Rizwan Kassim's Public Log

Sanity

Went to an Indian party and managed not to (totally) freak out this time.

But the topic of today (both the others are bloggable, but I tend to blog on whats got me down just now)

I’d like to date someone sane.

Seriously.

I’m not exactly sane myself, but I think I have a firm enough grasp on reality to survive day to day and not the people around me nuts, insane, psycho, etc.

(ex-gf2) was sane, but that was like two years ago… or was it longer.
(ex-gal) doesn’t really count as someone I dated, but shes nuts for her own reasons.
I won’t get started on Serena’s sanity. I’ve avoided blogging my thoughts on her, and I won’t stop now.
New beau, Robin, is insane as well.

Its been a month since we’ve talked. I know she likes me, like I know it. I know shes interested. But she “turtles” … she freaks out for unknown reason and hides away. No apparent reason, and I’m not the first person shes done this to. She felt that she was past that stage (as she told me when I was wary, our first date)…

Shes gotten a Teddy Bear w/ a Flower when she went to the hospital. Shes gotten about 2 - 3 calls a week, about one answering machine msg a week, and various amounts of msgs via her mum to call me.

And some would say give up. Brian and Nichole don’t say to, but Brian confesses that he would have gotten tired of it at this point (As he did when he dated her forever ago) … but she told me to be persistant. Everyones told me to be persistant. I don’t have someone else to focus on. And I like her a lot. I could fall in love with her. And thats a big deal for me … and she needs to get past this, and I’m going to try to help.

Yeah, there are a million questions about why I’m willing to do things in this relationship (if you can even call it at this point with 2.5 dates, and a few very good phone calls and emails) that I wasn’t willing to do in others. Why I freak out when someone pursues me, but not when I’m asked to pursue them… (you could blame it on the male hunter stereotype, I’m not sure) … I also think that her problems are fixable, and that she wants to fix them and do what is necessary to fix them (then again, what do I know, shes not responding to me) …

I’m not in this to fix her. I’m in this cause I really like her, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to chicken out. Let her parents think I’m a bit odd. Let her think I’m a bit persistant. Until someone says “stop calling,” or she says “I’m not interested,” I’m in this. Theres something special there.

That being said, it isnt’ cause shes not interested. She hasn’t responded to phone calls from her best friend either. It could be that shes still somewhat sick (which she is), but theres a point where its just rude.

Yeah, the rudeness bugs me, but I know how it is to be trapped in ones own patterns and rudeness resulting from that isn’t intentional.

Heather thinks she got too wild with me that first time, so shes hiding because of that. That some women may feel that way, I acknowledge, but there wouldn’t have been a second date if she felt that way.

Apparently, she gets down when shes sick.. like WAY down. That may have a lot to do with it. I’m thinking of deleting the phone number for 2 weeks and then calling once shes back at school.

I’ve come this close to driving down and showing up at her door a number of times.

Its not that I’m ignoring hints, its an utter lack of hints that I’m ignoring.

Or I could just be a fool.

Or insane. :)

Articles

Biologists have long known that animals prefer immediate rewards to greater ones in the future. This process, known as “discounting the future”, is found in humans too and is fundamental to many economic models.

Resources have a value to individuals that changes through time. For example, immediately available cash is generally worth more than the same amount would be in the future. But greater amounts of money in the future would be worth waiting for under so-called ‘rational’ discounting.

But some people, such as drug addicts, show ‘irrational’ discounting. For example, preferring a small amount of heroin today rather than a greater amount in the future.

The next 100 years of flight - part two
Today, Terry Weisshaar, manager of DARPA’s morphing aircraft structures programme at the Pentagon explains how telescoping and folding wings will help future planes to tailor their wing shape and size for each part of a mission.

Christianity’s Jewish roots

A Mary for all
New evidence on links between Judaism, Christianity and Islam
In some respects, Muslim beliefs about Mary—the most honoured woman in Islam, and the only one to have an entire chapter named after her in the Koran—seem to be quite close to those of the Roman Catholics. The Islamic tradition holds that Jesus and his mother are the only two human souls who were not touched by Satan at birth.

