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Personal Philosophy Website

Back…sort of

Hello Everyone! It feels good to be back. Well kind of back. I am using blogger right now while my server is in limbo. With school and surmounting problems, I have not been able to get my web server back online since I formatted it a while ago. Apache, MySQL, and PHP are not playing well together and causing me such a headache. For now all blog posts will be on here. I have no backlog because for the time being all my old posts are in a MySQL backup file. No need to worry though, they are all safe and sound, just jumbled. Any posts that are on here will show up on my when I get my blog restored, whenever that may be. Honestly, I am getting pretty fed up with the whole thing. It’s on a Windows server which is strange because I use Linux as my main OS and Windows as my server OS, that’s pretty bass ackwards. Next chance I get I might dump the Windows all together and give my pal Linux a try. I need to find out if I can remote into it like I can into Windows. GUI remote not just SSH. I am sorry I was raised on GUI and I am try to ween myself off of it but for now that’s my reasoning behind using Windows for the server.

OK, so nerdy stuff out of the way let’s get down to the crux of the matter. I need to blog, it’s an inherent characteristic of mine. I need to chronical my thoughts. It’s my way of letting it out, and with no blog I have been having to bottle these thoughts up. It’s not fun for me. With that also being said, I will now start with normal thoughts on life, as I usually do.

I overhear a lot of things throughout the day. I drop some heavy eaves when I am around groups of people. I don’t really try to, but if they are talking loudly, I do them a service and listen because they are obviously trying to let the whole world know their story at that volume. Lately, the general trend of conversation is to complain; complain about so many things. Little, tiny, insignificant things. This past year I have really grown emotionally on many ways. One of those ways has been to put things into perspective and not to “sweat the small stuff”, to quote many others. People get upset over the most mundane of things. Things that shouldn’t really phase people in the grand scheme of things. I hear people getting upset about the most trivial of things. For example, my boyfriend didn’t hang out with me this one time out of the week and I have to focus all my energy on that fact; the same applies to guys as well, just swap boyfriend for girlfriend, or my least favorite whining, “I don’t have a significant other.” You should never define yourself by another person. You should always retain individuality. I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to hang out with someone who is so steeped in someone else that they can’t function without them. Be proud to be single! Experience things only a single person can. Explore yourself more, embellish your character. Be independent!

It’s aggravating because with all that is going on in the world, not just the bad, but with the incredible good and fantastic strides humanity is making, how can this be even considered a large life-altering problem? I have noticed I have turned from a staunch realist to an optimist. I will say I do not have my head fully up in the clouds, but it is starting to get foggy. I can say I am an optimist with my feet firmly planed on the ground. I know there is multiple ways to look at things, but I just find always dwelling on negatives and cant’s just leaves you with a gloomy feeling. Why would you want to spend your time that way. I have found myself spending less and less time with negative people because to be frank they just are not worth it. I would rather be spending my limited time with people who are upbeat and don’t have such a nihilist approach.

I read a good except today in an away message talking about how on a tombstone they print the dates of your birth and death with a dash between the years (e.g. 1945-1997). The start and the end are the least important part of the phrase though. The dash is your life. The dash encompasses your achievements and shortcoming, your values and your experiences. The dash represents your time here on Earth. It really gave me a lot of perspective on the finiteness of life. No matter how immortal you think you are, as a human being you will inevitably die. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing or a looming, dark cloud. It just…is. It’s something that will happen. With that in mind, why spend your life being negative or letting small disturbances ruin a day. You only have so many, so why not make the most of every one of them. I am not talking about making everyday drip with adrenaline. I am just talking about not wasting days. If you want to start doing something. Do it. Don’t be weighed down with reasons why not. This also doesn’t mean days of rest and relaxation are not living every day to its fullest. Those are crucial experiences, too.

The overarching theme here is don’t let life pass you by. Don’t regret moments in time. Take advantage of opportunities and make strides toward your goals everyday. Even if they are baby steps or even embryo movements. Try not to let the small things effect you so much. Life if full of possibilities if you open up your arms and embrace it. You are the only one that can define the dash. Make sure yours is everything you wanted it to be.

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Personal

1’s and 0’s are my friends

I am just taking a little break from studying here to regroup and get ready for some more pounding of material. I have for quite some time wanted to digitize my VHS tapes. No, not old movies, I would just re-purchase them on DVD if necessary. I have some old recordings and such that are much rarer. I was doing a little research on the best way to do this, because during my 2 week break before school starts up again I am going to be huddled over a VCR trying to do away with magnetic tape. That got me thinking, why not go a step further and convert the DVD collection to files as well. I am a little obsessive when it comes to minimalism. My ultimate goal would to have all my forms of media accessible through the computer; books, movies, comics, school works, everything. I know some people like the tangible feelings of books and whatnot, but that is just not me. I want to be mobile and not sacrifice any of my stuff. I am just thinking how easy moving would be if it was me, my clothes, and my computer. Anyway, I did a little math and I have roughly 216 DVD discs full of movies. I could probably encode them between 1 and 1.5 gbs per file and not be upset at the quality loss. That leaves me at roughly between 216 gbs and 324 gbs. That is actually not too bad. I’ll just purchase a few HDD’s, throw them in raid and let the magic fly. That would make skimming through my movies a breeze and I would have to deal with individual discs. The one thing I wish would happen would be the digitalization of textbooks. I have to lug like 3 hardback textbooks around during the year and 1, it makes me look like a hunchback and 2, it will eventually turn me into a hunchback. All I want is a PDF of my books. I would carry a notebook and my laptop and that is all. It would be glorious. Alas, textbook companies are not keen on that idea due to projected money losses. I would even pay the outrageous prices for the PDF even though all the costs would be in digital distribution which would be quite a bit less. I guess piracy would also be a concern, but damn what a utopia that would be for me. Simplifying my life is something I have found to be quite the productivity enhancer. I have discovered RSS feeds lately and it makes surfing the web a very quick venture. I just browse my iGoogle and that’s the day’s news. Anyway I need to get back to studying, but I was just bouncing some stuff around. Wish me luck!

Categories
Personal

How Microsoft Office Can Break A Habit

I decided my life was in need of touching up. I needed a hack for my life. So I sat down and assessed all the problems I am currently facing. Physical representation is always better than just sheer memory alone. Paper doesn’t forget. In a bout of pure nerdality, I opened up my buddy Microsoft Excel. It is useful for so many things. A screen shot of the sheet is below. By far the hardest one on there is going to be the Nail Biting. I have had two failed prior attempts; for some reason my brain just won’t allow me to stop. Also, I found out that IF statements are not the most intuitive thing in Excel. Here is some code if anyone wants it. All it does is check a cell with a percentage and tell if it is an A, B, C, etc.

=IF(G13>=90,”A”,IF(G13>=80,”B”,IF(G13>=70,”C”,IF(G13>=60,”D”,”F”))))

As you can see I am off to a rousing start. I’ll be sure to post my percentage and point totals for the weeks that follow  on here. If anyone wants a copy of the excel document to edit and fill in for you own uses just let me know.