm in a Republican state, surrounded by Republican students:
In MFG 201 (History of Creativity) Dr. Strong makes mention of how the citizens of the Roman Empire asserted that they never fought an offensive war. He then said that the United States of America claims the same thing, I was the only person that laughed. Apparently every single one of the 100+ students in that room see our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as defensive; because they were "pre-emptive" actions they must be defensive wars. So under that reasoning the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II was a defensive war by the Japanese. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Pearl Harbor and Iraq were offensive, or both were defensive, they can't be one and the other, it just doesn't make logical sense. Oh well, I think I may have heard one of those kids say "Baa-ram-ewe".

Plurals

So if the plural of louse is lice, shouldn't the plural of spouse be spice?

And we're beta

So I've just updated my blog to the new beta Google blogger. Nothing much has changed, except the ease of using this site. Enjoy!

Sick?

I think my week of death has caused me to become sick. I'm not particularly happy about it. ugh.

Head >= Water

This week has been killing me. I don't have time to be writing this right now, but I am anyways apparently. So, I hope you're all doing well.

I thought of a great sign to put up in an apartment where some people don't clean up after themselves: "You're not my dog, pick up your own sh**" (pardon my french).

And to address a previous comment: Lexi and I met and became good friends before she started writing for the Board, so it wasn't quite the 'Board inbreeding' we've been accused of :-P. The Board does happen to be a convenient way for intelligent people to meet other intelligent people though. At a recent gathering at Lavish's that involved a number of Board writers, I pondered the awesome intelligence of the group when we managed to go around the room (~12 people) and rattle of Shakespeare plays without repeating, and without anyone pausing to think. I thought that was pretty neat.

My Friday has been triple booked, and I don't know how to solve the schedule conflict. I have a Board Question-Answering party to attend, a Stake Dance, and a Cheer-Up Party for a Friend who's been a little down lately. I'll figure something out....

And, now I need to get back to my homework....

I'm happy

So I've been quite happy starting this weekend, something that hasn't happened on this scale for a while, a long while, and you'll find out why soon enough, but before that some other items of business.

So, I know my parents read my real-identity blog, which is strange, because I've never had to worry about it before, but now I feel like I have to do a measure of self-censoring on there, maybe not... hmm...

I hiked Mount Timpanogos at 1am on Saturday morning, it was kind of crazy, and I will never do it again. On the plus side though, my calves are really cut right now.

Sunday I had a picnic with my family, who were leaving town that day. So yes, we skipped General Conference, bought KFC, and headed up the canyon, that's just the kind of family I have.

Ok, Ok... so why am I happy?

Well, my curious little board readers, and fellow writers. I think you should know something. The amazing Lexi Khan and the Curious Physics Minor are now a couple.

So the moral of the story is, if you become a board writer, you can get girls.... wait, no, that's not the moral... hmm... ok, how about this: "Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory... lasts forever." well.. maybe not that either... maybe it's simply this: "Sometimes the ups outnumber the downs", good thing this isn't Nottingham...

Aristotle, wow

Aristotle just lays this out there in "Poetics":

Such goodness is possible in every type of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though one is perhaps an inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being... The Character before us may be, say, manly; but it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever.

Dang... he'd better watch his grave, I know some women who would not take kindly to such talk.

Owie

I've really messed up my wrist... I got a little more agressive than usual in an Intramural Ultimate game. And ended up landing on my wrist, hard, after a jump. It made some noises which probably wasn't good. It now really hurts. I think I probably sprained it. And I should probably see a doctor... Unfortunately I have classes pretty much from 8:00 until 2:00 today excepting this 30 minute break. So maybe I'll head up to the medical center around 2 and see if someone can fix me....

