Too Noble for my own Good

Original Thought

2009-11-09T22:01:00.002-06:00

Can someone have two default browsers on one operating system?
I wonder......that would be nice to click the browser icon and have it pick randomly whether to start Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. That's what i wanna learn how to do.

You Da Winnah!

2009-11-02T15:38:00.007-06:00

9th week of classes, and I'm gonna get screwed. Urg this is getting me bummed.

Btw, last week I found out that I won the GameInformer sweepstakes grad prize. Here's what i won:
I'm much too lazy to save and edit the image, so i'll let it be crazy till i feel motivated to edit it to scale.

So that's good.

Hw time now

What's on my Phone

2009-10-12T11:52:00.006-05:00

Since I last posted, I've actually paid for a few iPhone apps.
Here's a list of notable apps that I use a lot on my iPhone.

Facebook - I like the new 3.0 update, can't wait for push notifications (actually would like push notifications on a lot more applications but since I can't say how long it takes to edit/develop an app with push and the service only came out.....like less than 6 months ago, not complaining). Quality app, use it every day, big improvements over the last version. (Free)

Tweetie - Just purchased Tweetie 2.0 and feel it is a wonderfully polished and easy to use application, well worth the money.

Canabalt - Great game, also worth the money. Could use a quick-pause tho, and maybe a small amount of backstory to it (What are the crazy things that fall down right before I run into them? I don't like those things. Are they bits of alien robots?)

Sketchbook Mobile - Just grabbed this last night. Makes me want to sit somewhere quiet and just doodle or actually sketch something. Improve my artist talents or something. Hawk drew an awesome pic on this when he was bored and i wish i could do something that cool.

Minigore - Don't play this as much, but really really nice graphics and, again, wish I had a backstory or something.

Snapture - I honestly think that this was kinda a wasted purchase, as the zoom doesn't zoom just screws with the resolution a bit to make crappy photos. Cool features, just not a default Camera app replacement. I am giving it a try tho.

Ocarina - Smule is a neat company that makes some really high quality apps (like AutoTuning "I am T-Pain") and the Ocarina is one of them. Finally got the hang of playing kinda well, still want to print out some sheet music and try to memorize something (there needs to be more music out there to play for it)

some QuickThoughts -----

Dropbox - GREAT!!! Although small errors in reading some (SOME) .txt files, so i have to save some important documents in .rtf for some reason. I love having access to important files quickly and on my phone is pretty nifty too. Great app

The Weather Channel - Just replaced the default Weather app as my front page weather informer

Shazam - Haven't gotten a chance to use this since driving in the summer. Maybe when i go home next week and am taking the car out a bit. I miss my radio stations (country sucks)!

Rope 'n' Fly Lite - Great game (thanks to Ben at work for introducing Lucy and me to it and causing us to waste a lot of time) and maybe I'll buy the full version. High score = something like 784.4 ft. Go Go Spiderman!!!

Love Discovered

2009-10-02T23:55:00.004-05:00

As I've been working through first semester, I've discovered two new passions.

The first is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
This game makes me remember that Naughty Dog is an amazing studio and I love every single one of their games. Uncharted is one of my favorite games of all time, and definitely my favorite for the PS3 (Honestly, I only have Bioshock and Motorstorm, and one scares me and the other is just too sparse on features). Looking forward to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but will wait till the price drops.

The second thing I've found a love for is NCIS. Watching through from the beginning, and it's really really good. Which is weird cuz my grandpa (whom everybody compares me to) always watched JAG. Huh.

fuelEfficiency.py, v 2.0

2009-09-29T13:15:00.005-05:00

I'm a teaching assistant in the ComputerScience&SoftwareEngineering (CSSE) department at my college (Rose-Hulman) and since I only started this quarter without previous TA experience, I get the late-night Monday slot from 9 till 11. Thusly, I don't get a lot of visitors. But yesterday evening, I got two groups of freshmen come in and ask for help on the same programs. I was actually excited and happy to discover that I was able to help them quite well; It felt really good to assist them in their learning. Anyway, the program that I helped them create was a piece of Python code that collects user data on the odometer readings and gas spent over successive legs of a car trip. It spits out the MilesPerGallon per leg and the average mpg over the whole trip.

Anyway, this was worrisome to me because that was one program that I had difficulty getting right, because I stubbornly wanted to get it perfect. Ended up being 300 lines of code, with documentation. Now, due to my further experience with code and helping the freshmen with the same program, I felt I could take another shot at the fuel efficiency code and get it more perfect and more efficient. So here is my fuelEfficiency.py program, v 2.0 ----

# fuelEfficiency.py
# by Douglas Selby, on 9-29-09
# Program will compute the fuel efficiency of a multi-leg journey
# First prompt for starting odometer reading (distance, in miles)
# Get information about series of legs
# For each leg:
# User enters current odometer reading and amount of gas used
# User signals end of the trip with a blank line
# Returns out miles per gallon for each leg and total miles per gallon for whole trip

## ----Start converting program components of main definitions---- ##

# Asks for what the odometer reading is for the current leg
def ask():
data = raw_input("What is the odometer reading (miles) and the gas that has been used (gallons)? Seperate with a space. ")
return data

# calls ask, only called if user inputted data incorrectly
def askAgain():
print "The information that you entered was incorrect. Please try again.\n"
data = ask()
return data

# Converts string 'number' into an integer value
def efloat(number):
number = eval(number)
number = float(number)
# print type(number)
# number is now 'float'
return number

## ----End sub-program components of main---- ##

## ----Start main definition---- ##

def main():

