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Ken Livingstone, the left-leaning mayor of London, had it just right when he asked the Republican National Committee to pay for what was certainly the most extensive security curtain dropped on London for any visitor — since it is for Bush’s political benefit.
and Bush meets the Queen…
In 1991, Bush famously appeared wearing cowboy boots at a White House dinner given by his father for the Queen and cheerily informed her of the inscription on the heels: “God save the Queen.” A frosty frown appeared on the royal brow, an eon passed, many feet shuffled all around. Convinced that understatement or sarcasm would be lost on the man standing before her, the Queen asked bluntly: “Are you the black sheep of your family?” Bush replied in the affirmative and shot back: “Who’s the black sheep in your family?”…
Bush Visit in the World Press - Salon
A good point from the British press, though…
As for those protesters who toppled that papier-maché Bush in Trafalgar Square, they were made to look naive. The bombers, if they could, would happily slaughter them too. It is a delusion to think that all that is needed to make the world safe is a change to the occupants of the White House and Number 10. Charles Kennedy could be Prime Minister and Michael Moore might be President of the United States. Al-Qaida would carry on killing. Because, to them, freedom is an ugly thing.
Again I want to call attention to Tracy Quan’s online novel, ‘Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl’… link … Just get the Salon day pass and read em.
SoCal Gencon is coming! Woo!
FInally someone says something about the A&F Catalog, and more importantly, how incredibly white A&F is.
Have yourself a horny little Christmas
Looking at the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog makes me want to buy their clothes, but I’m too exhausted from self-abuse.
Nothing says “Christmas” like a good old-fashioned circle jerk by the fire.
For all you squares who don’t know what a circle jerk is, turn to Page 88 of the Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly, under the picture of wet, naked college kids and the heading “Group Sex.” (It’s difficult to figure out where you are in the book since most pages aren’t numbered.) It reads: “Sex, as we know, can involve one or two, but what about even more? … A pleasant and supersafe alternative to this is group masturbation.”
The challenge for me, when masturbating with my friends to the nubile nudies in the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, is trying not to think about serious things like racial diversity; it tends to kill the mood.
Stuff I was reading or going to comment on and didn’t get a chance before I left the lab
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr99
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61374,00.html
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/11/25/slavery/index_np.html
http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2003/11/25.html
http://www.gencon.com/displaysocal.aspx?file=socal-pr
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=grandprix/anaheim03/facts
http://www.salon.com/health/sex/urge/1999/07/12/nancy/index.html
http://archive.salon.com/directory/topics/tracy_quan/
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/25/freecycle/index_np.html
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Secrets of saliva revealed: The natural defenses in the mouth could help prevent the transmission of HIV, a recent study found.
In the early days of HIV, researchers wondered if the disease could be transmitted by kissing, dental treatment or biting. It soon became clear, though, that oral transmission of the virus is very rare. That’s not because HIV doesn’t make its way to the oral cavity — infected cells are actually present there in HIV patients. AIDS researchers agree there has to be another explanation, but they have never been certain what it is.
However, researchers at Case Western Reserve University recently found that proteins called beta-defensins 2 and 3 might inhibit the oral transmission of HIV. They published their findings in the October 28 issue of the journal AIDS.
Because bacteria constantly attack the mouth, it has developed defenses against them, including these two types of beta-defensins.
“It is the unique properties of the good bugs found in the mouth that are inducing the expression of (beta defensins) 2 and 3,” said Aaron Weinberg, director of research at the Case School of Dentistry and the lead author of the study.
The discovery could lead to new strategies for AIDS prevention using natural products, Weinberg said.
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, put it on my long list of things todo
http://www.tcniso.net/
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More on my lists of todos or reminders for my site
finish sides on site
change layout totally? ;p
photo album dealio?
photoshop?
http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/
http://www.captcha.net/
http://www.fultonchain.net/
http://www.perlservices.net/en/library.shtml
turn on log referrs
this has log viwer too
http://www.geekymedia.com/blogcgi/mt-pm.cgi
http://blogstyles.com/
What plugins for me tp post?
deferredposts =>
http://twiki.tensegrity.net/bin/view/Main/MovableTypeTrickle
wiki
http://wiki.virtualvenus.org/
blacklist
http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist
php foundations
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/ct/29
restr access :
http://www.virtualvenus.org/archives/0310/restricted_portions_of_posts.php#more
google entry point?
top few are good :
http://www.thegirliematters.com/tips/ incl : open links in new window with regex
mt ext
http://www.nonplus.net/software/mt/
http://www.nonplus.net/software/mt/MT-Mail-Entry.htm
http://philringnalda.com/ does categories WELL
http://stupidevilbastard.com/
http://www.bookmarklets.com/about/
multiple theme approach
Core functs
My Life
World Around?
