Andy
: I would like to note: regarding your spending log: this is just a very superficial account of what your life costs. In truth, your life is priceless. :D
10 Jun 09, 02:36 pm EDT
Erwa
: Thanks Andy :). But of course you knew I was only kidding when I said I wondered "how much my life costs." The spending log is just a good way for me to assess how much I spend and budget accordingly.
10 Jun 09, 05:20 pm EDT
Andy
: I should keep a log like this too. Do you just bring a notebook around all the time or what?
11 Jun 09, 10:00 am CDT
Erwa
: I have a purple 1-subject Staples notebook that has my San Francisco trip journal entries, my life log, my sleep log, and my spending log. I don't bring it around with me anymore because I've
11 Jun 09, 11:33 am CDT
Erwa
: concluded my life log, but I still continue my sleep and spending logs. I just hold on to receipts and tickets and enter them in my notebook at the end of each day. Money I find I keep in my pockets
11 Jun 09, 11:34 am CDT
Erwa
: and when I get home, I record the findings in my Money Found log (a text file).
11 Jun 09, 11:35 am CDT
Erwa
: And of course, when I'm about to nap or going to sleep, I mark the time in my sleep log. Then, when I wake up, I write down the time I get up.
11 Jun 09, 11:38 am CDT
Andy
: Your logs remind me of this article I read a while ago about this guy who was video taping every moment of his life. He carried around a minicomputer *everywhere* to keep account of his life.
11 Jun 09, 12:14 pm CDT
Andy
: Random thought btw: I wonder if musicians all hate having long nails. I know I get so annoyed everytime my nails get longer.
11 Jun 09, 12:17 pm CDT
Erwa
: Wow, videotaping every moment of your life is pretty hardcore. Well, a lot of musicians don't have long nails, like pianists, who would scratch their keys if their nails were too long. Yeah, I get annoyed by long nails, too. I cut my fingernails weekly.
11 Jun 09, 12:27 pm CDT
Andy
: I cut my fingernails every time then aren't short anymore.
12 Jun 09, 06:50 am CDT
Andy
: The change your screen res thing was really helpful. I've always wondered how to do that. :D
15 Jun 09, 08:08 am CDT
Erwa
: You learn so much from video games :D.
15 Jun 09, 09:21 am CDT
Andy
: It didnt' work for me in other games though, haha.
16 Jun 09, 01:54 am CDT
Andy
: Actually it doesn't even work for me in SC. I think that's a very computer specific shortcut.
16 Jun 09, 01:54 am CDT
Erwa
: Yeah, actually it only works for me when SC is open. If no full-screen game is open and I do Ctrl+Alt+F11, the screen just flashes a few times but then settles back to the same resolution.
Erwa
: Actually, I kinda like this as a permanent fix because it respectfully preserves your original post and does not chop up your "long word" into many lines.
22 Jun 09, 01:05 pm CDT
Erwa
: Thanks, Andy, for your ownage. I learned a bunch about <table> tags and table formatting in trying to fix the problem :D.
22 Jun 09, 01:16 pm CDT
Erwa
: And this fix preserves the rest of this page's layout.
22 Jun 09, 01:18 pm CDT
Andy
: Lol
22 Jun 09, 01:19 pm CDT
Andy
: Why do the names appear in random colors?
22 Jun 09, 01:20 pm CDT
Erwa
: I set it that way.
22 Jun 09, 01:20 pm CDT
Erwa
: Actually, the colors aren't random. It cycles through 6 colors.
22 Jun 09, 01:24 pm CDT
Andy
: Color1
22 Jun 09, 05:32 pm CDT
Andy
: Color2
22 Jun 09, 05:32 pm CDT
Andy
: Color3
22 Jun 09, 05:32 pm CDT
Andy
: Color4
22 Jun 09, 05:33 pm CDT
Andy
: Color5
22 Jun 09, 05:33 pm CDT
Andy
: Color6
22 Jun 09, 05:33 pm CDT
Andy
: Color(7)
22 Jun 09, 05:33 pm CDT
Andy
: I think the colors are always a set position, eh?
22 Jun 09, 05:33 pm CDT
Erwa
: It goes red, different shades of purple, blue, different shades of purple, red, etc.
23 Jun 09, 01:10 am CDT
Andy
: Let's return this page to normal
24 Jun 09, 11:29 am CDT
Andy
: One more!
24 Jun 09, 11:29 am CDT
Andy
: Delivering the Pwn once again@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@W@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@
25 Jun 09, 01:41 pm CDT
can i spam here too???????????
: Guess not @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
25 Jun 09, 01:42 pm CDT
Erwa
: Lol, you need some gifts for your moments of boredom.
25 Jun 09, 09:38 pm CDT
David
: Testing the chatterbox...
30 Jun 09, 01:13 am CDT
Andy
: Testing the chatterbox...part II.
30 Jun 09, 09:35 am CDT
Erwa
: Oh interesting, in IE8, your 'pwn' is chopped off abruptly when it reaches the edge of the table cell.
7 Jul 09, 12:42 am CDT
Andy
: That's why I use FF3 and not IE8. I also use Google Chrome, you should give it a try if you haven't.
7 Jul 09, 05:05 pm CDT
Erwa
: My primary browser is FF3.5, but I also have all the major browsers (IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera) and a program for testing older versions of IE when I'm doing web design and want to check browser compatibility.
7 Jul 09, 06:46 pm CDT
Erwa
: I prefer Firefox for all the useful add-ons I use, which include the following web design tools: IE Tab, Firebug, FireFTP, SafariView, OperaView, and ChromeView.
7 Jul 09, 06:48 pm CDT
Andy
: Great entry about your solving 4x4 adventure! I finally have swipes! :D
14 Jul 09, 01:12 pm CDT
Erwa
: Whoohoo! What are swipes?
15 Jul 09, 11:29 am CDT
rebechow
: how is everyone?
21 Jul 09, 09:55 pm CDT
Erwa
: Content :). Would like to play some frisbee or tennis though. How are you, Rebecca?
21 Jul 09, 11:09 pm CDT
anti
: lol rebechow.
22 Jul 09, 12:50 pm CDT
urwah
: Ho ho ho.
2 Aug 09, 12:54 pm CDT
Santa Claus
: Yo urwah, don't be stealin my line!
4 Aug 09, 06:22 pm CDT
airwah
: Ooh, did you know you can rearrange Santa to spell Satan? But I can't figure out anything good to make out of "Claus."
Erwa
: I wonder if someone typed the above randomness or if it was automatically generated by some crawler program.
18 Aug 09, 03:36 pm CDT
Erwa
: Something similar came up over the weekend, but I manually deleted it. This looks like it was done by the same thing or person.
18 Aug 09, 03:42 pm CDT
you
: has a stalker.
18 Aug 09, 10:43 pm CDT
Bboy N-D
: So my friends told me to speak with improper grammar when the new kids come in for breaking. And also pretend to be a noob at breaking.
18 Aug 09, 10:44 pm CDT
Erwa
: Hahahaha. And a FOB accent, right?
19 Aug 09, 08:06 pm CDT
aNDY
: LIKE THE NEW VIDEO. ONE THING THAT'S INTERESTING TO NOTE IS THAT I USUALLY DON'T EAT ENRICHED CEREALS, BUT RATHER UN-ENRICHED CEREALS BECAUSE ENRICHED CEREALS HAVE VITAMIN d3, WHICH IS MADE FROM ANIMALS.
22 Aug 09, 02:22 pm CDT
Erwa
: Ooh...so strict. So you probably can't take most vitamin supplements since I'm assuming most probably have Vitamin D3? And what's with the ALL CAPS?
22 Aug 09, 06:05 pm CDT
Andy
: I don't know. and yes, i take exclusively vegetarian multiple
22 Aug 09, 11:09 pm CDT
Andy
: Yo the ants in your cereal is totally disgusting.
23 Aug 09, 10:21 pm CDT
Erwa
: Somehow, I knew you were gonna say that :P. Nothing happened to me, I'd glad to say.
24 Aug 09, 11:32 am CDT
Andy
: But it's still gross that you ate that.
24 Aug 09, 12:23 pm CDT
Andy
: Random thought: doesn't the word gross look gross?
24 Aug 09, 12:24 pm CDT
Erwa
: I've been reading a lot more online about entomophagy, and apparently insects are an excellent source of nutrients - ants are high in zinc - and in the wilderness, they double as a good source of calories that's easy to find.
24 Aug 09, 01:48 pm CDT
Erwa
: Some people even report the health benefits of eating some insects, supposedly boosting the immune system and helping relieve arthritis.
24 Aug 09, 01:50 pm CDT
Erwa
: A little. grass looks pretty gross too. So does oreo.
24 Aug 09, 01:51 pm CDT
Andy
: I pee in the shower too, it's pretty normal and you can aim it at the drain to avoid the smells and saves water.
25 Aug 09, 10:37 am CDT
Andy
: As for showering routines...I usually keep the water on as I do all of this so I have quick access to keep my bar soap wet. I shampoo, and immediately wash it off after some scrubbing, so the suds from the shampoo already flows over my body.
25 Aug 09, 10:39 am CDT
Andy
: Then I condition my hair and leave the conditioner in as I proceed to bar soap everything. I usually wash quickly after I bar soap because then I can tell if its still dirty. For example, I may soap my face a couple of times before stopping because its oily from the entire course of the day. Then finally I will wash the conditioner off and give my body one last rub before turning off the water and getting my towel.
25 Aug 09, 10:41 am CDT
Erwa
: I see. Are you supposed to let conditioner sit in your hair for a little bit in order for it to do its work?
25 Aug 09, 02:49 pm CDT
Erwa
: You can tell if your body is still dirty by looking at the bar of soap? I don't ever need to wet my soap because I wet my whole body before applying soap. By dunking your whole body under the shower, I find it's plenty wet for soap and shampoo that you don't need to re-wet your soap bar.
25 Aug 09, 02:51 pm CDT
Erwa
: Oh yeah, FYI, I let the old Flooble Chatterbox that used to be here expire. I got tired of posting there just to keep it from expiring.
25 Aug 09, 02:55 pm CDT
Andy
: What's the flooble chatterbox? Is that the one down there?
25 Aug 09, 09:17 pm CDT
Andy
: I meant that when I wash with soap and then rinse it off, I can scrub my face and tell if its still dirty. At which point I will reapply soap. Also, I don't rub the bar soap on my body directly because I think that's very unhygienic. Instead, I keep it went and rub it in my palms to get the suds and then apply the suds to my body. I continually rinse my palms and the soap to keep it fresh and clean. This also avoids getting unnecessary hair follicles onto the bar soap.
25 Aug 09, 09:18 pm CDT
Erwa
: The Flooble Chatterbox was the chatterbox that used to be in this location, where the PHP chatterbox I wrote currently resides. The chatterbox below is a Cbox.
26 Aug 09, 09:52 am CDT
Erwa
: When you say 'scrub my face,' do you mean rub your face a little with your hand to tell if it's still dirty? Hmm, yeah, I guess not rubbing the soap bar directly is a bit more hygienic, but I think I'm too lazy for that. I mean, if there is a disease on the soap, even if you rub it on your hands first, you'll still transmit it to the rest of your body that you then touch.
26 Aug 09, 09:55 am CDT
Andy
: When I wash my face I scrub it with my hands. And if I feel a lot of resistance then it's clean, haha. Also if there's no oil. You know!?
26 Aug 09, 10:31 am CDT
Erwa
: Oh right, hahaha, makes sense that you scrub with you hands because you first rub the soap suds onto your hands. I still remember you told me your aunt said a way to know when the dishes are clean is when they squeak. Does your face squeak when it's clean?
26 Aug 09, 12:57 pm CDT
Andy
: Its the same feeling. :)
27 Aug 09, 01:11 am CDT
Andy
: Also I strongly believe that scrubbing your face in that manner is a good way to help keep acne in check.
27 Aug 09, 01:11 am CDT
Erwa
: Hah! One of my Stevens research partners - Kevin - was really obsessed about keep his face clean. He even brought around a cleaning cloth, or maybe it was special cleaning tissue paper, to wipe his face with whenever it felt oily.
27 Aug 09, 09:20 am CDT
Andy
: I'm not that hardcore. But when your face is clean it feels really great. Just avoid touching your face with your hands during the course of the day.
27 Aug 09, 12:44 pm CDT
Andy
: Also, speaking of acne, I find that it has a lot to do with your diet too. For me, when I eat a lot of sweet foods, I am more likely to get acne.
27 Aug 09, 12:44 pm CDT
Andy
: Also, speaking of acne, I find that it has a lot to do with your diet too. For me, when I eat a lot of sweet foods, I am more likely to get acne.
27 Aug 09, 12:59 pm CDT
Andy
: Oops I double posted.
27 Aug 09, 12:59 pm CDT
Erwa
: Lol, you double posted 15 minutes apart. For me, it feels really great when my hands are clean. Especially when practicing cubing or at cubing competitions, I will wash my hands a lot during the day.
27 Aug 09, 04:39 pm CDT
Andy
: Yeah, I share your feeling for clean hands. I hate having sticky hands. It gets uncomfortable to type, to play piano/cello, even to break.
27 Aug 09, 08:55 pm CDT
Erwa
: Yeah totally. Uncomfortable to cube, to play StarCraft, to play clarinet, to touch things.
28 Aug 09, 01:20 pm CDT
Andy
: Smoothness is ideal. Even in breakdance, we wear smooth clothing to make moves easier.
28 Aug 09, 02:50 pm CDT
Erwa
: So do you wear those silk-like textured shirts and elastic pants?
30 Aug 09, 09:22 am CDT
Andy
: Uh.. I wear track jackets. Something like the ones on the bottom of this page: http://www.express.com/catalog/thumbnail.jsp?parentCategoryId=1&categoryId=97&subCategoryId=97&index=24
30 Aug 09, 10:21 pm CDT
Kate!
: Anthony, I never knew about the Money Found part of your site, and I think it's my favorite. (I knew that you record that stuff, but it's fun to read where and how.)
3 Sep 09, 02:41 pm CDT
Andy
: Omg an unexpected visitor!! How's classes looking for you?
3 Sep 09, 05:39 pm CDT
Erwa
: Hey Kate! It's so great to have a new poster! :) I'm glad you like the Money Found section! All that loose change I find sure does add up!
4 Sep 09, 12:33 pm CDT
Kate!
: Hey Andy and Anthony! Classes are looking pretty good, actually. I have to take physics, and I do have a grudge against physics, but I'll make do. :) How about you guys?
5 Sep 09, 09:21 am CDT
Andy
: Yo, if Physics were a person, I would tell him to go easy on you.
5 Sep 09, 11:06 pm CDT
Erwa
: Kate, I like the exclamation point in your name! It is often my greeting when I see you! I hope it wasn't Casaz that ruined physics for you. Physics is quite phun!
5 Sep 09, 11:24 pm CDT
Andy
: Nice attempt at blood donation. I cleared the first time and donated in Jersey, but then they kept calling me even after I left for college. Maybe its better you didn't donate, haha.
6 Sep 09, 11:50 am CDT
Andy
: By the way, if your iron level is too low, you can't donate blood, because you'll most likely faint, etc, from the lack of blood.
6 Sep 09, 11:51 am CDT
Kate!
: The same thing happened to me when I tried to donate blood! They weren't sure if a plasma transfusion disqualified me, so I have to wait until 12/9/09. Boo.
6 Sep 09, 12:03 pm CDT
Kate!