# Initialization
blankline = ""
data = ""
oList = []
mpgList = []
sumGas = 0
odom = 0
gas = 0
leg = 0

# Spacer to recognize program start
print "-- Trip start --\n"
# Prompt for starting odometer reading (starto)
odom = raw_input("What is the starting odometer reading (miles)? ")
# If user does not enter a value, prompts again
while odom == blankline:
odom = raw_input("You must enter a starting odometer reading: ")
# If user enters an invalid entry (any negative number), prompts again
while odom < "0":
print "Your odometer cannot have a negative setting."
odom = raw_input("Please check that you are not driving a future or alien vehicle and re-enter the starting odometer reading: ")

# Convert odom to an float value
odom = efloat(odom)
oList.append(odom)
# Start leg 1 prompt (leg 1 only required leg)
print "\n-- First Leg (or final destination) --"
data = ask()

while data != blankline:
leg += 1
temp = data.split()
while len(temp) != 2:
data = askAgain()
temp = data.split()
odom = temp[0]
gas = temp[1]
odom = efloat(odom)
gas = efloat(gas)
oList.append(odom)
sumGas += gas
mpg = (odom - oList[leg-1]) / gas
mpgList.append(mpg)
print "\n-- Next Leg (or final destination) --"
data = ask()

# Spacer to recognize program start
print "-- Trip end -\n"
if leg != 0:
# Get total average mpg
fmpg = (oList[leg-1]-oList[0])/sumGas
# Print final answers
print "-- Final fuel efficiency results (in miles per gallon, or mpg) --\n"
for i in range(leg):
print "Leg %0d - %0.2f mpg\n" % (i+1, mpgList[i])
print "The fuel efficiency for the entire trip is %0.2f mpg" % (fmpg)
else:
print "No leg data was entered; did you go anywhere? Restart the program when you actually want to track your journey mileage."

## ----End main definition---- ##

## ----Start program---- ##

## ----Run main function run---- ##
main()
## ----End main function run---- ##

## ----End program---- ##

Finals, Day 1

2009-05-26T23:44:00.002-05:00

Took Software 220 exam early, thought it went pretty well. Probably got some of the more abstract bigO stuff wrong but whatever.

Took Western Civ exam, think i need a new right hand.

i don't pay for iPhone apps. I have yet to find a 100% quality app for it besides:

Remote

Facebook

TwitterFon

Mint.com

The Weather Channel

ICanHazCheezburger

so yeah

Standard Deviation of the Mean, v 1.0

2009-05-24T21:09:00.003-05:00

A week ago, I was writing a physics lab and had to calculate Standard Deviation of the Mean for like 5 different sets of 7 data points, so I was feeling lazy. So i probably took more time in doing it, but I coded up a standardDeviation.py file to do it for me. here's version 1 right now ----

# Standard Deviation of the Mean calculator
# Created 5.17.2009, by Douglas W. Selby (selby.douglas@gmail.com)
# Version 1.0

from math import *
def main():
n = input("How many entries? ")
i = 1
average = 0
entryList = []
while(i<=n):
entry = input("entry? ")
entryList.append(entry)
print entryList
average = average + entry
i = i+1

average = average/n
i=0
sum = 0
while(i<=n-1):
sum = sum + (entryList[i]-average)**2
i = i+1

deviation = sqrt(sum/(n-1))
print "Standard Deviation of the Mean = ", deviation

main()

Better Days Ahead

2009-05-23T13:48:00.002-05:00

Finals coming up next week. This is my last week to spend with Mees, which makes me sad. It also throws into sharp relief my lack of exercising or quality time with the hall, and my big lack of close close friends whom I can depend on (save a few, gf included). I'll have to make it count.

I have also run out of water and all manner of beverages. :(

Went camping last night. Steak, eggs for breakfast (i'm not that good at it yet), boat rides out on the water (got better at paddling), laser shows at night, losing baseballs in the lake, fireside jokes.
First time I've been camping. was very very fun.

Um......going home in...6 days.. wow.
Work starts on Monday after. yay (hahaha)

Been playing more TeamFortress2 lately, having an okay time. I kinda like the way they've been working in getting the items. Since i'm not an achievement hog, I think this is good.

Rose-Hulman Flickr group has been kinda cool. I was the first major contributor, but my pics are not nearly as good as some of the others.

Prob should be studying.
i think i'll go do that now.

A long while

2009-05-05T14:57:00.006-05:00

Sitting in math class, not very interested. My teacher, I do not like.
I did find a good deal for a hard drive for my gf (here), and we're planning on ordering it soon. I'm planning on chipping in as a bday present.

I have plans to build a computer, and did some research on what parts to buy or at least what process I should go through. But recently, after typing a good chunk of my Western Civ paper (Iron Men: A Comparison of the Composition of a Superior Military Force in the Hellenic and Roman World) on a Mac, I was thinking that i would be able to get a quality/speedy system which a good storage solution with a Mac desktop. But then I would miss out on a killer hard-drive with a good graphics card, plus the experience and pleasure of completing the project myself. I would probably install the Windows 7 Release Client on my build, so there's the inevitable debate over which operating system (Apple or Microsoft) I would rather have on my desktop comp.

I've been on slow internet for a week. I am checking my internet data usage twice daily and recording it in a spreadsheet.

My sister called me today (while I was in the middle of an intense Diff.Eq. hw to be turned in within an hour) and was upset cuz she was fighting with my dad and she kinda yelled at me for a couple seconds before I hung up. Nice to know everything is okay at home.
I feel bad. Kinda.

Other than that....it's 8th week, so I only have a little more time here for freshman year. I am trying to finalize my rooming solution. Tony is an awesome guy, but apparently we're going to have to share a 2-rooom suite with 100% biggest creep in the world and whomever he chose to live with. Wonderful. I think I'm going to have to lock the door every minute of every day.

