lol

....is cool, ja?

The 'Recipie' Book v0.1

I'd tell you the tale behind the title, but I fear dissection. He has the kit, I tell you.

Recipie 1:: Burnt Garlic Rice

1. Boil rice. Don't burn it (it's easier - and messier - than you think. Yes. I burnt rice. Stop laughing).
2. Fry garlic in a pan. Oil is generally recommended in this step. Go to a golden-brown (I've ALWAYS wanted to say that).
   
3. Add rice to pan. This is the crucial part.
4. Add oregano (it was lying around).
5. If a disciple of Maddox, add hot sauce (Sammy almost had a hernia at this point. Yes, Sammy, I like hot sauce).

Be happy. This does not necessarily entail eating the above.

Beginning My Day in the Evening

This is NOT a tale of getting up late.

An efficient day should begin with a perusal of the various upcoming events in one's life, a sampling, if you will, of the smorgasborg of delights and trials in the current waking cycle. I, however, abhor fish. Hence, my day generally begins with a blind scampering towards the physics department - somewhat like a zombie mouse. I then spend the remainder of the day staring at a computer screen - somewhat like a zombie, ja? Interestingly, my level of interest in said screen almost always varies in a certain pattern - which is quite contrary to expectation. Instead of decreasing over time, my interest level rises as the hours pile up...until, as the Sun casts its last mournful photons over the horizon, I reach a point of pure invigoration - a place where the work is both interesting and stimulating. My mind fully recovers from the morass of the morning and I am able to think straight once more.

Of course, all this means - in practice - is that I am able to distract myself with greater efficiency. I am able maintain an effective doublethink concerning work: while distracted, I convince myself of my awe-inspiring focus, of my intention to dive headfirst into a fearsome mass of work, and sort it out by sheer, overwhelming mental force.

Invariably, this is a lie. And hence, we can say with certainty that the increase of mental faculty does not, in fact, increase productivity.

Take this very moment as an example.

After having a solid meal of rice and garlic (fucking gourmet, mate), I'm back in the physics department. The walk here was full to the bursting with intentions and plans - mostly to do with calibrations, CLEAN deconvolutions, quasars and the various combinations of these. I was pumped to sit down and damned well spew out information. Instead, I am now typing out this ridiculously stupid post and browsing several websites. One of these is upcoming.org, a most useful site for looking up future events - which is where this spiel started, ja?

In conclusion: I am not efficient.

(and this post proves it)

I Was Going to Post on Beef, Foosball and Decrepit Old Bookstores...

...but then this happened.

And so, I would like to take this opportunity to say: He's dead. Corporal Gilad Shalit is dead, or will be...soon. I am completely devoid of sarcasm when I say that I'm going to do a terrible thing and consider the humanity of this situation. I mean, why should his life be more special than all the others dying? Yet, for this paragraph, it shall be. This man, who probably believed in his country, his cause, was abducted by his more dire enemy. He has been locked up, fearful and almost definitely afraid - scared of what he might have thought to be the inevitable. His life has been changed completely, everything familiar and comfortable - friends, family, comrades, safety, security - taken from him in a single stroke. And now, either someone has put a bullet through his head, or is planning to do so. Is it not easy to hope - against all odds, as it were - that his life will be returned to him?

It's wishful thinking, that. But governments and politics is not...governed, for lack of a better word, by wishful thinking. Concordant with our hopes for this young man, the Israeli Army has moved forward into Gaza. It is late, and so I will be less than eloquent, but...never had I imagined that such blatant idiocy could be allowed to occur. Hamas and Fatah, not 48 hours ago, agreed on something - itself a marvel - that could move the situation forward. And then, the Israeli government, in it's exploitation of damned pride and bleeding patriotism, pushed forward.

Frankly, we cannot afford to be sentimental over a single man - and we certainly cannot afford to be respectful of Israeli pride. Trade women and children back for this martyr-in-the-making? Why, sounds rather good to me - I'm sorry, but I'm with the 'terrorist' groups on the humanity of this act. Unless, in some books, that man is already a martyr. The nationalist needs an enemy...an 'other'...and continuously renewed reasons to fight. Perhaps, in a sick, twisted manner, Corporal Gilad Shalit is doing his part for the nation.

Fact 1: Wishful thinking on our part is rank stupidity in the policy of this man and his government. But not stupid from a rather more extremist point of view. An extremist Israeli point of view, perhaps.

