Did you know stuff happened today while you weren't watching?

Aparently business people somehow figured out how to use web browsers. Damnit. That blows my whole plan for taking over capitalist america. Shrug. I have better things to do anyway.

Some conversations today put me into the mood to devise methods to use AIM as securely as possible. I've got a few ideas, but the best and most versatile involves, of course, a working AIM server. Which of course put me back into the aimd mood again. Which of course means scraping a few thousand more lines of code and starting over again. However, after actually working with sizeable modular systems at work has given me some good insight on how these kinds of things should be done. (Isn't that frightening? I have a job that actually helps me. I feel so cheated. I want to be a member of the dissatisfied working force, like everyone else.) So yeah, I'm working and working. This time I'm not going to make the mistake of putting it in CVS before its ready to be seen. You can keep your complaints to yourself for a little longer.

Impressively, nothing much has happened in the past two months. Hmm... 12jul... That was a long time ago.

For one thing, I've decided to take a year off school completely, so as to have better focus next year and go full time. (You know, after I'm a multimillionaire.) Of course, I'll have a lot better prospective about whether I should've gone to school or not once I'm living in my nice spacious cardboard box ["on El Camino and Rengstorff"] with my 32in Wega and stack of VAIOs (complete with flaky screens).

I never did get too far with that rate limiting crap. I haven't been in the mood to make random temporal guesses concerning code that I have no clue how it was supposed to work. I'll leave that to AOL, since I'm sure thats how it was designed.

I have a server set up here at my apartment now (the visionary is paying for the dsl, I might as well use it before he decides to take his stack of servers and run -- considering how long it takes to get DSL installed and working around here, I would guess he'll have a new place to host them within the next one to two years). earth.zigamorph.net. Its duties are currently limited to: running a hacked irc server for some work code (thats not directly related to work at all), running a hacked SOCKS proxy that rewrites some oscar packets from winaim (think "SIGNUP FOR AOL NOW!"), masq'ing my other boxes, and running mfaim for 'midendian'. Its entirely overpowered. But thats the trendy thing to do. And I'm nothing if not trendy, you know.

Well, the mood is gone. Bye.

Business people are fun. They can live their lives with the complete inability to understand whats going on around them. And they don't care. Its great. I want to be like that.

Went to work substantially later than expected (3pm) and fairly much got nothing done. Just like any other day, for the most part. Had discussions with bsuiness people, and the local visionary.

I have a little test client running at work now that is just sending messages until the rate number goes below 4000. It then waits 30sec and continues. Thats a very rough approximation of the rate system. I tried going down to 3000, but that wasn't good. We'll see. I definitly need to tighten up the values a bit. Probably can go down to 15sec pause between bursts. Also need to try spreading the messages out evenly instead of bursing them (but that would've taken longer than five minutes to implement). It was running for 15min before I left. Hopefully it stays up all night. (Actually I dont think my implementation was completely correct either. It was sending to an echo SN, so it was recieving too. Ooops. That breaks my timing algo. Oh well. I'll fix it tomorrow.)

Valkommen Yak!

Erm. Its PDT isn't it. Oops. Oh well. I'm not going back and changing them.

I hate visionaries. I think they should where hats denoting their trade and intention. It seems like every time I talk to one, I end up rewriting Large Amounts of Code.

I'm sure I had something to say.

It was one of those days that you just run around thinking you see large insects everywhere. And then you see that they're people and end up even more frightened.

Woke up at 1400. Fixed some random code in libfaim. Went to one of the best Chinese places I've been yet over on castro. (I should know. I've been to several dozen of them in the past two months.) Then went to work and fiddled with the AIM rate limits. Nothing conclusive.

Basically, theres this number. It starts out at 5000 when you login. If you send a message, it goes down. If you're idle, it increases. If you send lots of messages without being real idle in between, the number decreases rather quickly (but seemingly linearly, for the most part!) and eventually you'll get kicked off (winaim keeps you from getting this far; mfaim will let you if you disable the forced latency). So, I guess we just have to figure out how to connect that number to the real world (ie, in non-arbitrary units of time). For another day.