Finals again

2009-02-18T11:31:00.002-06:00

Yeah, i have finals again. Not too worried about Logic and Software (which is just gonna be like any other of the exams we've had), but Physics and Calc are going to be hard. And I'm pretty sure I have those first so yeah. Study overload.

Maura is getting a C in calc, so I am happy she doesn't have to retake it.
Software is fun sometimes, but a real *jerk in other situations
The CSSE lab is almost my favorite place on campus.

Been hanging at the library at times this semester. I always grab a window seat. And I think I can predict what the lobby people of Mees will be playing based on what video game tournaments are approaching.

Will update later on how studying is going.

Musical Inspiration

2009-02-08T20:53:00.001-06:00

Okay, here's a little artsy thing i thought of.

I like listening to the music during the credits at the ends of movies.

That is all.

Watching Office

2008-12-24T15:29:00.004-06:00

The Office is my new addiction. I wish I had all the episodes. In HD. I'm working on it. I always feel bad about skipping episodes. Cuz i feel like I'm going to skip something important/funny.

Just got Linux Mint all set up on my laptop, still can't think up a good name for the laptop (Thought about Russia....still sucks). And I still have no stickers. Where do you get stickers? jeez.

Christmas is coming up tomorrow. Hopefully we will be having fun, and Maura and I will be going into the city on Friday/Saturday. Ice Skating/Bean/window shopping on the Magnificent Mile.
I hope that the holiday will be fun/surprising/nice.

Merry Christmas/y e a h
bye

Thoughts before xmas

2008-12-21T01:15:00.002-06:00

okay, so VLC? yeah, the icon changes. Changed on December like 18th. Added a Santa Hat to the logo. that is sweet.

also, my computer died last week.

Desktops - Laptop Screens

2008-12-03T09:55:00.006-06:00

I just got done editing my Windows desktop, so it looks a little like this. But I couldn't get some of the things to work. I'll also post some screens of my Ubuntu desktop, just to compare.

A shot with ObjectDock----

Another shot
Feeling really really bored right now. Not in the mood for hw.

Blackest Morning

2008-11-29T01:42:00.002-06:00

A veritable ocean of automobiles, a sea chock full of fleets of Ford, hordes of Honda, and legions of ....Nissan. Oh well. My attempt at interesting writing. Left the house this morning early, grabbed a new Mario-printed DS lite (pics to come, it's cute) and Enemy Territories: Quake Wars (Five freaking dollars! OMG best sale ever invented) at the store. Black Friday was insane. I hate Wal-Mart, but I'm sure that all the mothers were swarming.

Had a discussion with my parents about buying things, went well actually. They're thinking about getting an HDTV (small LCD for their room).

Thanksgiving was nice, got to talk to my cousin Peter about school and Linux, talk to my great-uncle Warren about politics (hah) and life, and just people in general. My school was a big topic of conversation.

Hung out with Mera for awhile tonight. We went to Stratford, talked and ate in the food court, bought posters in FYE (I got batman, Obama, and....one other...), she tried on clothes at Charlotte Russe (I had to restrain myself from helping her in the dressing room, lol).
We went over to Suzy's talked a while there. Had a bit of drama with Natalie,but everything allright in the end. I love my best girls in the world.
I miss them too much.
Suzy and I talk all the time on IM (I use Pidgin), but it's not the same all the time. Seeing her in person always brings up old feelings (always). She asked me today why I didn't get excited while talking about Maura. I think it's just the kinda person I am. I don't like super express my feelings in such a perky happy bouncy way. I actually feel kinda guilty, like I don't feel the right way. I dunno.

Linux is kinda giving me trouble lately, but I don't mind. I'll get over it. Facebook Chat is stupid anywho.

By the way, this guy is amazing, and I don't know how you can be so good at design, so good at writing, and so knowlegable about tech at large. I want to be that good when I'm older. I also want a Mac, but let's see when that happens.

This keyboard can be very loud, I hope I'm not keeping my mommy up.
Good night and sweet dreams, Internet.

Turkey.....BREAK!

2008-11-26T13:22:00.003-06:00

Well, i'm home now, been delaying this post out of sheer laziness. The quarter ended, and my first expidition into the Rose-Hulman jungle was successful, and I emerged relatively unscathed. The ECE presentation was fairly good, and I felt that the PowerPoint slides that I put together were very professional. The Physics test threw me at first, but I had more than enough time to go back and look through the answers. I ended up completely redoing one problem, and figuring out that I had a cosine where there should only be a sine. My bad.
Then I had two days to recoup (i.e. eat cookies till i burst and not study) and I ended up cramming for the last day and a half for the chem final (which? I don't recall that one, must not be important). Which might have included about an hour of playing frisbee up on the 3rd floor hallway. But shhhh.
Chem final wasn't too bad, 100 question multiple choice. I think i did okay, which is surprising, since i expected to fail the class.

But I didn't fail anything. Final grades:

College and Life Skills - A
Physics 111 - A
ECE 160 - A
Chemistry 112 - B

I am so happy. And, since I got that B in Chem, I get credit for Chem 2 as well. Which I technically didn't need, but that's one less science elective I have to take senior year.
Wooooot!

So now I'm on Thanksgiving break, with no responsibilities and no homework. Called into the school district, everybody's on vacay, so I don't have to work. I dropped by Gamestop on Friday and grabbed a bunch of cheap games.

Metroid Prime - $9.99
Luigi's Mansion - $7.99
Viewtiful Joe - $2.99
Jak X: Combat Racing - $7.99
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - $9.99
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - $4.99

Pretty sweet deals. I also grabbed The Dog Island (Wii) from Best Buy, that's gonna be a bday present for my SA, cuz I know she'll like it (I have to suck up, give me a break).

