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| I found a cool classical music station that I like to listen to at work now. It keeps me unbored, which is always a plus. I have hardly any trouble with falling asleep when I listen to it. The only problems that listening to this station provides is that it is out of North Carolina, so the time that it gives is an hour ahead of the actual time (where I am, if you count GMT as the "actual time" then it's four hours behind) and so I start getting hungry an hour earlier than usual. Also, the weather reports for North Caronlina aren't exactly all that useful for me. Apparently they're getting a lot more rain there than we are here though. They're always talking about thunderstorms and rain and stuff. But it's got very good music, and it has quite good quality. Quite frequently, radio stations that I listen to over the internet have that kind of really high distortion that makes it not sound as good, but this has no such stuff, because they recently upgraded so that it'd be better. Even though the announcers are really boring most of the time, it actually has some interesting tidbits when they talk about the history behind some of the music. Like I learned that Haydn's "Farewell Symphony" was written when he and the other people working in the same court hadn't gotten a vacation in a long time and it was a not so subtle hint to their employer. I also learned that Beethoven could not stand dishonesty and fired one of his maids because she told a little fib in order to protect his feelings. He apparently said something to the effect of that she wasn't of pure heart and thus could not make pure soup. I thought it was funey. The other funny thing is all of the little comercials that they put in for their own station which are like..."we spend a LOT of money getting this station to every corner of the globe through radio, internet streaming, cable, and satellite, so give us money or your old cars." Fortunately, those are spread out enough that they're amusing instead of annoying. But if you want to listen to it, doubtful though that may be, you can go to http://www.theclassicalstation.org and listen. It's really quite good. They vary the music a lot (I mean...it's still all classical...but they go through all of the periods quite nicely even within a one hour time slot, so if you just can't stand baroque music, then you're sure to hear something else relatively soon) and there's not much in the way of talking.
That definitely helps me get work done on the wonderful sequencer. I actually got to like...test my version of the sequencer today! It was SOOOOOO COOL! I did the development sort of compile so that it showed up on the Z page (the page for testing your programs) and tried it out with my boss. Of course, every single thing that he tried didn't work the first time, so he would go back to his office while I fixed the stupid little problems like trying to execute a table instead of executing a stored procedure or giving one of my functions the wrong variable or something like that and then I'd come get him and he'd find the next problem. I felt all special when it all finally worked. But it's kind of looking like I might actually have to write all of the code for reading from the database before I really get to release my version of the sequencer. Ah well, more work before people get to try out the fruits of my labor, and spit out the foul taste. | | |
| Well, I played at that organ thingy last friday. That was very fune. I enjoyed it lots. Everyone was all like "wow...that was really good, have you really only played the organ for one year" and I was like, "yes, can I leave now?" except more polite. And without asking whether I could leave. But I got the recording today, and it was not half as good as I thought it would be. I was very disappointed. Maybe I'm just listening with too critical an ear, but when my mom said "I didn't hear any mistakes this time", I thought that meant that the mistakes weren't blatantly obvious. Last time that I make that assumption... The mistakes were quite blatant. It sounded alright, but it was nothing to drool over. I guess it's just because I have, in fact, only played the organ for a year. 
But on a brighter note than all of those wrong ones, I saw a really good play yesterday. 'Tmade me happy! 'Twas very funey, too. It was "City of Angels" and it was about a writer writing a movie and having to deal with the director who wanted to change everything. Throughout, you had the real life scenes intermixed with scenes from the movie that he was writing. It was really cool the way that it was done as everyone except the writer and the main character of the movie had two different characters to play. Some of them were like...whatshisname and the actor who plays whatshisname, but some of them were actually people in the story that had been based upon their character in real life. I really liked the parts when part of a scene in the movie was done, and then you'd hear backspacing and the people would move backwards and say all of their words backwards (the words were still forwards, but they were going backwards...if that makes any sense...like "my little brother is satan" turned into "satan is brother little my" as opposed to "natas si rehtorb elttil ym"). Those parts were funny when the writer would make changes. But probably the best part of the entire thing was the conductor's mustache. He had one of those curly, villain mustaches. It was SO COOL! I don't think I've ever seen one like that before in real life! It just made my day. The other thing that made my day was navigating through chicago with Kel and Kristen. On the way there, I was the person in the front seat designated to sit there and be scared that we were all going to die. On the way back, I got to be the person who sat in the back and found Kristen's water bottle. I suggested that perhaps we should have brought someone with us who could actually navigate, but they said it was more fun the way we did it. I'd have to agree.
And right now I'm listening to the end of the world! Right now all of the martyrs are like "when are you going to smite everyone? we're impatient, we've waited SO LONG!" and God's like "Geez...calm down, I'll get to it!" Perhaps my German isn't so good, let's see what the translation in here says that God says: "Rest yet and wait a while until it shall be fulfilled that all your brethrdn and fellow servants also shall come to you and as ye were, shall be killed. Then will I judge and avenge your blood on those men that dwell on earth, those men that have sinned against you! Rest yet, and wait a while!" Yeah, I was pretty close. I found another recording at the library of "Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln" (The Book With Seven Seals) and am listening to it. It's a very cool work, you should listen to it, and more importantly, you should like it a lot. I especially like when God actuallly does get to smiting everyone. You can just hear everyone running around panicking in the music.
