ThePanda

This entry might have spelling errors, one of the sad things about not being on a Mac while writing a blog entry is that no curly red lines show up on plain text editors, and I am really not going to open up AbiWord to type this stuff out. OK strike that, I just opened up AbiWord, so we can have cleaner spellings, yay for that, I hope anyways. This is kind of strange, I am at the CIT because I wanted to get through homework, so I really shouldn’t be typing a blog entry, but I am sort of bored and unable to concentrate, so this is somewhat helpful, I don’t know, is strange, I am at the CIT, one of my most favored non-humanities buildings (the humanities, some of them anyways have better, older buildings) on campus, and I am here doing math homework, as a potential, I am going to file concentration, math concentrator, and yet I do so while sitting on comfy facilities provided by the CS department for CS researchers and grad students, so is sort of strange. There are other things which are strange, as I have been reminded a few times over the last few weeks, this is like the month before I turn 20 and stop being a “teenager”, which in itself is a funny concept, because I am not really sure about what I have done as a “teenager” or as anything else, so is sort of funny.

Nice thing about living in a house with people who have different experiences is that you can usually bitch about stupid officious people from your country and still find someone who supports your claims, well OK in the case of India, that’s not really a hard thing to do, so so much for that, but it’s still nice to be able to call your own Minister of External Affairs a stupid officious person who gives awful speeches and have people agree with you and add to the heaps of bad reviews he has gotten so far. So, yesterday we had Natwar Singh come in and deliver a speech at the invitation of the Watson Institute, another one of those things named after Thomas J. Watson Sr. As usual I got a bunch of questions about whether people should go there or not, a bunch of people who were really interested in going, and a bunch of people who couldn’t care less, and of course we had NTM who said his parents believed Natwar Singh was an officious, interfering bureaucrat, which seems to be an apt description from what I have heard of him. I stumbled across someones notes from the speech today morning, and they were sort of interesting, there was a mention of the fact that it was boring, and an unanswered question about how any part of the speech differed from what most Indian textbooks could tell you anyways, sort of true and interesting in a funny sort of way.

So I am still paying taxes despite being a full-time student now, this confuses and kind of annoys me, I guess it’s good for me to do so, and at least it isn’t half as much as it was last time, but still like 20 bucks from my paychecks is not a pointer to good times, there’s so so much that can be done with 20 bucks, but whatever, they want that money, they take that money, it isn’t as if I have much of an option, bah… I did finally take to walking around with my camera in my pocket, and I have come across things that I really wish to photograph, but then there is the obvious question of whether I want to risk photographing bikers sans permission, or risk my neck getting permission from said bikers. Well, fine I am following a stereotype here, and most of the bikers on Thayer are probably nice, non-homicidal people, especially seeing as my direct non-student boss at work is one of those bikers (complete with gigantic tattoos, and stuff), but umm it still is sort of scary to approach one of them, and ask for permission. Bah, need to find other things to photograph, photography is nice, and I kind of miss some of the walking around a city photographing random people shit I did right before I came to Brown, it would be sort of intriguing. HCA seemed sort of interested in walking around with me and taking photographs, which would be fun, seeing as we sort of have identical cameras, but ummm, there were things which happened last night which I kind of want to process before I actually get back to either her or ADC about anything which requires me being anymore social than talking to them. Hell I need time to process things before I get back to being anymore social than sit there and talk with someone with most people. It is intriguing, I want to photograph only so I don’t have to really know people, just take pictures so I can look at them, I am finding certain people to be extremely condescending of late, and a lot of the holier than thou attitude going around which is probably why I am sitting in the CIT on a Saturday afternoon doing homework, I doubt anyone would really trouble me in my room, my roommates (yes that does come in the plural) are generally nice, supportive, fun people, but umm ya… I guess I am just annoyed about all those comments on what is and is not good for me, or anyone else, seeing as I find a bunch of thing other people do annoyingly unhealthy, but don’t exactly take to going around telling them how unhealthy they are, telling other people about it, finally leading to a whole bunch of people being weirded out by not so strange things. I have had times when I have wanted to scream at the next person who tells me about my drinking soda, like well, so many people believe sodas, especially Coke and Mountain Dew are bad for you, but those same people seem to manage to finish a bottle of root beer, bought by me, for communal enjoyment, in less than a day without me ever actually drinking any of it, like wtf, decide whose side you are on, and then pick what you want to do according to that, this two sided approach seems counter productive for all involved.

