StumbleUpon | atevin's blog posts

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/8198561/

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:48:24 -0800

I think it's kind of entertaining how this page has degraded into some sort of obscure talk about olestra and looks suspiciously like spam. Apparently importing my del.icio.us bookmarks that I was using solely as a tool to do a chemistry project was an extremely bad idea.

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/598374/

Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:26:28 -0800

Christmas is kind of depressing - the rampant commercialism really kills the spirit of the holidays, and stressing over getting presents for people really sucks - it's quite disheartening to walk into stores and just let the salespeople sell you stuff and give presents you put no thought into out of simple obligation, and having people do the same to you...
It'd be so much easier and more fun to just make people something cool, or write them cards to show you care, and all get together and talk happily together, or give people small gifts of appreciation... there's a feeling that you /have to get everyone something, it's a nice thing to do, but being forced to do nice things doesn't work so well
... bah, humbug

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/304373/

Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:02:22 -0700

sigh, starting school
they're going to make me friggin' work...
so much for slacker life
can't be a good sign when the prof teaches the first day

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/245261/

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:27:50 -0700

*pause* hey, what happened? There're like, totally, weird things I didn't have before. Dude! hey, my audience metre's GREEN, of all crazy things... it sure wasn't like this earlier today. Okay, someone tell me how the hell I'm supposed to figure out who sponsored me so I can set up an altar to them in my backyard! NOW!

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/237310/

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:20:36 -0700

well, taking suggestion, I grabbed some free webhosting and Wordpress and put together a blog (as yet under construction)... copying all the random blather here over to there
EDIT: doesn't seem to be working at the moment... not a good sign

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/237095/

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 10:44:21 -0700

so-called ever-capitalized non-42 Meaning Of Life - So, let's say we live to propagate the species, and die. Depressing thought, sure, maybe that's a reason people look for religion and stuff. People seem to get all obsessed with stuff like politics and wars and pop culture and crap, worry about stuff a lot, when absolutely nothing really matters - why get all tangled up with all this when it's meaningless? We say we've progressed, made it so we can make more people and live longer, dominating as much as we can. Sure, I can sit here with my computer and ramble aimlessly about pseudo-(philosophy or metaphysics) or whatever, because we invented language and reading and stuff instead of sitting in the middle of the desert somewhere in the middle of the night and maybe, just maybe, wondering aimlessly why the gods painted those lights in the sky. Progress? Well, the guy sitting in the desert could see the stars a hell of a lot better without all the pollution, but I can find out how many light-years away they are...

But the has-the-human-race-progressed in the last hundred/thousand/million years argument's hard to resolve, and somewhat pointless - we're here now, and if crave non-technology, go to Africa or something. What I was trying to get at was that I find it somewhat ironic that we all try to figure out what we're doing here, and maybe say it's all meaningless and if we commited mass suicide it wouldn't make a difference - but meaningless stupid pointless life's all we've got, and it's kinda self-defeating to use it to prove its lack of worth, no? Just take it as a given and run with it...

On second thought - I guess that's what most people do anyway...

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/234841/

Fri, 16 Jul 2004 16:32:08 -0700

Gripe: I hate it when a webpage, claiming to be able to "read your mind", asks you to choose a number between 1 and 10 and tells you you thought 7. Obviously based on the assumption that people pick 7 because it's the most random-seeming number, it's prime, odd, and all that.

Tangent: The game rock, paper, scissors is an interesting exercise in (rudimentary) psychology - trying to see what the other person might be thinking, and staying one step ahead. One of those games it's equally difficult to win as lose at - trying to control the outcome either way. Mainly used, it seems, as a randomizer if a coin's not available to flip - I wonder if anyone's worked with it.