So I've been chilling here. Gotten some stuff done. Did laundry. Transferred all my files to my home comp. Reformatted my hard drive to NTFS so it'll take files over 4 gig. Then backed up my laptop settings, and partitioned the hard drive so I could dual boot into Ubuntu 8.10. Oh yeah, my disk finally came on last Monday, I was excited. Install was a little shaky at first, but has turned out okay. I actually got the Ubuntu partition to read files off the Windows side, so I don't need to boot into Windows to access my docs. I don't think I'll be using that for awhile.

Been seeing friends a lot. Going to hang with Mera and Nat (hopefully) and Suzy on friday, so I hope that we have fun (screw that, of course we'll have fun). I miss my girls.
Maura is doing okay, she pulled off some good final grades as well. I <3 my fab chica! We were trying to see each other this week, but I don't think this will happen.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my family at Thanksgiving. And the food. Can't forget about that....
....
...
Oh, who needs the family, just give me the god-damn food already!!!!

Finals, First Attempt

2008-11-16T13:22:00.001-06:00

I have finals coming up.
List following:

ECE 160 - Monday 10am
Physics 111 - Monday 1pm
Chemistry 112 - Thursday 1pm

After Chemistry, I will be leaving to go back home. That will be nice, as I will have no studying or hw or anything to worry about. Except my results from my tests.
Chemistry is the only one I'm worried about. Freaking out about is more accurate. I'm scared.
Physics is not fun, but not difficult.
ECE is just a presentation, which I'm working on now, meeting with my team at 4 today.
that should be a total waste of time.
Urg.

I will be studying and being annoyed till such time that I get to go home.
Bye, till then

2 Late, 2 Much

2008-11-11T13:05:00.003-06:00

I meant to blog again last week, right after the election. But I've been backed up with homework and exams and my parents coming down. I really didn't get around to it, obviously. Although I should be content that since I'm writing about this now, my voice will not be lost in the multitude of shouting that surrounded the post-election (not that anybody reads this anyway, so I shouldn't worry about consoling myself).

The election result was no surprise for me, since I had always supported Obama and knew he was the right man for the job, and I knew that America was sufficiently mature to elect a non-white man to the Presidency. I also knew that America was sufficiently sick and tired of Bush's policies and the clusterf*#& that constituted his entire tenure.

I remember the first time I heard of Obama, when he ran for Illinois State Senate, or for the US Senate, I'm not sure (I guess I don't remember). But I thought it was an interesting name, and surely a new face in politics. I wondered where he was gonna go. Go figure, huh?

Still waiting on that Ubuntu 8.10 disk. I had my parents return my Linuxbox back home, since it was taking up valuable leg room, and I really didn't have the patience in its CPU lag or the time to screw around with it. My room is also much much cleaner, which i enjoy. I've got my round chair now, and I am happy, though slightly disappointed that Maura has a much nicer one now, which is totally unfair.

Things are fine with Maura, btw. Our relationship is progressing well.
You know what I noticed? My blog's color scheme is similar to that of Ubuntu. Huh. I didn't really think about that.
Maybe I'll skin my laptop's desktop to look like a Mac. I wish I had a Mac.

Sitting in Physics class right now, really really bored. Glad I don't have to come to class for the next two days. I'm really really looking forward to finals week. Not the exams themselves, mind (Physics Monday - 4 hrs. ECE Monday = 2+ hour presentation session. Chemistry Thursday = Thursday. I will die with Chemistry, and be very very very tired after Physics), just the freetime. I wonder what I'll do.
Probably just be bored.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, hopefully will be a wonderful time with lots of good food (which is something I really miss about home). Seeing my friends again will also be enjoyable. I miss them. I <3 them soooo much.

Now, a witticism to end this message.
umm......................................
Is there a mirror in your pocket?

Call of the Devil

2008-10-29T11:52:00.002-05:00

I tested this blog on this site, got back a ranking of 17%. Fairly good score, for a blog that nobody reads. My twitter rank came back 11%. That's a bit more encouraging, just have to work to keep updating and getting more people to read it.

Now, an amalgam of thoughts and newsbites
Woke up late for both classes today. It's nice for that not to matter too much, like it did in high school.
Halloween coming up. I'm not getting a costume or nothing, just gonna chill, watch some movies with Maura, maybe have some fun. Def have some fun.

I miss Eric and Kathy on WTMX 101.9 FM chicago. I listen to the podcast ..... but it's not the same. I catch the stream when I'm up that early just doing hw in the lounge.

Trying to get to bed early...hasn't been working out too well. midnight and then 3 last night.
horrible, i need to work harder and stop blogging in the middle of the day and do my homework before 10 pm.

I'm excited for Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) to be released tomorrow. I like having the official disks (I ordered one for Hardy Heron) and I ordered another set for the new distro. Plus, it comes with stickers. I think I'll stick one on my laptop. I'm gonna wait for the LiveCD to come before I partition my hard-drive so I can dual-boot Windows XP ServicePack3 (I'm thinking 70 gig) and Ubuntu 8.10 (around 40 gig). Trying to squeeze as much room out of my notebook hard-drive as I can so I can have more room. This new 750 gig is big enough, but the software is just useless and the disk itself doesn't want to eject. I'd like a new one, but this is fine and it's working to my needs, I suppose (still can't copy this ISO file over, don't know why).

Need to study more for chemistry, fell asleep and didn't make half of the exam

A Design Flaw (College Update Pt.2)

2008-10-11T15:15:00.006-05:00

This post is intended to add more of my insights on the college life process, but I'd like to talk about something else for a second.