Oddities of thought

Every once in awhile I'll have a moment of thought which sends my head reeling. One such thought I had yesterday while doing physics was this: Why does anything at all exist? Not a religious / spiritual / philosophical 'why', but a physical 'why'. Why is energy? Why is matter? (Which are, as near as I understand, different manifestations of the some common substance). Even a religiously vague answer is insufficient, for we say that Christ, under God's direction, organized something which already existed. Why did that substance already exist? Why does God exist for that manner? (Again, in a strictly physical meaning.) I'm assuming there is much more to existence than my painfully insufficient, mortal mind can comprehend. Else, I quickly fall into an existentialist view, of there is no reason behind the physical existence of things, therefore what possible meaning is there behind our metaphysical existence?

When I was younger I used to lie in bed and attempt to comprehend nothingness. The problem is that when we think of nothing, it is most likely that we will eventually come to think of darkness as nothingness. But darkness is something, it is our eyes' perception of the lack of light. What would it be like to be blind from birth? I would assume you could not experience darkness, as you could not experience light. I would also assume that one attempting to comprehend nothing would imagine silence. But we have the same problem here, silence is just our ears' perception of no sound. And we could continue through all the senses, arriving at no further insight about nothingness. For even our thinking assumes somethingness, for as Descartes said, "Cogito ergo sum". So what is nothing? I cannot say what nothing is, but I am sure what nothing is not: Nothing is not something.

Is your mind sufficiently boggled? I'm sure mine is...

Oh Physics.....

On Friday we were covering Schrodinger's equation in Physics 222. We discussed Schrodinger's thought experiment of a cat in a box being in the superposition state of both dead an alive and when we look the cat will settle into either the state of dead or alive. It's a little confusing, and I haven't fully explained it here (there's a vial of poison in with the cat, that if broken kills the cat...).

One student asks: "Is there a more intuitive way of understanding superposition? 'Cause these examples of cats don't make any sense either..."

Dr. Durfee: "OK, well suppose I shoot one photon at a double slit... The photon interferes with itself because its wave function is a superposition of having gone through both slits...."

Yah, that's much more intuitive... I was dying as this was happening, literally, uncontrollable chuckling forceably being repressed so as not to disturb the class...

Life, the Universe, and everything...

So surprise visiting readers is kind of humorous. That's right kids, if you're really nice, we (the board) might just drop in on you at 10:30 at night and make your life very interesting. Congratulations to the lucky apartment that we visitted, I hope we weren't too scary.

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Aside from randomly visiting readers, my life has been fairly boring. Characterized mostly by sleeping, eating, class, work, homework, etc. Hopefully I can make something more exciting happen this weekend.... so if you know of exciting things happening, you should let me know.

Fun Fun Fun.....

The Daily Universe ran our article today, but managed to never mention the url... ::eye-roll::

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Yesterday I spent 10 hours out of a 19 hour stretch working on a project that was due. The 9 hours not working on it were as follows:
5 hours - sleep
3 hours - class
1 hour - shower / walking to/from class/work

Sounds like fun, right? Well I go the project done for full credit: 20/20 points.

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My ward had an Ultimate game last night, which sapped me of all remaining energy.

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I was unofficially released from my calling apparently about 2 weeks ago, no one bothered to inform me of the change. I figured it out when I realized we had had 2 ward activities and there was a meeting of the Activities Committee and I wasn't involved in any of them (I was a member of said committee). From what little I've been able to glean from people who like to talk, I am supposed to be receiving some other calling (unknown to me), but until it's decided I'm not being officially released from the AC, nor am I involved in anything....

Doesn't it seem like it might be good to inform someone that they are no longer part of something?

I really don't understand my calling history in my ward. This is the third year in my ward, and I don't think I've held any calling for longer than 4 months. And it's not that I don't perform the duties of my callings. On the AC I cooked pretty much every meal our ward had for various activities, I did shopping, I moved things, set things up, took things down..... and now I'm being shooed off somewhere else. I was previously an EQ teacher. I know I wasn't a great teacher, but I did spend time preparing lessons. I can't even remember what other callings I've had....