I guess I shouldn’t have written all of that down, but it needs to get out, there are already too many things pressuring me, I can’t take too much more, and I really don’t want to be anti-social, but it’s hard being social when people just stick to acting weirdly and not telling you what’s going on, and acting as if you are a pain to have around, and still complain about not seeing you. Oh and this is so DPS now, I finally had someone tell me I am annoying in a class which I probably shouldn’t be taking anyways because it’s too simple for me (is kind of true, but hell it’s like 4 hard classes, 1 simple class), and a semi-serious statement about how I make people feel stupid, even though I don’t try to do so. Oh well, so now this is where it stands, not helping people makes me bad for other reasons, helping people makes people think they are stupid, like what the hell do they expect me to do. Oh well OK, some people I truly believe are stupid, and I wouldn’t care if they made these statements, but this did not come out of someone who I believe is genuinely stupid, this person is far more intelligent than I am, and while it was all said in good humor, and is still taken in good humor, it feels bad to be told that you make someone feel stupid, even though you’d honestly never ever try to do something like that without feeling stupid yourself. So I know for a fact I am not TAing any CS courses next semester, I’ll apply to be a TA, sure as hell will, but I have a feeling it’s not going to work out, the TAs at the class I am officially taking, or at least one of the TA’s believes I am a “pain in the arse”, and umm I am not actually taking the second, and by far more interesting, CS course which I am sitting in on, thus leading to weird dynamics on trying to TA that course, since I haven’t actually spoken to the professor, who seems like a nice jovial old man, about vagabonding it, I am kind of uncertain about the results of such a discussion, and therefore feel continuing as such would be far more useful, to me anyways, and being somewhat selfish is one of my new resolutions for the semester.

OK homework time, I kind of want to get more done before tonight when I am going to try and have some fun…

Ze Panda

Bah I wrote a bunch of stuff before, then force restarted my computer, managed to lose most of it, deleted what was left, and am forced to restart. Highlights so far, went out to dinner on Wednesday, met person who knows Don Knuth, was impressed by person who knew Don Knuth, Italian food, and other such things. Had a German exam today, was freaked out until the beginning of the test, was freaked out post test, didn’t much care, it’s my first chapter test, and I can count in German, so yay for that (hell I couldn’t reasonably claim the ability to do so in hindi until well into my fifth year of trying to learn the bloody language, am still not capable of claiming said ability in Oriya, and umm sanskrit, hmm sanskrit, haha). Have lost $75 in taxes (from like $180) to the Federal Government, the State Government, the disabled, and medicare, while still not being eligible for NSF REUs or much of anything else, which is kind of sad. Received my first topology assignment, found parts to be really simple, other parts to be weird only because how it’s worded, nearly declared weird love-hate relationship with formal mathematical proof, decided most of topology is fun, let it be at that.

