The "Other" Eurydice

What up, hombres?

Google found my blog, so I had to take it down for a few days while they processed my "removal" request. I'd never seen an Earthlink home page come up in my search results, so I figured Earthlink had some kind of restrictive /robots.txt file, but I must have been mistaken. Anyway, now I've got my own robots.txt, ready to get re-processed 90 days from now. It's so hard to have a blog, don't you find?

The stupid copyright stuff I've been bitching about for so long got resolved sort of informally, which makes me a little nervous, but we'll see what happens, I suppose. I'm allowed to work on gzochi, at least. Now I'm jus' eating some carrots.

Last night was sort of hellish -- I bought this tiny little microwave on eBay a little while back, and UPS, in characteristic fashion, had made two failed attempts to deliver it to me at times when I would definitely, definitely not be home. So yesterday I was like, "I'm'a get this thing tonight." So I called UPS and they told me I could come out to their Brooklyn facility (104-01 Foster Ave.) between 8:00 and 10:00 PM -- decidedly non-optimal time, you know, but I ended up having to stay late at work, so, you know, okay. So the first bad thing that happened was that I forgot the trouble that Mer had had when she'd gone to pick up a package there and just pasted the address from their website right into MapQuest. So MapQuest gives me an address that would be easily reachable by taking the F to Avenue I. I leave home at 7:00, reach Ave. I by 7:30, and start looking for it. I'd remembered Mer saying it was right outside the station, so I knew something was wrong when I'd walked down Foster Ave. for 30 minutes without finding it. Finally I popped into an auto-body shop and asked the mechanics on duty. They said, "Yeah, people are always coming in here asking about that. I have no idea where it is." A bad sign. But I kept walking and eventually ran into a bona fide UPS guy in his truck. I said, "Hey, do you guys have a warehouse around here?" He said, "Not around here -- we've got a warehouse on Foster, but it's all the way down at Rockaway." I said, "Okay," and kept walking, thinking if I just grit my teeth I could walk from E. 7th St. to Rockaway. Well, 15 minutes later I found myself at the B/Q station for Something-or-other St. and I'm like, "Maybe I should just go home, because I don't know where I'm going."

I get home at 8:30 and Mer informs me that she'd tried had the same problem -- MapQuest is stupid and doesn't understand the number 104-01. If you punch it in as 10401 (which, given the numbering on the houses where I was walking, seems reasonable), then you get a totally different address. Basically, you have to take the L to the end of the line, and then you're right there. Now, a normal person might just put it off until tomorrow, but that's another day of having UPS stupidly try to drop it off while I'm not home, even when I've told them on the card that they can basically leave my package anywhere they want, and I like to wait until a situation is really ugly before I cut my losses and leave, because then, you know, it's just so much sweeter when you get what you want. Anyway, Round 2. So I decide I'm gonna take the B to Prospect Park; transfer to the S and take it to Franklin; take the C to Broadway Junction; and take the L to the end. It's like 8:40, and I'm kind of ticked off, but , you know, I'm gonna get this thing. So I get to the S and it finally chugs out of the station, and I'm thinking, "Okay, the S only makes three stops -- there's Prospect Park, the Botanical Gardens, and then Franklin." Wrong -- there's something between Botanical Gardens and Franklin, and that's where I get off. Unfortunately, no other trains stop at this mystery stop, and by the time I realize that I'm in the wrong place, the S is fading off into the distance, and, you know, it only comes like once a month. So I leave the station (actually, I leave the station, have second thoughts, pay again, then realize there are no other trains and leave again), and pop into a deli. I ask the proprietors if they've got the number of a cab company, and they're nice enough to call up Evelyn for me. (I buy a bag of Utz to be a good patron while I'm waiting for the cab.) The car finally comes, and the driver takes me to Foster and Rockaway. Well, it's not there. But there are some police officers just kind of hanging out, so we ask them if they know where the place is. "Yeah," one of them says. "Um... just... um... take a left up here and drive all the way down. It's the tallest building around here, you can't miss it." Okay, thanks, officer. We do, you know, what he says, and we're driving, and we're driving, and finally we're at a big intersection, and no UPS. So my driver flags another person down and asks where the UPS building is. The guy tells us to just keep driving straight for like 4 or 5 blocks. So we do that, and we pass the place where we were before, where the cops were, and finally we find the building and I get my microwave. The whole cab ride, which lasted about an hour, only cost me $22.00. Top marks, Evelyn.

But man, Mer'd told me there was nothing out there, and she wasn't kidding. It's all one-story warehouses and garages and lots full of towering heaps of scrap metal. It's like a different fucking planet, especially at 9:30 at night during winter. It was like the chilling perpetual pre-dawn wasteland where Fraidy Cat and the ship full of gay pirate mice dwell in a limbo of fear and despair. The graffiti on all the buildings was particularly surreal -- it was all done in the old-fashioned balloon style, and the accompanying pictures were mostly figures from 1980s pop-culture, like Mario Mario and Michael Jackson. I felt like I was in some creepy arcade game like Bad Dudes -- you know, that part of Bad Dudes where a car service drives you around.