Work got crowded (lots of people work on sundays). Came back here. Wasting time. Realized that I should probably never update my "home" page, since that one has served me well. It's gotten me two jobs so far. Its irrelevent that it hasnt been really touched in two years. (I know it says may 99, but all I did then was update my email address.)

Saying "last two months" above was rather odd. In case you haven't noticed, I have a rather disorient(ed/ing) sense of time. And its only gotten worse the "last two months". I had to sit and think for a bit how long its actually been. Since all that stuff happened so many months ago. Lots of it happened. And yet none of it seems to affect me now. It only served to get me here. And this only serves to get me somewhere else, I suppose.

Or perhaps I'm just getting flooded with new and old concepts without paying attention and really just need a vacation. I can do that these days. That is, not pay attention. I'm much better at it than I was before. I used to pretend I could. But now I think I can. I can compleatly block out things I don't want to remember. The only remaining flaw is that they rush back at me for no aparent reason several weeks or months onward.

I got a cd of Pictures at an Exhibition. I keep playing it over and over again. Ican't decide whether I really enjoy it or whether I'm just trying to replay sophomore year. Perhaps both.

Be happy josh. I'm staring at your patch. You need to get better inet service so I can yell at you.

The Great Trout is staring at me through my transparent Eterms.

I should read 1984 again just to make myself miserable. ("It's my favorite book!" -- Kim. Bah. Make me stop thinking about high school.)

Window focus should follow my eyes, damnit.

[07:33:09] Tujicat1: whatcha doing?
[07:33:36] midendian: you should learn to stop asking that.
[07:33:59] Tujicat1: why?
[07:34:35] midendian: so i dont have to keep coming up with ansers.
[07:35:24] Tujicat1: now ill do it extra
[07:36:08] midendian: so you can get even worse answers just more often?
[07:37:05] Tujicat1: yes
[07:37:11] midendian: that makes lots of sense
[07:39:52] Tujicat1: it makes so much sense that it drives you insane!
[07:40:39] midendian: no, i was being sarcastic.
[07:40:58] Tujicat1: were you? or were you being so real that you are sarcastic?


The question is: was she being sarcastic?

Its now 0430. You need to know that.

I slept twelve hours yesterday. I was tired again within an hour. I'm still tired. I've been avoiding sleeping since. Doing that would only make it worse. I'm going to have to give in soon. I've run out of resources for doing what I want to do (libfaim sniffing stuff...I don't have any hubs here...sniffing not possible).

In any case, I just commited my interpretation of josh's initial directim/rendezvous patch. Theres still problems. Need to talk them out.

I suppose I should mention some of the things I've been thinking about lately.

The most important is probably the beginning to the end of the uneasiness I mentioned in the first entry this month. About school, and leaving here.

My second-tier-up boss took me to dinner on Friday with his kids, after he got back from the NY offices the day before. Mentioned the board wants to keep me on full time, and is willing to do a fair lot to keep me here. He mentions this without me even discussing it with him, or anyone.

Basially, they want to keep me here and probably go to Stanford part-time, paid for by the company. Thats distilling it a bit, and that doesn't sound all that great. But it is great. Because it for the most part solves my problem. And I'm really really considering it. I'm waiting for a real-offer from the board at this point. If its good, I'll stay out here for a year or so. If I decide I hate it beyond belief here, then I'll just go to CU next year. And assuming I'm still working here, that'll be paid for by the company as well. (I should vest by then, btw. But thats irrelevent.)

Thats all I should probably talk about. The rest you'll hear about when theres a press release about it :)

'Aye' is now my word. That is all. I don't feel like writing. Though I probably should.

Its really 0401. I should really fix that.

So after I got done with that adventure, I ran off to LLNL. Where I was handed an ASCI propaganda CD-ROM ("the nuclear test ban treaty is so restrictive..."). And looked at ASCI White through LCD windows (the question is whether the image on them was really transparent glass or actually computer-generated imagery of people pretending to tour the system...), pondered at a curious model of the beast, and listened to someone with the last name of Zero (he had a neat accent too). Learned a bit about IBM. And White.

