hahaha.

This is why I love reading Stroustrup, he doesn't get so technical your eyes start to bleed. He brings a certain humour and lightheartedness to his writing that makes it almost enjoyable, which makes it easier to stick with and actually get something out of it.

tags: books, c++, stroustrup
mood: bored
listening to: Deep Dish - Flashdance

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tags: quotes
mood: amused
listening to: The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping

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Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backwards; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?"
  - The Mentat Handbook (from Frank Herbert's Children of Dune)

tags: quotes
mood: heat
listening to: Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)

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For once I stood aside, I held my tongue. I watched everything in my head happen, saw events culminate and create pain in someone I love and now I feel failure. Failure that I can never change anything, that if I fight I lose who I care about, and if I don't, I have to live with the thought that I didn't try hard enough. That I didn't do what I knew was the right thing because just once I didn't want to lose what made me happy. I hate myself a little more for it.

I know to see things this way is wrong, that I have to put myself first, that people have to live their own lives and make their own mistakes, but then what point is there in my existence? What point is there in what I see, in the thoughts I'm constantly haunted by if I can never do anything for the people I care about?

I wish it would all just go away.

tags: heuristics, human behaviour
mood: heartbroken
listening to: The Smashing Pumpkins - Blissed & Gone

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tags: lyrics
mood: emotional overload
listening to: Nine Inch Nails - 1,000,000

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First of all, and most importantly, it's free, you don't pay for it, so if you don't like it, go somewhere else. However, if you are going to stay, then learn something called constructive criticism. Don't just bitch and whine because all it shows is what a negative and childish person you are.

I don't think any of you have a clue how hard it is to design anything for the masses when all they do is piss on you for trying to make any change. Not only is the new site quicker, but everything can be reached from one page, if only you weren't so quick to fear any change you'd all realise this.

tags: human stupidity
mood: pissed off
listening to: Holy Fuck - Safari

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tags: quotes
mood: lost and confused
listening to: Bush - Float

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I've been thinking a lot lately about how one man can change the world, but only superficially. Jesus Christ, murdering crusaders, gay attacking homophobes, etc, etc. Mohammad, martyrs, women treated like crap. Budhha, sect after sect missing the entire point. Washington and Franklin, George W. fucking Bush and the ridiculousness of current American politics and international affairs.

There are no good ideas any more, no revolutions of thought. Hundreds of years ago a single idea couldn't survive the masses, so what chance do any of them have now? Today if you think outside the box you end up in prison, or outcast, or whatever anyone can do to you to keep you from making a real difference.

These days all we seem to have are scientific breakthroughs, most of which don't affect anyone's life in any real way. We strive to live longer, but most of us have no idea how to live to begin with.

tags: human behaviour, philosophy, religion
mood: disillusioned
listening to: Death From Above 1979 - Dead Womb

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tags: video
mood: amused
listening to: Jack Johnson - Sexy Plexi (Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard)

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tags: images
mood: amused
listening to: Matthew Good Band - Hello Time Bomb

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Later in the night I got a message on facebook from someone who did go. A ridiculous passive aggressive diatribe about how wrong it was that no one showed up. The gist of it being this person was pissed off because she was too stupid to verify if the event was still on before driving all the way into the city. This one message created a chain effect and suddenly I had a dozen equally stupid passive aggressive messages from people both defending and attacking her. Which then caused a new message to start about how certain people were going to create a new event, not that anyone would give a shit about that either. It made it really clear to me that no matter what any of them claimed, they were all still stupid childish high schoolers, even ten years later.

Then this morning I saw the best thing ever, two grown men, late thirties, early forties, fighting at a bus stop. Both had clearly never been in a fight before, so they spent more time trying to avoid getting hit than hitting the other person. Arms and legs swinging madly connecting with nothing. It ended when an old fat security guard yelled at them.

I thought this was especially interesting since I had just been thinking how I should just start a fight club instead of random slamming into people who refuse to get out of my way even though I'm on the right side of the sidewalk and they are on their left.

tags: human stupidity
mood: amused, disgusted, etc.
listening to: New order vs. Donna Summer - I feel blue monday (White label)

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tags: random
mood: amused
listening to: Holy Fuck - Korock

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<link rel="elementpath"
      type="text/javascript"
      href="/elementjs/" />

function htmlCombobox(attributes, xml, text) {
    // Create input box
    el          = document.createElement('input');

    // Create div
    el.dropdown = document.createElement('div');

    for(i=0;i<xml.length;++i) {
        // Create lines in the div
        // That would act like <option>
        // tags. Then attach them to the
        // dropdown
    }

    // Attach callbacks to the element
    el.onclick  = htmlComboboxClick;

    // Return the element so the browser
    // can place it in the dom.
    return el;
}

function htmlComboboxClick(event) {
    // Do something on click, etc.
}

tags: programming, web
mood: ok
listening to: The Mars Volta - Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum

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i look in your eyes
you look for your price
you beg me to stop
but i was, never that nice

tags: mgb, music
mood: lost
listening to: Matthew Good Band - The Fall of Man

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Just yesterday I got an e-mail from a person I once held in such regard, and all it contained was a diatribe about what a bad person I was. Worse, it was based on absolutely nothing, on ideas this person just created out of thin air because I refuse to even have them in my life anymore.

What really bothers me about it though, is that my instinct should be to just laugh it off, to realise how sad and pathetic such a person must be, and not let it affect me, but it does. I take every thing anyone says to heart because I'm just so used to accepting I'm a horrible person, a bad person. I let one stupid person make everything I've been feeling good about fly right out the window. It's not fair.

I do do it to myself though, I'll never claim otherwise. I value myself less than everyone else, I accommodate everyone around me while they shit all over me, just to have them call me a horrible person the second I get fed up, snap, and stand up for myself. I'm the world's bitch, and I let it happen, but not anymore, not ever again.

tags: emotion, human behaviour
mood: sad
listening to: Weezer - Buddy Holly

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I guess if I want to find happiness I should just stop looking.

tags: human behaviour
mood: growing pains
listening to: Weezer - Island in the Sun

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That's a 9 by the way. Don't ask me why they made it so hard to read.

tags: meme
mood: tired
listening to: the fan

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The Canadiens will also host the all-star game in January as part of the club's centennial celebrations.

tags: article, habs, hockey
mood: whatever
listening to: The Prodigy - Firestarter

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Sadly I couldn't get anything off the drive, every time I tried it sounded like something was grinding inside. I couldn't even open it to find out what, because despite having three different sets of screw driver bits, one specifically for computers, none were small enough for the screws Western Digital uses. Why are companies so fucking stupid?

Anyway, the upside is this made the decision to switch to Winamp that much easier. Which means I can now work on integrating what I'm listening to with my blog.

tags: music, random
mood: bleh
listening to: Nine Inch Nails - 5 Ghosts I

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