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There once again is a big push to get everyone to go to FHE. I'd be fine with it if it were a quick thought/lesson, some socializing, some food and 10-15 minutes later you can leave; but instead someone's been pushing to have 15-20 minute lessons. Sorry, I don't have time for another Sunday school Monday nights, I'm already taking religion courses. So really the only reason I don't go to FHE is because it take way too long, does that make me a bad person?

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And, best of all, I have pretty much no social life. Thanks to the few people I do see on a regular basis, you keep me sane.

Official GRE Scores

I got my official GRE scores and percentiles today. I should be all set for the Master's Program here at BYU.... so without further ado:

Verbal: 540 : 70%
Quantitative: 800 : 94%
Analytical Writing: 5.0 : 71%

Yay! I didn't totally screw up the writing section... now let's just see if any of the other schools I sent my scores to are so totally interested in me that they send me information.... And back to my much homework.....

Board Party

Another exciting, amusing, and filling Board Party tonight. There were all sorts of great food brought by various writers, including my signature peanut butter brownies, Lavish's chocolate covered strawberries, Mr. Fix-it's brownie sandwich supreme, and loads of other great things. We played two rounds of Loser, which I did not lose (sorry Baked Alaska, that's how the cookie crumbles). And then three rounds of Mafia, which were much fun, especially since I wasn't narrator, so I didn't screw up those living and dying (next time I'll write things down....). Sadly we did not play Apostasy this time, maybe at the next party.

I've also thought up a new character for Mafia. Someone gets to be the Scarlet Pimpernel. After the candidates are chosen by the townspeople, the Scarlet Pimpernel gets to choose one of them to save from the gallows. If that person is the one that the townspeople vote to kill, then they are saved. Alternatively, the Scarlet Pimpernel could take their turn right after any superheroes, but as the superhero can only save from the mafia, the SP can only save from the lynch mob.

How about a blog entry?

So, I guess I'll write an entry since I haven't for a few days. Let's think of something to write about. Oh, how about the secret Senate meeting where they have authorized warrentless wiretaps for use on anyone. Gee, secretive meeting, no oversight, no voting record of the members, authorizing unconstitutional actions... yah this sounds like the great Democracy we live in....

I'm thinking of buying a Guy Fawkes mask and wearing it on November 5. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, look it up, and then go watch "V for Vendetta". It is a great commentary on the state of our government, and where we are quickly going (it takes place in England, but the commentary is definitely about America). Most noticeably is the suggestion of something that occurred in 2015 (the movie occurs around 202x I believe), the idea that Bush did such and such. I've seen some people attempt to call this a flaw in the movie, apparently they didn't quite get it. The point was that Bush continued to violate the constitution to maintain power.

I am optimistic that his regime hasn't caused enough fear and control to do such a thing, but I suppose there's still 2 years. Just so you know, if he does not leave office on inaugaration day, we are all in very deep trouble.

(Surprise! I'm not a republican, but neither am I a democrat.)

Bad Physics Joke

Ok, so I print off my Physics homework in order to work on it (imagine that). And here's the first sentence of problem 1:

An electron, a proton, and a photon all have a de Broglie wavelength of 100 nm.

It sounds like the beginning of some very bad joke made by a physicist.... I'm not sure I want to read the rest of the question yet.... Maybe Katya can provide some humorous punch-line, since I have no realistic understanding of what's happening in this class yet.

Maybe I just don't get it

Suppose there is a theoretical all-encompassing set of things which a person can understand and comprehend. There are a large number of things which I understand in that set. I get that people lie. I get the concepts of supply and demand. And, to a certain extent, I even get fashion. But then there are all sorts of things which I don't get. There are many things which I do (which are 'good'), but that I am not even sure I agree with doing. It is a troublesome state brought about by my fairly strong cynicism, as well as my general pessimism....

I have yet to find a way to reconcile my actions with my lack of understanding.



Then there is always the nebulous set of all things pertaining to the opposite sex. But it is more general even than this, we just see the effect most commonly in dealing with the opposite sex. The problem is truly in the inability to understand why other people think and act the way they do. Every once in a while you can see a connection as it mimics your own being, but mostly it just makes no sense. In the end I guess it is merely a communication style on a non-verbal level.

