A Century of Fishy

[gfish]

I was bored, so I jumped on the meme.

1. I'm a pretty big believer in the fractal nature of knowledge -- the closer you look at anything, the more there is. But with 99.5 facts to go I'm wondering if that really is true.


2. Everyone is expecting it, so I might as well get it out of the way: I'm an award winning filmmaker!


3. A very lazy, award winning filmmaker.


4. I'm procrastinating working on editing Identity Functions footage right now.


5. I spent the day dropping the car off to be worked on, doing wedding registry hacking, and watching Sandbaggers eps on DVD.


6. I hate car dealerships.


7. Registering for stuff is kind of fun. Point the scanner at it, pull the trigger, and it is yours. Or will be, most likely.


8. We watched Memento about a week ago. There is a scene at the end of movie when the protagonist takes a picture of a car, making it his. Registering is a lot like that.


9. Sandbaggers is one of the all time best TV shows ever.


10. Over the last year I have seen 51 new theatrical releases. In that same time period I bought (or was given) 37 DVDs, bringing my collection up to 104. Since the beginning of April, 2002 I have watched 124 older movies (mostly rentals).


11. I know all these numbers because I love to record my life, to make up for my not-so-perfect memory. Not being able to remember when something was bugs me, and my memories tend to be associated with the media I was ingesting around the time they occurred. I also keep a textfile diary of basic events in my life and I'm experimenting with an image archiving system. The later will probably remain mostly unused until I get a decent digital camera.


12. If the obvious implementation to the above problem is a database, I'd agree with you. I like being able to run SQL queries on my life (like I did for fact 10).


13. I'm writing these facts in emacs because I much prefer the editing environment. It is saved as me100.txt in my docs folder. If my data archiving plans go as planned, this file will outlive me. Someone else can decide it's garbage.


14. I compulsively save digital documents after each edit. Loosing data really bugs me -- it seems immoral. Information should only accumulate.


15. It would not be incorrect to call me paranoid. I try to be rational about my paranoia, and only use it for good. This is only mostly successful.


16. I'm much more concerned about fire safety than most people. But, as I discovered after the roof of my condo building caught fire 4 years ago, I'm apparently much calmer than most people. I was the only one out of 20 or so who was completely dressed, with a change of clothes, my wallet and a book to read.


17. There are a lot of brushfires outside of Spokane in the summer. Just about every August the family pictures were put in a box next to the front door, so we wouldn't forget them if we had to scram. At least three times fires were visible from our house.


18. I grew up outside of Spokane, by the way.


19. Before coming to Seattle for college I had lived my entire 19 years in Spokane. My only previous move had been when I was four. It was to the new house, which was across the street from the old house.


20. We moved on my fourth birthday. It was quite a treat, because the new house had reception good enough to watch PBS and Sesame Street. The ghosting at the old house was bad enough that my mom decided it wasn't a good idea for me to associate 'one' with '11'.


21. The new house is now 21 years old. The original section is underground except for the entryway. It now has a completely above ground two-floor addition to the entryway, a garage recently added to the addition, and a large storage barn/workshop past the garage.


22. I love weird houses that have grown organically like this, with random additions added any place they would fit.


23. I desperately want to buy a house. While prices have been dropping in the last few months, we still can't afford one where we want to live.


24. There is talk about us taking my parent's place when they move into the city for their retirement in 10 years or so. It is very tempting, except for the living outside Spokane part.


25. I am now 25 years old.


26. I have too many hobbies.


27. Actually, I have too many expensive hobbies.


28. Actually, the only hobby I've been pumping real money into recently is filmmaking. After Identity Functions is done I think I'm going to focus on machining more for a bit.


29. I'm currently helping to build a SPACE-ROBOT. I'm going to need to devote more time to it soon. So I really need to finish Identity Functions.


30. Identity Functions is our most recent movie project, btw. I've been having motivation issues after stressing over finishing principal photography in the first half of Decemeber.


31. I'm already thinking about what our next movie project should be, which can't be a good sign. I'm thinking of an adaptation of Beowulf, with obviously modern settings, but a medieval looking Beowulf. Done mostly with still photography. There are many open issues regarding the idea.


32. I love genrebenders. Even cheesy ones like Knight's Tale. Baz Lurhman rocks my world.


33. I sometimes fear that I come across as a horribly movie-obsessed freak, constantly suggesting people come over to watch a movie or we go out to see a movie or that people come help me make a movie.


34. I am a horribly movie-obsessed freak.


35. It's only been the last few years that I've been this bad. But I've always loved movies. And even television, but mindblowingly good television is much more rare. It's easier for movies to aim at a temporally larger audience, I think.


36. I've always been a pretty voracious reader, though I now tend to fit my reading into otherwise useless time: on the bus, waiting rooms, etc. Sometimes it takes me far too long to finish a book, unless it fairly gripping or I happen to be really bored.


