I thought I'd expand a bit on what I mean by saying the quote I posted yesterday applies to me. To be more specific, the part about it being "...a subject much bigger and more important than he will ever be". Firstly, I think it is quite a mean attack, and you can apply it to anyone who is interested in something but is not acclaimed in it. Lord knows I'm the same as Mr. Ott in that I fawn over these artists, albums, and for that matter books, and love writing and talking about them. Of course, I will never be able to reach the same level of greatness or genius as these people and things that I praise. But that's not wrong, surely?
It does make me wonder though whether it's wrong to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about a subject when all you can offer is "meaningless commentary". I'm not a critic, I know precious little about most things, so why should I bother writing about these things? Basically it boils down to ego. It makes me feel good, for one, since I like writing about what I like, but also I think it makes me feel important, as if by giving views on something important, that I become important by association. The difference, I would like to think, is that the blogging medium does not imply expertise at all, which I suppose a book might. It's true, the commentary I provide is still meaningless, regardless of medium, but surely a lot of what we do is meaningless then? I suspect the attack was aimed specifically at the fact that Ott chose to write a book about it, which I suppose is more understandable.
There still is the matter, though, of whether it is wrong to be thinking and writing about these things in the first place. Maybe it's a waste of time (and for me it invariably is), but it is an ego-boost, and does that make it wrong? If something makes you happy, and yet it has no point, is it "wrong" to do it? Unfortunately it would be hard to define what the "point" of anything is. I mean, what's the point of life? It may be better to replace "wrong" with a "something you shouldn't be devoting your life to". That would seem to make a true(er) statement - don't spend your life on something that you can't offer anything new on. But this begs the question, "Who are you to tell me what to do with my life?!". Indeed! I don't think the statement is of a command-nature, it's more of a guideline that one would do well to follow. Especially me.
I think I've gone and confused myself. I'm sure the author of the comment didn't intend something so deep, all he meant was that the book was pointless droning, and I suppose he chucked in an insult for good measure.
It's interesting to chalk up a list of fallacies I've employed: appeal to emotion, appeal to common belief, straw man... Hmm perhaps I am far too self-conscious, I cannot go a post without having a disclaimer that basically says "I know what I've written is total nonsense, so spare me".
Blogger's server seems to be taking quite a beating. I knew they would have trouble once they offered unlimited image space!
Monday, July 05, 2004
From here:
"As far as I can tell Ott is some failed musician who has made it his sad goal in life to add his absolutely meaningless commentary to a subject much bigger and more important than he will ever be".
Ouch. Yet again, I think the essence of that attack would apply to me too.
"As far as I can tell Ott is some failed musician who has made it his sad goal in life to add his absolutely meaningless commentary to a subject much bigger and more important than he will ever be".
Ouch. Yet again, I think the essence of that attack would apply to me too.
As usual, I've let three days slip by without noticing it at all. Gah, why do days have to pass so fast? There's so little time to do the things you want to (yeah, yeah, I know, you have to make time, but humour me). I saw the conclusion of Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety yesterday (unfortunately, I missed the second part). Definitely interesting, but I rarely find that I am able to be consoled by philosophy and art. Sure, it makes me feel good for a brief period, but I never seem to let it fully sink in. I might end up reading some of de Botton's other works, he definitely seems interesting in a charming, quirky way.
One of the things he mentioned that I found interesting (and amusing) was that sometimes we need death to remind us for our own mortality, which can help us sort and reoorganize our lives, figure out what our priorities are. I think I would do well to seriously contemplate this sometime soon, because I fear that my life is merely slipping away without me realizing it. I don't know, I can't even begin to imagine growing up and being an adult in this crazy world, let alone dying. I mean, I have been aware for a long time now that I am going to die. Some people don't even think about such things, and so they are sometimes shocked by the thought, but no, it has occured to me a few times in the past. But I don't think I've spent enough time critically thinking about what I want to do as a result of that. As in, what am I really doing with my life? Will I be content at death? What do I want to acheive? And so on.