Red vs. Blue - No more Red vs. Blue Reconstruction? This sucks! I've been chewing through this series since summer and now I wake up to discover that I only have two new episodes left till it's over (for awhile, but they don't specify when they'll resume the movies). Imagine my dismay, just when the story started getting juicy (*SPOILERS* Tucker gets pregnant and Caboose kills Church.....oh wait, never mind *END SPOILERS*). In conclusion, please come back soon Red vs. Blue!!!

Now that I've finished my physics quiz on calculating force from a potential energy function....i can get back to this blog post.

Workload - School is....progressing. It's going much easier now. I was getting a D in calculus, so I dropped it. I'll see how I do next quarter, with a new teacher, not tablets, and actual notes. I'm looking forward to it.

Class - Registered for next quarter's classes. Logic Design, Software Design, Calc 3, and Physics 2. Sounds like a whole bunch of fun (especially the physics lab prof, whom apparently nobody can understand....eeek). I'm excited to actually take some computer classes. Should be interesting, hope i find that I like it and it's what I'm good at it. Otherwise, I'm screwed.

Website - Working on this website for Sustainability Club (I'm webmaster! Go me!). Suprisingly enough, I'm not like gung-ho about doing it day to day. I've been putting it off for awhile. Now that the "deadline" has passed (date they said they'd like to have it up by, only gave me 2 weeks), I think I'll actually be working on it more frequently. I'd really like to just FTP everything in through Cushy CMS, so I'll have to talk to IAIT about putting that stuff online and getting the address (besides, I don't think this AFT thing is what I want, but I'm gonna walk over there tomorrow maybe and have them talk me through it).Movies - Been getting a whole bunch of movies lately, looking forward to sorting through those, and watching every now and then

Family - My extended family has been dropping by on a fairly regular basis, which is nice. Usually on Sundays, which is strange. I've been giving each of them the grand tour, which involves a lot of walking and seeing the sights. My uncle Nick is driving up from some church conference in North Carolina on Saturday, so I am very excited to see him. It also means that I get to skip out on a Sustainability Club hike at Turkey Run (where?). And there are several people that will be going that I cannot stand be around for any amount of time. Then again, my kickass SA Peter will also be going, so I guess it's a tradeoff.

Computer - The Linuxbox 2.0 is moving along a little worse for the wear. I've been slightly frustrated with it lately, due to it's horrible clunky freezing speed. A look inside and quick bj (by air can, get your mind out of the gutter!) did enough to stop its random shut-downs. I am furiously awaiting the release of the final version of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) so I can upgrade the Linuxbox 2.0 to *gasp* 3.0....it's very exhilarating. The CPU is constantly over-worked, with zero idle time, mostly due to Firefox (which i love, but sometimes goes slower than necessary) and Xorg (which i can't seem to kill). I wonder how Linux runs on a real computer, not one that can't handle any kind of gentle use like this Linuxbox. Also, the 36.29 GB harddrive definitely needs replacing, because I keep no documents on this (other than backup for my laptop, and music) and it's about 2.2 GB from full (thanks Conky).
It's for those reasons that I have decided to venture out into a new endeavor. Well, two endeavors. The harder endeavor is to replace the CPU, hard drive, motherboard on the Linuxbox, and add in a video and sound card that will handle games and sound, in order to get it in working condition. I wonder if this is just too much work/money/time. Anyway, that's a job for this summer possibly.
No, the present endeavor is to install Ubuntu on my laptop, at which point I will rechristen it the Linuxbook 1.0! Yes, i freed up enough space (almost 46 GB) on the 100 gig drive that I'm confident will be enough room. I'm definitely gonna need to buy an external hard-drive to store my files/movies/games on, since I won't have much more space on the laptop. Anyway, i preordered a Intrepid Ibex CD (don't have any cd's to burn here and I like having the actual official physical copy) and will work on installing that when it comes (release on 10.30, which is only 8 days from now).

Girls - Maura and I are doing well, it's been about a month since we started dating. The ride back home for fall break was very nice, though I wish I wasn't sick (oh, and yeah, i'm sick). We've been going through lots of movies while her roommate has been out partying (we've been having lots of fun). Something funny tho, she likes the fact that I like Star Wars. She thinks it's cute. ......she's insane, but an awesome insane, like when the crazy guy in the dorm room next to you steals a whole box of cookies from the Subway and passes them around the lounge at 4 in the morning. She hasn't seen the original trilogy, so I'll be schooling her in the ways of properly appreciating the movies (we finished A New Hope last night). She's wonderfully sweet and caring, though she is given to sudden bouts of anger towards my stupid hallmates when they are being vulgar and stubborn bitterness when I say something remotely that could be considered mean. I think we're getting much more comfortable with each other, so I think those mad periods can be cut down considerably. She is wonderful and i'm happy to be with her now.

College Life - Part First

2008-09-10T21:23:00.002-05:00

Okay, so now I'm almost two weeks into college and I'm having a pretty good time.
Let's run through the basics.

Orientation - Drove up with the whole family (oh what a JOY) and arrived early afternoon Friday. RA's and SA's were all around, helping everybody unpack the cars and through it into the rooms. That was very nice of them, cuz instead of taking an hour to get all the stuff out of the car and another hour to get it up the steps into the room, it took less than 5 minutes. My roommate seemed very quiet, almost as if he was mad at me. Wes, he's from Maine. Seemed like such a goof on Facebook, now all quiet and shy. Orientation schedule was crazy, just throwing all of us together in an effort to get us to meet new people. Tried to get online with my Linuxbox, but they fixed it so we couldn't get online (so we would get out of the dorm and not be antisocial). Bonfire, comedians, general session, food, icebreakers, ultimate frisbee, and more. It was a lot of fun.