(I dont remember any of this during my version of Sunday School, but, then again, I’m not a Quranic Scholar)

The bare truth

Why are humans nearly hairless? And why do some wish to become more so?
(A discussion on Brazilian waxes, shaving, hairlessness in mammals… etc.)

C Sharpage

CSUPomona converted their entire curriculum from C++ to Java; then realizes that their students left without knowing about a lot of things that they should have.

They are trying to change back now, and having a hell of a time with it.

So I’ve been recoding the fax program for my parents, and as it was written in Borland C++ Builder, I started porting the resources to .Net… not as easy as you would think, and after two hours, MFC gave me a headache.

Plazmic told me to try VB (ew), or C#. Thats prononced C Sharp, and it is effectively a modern day VB, but with the ability to compile machine level code and use a lot of C++ structures… Its a lot like Java, but its closest cousin is C++, and I’m thankful for that.

Its powerful. Not as much as C++, but its still nice. The interface is well done in .net2002, allowing you to hide code sections easily, and has a very VB feel to it.

Learning where stuff is a bit difficult.

With Richard at work talking my ear off about Delphi, I’m in a place to think about new languages for Rapid Deployment type stuff…

Linkages :
C# Language Specification - This site, CSharpFriends, is quite good also.
C# Tutorials

Oh, I’ve totally fallen for Homestar Runner… ew, not in that way.

Robin is alive. Her mom answered the phone. Shes still a bit sick and was out with her brother. Brian and Nichole said to be persistant with this girl, and I’m trying, but it is getting me down ;p

Strange Strange Happenings

I didn’t get off of work until 5:30 or so, so I couldn’t have driven down to Diamond Bar to run my FNM so I went to Level6 to play in one… My consience hit me, and I refused to borrow the slide deck that I usually used… I toyed, while waiting at Del Taco with deck ideas… I’ve always been a real fan of Hammers and Sandstalkers… Slith Firewalker is one of the coolest cards I could think of… but my last casual deck with them was a total failure… I brought in some control… Wing Shards is also high on my favorites list, and a deck concept was born. 20 min before the FNM started, I dragged in my cards and found what I needed quickly…

Now, if there were any justice in the world, I would have gone 0-3, been laughed at for the deck of jank, as I came to call it, and in general, feel kinda dumb.

Yeah, that didnt happen.

I went 5-1.

How? Match One was a guy with some hastily made White Weenie deck, and this player wasn’t really interested in playing (or paying attention.) Match two was a guy who liked to Piper out things that hurt a lot… I had one turn left (being slapped with an Akroma), until he wanted to seal the deal with a Piper’d in Phage… sadly, ‘playing from your hand’ isnt the same as ‘put into play from your hand’… Phage’s ability triggered and he lost. Matches Three through Five are a blur… The final match was against a well made Goblin deck, but with a new pilot at the Helm… He eventually overwhelmed my CoP Reds, and while making some drastic misplays, I was still impressed at his ability to learn from his mistakes… Goblin Bidding isn’t the easiest deck to play (right).

So, yeah, interesting night, took 2nd place, got a DCI Withered Wretch, so I was glowing.

Speaking of foils…

Got Judge Foils after GP Anaheim. Oh my, are they cool. A pair of Stroke of Genius(s), pair of City of Brass(s), Oath of Druids, Intuition, Vampiric Tutor, Counterspell, Hammer of Borgardan, Ball Lightning and Lightning Bolt… boy did getting those put me into a really good mood :) The three boxes of Mirrodin and the D&D Minatures starter packs helped also :)

GP Anaheim went pretty well.. PES, the TO, is amazingly good, and makes me wish I lived in Ohio instead of in Dan Grey’s territory… Mike Guptil, the TO at PES, seemed to honestly care if his players and judges were treated well and fairly, and he was about more than making money… Kinda heartening to see. :)

Oh, yeah, I’ve got a job. Remember, I said I’d mention it.

