… and Roman cavalry choirs can’t be bothered singing anymore. Mainly because they’re long gone, silent after the fall of the Roman Empire. But this wasn’t meant to be a history lesson; I just randomly left like quoting Viva la Vida lyrics; damn it, I love that thing.

End of school = holidays = great! Now I can rant about something other than IPT coursework…

Juggling with operating systems

I finally solved that osx86 HFS+ partition error problem! All you have to do is add chain0 to your boot.ini, and then start osx86 through the Windows bootloader. Do that, and everything works fine. The only problem for me is that I need the nforce kernel, which doesn’t like me very much. Oh well, mission failed – I’m back on Windows Vista after a downgrade from Windows 7, and I’m happy about it.

The Windows 7 RC (release candidate) was fun, but it was a ticking time bomb in that it was going to expire on June 1, 2010. So I figured, why not get rid of it earlier rather than later? To be honest, Vista was never that bad, and it’s sort of a relief to know that I’m back in an environment that will last (although admittedly I’ll probably do another fresh install some time soon, just for the heck of it).

Some random notes about the screenshot above:

• The wallpaper is Rain’s Firefly Night picture. It’s awesome and just happens to be the right resolution for my desktop.
• Winamp eats you and your iPod; it is seriously the most capable iTunes equivalent I have ever seen, and still as resource-conservative as it was when I first picked it up back in 2005. I am using Winamp with the Last.fm auto-scrobbler (more on that later)
• Pidgin rules, as it is portable, open-source, cross-platform, and supports various protocols extremely well; it even supports MSN/WLM “personal messages”, although it epic fails at web conferencing.
• IrfanView is a must-have if you’re on Vista, because the “Windows Photo Gallery” lags so much worse than the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer from good old XP.

Last.fm and music analytics

A bit of history: I used to use iTunes to stalk my music habits. There was a bit of dodginess involved; one strange day, for example, I decided to leave Rie Fu’s “Life is Like a Boat” on repeat, and then proceeded to switch off my speakers. That was 300 plays, and I didn’t hear a single one of them.

Still, I like having statistics about my listening habits; it’s as weird as the human desire for categorisation. (Look at how everything in this blog post is under a heading – we are obsessed with categorising stuff!)

I have therefore decided to follow wj32’s advice on using Last.fm. Wikipedia describes the service like so:

Using a music recommender system called “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations, the user’s computer or many portable music devices. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (”scrobbled”) via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is then displayed on the user’s profile page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user’s favourites.

If you feel like stalking my music preferences, you may find my account here. I have actually had this account since December 2007, it’s just that I never really bothered to use it properly, because it seemed a bit weird having the whole world know about my strange liking for Fall Out Boy’s Thnks fr th Mmrs. It was a bit of a privacy concern… oh, the social and ethical issues! They might sell this information! They might use it for relevant advertising!

Social and ethical issues aside, though, I think the service is pretty useful for end users. Music recommendations are a fun benefit, but I really would be keen on building a profile on my taste in musical madness for future reference. And the internet is a lot more future-proof than local computer intrastructures can ever hope to be.

Random thoughts for the teenage souls

Unrequited love is what makes us human. If we always got what we wanted, we wouldn’t appreciate the good things. Now let’s all stop wasting time with being sad and drink plenty of coffee for our 99.95 ATARs so that we can all be doctors, lawyers, dentists, and scientists.

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Chain0

I’ll be walking randomly around a national park, and appreciating the beauty of the stars, sans air pollution. Camps are fun, even if they’re not officially known as camps.

This means, of course, that I won’t be able to update. Sorry about that. In the meantime, please go and look at some pictures of flowers on Flickr, because they are really quite impressive.

Rusians: check out the Maths intranet page next Friday; there might just be some awesome multimedia stuffs, hopefully including a tour guide of the C-block.

We went to pat cows. They were cool.

We didn’t get any free milk, but then, we didn’t have to milk any of the cows either.

In other news, I was shocked to find out that Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest. All these celebrity deaths (Steve Irwin, remember, guys?) are getting rather depressing.