Too often I have the fatalist/nihilist/pessimist/depressionist rolled-into-one attitude that makes me say something dreary like "Oh, I'm a failure, I'm not going to accomplish anything". Perhaps. But it's not right to condemn onesself to failure so early on I would think, it's not right to resign to a future based on what are really quite limited experiences. This prevents me from ever really thinking about what I want to do and who I want to be. You hear that everyone is scared about the future, but I would think I am more-so than others; at times I am literally terrified of what the future is going to hold. But should this not inspire me to have some attainable goals that I may look forward to? Some yardstick by which I can deem my life a relative success?
The program made me question my stance on money. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy you the ability to pursue happiness, so they say. This strikes me as being the rationalist's view, balanced and pragmatic. My fields of choice (computer science and mathematics) were certainly not chosen on the basis of the money that a typical job in these fields pays, but it is interesting to ask whether one would be content with a normal salary that is enough to pay all the bills and support a family, while allowing for some minimal amount of luxury. Shouldn't that be enough? At times I think that I am very materialistic about certain things (f'rinstance, music). It saddens me, because I don't think I used to be like this - not quite as bad as I am now, at any rate. I'd like to think that I'd be happy with such an income, but there is this other side of me that says that I would not, and that I would want to spoil myself. Which one is right, I do not know.
It's interesting for me to think about these things, but the thing is some people have lived a hard life for as long as they can remember, and so to them my introspections may seem strange. Fundamentally, I suppose, the issue is whether we need to be pampered to be happy. Is it idealistic to think that there is happiness to be found without luxury, assuming you've been exposed to it for a good amount of time?
Truth be told, I don't think I will be very successful, and so I will hopefully not go below my own lowered expectations. The problem is then that I suffer from the problem of placing too much importance to what other people think and say. (I am not sure whether it just introversion?) If I am not successful, I am petrified that there will be talk of my failure, and cringe at the thought of what people will think of me. Well, to be fair, no one has a very high opinion of me now anyway, so that's a good start. But more importantly, such thoughts do not deserve much attention. The very nature of success seems to be predominantly a measure of your financial value. I don't think there's enough emphasis placed on the quality of a person as a person. In BFC, there was a lot of talk about how there is very much an atmosphere of fear prevailing in the media. I especially am scared by what I read, hear and see into thinking that these ultimately pointless standards are the ones to aim for. Yet it should not be so; we should judge people as people, not as extensions of their bank account.
Am I making excuses for myself? I've deluded myself with hopeless arguments in the past, and so I can't put it past me. I think I am guilty of oversimplification. If you oversimplify enough, you can argue that lots of people spend their leaves earning pieces of paper, and how many pieces of paper you have dictate how successful you are.
I feel like watching all the movies I've never had the time to watch properly. For starters, I feel the need to watch The Good, The Bad & The Ugly again. I think I last saw it some 6 years ago, and most of it is but a blur.
A Gentle Introduction To Symbolic Computation is just waiting to be read. As is The Plague, Zen, Crime & Punishment (again), The Brothers Karmazov (also again), and so on. I don't read half as much as used to, and I don't know why that is. It's not good, because I don't want to lose touch with the written medium. Has this infernal machine taken over my life?
I had the riff from Marquee Moon stuck in my head, but now I've gone and forgotten it.
Pardon the rambling nature of this post, I'm much too tired.
One of the things he mentioned that I found interesting (and amusing) was that sometimes we need death to remind us for our own mortality, which can help us sort and reoorganize our lives, figure out what our priorities are. I think I would do well to seriously contemplate this sometime soon, because I fear that my life is merely slipping away without me realizing it. I don't know, I can't even begin to imagine growing up and being an adult in this crazy world, let alone dying. I mean, I have been aware for a long time now that I am going to die. Some people don't even think about such things, and so they are sometimes shocked by the thought, but no, it has occured to me a few times in the past. But I don't think I've spent enough time critically thinking about what I want to do as a result of that. As in, what am I really doing with my life? Will I be content at death? What do I want to acheive? And so on.