I’m working at DVMG, the local new hospital; Friend pulled some strings so I’ve got three weeks contract work at $14/hr (or $17, we are still negociating), with a possibility of part time work after… Its going well so far; I’ve been describing what I’ve been doing as pinch-hitting R&D… The current staff is in a mire of maintainance, and is the the regular state of being for IS departments… there are faster and better ways to do what they do, but no time to research it to make it happen… So thats what I’m doing. Nothing they couldn’t do, but things they don’t have time to do… Setting automated backup routines for the HP machines, automated install and config routines for Windows XP Installs, writing a proposal to management to get the money to implement QoS, making a new password policy, etc. It’s fun.

I’ve been going nuts over the Magic books.. some of them are really really good! :)

I miss Robin… haven’t heard from her in three weeks (and no one else has in two).. I hope shes okay, but I have no reason to assume otherwise. No pickups from her phone; I think they all left for vacation or.. I dunno. I’m assuming and hoping its vacation. I sent her a teddy bear with a flower when she got sick, and she never called me, and I think that she’s better mannered than that, so I assume that she’s out somewhere with her family. I know her sickness has turned into a bad strep throat and she went to the hosptial ;p

I, of course, can’t call too much because… well Guys can’t apparently.

Anyhow, gonna post my foilies on ebay :) more later…

rk

the gp?

Crying...

My sister is quite possibly the most wonderful person in the world. Shes got flaws… but shes so grown up now and so responsible, and so loving and caring … Shes smart and kind and compassionate…

I sent her a picture frame of the two of us hugging when we were like 5 (which is amazing since, up until recently, she’s never been nearly as physically affectionate as my mother or I…), and a pair of diamond stud earrings for her 21st birthday. It was either those, or an MP3 player or something… Then I realized I wanted her to have something she could keep and remember… and she doesn’t like flashy stuff…

She just called to tell me how much she loved them… I stepped out of the office where I’m working (oh, yeah, I’m gainfully employed now, more on that later), and talked to her in a stairwell.. she was so excited and happy… I couldn’t contain it; I really miss her when I think of her, and she’s so awesome.

Anyhow, just wanted to tell a nice story.

More updates

Might help my wavering mood.

The todo list and whatnot.

(I’ve used the old posts with links as checklists and struck out stuff once I’ve added it)

categories new css
more paneling?

what was that site that has everything so beautifully divided?
more links that say rizwan kassim pting to geekymedia
(that google trick)

class scheduling for next quarter

http://www.staggernation.com/mtplugins/
ExtraFields
FirstNWords
LastModified
CheckLinks
Collect

Comment Notifier:http://www.cxliv.org/jayseae/movable_type/notifier/index.html

http://www.geekymedia.com/archives/2003/11/index.html#000236
http://www.geekymedia.com/archives/2003/11/index.html#000250
http://www.geekymedia.com/archives/2003/11/index.html#000252
http://www.lennartgroetzbach.de/php.php
http://www.themusicpages.com/HWD/LinkCheck.html&e=912

Girls...

Warning : Many generalizations, stereotypes, and such follow. Deal with it.

Lets leave aside, for a moment, “Hell Hath no Fury,” my constant complaints about the lack of scruples that women have, etc.

I’ve been in a kinda funky mood the past few days; I wasn’t sure why until, while avoiding studying last night, I watched some of the stuff I had bittorrented the previous day… The Spice Girls - “2 become 1” music video.

Theres a blog entry coming about variable moods of sexuality and my curiousity as to how other people approach it, but lets finish the female flattery…

Its just mannerisims. Smiles, blinking, any facial movement. I’ve watched the music video about 100 times now, and spent a massive time paying attention to the physical movements and choreography… I don’t get awed because these girls in particular are incredibly talented or attractive (sure, they are pretty, but there are a lot of pretty girls; and as for talent, its been said that you can take any random five people at a Dunkin’ Donuts and replace the Spice Girls), but because of the extreme femininity of their actions.

