Jlulian’s (New) Stuff

This is what I came up with, after stuggling to think of some kind of interesting plot for a few hours. It’s intended to be a sort of interview of a person who somehow ends up on something like ‘60 Minutes’ after some kind of long conflict on a planet made up of a race of people who all have the ability to manipulate time. Pretty neat-o if I do say so myself:

“I was a young baby, not much older than a year and half old when it first happened, I skipped through time. As I recall, hazily, as I was very young after all, I jumped in time from 1:33:35 PM to 1:33:37 PM (GMT -8). Perhaps surprisingly to you though, this was an entirely normal event for a child of our world. I was actually late in developing my ability to time travel in this way, most kids are able to do a 2 second jump, and correct for the rotation of the planet by the time they’re about 1 year old. I suppose you could say I was a slow child in that respect if you wanted.

Ah, you think be able to time-travel would cause problems? I suppose you’re right. There is a reason we have an infant mortality rate higher than humans after all. For example, if I tried to jump about in time right now, blindly going places, I might end up with my body strangely inside something else. What ends up happening is called a ‘minor time accident’. Our time travelling mechanism, which I’m not supposed to fully explain, relies to an extent on the creation of a special kind of wormhole. This wormhole, opening on the destination side, pushes everything out of the way. Meaning that if you travel into a wall for example, the wall is going to be literally blown to pieces.

So Naturally there’s some rules governing our time travel. They aren’t written down anywhere, mostly because it would be nearly impossible to enforce them, but practical and common-sense rules, agreed on by a sort of consensus, mostly of people who would prefer to be alive. The most common rule is that you are never, under any circumstances, supposed to travel to a time or place where you’re unsure what might actually be there. Say you travel into a brick wall like we mentioned before? Because of the refactory period associated with out time travel you wouldn’t be able to get out immediately, you would probably be crushed under the weight of the remaining wall falling on top of you.

All this leads up to how I actually got here, I assure you, but there’s much more to explain before that…”

It is 4:40 AM. I’m listening to music that at anyother time would be entirely unbearable, in the last 4 hours I’ve watched more than (obtained 100% legally) anime and read more (obtained 100% legally) manga than most people have read, or rather, should read, in their entire lives. I have not talked to someone in person since 9:30 PM yesterday, the last time I actually talked to someone (over the internet of course) was more than 2 hours ago. In other words, it’s just been a normal day.

I have a strange feeling in the back of mind as I do this though. I’ve been out of contact with people for over 2 hours now, I feel as if I could be part of some kind of strange social experiment turned hollywood blockbuster. I imagine a panning shot pulling out of the view point of my eyes to reveal my desk, lit solely by a single lamp, and the light my monitors emit, to be encompassed by a pure and never-ending field of darkness. Being completely absorbed in my computers though, I haven’t noticed. By some kind of hollywood logic, even in this world with nothing but darkness, the internet still exists and functions properly.

This being a hollywood film of course, after about 5 minutes of dramatic music, opening credits, and dramatic panning shots of me in my world of darkness, I begin to realize what has happened. I begin to dig through all the news sites, looking for any evidence as to what actually happened. After several intense panning shots of me typing with incredible speed and looking disturbed, I realize that by some strange force, the Earth, and not just the Earth, but the entire Universe had begun to unravel. Somehow, my exact position allowed me to survive the event, and leave me stranded, at the end of time.

In a strange twist of fate, the last remaining human, and possibly being of our universe, is a nerd. In fact more importantly than that. I am the, “Last of the Nerds“.

I am in a constant and desparate search of ways to improve my writing. My works are often short, but not neccesarily concise, not to mention written in this annoying condescending tone I can never manage to really get myself rid of. As it stands right now, writing anything requires a lot of my effort on my part, constantly checking to make sure what I’m typing actually makes sense. Ninety percent of the time it doesn’t, and the other ten percent of the time it lackluster at best.

In an attempt to squeeze at least one percent of good writing out of my limited skills, I am starting a new project. For the forseeable future (which actually means until school starts again) I will post my nightly writing. The thing that I inevitably end up writing as I begin to feel the effects of sleep deprivation, that night. Most of it is utter crap, which more than an hour later makes literally no sense. My nightly writings actually defined the term, ‘nonsense’. Posting this on the internet of though, were more than one person (that person being me) might actually read my work, forces me to make what I’m writing at least make sense, if not be somewhat enjoyable.