I read Italo Calvino's Numbers in the Dark. It's a mixed bag. "Dry River," "Numbers in the Dark," "World Memory," and "Montezuma" were good. The other ones I could take or leave.

Fuck

Life sucks. The world is shit. I haven't been making a lot of entries, lately, in my little journal of pithy observations about the world, because frankly I've been in a bad mood.

The first thing: Apparently the standard New York State employment contract contains this irritating clause about how anything you think or say or fucking whatever during the "term" of your employment is owned by your employer. Fuck. Here it is:

Any and all inventions, discoveries, improvements or creations (collectively, the "Invention Ideas") which Employee has conceived or made, or may conceive or make during the period of employment in any way, directly or indirectly, connected with Employer's business, shall be the sole and exclusive property of Employer. The term "Inventions Ideas" means any and all ideas, processes, trademarks, service makes, inventions, technology, computer programs, original works of authorship, designs, formulas, patents, discoveries, copyrights and all improvements, rights, and claims related to the foregoing that are conceived, developed or reduced to practice by Employee alone or with others...

Granted, I took that from a California State employment agreement, but it's pretty much the same thing. This is bullshit! I know what you're saying, "Boo hoo hoo," right? Well, the little "Invention Ideas" that I work on in my spare time happen to be the only things that keep me going. I don't give shit one about my fucking job or "Grid," whatever the fuck that is. As far as I'm concerned, Grid is something gay people get. Maybe you guys have a hard time relating to this -- imagine that someone told you you couldn't play your XBOX or listen to Jay-Z tell you that he's got "99 problems, but a bitch ain't one." You would be upset.

Well, I asked my boss delicately what the company policy was on employee contributions to open-source software, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. Apparently, it's a "complex issue." For fuck's sake. Well, guess what -- it's still a small enough company that it would be pretty inconvenient for me to quit, because they'd have to train someone all over again to use their bullshit software that doesn't even do anything anyway. Business "people" are so fucking stupid. I'm the one that signed it, though, so it's not like I'm not stupid. And don't think I don't know that posting any of this in this stupid Online Journal is grounds for termination.

Second, I took the GREs a week ago, and fucked up the math part. That sucked. Apparently the math part is really easy, too, because getting an 800 only puts you in the 92nd percentile, but getting a verbal 800 puts you in the 99th. And most grad school CS programs have this thing where they don't have a stated policy about GRE scores, but they pretty much use a math score below a certain number to weed you out, and usually that score is something like 780. I'm not fucking kidding. I got a 730 on the math. The only school I looked at that didn't have some kind of obvious "fuck you" statement about it was Columbia, which will only cut you if you have less than a 650. I thought I was through with this shit after I got into college.

I'm reading Philosophical Investigations, but I feel like most of the stuff in it that's gee-whiz stuff for most people is covered in Intro CogSci and AI / Compilers. I got a book of Calvino stories out of the library yesterday so that I have something non-boring to read on the subway.

• The Big Bounce: Suck
• It's A Wonderful Life: It's a horrible life, but it's a pretty good movie
• Underworld: Suck, boring.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season One: Funny, a bit

Does my upstairs neighbor know that the whole block can hear his stupid rap music? I think he's an amateur freestylist, too. Do all of you college faggots out there who "write rhymez" in your free time know how awful you sound? You're worse than those white suburban kids who wear backwards baseball caps and wifebeaters, because you have the naivete to believe that someone wants to listen to you read a grade-school level poem about how Euripides and Grand Theft Auto have a lot of things in common.

Don't Want To Meet Your Momma

I just want to make you comma? What? Okay, who would have thought that most rational point about Titty Masada would have been made by Dave Matthews? From the NYTimes' Grammy coverage:

Commenting on the incident backstage, Dave Matthews, who won for best rock vocal performance, said deadpan that "the interesting thing" about the uproar was that there have been breasts "since before there was entertainment."

I mean, maybe a lot of you did. I guess he's a good person? What?! I don't know!!! And I completely agree with P. Diddy...

...who performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, [and] said: "I have three sons. I don't mind. I'm very happy for them that they were able to see one of Janet Jackson's breasts in their lifetime. I don't think they'll be scarred for life."

How cool was the OutKast performance at the end of the show? How bad did you want to see Jack Black jump on stage and chime in on the "You know what to do" part? Too bad, faggots. Tom and Devlin thought it was funny when I pointed out that Andre's squaws were "not wearing proper underpants." We salute you, Space Teepee! I borrowed Max Payne 2: Max Payne Dies At The End from Devin.

Praiseworthy peepings:

• Suicide Club
• The Secret Lives of Dentists

Falconcrest Manor

Today's Times had a characteristically even-handed if boring analysis of Sunday's Titty Holocaust. But what is up with everyone making all this fun of the NYT? It reminds me of my old college days, although the 'Times is a whole lot better than Gawker, the e-zine for hometrosexuals.