Magic
Blogtech
etc!
http://stevenf.com/mt/archives/000397.php!!
z_groupdb_875
http://www.metzener.com/dave/archives/000127.php
http://geekymedia.com/magic_prices.html
Overlib doesn’t disappear
http://www.geekymedia.com/archives/2003/11/index.html#000236
http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.metzener.com/dave/index.rdf
Awesome buttonage on dave / http://www.antipixel.com/blog/archives/2002/10/22/steal_these_buttons.html
http://gtmcknight.com/buttons/index.php
http://voisen.org/archives/projects/000239.php#more
adding to beautifier
add c++?
http://www.bradchoate.com/tools/textile/
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A very well written article pointing out something important.
WoTC is likely to ban the following cards
* 1: Goblin Charbelcher
* 2: Tinker
* 3: Goblin Recruiter
* 4: Hermit Druid
* 5: Chrome Mox (maybe)
The so-called Engine cards. Heres the thing… WHY?
These cards might not be nearly as dangerous if we didn’t have the scepter of fast mana hanging over us. Hypnotic Specter was banned, as a Turn 1 Specter with Dark Ritual was usually lethal… but if you didn’t have a ritual, a turn 3 specter was something that you could deal with…
Try banning
* 1: Chrome Mox
* 2: Grim Monolith
* 3: Ancient Tomb
* 4: City of Traitors
Let the fun decks still exist, and allow the format to slow down… thats why Llanowar Elves and the Ice-Age painlands were removed from Standard….
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While reading up on it though, came across
Fulton Chain
The interface is super cool, the way the site is divided is perfect, and this is what I want my site to look like at some point. (I’ll need to start shooting digital more to have something for a continious photolog)… Look at it, isn’t it nice! Seriously, I’m freaking out. I actually like the other links there.
Finding even more news feeds, as if I didnt have enough : FeedDemon
Oh, details on how ticketmaster and the like generate the human-readable/computer-notreadable text… CAPTCHA. Details on breaking it are also available.
Ooh, a new Google applet…
A perfect font for code.
I need to start posting my codebases for my projects… thats pretty high on the todo list now.
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Lets cover optimistic stuff first.
Simon and Garfunkel was amazing. I have few impressions that aren’t covered in HeatherW’s comments, and she does a much better job of it than I would.
I’ve always found it interesting how one can get excellent seats at a concert and still look up at the big LED screen instead of looking directly at the performers (I got some binoculars though, so I did watch them directly for a while)… Took my requisite nap just before ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, which was kinda annoying, but I needed my cat nap. (Phantom is the only theater show that I’ve ever been at that I didn’t drift into sleep, but my mind totally wandered during some of the group stuff @ Phantom)…
Half the excitement is having a story for the rest of your life… ‘I went to see Simon and Garfunkel’ … which is just cool. I was a bit disappointed that Kodachrome, Under the African Skys, or Graceland didn’t make an appearance, but it was S&G, not S…
They were entertaining, Garfunkel looked similar to the way he looked when he was younger, Paul looked old… A group of folks I met there were telling me about a Simon + Dylan concert where the concert was covered in smoke half way through the concert, but there was no such fun here. HeatherW makes a good point about how the entire crowd actually sat down for the majority of the concert, which was a surprise to me… the average crowd age was quite a bit younger than expected, a number of 20 and 30-somethings mixed in with the older crowd.
Heather’s sisters and mum were at the concert, and hanging out with them after the concert was the most fun I’ve had in a while (which is saying alot) … Due to Heather’s insane secrecy policies, and whatever; suffice it to say that we had a blast, I met her youngest sister’s boy; (who is a dead ringer for Harry Potter, and quite possibly a more severe ADHD case than I), checked on the sisters to make sure that they were doing well, found out childhood stories about my Heather and had a good time. Drove like a madman, trying to keep from falling asleep to HeatherW’s where a futon with my name was waiting; she was kind enough to wait up to let me in, it only later occured to me that she normally sleep before 1 and that I did keep her up….
I’m on Serena’s bad list right now, and I’m not sure what to do about it. Part of me feels righteous anger that she actually had the gall to yell at me at the Simon and Garfunkel concert; part of me wants to write off her behavior as insane; part of me can honestly understand her feelings (but not her anger) [that side was pretty much silenced for now by the being yelled at, however]; and part of me realizes that I could have avoided problems by making different decisions… the question is did I want to make those different choices…
I’m not going to go over it; my neighbors at the concert asked why I kept peering over to the far row to see if she was okay, and I didn’t tell them. I didn’t discuss it in detail with HeatherW (partially cause she was in pajamas and looked quite anxious to sleep), Heather only got part of the story and mum just got ‘we had a fight.’ You can read her blog if you want her side of the story, I point out that she doesn’t get out from work until five, (so I couldn’t have seen her at one if I wanted to), I’ve got advice from Heather and my common sense yelling ‘Take this friendship thing very slow,’ and, to be honest, I really really wanted to see Robin. I can understand how that might hurt, and I can see how she would feel hurt about that…
But threatening to never speak to me again? Allowing Shadiya to call me to berate me? (A funny thing is that Shad is hunting down Robin on campus to tell her what a heartbreaker and terrible guy I am. Robin found that concept very funny.) I’ll admit mistakes were made, but there was never malicious intent, but the other camp feels victimized and theres little I can do to change that.
