20041220

Return

I have at last returned home, and the revelry has already begun. I spent my first full day back gorging myself on excellent food prepared by myself and some friends. Lunch consisted of black tiger prawns in a white wine, butter , shallot, and garlic broth with a fresh baguette. The desert was a cake soaked in grand mariner topped with a warm fresh berry compote and brandy whipped cream. Dinner was a chinese feast put together by my friend Iris. The meal was composed of scallion pancakes made from scratch, deep fried pork spareribs, rice ovalette ( chinese equivalent of dok) stir fry, mushrooms and bok choi in a light soy-anise gravy, and lots of little ranch 99 appetizers. Tonight I have a date with the leftovers.

20041212

Eureka

At last I seem to have found a cross platform computing solution so that I can always have access to my applications, files, etc. It's nothing new but the approach and suite of programs will make it very easy to implement. Rather than carry the relevant applications etc on a fast external, what about just logging into a remote machine, doing everything there, and just ftping/emailing the relevant files when I need them. Yes enlightened readers, I speak of the opensource VNC, faster than X, lighter and cheaper than timbuktu, completely cross platform and simple. with the java viewer enabled all I'd need is a web browser. Granted, there are limitations and times when I'd be unable to acess the appropriate port, but for most situations, aside from dialup, this is perfect . The eventuality of this is that I can see myself eventually having a highly available redundant server somewhere with my personal environment up and then just connecting remotely. I'd keep the relevant data files backed up in a couple places and synchronize the system periodically, but think about it, centralized logs and cache ove3r all of your personal computing environments. Also a secure relay if you connect over ssh so no one can see what ports you're really accessing. Me gusta.

20041207

DMOSCLITSNT (reworking an old motto)

So for a while I'd sign all my emails with the cryptic DMOSCILTTTRyo. This stood for a lyric (Do My Own Stunts 'Cause I Like To Take The Risk yo!) from zebrahead's one hit song get back. But I think it's time to bring it back with a slight modification (the kind that comes with becoming a little more risk averse). So now it's DMOSCLITSNT (Do My Own Stunts, 'Cause Life is Too Short Not To), the "yo" doesn't add as much comedy as it used to.

20041205

Techie Band Names- Exercising nerdy impulses

I had a wierd dream a few weeks ago where I was in a highschool "battle of the bands" and I was frontman of a band called "karmarkar and the interior points" (I know it's a different karmarkar) and our primary competition was "dantzig wolfe decomposition" (another optimization algorithm) and I realized that the secret to winning the competition was to first understand the algorithm and break the situation down to a smaller problem (yes, in my dreams I'm a bigger nerd than I am awake, scary no?). The result of this absolutely disturbing dream was the begining of a list of science related band names. If you read this blog and are like minded submit a band name in the comments.

Here's the list to start it off.

Karmarkar and the Interior Points

Danzig-Wolfe Decomposition

Pons and Fleishman (The first Albim was so cold it was hot, but after great hype it was rejected by the music community)

Dr. Watson (and spiral staircase)

PolyWater

n-ray

Chromium (a heavy metal band of course)

Parties in PSPACE
Rediscovered tracks, worth a listen

James- Born of Frustration

Cake- Comfort Eagle

The Clash- Spanish Bombs

20041204

Two deadly sins the night before christmas

This chrismas eve I have big plans. I am going to get large amounts of takeout, rootbeer, and junk dvds, and I'm just gonna sit on my ass and vegitate for a good 10 hours or so, then I will go to sleep. This is gonna be some hardcore, high intensity relaxation. Within a couple miles of the video store are a zankou chicken, a fatburger and, iwata sushi. I will pick up something from each of these for my day of sloth and gluttony, and it will be good. I will try to think as little as possible, and probably end up watching stupid action movies ala AVP, and chronicles of riddick.

Unusual phobia, no problem

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