Of course, this being a blog, this needs a name (mostly so it can be fit into a neat category and be filed off with everything else). You might think I would go with simply, “Nightly Writings”, but that’s much too bland, I need a little variety in my life after all. Rather, the name of this project will be, “(K)nightly Writings”. Which as you can quite plainly tell is quite a departure from what you were expecting.

(The irony of this, is that this post on it’s doesn’t make an overabundance of sense on its own.)

After eight agonizing days of waiting, my shirt named ‘It Came Out of Nowhere’ from shirt.woot.com has arrived. I found it in my mailbox this afternoon, delicately packaged in it’s floppy branded ‘envelope’. I quickly tore at the packaging, failing to open it with my bare hands, likely because of my complete and total lack of physical strength. I changed strategies and began attacking it with a screwdriver, making sure not to damage the precious contents. The contents were finally free to be seen by my eyes, and slowly let the funk of my home’s air seep into its fabrics.

I was struck by the beauty of the shirt. The vibrant shades of gray, carefully printed onto a t-shirt base made of an absolutely astoundingly designed mottled gray pattern. The graphic on the shirt itself portrays “Doc’s” DeLorean DMC-12 crashed into the TARDIS, which no doubt was a horrifying time accident for all involved to have seen.

The quality of the shirt extends even to those annoying scratching tags on the inside of the shirt, shirt.woot, in their ever humourous, and always no caps style gives you helpful instructions on how to wash, and if needed, even how to wear your shirt. For anyone as yet uninformed, shirt.woot T-shirts are ‘not for use as pants’.

There are many unintended consequences of failed relationships. Some people end up with previously non-existent debts, and feeling as if a part of their being has been ripped from themself. And many many more.

One of the most noticeable, after the emotional side-effects of course, is the ability to relate with romantic comedies. The is most prevalent in people who’ve just gotten out of their first failed relationship. Naturally they end up watching all kinds of movies and television series with some romantic component, as after all, they probably feel dead inside, and want to do nothing but lay on their couch and stare at a flickering screen. Such a person will notice that parts of a series they never noticed before are immediately obvious to them now.

Take my favorite example so far, after spending some 2 weeks loafing around my house doing an uneccesarry amount of absolutely nothing, I decided to watch the movie ‘Shaun of the Dead’. In it Shaun’s girlfriend breaks up with him (before the outbreak of zombies) claiming that Shaun was boring, and that she didn’t want to end up like everyone else that went to the Winchester everyday. The latter is obviously case-specific, but at the time the former struck a chord with my heart and I immediately thought, “I get exactly how you feel Shaun”. Of course I shed a single manly tear, as would any other manly man do in the same manly situation.

To illustrate my point I will quote a conversation I had with a friend who himself has recently experienced an awful breakup. (This conversation of course, occurred over an instant messaging protocol, as all of my substantial conversations tend to take place.)

desuism: having gone through a somewhat crappy relationship
desuism: you will now be able to relate to romantic comedies
desuism: and much more of pop culture will make sense to you
*******: ya, i’ve noticed that

This block of text may even be the inspiration for this article. I won’t admit to it, but I certainly won’t deny the fact.

This phenomenon does seem to be relatively common however, I’ve checked with many a depressed man to prove my point and it seems to be a nearly universal thing.

As I said before, there are many many unintended consequences to a person’s first relationship, and inevitable first breakup.

And the lawnmower won.

Got in a fight with a lawnmower

• I can wrote good
• My left eye is amblyopic (I have the real deal ‘Lazy Eye’)
• At the same time I’m left-handed
• Because I’m left-handed I can read in my dreams
• I have weird dreams
• I’ve invented ways of sleeping that you’ve never even thought of
• The same for sitting
• I wear the same clothes everyday
• I don’t use ‘a computer’, I use anywhere from 5-25 computers at a time.
• I can write a “Hello World” program in 27 languages
• I can write well in 7 of those languages
• My eyes are heterochromatic, they’re two entirely different colors (green and brown at the same time, amazing)
• I can administrate a UNIX system (I could be a sysadmin, oh joy)
• I’m so good at networking I get suspended from schools because of it.
• I can’t (and thus don’t have to) watch those stupid 3D movies.
• I can go for some 72 hours without actually feeling tired.
• I have this blog and do absolutely nothing with it
• I’m not even done yet

I’ve never spoken of the full list of Principles of Programming, across all architectures and paradigms, languages and cultures. That certainly won’t stop me from trying now though. In order of importance, the two Principles of Programming that I’ve found.