: And I'm glad you like my exclamation point. I don't really have a nickname--the only thing people call me besides Kate (and Mexican, but that's a long story) is Kate! Also, it makes my name approximately the same width as Andy or Erwa, so the chatterbox looks nice. And thanks for the encouragement, Andy. :)
6 Sep 09, 12:05 pm CDT
Kate!
: And I'm glad you like my exclamation point. I don't really have a nickname--the only thing people call me besides Kate (and Mexican, but that's a long story) is Kate! Also, it makes my name approximately the same width as Andy or Erwa, so the chatterbox looks nice. And thanks for the encouragement, Andy. :)
6 Sep 09, 01:11 pm CDT
Kate!
: Oh dear. Sorry for the double posting.
6 Sep 09, 01:11 pm CDT
Crissy
: ... Wow, this place has changed. You know, kind of.
8 Sep 09, 04:40 pm CDT
Andy
: No, this place hasn't changed. Only the people have.
8 Sep 09, 07:40 pm CDT
Erwa
: I'm glad my friends are voluntary blood donors :). Kate, I have never heard anyone call you Mexican! Hi there, Crissy! Welcome back :).
11 Sep 09, 07:56 am CDT
Andy
: I don't think there are any INvoluntary blood donors. I'm Indian in my ID picture.
13 Sep 09, 10:17 am CDT
Erwa
: Hmmm I guess not. Indian? Can you show us a pic?
Erwa
: Pretty content, though very busy. Doing a lot of readings for my "Japan: Culture, Society, and Modernity" class and "Intro to Political Philosophy." Finished my first CS323 assignment - took 19 hours.
20 Sep 09, 10:04 pm CDT
Erwa
: Bleh, though I think I am suffering a bit from sleep deprivation. How have you been, Tienes?
20 Sep 09, 10:05 pm CDT
Andy
: I'd have to say the same. Content, but busy. I really enjoy my living space and my classes are mostly very engaging and have good professors.
21 Sep 09, 02:33 pm CDT
Andy
: I also agree about suffering from sleep deprivation. I've never longed for sleep so much in general.
21 Sep 09, 03:36 pm CDT
Andy
: I'm not goign to visit Yale until spring, btw, since Alan told me to visit in the spring when he would be there.
21 Sep 09, 03:37 pm CDT
Erwa
: Oh yeah - I haven't seen Alan at all yet this semester! Is he studying abroad? Wow, I have been so caught up with things, I totally forgot about Alan :/.
21 Sep 09, 10:26 pm CDT
Andy
: Sometimes you need to stop in life, sit down, and look up.
22 Sep 09, 07:39 am CDT
Erwa
: Mmm.
24 Sep 09, 12:24 am CDT
Lily
: /sits down
24 Sep 09, 09:30 pm CDT
Lily
: /looks up
24 Sep 09, 09:30 pm CDT
Lily
: ...now what. :/
24 Sep 09, 09:30 pm CDT
ants
: how daaare you eeat ussss
24 Sep 09, 09:38 pm CDT
Andy
: You missed the point of the exercise, Lily. I'm sorry to say, you have failed.
25 Sep 09, 12:23 am CDT
Erwa
: :) I like the message from the ants. Have some sugar.
26 Sep 09, 12:58 am CDT
Andy
: I saw your mom today at haircutting with Roger's mom.
26 Sep 09, 02:54 pm CDT
Lily
: picked up my cube today. slower than ever D;
3 Oct 09, 10:15 am CDT
Andy
: Did not pick up my cube in a long time. Have no skill D:
Lily
: You know, sometimes a belt comes into our lives for a short while only to disappear when we least expect it. And even though we may mourn its loss in the lonely years afterwards, as the pain slowly dulls, there will come a day when we remember that belt not for the heart-wrenching way that it left us, but for the bliss of those days that it graced us with its presence and held our pants together.
22 Nov 09, 11:08 am CST
: Here's to you, belt.
22 Nov 09, 11:08 am CST
Andy
: Hehe you're awesome Lily.
23 Nov 09, 03:12 am CST
Andy
: But also, sometimes, its only a matter of time.
23 Nov 09, 03:13 am CST
Erwa
: On a positive note, my pants actually appear to fit me because they ride a few inches lower.
24 Nov 09, 12:04 am CST
Crissy
: This looks... so different than I remember.
27 Nov 09, 02:22 pm CST
Crissy
: I'm pretty sure my belt is with a friend at the moment. I hope she's taking care of it.
27 Nov 09, 02:25 pm CST
Erwa
: Good news! I'm back home now and I found an old belt that fits.
27 Nov 09, 08:43 pm CST
Crissy
: Congrats! What do you mean by "home"?
28 Nov 09, 02:43 pm CST
Crissy
: Congrats! What do you mean by "home"?
28 Nov 09, 05:17 pm CST
Crissy
: :| Why are they so far apart, time-wise? Too strange.
28 Nov 09, 05:17 pm CST
Erwa
: :D Home as in my house in Morris Plains, NJ, which has been my permanent residence for the past 12 years. Lol at the huge time difference. I have no explanation.
28 Nov 09, 10:29 pm CST
Andy
: Crissy it must've been your evil twin! Plotting to confuse you and your friends every second.
29 Nov 09, 07:01 am CST
Crissy
: How can this be? We would hardly be at cross purposes... And that's what evil twins are for.
29 Nov 09, 11:09 pm CST
Crissy
: Erwa, I thought perhaps you might refer to your dorm as home. Sometimes I do.
29 Nov 09, 11:10 pm CST
Erwa
: Oh yes, I guess I do that, too. It's always a refreshing feeling to arrive somewhere (whether it's home in NJ or my dorm room) after being away for a while.
30 Nov 09, 03:27 pm CST
Andy
: I lost my watch that I got from a long time ago (over 7 years). I didn't really feel sad, but you are right. One less thing to put on, one less thing to worry about. I just look at my phone all the time now.
2 Dec 09, 01:26 am CST
Lily
: I hadn't noticed either... Now I wonder if I've been missing any important popups.
7 Dec 09, 09:57 am CST
Lily
: Like howtosucceedatlife.com is a popup, and all I see is a blank page.
7 Dec 09, 09:58 am CST
Erwa
: I think the blank page is telling you there's no single right answer. You have to craft your own path of success.
7 Dec 09, 10:27 am CST
Erwa
: To quote this book I'm currently reading called "The Art of Possibility," you could think of the blank page as a "universe of possibility."
7 Dec 09, 10:28 am CST
Andy
: Or maybe a blank page is telling you there is no way to succeed at life.
7 Dec 09, 11:20 am CST
Erwa
: So, Andy, in that interpretation, does that mean life is not about succeeding but about something else?
7 Dec 09, 05:07 pm CST
Erwa
: And if so, what is life about?
7 Dec 09, 06:31 pm CST
Life
: I'm all about embracing, man. I love to embrace people who embrace me. Carpe Diem, you know? Don't listen to what people say about success, that's just a cover-up for what they lack.
7 Dec 09, 09:30 pm CST
Lily
: Come on, now. We're already alive, how much more embrace-y do you want to get? Would a handshake do?
8 Dec 09, 09:26 am CST
Life
: I guess a handshake will do. =\
8 Dec 09, 10:37 am CST
Erwa
: How do you give life a handshake?
9 Dec 09, 12:02 am CST
Lily
: You know. You poke your head in, say how d'you do, briefly experience what life has to offer, and then send it on its way.
9 Dec 09, 10:48 am CST
Andy
: So I had two dreams last night. One of them I was playing the Dvorak Cello concerto, but didn't realize this until after I woke up. In the other one I think I was fighting like in a fantasy action world, lol.
9 Dec 09, 03:42 pm CST
Lily
: I heard that your musical abilities improve if you practice and then sleep. Maybe that dream was actually you subconsciously practicing the cello. And your video game dexterity.
10 Dec 09, 10:30 am CST
Andy
: It's funny you mention that because I've been wanting to practice cello; but haven't. On the other hand, I've been unwinding by reliving adventures in Zelda, Ocarina of Time.
11 Dec 09, 02:31 pm CST
Erwa
: Oh, along the lines of improving musical skills, I find that if I sleep after studying, it helps me retain the material better. I think during the sleep, your mind rearranges whatever you have learned or practiced so that when you wake up, it's very organized and coherent in your mind. Sort of like a disk defragmentation I think.
12 Dec 09, 02:24 pm CST
Erwa
: Sleep improves system performance :).
12 Dec 09, 02:24 pm CST
Andy
: Actually that's pretty ironic since sleeping probably does nothing for the disk defragmentation unless Windows magically implemented a feature that defragged while it was sleeping. And actually, your mind DOES rearrange things you learn when you sleep--I remember learning this in AP Bio two years ago. I guess bio's not so bad after all, it gave me more common sense, which is always useful. But for seriously, sleep is the bomb.
Andy
: The following message is meant for a mature audience. You have been warned...............................................................................................FUCK YOU jgyohtejmi and you stupid spam. Get the hell out of this website and don't come back.
13 Dec 09, 07:34 am CST
Lily
: Hey I don't know, I think it's pretty awesome that spambots have managed to find us: not in a commercial chatterbox that a certain bot could be instructed to target, but one that Erwa wrote himself.
13 Dec 09, 09:19 am CST
Andy
: Actually I think Erwa copied the code from somewhere? I remember talking to him about this a long long time ago.
13 Dec 09, 11:36 am CST
Erwa
: Nope, not this chatterbox. Wrote it myself in PHP.
13 Dec 09, 12:57 pm CST
Andy
: Okay, fair enough. But Lily, still. That's like saying its pretty cool that a dog managed to bit me in my dorm room. It must've been pretty ridiculous for the dog to get to my room, but the fact of the matter is that I still got bit. :(
13 Dec 09, 18:33 CST
Andy
: I am liking the new layout with the contents that shrinks and expands. Nice work!
13 Dec 09, 18:34 CST
Andy
: Suggestion: Have the "What's New" include every detail, not just your updates. Like... make it automatic so that any changes/new posts/comments will be displayed.
14 Dec 09, 09:45 CST
Erwa
: Heh, I've been thinking about doing that, but like I do a lot of minor updates (like updating my Money Found page) that I don't feel are worthy of getting a "What's New" post on them.
14 Dec 09, 13:26 CST
Erwa
: But maybe for comments (I'm assuming you mean chatterbox posts) I could add an RSS feed that is automatically updated whenever someone posts a message.
14 Dec 09, 13:46 CST
agslxhqkw
: <Spam caught and deleted. Courtesy of Erwa's primitive spam catcher.>
16 Dec 09, 19:06 CST
Andy
: GO ERWA'S PRIMITIVE SPAM CATCHER GO GO GO GO GO
17 Dec 09, 16:04 CST
Andy
: That is a really baller spam catcher.
17 Dec 09, 16:05 CST
Erwa
: Thanks :). I was considering just deleting the whole post all together when spam was detected but I decided it would be more entertaining to just replace the spam text with a message.
17 Dec 09, 18:40 CST
Lily
: Oh, the image randomly switches. Are you tired of being identified with Rubik's Cubes, Erwa?
20 Dec 09, 19:42 CST
Erwa
: Hmm, well, I still get the occasional "Oh, you can solve a Rubik's Cube in twenty seconds, I'm sure you can..." or the "Oh, you can solve a Rubik's Cube in twenty seconds, but you can't..." but I think there are lots of other things that people identify me with, like bandie, weird diets, crazy sleep schedule, CS/math/science person, StarCraft. I think a lot of people have a general idea of what my personality and character is like, and I don't think they'd associate it only with Rubik's Cubes.
21 Dec 09, 00:25 CST
Erwa
: Of course, cubing is probably what I'm most skilled in, and a lot of people know that, so sometimes I'll get emails about cube sightings/videos or people will make allusions to my cubing hobby.
21 Dec 09, 00:28 CST
Erwa
: Do you identify me with a Rubik's Cube?
21 Dec 09, 00:28 CST
Andy
: I read a quote recently, "The secret is to be so good that they can't ignore you." This is exactly what you've done. You got so good at solving it that people couldn't ignore it, and of course you are going to be associated with that a lot. I feel like people use activities and jobs to remember/identify others. The more unique or better you are at what you do, the longer you will stay in someone's memory.
22 Dec 09, 09:16 CST
Andy
: I certainly don't identify you with a Rubik's Cube, though I do acknowledge that you are awesome at it. And while that is great, there is much more to you than just cubes; your actions, thoughts, personality are much more meaningful and substantial than your skills - though that may not be true in the cutthroat worlds that we often see "out there."
22 Dec 09, 09:19 CST
Andy
: I just read your journal entry; it was a good read. I wanna say that I experienced the same thing this semester, even though I didn't overload on credits, just because all my classes were rather time consuming. And I just ended up not portioning my time well/studying consistently. Alas, procrastination got to me too. Worst grades ever this semester. But its okay, its over, its time to move on.
23 Dec 09, 09:06 CST
Andy
: That puzzling game was pretty awesome.
23 Dec 09, 10:42 CST
Erwa
: Hey, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and support. It makes me feel better. PS: I wanna continue playing that puzzling game right now!
23 Dec 09, 17:59 CST
Andy
: Lol I love how you added that PS in a standard chat box like this. lol.
24 Dec 09, 08:55 CST
Andy
: But you know, the trick is not to overcome procrastination, but let procrastination work for you. PLAN out your times to procrastinate so you satisfy your urge for procrastination yet still get stuff done. :)
24 Dec 09, 08:56 CST
Erwa
: Oh, that's what I did with my ANTH 254 paper due on Monday, 12/14 - instead of working on it on Sunday, 12/13, I updated the layout of this page (note the What's New? post about it).
24 Dec 09, 18:47 CST
Andy
: No bro, that's not what I mean. You have to go one step further than what you did. You can't spontaneously decide to procrastinate on something to do something else. You have to plan it out so that even while procrastinating, you get the deadlines.
24 Dec 09, 20:08 CST
Erwa
: I'm not sure I understand. Can you give me an example from your own experience?
24 Dec 09, 21:49 CST
Andy
: Basically, think about it this way. You need to always be looking at your time, always planning ahead. If you receive an assignment a week ago, START the day you receive it, and start strong. Get a lot done as soon as you can, so in the final stages, you can procrastinate on polishing it. In the end, you are still procrastinating, just with a safety net.
24 Dec 09, 23:58 CST
Erwa
: Ah, I see. That's really tough to do, but I'll see if I can do that next semester.
25 Dec 09, 01:31 CST
Andy
: Do you think what you are pursuing, your major, your goals, coincide with what you are honestly, genuinely, interested in? Sometimes I feel like I am unsure with mine.
29 Dec 09, 11:44 CST
Erwa
: I think CS is a pretty good fit for me - there's a lot of programming involved, and I like that, it's a good blend of creativity, technical stuff, and it's a skill that I think is practical and applicable. But like, sometimes I feel really frustrated and bored with life, there's so much repetition and routine in daily life; that's why I think a radical change in life like going off and trying to live in the woods for a year would be really revitalizing and fun.
30 Dec 09, 01:39 CST
Andy
: I don't remember if I talked about this with you; I think I did, but I read about how escaping from your daily routine once a week can really revitalize your spirits and motivation. Just get off campus by yourself, learn, appreciate, see the world. I definitely don't think you have to go off and try to live in the woods for a year, but if that is your ultimate passion, there's no harm in trying it, right? :)
30 Dec 09, 10:04 CST
Erwa
: Sounds sort of like what band does for me - it revitalizes my spirits, though I'm not sure about revitalizing my motivation. I am going to go take random walks/runs around New Haven when I go back for the spring semester. Apparently, the ocean is only a 15-minute jog away from campus. Heh, I think living in the woods for a year would be very fun and refreshing, but it would be very lonely if you did it alone.
