maggied’s blag

I’ve spent the last two days sweating buckets in my room. 2 computers on 24/7 + fridge + no ac = really hot room. No matter what I wear, it’s freaking hot in here. To top it all off, I’ve developed some sort of head cold that’s giving me a killer sinus headache. I took a large ibuprofen, but it hasn’t really helped all that much. Thankfully, my mom agreed to get my an ac unit as a belated birthday present. Yay.

We’re going to Cape Cod tomorrow for a weekend. It should be a real blast. Although there is wireless, I don’t think I’ll bring my laptop with me. While I love the internets, I think it would certainly do me good to be completely disconnected every now and then. I haven’t been away from the internet for a period of time greater than a day or so since I visited my grandparents in Florida after my sophomore year of high school.

In other news, I started and watched all of Saikano over the course of the past two days. It is only 13 episodes long, but that aside it’s probably the fastest I’ve ever watched an anime. There’s not really much commentary that I’d like to give about the anime in a public forum such as this, but I think the reason I watched it so quickly was because it was really captivating and touching. It was something that I think I was in a reasonable mood to appreciate, and I can see how many people wouldn’t be able to get through it or get anything out of it. Certainly not an anime that could ever be watched with other people, as other people’ve already told me before I even watched it. If you’d like to hear more about my thoughts, feel free to ask me.

My head is killing me, but hopefully if I lie down I’ll start to feel better. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures while on Cape Cod, and give a nice recap when I get back!

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I was punting at work today and looked up a few neat tricks to do in irssi. While I really enjoy using irssi, I can’t say that it is easy to get the hang of, or even use on a regular basis. Perusing the internet for information on logging messages, I came across a great guide for using irssi and GNU screen. It’s reasonably useful for a user using screen and/or irssi for the first time, and a convenient refresher for those who have used either before. I particularly like the advanced windowlist script that can be found toward the end of the guide. (For those of you interested in the command to log only personal messages, it’s the following: /log open /path/to/logs/yourlog-%%m-%%d-%%Y MSGS. The MSGS flag at the end makes it record only personals. For more usage see /usr/share/irssi/help/log).

Things in lab have been going well so far. I came across an application that I really like called Zoho Notebook. It’s a lot like Google Docs. Although I have not really used Google Docs, I’ve heard better things about Zoho Notebook, so I figured I would give it a try. From what I’ve read, there has been an increase in applications mimicking Microsoft Office applications on the Internet. These applications are useful because you can publish documents and spreadsheets to your website, or share them with collaborators. I used Zoho Notebook today to store notes that I had taken about running reconstruction, and I created a spreadsheet to keep track of my progress with all the brains I’m analyzing.

To throw in even more links, I met with my adviser from the Media Lab on Wednesday, and he thinks it is probably a good idea for me to start learning Ruby. I took this 15 minute introduction to the language, and it looks pretty neat. It is somewhat similar to Python, although it is still very distinct. Ideally, I will be using Ruby for Ruby on Rails, which is a powerful but simple package for creating database-backed web applications. It looks pretty cool, and I’m excited to get into it more.

I have finally caught up in Berserk. The most recent issue was supposedly released on June 22, but the server for the group that scans the manga has “mysteriously” been down for the past few days. The manga is pretty crazy; I’m really looking forward to the next issue because the most recent one was a cliffhanger.

(This is the last of the updates, I promise) We will hopefully be finishing GITS later tonight, and getting started on the 8-bit adder project sometime in the near future, as I picked the parts up from desk a little while ago. That is all for now.

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I found a neat keystroke application launcher for Windows called Launchy. It’s a little, lightweight application that appears when you hit a hotkey (the default is alt + SPACE). You begin typing in the application, document, or other file that you would like to “launch.” Launchy will search through the folders and file types that you have specified, and present you with the best match, followed by a series of other matches if the first one isn’t what you want. Launchy’s search process is intelligent, in that if you the same application all the time, it will come up after you type only one, or maybe two letters. For example “pu” brings up “putty”, “f” brings up “filezilla”, and “t” brings up “putty”, “ultravnc viewer”, and “thunderbird”.

