Apparently I have no readers in South America, Africa, Australia or Antarctica. It’s that last one that disappoints me… No, really; I actually know a few people doing research there.

You know, the internet can sometimes really bring out the worst in people. I often ask/answer questions at fedoraforum.org, and nothing annoys me more than some jerk answering some newbies question by saying something like, “why don’t you try reading the other forum entries on this” or “read the man page, we’ve answered this a million times before.” Not only is it not helpful, but it is also insulting. Can someone tell me why online forums always become some sort of exclusive club with a prerequisite of reading the entire forum history before you are allowed to post without having banana peels thrown at you? Anyway, this time the ‘victim’ was someone I actually know, which makes me even more annoyed. I think I will take the next few minutes to search out the most basic questions posted and to answer them straight away before some ass can get in before me and turn people off to thing they are supposed to support.

I do strange stuff with my hands. I don’t like to look at them; so, I often bend my arms at weird angles to avoid seeing them. Other times I move them in and out of my face. People always ask me what the hell I am doing. What I am doing is testing my eyesite. It’s because I get migraines – and the first thing I notice when one is starting is that my vision becomes spotty or I lose depth perception. It is interesting that this has so deeply penetrated my psyche that I do weird subconscious things all the time, and when I think, “why do I do that?” – it always comes back to migraines. And, I have it better than many people. Mine are usually only 4 hours or so, while some people (like Edgar Allen Poe) have/had them for days. As far as health goes, I think I am pretty lucky, though – if I could choose to be completely incapacitated for a few hours a month or have some small annoyance the whole time, I’d choose to take it all at once. I suppose the real issue is that having your senses removed from you is a lot more unpleasant of an experience than outright pain. And to think, some people pay a lot of money for that unpleasantness!

Also, I haven’t done my linux pitch for the week – check out this movie from RedHat:

So, I have been exploring using wordpress (some ajax like software for linux) for my blog for quite some time. I am officially switching…. Right…. Now.

This has been a pretty long week… The week started with a list of computer issues to take care of following last weekend’s marathon server upgrade. I also installed a wiki (moinmoin) on our group network that has been used quite a bit already – an early success. However, I also got some grades back from earlier in the semester in my comp. sci. and nanoscience courses, courses I have to take for my as part of fellowship activites. The comp. sci. (a subject I have no experience in) grades were quite good, but the nano science (something I am supposedly an expert in) grades were pretty disspointing – near the bottom of the classs, which is probably arbitrary since the assignments were quite easy and I was *reasonably* sure I did a good job on them. The grades received so far only count for 25% of the final grade, but I am still a bit worried. Getting a B (or worse) normally wouldn’t matter much seeing as I have at least 10 A’s or A+’s in other courses prior to this, except that it probably looks bad on future fellowship renual applications etc… (which do only say they require a B-, but I am not sure I believe that). I also have a personality where I obsess about things; so, worrying about one thing really puts me on edge for the rest of my day. Bah, I will be glad when this ridiculousness of taking courses and being constantly evaluated on arbitrary criteria is over. It all makes me want to look for a sysadmin or teaching job somewhere

Anyway, I also went to the BUUG meeting last night – which involved only 4 people. The numbers are continually decreasing since I joined. Coincidence? At least the discussion was good. The CALLUG seems pretty much nonexistent these days.

Additionally, Skype released this week, but it was pretty dissapointing becaust it still had no video, and this clustrmap program to the right seems really buggy, only registering a fraction of the total visits.

This concludes my cheerfull inogoration of this blogging software. Haha, I guess things aren’t too bad.