Integral Itery

2009-05-02T00:13:00.003-04:00

Hi there, long time no write. :)

Sometimes, as they say, crap happens. It's been more than a few years since the last blog here, I guess blogging requires an innate ability to "talk as if someone was actually listening." After the few blog attempts previous and the underwhelming response, it felt like posts were doing more to waste my time than anything else. (Isn't the nature of a "blog" rather obtuse if one thinks about it -- a podium for one to stand up on and profess, blindly?) Call me modest, but isn't that kin to ego? I mean, why does one blog? What purpose does it serve?

I found myself asking this very question after giving in to the recent Twitter rage. Everyone seems to be "on Twitter" these days, and so I did the exploratory thing and checked it out. Created an "account," and even made two purpose-less tweets. I found the whole experience to be... completely useless. Nobody cares one iota what I am doing at any particular instant. The whole concept is rediculous in my opinion. Still, to each their own.

In any case, things have both changed little and changed lots in these past years, both personally and globally. (Isn't that true for all realities, lol.) I've been attending college for several years now -- 4.0 honors GPA in a dual-major, EE and CS degrees. It has been occupying all my time -- not because I'm really any smarter than anyone else (I'm not), but because I have to make up for the negative and self-destructive things I did early in my education. Being a rebellious teen, for whatever reason, can further permutate one's future in ways not possibly foreseeable. I'd rather not think about the details, and just focus on the end result.

In 7.5 hours, I have a final in Engineering Graphics, so have to cut this short. Maybe I will make a new entry soon, maybe not. It would be nice if I could assemble something helpful or at least interesting out of my wide array of interests and activities, but history is not on my side in that area. :)

In closing, thanks to everyone whom has taken a look here and perused my humble ramblings.

What do you think?

2005-08-28T13:06:00.000-04:00

Click on these photos for bigger versions then rate me on HotOrNot.com. :)

HOT or NOT
7.6

89 votes
Rate me!

RNAi - Cure for Cancer, AIDS here now

2005-07-28T22:10:00.000-04:00

Okay this is really big news. Scientists have just discovered a way to "turn off" specific genes in plants, animals and humans. What does that mean? Well many of the major diseases we face today - cancer, AIDS, syphillus, arthritis, cystic fibrosis, Huntington's, macular degeneration, nearly anything you can think of - all have the potential to be repressed or even cured by RNAi therapy.

What is RNAi? Please watch the streaming video by PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/02.html

If anyone is interested in helping out with this type of research, there is something you can do and it doesn't cost a thing. Just donate your unused CPU cycles to United Devices' "Human Proteome Folding" project. That's a small application that runs on your computer and folds genomes. It connects to the net every few days and grabs a new genome packet and sends the previous results. It is safe, unobtrusive, and runs in a background priority thread so you never even know it is there. Yes this is legit. It does use 90MB of RAM though, so 512MB is the system minimum. (Don't try to run it on an old computer.) Check it out: http://www.grid.org/projects/hpf/
You'll feel really good about yourself for signing up and joining the millions of others already decoding the human genome... go ahead, sign up right now! The faster we get the genome decoded, the faster we can make new drugs and treatments.

SOLTEK is the best Mainboard manufacturer Ever!

2005-06-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

Ok here's a little history. A few years ago, some scoundrel in Japan stole a competitor's formula for making capacitor dielectric (computer parts.) Since this new formula was much cheaper and simpler to make than his existing formula, he immediately went to production with it. What that guy didn't know, was that the formula he stole was incomplete! His company produced millions of tons of this stuff and sold it to a number of vendors. Needless to say, in every device which contains these parts, they fail prematurely. The bad formula degrades and produces hydrogen gas, which causes the part to "vent" or explode.

I bought a SOLTEK mainboard a little over a year ago, and it has been the best mainboard ever, and runs Windows XP rock-solid. Average system uptime is about 2 months. I'd heard horror stories where certain ABIT-brand mainboards had suffered from these bad-parts problem. Then one day my PC locked up and wouldn't start. So I popped the cover and lo and behold, this is what I saw: The circled parts are several of the defective capacitors leaking the bad formula out their tops.

So I did a google search and ran across the BadCaps.net forum, where they describe the situation in detail. Here's some more bad photos. Willawake, the kind and considerate moderator there, suggested that SOLTEK might actually provide replacement caps for my board. Even out of warranty! So I mailed them, and sure enough, no-questions-asked, they sent me free replacements! Now replacing 13 capacitors on a 6-layer motherboard is not exactly an easy task. But I'm about to try it. See http://www.badcaps.net/tips/ if you want to see how this is done.

If you need to custom order replacement caps for your board, you can do so here. Chris (the administrator) is a friendly and smart guy with great prices and fast service. There's even an option of sending your board in for repair.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with the level of service Willawake and Chris at BadCaps.net has provided, along with SolTek. SolTek by all means could have told me to get lost... but instead they mailed new parts outside of warranty, at no charge. Now THAT's service!

Wish me luck as I rip out my board and heat up the soldering iron... :)

A.R. Yngve

2005-06-06T22:31:00.000-04:00

I finished the Alien Beach novel yesterday. Very impressive! Such creativity and imagination. I'd highly recommend anyone who's into sci-fi to read this free online novel. The story touches on so many fundamental levels, it will leave you speechless. :)

Embarrassing myself

2005-05-17T15:19:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile, so I thought I'd post something especially odd. If I may embarrass myself totally, here are three really old, incomplete, and buggy electronic audio tracks in MP3 format. People often say "track" in reference to music which is composed traditionally, but the "tracks" below have a unique distinction in that they are literal tracks - 100% digital - the process of writing them is called "tracking." A very good module tracking program for Win32 today is MadTracker 2.5 or Modplug Tracker. (Winamp contains a special plugin for playing MT2 modules.) :)

These files have never been released, and were originally written around 1993 on a 386-33 in UltraTracker module format. Back in the day, UltraTracker was the premier "module" composition program written specifically for the Gravis Ultrasound soundcard. Winamp will play .ULTs, but its support for them is not 100% correct so some of the effects were mangled here. Most notably, some note cut-offs, micro-volume-ramping, panning, and portamentos were damaged. Being that there is no .ULT converter, we're stuck with the results (unless someone has a DOS 6.22 boot disk laying around so I can fire up UltraTracker. :)

DemiCon T7S - electronic / hard rock / dark
I was throwing around module ideas for a friend and fellow bandmember's BBS called The Seventh Sun. He wanted a .mod to play whenever a user connected, but it never fell through due to hardware limitations of the time. We gave up on the idea and I hacked the song to pieces while toying with a few 16-bit samples. So the track ended up making no sense. Spooky! :dazzled:

Fuhr Aime (Summer Melody) - 6:10 - electronic / classical / funk?
Shortly after highschool I met this girl named Amy Jablon... lets just say it was a very interesting time... kinda like how this track turned out. Four "piano hands" and two strings - it is an amalgamation of epic proportions. You were warned! :red:

Riding Stellar Winds - 8:09 - electronic / bass
This track was supposed to have about a hundred more samples in it, but I ran out of audio-card memory thus it was never completed. Later I switched to 16-bit samples but didn't change the song. It contains sub-20Hz audio frequencies, your teeth will rattle if you play it loud enough! Another very strange track, I'm not liable for any damages... :wink:

Great 'blog', updates? Cam

2005-03-22T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here is a rather cool website/blog about cooking. Mike can make a mean recycled carrot cake. Check it out: http://cookingforengineers.com

I'm actually working on some updates to heliosstudios.net (gasp!) Yep, planning to remove the frames and add an electronics section, where a recent project will reside. There are so many to add, this could take awhile... hopefully not 4 months, ack!

