the end is nigh
Topic: future
I can't believe that I'm only a few months away from getting married. Well, it's still the better part of a year away, but it's getting so close. I feel so weird when I think about it. I mean, my fiancee and I have been talking about it since our freshman year, but I don't see myself as grown. It's so weird to describe. I know I've written about this before on the blog, but it's just really been on my mind lately.

I mean we already do a lot of adult things (we are both 21) such as paying rent, phone bills, entering into contracts, grocery shopping, planning our meals in a healthy manner instead of just eating whatever we want, buying gifts for family members, and a few other things that I'd like to keep between the two of us. But, at the same time we play nintendo, playstation, computer games, watch cartoons (such as watching Aladdin around 6 times the week we bought it - but not six times in a row, just over the course of that week). I mean, that's all totally kids stuff. So when I think that I'm going to get married, I have a bit of a hard time grasping it.

But I've been thinking about this for quite some time, so it's not that bad. What I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around, is the concept of Dan getting married. I mean, he's just my little brother, but he's already thinking about getting married. If he waits like me, that'd be 3 years after mine or ~2008. I really like the girl that he's chosen, she is the sweetest girl and is definitely right for him. She isn't trying to take advantage of him like some other girls and she's intelligent and knows what she wants from life. It's hard to say that what you pick to do in your freshman year is what you will continue to do because a lot of my friends have changed majors. Of course, there are also people like me who have stayed on track all four years - but the fact that she has a plan is really great.

Even David will be starting college very soon. It's all so much to absorb - but I've always taken more time to fully adjust to changes. I don't hate or fear change, but I just don't adjust to it immediately. There's definitely more than delta t involved.

Today I told my dad, "my whole life is before me, but it's just an angle. Every day, every hour, every minute the angle shrinks. Not that I can't change my path, but the area is smaller." Basically, this is when I begin to make the next huge set of decisions that will affect the rest of my life. I've already dealt with the first batch when I resolved to do well in high school and continue through at Cornell, but now comes the next big round. The place I choose to work will affect where I live and what my career path will be. And where I live will affect decisions with my wife. For example, if we live near one of our folks we can decide to have them help raise the kids. We have to decide how to make sure that both sets of grandparents are able to experience their grandkids. If we live away from everyone, do we allow non-family members to take care of the kids? Does my wife take some time off from work for a couple of years? Does it even matter if our ultimate goal is to have our own business? So you see, so much will be decided over the next few months.

We have so much to talk about and plan, yet we can't do too much planning until we know where we will work. But we won't know that for a few more months. It's so crazy - so much hangs in the hands of strangers. I hate it! I like being in control of my life - as much as God allows anyway. Because I know that a lot of life is directed by forces that I don't fully know. Sometimes you don't know whether something is good or not until a few days or years later. But those parts that I can control, I like to be in control of.

Well, only time will tell.

Birthday Fun
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: birthday
I got some awesome birthday presents. I wanted to thank everyone who got me stuff because - you didn't have to!

Here's the tally so far:

Flat panel monitor - this was from my parents. I've been wanting one forever so that my monitor doesn't need to take up the entire desk. Also, I like that they are genreally sharper in colour and can be mounted on the wall
$25 amex card - from my uncle Jose, it's good anywhere Amex is taken and I'm able to buy stuff by combining it
$20 best buy card - from Ash - you REALLY didn't have to...thanks a ton - this is, again, something that I can use to get anything I want or combine with the amex card to get something bigger than either could get get
CD from Japan - from my parents - how can you beat this? you can't just get this without going there unless you pay the import price...thanks!
Seinfeld collector's box set - from Dan - I really wanted this and I don't think I would have been able to get it any time soon
new chain - from my grandmother on my mom's side - I've had the other once since elementary school, it was time for a new one.

Happy Thanksgiving
Mood:  celebratory
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Be thankful for everything in your life that's going right, even if it's just the fact that you're alive.

My thanksgiving was fun, but I missed my fiancee. I took around 150 pictures, so maybe I'll post some. I've got to go spend some more time with my family while I'm at home. See ya...

stuck in SYR
Mood:  sad
Topic: Holidays
One thing that really stinks about traveling for the holidays is the travel itself. I only ever have trouble when I have to fly home for the holidays. Other than that, I usually am able to fly just fine. My flight home today has been diverted so long that I have to stay in Syracuse until tomorrow when I leave at 6am. I have to wake up freakin' early - especially in order to eat breakfast tomorrow. Not only that, but I'm also losing 11 hours with my family! I'm pretty ticked about it. Well, not really ticked, as Danielle will tell you, I really don't get in a stink about things that are out of my control. What is the point in being mad because it won't change anything. Oh well, I've got homework and other crap to do. Additionally, I could also work on my server from here. I want to be home!!

Cool stuff
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Site Info
I just completed the setup process on my very own blog server. I'm using postnuke for the site and it will allow me to provide blogging services for those who have sites on my server. I'm still learning exactly how to run it, but the software seems pretty sweet. It looks to me as though one of the Sim City sites I used to visit last year is based on postnuke, now that I think about it. The polls, content, and format of their page suggested PHPnuke or postnuke development. It's a pretty neat concept. I'll definitely see where it takes me. But for now this will remain my official blog for myself.

Check out the new section of Eric's Binary World Servers by following this link: Eric's Binary Server Blog or by clicking on the link on the server's navigation pane. You may have to hit refresh on the page for the navigation page to refresh.

Enjoy!

MS Sinks to New Lows
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: News
I can't believe that M$ is now doing - this PROVES that they are scared of Linux. As you may have read in technology news, Asian countries are adopting Linux because it's free and free is always a lot cheaper than $100/license for Windows. However, M$ is now telling them that they shouldn't do this or they may be sued because Linux violates patents. This is not the first time such accusations have been thrown around, but from what I've read on the news Asian countries have nothing to worry about for two reasons.

