This was extracted from an e-mail sent to me by Kuya Ryan who’s currently staying in Melbourne. The moment I opened it and read all the stanzas, it further testified that we cannot throw Time away because it waits for no one. When it’s gone, it’ll vanish and can’t be found anymore. It also gave way to my thoughts that we ought to treasure everyone who appears in our lives because losing friends or relatives is painful especially when we don’t treasure and appreciate them in the beginning. Regrets; there is no way to turn it back to its original form if everything was taken for granted from the start.

What’s your say?

About the sociability of geeks thing:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

I got these definitions from the results of this test. (I scored as a “Pure Nerd” by the way).

“The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer. Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations! “

Two hours or so ago, while trying to draw, I somehow came up with the idea of reading some books for inspiration. I remembered that I hadn’t read my copy of C.S. Lewis’s Narrative Verse yet, so I thought that I would just grab the book, read a few pages, and return to my drawing with renewed energy.

Then again, I hadn’t considered the state of my bookshelves.

I think it’s a common problem for readers: you buy and buy and read and read until you run out of shelves — and then any space not occupied by a household appliance, piece of furniture, or person is commandeered by crazy book piles. In my case, I have three bookshelves, and most of the shelves have double rows of books. Trying to get one of the “hidden” books often results in the whole front row crashing down on the unfortunate person. My room often resembles a disaster area, except instead of rubble I have books and the occasional stray page.

Once I tried to organize my books. It took me the better part of a day, but the sense of satisfaction lasted for weeks. The ordered arrangement didn’t.

So as I looked for my book I navigated shelves of physics textbooks jostling against high fantasy and apologetics, Christian devotionals rubbing shoulders with science fiction anthologies, books about cats and drug addiction and Japanese history; tragedies and comic book anthologies and cookbooks and computer magazines; and, just to confuse me, my old notebooks (empty of coherent notes) and sketchpads (which contain more equations than drawings). I dived into piles upon piles of hardcovers and paperbacks. Then I moved on to the books stacked on the floor, inside my cabinets, and in the space under my desk and computer table.

One and a half hours later I found Narrative Verse in my brother’s room, where it lay under two Calvin and Hobbes collections, the illustrated Stardust, vol.1 of the School Rumble manga, A Game of Thrones, Ateneo’s standard Theology textbook, Mathematical Physics, and Asterix at the Olympic Games. And a bedroll. I don’t know when my brother started lumping sleeping gear and books together, but I guess he’s just trying to make the most out of the available space. I’m just glad he isn’t piling his shoes on top of my books. Messy bookshelves are one thing, muddy covers are another.

Sometimes I feel that I should take better care of my books; should make sure, at least, that I know where things are instead of having vague combinations of Title-Author-Location floating around in my head. A lot of bibliophiles may think that I don’t treat books with respect and should stick to maltreating photocopied versions. But I do try. I certainly love my books and hunt the missing ones down with persistence, if not efficiency. I just can’t guarantee they’ll be the kind of copies secondhand bookstores will want to buy.

I don’t let books stay on their shelves too long. I believe in re-reading good books, in taking them around with you and sneaking a few pages in between classes or while standing in line, in slipping them into backpacks and handbags so you can share them with friends you happen to meet, in going to sleep with your head pillowed on Arfken and then waking up because the Belgariad is giving you backache. We have our own ways of loving for books. Mine is to live with them.

If geeks are really anti-social, how could you explain Linux Users’ Groups, MUDs, programming language users’ groups, and so on? Isn’t that being social?

The stereotype that geeks are anti-social is bleh if you ask me, especially when you think about that. And geeks do go out drinking, dancing, enjoying themselves in concerts, among others. It’s probably not always the stereotypical way of enjoying the events but still, geeks do that too. And it’s not necessarily as frequent as stereotypical party animals but I do know geeks who would be considered the life of the parties they go to.

Ah, stereotypes.

eclair: Glenn, there’s “Bambino!” on Crunchyroll! And here’s an RoR tutorial I could start with!
Glenn: Sounds great.
eclair: Now I wonder what I should do… *pause*
[eclair looks at the Rails tutorial and starts on it]
eclair: Hey, Glenn, look! Rails is cool. It did this… *points at the view created* *lightbulb moment* I just realized: between the show “Bambino!” and Rails, I chose Rails!
Glenn: Hahaha. Our hobby is working. And maybe our past time is research. Or coding. Hahahahaha!
eclair: Our current events would be releases of our favorite text editors, etc. etc.
*Glenn and eclair laugh*

And we actually do these things. Hahaha.

How about you? How geeky could you be?

(title inspired by Taylor & Wheeler’s Parable of the Surveyors, Spacetime Physics)

Imagine a room of students waiting for an exam to start. They talk in hushed tones about concepts and equations none of them really understand, reciting formulae like mantras. The room is cold with excess air conditioning and barely stifled dread.