In philosophy it is generally said that communication is merely an attempt to get someone else to read your mind. That is, the goal of communication is the make another person think the same thing you are. This is why we develop languages both verbal, written, and signed. The grunting and pointing just wasn't working out very well. Now the dance of social interaction is a delicate weave of saying things which show very little correlation to what you're feeling. The true communication must occur on a non-verbal level, for the most part, in most situations, with most people.

This is what makes communication between the sexes so difficult, more so than the same communcation between members of the same gender. I would wager to guess that most members of the same gender would have a higher probably of communicating non-verbally in the same way. Not so across genders. Which is why we may or may not devote alot of brain power trying to decide whether a smile was just a smile or if a smile was a non-verbal communique of deeper emotion which will allow for a mutual relationship that will blossom into eternal love, such that the heavens will open and light will shine down and a chorus will sing as you smile back.

But I may just be full of nonsense, as I said from the start, there's a fairly high likelihood that I just don't get it.

This is BYU, but.....

So In the past two days I've had classmates respond to a question by the teacher with a true, but distracting answer that involves some gospel principle. Yes, this is BYU, but I'm here to learn about the class, not some gospel tangent because you've been home from your mission for 2 weeks and don't know how to discuss anything else.

Example A:
Class: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Question: .... So what is intelligence?
obnoxious guy A (self-proclaimed home from mission for 10 days): 'The glory of God is intelligence.'
... See how this doesn't help the discussion at hand?

Example B:
Class: History of Creativity
Question: ... What are some uses of this paper cup?
obnoxious guy B: 'An object lesson about church structure.'
.... Also not helping the discussion of the class get where it needs to go.

Perhaps I'd better enjoy classes at a secular institution, because it just annoys me to get answers like this during class. It slows down the class and doesn't provide anything helpful. We don't have time to enter a debate about what "The glory of God is intelligence" means. And I don't care that you can use a paper cup as an object lesson, that's an arbitrary comment, which is, at best, tangential to the topic.

Anyone else feel this way?

The Board will be right back

So any of you that read the board, and I would hope you do if you're reading this blog, because otherwise I have no idea why you would want to read my blog.... not that I'm sure I know why you want to read my blog anyways...... well.. that didn't start off very cohesively.... let's try again.

So if you read the board, you know it is down, and should be back tomorrow. I'll let you in on a little secret about the board's absence.

Lean in real close....

Check to make sure no one is watching you....





ready?

ok here goes:
So the Board is down so that--- "Oh Hi Miss Editor! How are you today?"

"No, No, I wasn't going to tell them anything, I swear."

"But, I like my kneecaps how they are. I really don't think that's necessary."

"Ok, Fine, they can find out tomorrow like everyone else."

Sorry, you'll just have to wait. ;-)

Classes

So today is the first day of classes, and I got up bright and early at 7 am. Actually, it wasn't bright out at all, so it was really twilight and early.... 8 am classes are hard, and unfortunately this particular professor will not teach this class at any other time, so I have no choice. It is only Tuesday and Thursday, but I want to try getting up at 7 everyday, because it will probably be worse to try to get up at 7 one day and 10 the next.

It also didn't help that I didn't sleep well at all last night. I started the night with a bad combination of foods in my stomach which took a while to settle down. I then woke up numerous times to being too hot, and dehydrated. At 4:15 I finally got up and drank like 3 glasses of water, and opened the window.... And I haven't woken up at 7am in many months so I'm all sorts of alive right now....

On the other hand I had some amazing chocolate covered strawberries yesterday. And I believe I convinced a certain other board writer that I really am a renaissance man by exhibiting my amazing culinary skills in the process of creating said strawberries, as well as working my magic with cupcakes. And maybe if you're really lucky said board writer will allow you to sample the ambrosia that those strawberries are.

Never Another Standardized Test!

So I took the GRE today, as the previous posts would suggest. It was an interesting experience.

