Synopsis + Core War June 28, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Musings, Personal, Uncategorized.Tags: core war, football, josh stroud, miscellany, Musings, Personal, redcode
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Browsing around on hackthissite.org, I came across a tutorial on redcoding. That is, the assembly language of the programming-based wargame “Core War.” I had heard of this, briefly, while perusing the hive mind, but never really tried my hand at it. It has been featured in Scientific American, and seems to be pretty well known in the wargaming community. So, over the course of the next week/month or so, I’ll try my hand at a little slice of it, and report back on this blog. Obviously I won’t become pro in a week, but I’ll see how it is.
In a total side note, I have decided to start writing all of my posts using raw html in ScribeFire, instead of relying on the little link buttons. My html knowledge, 6 months ago decent, has devolved to googling everything. So, I’ll just do it by hand. In XHTML, no less. Beat that, rotting-hunk-of-meat-that-is-my-brain.
In other news, I got back from my defensive camp today with the rest of my football team. (The [sic] Championship Grading System! is thumbs up/down; truly, the System by which Champions are made) Over two-and-a-half days, the highlights and lowlights (shutup, k?):
- Highlights:
–>Ordering (virtually) everything on the menu at Sonic Drive-in (the watermelon slush makes my knees go weak)
–>Cracking my first (true) joke. So John Risko says “I hate people who think they are cool but really are not.” (possibly referring to me, or maybe someone else. I wasn’t really paying attention) So, sensing my moment, reply, wait for it… wait for it… “I didn’t know you were filled with such self-loathing.” YES!
I went there. TOTALLY OWNED. PWNAGE until kingdom come. Felt good, that did.
–>FINALLY playing tackle football again. Tackling other people, no less.
- Lowlights:
–>Getting tackled by big sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled by medium-size sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled by smallish-size sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled.
–>Smelling like ass and balls, blended into a refreshing mix at the same time, yet knowing that the next day, I have to put on those delicious-smelling pads for another day of camp.
Not that I’m complaining. It was pretty fucking awesome. Plus, I’m not a rookie anymore. (don’t even get me started)
In even less important news, I have a bruise on my arm which looks like a tattoo loosely meaning “03″. Double points if you can guess what that means.
Finally, the blog post has seemed to have published itself two-nay-three-nay-four times. Fucking scribefire.
UPDATE: wait, five times.
Technorati Tags: musings, josh stroud, football, recode, core war,
Why you don’t mess with me June 24, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in humor, Musings, Personal, wtf.Tags: facebook, idle threat, Musings, wtf
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I wrote this little threat to tell a friend why to get a photo of him on his facebook profile:
If you don’t get a profile photo:
Step 1: I will come to your house.
Step 2: I will detonate your house using blasting caps of mercury fulminate on the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (aproximately 1.6 times the explosiveness of trinitrotoluene)
Step 3: I will incapacitate you using a rubber chicken coated with the gastric acids of the, now dead, rodent infestation of my house.
Step 4: I spray you with fresh urine and dust you with powdered octanitrocubane (2.7 times the explosiveness of trinitrotoluene).
Step 5: I douse a gasoline trail a couple of blocks, and light the gasoline.
Step 6: You combust, destroying approximately a block around, and leading to my arrest and and conviction of nine counts of murder in the first degree, and four counts of unnecessary cruelty to animals.
Step 7: I am declared criminally insane, and locked in Brattleboro Retreat for the rest of my life, where I live peacefully, until killing a nurse and being shot in an attempt to escape.So, a tip.
Get a profile photo.
In case you don’t enjoy a sense of humor of my caliber and wit (Steven *ahem ahem*), this is (possibly) a joke.
Jiminy Cricket! June 8, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Musings, wtf.Tags: gmail, google, Musings, raving, spam, wtf
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UPDATE: Originally, the post was titled “Jiminiy Cricket.” Fixed the spelling as of June 8, 9:03 pm.
For the first time in the three years that I have had my beloved Gmail account, I have received spam. Yes, spam. In the new mail folder. Waiting there to be read.