I really like Launchy because I find it a gigantic pain to sort through all the Application entries in the Start Menu when I’m using a Windows computer with a lot of applications. Given the fact that the “All Programs” tab is typically really disorganized, I really like this alternative. Launchy is extremely efficient. I just hit the hotkey and within 2 seconds I’ve launched the application I wanted to. I don’t have to minimize my windows, or search through the start menu. It takes me about the same amount of time to open the start menu and navigate to the applications window as it does for me to launch pretty much every application.

For Ubuntu users, a similar launch like application appears when you hit “alt + F2.” I don’t really know much about Macs, but I think the Quicksilver application provides similar capabilities, although there might also be a default launch manager that I’m unaware of.

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I finally finished The End of Faith. I thought it was a reasonably interesting read, although I didn’t really get as much out of it as I thought I might have. Sam Harris (the author) does a nice job at getting his point across, but at times it feels like he’s beating a dead horse, because many of these points are readily apparent to the type of people that would be reading the book in the first place. Despite this fact, I understand why he would have felt that talking about such issues at length was important.

I decided to read the book for a few reasons. I was fed up with “ignoring” parts of my faith (Catholicism) that didn’t mesh well with modern society. I felt that it was challenging for me to reconcile my faith with my actions, and I was sick of religion being the only thing that made me feel bad about myself. I didn’t feel like my actions were wrong, but Catholicism, based on antiquated principles, was telling me they were. I’m also frustrated with the fact that people are willing to do things in the name of religion that are thoroughly ridiculous if done for virtually any other cause. Think about what you do in the name of God. Would you do the same thing for another reason? I also feel like I can be completely moral without having the Bible and Christian faith guiding me. I know that many feel like faith gives them a sense of meaning in their life, and I think that is fine and great for those individuals, but I have reached a point in my life where I don’t feel that that is the case for me right now.

To return to the book, Harris really captured me in the first chapter when he talked about “religious moderates.” This is pretty much what I was at one point — someone who tries to find an even ground between science and religion. The only real way to achieve this is to ignore many aspects of religion, science, or both (i.e. reconciling the different predictions of the age of the Earth, or creationism versus evolution). As Harris points out, although religious moderates don’t necessarily cause problems, they perpetuate them because they do not stand up against the religious extremists or literalists. As it stands, it is virtually taboo to criticize another individual for his or her faith. But it should not necessarily be this way. Certain religions are not tolerant of others, and many followers will never be content until their religion controls the world, and everyone else submits.

Anyway, I don’t necessarily want to give away all the details of the book, but if you are interested about it any further, feel free to talk to me about it. I have a copy of the book and audio book if you’d like to read any bits of it. Overall, I’d say it’s worthwhile if you are interested in exploring your own faith, as long as you are willing to accept the fact that this book will be quite critical of everything you’ve ever believed. In that respect, I think the novel does a great job.

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So, thanks to everyone for a great birthday! I got not only one, but two cakes! Members of the hall put what appeared to be their blood, sweat, tears and maybe other substances into a lovely double chocolate cake that was presented to me a little after midnight. I then slept for a few hours, and was woken up by a few friends from home calling to wish me a happy birthday. Needless to say, I was not cranky that they had called.

Although some people thought it was weird apparently, I still went into lab to work, and got my paper work nailed down for my work at the Media Lab. I made serious headway on both projects, which was pretty exciting. During lunch time, I met up with guys from hall and went to Quiznos. It was a freaking gorgeous day out, there was some sort of festival going on, and they started playing “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Heck yeah! Not only did I have great company, I had beautiful music and weather. That was awesome. I also had ice cream. Way to smack all the things I really like into the span of about 1.5 hours.

I stayed in lab until around 7pm or so, but when I came back I hung around with people on hall. Later, around 10:30pm, Katie brought me an amazing cake that had taken her hours to make. It was a chocolate cake with 3 layers, with cherries mixed in with the batter. The frosting was delicious, to top it all off. The cake was so rich, I couldn’t eat much, but am definitely saving some for later. Pretty much just hung around hall after that, and watched some more Ghost in the Shell. Berserk is getting even more crazy, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less.

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Things with my UROP at the Behavioral Neuroscience Lab are finally starting to pick up (yay). I’m currently running analyses on data obtained after the MIT MRI scanner was upgraded. We’re testing to make sure that the upgrade was a reliable success. I’m also meeting with the grad student from the Media Lab later today to discuss the progress of the program I’ve been working on and get my paper work in.