I need some sleep. Before I start yelling at imaginary Zionists again. I wonder...in my six hours of dreamtime, how many will die - and how many deaths will be justified by a 'war on terror'?

Persius A Has Greater Than 3% Circular Polarization

Free music will generally make of Kabir a happy, happy soul. Last night, a traditional jazz group led by a pianist named Ben Stepner played a (free free free) concert at Brandeis. Who am I to resist the allure of jazz-you-dont-have-to-pay-for? Not a bad group - they played originals, for the most part, written by the pianist. The best in the group, I feel, were the pianist and the bassist, especially the former. If you're in the Boston area sometime, try to catch this fellow. Worth a few hours of your time.

Post-concert, I was on my way to CVS on an errand of a dubious nature when I was contacted by none other than David Drayton - a good fellow, if inclined to long, pointless telephone conversations and Pink Elephants. Anyway, he proposed that I hop along to the apartment of Warren Domask and avail myself of the awesomeness of their creation - that is, The Bar (I've mentioned this particular bar before). So I did. And I stayed to help out. At some point, I'll post a few fuzzy pictures of the pretty light effects we got happening last night.

And as for today, I plan to open the day by returning to the house (I'm in the Campus Centre. My laptop's in California being fixed. I miss it), wake up Sammy in some rude fashion and then proceed to watch the Sweden-Germany game. After that, it's going to be a quick jaunt into Boston to visit some fancy steakhouse Vince dug up. While my wallet isn't terribly pleased, I am. Good steak. Mmmm.

Well, time to get some moving. Have to hit that ATM...and hard.

WIP

...but pretty nonetheless.


Source: SS433
Frequency: 8.460 Ghz
Stokes Parameter: I (Total Intensity)

SS433. And Friends.

My bane at Brandeis this Summer is the innocuously named 'AIPS', a piece of software written by the National Radio Astronomy Organization with the ability to take in raw data from the Very Large Array and other assorted radio telescope arrays, and give unto the user the power to calibrate this data.

And what, you ask, is the need of calibration? The fact of the matter is, there are an innumerable number of factors - air pressure, humidity, mood of the deities, wind currents - that cannot conceivably be predicted by any theoretical means in advance, and these quite drastically affect the values the telescopes record. Hence, to make some sense out of the clearly tampered numbers flowing in, astrophysicists hit upon the brilliant (read: obvious) idea of observing, concurrent with every experiment, a few sources whose properties are well known - calibrator sources, listed here. Thus, those interpreting the data can take the recorded data for the calibrators, compare them to standard values and infer quite exactly what kind of funk, depression or manic high the telescope was on at the time of the experiment. This information is then use to correct the data the telescope provides on whatever object astronomers were interested in at the time.

Smart, eh?

Now that I have explained the 'what' and the 'how', let me expand upon the 'wtf'. Problem is, the program written to do this calibration - AIPS - is ancient. Written in FORTRAN-77, if you please. The interface is antique and the sheer pain of learning its ropes is excruciating. I could leave you with an example of its painfulness and horridity and stupendouslame-ity, but I won't. Because I'm kind, yes....but primarily because I want to type as little of that shit as I can. I shall say, however, that just to input data, I have to simulate a Tape Drive. Sigh.

The other piece of software I'm working with these days is DIFMAP, which takes calibrated data and does fancy algorithms on it to give you 'teh pics' of the source. I've just made my first recognizable picture of SS433, the object I'm going to spend the rest of the summer looking at, and frankly...it's quite pretty. Wait, I'll post it.

Blogged with Flock

The House Specialty was Pink Elephant

...as that was the sole drink Dave knew how to make.

The fact of the matter was, Dave, Warren, Lizzie and Bonnie (two most lively people I had not had the pleasure of meeting prior to last night) had spent some 72 hours straight building a fairly impressive bar. And by 'bar' I mean not just a bare plank of wood propped up uneasily on a few boxes, but a fully functional, leanable (it supported my weight) and very stylish contraption complete with a hinged 'door', three fridges hidden from view and a neatly concealed speaker setup. All-in-all, very nice. Last night was their test run, a lowkey party (the best kind, perhaps) that was generally a whole lot of fun. It hit 'enjoyable' without venturing into 'obnoxiously overbearing'. On that note, we even got to throw out some retards looking for random alcohol. Cool.

