I strongly dislike moral dilemmas.

You always read about that philosophical situation where "what if you put two bowls of food equidistant for a dog, would he starve to death?" (which is a retarded question itself) ... and sometimes I feel as if I'm put in that position.

Specifically, when eating watermelons. I know for a fact not to chew and swallow those big black seeds because if you do, a watermelon will grow in your stomach (duh)... but what's sketchier is with those small white seeds. I mean, they're not really seeds, but still ... do you eat them or spit them out? Spitting them out is such a pain, and with me the white seeds always get stuck on my lower lip when i'm trying to spit it out. Then again, it's somewhat unpleasant to swallow the seed.

So herein lies the eternal question: spit or swallow?

sunjun posted a link to some guy who was stationed in korea ... his website is here. Although some of the pictures lack photographic merit (sorry i just cannot let the perfectionist in me go...) the pictures are most interesting because they show an underdeveloped korea as opposed to the korea of today.

what's interesting to me personally is that a lot of the pictures reminded me of vietnam. seriously.

I have no idea why, but the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was singing "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne. Realize that this is not the first thing I did, I was doing this as I woke up.

And now the song is stuck in my head. Argh.

Good news: I'm finally getting my work ethic back after doing nothing for the past few weeks. Expect some crude documentation for Tabulas to be uploaded today - I have lots to do with Tabulas, but for now I'm going to sidetrack briefly and work on another project which is related to Tabulas.

The more I get involved in this project, the more I realize how fall it shorts of its full potential. I wish I had some more knowledge before I started this project. Right now, it's not "adding feature modules," it's "hack the code so stuff works." Not a good method of managing a site. Especially since the hacking method will eventually lead to a hard to manage site.

In any case, I ramble. The new project I'm working on has very close ties to Tabulas - you might also consider it a spinoff of Tabulas. Since starting this project, I've come to realize that I can't make Tabulas "your all in one solution." Besies being a programming nightmare, it's hard to manage all the features under one easy-to-use UI.

Furthermore, there's not an aura of "technical perfection" on this site. The code is messy, almost nothing is standards compliant, and there's no documentation.

Until I fix these issues, I can't get Tabulas up on the playing field. As Typepad releases tomorrow, I have to realize that "yes, there are better sites" on the web. But there's very little I can do against Typepad. I'm running up against two people with greater devotion and time than me. Furthermore, half of the Typepad team hs years of experience over me in programming. I cannot win.

So what do I do? I continue to do what i do. I chug along, making stuff slowly better, until one day I can sit back and say, "Damn this is a good product."

But I can't let myself be overwhelmed. There's pages and pages of stuff to fix and make better, but I have to take it slowly. Knock down one bug, add one feature ...

Eventually Tabulas will rock even more.

I saw "28 Days Later" yesterday night with some friends. The alternate ending sucked ass, but the movie itself was pretty darn good.

In any case, I think I was really nervous and scared because my thumb is really raw this morning. One of my habits when I get scared (which isn't often) is I'll start biting off the skin around my thumb fingernail. The part that contacts directly with the space bar this morning is really raw, so it hurts to hit the spacebar.

But maybe I'll be like Terry Tate and not let my injury phase me! After all, there's a lot of scripting to be done today! Mwahahahahaha.

I've always wanted to get a "behind the scenes" peek at the making of a scary movie like The Ring or 28 Days Later. You know how in a lot of movies they have outtakes (e.g. Rush Hour, Toy Story 2, etc.) ... do they have these "prankster" outtakes in 28 Days Later? Like when an infected jumps up and goes RAWR does someone's cell phone go off? Do the crew get a good laugh out of it?

Or maybe when the woman in the Ring puts in the video into the VCR, did some mischievous cast member switch the tapes for something more scandalous (like a porno)?

These are questions which weigh in my mind deeply ... I must know the answers. Maybe the filming of 28 Days Later was one huge party, where every take was followed up with a huge joke or something. I don't know. I sure hope the atmosphere of the movie wasn't really boring and scaring. That would suck.

I cannot believe his middle name is "Bean."

i have to wonder what people do to completely fuxor up their Windows installations. I've never had to reformat a windows computer in my life. I've been running this craptop with Win98 for 4 years. Before that, I was running Win95 on my Compaq Presario (aka Shitpaq) for 5 years or so...

So what exactly do people do to fuxor Windows? And don't give me none of that "Microsoft can't make programs worth a shit" reason. We both know it's not true.

[img:14708]

haha

Sigh. It all started innocently enough.

I logged in as root to my npservers server to clear out the mail log (you'd be surprised how much spam uses @neopages.com as a return address ... those bastards) when I noticed that someone from UNL.edu had logged into my server. At first I thought it ahd been UNLV, which might be borst (he's on the west coast right now), but it wasn't him.

As it turned out after checking bash_history and /var/log/secure ... some asshole had somehow gotten a hold of my root password and had rooted my box. Even worse, he or she had installed a goddamn rootkit on the server.

A rootkit allows someone backdoor access to any server regardless of whether or not i change the password. furthermore, the rootkit sniffs the system, meaning every command I typed was being logged so the cracker could find out even more passwords (bad).

Well, with Borst's help, we were able to disable the rootkit (SuckIT was the name of the rootkit), change the password, make sure none of the essential libraries had been corrupted. I installed chrootkit (which checks for rootkits, similar to a virus scanner) and ran it on the system.

Hopefully the server is OK now ... but man it was a scare. I'm lucky I caught the bastard before he could do serious damage to the server; that would of not been good at all.

Oh yeah, the UNL.edu IP address turned out to be a cracked system at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Apparently they've had a few systems compromised ... sigh.

I hate crackers.

HeY iTs ToNy LeE: MAKE YOUR ENEMIES CRY
HeY iTs ToNy LeE: if you can't beat them, BEAT them
HeY iTs ToNy LeE: that is the tonylee method of DOOM

the infamous tonylee.

and a sure sign i've been working on webpages too long:

thug4life royboy: <imitates sulhye> oh i'm such a gongjoo </imitates>
analbumcover629: hahaha
analbumcover629: roy jokes in html

wow i've noticed i get a lot of entries for trying to be funny and not write about technical things.

maybe you decided to encourage me to write non-technical posts with COMMENTS which are better than stupid eprops.

when i first started this site, sung the dung suggested i implement a "epoops" system. basically it would work like eprops, except the more you give, the less you like a post. ha ha.

i almost implemented it.

i spent most of yesterday fixing up the hax0r3d server, but i got a little research done on my new project. i've been learning how to mess around with PHP buffers to output data dynamically on each page instead of waiting.

for instance, when you attach images, the script just goes and goes ... and you don't know whether it hung. dynamic output buffering would let me do something like "attach image 1... attaching image 2..."

Once I get the hang of buffering, I'll implement it for the gallery here. That would be hot stuff.

I need to add two critically missing features to Tabulas, but it's going to require some fundamentaly hax0ring of the code. Boo. But I think I will get it done (sometime today).

