50,000 Mile Scheduled Maintenance

You may notice a few hickups on the site for the next few days. Do not be alarmed as they will only be temporary.

One of the unfortunate side-effects of “learning by doing” when it comes to web development is that you end up with a lot of junk laying around. The directory structure of this site is a complete mess – there are folders left over from the original site design 4 years ago. Heck, there are directories and files that were never part of anything on the site…skeletal reminants of half-formed ideas that didn’t end up working.

Thus, as part of the new year I’m going to go through and clean up the site. Most of the changes will be under the hood (such as a backend upgrade to Wordpress 2.0) but there will also be a handful of minor cosmetic updates. Oh, and the archives will also break, but I seriously doubt that will affect many of you. In any case it won’t be permanent – as soon as I have a chance I’ll insert my custom archive functions.

EDIT: at this point the new backend has been installed.  The sidebar links should once again work and the auto-complete for the comment system has finally been fixed!  The archives technically work, but for some reason the inline lists now break the layout.  I haven’t been able to figure out why – if you have any idea feel free to e-mail me.

We All Need A Life

I’ll be heading to Grand Rapids tomorrow (technically today, I suppose) afternoon for the purpose of visiting Pat’s bachelor hovel. Visiting probably isn’t the correct term for it, actually – something closer to inspecting might prove more accurate. Inspecting what, you ask? Why I’ll be checking for rafters from which he might hang himself to end his miserable woman-less life. If I find any I’ll be sure to line the corners with sharp metal that would slice a would-be noose, and if they prove to be non-load bearing I will happing cut them down.

That’s what friends are for, right?

My vehicle is currently in the clutches of the evil that is a Saturn dealer. You might think that this would entail effort on my part to make sure that they are doing the proper work and not simply charging me for playing poker. This is because you have never dealt with these sorts of people before. After a two week charade where I tried to be a good, conscientious customer and they pretended to give a shit I fell back on plan B: throw money at them until I have something that drives without exploding.

If you don’t count the massive credit card debt plan B is ticking along quite nicely.

Drunk With Power

The first day of the new semester is now over and thus far my mood could best be described as “cautiously optimistic.” My two computer science courses seem to be both interesting and potentially useful – a rare combination. The first is a seminar course that focuses on ethics and writing, two things I don’t get to tackle very often in my degree of choice. The second is Artificial Intelligence, a topic I have found myself growing more interested in over the last few years. In fact, if I had the ability to go back and do things differently I might pursue a graduate program somewhere in that field. As it stands now it should be engaging and, hopefully, will prove useful in convincing game companies to hire me this summer.

I also have a math course (Introduction to Cryptography) which I will have for the first time tomorrow (technically today) and, of course, the Huskygames enterprise program that I was in last semester. The primary difference this time around is my status. Rather than being a sub-team lead I am now the actual project lead. All of the various sub-teams will ultimately answer to me (art, code, design, etc.) and I am responsible for the overall management and direction of the game. It’s both exciting and nerve wracking…I’ve led small groups in the past, and in many ways I was de-facto leader of the previous team, but this is my first time organizing this many people. Though the final numbers are not yet in I should have around 20-25 people in total.

Wish me luck. Better yet, wish me a miracle.

Sprechen Sie Deutsches

I’m pretty sure that the university is drugging my crypto teacher. Not in the sense of illegal drugs I imagine, mostly because he doesn’t seem happy enough for that to be the case.

Let me back up for a moment. See, I came into the class and found a surprisingly mellow (and slightly corny) professor with accented English that I couldn’t quite place. It sounded vaguely eastern-European, but it wasn’t any of the typical ones. After wracking my brain for a few minutes I finally though to look at his name on my syllabus. Imagine my surprise when I noticed he was German.

Now, I know it’s a stereotype and that those things are very bad, yadda yadda cry, but when I think of German professors I don’t think of goofy guys who act like they just downed a half a bottle of Prozac. Generally I picture someone a bit more…intense. The sort of teacher who doles out the tough love to such an extraordinary degree you start to wonder if you aren’t involved in a bizarre social experiment of some kind. You know – someone wearing leather pants with a riding crop in hand.

I mostly find it hilarious that I so strongly associate the German language with intensity that I was completely unable to place its accent when it wasn’t being shouted at me.

The Slow Life

I read an interesting article in Wired regarding a so-called “Slow Life” movement in, or all places, Japan. The country that practically created the modern urban lifestyle seems to be moving slowly but determinately away from it, and this particular irony has reminded me of my own internal debate.

You see, I am of two very different and largely irreconcilable minds. On the one hand, I am a well-documented lover of technology, gadgets and most of the cutting-edge things that make up today’s digital lifestyle (yes, I hate that phrase too). When I ponder it, I think I would very much enjoy living in a big cosmopolitan city like Seattle or New York. I wouldn’t mind getting a stereotypical hipster studio apartment, carrying around this month’s newest cell phone while writing about all the culturally enriching things I did today in my pretentious little internet weblog. Heck, I’m already halfway there – at least, I would be if you could forget that Hougton is actually an accidental ink fleck on some omnipotent cartographer’s map.

On the other hand, having been a Boy Scout for a significant portion of my teenage years (read: all of them) indirectly gave me an appreciation for nature. I went on long hikes in the wilderness and I camped many a time in relatively unspoiled woodlands…and I liked it. When I see photos of the forests of the Pacific northwest; when I read Jared Diamond’s romantic descriptions of his home in Montana; when I recall the easy-going, almost rustic portions of Okinawa I can’t help but feel a bit of longing for a simpler, slower and perhaps more fulfilling existence than the one I have (and by extension actively pursue) now.

It’s an interesting quandary, one that I suppose is about as old as the human movement towards urbanization and domestication. I’m starting to wonder, though, if our increasing technological prowess isn’t finally coming full circle. I mean, when a magazine spread detailing the “natural life” includes earthy, simple homes constructed primary of natural woods with Apple laptops tucked discretely in the corners, you can’t help but wonder.