Too often I have the fatalist/nihilist/pessimist/depressionist rolled-into-one attitude that makes me say something dreary like "Oh, I'm a failure, I'm not going to accomplish anything". Perhaps. But it's not right to condemn onesself to failure so early on I would think, it's not right to resign to a future based on what are really quite limited experiences. This prevents me from ever really thinking about what I want to do and who I want to be. You hear that everyone is scared about the future, but I would think I am more-so than others; at times I am literally terrified of what the future is going to hold. But should this not inspire me to have some attainable goals that I may look forward to? Some yardstick by which I can deem my life a relative success?
The program made me question my stance on money. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy you the ability to pursue happiness, so they say. This strikes me as being the rationalist's view, balanced and pragmatic. My fields of choice (computer science and mathematics) were certainly not chosen on the basis of the money that a typical job in these fields pays, but it is interesting to ask whether one would be content with a normal salary that is enough to pay all the bills and support a family, while allowing for some minimal amount of luxury. Shouldn't that be enough? At times I think that I am very materialistic about certain things (f'rinstance, music). It saddens me, because I don't think I used to be like this - not quite as bad as I am now, at any rate. I'd like to think that I'd be happy with such an income, but there is this other side of me that says that I would not, and that I would want to spoil myself. Which one is right, I do not know.
It's interesting for me to think about these things, but the thing is some people have lived a hard life for as long as they can remember, and so to them my introspections may seem strange. Fundamentally, I suppose, the issue is whether we need to be pampered to be happy. Is it idealistic to think that there is happiness to be found without luxury, assuming you've been exposed to it for a good amount of time?
Truth be told, I don't think I will be very successful, and so I will hopefully not go below my own lowered expectations. The problem is then that I suffer from the problem of placing too much importance to what other people think and say. (I am not sure whether it just introversion?) If I am not successful, I am petrified that there will be talk of my failure, and cringe at the thought of what people will think of me. Well, to be fair, no one has a very high opinion of me now anyway, so that's a good start. But more importantly, such thoughts do not deserve much attention. The very nature of success seems to be predominantly a measure of your financial value. I don't think there's enough emphasis placed on the quality of a person as a person. In BFC, there was a lot of talk about how there is very much an atmosphere of fear prevailing in the media. I especially am scared by what I read, hear and see into thinking that these ultimately pointless standards are the ones to aim for. Yet it should not be so; we should judge people as people, not as extensions of their bank account.
Am I making excuses for myself? I've deluded myself with hopeless arguments in the past, and so I can't put it past me. I think I am guilty of oversimplification. If you oversimplify enough, you can argue that lots of people spend their leaves earning pieces of paper, and how many pieces of paper you have dictate how successful you are.
I feel like watching all the movies I've never had the time to watch properly. For starters, I feel the need to watch The Good, The Bad & The Ugly again. I think I last saw it some 6 years ago, and most of it is but a blur.
A Gentle Introduction To Symbolic Computation is just waiting to be read. As is The Plague, Zen, Crime & Punishment (again), The Brothers Karmazov (also again), and so on. I don't read half as much as used to, and I don't know why that is. It's not good, because I don't want to lose touch with the written medium. Has this infernal machine taken over my life?
I had the riff from Marquee Moon stuck in my head, but now I've gone and forgotten it.
Pardon the rambling nature of this post, I'm much too tired.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Another interesting linky just in case I forget - here's Pitchfork Media's list of the top 100 albums of the '70s. You can tell that it's a critic's (critics' rather, it seems to be done by a group) compilation, and it features some interesting choices. Kraftwerk, Bowie, Eno, such artists rarely appear three or four times in such lists. I can't say I agree with a lot of the choices, but what do I know?! Interesting, nonetheless. It has a lot of albums which I've never heard of, which is great, because I'm always willing to expand my selection.