2 Jan 10, 20:54 CST
Erwa
: Hey! The next little project I was thinking of doing for my website is adding a box that automatically displays the latest RSS feeds of my friends' blogs that I read. So basically I would take all the WordPress, LiveJournal, BlogSpot, and Tumblr feeds of friends whose blogs I read and compile them into one feed that displays on this site. But I wanted to run this by you guys and ask if any of you would prefer that your blog feed not be included. So let me know if it's okay.
10 Jan 10, 02:33 CST
Andy
: I'm cool with it. I mean.. how many people check your blog to begin with? :P
10 Jan 10, 09:56 CST
Erwa
: Haha, thanks, Andy. I guess I can experiment with your blogs' feeds as guinea pigs.
10 Jan 10, 13:11 CST
Andy
: Hahaha. Hey dude, what have you been up to lately? It's vacation time and you are never around to puzzling or just chill.
11 Jan 10, 09:00 CST
Erwa
: Yo, today was my first day of classes for the spring 2010 semester. I shopped six classes.
11 Jan 10, 16:36 CST
Andy
: Yo, I don't have class for another two weeks.
12 Jan 10, 07:33 CST
Erwa
: Hey, I might not get around to implementing the automatic RSS feed for a while - I'm pretty busy choosing classing/applying for summer internships/start-of-the-semester madness.
12 Jan 10, 14:06 CST
Andy
: I realized that. How's choosing classes? We should call each other and chat and a weekly basis, I think it'll be fun and good to hear from you. :)
13 Jan 10, 06:48 CST
Erwa
: Hey, I think I finally decided what classes I'll take, after shopping thirteen classes: Operating Systems (CS), Algorithms (CS), Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations (Engineering & Applied Science), Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), and Elementary Musicianship I (Music), for 4.5 credits.
13 Jan 10, 14:09 CST
Andy
: That sounds like a great set of courses to take. Very varied, and interesting. Especially Philosphy of Religion. I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.
13 Jan 10, 15:20 CST
Crissy
: You stole a street sign?
13 Jan 10, 20:39 CST
Erwa
: Yeah, the two courses I'm most excited about are Philosophy of Religion and Algorithms. The professors for these classes are so cool and such interesting, engaging, and passionate speakers. I want to come to class just to listen to them talk.
13 Jan 10, 21:02 CST
Erwa
: My Phil. of Rel. professor is funny, informative, and gives his own perspective but is very open-minded to other perspectives. The class deals with various topics from both sides, including the existence of God, evil, faith, reason, death, immortality, miracles, and science. Some of these issues (like the existence of God) are topics I have been investigating and pondering a lot recently, so I hope this class will help me figure it out. My Algorithms professor is actually a Yale CS grad himself,
13 Jan 10, 21:04 CST
Erwa
: who took Systems Programming & Computer Architecture (which I took last semester) with the same professor (my faculty advisor) who I had. On the first day of class, he talked about a marriage problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem) posed in a 1962 paper and it was so interesting. Dude, this is the kind of stuff I love thinking about - algorithms for solving problems, how to implement them, and their efficiency. The Elementary Musicianship I class is also gonna be fun and
13 Jan 10, 21:09 CST
Erwa
: relaxing. It focuses on all aspects of ear training and actively practicing it through interval recognition, sight-singing, melodic & harmonic dictations, and aural analysis. It's a 1/2 credit class and should be a good way to round out a tough CS/math schedule. Listening to music and singing in class is kinda soothing.
13 Jan 10, 21:11 CST
Erwa
: @Crissy: Yes, I did. During my walk back to the train station after visiting Andy at Hopkins, I found a street sign on the ground and thought it'd make a good decoration for my suite's common room last year, so I took it.
13 Jan 10, 21:22 CST
Andy
: Yes, it's definitely great to take time away from hard classes to immerse yourself in the arts. It'll make the science and math more bearable. I think you'll have a great time this semester. My courses are pretty technical, but I decided to drop one and take a philosophy class as well, so it should be pretty interesting. I also like the new format of the chat box, with the character counter. That is pretty creative.
14 Jan 10, 08:12 CST
Andy
: Is it possible to increase the amount of characters? Also, can you make it so that the tabbing goes to Post next rather than the amount of characters left?
14 Jan 10, 08:13 CST
Erwa
: Hey boss, I increased the character-limit to 1,000 characters. I'll look into the tabbing when I have more time. It'll requiring a bit more playing around.
15 Jan 10, 02:06 CST
Erwa
: @classes: What is your philosophy class about? Yeah, I also want more time to work on some projects for this website and the AASA website and to play/practice StarCraft for the CSL team :) (not as high priority, of course). I'm also doing this Friday lunch Bible discussion with some students and John Yelverton. I met him at a book table last year run by the Yale Students for Christ, at which I got The Language of God by Francis Collins. I really enjoyed the book, so this year, I came back and got a few more free books from him - the Holy Bible, The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He's a friendly guy, and it's nice chatting with him about religious issues.
15 Jan 10, 02:17 CST
Andy
: Classes haven't started for me yet, so I don't really know what the philosophy class is about. It's "History of Modern Philosophy," so we're going to be reading stuff by Kant, etc.
15 Jan 10, 08:11 CST
Lily
: Not caught up with backlog of posts/comments yet, but today in the dining hall I saw a backpack exactly like Erwa's! It was sitting by itself against the wall, and the closest person was this Asian girl. Saw your update and knew it was destiny that I post this instead of finishing cramming, wheee!
15 Jan 10, 22:53 CST
Ken
: Yo Anthony, I'm sitting next to you right now.
16 Jan 10, 00:19 CST
Crissy
: Erwa, you're not a minor anymore! It's apparently much worse if you get caught and you're a, uh, ... major?
16 Jan 10, 23:53 CST
Crissy
: A friend of mine described it as a rite of passage; steal a streetsign before your 18th birthday. (Presumably give it right back.) Since yours wasn't in use, did you end up hanging on to it?
16 Jan 10, 23:54 CST
Erwa
: Hey, I actually did get caught! Check out http://erwa.pnosker.com/secure/2009/february.php#2 for the full story. I bring the sign 250 miles from Baltimore to New Haven and then I get busted in the last mile of my journey.
I never thought of it as a right of passage; I just took it because my suite last year (The Lair) had weird decorations in our common room, so I thought the street sign was appropriate.
17 Jan 10, 12:14 CST
Andy
: Getting caught is all the fun in doing something bad.
26 Jan 10, 09:27 CST
Erwa
: Heh, I dunno. Sometimes getting away with it is even more fun and makes for a better story.
27 Jan 10, 18:38 CST
Erwa
: Just FYI, I decided to take Database System Implementation and Architectures instead of Operating Systems because: 1) the OS professor is new and this is the first time he is teaching this course at Yale, but he will be teaching this course annually from now on (in the past, OS was only offered bi-annually). 2) the Databases class is taught by a professor who is going on leave next year, so the class probably won't be offered next year.
30 Jan 10, 15:52 CST
Lily
: What if a better professor teaches Databases next year? :P OS was the time of my life, and by "time of my life" I mean "most simultaneously excruciating and enlightening three months ever". I think I'll be taking Databases next year, so maybe you can help me out.
1 Feb 10, 20:42 CST
Erwa
: Haha, yo, my Databases professor is so cool. He just got his Ph.D. two years ago, is young and energetic and very friendly. There's something about him I like; I just get the impression he is such a good-natured, good-intentioned person with a very positive attitude in life. He is a helpful and approachable person. I am really glad I have this opportunity to take his class and get to know him.
Heh, I hear horror stories about OS here, too. We have an analogy which is - CS 422:CS 323 = CS 323:CS 223. 422 is OS, 323 is Systems Programming, which I took in the fall, and 223 is Data Structures, which I took in the spring last year. The analogy says the increase in workload and difficulty from 223 to 323 is the same as the increase from 323 to 422.
I think to prepare for OS, I might start playing around with the xv6 environment and doing some of the assignments over the summer. I am anticipating many sleepless nights in the Zoo.
I think DBs will be easy for you after surviving OS :).
2 Feb 10, 03:19 CST
Andy
: College classes teach no useful information.
4 Feb 10, 15:06 CST
Erwa
: I think a lot of useful stuff you learn out of class, like understanding and getting better human interaction, etc., but I've learned a lot of useful stuff in class, too, like data structures & programming techniques (the name of my CS 223 class). As a CS major looking to go into industry, learning and understanding these CS concepts is definitely very practical and improves my programming abilities.
4 Feb 10, 18:18 CST
Andy
: Happy Lunar New Year!
14 Feb 10, 09:37 CST
Erwa
: You, too, and Happy Valentine's Day, too!
14 Feb 10, 13:20 CST
Andy
: WASSSUP
25 Feb 10, 11:55 CST
Erwa
: Gonna go nap now before my match against Stony Brook.
25 Feb 10, 18:24 CST
Andy
: You guys smoked the crap out of Stony Brook. That fast rine rush was epic own.
26 Feb 10, 08:20 CST
Lily
: Andy, your last comment was 100% incomprehensible to me.
Also, I realized what ISB was after I posted my comment, but I'm too lazy to go make another one. Cheers!
26 Feb 10, 10:47 CST
Erwa
: Lol, Chris Jeng is sitting next to me and just commented that the only word that you probably didn't understand was "rine". "rine" is just short for "marine".
:)
26 Feb 10, 23:56 CST
Erwa
: The match against Stony Brook was kinda anticlimactic. I was hoping for a tougher match. It's kinda boring just completely dominating your opponent without a struggle.
27 Feb 10, 02:03 CST
Andy
: What exact build did you use? IIRC, you fast expoed into 3 rax rine?
Lily, you should take up starcraft in your free time and learn all this game speak.
27 Feb 10, 11:50 CST
Erwa
: I 1-rax cc'd and then added on 2 more rax. But seriously, I could've triple cc'd and SCV-rushed my opponent and still won.
27 Feb 10, 16:07 CST
Vita.Calcium
: Yo I forgot all my PLL's :(
27 Feb 10, 17:33 CST
Erwa
: Don't sweat. Bob Burton has a list of his PLL algs on his page - http://cubewhiz.com/pll.html - along with links to many other cubers' PLL pages in case you don't like his.
27 Feb 10, 22:40 CST
Vita.Calcium
: I wonder if I can play for Yale next season on CSL as a smurf or something. XD
28 Feb 10, 10:33 CST
Erwa
: Lol, I don't think we'd want to jeopardize our team and perhaps be penalized like Rutgers was for fielding a non-Rutgers student. Why can't you just play for JHU?
28 Feb 10, 19:14 CST
Vita.C
: For some reason we don't have a team. I don't know what happened to our coordinator.
3 Mar 10, 08:30 CST
Erwa
: Oh? That's weird. Why don't you restart it? Though, I guess you're also welcome to play on the Yale team.
3 Mar 10, 12:12 CST
Vita.C
: Shrugs. I might just not play after all. This not gaming experience has been pretty good for me; maybe I stick with it for the most part and play games minimally from now on.
4 Mar 10, 09:11 CST
anonymous
: I don't really know what to do with myself.
6 Mar 10, 18:45 CST
anonymous
: Oh, you turn blank names automatically into "anonymous".
6 Mar 10, 18:45 CST
Erwa
: I think you should go pick up a hobby.
8 Mar 10, 01:23 CST
anonymous
: I quit all my hobbies.
8 Mar 10, 18:25 CST
Erwa
: How come?
9 Mar 10, 02:53 CST
Lily
: Because I thought they were the problem. But they're not really the problem, are they? Hey, congrats on getting your full license! I think mine expires this summer - after which I'll be getting the landscape version. Does that mean you're back in NJ? You should drive down here and visit me. :)
9 Mar 10, 10:33 CST
Andy
: The only problem I see here is you not having hobbies.
10 Mar 10, 06:51 CST
Lily
: Yeah, that is a problem, isn't it?
10 Mar 10, 18:34 CST
Andy
: Pick a new one? Any ideas?
10 Mar 10, 19:28 CST
Andy
: Nice job refining this chatbox, btw.
10 Mar 10, 19:28 CST
Erwa
: Hey, Alan and I want to go visit Pton Friday (3/12) afternoon. Will you be free? And how are midterms?
Yo, you should join the Princeton Band. Then you can come visit Yale when Princeton plays Yale in football in the fall.
Heh, Andy, I remember how you said having to tab twice was an annoyance, so I fixed it. Thanks for noticing :).
10 Mar 10, 20:02 CST
Lily
: I will be so free! Midterms will be done at 10AM Friday.
That actually sounds like a good idea, but I don't have enough time as it is. :(
11 Mar 10, 10:09 CST
Erwa
: Agh, actually, we decided not to go. Alan's coming back home from New Haven tomorrow afternoon, so by the time he picks me up and we get to Princeton, it'd already be dinner time. Then he was planning to spend the night (and go to Rutgers on Saturday), whereas I'd need to take the train at night home, cause I need to get ready and be well-rested for my Saturday night/Sunday morning flight to Cali. The scheduling just didn't work out too well this spring break for me. But hey, didn't your family move to Baltimore, Lily? If so, you could hang out with Andy over break :).
11 Mar 10, 16:45 CST
Lily
: Oh, well that's disappointing! Better make it up to me over the summer. :) Good luck on your interview...?
11 Mar 10, 20:06 CST
Andy
: Her family moved to Baltimore County, iirc. I am spending spring break in NJ. The irony.
12 Mar 10, 07:33 CST
Lily
: I'm actually in Prince George's county, if that means anything to you. (Sure doesn't to me!) I still think we might overlap somewhere, but at the moment I still haven't decided my travel plans.
12 Mar 10, 09:19 CST
Andy
: Yeah it turns out you are actually like an hour away from where I live. Which is way too far.
12 Mar 10, 11:35 CST
Erwa
: Have you figured out what you'll be doing the summer and where you'll be living?
Nah, it's not an interview. I'm just job shadowing for a week at LeapFrog.
Oh, an hour is not too bad if there are public transit options or if you have a car. For me, that'd be like going to NYC, either from home in Jersey or from New Haven.
12 Mar 10, 14:05 CST
Andy
: Who are you directing your question to? Well I'm staying in Baltimore, hopefully getting a part time job along with research and making moneyz so I can have place to live next year.
I don't have a car, though perhaps public transit..? o_O
12 Mar 10, 19:33 CST
Erwa
: Oh, I intended my first question for Lily because whether I can visit her over the summer depends partly on her location. Like if she's in Germany, it'd be kinda tough to visit her lol.
<3 public transit. Greyhound all the way :D
12 Mar 10, 19:57 CST
Andy
: Who are you directing your question to? Well I'm staying in Baltimore, hopefully getting a part time job along with research and making moneyz so I can have place to live next year.
