FBi needs my saving expertise
Jun/090
So I said I was bored, right? I decided I would try Music.
I listen to music already, just not the stuff that other people generally do. I’m ok with that, as I’m sure I’ve posted before. Soundtracks? Life needs a soundtrack, and it’s fun to make pretend that my life warrants the sort of sweeping, epic sounds that accompany the hero’s journey. It also just sits nicely in the background, so I can inflict it on others when we work Comedy? Life is hiliarious. Get used to it.
Still, I was vaguely aware that I was missing out on stuff. And damned if I wasn’t right. Going to the gym means exposure to MTV, and I discovered to my amazement that I only hate about half of what they play. I thought it was more like 90%. I decided this meant that I should probably try something new.
So when James mentioned that there was a concert for a radio station I’ve never listened to at a venue I’d never been to where bands I’d never heard of would be playing, I thought why the hell not?
I’m glad I did.
You’ve taken your first step into a larger world
Obi-Wan
I’ve been to concerts before. I’m told they don’t count. In the last year or two, I’ve gone along to a few concerts where they’ve played Beatles songs. I think one was just The White Album. I’ll admit these weren’t my idea, but I was pretty happy to go along with family and see them. Adam Hills and Bill Bailey sing a little bit, but I guess they’re not really concerts as such. About six years ago I went to see “Weird Al” Yankovic, but that was very much a sit down affair.
So that made last night my first time.
I loved it.
We got there right at the start in order to see The Jezabels, a band that James and Lexie like quite a lot. It wasn’t very busy at this stage, so we were right up the front. The sound! The bass drum vibrates through your soul, from head to toe. It may have been relatively unspectacular, as these things go, but it was a brand new experience for me. I even wanted to be in a band at one point. But this is me, and so one of my thoughts was a quote from Gladiator
The silence before you strike, and the noise afterwards, it rises, rises up like…like…like a storm, as if you were the Thunder God himself.
Proximo
That’s kinda what I was imaging it was like. I was barely aware of what they were singing, for a good part of it. I just knew I liked it.
We went out after the Jezabels for some food: tapas. This was also a new and fun experience, as was a Spanish beer called 1906 Especial Reserva… but this night was about the music. Over dinner we missed Palace of Fire and Muscles; I am told this wasn’t a big deal.
Returning to the metro, the security person decided that I looked a lot more suspicious than I did two hours before, and decided to fondle me a bit, ostensibly looking for drugs. All part of the fun?
It was a lot busier at this point, we ended up three rows from the back. I was pretty happy with this; I’m not quite ready for extended moshpit/dancefloor head banging. It was mainly the underage types anyway.
Midnight Juggernauts were really good. Bluejuice were not. I tried really hard to like Decoder Ring, because it was practically soundtrack music, albeit ’soundtracks on acid’. I didn’t, though. It didn’t really grip me; it was a little too ambient. That’s ok, we were just hanging out for Dappled Cities. (The others were, anyway. I decided to trust their judgement).
They were brilliant. I loved them.
Not so surprising: if I have any mainstream musical appreciation, it’s in what I would broadly term ‘rock’. Mind you, my genre classification system means that anything labeled as rock is essentially
- not comedy
- has words
- has one or more guitars
So I like rock a bit, and now according to wikipedia I like Dappled Cities’ indie rock.
Just before they came on, James offered to educate me a bit by picking me some CDs that they were giving away for a gold coin donation. I’ve been listening to them while writing this.
I like The Walkmen, I’m not so sure about My Latest Novel (too mellow, although I love the first four or so minutes of Ghost in the Gutter), and I have Fionn Regan up next.
I obtained Midnight Juggernauts’ Dystopia, but couldn’t immediately find anything by the Jezabels or Dappled Cities.
So I guess that’s the end of my first concert story. I’m cool now! Not very cool though, since I still quoted Star Wars.
There may be a few more posts about musicky things in the future… ‘cos a blog about music is totally original and stuff.
4230
Jun/092
I’m typing this from the floor, sitting in front of the TV/Xbox. Not for fun; the damn router thing has stopped being magically awesome and I need to fix it so that the Xbox can have Internets again. It’s quite important that it updates my gamerscore, heh heh.
Ok, so it may not be the router. It does seem to work. Possibly it’s just the xbox settings.
