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I'm not sure how many of yall caught it, but for the first few weeks this month I had 2003 as the year in the date headings. Oops.
Get used to these once-every-2-weeks updates, as school and life is keeping me insanely busy. I barely even update the AnthonyCam anymore. Which considering I had my highest number of visitors in one day on the 4th, (all of 73 people) perhaps I should be updating more. The reason for the huge jump from my normal 15-20 is for two reasons, both having to do with high rankings in Google results: The first being my update about the cool sidewalk art that I talked about a few days ago is now on the second page of results when searching for 3d sidewalk art. The second reason being the flower photo that I took a long time ago of a flower outside our house is on page three when using the image search for "flowers". Also for some crazy reason, when searching for images with the phrase "Enders game", this image I took from the first 2003 UF football game comes up as the 4th image listed on the first page. I haven't the slightest idea how that happened, and if you came to this page because of it, I'd just like to say I love the book. Behold the power of Google.
The first person won that crazy M&M game by finding a bag full of orange M&M's. I can't wait till someone finds something like neon-pink and Mars announces that it's a new surprise M&M colour.
I ran today for the first time in months, but for good reason. It started raining while I was checking out a videogame tournament at our student union tonight, and so I had to get back to my dorm while *attempting* to stay as dry as possible. That didn't work out so well. So I now I know what if feels like to be a fish.
I'd just like to note for future reference deciding to scheduling my lab for Thursday nights was a really stupid thing to do. What the heck was I thinking?
Happy Valentine's Day!
You didn't think I'd skip the most requested and talked about update of the year now did you? Yes, it's the infamous Valentine's Day update (for the first time actually written on Valentine's Day since I've been so busy) that I've been doing the last two years now. I squeeze in a whole years worth of Livejournal type posts about girls, all in a conveniently packaged one day update.
If you'd like some reading material, I suggest taking a look at the 2002 and the 2003 editions. As usual the two most pertinant sites out of all those links is the Foolproof Guide to Making Any Woman Your Platonic Friend and Why Geeks Make the Best Boyfriends. Check them all out though, there's some really good stuff.
Unfortuantely I've been a slacker and don't have much prepared in the way of a major update. If you find yourself with a nerdy girlfriend however, or you are of the female persuasion and want something for Valentine's day for yourself, check out the HTTP underwear with 403 Forbidden and 200 OK messages. Nerd humor at its finest! And what kind of girl wouldn't love to have a Cat5 bracelet instead of something gold?
This all assumes however that you're not part of the infamous "Friend Zone". Being friends with girls is awesome (sup female friends) but it's always "that one" that causes men everywhere to curse their lot in life. The unfortunate fact is you can't control who and who not you are attracted to, and so there's no use getting upset about it, it's just the way things are.
The tragedy of the topic though is when the guy *thinks* he's just friends with a girl but the girl actually likes him. Which brings me to my next point: Girls need to ask out guys more! Apparently there is still a stigma against this, for reasons that I have no idea about. Every guy I've ever talked to has emphatically agreed that they would love it if women made the first move, but its still incredibly rare. Most (sane) guys don't like to guess and wonder and ponder. We just want to know if you like us! Some women then counter that it's so hard to make the first move because you're uncertain and doubtful and worried of rejection. Welcome to our world. A friend of mine told me once that she didn't call a guy because she felt she wouldn't be enough of a challenge for him and thus he wouldn't be interested. Nothing could be further from the truth. So for the sake of men everywhere, if you like someone, just tell them. I guarantee he'll thank you for it. Besides, if you're worried about if someone likes you back or not, just use the ever handy Love Calculator
Completely switching gears, I thought I'd touch on the topic of love since that's what this Hallmark Holiday is supposed to be all about. Obviously there is many kinds of love, as you can love your parents, your wife, your siblings, your friends, or a Papa Johns Pepperoni pizza. I myself have never been *in* love or even remotely close, but there are a few certain people who I can say I do love, and its not something I do lightly. A famous 70's movie called A Love Story had the famous line that "Love means never having to say you're sorry." It's a very stupid line at face value, as being able to say you're sorry is a crucial part of love. But I think what it's getting atis that when you love someone, you love *them*. It means that you don't have to apoligize for being you, because that person loves you for the person you are, the essence of yourself, that part of you that makes you an individual from everyone else on this planet. Yeah, sometimes they'll do something that will make you mad or that you wish they wouldn't do, but you'll still love them because they are still that same person that you care so much about. Which is why looks always seemed like a really bad way to judge someone. I won't lie and say they don't matter (pontail+glasses=HAWT) and I do find some girls far more attractive than others. But when you come down to it, we're ALL going to end up looking like our parents, and if you marry a person becuase they look good, you're going to be sadly disappointed. This is also why I don't like it when people talk about the attractiveness of other people's boyfriends/girlfriends. Does it even remotely matter? "He's not even that cute, she could do so much better." or "His old girlfriend was a lot hotter, why did he ever dump her?" are things that makes me cringe on the inside. Why people have such problems understanding how dumb this is I'll never know.
Finally, to leave you with an "Awwwwwww" link to close out the update, here's a long list of first kiss stories written by people of all ages (and does it ever show in some cases). All right, all together now, "AWWWWWW"
And that's that for this years SAD (Single Awareness Day) update. A little less links than usual, but you got my 2 am ranting on women and love, so that makes up for it right? Until next year...
After working pretty much all Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday on Rambot the Robot, I finally have the sensors all mounted and everything cut out. This class will be the death of me, as I've worked a ridiculous number of hours on it already, but the feeling that you get once you finish is pretty cool. So without further ado, here are a few pics of my robot:
Front
Side
Top
The circle thing in the middle is the sonar to measure distance, the top two black things are the IR sensors to detect objects, the thing in the middle is the camera, and there's an LCD and protoboard on top. It's powered by two servo's, and the batteries go in the back. I still have to add a bump switch, and hopefully I can find a nice size castor for the dead wheel in the back.
Now the focus turns more to software, which I'm really looking forward to. Thankfully my robot is pretty simple in design, so I don't have to worry much about the mechanical or electrical properties, which I don't particularly enjoy. Get me some low level C and assembly code, and I'm happy. Once I get it moving and obstacle avoiding, I'll post some video of it in action. Which the "soft" due date is Monday.... but I really don't see that happening. But it'll be another long weekend of wiring and fiddling and cursing. It's amazing how much my mood can swing over this thing, as half the time I just want to drop out of school, and half the time I can't believe I've built something like this and I think the class is awesome.
San Francisco is making news by marrying gay couples in defiance of state law. It's interesting how the entire issue has really started coming into the mainstream in the last few years, as I don't ever recall anything about gay marriage a few years ago. It's nice that people are finally making strides to end this senseless discrimination, and hopefully people will look back on this in a decade or two and realieze how dumb these laws are. Interracial marriage used to be illegal as well, but at least we've seen how stupid that is.
UF Basketball really needs to stop losing.
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