I'll give a few spoilers about the current project - it's an all-in-one "PCB station" which incorporates a double-sided photosensitive 12"x9" PCB exposer, a microprocessor-controlled Cupric Chloride etcher, and a photoresist stripper. This is to make high-quality circuit boards "at home." Incorporating this project on heliosstudios.net is possible because I -finally- broke down and bought a digital camera. So photos should be forthcoming througout the entire project as the design is finalized and constructed. It should be interesting.

Heroism is a Learned Behavior.

2005-02-19T02:38:00.000-05:00

I can't sleep because of something that just happened. Let me bait you with a little story. I'll forwarn you, it's not for the faint of heart.

It's funny, you always think it's simple to be a hero. Rescue the damsel from the railroad tracks, perform CPR to a swimmer and bring a drowned soul back to life, brave fire and ice to save life and limb, that sort of thing. Sounds easy, right?

Let me tell you a true story. Around 1990, when I was 15, I was at a buddy's house and his neighbor (of questionable intelligence... we'll call him Bob) was trying to get a huge wasp's nest out of the very top of a tree in his backyard. The guy tried a few different methods, none of which worked, and it was getting dark fast. His final idea was to burn the nest out using a torch on a stick. Well 2x4's were too heavy, so a "stick" ended up being about eleven pieces of aluminum tent pole, all taped together with duct tape and a kerosene-soaked rag on the end. Everything worked great for a few minutes, then suddenly one of the poles broke and the entire thing leaned over and hit a high-voltage line running behind his yard. I'll never forget I was sitting on the ground, looking directly at him, as I saw a blue flash in three locations simultaneously - at the electrical pole, at Bob's hands, and at his feet. I still remember to this day the curvy, spiky, erratic shape of the 18,000-volt arc that shot out his right foot, blowing a hole through his shoe.

Anyways, back to heroism. I always thought I'd be the type to act well under pressure, but boy was I totally wrong! Bob dropped the pole and turned around at us, and none of us could even move, we were so shocked. My jaw was agape that he was still standing! But then as soon as we started to think it wasn't that bad, Bob collapsed to the ground, motionless. A tiny voice said "you should do something." Bob's wife was a sobbing wreck, totally useless. Bob's mother was there, she took his pulse and covered him up with a blanket. Someone asked if he was alive and she said no. That little voice spoke again - "go DO something!" But I couldn't move - I tried, nothing; nobody else could move either. We were all in shock - as Bob lay there, not dying, but clinically dead.

The paramedics arrived in what seemed like hours but was actually 3 minutes, 41 seconds. They pulled the blanket off, gave us all a disgusted look (as if to say "Hey Stupid - doesn't anyone know CPR?") and started chest compressions, eventually leading to defibrillation. I thought I was going to be sick - me - who isn't grossed out by anything. Eventually they did get his heart started again, and Bob spent the next 6 weeks in ICU, clinically braindead. He had 3rd-degree burns on his hands and feet- what I saw looked more like eggplant then appendages. Then one day he came out of it, and over the course of a few months, miraculously regained 95% of his previous vigor. Still to this day, he cannot remember the electrocution or the events leading up to it.

Now. On to current-day events.

At 1:45am I was sitting at my PC with headphones on listening to a techno track and coding Win32 assembler. Suddenly I heard a loud "thud" - the first thing that came to mind was that it sounded like somebody bashing a door in very forcibly. I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I jumped up and snuck through the house to find out what was going on, not knowing if there was an intruder in my house. I looked out the window, expecting to see a burgular breaking into the garage or my car window bashed out or something. Instead, I see a car down the street stop, and a lady get out and run down the road. So I look further down and here is a second car, run off the road and into a concrete baricade.

(Now this is not the first time this has happened - about 5 years ago a similar situation occured when I heard this loud screeching sound coming all the way down the street fast, followed by the "thud." That car had NO LEFT FRONT WHEEL... hence the screeching sound as it gouged the pavement. In that instance, I ran outside to see if I could help the person who just totalled their car, but they jumped out and ran off - so I assumed the car was stolen.)

So now back to present. It's Friday night, 2AM, some drunk woman is yelling and screaming at the crashed car. Already I'm thinking, "Is it worth it, to get involved with some drunks who are already violent enough to crash one of their cars? What if it's her boyfriend in that car, and he's all pissed off and has a gun? Do I really want to get involved?" So I pondered a moment, and contemplated dialing 9-1-1 while I got some slippers on. It is 14°F outside.

I returned to the window to see the car smoking badly, and suddenly it burst into flames. I dialed help, and must have sounded very disjaunted to the operator as I watched, got my keys, and talked at the same time. The woman's yelling turned into frantic screams as she tried to free the driver from the car. It was so dark I couldn't see if the door could be opened or not, so I frantically searched for something that could break the window - and eventually found a hammer. By this time, the frantic lady was beating on the neighbor's doors, and he came running out to help. Together the three of us drug the driver of the car out of the way. I looked at her, almost disgusted that I was dragging some drunk from a burning car. I mean, how drunk and stupid can you get! The driver was another woman - so damn drunk she couldn't even form coherent sentences. Her left leg might have been broken.

While dragging this woman, the frantic lady said "hurry lets get her into my car before the cops get here..." but the cops had just arrived. I didn't stick around to get interrogated - at 14° and with minimal clothes, it gets cold real fast. The drunk driver had no problem lying on the ground as the cops interrogated her for 15 minutes, however. As they cart her off to the hospital, she probably has no idea how much trouble she's in. And, her car is totalled. That's gonna hurt a lot more than the hangover tomorrow.