The analytical writing section was first, and I think I did pretty well on that. I won't get my scores for a few weeks (around 6 I think). I wrote an essay about the benefits of studying history, and another essay punching holes in a statement about writers going into television rather than print.

Then came the verbal. Verbal on the GRE is a tricky beast because of the obscurity of the words they use. I finished with a few minutes to spare, and felt like I had done alright. I think I got the first question right, which is the most critical question, and by the end I wasn't getting easy stuff, so it seemed like I was doing ok, but my score was somewhat disappointing (see the bottom of the post).

A quick stretch later I was taking the quantitative. Now, math is my strong point. The quantitative is 28 questions and you get 45 minutes. (Verbal is 30 questions, 30 minutes). So it requires more time for each question. I was moving along doing my work on the provided scratch paper, and I realized I was running out of time. I wasn't keeping a good enough pace. So I began hurrying up a bit. I then had to really push through the last 5 questions, jotting down a quick calculation and then making an educated guess. So by the end I was a little frazzled (since I'm usually good at this) and was unsure what to expect from the score, but you'll see I did pleasantly well.

I wrapped up writing another quick essay for the research area, which doesn't count for anything, and then went for the scores. I had my expectations going into this of doing fairly well. I was expecting a 7xx for the Quantitative, and a 6xx for the Verbal, my scores were not quite what I expected:

Quantitative: 800 (Woot!)
Verbal: 540 ( :-| should have been better)

Strangely the percentile scoring for these two sections do not relate to the number score the same. According to the estimates I've seen, 800 Q is 92 percentile. 540 V is 70 percentile. However a 760 V is 99 percentile; so the Verbal is clearly harder than the quantitative for reasons uknown to me. My scores are plenty good enough to get into the Master's program here, so I should be all set for next year.... now all I have to do is apply for the program, and graduate in April....

GRE

I'm off to take the GRE, wish me luck!

Provo....

I'm back in Provo, and my apartment is bumless.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything interesting to say.... so... umm... yah. I got my family to buy me lunch today, that was cool. I'm taking the GRE tomorrow, that should be.... interesting....

Sorry, nothing good to talk about today. Oh, they did catch the polygamist guy near Las Vegas driving a red cadillac.

There's a Bum in my Bed!

So due to a recent event at my apartment, I've decided I and my friends should write a book entitled "There's a bum in my bed! and other college survival stories"

Yah, A bum tried to move into our apartment. He was like 40+ years old, owned a bag of clothes and a dirty sheet, that was it. He apparently claimed he was a BYU student (I'm guessing he did the contract stuff via phone and mail).

Currently there are 4 of us in my apartment. 1 left to visit family for a few weeks. 2 of us left to come to Las Vegas for a last vacation before school starts again. So only 1 is left. We just get into Las Vegas, and the 1 calls me on my cell phone. He says he came home and there was a guy sleeping in one of the beds. The guy had a key and a contract, but is totally sketchy. He wasn't able to get ahold of the managers, so we begin hunting around for phone numbers. This is at ~12:45 AM. I finally get ahold of the complex owner, who says he just found out about this guy the day before. He doesn't like the look of the guy, and that he's going to check it out with BYU the next day, and also have a background check run....

My roommate calls me up the next day, tells me that the police are coming to take the guy away that evening.... I don't have all the details, but it was way sketchy, and I was going to be PISSED if I got home and all my stuff was gone.....

Crazy, right?

Don't cutoff fire trucks

BYU Police Beat:
"Aug 17: University Police were called to assist the city of Provo after a vehicle pulled in front of a Provo fire truck near 300 North and Freedom Boulevard. The fire truck, weighing nearly 50,000 pounds, laid 90 feet of skidmarks before it collided with another vehicle."

Now here's my favorite part:

"No damage was done to the firetruck but $1,000 in damage was done to the other vehicle."

25 tons vs 0.5 tons: 25 tons wins. Everytime.