37. About 2 years ago I realized that all I was reading any more was science fiction. I still read a lot of science fiction (I'm currently reading a collection of shorts by Joe Haldeman) but since then I've been working my way through random classics. Whenever I think of a famous book that I've heard the title of but haven't read, I add it to a list. This is a fairly shallow system, I know, but a good introduction to some really very good works. And some really boring ones.


38. I've always been able to get into most books, being the bookish sort, but those I couldn't have always just washed over me. No real absorption. I'm pleased that I'm finally developing the ability to read in a more rigorous, studious fashion.


39. I love cross-referencing fiction. The more I read and watch, the more interesting it is to read and watch more. The number of connections goes up exponentially. The narrative becomes a tree structure in my mind.


40. The only fan-fiction I've ever really read was for Daria, which has a surprising amount of it. I particularly enjoyed the tree structure of the fanfic. Not only did various fanfic universes branch out from the original show at different points in time, but there were fanfic universe based on other fanfic universes. Now when I watch a Daria ep I see it not only as a point on a timeline, but a point in a timespace, with various parallel universes surrounding it.


41. When I first started exploring the internet back in 1994, I did find some Red Dwarf fanfic that I read. I even started to write on myself. It was a Ringworld crossover.


42. I recently completed my collection of video files of the first two seasons of Red Dwarf. I'm idly working on other eps, but the first two seasons were the best.


43. If time-traveling agents from the future ever want to change a single event in my life in order to prevent me from growing up to be the first uploaded consciousness that then goes on to enslave the world, yet don't want to just kill be as a child for some obscure reasons involving the Rules of Time Travel, I know exactly what they would change. In the summer of 1994 I was at the library, looking at the new acquisitions. There was a book called 'Cyberia' which looked kind of interesting. I started to walk away without picking it up, then turned back to look at it closer. I'm not sure what I'd be doing now if someone had interrupted me at that moment, but I almost certainly wouldn't have a computer science degree, I wouldn't know any of the same people, and I might not even live in Seattle. Cyberia started the chain of rather embarrassing events that led me to meeting most of you freaks. It was a very, very cheesy book about 'cyber-culture'. Being only 16 at the time I didn't know this, and in fact thought it was pretty cool. In among the glowing descriptions of raves and designer drugs it mentioned something called the internet which sounded exceedingly cool. I had been on Prodigy 4 years earlier, and had been using BBSs on and off for years, but that was about it. So I bugged my parents for an account. I also bought a copy of Mondo 2000, which I still have. I happened to have a list of cool internet sites. One of them was the EFF FTP archive. I was browsing that when I found a copy of A Rape in Cyberspace, which led me to LambdaMOO. Once I was on LambdaMOO I had a real reason to keep using the internet, which otherwise I might have gotten bored with in a few weeks. It also gave me a reason to program on a regular basis. It also introduced me to just about everyone I interact with on a regular basis these days. So, as sad as it is, Cyberia changed my life.


44. Professionally I self-identify as a programmer. I'm a pretty good programmer, though not a wild genius or anything. I just write good, solid code.


45. My favorite language is plain old C. I rather despire C++. I'm not a very big fan of object orientation, but I'd rather do it in Java if I have to. Lisp is cool, but I've never used it enough to really get good at it. I've been using PHP a lot over the last year and a half. It's pretty swell.


46. I love applying my l33t programming skillz to silly goals. When I'm done with these facts I'm going to write a perl script to add the HTML tags around each line for the ordered list.


47. The best thing about programming is the aspect of creation from nothingness. It's the closest thing to magic that I've ever seen. Say the magic words and really cool things happen.


48. I scorn people who are all angsty about the lack of magic in modern life. There's plenty around, if you're willing to look for it. Take a physics class. Learn math. The idea that magic could look like anything other than a branch of physics is almost nonsensical to me.


49. I'm a big believer in making your own happiness. This leads me to respond poorly to certain mental health issues.


50. I need to keep to a lower fat diet, for heart reasons. It runs in the family.


51. I wouldn't be surprised if clinical immortality becomes a reality in my lifetime. (Not saying it will, just that it seems a real possibility.) This has several implications: We could be the last generation to see our parents die. I might actually have time to learn everything, or as much of everything as I want. Depending on when any potential heart issues manifest themselves, keeping to a low-fat diet now could mean a difference in centuries of my lifespan. Given that I could easily find projects spanning decades or centuries, patience is obviously a very important skill to develop now.


52. I think the best depiction of immortality I've read was Poul Anderson's Boat of a Million Years.


53. I very much want to learn how to fly. I won't have the money for a long time.


54. I would very much want to build an airplane. I will have neither the money nor the room for this for an even longer time.