"My offer to you is this. Nothing." - Michael Corleone

do you ever have intense dreams that you wake up from feeling bad?
(Read More)

i've lately felt a little invigorated with this side project i'm working on. i feel like i'm making a decent site but it's not without the overreaching-ness of tabulas. tabulas is so far and wide (which i thought would suite my inability to focus on one thing rather well), but it's just gotten a bit too large for me to handle at the moment.

this new project lets me focus on one task and doing it well... it's really invigorating.

but it's taking me forever to script. maybe it's because i want to do everything "right" this time, so i'm taking my time planning and writing quality code rather than something that'll break rather easily.

i've spent about 2 days on only ~120 lines of script... lovely.

i have a question to those people who figured out how to rank images in the gallery...

i've been looking over at different methods of ordering; the first that came to mind was spaceinthewho's suggestion of a system used on yahoo with a dropdown menu (there's an image in her gallery here).

this is a pretty useful system, but it requires that people input image names for each file. and you don't know what image looks like what... but it works pretty nice.

then i've got the current system that uses the "input a number" system. it's a helluva lot more annoying, but it works a little better (faster to quickly organize the images if you know what you're doing).

i'm leaning towards implementing both - the dropdown menu seems a bit more user-friendly.

thoughts?

I've learned the beautiful method of managing PHP scripts using the safe method of using $_POST and $_GET to process data rather than using simple variables. Being in an array, I can write a global function that will globally clean all my variables as opposed to having to do it one by one:

$_POST = cleanInput($_POST);

The same with outputting data:

$q = safesql("SELECT * FROM table");
$r = mysql_fetch_assoc($q);
$r = cleanInput($r);

WOW! Man, this new script is so tight (I hate verbose code)... I'm really happy with the way this project's going on so far. I've also been dabbling a bit in Javascript, since I think it's incredibly crucial to making stuff idiotproof.

But honestly, the more I work with PHP, the more I see it simply as a templating engine. It's not a real language. It doesn't really do anything awesome... bah.

hahahahahahaah. i took this quiz after mi told me too. then han IMed me last night with the image which reminded me to post this.


Thug Bear


Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


WORD!!!

can barely keep my eyes open. must ... keep ... scripting.

you know how sometimes when you write a paper while you're really sleepy you'll write something ridiculous?

i wonder what would happen if i scripted half-asleep... heh heh heh.

man, i created the screenname "ID Peece B" and started IMing korn people thinking i was SO clever.

only one person got the joke.

i'm so sad. i think i'll go cry now.

When I was younger (ok, maybe a year ago) I though to myself "How could people be so devoted to one political party?"

Granted, some people may rarely agree 100% with the politics of a party, but most people I know can shift between the two relatively easy.

But now I've figured it out. It's those damn politicians. For me, it's not the ideology that bothers me, but the opportunistic bastards who bank on the "hard" opinions of a party to gain more support and power. Everytime I see a Democratic candidate go out on a limb and criticize the whole Iraq issue, I just feel this stirring of hatred deep down.

Might I remind everyone that the war with Iraq was supported by both parties when Bush looked for approval from Congress?* (*ok, debateable that Bush got "approval" for the war, but in any case, both parties stood by Bush).

Now that there are possible inklings of doubt in Iraq, power-hungry Democrats bank on this sentiment (note the lack of the use of "popular" there) to gain more exposure and to boost their power.

I would not be such a Republican if I didn't hate those Democrats so damn much. If you get in my face with Democratic propaganda bullshit, I'll spit some Republican propaganda bullshit right back at you.

Argh.

Taco Bell's latest promotion is to give out an opportunity to win free gas.

Is this some subtle joke from the Taco Bell execs? Cause when I saw the big cup at Taco Bell that said "WIN FREE GAS FOR A YEAR" I couldn't help but chuckle.

i think i'll give my project a name - let's call it tokki for now (korean for bunny rabbit.

progress on tokki was rather slow today - i somehow _just_ discovered the ternary method in php and it was rather nice to fit a whole command structure in one line instead of broken up over 5 lines.

the problem right now is that i'm building all these separate components without tying them in - the design has to tie them all in eventually, and it's hard for me to write code without visualizing physically how everything fits in.

right now i'm doing some blind coding; just making sure i'm not putting in parse errors and such. once i get a design up and can link up modules with each other i can work out the architectural bugs that exist right now.

right now i'm using a lot of sql queries on the admin portion, especially for the management of shared data. this is bad. i'll work those problems out later; right now i'm just trying to write code that i can easily fix up later.

step 1: get all the separate modules working
step 2: implement design
step 3: make sure all the modules work nice together
step 4: make sure there are no security bugs and such
step 5: clean up architectural problems (e.g. find better ways of managing the loops).

i know most of you CS majors will probably blast me for this method (i'm sure there's some set method that you're supposed to do something). sadly, this method works best for me (so far) so give me a break :P

but man am i excited about this new site. it has a targetted niche ... and one that hasn't been exploited by any site yet. at all. there are a lot of sites that get close, but none that quite do it.

this new project also draws close to one of my favorite hobbies, so i know what i'm doing and i know what needs to be done. i have in my head a "VIP beta tester" list of people i want to beta test to tell me how to make it better ....

let's hope i can do this!

damn those inhuman assholes at guantanamo.

me: hey anthony, what are some good songs by 311?
anthony: there's no such thing.

I should warn you that this post has no bearing on the fact that MT's team launched TypePad, a product that is in the same category as Tabulas...

As a server admin, I have issues with my free server spiking up in CPU and memory usage. Its a pain because the spike usually queues up a huge backlog of httpd and mysqld requests and this in turn usually leads to httpd crashing (i know, i'm a horrible server admin; sue me).

In any case, I've noticed that in particular, Moveable Type is *incredibly* server-intensive. True, it may be the best feature-wise journaling software (both paid and free), but DAMN does it use a crapload of memory. I was watching the server today ... and check out the screenshot below. This went on for about 3-4 minutes and server load spiked up above 7 multiple times (you're not recommended to go above 12).

I guess MT isn't very memory and cpu-friendly ... the price of good software, I guess :)

I spent most of today making a liquid CSS design for my new site; I was happy to see it working so nicely in IE. Then I loaded it in Mozilla Firebird .. and it looked like crap.

The problem has to do with the way I'm floating two columns and then trying to push data after it. Mozilla is not being nice - while IE is doing what I want it to. Without pointing fingers at which browser I think is sucking arse (*COUGH*) right now ... I will just go on the following rant about CSS and tables.

Almost every site I visit lately is pushing "liquid CSS" designs. The one main reason I always see for this is the following:

"It's a real separation of content and design."

Now I take real issue with this. When you create a CSS site driven in PHP (for example), you still have to input the <div class="className"> tag somewhere... meaning you're still putting up markup in your design somewhere.

I guess what's basically happening is people are trying to push this hierarchy:

content (substance) --> CSS (style + formatting of data)

I really don't like this. You're putting too much pressure on CSS to do formatting. And let me tell you something - formatting in CSS is a bitch. Almost every browser handles things different and things get really wacky trying to calculate exact locations to place stuff (if you're using position:absolute).

The hierarchy I like better is:

content (substance) --> tables (formatting) --> CSS (style)

Tables are so much easier to format with; and their logic is a lot easier to follow (for me anyways).

Argh, i'll write more about this later. I'm going to go try to fix up my design in CSS now ... sigh.

some of you may remember the best website in the world ... the POOP PAGE. sadly, we thought we had LOST all the old data due to a nasty server crash, but archive.org archived a _lot_ of it! so go here and enjoy what was the best site on the internet!

wow, xanga has been down for a WHILE.

why can't we use this stupid patriot act laws to prosecute spammers? i mean, it's going to be repealed soon anyways - we might as well get some mileage from this ill-conceived law.