And it is. At some point, the IP address of the Xbox changed.
This means it’s set up in a pretty dodgy way, but whatever works is good enough.
And nobody cares. Why would you? This is being read by a very small number of people, and dozens of spam bots. Only one of whom has an Xbox.
Although this post is essentially about him. James: I win.
I just need to recover my gamertag…
I hate typing words with the Xbox controller. Uncool…
and there we go.
I can haz gamerpoints plz
I just finished playing Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. Despite it being one of the four games I got with the Xbox, I’d never actually played it. I’ll admit right now that I was basically hoping for some easy achievements so that I could beat James to 4000.
But wow.
It’s actually an excellent game. It’s using the same engine (Unreal 3) as Unreal Tournament 3, but the difference in philosophies couldn’t be more stark. UT3 is pure multiplayer FPS, with unlimited respawns, ridiculous weapons and a futuristic setting. Hell’s Highway is yet another WW2 game, with a pretty high degree of realism and squad tactics. It’s also heavily story based. Honestly, I think it was 10% cutscene. I hope I can skip through most of it when I replay it, otherwise it’ll get pretty annoying.
It’s very well done though. It really supports the whole video games as media/art thing. I’ve seen plenty of worse movies.
Update:
I’m rather less impressed with the whole game/xbox thing right about now.
4230 has become 3720, because I had to reclaim my profile from James’ xbox. Which reverted the whole profile to the state it was when I played Rainbow 6 last weekend with him.
Balls.
So this entire post is rendered rather useless. I don’t actually have anything to report as an achievement.
Not that achievements are really achievements.
So this is more stream of consciousness than anything, and not even very interesting.
I’m bored
Jun/093
It’s true. I am.
I’m bored with work. I’m bored with university. I’m bored with my 100% strike rate.
I’m not entirely sure what to do. I’m bored enough that I regressed a little and dusted off an online identity I thought I’d left behind. It’s a little embarrassing. Undeniably geeky, but I’m ok with that. It’s more the fact that it’s dead, it’s so dead, so unbelieveably dead… showing interest is tantamount to necrophilia.
I feel certain that I’ll get some more interesting spam comments, after that sentence. It’s amusing when they’re almost relevant.
After my last post, “forced bound and naked” will be in touch. Someone else would like to offer me a young lady who can visit me anywhere in Kiev.
I postulated that I needed a freeze ray; I received a comment saying that they disagreed, and would like to discuss it.
I didn’t say it was very amusing.
I’m bored with this post.
Hat-trick
Jun/094
So I’m 3/3. Or, from a more accurate perspective, 0/3.
It’s been a year since I was writing this. I remarked a few weeks ago to Steve that it would be pretty interesting to see a graph of post count over time, and how it related to what was happening in my life.
And holy shit, it is pretty revealing. Clearly I’m an angst blogger.
(an aside: I really love how Office 2007 makes graphs look acceptably presentable)
Also, since this blog is a year old, it has been given a theme (as promised in the first post) and upgraded to 2.8
I had an exceedingly interesting week. Some of it was recounted in the last post, so I’ll skip to Tuesday. I thought I’d have to go to Australia Post on work related secret business, but apparently not. It was a shame, as I had actually been looking forward to wandering up to Lane Cove in the middle of the day. It was one of the small joys I had in the second half of last year, in that semester of pain, penury and strife. It’s nice to have the freedom to walk about in the middle of the day, even if I allowed myself only the time required (35-40 minutes) to go directly to the sushi bar and return.
That actually makes it sound like I was exceedingly diligent in my time keeping and habits, which is such a massive whopper. Anyway…
I didn’t have to go to Australia Post, so I instead went straight to Bulga to ’study’ with James. We actually did pretty well, for about two hours. By that stage, however, we were entirely bored with the subject, and the remaining four hours before the exam were occupied with football, food and Xbox. On the whole, this struck me as an ideal balance.
Then the exam: harder than I had been lead to believe it would be. Such is the inevitable result of hubris. I still did fine, though. I was the last (of the three of us) to depart the exam. I’m blaming the invigilator, and my lack of a timepiece. I was sitting there for 20+ minutes, waiting for the time at which I would be permitted to leave. I was expecting it to be more like 45 minutes, so the difficulty was definitely a blessing.