These "top albums of the " lists are ultimately pointless but they're also fun once in a while. In fact there's a whole stack of them here, so knock yourself out. The problem is that a lot of lists are pretty predictable - throw in your Sgt. Pepper's, Velvet Underground and Nico, Highway 61, some whacko choices for good measure and you're set (pardon my cynicism). At the same time, when I see a list that substantially deviates from the pattern, I am outraged at the thought that they didn't include album A, B, C which make frequent appearances on other lists. But my foibles should not deter the budding list-maker! In fact I ought to make a list like this someday, just for the heck of it. The problem is, I haven't heard 100 great albums..! More like 25. Wait a sec, didn't I already do that much earlier, with this? How time flies. Actually, I ought to update that a bit, I made the whole thing in one day and it really shows.
And another thing to update is the blog layout - unfortunately, I'm no good with web design in any shape or form, so I'll probably end up butchering the whole thing like I normally do. The price of failure, I suppose.
I watched Bowling For Columbine earlier today, and promptly sat down and read all the criticisms of the facts in the movie. A digression - do I tend to do that too much, too often? It's nice to have an open mind, sure, but there has to be a limit. I think nowadays I am so struck by "being open-minded" that I will readily accept an opposite point of view, while really what I should be trying to do is think about the viewpoint critically. I think what I tend to do is listen to the other view and say "Hey, you're right" and then totally dismiss my previous opinion. Of course, if I get presented with an argument that supports this newly discarded opinion, then I embrace it again. A vicious circle, really, my mind oscillates between viewpoints and choices so much, I really don't know where I stand on a lot of issues.
Anyway, back to the movie. Moore has been accused of being a master manipulator and deceiver. I can't pass judgement on him, since there seems to be a lot of conflicting views from both sides. But at least the film made me think about some pretty serious issues, and that's something in itself. Seeing footage of the kids in Columbine cowering in fear was just sickening. To me, I don't know, sometimes I just wonder what is going on with the earth. I am reminded of something the protagonist says in Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (which I ought to read again), something about what the hell is wrong with this century. There's a certain power in the way he expresses this which I like. As you can tell, this is another of my vague literary cul-de-sacs, so let's move on.
I'd really like to know more about the truth behind BFC. If it's all true, then it's frankly quite disturbing; I mean, a six year old shooting another six year old just makes ne want to get down on your knees and give up. If most of it's fabricated, well, I feel cheated. Some of the criticsm is about the editing of the Charleton Heston NRA speech(es). I didn't actually interpret the edits in the way that the critics of the film say that people might, but fair enough, perhaps I'm an exception to the rule. I didn't think, for instance, that the bit with "from my cold, dead hands" was just after Columbine, but I can see how some people might. Of course the pathos is very strong, but is Moore entitled to persuade us with emotion? If he presents facts too, I think that's acceptable, but then again I'm the sort of person who agrees with things when they suit my opinion.
Why does everything have to be complicated? I sometimes have these wonderful flashes where suddenly I comprehend the reality of the world we live in, and see how wrong it all is. For instance, I think I saw something about casualties in one of the US's occupations, and in a moment I saw that it is truly a wretched world we live in that mass death should be allowed to exist. Sure, once you bring in logic and reason to the matter, and realize that there is some purpose (possibly flawed) behind this, nothing becomes so clear-cut as "morally right" and "morally wrong". But surely there is something fundamentally wrong with the world that such things be allowed to happen?
Perhaps this boils down to the existence of evil, and that it is something innate in human nature (or is it?) Brave New World convinced me that we need pain and suffering in order to enjoy life, but there has to be a limit? There has to be a fine balance between total peace and happiness and total chaos and destruction. More idealistic hippie dreaming, probably, but sometimes all you can do is dream..(pretentious, no? I hate it when I say stuff like that).
It's remarkable how I went from David Bowie's albums to what's wrong with humanity!
Note to self: clean the keyboard and computer case sometime, they're filthy!
These "top
And another thing to update is the blog layout - unfortunately, I'm no good with web design in any shape or form, so I'll probably end up butchering the whole thing like I normally do. The price of failure, I suppose.
I watched Bowling For Columbine earlier today, and promptly sat down and read all the criticisms of the facts in the movie. A digression - do I tend to do that too much, too often? It's nice to have an open mind, sure, but there has to be a limit. I think nowadays I am so struck by "being open-minded" that I will readily accept an opposite point of view, while really what I should be trying to do is think about the viewpoint critically. I think what I tend to do is listen to the other view and say "Hey, you're right" and then totally dismiss my previous opinion. Of course, if I get presented with an argument that supports this newly discarded opinion, then I embrace it again. A vicious circle, really, my mind oscillates between viewpoints and choices so much, I really don't know where I stand on a lot of issues.