I was driving home today (man, it's still weird to type that!) when "Where is the Love" by the Black Eyed Peas came on ... I had to turn right so I turned on my blinker.

To my amusement, the blinker clicky noise was IN BEAT with the song! I was almost half-tempted to not turn just so I could see how long it would stay in beat ... but sadly I decided not to encourage the wrath of bad driving karma from my fellow drivers behind me.

simplifying tabulas

a much-needed outline of what i need to do with tabulas. basically i'm starting to put good programming practices in play ... i guess i can't "just do it." :)

whoooaaa lillia is a scary teacher.

haha.

While I was going to Bojangles (my favorite fast food place in the world) for some dinner, I called up hao cause i hadn't seen him in a while. He invited me over to his new house (he moved about 5 minutes down the road to a NICE big house). We hung out for a while .... but as I was leaving (I was OUT THE DOOR!) he brought out the cards and chips and tempted me to play some poke her. No limit Texas hold 'em. ARGH! MY KRYPTONITE!

So we played heads up Texas Hold 'em. We've figured out a good way to play so it's fun and long-lasting without losing too much money - we get $20 worth of chips ... but you *have* to take the other person's chips. Once you do, you win ... a total of ... $3!!!!. Yeah, it's not much, but we really play for fun and to get better.

So the first two rounds I beat Hao pretty easily. $6, baby! (For the record, I've taken at least $24 off of Hao off of these $3 games) Then he goes, "Alright, let's go double or nothing."

Now note that the first two rounds had lasted a combined total of maybe an hour ... so I agreed. Judy had called me and I wanted to call her back within an hour and I figured I could finish a round of Texas Hold 'Em in an hour.

Oh boy, was I wrong.

The last round was fought tooth and nail. There was a lot of inaction (he was playing pretty tight), but when there was action, things got pretty interesting. At one point, Hao had gone all in (like $7) ... and I doubled him up. Then I was down to my last $5 and I came back up $20. We kept swinging at each other, unable to knock each other out.

After about an hour half of grueling play, I got the golden hand. I opened up with a 10/9 offsuit while Hao had opened with 9/? (I forget his second hand, but they were both suited spades).

The flop came: two spades on the flop with a 10. At this point, Hao had a flush draw and I had a pair of tens. Lovely. On the turn I picked up another 10 (no spades). At this point, it was a tossup between us; Hao had a flush draw and I had a solid three-of-a-kind. He still had a lot of outs. We both raised the pot about $5 at this point... and then we both waited for the river.

Lo and behold, it was a 9 of spades. This gave Hao a flush, but it gave ME a full house (10s over 9s). I went all in, and he fell for it. Amazing play.

What a way to end the game. A fullhouse has odds of something like 1/700, while a flush has odds of something like 1/500.

Great game, Hao. I'm really learning the intricacies of poker and am becoming more bold with betting and bluffing. I also have a pretty good read on Hao now ... mwahahahah.

My love is like (whoa)
My kiss is like (whoa)
My touch is like (whoa)
My sex is like (whoa)
My ass is like (whoa)
My body's like (whoa)

And you're kissin it so whatcha think of it?

her new song is AWESOME!!!

mya f. missy elliot - my love is like WHOA!

Maybe I'm just being a bit too narrowsighted about this, but I really don't like how the world's best singers are also the world's biggest skanks/troublemakers. Is it too much to ask for a wholesome beautiful singer?

I mean look at Christina Aguilera. Beautiful voice. But man, she is skanky. And she sings about the stupidest things. Her voice is so amazing yet she wastes it on "I hate men"-type of songs. Come on. Get over it.

Mariah Carey is another case of this syndrome. Everytime I see a picture of her, she's wearing almost nothing. I mean, I'm not really complaining about this, but I would have so much more respect for her if she just kept more clothes on!

Whitney Houston ... well, it went all downhill for her when she married Bobby Brown.

Argh.

On a completely unrelated note, I had the sketchiest dream last night. I had a short dream about me, yush, and sech having a pillowfight in our room next year. Except it wasn't manly "pissed" pillowfighting, it was the "lesbian love" pillowfighting that characterize girl sleepovers (I'm an expert on this subject).

I hope none of this sissyness tranpires next year...

a damn good article on basically how america is treating france after the iraq fallout.

some choice cuts:

Clearly American tourists don't agree with him. Americans are now deeply hostile towards France, but they're not holding demonstrations, carrying signs, marching on the French embassy, or desecrating French tombstones. The American grass roots aren't into empty symbolic displays. We don't scold our enemies, or admonish them.

Americans are holding an ongoing plebiscite on the question of French friendship, and they are voting with dollars. Individual Americans are deciding for themselves who they'll give their money to, and France is no longer a favored choice. This is true democracy, a collective display of public opinion, and it is Jacksonian to the core. Democracy is more than just holding elections; it's a commitment by the people and a belief that they're part of something larger, something important, something worth working to save and protect and defend, something that matters. True citizenship in a democracy is active and continuous.

There was little in the way of attempts to formally organize a boycott of France. There were a few web sites, a bit of activism that 99% of Americans probably never heard of. The US government never talked about such a thing, nor did either political party. No "leader" tried to make this happen.

But millions of Americans care about their nation, and won't reward its enemies, especially those who hypocritically claim to be friends so they can get close enough for a back-stab.

The people of the United States are many and are powerful. We lend some of that power to our government, but we retain even more. Our government serves us, but does not rule us.

read the whole thing. there's a lot of links to stories to back up the claims.

update: wow, USS Clueless is a pretty good site. I just read the author's thoughts on why israel isn't considered a 'true' ally and why australia is ... good stuff.

edit2: damn yo. this article is changing my mind about world politics ...

edit3: why europe is falling behind

i keep having these flashing pains in the back of my head. always on the right side, always in the same place. i've tried ignoring them but they keep coming back. is this normal?

saw an episode today. pretty funny stuff.

the general consensus seems to be that "yes it's not normal, but get more sleep."

i'll try to turn in early and stop working on tokki.

then again, it may have something to do with what i've been listening to in winamp that might be causing the headaches ... (yes, this was a shameless plug for audiomatch).

we're going to hit our 5000th member sometime within the next few days. yay! :) with so many members, we get like 3-4 new submissions every second ... and we're transferring out a lot of bandwidth (5GB of just out traffic halfway through the month) considering the only out traffic we have is 600byte images like the one below for each of our users:



i just wish i could somehow convert lots of users into $$$$$ ...

Ok, so maybe some of you are thinking "Roy must be THRILLED that Xanga is down."

Well, not quite. As a server admin, I can totally sympathize with the DDOS attacks ... nobody wishes illwill like that upon one another in the server admin world.

Also on another note, I never really finished Tabulas. You may think it's still really new, but the Tabulas project is about 6 months old (I'll have to dig out the exact date).

And it's still not done. There are tons of small bugs lurking around and no proper documentation. if anything, this xanga crash made me feel really guilty that Tabulas isn't on-par so far as a product.

But again, this will all be figured out soon as soon as I finish tokki (which is progressing nicely). i might have a beta-test signup page soon for tokki.