I am annoyed by something, let’s see, I am annoyed about annoying little bugger who claims to be a “old-school” hax0rz, am annoyed by the completely weird distinctions between what Matlab and Maple find acceptable as input, and my inability to get the bloody Mathematica kernel to run, and the stupid change in licensing which now requires my computer to be owned or leased by Brown before I can actually download the bloody Mathematica file. I am annoyed by über long vector triple products which produce wrong results, I am annoyed by having to do vector triple products this late into college, I am annoyed by my current dislike for calculations (no math doesn’t involve too many calculations, talk about abstract enough bullshit and you are talking math, math rules, people who believe otherwise don’t see the inherent beauty of certain things, the inherent beauty of explaining how an open cylinder is inherently the same thing as a circle with two cut out circles), and I am especially annoyed by philosophical questions about what is fiction (no it isn’t simple or precisely described, whoever told you it was lied, lied you hear me). Oh I am also generally annoyed by the existence of such things as Friday nights, though currently I am really happy about this being a Friday night, go figure… I am also annoyed about all those people who called me annoying in class, like what the hell am I supposed to do, either I am the “overconfident, impenetrable, arrogant” SOB they don’t want around, or I am annoying and should shut up, bah, and umm some things are perfectly clear and obvious, they are to me, hence will be pronounced such by me, if they are not for other people it’s someone else’s problem not mine. Certain questions are stupid and should not be asked…

I bought new shoes yesterday, I am not sure why that would interest you, but it interests me, I have new hiking boots, and snow boots. I also spent like 20 bucks on buying a military surplus, woolen trenchcoat that comes up to my ankles and makes me happy, if only because it is grey and has shiny buttons. I have not had any chocolates today, or in the last week, and have been told by people that I use too much of the mouth freshener thing Listerine produces, and drink too much soda, both categories of people do other things in excess, and never hear anything about it from me, is kind of sad. I am generally annoyed about a lot of things right now, and hence this entry currently sounds more like angry rants than anything else. Well it’s my blog, go figure. Oh and all of Thayer and most of Providence seems to be out of Gore-Tex shells from North Face, like are we facing a jacket shortage here or something (I know post New Orleans this is bad).

I currently wish I could find a hiking spot, and someone to hike with, so I could go hiking when Columbus Day arrived, I also sort of wish I could learn X-country skiing, but that’s mostly wistful thinking. I had also earlier this semester assured myself that I would carry my camera everywhere and record somethings I have always wanted to, the street musicians and stuff, and umm I haven’t so far, I discovered I had been carrying my camera around for a while in my bag, needless to say it had remained untouched, kind of sad. I had plans of doing vast amounts of research into people at Caltech, studying abroad inside the United States, and making a trip to Montreal come Spring Break if I made enough money TAing Math-54. I am currently attending 7 courses, am registered for five, am TAing one, and plan on attending the other one for as long as I can, if only because it’s fun. Handy dandy calculator just proved that making a trip to Montreal on a semester’s worth of TAing earning is not possible, I really don’t want to do anything else, so whatever, I might not go to Montreal, besides going to Montreal requires visas and such things, things better avoided. So I am looking for possibly pretty place to go to for Spring Break, possible choices would be appreciated. HSS might actually stay back for Thanksgiving, and we might be doing stuff, and if he does, I am going to try getting turkey stuff, so we can do actual turkey on turkey day. I really should have gone to that improv show I missed so I could do homework which I currently am not, mostly because I am thinking about it. Of late my thought processes have varied between thinking about math, thinking about weird freakish scary stuff, and not thinking at all, I am not sure about how good a thing this is. The fact that I talked about math post work, at midnight, at the Gate yesterday, is sort of funny, the fact that I talked about panopticons with HCA yesterday is sort of amusing, the fact that she kept joking about how she was having dinner with her “TA” is even more amusing, the fact that ADC did not react to this is sort of un-ADC like.

I can’t seem to find my Swiss Army knife, sort of annoying, though I am sure it’s on my desk somewhere, perhaps under the piles of other things I have. Oh and please don’t call because of this blog entry, I am letting off steam, I really am fine, perhaps have been drenched a few times, but darn I am OK…

Hmm so I finally managed to complete my homework, there was an amusing incident with a professor over the phone yesterday, and mildly intriguing stuff through the weekend. I don’t even know whether I should post this anymore or not, it’s all in the past, things have gone back to being quite not so weird and annoying anymore, though there still remain annoying parts of this world, and such things…