Also, in an interesting twist, I discovered last night that quite a few people I know are still on campus. The door would open, and lo and behold, another chap I knew would saunter in - all in varying degrees of inebriation. Conversation, as a result, was varied, and the discussion ranged from physics (duh) to bicycles to Womb Raider.

Oh, and Dave's coming along as a bartender. We hope to teach him a few new tricks soon.

Good Stuff.

How 22 Lost Weight...or...What Goes Up Does Not Necessarily Come Down

In my pocket sits a list, a list of the many inadequacies in my character. It is a deeply introspective collection of points, begun and ended in a moment of sheer inspiration. It was born on a journey across an ocean, and it quite clearly tells you that I am about to drown.

It goes somewhat like this:

"How I Almost Missed Flight LX-052 from Zurich to Boston"

• The damnable antics of LX1249, which arrived (carrying yours truly) from Boston only 20 minutes prior to the departure of LX052. A small measure of panic was induced.
  
• A powerful revulsion of security checks. I attempted to find some way AROUND one. This did not aid me.
  
• The deep and abiding conviction that, in the face of all logical thought, my concentration in mathematics notwithstanding, despite the clear indication otherwise, Gate 22 was to be found between Gates 16 and 17.

...proving, once more, my mastery of the elements.

Amazingly enough, though, I reached Boston on-time (a unique occurence in the world of long-distance flight, or so I have found). My problems, however, were yet to begin. Immigration was as smooth as always, and Customs was a breeze. But in between those two lay an oft-overlooked troublemaker - the Baggage Claim. In its power lies your heart, your soul and your clothes, but it is a power little-exercised. For, in general, it is a peaceful creature, but - should it not like your face - it can turn into a most ferocious beast.

I got mauled.

And so it was that I trekked and train-hopped the long road to Brandeis minus a suitcase.

Blogged with Flock

There's a Joke in Here Somewhere

Yesterday, three generations were represented on the field, each by a single champion. We picked up sickle and scyth, sword and axe, and went to do battle with the greenery, assault the shrubbery, prune grass pride, circumcise the living stalks, reap the chlorophyll harvest, bring down green towers, crush the lesser boughs of The-Great-Tree-We-Call-The-Earth-God-We-Love-Dashes, murder the Tribe-That-Roots, feed the sap-thirst, garden and grow, harvest and plough...

|: Nope, no joke there :|

Well, ok, it was a grass-cutter and we mowed the lawn. But that's pretty funny, don't you think? I mean, me and manual productive labour? Worth a laugh or two? Just one?

|: Humour must be scarce in these parts :|

A professor of literature, an engineer and a student of physics cut the grass.

|: There's a joke in there somewhere...just waiting to be written :|

They weren't too bad at it.

|: Still waiting :|

Who the fuck are you?

|: Your schizophrenic conscience, telling you to hit the "delete" button :|

Pah. Too bad.

|: 'Gawd-Awful humour' :|

Small Screens

....are often useful for reading books on.

For those not in the know, my father and myself have often sought to outdo each other in certain fields of technological fiddledeedoo. One such (unvoiced, but no less for it) competition has to do with ebooks. And, in this one field, I must say that my father clearly has the upper hand. My skillful use of Limewire and the Gnutella Filesharing network was not enough to even begin to match up to his feats: I once found a copy of a rather good book on his mobile phone (I proceeded to read it on the said device. REALLY good book). His sterling discovery, however, was fictionbook.ru, a Russian site that serves up an enormous number of science fiction and fantasy novels in a variety of e-formats - all, obviously, for free. The icing on the cake, however, the pastry that made it all worthwhile, was the simultaneous discovery of FBReader, a program for our Zaurus palmtops that reads the most convenient of file formats on the above-mentioned site. The end result? My father and I now carry around a large collection of good sci-fi and fantasy in our pockets - quite literally.

And so, when, I finished my paperback copy of George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones (purchased from the excellent Sci-Fi Bokhandelen in GamlaStan, Stockholm), a little bird whispered deep and dark secrets in my ear. Instead of waiting until an opportune moment to purchase the next book in the series, why not hop onto fictionbook.ru and DOWNLOAD the damn books.

Why, what an idea.

Thus has my last two days been spent....flipping from e-page to e-page on my Zaurus 5600 as I make my way through Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.