But Oliver put it best regarding the xanga and tabulas situation:

PubertY2K: what is happening here
PubertY2K: is very similar
PubertY2K: to guys taking advantage of girls after their boyfriends dump them

I am quite thrilled that the crash has served as a catalyst for people to at least try out Tabulas. I need to get the word out there that there are other options...

but alas. if only tabulas was 100% ready i would be thrilled ;)

AGH

I spent 2 hours trying to fix one problem with tokki ... and it came down to missing this:

method="post"

argh

so the north east basically lost power. big deal. i mean, really. lost power. this is something to interrupt "scrubs" about? goodness gracious.

in any case, it was a "natural occurance," but i don't buy that theory one bit. so here is my list of things/people to blame for this power outage:

• al-qaida
• saddam hussen
• SARS
• osama bin laden
• W32 Blaster Worm
• microsoft
• mad cow disease
• the french

phew. there we go. so pick one and blame them. it's much more exciting than blaming it on a "natural occurance."

for everyone who still has power (which is like 90% of the country), let us turn up our air conditioning in honor of those without power tonight.

can i get an amen?

tokki is a new project that i'm working on. i have decided against disclosing any details until the site actually launches for personal reasons.

i managed to figure out how to hax0r apache to allow for 'fake' subdomain creation ... it's rather interesting, really. so tokki accounts will actually be something like http://username.tokki.com/ instead of the way i've been doing it on tabulas.

i briefly thought about upgrading tabulas for subdomain support, but decided it was too much work for now.

so i'm still working on tokki. still working on the admin panel. trying to figure out the best and most efficient ways of managing data. grar.

more later.

i miss 'pac.

A place to spend my quiet nights
Time to unwind
So much pressure in this life of mine
I cry at times
I once contemplated suicide
And woulda tried
But when I held that nine
All I could see was my mama's eyes
No one knows my struggle
They only see the trouble
Not knowing it's hard to carry on when no one loves you
Picture me inside the misery and poverty
No man alive has ever witnessed struggles I've survived
Praying hard for better days
Promised to hold on
Me and my dogs don't have a choice but to roll on
We finally found a spot to kick it
Where we could drink liquor
And no one bickers over trick shit
A spot where we could smoke in peace
And even though we Gs
We still visualize places
That we could roll a piece
And in my minds eye
I see this place the players go and pass it
Got a spot for us all
So we can ball
At Thugs Mansion

- 2pac "thugz mansion"

theories abound

There is a lot of revionist history going on lately regarding the a-bombing of Japan. I've always maintained that it was the right thing to do, regardless of the loss of civilian lives and the general inhumanity associated with atomic bombs.

I remember apu and I had a really good debate on this topic which pretty much ended in a stalemate (does it ever end in anything else?). However, Kristof has written an op-ed regarding the "rightness" in dropping the a-bombs which I find every interesting.

You never think about how the Japanese felt - you'd think they all thought the dropping was wrong, but we often forget that there are multiple factions within a country all vying for the "final decision."

In any case, this is an op-ed and as such shouldn't be taken as 100% fact. However, assuming this is true, I'd be curious to hear what your defenses against dropping the A-bomb.

Remember that Japanese warrior culture honored death, even against odds. The kamikaze attacks were clear examples of this - it is more glorious to die in battle than to surrender. By using the atomic bomb and killing innocent civilians, this had to undercut the warsome factions in Japan- there would be no honorable deaths once atomic bombs were being dropped and the military being decimated.

Speaking of warrior culture, I've been thinking about how prevalent our warrior culture is. I think that the United States has such a dominant warrior culture - I don't know of any other nation that glorifies (well, to use that word in an extreme sense) the armed services as much as the United States does. Everywhere else around you world you see less money being spent on maintaining a large military, yet in the United States you see a budget increase for the military.

Is a dominant military warrior culture really a positive thing?

Edit: I'll do 'blanket' responses to the comments left in response ...

Just an aside to those following the discussion:

I think there needs to be a clear distinction between the two schools of bombing; tactical and strategic bombing. Too many of us nowadays have grown up in the age of pinpoint bombing which leads many of us to believe that it was possible to break the will of the Japanese without mass civilian bombing.

Tactical bombing refers to the direct targetting of military targets to directly support other troops (e.g. striking Iraqi tanks with Hellfire missiles from helicopters would be considered a 'tactical air strike'). Strategic bombing refers to the attacking of secondary targets that are not directly related to the enemy's military. Bombing of power grids, factories, and to some degree, the bombing of civilians was considered 'strategic bombing' (during WWII). Lately our air power theory has mostly moved away from strategic bombing of civilians (firebombings of cities) mostly for political reasons and the fact that the bombing of civilians doesn't actually destroy morale...

Now, looking at the Japanese situation in 1945... the Japanese had been mostly beaten back to the home island, yet they were still holding out. Unlike the Germans, there was no easy land route from which the Soviets and the US (or Allies in Europe) could do a "pincher" move.

Although it's all theoretical, losses on the Japanese islands would of been in the "millions." I'm kind of skeptical of those numbers, seeing as to how taking down the Germany itself was relatively light-lossed (didn't even approach a million by the soviets, if i'm not mistaken)...

In any case, I ramble. The point here is like Will said, the will of the Japanese had not been broken. Winning a war is not about superior firepower and greater number of troops; it's the will to win. If your will can succumb against a superior enemy, you are not defeated. And this was exactly the case in Japan. The Japanese warriors still believed they could hold the home island (or at the worst case, sacrifice themselves with honor).

The atomic bombings showed the fruitlessness of fighting for the Japanese. As for the question of "why didn't we drop them on military targets?"

Well, think about that for a second. If you're the resilient Japanese, and the Americans drop an a-bomb on some deserted military base, it's not saying much. The Japanese public opinion had to see the firsthand horrors of continuing the war against an enemy with the a-bomb. And there is no better way to do this then dropping two a-bombs on two populated areas.

I'm also curious about the post-war situation in Japan had there been a land invasion. The Russians would of certainly taken an active role in taking as much away from Japan as possible ... would there have been a post-war Japan much like Germany? Who knows.

All I know is the Japanese being able to save face helped a lot in the reconstruction of the country. The quick knock-out blows of the atomic bombs helped both militarily and politically to get the Japanese out of WWII.

The one thing I cannot stand about "Asian" website is how much "Asian Pride" bullshit goes into the posts.

They talk about the racial injustices of the past commited by the Americans (which I do not deny), then they go on and with statements like:

~as far as i'm concerned....HISTORICALLY speaking, U.S. did this shit due to there racist shit they do (umm...native americans, slavery, chinese exclusion act, iraqi war....).....think about it...the shit this gov. has done...take a step back, these motherfuckers are racists as hell....yeah, and god bless america...

Yeah! Go! Way to generalize the whole of American history to support your cause.

And what *really* pisses me off is that these people who argue points and ramble. This is how debates about the legitimacy of the atomic bomb turns into Bush-bashing.

I visited the YW link Will sent me in the previous post (thanks!), and I'm just simply appalled at the level of idiocy. Granted, some few do have good points but the majority of them like to group arguments into generalities with no research/background and then post it into a nice little flame.

Think of it as dumbasses with the Xangas, but instead of writing about their boring-ass lives, they're trying to make political commentary.

I saw someone talking about how "We had supplied Saddam" and "how we set-up the Taliban." Oh god. Please don't.

America did not trigger the war with Japan. The US did not look out in the interest of Japanese civilians when dropping those bombs, because our commitment was not to make sure the most number of Japanese civilians survived. Our commitment was to our troops and to American citizens. If a weapon saved American lives, then so be it. This wasn't Desert Storm II where we had pinpoint accurate weapons where we could simply hit military installments and avoid civilians. Even more, we didn't have the clear technical advantage or the locational advantage that gave us leeway to take into account of sparing innocent civilian lives. The goal was to end the 6 year war as fast as possible. Not to save as many lives.