I’ll post more meaningful stuff when/if I stop panicking over my major project for Information Procrastinations and Technology. By the way, depending on what version of the universe you live in, AAC stands for:

1. Advanced Audio Coding, or
2. Advanced Analogue Coding

… which is really rather strange.

I’m extremely stressed by upcoming assessments and projects. Yes, I know that I shouldn’t be complaining, considering that my lovely senior friends have about 10 to the power |x| things more to worry about, for x>2.

Steric numbers make my brain hurt. Thinking about the Friday Chem test makes me sad. Here is proof that Rickrolling can be incorporated into anything:

Information Processes and Technology. Multimedia. Multiple mediums. What makes audio awesome? High sampling rate >= max sound frequency; high bit resolution; stereo or better. What makes images awesome? High bit depth = large palette; high resolution. Compression and dithering = processing.

Please excuse the lack of clarity in today’s entry.

Power Shift stickers

If you walk around my school right now, you will see a lot of little square-shaped purple stickers. You will be able to find several staircases with a sticker on each step. You will be able to see these stickers plastered on a brick wall – in the dozens – to form a smiley. These stickers are everywhere.

I love what Power Shift stands for – the environment, youths taking action, and change for the better. Power Shift is a national climate change conference, but for young people. It is to be held at the Parramatta campus of the University of Western Australia on July 11-13 this year. There will be various discussions, workshops, and (I’m told) even concerts and ‘eco-fashion’ shows. The whole point of the exercise is to pressure the government into making environmentally-friendly decisions, particularly regarding ‘renewable energy, green jobs, and a safe climate future’.

But isn’t it just a little bit ironic that this ‘green’ event is being popularised by spamming the ecosphere with stickers that contain plastics which will take many decades to biodegrade, and paper that came from trees which, once upon a time, were collecting atmospheric carbon dioxide?

No more UAIs

A lot of studious teenagers in New South Wales just got their goal of “get 100UAI” crushed – well, depending on how you look at it.

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) replaces the Universities Admissions Index (UAI) this year. It’s essentially the same thing but you can no longer get 100/100. Instead, the top mark is 99.95/99.95, which doesn’t look as good as 100. Last year, when we were studying Strictly Ballroom, our English teacher made quite a point of explaining the significance of the protagonist being “number 100″ instead of “number 69″. 100 represents perfection, and if get the top mark in the HSC, I reckon you deserve anything that associates you with perfection.

Apparently the ATAR will become a national standard next year, which means that if you live in a smarter state, you face more competition for the same reward. Needless to say, there have been various jokes flying around about moving interstate to get 99.95 ATAR. Anyone feel like moving to sunny Queensland?

Short unusual post for the heck of it, and because it’s 2:14 AM.

School: Funny things happen after spending ~15 hours at school. Evan & Ivan – your chemistry is very leet. Alvin – jailbreak your iPhone. Apparently I came around position 40 for maths. I LOL’ed at Mr. Wilson’s duck impersonations although they can be distracting (but curiously fascinating nonetheless). Mr. Pronger is a cool guy for his bike ride.

Musical: Hobo-singing completely random songs in the ‘change room’ science lab was lol-making. Kudos to whoever came up with the sign that says “be quiet you hyperactive bunnies” or something along those lines. Hope tomorrow’s performance is smashing. Our after party is going to be insane.

Birthday boy: Happy birthday coming up to Gerald! So I heard your internet explorer was eating system resources.  Please accept this imaginary birthday cake in advance. (gives cake)

cbbox: We need to have a meetup. (nods)
cgr’s: Sorry for being out of it these days; you’re still my best friends ever!
scr’s: I miss you people. Expect intermittent transmissions within the next 100 hours.

Service project: So, err, apparently the only ‘leadership’ involved is taking initiative (which seems to be difficult enough as it is), RuseZine might work but better to join an existing organisation according to Mrs. Pooviah.

Catpan: Comme d’habitude, tu as perdu le jeu sur l’étage parce que j’ai été ici. Désolé, mademoiselle. Bonne chance pour le soir prochaine.

