Art

I'm not really an artist so the things that I post here will most likely look fairly crude. Anyways, here's a potential map for my setting. You'll notice that it was sketched on the back of a piece of scrap paper. I'll get around to cleaning it up later.

















UPDATE: retraced over lines in GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program)

Preliminary thoughts on the Enlightenment desktop (E17)

Background:
OS: Arch Linux
Architecture: x86_64

So I had to reinstall my computer the other day. For some reason, likely my haphazard tinkering, My home partition wouldn't mount. This is a big deal because everything is on my home partition and really I made my root partition too small. I knew it wasn't a problem with the partition itself, rather a problem with the operating system. I COULD mount the partition when I booted up into other OS's (ex. Ubuntu 9.10 and Arch setup disks). I was hesitant at first about reinstalling. I actually wanted to find out what was wrong and fix it for future reference. So I headed off into the world of linux forums. I posted my problem along with the output of of several commands (mount /dev/sda4 /home, dmesg | tail, fdisk -l, blkid, fsck.ext4 -fv /dev/sda4) as well as a few files (/etc/fstab). The help I received there was swift, within minutes of posting someone already responded. However, the help I got was of little use. While I probably could have gotten it fixed eventually with the help I was receiving, I'm impatient and decided just to reinstall. One thing though. I did as a bit of a stupid question and I got a bit of a sarcastic remark, but that's kind of to be expected. Looking back on a few things, I think it may have had something to do with an invalid journal inode.

So I was reinstalling when the thought occurred to me that this was a golden opportunity to try out the Enlightenment window manager v 0.17. I had heard good things about it and I was unsure as to whether the path that GNOME was taking was what I wanted. One of the first things I noticed was the lack of good user-level documentation on their website. This could have been due to the fact that their wiki was in migration, but I'm not totally sure. Installation was easy, a single command through the terminal.

Starting up the desktop for the first time a quick questionnaire pops up asking you for things like what you want in your quicklaunch. Once that was over you are shown a mundane desktop with a single dock/panel (they call it a shelf). I must say Enlightenment has a bit of learning curve. First of all, switching desktops is triggered by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. This is a hassle if you aren't used to it. Don't know how many times I've switched desktops trying to close a window. But this kind of behaviour has benefits too. Making the switch easier, fewer buttons etc. The next thing you notice is that clicking on the desktop opens the application menu. This is kind of nice. This gives a previously unused space into something useful. Middle clicking the desktop opens a list of windows. This means that so long as you've a piece of desktop open, you can access any opened applications as well as open anything. The window menu (right clicking on the title bar) gives a wide variety of options, including: adding to the quickstart, always on top, lower, raise, pin to desktop. You can even customize the window borders for that particular window. This makes the look of Enlightenment very customizable. One thing I have to say about it though is that it takes a lot more to 'always on top' a window, it's nested in a few menus).

Now onto the 'shelves'. You can have as many as you wish but there are only 12 spots to place them (one on each side). I guess you could have individualized panels for each of your desktops but that's probably excessive. The shelf itself is a bit glitchy. Trying to remove 'applets' will cause the whole desktop to freeze. As a workaround one can disable the module associated with the applet.  These applets are pretty standard, sound, taskbars, quicklaunch, weather, time, etc. Most of these work really well.

Finally, there's the settings manager. Here you can configure almost EVERYTHING. It's nice to have a graphical way to access all your desktop settings.

Overall I think that with enough tinker time, I can get this desktop to look and behave jsut the way I want it to. I think I'll keep using it until I find something better. I wonder what it will be like once it's out of beta stage of testing.

Food

First I would like to extend my sympathies to those living in and around Japan.  I hope that all that are missing and injured are found and that they recover.

It's funny. I initially started this blog to get story ideas out of my head and now it's focus has diversified quite a bit. Today's topic food. Lots of ground to cover actually.

Let's start with the context. We had hotpot at home and in the end we had leftovers, a little bit of everything. As usual, I started to put a plan together to use up the leftovers. So I thought I'd share how I clear out hot pot left overs.

In my house we eat hot pot with rice (I know it's kind of odd), seafood, beef, lettuce, tofu and whatever else is in the fridge that would go well in hotpot. Usually we have a little bit of everything save the rice left over. The easiest way to clear out all of this is to make noodle soup. Basically, you boil the noodles, and then dump them in the hot pot broth. Instant noodle soup. Now this maybe undesirable because it's really like eating the same thing you ate the night before. Separately, it takes a bit more work.

Let's start with the sea food. I find the best option here is to make salt and pepper sea food dishes. The reason for this is that the seafood is already shelled and cut into little pieces. What you do here is you mix the seafood with a little bit of lemon juice/wine/vinegar, soy sauce, cornstarch and oil. Then you fry it in some hot oil. Take them out just before they're done and set them aside. Next fry up some sliced peppers and onions. Throw in your seafood, salt (I like five spice salt), pepper, chilli pepper to taste.

