another article online; wow I'm tired

[solarbird]

Between school and a doctor's appointment that ended up being with three medics and stress and a few other things, I feel very wiped out and am having a very hard time concentrating and such. I am not very optimistic about this quarter.

Maybe I should go to bed, but it's only 9:30ish and I've even taken a nap. I don't want to be all awake at 5:30am or something dumb like that.

I'm sorry for no flower pictures this week. I have to play with photoshop for a while and get the next batch web-ready, and I haven't had the energy.

Oh, the results of the appointment: I get to start weaning myself off dilantin, yay, but that means I'll still be on at least a low dose for another week. So some good, but some bad. The medical group continues to find my recovery surprising. They're going to call me about a ear/nose/throat doctor with relevant experience in the next couple of weeks. And I'm not allowed to participate in anything that can result in a whack in the head for a year, so once again, my plans for resuming Aikido (in the spring at UW's dojo) are fucked. God dammit. (Also no to most sports, and oh yeah, Shoreline's archery club meets during my bio lab, so I can't even do that. This year blows donkeys now.)

They are also rather surprised that I'm still trying to take fall quarter classes and rather suggested it might be a good idea to wait. Apparently normally it would be expected that someone with my injuries would not be at all ready - that I'd need more cognitive therapy and such first, plus, well, really, really far ahead of schedule. Also, I really, really, really do not want to lose a year to this. So here I go - I hope.

Oh, in other news, another one of my articles is online at TechNet. It's reasonably amusing. The phrase "reading comic books" is supposed to have strikethrough over it, and actually does in the print edition. I should drop them a note about that. Update: They fixed it. Yay!

Today's (Thursday's) miles: 1.3 burdoned
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1340.8
Miles out of Rivendell: 875.8
Miles out of Lothlórien: 420.8
Miles past Rauros Falls: 12.9
Miles to Isengard: 458.0

Comments

[cow.livejournal.com]

I like the TechNet article. I know you told me this story over lunch once last quarter, but it's fun to see it in print (and you always have such a humorous way with words).

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

Good war story!

You know ... I mean, ponder. Even just thinking of only those folk we'd consider computer savvy, I wonder how many can follow that?

It totally amazes me how you do what you do. I mean, it shouldn't ... I usta do the same thing in a huge jungle of RF and microwave stuff, but ... pretty impressive. Good piece of work.

And good writing too!

cheers

[solarbird]

Well, TechNet Magazine is a magazine specifically for IT professionals, so I'd imagine most if not all of them could. It's not generally-focused at all; its readership is almost entirely made of system administrators. Check out some of the other writer bios - I'm barely in the field, and some of these other people are people with genuinely serious networks in their hands.

Thanks about the writing. ^_^ I tried to write fiction for a while, that didn't work out. But these are pretty fun to put out there. I just wish I had four articles' worth of material a year so they could formally make me a regular columnist. That'd be keen,

[pstratt.livejournal.com]

Apparently normally it would be expected that someone with my injuries would not be at all ready - that I'd need more cognitive therapy and such first, plus, well, really, really far ahead of schedule.

I had a friend get a concussion when his car was rear-ended and there definitely a catch up period on the personality. He would be normal in the morning then get irratable after about seven or eight hours of being up. Evidently there is some longer term brain swelling. Anyhow, I didn't see him for several months and then he was back to normal. He said the irratability lasted about ten months.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, I realize you targeted your audience right. It's just that "normal" folk really don't get a sense of what's going on in the background. For e.g. I was just on Indymedia IRC ... qwest or swiftcom.net or someone lost a cable or something ... bgp/DNS whatever. No way a naive observer could grok what was happening. It's all so abstract.

Hey did you ever read ?what was it? Cuckoo's Egg I think ... about the guy who caught the cracker? Great industry novel.

Those columns are great. When things in the "real" world are just toooo wierd I head to InfoWeek and ITtoolbox and such ... get a sanity fix.
:-)

[solarbird]

I don't think I've read the book, unfortunately. I'm not sure I even know what it is!

and hee, going to IT publications for a sanity fix really says exactly how batshit everything else has become, doesn't it?

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure I even know what it is!"
Oh, well, ummm ... it's a rectangular object, usually much wider than taller than thick, remarkable for having combined text and graphics on the cover and filled with pages of double-side text.
;-P

Uhhhh huh huh ... the story's pretty neat: a CS grad student working at ohhh I think an observatory ... notices one of the accounting functions' results are off by 17c ... nobody much cares but it bugs him that it's off at all. So he digs around and sees tiny evidences that someone's been hacking the system. The book is about the elaborate processes he sets up to catch the worlds first major hacker. Well, the first we know of, of course. heh
I'm pretty sure it's "Cuckoo's Egg".

"really says exactly how batshit everything else has become, doesn't it?"
Okkkkkkay, now dig this: you got the point totally while most folk would just stare blanky as their eyes glaze over. Really.

I think org's like EFF could really step up ... I've thought of something like "Communications Professionals for Social Responsibility" or something. If ever you want to see a union with a good social policy check out CWA, Communications' Workers ... good outreach, solid rhetoric ... almost like they're sane.
;-)