Oh Gosh

Now this I have GOT to post. From "Secrets & Lies" -Bruce Schneier, copyright 2004:

A spate of illegal FBI wiretaps in Florida and a subsequent cover-up got some press in 1992; the 150 or so illegal wiretaps by the Los Angeles Police Department have gotten more. (Drugs were involved, of course; more than one person has pointed out that the war on drugs seems to be the root password to the U.S. Constitution.) J. Edgar Hoover regularly used illegal wiretaps to keep tabs on his enemies. And 25 years ago a sitting president used illegal wiretaps in an attempt to stay in power.
Things seem to have improved since the days of Hoover and Nixon, and I have many reasons to hope we won't be back ther again.

Is that very disturbing to anyone else? Except now it's not the 'war on drugs', it's the 'war on terrorism'. At this point I wouldn't particularly be surprised if 2008 rolls around and there's some 'extreme terrorist threat' or attack and it would be too dangerous to hold an election. Listen very carefully. If that happens, get your gun and meet me at the White House.

Hmm.. I wonder if the Secret Service considers that statement a threat.... If I disappear we'll all know why.

Finished my book

I finished "The Overachievers" by Alexandra Robbins yesterday. I really enjoyed the read. It provided alot of good insight into the education system in the US. I've known for awhile that things were going downhill, but I hadn't encountered anybody as screwed up as the people shadowed in the book. Robbins makes her points by following about 10 kids through a year of their life. Some are Juniors or Seniors in high school, and one is a Freshman in college. As she relates their happenings she discussing an area of the education system that needs to be reformed. She doesn't limit her criticism to just the system though, as that would be quite unfair. She discusses parents, teachers, administrators, the College Board, private counselors, and the students themselves. People that adamantly believe that not getting into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton means their life is over, and sometimes make it true by killing themselves. People who pay $16,000 a year for pre-school tuition. People that hire school consultants the day they know they are pregnant.

I recommend that this book be read by all teachers, administrators, parents, and high school students. I'd even go so far as to say that this would be really good required reading for high school freshman.

I'm really glad I didn't fall into the overachiever traps that are described throughout the book. I don't know when it happened for me, somewhere around grade 7, 8, or 9. I adopted a philosophy that I have followed ever since: I do the amount of work I'm comfortable doing. Yes, I try to do well, and to get things done, but if I've been working on something for an inordinate amount of time and it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere, then I stop. Many that know me might criticize that this isn't how I work at all. I was salutatorian, got a 1520 on the SAT with a perfect math score, I'm at BYU on full scholarship, and also have a multi-year scholarship from home, I received the John Philip Sousa award for concert band, the Coaches award for track, I was President of the National Honor Society at my school, and Treasurer of the Music Honor Society.

I have all the marks of a serious overachiever.

So maybe this will make some people mad, but I was rarely stressed out about any of these things. I did them because I enjoyed them, and I had time to. I never studied for the SAT, I just woke up that morning, grabbed a Bagel sandwich from McDonald's and took the test. I practiced my trombone maybe an hour a week on average outside of school. Track practice lasted about an hour after school. I rarely edited a paper after printing out a first draft. I was rarely up past midnight because I had early morning Seminary at 6 am. I usually got about 7 hours of sleep.

I'm happy with my scholastic life. I usually get more stressed out about relationships than I do about school. I'm lucky. I am apparently quite intelligent and do well without too much effort. So you might say of my philosophy, "easy for you to say". But really, if I hadn't lived that philosophy, I could have pushed myself to exhaustion in high school, I could have been valedictorian (the difference was in the ten-thousandths of a point), I probably could have gotten into MIT or something, and continued to push myself crazy. I didn't.

My feelings on the matter are this: I work at a level I'm comfortable with. I came to a University where I could work at a level I'm comfortable with. When I leave school I will get a job where I can work at a level I'm comfortable with. I can then come home after an 8 hour day and be with my family (hopefully I'll have one....).

