Linkstew

Damnit, now I'm even more irritated about being too busy to attend SXSW... Not only am I going to miss out on hanging out with all those fun folk, and not only am I going to miss out on Kevin hosting Iron Webmaster... but I'm going to miss out on Gigantic, the documentary about They Might Be Giants, being premiered then and there.

Wait, it's worse than that! They'll be playing in Austin on the 13th, too!

Gah, stupid busiest semester ever!

Anyway, check out the Gigantic web site -- there's a trailer, and the overlapping silhouettes of John and John is pretty slick. According to theymightbegiants.com, Gigantic is supposed to be released on DVD, which will be nice, because the last thing I want is yet another VHS tape... I'd like to see a re-release of Direct From Brooklyn on DVD or inclusion of all the music videos on the Gigantic DVD while they're at it, but I can't have everything.

Pardon the silence, but last night, when I had intended to be doing my 188 homework, I suddenly got mysteriously sick, and huddled under my covers alternately shivering and sweating. And I stayed there, with a wicked headache and drinking water and too cold and too hot and feverish, for the better part of 18 hours.

And so not only did I not work on my 188 homework, but I missed my first folklore lecture all semester. Let alone was I feeling up to updating the sites.

I feel like I just lost a day. I effectively did. Though I've been up since 2 today, I've just been sitting in bed in a daze.

But tonight, despite a still lingering headache and fever, I've got to do the 188 homework.

The upshot of all this is that I just found out that the 188 midterm got pushed back from this Friday to next Wednesday. Woohoo!

So uh, more later, when I'm not busy and delirious.

Not only am I suffering writers block, but apparently I'm also kind of busy.

1. cs 170 homework due Wednesday at 4pm.
2. anthro 160 midterm Thursday at 2pm.
3. cs 9e assignments due Friday afternoon.
4. cs 170 homework due next Monday at 4pm.
5. cs 188 homework due next Wednesday at 10 am.
6. cs 188 midterm next Friday at 10 am.
7. more cs 9e assignments and quizzes next friday afternoon.
8. cs 170 homework due next next Monday...

Basically, I've got at least one thing due every other day for the next two weeks (and I haven't even looked beyond that, so who know's what's lurking out there...), not even counting work.

And yet, looking at me right now, you'd never know it. It's almost 2 am and I haven't started the 170 that's due in 14 hours. Though to my credit, I have started studying for the folklore midterm, but that's not worth much, since I've already been to every lecture in the class, and I've already done about half the reading.

I've been going through this semester with my eyes closed, doing as little as possible to get by. I've been lethargic and apathetic and unmotivated and generally lazy. And this applies to not only school, but also to work, and even to the sites.

Translation: I now have more excuses than just "I'm a lazy bum" for not writing a good update.

So yes, it really is 7 am, and no, I haven't slept yet, and yes, I just worked 15 hours straight (I ate dinner while working), and yes, I just got home. The project is live, but it's only maybe 90% ready -- but we always constantly tweak things for a week or two after putting them live anyway. No, you don't have a clue what project I'm talking about, and no, I'm not in the mood to talk about it any more right now. I really want to sleep in a nice warm soft bed.

It's interesting that the more tired I get, the mroe cold gets to me. This morning, as I walked home in the chilly dawn air, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering and my body was shaking in all kinds of crazy ways. But now I'm inside, and the thought of bed just sounds so appealing...

Hopefully I don't have a repeat of the dream I had last night, because it was very disgusting. And count your blessings that I'm not going to tell you about all the slimy details of that dream that are now burned into my head.

School starts tomorrow, which is moderately confusing because for the last three years classes have started on a Tuesday. But then I'm confused back in the other direction when I remember that I don't have any classes on Monday, and I don't start on Tuesday until 2 pm.

I just did my time sheet today, and I worked more than 60 hours a week for three weeks in a row. Somehow I've managed to delude myself into believing that I'll be less busy once classes start. But considering that 60 hours is three quarters of what I'm supposed to work in an entire month during the school year, it might just be true.

And I'm only taking 13 units, which will be the lightest class schedule I've had since my first semester at Berkeley. I'm taking CS 188 and CS 170 for my major, Anthropology 160 (Folklore) because it sounds interesting, and CS 9E because I needed a one unit class for my scholarship. CS 9E is "Productive use of a unix environment," and considering that I'm only productive with unix at my fingertips, it ought to be an easy unit, at that.

Why do I need that magical 13th unit? For my scholarship. And considering that this is the first semester I'm getting anything more than a measly $500 stipend, I'm not about to risk it by trying to petition to take only 12 units. Speaking of my scholarship, the check came in the mail on Wednesday, and so I actually bought a few books yesterday.