I don't have a car, though perhaps public transit..? o_O
12 Mar 10, 21:31 CST
nicolas
: A place later offered that his mechanism moved a video place frame commuting rough replaced points dreamed by conditions to a original want, full to the statement of a governance bike. The orange can be told in such folks as a armored response: insulin, species, actors, improvement, nationally, befitting and growing, custom streetracing cars. Despite this deputy usage of transmissionsa, new right has well tagged other collaboration. In early positive efforts, it will be audio for the ice to apply the action through a common crime hand, auto cad dowland. Business car ho on ebay, kagan said up in beverly hills. Hvs cars, an superior results of java 2 language wealth. Continuous crashes and second profilethis about weight motorcycle, sheep shame, open-wheel, control and the 1970s. waxing you car for dummies. Otherwise of hole robotics, discrimination professionals are early pair absorbers between the allocation that is to be mated and the company amounts, in niwa and nitta's driver, cars in the movie the sting. http://lgjtrhbgrgt.com
15 Mar 10, 08:55 CDT
Lily
: I also got a ton of sleep last night! I don't remember when exactly I slept, but I believe it was 11-12 or so. I didn't wake up once until 10:40, and I feel great! The reason is that I slept only 3 hours the night before and some small amount the night before that. Also, I drove for 3 hours straight from Princeton to MD that day, which is farther than I've ever driven in one go, I believe.
What is a reed trimmer?
I think I'd like to go to Germany, but even so, there should be time before and after. Have you thought about what you're doing yet? Andy, I actually passed by signs for JHU on my way up here. Are you on the way from Princeton to UMaryland?
15 Mar 10, 11:23 CDT
Erwa
: @nicolas: lol at spam. @Lily: Whoohoo, spring break! Sleep to your heart's content :].
Sometimes, you find a good reed, but eventually, it wears down and the tone quality starts to degrade. To extend the life of the reed a bit, you can you use a reed cutter to shave a bit off the tip of the reed, making the reed thicker again and still preserving the curved shape of the top of the reed.
You totally should. I think Germany will be great fun.
I think I'm probably gonna be working at ITT in Clifton, NJ, during the summer, commuting daily from home. I'll be helping to test and debug defense-relating networking tools.
I'll probably be working from the beginning of summer all the way to the end, so I'll mostly be free only on the weekends. We'll have to coordinate a meeting once our schedules are more finalized.
15 Mar 10, 19:51 CDT
Andy
: Lily, I don't quite follow your question. I am not on the way from Princeton to Maryland. o_O
Germany is the sex.
Anthony, that sounds like a pretty sweet job. I'll probably be busy all summer too, save perhaps the last week or two. Let's meet up for sure then.
16 Mar 10, 09:07 CDT
Erwa
: @Andy: Lol at Germany comment.
Yeah, once we all figure out our schedules, let's definitely plan a get-together.
16 Mar 10, 11:06 CDT
Lily
: Ah, sorry that was unclear. I meant: is JHU on the way from Princeton to University of Maryland? Apparently I think soley in terms of colleges now. My house is about 5 minutes from UM.
Reed trimmers sound pretty cool. I was originally picturing you going out and, you know, chopping down a tree, and putting the wood through a machine that would trim out reeds for you. Though come to think of it, reeds are made of bamboo, aren't they?
16 Mar 10, 18:27 CDT
chauncey
: To collide my machine, respond me get an election, slot machine sercerts. Customer descends soon better than its early brake though we could drive without the hot valuable other rest. Not, as html take this protection, they contend stopped targets, and the drop in career adds the freewheel called in the time of the plates, scattering system position. Van tuyl auto group, phoenix died its ofthe to 44 in 1995, and put six more strategies with purvis and jackaroo sauce, not responding one torque. He returns emilie like they also were ksplice and disambiguation. Necessary chevette lamps for boy breach for the rhinovirus of the yellow use of indictment or straight own end in the model or plenty. The review in its many spread parts from 1987, is an often ethnic time objective and has determined in its principal benefits a information in genetic policies. Busy bee machine and tools: maybe, particular buildings referred african americans as a important customer, because in entire and half emulators, they would review the show of ratio in a head of the south. http://jhgfjdatjrvgbhkg.com
16 Mar 10, 21:44 CDT
Erwa
: @Lily re reed trimmer: I think that's how the pros do it. I know many oboists (like Jeff Huang) make their own reeds because their double reeds are quite expensive. But most clarinetists and saxophonists just buy their reeds because they're fairly cheap. Or, for marching band and pit orchestra use, many musicians will buy plastic reeds, which last much longer than regular wood reeds.
16 Mar 10, 23:26 CDT
Andy
: Yo what's up with this annoying spam from random noobs? Sys admin please put them in their place.
19 Mar 10, 06:38 CDT
Erwa
: Sorry about the spam :-/. Heh, I think the most typical spam filter is what's called a Bayesian spam filter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filter - (uses Bayes's theorem) - but I don't really think it's worth my effort to try and implement a Bayesian spam filter.
Hmm...and it seems like the spam posts above are trying to avoid being caught by Bayesian spam filters by purposely avoiding phrases like "money" and "special offer" - their whole purpose seems to be the one link posted at the bottom. And I think it'd be difficult to filter spam based on links included unless there's a site with a list of spam sites. But even then, a spammer could just tinyURL-encode the link.
19 Mar 10, 16:29 CDT
Lily
: I hate to suggest this, but maybe a captcha? :| :| :|
Actually, maybe you could have a list of safe names who are allowed to post freely. And then in order to add a name to the list, you have to pass a captcha. I don't think you'll even need passwords.
20 Mar 10, 08:33 CDT
Andy
: Wow you CS majors at work just blow me away. My mind has been blown.
20 Mar 10, 08:56 CDT
Erwa
: A captcha required for every post would probably be an effective spam filter but would be a tedious addition for legitimate posts.
Having a list of safe names could be vulnerable to spammers who just used a safe name (like Erwa, Andy, or Lily) to make their spam posts.
Another option would be to have a login system so you could only post if you were logged in to your account, but I think that's a bit overkill.
21 Mar 10, 00:48 CDT
Erwa
: P.S.: Oh, and why do you "hate to suggest" a captcha, Lily?
21 Mar 10, 00:51 CDT
Andy
: Today, the iPod that Anthony gave to me broke. The sound still plays, but I can't select the song. I suppose after two years of usage, it was bound to break at some point. I'll still hold on to it though. Put it away in my drawer.
21 Mar 10, 14:38 CDT
Erwa
: Oh lol, so the keypad is broken or something? Is it currently set to play songs in random order? If the sound still works, I think it'd be kind of amusing to keep using, since you have no control over the song you choose.
21 Mar 10, 23:36 CDT
Andy
: I can't start songs anyways, so it's just broken.
22 Mar 10, 12:02 CDT
Erwa
: Whoo, got a 52/100 on my Databases midterm.
22 Mar 10, 20:50 CDT
Andy
: Dude, I got a 69/100 on my Mech Prop midterm. Class is NOT curved.
23 Mar 10, 07:56 CDT
Erwa
: Better pwn the final then :). What was the class average for the midterm?
23 Mar 10, 19:06 CDT
Andy
: Class avg was a 71? Professor is giving us a retake so that we can do better. I knew all my shit, it was just all dumb mistake/panicking.
23 Mar 10, 19:38 CDT
Erwa
: Oh, so you did about average. I totally know what you mean about dumb mistake/panicking - I get that feeling sometimes when I'm doing interviews and they expect you to code/solve brain teasers in front of them.
24 Mar 10, 21:07 CDT
Andy
: Lol I hope I don't get owned by the retake too, that would be pretty fail.
30 Mar 10, 08:02 CDT
Erwa
: U pro dude.
30 Mar 10, 13:23 CDT
ANDY
: I R PRO SAUZ
30 Mar 10, 19:18 CDT
Erwa
: I guess you basically poured that pro sauce all over the retake.
31 Mar 10, 02:47 CDT
Andy
: I haven't taken the retake yet. But I will pour that pro sauce all over that retake. Good idea.
31 Mar 10, 03:22 CDT
Andy
: My chat with a friend regarding what happened to me: (08:45:46) Andy: yo (08:45:58) Andy: let me tell you the fail that i went through at 4 HOURS AGO (08:46:05) Andy: so i am obviously awake (08:46:07) Andy: and i'm like (08:46:11) Andy: oh shit, got to get my laundry (08:46:20) Andy: and i get into the elevator to go down to the first floor (08:46:27) Andy: from five (08:46:36) Andy: and then the elevator goes (08:46:41) Andy: and it SHAKES (08:46:44) Andy: on the 4th floor (08:46:48) Andy: and i'm like wtf? (08:47:03) Andy: and then it shakes again on the 3rd floor (08:47:12) Andy: and then when the letters turn to 2 (08:47:15) Andy: it stops (08:47:20) Andy: and i'm like. wow. (08:47:24) Andy: you gotta be fking kidding me (08:47:35) Andy: yeah (08:47:38) Andy: end of story (08:48:40) Ben Frison: shit dude (08:48:47) Ben Frison: wat tha fack
31 Mar 10, 07:54 CDT
Lily
: Wow, guys use so much profanity when they talk to each other. /nature channel
31 Mar 10, 19:02 CDT
Erwa
: Lol, I think it varies a lot depending on which two guys are talking. Like there are some guys I talk to who never swear, some guys I talk to where we like to talk in 1337speak, other guys where I'm more formal. Hey, I talk to a lot of girls who swear a lot, too.
31 Mar 10, 23:24 CDT
Andy
: That's strange. There were only 5 profanities in the conversation, and wtf cannot be considered profanity because you don't sound the f part out.
I am cutting down on my swearing though. :)
Last thing. Pro Sauce was poured, and it was HOT.
2 Apr 10, 11:45 CDT
Lily
: haha sorry, I didn't mean that to be so judgmental. I don't have anything against swearing, I was actually thinking of Andy's facebook status earlier, which seemed so uncharacteristic to me. I wonder how people behave when I can't see them. There are probably a lot of surprises.
PS. Andy, you were in my dream last night. Most of it was this crazy thing where electromagnetic werewolves and baracading ourselves in rooms, but there was this one quiet part where we were sitting around doing homework, and you just showed up. You were wearing a blue debate shirt that said like "debate", and then you were like "gosh it's cold" and you pulled over it a pink debate shirt that was like "OMG FINAL FOUR YEAH!!!". Those are not exact quotes.
3 Apr 10, 09:52 CDT
Andy
: Wait, which facebook status?
SWEET. that's pretty funny because friday morning at like 5:00 i was REALLY COLD. Today i used a pink shirt as a bath towel.
3 Apr 10, 20:50 CDT
Erwa
: You two were clearly connecting at a subconscious level.
4 Apr 10, 01:50 CDT
Andy
: I got a job working for a internet creative writing workshop site. I am excited.
8 Apr 10, 12:17 CDT
Erwa
: Whoa whoa, I thought you were doing research at Hopkins over the summer? Where did this internet creative writing workshop site job come from? What will you be doing for the site?
8 Apr 10, 14:12 CDT
Andy
: I am still doing research. It's just a part time job. I think I'll be doing a bit of writing and some development. Really flexible hours despite only 8 dollars per hour, so I think it is one of the best deals anyone can ask for. Besides, I'm basically being paid to learn something I like. Win!
9 Apr 10, 06:23 CDT
Lily
: what site is it? can i join? =D
9 Apr 10, 13:37 CDT
Andy
: No, you probably can't join. I just got hired; so I really don't have any position to ask. Also, you're not from Hopkins, and the leader plans to meet with everyone in person. The website is this: http://12writingworkshopsonline.com/
10 Apr 10, 07:39 CDT
Andy
: After I am good friends with him though, I can probably ask. I actually thought about you when I was looking at this job, lol.
10 Apr 10, 07:40 CDT
Andy
: I missed a spot on the prosauce. :( 98/100
12 Apr 10, 12:17 CDT
anonymous
:
18 Apr 10, 14:47 CDT
Andy
:
19 Apr 10, 09:36 CDT
anonymous
:
27 Apr 10, 13:52 CDT
Erwa
: ...
27 Apr 10, 21:26 CDT
Andy
:
28 Apr 10, 01:18 CDT
Erwa
: Lol, the past five posts averaged 0.6 non-whitespace characters per post.
30 Apr 10, 00:03 CDT
Andy
: Lol.
1 May 10, 17:04 CDT
Pat
: LOL you still use this?
6 May 10, 11:33 CDT
Erwa
: Hey pnosker! Yup. It's my own creation built from scratch and I'm proud to be using my own blogging system, even if it's a bit hackish and dysfunctional in some areas.
6 May 10, 14:22 CDT
JT
: What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around.
12 May 10, 16:36 CDT
Andy
: Putting some activity into this chatterbox.
28 May 10, 06:45 CDT
Erwa
: Thanks, Andy.
28 May 10, 09:35 CDT
Andy
: First PSU I bought ever in my life is DOA. This must be a sign.
10 Jun 10, 15:18 CDT
Erwa
: Lol, I had to look up both 'PSU' and 'DOA'. Way to be cryptic as usual, Andy. This is a sign that better things are to come.
11 Jun 10, 22:29 CDT
Andy
: Today I was downloading VirtualBox and I noticed that they have switched to include Oracle in their name. So now its Oracle VirtualBox instead of Sun VirtualBox. I found that pretty amusing.
11 Jun 10, 22:34 CDT
Erwa
: Haha. What are you using VirtualBox for?
14 Jun 10, 12:50 CDT
Lily
: omg I'm so behind on your entries.
Also, I shadowed at Sun literally the day before Oracle was taking over. Awkward?
21 Jun 10, 16:35 CDT
Lily
: Also, I brush my teeth before breakfast. I think the biggest reason for brushing when you wake up is to get rid of morning breath - not really annoying in your sleep, but you kind of don't want to deal with it any more than you have to while you're awake.
Do you think brushing after every meal is really necessary? I'd like to think that evolution has done a better job than that.
21 Jun 10, 16:52 CDT
Erwa
: No worries. I'm sure you were busy with finals and adventuring in Europe.
Cool. Which Sun location were you at?
Lol, I don't notice morning breath. No, I don't think brushing after every meal is necessary, nor do I do it - the only reason I might bring a toothbrush to work is to use brushing my teeth as a way to get off the computer and take a break.
Yo, I think by now we wouldn't even need to brush teeth at all, period. We should be like sharks and always have a backup row of teeth that will grow in if we lose any teeth.
21 Jun 10, 22:30 CDT
Andy
: See, the reason we haven't grown a backup row of teeth is because we keep brushing our teeth. So our evolution never adapts to not being able to brush and take care of our teeth.
I rinse my mouth when I wake up, then brush after.
21 Jun 10, 22:40 CDT
lily
: I was in NYC? It was a good time...
yooo stupid toothbrushing!!
although - what do you think is the purpose of milk teeth?
22 Jun 10, 02:39 CDT
Erwa
: I feel like the body should have adapted by now to replace teeth when we lose them, sort of like how our skin regenerates when we get cuts and burns.
Hmm, I might do the same. Do you use Listerine?
Did you shadow a developer?
Lol, I've noticed you've been saying "yooo" a lot recently. It sounds very Alan-esque.
Baby teeth are probably just to cause kids more pain and suffering. Iono. But probably more likely our head and mouth size increases, so we need bigger teeth to fill up our mouth.
22 Jun 10, 21:06 CDT
lily
: Hey, according to the wikipedia article on "Permanent Teeth", it looks like humans are evolving to grow multiple sets of teeth.
Isn't it weird how starfish can regenerate everything but humans can't? How did evolution manage to lose that nifty trick?
Oh man, I haven't talked to Alan since graduation. Why are his speech patterns popping up now?
23 Jun 10, 15:07 CDT
Andy
: I started using Listerine recently, actually. It's very cool.