The approach true overachievers seem to take is: work really really hard in high school to get into a prestigious college, work really really hard in college to get into a prestigious grad school, work really really hard in grad school to get a prestigious job, work really really hard at prestigious job to make lots of money to show the world how successful you are. Problem is, your prestigious job demands 80 hour weeks, you have no hair left because it all fell out from stress, your family never sees you, assuming you found time to get married and start a family, and you have never known the meaning of 'fun'. The valedictorian of my class was like this. She had a nervous breakdown freshman year, and was the most high-strung girl I've ever had to deal with.

Please live your life at a level you are comfortable with. It will make you happier.

Complications of life

Ever meet someone so similar to someone else you know that it's uncanny?

It's weird. The last relationship I was in ended last September, it lasted 34 months. It started in high school and then became long distance, very long distance, as in >2000 miles long distance. But it wasn't the distance that ended the relationship. Nor was it a change in heart in either of us. It was simply me trying to do the right thing. See, she wasn't a member of the my church. She had played with the idea of joining, even so much as going to church on her own, and meeting with the missionaries a couple of times. Then she just wasn't interested. For some reason this suddenly bothered me. Maybe it was because many people I was friends with were getting married, so I had realized that I needed to do something with the situation. So anyways, that relationship ended for no reason other than I was trying to be 'righteous'.

Then there's this new girl. The strange thing is, from as much as I know about her so far, she's like a doppleganger of my previous girlfriend. Is it weird for me to feel strange entertaining the notion of dating her? I'm sure that the more I get to know her the more I will see the differences, but there are still so many similarities that it doesn't feel right.

So maybe it will help to know the similarities, so here is a sampling without too much detail:
A. Similar in appearence: Build, hair color, eye color, hair style, clothing style, speech pattern...
B. Similar sense of humor.
C. Similar interests / hobbies / job experiences
D. Similar personalities overall...

Now there are a few important differences: mainly major, background, family life.

My fear is tansference.

Would it be fair to allow my feelings from my past relationship (which are definitely still there, living just below the surface of my emotional control....) to influence my role in a future relationship?

Something I must ponder before I can allow my life to run its course again.... man... my 5 year life-plan is getting ripped apart before I even start living it....

I know you're out there

So I have Google Analytics running on this site, so I know people are out there reading this. Just drop a comment on this entry to let the world know who you are. Maybe I'll write more interesting things if I know a little about the people reading this.

Come on, don't be afraid. You don't have to use your real name if you don't want.

Favorite Quote of the weekend

'Later that night, Sam reconnected his computer cable to discover an important development: In trolling his Modern World classmates' IM away messages, Sam estimated that approximately two thirds of his classmates had invented their own Raheems. As on away message read, "I need a name for my fake muslim and FAST!"' - "The Overachievers" by Alexandra Robbins

Strange, Strange, Strange....

Seems like everyday I get up my world gets a little more strange, and a little harder to grasp. At least it seems that way as far as girls in my life go.... Quite odd how if I have no romantic interest in a girl I can pretty much understand who they are, and how they work, but throw in even a hint of interest, and forget it, I don't have a clue even when the 'signs' are slapping me in the face, as they probably are most of the time. This is nothing new in my life, just something that was clearly brought up in my mind again during the course of this past evening....

Having this superhero identity blog is actually kind of good for me, as I can speak about things like this without worrying the people involved will see what I'm saying, as they would if I posted on my mild-mannered Clark Kent blog. But then again, it was brought to my realization this evening as well that some of the people probably do know me well enough to have either guessed at my 'nym, or know it outright.... hmm...

oh well... if you think that this post is about you, and I suppose it might be at this point, understand that I am girl-stupid. I may or may not figure out what you're thinking, and any help you can provide me would probably be useful.

With that said, I kind of want to read the new book I got today (giving myself away again to people that have spoken to me today), but it's after 2:00 AM, so I think I'll just go to bed....

This post is a little rambly because of the fact that it is past 2:00 AM... please forgive the incoherent babblings of a tired, confused, mind.