After the exam, we went for one beer. That sentence accurately captures our intent, but is in fact as big a lie as the one suggesting I had a work ethic. We drank several beers, and then several schnapps, and then had about as much fun as you’re allowed to have at QVB Stand C. That evening was in no way a sensible idea, but it turned out to be a most enjoyable one.
Wednesday: interview/assessment day at Optiver. I was hungover. I have no idea how I did the initial programming quiz, and especially no idea how what I wrote convinced them that I should be interviewed.
Optiver has the coolest office I’ve ever been in, and the whole day was quite an experience. I was damned lucky that I’d chosen DS&A for my elective this semester. It’s the first step taken towards being the kind of programmer they actually want there. It is also the only step I’ve taken towards that path, and it’s not certain in my mind that I want that path. I still don’t know what I want from my career. I think it actually needs to be more rounded than just being a developer.
I’m getting sidetracked…
I thought it went well on the whole, but it was clearly going to come down to how much they wanted to trust in my potential. To skip ahead somewhat to Friday: not enough. They will not be offering me a position.
There was actually some interesting feedback along the lines that they didn’t think I was passionate enough, weren’t sure I truly wanted to be a developer, weren’t sure I wanted to work there. I guess they read me pretty well, better than I even knew myself. I had doubts about working there, and I didn’t bother to address them before the interview. I should perhaps have gone in with a plan, or at least a conscious effort to play the interview game.
What’s the point though? They interviewed me, a nearly completely honest version of me, with limited garnish. We weren’t a fit for each other. That’s fair enough, and possibly saved a lot of trouble later on.
Wednesday’s meeting was unremarkable, I guess. The chicken katsu afterwards was nice (when it arrived). The sang chow bow spring rolls were not quite as good as I’d hoped for.
Thursday was not a heap of fun. The question posed on Sunday was answered, in the negative. Over email, so I was trying to appear sufficiently busy at work whilst also retreating into my head and composing a reply. One day, someone will say something to my face. One day, it might even be an affirmative response. Being in a different city is a pretty good excuse for the former, though.
The usual suspects were suitably generous in their consolations.
Even more so than last time, I’ve surprised myself with the generally philsophical response I’ve had to the happenings. I think things generally work out. When I’ve got my ego up a bit, I usually extend this thought to ‘things generally work out to my benefit’.
It’s pretty weird, writing obliquely about someone whom I know reads this blog. (p.s. hi)
Then again, I’ve basically been doing that for a month. I wonder if you realised.
Yesterday (although it was still today when I started composing) was a better day, but mostly only at the very end. Three very cool things happened. One was getting out the SMH Friday cryptic crossword. Even if it took four other people and we spent nearly 90 minutes, it’s a pretty sweet achievement. DA (the Friday compiler) is an utterly devious bastard, and normally quite inscrutable.
The second thing was going out for a sneaky 2:45PM Friday beer at the Redoak. (ssh!).
I chased Optiver, and finally got the news they had promised would be delivered sooner. When you don’t hear something positive right away, it’s often fairly safe to assume the negative is on it’s way. (This was not the third cool thing, this is:)
I then chased my manager, who had been saying that he wanted to talk to me for over a week. He’d quite like me to keep working there, and said some rather ego boosting things. I definitely ended the week in a good way.
It’s funny, though. Without making any effort to curry favour at ING, or indeed trying very much at all, I’ve still managed to impress people. Yet another analogy for the benefits of just being yourself?
It’s a nice offer to have, but I have no desire to work full time next semester on anything which is not for Three Ring Solutions. I also consider that the offer from IBM has benefits that go beyond just a place to work. Assuming that offer is still on the table, it’s where I will be next year.
On the bus, on the way home, I finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I really liked it, but I’m not sure whether it was the P&P or the &Z which was most entertaining.
I actually intended for this post to just be a couple of graphs, possibly with captions, and now I have in excess of 1200 words.
mostly to scale.
One outlier bucks the inevitable trend, vs the goal
Sample data available for one flow only.
Whoops, 2am.
Long weekend
Jun/090
Long weekends are awesome, never more so than when they involve time off work. The best part is that it’s not even over. I have an exam today and an interview/assessment day tomorrow. I always quite liked exams – I think it’s because I’m lazy. An exam is always quicker than an assignment. Plus, you know… I’m Captain Ego.