I might be trapped by my own perceptions here, but I am who I am, and all that. Apparently Dan says I should be kept out of Serenas life, which is funny, because he seems to have had every opinion possible regarding me if you read through Serena’s blog.
What would HeatherW do if I had been late due to squeezing in a date with another girl? A, I have been late to see her due to squeezing in a date with another girl, with Serena. B, It wasn’t squeezing, we weren’t late to the concert by a long shot, it just didn’t leave time for a long formal dinner at Olive Garden…
And I have treated HeatherW like that, and I regret it cause I know its caused frustration on her part. I’m trying to do better. It isn’t usually someone else, its normally something else, not leaving the house in time generally. I’m bad with timing and too optimistic about ideal driving times…
Anyhow, I haven’t mentioned Robin here at all, have I? Theres a story to be told about meeting, scans of pictures we’ve taken to be posted, and me talking giggly about being a Smitten Kitten, but that can all wait. I don’t want to overdo or rush this, and part of me remembers feeling a similar way when I first met Serena… I don’t know when that changed…
We hit up Chinese and had a lovely meal… we both called it the most pleasant meal we’ve had in weeks, and attributed it to the food. ( The way to any girls heart is …) It was, of course, the company. Shes delightful to talk to, smiling often, easy to amuse, can keep track of my branching conversations and gently guides me back when necessary… Shes got the slight twinge of shyness that brings out the twinge of playfulness in me… Its a good match.
Anyhow, we saw Love Actually. Teriffic movie. Funny, super cute and everything a date movie could be. The only other movie that ever put me in souch a pent-up and romantic mood was Chocolat. Still have to see Brother Bear, I’ve got a date to see the next LoTR; and still need to see Kill Bill, Intolerable Cruelty, Lost in Translation, maybe Under the Tuscan Sun, Out of Time…. that being said, I’m likely to see maybe one or two of the entire lot … Nichole says that Robin is a real movie goer through, so maybe I’ll see more.
We still aren’t sure about Cat in the Hat, looks like it could be spectacularly bad. Avoiding Elf and Master and Commander, School of Rock is a definite (when I can get it on DVD or from the net),
We were considering hitting Descanso gardens, both to indulge my photographic needs and for a nice quiet time of talking, but she’s had bad early dates at gardens and keeps them for later times in a relationship… yes she used that word, and whats funny is that it didn’t scare me to hear, it made me giggly.
Seriously, I giggle too much for a guy.
Shes an Aaron Sorkin fan. Shes short and small and cute. She doesn’t like being called cute until I redefined it for her. Shes an actress, and a good one. (Unlike (ex-gal) , who really couldn’t act at all, but really wanted to) Her performance in “Five Women in One Dress” (by Alan Ball) was quite good, and she brought a lot of charm to the quiet southern christian girl. Shes of vaguely Jewish descent, which I’ve always found oddly attractive, can accessorize, wearing a v. cute choker when we went out on Tuesday; has short hair (which I love), wears cute glasses (which I adore) …
Just very attractive, pleasant and intelligent.
Topic Break.
I’m debating whether to call shad back after class… Theres something honorable about her wanting to defend her sister, but I know a heated argument will ensure that wont actually come to any conclusion. I know I’d be as angry as she is if someone hurt my sister, but my sister STOPS ME from handling her problems… She acknowledges that I’m there for her and will always be, but no matter my anger, she tells me that its her problem and that she needs to deal with it, and I back off. Shes an adult, and I can’t fight her battles for her, just be there before and after them.
On top of which, I’ve seen Shad treat Serena terribly at times, and her yelling at me for mis-treating Serena (which I don’t acknowledge to be the case, I really don’t), seems kinda hypocritical. Of course, it reminds me of Sports Night : “No one hits my little brother but me,” so…
It was nice seeing HeatherW for the few minutes I was able to and I remember how cool she is. I owe her a nice lunch and have to endevour to make that happen.
I need to start earning some money… dating anyone is always financially draining, even to some degree, and my savings are drying up. Oh, I’ve still got a bit of EQ money coming, leftover from ComedyWorld, so there are small amounts filtering in at times.
CS project time has returned, got a audio file generator on one hand, a weighted di-graph transversal on the other and a model for encoding AAC files on my lap. Gonna be a busy week.
Really need to get my pictures developed too ;p
Oh, interesting.
FedEx Delivers New Tech Lab
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Second, S&G tonight, yay us! Serena and I are gonna have a blast and HeatherW says the seats are superb.