I feel violated. Here I was, expecting Google to have wiped slice (heh) of spam out of my Gmail inbox, and yet, here it lies. It offers me the princely sum Seven Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand British Pounds Sterling (£725, 000.00) as part of a new Microsoft promotion. The address is, of course, microsoftpromotion7@gmail.com. Obviously, Google has failed twice.
Why, Google? I have always been a loyal customer, and yet you allow some nefarious bot to create a spam account, bypassing your suppossedly infallible CAPTCHa to spam me, and thousands, no, millions like me. I must fight back. I must rise up for the oppressed masses, huddled against their dim computer screens, crying themselves to sleep; the mere thought of spam, intruding on my clean inbox, drives me to anger, rage, resentment, action.
But what can I do? What can I do, your great and powerful Googliness? I am merely one man, against the mongrel spam hordes, crouching over their fires, and plotting your demise. I must spread the word. The country, nay, the world must know of this travesty being wrought against us. Those men armed with bots come to steal our money, our passwords, our way of life. We must never surrender. We must never admit defeat. And now the world knows.
Dilapidated, Dulled, and Disinterested May 6, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Musings, Personal.Tags: college, josh stroud, Musings, Personal, school
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With the end of the school year approaching, and thus finals, and then summer, I have increasingly noticed a feeling of general apathy about myself. This is not dissimilar to the “senioritis” which many of the graduating students of my high school currently suffer from. According to Wikipedia, though,
Senioritis is not to be confused with general apathy that one may experience at the end of any other academic year.
I don’t know what it is about it, but with my internship at a place called uWink as a programmer, and my 4.14 GPA (including PE, but that’s what the colleges see), I have frankly stopped caring about school work, school, grades, and even how I conduct myself in classes. This in turn is related to my previous post about college and my general feelings about college. Honestly, having taken two or more college courses each summer for the past few summers, and expecting to take another one this upcoming one, I just don’t care. It all seems so stupid, and boring, and kinda depresses me: why do in a year what you can just do in a quarter of a year? The boredom, along with my general good grades, has pretty much stopped me from doing very much academically anymore. I still do the homework when I have to, but, with as little effort as possible.
I mean, college is upcoming, and next year, frankly, will be a bitch. I’m taking AP English, AP History, AP Chemisty, Honors Biology (by popular belief the hardest class you can take as a Junior), andHonors Pre-Calculus. But, really, considering my current job aspirations (as a computer programmer of some kind), I don’t see the need to go to MIT or CalTech. Indeed, there is one way of thinking that going to merely a good school instead of a HOLY-FUCKING-GOD-YOU-GOT-IN-WHERE?!?!?!? is better. At the best universities, you know that your professor(s) are probably both teaching your class and trying to secure that 11 million dollar research grant. This means that you may not get the same education as someone who is pretty much devoted to teaching you.
This kind of persuasion, unfortunately, causes me to generally leave academics in general on my list of priorities. For example, I’m writing this blog post instead of the French quiz I have tomorrow. I’ll feel it in the morning, though. I’m also neglecting a shower. These two, in turn, lead to my lowest grade at the moment in French, and the horrification of any future girlfriends (hah) I may have, as well as the general repulsion of my friends/classmates from me. Don’t worry, I’ll take a shower, and then study for the quiz. But really, this is an example of my apathetic tendencies as of spring break.
Who knows, maybe next year will dawn new and bright, I back to school motivated, attentive, and interested, but, then again, maybe not. The summer may be enough to rejuvenate what hitherto gleamed in mine eye, mayhap recover vital joy in learning upcoming, the loving embrace of genteel Summer restoring heart where heart had congealed, or mayhap not. Only time, cruel mistress , binding humanity into her ensnaring web, will reveal the future’s secrets, and her lips are impregnable stone.
Shakespeare owns.
Peace out.