The main thing that impressed me was its nonimpressiveness. Each node is less powerful than many of the newer RS/6000 workstations. POWER4 has been out for a while now, yet White uses only a 370mhz POWER3's. The only thing at all intriguing is the interconnects, which is all thats usually interesting in clusters anyway. Which is why I'm so bothered. Its not a supercomputer. Its just a lot of well-connected workstations. Sigh. The age of Crays is over, I suppose.

I probably wasn't supposed to mention that. But oh well. I dont think I said anything that wasn't in a press release somewhere. And I didn't sign anything. (But they were all amazed that I don't have to renew my drivers license until 2042. And I stole my visitors badge.)

My feet are black. I suppose I should wear shoes someday. Shrug. (I made nice footprints on the wall at the office. I wish I had my camera with me. So I could thrill you all to death with some more of my godly photographic skills.)

After I got back from LLNL (and taking pictures of the lumpy version of Kansas), I came home and slept for several hours. Got up for several hours early int he morning and then went to bed, after having yet another lovely chat with the socialistwonder (because youknowwho was avoiding me).

Went to work for several hours. Discussed some great hacks with the operations guys. Came home for a bit. Then went back and did lots of bug fixing and things to prepare for a first life-like trial of all platform pieces tomorrow. Commited to CVS and ran away before anything broke.

Nothing terribly interesting the past few days. The LLNL trip was intriguing, but nothing I can pin down. I think the work environment over ther would be quite nice. Much nicer than here. But I will never work for a government facility, for obvious reason. And if they weren't a government facility, I'm sure it would be no different than here. Thats enough of that thought.

Gah. dt's clock is off aparently. Its actually 0649 according to SprintPCS.

Aparently I'm making a trend out of never sleeping on tuesdays. Last week, I stayed up from midday monday to late tuesday. Aparently I'm doing that again today. Things always come up on tuesdays lately. Last week it was lunch with the CEO, and this week I'm going to LLNL (ssh dont tell).

I was woken up at 1330 yesterday afternoon by my immediate boss. Problems. I get up and drive over there. They went out to lunch. Oops. So I royally made a mess of things, and then we all spent the next three hours getting our thoughts synced up about how things should procede if that happens again (unfortunatly that doesn't include me not getting woken up again). I love formal employment. Heh. It turned out to be the monday I expected. Quite unproductive. It just started an hour or two earlier than I'd planned.

Stayed up all night mucking around and furthering my productive morning. About 0530 I got bored and went out into the darkness of the dawn for an adventure. And then mandie fell asleep.

Orangina as I found out about 0400 is a great source for a short bout of energy. Its 86% sugar and 2% pulp. They also mention juice or something, but you cant taste that. Its basically a combination of orange soda, mtndew, and a really horribly bitter aftertaste (in that order, its a time release thing). Anyway, I was amused. And I'm glad someone left a case in my fridge.

Expensive cameras are real fun when you're bored. Perhaps not as much so for the people who have to listen to you. But thats their problem.

Yet more exciting days in the life of Me. I'll actually write about them since I'm sure you've been pining away for more of my wonderful daily activity notifications.

Aparently went to bed sometime after I wrote that on Saturday morning. Hell if I remember now. Slept til 1600 and then got up and wasted an abundence of time for no aparent reason.

Oggle my feet. (Aren't you all glad I'm making good use of my new digial camera?)

Went to work around midnight. I figured since I didn't really do anything on Friday but stare at the monitor for three hours and then go eat some strange concauction the waiter at the chinese restraunt said I would love (it nearly made me vomit). Worked til six or so and then came home to bed. Got lots of stuff done.

