Older blog entries for redmist (starting at number 20)

[1720]h

Programming:

Still debugging EFF code (Perl)...much more difficult when you leave the code for a while, and then come back. Trying to figure out how to deal with the fucking horrible Lisp environments out there. The best one I have found is SBCL, and the Top Level interface in that environment sucks ass. No command line editing or history and shitty documentation on compilation adds up to frustration and a steep learning curve. The whole learning C thing is going well. Still trying to figure out what I want my first project to be. Putting off learning Standard ML and Assembly until I learn how to manage my time better.

Personal:

Still really depressed. I haven't been happy, even for a moment, in...well, I can't remember. It's a really shitty feeling. Never satisfied. Always sad...feeling like something is missing. Maybe if I marry Bjork...

I think I see a pattern forming...

[0351]h

Work:

No more! No more soul-sucking work! The soul-sucking is now being done by school. Unemployed and proud!

School:

So I am taking Fire Combustion and Behavior, Hazardous Materials Technology, and DC Principles. They all suck. Not the fields of study, but the form in which they are presented to me (namely, school). School is one of the most profoundly destructive and backwards ideas ever conjured by the insidious and flawed mechanisms of the human brain. It assumes that

• I am not curious, and
• I need to be pushed in order to learn

both of which are not true. I cut class this morning and learned twice as much as I would have in class, got my finances done, and read 20 pages all before my class that I would have been in was a 1/3 over.

Personal:

Bored, angry, lonely and depressed. Occasionally something good will happen. My life is going no where. Waaah.

Programming:

I am doing some volunteer coding for the EFF. My grandparents think that what I doing (for the EFF) is "awful." My mind has been under siege by a variety of fascinating and complicated subjects in CS and it's underlying memes.

[0323]h:

Work:

Work is getting sucky. I have to build a machine tommorrow out of an old fubared Dell Optiplex GMT 5100 with a b0rken BIOS and I am not happy about it. Other than that, work is cool. Have to say that I am looking forward to being paid. How I wish I was working with software.

Personal:

Fucking bitter. Time passes in imperceptible quanta of torture. Last time I made a journal entry was 6 July? Where did my life go? I WANT IT BACK NOW! At least I now have a really good knife and I get to sleep in this weekend. Still lonely.

Programming:

I am working on a volunteer app for a non-profit. Really interesting stuff (for a good cause, but I am under tacit NDA). Reading "Network Programming with Perl" by Stein. A very good book. Wishing I could live my life using only macros (in the Lisp context), and continuations.

[0258]h:

Work:

Today it was filled with Clone Pain (remember clones?). Wierd hardware setups, pain, pain, pain. Rest of the day was filled with sitting on my ass. Working is no fun. You always say "I need a job" when you are without one (and thus, no cash); however, when you do have one, you find all your hours gravitating towards this sink of time and energy (and loss of sleep). Even though you now have cash, you have lost so much else. Fuck work (the idea in general).

Personal:

My girl left me. Heart shattered into a thousand equally traumatized splinters. I am now exceedingly lonely. I just want somebody to snuggle in a nice warm bed with. It's not much to ask, ya' know. I almost posted a personal ad the other day. Then I realized that the only responses that it would draw would be taunting. Yaaar.

Programming:

Discovered the joys of Cascading Style Sheets (not really programming I know). Learning more about MySQL. Writing a media and information interface (generic term for a little program that holds pictures/video/sound along with descriptions/narrations). Re-habilitating my Perl Kung-Foo after college nearly obliterating it. ANSI Common LISP by Paul Graham is coming in the mail and that makes me excited. Built my first kernel (2.4.5).

[0425]h:

Well, the last couple of weeks have been interesting working in IT for the first time. It can be fun and it can be hell. The wedding won't be so bad. Haven't had more than 3 hours sleep for each of the last 14 days. It hurts. personal life improving. Linux box becoming more and more kickass. Just have to play with IPchains and figure out why random colored Cyrillic and ASCII chars sometimes display themselves on one of my virtual terminals. Very strange.

I have fallen in love with emacs. Not only does it have a very cool config interface (if you know Lisp), but it cooks for you, wipes your ass, ties your shoes AND edits your text. Nothin' like coding in Lisp, C and Perl at the same time in three different buffers. Such a turn on. Makes me want to run around in a toga.

[1840]h:

Fuck fuck fuck! I might have to go to some wedding in CO because the tickets were bought but I have to work and I don't even want to go. My (now) GF is causing me gray hairs.

Saturday night. Nothing to do...and there is a funny smell in my room. Sounds like time for coding and some impulsive adventures into the RL.

[0638]h:

Work:

Today I start work at The Coppola Companies. Today basically consists of filling out paperwork for taxes and Human Resources, doing random tasks, and then going on on business to LA. It will be fun. So much to learn.

Personal:

The last couple of days have been super intense. I don't think I want to say any more than that. Sucks for you. And me I suppose. Something about a beatiful but issue- ridden woman, and a poor redmist without a beard.

[0152]h:

Travel and The Finer Things in Life:

Holy shit. So much to diarize! After much ado, I am back in California. I am on a borrowed box, without my beast. However, it is great to be away from the hell that I call school and back in the heaven of CA listening to Ugly Kid Joe, coding Perl, and eating whenever I want to.

Computamaters:

The problem with FreeBSD and X was that for some reason xf86config thought that it would be nice to hook me up with a 256 color server. This problem shall be solved when I switch back to Linux when my machine arrives in the mail. All would be right in the world if it weren't for the fact that Perl 6 is using '.' instead of '->' for method calls.

Work:

I landed a job working for Francis Ford Coppola (directed The Godfather Parts I-III, Apocalypse Now, etc) working IT in his various ventures. This makes me very happy. It's a nice way to make some money, pay off my debt, and get some cash for a new computer.

I think that's it, but I shall leave you with this piece of wisdom: "Premature low-level optimizations are the root of all evil."

[1325]h:

Finally got Gnome and enlightenment working, but I can run the enlightenment configuration tool. Wierd. Now I have to figure out the dithering problems in X, why xmms is screwy, and how to upgrade libraries.

[23:58]h:

OUCH! Tis' the sound of a sucker installing Debian. My computer has been useless for two days, waiting for Debian. I finally got it installed, and then I had no Gnome. Well I was perturbed...but I think I am beginning to like my new setup. Now if only I could get xmms to work.

I have entirely too much work to do, and entirely too little time in which to do it. 28 days to go!