Anyway, back to the movie. Moore has been accused of being a master manipulator and deceiver. I can't pass judgement on him, since there seems to be a lot of conflicting views from both sides. But at least the film made me think about some pretty serious issues, and that's something in itself. Seeing footage of the kids in Columbine cowering in fear was just sickening. To me, I don't know, sometimes I just wonder what is going on with the earth. I am reminded of something the protagonist says in Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (which I ought to read again), something about what the hell is wrong with this century. There's a certain power in the way he expresses this which I like. As you can tell, this is another of my vague literary cul-de-sacs, so let's move on.
I'd really like to know more about the truth behind BFC. If it's all true, then it's frankly quite disturbing; I mean, a six year old shooting another six year old just makes ne want to get down on your knees and give up. If most of it's fabricated, well, I feel cheated. Some of the criticsm is about the editing of the Charleton Heston NRA speech(es). I didn't actually interpret the edits in the way that the critics of the film say that people might, but fair enough, perhaps I'm an exception to the rule. I didn't think, for instance, that the bit with "from my cold, dead hands" was just after Columbine, but I can see how some people might. Of course the pathos is very strong, but is Moore entitled to persuade us with emotion? If he presents facts too, I think that's acceptable, but then again I'm the sort of person who agrees with things when they suit my opinion.
Why does everything have to be complicated? I sometimes have these wonderful flashes where suddenly I comprehend the reality of the world we live in, and see how wrong it all is. For instance, I think I saw something about casualties in one of the US's occupations, and in a moment I saw that it is truly a wretched world we live in that mass death should be allowed to exist. Sure, once you bring in logic and reason to the matter, and realize that there is some purpose (possibly flawed) behind this, nothing becomes so clear-cut as "morally right" and "morally wrong". But surely there is something fundamentally wrong with the world that such things be allowed to happen?
Perhaps this boils down to the existence of evil, and that it is something innate in human nature (or is it?) Brave New World convinced me that we need pain and suffering in order to enjoy life, but there has to be a limit? There has to be a fine balance between total peace and happiness and total chaos and destruction. More idealistic hippie dreaming, probably, but sometimes all you can do is dream..(pretentious, no? I hate it when I say stuff like that).
It's remarkable how I went from David Bowie's albums to what's wrong with humanity!
Note to self: clean the keyboard and computer case sometime, they're filthy!
Saturday, July 03, 2004
Friday, July 02, 2004
This is pure genius. A taste of what you're in for:
[At Bilbo's 111th Birthday]
Merry: "Omg, I pwn"
Pippin: "Sif, I pwn"
**Rocket goes off
Gandalf: "Pwned!"
This has to be part of the geek test. If you laugh at anything in that post, you are a geek!
Don't you hate it when you type out a long message and then the browser pwns you and you lose the contents? I never feel like writing the message again, it's almost as if the mere process of writing a message is the interesting part, what with coming up with bad jokes and absurdisms. I must be one of the only people who laughs at his own jokes.
[At Bilbo's 111th Birthday]
Merry: "Omg, I pwn"
Pippin: "Sif, I pwn"
**Rocket goes off
Gandalf: "Pwned!"
This has to be part of the geek test. If you laugh at anything in that post, you are a geek!
Don't you hate it when you type out a long message and then the browser pwns you and you lose the contents? I never feel like writing the message again, it's almost as if the mere process of writing a message is the interesting part, what with coming up with bad jokes and absurdisms. I must be one of the only people who laughs at his own jokes.
Ahh, at last, the madness is over, now I have three weeks or so to revel in the beauty of holidays. Three weeks characterized by spending time wondering how to spend time, only to at the end feel a deep sense of remorse and regret, and a loathing of having to go back to the dreaded institution for another semester.
