trisweb.com

I’ve been exploring Sourceforge.net lately — it’s the hub for most of the open-source projects going on anywhere, and it’s a great way to not only distribute, but also get support and programmers who are interested in your project. Even if you’re just a user, Open Source software is some great free stuff. It’s not shareware, not freeware, not even “postcardware,*” It actually belongs to everyone, and anyone can modify it, remake it, redistribute it, do anything with it. And there are literally thousands of open source programs in various levels of development available, and even a few extremely good open-source programming languages that people use to build those programs (Python, PHP, etc). If you’ve never tried open source before, I’ve included some links at the bottom of this post with some of my favorite active projects.

Maybe one of the best reasons to get into open-source is that Microsoft is afraid of it [1] [2]. They say that it’s a “threat to the american way” and “a cancer.” Pretty harsh words, and for good reason. Someday, when Linux becomes just as capable and usable as Windows is today, I just might switch completely. Or, at least, I’ll build myself a system with nothing but Open Source software on it. Now that would be something to be proud of. ::

Cool Open-Source Projects

• Gaim – A very capable Instant Messaging program. Supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and more.

• FileZilla – FTP Client and Server, with all the features of CuteFTP or WS_FTP, but better!
• Gallery – A web gallery, in use on triswebpage (view).
• StepMania – A Dance-Dance Revolution-like game for PC, Mac, and Linux.
• Savant – A full-featured Win32 web server.
• ZMatrix – A very cool “active desktop” for windows that makes it look like a matrix workstation.
• Browse more open-source software by topic.

I’ve been wondering for the last five minutes — why are we so dependent and ruled by human contact? It’s probably something really simple… something having to do with our nature as social creatures, something about how we’ve evolved over millenia of living together, and how our chances of passing on social genes are much higher if we spend time with groups of people. That’s it I guess. We’re social because of natural selection. Unsocial people don’t propagate.

Then perhaps that is the reason that we feel so sad when we have little meaningful contact with other people, and that is (somehow) something that makes us seek out human contact.

Maybe that’s where Love comes from. Natural selection. People who don’t have the love gene don’t propagate.

Maybe that’s where thought comes from. Maybe every word I say, every thought I think, is because people who can’t think die.

Those are some odd thoughts. It pains me to think that emotions and thoughts are simply chemical reactions invoked by genes selected because they increase the likelihood of survival for the human race. But then again, it amazes me that I can think that about my thoughts. That’s the difference. At some point, the human race realized that it could think, and we became sentient. No longer solely dominated by instinct and natural selection, we could begin to make decisions based on logic, and think things through scientifically; and recognize life, and with that, the meaning of death; and then religion began, but I won’t go into that again.

So, I can think to myself, “You don’t have a girlfriend, and that’s okay.” But really, it hurts. Sentient mind, Animal body.

And that is where Zen comes in. It’s very interesting. The premise: everyday life is the best way to live. One should ideally have no attachment to anything. So, it doesn’t really work. But it fits me better than any religion I know of; mainly because it’s not a religion. Heh, it’s like my mom always said: “Well, if we’re anything, we’re Buddhist.” Makes as much sense as anything. When I start to get sad or depressed or lonely, I focus on simple action, and nothing else, and it gets me through the day. Makes future planning hard, but I never liked that anyway.

… the listener,
Who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
~Wallace Stevens – The Snow Man (last 2.5 lines)

Well holy crap it’s late. That’s probably why this whole thing has been incoherent tidbits of half-witted contemplation. I need sleep. Night. ::

I woke up at noon today, played video games for an hour or so, and then played video games for another couple hours. That’s probably not very healthy, but meh, it’s Saturday. When I went out to get lunch (between playing video games) I noticed that the new basketball hoop was up (the old one broke… too many slams I guess). When I came back, people were playing. I had two choices: work on my CS project, or play basketball. Hmmmm….

So we played knockout a few dozen times, and then played two games of 3 on 3. It was a lot of fun… I find that you do get better at things with practice. Speaking of which, I should practice for wind ensemble. Or do my CS project. Or… eat dinner! Holy crap, I forgot about dinner! Bye! ::

I have realized of late that this weblog has been all text and no pictures, and that gets boring, as I’m sure you know. If I had my own digital camera, I might start a photoblog; something like a.lifeuncommon.org

So, without further ado, three photos from the trip I recently took to New York City: The view straight down from the Empire State Building at night (after a 2 hour line), the display outside Carnegie Hall (that last one is us), and an oncoming subway train (yes, I was over the yellow line — I like to live dangerously).

For more, go to the New York Photo Album.

It was Easter yesterday, and the night before was egg-decorating, as I’ve already described. It was a lot of fun; the egg decorating and the egg hunt. We had five people willing to wake up at 9 to do it, so there wasn’t much competition. I went more for the hard to reach ones than the easy ones, so I didn’t expect to win, but it was still fun. Different, though, than I remembered. Maybe it has something to do with family, and what happens after all the eggs are found and counted. I went back to my room, played nintendo a little, and went back to sleep.

At home, I would have had brunch (bacon and eggs; maybe some fruit, something from the garden) at the table there with the sun shining in, and family. Being alone for Easter the first time was hard. I hope it’s better next year, if you know what I mean.