So here we are, to the moral of the story. Had her door been unopenable and everything else been the same, the woman easily could have died. I would not have been strong enough to pull her from the car by myself, with my shoulder injury and all. They say that hindsight is always 20/20... but I'd like to believe that the third time's the charm. Everyone deserves a third chance. I handled the situation badly - again. Strike 2. I should have reacted faster and I hesitated. I should have checked the driver for injuries, but I was disgusted with her. I should have got her a blanket, but instead I thought of only myself. I should have grabbed a fire extinguisher from the garage and put her car out. There are a million things I coulda, woulda, shoulda done. Instead, I meagerly helped drag a drunk a few feet, then slithered off before the cops could corner me. Some hero I am. Apparently, I'm no better than I was at 15 - scary.

The fear of the unknown is proving to be a powerful deterrent for heroism. Could they have a gun - will they attack me - are they criminals - are they on drugs - are they running from the law, etc. These things sound trivial, almost paranoid in casual speech, but in the heat of the moment your survival instincts kick in and suddenly you are not the least bit thrilled about running out there and getting yourself burned, beat up, sliced to ribbons, or killed. I'd like to think that I can change, that I could become more selfless in this regard. But how? It's not like we can practice to be a hero every day. We can say all we want, but when the adrenaline starts flowin', cognitivity is irrelevant.

So it goes without saying that one can think they should perform well under extreme pressure, and do completely the opposite. The next time I'm in an dire straits I hope I can remember just one thing: my regrets about tonight. If I can remember those, then maybe I'll do the right thing next time.

MCJ

Ch.. ch... ch... changes

2005-02-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

Well, long time no write. Here's a summary of what's been going on.

My left shoulder is still pretty useless since the mountain biking accident in December. That's the last time I'll ever listen to anyone else regarding my own health - I knew I should have went to the doctor. Yeah, they might have had to operate, but it beats a life-long injury. It was starting to feel halfway normal a few weeks ago, then it started hurting again. And the atrophy is a bitch.

I haven't been able to sing Karaoke either, my diaphram was also damaged in the accident. I had told Bill's wife (Bill is my best friend) that I would sing some Journey and Kansas for them since she's such a big fan of classic rock. Well that never fell through; then she got pregnant and stopped coming up to the bar on Saturdays (the only night and reason I go to bars anymore.) I can't say anymore about that.

So I've been doing a lot of coding in my spare time. Not excel spreadsheet macros this time, or even microchip PIC-assembler, no, this time back to good-ol' PC assembler, hardcore MOV DWORD PTR EAX, 14F0h kind-of-stuff. If I can't do anything physical, at least I'll give my brain a workout.

I've found a great visual IDE for MASM32, called EasyCode. These two work very well together and I've already coded a few nice applications. Ramon Sala, the dev of Easy Code, is as nice a guy as one could meet. I've created a 16kb executable which extracts its own MIDI music file (30kb) and plays it. I'm going to give him the source code for use as one of his example programs. If interested, you'll be able to follow the ensuing conversation at the EasyCode MASM Forums as I'm waiting on permission to use the MIDI file from its author first.

Haven't practiced my Japanese in months. I think it's pretty much decided: I have AADD. I guess it's not that surprising, seeing my excessive history of "short-attention-spans" and "inability-to-finish-anything." But like that famous REM song... "Oh no, I've said too much..."

I'm still sitting on a business idea I dreampt up sometime last year which just might make me millions... yeah millions. Engineering a product, starting a company, going into production. I suppose it is possible; after seeing Scott Hiser startup a computer shop and run it with free employees for a year, anything is possible.

Oh well, I'll shut up for now. Sheesh, you'd think I would update my website sometime again. Oh well, nobody even knows it exists and nobody has commented or complained, so why bother? I do have some interesting projects I'd eventually like to host, like my acrylic PCB production station, which is halfway done. If only the average Joe knew half the things I am up to... "Oh no, I've said too much..."

Humanitarian Aid

2004-12-30T13:48:00.000-05:00

The 9.4-magnitude earthquake which rocked the Indian ocean as of this hour has claimed a staggering 116,000 confirmed dead. And if that carnage is not enough, every hour another thousand people are being reported dead - people from all walks of life. Thousands are reportedly American.

CNN.COM has setup a listing of humanitarian aid organizations.

Please consider donating.

Now isn't that ironic...

2004-12-27T01:28:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday I said that there have been no Tsunamis and what happens? An underwater earthquake of 9.4 magnitude - the strongest seen in the world in 60 years - hits underwater in the East. Waves 30 feet high slammed into 8 nations, killing more than 13,000 people as of this writing. Words cannot even begin to express how the world feels, this is beyond terrible - it is a nightmare come true.

On a microscopically miniscule scale, the Tsunami just couldn't wait until next year, could it? No...

My god, it didn't happen to spite me, did it?

Should I feel responsible? No, surely I did not cause it.

But I initiated the assumption that no Tsunamis have occured - could this have somehow sparked it into happening?

Ho Ho Ho...

2004-12-25T12:40:00.000-05:00

It's Christmas. I suppose Christmas means different things to different people. Some might celebrate it as a devoutly religious holiday, others as a simple gift-swapping day. A few practice "goodwill towards their fellow contrymen" for the one day out of the year, and still others thank their lucky stars to even be among their fellow men. Some are not so lucky.

There's much to be thankful for this year, wether we realize it or not. There haven't been any chemical warfare attacks. There hasn't been any Tsunamis. There hasn't been any "dirty bombs." No killer meteors. No big volcanoes. No nuclear meltdowns. Korea has unbunched their skivvies and Christianity, of all things, is booming in China. The sun hasn't burnt out and the solar system hasn't been gobbled up by a black hole - we're pretty damn lucky.

Personally I'm very thankful just to be alive. Misery could only describe the past week, but in the face of adversity comes the opportunity for growth.

It is said that the chrysalis of a butterfly must struggle to open it's cocoon; such is the way of nature. If someone sees this poor struggling creature and helps it by opening its cocoon, the butterfly will be too weak to live and will die.

May the holdays bring you growth above all things.

-MCJ

Granted

2004-12-20T16:28:00.000-05:00

Today marks the day I was involved in a rather serious moutain-biking accident. The reprocussions have been diminishing slowly over time, but very slowly.

After an accident it's ironic how thankful one can be for even the simplest things in life. We all take little things for granted without thinking much about it, but how could we get by without them? It's too bad an accident is sometimes needed to realize how valuable these things are. I thought I tried hard to be compassionate before... but there's nothing like having reality slap you back into perspective. The reality is that life, in all its various splendors, is a truly miraculous thing and should be cherrished as long as possible. Because you never know what the day has in store for you... so live it up while you can.

-MCJ

Building Bridges

2004-12-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

Where has your innocence gone?
Do you just know too much?
Are you comfortable in your skin?
When does the strip begin?

Some are takin' and some are givin'
Buildin' bridges for the livin'
Some are takin' some are givin' back
There's nothin' if the truth won't survive.