Spider-Man 2 is surprisingly good. I hadn't seen the first movie because I had this idea that it was a typical Hollywood blockbuster film, totally catering for the masses (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I don't find them particularly interesting). So when I heard that there was a sequel, my initial reaction was that they were trying to squeeze as much money as they can off the concept.
But whaddaya know, it's not some lightweight action/adventure flick, it actually has some depth to it. I saw it mentioned on the net that we can all identify with Peter Parker, and I would tend to agree. The conflict between the choice of a normal life he's always wanted with Mary-Jane and the life of a super-hero who saves the world at the grave cost of forgoing the life he has wanted was done quite well, it really creates this not-so-bright undercurrent that is quite refreshing to see - the hero is fundamentally human, and is far from impervious to even the most basic problems and conflicts we all have.
Gah, I don't like sounding pretentious, and I always do sound pretentious in movie reviews, so I'll stop there.
Another Friday, another Cowboy Bebop, and another mild disappointment. I don't know, it just doesn't click for me, I can't really see why it's all that. Once again, the style is there, but there's no..substance. Why do I keep watching it then, you ask? I don't honestly know, because I want to like it for some reason. On the plus side, the opening music has to be the best opening music for a TV show ever!
Hmm I have been meaning to read books on Lisp and Python, and to revamp my music catalogue program, and of course to redo entirely my tetris/pacman game (whichever I have time for). It's a shame that I never seem to get time anymore during semester to do these things, because in the holidays I end up doing a little bit of each (and that's the best case), and then I keep piling things up ad nauseum. I mean I must've first gotten the Lisp book, what, a year ago!? I have to figure something out, because this just ain't cutting it. I want to do these things, but I can't! Stupid epsilon-delta proofs.
Another characteristic of the holidays is going and buying music CDs. Lots and lots of music CDs. I swear, it's a disease or something, I can't control myself once I start. I have to limit myself from now on though, over the summer break I got far too many, which was probably because I was so bored. Is this materialistic? I suppose it depends on the precise definition of materialism, but it's irrelevant really, because the fundamental issue is that I should not be spending so much on anything. It's all well and good to argue that by only going on a spree a few times a year it's not that bad, but you can't do nothing all year and then spend $10,000 and say "Oh it's ok, I've been good all year"!
It's good that I have this blog, because now my conscience and rational side can express itself in a more concrete form. At the same time, so does my irrational side - after all, I think it was the one that created this blog in the first place!
Spider-Man 2 is surprisingly good. I hadn't seen the first movie because I had this idea that it was a typical Hollywood blockbuster film, totally catering for the masses (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I don't find them particularly interesting). So when I heard that there was a sequel, my initial reaction was that they were trying to squeeze as much money as they can off the concept.
But whaddaya know, it's not some lightweight action/adventure flick, it actually has some depth to it. I saw it mentioned on the net that we can all identify with Peter Parker, and I would tend to agree. The conflict between the choice of a normal life he's always wanted with Mary-Jane and the life of a super-hero who saves the world at the grave cost of forgoing the life he has wanted was done quite well, it really creates this not-so-bright undercurrent that is quite refreshing to see - the hero is fundamentally human, and is far from impervious to even the most basic problems and conflicts we all have.
Gah, I don't like sounding pretentious, and I always do sound pretentious in movie reviews, so I'll stop there.
Another Friday, another Cowboy Bebop, and another mild disappointment. I don't know, it just doesn't click for me, I can't really see why it's all that. Once again, the style is there, but there's no..substance. Why do I keep watching it then, you ask? I don't honestly know, because I want to like it for some reason. On the plus side, the opening music has to be the best opening music for a TV show ever!
Hmm I have been meaning to read books on Lisp and Python, and to revamp my music catalogue program, and of course to redo entirely my tetris/pacman game (whichever I have time for). It's a shame that I never seem to get time anymore during semester to do these things, because in the holidays I end up doing a little bit of each (and that's the best case), and then I keep piling things up ad nauseum. I mean I must've first gotten the Lisp book, what, a year ago!? I have to figure something out, because this just ain't cutting it. I want to do these things, but I can't! Stupid epsilon-delta proofs.