Even the one that isn’t feminine as some might describe it.. short hair, pant legs, a kind of emo-indepedent look …

Girls are just pretty. Theres something about their presence and the way that they look that takes my breath away; theres something about the way that I can’t physically control my eyes from sweeping over the girls that wait outside my CS 331 class, I can’t stop but giving my random smile and hello whenever anyone that I find at all attractive walks by and makes even the most momentary eye contact.

Oh, someones gonna bitch that attractiveness is ‘obviously’ the most important thing I care about. You’re wrong. First, what I find attractive isn’t what others tend to do, you don’t have to be size 2, blond hair, blue eyes, to be attractive. Every person has their own charms and that physical attractiveness also includes … subchannels is the best concept I can think of … of their personality traits.

Hearing the Spice Girls talking about “Wanting to make love” doesn’t hurt either.

• But god, the way women look when they smile.
• And wink.
• And look off into the distance in a moment of shyness.
• The way that singers close their eyes for a beat while singing.
• The dichomtomy between the sweet appearance that girls give by nature and the passion that they embody.
• And how their head tilts in a moment of happiness.
• The way that they squeeze your hands …
• The way they stare into your eyes…
• The way that they sound when they pick up the phone and hear your voice…
• The look in their eyes when they see a flower
• The roaming that their eyes do, and the subconcious biting of the lips when you dressed up more than you needed to…
• Their eyes in general…
• The way their legs look…
• How incredibly easy they are to read.
• How incredilby difficult they are to predict.

Whats funny is that I’m not thinking in terms of Robin at this point. (Not having seen her in two weeks doesn’t help). Its of women in general (but, I must admit, the Spice Girls are my muse at the moment.)

Ok, yeah, I’m not in any sane place now. :Hides from all female dom and tries to study Sets:

Random Links that are worth reading

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms “master” and “slave” on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

Share ‘True Crime,’ do the time | CNET News.com

A forthcoming copyright bill backed by key U.S. senators would place file swappers in prison for up to three years if they have a copy of even one prerelease movie in their shared folders.

Yahoo! News - Woman Sentenced for High-Speed Nursing

RAVENNA, Ohio - A woman who nursed her infant while driving 65 mph on the Ohio Turnpike was sentenced to three months of house arrest for violating child-restraint laws.

…

Donkers testified she did nothing wrong because the couple’s religious beliefs require her to follow her husband’s directives. They belong to the First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, which has a history of challenging the government.

SacTicket // TV/Radio // ‘West’ goes south

This one is painful. It’s the column I hoped not to write. But face it, “The West Wing,” the four-time Emmy winner, that once-lyrically written masterpiece of lofty romanticism, is, officially, awful.

Wired News: AOL’s Practically Giving It Away

In its latest attempt to stem declining subscriber numbers at its flagship Internet service, America Online is offering new customers a computer for $299.

DVD Split By Two Competing Standards > Next-Gen DVD Split By Two Competing Standards > November 14, 2003” href=”http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031114S0001”>Techweb > News > Next-Gen DVD Split By Two Competing Standards > Next-Gen DVD Split By Two Competing Standards > November 14, 2003

Tokyo - There’s division in the ranks of the DVD Forum, whose steering committee will meet in New York next week to vote on a next-generation optical-disk format.

Apple users take a bite out of crime

Had it not been for an angry and determined band of Macintosh users,
Christmas might have ruined the holidays for more computer sellers using
eBay.

Amazon.com: The Lion in Winter (1968)

In this 12th-century version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Henry II of England (Peter O’Toole) and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), meet on Christmas Eve to discuss the future of the throne. Bartlets fav’ movie btw.

Turns out my friends from Play oh so long ago are finally putting Warp 11 out there!

Blog stuff

First a some of the linkage.
A nation divided between Bush haters and lovers

Gonna move myself up the search rankings.

I might use Alan’s moblogging deal but I need procmail for that.