-INXS 1997

Relationships

2004-11-14T03:19:00.000-05:00

Life works by means of opposites. You can't get what you want and you don't want what you've got. But the interrelation does not end there, no, of course it integrates in iteration. You can't get what you want, so you try harder and harder, self-propagating the want and illusion. You don't want what you've got (especially after trying so damn hard) because the entire acquization process was based on egotistical want and not fundamental feeling.

A lot of guys "hunt" women for sport, for conquest, for "alpha male-itis." As far as I've seen, 100% of women fall for the same old same old. Marrage has become something we do with anyone we feel more than a passing use for. Even those who are so sure their relationships are perfect, commonly find out a few years down the road that things are not how they seem. Not to say that all marrages are doomed to fail, but with a >50% devorce rate....

With guys, I'd say 90% don't want love from a woman; they want sex. Hot sex, cold sex, washing-machine-spin-cycle sex, day sex, night sex, kinky sex, morning sex, shower sex, phone sex, and oh yeah- someone to pay the bills. (Maybe cook, clean, and drive them home from the bar if they can get away with that too.) A woman should be cute enough to instantly turn you on, but ugly enough that all the other guys don't con her into going home with them instead.

Women I'd say all have this same basic idea in their heads. They want this sexy Knight who is personable and outgoing, spontaneous, cute enough to make you weak in the knees but rough enough to make you look twice. He should be mysterious and aloof, but loyal and at the same time reckless. He should sometimes be forceful and overbearing, versus the "wimpy guys" who never do such things. He should rescue you from boredom (whenever, many times a day) and he should always have something engaging to say no matter what, so your attention never wavers. He's a cute little demon puppydog with a bright neon begging-bone.

Everyone says or thinks they want friendship in a partner. But I don't think most people really understand this. Two people get together, get engaged, get married... all based on something they think they feel and rush to call "love." A few years later, once all the newness wears off, what are they left with? A crumbling foundation from which no real friendship was ever created.

Granted, it's hard for a man and a woman to really become friends. There's always going to be some sexual tension there for the guy, and she's always going to wonder about the romantic component - that's inescapable. I never understood if women were blowing me off when they said "I can't date you because it would ruin our friendship." Is it really that hard to believe that love can be an extension of friendship, not exclusive of it?

As long as all guys want is sex and all girls want is a knight, then relationships will continue to fail miserably, because there is no relation taking place.

A relationship, as the word implies, means a working friendship. Friendships are not perfect, because nobody is perfect. Frienships take effort. Like learning a difficult task, being friends is not always easy. Moreso, friends are dynamic - they change - and you must make sacrifices and strive to keep up. Do you go to the bar and try to take home someone who is good for one evening, or do you work on something more worthwhile? One-nighters may be physically satisfying, but they leave you spiritually empty.

I can see where women might shy against being both friends and lovers. Women are highly emotional creatures by design and so it hurts deeply when they are repeatedly abused by men. Why would any woman knowingly subject herself to repeated heartache this way? Isn't it much easier to just tell yourself to keep some distance?

In the end, it must come down to the individual people involved. The best guy in the world ain't gonna get a single date if every woman shrugs him off because he comes off as only wanting to be friends. Some women are totally unapproachable unless a guy uses the "time-tested" pickup lines. If you get a guy and gal together who are both willing to try to be friends, then that would be a truly miraculous thing indeed. Given time, the romantic part should kick in naturally... which has worked in the past with much greater success then today's sickening dating scene.

Do you know what love is? It is not found in the seat of a car, or on a shiny ring, or muddled in any quantity of words. Love transcends words and in fact, at its core, words only serve to disgrace love. True love is so powerful that unless your mate feels the same way, voicing your love will likely drive them away. Some people use the word "love" too freely - saying it on every phone call, before bed every night, to a new lover, etc. Don't fall into these lazy habits of thinking - like the boy who cried wolf, how will anyone take you seriously when you really mean it? Besides, your mate will KNOW you love them by your actions, not by your words.

EOF

Light

2004-11-10T03:54:00.000-05:00

There are a million instruments of war, yet only one instrument of peace.

Creed

2004-11-10T03:50:00.000-05:00

Pride and worth is found within one's self, not in the demoralization, subjigation, or usage of others.

2004-11-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

S.o.u.n.m.o.t.i.v.a.t.e.d.s.o.u.s.e.l.e.s.s
.I.s.t.h.i.s.s.t.i.l.l.d.e.p.r.e.s.s.i.o.n.?
S.o.a.l.o.n.e.s.o.w.h.a.t.?
.B.a.d.t.h.o.u.g.h.t.s.-.d.o.n.'.t.c.a.r.e.i.f.a.n.y.o.n.e.c.a.r.e.s
N.o.t.h.i.n.g.t.o.l.o.s.e
.N.o.t.h.i.n.g.t.o.g.a.i.n
T.h.i.n.k.I.n.e.e.d.h.e.l.p
.L.i.f.e.i.s.b.u.t.a.d.r.e.a.m.w.i.t.h.i.n.a.d.r.e.a.m

FF VII

2004-10-15T13:55:00.000-04:00

Been spending some time playing Final Fantasy 7. Yeah, it's an older game, but it isn't as shallow as some of these newer games coming out (take Shrek 2 for instance - completed the whole game in one sitting, how much fun is that?)

Just wanted to say that since I switched to Mozilla FireFox, I have not been infested with adware, malware, or any kind of malicious program. Cheers!

Floccinaucinihilipilification

2004-10-08T01:33:00.000-04:00

Linkin Park - Meteora
Contemplative/Annoyed

leaves crunch under foot
golden spires light the land
ice crystals on grass

Modus Operandi

2004-10-06T02:27:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wondered what it is that drives a person to insanity? What is it that finally trips their trigger... could it be something transient, like an abusive father or exposure to craziness or drugs... or could it be all the little twisted, neurotic things we "sane" people do to each other throughout our lifetimes? Like when we speed up in traffic so the person in the next lane can't merge in front of us. Or deliberately stall our cart when shopping so someone has to go around us. Or chat with the bank teller while someone else (on their lunch break) stands and waits impatiently. Or when talking on the phone we ask someone to hold on a second, and decide not to get back to them, nor return their calls. Or we only talk to them when there is nothing else better to do or nobody else better to talk to.

Well what if one person was always the same person? What if the stars had predispositioned things this way, a way in which one person was more likely to experience these sorts of things than another? What if there could be no other outcome for this person? How would they cope? What would they feel? How would they react? How sensitive would they become to personal attacks of any kind? After a day of it? A week? A month? A year? 10 years?

Haiku

2004-10-05T01:33:00.000-04:00

way over my head
japanese kanji, haiku
i am the "new rice"

Socialite Prisonality

2004-09-28T16:23:00.000-04:00

Hoshang N. Akhtar
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.