Anyone who tries to make the atomic bomb dropping theory into some racially-motivated crime is a f'ing dumbass, which is what AzNs LOVE to do. Their reasoning goes as follow: "America commited racial crimes against the Japanese. America dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. Therefore, the dropping of the bomb was racially motivated." GOOD CIRCULAR REASONING.

No, really, I shouldn't be so critical. Part of it is general ignorance. There is a stigma associated with nuclear bombs that is generally unfounded. Would it have been more preferable that we used firebombs instead of nukes? I mean, the Tokyo firebombing murdered 100,000 people. Why dont' people complain about this with the same frequency as the atomic bomb?

There's a stigma associated with nuclear power in general. And people need to get their heads out of their asses and realize it.

War sucks, people die. There's no way around it.

the zip format is such a pain in the ass. zip, bzip, gzip, tar, argh.

and now with the two main formats duking it out to push their format over the other, zip isn't even 100% compatible.

this bites.

(i've been messing around with the zip format lately... sorry).

can everyone try to open this file and tell me if you can extract the contents? please leave a comment if you can open it and also what operating system you're running.

thanks.

I was thinking about how cruel it would be to include a spell-checker by default into Tabulas to prevent ... well... Xanga-esque journal entries.

ERROR: guRL is not a word. We suggest: girl
ERROR: AzN is not a word. We suggest: asian.
ERROR: u is not a word. We suggest: you.
ERROR: KrNGuRL is not a word. We suggest: you try Xanga.

How cruel, indeed.

Group X is hilarious.

like the way you sing
like the way you dance
hashmeer like the way you look in the hotpants
look so good i want to give you a hug
make me want to do the sex on grizzly bear rug
like the way you walk when you jiggle your hips
look so good make me want to do a flip
bet you taste a better than a hot dog and chips
wish i could atleast give you kick on the lips
i see you everyday in mercedex benz
i see you everyday riding with your friends
i say come on girl come on give me a ride
but you dont even see me you dont let me inside
im not good at the soccer ball
i smell pretty bad and im not very tall
but give me a call lets go out why wait
but you have to pay and we go rollerskate

rollerskating on a friday evening
bitsch i'm not stayin if you are not paying

i say to you hey, you say what you want
i say i saw you other day in the restaurant
you had dinner then a piece of pie but
why were you sitting weef an idiot guy
so i go to you and i say who is him
you said go away hashmeer thats my boyfriend
i said i dont care if he is your boyfriend cause i
want to touch your poocathe weef my sleemjim
then boyfriend got up hit me in the head
pushed me on the floor kick me in the leg
hurt so bad and it hurt so lot but
i know he got mad cause you think im hot
yes you like me i can tell
even though you say go away and go to the hell
so girl why wait lets go on a date
but you have to pay and we go rollerskate

rollerskating on a friday evening
bitsch i'm not stayin if you are not paying

I cannot stop singing the chorus. So catchy.

Maybe like 2 people who read my journal will understand this joke:

DEAR SIR/MADAM:

I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.

MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION ($1,000,000,000) U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS.

IN THE EARLY 1970S THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION DEVELOPED AT GREAT EXPENSE THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE KNOWN AS UNIX. UNFORTUNATELY THE LAWS OF MY COUNTRY PROHIBITED THEM FROM SELLING THESE SOFTWARES AND SO THEIR VALUABLE SOURCE CODES REMAINED PRIVATELY HELD. UNDER A SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT SOME PROGRAMMERS FROM THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY DID ADD MORE CODES TO THIS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCREASING ITS VALUE, BUT NOT IN ANY WAY TO DILUTE OR DISPARAGE OUR FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THESE CODES, DESPITE ANY AGREEMENT BETWEEN AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY, WHICH AGREEMENT WE DENY AND DISAVOW.

IN THE YEAR 1984 A CHANGE OF REGIME IN MY COUNTRY ALLOWED THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION TO MAKE PROFITS FROM THESE SOFTWARES. IN THE YEAR 1990 OWNERSHIP OF THESE SOFTWARES WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE CORPORATION UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES. IN THE YEAR 1993 THIS CORPORATION WAS SOLD TO THE CORPORATION NOVELL. IN THE YEAR 1994 SOME EMPLOYEES OF NOVELL FORMED THE CORPORATION CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH BEGAN TO DISTRIBUTE AN UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN AS LINUX. IN THE YEAR 1995 NOVELL SOLD THE UNIX SOFTWARE CODES TO SCO. IN THE YEAR 2001 OCCURRED A SEPARATION OF SCO, AND THE SCO BRAND NAME AND UNIX CODES WERE ACQUIRED BY THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, AND IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL WAS RENAMED SCO GROUP, OF WHICH I CURRENTLY SERVE AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.

MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE THEREFORE THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE, THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS.

UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY EXTRACTING OUR FUNDS FROM THESE COMPUTER SOFTWARES. TO THIS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VALUABLE SOFTWARES IN YOUR BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE NOT ABLE AT THIS TIME TO SET A PRICE ON THESE RIGHTS. THEREFORE IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.

KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.

From arstechnica.

days it takes to restore power in US/Canada: 2 days
days it takes to restore power in Iraq: ?????

Granted, they're pretty different situations, but I don't think it looks too good on the world stage when we can't get the goddamn electricy back on all the way in Iraq (but we making really good progress, I hear).

Before I begin, I have to emphasize that I have nothing against people who TyPe LyKk DiS.

None at all. But it makes for an unreadable web and I personally find that type of writing style detestable. No one reads that style of writing, and it detracts from any message you're trying to convey (and last I remember, "communication" was about getting your point across as clearly as possible ... unless you're a girl).

In any case, I needed a short break from working on tokki ... so I started joking around about my spell-checking post earlier.

I was thinking how awesome it would be to apply a front-end filter that would allow you to "filter" through websites with unreadable text ...

My 10 minute attempt you can see here. The original site is here.

Ideally, this would be a client-side program (a plugin, perhaps) that could be installed on any browser. But for practical reasons, I'll discuss the more probable scenario: a front-end filter (set by an option) that would do a "front-end filter" on Tabulas sites.

It would have to do the following:
1.) Load up the page into memory.
2.) Locate the CSS file on the page
3.) This is kinda length. I've bolded the "cliff notes" version.

Step 1: Fix up ridiculously small font sizes
Go through the CSS file, locate instances of the font-size tag (in both shorthand font: notation and the full font-size notation). Any values under 11px would immediately be changed to 11px (ideally 12px, but this could be set on a per-font basis since certain fonts look like crap in 11px and vice versa).

Step 2: Fix up vertical spacing between lines of text
The secondary aspect of this CSS replacement would be to grab the line-height attribute. Too often we see people smooshing text with no vertical distance between lines. It would run a quick calculation (if line_height < (font_size * 1.5)) it would substitute the value of the line-height to something you could read.

Step 3: Unreadable text
The third attribute would be a bit more complex. It would take the background-color color and compare it to every color value. Of course, this is complex because certain aspects of the website defined in the stylesheet *should* be set to a really close color ... it would have to determine which tags were being used by primary fonts (perhaps by looking for a font attribute?). Converting the hex codes to decimal (not sure if this is necessary) the script would attempt to figure out if the colors are "too close." I've seen too many sites with white backgrounds and yellow text. The script would convert colors so that you could actually read them.

