Monday, February 22, 2010

A completely not average day-in-the-life

I got bored whilst writing a paper yesterday so I decided to chronologically keep track of what I was doing/thinkin. I have learned that I AM A VERY ANGRY PERSON!


17:10 - Gary Bettman is a fucking idiot, someone should have fired him years ago. "It's niave to just think the Olympics are great, so go". R-Really? You know what? Keep your fucking NHL players. No one'll wanna watch them play when the Olympics are on anyhow so instead everyone will just get pissed off at you for being a greedy little prick.

17:41 - Writing papers gets really tricky when you don't fully understand what you're talking about. "You should explain more about the wave number here". Gee Professor Lady, I would really love too.

18:37 - Three and a half hours and I'm done editing Section 1.1. That's about one seventh done! Though I probably wasted a good hour and a half on news/complaining about Bettman/hockey/trying to learn maths. I still have six hours till hockey, I should finish easy.

18:46 - I've found that in general, toilet graffiti is so much better in the UK. I've never seen Blackadder quotes scribbled on a toilet wall in North America

18:48 - Is it okay to just outright plagiarize a line that my prof suggested in her edit? I'm pretty sure it's allowed but I still feel bad doing it.

19:04 - Thing #1 about writing papers that pisses me off: "Make it clear for someone who hasn't seen this before". I hate that so much. No one who doesn't already understand or know about pattern formation is going to go looking for and read this. Fuck. Even the cursory introduction I gave feels like too much and now I have to rehash more things that everyone already knows. Man, can we just get straight to the sexin'? I don't want to worry about introductions or background info or building a relationship based on prior knowledge. I want the good shit now and if you can't keep up with me then go to hell - that's how I do my maths.

19:13 - FACT: I use Oxford Commas and always have. I find them to be more aesthetically pleasing.
            FACT: No one who reads a math paper is going to notice, much less have an opinion about,  Oxford Commas

19:20 - Thing #2 that pisses me off about writing papers: having to answer retarded questions. No, a predator-prey system cannot be positive-feedback unless the predators have somehow found a way to increase the prey population by eating them.

19:52 - Either there are a bunch of maths terms not recognized as words in the English language or Word is mathematically illiterate. Examples: eigenvalue, eigenvector, activator, diagonalizable, nondimensionalizing, linearizing, Jacobian. Oddly enough, Google Chrome thinks all those things are words except nondimensionalizing and linearizing.

20:35 - The people next to me are making worksheets for some primary school maths class. Is it wrong of me to hate them so fucking much? "What will occur next in the pattern?" DON'T YOU FUCKING GET ME STARTED ON PATTERNS ASSHOLE.

21:49 - Paragraph one suggestion: " How does this effect wavelength?"
            Paragraph two suggestion: " How does this effect wavelength?"
I mentioned wavelength in paragraph three so there should be no suggestions right? Wrong.
           Paragraph three suggestion: " Define wavelength".
Really? C'mon.

22:16 - Sign that the world hates you: your code, which worked perfectly fine a week ago and has not been changed in any significant way since then, all of a sudden decides, "NO. I AM GOING TO MAKE ERROR MESSAGES FUCKING JUST LIKE EVERYWHERE".

22:20 - Problem solved. Though it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place cause I ran the code like 50 times before with no issues. Computers can be giant cocks somethings.

22:22 - Problem not solved. Getting completely different (and completely shit) results from the ones I did last week with exactly the same parameters.

22:34 - But then when I try it for a different functional value for a(x) it gives me the exact fucking same result as before. You, Mr.Computer, are a cunt and I don't need this shit from you now.

22:40 - Scratch that, I'm retarded and made a typo in my draft which I then looked at to see which parameter values I needed to test but it was wrong so everything got fucked up. Troubleshooting folks, it never fails to make you feel like a gigantic twat. By my count, I just wasted 24 minutes because of a missing zero.

22:58 - FACT: Glasgow Uni Library computers automatically shut off after 480 minutes use.
            FACT: They also shut off automatically at midnight. Even though the library is open till 2. This is very frustrating as it takes a good 5-10 minutes to get them started again.

23:05 - Done editing, will write conclusion/fight with LaTeX tomorrow

23:10 - My foot's been hurting lately, except for when I'm deep in thought and do something totally normal for my, like say walk on a ledge on the way home and then jump off. Ouchies.