The beef and the tofu is just asking to be made into mahpoh tofu. Just stir fry with oyster sauce, soy sauce and spices and you're done. Lastly the lettuce and the hot pot broth can be a side dish used to temper the saltiness and the spiciness of the above dishes. The final thing you have left then is the dipping soy sauce. If you were smart you would have used them cooking the above dishes and you'll only have a bit left. It would be a waste to just throw it away so I usually just add it to my batch of soy sauce chicken broth/sauce.

And that's how I clear out hot pot leftovers (nothing left).

Chapter 1, Section 1

A short note before you read. The following is mostly a third person re-write. The prologue will be the same as before.

Fire and Water

He awoke with a start, shivering despite the heat of the day. The terror and despair of the vision lingered even as the memory began to fade. These dreams fatigued him emotionally. While the dream would only last the night and the memory quickly disappeared, the feelings, especially the intense ones, stayed and tainted his mornings. Once the last vestiges of the dream ebbed away, he found his body torn and tattered. Lacerations, small and large, ragged and straight, clean and dirty, all evidenced a night spent rolling around scratching at himself in a vain attempt at extinguishing illusory flames. He cursed. Already, his nights were filled with horror, did they have to taint his days as well?


As if in answer to his unvoiced question, the ground underneath him burst outward. He was showered in scalding hot debris, blasted with with a wave of hot air and shocked into attention at the sheer fury of the event. For the first time of the day, he focused his attention outward rather than inward. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. Shaking his head he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. When his heart slowed, he dared to open his eyes again. When he did, dread filled his heart.


He dreamt of terrors that infected his body well into the day, now he found that his dreams had grown into reality. All around him the world was aflame. The ground seemed too hot to touch. Wisps of smoke rose from the blackened land, rising to merge with the dark miasma above. Smoke and ash filled the air filled the air creating a false night, lit only by the sporadic bursts of reddish lightning. Pools of steaming liquid, surrounded by orange, yellow and green crystals dotted the blackened land. Behind him sat a vast lake, unlike any he had ever seen. The lake sparkled, not with the reflections of the sun but with its own internal illumination. Yellow and orange with a thin layer of broken black covering the surface, the lake roiled and bubbled and burst. Sometimes there would be small geysers of the viscous, golden fluids, spewing forth high into the sky before darkening, stained by the soot and falling back into the lake. Those drops that did not quite return to the lake would splatter against the earth and give rise to new rock amidst a torrent of smoke and steam.


The sounds of the land were everywhere. There was a tremendous roar emanating from the lake, much like the ocean but much much louder, only the thunder from above was louder. The rumble from the ground was palpable. As the stones rained down from the fountain of gold they chattered, announcing their conception. Some, not read for the world, fell back into the glowing lake with an audible thwack. There were other sounds, sounds that he could not quite place. A crashing perhaps? Hissing? He was unsure whether the sounds were unknown to him or that they were being obscured by the dominant noises of the area.


A thousand fragrances floated through the air. Burned rock and ash were ubiquitous, and made the air difficult to breathe. The air was hot but not dry. In fact, the air was humid, something that he found quite unusual. Though the crystal-lined pools steamed, they did not seem to dissipate and were unlikely to have caused the amount of moisture in the air. A smell, reminiscent of rotten eggs, emanating from these crystalline pools, turned the air rancid. Rotten though they may have been, the scent of eggs stirred within him a fierce hunger. For a moment, he lost himself in his hunger and let himself dream of nicer things. He dreamt of honey soaked bread and a cold mug of mead. He shook himself. He could not be entrapped by his daydreams.


Leaving took top priority. The ground was frying him and the hot and humid air was steaming him; he was being cooked alive. He began to walk away from the molten lake, towards one of the crystalline pools. He leaned down to the foul-smelling water and touched his lips to the water. He scrambled away from the water, wiping his lips with his hands like a mad man. Looking down upon his hands, he saw blood. The water had burned him! Even his arm was beginning to burn, the hair shriveling and his skin curling. What kind of cursed land was this where even the water burned? There was no alternative. He had to escape and he could not dally. He ran away from the lake, dodging any of the burning pools that came in his way. He had not gone twenty steps before the ground cracked and gave way. His foot slipped into the hole, as if he had stepped on thin ice. Underneath the thin sheet of rock hid a reservoir of water. He screamed as his foot was enveloped in pain. The land was intent on killing him. He crawled, burning his hands upon the ground. At last he came upon the end of the land. He found the source of the mysterious sounds and scents, he had come upon an ocean.


Looking around him, he discovered that he had awoken upon an island of fire, surrounded by the sea. The ocean crashed upon shore. Where the water touched upon the land, vast columns of steam would be born and sometimes, the land would crack. The smell of salt and water displaced the smoke and the ash and burning rock. He began to despair. How could he escape? The land was too hot to bear and the water burned like liquid fire. Was he expected to fly? Once more he began to wonder what this land was. Had the Sun descended, burning away the water and giving birth to new land while willing its properties upon the water? Perhaps he had not been only been cursed but honoured as well. He could be witnessing the Sun reenacting the miracle that began the world.