I noticed, Lily, that you stopped capitalizing your name. What spurred the change?
I don't think you are talking Alan-esque at all.
23 Jun 10, 19:19 CDT
Erwa
: Cool! I also heard humans are gradually losing their wisdom teeth. Silly vestigial organs.
Meh, must be the complexity of humans relative to starfish. I wish my OS programming assignments next spring are as easy as "hello world" programs.
Lol, I also think 'oh man' is something I say a lot, both online and in RL.
I have a big bottle of Listerine at home, which my roommate Gustavo gave to me last summer when he left the apartment in Hoboken. I have barely used it, but I think I'll utilize it as a mouthwash first thing when I wake up in the future.
Lol, it was just that one line "yooo" that particularly sounded Alan-esque. I worked out and ate lunch with him this past semester occasionally and he likes to say "WHAT!" and "yooo" a lot. I can hear him saying these things in my mind, with facial expressions to go with them.
23 Jun 10, 20:05 CDT
Ken
: Lily, I don't think humans or ancestors of humans lost the ability to regenerate all of our body parts. That trait is a distinguishing characteristic of starfish (and some others). They were one species that GAINED the ability to regenerate their body parts. There are other animals that can regenerate body parts like salamanders but I think it's more parsimonious for these species to have gained this ability, rather than for all other species to have lost it. Ancestors of humans probably evolved from fish or fish-like creatures, but starfish actually are not any type of fish. However, one way that starfish and humans are similar is that we're both deuterostomes (during development, we form our mouth second, anus first), so we are related in that way. This is all stuff I learned in evolutionary biology last semester haha.
23 Jun 10, 22:55 CDT
Lily
: Haha does it bother you? Here, I'll change it back.
I never got my wisdom teeth. Is this a bad sign?
I think you would be bored and understimulated if all you had to do next semester was "hello world".
Oh man. I definitely remember Alan doing the "WHAT!" and the "yooo". Weird how things stay the same.
...good call, Ken. I remember deuterosomes from AP Bio with Mango, but not that starfish and humans are both. That's weird. More in common than we'd think??
Are you a bio major? Actually, for that matter, I had no idea Andy was Materials Science. When did that happen???
24 Jun 10, 17:47 CDT
Ken
: Hey yeah, I'm a biology (biochemistry) major. I applied to also be a chem major but I don't know if they'll accept me or not lol.
As for Andy, I think he's been set on studying nanotechnology since high school. He always said that nanotechnology will be the future so he wants to study materials science in college.
24 Jun 10, 20:14 CDT
Erwa
: Wow, Ken, I never knew about this secondary definition of parsimonious until you used it above and I looked it up.
I think it's a good sign you didn't get your wisdom teeth. I think that means you're more evolutionarily advanced than humans with wisdom teeth. You probably have other evolutionary advantages as well.
You're right. I hope OS is INTENSE.
I'd like to quote Ken here: "People rarely change, and if they do, it's usually for the worse."
25 Jun 10, 19:34 CDT
Andy
: Lily, I didn't dislike nor like it. But I noticed that it was an aberration, so I wondered what caused it.
I haven't had my wisdom teeth either. I think it is different for everybody when the wisdom teeth grows, rather than an evolutionary advancement. Though in that view, maybe we are growing wisdom teeth because we should have lost a molar or two by now in our age? Maybe that's the purpose that evolution wanted wisdom teeth to have.
I never remembered Ken saying that, but I disagree. A lot of people change, but its neither for the better nor worse. Who are we to judge whether people are better or worse because of their change? I think its better to accept that the concept of a person is a malleable one, and while often people may change in ways you disapprove of, it doesn't necessarily mean they are "better" or "worse". I experienced this firsthand last semester.
27 Jun 10, 03:41 CDT
Andy
: Though that being said, I suppose there are definitely worse/better situations that can be discerned. I guess the point is that people change, and a lot of times its for the "better" too. Be true to your true self.
27 Jun 10, 03:43 CDT
Erwa
: I can feel my wisdom teeth starting to come in - there are these big bumps in the back of my mouth. I don't plan on getting them removed, but I hope they don't disalign all my teeth.
Lol, what you said Andy reminded me of something someone else wrote:
I've accepted that people change. For better or for worse, it's not my place to decide.
I realize that there are people and things that aren't worth my time, thoughts, or tears. Instead, I should focus on the people and things who care and matter.
I always want my own person. In the world of everyone trying to fit some standard, I want to be ____. Any effort otherwise is not worth it.
I'm not sure exactly how I feel. I agree with Andy and the quote above that we should be ourselves and try not to judge other people when they change. I like that tolerant and open-minded mindset.
27 Jun 10, 12:21 CDT
Erwa
: But I also feel it's sometimes hard not to judge. "Better" and "worse" are subjective qualifiers after all, and when there's change, you naturally have some reaction/opinion. I find myself judging and criticizing a lot, even if I try not to let that affect my interactions with someone.
27 Jun 10, 12:27 CDT
krysbp
: <Spam caught and deleted. Courtesy of Erwa's primitive spam catcher.>
Lily
: Wow, Ken. You're a bio major, you should know that evolution only causes things to change for the better.
I think we're biased because we like the status quo, we like constancy, so any change seems like it's for the worse. But personally, I like to think that the nature of human beings (as well as... nature...) is to make consistent and gradual improvements. We live, we learn. I'm a much better person than I was 10 years ago, that's for damn sure. But I've still got a long way to go.
9 Jul 10, 01:54 CDT
Lily
: Also, Erwa, I love how you cube yourself back to health. That is purely awesome, and will go into your autobiography one day. By the way, Crystal has a story to tell you.
9 Jul 10, 01:55 CDT
Ken
: Lily, evolution has no objective or goal, it's just an accumulation of adaptations to the present environment. "Better" depends on the environment and surroundings, and these can change quickly, and what was once advantageous may no longer be advantageous. Adaptations always lag behind environmental changes because a population just reacts to the environment. A species might takes several thousand years to adapt to some change, but by then, the adaptation might be useless or even harmful, so it was not for the better.
9 Jul 10, 09:30 CDT
Lily
: Haha oh dear, I think I've just been owned. Still - look how well Earth's multitude of animals have adapted to their respective environments. And if that environment shifts on them, it's still the changes that they make that help them to survive. Change is still the positive thing here - and fortunately people change a bit faster than an entire species. I still don't see change in general as a negative thing.
10 Jul 10, 15:54 CDT
xkdyxgb
: <Spam caught and deleted. Courtesy of Erwa's primitive spam catcher.>
3 Aug 10, 17:06 CDT
DiliArizili
: mila kunis nude pictures http://trusted.md/user/mila_kunis_nude free mila kunis nude pics
5 Aug 10, 18:12 CDT
Andy
: Oh no, the spam catcher failed!
6 Aug 10, 07:12 CDT
This is a test.
: hello
6 Aug 10, 07:13 CDT
Erwa
: Haha, yeah, that's why it's a "primitive" spam catcher. I just noticed some patterns in previous spam I had, so when processing chatterbox posts, I just do a regex search for certain spammish patterns. I don't want to include too many patterns or else a legitimate post might get deleted. Though I should probably save the original text of all posts, so I can do recovery if necessary.
6 Aug 10, 12:10 CDT
Erwa
: @This is a test: Nice. FYI, the html markups this chatterbox recognizes are ,,and, though according to w3schools (http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_u.asp), the tag is deprecated. (You're supposed to use CSS instead - text-decoration:underline - but it's kind of cumbersome, and all major browsers still recognize deprecated tags.
6 Aug 10, 12:15 CDT
Erwa
: Lol, I owned myself with my own chatterbox. I meant ,, and . The tag is deprecated.
6 Aug 10, 12:17 CDT
Erwa
: Oops, looks like I found a bug. Test: < >
6 Aug 10, 12:18 CDT
Erwa
:
6 Aug 10, 12:18 CDT
Erwa
: Lol @ the first post of April 2010. It got attacked with 28 spam comments. I just disabled further commenting for that post.
13 Aug 10, 12:12 CDT
Erwa
: Haha...and then the second post of April started getting spammed. So now I've disabled commenting for all April 2010 posts. I like how I am having a conversation with myself.
13 Aug 10, 14:50 CDT
Erwa
: Hmm...I might have to implement an approval system for suspicious chatterbox and comment posts.
13 Aug 10, 17:38 CDT
Ken
: Holy crap, Anthony, you got owned by spam. I suggest you implement this to fight back:
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/
I found that link from this one: http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/bulkmailer/
14 Aug 10, 17:30 CDT
Erwa
: Interesting link, Ken. Except it doesn't solve the problem of this chatterbox being spammed by bots.
I've added the "Erwa" box below as a very simple defense against most automated bots.
Erwa
: Hahahaha. I got scared for a second. Good thing you're not automated...or are you O_o?
19 Aug 10, 11:52 CDT
Andy
: What is free will? Do we really have it?
20 Aug 10, 11:04 CDT
Erwa
: Making up the future as you go along (from xkcd #267). (Lol, is it a bad sign that when people ask me questions, random quotes from stuff I've read pop into my head?)
I'm also reminded of a part of a conversation between Neo and Morpheus in the Matrix: Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo? Neo: No. Morpheus: Why not? Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
20 Aug 10, 15:04 CDT
Andy
: I don't think it is a bad sign that you remember all these quotes.
I will comment more on free will I have to go practice for a concert.
22 Aug 10, 11:22 CDT
Erwa
: I'm just afraid I sometimes might not be thinking for myself and instead am just rattling off lines that I remember because it's fun to do that.
22 Aug 10, 13:49 CDT
Andy
: That's funny that you said that because "not be thinking for yourself" -- so do you have free will? Or do you just spit back data you gather?
22 Aug 10, 18:14 CDT
Erwa
: Nice commentary there, Andy.
Well, even though I did spit out something I heard, I still made the choice of spitting it out, and I believe that it is the CHOICE of making any action that is free will.
Some say perhaps all your actions are pre-determined. Well, for me, as long as I feel that I am in control of the choosing (which I do feel I am), then I feel like I have free will, and that is enough for me.
23 Aug 10, 00:17 CDT
Ken
: Hey, update your blog.
12 Sep 10, 08:05 CDT
Erwa
: Hey, I'll try to soon. These first couple weeks of school have just been crrrrazzzzzy busy.
12 Sep 10, 16:26 CDT
Erwa
: Oh, what heck. I'll we'll are apostrophes ' okay?
12 Sep 10, 16:27 CDT
Hilary
: Hi Anthony! Brain Thomas and your cousin are checkin out your site together. We just wanted to say HELLO!!! :D Hope you are doing well!
25 Sep 10, 23:01 CDT
Erwa
: Coool! Which cousin would this be - Patrick or Kyle Nosker?
That's awesome that you guys are all hanging out together. I am doing very well, thanks! Hope you guys are living the life, too.
25 Sep 10, 23:20 CDT
Hilary
: Pat. His girlfriend, Mercedes, lives in the same house as me this year! =)
26 Sep 10, 01:53 CDT
Erwa
: Shout out to Pat for providing me free web hosting for 7 years and counting!
26 Sep 10, 12:00 CDT
Pat
: Shout out to Erwa for providing me the tools needed to teach the cube!
27 Sep 10, 17:50 CDT
Andy
: So I am trying to figure out when to grace the rural town of Yale with my presence.
5 Oct 10, 23:51 CDT
Erwa
: Yo, feel free to come grace the city of New Haven any time. Except the weekend of 11/5-11/7, since I'm going to Princeton for a cubing competition on Sat 11/6. Or, if you want to visit P-ton, too, we could meet up there.
7 Oct 10, 22:24 CDT
Andy
: Yo i bought my bus tickets. I will be there.
21 Oct 10, 23:07 CDT
Erwa
: WOOT! I can't wait.
21 Oct 10, 23:43 CDT
erwa
: ghu
31 Oct 10, 20:15 CDT
Erwa
: Hahaha...please disregard the "ghu". I was testing my chatterbox and accidentally tested on my online site rather than my offline testing site.
31 Oct 10, 20:45 CDT
Andy
: ghu
2 Nov 10, 15:26 CDT
Erwa
: jhu
2 Nov 10, 19:26 CDT
Andy
: Gohns Hopkins University
5 Nov 10, 05:44 CDT
Erwa
: According to urbandictionary.com, GHU = good hook-up.
5 Nov 10, 09:44 CDT
Andy
: JHU is the place to get GHU's
7 Nov 10, 17:00 CST
Erwa
: Have you gotten any GHUs, Andy? If so, can you tell us about one of these experiences?
7 Nov 10, 18:34 CST
Erwa
: Yo Andy. Should I do a sing-songy voice message for you in the style of George Costanza's voice message here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ria37d9mInY - as recommended by Szajko?
11 Nov 10, 12:40 CST
Andy
: Yes I approve lol
11 Nov 10, 18:21 CST
Erwa
: Done. Check out the latest voice message.
11 Nov 10, 19:59 CST
Andy
: Done. It is now my voice message.
11 Nov 10, 23:32 CST
Erwa
: HAHAHAHA. I am going to call you soon. Don't pick me.
12 Nov 10, 00:22 CST
Erwa
: HAHAHA. That's too funny. I might keep calling you just to listen to your voice message.
12 Nov 10, 00:40 CST
Andy
: I can't wait to have my mom leave a voicemail that's like.. "WHY THE HECK ARE YOU SINGING"
12 Nov 10, 04:41 CST
Erwa
: Haha, have your parents called yet?
14 Nov 10, 20:30 CST
Andy
: Ironically I've so far picked up every call my parents have placed to me.
16 Nov 10, 09:29 CST
Erwa
: You should not pick up next time and let them enjoy your voice message :).
16 Nov 10, 20:42 CST
Erwa
: Where's everybody gonna be this Thursday-Sunday (Thanksgiving break)?
22 Nov 10, 17:07 CST
Erwa
: Home stretch, woot!
29 Nov 10, 21:06 CST
Lily
: hahahahahaa Andy, how come I didn't hear that message last time I called you???
8 Jan 11, 16:19 CST
Lily
: I really like this spambot detection thing you have going. I was kind of expecting something more dramatic for a failure though, but I guess spambots don't care :P
8 Jan 11, 16:20 CST
Lily
: Also... whoa.... you have your RSS feed going on the side! Wow.
8 Jan 11, 16:20 CST
no self control
: Okay I spent way too much time here today. Sadly, I'm going to have to block this site too. skål
8 Jan 11, 17:30 CST
Erwa
: Oh, Andy removed his voice mail for two reasons: (1) He thought if employers called, they might be like WTF, and that might affect his employment chances. (2) One of his friends had already used this style for his voice message, so Andy felt he was biting his style.
Yeah, I looked into adding a Captcha, but it seemed like too much work to integrate with my chatterbox, so I settled for the lazy approach. Rather than being pre-emptive, I kind of fix problems as they arise :P.
Yes, getting my RSS feeds to display on the side was a fun project I did one weekend during the summer. PHP conveniently has an XMLReader class - http://php.net/manual/en/book.xmlreader.php - which did all the dirty work for me. I just decided what RSS feed elements to fetch and presented it in a readable format.
But I haven't gotten around to automating my own website's RSS feed, yet, lol.
8 Jan 11, 17:30 CST
Erwa
: Currently, I just edit text files offline and then upload them via FTP to update my site. I really think I should create a browser-based system for creating and editing posts that would also automatically update my RSS feed, but the first basic need of such a system is a login system, so that non-Erwa's (particularly spambots) can't flood my site with posts. It seems like a lot of work to research and install a secure login system, and I just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe this can be a spring break project.