And to that I return.

Getting Artsy Again

Part 2.

Having searched in all the dark places for the one and only truth©, I now bring a small taste of absolution and a large leg of a small pig to this feast of lightersides and smaller wielders of tarts. Yes, I'm that bored.

(A few more days and it's back to Boston)

Toodlepip.

Getting Artsy

As we once said when we frolicked joyfully in grasses green, 'teh pics?'

I present to you the first of a two (2!) part series, a series that shall reveal unto the viewer the despicable condition of the human soul as typified by the anguished morphism of the food processor society that we inhabit as worms do peaches. Ladies and Gentlemen, ART!




(Yes, this IS a shameless placeholder for any real content. Note: The 'realness' of my other posts is not up for debate)

Virtual Insanity

Today, I fixed my ailing computer. This is good. I also finished perusing the Sluggy Freelance archives...this is not so good. Thus, I now have a perfectly functioning computer, with full access to the wonders and marvels of the internet....and the stark realisation that - in regard as to what actually to do with this computer - after Sluggy, neither wonders nor marvels are interesting in the least. I have thus turned to evangelical acts to save the souls of others from eternal damnation and my own from boredom. Here are the results thus far:

(18:04:25) WarpyTraffic: go seek [thyself]
(18:08:46) Krawhitham222: go fuck yourself

Clearly, whatever else I may have in the way of qualities, the priesthood is not my true calling.

While caught in a similar conundrum concerning the occupation of my time not many weeks ago, I made the mistake of browsing the 'Blogsphere', an area much like the hydrosphere but denser and fed primarily by the sewage pipes of the world's educational output. I came across one fine sample that had a single (numero uno) post, exhorting its readers to disregard their peers and follow their hearts, their souls and their raging hormones in their quest for the perfect date. That fine piece of literature proceeded to demolish (by the fine act of proof-by-statement) the idea that 'grown-ups' were the only ones who knew what love 'truly truly truly' was, and the author of this logical tour-de-force proclaimed, once again (this was the thesis statement for the entire passage...did I not mention this?), that she loved her "bf".

(bf = beef? Some kind of arcane meat-eaters think-tank? What is this, food for thought?)

I didn't know whether to throw up, or to...well, there really wasn't a second option.

I think back, now, and wonder what kind of a world we would live in if Chris Palmer decreed all, and there were indeed mandatory IQ tests...following which low-scorers would be quite effectively eliminated from the gene-pool. Perhaps, just perhaps, you would not be reading this article right now.

I suggest dropping the matter while there's still some ambiguity in the air.

"...For those so inclined, this is an excellent time for procreation"

"Is Dr. Kliner really telling people to, you know, get it on?"
-Alyx Vance

Good lord, was Episode 1 pretty.

It's speaks well for the game that, just like for Half Life 2, I didn't fiddle with the graphics settings at all...just sat down and played. Nonetheless, the framerate was smooth and the world as utterly immersive as it was when took up the Crowbar and GravGun for the first time. This time, however, my monitor very clearly sported some seriously pretty lighting effects, courtesy of the newly updated HDR-enabled Source Engine. In the words of one very dynamic ferret, "Oh! Shiny!"

The gameplay itself has less of an epic feel, placing itself firmly as an addendum to the events of Half Life 2. The Citadel is about to blow and you and Alyx sorta have to be far away when it does...that's about much it. We're not entirely sure why or how you were saved by the Vortigaunts, or why the G-Man is all "We'll see about that", but, just like our last excursion into City 17, immediate events take priority - Episode 1 just does much less to tie it into the larger context.

Nor is the flow of the game as well executed or as innovative...there are very many "OH GOD THAT WAS AMAZING" moments (the gunship through the roof? the strider in the train yards? classic), but not as well placed or as well tied together - not to say that it's anywhere near "bad". I've played many many many games done worse. Just nothing new to guide the player through...I mean, there was the odd environment puzzle or two, but no new skills to pick up. Your tactics and your methods from Half Life 2 should serve you just fine throughout the game. I played it through on Normal, and was never quite starved for ammo...but neither was I over-loaded. Whenever the game was generous with something, two minutes later a door would blow open and Combine storm in...whom you would then proceed to massacre. Ahh, good times.