ゆうしゅう

2004-09-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

Rode out to the Maumee state forest APV area yesterday for some serious off-roading. It was quite busy there, quite dusty too. The place was nearly full of MX-ers, the usual assortment of 4-wheelers, even some kids on a go-kart. Everyone wanted to enjoy the last few nice days of summer as much as possible. Those MX'ers really hate it though when they get passed by a dude on a street-legal dirtbike. ;)

Learning Japanese is hard. Disappointments abound. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I don't have to. I just want to. Is wanting to enough?

れい　あやなみ

2004-09-25T21:30:00.000-04:00

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Anyway from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
I just want to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Lyrics "Run" Copyright (C)2004 Snow Patrol
Rei Ayanami (C) Neon Genesis Evangelion

Broken

2004-09-22T18:50:00.000-04:00

These wings, broken as they seem, were not always so.
Once they were an ascender's dream a long time ago.
A dream made real through sacrifice and good will;
an idea, a concept of right that cannot be killed.
It only lived in the minds of mankind; me and you.
But now it sits damned, beaten, broken and blue.
Of all things holy and right; how can we just sit by
and not help the ascender fight to regain life?
For the wind in our sails depends on this being;
we so indifferently fail to consider her meaning.
Of what life would be like, without any concience;
without any light to guide us, teach and haunt us.

So the next time you rasie your fist, or yell at another,
imagine the angel you just hit - was your mother.
For salvation is gained by honesty to one's self;
not judgement by anyone or punishment to hell.
Cultivate the angel inside you, and her wings will grow;
until there is no limit to how high you can go.

Text Copyright (C)2004 Mark Jones / Helios Studios
Image Copyleft Yukito Kishiro's Gunnm Cyberfantasy

たいくつ。

2004-09-20T21:49:00.000-04:00

Been studying Japanese a lot over the past few days. Just for the fun of it I did a match.com search for single friends in Japan. Maybe it was because match.com only accepts English wording but nearly half the people listed were caucasian world-travelers. Now is it really that hard to find friends in a city of millions? Hmm. I have yet to find anyone willing to penpal, maybe it is that hard.

Bush is ahead in the polls... I'm so sick of politics... if he doesn't win by popular vote I'm sure he'll screw the election again just enough to win. Frankly, I'm surprised no pro-bush supporters have ragged on me, but then again, nobody ever reads this, so...

No work on the webpage. It's rough when you get negative feedback for two site design PROPOSITIONS...

Type-O-Negative: Life is Killing Me LP

Bush Sucks, Kerry sucks, vote for Me

2004-09-17T20:56:00.000-04:00

Everyone hates Americans more since Bush weaseled his way into office nearly 4 years ago, and that really irks me. Maybe I'll go live in New Zealand, Norway, or Japan where I don't have to be under constant flack from every Thom, Dyck, or Harrier. I'm with a lot of Americans when I say I don't want to police the rest of the world or fight one man's private vendettas. Yeah, terrorism is a problem, but is gun-touting Texas violence the best answer? And what ever happened to COVERT OPS? 1000+ soldiers dead (RIP)... I feel most americans dislike Bush too. So then you get the Kerry supporters who feel Kerry is THE saint who is going to fix everything and can do no wrong (kind-of like Bush thinks he's the saint, you know? Funny how religion is the root of all evil. Ask Lucifer how he fell from grace!)

I got a call from a political survey team the other day. They asked me who I was going to vote for. "Neither," I said. "If there was even a half-assed independent running, I'd vote for them."

I think the entire US legal system is inherently flawed on so many levels. Sure, it might have been just the thing a hundred years ago, but society and technology has exploded way out of proportion today. It's like trying to control an ant colony with a coal shovel, it's just not doing it folks! The rich can buy their way out of almost anything (ask O.J. Simpson who literally got away with murder (Michael Jackson, well we all know what he's guilty of) and ironically, Martha Stewart who is playing the escape goat!) Also in this lovely system of ours, the poor can get rich by spilling coffee on themselves and suing McDonalds (and winning of all things!) http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b77256026e6.htm

When your computer gets all full of junk and it just doesn't want to run anymore, what do you do with it? You don't keep patching it, hoping it will fix itself. No, you RE-FORMAT and start over. And that's exactly what I think a great many things need around here: restructuring and reformatting, before its too late. From election policies (and punishments for falsifying/misleading/lying) to legal system reconstruction. Same with bullying/catering to Big Oil, pushing the hydrogen car idea (it is NOT going to work people, I can prove it!) and all the other trash that has become our daily lives.

If we look back at history, all the greatest civilizations have fallen. Romans, Mayans, Egyptians, etc. Will Americans be next?

As the world turns...

The 6° of Dreams

2004-09-15T11:26:00.000-04:00

I really love dreams, but wish I remembered more of them. I get lucky with maybe two or three a month, that's it, though they say you dream every night. It's fun to analyze dreams and uncover what they really mean. Every once-in-a-while you experience an amazing, life-altering dream and the other night was one of those. It appeared to be about how astrology works, but as usual with dreams it was about the dreamer and contains many levels of meaning. Interestingly, it was very much like a music video. I think it would make an awesome music vid, and that's going to be the goal eventually. I plan on creating a bunch of various vids for my homepage (if I ever get a layout working well) and this would likely be one of them.

Imagine a hard dance beat with lots of echo and reverberation, very spacey in ambience and atmosphere but not lame. Now see our solar system and the position of the planets. Each orbit becomes illustrated and the planet's positions shown in relation to each other and the 12 zodiacal houses. Around each planet and orbit forms the transparent outline of gears, and all the planets and orbits are shown to interact as if they were really geared together.

Now show people on earth, walking autonomously as if under mind-control. A transparent gear is shown wrapped around each body. We see a man walking stiffly down the sidewalk, his eyes fixated straight ahead as if being controlled by some force. Other people are seen doing the same thing, like zombies, oblivious to the world around them and being controlled solely by the gears.

As the positions of the planets change, those motions filter down to the people of earth and cause their trajectories, positions, and goals to change. We start following a pretty woman who normally goes to the salon this time every morning. Venus, the planet of beauty, is shown to move from a socially-oriented house to an asthetic-dreamy-kind-of house. Like clockwork, we see the gear motion channeled all the way down to her spot on Earth, where the woman abruptly changes her direction and instead of walking to the beauty salon, walks to an art school where she now draws beautiful things. We cut away to see a man walking by outside, his eyes flinching towards the beautiful woman but never fully making contact.

Then we see a group of young children swinging autonomously, back and forth in unison like robots. The Sun moves into the Pisces house (known for its day-dreaming quality) then all the kids "change gear" and begin pretending, dreaming up new playmates and taking random activities. The man walks by, his eyes straining hard to look at the kids, but he cannot deviate from straight ahead.