Something gross: I was walking to work today and this pigeon's sitting in the middle of the sidewalk and as I approach it, it tries to sort of shuffle out of the way. Apparently it's been hit by a car or something because it doesn't seem like it can fly and it's spraying blood all over the snow as it tries to heave itself out of my way. Naturally I tried to pucker up all my mucous membranes; I don't think any got in my mouth.

[Now it's Wednesday.]

Mer pointed out that the bird I saw yesterday was very likely the same bird she saw that had chosen the garbage alcove near our building as a good place to kick the bucket. She said some if its shoulder meat was exposed. It'd had to have gone all the way around the corner to get there. Gross.

Eric Raymond: Smart, but a bit teched in the head. His solution to the problem of terrorism:

I agree with you in conceding that the state is at this time the only way we have to answer the terrorist threat. The world in which Osama bin Laden would be killed by troops hired by a consortium of crime- and disaster-insurance companies rather than a government does not yet exist.

The reasoning here, I guess, is that profit is a purer or at least more consistent motive than statecraft or whatever it is that motivates people to go into government. But if you watch the news at all, you have to wonder if maybe the desire for profit makes people treat other people poorly sometimes. So if this consortium is accountable to a separate body, then this body is probably a government. And if this consortium is, by its charter, accountable to a group of citizens, then it is itself more or less a government. Right?

[Now it's Thursday]

Okay, time to publish this fucker. Links:

• Farnon's (I think) latest ouvre
• IBFT, linked for reference purposes
• Tom pointed me to this. Initially I was grumpy about it, but now I like it.

OpenRPG is currently a big mess of segfaults and damaged stack. Flaunting the rules of software development (e.g., compile and test often) is fun while you're doing it, but sad after you stop doing it.

Finger Daemon Rides The Bang Bus

A dialogue.

Creep At Work: Don't do the install over the network -- we have the files cached locally.

Me: Oh, okay. But even if you do the network install, it only takes like 20 minutes.

Creep At Work: Yeah, but that's 20 minutes that's wasted.

You fucking asshole. Don't give me that "speed of business" bullshit. Fuck. That really pisses me off. I'm here for 10 fucking hours every day. If 20 minutes of that is spent downloading WebLogic and not Increasing Value™ then so fucking be it.

The copy of ACM Communications in the bathroom at work has an argument in the letters page about the value of math courses in a CS curriculum. The resolution? They're valuable, but let me say this: People only seem to like to teach math to savants. That is, even if I can integrate a function with 10 variables around a 4-dimensional curve or some shit, I will get a C- in the course if I can't solve a brain-teaser on the exam. I realize that a lot of psychotic geniuses take math classes and need to be challenged or they will start rocking back and forth and stabbing their stuffed animals with sporks, but if you can't enter a math major with no real prior experience with math and expect to graduate in good standing -- like you can with almost every other major -- then I'm not going to be shedding too many tears about under-mathed CS graduates. Eat dicks.

Can someone who wasted their evening on Sunday please tell me what this is all about? Did Britney's titties shoot a roman candle into a patriotic kitten's eye?

"We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced Halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show. It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."

Whore!

[Postscript: Apparently a titty was responsible for a disaster during the blessed halftime program-related activity. Thank you, CBS, for apologizing for the public display of a filthy genital part -- and also for protecting us from Commie scum. I thank the holy gonorrheal semen of Jesus Christ that I didn't see any titties until I was 17, when my dad and his Promise Keeper friends took to me to a prostitute so I wouldn't become gay.]

I got interested in OpenRPG again and finished the new common_message-based transmission format and updated the server code to use it. The client library comes next. It's looking like I should probably pick a new name for this thing, too, since there are already two other projects using this name. So anyone (i.e., Mike Bell) wanna come up with something? Here's what the project is supposed to provide:

• An XML document-type-definition / schema for creating a world and defining rules for your own massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Formats for including resources such as graphics and sound in XML will also be provided, and the author of the game will be able to specify several distinct sets of resources per game, so that clients with different display capabilities (ranging from non-ncurses-text-console to fully-accelerated 3-D card) can all participate simultaneously. I'd also like to include some sort of GUI tool to make it easy to code up all the XML and visualize your game.
• A threaded server to host these games for an arbitrary number of clients
• A client library to enable people to write their own clients. The library will handle all aspects of communication with the server; the author of the client itself is responsible for the user interface and for writing handlers for a discrete set of messages from the server. A few sample client implementations will be included

What should I call it?

Like any good poseur-in-training, I have obtained from the library and am reading a copy of Wittgenstein. Wish me luck.

I did manage to rock out with Ted on Friday. I love Ultrasound -- it's only three dollars more to have another dude in the room with you as long as they don't turn on the P.A. SICK. Ted, though, like most people, was only really interested in getting a crack at the drums. It's like being a girl -- you want them to stick to the clitoris, but they just wanna play with the boobies. The boobies are my job. Don't get me wrong, though, I like all types of music (except Country ROTFL). Just be cool and maybe we can smoke some kind bud in my chill-out room. Let me tell you, though, it's hard to get real experimental when you're working with another person, so if he wants to do it again next week (well, do ya?) maybe I'll come an hour earlier or something and do some practicing on my own.