| Rational vs. Irrational |
[May. 16th, 2012|08:58 pm] |
Every once in a while we are confronted by minor problems in life that expose things about us. Problems like, for instance, wanting to read something, but having nothing to read because all our books are in storage somewhere. There are many ways to answer this problem:
The rational response: Hmmm...maybe I better go find something else to do instead.
The irrational response: Obviously I need to go buy more books.
I can see already that getting a new job was like digging my own grave.
(Number of books bought today: 7) |
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| Pro/Con II |
[May. 13th, 2012|02:30 pm] |
Things I like: Being able to visit San Francisco again. I really like SF - of all the cities I've spent time in it is one of the few, like downtown Chicago, to have its own very distinctive character. That and it's concentrated nature make it really easy to find new things. I really like San Francisco.
Things I hate: Driving through San Francisco. *#$!ing San Francisco. |
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| Pro/Con I |
[May. 5th, 2012|11:42 am] |
Pro: I like being back in a state where transportation actually makes sense, and public transportation is at least present (no matter how much we may complain about it), and where things are not approximately infinity miles apart from each other so it's actually possible to walk from one thing to another.
Cons: I hate finding apartments in this state. This is not helped by the lack of any kind of standardized register, by the unwelcome influence of location upon price, and by the fact that there seems to have been some sort of building hiatus between 1980 and 2000, so that everything is either ultra-modern and therefore out of my budget, or old and somewhat falling apart (also of awkward dimension).
Conclusion: I'm getting increasingly grumpy in my old age. |
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| Okay, Now What? |
[May. 2nd, 2012|07:32 pm] |
Things that are weird: Letting a bunch of men you don't know and have never met come into your apartment, pack all your worldly possessions into boxes, put all the boxes on a truck, and drive away. You're left sitting in an empty apartment thinking to yourself "WTF just happened?". |
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| Random Travelogue |
[Apr. 16th, 2012|11:35 am] |
So, I feel the need to be creative, more to distract me than for any other reason. Unfortunately, I don't have much to be creative with right now. So here's some background reading for your perusal, an overview of some parts of Tempest, a city I created for a very...peculiar...science fantasy I am usually working on. It's not very well written because I don't have practice with these sorts of things, but it is what it is.
(It's also not done, but that's because I'm lazy)
( A Guide to Tempest ) |
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| Moving |
[Apr. 12th, 2012|08:27 am] |
The dangerous thing about paying someone else to do your moving work for you is that you're always in danger of procrastinating on the stuff you really should be doing. |
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| Mali Update |
[Apr. 2nd, 2012|09:31 pm] |
So the coup in Mali is having some birthing problems. The whole point of the coup (ostensibly) is that the civilian government wasn't doing enough to fight against the Taureg rebels in the north of the country. The soldiers who overthrew the government swore that they would do everything the government was refusing to do and would supply the soldiers properly so that they could take the fight for the enemy.
They were dismissive of foreign protests. They were outright hostile to suggestions that civilian rule should be restored. When people questioned their methods, they claimed that foreigners had no place in Mali. When other countries complained, they were basically told to get out and stay out. And, when the leaders of several local countries proposed to lay out their terms in a visit to the capital of Bamako, the visit was canceled when armed coup supporters somehow managed to "evade" airport security and storm out onto the pavement - essentially threatening to assassinate several heads of state.
And the result of the coup? ECOWAS has embargoed the country, which is landlocked and depends on imports for almost anything. The Tuareg rebels first seized the city of Kidal, and now have seized the major city of Timbuktu.
And now, after having overthrown his government, deliberately threatened foreign heads of state, and demanded foreigners butt out, what is the new leader of Mali's strategy to defeat the Tuareg?
As the news was coming through, coup leader Capt Amadou Sanogo asked for foreign help to tackle the rebels.
Something tells me that this guy is not going to go down in history as one of the world's most brilliant leaders. Kicking people out and then begging them for help has never been a winning strategy. |
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| Recursive Meta |
[Mar. 30th, 2012|11:06 am] |
When I Google "What am I doing with my life", the fourth answer is a blog by someone talking about advice they found by Googling "What am I doing with my life".
Recursion is a powerful CS technique. As a method for solving life's dilemmas though it seems to lead you in circles. |
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