1) There are no patent violations - Linus Torvalds, Linux creator, makes sure of this

BUT even if there are -

2) The power of opensource software is that it can be dynamically changed to remove all proprietary software. I mean, a fully-functional Linux that can do what Windows does is already a motley collection of programs from many different sources. So just replace product a with product b and everything's fine.

The article is reproduced below so that you can read it for yourself.

Microsoft warns Asian governments of Linux lawsuits
11/18/04 | 05:52 AM PST
Reuters

"Someday," CEO Steve Ballmer tells officials in a region intrigued by Linux, "somebody will come and look for money."

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Microsoft warned Asian governments on Thursday they could face patent lawsuits for using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows software.
The growing popularity of Linux--open-source software that is freely available on the Internet and easily modified by users--is a threat to the global dominance of Microsoft's Windows.
Linux violates more than 228 patents, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said at the company's Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore. He did not provide any details on the alleged violations, which the Linux community disputes.
"Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property," he added.
Software developer SCO Group, which claims that Linux is based on its Unix software, is suing companies including IBM.
Singapore's Ministry of Defense last month switched 20,000 personal computers to run on open-source software instead of Microsoft's operating system.
Other governments in the region are also looking to use more open-source software. China, Japan and South Korea this year agreed to jointly develop applications running on Linux.
The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a risk. Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan.
Ballmer said the security fears some governments had about using Microsoft software were overblown.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Story Copyright ? 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

addendum to yesterday's post
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Site Info
Real post for today to come in a few minutes, but there's one thing I wanted to add to yesterday's post. If you aren't into photography you may be wondering why, if I have autofocus, I am so happy to know how to manually focus. There is basically one reason - sometimes the camera doesn't focus on the right thing. It's just a machine, it doesn't know what you're trying to take a picture of. So if there are branches in front of a bird you want to focus on, the camera will tend to focus on the branches. Also, if it's very dark, the camera can't get a focus point. So I can turn on the lights, manually focus, turn them off, and take the picture. This allows me to take pictures where I want to emphasize sources of light instead of drowning them out, like this Christmas tree picture. I like it because it has kind of a Tim Burton feel to it. I took another picture with flash, not shown here, and you couldn't even tell that the lights were on.

"sometimes the whole guy is out of focus" - Seinfeld, how pharmacutical companies see us
Mood:  happy
Topic: photography
I'm quite happy because, although I'm not perfect yet, I've gotten much better at focusing my photo camera. Up until last spring I never had a camera that allowed me to manually focus the lens. Even though my current camera allows me to enable autofocus for snapshots, I have the option of turning it off. Last night while I was taking some pictures with Danielle, I was able to manually focus the camera for the first time. The reason for my troubles thus far is that, for some reason, it's very hard for me to tell when looking through the viewfinder if the subject is in focus.

I used to have that problem in HS when I would have to autofocus the video camera. However, one utility on my camera, along with some practice has allowed me to finally be able to manually focus - a utility that zooms in on the center of the image so that I can use it for focusing.

I've also learned two techniques recently. First of all, last night I was able to tell when the image is in focus by looking for the letters on Danielle's tshirt to focus. Second, I have learned that an f-stop with a higher number has a higher depth of focus. This means that more of the objects in front and behind of the focus point are in focus. I think this gives me some lattitute when focusing because if I'm slightly off, it shouldn't matter. The downside is that higher fstops mean smaller shutter size which means more light is needed or I need to shoot at a slower speed. This isn't a problem when I have a tripod, but for snapshots, it becomes harder.

Google is the best site in the world
Mood:  chatty
Topic: The Web
I wrote (I think) sometime on this blog about how google is awesome for finding song lyrics. Almost every time I look, I find what I'm looking for. But last night was the final proof for me that Google is the best way to diagnose what's wrong with your computer.

I've been using www.google.com/linux for quite some time to solve my linux problems because the program's documentation is not always that great. Also, each person's computer is a little different so there isn't always one solution.

My dad had been complaining for months that the windows picture tool was not loading up on his computer. It used to come up and he loved it, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong. So we checked some of the autoplay settings and couldn't figure it out. We had just about given up when I decided to Google it. I typed something like "digital camera no autoplay" and by the second page I found what I needed. Apparently, installing realplayer - for some weird reason - causes this to stop working. I didn't believe it until I found that same solution on a couple of web pages on Google. So I told my dad to do it. He was a little unbelieving, but tried it. And it worked! He was overjoyed after months of frustration.

In fact, I think that people should probably be taught good search strings because of how important it is to be able to find the information you need on google. I tried about three different search strings yesterday before I finally got the results I wanted. It's a true artform and I think people should get some tips.

squirrels
Mood:  chatty
Topic: random
While doing work today with the shades drawn I noticed a squirrel's tail flapping in the wind. I got curious about it so I took a closer look, the squirrel seemed to be periodically shaking. I grabbed my camera to see if I would be fortuitous enough to get a picture instead of it running away like it always does.

I was able to get around 20 pictures, but many of them were dark due to the fact the my window faces west or at least South-West so that the sun was in the way. Fortunately, photoshop now has an amazing filter for removing shadows. In my experience, 90% of the time it does this without making the photos look too grainy. The 10% of the time that it hasn't worked, I'm sure there's some combination of settings that I could use to get the best results. But it does indeed work very well.

I also learned why the squirrel had been convulsing. Apparently a certain sound I heard over the summer that I thought was originating from a bird was actually coming from the squirrel. It does a kinda of "click click click BAH!" or something like that. Maybe one day I'll be able to record it for your listening pleasure.

Boy, this has become somewhat of a photo-blog recently, hasn't it?