Class - Got my schedule all set. Calc 3, Physics 1, Chemistry Honors (plus Chem and Physics Labs), College and Life Skills (advisory/homeroom, just a general lame one), and Engineering Practice 160 (design class, work with a team on a LEGO robot competition). The homework freaked me out the first day, but I'm getting used to it. Actually, I'm actually kinda ahead on my work for two classes, with a lab report for Chem to work on all day tomorrow. I think I've got a handle on things. Falling asleep in a lot of my classes as a result of staying up too late doing homework, and also as a result of the subject matter being INCREDIBLY BORING AND EASY!!!!! Learning about vectors in two classes at the same time is not the best for keeping me awake.

People - I was always worried about heading off to a college where I didn't know anybody, leaving all manner of familiarity behind. For the first little bit, I was a tad lonely. Getting thrown in with all these strange people was definitely jarring, and for a while kinda depressing. Finding a group of friends has taken a little bit, but now I've got some. I met a few people that I forced myself to talk to the first night, and I've stayed friends with those people too (especially one very special person). There are a lot of really really nerdy people here (like the antisocial dirty and weird-dressing/talking nerds) but also cool nerds (people who look like normal, but are really very nerdy). In general, they are very nice, and I'm having a great time with almost everybody I meet. Mees Hall is really great, filled with funny kids who love to have a good time. I'm lucky to live there.

Girls - Okay, Rose-Hulman is definitely not known for its gender-diversity. One big sausage-fest. There are a smattering of females here and perhaps there, but on the whole (tee-hee!) it's all guys. I feel bad for them, surrounded by intelligent morons who wouldn't know how to talk to a girl if they had a map and a list of suggested response topics (Don't talk about what operating system they use, compliment them on their necklace or nails). People are actually starting to pair off, kinda. It's noticable. And I'm proud and extremely ecstatic to say that I have my eye on a certain chica, and she has her eye on me. We're taking it slow, which is very different than my normal practice, but I believe this is the right way to go and am enjoying every blessed second with her. We'll see where this goes from here (I'll post juicy details later).

Clubs - I don't know about intramurals, but I'm not doing Quiz Bowl, those kids are lame. Going to try Ballroom dancing (not the most masculine, I know, but I am actually very excited to learn how to dance. Perhaps I shall impress the lady-types!) and Sustainability Club. Not sure, I hope I find some niche to fill.

Oh, and the laptops that cost $2000? The exact same ugly-ass model that I unboxed 200 of this past summer. I knew it. I KNEW IT. Ugh.

Will continue to post updates on what I'm doing here and on Twitter.
Adios.

Linux Review/Reflections

2008-08-27T14:47:00.005-05:00

My college post will probably be added later today, when i'm sufficiently bored.

I got an old computer from work (HP Compaq d530 base model) and was told to experiment with Linux on it. I brought it home, connected a fairly good monitor to it, some leftover speakers, and started her up. Downloaded the Ubuntu install CD, and after several failed attempts (had to use an older version 6.0.4 and then upgrade using my download) was running Ubuntu 8.0.4 Hardy Heron on my computer.

For many reasons, I became bored and busy, and did not pay much attention to my new Linuxbox. After a few weeks, finally got around to working with the terminal (very very lite work, still very perplexed) and skinning it to look like a Mac. The problem with the computer was that it was so incredibly mind-numbingly slow. Like molasses squared. It would freeze, the programs would take 5 minutes to load, it was horrible.

It was like that for most of the summer. I finally decided to do some real work on it when I figured that I could take it to college to write papers with, granted that it would perform at stable speeds.
So we went out to Best Buy, picked up some RAM and I installed it. Reboot, and reinstall Ubuntu (just to wipe all the crap and start from scratch). Now, introducing the Linuxbox 2.0, open for business!

I've been spending the past few days enjoying it, and learning a lot more than I knew before about Linux.
Here's the features I installed and my opinion on them.

Ubuntu OS - I thought the interface at the start was a little clunky and a tad kid-friendly (with the big buttons and orange color scheme), but since delving into the customization, I've grown to love the ease and vast multitude of options available to you. Solutions are relatively easy to find, and there's always cool things to discover. The Terminal functionality is intimidating, but practice has made me appreciate the integration and simplicity of it, hope to use that more and more.
Rhythmbox - A good music player, imported my songs from the external hard drive easily enough, and I haven't tried out the Podcast and Radio functions, but hope they are as simple and easy to use. Recognized my iPod (have yet to sync or add anything, we'll see if that is as easy).
Amarok - A superior music player, much better than Rhythmbox. I hear it's also on Windows, which i think makes it a very good alternative to iTunes. iPod recognition was not as easy as in Rhythmbox, but easy to figure out nonetheless. Music library compilation was soooo much quicker than the built-in player, and the interface is a lot smoother and cooler too. Album art was a cinch, and it even found pictures for albums that I hadn't found yet, which I thought was really cool (although, it did sometimes make mistakes, but those were only in albums that I didn't mind having correct art for; every time there was a mistake, the art Amarok found was too hilarious to take away. A great great feature). The logo is cool, and I'm keeping this in my dock.
Avant Window Navigator - A Macintosh-esque dock for programs and launchers. The download was simple the second time around, with my speeded up system, and I've had relatively few problems with it. I really can't get the launchers to work, and it kinda glitches in that I open a program and it doesn't open. Looks pretty cool, but the interface is confusing (not very clear about what options do exactly what, or what places I'm changing color in. A tad nicer than the ugly panels tho.
I will post up screenshots of my desktop, plus a full list of what my settings/themes are soon.