55. I want to learn blacksmithing.


56. I could continue to list the things I like to learn, but it wouldn't end and it would get very tedious. I was recently reading a very odd book by Greg Egan (Permutation City) wherein a character who is at this point several thousand years old has the habit of obsessively immersing themself in a single hobby for decades at a time. It was very close to my description of heaven.


57. I have very little musical talent. I play the guitar, but fairly mechanically. Which is more than I ever thought possible, so I'm pretty happy. It would be nice to be able to jam, though.


58. The best thing about having a CD out is that it makes my arguments defending MP3 piracy carry more moral force. I'm looking forward to having a DVD out for similar reasons.


59. Said DVD will never come out until I finish Identity Functions.


60. I also need to get around to submitting Intersections to IMDB. Also in my 'to do' queue: plan honeymoon, deal with groomsmen tux issues, get renters insurance.


61. I'm getting married on May 18, btw.


62. Things in my 'to buy' queue: a good printer, a good digital camera small enough to fit on my utility belt, a pocket pc phone, a big new ups, drives for a new RAID.


63. When I go out for any length of time I wear my 'utility belt'. It contains a leatherman, flashlight, folding scissors, sharpie marker, monocular and pda/cellphone.


64. About a year ago I switched to wearing a purse, because I was tired of wearing a backpack just to carry paperbacks around. In my purse is my wallet, a lot of change, chapstick, a lighter, a pen, a crappy digital camera, my Midgard Studios business cards, a set of lockpicks and some kleenex. Plus whatever I'm reading at the time.


65. Yes, I can pick locks. No, not very well.


66. The wallet will be 15 years old this summer. I got when I went to Europe in 4th grade. It was maybe $5 and 'Coca-Cola' branded. For years I meant to get another, but by now I'm honor bound to use such a faithful, intrepid item for as long as it holds together.


67. The trip was to Denmark, where my aunt was living for a few months, and to Britain. I went with my grandmother. Four years later I went to Paris with a school trip. I was hoping that the four year pattern would hold, but I went to Europe for neither highschool nor college graduation.


68. When I was in Paris I snuck into the Louvre. See, the Louvre is divided into two sections: ancient history and art. After wandering around the ancient history section I went back into the main lobby to go to the art section. There I realized that I would have to pay again. (They are connected together inside, but I didn't know this.) I had already forgotten to bring my passport for a student discount, so paying twice the already high rate annoyed me. As I stood there, being annoyed, a school group passed me on their way to the art wing. They were just a bit younger than me. So I joined the rear of the group and walked right in with them. It was very From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.


69. I love it when I recreate scenes from favorite works of fiction in my life.


70. The total storage capacity of my apartment is somewhere around 400 gigabytes. 120 of that is a RAID provides the main data share. It is 80% full and less than a year old. I will probably need more than a terabyte within 4 years.


71. I just realized that I forgot about a Susan Matthews reading yesterday. I'd be more annoyed if I thought there was a real chance her newest book would approach the scary genius of Exchange of Hostages.


72. I find the analysis side of intelligence fascinating, possibly because it is a study into how to deal with access to overwhelming amounts of possibly contradictory information. This skill will only get more valuable with time.


73. I've always been a bit obsessed with the abstract concept of the fall of civilization. I was raised with a bit of a survivalist bent. Nothing wacko, just an objective appraisal of our dependence on civilization and an appreciation for self-sufficiency where ever possible. Thinking about what to do if X happens is a great game.


74. I've always found that a person's willingness to discuss such things is a great estimator for how interesting I will find them. Only mundanes find though experiments boring.


75. When I was cleaning out my old room a few years ago I realized that I was rather obsessed with nuclear war as a child. I painted mushroom clouds, wrote post-apocalyptic short stories, created WWIII board games. Given my generally unhappy school experiences at the time, I'm rather lucky a shrink didn't take it as proof that I was suicidal/disturbed. I found out a few years ago that my Able Learners (gradeschool advanced placement program, one day a week, same teacher for all six years) teacher warned my parents that I might end up suicidal. I'm not blaming her or feel betrayed or anything -- she had every reason to think that. I'm glad my parents didn't wig out.


76. I've never been the least bit suicidal. I've idly pondered how I would do it (guillotine), but never with any more seriousness than I've pondered how one could start their own country. Just more thought experiments.


77. I was born in 1977.


78. My complete lack of suicidal tendancies led me to develope my one and only philosophical proof. It isn't all that great, but good enough that I haven't found the idea of solipsism nearly as scary ever since. Given: I have no suicidal tendancies. Given: A proof of solipsism would render my life completely without meaning and remove all reason to live. If the world is a creation of my mind, then all of history is also my own creation, including the concept of solipsism as a general philosophical concept. Therefore my mind would be exposing me to a concept that could lead to suicidal tendancies, which would itself be a suicidal tendancy. But since I have no suicidal tendancies, my mind wouldn't have done so. The world must have an external reality because solipsism is, in fact, a philosophical concept people talk about. QED.