1. Laziness - After all, the main idea of using computers it to have them calculate things for you, and increasingly, just do things for you.
2. Badass Motherfuckery - The title of the post, obviously, and the second most important, ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ refers to the feeling you should get when programming.

I should elaborate further, after all, not everyone knows the ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ feeling. When you’re writing code, not just generic boring, every day, been there seen that code for some client that you don’t like, you’re not liable to get the ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ feeling, but when you’re writing, especially towards the beginning of your project, you should feel like the most amazing person in the world, capable of shooting lasers our of your computer if need be.

The real meaning behind the ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ priniciple is more one of finding good programmers. After all, you can only get to the ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ state if you’re good enough to write something NEW AND EXCITING, something you actually care to write, not a rehash of some generic algorithim. Of course, even as you start out, you’ll feel like the most ‘Baddass Motherfucker’ ever, even writing variations of “Hello World” in your language of choice. This is certainly not prohibited, and it could even be a good sign, provided your enthusiasm doesn’t wane as you try to writing something more complex.

Programming is not unlike most games with a steep learning curve. It takes a lot of effort, learning thats often driven by ‘Badass Motherfuckery’ effect, before you can really get to the fun parts of programming. The difference being that the programming learning curve is syntactical, and the gaming learning curve tactical. Even the end-goal of the two is the same, bragging rights.

The ‘Boo Scary Ghost’ Index is defined as the following: “As system designed to help identify people who may require medical attention if they are further deprived of sleep. Say, in a monotone voice, ‘Boo Scary Ghost’ and if the ‘target’ bursts into laughter, or laughs excessively, then you can be sure this person needs sleep, quick.”

How did I come across the ‘Boo Scary Ghost’ Index? My own sleep deprivation of course. I have 3 hours a day to do my own work, or I will cut into my much needed sleeping time. Naturally, I fall out of this time rather often, going 2-4 hours over the time I intend, consequently I’m tired, obscenely so. In this tired state I talked to a mentor I’m working with, about the mental state changing qualities of sleep deprivation of course, in particular, everything or nothing is funny when you’re deprived of sleep. So it only makes sense that we invent something to see if someone is tired enough for this to be a factor.

And thus the ‘Boo Scary Ghost’ Index was born.

(Consequently another effect of sleep deprivation is inability to properly speak or understand speech, so if both, or one of the participants in the ‘Boo Scary Ghost’ Index test is deprived of sleep, the words may be misunderstood, ala ‘Blue Scary Ghost’, or, ‘Boo Scaly Ghost’.)

A disease of many programmers I would assume, I have a horrible tendency to do things the easiest possible way (requires the least amount of thinking on my part) even if it means doing more work.

As an example, this is how I do simple linear equations.

Mathz

It probably would have taken less time to bash that into a calculator, or even do it in my head, especially considering I’ve made a mistake (or 2) writing that function, and I had to retype it (which is a horrible time consuming task in this interactive shell)

I’d imagine this is what contributed to my poor grades on Math tests too. I KNOW I know how to factor that dead simple problem, or solve that in nearly 2 steps, but holy shit I cannot remember multiples (and thus factors)

This habit certainly isn’t limited to the domains of math and fun, instead of managing my music like everyone else–manually ripping and naming files (or organizing them)– I spent 2 days writing a system that would rip-split-tag-rename and then dump all my ripped music into a folder, Where foobar2k (or any other player with a decent library system) would build collections automatically and let me access my music in style.

Of course, OCDing in automation form isn’t the only thing that’s come of this. I’m trying to teach a group of monkies how to program, and I can’t find something for them to do for the life of me. I could try to teach them how to write a Tetris game, but even then they’d be writing code just by listening to what I say, instead of learning how to do it themselves, like everyone learned how to program (right?). Continuing with my topic here, I’ve found that pet projects of mine (like the automated music splitter) helped me learn sillily large amounts of things. For example, I now know how to do “Interprocess Communication” (read: read stdin from a program I’ve started), for simple data parsing. I also know how to parse a CUE sheet, and do all this parsing without ruining UTF-8 encoding (Trickier than you might imagine).

Moral of this story? Silly, ‘quick’ programs help you learn how to actually program. (Especially when you actually want to do something)