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Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.

New Shiny! Welcome, Hermione!

This is is somewhat of a follow-on to my previous post about the farewell of my old MacBook. Read that too, if you want.

Yeah, that Hermione. As in Hermione Granger? As in Hermoine Jean Granger, one of the very best witches in the Harry Potter series? Who is played by the stunning Emma Watson in real life? Yeah, the one and the same.

I’ve blogged about this before, but any geek worth their salt has changed the hostname for the computers. Those geeks that really know what they’re doing even have themes for their names, and it just so happens that I have Harry Potter-related names for all my computers (I don’t think you can change the hostname on an Xbox 360, otherwise I totally would). Say what you want about the Harry Potter theme, just don’t go downplaying the impact it has had on my generation; so much so that (my potentially very naive self thinks) it’s really quite comparable to even Pokemon in terms of global impact and how much money has been spent on associated merchandise…

Anyway, sectumsempra was the old name of my old white MacBook, named after the seemingly-harmless spell in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that turned out to be not-so-harmless. In the most tangential of ways the real sectumsempra has a similar story to my old white MacBook, but that’s for another time. Severus (yes, that Severus, as in Severus Snape) is the name of my ultra-powerful gaming rig. i7 930, EVGA X58, GTX 480, Vertex 2 SSD, 6TB of internal storage. Like I said, pretty powerful stuff. It’s hooked up to a Dell U2711 for the most part, except when it needs to pull LAN duty when it gets the pixels of a tiny 20″ to push.

Previous computers me or my family have owned have taken on such names as Fawkes (after the phoenix), Protego (the spell), and Sonorous (also the spell). They all have stories behind their names, but that’s definitely for another time.

Which brings us to Hermione.

Continue Reading →

Farewell ye olde MacBook, you shall be missed.

old white macbook

Oh, sectumsempra. That is the name I gave to you on that fateful day, right after pondering something that would be appropriate for such a machine of your… nature. I remember how we met — you were there, dressed all in white, and I was there, dressed in blue and black. I remember how badly I wanted one just like you, perhaps even one of your slightly younger sisters…

I remember tossing and turning late at night over the decision that I would come to realise as completely trivial in the grand scheme of things. You were slightly slower, but that didn’t matter. If anything, I would describe you as having matured well. The only thing your sisters really had going for them was a higher upkeep and that youthfulness that so many strive to achieve but few actually do.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Continue Reading →

Malaysia 2011 Wrap-Up

Malaysia was just… a blast.

In somewhat chronological order:

  • Buying 12 donuts to take to Malaysia from Melbourne airport.
  • Playing DoTA with cousins in some random internet cafe/gaming lounge.
  • Riding a bike (sans helmet) across the streets of Sitiawan, both with a cousin and alone, to another cousin’s house to steal borrow his internets.
  • Having a bus breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and being stuck there for hours. Having a greasemonkey (in the purest sense of the word, literally covered in grease from head to toe) climb into the engine bay and fix it for us some three hours later.
  • Eating copious amounts of food in restaurants packed to the brim with people also celebrating Chinese New Year.
  • Buying four decks of cards for a couple of Australian dollars in order to play such games like Warlords and Scumbags, Cheat, Hold Em’ poker, Blackjack, and other assorted games for which there are no english translations for.
  • Finding out that two of the most popular shopping centres have seemingly shed a complete level of floor space, but also discovering that there’s now a whopping great big Tesco where there definitely wasn’t one before.
  • Marvelling at how awesome battery life is on the iPhone 4 when you don’t have to be connected to mobile networks.
  • Tasting the local KFC, finding it definitely isn’t as good as it is back home, but at the same time appreciating the cheesy wedges which aren’t available back home either.
  • Consuming many slices of bread for lunch while at the same cousin’s house. Pretty sure I cleaned them out, but they had such an exquisite collection of spreads it was hard not to.
  • Watching episodes of Nip/Tuck before sleeping.
  • Playing and reviewing iOS games before actually going to sleep.
  • Realising that the whole experience was infinitely better with almost all of my cousins there as well. I suspect it would have been quite boring otherwise.
  • Finding and commenting on all the broken English spotted in department stores, printed text, and everywhere. Continue Reading →

Reflections

Hindsight isn’t just the excuse you should be using when you get caught checking out some cute girl’s butt, it’s also something that can prove almost infinitely useful regardless of the situation at hand. Let me explain.