A fair game...made pretty darned great by its connection to the original Half Life 2. Keeping in mind that this is more of a "mission pack" than a separate game (as, say, Cataclysm was for Homeworld), Valve has got some great gameplay wrapped in some niiiice lighting effects. All in all, a damned serious blast to return toCity 17.

And it's aaallllll about the Zombines, man. PJs in games...gotta love character development.

Joy

HL2 Episode 1! HL2 Episode 1! HL2 Episode 1! HL2 Episode 1! HL2 Episode 1!

*runs around screaming with joy*
*more running*
*more running*

*runs at keyboard*

THANK YOU, BITTORNADO!

*commence more running*

Worth Reading

Interview with the Irani President. Who interviewed who here?

...and possibly a litmus test of the interviewers?

Do I have an opinion on this matter? Yes. Will I put it up here? Not now.

Cycling

And so today I went cycling for the first time in...oh, a couple of years at least. Perfect day for it; the sun was out, but not over-bright, and there was a brisk breeze winging it's way after me. And, it may be years since my last experience in memory, and I might very well be older now, but it's still a whole lotta fun zipping down a hill and then banking into turn as peddling becomes quite redundant.

More to the point, however, was that there was another meeting at the end of the zipping and the zooming (and the huffing and the puffing...I'm not in the best shape and some of the uphill can be moderately brutal to ol' Peter Banning here). Person I would have liked to get to know better, but ah well.
It did, however, give me a chance to review my faults. Of which there are many; but I never told you that. Go on, continue thinking of me as your demi-god.

For the record, I was actually once called a demi-god. By my own roommate, no less, Vincent-of-the-Scalpel. The event occurred as we strolled back in the late evening from his lab, having deposited some of his stuff and some of my stuff there for the summer. It would have been an arduous experience, lugging each box over to the building in question (it was raining quite heavily at the time), but Vince and I, being the smart cats we are, came up with a plan: Theft. We purloined a trolley-of-sorts that was lying around the lab offices, sneaked it back to the dorm, loading our boxes, and off we went (with a plastic sheet - also 'borrowed' - to keep it all dry). Still, it wasn't the easiest task, what with the rain increasing and the trolley loaded to within an inch of its life. I had never heard Vince curse so. Still, with the aid of a loading mechanism thingy at the lab entrance (also used illicitly), we got the job done. It was THEN, that Sir Vince bestowed upon me the title of demi-god - but not a god, for I had allowed a corner of the Anime box to moisten. Sigh.
I mentioned that "I had never heard Vince curse so". The odd choice of tense is due to the fact that he, in fact, out-did himself the next morning, when we repeated the process - but in heavier rain and with his rather more fragile electronics.

The End.

PS. For the record, napping on the living room couch is great; being awakened by Dave Brubeck's rendition of Take 5 is sublime.

An Outrageous Proposal

This is, in every code of honour known to mankind, an affront to dignity. I am shocked, I tell you...shocked to the very core of my being. The kitchen...my very own kitchen....is out of cheese.

We must sally forth! Sound the alarm! Ring the klaxons! Buzz the crocodiles! Feed the dahlias! Cream the salad!

Vive la Daire-Produc!

Rhubarb Pie

My sister makes a killer one.

So CJ Cherryh's Fortress Saga, in the end, was nowhere as phenomenal as I'd hoped it would be. As the last book neared the end, I could feel glimmers of what I'd have wanted in such a book...primarily in the tidbits of flashbacks - the scattered fragments of memory in Tristen's mind from his time as Barraketh. The story and the vast majority of the final book, on the other hand, was not quite as great. If she ever writes the tale of the Galasien and Mauryl's journey to the Qenes with even half of the emotional and artistic force she hinted at, I'd be over it like a fat kid over candy. Hell, I'd be all over candy anyway.

Today, I think I'm going to make the hop over into Daisyland. I hear that Gloriane is baking beef cookies again.

Mmmmm. Beef cookies.

Morse

Samuel Mol(c)ho, that Greek known on the internet as 'Small Hoe', made an apperance on MSN last night. And then another one. And then yet another one...all within 30 seconds. It was quite a blipping performance, as Sammy there achieved almost visible frequencies. Concerning the matter, a short Gmail exchange transpired not long after the event itself:

Me: In Greece, MSN disconnects you?
Him: @#$^%%$^&$%@#$%$%^&#^%@%$ yes. Content?