The proctor — a graduate student — walks in carrying the exam papers and questionnaire sheets. He doesn’t look at the students; instead he goes to the blackboard and begins writing.

It’s standard procedure to write the starting time, the finish time, and the duration on the board, but this is ridiculous.

My first reaction was: “There’s something wrong here. That’s not a well-defined sequence and its limits don’t make sense. And the integral is really ugly. I don’t even think you can do that.”

And then I paused and thought, “No, really, there’s something wrong here; he shouldn’t be doing that.”

It wasn’t just the math that was off; it was his writing it in the first place. I found it terribly arrogant; sure, intimidate the undergraduates (most of whom have only limited knowledge of derivatives, much less sequences and limits) with unnecessarily arcane symbols. Be inconsiderate and obnoxious and rub it into their faces that they are worth so much less than you are.

Showing off is self-destructive because, of course, intellectual humility is always, always fundamental. You should never lose sight of that, never flaunt what you know — if you do so, you’re just displaying your ignorance (of the fact that there’s so much more you don’t know, for one thing). Once you get to the point where you feel you can start showing off your mastery of your field, you hit a wall and learn less and less every day. Or worse — lose everything you have.

The proctor collected our answer sheets ten minutes early. I didn’t bother correcting him; he didn’t look amenable to corrections anyway.

–

So this semester is over and I have one summer and two semesters left before I graduate. I’m starting to find some sort of grounding in economics: interesting problems, situations I’d like to explore. It’s like being given a whole new playground in which to wreak havoc…! There’s much to be said about being different; as an economics major who can read (and understand, and work on) physics papers, I straddle two worlds.

And there are so many things to learn!

–

In other news:

This made my day. It’s a formula that… graphs itself!

Start page URL is http://partnerpage.google.com/likhain.net. You can also use http://start.likhain.net.

Please feel free to sign up for an account. I’m planning to use likhain.net Gmail myself.

Here’s the short of it:

1. Open source Atmel AVR microcontroller kits
2. Qtopia- Greenphone/SDK
3. Open Prosthetics
4. Ubuntu with Support
5. x0xb0x - open source ‘acid’ bassline synthesizer with sequencer
6. Multimachine - Open Source machine tool
7. Arduino stamp
8. NEUROS OSD - Open Source Linux embedded media center
9. MIDIsense A real-world MIDI interface platform
10. Open source firmware + wireless router… Buffalo WHR-HP-G54
11. The MAKE “Daisy” MP3 Player Kit - Open source MP3 player
12. Open EEG - Analog & digital boards
13. The Leaf - Open source robot using artificial intelligence and vision
14. Rockbox an new MP3 player
15. Open source IR for Xbox
16. Game of Life Board
17. Open source web based home automation
18. DIY Fuel Injection Conversion using open source engine management
19. Liberlab - Open source lab
20. Butterfly open source mp3 Player
21. MediaPortal - Open source media center for Windows
22. Flex-Radio SDR-1000 - Open source software radio
23. Chumby - Open source squeezable, Wi-Fi bean-bag computer
24. Open source embedded ethernet
25. Open source beer
26. openEyes - open-source open-hardware toolkit for low-cost real-time eye tracking
27. Open-source grid controller - the monome
28. Open source planetarium
29. PortableApps Suite - Computer without a computer
30. LEGO Mindstorms NXT
31. MAKE Controller Kit - Open source physical computing
32. SpokePOV - Persistence of vision for your bike!
33. Open Source MIDI Keyboard
34. Electronic game kit
35. MiniPOV kit
36. Minty Boost kit - charge USB devices
37. High Speed Photography Kit
38. Alice
39. MAKE Leatherman warranty voiders!
40. eMusic gift certificate & Magnatune
41. XGameStation Pico Edition 2.0 - DIY game console
42. Universal Software Radio Peripheral
43. EFF Pioneer membership
44. O’Reilly Open source books & Safari
45. OpenMoko phones & Gumstix
46. Open Gameboy - Flashcar and DevKit
47. Playstation 3 - PS3 + the OtherOS laoder with Linux
48. GP2x - Open source gaming
49. AVRSynth - Open source synthesizer
50. A PSP - Hacked up, freed and open PSP with LuaPlayer
51. MIDIBox - Open MIDI
52. MAKE Magazine - By makers for makers

And here’s the long of it.

The OpenMoko phone is a refreshing sight from all the Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson phones clogging up the stores. (Add the iPhone to that list as well.) That media center looks a lot like the PS3. And of course, the Open Source Beer is a hoot. Do check out the post discussion for even more ideas!

How about you? Do you have any geeky things on your wishlists?

Footnote: Okay, I know this is uber-uber-uber late for Christmas or Valentines or whatever holiday I’ve skipped, but I’ll publish this post anyway. Kung Hei Fat Choi! Haha. Talk about procrastination—which I’ll write about next time. ^_~

http://www.weffriddles.com

(I’m currently stuck on a fake level. Heh.)