As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t really exercise all that often. Infrequently, but not all that often. Anyway, we were talking about this at work one day, and instead of asking me straight out why I didn’t exercise a co-worker decides to ask the question: “where and when do you have your own time? To reflect, that kind of thing?” The only answer that came immediately to mind was my time on public transport. Sure, when I’m home I’m usually alone for the most part (thankfully my sister and parents tend to leave well enough alone), but even when I’m “alone” in my room I’m usually doing something — surfing the net, chatting with friends via IM, smashing people in online games, that sort of thing.

Indeed, my time on public transport constitutes the vast majority of time to myself. Sometimes I write blog posts like this, sometimes I write small reviews of iOS games I’ve been playing lately. Sometimes I just tune out and let my mind wander, but I’m always listening to music. Not necessarily paying any sort of attention to the music, but the noise helps block out distractions.

As someone who doesn’t really associate that much with other people you would think that I’d have a lot of time to myself, but that’s not always the case. For example, I’m actually phenomenally lazy so any free time I have might well be spent snoozing instead of working on that assignment that’s due in a couple of days.

Reflection also happens at the most inconvenient of times, too. Like when I’m trying to get to sleep but I can’t stop thinking about one thing or another, or when I’m trying to concentrate on some insanely-important programming exercise but keep getting interrupted with thoughts that have nothing at all to do with programming in C.

Lately I’ve actually been using hindsight to gain new knowledge I previously didn’t have. There have been many instances just recently where I could have acted out and done something, but hindsight tells me those probably weren’t the best courses of action at the time. I guess the question then becomes whether I’ll regret not doing something (at that moment or later on), but hindsight is a bitch like that. I expect to lose many hours of sleep over certain actions or lack thereof, but I guess that’s life.

Personal time is important. I can’t really imagine a time where I’d go without it, and at a guess I’d start to have really insane dreams as my much-wilder subconscious wreaked havoc with my thoughts. I really can’t stress this enough: having time to yourself is a good thing. There’s nothing stopping you from going ahead and filling your social calendar to the brim with activities, and that’s all well and good, but don’t try and distract yourself from the person who really matters the most in your life — yourself.

Lie awake at night.

Take long walks.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s good to just stop and have a long hard think. If it helps, write your thoughts down to get them into some sort of meaningful order. If it helps, have music playing in the background. If it helps, do trivial tasks so you don’t get bored.

Reflection is one thing, ignoring yourself is another thing entirely.

Finally: no, I haven’t been caught looking (yet), so thankfully I’ve never had to use that particular pun at the beginning of this post. That’s not to say I’m not (looking), however. I’m sure that pun will come in handy one day! 😉

Making A Difference

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, so bear with me while I get this machine started up… *readies chainsaw*

“There was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore. As he looked down the beach he noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. He got closer and he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?” The boy paused, looked up and replied, “Throwing starfish in the ocean. If I don’t throw them back in they will die. “The man then said, “Don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy listened politely. Then he bent down, picked another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves. He looked at the man and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

– Author Unknown

via A Regurgitation of the Mind.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was this guy. This guy had the whole world on front of him — he wasn’t particularly good looking, but he seemed to have a decent bee in his bonnet, and he was always willing to apply himself. Like everyone else, he had experienced both the highs and lows of life — but being one to take things in his stride he barely bent down to pick up the pieces before he was on his way again. He had a good portion of his future all planned out, and everything was peachy.
Then life happened.
Fast forward a few years — that same guy is suddenly a lot less sure of himself, where’s he’s going, and what he’s going to do when he gets there. It’s almost as if things have just started unravelling over time, almost as if there’s suddenly a whole lot less people on his team.
The thing is, this guy still wants to do something worthwhile.
He still wants to make a difference, he’s just not sure how.

