. . .

I loathe the idea of going back to school. I just think of the idea of being back in class and a wave of disgust just washes over me. I feel angry, bitter, sad, scared, all at the same time. My classes feel very cold; there's no sense of familiarity that I get. No sensation that people are there who are going to be happy to see me, no one who'd miss me when I'd be gone, no one to ask me, "Hey, where were you last class?". I took that for granted back when I had that. God how I miss it. I miss how Jeenat, Isadora and Sayma would smile when they'd see me. I wouldn't worry about being late for class; they'd have a seat saved up for me. And vice versa, of course.



It's a simple fact that there's something along the lines of a 3:1 ratio of women to men in Arts and Science at U of T. So, the majority of the people in my classes are, well, female. And I can't talk to a single one of them. And it's certainly not for lack of trying. I mean, what else are you supposed to do when you're trying to make conversation of some sort and they simply aren't interested in talking to you? What do you do? Or if you're talking to someone and all of a sudden she just completely blows you off for someone else who just came in?

I mean, God, it's not too much to ask, is it? Look, I'm not expecting to ask anyone out on a date. I'm not expecting life-long friendship. I'm not even expecting anything beyond the school year. Just some sort of chance to show that I'm not a bad person to socialize with.

I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. Numb myself with lots of cups of hot chocolate, or tea or coffee or something. Anything to dull the pain of this loneliness I'm carrying.

The MDD Chronicles: Part I

The last revision of the Power Macintosh G4 was called the "Mirrored Drive Doors" G4 (or "MDD", for short), so-called because it's dual optical drive bay doors were given a sleek metallic-like mirror polish. Inside, it had the best of Apple's technology: DDR SDRAM system memory fed to dual PowerPC G4 processors through a "System Controller" chip, a system inherited from Apple's G4-based xServe.

It was in some way a sign of ingenuity and desperation on the part of Apple's hardware engineers; with the Power Mac G5 still coming, Apple had to something, anything to keep its G4-based desktop computers in line with their Intel and AMD-based equivalents. The G4's antiquated bus couldn't handle the bandwidth of the new memory, so they had to find a way to work around it. It's in many ways a symbol Apple with it's back against the wall, trying to find a way to do the best with what they had.

Anyway. Renee told me that I need to blog more about myself, so, I decided to do so, by putting up a series of posts as a chronicle of my quest for a quieter, cooler computer.



This is my computer; a June 2003 MDD Power Mac G4, the last Mac Apple ever made capable of natively booting Mac OS 9. The main distinction that this computer has from the earlier 2002 models is that, like the later 2002/2003 MDDs which couldn't boot OS 9, they sported several modifications to make you actually believe that yes, that was a Mac under your desk and not an F-16 taking off on full afterburner.

Also, they sported huge heatsinks, and an internal arrangement reflecting how Apple tried to pack as many things as they could within the confines of the G4 case. As you might imagine, With two optical drives, four hard drives, and 2 GB of RAM plus four PCI cards and a graphics card all crammed together with dual 1.25 Ghz G4 processors, things have the potential to get very hot, very quickly.


If it don't fit, don't force it...

My odyssey began with a trip to Canada Computers on College Street. Ah, College Street. A little slice of heaven for a computer geek, where you can wade into rows of computer stores owned and operated by shifty-eyed Asian families who always seemed to know a lot more about you and the stuff you were buying than they were letting on, selling a panoply of obscure and common computer stuff for suspiciously low prices.

Naively, I picked up a $15 Vantec Hard Drive cooler to use with my boot drive, expecting that somehow, some way, it would work with my system...

Errr. Yeah. I bring it home and I realize that the rear drive cage can't accomodate the height of the drive with the hard drive cooler screwed on its bottom. It's best described in pictures, but I don't have a digital camera, so a short description will have to do; the rear drive cage in the MDD has special slots to allow a standard 3.5" IDE drive to slide inside. Since the cooler adds a few more millimeters of height to the drive, the drive won't fit in the cage; the slots aren't big enough. I tried unscrewing it, and attaching it to the cage itself above the drive with plastic wire ties; it worked, but oddly enough my system kept on freezing after waking from sleep.

I then tried attaching it to the top of the drive by attaching it to cage, via more wire ties; this time, it prevented a signal from appearing on my monitor, causing the screen to cease functioning (!?!?). After about a week of fruitless agonizing over finding some way to mount this fan, I gave up and tossed it out of sheer frustration.

Oh well. Better luck next time?

Dear AlterNet...

You piss the living hell out of me.

When you published a piece gushing on Rupert Sheldrake I was just only mildly offended. Here was essentially the Left's version of Creationists/ID advocates like William Dembski and Michael Behe. People with fringe ideas that have been justly marginalized by the scientific community, heralded as being champions of a new revolution (for Goodness, ostensibly) by people who have absolute zero knowledge of what they're talking about.

...Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance" -- a complicated framework of ideas proposing that nature relies upon its own set of memories, which are transmitted through time and space via "morphic fields". The theory holds that these fields, which operate much like electrical or magnetic fields, shape our entire world. A panda bear is a panda bear because it naturally tunes into morphic fields containing storehouses of information that define and govern panda bears. The same with pigeons, platinum atoms, and the oak trees on Hampstead Heath, not to mention human beings.

Do I even need to reflect on the complete incredulity of this claim? What next - is he going to try to prove this "theory" by constructing a light saber?

"Science is the last unreformed institution in the modern world today," he adds in a matter-of-fact rather than harsh tone. "It's like the church before the Reformation. All decisions are made by a small powerful group of people. They're authoritarian, entrenched, well-funded and see themselves as a priesthood."

Reflecting a blatant ignorance of the scientific process and the way science is carried out. Yes, the scientific community is socially and fundamentally flawed in many, many, many ways, but to "democratize" it is just a fantasy dreamed up by people with a vision of how the world should work that is just as ludicrous and dangerous than people with a similar vision who want to turn science into a branch of the Pat Robertson Church of Christianity.

Hey guys. Ever remember the Sokal Affair? You guys are more than happy to dredge up all of recorded history to prove your points (as noble as they may be) and are yet completely forgetful of the lesson Dr. Alan Sokal taught you a scant ten years ago when he exposed your superficial, and insufferably arrogant high-horse 'PoMo' bullshit for all the world to see.

Anyway.

Now you guys decide that it's perfectly okay to shit all over other people religions in the name of Free Speech.

So then what gives you the right to moan about all of the things that The Right say in the press? You talk about how Free Speech should be a right for everyone but you're only lying to yourself and to others by posturing yourself in such a way that the only Free Speech that counts is YOUR Free Speech. Sounds a little familiar, eh?

I know you guys hate us. I know you guys would be more than happy to group the Religious Left along with Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson, shove us all into a rocket, and blast us off into the sun. But sorry guys. We're here and we're here to stay. We're not going away. When you offend other religions, you alienate a potential source of powerful support; academics, intellectuals and activists who use their religion and their faith to support the causes which "The Left" so eagerly falls over itself to support.

When you offend them, you alienate them along with the other fundamentalists. And do you really think you're too good for our support? By supporting those cartoons You're automatically saying to ALL Muslims that it doesn't matter if you're with The Left. You're part of some stupid silly cult which likes to crash aeroplanes into buildings and follows some bearded guy who died thousands of years ago.

So you think you don't need the "Religious Left"? you can do just fine and dandy without us? Look at you guys. Bush won a second term in office, in spite of everything that was done to stop that. So who do you guys blame? The religious guys. Naturally.

I only wish we had more people like Sokal to expose your arrogant self-righteousness.

You guys are the very definition of the term "asshat". While I still consider myself part of the "Religious Left", you make me more proud of being "Religious" than "Left".

Until you guys finally grow up, I don't think you deserve a government any better than the one you've got just now.

Detestably Yours,
justin

It's all relative

Here I was feeling a little depressed and bummed out. I thought I'd have a good chance this time at an NSERC USRA (Undergraduate Summer Research Award). Turns out I didn't. Despite my awards, despite the drastic improvement of my marks, and despite my research experience, it didn't mean jack-all.

I emailed Katherine asking if she'd be up for some quality time (since I'd missed her the last time we tried to meet up and I'm somewhat overdrawn on my sympathy account with some of my other friends, given this funk I've descended into), and then I got this several minutes later.

Hey Justin,

My friend Irene Arevalo passed away last Sunday evening and her
memorial is going to be this Saturday in London, ON. She was
struggling with cancer for many years... she suffered a lot of pain
the last few months before passing away but she's with the Lord now,
so I think most of us who know her are at peace about it, but her
family may be going through a hard time.

I don't know if I'll be free this weekend...

Kath

On 2/2/06, Justin Ancheta wrote:
You up for a work session together on Sat./Sun.?

--justin

I met Irene only once, a long time before, back when I was still trying to fit myself in with the people at Katherine's church. She was a bubbly young woman, full of life and constantly smiling, a nucleus within an electron cloud of friends. I hung back and didn't bother to try to get to know her better, only content to just see her so happy. I'm best with socializing with people one-on-one and besides, she wouldn't have wanted a grumpy curmedgeon like me hanging around her. Well, okay, maybe not - but I know her friends at church maybe wouldn't have been so charitable...(And I mean that in a very comically dry sense - I wish that with all of the technology we have we could devise a way to communicate dry humour over the internet.)

It's funny, isn't it, how small our own problems become in the grand scheme of things, isn't it? Something which kinda sucks doesn't really suck once we measure it up against someone else's something, which really does suck a lot more than our own.

It's all in the game

Hi Justin,

I am sorry to have to inform you that we were not able to put your name
forward for an NSERC Undergraduate Research Award. This year, the
competition was keen, with 32 applications for 13 awards. I do encourage
you to apply again in the future if you are eligible.

Thank you for taking the time to apply.

All the best.