Unsurely Yours
Ze Panda

It is time to take a break from the math, even if I take a short one, not as long as the one I took yesterday when I spent far too many hours just hanging around SCE, talking to her, going to the Gate, and talking to her some more. This was like the first time I had met her since the end of summer, and post-meeting her brother’s friend and other people we both happened to know, we kind of had stuff to discuss, plus she had just moved into Pembroke, and did not know of all the many wonders this place has, the Gate being one of the big ones, so that was a longish night of talking, while sitting in front of the quiet dorm, who’s outside was not very quite, and running into both HSS dressed in shorts and jackets, a reminiscence from days gone by, think 4^th or 5^th grade, and a drunk, happy, singing person who was not singing in English, was going into the quiet dorm, and did not look very quiet. We also spoke about her work in Haskell, and literal Haskell, and it sounded kind of cool, and I finally have an answer to my dilemma of whether to use Hugs98 or GHC, and it makes some sense, so I guess I can try learning Haskell once we get to winter break, thanksgiving or whenever I have time next.

Classes, oh classes, I am not taking cryptography, mostly because it coincides with Linear Algebra, which I have been, and plan to attend all of, even though I am supposed to grade it. So I am still stuck on deciding between CS051, CS031, and MA126, each of which have their own unique reasons for why they should be taken, and reasons why the shouldn’t, and those reasons are so veritably different, that I could never really make a table and solve this problem, most of this problem does not seem to be tractable, which is OK I guess, so currently I have no less than 3 add/drop forms lying in my Analysis book, and am waiting for an opportunity to decide on which I want and hand one of them in, is amusing in my opinion. I really should have taken the Combinatorial Optimization course I picked up after dropping crypto, that might have helped me compute a solution to this problem, but well whoever came up with course timings for that particular course, wasn’t thinking about optimizing times so that more people could attend, it cuts into no less than two of my classes, I am not going to drop two other classes I was sure of taking, only so I could take a course with easter bunnies. But apart from that classes are quite fun, topology is great and the abstract class of the semester, 113, which I shall not refer to as anything other than 113 for fear of inciting gasps, is a lot more fun than I imagined, so far anyways, it’s a lot like real analysis which I remember having good time with. Differential Geometry has so far been a lot more computational than I expected, and I am not sure it gets any less computational, though it seems to be pretty fun. The people in 106 however scare me slightly, and while thanks to JKD I have a semi study group like thing going for 113, have none of that for topology or diff geometry, and I have a feeling I am missing stuff in topology, if only because homeworks are rare, and though he said all of the stuff was from chapter 1 of the book, there seems to be little correlation, I might make an effort to read up on all of it once I have the time, which might or might not be soon. German, hmm German, I am not sure I am a big fan of the immersion method of teaching I am being subjected to, I understand most (though nowhere near all) of what is spoken about in class, but then I walk out, and I am awfully confused about the pronunciation and the meanings and things, and I don’t know, I feel like I am just guessing at meanings, most of the time anyways, which may be what the method is all about but it seems somewhat scary.

Must also think about shifting to a meal plan with lower meals a day next year, if only because I don’t seem to be using anywhere near 3 a day, missing lunch most days because of the weird time my German class is at, and being scared of the long lines at the Ratty which sort of don’t allow me to get in and out and still have a comfortably long gap between lunch and class, it seems as if the only time I have been to one of the dining services place for lunch in the last few days was on the day of opening convocation when classes went out early.

I am supposed to go through pre-written code for my research, and somehow the thought of doing so makes me shudder, I am looking for approximations in comparisons, and I don’t know, I am not a big fan of reading pre-written code, I need to go through one of those books about reading code, sans which I just need to believe that reading code has good things.

Oh and for all those who didn’t know this, TV programs are actually copyrighted, and downloading one of those might annoy certain people. I was asked about this while working the phones today, I was kind of amused by the entire incident, which of course reminds me I should find out whether I can write about the funny things I run across at work, and post them here, they are really funny, and sometimes I just get annoyed enough to send weird, humorous e-mails, which are pretty much hidden references to you are stupid. I should not, especially since I get paid for doing this, and they give us these things called audit logs where we can write up things which annoy or amuse us. I don’t think I have ever really used the audit log, except perhaps to write comments on water on the keyboard.