23:13 - Running also hurts - apparently - but I think I'll try that anyways.

23:18 - Dear Ladies, Fucking gigantic heels are not sexy. Giraffes, in my opinion, are the silliest looking creatures on Earth. You are walking like how a giraffe walks and it makes me giggle. I would not fuck a giraffe.

0:46 - Fuck Brodeur, put Luongo in net. (note: This is right when the game started).

0:51 - So I'm watching hockey with a French/Irish guy, a Lithuanian, a Finlander, and a Slovak. East Europeans are awesome.

0:57 - Brodeur, seriously, what the fuck?

1:08 - I saw Shawn Majumder on the tv, it was brilliant. Seconds later, the light nearly fell out of the roof in the common room. Conienidence? I think not. PS - I live in a shithole.

1:50 - The British reporter has been sucking America's dick all night long and it's really starting to piss me off. "Canada needs to pick up their game because America's all over them". No, no they're not, you retard. Are you even watching the same game? We're all over them. I think the fact that Canada's had twice as many shots on goal reflects that fact. Also: I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually know hockey. Are you explaining to us how offside works because you think we don't understand, or are you just repeating it to yourself so you don't forget? Either way, it's annoying. Please stop explaining rules during play.

2:03 - Brodeur shouldn't have been playing against the Swiss and he certainly shouldn't be playing the States.

3:12 - The Lithuanian just beat me at NHL 08, Canada vs US, 5-3. Fuck.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Deadlines, and how they seem to hate me.

I've got a project that I've been working on since about December, although, 'working on' may be too strong a phrase. "Sortof going into the lab every once in a while and screwing around" would be a better way to describe it. Anyways, I had a draft due on the 11th of February before I went to London (I could have had until the weekend if I was going to be around) and then the good copy is due on the 22nd.

Naturally, I put off doing the bulk of the work until about halfway through the 9th (which, by the way, amounts to 20 pages of math). This is partly because I procrastinate and partly because in the summer I wrote a ~20 page draft in two days fairly easily. The thing I didn't realize though is that the draft I did in the summer wasn't easy because I am amazing (even though I am). No. That draft was easy because I had been doing the research behind it nearly every day for six or seven hours for the previous three months. It was basically already written in my head.

This one not so much. Shit

Anyways, I got the draft done in time (minus one conclusion and even then just barely, I had to run to catch my train to the airport) and sent it off to be edited. I got those edits back today, today which is the 19th and this paper is due on the 22nd. It took the professor a week to make suggestions on a paper that took 2 days to write. And it's not like it's a bad paper either - she was mostly happy with it and only had a few suggestions which I will now have to dedicate my weekend to doing because they weren't suggested a few days earlier.

This is where I feel like I should complain but deep down inside, I know I would have left it until the weekend anyways. Deadlines are the only reason why I do anything. So maybe they hate me, but I don't hate them so much. Except for when they involve doing work.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Dear Cleaning Ladies/Security Guards,

Turn the oven off one more time when I'm trying to cook something. I fucking dare you . I know there's that whole "DO NOT LEAVE COOKING UNATTENDED" policy you've got for the kitchens but seriously, fuck you. You wanna know who sits staring at an oven for half an hour waiting for their food to cook? Fucking no one; Not me, not you, and not anyone ever. Frankly, I've got better shit to do. That's what's wonderful about ovens too, as opposed to frying, or boiling, or barbecuing, you can go away for twenty minutes and not have to worry about completely fucking up your food and starting a fire.

Do you even look inside the oven to see if someone's trying to cook something? Or do you just notice that it's on and that no one's in the room so then you turn it off? Do you realize that we've invented robots that are better at critical thinking than that? Fucking robots - pieces of machinery whose every possible action is deadset in lines of code - have a better ability to evaluate a situation and choose the proper course of action than you do? Here, let me show you:


if oven is on
   look inside
else leave kitchen
       if there is food
          inspect food
       else turn oven off
              if food is burning
                 turn oven off
              else leave oven on
              end
       end
end


Holy fucking shit. Twelve lines of code is a more intelligent human being than you are. That's pretty fucking pathetic.