Brick Wall

Ever just realize that the project you're working on at work is way more complicated than you anticipated? Yah, so I was not happy today at work. I had a problem when I started this project, where I couldn't see the trees for the forest, and I kept getting overwhelmed by the scope. So I finally sat down and organized my tasks and starting taking them one at a time. I've made good progress, but the whole forest kind of came back into view today, and my motivation levels dropped pretty hard. I've managed to put some blinders on though and at least focus on what needs to be done...

It's so strange how things just fall into my life. My job just kind of came upon me through almost no effort of my own. I have a couple of open-source projects of which I am the lead developer, that just sort of fell into my life (including the one I'm working on for my job). My position on the board kind of just happened too. It's weird. Through no planning of my own I've been put in positions that have forced me to learn a number of knew things: OpenGL, MySQL, PHP, Python, AJAX, multi-threaded programming, OpenCV, more than I've ever planned on learning about Computer Graphics... and the list goes on..... life is strange...

Another excuse

So I now use this blog as a respite from my work. When I hit a wall and my motivation drops, I find ways to kill time. I'll read slashdot, play video games, read the news, check out the various blogs I keep up on, and now submit posts to this blog, as I'm doing right now. See I just finished finding a way to the other side of a wall I hit yesterday, and now want a little break before taking the next step.

So it's been said (and proven I think) that everyone has a mood cycle (if you will) where they go from feeling good to feeling slightly bad on a regular basis. It's not a drastic change, nor is it a mood swing. It's likely something that happens over the course of weeks, not hours. For me this usually occurs in stretches varying from 5 days to about 12 days. Oddly enough I've recently been able to detect this phenomenon more easily based upon my clothing choices. Having gone through an interesting fashion update in June I now have my older clothes which are decidedly unfashionable, and my newer clothes which are quite fashionable. When I'm in a good mood I wear my new clothes, for they help me feel like I can take on the world. When I'm in a bad mood I wear my old clothes, possibly because I don't want to accentuate my presence, and my old clothes are certainly nothing to notice.

Having read "Blink" I realize that my clothing choice is probably perpetuating my mood in either direction. So it would actually be a rather intelligent move to wear my newer clothes more often, and force a smile when I'm feeling bad, because, as "Blink" tells us, a fake smile will affect your brain and cause you to actually become happier, cute little trick, and it does work, try it sometime.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

As one of the webmasters much of what I do is never seen by the general public. In fact >90% of the work I've done since I've joined the board is only seen by the editors and the other webmasters. I have done a couple of small things that I hope everyone enjoys. You know how when you click "Login" your cursor is now automatically in the Email box? That was me. And how the archives page looks all nice and organized? Me again. Not that I want to toot my own horn, I just want everyone to realize that I am doing quite a bit of work that you'll never see unless you rise to the esteemed position of Editor. That being said I will let you know that there are some nice features coming down the pipe that the other webmasters have been preparing, so keep your eyes open.

Now for something completely different.

I wonder if anyone thought I was weird while I wandered around campus taking pictures of random things.... See I needed to get texture swatches for a project I'm working on, so I went around taking pictures of grass, dirt, mulch, and the like. People probably thought I was nuts. Oh well, I was getting paid to walk around in the sunshine for an hour taking pictures, that's fine with me.

The beginning

So, I've decided to start a blog as my superhero identity of Curious Physics Minor. This will be difficult, as I have a personal blog that identifies me. And it places fairly high on google searches, so I can't simply re-use posts here. So you will probably get similar ideas, but not the same posts, which, of course, requires more work from me. But such is the price of preserving my anonymity. Maybe if you read enough blogs you will be able to figure out my true identity based on similarities of blog posts; but I highly doubt it. You'd have to read alot of blogs.

So here I am. Curious Physics Minor. Champion of the moderates, known in Utah for liberal viewpoints and known back home for being a pig-headed conservative. Master of the web for the 100 Hour Board. Programming since 1995. I am a man with a 5 year plan. And maybe, just maybe you'll enjoy what I have to say.