Then we see a group of businesspeople walking out to their cars as the planet Mars (planet of war and violence) moves into a particularly dangerous house. The men all have simultaneous road rage and end up in an accident. There is fire and an explosion, general chaos. Our man hears this, and struggles to stop himself but like the others is drawn into his car, where he panics, driving straight towards the accident and the video suddenly ends. Was he a victim of causality, or did he swerve at the last moment?

An alternate ending would be to have the man concentrate very hard, breaking the universe's hold on him and unleashing the true individuality and creativity within. Then he could decide not to get into that car...

(C)2004 Mark Jones / Helios Studios

Digital Itery, Schedules

2004-09-14T14:30:00.000-04:00

On my desk sat a 6-CD stock photo collection. Tired of the big clunky thing, I condensed all the files into one folder and burnt it to a DVD, then chucked the bundle and replaced it with one DVD in a slimline case. Now that's progress!

Then I remembered a 4-CD set of audio effects that I should probably concatenate into 3dsmax. So I got those CD's out to quickly "cram" them, but found out they were in CD-Audio format... so I ripped 400 audio tracks with SoundForge and saved them, then renamed 400 files... BLAH. That's Digital (as in fingers) Itery. Eventually though, I'm working on a unified 3dsmax library that is seperate from the installation folder. Then all the content I've collected over the years (maps, materials, etc.) can finally be kept independent of the 3dsmax folder, making reinstalls/upgrades 1000x more enjoyable. 3dsmax7 should be coming out soon.

Miller is having his second diaper party this saturday, this will be the second one I've attended in one month! Next Tuesday, Smallville S4 airs, looking really interesting this year with Clark coming back from visiting his (real) father. The (miraculous) return of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda S5 airs on Sept. 24th, and the long-anticipated Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars airs Oct 17th @ 9pm. (I still have no idea how they're going to continue either storyline, they were so fatalistic.) Both shows saved at the last minute by the fans, imagine that.

よろしく、
　マルク

The Mind of a Dreamer

2004-09-13T00:05:00.000-04:00

If you could look into the mind of a dreamer, what do you think you would find there?

おはよ！ Ohayo! Hello!

2004-09-11T20:19:00.000-04:00

わたしのなまえはマルクです。　Watashino namae wa maruku desu. It appears that Blogger does allow Japanese characters in posts. :)

Today J and I cleaned some of the garage and rebuilt the forks on our bikes. It's been a service-oriented kind of day. J's KHS (it looks a lot like this only blue:) got a new black Marzochi fork (100mm travel) and my Univega, (looks like this but all silver:) got Lucas's unused Marzochi single lockout, 80mm fork. I owe Lucas. :-) This is twice the suspension than the Rox Shox Mag-10's that I had on there, or the Rox Shox Judy XC's before. We cruised down to Highland Park: and buzzed around the new 2-mile circle track, then launched some fun boxes and got mega air. But eventually we got annoyed at the little kids that constantly kept getting in the way. (Dunno when this photo was taken but there are literally 50+ kids there at any given time.) I wouldn't mind taking my rollerblades there, but that might be the death of me. :-)

Today was also the 3-year anniversary of 9/11. It's hard to believe it's been that long already. I probably would have forgotten it was 9/11 if nobody had said anything. In one aspect it's nice to forget about something that horrific, but in another sense 9/11 must never be forgotten. How can you do both?

Integral Itery

2004-09-10T18:11:00.000-04:00

Is "itery" even a word? Not according to dictionary.com, but it should be. I have a quirk. Einstein believed there was some single force or relationship that binds all the physicalities around us, but that was one theory he couldn't pinpoint, his so-called "unified field" theory. While only similar, often I step aside and mentally look at the big picture and find myself dreaming bigger, to the biggest picture, searching for the common denominator between everything we see around us, maybe even creation itself, the one thing that links everything in our crazy universe and gives it all a sense of reality and meaning. This is my religion: Integral Itery.

The more I look, the more it seems like there are actually two primitives present in every aspect around us. Duality, and Iteration. From miniscule subatomic particles to deep-field astronomy, everything has a polar or dualistic quality, meaning it has a positive or negative charge, trait, or bias. Take atoms for instance. The "basic building block" of all matter is nothing more than a conglomeration of (bipolar) charges. Even when we smash atoms to pieces, all the fragments are charged. And if atoms are not the smallest building block but are made out of quarks, and quarks are made out of ... and ... are made out of... see what I mean by integration? As humans we tend to think of things in simple terms and units we can understand, but the universe knows no such limitations or concepts. I really believe it is infinitely big, and infinitely small, or in other words has an infinite magnitude. And an infinite number of polarities.

As for the duality or polarity component, imagine these examples:
* A regular atom with too many electrons is called "negatively charged," since the extra electron is "eager" to jump off and attach to a neighboring atom (even more so if the neighbor is missing an electron, or so-called "positively charged.") They are dualistic because both the atoms contain bipolar charge components, and differing atoms react in a bipolar fasion towards each other.
* So-called "Antimatter" (which is no longer science fiction) is nothing more than atoms with their charges reversed (again, a bipolar relationship.) Their electrons are positively charged and protons negatively so while the neutrons do not change. Some theorize about entire universes made of anti-matter, but for some reason matter prefers the "standard" charge polarity, perhaps because that is the dominant matter in our universe today. When an anti-matter atom contacts a "standard" atom, the attraction is so great that all atomic bonds are destroyed and pure energy is released - a staggering amount of energy - a makes-the-hydrogen-bomb-look-miniscule kind of energy.
* Newton's laws of physics - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you hit a baseball with a bat, the energy you put into moving the bat is transferred to the ball as the two hit. This is dualistic in nature because both it always involves two entities and the reactions are always opposite in vector. This law applies in all magnitudes, from atomic collisions to stellar supernovae, barring any anomalies (which also can be factored into the result.)
* Society's notion of good/evil. Right/wrong. Fair/unfair. Ever since the written word we have tried to put our observations into binary terms, because everything has at least one dualistic quality. How can there be light without dark? God without Devil? Creation without Death?
* Earth's seasons: We don't really have 4 seasons here on Earth, that is a man-made concept. What we do have are periods of cooler and warmer weather based on the mean inclination of orbit. So the Earth's surface gets hot/cold, hot/cold, another bipolar trait. Like all the other binaries, there is an integral recursion to this cycle. In terms of the Earth's weather, we call these deviations "ice ages." This is also a misnomer since there are not just periods of cold weather, but periods of warm weather also. This cycle takes about 5000 years but for some reason we have maintained about the same global surface temperature for the last 3000 years. (Long overdue for an "ice-age.") If we've stayed so warm due to humans and our relentless usage of energy (and subsequent release of heat) then I'd hate to see what the "warm age" will bring in addition to this.
* Earth's magnetic poles: Here is an especially interesting topic. We all know that the Earth has a North and South magnetic pole, (again, dualistic), but has this this always been the case? Evidence in ancient pottery and rock formations show the Earth's magnetic state "flips" every 200,000 years like clockwork - south becomes north, north becomes south. The flip takes about 1000 years, in which time the Earth's magnetosphere is radically distorted and does not do its job of protecting the surface from stellar radiation.The scary part is that our last flip was 700,000 years ago - 500,000 years overdue. Studies show the flip is well underway now. It is theorized that the reason Mars no longer has water or any other surface features is that it's magnetosphere dissipated when its core solidified and the surface was literally "washed away" by solar activity over millions of years.
* Our moon: It is believed that life would not have formed or evolved, or would be radically different, if we had no moon. This orbital-binary counterpart to the earth is essential to our growth and survival. In fact we believe it was created from a rogue planet called Orpheus that slammed into the earth billions of years ago. The moon's face is riddled with countless craters from asteroids. It gives us tides. Women's fertility cycles are even synched with the moon.
* Our solar system: We are taught that the planets revolve around the sun (ironically, this is just like electrons revolve around an atom), but this is not the only vector of motion. There is another, less known bipolar motion, and that is "up" and "down." Not only does the Earth, and Mars, and Pluto circle around the sun, but they also "wobble" up and down in their orbits. So to does this solar system wobble in its orbit around the Milky Way. And the Milky Way wobbles in orbit around something even bigger, etcetera. This is why there are periods of greater meteor activity - the earth is passing through the middle of the solar system, the so-called "oort cloud," where the concentration of stellar fragments is greatest.

