I had a dream last night and it fit me like a glove

Last night I dreamed I installed linux. Ubuntu I believe. In my bed. Yes, I dreamed I installed linux in my bed. I mean, if you are going to have an OS installed in your bed, do you really want Vista on there?

But it just wasn't working quite how I wanted. Because apparently I installed linux in my bed. And my pillow was just simply not behaving quite right. Normally I like to tuck my arm under the pillow, but apparently Ubuntu wouldn't let me do that. Whenever I tried the pillow would move. It was otherwise a completely functional pillow, except that if you tried to put anything under it (besides the bed of course) it would just not work.

So, I tried looking in the man pages for info on pillow and beds... but you know how man pages are. After a good hour I still couldn't figure out what I wanted (although I did learn all sorts of other completely unrelated things I could do with my bed). I also discovered that changing the covers was a pretty easy task if you installed this other little thing. So I downloaded the RPM and sure enough, pretty cool, I could change the color of my covers. Still couldn't put my arm under the pillow though.

Looked up a few other flavors of linux, and sure enough, pretty much none of them let you put your arm under the pillow. Apparently they would have to completely rewrite the pillow in order to allow that. So I got frustrated and decide maybe I should just give up and go with Windows since I knew you could put your arm under the pillow in Windows.

At that point my alarm went off and I woke up. My arm was under my pillow. WTF.

So, now I'm trying to analyze this dream. I believe my mind is trying to tell me about the frustrations of linux. So much potential, so much power, so much freedom, but there is always that annoying little frustrating thing that you can't figure out how to fix unless you get way too deep. But yet a strong desire to go away from Windows. But... why didn't I dream about a Mac bed? That would be a nice bed. Probably really sleek looking, and all white. I would totally buy a bed from Mac.

Male or Female?

It's pretty obvious for all of us to know if we are male or female. I mean, just check between your legs, right? But do you ACT and THINK like a male or female? That's a much trickier question.

I've always claimed that I am somewhere in between. Androgynous, so to speak. Not in the sense that I am a neither, but more that I have traits that are feminine, and traits that are masculine. I think this is a good thing, because I feel that I can relate to either gender.

So I ran across a little widget on BBC that identifies if you think like a girl or a guy.

It gives you a nice little graph at the end. Turns out I am right in the middle.

As a general rule, on each part I scored higher than BOTH men and women, the only exception was the eyes test (which I thought was done poorly, normally I am quite good at reading people's eyes), and Words (which I misunderstood how it was supposed to be done). I am more empathic than women, more analytical than men. I'm mostly ambidextrous, so that invalidated part of the test. My hands apparently are built like a woman's (I already know that from working in a jewelry store for a while). I prefer masculine looking faces apparently (but mostly I didn't like any of the photos, they all looked like mug shots). I'm not entirely sure I understood the Ultimatum test.

So there you have it. I'm androgynous in my gender identity. I'm the best of both. Or at least, that's what BBC tells me. I think what would be interesting is to see how different age ranges test on it... Are 50 year old men more 'manly' than new age 20 somethings?

A Prolific Squalor - IM's gone mad

I have stumbled upon a great blog. It is simply snippets of IM conversations. They are great! I highly suggest checking it out, it's called A Prolific Squalor.

Some of them are mild, and boring. Some are awesome. In the spirit, I have a piece of an IM conversation I had today for you all to read.

A: shut up I hate you
B: bapa
A: no
B: no
B: I say no to your no
A: I'm gonna no your noing no
A: no
B: nononono, and just for good measure I'm going to no your nonononono
B: for shits and giggles I'm gonna yes your nonononononono, if it gets that far.
A: what if it was only a nono though?
B: I might maybe that.
B: Did you get C's microphone fixed yet?
A: heh... no.

My Simulacra

I have decided that there is just too much work for me to do, and I have too many fans.

I considered cloning myself, but it turns out I don't know a whole lot about genetics, and it takes a real long time to grow a clone. My next thought was to create a magical simulacrum of myself. But magic if fickle... And that three by three rule could really have some serious backlash.

So I made the only logical decision. I made a digital copy of myself. So may I introduce you to my simulacrum. You can find him in the upper right hand corner of my blog.

He is currently hosted at Pandorabots.com. He is an AIML bot, which means his brain is a collection of XML files. I didn't want to start with a completely brain-dead simulacrum, so he has quite a bit of ALICE in him. Turns out though, that ALICE and I don't actually get along all that great. Our views on the world differ by quite a bit. In fact, last night I spent several hours ripping piece of the brain out that I didn't feel were important.

My hope is that eventually my little friend will be able to mimic me. I have been teaching it some of my speech patterns, and correcting it whenever it says something insanely stupid. But he can not learn if he does not talk. So I invite everyone to talk to him. If he starts saying stupid things, just please remember that he has half of a brain from ALICE, and the other half is from me.

If he gets confused, don't worry about it. Next time I talk to him he'll ask me about things that confuse him, and I'll explain it to him. You can try to explain it to him, but he tends to run most things by me before he actually remembers them (for example, if you tell him a joke, he won't start telling it to other people until he's told it to me first).

Eat your heart out Walt Disney

I have decided I am going to take up a life in the theatre. I plan on working in the field of ice ballets. My first production will be a social commentary on the winter driving habits in the Pacific Northwest. I shall name it "Roundabouts on Ice".

I live somewhere between Seattle and Portland. We got a nice skim of ice on the roads this morning. I'm assuming it's due to freezing rain, but I didn't actually stop and interview the ice. I drive a small little car. It handles WONDERFULLY in icy weather, it's very similar to a snowmobile. But even I was having trouble this morning...