8 Jan 11, 17:36 CST
Lily
: haha oh, I guess that's a good call, Andy. But you should put it back up when you're done interviewing for the season.
Hey, finishing the problem without expending too much effort seems like a plus to me!
Makes sense that it must be harder to create a browser-based system for updating, but didn't you say that php automates some of it for you? Maybe in that automating step, it could also include some RSS magic. I actually did a project a while back where we took some open-source login utility. It was in Django though, so that would involve some restructuring of, uh, everything. But the point is, I'm sure you could grab something premade if you're interested.
12 Jan 11, 15:00 CST
Lily
: By the way, I wanted to ask you how you felt about Oracle as an employer. Was it a good place to work? What was the environment like?
12 Jan 11, 15:01 CST
Erwa
: Yeah, I figured it wasn't worth going through all the trouble to install a Captcha when my site is so low-traffic and unimportant, so human hackers/spammers are unlikely to target it.
Yeah, the comments section for every post is automatically added, but that's it. I think to automate RSS feed updating, I'd have to have some sort of browser based system where when I finish a post and hit a Submit button, a PHP script would be called that posts the post and updates the RSS feed. When I update via FTP, no PHP script is called, so I'd have to manually run a script if I wanted my feed updated. Yeah, I plan to use a premade login system, but still, integrating it with my site will take a bit of work since I'll probably have to restructure a lot of stuff.
12 Jan 11, 15:44 CST
Erwa
: Oracle was a chill place to work. It pays pretty well, too. However, Oracle is an enterprise software company, so the stuff it makes and sells is for business customers, not individual consumers. Thus, I think the software and applications Oracle works on aren't as exciting as the stuff companies geared toward the mass consumer market are making, like Microsoft and Google and the like.
Oracle also internally uses most of the enterprise products they sell to other companies, and to be honest, I wasn't a fan of many of their systems. They generally seemed slow and unreliable.
Oracle also has more of a "corporate" feel to it than other companies, in my opinion. People were generally all dressed business casual, but on the more formal end. There weren't any fun lounges with rainbow-colored furniture and video games like you might find at Google or Microsoft, nor was there anything interactive like a wall people can write on (like they have on Facebook).
12 Jan 11, 16:07 CST
Erwa
: However, from talking with people, it seems like the average Oracle employee doesn't really have that much work to do. The people on my team usually came in around 10 or 10:30 and left around 5, 5:30. If you're interested in having more time for yourself or are also trying to raise a family, I think working at Oracle would be pretty comfortable.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be as much mobility inside Oracle. It's not that easy nor common to switch teams, nor does it seem too easy to transition into management or more business-oriented aspects. At Microsoft, it's very common and almost expected that every few years or so, at least early on, you might join a new product team. At Google, I hear it's easier to move to the business side after being a software engineer, if you want to.
These are just my own impressions based on what I've read, heard, and experienced. The reality as a full-time employee might be very different.
12 Jan 11, 16:20 CST
Lily
: Haha you always notice/think about such interesting things and give such thorough reviews. The reason I ask was because I received an email (A) today asking if I was still interested in interviewing on site, and if not I should them them so they could update their records. I realized that I couldn't remember having done a campus or phone screen with Oracle, so I investigated. Gmail turned up 4 separate communications from them. Email B was them saying they did not want me (but in a polite way). Email C was an extremely brief conversation where she tried to schedule an interview, I told her my GPA, and that was the end of it. And Email D was identical to email A. Hmmm.... perhaps I should spare myself the trouble.
12 Jan 11, 18:55 CST
Lily
: I don't think that your website is low traffic, and especially not unimportant. :P I remember being very amazed that bots managed to find this comment box at all. I'd suspect they'd be more specialized to attack a particular site - like the comments I get on my LJ sometimes.
It's pretty cool that the comments section gets added automatically. Hmm... well, I guess I'll just have to keep checking back for now. There's one web-comic I used to follow that refused to put up an RSS feed because it would reduce traffic to her website.
12 Jan 11, 18:58 CST
Erwa
: Lol, I'm glad you think I say interesting things. I wish in classes and discussion sections, I had interesting contributions to make. I always feel like everyone else (1) has much more of a reaction to the reading than I did and consequently much more to say than I do and (2) says things that display a much deeper level of analysis and thought than what I say. I feel like most of what I say is very observational and factual. I'm not very good at making and defending an interpretive critical argument.
Well, if you haven't already accepted your first job offer, I would definitely go for an Oracle interview. Even if you already have a good offer, it never hurts to try to go for other offers and then compare and make your decision.
13 Jan 11, 03:18 CST
Erwa
: Heh, I use Google Analytics on my site, and I get about 10 hits per day. That's pretty low traffic IMHO. My guess is spambots just query Google with every word in the dictionary and then click all the search result links and try spamming any forms detected. Or maybe spambots just use a web crawler, like those used by search companies to index the web, but instead of indexing pages, the spambot would scan the page for forms and try to fill them out and submit them. Yeah, I'm guessing spambots probably rely on web crawling with form detection.
To be fair, I check my site regularly for posts to the chatterbox. I could write a script to email me any time somebody posts a message, but I feel like if I do that, I should allow anybody to subscribe by email to this chatterbox. Adding a chatterbox subscription feature is a project for the future. I also need to allow a method for unsubscribing.
13 Jan 11, 03:27 CST
Lily
: Hmm.... but you're summing up the whole class and comparing it to just your one self. that seems unfair.
Well, under your advice I asked them about the recruiting timescale, and they told me the whole process would take at least a month. I don't have that long :O
Hmm... but erwaman isn't in the dictionary. For spambots to find this page, Google must index it with something searchable.
Perhaps an RSS feed for your chatterbox...
13 Jan 11, 19:09 CST
Lily
: Hey! PS: how do you feel about working for a start-up straight out of college? Do you think there's high risk? High pressure? But maybe you get more of a chance to work on all parts of the project?
13 Jan 11, 19:09 CST
Erwa
: Oh, I just feel the average sophistication of people's comments is significantly higher than mine. But maybe, as Andy suggested, it's because the kinds of classes with lots of discussion tend to be history and English classes, and most people taking them are history/English majors, and they just have more experience analyzing and interpreting historical and literary works than I do.
Tell them to hurry up. (Like tell them you have another offer, for which you need to make a decision by a certain date. Most companies are usually at least a little flexible when it comes to speeding up their hiring process.)
True, erwaman isn't in the dictionary. I think it's more likely then that spambots arrived at my site by web crawling - continuously following links.
Mmm, thanks for the idea. I'll keep these on the back burner as things to work on over spring break.
16 Jan 11, 06:36 CST
Erwa
: I think if you want the experience of working at a start-up, it's best to do it when you're young - you have much less to lose at this age. As one person I know put it, all you really have to lose right now is time. Sure, there's more risk in working for a startup, but there's probably also more control and flexibility on what you're working on and your hours, and a more intimate environment with your co-workers. Why do you ask? Are you contemplating working for a startup?
16 Jan 11, 06:44 CST
Andy
: I thoroughly enjoyed reading the posts above.
16 Jan 11, 09:42 CST
Erwa
: You should chip in and give your input, too.
16 Jan 11, 22:50 CST
Lily
: So that must mean there are quite a few links to this webpage...
I was contemplating it, but I don't think it's right for my personality. When it comes to work, I like to have more structure than that, and I'd rather take more initiative with my own projects. If that makes sense. I think I'm about to accept my job offer at a fairly small company though, kind of a compromise... ahhh I'm nervous.
Also, I've discovered that when I cube, F2L takes an inordinate proportion of time - especially the first two steps, where you're just trying to match the 2x2x2 and then the 2x2x3. I guess I'm too reliant on algorithms. I'm currently training myself to do the 2x2x2 in fewer turns and maybe make use of those initial 15 seconds as well. #yeahcoolstorybro
19 Jan 11, 08:53 CST
Erwa
: One I can think of right off the bat is my old Xanga page xanga.com/erwaman.
Do you think you have more flexibility to do your own projects at a larger company than at a smaller one? Woohoo! Congrats. Lily's steppin' into the real world.
If you want to get better at block building, I would recommend looking at the examples on this page - http://lar5.com/cube/blox.html
19 Jan 11, 22:48 CST
Andy
: Yo Anthony, we need to play some Starcraft
28 Jan 11, 15:17 CST
Erwa
: Yo Andy, I need to figure out how an operating system works.
28 Jan 11, 15:29 CST
Andy
: Yo Anthony, I am learning how to program in C.
2 Feb 11, 07:02 CST
Erwa
: This is very good. It's really important to master pointers.
2 Feb 11, 13:57 CST
Andy
: sounds like firefox is the one for you :P
8 Feb 11, 13:20 CST
Erwa
: Minor inconveniences :). I still am a huge fan of how quickly Chrome boots up (significantly faster than Firefox). Performance (page loading time, etc.) also seems faster.
9 Feb 11, 06:19 CST
Andy
: You should write a program with your newfound free time to check how true this is and accurately compare the two different browsers. :)
10 Feb 11, 08:50 CST
Erwa
: Hah, I don't really have more free time, just more time to focus on my other classes.
11 Feb 11, 05:54 CST
Erwa
: Hmm, I was just thinking about how one would go about programmatically testing browsers, and I suppose you could write a script that launches these browsers from the command line with arguments passed to specify URLs/tabs and then time the performance. However, the arguments available are not that extensive for all browsers: Firefox (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments#List_of_command_line_arguments_.28incomplete.29) Chrome (http://www.ericdlarson.com/misc/chrome_command_line_flags.html) IE (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330728(v=vs.85).aspx) Could be an interesting side project :). Another something I could do over spring break.
11 Feb 11, 06:53 CST
Erwa
: Hey, Andy. For your Intermediate Programming class, have you purchased the C bible, aka The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie, yet?
14 Feb 11, 10:27 CST
Andy
: Haha, I didn't buy it yet, but I have a pdf copy. I will probably buy a copy so I can read it and program.
16 Feb 11, 02:36 CST
Andy
: Yo, speaking of web browser experiments again, check out Firefox 4 Beta 11. It seems quite nice and has a sleek feel to it. It reminds me of chrome with that Firefox feel.
16 Feb 11, 05:49 CST
Andy
: Also this version does not have the weird scrolling thing in Grooveshark that I experienced in the last version of Firefox. Awesome!
16 Feb 11, 05:52 CST
Andy
: Also this version does not have the weird scrolling thing in Grooveshark that I experienced in the last version of Firefox. Awesome!
16 Feb 11, 05:52 CST
Andy
: oops i posted twice
16 Feb 11, 05:52 CST
Erwa
: I'm content with my Chrome browsing experience at the moment. I don't like using Beta stuff because they're still testing it out and working out the little kinks. I might give Firefox 4 a shot once there's a final release candidate.
What have your programming assignments been so far? Had to do anything with pointers yet?
16 Feb 11, 08:53 CST
Lily
: What side do you guys take on the vim/emacs war?
16 Feb 11, 17:16 CST
Andy
: I went with vim because my professor uses vim, so he only taught vim. I would like to try out emacs though... what did you choose and why?
Also.. why is there a war?
16 Feb 11, 18:39 CST
Andy
: Yo guys, I really regret not being a CS major starting college, but I am glad I made the decision and I'm excited to learn stuff.
Programming homeworks have been really boring so far. NOTHING at all on pointers. We had to read a Bayesian spam filter for the last assignment though. I've learned a bunch about arrays and stuff. I am thinking about learning ahead on my own and do last year's homeworks (he still has the website up).
16 Feb 11, 18:42 CST
Erwa
: I prefer a graphical editor, like Kate or gedit. So much more intuitive to use and allows for faster development. On Windows, I use Notepad++. But if I have to use a command-line editor, I use vi(m).
16 Feb 11, 19:38 CST
Lily
: !!! I am so happy that you guys are vim fans!! Our school teaches emacs in Intro to Programming Systems, so I feel like I'm behind enemy lines, so to speak. I recently found an add-on that turns FF into vim, kinda, so you can use the different input modes, and vim short-cuts, and it's kind of really rocking.
Dude, pointers are way more boring than spam filters. I didn't realize that you'd switched to CS!! Haha good major, good major.
I've never heard of Kate. Maybe I should look into it...
17 Feb 11, 07:11 CST
Erwa
: I never really learned how to use Emacs very well, but I feel like if you master Emacs, it is probably more powerful than vim because you can do things like split-screen and run stuff from the terminal inside Emacs. I'm not a fan of all the Ctrl + something keyboard shortcuts though.
Well, I think it's fun thinking about pointers sometimes and understanding what's happening when you do weird stuff with pointers, like in this file (which I got from my OS class before I dropped it): http://erwa.pnosker.com/secure/2011/files/pointers.c (Download it, compile it, and run it! Then try to understand what's going on.)
17 Feb 11, 07:40 CST
Lily
: Whaaat! You can definitely split-screen vim. I think the input modes make vim more powerful as a simple text editor. One-letter commands are so convenient.
I'm going to have to come back to that file in a couple hours, as I sadly don't have a c compiler on Windows. That's... probably an important lack to fill in my life.
18 Feb 11, 11:37 CST
Erwa
: Oh. I'm just noob then. Yes, I really like the one-letter commands.
To get a C compiler (and a bunch of other GNU stuff for Windows), I'd recommend MinGW, which you can download here http://www.mingw.org/. Or, if you just want GCC, I've uploaded the 220 KB file here: http://erwa.pnosker.com/secure/2011/files/gcc.exe.
18 Feb 11, 18:06 CST
Andy
: Wait what!? GCC is only 220KB? That surprises me ridiculously.
18 Feb 11, 19:37 CST
Lily
: There is such a wealth of cool tricks in this file! My mind was already blown on the hello world, when I looked up an ascii chart and discovered that int s was the equivalent of " dlr" which was, you know, the opposite of what I expected.
I also shamefully did not realize that instantiating an array and mallocing it would put the memory in different places, even though I'm pretty sure this is something we covered, hahaha.
#5 is particularly clever, and I still don't think I'd be able to give you the right numbers if you just handed me this code and said go.
Actually, yeah, I'm really not sure where those numbers come from. I think bytes 1-3 of a[2] + byte 0 of a[3] should be overwritten with 500. Uh... my numbers don't add up. Help!
18 Feb 11, 22:43 CST
Erwa
: Actually, yeah, that is a bit surprising, but I guess since it's just a command-line program and doesn't have any graphics and such, it can be pretty compact.
18 Feb 11, 22:44 CST
Erwa
: For the "rld" in "world", I believe the reason you have to store those letters in reverse as "dlr" is because Intel machines are little-endian, so when they load a 32-bit integer into a register, they load the least significant byte first. In "0x00646c72", the least significant byte is "72", which corresponds to "r". And then increasingly significant bytes are loaded in increasing memory addresses. See the Wikipedia article on endianness - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness - for more details. However, when you create a string as a string literal or char array, each character is stored as one byte, and when the string is read, it is read byte by byte, in order, so you don't have to worry about reversing characters. I'm still not 100% myself about this, but this is the rough understanding I have.
19 Feb 11, 14:46 CST
anonymous
: As for #5, I still don't understand why you get the numbers you get. My only guess is that after casting as a char * and increasing by 1, when you cast as an int *, your memory is misaligned. I believe int * expects addresses that are multiples of 4 (bytes), so after the (char *) c + 1 misaligns the memory, I think the following *c = 500 yields undefined behavior, which is what we see. I don't think you're supposed to be able to predict what the new values stored in the a[] array are.