As for the integration or recursion component of Integral Itery, imagine these examples:
* Just the fact that entire Solar Systems looks surprisingly similar to one tiny atom makes a person wonder how closely the two are related. Of course a solar system is not made up of one atom... but what if an atom were an entire solar system? That is infinite recursion.
* Darwin Theory: That life evolved from one single event. Something happened, and a cell was formed, then it divided, and multiplied, and evolved, growing more and more intelligent each cycle if it wasn't killed. That is one theory of life on Earth. Look at a dog: despite all the apparent physical differences, you can see some startling similarities to humans. Dogs have lungs, red blood cells, a heart, ribcage, spine, appendages, a nose, ears, and eyes. They can feel pain, they can think. Is it really so hard to believe that a single cell, reborn trillions and trillions of times but changing a tiny bit each time, might end up being a human or a dog? The integral part of this is that each life cycle compounds on the previous life cycle, adding to the traits/physicalities that were insuffecient and subtracting from those that served no purpose. Even today we are still dependant on oxygen, just like the first organisms to evolve. Our little fingers on the other hand - they have been shrinking over the generations because we do not use them enough.
* Astrology, the study of the positions of the heavens and how they relate to us: A lot of people are skeptical about astrology and for good reason; so many half-baked columns are posted nearly everywhere in magazines, online, etc by phony readers. These thus giving Astrology a bad name and lead to its dismissal. But for those of us with accurate knowledge of astrology, we know and can't deny that astrology bears quite a startling element of truth. And the only reason why, must be because we are related to the stars in some way. The method how is irrelevant, if we are related to the stars in any way, then that implies a huge recursion. I believe the only way a system like this could be formed is if the framework for it was "predefined" before the universe was created. Because we are part of our universe, we must be a part of it. As Carl Sagan said, "We are all made of star-stuff."

So where am I going with all this? Simply put, I belive the universe, no wait, whatever is bigger than the universe, whatever contains it or created it or started it... is a primitive concept based on a simple relationship between a dualistic force and time. I could try to express it as a mathematical relationship, f(int)/c(sqr) but feel it's true nature would be indescribable anyways. Suffice it to say, a bipolar force, like ripples on a pond, compounded over an infinite amount of time with its effects rippling into other domains and further integrating and refining, is the basis for all existance as we know it.

Thanks for reading.
(C)2004 Mark Jones / Helios Studios

To XML or not to XML?

2004-09-07T23:23:00.000-04:00

Well after a well-needed reboot, IE decided to stop displaying my page... J's PC was working fine yesterday. "The XML page cannot be displayed. Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later." Uhh yeah, ok, all of a sudden the bottom has fallen out.

The referrer-based XHTML and CSS validator links I was using had been reporting things were fine when I knew they were not. So I re-linked them using the URL instead of referrer and presto, a ton of new errors. Who would have thought, errors being a good thing? : ) Looks like frames are not supported in XHTML strict, guess that makes sense. Oh well, was looking for a reason to get rid of them anyways, back to the drawing board!

On deck: "Simple Minds - Spaceface (Tomcraft Remix)"

Dozen Doves Divided

2004-09-07T02:16:00.000-04:00

Impulse Tracker module by Acumen (Milan Kolarovic), July '98. I guess I really am a nerd. :)

Been working on the site some more. Haven't updated anything live yet, skinned some pages and been pulling my hair out between XHTML and CSS. You'd think an accredited standard format would be easier to code and more widely supported, right? Ha! Tried bringing up the page on my nephew's computer but his IE said it couldn't display XML??? That's insane. He had some spyware funk crop up, maybe that skewed things.

Finished [temporarily] patching the garage roof, supposed to rain tonight. My friend Bill came over and we talked about permanent fixes. (We get together and become do-it-yourselfers-on-crack, we remodeled his whole house.) The garage roof never had drip edge installed, only weather stripping, so I'll end up re-shingling, replacing all the edge decking, sistering in new stud reinforcements, replacing all the facia, residing, installing dripedge, and re-hanging the gutters. Then next on the agenda is ripping out the house's 1950's 4-circuit fusebox and rewiring the entire electrical system - house and garage. Maybe I should invite Hometime or This Old House to stop by. :)

Wednesday I finally get my hair cut. Can't stand it long! Good thing too, second ToledoFilmmakers.com meeting. Going to vote on press pass ID's for the group, eat some subs, watch some clips. :)

Echoes of Salvation

2004-09-05T15:38:00.000-04:00

That's a sequenced track (module) by Moby / Anasthasia Productions (1995.) The vintage stuff is cool. :)

I'm working on the webpage again. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, another cross-platform limitation (non-compliance bug) crops up. IE can't apply CSS :hover attributes to anything other than links, and will not scroll a frame if "scroll = no" is set. Grrr. Of course everything works fine in FireFox, but not many people have seen the light and upgraded yet. Even if MS [ever] releases IE 7, I'll never go back. Mozilla rocks! </shameless plug>

It's Sunday. The neighbors are throwing some kind of party. I should fix the broken spoke on my mountain bike and get some excercise rather than wondering about what could be. Yeah, I'll go do that.

Round 42

2004-09-03T20:42:00.000-04:00

Have you ever played that ancient PC game? Probably not. It was a simple game, much like space invaders only there were 42 levels. Sometimes life feels like that. Sometimes just driving to the store feels like Round 42.