Oh, and the fact that it’s 35 multiple choice questions in 3 hours, the lecturer has promised not to be brutal and I’m sitting on 99% so far doesn’t hurt my confidence either. Doesn’t feel like they’re really trying. I should be less conceited though: I’m very fortunate in my ability. I should celebrate finding an assessment easy rather than complaining that it wasn’t hard enough.
I can barely believe I wrote that.
I’m still going to wear my special examination tshirt though. And I’m still writing this instead of studying.
No idea what to expect of the interview thing, or if I even want it. But you have to at least try and take the opportunities, right?
Kinda feels like another occasion for short thoughts.
It’s pretty weird when I’m the most prolific blog writer of my friends, but also nice.
I’m capable of the most ludicrous thoughts.
I’m kinda angry at myself for not being myself. I like me is not just an amusing quote on a tshirt from a pretty geeky source, I thought it was one of my main philosophical tenets. I forgot it a little.
I may, on occasion, drink too much.
I should stop assuming I know what people are thinking.
Plans suck. Monday was essentially unplanned, and better for it.
Just quietly, Night at the Museum 2 was ok.
Dr Horrible was excellent. I want my gloves back.
I may overuse elipses… (You can’t tell in this post, because I’ve refactored. And that one doesn’t count because it’s ironic)
I have theories about 13 months, about graphs, about the cyclic nature of time. And occasionally some sensible ones as well.
I actually had fun for every minute of this weekend, even when I didn’t.
DDWRT
Jun/090
I have a sudden desire to write something a bit ITish. Often, I find that when I’m looking for some sort of technical information it’s actually a blog that provides the most enlightening resource. It’s a handy step in between a forum and a serious reference site – less of the forum noise, more context than the reference. It adds a tangible, human element. “There is someone, somewhere on the other side of the Internet, who tried to do the same thing as me.”
Oh, and then I decided that I really couldn’t be arsed to write a proper guide. This is more of a highlights reel. In fact, it’s a rant with a link to a proper guide.
So, you want to bridge a wireless network? Perhaps you would like to connect an Xbox to an existing wireless network without paying the exorbitant fee that most outlets charge for the wireless adapter.
I’ve done this twice now. Each time has involved pain, penury and strife. In actuality, the successful steps of the process took about 20 minutes all up. The hours I spent on the project can be explained by one simple thing: Windows Vista.
Seriously, give up on this idea unless you have access to a computer with Windows XP. It just doesn’t work on Vista – you need to use a linksys tftp program (normal tftp doesn’t support sending passwords). Got a mac? Forget it. Moot point anyway, since if you’re a Mac user you don’t want to connect an Xbox lest Steve Jobs takes you off his Christmas List. Besides, the Mac Gamer is a rare beast.
Honestly, I spent hours trawling the Internet trying to work out why the very clear steps which I was following precisely were not working. Eventually, Vista proved to be the culprit. I moved over to a laptop with XP, and I was on Xbox live in about half an hour. Whether it’s the security settings or just plain application incompatibility, Vista is incapable.
The second time around (~4-5 months later; i.e. now) I knew what to do. Except that the XP laptop has become even worse, and the Ethernet port now doesn’t work at all. I tried all sorts of workarounds, and got it past the first step. This was not actually ideal – it no longer functioned as a router, and responded to ping until I tried to access the admin settings. I thought that I’d bricked it. I eventually did the smart thing, spent 30 minutes with Steve’s laptop and got everything shipshape.
I’ve now got two Linksys WRT54G2 routers working with a Netgear WPN824 to bridge a wireless network. One WRT is connected to the Xbox, the other is essentially allowing two printers to be shared over the network. (They were already shared but they were in my room, loud and frequently used late at night. This was annoying.)
As a nice bonus, they also boost reception.
Considering that specific model is about three times cheaper than the Xbox adapter, it’s worth the effort.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G2 – instructions for the specific router
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=68 – how to set up client bridge mode, which allows the wireless network to be shared and for all devices to be on the same subnet
Summary?
DD WRT is cool
DON’T USE VISTA to flash firmware
I’m resisting the urge to make a tortured analogy between this technical stuff and anything else in my life right now. Down, psyche!