Rant: Gambling-idea (of slot machines/lottery more than poker)'s annoying - it seems odd that the government runs lotteries, promotes them, (some refer to it as a stupid tax) - I suppose it's the idea that you'll "beat the system", win, though logically it's obvious that if the system existed for you to win, they wouldn't make any money, so playing any game on a large scale necessarily/statistically involves you losing.
I can't stand how the government (or whoever decides stuff) has this idea that people need to be protected from themselves - no, don't let them do drugs, let's punish them for it! Can't let people make their own decisions, they might hurt themselves, must protect them.
I hate statistics

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/234606/

Fri, 16 Jul 2004 13:26:50 -0700

Thought of the day: Reading SE Hinton's The Outsiders yesterday. Considering thought itself, something I do too much - just thinking about random stuff for the sake of thinking, messing with ideas, the previously mentioned term "mental masturbation". Comparing this to other people, who don't particularly care for thought as they have better things to do, like living instead of sitting in front of a computer compiling abstract thoughts about the small subset of life that I've experienced. Perhaps it's better to spend less time theorising, more time doing

I just glanced out the window and saw a woman crossing the street. Coincidentally, I used to take the same bus as her at this time, if school were still around I would be walking in the door at this very moment, judging by her presence. Surprised that people are still working, living, while I live in a netherworld of being not entirely sure what day it is, the days meld together in the monotony of summer.

I'll have to work in the summer too, soon... no more freedom Tangent: I wonder when people stop asking you "What do you want to be when you grow up?", when the transition from waiting to grow up and being grown up is.

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/232708/

Thu, 15 Jul 2004 11:54:32 -0700

I had a thought yesterday - listening to a particularly ubiquitous song, the lyrics of which could be interpreted in any way the listener chose, considered songs. Now, my enjoyment of a song (being no great aficionado of music and oblivious to the distinction between "good" music and "bad") is generally dependent on how well it relates to my state of mind at the time.
Of course, lyrics tend to be always somewhat open to interpretation, and it's always fun to interpret them selectively so that they relate to one's own life. Now it's time for a sporadic tangential rant, only vaguely connected to this. I thought, just maybe, this could also be applied to more sacred writings, which can also tend to be occasionally oblique, people tend to pick and choose among chapters and verses to support their point of view or system of belief. Not only in arguments, but internally also - choose to selectively ignore those portions (I speak mainly of the Bible here) which make little sense or are particularly difficult to rationalise and pay more attention to those which are easier to swallow.

Suppose that's obvious, though.

In other news, the ever-dreaded/anticipated/capitalized Ministry of Education Final Report Card arrived in the mail today. Relieved to discover that I hadn't spectactularly failed anything, and mostly got fairly decent marks, mostly nineties in the sciences and lesser marks in the other subjects. I experienced some trepidation upon encountering a column abruptly named "CEN", with some disconcertingly low numbers in it. Upon further examination, I discovered that this was, in fact, the percentile measure (that is, what percentage of people did worse than you). That ominous 4 cleared up - apparently my skill at speaking the french language is worse than I thought it was, found amusing. Regardless, I passed the segment (albeit with lowest mark possible), and now am happily utterly rid of the horror/wondrous slackerdom they call high school (as previously mentioned in an overly dramatic end-of-the-year post).

http://atevin.stumbleupon.com/review/228704/

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 09:50:16 -0700

Hello stumble... I'm inclined to wonder if anyone's actually reading this after my likely unnoticed (after all, I'm hardly elite stumbler material) absence, as my "audience" has dwindled to a fraction of its former value.
Essentially, as the stumble extension didn't seem to be available for 0.9 until recently, I did without stumble and discovered an amazing new (in the to me sense) site called blather It describes itself as "blather is words. bunches of words, strewn about in a twisty tangly web of pontification, insight and nonsensical delight." Anyway, it's highly addictive, you should really check it out. Yes, you. Now.

Much of it, its detractors say, merely mental masturbation or depressed poets moaning about how terrible their lives are, but there are flashes of insight and breathtaking beauty - blather is beautiful. Life in blue... yes.

(EDIT: audience has now tripled or so - I wonder...)