Note: You’ll notice that I put this as one whopping blog post instead of having a more button a third of the way through. I do this both so that my friends on Facebook, which posts my blog posts automatically as notes to my profile, can read them a post from start to finish; and also because, as seen in my removal of my hits counter from the main page, I stopped caring about hits. (yet another example of lassitude [ooh, vocab word of the day sweeeet*])
*: See, I still care about a few things in life.**
**: I just proved this entire blog post wrong. Shit.
College from a Pre-Collegiate Perspective May 1, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Musings.Tags: admission, college, college admission, college admissions, education, high school, Musings, pre-college, school, the point of college, university, why college
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In my high school, where tuition is $27,000 and rising annually, where the incomes of many families is measured in the millions (not mine, unfortunately), where every single student is expected to continue onto college, college is a big deal. Forget all those heartwarming stories in the movies of kids without money or ambition getting inspired or getting financial aid, and going to college, perhaps against a parent’s wishes; at my school, not going to college is taboo. If you tell people you don’t want to go, then you are told by every single person that you should: your friends, your teachers, your parents, your college counselor, even your neighbors. (more…)
Random Contemplation (NEW!!! extra spicy) April 9, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Musings.Tags: macs versus windows, Musings, pcs vs macs, philosophy, wtf
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Sooooo.
*ahem* *ahem*.
I’m forcing myself to write another blog post, just so that:
1. I have something to do.
2. I have another mediocre post to add to my repertoire.
So far, so good. Finally got linked to another blog (which gets marginally more posts than the interstate), but no biggy (see previous parentheses).
Some idiots to my left are getting into another flame war over Mac versus Windows. I’ve been there, and I’ve finally decided to let it go. I just don’t car anymore. Each are useful. Windows has… well… plenty of things, and OS X has other, different things. Go elsewhere for a more in depth discussion.
Hits are getting up there (nearly 300 woot, I guess), and I’m number four when you google Josh Stroud (my name, dumbass). Still haven’t gotten around to installing Apache and Fedora. By the time I do, Fedora 9 will come out (like 20 days away). It’s a spur of-the-moment thing, and now, it’s lost its inertia (translation: never gonna happen).
I switched to a new laptop yesterday, ’cause my old one’s screen broke. Installed eclipse and some plugins to make it play nice with as3 and flex 3 (I use as3 right now because I don’t know Flex at all, but I use the sdk and compiler and stuff, plus it’s cheaper than that whole environment) and then imported all my old projects into it.
K that’s it. I’m done.
After All These Years… April 4, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Uncategorized.Tags: blog, miscellany, Musings, wtf
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Finally decided to post on my previously-languishing blog today. I wasn’t sure what I was going to blog about, so I figured I would freestyle it. You know, just type whatever comes to mind; write about my life, or what I read five minutes ago. Uh… ahem. So here it is. Right here. After the jump. heh. (more…)
Lunar-Induced Brain Waves March 19, 2008
Posted by Josh Stroud in Uncategorized.Tags: blogging, collab blog, Musings
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Maybe it’s just me, but the best ideas I have are always at night, as I’m lying in bed, thinking. (Not that other thing) [that's where tidal comes in; see, it's a pun: waves are induced by the moon's gravity, and it's at night, and I'm having brain wav-forget it. Never mind. In fact, just ignore this.] It’s like, just being able to relax, my brain compensates by going into overdrive; for example, I had an idea for a massively collaborative blog around 12:45 PM during a silly retreat in which the class of 2010 goes out to El Capitan Canyon (hereabouts) and spends a day and a half talking about diversity. I spent like two hours writing/fleshing out my idea for a blog, almost like a magazine, where you have anywhere for ten to thirty people posting random blog posts online, without any semblance of cohesiveness between posts or anything. Pretty much, it would just be a dozen people’s blogs fused into one, but edited for correctness and grammer.
Tell me what you think in the comments.
The Morning After December 9, 2007
Posted by Josh Stroud in Uncategorized.Tags: miscellany, Musings
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Considering I was up ’till 2 A.M. (Pacific) last night working on this thing, I’m surprised that I don’t feel like a drunken mule has just kicked me off a cliff while I chugged vodka. The joys of caffeine, eh?