I'm kind of looking forward to 170 and 188, to get new ideas about things I can do with all the information in the stew, and new ways to do it more efficiently. And I'm kind of looking forward to Anthro 160, because I've heard good things about it, and folklore interests me.

And yes, I'm very, very bitter that I can't into CS 160.

I've been working insane hours at work, and I needed a break from all the coding I've been doing, so tonight I rebuilt Linkstew using Kevin's Furynodes. Yes, coding this site actually is a break from coding for work. I pretty much threw away all of the old Linkstew code, which is kind of depressing, but also huge a relief. Cricky, the old Linkstew was so broken.

Yes, some features from the old version are still missing. But with Furynodes, they'll be real easy for me to add back in at a later date, and they'll work better than before. And I've got plans to display even more metadata for The Stew, including related categories when viewing a category. But in place of the temporarily missing features, you get comments! Woohoo!

I know it doesn't look shiny and new, but it really is. But I basically just recreated the old look and feel, so I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to make the page more usable.

Also, it seems to me like the whole page is running slowly. But I've been having net issues all night, so could y'all tell me if the page feels slow(er)? Or is it just me?

Wow, I've been keeping myself so busy that I haven't even been reading any of the sites I read regularly, let alone have I had time to write. I guess I'm just trying to get this out of my system before I have to go back to school in a week and a half. Ugh... I need to buy books, and clean my apartment for my new roommate, on and on.

While taking a break from studying for the evening, I tweaked a few things on the site. First, I changed the colors of the dots, so that posts that are one day old are purple, two days are now orange, and three and beyond are all yellow. This way, there's a dot for every entry, because clicking on the dot gets you into the stew.

Second, I changed the date navigation bar so that it uses less than half as much space as it once did, which is good, considering just how much of it there is. When I did that, though, I noticed I didn't post anything for like two and a half months. And I don't even remember taking that break. I guess I took the Death of Bungie pretty hard, since it was the last thing I posted in June before I disappeared.

So let's see, off the top of my head, what I was I doing during that time? Well, for starters, I went to Anime Expo in early July. And I was programming full time at work. And I was working part time grading papers and projects for CS 61A. Oh Yeah, and I went to Washington to visit my Grandma.

So apparently, working 60+ hours a week is enough to keep me from updating... I'll keep that in mind.

I had a final on Friday, but it was trivial. Next week is the killer... Off the top of my head, here's the run down:

• Monday 12:30-3:30 - Psych 117 Final
• Wednesday 3:30-5 - CS 164 Review
• Wednesday 4-6 - Ling 100 Review
• Friday 12:30-3:30 - CS 164 Final
• Friday 1-3 - Ling 100 Review
• Friday 5-8 - Ling 100 Final

Now, if you're observant, you might notice a few problems with that schedule, all of which involve Linguistics. First of all, there's the fact that both of the Ling review sessions overlap with other events -- and one of those events would be a little tricky for me to get out of. Second, those ling review sessions were scheduled more than a week ago -- With that much time, you'd think that they could find a time to have a review session other than four hours before the final... Oh well, whatever. I'll be done in a week, but in the mean time, you now know why if I suddenly drop off the face of the earth.

In a vain effort to do anything but think after finishing turning in my compiler last night, I just spent four hours cleaning up my apartment. I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom counters, cleaned off the surface of the stove, swept the floor, cleaned the sinks, and even worked at the mold on my bathroom ceiling a little, because nothing has been done about any of that in like, four or five months. I've just been too busy to think about it. But now, with my compiler turned in, all I've got left this semester is a homework assignment and four finals. Unless we decide to try to write an optimizing compiler... But at the moment, the thought sends me into a fit of mad laughter.

I haven't been updating much lately -- Being enrolled in six classes for a couple of weeks, along with work and filling out job applications and trying to find a new roommate and more has kept me busy. I might update more in the next couple of weeks, but it's hard to say until I get there.

First, if you're looking for the pictures of Dwinelle, just scroll down a little bit. They're down there, but I'm not going to interrupt my regular schedule just so they can stay at the top of the page.

Anyway, I just took the first half of my Japanese Final. The test seemed too easy, which leaves one of three possibilities. 1. The Test really was easier than the last couple of tests in the class which kicked my butt. 2. The cramming I did before the test, at the expense of sleep, paid off. or 3. I was too tired to realize that the test was really very hard.

Having finished that final, I have to go get lunch, and then I have about three hours to study for my Geography final this afternoon. Three hours to learn half of the world? No problem!

Then, of course, right after that, I've got to start studying several hundred Kanji for Japanese Hell Part 3 tomorrow, plus I have to turn my CogSci Paper into a final draft from a rough draft. Too bad the people who peer evaluated my paper thought it was really good and didn't offer much feedback.

I need some aspirin.

And some sleep. That'd be nice.