Miracle or not, he was still stranded. He could neither stay upon the land nor swim away. That is what he thought. That is, until the mist from the surf met his skin and did not burn. He inched forward, unwilling to risk the possibility that his senses were misbehaving. When he felt the splash of water again, and observed that his flesh was still whole, he rejoiced. Not wasting another moment, he dove into the sea. In his haste he forgot one important thing. Sea water makes wounds sting. Upon entering the water, he was inundated with pain. His face, arms, and foot were afire anew. The world darkened and the pain disappeared.

Evolution of Scientific Theory/Hypothesis: Lamarckian? (Ironic or just amusing?)

Random thought of the day (may or may not become a daily occurrence):

For those of you without a biological background, a primer. Evolution is the study of the development of new species from older species (ex. from ape-like beings to humans). During the development of evolutionary theory there were two competing theories. Both theories involve the transfer of traits from the parent generation to the next. Both theories also state that the accumulation of these changes/traits will eventually lead to the formation of new species. The two theories differed in where the traits came from. The first theory, largely discredited now, states that these new traits arose from an organisms own ability to change itself. A famous example of this would be the giraffe gaining its long neck via stretching. Giraffe-ancestors would not be able to reach foliage in high up places (they were vertically challenged), so they would stretch their necks. This self-inflicted change would be passed on to their offspring, eventually leading to the creation of giraffes. This theory was labelled as Lamarckian evolution. The second theory states that these traits originated among the population already and that environmental pressures would give individuals with certain traits an advantage and these traits would be passed on. While a famous example of this would be moths in Europe during the Industrial Revolution, I prefer to look at the evolution of antibiotic resistance in microbes. Many species of bacteria are susceptible to penicillin. If we take a large population of a species of bacteria and expose them to penicillin, you'll find that some of the bacteria will survive and form new colonies. In this case, the environmental pressure would be the antibiotics and the trait would be the resistance. This theory would be called Darwinian evolution.

Okay primer over, back to my story. I was reading an article about cancer and the article mentioned HeLa cells. I remembered what HeLa cells were, but I was curious as to any new research on them. Ironically, I came across a fairly old article (1991) that proposed that the HeLa cells had evolved into a new microbial species. This then made me think about evolution, and then about science itself when I came to the conclusion that scientific theories evolve in a Lamarkian manner.

Take a fictional scientific theory stating that liquid water makes aliens explode. With each new discovery the theory changes a little bit. At first it becomes liquid water makes aliens explode because they are made of lithium. In the end you have a theory about how alien physiology created a new flexible lithium. Now inspecting how this theory/hypothesis evolved, you see that with new challenges to the theory, the theory adjusts itself, becoming a new, slightly different explanation.

Looking into this further we are aware that sometimes there are competing theories that try to explain the same phenomenon. There are two outcomes to this. One, the theories merge and become a new theory (this would be akin to two species evolving into a single species [I can't think of a biological equivalent]). The second outcome would be that one of the theories is discredited. One could argue that this is textbook natural selection, but I disagree. In this case the theories adjusted themselves in different directions. The key here isn't the survival of the fittest concept but rather the origin of the differences in the theories. The theories may have started the same but they diverged by changing themselves. If the theories didn't start the same it is more akin to two different species competing for the same ecological niche.

Anyways, I'm not expecting, or even wanting the current scientific method to change. I was just amused by how scientific theories evolve in a way that is not parallel to biological evolution.

Standing desks

I converted my desk to a standing desk this morning (couldn't sleep and there was nothing better to do). Already I can feel the difference to my posture. I do understand what some people say when they complain about the pain in their feet but I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. You expend more energy, meaning it's one extra step in preventing obesity. Your posture doesn't slouch. Finally, since you aren't sitting, you can't really relax and do nothing. Standing desks force you to be doing something, otherwise you're just standing there.

Humans evolved a long way to stand on two feet, there's no reason why we shouldn't take advantage of that.

An empirical analysis on visual stimulus addiction.

Anime and TV shows have ruined me. I really have no one to blame but myself. Hours of constant visual stimulus via my computer has really warped me in many ways. There are three main observations I would like to point out about this 'addiction' of mine.

1. Whenever you're away from the visual stimulus, you feel like there's something missing.
2. The stimulus isolates you. There's so many reasons to go back to it and leaving it almost painful.
3. It warps your sense of time.

The first two are fairly standard in terms of addiction, but I think the third is the most interesting of all. You know what I caught myself doing one day? I started cooking an egg (hard-boiled) and I started an episode of anime. An anime episode is approximately 1/4 h long excluding intros and endings, so it serves as an ideal timer for hard boiling an egg. I was fast forwarding through the episode like I usually do and I found myself expecting actual time to speed up as well. From here I noticed that other things seemed to have changed about my sense of time. My patience has dropped almost exponentially and activities that take more than 1/4 h now seem to be lengthy and not worth it.

I've decided to wean myself off of anime and tv shows for a while (watching only an hour or so a day). I'll do this for a few weeks to see if I can reverse the time warp that has already occurred. Incidentally, this means that I'll have a lot more time to do stuff like my novel, so you might see me posting a lot more. If not, be sure that I'm still getting stuff done.