Which brings me to my next item, having something to do with the previous item. There are some very smart people living in this house; some of them are also very religious. We were playing with the little animal cutouts on the egg-decorating-kit boxes while waiting for the eggs to finish boiling. There were two boxes, and thus, two of each animal. So, of course, someone made an ark, and put in two of each animal (except for the chicks, we had like 8 chicks for some reason). Somehow we got on the topic of dinosaurs. This person said, “Well, the dinosaurs survived.” and I was lost for a second: “But– Survived what?” They replied “The flood, you know, they survived the flood. They must have been able to fly or swim or something…”

I wanted to say, “And you’re a BIOLOGY major??? You actually think that the dinosaurs came after human beings first lived on this earth??? You think that no living thing on earth preceeded man???” but I just said “But how could— nevermind. So, look at my egg! Isn’t it cool?” or something to that effect.

There is a certain amount of ignorance that must come with such a belief. Ignorance in the sense that one must ignore hundreds of years of scientific research, along with thousands of years of archaeological findings, millions of years of palentological findings, billions of years of geological findings… it just doesn’t make sense to me. They believe simply because they were taught to, and they don’t use their own minds to deduce their own conclusions from the real evidence that they see around them. But to judge them for it would be ignorant in itself, so I do try not to. But how— nevermind. I did have some darn good looking non-denominational weasel eggs.

Speaking of judging things, we’re playing a piece by Edwin Dugger in wind ensemble, which he wrote for us no less… and when I first played it, I was ready to pack up and leave. You know how it is — contemporary music — dischordant mathematical chaos-generator output interpolated to musical notes. Well, it’s better than that, really. But really, if the other two pieces weren’t the absolute most fun pieces I’ve ever played in a wind ensemble, and if the class wasn’t worth 2 units and a grade, then I might have quit.

Bob’s only given us about five talks on why we should “just do it” ™, including one very moving one about his relationship with Ed and his music. Apparently, it’s hard to find any of this sort of music for wind ensemble, so Bob is really trying to do the world a favor by getting more pieces written for this type of ensemble. Most of us think that it’d be doing the world a favor by destroying them, but you know… we have to keep an open mind about these kinds of things… about most things, I suppose. But, as my old grandfather put it so very well at the Ojai Music Festival many years ago, “Don’t open it so much that your brain falls out!” ::

I was just flipping this coin randomly just now, right, and I thought “what if this is some crazy coin that always lands heads or something,” so I tested it for no reason, and flipped it like twenty times. It landed heads every time. Then it started acting normally again. But it scared me. The probability that it comes up heads ten times is 1 in 1,024, twenty is 1 in 1,048,576, which is actually a relatively high probability on a cosmic scale, when you think about it. But it was cool. Hehe. ::

No pun intended. Really. But it is friday, and it was a good one for me, regardless of the Christian holiday. For those interested, today is also Paul Revere Day (never heard of it, interesting…), Zimbabwe’s Independance Day, Health Day (in Kiribati, wherever that is), Flag Day in Denmark, and the second day of Passover. The week after Easter is also Egg Salad Week. (?).

Every day of the year is a holiday somewhere — usually at least four or five at once, actually. Find one you want to celebrate here. It’s pretty interesting, actually.

Easter has never been religious for me, which makes sense… considering that I’m not a very religious person. But it has always been something like Christmas. Easter for me is a time to celebrate spring, and green things and cherry blossoms and clear skies and Sunday mornings hunting for easter eggs and afternoons basking in the sun eating potluck food and jelly beans and marshmallow peeps. It’s positively pleasant.

At TH, we have a non-denominational weasel egg hunt (as opposed to a very Christian chicken egg hunt). I know you’re thinking “weasels don’t lay eggs…” but apparently they lay very nice colorful ones if you know when and where to look. The person who finds the most gets a foot-long chocolate bunny (which I suppose is less denominational than a chicken). It should be fun. Things like this are one of the many reasons I love living here. We all decorated for “the winter holiday” and carved pumpkins and made a haunted house for Halloween (it’s non-denominational enough already) and now the Easter thing. And we’re the only ones in Berkeley with a suitable yard . That’s another reason I love this house; every time I come home from class, there’s the creek covered with ferns and wildflowers (they have to be… we didn’t plant them…) and the old klinker-brick pathway, and the Japanese maple on the lawn (which is really just dirt with some clover… we should fix that…). It’s positively pleasant.

I’ve said that twice… and it’s like the lamest phrase ever. I must be having a good day . Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen my CS midterm grade yet. Or maybe things are just going just good enough for everything to be… positively pleasant. ::

My weblog is boring. I’m sorry.

New York was a lot of fun. Carnegie hall was a great experience. The flight home sucked. Let’s just say that I got on the plane with 100% battery on my laptop, and I turned it on yesterday morning, and it was 99%. I couldn’t do ANYTHING on the flight home because I had the most excruciating headache the ENTIRE time. I could hardly keep my eyes open. And when we landed, man, I was in agony. The pressure just wouldn’t equalize in my sinuses. I got off and ran to the nearest little shop for some Sudafed. And I caught the airporter home for another $22.

Since then, nothing much has happened. Oh, except the CS midterm last night, results pending. I’m so glad that’s over. I think it went okay, but you never know with those CS tests…

And Misha just beat Zelda Windwaker… and at the end, you have the option of making a new game with some more secret stuff, so she just gave the controller to me, and I thought I was just selecting a game to LOAD but it was to OVERWRITE… so now my game is gone and I have to start over… that sucks. It’s like working on a paper for 20 hours and then deleting it by accident. Except… Zelda is easier to do over. So no big deal.

Link of the day: MiStupid.com – Information that everyone should know, wants to know, or forgot. You might learn something. ::