Yeah, well, I guess that's all I have to say. Actually...it's significantly more than I had to say. But the point is that I am done now. | | |
| WHEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 My sister turned 21! She's REALLY REALLY old now. But she got champagne for her birthday. I thought that was funey. But more importantly, she got brownie cheesecake for her birthday. While I don't think I'll be getting any of the champagne, I definitely got some of the cheesecake. It was REALLY good. It was yumster in the tumster. I like cheesecake. I want more, but I can't have any more, we ate it all. So that's why I can't have any more. I can't eat what's not there. I also got a book for her birthday. My birthday was only like a month ago, but I got a book for my sister's birthday. Go figure. Once you get back though, I can explain why I got a book for her birthday. It was because my mom got my sister books for her birthday and saw this one that just looked like me. So that's what I got. It's an interesting book. It's called "Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts" and it's about...the philosophy in Harry Potter. The annoying thing is that it's like reading history papers that I wrote at IMSA. I mean...it REALLY strongly reminds me of english and history papers that I've written with the quotes from the book all centered around particular places because those were the only places that I could find evidence et cetera. But once I get past that (with much difficulty...) I see that it is actually pretty interesting stuff. The latest little chaptery thing that I read gave me a lot to think about. I think it may have changed my world view significantly, but I can't tell yet. We'll see what I think (if, indeed, I think anything at all) tomorrow when I wake up. I should probably finish the chapter too. But it's an interesting book, even if some of it reminds me of my own writing style a little too much. I think all of the chapters are by different people, so not all of them are as bad as the others. But this one, just with the way it quoted and the way that it restated its point about like...seventeen different ways and all that. It was like...I could TOTALLY have been the one to write it. I probably couldn't do anything like that if I tried, but it just seemed like it. Well, that's all. Bye bye! | | |
| YAY! I finished my program! It actually graphs stuff like I wanted it to. It's kind of slow...and I'm not exactly an expert at it yet, but here are my first trials. I, of course, graphed the normal mandlebrot set, and two other ones that are similar which I'm not sure of the names of. I think they might fall into the Julia thingies, but I'm not sure.
That's the normal one that you always see.
And then I have one more.
So these are just screen shots, but the program actually graphs them. And the coolest thing, in my opinion, which probably doesn't seem at all cool to anyone else, is that when you resize the window, it resizes the graph. (So...the bigger the window, the longer it takes to graph...) It doesn't just keep it the same size and add more green. I don't know...I was impressed when I figured out how to do that. Using java.awt is NOT EASY. It's not AT ALL intuitive. And when I first made a graph of just a rectangle, I pressed the close button when I was done, and nothing happened. It was because I hadn't loaded the package that had the window event listener or whatever in it. So it didn't realize when the close button had been hit, so it just didn't do anything. Now, I managed to get it to quit the program when the window closes, which was harder than one would've thought. I had to overwrite a method and blah blah blah. But it's fun. I'm gonna see if I can make it any cooler though. See if I can figure out how to make it any faster too...although I'm not sure if I can. I hope I can, because it takes about like...8 or so seconds in order to draw them when I maximize the window. And I think it's just because it draws them pixel by pixel. But I don't know any other way to draw it. Well whatever, I think they're pretty. | | |
| Well I've been trying to teach myself java again. And while most of it comes back pretty easily, there are just some things that don't make sense... The java class library for instance...definitely doesn't make sense once you get into any of the very complicated classes. All of the classes referring to each other and referring back to themselves. And all of the abstract classes that you have to find some way to make anyway... It just really doesn't make me happy. Every time I think I've gotten to the bottom level and I've finally found the class or method I need in order to make ALL of the other ones that I wanted, I find that that the class is abstract or the method takes as an argument some class that I needed the method to make. It's just very confusing, and I wonder how anyone gets anything done with all of this. But I'm persevering. I WILL get to the bottom of this. And I will show y'all the pretty picture that I draw. Obviously won't be the most creative picture, but it will be a picture, and it will have been all my own making.
Also having to do with programming, since that seems to be all that I do lately, I am getting to break the sequencer at Fermilab now. I think I've finally finished with the program that will load all of the data from the filesharing files and into the database. So now I'm changing the code of the sequencer so that it will not only write to the filesharing files when aggregates or commands of the sequencer are changed, but also the database. It's kind of scary becasue this is like the programmer that controls ALL OF THE ACCELERATORS. I mean, I knew I would be doing this eventually, but it just seems like when I'm actually doing it that there's this heretofore unnoticed element of fear that had not previously been there. It's like...what if my part of the program just fails in unexpected ways and all of the people using the sequencer come and magically transport me to some far away land where I have to fight for my feet due to the fact that they were somehow detached when I got there and are being stolen by giant foot-eating umbrellas that can fly due to the random and completely unexpected volcanic explosions which cause large updrafts which the umbrellas use to hoist themselves into the air before I can get my feet back and even though they can only fly like 10 feet in the air, I can't get them because I can't jump because I have no feet? I mean, it's not completely beyond the realm of possibility is it? Alright, so maybe my fears are a LITTLE unjustified, but those operators, they're evil, or so I've always assumed. I mean, just look at the name. Operator. The only kinds of operators I know much about are binary operators like you use in abstract algebra. And those are DEFINITELY evil. Ask any math textbook and it will definitely agree with me. No doubt about it. Even if the math textbook is about um...geometry, which, as far as I can tell, only uses binary operators when it uses algebra, which, if it were a true geometry book, it would never do. But maybe the operators at Fermilab aren't evil like binary operators. I guess my dad used to be an operator like...forever ago (actually, more like 30 years, but that's still a REALLY LONG TIME). And he's not overly evil now, but he's had quite a few years and two children to get that out of him. So I'm not convinced of this operators not being evil thing, but maybe you're right.
Alright, that's all for now, I'll make sure to put my pretty picture on here once I've finished it. | | |
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