Also, a web based links management system so I can maybe move past blogrolling (and from missing hotlinks ;p)
http://freebies.wiccked.com/mysqlinks/
Or maybe http://www.bloglines.com/
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Details on my date on Saturday soon; Serena’s got a boy like the day before I get a girl. Its really really funny.
Yeah, the words “boy,” “girl,” and “get” are simpler versions of the appropriate explanations.
:::: Now talking in #mtgjudge
———————————————————————————————————————————————
:::: Topic: .\agic: the Judging |
( 13:24:34 ) « WonkoSane » I keep reading your name as Riz Wank instead of Rizwan K, btw. :-P
( 13:26:23 ) « WonkoSane » Rizwan: could be worse, I suppose. your first name could be Isador.
« @Monkster » Like “If I twiddle a Sorceress Queen with an active Bone Flute in play, does she get pregnant?”
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Interesting enough tale, enough random Aussie factiods to make me interested (I lost interest after the Aussies I had met travelling, they just seemed annoying, xenophobic, etc. (Yes I know, you could call Americans the same thing)).
Australia lost more people, per capita, in WWI than any other nation.
An Australian Prime Minister went out for a swim in the 60s and never returned. Just like that.
There are more poisionous animals in Australia than there are in any part of the world. (That I actually knew before)
All the natives in Australia boated over up to 60,000 years ago, 58,000 years before the rest of the world started making voyages of similar length.
All I previously knew (besides experiences with the Aussies I met), was stuff I learned in a Nickelodon cartoon I watched decades ago. Then again, the Koalas talked so I can’t really say its very accurate.
Think I found a FNM deck I like. Lets see if I can use the power of Textile to make it into a cool table.
(of course, the only metagame worth playing atm is Extended, both cause its so degenerate that this is probably the last time to play with insane Tinker and Metalworker decks, and cause GP Anahiem will be Extended and it might be fun to actually play)
The article is here. Two builds, I took the latter.
EDIT : YAY the tables work and they look ok!
The main attraction is that I’ve got most of the cards, except for the Deltas, and it doesn’t cost a million dollars like MBC does. Also, Mind Bending an opponentsKarma just seems like a MASSIVE amount of fun.
Ooh, I kinda like this design.
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I don’t think I’ve ever done a spiel on Knack.
Its a massivley important word.
Theres a few words that have massive significance to me. The first and most important is charismatic. I’ve always wanted to be described as charismatic by someone. Don’t get me wrong, the other things I’ve been described as were (on the most part), complimentary, but they often were in things that I didn’t doubt myself as much as my social abilities. My experiences at the wedding might suggest its usage, or the way I flirt happily with waitresses (And they flirt back (and yes, I know they might just be smiling for a tip)), but I’d always wanted to word to be used without prompting. Just one of those things.
Another is eccentric, or … theres a third word but I can’t really remember it (haven’t been able to for the past few years actually)… some synonym of quirky. Eccentric doesn’t always have good connotations, but then again im not really worried about my normality so its more of a self-descriptor.
Then there is knack.
Back in High school, in the Honors/AP crowd, of the ones that succeeded (or had the potential to succeed), there were two groups. Those with knack, and those without. It varied by subject. I had a knack in Calculus, English, History, CompSci, Biology, Odyssey (my TV prod class), but had no knack whatsover in Physics, Chemistry, PE, Woodshop, English (Langugage vs. Literature, Lit was my good subj), and Spanish. I’m not just speaking of myself, and I’ve got a guy in mind when I describe this as my example (Since I plainly talk about myself too much anyhow).
Tim Lang. He was a pimply guy, about a year older than me, stereo-typical nerd with no-social skills whatsoever. He was from a poor family, and had a number of things working against him. He had friends, as did I, but they weren’t as much “lets hang out” friends but “well im sitting next to you and you are a nice enough guy…” (much was similiar for me). Tim didn’t have the knack. Not in Calculus, my sample subject. (Let it be said that he was a whiz at physical sciences and English, I’m not dissing the guy, hes nice enough and while we haven’t kept in touch, its more to him and I not being that close to begin with than anything else.) He did fine, B’s if i remember correctly. but there was a cost. He had to work his ass off. He was in class for tutoring constantly, after school every single day working on problems, sometimes just for practice, but often because he just didn’t get it. The mechanics could be figured out, but what they represent overall was difficult.
Have trouble “getting” that?
(departs, spending fifteen minutes finding a simple equation editor for the web)
Do realize that I’m writing this without double checking, and I’m not exactly using a complicated concept, its just an illustration. <a href=”http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/5445/swift.html”Swift is the best online math editor (for free) I’ve found so far, and it requires JDK to be installed, I’m at school and am not going to deal with the permissions nightmare thats gonna be.
So, plain text, baby!