Also what’s up with Apple not allowing people to download Apple X11 1.1 from their servers, rather insisting that people get it from the install CD, where it isn’t selected by default, it is bloody annoying to try and find someone X11 1.1 only so they can run Matlab, and be forced to tell them to dig up their install CDs, which a lot of them don’t remember anything about, and have them install it from an MPKG there.

I also just realized this is beginning to sound like an audit log, and currently I am really happy about things, and the world, the way it currently is, sure a few replies to a few e-mails I sent out earlier, and a little bit of sushi would make it better, but right now, or more precisely last night, the world was dang near perfect, good job world.

Ze Panda

PS: I was done with this entry, but the following things needed to be noted. a. TeX = awesome. b. people at Cargo, the local hiking/outdoor store which I seem to frequent more than I should = awesome. c. C and interrupts != awesome. d. I just had a lot of chocolate, and some sushi

I have a feeling I should write something before we get too far and I have to weave a yarn too long just to let people know where the yarn lies today. So let us first cover the basic points, I am back in Providence, my flight was OK, mostly uneventful (a lack of food on my BA flight was duly noted, thoughts of hatred for Gate Gourmet workers duly generated), and umm yup, I got back to Providence, the house was empty then, is occupied now, and so far it has been smooth sailing, relatively speaking of course, well smooth sailing if you disregard how much of this house is falling apart, we have had Facilities Management come in at least 5 times a week and repair something or the other, and I still have about 7 open trouble tickets on the system, kind of awful, but umm I guess that’s what you guess for living in a student house. Everything else though, has been pretty darn awesome, we have been trying, rather unsuccessfully to sneak into freshman orientation events, I met one of IAN’s friends who was really cool, and seemed to be doing well, I met TFB, and umm we played boggle, and discussed math, but mostly played boggle, and the only thing still missing I guess, is meeting all the other people I know in Providence (WNS comes to mind), meeting SCE, and umm getting to classes, which happens tomorrow, so yay for that. Oh I also met JH, and he was interesting as usual, and umm seemed a lot more sure of things than PK, though I am not sure how much sophomore year advising affects me, though I have a class meeting to hear about such things tomorrow, and I am sure that’ll be fun, when it comes around to that. I am also disappointed that I might after all, not be doing Cryptography, there were conflicts in the schedule, and I guess not doing it, and doing either Combinatorial Optimization (which is fun because it involves bunnies, and other things), or Models of Computation (fun because it involves being with people I know, some of whom would never really be seen otherwise, and is one of those CS concentration requirement there really isn’t much of a replacement for). I also got a concentration form, and when I started out with it, I was kind of sure I should fill it up, though now it’s languishing on my desk, and I have a feeling I am not really going to fill it up anytime soon, and umm, I don’t know…

Help Desk, yup I have been working for them, long and hard, since there is not much of anything else to work on currently, and umm most of the people seem really nice, at least that’s a consolation, though most of the people who I have talked to or walked around helping, have been sort of nice. And then there was this guy I was having a cough*discussion*cough about network security at Brown and the CS department with, and I am surprised. Like people are sometimes weird and anal, he believes the CS departments opening itself to vulnerabilities by allowing SSH connection in, like why the hell would people have the CS department if students couldn’t even access things in there, is stupid in my opinion. And there was this guy who freaked me out, and drove me out by talking about dual monitors and such things, but other than that it is fun, I guess, though I sure as hell am looking forward to tomorrow, when this stops being the focal point of my daytime life.

I really haven’t done that much, so there isn’t much to write about, once we get into tomorrow, and classes get good and groovy, I think I’ll finally have fodder to write about. BTW, it is not a good idea to gently rinse keyboards in warm water.

Ze Panda