4.) Create a temp CSS file and link to it instead of the original CSS file.
5.) REMOVE ALL INSTANCES OF MUSIC
ARGH I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. I know you're just trying to be nice, pushing your Britney Spears on me when I'm trying to read your journal, but I want to listen to Justin Timberlake, OK?! The script would automatically remove any music tags.

6.) FiX WeIrD cAsInG lIke ThIS
I think by default the script would have to convert all casing to lower. Most people nowadays are unaware of the period (.) character so trying to figure out where a sentence began would be pointless. However, you would still build in the feature where the script locates sentences, converts it all ot lowercase, then uppercases the proper instances of casing (I think acronyms like PHP, XML, mySQL would suffer, but there will be some innocent casualties) such as "I" and the beginning of sentences.

I am personally guilty of never capitalizing anything, so this would be a huge boon to me.

7.) Convert words
This is arguably the hardest portion of the script. It would have to loop through a long array of data to make substitutions. Since there seem to be a "set" list of common words that violate "properspeak" such as "lyk", "azN", "gurl", "u", etc.... it would be rather simple to go through and replace all instances of such words with their proper equivalents (like, Asian, girl, you).

So that would be my 7-step script that would get rid of horrid writing styles that have been popularized by Xanga. Even better would be to do this when you INPUT entries so they would forever be stored in their proper format, but I don't believe in censorship.

I mean, it's not censorship when I just change the way the data is outputted via an option, right?

Ok, I just took some time to look over some of the comments in some of my previous posts ... and I'll clarify some positions, especially regarding some of the Xanga/Tabulas.

I personally have nothing against Xanga. I think the guys have done an excellent job of building a product that is acceptable to the masses. But don't trick yourself for a second to think that they've created a real journaling tool. They've embraced almost no standards nor have they indicated that they really care about the end-users.

The only thing I've seen from them is a commitment to maximizing profits. Look at their news pages. Their news is almost all devoted to "Oh, we've been DDOSed." Their last "new" development was on the "Feedback Log." Basically they rehashed the way that data displays, and they made a huge deal out of it.

I do more work that's unannounced than they do announced. This is what I primarily take issue with.

Now, with some of the previous posts you may sense some frustration towards Xanga. This is not a blanket frustration gripe against Xanga itself, but more along the lines of the usable web.

I've used the internet for a few years now and it's somewhat frustrating when so many people embrace bad habits. I've tried to push my values onto this system by embracing some standards (most templates are XHTML 1.0 compliant and utilize CSS instead of fonts, all journals are RSS-syndicated by default, etc.), but there is still such a great battle towards making the web a more usable place.

Now, this frustration you've been sensing at me is the two-edged sword that we know as the Internet popularity. Popularity always comes at a price.

Since the Xanga crash, Tabulas has been getting a lot of new registrations per day. This, on one hand, is good. It means more people are being exposed to Tabulas, and this *may* lead to more money in the future, which would only help this site.

But on the other hand, we're experiencing a marginlization of users. There's a deep fear that the number of users who join Tabulas will be more along the lines of the people I've poked fun of during the last few posts. There are certain new authors whom I've felt are really a great contribution to Tabulas; they *understand* what it's all about and understand why it's much better than other products. Those are the type of people I'd like to attract to Tabulas rather than the "mass quantity" of 13 year old girls posting with wild grammar.

In all, I just fear Tabulas will turn into another Xanga. The first few months will determine what type of site this is - once a stigma is associated with a site, it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

DID YOU KNOW: You can watch movies in Winamp 2.x?

No, really. It's interesting because every once in a while I'll hear a story about someone who was using AudioMatch and they'll be caught watching porn on their AudioMatch.

Really. I'm not sure how it happens - it's not even Winamp 3.x that this is happening- there were stories of this happening after the first two weeks of launching Winamp 3.x.

I think i'll start screening data sent to AudioMatch lest I start embarassing more people ... although the solution offered to me by my friends was more interesting:

"You should post up on the main page all the people caught watching *.mpgs on their AudioMatch accounts."

Haha. That would be so awesome.

But so mean.

Oh, the power I hold in my fingers ...

No seriously though, I threw up a filter to catch blantat mpgs being played on AudioMatch ... hopefully this will decrease the frequency of porno movies being played on AudioMatch.

whoa. WHOA. There's a new bug that utilizes the SAME exploits as the w32.blaster worm (the big worm that took down everybody last week).

Now here's the trippy part: this bug goes to windowsupdate.com and downloads the MS patch that CLOSES the RPC-DOM vulnerability that is responsible for the spread of the virus in the first place. It's the equivalent to a white blood cell!

I can't believe nobody thought of this earlier ... what an amazing concept. You use a virus to combat a virus ... and since they're infecting through the same methods, they would grow at the same rate (in theory).

Of course, there's the whole issue of bandwidth problems with tons of pings going out, but that's a small price to pay for those unsavvy people who don't know to download patches to fix their problems.

What would be even trippier would be if the virus somehow "piggybacked" on the original virus, sending information about where the the virus is being spread and closing the computers and removing the virus from infected computers. The information that it was sent to could be used to quickly figure out the main sources of infection, perhaps assisting the Feds in locating the original source. Furthermore, since the "white virus" itself would close and delete the "black virus" infected computers, there would be no need for the "white virus" to spread through pinging computers.

Then again, this isn't really a preventive measure, but it'd still be rather interesting.

i'm writing cute little haikus to comment my functions for tokki

So today Palm (of PDA fame) announced that they have a new name for the hardware portion of Palm ... the new name, after hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of focus groups and stuff is ....

(drumroll please)

....

PalmOne

Hrm.

You may ask, "Why do they need to change their names anyway?"

Palm is currently splitting up their hardware and software groups into two groups, and for one group to maintain the "Palm" name would be too much. So the hardware group needed a new name (the software portion is called "PalmSource").

After thinking about the name for a while, I have to say PalmOne is probably one of the better names they could of come up with. I'm not sure what's in a good name, but I personally like PalmOne.

This actually ties in with my trouble of naming the tokki project into a viable dot.com name.

Here are the restrictions I face in order of weight (these are personal preferences and in no way indicate fact):
1.) Unless the name is really good, avoid using the following letters: "g","y","j","q","p." (I'll give you some mad props if you can figure out how those letters are related).

2.) The word itself should not have a definite clear meaning, but should give an "aura" of a meaning when you say it. Tabulas ... what the hell is that? But it's related to a few words (tabulate, tabulas rosa) and directly means "board" in Latin). Words that are nonsensical are not so bad as long as they are recognizable (TypePad, LiveJournal). It is better to sound classy than "hip."

3.) Ideally the word should not be a compound word. It's not necessary that it isn't, but it's a positive if you can find a word that is not a compound word yet is related to the point of the site. Fotki (a photo-sharing site) is a good example of this. Again, if it's a nonsensical word, it should be recognizable.

4.) Avoid appending cheap letters to a name
There used to be a BIG fad a long time ago in appending the letter "x" to everything. Then came the prepended "e" (eBay) ... and then came the prepended "i" (iPod). Prepended letters don't mean squat and should be avoided. However, I've been leaning lately towards appending numbers onto words since so many good words are taken.