An arbitrarily numbered amount of things you (probably) didn’t know about me

“Because all the cool kids are doing it” is a good a reason as any, right? In no particular order…

  1. I listen to terribly varied music, and I can’t understand people who hate on other people for the music they listen to.
  2. I think that some things are better kept private. If you don’t tell anyone, no one will know! Besides, there are probably people that don’t care anyway.
  3. Once upon a time I used to know what I wanted to do “when I grew up”, but these days I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve begun to ask myself: “does it all really matter anyway?” I mean, as long as you’re doing whatever makes you happy, but even then, you can always do whatever makes you happy in your spare time…
  4. I have a not-so-secret love for waffles. I’m not sure where it came from, but damn, I love waffles.
  5. I enjoy a good argument. I see them for the intellectual battle they are, and if you think you’re smarter than I am, well… prove it.
  6. I enjoy writing, again, for the intellectual challenge it presents, as well as the opportunity to make someone else feel an emotion, or be educated by my writings.
  7. I used to shy away from my background; “fitting in” was one of the most important things to me all through high school. These days I don’t really care anymore. A sign of maturity, perhaps?
  8. I am starting to give more credit to people, starting to realise that people are probably smarter than I think they are — somehow this also relates to how intelligent I see myself compared to those around me.
  9. Conversely, I’m starting to realise that I’m fairly ignorant on a wide range of subjects, so it’s more than reasonable for other people to be so as well when it comes to things I’m really good at.
  10. I’ve really only wanted to be in a serious relationship with one other person before, but to this day I’m unsure whether it was really love or just lust — or even a combination of both, perhaps. Either way, I had/still have a serious infatuation with that girl.
  11. Up until a couple of months ago I couldn’t even tell you the name of the last book I read, it’s been that long. I have an excellent book collection of what some would call “crappy” fiction, but I really need to spend less time on the internet and read more.
  12. I think society is over-sexualised these days, but being of very average looks myself that may or may not have something to do with it. Other people don’t know just how good they have it.
  13. I played the piano a long time ago, and I was pretty damn good at it, too. This allows me to appreciate the highs and lows of a beautifully composed melody, or the dark sombre tones of a more macabre piece. Perhaps one day I’ll take it up again.
  14. When I do have a good gaming session, I then see myself as having to “catch up” on all my other “internet responsibilities”, like reading my feeds or catching up on threads.
  15. I have bought many a game and only reached 85% completion. Either because I can’t be bothered to finish it, or just haven’t had the time to do those last couple of hours.
  16. I try to do things to the best of my ability if I’m tasked with something to do. If it’s something I really care about, then you can guarantee I’ll put 110% into it. I have excellent attention to detail, but at the same time, I can be spectacularly lazy. Just call me Mr Balanced.
  17. If nothing else, Uni has taught me that while I think coding is awesome and you can do seriously amazing things with it (ooh, bubble sort!), I totally suck at it. Either that or I just haven’t actually tried ‘cos it just isn’t that interesting, man.
  18. In fact, I’m kinda ambivalent about all Uni. While I love the Uni lifestyle the apparent de-valuing of the common bachelor’s degree has me scared for my future job prospects.
  19. My self-confidence is fairly easily broken, but it takes a little while to get it back up again.
  20. It scares me that at any time, anyone can see what game I’m playing via Steam.
  21. I enjoy gaming in any form but these days have less and less time to do it.
  22. I work better independently, but I can also work well in a team provided everyone isn’t a complete douche.
  23. I enjoy being just a little bit quirky.
  24. I’m an excellent listener. Probably because I don’t talk much, but hey, whatever works.
  25. I’d love to own a cat, by my epic hatred of (cat) hair all over my stuff would drive me insane.
  26. I’m a pretty casual guy.
  27. I don’t think I have many friends, but a lot of close acquaintances.
  28. I enjoy being alone, but I don’t want to be lonely. There’s a difference.
  29. I like cheese. (I think that people need to learn to take things a little less seriously. Lighten up, people.)
  30. If I could be described in a single comic, it would be this one. Or perhaps even this one.