Alternatives and other stuff:
http://new.bastish.net/cgi-bin/mfop2/index.cgi?rm=how_to
http://www.azarok.com/mblog/
http://gme.jp/arch/000353.html
http://mobiletracker.net/
http://www.bigpinkcookie.com/archives/005528.html
http://gme.jp/arch/000353.html
http://www.easterwood.org/hmmn/archives/000639.html

mfop2 is what makes it work.
Until I can get snappermail installed, I’ll have to post with the treo’s picture mail thing which adds crap text and can only send 1 pic at a time.
Snappermail may only allow sends off of SD cards though which would also be a pita

http://www.textamerica.com/ is the easy answer but I dont want to diverge my blogs.

theres side blogging stuff there too… I’m screeching for help from the mt crowd too… about 15 diff groups that could make pbloging from the treo easy (And none of them are)

Added a temporary referrers script as well…
http://www.downes.ca/referrers.htm

Cool blogs to note:
http://www.rousette.org.uk/
http://www.coffeecorner.org/
http://www.bigpinkcookie.com/
http://www.downes.ca/

Misc:
Another $150 off for phone due to reactive and same phone but their fault cause it died
http://discussion.treocentral.com/tcforum/-t43618/sce4eb4f4bc02d41c3b5648b840560c87.html
http://treo1.com/
http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/194-1.htm

Hmmm

Got a mini report to write but I came to the computer lab to read some Brainburst and look into how to photoblog automatically with my Treo 600 (without using a seperate blog like Alan does)… I want to setup Categories too so at least I feel okay about posting codebases too ;p

Got a tour of the fourth floor of Building 8 when the elevator randomly opened to the restricted floor… shot some stuff there but no easy way to u/l it yet. Lots of cool stuff, Gila Monsters, Snapping Turtles, etc. The non-lethal reptiles were so much more interesting than the lethal ones.

Ive found myself reading Serena’s blog often to see if shes okay. No reason I can’t be angry and worried at the same time.

Anyhow I’m feeling down… not sure what/if Brainburst did to me ;p

Why Magic Online (fill in the blanks)
G/W Slide with Fierce Empath

I’ve apparently been calling Robin a bit too much (as told via Nichole) … Shes sick and I’m worried, and I dont get to talk to her cause shes asleep 18 hrs a day. Slightly miffed that her mom found it funny to comment on, that she mentioned it to Nichole, that Nichole waited three days to tell me, but mainly I’m just … whatever. I call people if I think of them. And I’m not stalker calling, I’m calling once a day to see if shes alive, and I haven’t spoken to her since Saturday.

Pulled my neck about a week and a half ago, and its still bad. Wearing a neckbrace to sleep.

I forgot how dry my mouth gets during public speaking. The meds contribute to dry mouth massively, but it becomes unteneable during self-induced stress, and thats why my mouth was full of cotton during my presentation today. Presented some slides of AAC, was the only lone presenter (all others were in groups), and I got quite annoyed when another group did a presentation that I had wanted to do (PARs and Tornado coding) … turns out they submitted their request 2 weeks before the final and das maestro just ‘let them’ do it… they had an easier thing to code (I couldn’t code my thing at all, its well beyond my abilities (or scope of this project) to write any of the underlying parts of AAC Encoders), while they were able to follow a “how to” manual for making pars. jesus.

So yeah, I’m not doing that well this moment in time.

Been looking into getting a webserver to host torrents for Suprnova… giving back and whatnot. I also want to run an XDCC bot, but no sane provider wants to allow that.

Did a bit of math and found out something that had never occured to me. 20gigs of traffic a month works out to 7kbps a second. Not that much when you think about it. (If I could just rehack my cablemodem… though the rents want to switch to DSL anyhow)

I could just use the display computer now that I think about it … my dad would wonder why his traffic slowed down and why his harddrive was constantly chunking though…

Pirated (yes I’m bad) a bunch of CDs from bt recently…

Number Ones
Michael Jackson

Elton John - Greatest Hits 1970-2002

ELVIS 2ND TO NONE

and I downloaded the 2000 Aqua album.