Pidgin - A very very nice IM client that combines AIM, Yahoo, WindowsMessenger, and many other IM services into one interface. I like Pidgin, it's simple and clean and doesn't have popups out the wazoo (Looking at you Yahoo!). I even went and uninstalled everything on my Windows machine and installed Pidgin, and it's working great. What I really wanted was an IM client that merged all my accounts into one buddy list and just let me talk to anybody I wanted, without worrying about different accounts or anything like that. Pidgin lets me do that very easily, and for that, I'm grateful. An excellent service, with beautiful simplicity. Pidgin gets a 10 out of 10!

Incredibly pumped for Intrepid Ibex. October 30th, WOOT!

God I'm hungry.

Foot Hurts

2008-08-21T16:39:00.005-05:00

So it's Thursday. Waiting for Naruto manga to be uploaded tomorrow. Haven't been keeping up with the subbed anime, cuz of this whole sucky storyline, maybe when the Akatsuki get back into it.

My dad and i moved furniture from the library, family room and my parents bedroom so that the carpet can be cleaned tomorrow. We have a lot of heavy stuff. I put the bed headboard down on my foot, and gashed like an inch hole. Ow.

Still working on thank-you notes for my party. So boring. Just have to get them all done by next friday. Ick.
Need to stay up on GoNintendo messageboards, cuz i want to get past the 200 mark eventually.

New Team Fortress 2 update, for Heavy. Some new maps, I've played everyone but Lumberyard + Ravine, and those look good. I'm intriqued by the Arena mode, but all the matches are so small that I can't find an open one!

School starts next friday. Looking forward to meeting everybody, and starting class. These last few days are gonna be weird, what with me having nothing to do, waking up later, and all my little friends going to hs while my other friends are pretty much already left. Just trying to pack things and figure out what i'm gonna be taking.

Bought Brawl and Crazy Taxi. First impression of Brawl, not the best. Then i switched to the Gamecube controller, and I'm having a ball! The Subspace Emmissary is an addicting addition, and I'm working through the challenges to get the extras. I feel like I'm back in TF2 again, going for achievements. Haven't popped in Crazy Taxi yet, even though it's one of my favs.

Sincerely,
Too Noble For My Own Good,

Striker Jacen

Reply

2008-08-20T18:24:00.003-05:00

I kinda abandoned this blog, as I was kinda being emo about it, and only posting every couple months or so, when i was too low to talk to anybody about it.

I'll try to repress my emo impulses, just this once.
Working on getting an actual website up, with an actual CMS and wicked sweet design, solely designed by me.
But I've been busy
I anticipate the busyness with continue through college.
We'll see where this goes.

I'll try to keep these posts down to a minimum
maybe trash the whole thing so people don't think I'm weird
I dunno
I'll work on it
in the meantime, Too Noble For My Own Good is going Twitter-style.
Thanks for stopping by!

Sincerely,
Too Noble For My Own Good,

Striker Jacen

Story of My Life

2007-04-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

Urg.

That's all I'm really feeling.

Urg.

I haven't posted in awhile, just haven't had time. Or been too lazy. Combo of both.

Well, a lot has happened since October. And yet, not too much. Story of my life.

I suddenly felt like typing out my feelings cuz of a major revelation that popped up tonight.

Here I am, sitting in the den, coloring my spanish poster (Dali's Pierrot Playing the Guitar, we're supposed to copy it), and it's taking awhile. So I decide to go online, and read some MySpace messages.

And there's one from my buddy, my best buddy in the whole freaking world. And it's labeled "Prom", which I really didn't notice at first.

And as I'm reading, I'm kinda wanting to hit something. Apparently, my best buddy is asking me how to ask this girl out, this girl who've I've known for almost a year now; we met around September of last year, working on homecoming stuff. And we started talking and I met more of her friends, who became my friends and we all talked online and this one girl, this girl he wants to ask out, is the one I talked to the most, who I shared all my secrets with and spent the most time on.

My buddy has apparently liked her and wants to ask her to prom. He wants me to tell him a good way to do it.

Now I'm kinda torn here. Can you guess why?

Striker Jacen

Why Life Sucks

2006-10-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well. This has been an interesting month. Let's recount, shall we?

1. Asked crush to homecoming (rose=$3.99, discount=15%, happiness=priceless).

2. Got turned down by crush (not because of preference, but because of parent's rules).

3. Somehow fall out of favor with my crush within 4 days of asking. Now she doesn't like me anymore. We're still friends, but it's a little bit different. She says it's awkward. But we'll get over it.

4. Get super stressed out because of homecoming and all the organizational work that I was involved in. I got to be Superman on the parade float. Did I say "got?" I mean, "was forced."

5. Went to homecoming with some friends. Had lots of fun, danced with my crush for one of the two (FREAKING TWO!!!!!!!!!!!) slow songs. Danced with other people lots (finally discovered how to "grind"). And yeah. Heard enough stupid rap to last me a lifetime.

6. Working still. Getting harder as the year is going by. I hate having no time to do anything anymore. I don't even have the free time to sacrifice for homework. Nothing is getting done.

7. Becoming seriously depressed because I never get to see my friends and don't think it's going to let up any as the year goes by. God, I hate school. I just wish it would go away. And leave my friends.

But yeah. There's probably more. But I just can't think of anything.
I seriously feel like I'm never going to be able to date. At least, not seriously. Nothing I do never gets me anywhere. Add that to the fact that I'm not "popular" or anything really approaching attractive. I wish I could have someone tell me otherwise, and really be able to prove it.

But to do that, they'd have to have feelings for me to show that they meant it, but that won't happen anytime soon. So, I'm just going to sit in a corner. And maybe cry. I don't know. Maybe it'll just be me, drowning in my thoughts.

And my grandma is in the hospital now. Her blood pressure isn't being stable. And she's, like, 82. So I'm pretty worried. My other grandma died when I was 13, and my grandpa died when I was 15. Each two years and a month apart. And now we're coming up to that time again. I don't really believe in that kind of stuff, but I'm still really worried.