79. I seem to be writing longer facts than most people. I must be very egotistical.


80. I know darn well that I'm very egotistical, I'm just decent enough to be embarrassed by it for the most part. I love having people praise me and my work, but I hate being the one who draws it to their attention. It seems very tacky.


81. I only recently settled comfortably into being an introvert. As a kid I always assumed that I was a brash, loud extrovert. The cognitive dissonance took a long time to settle in. It was quite a shock when a new acquaintance described me as quiet.


82. I check Slashdot, CNN and the BBC for new stories at least once an hour, if I'm in front of a computer. I love news. I want to be the first to know anything. I want Jane whispering news to me in my ear.


83. I love making semi-obscure media references. Part of it is an egotrip (look how cultured I am!) but some of it is just the enjoyment of a good mental game like serial punning.


84. I was suspended from highschool for three days because I encouraged another student to set off the sprinklers in the gym. I also received a one day 'inschool suspension' for putting up posters for an imaginary candidate (Richard P. Khan) for study body president. One of them mentioned communism, which really pissed off the vice principal. Oddly enough, it said the candidate was against communism. I hope I still have the proof sheets around somewhere. I should scan them in if I do.


85. Public school and I did not get along. I first fled after 5th grade. I spent the next 4 years in private school. I was pretty much healed of the mental trauma of 5th grade when I had to go back to public school for 10th. I lasted two years, fleeing to Running Start for senior year.


86. I still wish I could have returned to St. Georges for senior year. Running Start wasn't bad, but it was kind of lonely.


87. Emacs has stopped giving me a line count, probably because the file is over 19k in size now. Instead I'm checking the length of the file using wc.


88. I have a lathe! I haven't used it as much as I should, though.


89. The most useful power tool you can buy is a drillpress. Seriously.


90. Looking around my workroom, I can see the following unfinished projects: GNUbot, which still need drive control electronics, the rocket MSS Bistromath, which I never got my level 2 cert with, the mini-hybrid rocket motor, which needs lots of lathe work, Now Be Dragons, a ~40 minute movie we shot half of last year. These are just the most easily seen, sigh.


91. Somehow I got it into my mind as a kid that I should be one of the ubercompetant kinds from a Heinlein juvenile. I wasn't, and I spent a lot of time angsting about this. Unfinished projects really bug me.


92. My book collection is divided into science fiction and everything else. Everything else is about equally divided between fiction and non-fiction.


93. I would count the books in each section but I'm getting kind of tired. I should really make a database of all my books.


94. The entire time I've been writing this I've been keeping an eye on the status of a program to sort my DVDs, which are in a database. I did this a year ago and it worked okay. This year it refused to find a decent ordering. The collection is almost 50% larger, of course. But I really want to make a post about the system and the database, and I can't do it until the ordering is done. Grrr.


95. I realized earlier tonight that the only place I've shopped for furniture in several years is Boeing Surplus.


96. I'm very bad at deciding on a favorite anything. I can usually make a 'top n' list, but only strictly unordered.


97. When I first thought about making one of these lists, I thought it would be funny to do it in hex. I now realized that writing 256 facts would be a hideous endeavor.


98. On the side of the left foot is a red splotch. It has been there since I was three or so. It occasionally gets scabby and bleds a little, but never changes shape or size. It is really quite harmless, beyond leaving stains on a good percentage of my socks and the couch if I'm not careful.


99. I have a fetish for solid technology. Being surrounded by cheap plastic crap is bad for the soul. I don't care what it is, I just want it to feel solid and well constructed. This usually translates to expensive, sadly. I'm not really going to complain about mass production, but it there were benefits to living on the other side of the labor/materials price ratio. Part of my standard 'if I won the lottery' fantasy is living in a house where everything feels like it was milled out of a solid block of stainless steel.


100. I help defend Seattle against a bioterrorism attack. Which is really quite boring, in practice, but it sounds really cool.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

That whole LIST sounds REALLY cool. I mean, I already knew some of the cool bits.

You KNOW I'd be willing to help as much as possible on the blacksmithing project, right? Like supply you with a blower fan and such? (also on the plane but that's going to take a while here as well.)

You absolutely do not come across as a horribly movie-obsessed person, but I think that's mostly because you come across as, well, quiet.

[shadowblue.livejournal.com]

That was actually a very cool read, for being 20 or 21k.

Very interesting.

I may actually try this.

[maribou]

pleasing. And I think EVERYONE on my friends list should do one of these:).

Doing it in hex, stop at $60

[granitor.livejournal.com]

Well, 0x60 for you PC folks. If I remember correctly, hex 60 (96 decimal) was the code for RTS on the 6502/6510 microprocessor. So you could have just ended the list a bit short of 100 ($64) and it still would have been a "round" number (nothing in the one's place, at least, in hex).