5.) Avoid buzzwords. I'm really not a fan of throwing in buzzwords like 'blog' into any domain. It cheapens its value. A brand should not try to piggyback off of an existing word but try to create a brand on its own by taking a new word (eBay, Yahoo, Google). This also related to another important key for me: DO NOT SOUND LIKE ANY RELATED SITE. I see too many sites trying to piggyback off the popularity of a related site by naming their site in a similar fashion. You're not tricking anyone. It's like when I go to NYC and I see "Doracell" batteries. You're not fooling me.

This is also related, but try to avoid onomatopoeias. Yahoo was the one exception, but I cannot stand words that try to sound like sounds. There was some dude at my high school who made a website called Yawi. I cringed everytime I heard that word.

6.) Avoid acronyms. Acronyms remind me too much of the manufacturing industry. Plus, they give you no hints about what the site does.

7.) Is the name rememberable? Can it be conjugated?
I think another really important aspect of any name is the ability to conjugate it into any form:
"Have you googled the web today?"
"I have xangaed today."
"Are you going to Tabulate anytime soon?"

Etc.

Now, if I can still find a word that fits all these criteria, I consider it a golden find. I really really like the name 'Tabulas.' It was the perfect name when I came to it. AudioMatch was more or less a sellout name ... I like it a lot, but I didn't give it too much thought.

The one site I've been having trouble is with the Tokki Project. I had the best name (Lightbox) ... but all TLDs were taken and I couldn't manage to persuade the owners to sell the name to me. So I'm still stuck nameless... I had originally called the site fotokki, but that was too close to Fotki.

In any case, I'm still thinking of a name for the tokki project site... the name is *so* crucial to an online site.

but i can't help it. i need sporadic breaks from working on tokki or my head will explode.

i found a folder of vietnam images i never posted before.

so i have some images to post since i know people hate to listen to me rant. ;) and this is also excellent because it means i don't have to think of entries - i can just mindlessly keep posting pictures of a trip that is way too old for people to care about.

OLIVER I'VE LEARNED FROM YOU! TIME TO REMAIN IN THE MOST RECENTLY UPDATED GALLERIES FOREVER.

here goes the first one.

Ah, did you notice that I didn't really post yesterday? I bet your friends page didn't suffer as much (haha!).

I don't really have much to say, but I do have a bunch of random observations.

I think the biggest mistake anyone can make is to think that they are unique in thinking of a certain situation. For example, today is the first (unannounced) move-in day for Carolina. So I said to myself, "First day! No one will know! I'll move in today!"

BZZT. There were enough people there at 10am this morning that I couldn't find a parking spot ... argh!

-----
There is this road that forks into two right after the main road passes a railroad track. I was sitting on one of the forked roads trying to get back on the main road (Think of the letter 'Y' upside down). Suddenly, the railroad separator (you know, the ones that make sure no drivers wil attempt to drive through when a train is passing, which I'm sure *some* idiot driver would do) starts to go down and the lights start flashing. I think to myself, "Cool, a train is going to pass."

Right before the separator completely goes down, it goes back up. The light for the other forked road turns green and the cars pass. About 30 seconds later, the railroad separator decides to go down again, thus blocking traffic. But, still no train comes.

This happens a total of two more times. The sad thing is I noticed the traffic lights reset after each false train incident; the other forked road gets a green light to go.

Eventually, I got through. But why? Why does a railroad have keep giving off false signals? And why don't the traffic lights remember which road has gotten green every time?
----
If I worked at McDonalds, I would throw in an extra few nuggets everytime someone ordered Chicken McNuggets. Small stuff like that can really make your day.

Another good example is when you go to Burger Kings and are torn between getting onion rings or french fries. Eventually you make the hard decision to pick one (for me, usually it's onion rings) ... but when you get your onion rings, you notice a french fry at the bottom of the container. So you basically get the best of both worlds!
----
I should get away from the computer and get out more. Things actually happen on the outside.

Live - Heaven
You don't need no friends
Get back your faith again
You have the power to believe
Another dissident, take back your evidence
It has no power to deceive
I'll believe it when I see it for myself

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter and I believe
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sun set and I perceive

You sit with them all night
Everything they say is right
But in the morning they were wrong
I'll be right by your side
Come hell or water high
Down any road you choose to roam

I'll belive it when I see it for myself

I don't need no one
To tell me 'bout heaven
I look at my daughter and i believe
I dont need no proof
When it comes to God and truth
I can see the sun set
And I perceive

Darlin' I belive
That sometimes it's hard to breathe
At the bottom of the sea

I'll believe it when I see it for myself

I dont need no one to tell me 'bout heaven
I look at my daughter and i believe
I dont need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sun set and i perceive
I dont need no one to tell me 'bout heaven
I look at my daughter and i believe
I dont need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sun set
I don't need no one
To tell me 'bout heaven

what a great song.

tokki is hitting some snags ... i'm still basically working on the core functionality of the site before i get to the more advanced portions of the site.

one problem i've been tackling is the templating engine. originally it was going to be one template per instance... but then i thought it would be better (more customizable) that you have a template for every page of your tokki account ... this is going to be more copy + pasting work for the initial parts, but it gives you *way* more control over how your tokki account will look.

one problem i've been trying to tackle is how you set something to display X times and THEN display more HTML.

for example, you may want your site to output data like this:
---------------------
| item 1 | item 2 |
---------------------

you can easily say, "well in the HTML, do the table tags..."

the problem is tables close with <tr> and </tr> tags ... and there's no way to simply say "do this twice and THEN output those open and close tags."

so i've decided to throw in some wacky tools by allowing for the insertion of metadata. basically you can define within the HTML of the item output to basically tell the script "display this, then loop X times, THEN display this."

i'm still working it out, but it seems to be working right now. damn regexps ... bah.

so tired.

i think one of these days i'll get around to explaining what tokki is. it's seriously going to kick a LOT of ass. if you think tabulas is impressive, wait until you see tokki.

When I first heard this song, I thought it was a song about breaking up and living your "own life."

But after listening to the whole album, it seems to be more about breaking out on your own and doing your own thing ... without anyone caring. In the context of track "Back Home," these two tracks seem to indicate the story of a successful band looking for success far away from home, finding it, but yearning a return to home.

(Read More)

my guide told me we would be stopping at a "shop" at halong bay in vietnam. as it turned out, this "shop" was a floating house in the middle of the bay.

over the din of the the bargining over lunch, i yelled out, "how do i get off this boat and onto the "shop"?"

"jump," said my guide.

...

9 hours of programming + briefly helping people move + playing $3 buy-in poker + late night taco bell run + hanging out with old friends = solid day

i'll reveal what tokki is soon. maybe as early as tomorrow night. i got a good chunk of the programming done.

the templating engine kicks ass. :)

i got a straight flush tonight. 2-6 hearts.

Straight Flush 1 Chance In 72,192 Hands Dealt

well, now you know.

time to crash.

and i gotta say, this isn't even half of it. once you see the default templates, i think people will step back and say "wow, this is really nice." design is the key.

edit: forgive the typos on that page. i finished up that page as fast as i could at 3 in the morning.

edit 2: alpha testing will start ~1-2 weeks, i hope. alpha will be invite-only. beta will be open to general pub.

note to self: it is *not* cool to blast the MILLENNIUM album by the Backstreet Boys with your window down at a red light. People _will_ stare and laugh.

P.S. I found Nemo today.

I hyped myself up this morning.

"Yeah, Roy! You're going to go to all your classes this year!"

50 minutes into my first class, I realized why I skip so many classes.


It's going to be a long semester.