Another characteristic of the holidays is going and buying music CDs. Lots and lots of music CDs. I swear, it's a disease or something, I can't control myself once I start. I have to limit myself from now on though, over the summer break I got far too many, which was probably because I was so bored. Is this materialistic? I suppose it depends on the precise definition of materialism, but it's irrelevant really, because the fundamental issue is that I should not be spending so much on anything. It's all well and good to argue that by only going on a spree a few times a year it's not that bad, but you can't do nothing all year and then spend $10,000 and say "Oh it's ok, I've been good all year"!
It's good that I have this blog, because now my conscience and rational side can express itself in a more concrete form. At the same time, so does my irrational side - after all, I think it was the one that created this blog in the first place!
Sunday, June 27, 2004
'Twas one of the worst exams ever (I love making blanket statements that are false, they're fun). A lot of it was from last year's exam, which would normally be good, except that there were no solutions, and last year's paper was equally strange. As I expected, overall it was a disappointing test of how much you could fit on your A4 sheet. By sheer chance, I fit some of the 5 mark questions there, but most of it was a toin-coss. One of the questions was on xload, a program to monitor system performace. This is literally what we were given in the lecture slides:
I kid you not. That's all the page on xload had.
I had to control my laughter during reading time, because, well, it was all so funny. This is what my life has become. Looking at graphs and writing about them in exams where I have to take in a sheet that's crammed full of stuff that has no bearing on anything. The lecturer meant well, I'm sure, but it just didn't work at all. It had the potential to be the most interesting subject this year, and indeed I thought it would be at the start, but it was yet another disappointment in my world of lowered expectations.
At times like these, you really have to wonder just what you're doing with your life. Nothing seems to have any purpose now if I have to spend my days doing this. xload exemplifies my failure - perhaps the graph is just a graph of my failure over time? No, wait, it would be my success over time, that would be more appropriate, seeing as how it gets really small towards the end. Success and happiness are but fleeting dreams to me now.
Anyway, for no reason at all, here's a stupid screenshot of my Linux desktop. It would have to qualify as one of the worst screenshots ever, but that's ok. Usually screenshots are so faked, the makers purposely have all these different "cool" programs open (a 100% of the time there is a Winamp open playing some strange MP3), so I think mine is much more realistic in comparison. Yeah, that must be it.
I kid you not. That's all the page on xload had.
I had to control my laughter during reading time, because, well, it was all so funny. This is what my life has become. Looking at graphs and writing about them in exams where I have to take in a sheet that's crammed full of stuff that has no bearing on anything. The lecturer meant well, I'm sure, but it just didn't work at all. It had the potential to be the most interesting subject this year, and indeed I thought it would be at the start, but it was yet another disappointment in my world of lowered expectations.
At times like these, you really have to wonder just what you're doing with your life. Nothing seems to have any purpose now if I have to spend my days doing this. xload exemplifies my failure - perhaps the graph is just a graph of my failure over time? No, wait, it would be my success over time, that would be more appropriate, seeing as how it gets really small towards the end. Success and happiness are but fleeting dreams to me now.
Anyway, for no reason at all, here's a stupid screenshot of my Linux desktop. It would have to qualify as one of the worst screenshots ever, but that's ok. Usually screenshots are so faked, the makers purposely have all these different "cool" programs open (a 100% of the time there is a Winamp open playing some strange MP3), so I think mine is much more realistic in comparison. Yeah, that must be it.
This is what it has come to. Here's the first side of my notes for the exam tomorrow. Total nonsense. It seems it's just a test of how much you can squeeze onto your page of notes, not how much you can really understand of the topic. I think I spent a good three hours figuring out what to put on the sheet and then actually doing it as small yet legible as I could. Not exactly the ideal thing to do on one of those days when you question just what in God's name you're doing with your life. The questions in previous years are so nit-picky, the smallest details which (I think) do not test the higher level understanding of the topic as a whole. I guess that goes without saying for an exam that is 50% multiple choice? (not really, but I like hyperboles)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