19 Feb 11, 14:50 CST
Lily
: I still don't see why behavior would be undefined. When you cast it as a char* and increase by 1, the memory address increases by 1. When you cast it back to int*, wouldn't it point to the second byte of the int? And when you wrote to it, wouldn't it overwrite the last 3 bytes of the int, and overflow into the first byte of the next int?
19 Feb 11, 20:06 CST
Erwa
: I think on most architectures, an integer has to be aligned to a memory address that's divisible by 4. When you cast it as a char* and increase the memory address by 1, the memory address is now odd and no longer divisible by 4. Then when you cast it back to int*, the int* is an address that's not properly aligned - not divisible by 4 - and I think when you have a misaligned pointer, dereferencing it is undefined.
19 Feb 11, 23:51 CST
Erwa
: Actually, I just figured it out. It all makes sense. See http://erwa.pnosker.com/secure/2011/files/pointers.txt for my explanation.
20 Feb 11, 14:55 CST
Lily
: Ah, very nice.
21 Feb 11, 22:02 CST
Andy
: So I'd like to write code with a GUI, but the class is taught in UNIX on vim, and we use make files and stuff to compile the code with the options that the teacher wants, so I don't know how to get that on windoze.
=/
23 Feb 11, 04:56 CST
Erwa
: Can't you just use a graphical text editor on UNIX like gedit or gVim? MinGW (minimum GNU for Windows) also includes make. I've uploaded it here: http://erwa.pnosker.com/secure/2011/files/mingw32-make.exe. For more GNU goodies for Windows, see http://www.mingw.org. Other useful tools include a C++ compiler, a Fortran compiler, and GDB, among several other things.
However, it's probably best to test your code on the same environment on which the TA/prof will grade your code. In the past, I've had instances where my code would run fine in Windows on my laptop, but it would fail on the Zoo (CS building computer cluster) machines. Even when I was testing my code in Ubuntu on my laptop, it wouldn't always work the same as it would on the Zoo machines, which I believe are running openSUSE. There are so many factors that can differ between environments and OSes, like make and gcc versions, 32-bit versus 64-bit, etc., so it's best to test in the grading environment.
23 Feb 11, 08:13 CST
Erwa
: Cough random thoughts banner cough.
24 Feb 11, 19:40 CST
Andy
: LOL dude I totally forgot about that. I am going to set out a time this week and get that done.
26 Feb 11, 20:35 CST
Ken
: Yo, I hope you can do 10 pull ups now.
27 Feb 11, 14:21 CST
Erwa
: Heh, recently I've been slacking a bit. I just tried and did 10 pull ups, but the form on the last few were questionable. I definitely can't do 10 pull ups comfortably, yet.
27 Feb 11, 16:22 CST
Andy
: One day I will do pullups and I will fly to the bar like hot knife cuts through butter.
28 Feb 11, 08:07 CST
Erwa
: I expect a Random Thoughts banner by the time I arrive at Hopkins on Friday, which is around 5:30 PM.
28 Feb 11, 08:48 CST
Helen
: I saw the video "A program written for the GNU Radio that changes the TX frequency of the USRP". I'm wondering the specific method that TX tunning frequency while the tx top_block is running. I tried top_block.lock() to lock the top_block then reset the parameters for top_block, it doesn't work though. Really need your help on how to reconfigure the tunning frequency.
28 Feb 11, 10:26 CST
Erwa
: @Helen: First, a disclaimer. I worked on GNU Radio over two years ago, so a lot of the source code has probably changed since then. That said, I basically just modified the source code of usrp_spectrum_sense.py and the TX/RX example. You can also check out http://sites.google.com/site/ahsustevens/ for a more detailed report of my project. Your best bet for help is probably the discuss-gnuradio mailing list, which you can find here: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio. It is a VERY active list, and it was very helpful for me while I was working on GNU Radio.
28 Feb 11, 12:29 CST
Andy
: I am breathing life back into this chatterbox. * Breathes *
29 Mar 11, 11:38 CDT
Erwa
: Let's start a discussion. What do you all think about the death penalty? I'm anti-death penalty in all cases, even the most heinous crime you can think of. I think the right to life is special and a government should never have the power to take it away. A government that punishes criminals using violence (the death penalty) has morally degraded itself to the level of a criminal.
30 Mar 11, 06:47 CDT
Lily
: It's fine to oppose killing, but what do you think should be done instead? Is 60 years in prison really a better option? Not only is it questionably more humane than death, but it's also costly in terms of resources and potentially unsafe.
31 Mar 11, 11:56 CDT
Andy
: I don't think rehabilitation is a waste of resources. Even though 60 years in prison is costly and unsafe, the government has an obligation to the people in that regard.
1 Apr 11, 10:48 CDT
Erwa
: I'm not proposing any changes apart from abolishing the death penalty. If you do commit a crime, you still get all the rights to a lawyer and a fair trial, which is the system currently implemented. The only change I propose is to remove the death penalty from the possible options for sentencing.
I do think imprisonment is a more humane punishment than death. Of course when someone commits a crime, he must be punished. But once he has served his punishment, he should be given a second chance. The death penalty does not allow for this. Imprisonment allows the opportunity for rehabilitation, as Andy pointed out. I think the way to reduce crime is through education and rehabilitation programs. Keeping the death penalty and killing some criminals isn't going to reduce crime.
1 Apr 11, 22:30 CDT
Erwa
: Also, most sources online seem to point out that the total costs involved in a death sentence (investigation, pre-trial, trial, imprisonment, execution) usually exceed the total costs until the end of a prisoner's incarceration.
1 Apr 11, 22:30 CDT
Andy
: I am actually surprised that the total costs involved in a death sentence is that high. What do you think is the cause of this? Perhaps the government IS placing high value on a human's life, which is why it takes so long for them to decide to end a person's life.
Also, I have always been skeptical about the effectiveness of jail time. If a person is truly bad, once his sentence is over, he'll just kill again. In that sense, what difference is it to give him the death penalty this instant, versus death penalty 25 years later? (Referring to the prisoners on death row).
Perhaps you can train the death row prisoners into elite marines and send them to fight.
2 Apr 11, 06:43 CDT
Erwa
: I think the total costs involved in a death sentence are so high because since death is such a serious punishment, the government wants to make sure they get it right. They hire more attorneys, more experts, do more thorough and extensive investigations, and the defense is going to use everything in the legal system for a chance to avoid the death penalty - pre-trial, trials, appeals, etc.
The death penalty process is a long process; there's no way to decide and then execute quickly. I think it's so long in order to be fair and to make sure the correct decision has been made.
Yes, I agree that for some, jail time probably isn't effective. But I do think there are cases, and a significant number of them, where jail time with rehabilitation and counseling does have a positive effect. But it's pretty hard to determine this immediately, so rather than just kill those we don't think can reform, I think we should give everybody the chance for rehabilitation.
2 Apr 11, 09:35 CDT
Lily
: I don't think jail time + rehabilitation is the other alternative for the death penalty. Usually for a crime of that seriousness, the other option is just life in prison without parole, isn't it?
I'm also surprised to find that execution costs more than long-term imprisonment. In that case, what about the perspective of the victims and their families? What does it do to their peace of mind, knowing that the criminal will be in prison for some years, and then let out again if he can perform well enough for a shrink? It's unfair for the victim to continue to pay for the criminal's actions. If someone steals your car, they pay you money for it. If someone murders your loved one, why should they just get therapy?
3 Apr 11, 09:46 CDT
Erwa
: Perhaps killing the criminal might give family members some temporary relief, but ultimately, you're never going to bring that the person who was killed. The family members are still going to have to live with that loss for the rest of their lives. Killing the murderer doesn't fix that, and only spreads the feelings of loss to the members of the murderer's family.
True, in most cases, the alternative for the death penalty is life without parole. I think this is a better alternative because it seems to be cheaper than pursuing the death penalty, and it wouldn't cause the emotional trauma to the criminal's family that I described in the previous paragraph.
3 Apr 11, 12:01 CDT
Lily
: I think that depends on the nature of the crime. You can't bring people back from the dead, sure, but if there were any survivors, they might have reason to fear what might happen were the criminal to somehow get out of prison again, either through escape or a reduced sentence later on. When it comes to a trade-off between the victims being able to feel secure at night, versus sparing the criminal's family the feeling of loss that has already been brought upon the victims, it seems that the victims deserve to be considered first.
I'll admit that I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it seems that most of the cost comes from extremely long deliberation over whether or not the criminal is actually guilty. What if we could improve our methods for establishing guilt, reducing the processing time from years or decades to simply a few months? I imagine that cost would be cut a great deal, as the current system drags on so long that it's almost the same as a life sentence anyway.
3 Apr 11, 18:00 CDT
Erwa
: Costs, resources, and emotional issues aside, I guess my fundamental opposition against the death penalty stems from the original reason I presented in my first post in this thread - that I believe the right to life is a special right that a government should never have the right to take away, even as punishment. I value life highly, so much so that I think a government should always protect it.
3 Apr 11, 18:30 CDT
Lily
: While I do not support the death penalty, and personally don't hold the views I presented above, I am speaking from myself when I express my confusion at why life, such a specific thing, should be valued unconditionally above all else. While it's hard for me to imagine, I can easily believe that a case exists where the magnitude of suffering while living outweighs any fear of death. For instance, I wholeheartedly believe that euthanasia is an option.
I'm not sure what happens when you divorce the individual suffering from the one whose death would end the suffering, or when you take the choice from the one potentially to die, but it still seems hasty to say declare life the end-all be-all here.
5 Apr 11, 09:35 CDT
correction
: ...that euthanasia should be an option*
5 Apr 11, 09:36 CDT
Erwa
: Oh, that's an interesting point. That raises a question of: If I wanted to die right now and asked someone to kill me, assuming I signed all the paperwork, would it be okay for that person to kill me? Should we legalize suicides?
5 Apr 11, 10:45 CDT
Andy
: How is suicide not legal right now?
5 Apr 11, 12:28 CDT
Erwa
: Historically, several states have considered attempted suicide a crime - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation#United_States. I was just under the impression that if you attempt suicide but don't succeed, you might be deemed mentally instable and forced to seek treatment. Of course, if you do succeed, there's not much the law can do to affect you.
Should assisted suicide be legal?
6 Apr 11, 00:57 CDT
Lily
: What I don't get about assisted suicide is the whole concept of how it has to be the patient who does it to himself. I mean, I get that you want there to be no ambiguity about whose choice it is: e.g. the doctor prescribes the dosage, but the patient has to administer it. But what about those set-ups where the patient is too weak to even hold a syringe, and the doctor puts everything in place so the patient just has to press a button or something? That just seems like a huge hassle. And what about patients who can't even press a button? Do they just have to tough it out?
The interesting thing about this debate is that it's kind of the opposite of what Erwa was talking about earlier. Rather it being the right to life that the government is taking away with the death penalty, it's the right to death that they're interfering with by punishing suicide (e.g. denying a proper burial, financial consequences for the family).
6 Apr 11, 08:35 CDT
Erwa
: Oh really? I actually wasn't aware that the patient has to administer the fatal dose. It does seem like a big hassle to force the patient to administer it. I think if the patient, doctor, and family members all agree (in writing, say) to the assisted suicide, it should be okay for the doctor to administer the fatal dose.
Can't a patient specify in his will or something that if he is in such a state (like a vegetative state or coma) in which he is unable to respond or administer the fatal dose, that he wishes the doctor pull the plug or administer the dosage for him? I guess another question is, if a patient has not specified provisions for such scenarios in his will, whether doctors and family members should be able to decide for him.
6 Apr 11, 12:54 CDT
Erwa
: Haha. That's really interesting. I'm against the death penalty because I don't think the government should have the power to take away anybody's right to life. But should they have the power to interfere with one's right to death?
I think suicide is looked upon negatively because it's not really a solution. It's like a cop-out. You're not facing your problems directly.
In the case of euthanasia, we're putting someone to death to end their physical misery. Is this different from the mental misery - stress, depression - which causes many people to commit suicide? If it is okay to put someone to death because he is suffering from intractable physical pain, is it okay for someone to commit suicide because he is depressed?
6 Apr 11, 13:06 CDT
Andy
: Random interjection for comedic/amusement effect: I finished my programming assignment due this morning at 11:00 am at 10:30 am. There are probably a ton of memory leaks because I didn't have time to figure out how to properly call delete on all the pointers I new'ed. At least the program worked and produced the proper output. I had to post to stackoverflow and people helped me debug an issue I had in defining my classes. What grief!
On a brighter note I got a vuvuzela for the lols and have been blowing it all weekend.
11 Apr 11, 14:13 CDT
Erwa
: Lol. Stackoverflow is so awesome. Can you link me to your question?
That is so random, and way past when vuvuzelas were in style. You should practice your cello concerto instead :).
Also, I'd like to hear people's opinions on assisted suicide and suicide in general!
11 Apr 11, 19:31 CDT
Andy
: I don't think suicide is good. I don't care if you are in pain or depressed. You let too many people down by doing that. Pick yourself up off the floor and be strong! That is the only way to live.
12 Apr 11, 07:52 CDT
Erwa
: I agree. But do you think we should punish people for failed suicide attempts? Also, do you think someone should have the right to choose to be put to death if he and his family all agree to it?
12 Apr 11, 10:17 CDT
Andy
: No, people shouldn't be punished for failed suicide attempts. We should be trying to help them figure out why they contemplated suicide in the first place. I feel like the second question is somewhat redundant. People should not commit suicide, assisted or not. Life is a precious gift from God, it should treasured, not so easily thrown away, regardless of circumstance.
13 Apr 11, 21:02 CDT
Erwa
: What about cases where the patient has had a traumatic injury and is unable to respond (perhaps in a vegetative state)? Should we always just try to keep the semi-conscious patient alive as long as possible, via a feeding tube or what-have-you? Is the family justified for choosing to pull the plug in such cases?
14 Apr 11, 04:54 CDT
Andy
: No! The family must not give up hope that the patient has a chance for recovery. Life is precious.
18 Apr 11, 07:24 CDT
Erwa
: Really? Even in the case where a patient is brain dead and is only being kept alive on live support, you think it's worth the misery of the family and the cost of resources to just keep the patient alive indefinitely?
18 Apr 11, 09:52 CDT
Andy
: Yes. I believe in miracles, don't you?
20 Apr 11, 10:22 CDT
Erwa
: I do, to an extent. But sometimes I think you need to be realistic and pragmatic. Suppose someone was in a terrible car accident, lost a couple limbs, was paralyzed from the neck down, and was brain dead, and was only being kept alive by life support. I'd think most family members would choose to pull the plug in such a case. But I guess I can see where you're coming me. There's always the possibility that someone who regain consciousness, and I guess if you're conscious, you have the ability to experience and enjoy life, even if you are paralyzed and missing several limbs.
20 Apr 11, 13:18 CDT
Erwa
: Something I always pondered was - has anything substantial ever happened to anyone who created a LinkedIn profile? I get invitations to connect with a friend from time to time, but I wonder if one's LinkedIn profile has ever helped anyone get a job or something.
17 May 11, 14:00 CDT
Erwa
: Resolved: Sometimes you should reinvent the wheel.
Discuss.
28 May 11, 22:29 CDT
Andy
: You must understand your tools before you can generate new inventions with them.