Add again that my parents are worrying about me because I'm spending more and more time on email (the only semi-entertainment I get) and more procrastination from my studies. And that I have a 90% in chemistry, even though I'm doing better now. So I've got that pressure.

My life is eat, sleep, work, school, homework, more homework, work, eat, finish homework, sleep little bits, and school again. No break. I don't get breaks. I'm smart. I can "handle it."

I hate this. Why can't it get easier? Why can't somebody realize what's happening to me? Why doesn't somebody like me?

And why do I feel guilty for even attempting to complain?

It's my life. I have to deal with it. So I guess I have to bury my tears deep down and suck it up. Because I have a future to prepare for.

But what future is worth the pain that I go through now?

Striker Jacen

Life Can Turn Around

2006-09-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

My life has gone completely full-circle in the past week. I now am super happy to go to school, so I can see a certain somebody. I love the fact that this person approached me about their feelings, and just came right out and said it. I love that she did that. I can't believe how incredibly brave she is, but I know that I'm the luckiest guy in the world. She's super sweet and the cutest girl I've ever met. I've had a pretty big crush on her, and now it's out in the open. She didn't come to school today because she had a really sore throat and can't talk, and I was very sad the rest of the day. But we had a great talk. And I feel 100% comfortable talking to her about this stuff; usually it's too awkward to do in person. But now, we can talk and chill and support each other. We've only had such a conversation once, but it was so special and nice. I can't stop thinking about her and whenever I see her, my heart beats so fast and I can't concentrate. It's a feeling that I love and I hate, because it makes me feel so weird and so cool.

Striker Jacen

About To Kiss

2006-08-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am. After 4 hours of work, I'm back at home. You know, 4 hours used to be a lot to me. But now the time flies by. I can actually keep my mind in a happy place that doesn't make me so bored.

But anyway. I finished my ACT homework and I'm eating Macaroni and cheese, while watching Star Wars: Episode V. I love Star Wars. I am always amazed at the new things I notice everytime I watch. I never get tired of it. The level of detail and thought is amazing. And the philosophical connotations are very intriguing and cool.

But anyway. I start soccer next week. Double practices, which means Monday-Friday I go from 8 till 10 in the morning and then again at 4 till 6 at night. Might not seem like much, but it is exhuasting. Doesn't help that it's at the hottest time of the year. Oh well. And then school the week after. I'm actually really excited for school to start. I'm finally going to be an upperclassman, which lots of little freshmen to terrorize. And I will be able to drive to school somtimes, which will be nice. And lots of my friends are in classes with me. Which is nice. English is going to rock, but I'm still going to have to do more work, since it's AP. The most stressful year of my adolescent life starts next week. I'm...anxious.

And maybe this year things will finally go right for me. At least, concerning relationships. I'm going to ask somebody to homecoming this year. I didn't freshman year, because I went with my friends, and I didn't sophomore year, because I really didn't want to spend the money. Hopefully that will pan out, and afterwards, who knows what will happen? I don't mean that night, I'm saying longer term. Maybe I'll find the time to date. Or not. Probably not. Things haven't been going my way for the past 4 years, and I don't see any reason why they'll let up now.

But yeah. That's my life update for now. I'm going to go wash my dish, then come back up here, do some emailing, and then watch some more of my movie. I'm just up the part where they kiss, and Luke is eating in Yoda's house. Exciting!

Sincerely,

Striker Jacen

Geniousness

2006-07-24T20:06:00.000-05:00

So here I am, just sitting in my den, typing out a blog, drinking an A&W root beer, checking my "the MySpace" (I like to add the "the" because it sounds cool), watching episode 2 of Samurai Jack on Toonami Jetstream, and listening to Maroon 5. Oh, and doing my ACT homework.
Talk about multitasking!

Anyway. I'm taking an ACT prep class this summer. I find it really easy. I don't get super good scores, by my standards, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. Today (and the past two weeks) have been math tests and those are usually an easy grade. Although as the tests have gotten harder, I've been getting one or two more wrong than I usually do. I really want to get a great grade on the real thing, so I'm going to have to bust my butt to concentrate.

Tonight, I got 56 out of 60, which when you extrapolate is a...*Checking back of book*...33. Hmph. I usually get better than that at home. Grr....

Oh well. Not sweating it.

Sincerely,
Too Noble For My Own Good,

Striker Jacen

Introduction to 2 Noble

2006-07-24T14:38:00.000-05:00

In this post, I present 2 Noble. The title bar of your internet window shows you the full title, which I thought up because it pertains to my life quite frequently. Do you ever find that your conscience makes everything more complicated and difficult? That if you could not care about other people and be a jerk like everyone else, you'd be happier? That's how I feel sometimes.

Anyway, back to subject. I have started this blog for the sole purpose of keeping myself amused. I actually didn't know that Blogger was free until I looked at the site a bit and decided to create this blog. I intend to update as often as I am able and as my mood/schedule/weather permits. It will be used for...well, anything I feel like posting. Events in my life, my feelings at any given time, weird pictures, funny stories, poems; you want it, you got it.

If you want to contact me, email me at the address listed. Otherwise, leave me some funny comments and links to cool stuff. You never know, I just might post them here for the entire internet community (meaning whoever reads my blog. Meaning a fat, bald guy from Australia who has no job. And yes, I did just make fun of you, intelligent reader. Please forgive me. And save me from the offended Australians) to see.

So, yeah. That's it for this post. At least the introduction. If you ever feel like talking, just drop me a line. Real simple.

Okay. Bye!

Sincerely,
Too Noble For My Own Good,

Striker Jacen

And yes, I did take that picture of the panda. That was a fun day.