Take something simple. The first and second derivatives of x^2. Some people could glance at that, or glance at the derivs and “know” what they described. Inflection points were natural and when they were explained in class, those students were happy to have a name for the concept they had already figured out. The reasons why the derivative of a function was the space undernearth the curve and how that related to 2d and 3d spaces was simple. For those that didnt get it, they could learn the formulas, and learn the exact examples, but it didn’t ‘click’. Another example is how integrating over a 2d surface with a third dimension gave you a volume of the spline rotated object.
Or something even more obvious. The six sided puzzle box, with numbers on it. There are six sides and you’ve got to be able to tell if it could fold up into a cube. (and for that matter which sides were on which). Its an important part of the IQ test, (im not sure why), and some need to physically wrap a piece of paper to imagine in while others can rotate the object in 3d space mentally with no problem.
My counter example, Ryan Thomas … can’t remember his last name. Didn’t work at all. Seriously. Got all the girls, assumedly had lots of sex, had every friend, was a star football or track or something player, had cheerleaders as girlfriends, skipped class, sweet talked teachers, aced midterms and didn’t study a lick.
Yeah, I hated him too.
Now, lets ignore the fact that most high schools in this nation, especially California, would pass a low-IQ simian. Even the Honors/AP programs weren’t some pinnacle of education, but at least you got to learn stuff without questions like “So who won World war II,” or “Wait, Juilius Caeser was actually a real guy?”. Those actually happened by the way.
Ryan didnt work at all. He didnt have to. He just showed up and did it.
Tim was Valedictorian, Ryan was Salutatorian. Ryan would have given an infinetly better speech, while Tim was scared shitless. (not that I blame him)
Interesting side note. People were floored when they realized I wasn’t Valedictorian. (No, I was 9 spots away, and I’m not bragging here, just telling a strange story). I had a reputation carried on from legends in Elementary. I was the guy with the pocketprotector and a tie, I Was the won who raised his hands to answer all questions, including rhetorical ones; I was the one who helped teachers grade papers, corrected mistakes, helped out peers, etc. I acted the smartest, and I let everyone know that. Thats why they thought that, Ryan had other things to do than to impress everyone, and I’m not sure Tim had the social skills to be that well known. I had powerful friends and that carried me a long way, and I did start to grow and be able to talk to people by Junior year. Back to the point, its interesting how much perception can vary from reality.
Back to the point, Ryan and Tim were opposite sides of the coin. If we look at high school as simply the grades equalling success, Tim won. If you include social life etc, then its debateable. But the hard work can and did (in many ways) win over the knack.
Reason this came up was that I was in Algorithms today. I walked in late, had missed the past, like, four lectures, and was seeing him explaining the last part of a slide on optimal binary search trees. He asked a question, “Would having the highest probability guarantee an element is at the root” … I said “No.”. Everyone else said “yes.”. Now I didnt know this material as well as them, and if I had to go through teh routine of creating the tree (which ill have to do later), I wouldn’t have known the math or steps without reading it, but I knew that. Just cause I knew it. Past experience plus understanding of the basic rules BEHIND all of this told me no. Granted, only a few people in the class said “Yes” and most people don’t answer profs when they ask questions in class, but the point stands. I got a 95 on the project (super happy about that) when I did it the day before. It was a trivial answer, its not a big deal, he looked at me for a sec, smiled, and continued, but I understood it and it wasn’t something I “knew” to write down but just “felt”. Thats what I call knack.
And then I was on the other side of the fence. I’d sit in Chemistry, reading about shapes of molecules (degrees between etc.) and I JUST DIDN’T GET IT. I memorized the answers to particular problems and a algorithm for determining which answer to write, but I didnt get it. Same thing with the upper-mathematics and physics I’ve been taking. All that I knew about Gaussian fields left my brain the day after the final. I couldn’t tell you the determinate of a subspace (if that even exists) for the life of me without running to a text book), Intergration by parts is still a nightmare for me (three years after doing it), and I still use my calculator to verify if sqrt(x/y)=sqrt(x)/sqrt(y), just because the only way I knew it was memorization. I get pythagoreans and the quadratic eqation cause I can derive them. (I’m not bragging, thats 8th grade stuff, but its an example) I saw a latenight program on PBS that showed lines and triangles moving around and it just clicked. Its the same thing with some CS stuff, heavy pointer stuff, parsing, functors etc are the kind of things that I just look at old code of mine to re use it, but I could never write them by scratch.