Lee (Gu): Mr. Deigan wasn’t here today. I have your note in my special folder and will bring said special folder on Tuesday.

Sorry for being late, and j’ai perdu le jeu to Andrew:

Andrew says:
*i’ve had your blog open for twelve hours
*still nothing.
Blair says:
*lol thanks for the reminder
*(well i HAVE been at musical)
Andrew says:
*mhm..
*update your blog after you perdu le jeu

A huge metaphorical hug for being so dedicated (12 hours? holy damn) and for reminding me to update (we all need reminders)!

“The Happy Woman Whose Husband Died and other various musical productions”

My friends from up north just finished playing the pajama game. Kudos to them for what was no doubt a job well done. Apparently it was as good as a professional performance of the Phantom of the Opera.

Our own musical is coming up this Thursday and will repeat every night right up until Saturday (N.B. due to the final performance and after-party I probably won’t be updating The Big Box next week). As far as the chorus goes, most of the loose ends seem to be tied up quite safely (if not completely neatly); however, I’m extremely grateful for the Tuesday rehearsal.

The principals are awesome and I wish I could go join the audience to cheer those guys on. Keep smiling, the microphone and cameras love you.

Heaps of thanks (partially in advance) to the orchestra, set crew, make up crew, costume teams, and sound and lighting! Today’s dress rehearsal threw the cast off just a little bit because of how different it felt with the full range of instruments, the right lighting, and full costume and whatnot. That lot is seriously under-appreciated… (yay for Lian, Joshua, and Jackie!)

Swine flu – H1N1

From what I hear, the incident rate in Australia is rising exponentially. And half my grade is sick with flu-like symptoms. Cue shock!horror.

According to NSW Health:

A lot of effort is going into containing the spread of the virus in our community. This is important while we wait for a vaccine to be available. A vaccine is some months away.

LOL-making joke courtesy of Jenny and ‘muff via The Cardboard Box:

Q: What do you do if you get swine flu?
A: You call the HAM-bulance!

Chk-chk … boom!

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, there was a girl who saw a Channel Nine camera trying to do a report on a violent clash between two complete strangers that had nothing to do with the aforementioned girl.

However, this girl was an opportunist. She seized the day and made up some crazy story about fat people, skinny people, sleeping with cousins, and of course, onomatopoeia-loving gun sounds.

And now she’s everywhere – Shakespeare on Trial made references to her in a discussion about Macbeth, politicians compared her to the Australian opposition leader, and (somewhat ironically) Channel Nine considered hiring her as a reporter for A Current Affair. Yes, a girl who made up a story to the police, will perhaps one day work for a popular current affairs program. Now you can see why you it is perhaps … questionable to trust what ACA and Today Tonight say about the state of the world.

To conform or to conform? That is the question.

My very good friend Rain made an awesome poll on a private forum. Question: Which do you think is a better quality?”. Options: “Conformity”, “Inviduality”.

Oh. Snap.

See, if you choose individuality, you’ve probably done so because that’s what society is telling you is the better choice – “Hold on to what you try to be, your individuality” – and hence, you are conforming to the ideology that individuality reigns supreme.

Sweet, sweet irony… society tells you to conform to individualism. Everyone is special and no one is special – a classic self-defeating antithesis.

What on Earth is a self-defeating antithesis?

We were studying Macbeth in English class, and Mister described the use of paradoxial phrases such as “fair is foul and foul is fair” as part of the witches’ self-defeating antithesis.

Here’s a thesis to that antithesis, or should I say, an antithesis to that thesis: The phrase “self-defeating antithesis” itself is self-defeating.

An antithesis is a counter-argument to a thesis (argument) that is its exact opposite. However, if a counter-argument is self-defeating, it is supporting the original argument that it is supposed to counter. Therefore, to describe an antithesis as “self-defeating” defeats its status as an antithesis.

Quod erat demonstrandum. And if you understood all of that, either I am a very good communicator or you are.

To be cool is to not want to be cool

Seeing as I’m already rambling on with illusive equivocations, here’s another. Think about someone high up in the social ladder that you know. If you’re in high school, this should be a piece of cake.