This area is well known for it's use of roundabouts, a funky sort of intersection that requires you to drive in circles until you feel dizzy. Cover these things in ice, and insanity happens. I come from the Midwest, where ice was easily battled with salt and sand. Apparently here, they don't believe in the magic powers of salt and sand. Instead everyone drives 5 miles an hour in the round abouts, run red lights because they can't stop, and fishtail all over the highway. They also like to panic and slam on their brakes.

I admit, it was bad road conditions. I did not expect it this morning, but I did have a warning before I hit the roads. And I can understand one or two mistakes being made on the icy roads. But I think they would do well to have someone actually tend to the roads. These people are not used to driving on icy roads, why make it more complex than needed?

N07 L337: Word of the year

Merriam-Webster every year holds a contest to see what should be the 'Word of the Year'. Who votes on these things? I haven't actually checked yet, but I am willing to bet very large sums of money that the vote is on the net, and that English professors don't vote much.

This year's word is: w00t

Don't be confused, those are indeed zeros. Yes, the time has come. L33t speak has made it to mainstream. Is it so elite now? The funny part is that this word hasn't even made it into the dictionary yet. The word of the year isn't even a word yet.

If they start adding l33t words to the dictionary, how will they be listed alphabetically? Things could get very complicated... for example, if a l33t word begins with E, we would instead use 3, but if a l33t word begins with A, it will use 4 (or sometimes on rare occasions @). But 3 comes before 4 in the standard alphanumeric, but A should come before E...

Runners up to the word of the year contest include: facebook, conundrum, quixotic, blamestorm, sardoodledom, apathetic, Pecksniffian, hypocrite, charlatan

What a fascinating list of words that is! I would classify all but facebook as being rather pessimistic words. They are so very 'glass is half empty', and some of them are a tad 'glass is empty because I threw it at the fucking wall'.

I think this clearly shows the direction that the world is going in... The words we use to signify this year are mostly pessimistic. However, the winning word is a neologism that signifies happiness, in a way that is young, upbeat, and digital. As a side note, in the unpopular MMORPG known MxO (Matrix Online) I played a hacker called: n07 l337 (yet everyone insisted on calling me 7, or Number 7... some even thought it was a reference to 7 of 9).

TPS Reports

I went to a conference last month, which was paid for by the company that employs me. It was a 3 day stay (two nights). I however am 90% college student, so on the first night I ordered Papa John's Pizza, which I ate for breakfast and dinner for all three days (using lined paper for a plate, and drinking Mountain Dew which I had brought with me).

When I got back, I filled out the expense reports. I attached my two receipts, and got the forms signed by the appropriate people. When I turned them in, I was informed that I needed the Visa statement with it also, so the forms were rejected. Today the statement came in, so I refilled out the forms, got the appropriate signatures, and resubmitted the paperwork. They then informed me that it was the wrong paperwork. So I filled out the correct paperwork, reattached my two receipts, got the signatures, and submitted them again.

At this point I was informed that the descriptions on the expense report were not very detailed. I had put down "Pizza for conference" when apparently I was supposed to put down "Papa John's Pizza - Pizza for conference". I also did not list the name of the hotel in the description of my hotel room. I only had 2 items, it was easy, they could have filled out the paperwork, they could have guided me through it. Or even better, they could have looked at the Visa statement and said "Gee, that's when he was at the conference, I bet that pizza was what he ate down there."

Next time, I'm going into more detail. It shall be "Papa John's Pizza - 1 large pizza with extra cheese, no other toppings. 1 garlic breadsticks. - Ate 2 slices of pizza on November 8th 8:30 pm, 1 slice on November 9th at 7:24 am and also at 9:44 PM".

I know, even better, I'll go ahead and order a pr0n movie on the pay per view in the hotel next time. That way when I fill out the description I'll go ahead and say what the movie was. I'll even describe what all positions were used. I mean, wouldn't it be better to be fired for something like that than to go insane mumbling something about my red stapler?

MMORPG's can save your life

Finally, my belief that MMORPG's can save your life has been confirmed. A 12 year old Norwegian boy battled a real live moose and lived, all because of MMO's. The full tale can be read here. If you know Norwegian that is.

But if you don't know Norwegian, I'll sum it up for you. This 12 year old boy and his sister are walking through the woods IRL (they were probably hunting rats grinding XP or something). His sister Cheetah'ed and ran. But the hero boy (or would idiot be a better term?) decided to taunt the moose. The moose attacked. Luckily the boy's backpack had a deflection bonus. He was knocked to the ground, but was not harmed. So he decided to play possum, and feign death. The moose fell for it.

In the end, the boy and the girl survived. Another group of adventurers formed a raid and killed the moose. The noobs of Norway rejoiced. You might find this humorous, but in truth the boy said he learned the FD ability from playing WoW. Personally, I prefer Everquest 2, as there are less 12 year old boys that think they can pwn moose.

Wait, they have moose in Norway? I thought they were all in Canada eh?

Pattern Recognition

A good friend of mine (you know who you are) sent me a link to a very odd thing on Amazon. Uranium. That's right, you can buy Uranium on Amazon. Don't believe me? Go check it out.

Now, I'm not worried about people making nuclear explosives. I'm also not worried about dirty bombs. It's a very small sample of uranium. It's intended for testing Geiger counters. Most smoke alarms actually contain small amounts of radioactive materials. This is a relatively safe and harmless piece of uranium. And at the cost they are charging, it would cost an insane amount of money to get enough to cause trouble with.

Although it is still just odd. I mean, who would buy uranium on Amazon?

Well know what is even weirder than that? Scroll down about halfway on that Amazon page and check out the "Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought" section. Well, now we know what sort of person would buy uranium on Amazon...