Garbage - Medication - dunno why but I love that track so much. One of these days I'll make a video for it.

Today I did a lot of thinking about the 6000 square-foot garage roof. Although it is possible to shingle in the fall months, it is not recommended because there will be no solar heat to "glue" the shingles together. And after all that's happened to it already, I don't want any more surprises. So I went shopping at the local Lowe's. Who says guys can't shop? Left with a bunch of stuff I didn't really need. :) I cut out 7" squares of aluminum flashing and glued these underneath the shingles in the damaged areas. It may only be a temporary fix but at least no more water will get in. The funny thing is, there is no water damage visible inside, otherwise maybe this would have been caught before the roof was destroyed.

I figured out exactly what went wrong. The first row of shingles at the bottom of the roof should have its "flaps" cut off (or be rotated upside-down) so that no seams line up at the roof edge. The next layer of shingles is supposed to be moved horizontally 6" so that any seams underneath are always covered by a "flap." Well, on this roof the first row had its flaps cut off just fine, but the second row was not moved over 6", it was moved over 12" - which caused seams to line up every 3'. Over time, water running into those seams ate away at the felt underneath, then through the decking and into (and through) the trusses. Very serious consequence from such a simple mistake. :(

How about some good news? The Earth didn't crash into the sun today, and Elvis is still supposedly dead. In other news, it really is Friday, already. After tinkering with my site I'll be going up to the Grill for some intoxicated fun & billiards. All work and no play...

The Birthday of Rei Ayanami

2004-09-02T23:56:00.000-04:00

The companion CD to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Need a little perspective, because today was one of those days. No, not those days, but those days, although it could always be worse. Found out there are 8 holes in the garage roof and some of the trusses are destroyed. Apparently the leading row of shingles never had their 'flaps' cut off, so this left nice groves for water to get in front of the drip edge stripping and eat away at the decking, fascia, headers, you name it. It will probably cost $2000+ just in materials to string an entire new roof... do I really need another project?

Then my dog killed a cat. In the past he's killed mice, moles, squirrels, even a groundhog, but never a cat. This might have been the neighbor's cat! It was dark, at first I thought it was a racoon, but when I tried to coax Bud inside he just went nuts. I feel terrible. :(

On a lighter note, I completed a few CSS tutorials and should be able to restart my page as strict XHTML/CSS... whenever I get the time.

Tuesday Nights

2004-08-31T17:49:00.000-04:00

Listening to Winamp streaming EnergyRadio.FM (http://213.61.7.231:8670) Cool trance track. Feeling quite goofy tonight.

Intelligent people supposedly don't get bored, but they sure can get restless. What's there for a single 29yr old male to do around here? Go to the movies alone? That sucks. People look at you weird like you're some kind of fruitcake. My billiards skills are rusty, partly because the bar scene just plain sucks. Sorry but I've never met anybody worthwhile at a bar. I'd like to meet some hot science chicks, yeah... oh that's right, I'm in Toledo! It'll never happen. Closest I've gotten is riding my mountain bike on the UT campus trail. They are so indifferent.

I really should finish my latest JAL microcontroller project, Thermal Sniffer 2.0, but dammit I don't want to, I'm sick of it! But I do want to start on a JAL-IDE interface project. And I did tell myself I was going to make an intelligent alarm for my motorcycle some time this year... and one for the garage too... and maybe even a B-format surround audio recorder for DV. And I shouldn't forget about the Proteus VSM project. Sheesh, I spread myself so thin! :( Haven't even had any time this year to work on my HG rating. That's partly because lessons are 2 hours north and partly because I never finished the Thermal Sniffer 2.0 project, or so I keep telling myself. It looks like even my Nihongo friends have all but forgotten about me, gomennasai! Can't say that I blame them; I have too many damn google groups!

The city just built a nice paved walkway (probably about a 2-mile circle, pretty hilly...) around Highland Park. I was thinking of trying it out on rollerblades... naah. Maybe I'll just go out for a drive. Roll down the windows and let in the cool night air.

Hmm...

2004-08-29T18:18:00.000-04:00

Been tinkering with my webpage, coding in notepad, trying out various things. (Don't go there, it sucks.) Seems that Mozilla FireFox does not like javascript opacity code. This sample works fine in IE to "dim" a button when not in use:

But in FireFox, this is not understood. Suppose it could be tweaked to work by doubling the size of the code, but that's just dumb. Besides, more and more browsers are turning JS off because of all the bad things it is typically used for.

Seems like everyone is using Cascading Style Sheets instead nowadays. A really great example of CSS opacity can be found at http://www.uds.jolt.co.uk/opacity/. Cool, but another thing to learn! Further research found an interesting site, http://www.csszengarden.com/. It's amazing what a small CSS file can do to a properly formatted html file. Hmm... looks like I'll be learning CSS. :)

Well here we go...

2004-08-28T23:11:00.000-04:00

Someone once said, "Hey, why don't you start a Blog?"

I gave it no thought. Who wants to hear someone talk about themselves? Isn't that called being conceited? Stupid. No, I couldn't, nobody would want to read my ramblings. Would I sound like a "Diary of a Madman," or an "absent-minded-professor-on-crack?" Shoot, I might even scare myself!

Still, there was an allure. Maybe it could be like a live autobiography. Maybe someone might get a kick out of it. Maybe I could get someone to think, or to laugh, or cry with me, hate me or love me. All at once the daring part of me said, "Why the hell not.What are you waiting for? Ya only live once..." so who am I to refuse? Try it, you might like it. And I'll try anything once. ;)

So this is the humble beginnings of what I hope might be a worthy read... insight into the mind of a dreamer, the heart of a reformed sinner, the struggle between opposing personality traits and the evolution through it all.

--MCJ

Integral Itery

What do you think?

RNAi - Cure for Cancer, AIDS here now

SOLTEK is the best Mainboard manufacturer Ever!

A.R. Yngve

Embarrassing myself

Great 'blog', updates? Cam

Heroism is a Learned Behavior.

Ch.. ch... ch... changes

Humanitarian Aid

Now isn't that ironic...

Ho Ho Ho...

Granted

Building Bridges

Relationships

Light

Creed

FF VII

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Modus Operandi

Haiku

Socialite Prisonality

ゆうしゅう

れい あやなみ

Broken

たいくつ。

Bush Sucks, Kerry sucks, vote for Me

The 6° of Dreams

Digital Itery, Schedules

The Mind of a Dreamer

おはよ！ Ohayo! Hello!

Integral Itery

To XML or not to XML?

Dozen Doves Divided

Echoes of Salvation

Round 42

The Birthday of Rei Ayanami

Tuesday Nights

Hmm...

Well here we go...

れい　あやなみ