Another example is Comedy. I’d sit with the Mike and Ben people and be convinced I was in the presence of Gods. I could be funny, but I have to work at it. They just were funny. Everything they did was comical, they could write stuff for television that worked (while my best idea needed two writers to make into a good segment). Vivek just knew how to edit. The flow of a story and the visual appeal worked for him. Adrian too (I need to talk more about those two) … especially Adrian. Adrian stopped me from considering gfx design or video editing as a career. I saw him work at it and he KNEW what looked good. IT might have just been experience, but I really want to be one of the best in whatever I do, and I don’t like entering with a handicap. He made brilliant funny ads that knocked your socks off. That took talent. My edits showed technical competency, not artistic. Its the same with my photographs, I capture whats there, I never create anything. I don’t get models to pose, both because I’m nervous to, and because I wouldn’t know what the fuck they should do. My pics are decent cause I understand the ‘rules’ of composition and balance and have a quick trigger finger and (amazingly) the patience to wait for JUST the right moment, but my pictures don’t make you laugh or cry. They are … just there.
The thought occured to me that a massive amount of experience leads to knack, but practical experience, not rote experience. (in my experience) Tim didn’t understand the topics better because he had done the hw problems a million times, he just understood how to do those problems. I understood the topics of the cs problem because a similar point had occured to me while doing a huffman encoding problem months before, and that rule there applied here too.
I used to get 90s on essay for my GE courses (that were written in 4 hrs), while others wrote essays taking 20 hrs and doing marignally better, or even worse than me. That essay example could easily be an example of writing, knowing what the professor would be looking for, i.e. the grading critera. My essay may not have had as good of a flow as I would have wanted, but I did what was asked for. The following problem (connected with the next few paragraphs) kinda illustrates how the better looking, but less complete essay would be liked more than the complete essay.
A problem with people with Knacks, often there are accountability problems. There are tons of things to mention, from over-confidence, to under-documentation, to smugness, to know-it-allness. The one example that comes to mind is when I was working at Comedyworld. The cheif Video Engneer, Don James, wasn’t an amazing guy by any means. He was a big guy, not that well kept, inadequate social or management skills, but he DID know the Trinity box. (The one that we used in the studio). He helped design it. If you needed help with the software or with the box itself, he was your man, but the second you left the box itself, he was nearly useless. Thankfully, the box was like most boxes, it worked. We didnt pull out caps and replace them or anything, so his expertise wasn’t as needed, but he could still handle growth to our studio complex (while doing things that made absolutely no sense to me). It came down to one day, my boss, Aaron Lockhart, handed us a job. We were adding another camera and trying to get a D1 signal converted to YcbCr and back with the least loss or something. Not a trivial job, but not exactly rocket science either.
Now heres the thing with me at comedyworld. I was told ‘Hey we need an archiving system to archive all of our content that auto stores’ or ’ I need a PC/Mac dual format drive for the Fibershare recording systems that will automatically dump everything on it onto a Windows share so the fibershare users can dump to the office computers’, etc. Then they’d say get back to work. And I’d work on totally unrelated things. Fixing network problems, implementing some solution, working on my crown jewel at CW (the MasterControl/onAirbooth/Producer/Screener communications system with extra features!), etc.’
Then a week would pass, and Aaron or Barry
(the best boss I’ve ever had, Barry Thomas, a brillian engineer who wouldn’t lavish me with praise when I didnt need it, threatened to fire me when I showed up late, who, along with Aaron, signed over some of their shares of Comedyworld to me in protest of ComedyWorld skipping me during allocation time, etc. Hes a great guy… he often told me about his childhood and how at a particular radio station, he was the “Rizwan” of that station… made me think. Hes the first person I respected to the degree that I was like, If I was where he was, knowing what he did, and doign what he did, I would be happy. Hes not a multi-millionare, but hes a great guy, and a great manager. Aaron handed me off to him after a) my roles changed, b) Micromanaging me became too hard for Aaron, not that I blame him. He knew more about ADHD than he should have which always surprised me, and was the BIGGEST advocate of me finishing school, because he knew what opportunities he lost by not getting an engineering degree. And the guy was SMART. We’d just sit in his room for hours, him with a black marker on a whiteboard, as I learned a ton about transmission or ISDN or whatever. There were other amazing people there, Mitchell, Chuck, Jessica, Jay, Terry, Melichar, Putty; but thats another six blog entries right there.)
Anyhow, Barry was/is awesome. I’d be terribly happy to work for him again. He gave me the respect I deserved, the bitchslapping I deserved, said what he meant, meant what he said and all that. He still says that he knows exactly the kind of girl I need…, and of course he didn’t say anything about what she was like, I’ve got to find it out myself I guess. There are five or six mentors in my life (not counting my parents who are the core of my being and who I am today) and Barry sits proudly in that list. Aaron too. I need to write more about Aaron, he comes out bad in this blog entry, and hes much cooler than that.
Okay, back to the previous thought.
Aaron or Barry would ask me what I thought of the problem they gave me. And I had a solution. It was just there. Thinking while driving, showering, sleeping whatever. But there was an answer. It was really odd and I couldn’t describe how it happened but it was usually an answer that made them think, Great Idea! (Or, you can’t make that, we want stuff here to be off the shelf, not something you threw together)
Again stepping back. So I got asked to do this and Don was asked. I don’t think it was intentional, just was mentioned to me and Don, not as a test to either of us or something.