Are they arrogant? Hell no. Do they ask for attention? Not at all.

In almost all cases, the populars are the ones who do not directly ask for popularity. That’s where all the little girls and boys (including yours truly) have failed in the past. If you want to be cool, you must not try to be cool, or want to be cool. Only then can you be cool.

Does this make any sense at all? Hell no.

The caek is not a lie

Thank you for reading. Here is your coconut muffin, courtesy of yomi995 on Flickr and their awesome photograph, “チョコレートマフィン / chocolate and coconut muffin”.

Now don’t say I never gave you anything.

“Oh god, exams!”

So it’s that time of the year again. Yes, you know it’s half yearly exam week when you walk around the school and see every junior student with that glazed look in their eyes that just screams, “I am traumatised by various combinations subjects that I probably wouldn’t care about if it weren’t for the fact that they will one day scale well in the HSC”.

For most of my time-and-space-traveling companions, it’s a relatively easy exam week, with a total absence of any sciences. Indeed, this is probably the easiest flurry of exams of the year.

The world according to Australian journalists and other assorted Wordles:

Wordles are a new fun way of analysing text data to identify patterns and trends. My friend Moby noticed that even the professional folks at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are using wordle.net for some fun analysis – in this case, politician budget talk.

Exhibit A: International news according to Google News.

It’s interesting to see that the Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers are attracting a lot of attention. Nepal seems to be a huge issue, with “Nepal” and “Nepal’s” appearing prominently. Talk of peace, holiness, and Friday (TGIF) make this a very happy news source indeed. CNN and BBC are frequently used, presumably as they are cited as the source of many articles.

Exhibit B: International news according to the Sydney Morning Herald

For something that is meant to be international, this makes an interestingly large amount of references to Australia (the words “Australia’s” and “Australian” appearing prominently) and Australian symbols (such as kangaroos and joeys). Australia’s developing relationship with China is seen by the reference to “China”, the only country apart from Australia whose name is present.

Incidentally, though, Australia’s relationship with the United States is much more evident, although more subtly manifested. “Guantanamo” and references to American paranoia through the word “Taliban” are evidence for this. There appears to be a recurring theme with the “War on Terrorism”, as seen with “Guantanamo”, “military”, “Defence”, and “Afghanistan”.

Exhibit C: The Big Box since January 2009

So it seems that I’m not quite as sophisticated as I’d hope to be. Most of the common words are, well, common and uninteresting. Indeed, they are so common that I’m surprised that Wordle hasn’t filtered them out.

“Birthday” is relatively small, despite the constant references to people’s birthdays on my blog), as are “students”, “teacher”, “Education”, and “school” (which was to be expected). “Good” is larger than “bad”, “Happy” is larger than “death”, “love” is unusually small, “life” and “hope” go together. And let’s not forget ubiquitous words like “awesome” and “brilliant”.

My geeky side comes out with “websites”, “Internet”, “Adobe”, “information”, “blog”, “electronic”, “Photoshop”, “Ph.Art”, “deviantART”, “Laptops”, and “computer”. Finally, there’s a strange counting trend, with “one” > “two” > “three” > “four” > “five” >”six”.

Random note of thanks

Many kudos to the guys at WordPress.com for the new WordPress favicon. It looks fawesome, with much better outlines than before, and a hint of Tango-ness. Top job!

So I heard you micro-blogging (and variations thereof):

• William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is insanely symbolic, and kind of horrific (children killing each other over disputes about bonfires and monsters).
• Spent most of today ‘researching’ and Photoshopping constellations, hence the short and brief, quick and easy, entry.
• Happy birthday to VK [I Like to Sit], Stephen, and Lily from year 11 – you have the same birthday, and I hope you all somehow magically find out about it.
• Exams! Oh noes!
• ‘Gay Paris, tra-la-lalala-la-la, c’est la vie, tra-la-lalala-la-la, believe us if it wasn’t so, her answer would be no, no, no, oh no!” – and you thought The Merry Widow was too serious for it’s own good.

Cheers, and have a nice weekend.