I have been pretty busy with work, although I have been listening to The End of Faith, watching some Ghost in the Shell, and reading more Berserk. I feel like things are finally becoming more like summer. Everything is much more laid back now, and otherwise pretty awesome. I’ve settled into my new room, and am happily forcing Freeze Pops down people’s throats.
Additionally, my birthday is tomorrow, and it will finally really be summer. The sunshine makes me happy, so I’m really looking forward to it.

P.S. Vinayak is finally blarging!

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I had Fire and Ice for the very first time today. It was delicious, although I don’t eat enough to take advantage of the fact that it is all you can eat. I think others that were with me may have compensated for this fact, though. This knocks the list down of restaurants I really want to eat at down to: The Pour House, Border Cafe, and Bartley’s (although I just made that list up right now).

In other news, members of the hall and I have ordered components for the 8-bit adder that we would like to get working for rush. Although Zack says it’s mainly going to be mindless soldering, I’m still pretty excited about getting my hands on more electronics.

Not much else of excitement has happened today. I will probably continue my work out routine with Katie and Vlad tomorrow. That is all.

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I attended my very first Swapfest today. I got an extension cord for my keyboard so that I can use it up in my bed if I’m listening to music, etc., while up there. It was only a dollar, which is $16 less than what Best Buy wanted. Also got a DVD drive for my desktop because mine has been mysteriously broken for a while.

the-major (the IBM thinkpad) is now set up, named after the lovely Major Kusanagi. I’m running XFCE rather than GNOME, but so far everything is working fine, including wireless (yay). Battery life is also very decent. theshortjedi (my other laptop) has really crappy battery life so this computer is a good alternative to take to places without power.

I took a few pictures of my room, for those that might be reading that haven’t seen it yet. They can be found here.

This weekend has been really action packed, but I am freaking exhausted because I’ve gotten about 9 hours total Friday and Saturday nights, and I’m not used to doing that kind of thing anymore. I’ve been listening to more The End of Faith, so I’ll blog about the book sometime later this week most likely.

EDIT: I almost forgot. Drew and I saw Randall Monroe and Davean walking by 68 today. They were probably en route to Swapfest.

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Over the past three days, I’ve installed linux (twice ubuntu, once debian), on computers. Two days ago, I helped Jess set up her server. I have acquired a P3 computer, so I agreed to set up the Sun UltraSparc5 that I was using for her. It was a battle between myself, Jason, Jess, and apt, but we came out victorious. The next day I started installing ubuntu on the P3. That went much smoother; I got a LAMP server working, so if you check out typ0.mit.edu you will see the Nirvash and Eureka once again (yay!).  I also got a bunch of debathena packages installed, which made me, as Jess might say, a “happy bunny.” I can now happily access whatever files I want on athena without ever logging in anymore.

I’m starting to install linux for an IBM thinkpad R32 laptop that my dad gave my from my grandfather’s office. As a few of you might know, my current laptop that I’m using has a broken hinge and needs to be sent in for repairs. I’d like to have a laptop to use for the lab and all, so I’m using this one for the time being. Currently booted Ubuntu 7.04 off the livecd, gnome seems a bit sluggish so I might just install XFCE.

We’re going to the garment district Real Soon Now ™ so I will write more later.

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Remember that post I made a little while ago about “My Quest”? Well, despite my criticisms of a lot of the software out there, I think I’ve found a client that I really like, and it integrates well with decent stuff out there. It’s called Remember The Milk (funny name, I know). What brought RTM to my attention was the fact that it created a great Google Gears application to integrate with Google Calendar. So, all that ranting I had about good integration with a calendar client is pretty much down the drain.

Some awesome things about Remember the Milk: the shortcuts (if you get the hang of them), let you add, tag, and move events really quickly, so it’s almost like entering them in at the command line, which is a feature I would have liked. The way that it organizes tasks is nice. You can give tasks a due date, postpone that due date, tag items, etc. Tasks are organized by list, but you can also sort tasks based on the tags you give them. You also have the ability to work off-line, and then sync your data later.

Google Calendar does actually have a “quick add” function, which is pretty neat, although I have not needed to use it too much. It was particularly useful for adding in birthdays rapidly. Of all the calendar applications I’ve tried out, Google Calendar (who would’ve guessed it), certainly wins as far as the whole integration thing goes. Google simply tends to make it easier to integrate things with, so having my to-do list in with calendars, the weather, all accessible over the internet sounds like a big win to me.

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