I had a solution the next day. Three pages with estimated costs, a “management summary,” CAD drawn drafts on how it would be designed and implemented, etc. I had to stay late for the extra work but whatever.
Don turned in a napkin. Three days later. I swear.
Now I can’t compare his and my methods, I’ll be darned if I remember if one was better than the other. I just know how mine was recieved and how his was. He wasn’t working there two months later (for entirely different reasons). I stayed there and ended up taking his responsibilities. Now Don is a nice guy. He just didn’t know how to present himself.
Its sorta like selling ones self, and thats what starts to make me nervous. Normally those with medicore skills are those that can sell themselves and make it into management etc. The really bright ones tend not to be able to express themselves at all and stay where they are, being the gods of their product, but not being able to make any decisions.
So I knew how to present a proposal. When I wanted to add equipment, I wrote it up. When equipment failed at 4am and I was called in, after I fixed it, I wrote a summary describing the problem and what I did to fix it and a management summary; the bosses came in seeing a memo that calmed their nerves (and kept them from needing to awake me, sleeping at my desk). I was/am a paperwork magnate. And I normally am not like that. I overcomment my code often b enough because I prefer it that way but there are major gaps in the way I present my work. (Never doing homework is a good example.)
And it brings me to this point.
“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”
-Andrew Carnegie
The hardworkers do well. Probably better than those with the knack (per capita). Its easier for those with knack, often they end up in do-nothing jobs but with massive personal projects that they do for themselves instead, because that inspires them (but not work.)
You can subsititue ‘motivate’ for ‘promote’, ‘educate’, ‘advance’, ‘work hard’ or a number of other things.
This entire blog entry might sound like a lot of self-ego flattering. I really didn’t mean it as such, thats why I abstrcted the convo about knack. And if it was, so be it; I’m human and its my website. But theres a dire point here, directed squarely at me.
Those who work hard do better than those with knack. Being in both categories is the place to be.
I didn’t write this to flatter myself, I swear. Theres enough lousy stuff about me out on the web and even in this message for me to PLAN to use this website as a “riz is cool forum”. At this point, I only know that Serena reads regularly, and the rest may have stopped reading or given up at the length of this entry of my innane rants. Its just… I want to know what people think about this.
* Do you believe in knack?
* If not, maybe under another word? Talent? Ingenuity? Experience?
* What do you have a knack in?
* Are you good in your chosen field cause you work hard or because you just get it?
* Where do you have unused knack?
* Do you think there are people who just … aren’t good at anything?
* Do you have any peers that are hard working but dont get it? Or vice versa?
EDIT : I should really get a spell checker or just start re-reading my entries before I post em.
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FFXI has been put back into its box, tape re-applied and ready for return at Walmart.
Vital statistics. FFXI has been installed for about 22 hours. 6 hours were spent online in play. At least 4 hrs was spent in the “Tetracard” online game (ala FFIX), at least an hour was set aside for researching classes.
I can’t do it.
At least I made the decision today instead of devoting months of time and then deciding that school is more important and that I can’t handle the responsibility of leaving an online game. I could have gone to see my friends today, I didn’t. I rationalized reasons for leaving for school later and later and later (up to your imagination whether I actually went or not).
I’m proud of myself, in that I made the decision, boxed up the game, gave away all the gear on my Lvl 5 Redmage “Rizzyk” (Rizwank has the unfortunate wank in it, and most curse word filters nowadays flag it.)
I’m annoyed that today disappeared, I’ve got to explain to my prof why I missed lab, and do extra work tomorrow. The reason I boxed it up tonight? If I didn’t, Tuesday would go, and I’ve got a midterm I need to study for on Wednesday.
As far as the game? It was fine. Gameplay and leveling seemed a bit more rational than EQ, not sure how they handle large encoutners and guilds though. Thing is, is that in EQ I had friends in the same room with a loan of 500plat, all my spells, occasional power-leveling, a fully stocked Alla’s with every piece of data imagineable. This was … more lonely. And I could see myself making friends and starting the whole fucking cycle again.
The graphics, at least at the initial setting, were sub-EQ, but the game played a lot smoother than EQ. I‘m annoyed at various shortcuts and accelerators that are available in EQ that aren’t in FFXI but thats just a matter of getting used to it. I found myself getting really annoyed at the many players who where were ‘I no speak English’, and I had to restrain myself from the American attitude of “Why dont you speak English, fuckers?” … the game WAS created in Japan for crying out loud.
So I’ve got MOO3 for unhealthy habits. Actually, if I win once, I dont see myself playing it again, so my 1000 ship battlefleet had better haul some ass.
I was again amazed at my ability to rationalize stupid decisions. I should run for some public office! (Ignores the groans from HeatherW and gang).