I have a real hard time working in an office with people moving around all the time. Its really distracting. I'm accustomed to doing all my hacking where I get to choose what distracts me. But at work there's always people bugging me about something and when they're not explicitly bugging me, they're moving about in ways that are quite distracting. So I've been avoiding them a lot. I haven't been going in to work until around 1500 on weekdays. So I still see them enough to have meetings and things (those are always late in the day anyway) but not so early that I have to sit there and be distracted all day. So I work all night and get more done than I would otherwise. Its just that last week I had various things I had to do during the day and it didn't work out. I basically got done this weekend what I should've had done last tuesday or so. Offices are horrible. And for the most part, there is little gain in me going for more than a few hours a day. And even that much is questionable on many days.

Anyway, woke up about 1500 again today, wasted lots of time once again (after having a long chat with the socialistwonder) , and then ran away to work at 1800. Got home about 0130, after a nother productive "day" of hacking.

I came home to be really bored once again and now I'm watching that stupid Big Brother thing. Its fairly boring. But its a nice replacement for a teevee? Not really. Its like talk radio for the common people. (I didn't say that. Really.) The video isn't bad over DSL either. Heh.

This is fun isn't it? I haven't done this in ages. Sitting here having nothing better to do than write about how I have nothing better to do. At least I'm not alone. (I cannot throw in enough gratuitous links to mousetrout.org.) You must worship that hooked fish too. He's your savior and your martyr. (He's the new desktop background on all my machines at work. He's my hero.)

The socialistwonder should hurry up and make a site before I'm forced to do something like "eat her alive". Hah.

Yay. It reminds me of mcdonalds orange drink. (But don't spill it.)

Its third-past-july now. You should know that. I just discovered it. I feel the need to share.

I'm feeling the need to stay up for 250hrs. Won't you join me? Yes, both of you. (We should all watch python for hours on end instead of sleeping.)

I have nothing to write about. Aren't you glad?

Someone named Adam Fritzler (suspicious name) tried to squat mousetrout.org. Luckily I tricked them out of it and then found nothing to do with a domain like mousetrout.org. So I gave it to mandie. Watch out for sheep.

I've been running around california working and wasting time (often simultanously) for the past month. Quite entertaining. I'm really having a hard time thinking about giving it up. I don't really want to stay here. But college looks like a bit of a step backwards when you look at it from my current perspective. I didn't think I would like it this much. Sigh. And the administrivia of getting the college thing going isn't helping the matters any. CU isn't exactly streamlined in their administrative procedures.

I'm all out of really good reasons to go to school. Its definitly not a financial issue anymore. And I could probably get quite decent jobs for at least another year or so if I stayed here. (They'd have to be quite decent; cost of living out here is horrible.) But where do I go if, say the instant messaging market dies quicker than everyone expects? Or there's a major paradigmical change in the industry that no one saw coming?

I think a degree is the best option available to stabilize my job opprotunities. But short term, its not much. Its less freedom than I have now. Its less income (negative income, actually). And its generally not-where-I-really-want-to-be-right-now.

I'm not sure its adequatly explainable as a 'step backward'. Its just a really odd feeling. Its like I've stepped out of my old life for three months only so I can be doomed toreturn to it. The CEO was out on this coast for a few days this week. He asked me about school, general chat. And then he posed a very good question: "Which is reality: this, or school?" That very much describes the situation. When I go back to school, will it feel like I do now -- like I'm once again temporarily stepping out of a former life? Only this time the former life is probably a better one?

Its all rather confusing. The same things I was saying about coming here ("go for a while and see what its like") I'm now saying about college. Only I'm not sure that will end up as well. Living out here just seems to..fit me now. I'm not sure I can adapt again. I've never liked living in arizona. Perhaps me liking it more here is merely because I needed something to like.

Oh well.

Theres a small website up for our comapny: nerds.com. The only thing even minorly interesting is the press release.

I also have put up various random pictures of my apartment, office, and my neihbors TV antenna, up here. Please remind me when I'm back in peoria to take a picture of The Fan.

Threo and twentig, threo and twentig. How can oneperson write so much over just a few years? "I wonder if the stress of being alive is starting to get to me." (27nov1999)