"Love, at its most basic level, is illusory. You fall in love with nothing more than your own imagination."

-Karakan Benes

I think the only reason I don't subscribe to this belief unconditionally is for the implications it might have concerning the people around whom I have constructed such illusions.
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Updated Signs that You're a Hopeless CS Major:

You refer to dice as random-number generators.
You start coding in your head.
...before you get out of bed.
You watch the Animatrix and cringe at their programming fallacies.
You hear people talking about 'getting head' and 'getting tail' and you think they're talking about linked lists.
...and you jump into the conversation.
...enthusiastically.
...and don't understand why they're giving you such weird looks.
You think the phrase 'getting to third base' means 'converting decimal to trinary'.
You hear there's going to be a lecture on STD's and think it's about the ANSI standard.
You don't understand what the big deal is when you hear about parents forking children.
You precede all notes to yourself with two front-slashes.
You understand all the items in this list.
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Random quotes

Some random quotes:

"In 1989, Don Eigler, a researcher at IBM famously nudged 35 xenon atoms around under a microscope to spell out the letters of the company. Less well publicised was that the task took 22 hours to complete and was carried out at nearly -270 degrees. At room temperature, the stunt would have been impossible. The atoms would have jiggled around and wandered off in the heat." Upon reading just the first sentence, one's imagination runs wild with thoughts of us shoving around atoms like schoolyard bullies, stacking them like firewood and playing with the very building blocks of creation. After reading the next sentence, though, one’s imagination is shot in the leg by the cold sniper of reality.

--From one of my lab reports

Emperor Dargath beckoned to his general, who dutifully stood at attention before him. With a benevolent smile, Dargath pulled out a gun and shot the man in the skull.

"S... sire, permission to speak freely?" A nod prompted the chamberlain to ask what was on the minds of everyone gathered: "W-Why did you kill him? He was easily the most accomplished, loyal, and capable of all your subjects."

Putting away his weapon, the emperor turned and smiled to his advisor. "To make it clear that none of you are so important that you cannot be replaced."

--I haven't actually used this one yet

"The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Inscrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the Secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices."

--Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age

There is one exhibit in the museum which makes Knyazkin be especially proud of. This is the 30-centimeter preserved penis of Grigory Rasputin. “Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is now kept. … Napoleon’s penis is but a small ”pod“ it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimeters…” the head of the museum said.

--Russian Museum to Exhibit Rasputin's Penis (for those of you counting, 30 cm. ~= 11.8 in.)
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Updated Signs that You're a Hopeless CS Major:
You refer to dice as random-number generators.
You start coding in your head.
...before you get out of bed.
You watch the Animatrix and cringe at their programming fallacies.
You hear people talking about 'getting head' and 'getting tail' and you think they're talking about linked lists.
...and you jump into the conversation.
...enthusiastically.
...and don't understand why they're giving you such weird looks.
You think the phrase 'getting to third base' means 'converting decimal to trinary'.
You hear there's going to be a lecture on STD's and think it's about the ANSI standard.

When I told Henry that last one, he gave me a blank stare and said, "Well, what else would it be about?"
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Of THING and stuff

So, some notes of THING 2004.
And other stuff.

• Whenever I'm riding down the freeway, and there's a long expanse of grass on the side of the road, I feel like opening the door and jumping out.


• I feel like throwing myself in front of a car. Just to see what it feels like.


• I want to kill someone, to see if I can. But the only one I want to kill deserves worse than that. And I don't think I could do that much.


• She said she thought I was thin. A twig. That ranks up there with Claire calling me cute.


• I want to smash my head against a wall when I hear it.


• Whee, bullets.

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If you're reading this, I hate you.
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Hermits used to be revered as wise and holy men. Many of them were saints, and many a monastery sprung up around a monk who gained a following. The idea of the "wise man sitting atop a mountain" is a classic meme running through our society. Jesus spent several years in the desert with a hermetic group. Bodhidarma attained enlightenment after sitting in a cave for nine years.

Why then did one of my classes today involve a series of preachings by upperclassmen on how we must all go out and fraternize, gain experience and make friends? Why must we all be leaders and extroverted social fellows? Why is the lifestyle of being an introvert and spending your nights on the computer so frowned upon?

Guh. Makes me mad.
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I officially love my CS 290 class

Or maybe just my CS 290 professor.

We have several programming projects throughout the year--I believe six in all--and we currently are (supposed to be) working on the second one. Someone e-mailed Professor Brylow asking about the possibilities of an organized errata page, in order to list changes to the specs when mistakes are found in the projects. This was very useful last semester in CS 180.

The professor replied, rather arrogantly, "I haven't had any projects that required errata since the mid 90's. I intend to have none this semester." Both statements, he informed us, were true.

On Wednesday he came into the lecture hall, lit up the projector, and wrote "APOLOGY" at the top, and underneath that "4 BUGS". We had found four bugs in the sample executable the TA's had written and given to us to emulate.

The professor had printed out his e-mail and read it aloud to a class of 110 students, then proceeded to tear up the paper and literally eat his words.

Yes. Definitely love Professor Brylow.
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Update

Updated Signs that You're a Hopeless CS Major:
You refer to dice as random-number generators.
You start coding in your head.
...before you get out of bed.
You watch the Animatrix and cringe at their programming fallacies.
You hear people talking about 'getting head' and 'getting tail' and you think they're talking about linked lists.
...and you jump into the conversation.
...enthusiastically.
...and don't understand why they're giving you such weird looks.
You think the phrase 'getting to third base' means 'converting decimal to trinary'.
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A Crowd is Just a Gallery of Pictures

In Spanish, my junior year, Señor Smith asked some question and I was the only one to raise my hand. He made some comment along the lines of "Victor's the only one here", leaving out "who knows the answer". So from that we had a nice laugh and some conversations about how I was the only one in Spanish class, and all my classmates were just figments of my imagination.

I realized, at some point, that they were right.

Other people don't exist.

Those who walk around, smile, talk, and clearly exist in a physical sense, what are they? Are they human? No, they're just vague shells. Talking, moving automata and simulacra. They have no depth. What are their families like? What do they think, dream, hope, fear? What do they do in their spare time? As long as I'm just sitting at my desk listening to the teachers' lectures, none of those questions have any answers.

I can't feel terribly sad about tragedies that happen to people I don't know because those people are just names or numbers. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, I was upset in a general sense, but it never really bothered me that thousands of people lost their lives. And yet I can empathize with characters from books, comics, movies, television, roleplaying--characters that do not exist, never have, and never will--because they're more real to me than other people. I know they have feelings to be hurt, dreams to be lost, friends to be protected: I can see them, read about them.

But without a narrative like that explaining to me why I should care about these people, I just don't.
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