So, coding, midterm, labs and labmakeup tomorrow. I should sleep early, for a change.
EDIT:
Serena kissed a boy. Or, he kissed her. And there was hand holding… etc.
I want to be terribly offended. I want to be hurt beyond measure. I dont want my brain to logic away the feelings of “how dare someone else make her happy… I was making her happy (well sorta)” … but it does. I’m slightly annoyed, knowing that I’ve not chatted up people I might have out of respect of just having broken up with Serena, but thats a self-imposed thing and really is kinda dumb. She seems to be moving on more, her blogs are a lot less me-centric, and …. well… she sounds happy. Since I gave her the domain, shes had a project to work on, and our discussions about social lives may have pushed her into going out more, joining an RP group, etc.
But yes, there is a part of me that screams in anger that someone else is touching my woman.
Then again, she isn’t my woman. And I chose that. And I don’t think it was a wrong choice. Its just … odd. She sounded happy about it though and that makes me happy. Reminds me slightly of a Sports Night quote that I loved… it isn’t directly relevant but its worth keeping in mind anyhow…
On the upside, shes playing FF Tactics, and that is good.
Heather has got some interesting comments re:her and atheism. However, upsaid seems to be down for the moment.
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I dont mean that there are people that wouldn’t like to hear from me, or wouldn’t mind getting a phone call. Its just… I dont have to call anyone. I dont have to call Serena, Heather is out of town, and didnt even know that I was gone, my VV friends knew I was gone and weren’t actively missing me or anything.
Just slightly depressing.
Whats more depressing is that I bought FF XI. Its like I’m trying to test myself to see how strong my newfound love of school is. sighs. Im AT the bloody WalMart saying to a friend that I ran into, I really shouldn’t buy this. And I bought it.
Atlanta was cool, more details on it later. All I saw in Atlanta was the “World of Coke” and I’m already annoyed at myself that I didnt see the ad for an exhibition of Escher paintings until after my soft-drink experience. The Coke tour pales in comparison to the Guiness tour in Dublin, btw. Oh, its always interesting when I remember that our modern image of Santa Claus is massively influenced by the Coke ads of the time.
Anyhow, booting up FF XI right now, giving myself a half hour to play before I hit the sack for classes.
After setting up my PlayOnline id and all the extra stuff that comes with that, a message comes up.
Exploring Vana’diel is a thrilling experience.
During yoru time here, you will be able to talk, join, and adventure with many other individuals in an experience that is unique to online games.
That being said, we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence.
Don’t forget your family, your friends, your school, or your work.
Its like they met me in advance.
And the fact that they thought to put in this message makes one hope that the game is also made with casual gamers in mind.
And its a dire warning.
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Damn Master of the Orion 3 … its an addictive game.
Reading The Brothers War. Damn good book. Too bad no one I know has the sequel, Planeswalker, (and it wasn’t rated that well) … the third sequel, Time Streams sounds good though.
The author has written a lot of books, including books from the Ice Age cycle, novels about Starcraft..D&D supplements…
Going to see Matrix 3 today with my friends. Leaving for Atlanta for a wedding first thing tomorrow, will be out of town until Sunday evening. I’m taking advantage of the time to do past labs, study in the class I haven’t been attending ,actually read my notes and code my second Algorithm project.
I hope theres someplace I can draft Thursday night there ;p
Well, we are flying into Atlanta, going to Birmingham, AL.
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The side bars (just left for now) are collapsable, and not in the stupid way that the blogrolling is collapsable… It actually doesn’t transmit the data if it doesn’t need to, meaning an even quicker download for you modem users.
You can change the order as you please, and its stored on a local cookie so it stays with you. I’m going to add some borders to pretty it up when its ‘scrunched’ and find an icon for the scrunched mode instead of the tragic “Move this item to the top” nonsense. I wanted to left align the titles so the minimize/maximize icons can be left aligned… its didn’t look that great though. Code was from Scriptygoddess, with some changes of my own. Its been made so that the same cookie can hold left and right values, so as soon as I recode the right side to collapse, you should be able to even move items from left to right! (Not easily, but its doable)
A demo of ShowHideGadgets… its pretty and colorful.
ScriptyGoddess is pretty cool, I found like six hours worth of coding to add to my blog!
Brad Choate is amazing.
Also installed Brad’s Textile plugin, a Moveable type implementation of a super-cool plaintext formatting language called Textile. I like it because it is (supposed) to have code blocks (although I haven’t found it yet) so when I post C++ code, it’ll be properly formatted… Also cool are the indented lists, like below. Check out Textile, I think its nifty.
The SmartPants smart punctuation generator was updated.
Other stuff I’m planning to add.
Oh, as far as useful tools…
Oh, I want a Treo 600. Anyone got one? ;p
I could talk about me at this point, but its either talk about me, and go to my midterm or get lunch and go to my midterm. Guess which won.