The Russians are writing North Korea off, and the Chinese seem to be doing the same.

Attending a workshop held on the sideline of the 12th Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations last week, the Chinese expert on international relations said, ``Hu told Kim, `If you make a problem, the U.S. will attack you. Don't expect any help from us."

Things are not so rosy for Illmatic Kim Jong Il.

I have discovered the perfect diversion to whatever-important-thing-I-should-be-doing.

Throwing cards. I just started today and I'm still picking up the skills. It's pretty nice when you can really fling a card across the room and have the corner of the card bend.

Rock on.

here i go... scream my lonesome.. and try to get to you. you're the only one i let go. there's just no one who gets me like you do. you are my only one - "only one" by yellowcard

I've been working on Tokki tonight. There was a short hiatus while I moved into the dorm and got settled. Dorming with Yush and Sung has been a blast so far - and yes, we do get a fair amount of studying done.

Crispdawg is pretty much our 4th roommate, which is pretty cool. The room itself is spacious and is about 2 minutes from campus (walking). YES!

My classes, as always, are nothing to look forward to. The chemistry building sucks the life out of me like nothing else everytime I walk in there - why the heck did I pick chemistry and economics as majors? Oh well. Just grind out a few more semesters and I'll be out of here.

There's been a lot of thought lately to my future. I will be taking the MCATs (medical school admissions test) in April .. aiming for a 38-40. Really need it based on my school grade history. Then I can at least offset the crappy GPA with my "extracurriculars."

In any case, the most ideal post-graduation case for me would be the following:
- Make a 4.0 GPA this semester (I'm pretty serious about this, and I'm only taking 12 hours, so it should be a possibility).
- Get studying done on MCATS daily so I can get a 38-40 in April (not unrealistic).
- Get Tokki off and get it working commercially (Yes, it *is* a commercial product that I will be charging for)
- Get enough money to sustain myself financially so I can be completely independent
- Apply to med school after a few years off


- Go travel for a year around the world. Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, South American, wherever. Bring my trusty camera and laptop ... travel the world, take some pictures, and just experience life.

Of course, my reality will probably not even be remotely close to this.




Wanderlust. It's a bitch.

working some. really tired most of the time.

gonna get a lot done this weekend.

gonna avoid the mixer as always. not really sure what it is about social events that makes me avoid them. i'm more comfortable with my small crowd than going out into a huge crowd like that.

i guess too many shallow "oh how you are doing?" type situations.

dunno. hrm. gotta stop thinking. head hurts. a lot.

back to tokki.

britney spears on left, madonna on right.

that is one juicy kiss.

stories about north korea.

man. so much ... pain.

since pessimism seems to the mood du jour, i'll post a wonderful link to this story. this is becoming ridiculous. kids want to open a lemonade stand and they have to get a permit?!

what the heck, man.

this is taken from this website, but i'm quoting it below just in case the original link goes down.

This is James McCabe's essay on Spotted Owls. He actually submitted this for a grade.

Background Information:

James McCabe is Travis's roommate from last year.


James hasn't been to classes in 6 weeks or so. One night, while intoxicated, James decided to check out his teachers website and see what the class was up to. He learned that an essay on the topic of Spotted Owls was due the following day. In his drunken state James created probably one of the funniest papers I have ever read.

The professor to whom the paper was given has since then asked James for permission to post the essay on the course website. The professor is using the essay as an example of what NOT to do



Here is the paper (with spelling errors and all):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

James McCabe

jmccabe@vt.edu

Assignment # 8: Owl vs. Owl



I did not give nor receive any unauthorized help on this assignment, and all work contained herein is, unfortunately, my own: _____________________.



Spotted owls are stupid. They can’t live anywhere that isn’t hundreds of years old and untouched by human hands and they breed themselves into extinction by mating with a natural enemy and potential predator, the barred owl. They are simply stupid, and out of all animals, they are quite possibly the ones most deserved of an untimely death.

If we as humans want to preserve animals, we need to do so with animals that actually serve some purpose to us. The spotted owl does nothing for our progression as a species. By saving and preserving the spotted owl, we must save and preserve its habit, which keeps us from logging those forests and puts premium timber at a greater risk for fire and other natural disasters. To me that is a waste just to save a species that, if even observed by humans, it is disturbed by their noise and subsequently dies.

If an animal is going to be naturally extinct, why should humans step in and try to save that animal? The barred owl is not an exotic, it is domestic to the Pacific Northwest just like the Spotted owl. The only difference being that the barred owl is not so picky about what it eats and the surroundings that it lives in. My point? The barred owl is not a little bitch like the spotted owl, and it can take a few loggers walking around here and there without keeling over and dying. Adaptivity is the key to survival: we as humans must constantly adapt to a changing environment in order to survive. Maladaption, in a human sense, is a sign of mental disorder. Therefore, spotted owls are characteriscally mentally retarded and should be seperated from other owls and properly taunted by their peers.

Through all this, one name springs to mind: Darwin. The barred owl is obviously the “fittest” of the two species. So why then are we trying to save an animal that is naturally being killed by a stronger, more adept species? That is like promoting the death of humans to save prehistoric globs of amphibious sludge because in this harsh world those globs just aren’t up to the task. Spotted owls, take note. You serve no purpose, I have a gun, and your feathers make a pretty neat hat.

I think it's A+ material. It has a clear thesis and backs up the thesis with solid arguments.

hahahahaahha

The FB-AYYEEE caught some 18-year old kid who made a variation of the Blaster worm that made its rounds around the Internet a while ago. Now, here is the interesting part:

Parson, who was known online as "teekid," is suspected of creating and releasing a third version of the Blaster worm, a malicious program that spread itself around the Internet using a viral engine bearing his online moniker, "teekids.exe."

The Web site registered under his own name and Minnesota address -- www.t33kid.com -- is no longer up. But a cached version of his site on Google offers insight into the mind of a young hacker who was apparently proud of his work.

...
Parson also apparently broke into the Web site of the Minnesota Governor's office, leaving the message "site hacked by Teekid."

Wow, way to cover your tracks! t33kid IS NOT teekids! I mean, jeez. Anyone could of googled teekids and figured out who it was.

If you're going to commit an Internet crime like crashing a competing website through, let's say, a theoretical DDOS, don't go bragging about it on your websi.... oh crap.

sadness

oh well. tabulas has been one big dissappointment anyways.

Parking at UNC sucks. It's even worse when there's a home football game.

This year I got a dorm very closer to the center of campus after spending three excurciatingly painful years at Hinton James. This dorm also is adjacent to a huge parking lot which is the best parking lot if you have campus stuff to do.

Last night, I got lucky and found a spot almost right outside my room.

All day I've been watching people come into this parking lot, looking for a spot ... they usually dejectedly drive away after a few minutes, unable to find a spot. Everytime this happens, I laugh at myself ... "HAR HAR! I GOT A PARKING SPOT"

Now the problem here is that I have a car, but I don't want to move it. I know if I move it, one of these parking-spot vultures will swoop in and take it, and I won't have a parking spot tonight. Grr.

But I also haven't eaten a decent meal all day (working on Tokki), so I'm about to go out and eat a dinner ... but this means I must give up my parking spot! Ahhhhhh! Damn moral dilemmas....

never let the future disturb you. you will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

- marcus aurelius

Jessica: "You need to do something about that onion breath"
Nick: "I'm not wasting a good meal for a kiss."

hahahaahahahahaha