AND WE LIKED IT! WE WERE GRATEFUL!

It's becoming more and more difficult to use smooth running linux installs as a tool for lording your 133t-ness over other, leser geeks. Have you people seen the Ubuntu installs? With their pretty graphics and ease of use and automated everything. I feel like an old grandpa reminiscing about how hard I had it back in old school.

Because we didn't have hardware detection. We had an endless yet frustratingly incomplete list of possible modules to sift through to find the driver that we hoped might have sort of worked with the hardware we had. And to test it, we had to compile the bitch. Back when I first waded the murky waters of Linux in high school there was no fun way to partition a your father's hard drive with all his financial records, no, we had to fdisk it and completely destroy any data that we didn't secretely back up forever. So if you fucked up, your parent's would be audited by the IRS and possibly thrown in jail for life. Thats some scary shit to go through just to see what linux was all about.

No graphical installs, kiddos. We had a floppy disk, a command prompt and a pocket full of dreams. Hell, if you managed to get the Graphical User Interface up, ever, you were flown out to Europe to be made a member of an elite commission and given a small Slavic country to run.

And if you ever did get a full Linux install up and running, Linus Torvalds would come to your place of business and punch you right in the face and scream "Welcome to my little slice of hell, BITCH". Because that's just how they roll in Finland. It's cold up there; they are very angry.

You kids have it so easy it makes me sick. Before the kernel torrents you had to fly out to Helsinki and hold a commedore 64 over your head, march in place and sing the Finnish National Anthem while they sprayed ammonia on you. If, after 24 hours, you were deemed worthy they would throw the disk over a cliff and have you climb down naked to fetch it. If they didn't deem you worthy, they just killed you and everyone you ever really loved.

Ah, but to become a Guru back then was truly life's greatest gift.

I Passed 8th Grade Science!

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Odd

Here is an unexpected restult of Israel's war on Hezbollah: The lead dev of php quit.

Free Time

What do I do when I have free time? I cook or I program. Generally I cook since my occupied time is filled with coding. So I cook. I like cooking.

In any case I am on a whirlwind tour of comfort food right now. Yesterday was enchiladas, tommorrow is Carne Guisada. Right now I have my first ever batch of ceviche steeping in the fridge =-D. Oh, and of course rice and beans. =-D

Whoah...brainstorm: I am gonna try to make beans like my mom tommorrow...scary ^_^

I'm getting this forboding feeling of impending doom. I think I might go over that review for my Final in STL.

Odd Day

Today I got my spanish mid-term back. I got a B. Having recently adopted as my life's guiding tenet "D is for Diploma and C is for Can Graduate" it really didn't phase me. I've put maybe a grand total of 2 hours of studying in for this class in the last 3 weeks and spend the entire weekend before the mid-term working on an STL project so really the B is entirely a result of my background.

But then Paco, the profesor, stopped me after class and said, paraphrased and translated: "Dude, you obviously speak the damn language, what the hell are you doing getting B's?"

So now I have shame. Not only that, but all of my coursework so far as been getting me straight A's. So from here on out I guess I am studying for Spanish. Pleh...

Sidebar: Paco is a good teacher.

Mirab, his sails unfurled ^_^

#DEFINE private public
#DEFINE protected public
#DEFINE class struct

The above is incredible!

Cielito Lindo

Self-Discovery: I am extremely hopeful. I hope a lot. Maybe too much? Nah, that can't be, you can't have to much hope.

It helps that life almost exclusively goes my way. One day the fates will start dishing out some bad luck...

Anyway, here's hopin'!

Yahoo

I've played the field all I can bear and have come to one irrefutable marriage: Today I broke through my fear of commitment and bought a year's worth of Yahoo's music service.

The others just sucked.

Now all I have to do is actually get married and I think I might be grown up. Good luck getting my shark-bitten ass into those waters though.

How do we know Harry and Sally stayed together? I guess those old couples did ok.

Lazlo Bane...Napster didn't have Lazlo Bane. I love Lazlo Bane.

Also, if it is far in the future and you are my fiancee then know this: My groom's cake should not have icing on it, but you already know that, right? If you don't you suck...y'know, in a manner that is not pleasing. Also, if you're not Mexican I'll give you a warning that my sister didn't give her husband: The Mariachi's are going to follow us...it's just going to happen. And you probably have already experienced this but my family will dance and bang on tables and scream at the top of their lungs. So prep your family who, if history speaks at all, doesn't like me anyway.

Y'know my mother's mother "Grandma Hita" or "Tota" hated my dad for a very long time, then she started to like him and in the end considered him on par with Angel Farts. Weird how that worked out.

Anyway, yeah..good luck marrying me.

Really, don't ask.

Imagine the scene:

It's a bright sunny day and there is a gaggle of folks enjoying the lake together. Splashes and laughter and playful screams fill the air. Off by herself is one girl. She is in her mid-twenties and calling for her friends to join her. Ok, and she is hot...Jerry Bruckheimer hot.

Cut to an angle that is under water and looking up at the girls treading legs, a la Jaws. In fact, lets cue the classic Jaw's theme. One step further, lets have whatever is viewing the hot girl from below begin to swim toward her.

Now cut back and forth between veiwing her above water, gaily unaware of what lies beneath and viewing her below water, as the predator.

As the cuts get shorter and the music reaches climax everyone knows what to expect. But when they want zig, we zag: Right when hot girl should be bitten, someone behind her explodes out of the water and desperately gasps for air, completely ruining the surprise.

Or! even better, he just sort of surfaces, face down, with a non-committal "bloop", dead.