I only listen to the Elvis CD for the remixed Rubbernecking, which is awesome.

The Michael Jackson CD is just uplifting, to say the least.

The Elton John CD is amazing. I don’t listen to about half the tracks, but I love the other half; this guy is amazing.

Whenever I listen to “Thats why they call it the blues,” I think of Serena. (big surprise)

Everyone has their legacies. (These comments are short, and taught me should be more like “Among the things this person taught me” … most of these people deserve a few entries of their own, to say the least)

Tara taught me that brillance in liberal arts “stuff” isn’t exclusive with knowledge of scientific stuff.
Heather taught me how to love someone. Period.
(ex-gf1) taught me how to please someone.
(Her legacy is coffee. Everyone I’ve dated was a coffee lover, but I have some memories of bringing her coffee during her finals (the only day I woke up on time that finals season) )
(ex-gf2) told me how to adore someone.
(Her legacy is Greek stuff. Took me more than a year to not cringe whenever I saw “Big Fat Greek Wedding”)
What Serena has taught me will take a while to ponder.
(Her legacy, though, is Elton John; and in a larger scope; the intense power of Music)
(ex-gal) taught me that there are people that aren’t meant for me.
HeatherW taught me that no matter how much I try to categorize people, theres always ones who break the rules.
(Her legacy is reminding me that growing up is a never ending process, and being happy with what you are is a lot more important than others being happy with you)
Amy and Stacey have their places there too, but I can’t think of anything at the moment.

Notice they are all girls. They weren’t all romanticly involved (or even targets for that matter), but its funny that they are all girls.

All the guys I’d list were mentors and are 20+ years older.

What was I talking about? Oh, Elton John.

Oh, side note.
Shaziya came over. Shes my ‘other’ cousin, with Anisa being the one I normally talk about. Shaziya is incredibly bright, a photographic producer.

Anyhow, her and her boss, Bruce came over to the house and we started to talk. Adult conversations about balance, healthy food, priorites and all ensued, and having spent the entire previous day watching West Wing, I was speaking with a snippy attitude ;p. Whats worse though, is how the conversation flowed. I was trying to prove myself slightly cause I dont have a dynamic with Shaziya and Bruce; but part of it was just normal conversation… and whenever I’d make a point; my brain would stop.

Being smart, and looking like an idiot isn’t fun. Making a valid and important point (that isn’t obvious) and then losing your train of thought in between sucks.

Anyhow…

Most of my pics from Uzbekistan are finally back.

I’m mixed about them. Maybe thats what triggered the bad mood.

Some are good. Some really aren’t.

My photography was scattershot there; I wasn’t in theme mode, I wasn’t using my rules, I wasn’t paying enough attention to contrast, compostion and lighting, and I was out of practice.

It really annoyed me when I was there, and it still bugs me looking at these pictures

That being said, two pics came that I like. They aren’t of my trip but of the Wedding in Atlanta, and I don’t doubt that there are better pictures hidden in the rest, but heres the two that struck me.

Someone took this of me, and I really like it.

This picture was in someones study and it struck me. Like really struck me. Like I’d be willing to hang a lifesize one somewhere in the house. Anyone know anything about it?
Not sure if its the pretty girl, the reading, the feel of it, or whatever, but this took my breath away.

So, anyhow, gotta fudge my report; might fix photoblogging today. I could probably wrangle it so it just put it into a directory and there would be a bar showing the most recent 6 pics, but I’m not really wanting to seperate my blog and photoblogs… plus, with there being no way to blog from the new Treo, I’d like to be able to blog WITH my pictures. It’d def make me blog more (and probably less of these once-a-week scatterbrained blogs)

Cheers,
Rk

My New Treo

Not bad.

They were out of stock of the 600s, so I bought one temporarily at Best Buy.

Spent all of last night (After a big argument at home sadly) loading it up… even though I have a final project due… Bleh.

Once finals are up, look for reviews and a new blog design with photos from my Treo :) (while I’m at it, I might implement some of the tons of stuff I wanted to)

Here’s Adam!