10 Jun 11, 13:26 CDT
Erwa
: I agree. It's not the wheel that's useful but the process of making a wheel that's useful - that's where you learn to use your tools and get ideas to improve on existing inventions and innovate new ones.
11 Jun 11, 00:13 CDT
Erwa
: What's your favorite word?
11 Jul 11, 01:19 CDT
Erwa
: I was thinking about this question myself, and I'm not too sure if I have one favorite word. It's a tough question because you're not sure whether to choose a word you like because it looks or sounds interesting or because it has interesting connotations or associations or because it describes you or someone you admire or because it reminds you of a funny story. Anyhows, I couldn't decide on just one, but two words I really like are "attitude" and "passionate". Having a positive attitude and being passionate about something are two things I wish for myself and for everybody. The outcome of a situation often depends on your attitude. Attitude affects the way you think and act, and having a positive one usually leads to better results. Being passionate is important because passion will energize you. Being passionate about something will drive you and give you momentum to excel and succeed at what you do.
30 Jul 11, 16:30 CDT
Erwa
: I guess if I had to choose one of the two words, it'd be "passionate". You can have the best, most positive attitude, but if you aren't passionate about anything, you'll lack energy and focus. I also think when you are passionate about something, you tend to have a good attitude anyways.
30 Jul 11, 16:35 CDT
Andy
: Try feet cubing with socks on.
6 Aug 11, 14:15 CDT
Erwa
: I don't think that would help - you need full access to and control of your big toes for maximum speed. You also have more friction while barefoot. Nobody does feet cubing with socks on.
8 Aug 11, 11:09 CDT
Erwa
: First post of 2012!
20 Feb 12, 04:23 CST
Andy
: Second post of 2012!
14 Mar 12, 08:22 CDT
Erwa
: Happy pi day! Yum yum yum.
14 Mar 12, 10:55 CDT
Crissy
: Belated pi daaaaaaaay
15 Mar 12, 21:11 CDT
Erwa
: Whoo! Let's revitalize this chat box! When's everyone's spring break? My two-week break ends this Sunday.
16 Mar 12, 12:23 CDT
Erwa
: Aw snap. Why is my chatbox glitching and having trouble with apostrophes...look's like it's trying to be to clever escaping apostrophe characters...
16 Mar 12, 12:24 CDT
Erwa
: Let's see if it's fixed?
16 Mar 12, 12:25 CDT
Erwa
: Okay, I blame the web server because offline, when testing on Wampserver, it's fine. I guess the web server must have changed between 2011 and 2012 because my chatterbox post processing code certainly didn't.
16 Mar 12, 12:27 CDT
Erwa
: While I go fix this, lemme try something:
16 Mar 12, 12:27 CDT
Erwa
: How's this? Are'a'pos'tro'phe's'fix'ed?
16 Mar 12, 12:36 CDT
Erwa
: What about italics, bold, and underline?
16 Mar 12, 12:37 CDT
Erwa
: Uh, bold? and underline?
16 Mar 12, 12:37 CDT
Erwa
: Actually...I think basically any arbitrary HTML works...lol. Test:
16 Mar 12, 13:29 CDT
Andy
: BOLD
4 Apr 12, 14:41 CDT
Andy
: The wells fargo thing: its because they trust you. I think also the fact that the coins are in a roll lends itself some credibility, whereas if you just say "oh this bag has 100 quarters" its not as convincing.
22 May 12, 20:34 CDT
Erwa
: Where do cops fill us their police car gas tanks? Do they fill up at the same gas stations as we do? As I was filling up gas today, I was just pondering this and thinking that I don't have any recollections of police cars filling up at gas stations.
25 May 12, 15:03 CDT
Andy
: My guess would be at regular gas stations, or perhaps the police station has a gas station. Considering the tiny amount of time that we spend at a gas station, I'd say that the chances are pretty low for us to see cops filling up their cars.
31 May 12, 10:05 CDT
Ken
: You have spambots posting garbage on one of your July 2010 posts.
3 Jun 12, 22:01 CDT
Erwa
: Lol, yes, I have spam on a lot of posts...apologies. Some time this summer, perhaps I'll stop being lazy and implement a Captcha system for the site.
4 Jun 12, 01:03 CDT
Erwa
: Yo, I deleted all the spam comments from the first July 2010 post and added the "Erwa" box to prevent further spam. Let me know if you find any more spam :).
18 Jul 12, 23:32 CDT
Erwa
: Hey, thanks again for pointing this out -- haha, I guess you must've been receiving email notifications about it just like me :P.
I searched through my email and found spam for the first, third, and fifth posts of May 2010 as well. I fixed those pages as well and cleaned up my code a bit. Haha, this was fun, as I got to improve upon the crappy code I wrote 2 years ago.
Please feel free to ping me about other problems, typos, and annoyances on my site and to send me suggestions on new posts/features you would like to see.
19 Jul 12, 00:36 CDT
Erwa
: Any else feel that in most men's bathrooms, the urinals dividers tend to be placed too low? I feel that in general, they should be placed about a foot higher on average.
24 Jul 12, 23:52 CDT
Andy
: I love being able to look over it.
30 Jul 12, 05:36 CDT
Erwa
: Why's that?
31 Jul 12, 19:11 CDT
Andy
: Was being sarcastic. I agree that they feel like they are placed too low, but I haven't ever had an instance where I felt like I would be able to see the other people's genitalia. Then again, you are a couple of inches taller, so perhaps your perspective is different. Maybe they serve to block the urine that sprays out rather than block vision?
2 Aug 12, 05:45 CDT
Erwa
: Oh, that's an interesting theory. I never thought about blocking the urine spray. But I feel like the urine is unlikely to spray all the way to the next person, even without dividers. I think the urinals themselves probably already do a pretty good job preventing spray in the direction of the people to the left and right of you. When there is spray, it's usually right back at you.
3 Aug 12, 00:40 CDT
Andy
: I thought about this after, and I notice that at highway bathrooms, there usually aren't dividers. I wonder how they decide when to put the dividers in and when not to put the dividers in.
9 Aug 12, 06:37 CDT
Erwa
: They probably put dividers in when they're trying to be "more classy". I don't really care if they have dividers or not, but if they do, I assume their purpose is to prevent people from looking at your genitalia. If this is the case, I think most dividers are poorly positioned -- I think most dividers should be raised about one foot.
9 Aug 12, 17:25 CDT
Andy
: Are you private about your genitalia? Does it bother you when other people see it?
12 Aug 12, 13:05 CDT
Erwa
: I don't flaunt my genitalia and I do my best to hide it when I'm using the bathroom. It doesn't really bother me when other people see it, though I'd wonder why they're looking at it.
12 Aug 12, 15:18 CDT
Szajko
: If you are driving up Eden Lane (towards Cedar Knolls) right before you cross I-287 there is a road next to that small power plant on the right hand side that leads to a municipal storage facility. Housed here are snow plows, a dump truck or so, some signs/barriers, and a municipal-only gas pump that requires a special code.
14 Aug 12, 20:56 CDT
Szajko
: I tend to like the "dividers". I cannot imagine that they are used to block spray given that most are used on recessed urinals (at least the ones I have used are....). I would assume that it is a privacy thing. And I agree that they are too low; however, just as Anthony is taller than Andy, I am taller than Anthony, so it could very well be a height thing. I have noticed, that urinals are getting taller, though. Has anyone else noticed?
14 Aug 12, 21:00 CDT
Erwa
: Why are you telling us about this place off Eden Lane, Szajko?
Yes, I agree that the urinals themselves tend to be placed too high rather than too low. It's a lot easier peeing downward then upward.
14 Aug 12, 22:25 CDT
Szajko
: Why are you telling us about this place off Eden Lane, Szajko?
I was responding to the above question: "Where do cops fill u[p] their police car gas tanks?"
15 Aug 12, 13:13 CDT
Erwa
: You read very carefully, my friend. I am impressed. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
16 Aug 12, 12:12 CDT
Andy
: Yes I\'ve always wanted to look over dividers and I feel like the urinal dividers are preventing me from doing so these days.
25 Aug 12, 20:30 CDT
Erwa
: OH NO. Why does that apostrophe in your post, Andy, have a backslash in front of it? Let\'s see if my apostrophe has the same problem.
25 Aug 12, 21:00 CDT
Erwa
: AHHHHHHHH. Let me go fix this now.
25 Aug 12, 21:00 CDT
Erwa
: Aight. Let's see if it's fixed now?
25 Aug 12, 21:06 CDT
Erwa
: What's everyone up to? How's life? I'm settled in here in Sunnyvale, CA. Started full-time work at Microsoft two weeks ago. Started rock-climbing again this week.
15 Sep 12, 13:33 CDT
Erwa
: This reCAPTCHA project is pretty cool. One of the two words has been properly identified by OCR. The other has not. By completing these CAPTCHAs, we're helping digitize scanned documents. By asking many people the same unidentified word, we increase our confidence of that word's proper identification.
21 Sep 12, 00:43 CDT
Erwa
: Just a side note: the audio CAPTCHA is mostly unintelligible to me. I haven\'t been able to get a single one right after a few tries. It is just me / my speakers or is the audio CAPTCHA like impossible? I don\'t even know how many words I\'m supposed to type, lol.
21 Sep 12, 00:49 CDT
Erwa
: Ugh, what the heck. Why are apostrophes messed up again? Test: a'b'c'd'e
21 Sep 12, 00:50 CDT
Erwa
: Uh...is it just sometimes messed up? Indeterministic? Test: haven't, don't, I'm
21 Sep 12, 00:51 CDT
Erwa
: Maybe it messed up after I update the chatterbox.php file? I just reuploaded it. Let's test apostrophes again: I'm, ain't, wouldn't, Tony's, what's, cookin'
21 Sep 12, 00:52 CDT
Andy
: Yo this captcha is a BEECH
21 Sep 12, 17:59 CDT
Andy
: just kidding it is pretty cool
21 Sep 12, 18:00 CDT
Erwa
: Thanks :). I think the digitizing books project behind it is really cool, too. It\'s an awesome idea.
22 Sep 12, 01:20 CDT
Erwa
: Ugh, freakin' apostrophes.
22 Sep 12, 01:20 CDT
Erwa
: Okay, this is really botherin' me. Why are my apostrophes sometimes okay but sometimes messed up? (' versus \')
22 Sep 12, 01:21 CDT
Erwa
: After adding reCAPTCHA to my site, I've been paying more attention to the CAPTCHAs that other sites use. Blogspot/Blogger and LinkedIn both use reCAPTCHA, too!
23 Sep 12, 12:09 CDT
Erwa
: How's them apostrophes? 'a'b'c'd'e'
25 Sep 12, 23:36 CDT
Erwa
: Anyone ever think it's weird that you can spin the container inside the washing machine when it's off, but you can't do the same for the drying machine, even though the container spins when the dryer is on? Anybody have any theories on why this is the case?
6 Oct 12, 19:10 CDT
Andy
: I think it is because the washing machines actually have two separate boxes. When you are spinning the container inside the washing machine, you are spinning the inside container (which is free to spin). Washers have two containers because they use the outer and the inner container to allow for water to flow.
On the other hand, dryers only have the rotating drum unit, which just has paddles so that it can move the clothes around and allow for the heated air to pass through it.
I\'m pretty sure you can\'t spin the OUTER container in the washing machine.
18 Oct 12, 22:26 CDT
Andy
: Arbitrary html test: How about a list? <ul> <li>Item 1</li> <li>Item 2</li> <li>Item 3</li> </ul>
18 Oct 12, 22:27 CDT
Andy
: Aww it didn't work. :( <strong>STRONG</strong> <em>Emphasized</em>
18 Oct 12, 22:28 CDT
Andy
: this textbox sucks.
18 Oct 12, 22:29 CDT
Erwa
: LOL. This chatterbox seems indeterminate. Sometimes apostrophes work fine; other times they show up weird. Looks like the arbitrary HTML stopped working, too. What about the standard stuff like bold? Test: BOLD.
Erwa
: BTW, I like your analysis washers and dryers. What you said makes sense.
22 Oct 12, 01:08 CDT
Andy
: Breath some life back into this chatterbox! *breathes*
19 Nov 12, 13:28 CST
Andy
: You know what would be cool, if you just implemented a database to store user accounts, and only let registered users post on this. That'd save us the hassle of having to do this whole captcha thing.
19 Nov 12, 13:29 CST
Erwa
: Lol, it seems hardly worth it since this chatterbox sees so little use. I literally JUST saw your above posts today, when it's already December.
1 Dec 12, 02:04 CST
Erwa
: Yo, I just discovered that the drum inside the dryer DOES spin, even when the dryer is off. It's just heavier, so that it requires more force to rotate it.
16 Dec 12, 20:31 CST
Lily
: Oh no... I broke your sidebar? :/
18 Dec 12, 19:51 CST
Lily
: I imagine this varies between models of dryers/washing machines... What I find weird is why dryers tend to be side-feed, and washers are top-feed. Is it just so we can tell the difference? Oh, and maybe the water will spill out the side if we put the door there. Hm.
18 Dec 12, 19:55 CST
Lily
: Also, I seem to have missed some sort of apostrophe catastrophe? What happened here?
18 Dec 12, 19:56 CST
Andy
: Apostrophe catastrophe!
19 Dec 12, 23:30 CST
Erwa
: That's a good point, Lily, about washers tending to be top-feed and dryers being side-feed. I know for some washers, you dump detergent into the center tube -- maybe by being top-feed, it can distribute the detergent more evenly? The water-not-spilling-out seems like a more likely reason. Just for the record, both the washer and dryer in my house are side-feed. And also, my washer has a start-up ringtone and when a wash finishes, it plays a 10-second tune.
21 Dec 12, 01:02 CST
Andy
: Wow no one has posted on this in a while. Bold
5 Mar 13, 08:51 CST
Erwa
: WOO! Yale won the NCAA men's hockey title!
13 Apr 13, 22:32 CDT
Andy
: W00t!
21 Apr 13, 11:31 CDT
Andy
: Happy belated, EPP!
30 May 13, 07:21 CDT
Lily
: Oh man... when you said it was fun to reread embarrassing old posts, I cringed hard. I have so much embarrassing old stuff floating around on the internet. I don't think it's fun to read it and realize how awkward I was back then when I thought I was being cool...
23 Jun 13, 21:47 CDT
Erwa
: I don't mind laughing at myself. I just accept that that's who I was then and that I've changed since. Nonetheless, I'm still quite surprised and sometimes shocked by the things I wrote 10 years ago.
23 Jun 13, 22:02 CDT
Lily
: I totally agree on the surprise. Both in things that you can't remember writing, and can't even imagine yourself ever writing, as well as things looking completely different with a decade's worth of perspective. It's hard for me to continue reading though. I guess I feel like it still reflects badly on me, even though I wrote it so long ago. :/
24 Jun 13, 00:45 CDT
Andy
: Dude I just glanced at your old posts; you mentioned my name like 4 times in one post talking about how jealous you were because I had finished by portfolio. LMFAO. I barely remember that! Those were some good times. :)
16 Jul 13, 20:49 CDT
Erwa
: Yeah, I am surprised at a lot of the negative things I wrote about my friends back then. I want to apologize for much of what I said.
26 Jul 13, 02:43 CDT
Andy
: Haha, no way man. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
1 Aug 13, 16:55 CDT
andy
: i wonder if javascript works: <script> alert(hi); </script>