OftenImitated Blog

A few things are coming up. First off, I am going to the beach this spring break… More on that will come up in the near future.

Also, I am a man on a mission. Or rather, I will be on a mission, relatively soon. Frighteningly soon. I need to make sure that I leave this town with a bang, and the only way that I can think of is to do a bit of a variation on the semi-legendary Project 365.

Essentially, I plan on taking a photo of a random moment in my life, everyday, until I leave for my mission. I will be posting the photos up on my blog, which will give me an excuse to blog (at least something) every day.

I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take a picture right now. It won’t be interesting, I’m only sitting at my computer right now, and the lighting is terrible, but it’s a start. Don’t worry, I’ll try to have more interesting pictures in the future.

For the record, I will be calling this Project19, since I will go on a mission around the time when I turn 19. Posts will be in the Projects category (and most likely, the Personal one as well… and, if it’s a good picture, the Photography category).

In fun and awesome news, there are The Icon Generation pillows from Throwboy. These things are awesome, you just need to see them to understand:

If that’s not the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your life, then I don’t know what is. They’re $29 each, or $149 for the entire set of 6, so they’re a bit pricey as far as pillows go, but you have to admit that this is just about an absolute must for any and all Mac fans, ever. (I can’t afford them, but if I could… oh, imagine the looks on any visitor’s face).

In other news, I have taken my Saturday, and used it to do the most unproductive and wasteful thing ever: I have created a Java interpreter for the Brainf*** programming language. (It feels good to get back into Java programming… ahh, the good ol’ days…) All it does is take in a program as a string (either as an argument, or contained in a text file, and interpret the program, command-by-command. It’s quick, inefficient, and it kept me busy for about 10 minutes… but programming in brainf***, that kept me busy for the rest of the afternoon. Here’s a quick snapshot of part of the interpreter:

Let me tell you, this junk really lives up to it’s name. Here’s hello world:

++++++++++        initialises cell zero to 10
[
>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-
]                 this loop sets the next four cells to 70/100/30/10
>++.              print   'H'
>+.               print   'e'
+++++++.                  'l'
.                         'l'
+++.                      'o'
>++.                      space
<<+++++++++++++++.        'W'
>.                        'o'
+++.                      'r'
------.                   'l'
--------.                 'd'
>+.                       '!'
>.                        newline

Of course, anything that’s not <>+-,.[] is just comments.

I removed the comments from this one. If you can tell me what it does, you get a prize!

,>,>++++++[-<--------<-------->>]
<<[
>[->+>+<<]
>[-<<-
[>]>>>[<[>>>-<<<[-]]>>]<<]
>>>+
<<[-<<+>>]
<<<]
>[-]>>>>[-<<<<<+>>>>>]
<<<<++++++[-<++++++++>]<.

Well that’s it for now, gotta write a paper!

So remember when I brought up Project Euler as a cool thing to do to solve problems and be smart and stuff?

Well it’s here in case you forgot.

Anyways, after getting through only 20 or so (of 200 or so) I have decided that Project Euler is more of a self-esteem killer than I originally thought.

Never fear, for I shall never concede, I shall only continue (and whine) until I have completed!

The project formerly known as “Hobo” is completed… pictures tomorrow, maybe.

Also, expect a review of The Day the Earth Stood Still sometime after I watch it on Wednesday night.

“Are you busy?”

Those are the words I dread to hear. Possibly the worst of all loaded phrases, the mere utterance of such a phrase is reason for panic.

Let me explain myself here. Let’s suppose that somebody calls you, and the first thing they say is, “Hey, are you busy?” (this gets even worse if this person happens to be your girlfriend). Let us also suppose that you aren’t exactly busy, but you can’t really go out at the moment. If you say no, you are expected to be able to hang out. However, if you say yes, the caller may decide that you don’t have enough time to hear some exciting news (and they’ll be sure to let you know that you’re missing out).

If you ever find yourself wanting to ask somebody if they are busy, consider an alternative. If you want to hang out with them, ask them if they’re available to go out. If you want to tell them some big and important story, ask them if they gave time to hear about it.

Or, leave it up to them. Let them be the one to decide if they have time. After all, if they didn’t want to talk, they wouldn’t have answered the phone, and if they can’t hang out, they’ll tell you.

I swear, I’m going to just hang up the next time somebody asks me if I’m busy.

…

Also, I have made much progress on Project Hobo, which I should be completing sometime in the next week, hopefully. I shall do my very best to provide photos, but I just can’t promise anything (if you knew how much I worked, you’d understand). But I will definitely have pictures of it when it is completed.