See, now that is funny =-D

The Puzzlers

Puzzler 1
Puzzler 2
Puzzler 3
Puzzler 4

My Solutions

Puzzler 1
Puzzler 2
Puzzler 3
Puzzler 4

Puzzlers 1 and 2 I wound up with the fastest solutions in the class =-D. Puzzler 3, on the other hand I didn't make able to grow beyond the limitations of a 32-bit int and I got docked hard for that. In my defense, that was the week Wuelo died.

Puzzler 4 was breadth first search...so...meh

Random Fact

Arlington National Cemetary places a headstone with the Angel Moroni blowing his trumpet on Mormon graves. That made me smile.

The River

Blake and Long were in town and there was a river trip. It's only the second time I've gone down there and I actually had fun this time.

After the first chute as the seven of us were re-grouping some guy told us that we shouldn't have a styrofoam cooler and that it was a possible 250$ fine. When we were being told this we were against one wall, and on top of that wall were 3 police officers basically looking straight down on us. It was akin to when the Tyrannasourus Rex was looking into the window of that jeep in Jurassic Park. After a few distractionary efforts and some covert maneauvers we had gotten rid of the cooler and were back on the river. One girl, who was actually /next/ to our tube with the cooler got a ticket for her styrofoam cooler =-D.

Anyway, I got way to drunk. When I got home I fell directly to sleep and 4 hours later woke up with the worst hangover I've ever had. I forced a ton of water down my throat and now I am all better and ready to see the world again.

Comoda

I want to buy a chest of drawers. I, in my ever forward looking way, would like to buy a chest of drawers of quality greater than Target has to offer but less than what dwr would like to sell me.

The only thing that pops into my mind is Ikea. I just don't want to drive to houston to go there just for a chest of drawers. Also, I don't really want to wait. I am damn sick of having nowhere to put my clothing.

So, if any of you can come up with a neat solution, let me know. =-D

*werble*

The tax return....is in

Title

Interesting thing that popped up in a conversation with Sarah and Dylan. When I grew up I never heard Nigger used in a derogatory manner. Quite to the contrary I only heard it used in a very positive, inclusionary manner. I don't want to get into a whole discussion about anything inclusionary is necesarily exclusionary, but my point is that regardless I've always known that it was a very powerful epithet. I knew this only because I was told by my parents, or the media, or Mark Twain, etc and so it was an academic point in my mind that it was an incredibly charged little phoneme.

As a result I haven't any sort of issue, personally, using the word in a joking manner, or hearing anyone else use it, it is just not wired to the section of my brain that cringes at curse words. Through the power of empathy and self-preservation I found that I cannot ever use it regardless of my feelings toward it. But my reasons for not using it are similar to my reasons for putting down the toilet seat: I know it bothers you so and really it means nothing to me so I just don't bother.

Flip side of the coin: "Faggot". I heard it used all the time in a negative way, and even typing it takes some effort on my part.

There was a comedian that discussed making a snack called "Niggers". It was a funny point, but it seems suddenly salient. Really, all you have to do is flood the media with positive uses of, ahem, that word and the negative ones will fade into the background.

This is what most minorities do when they adapt their respective epithets. Rappers and, if you will, dave chapelle constantly use "Nigger". Gay dudes will jokingly call each other "Fag" and I can't tell you how many times my dad called me "pinche mojado" affectionately.

It doesn't quite work because the minorities won't allow other people to use their epithets, even when used in the exact same fashion. Pity. It seems like only when we have a free flowing exchange of glad-tidings combined with racial slurs will we truly reach togetherness.

We're getting there I suppose. It'll take forever to diffuse some slurs, but the majority of them are being freed.

I guess you can consider slurs an equivalance function on a set. To make the set "whole" you need to make each of these functions include all members. =-D

MM...blathering, I need to code.

Writing a Deque

I also wrote one 5 years ago in CS315 with Josh. Our implemention was so damned stupid that I want to cry. In the last 40 minutes I have written more functionality than we did in 2 weeks, together.

I guess it goes to show tht UTCS does indeed impart knowledge and skill...

Straight A's

They said I was crazy. My advisor even told me not to do it. 12 hours in 6 weeks was to much.

This, right here, is the best day I have had in a while ^_^

So, having Taranged this past semester I now have forever put Automata behind me, proving that I, in fact, am the genius I purport my self to be.

Yelp?

Nothing ever turns out the way you plan, so I stopped planning things.

I'm so tired...I kicked a dog and slammed a door

ugh

Bright side: Y'know what, fuck the bright side this time, I am enjoying my self-pity

Silver Lining

Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Rio, Mcallen, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Baghdad, Germany...

Just a sampling of where 'lito Lopez managed to get his offspring, and they are all coming in this week! =-D

Some of these cousins I havn't seen in years. With my my dad and Tia Linda doing the arrangements, my sister and I have been tasked as "concierge"'s for our house, where the majority are staying. So we're getting more and more excited.

On the way to the Baghdad airport Carlos' convoy got ambushed! He's fine, and gonna try again tommorrow. The Funeral is on Friday so he can get in.

Oh, and my professors have been amazing. Having your grandad's funeral on the day of finals actually doesn't have to be the most horrible thing ever.

And Then There Was One

It's always bad news when home calls at 8:00 in the morning. And my Mom tends to call only when someone croaks. At least this time I am not across the goddamned country.

I've never liked the way I deal with death. Perhaps it was being raised that there is an afterlife, but death has never affected me in any significant way.

My Dad was apparently having a fit this morning, an odd image for me to bring up to be sure.

Anyway, Wuelito Alvaro Lopez died this morning at 7:30 after a short-lived recovery from pneumonia. He was my Father's Father and in many aspects near a god to me. Really, any man your Dad calls for advice on how to fix something is worth a little worship.

Grandma Consuelo is really ill too and this ought to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. So stay tuned, I guess.