I look outside at the gloomy rain clouds. Strains of ambient forlorn music echoes in my ears. On one side of the laptop rests my mouse and smartphone. On the other, an empty coffee mug. And such the scene is set. I type these words. Today tingles with anticipation. The anticipation of work done, task accomplished. Each job, task, chore feels less like work and more like a puzzle, game, entertainment. I feel like I’m hacking, cracking, smashing the universe’s stack. Time for some fun. Today is a hacking day. Enjoy.
Tag Archives: hacking
Image Tinkering
I planned to do some writing this weekend. However that fell through. Instead I looked my blog and my profiles on various sites. I noticed that I projected a different image then I wanted to. I wanted to look like a young working professional who enjoys his work, loves to work on his various hobbies and still be rather fun. And I wanted to look like someone of my age. I mean I like the fact that I look younger than I really am. But some of my profiles don’t carry the same look and feel I wanted. So I started tinkering my image, both online and offline.
One of the first things that will change is the blog’s appearance. I thought of a title that would capture the sense of what I want to project. In the past I called my blog on Blogger: Mlaren Dreams (a mlaren being a fictional hovercraft racing vehicle, inspired by FZero) and The Open Source Gamer. Once I moved to a self-hosted WordPress installation, the name changed to Transmissions from High-Earth Orbit (a nod to my philosophy of looking at life from the perspective of someone in orbit above the Earth). Then about the time I met Caroline and S., I renamed it to The Art of Being Dorian. That last name made the blog more personal but it still felt too self-centred for my liking. Yesterday I kicked around a number of different ideas for names. Today I changed the name of my blog.
So I present to you the new title: A Hacker’s Journal in the Cloud: Dorian Journals His Attempts at Hacking, Writing, Gaming and Living. The name aludes to my hacking of computers and reality. Hacking as in exploring and playfully using knowledge to my benefit. The cloud beind the Internet cloud where this blog resides. The rest of the title is self-explanatory. And yes the title nods to the 19th century style of short titles and long elaborate subtitles.
My next goal is foist a new theme for the blog. I wouldn’t mind creating a theme myself. But if someone already made something I like I’ll use that instead.
Early Morning Report for Those Who Can’t Sleep…
I finally managed to steal some time to blog again. It is the morning too, so not everything might sound coherent.
So the past few weeks have been exacting on me. My life has become a bit of a gaming sprint. Not that I game as much as I used to. No. Rather each day feels like a gaming sprint with a schedule as follows: I wake up at 5 AM each morning, arrive at work at 6, do some personal stuff from 6 to 8, work like a dog for my client from 8 to 4 PM, travel home and work like a dog at home until near midnight-ish. Then rinse and repeat every workday for the past 2 maybe 3 weeks. It is getting tiring. Productive. But tiring.
I am still trying to organize a LUG in Brampton. But the guys on Facebook claiming to already operate one in the region, don’t look like they are doing much in that regard. So if you are in Brampton and like/love/hate Linux then come out December 16 at 8 PM to the Coffee Culture. I plan on putting up some flyers too.
Also writing and coding are off to the side right now. I still need to catch on important life/reality based stuff first. However I think my original TODO list is nearing completion for this year. I might need to revise the dates when I plan on actually finishing stuff. I reckon everything will be done before Q2 of 2009. Look at me talk like some corporate drone. 🙂
Anyways, I will try to update this blog more often. I think life should quiet down after Christmas.
Groogy Weather, Groggy Me
Greetings again, and sorry about missing two day of updates. Dealing with stress, putting up with administrative nonsense, writing assignments, attempting to dance around illness and living with the sudden wacky cold-wet weather, puts me in a mood where I rather not even poke my nose from under the blanket. On the bright side, everything is falling into place.
The instructors of two of my course, kindly set the hand-in date for my course work until December 20. That gives me some breathing room, and lets me concentrate on the three assignments due on Friday. Next week I get to study for exams and work on the later assignments.
Carmen Hung, the new leader of our CSC454 or Business of Computing, handled getting everyone to work on the last assignment wonderfully. The paper still in the works, weighs in currently at a hefty 41 pages, and 24% of our term work. The business plan is coming along, not as fast as I wanted it. Still no complaints, as yesterday I came home late and crashed. I spent this entire morning getting over my tiredness “hangover”. When I finish blogging this entry, I will stock up on caffeine again.
Katarina Halan, classroom friend and almost my girlfriend, let me work with her on the CSC347 or Information Security assignment. We spent about 16 hrs on Sunday working only on the assignment. After hours of hacking, half-working and actual coding we finished the assignment. Thanks Kat for yesterday’s coffee “date”. Sorry about the Tim Horton’s coffee, next time I will buy some good coffee from Second Cup instead.
My last assignment after the “Business” course, deals with the unfortunate CCT209 Foundations of Research course. I am so behind in that course, it stopped being funny months ago. My group started on Monday, but since my e-mail to them, I saw no work. I guess I have to juggle this assignment and writing the business plan. Bother. Guys, you better get on the ball soon.
As for my open source project and my other blog, One-Time Trash Pad both I place on hold until I meet Friday’s deadline. I have too much at stake to deal with any side projects. If I don’t update this blog anytime before December 20, please do not be surprised. I will try my best, but no promises.
Until then wish me luck. I need all the luck I to overcome the stress, the weather and my own sluggishness.
Wrath. Reloaded.
DIE SPAM!!! Or the battle cry of the last battle in Darwinia. The Temple level was big a challenge, but once you figure it out it is pretty simple. Wished I had rockets though, because that would of speed up the final bosses’ demise. I stayed up until 5:00am playing the game, and now I am finished. I must say I enjoyed myself throughly. But I am glad its over… I mean I can go and clean up the mess I made… but… nah. I have other more important things to do.
Life is a usual: nag, drag, work, nag, drag, work… ad nauseum. Starting work on Wednesday of next week. At least I will have money. Even if that is the only thing I can look forward too, as I still will have to do a lot of tasks at home. Have not even looked into archery equipment, or high speed net (which I decided I might leave until before school starts). Need to pay off school, and look for a way of getting my sorry excuse of a behind to school and back again. I will have to look at that immediately.
Yup. I have decided to start a new black op… a clone of the game Sinksub. I enjoyed that game, and now I plan to do in Python using pygame or C using SDL. Still should be fun. It is a short game, and not much involved in it. So I hope to make something in about an afternoon or so.
Oh well, have to run off and type up some more of the legalize that I have neglected to do. And do some groceries… I sort of miss my friends… but I have a fair bit to do. Bye for now!