Well, crap. As Zephyr would say, wwini?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

Somehow, I feel like I've been deluding myself for the last four and a half years. I guess I should have realized that real love can't possibly be so pathological.

Wow... I have just discovered an awesomely amazing song. Plus, it has a really awesome music video to go with it.

Sketchy YouTube link: "Heavenly Star" by Genki Rockets

"Let's get away, fly away / I found the path to paradise..."

As the subject says. TLS encryption for sending your email over SMTP is currently broken in Evolution in Debian unstable (package version 2.12.2-1+b1). For MIT users, that means that your mail is probably going out via outgoing-legacy.mit.edu instead of outgoing.mit.edu. For more information, see Debian bug #460615.

The Tech's fax machine is broken, so I was trying to get my laptop set up to send faxes. It was an exercise in futility. -.-

Apparently, efax is the simplest program for sending faxes in Linux. (It's available in Debian in the efax package.) For Google, I'm trying this on a Thinkpad T42p.

Problem 1: It defaults to trying /dev/ttyS1 (COM2, I think). Solution: Edit /etc/efax.rc to change DEV=ttyS1 to DEV=ttyS0.

Problem 2: The modem in the Thinkpad T42p (listed in lspci as "Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)") apparently is a soft modem. Solution: Install the sl-modem-daemon package. Note that sl-modem-daemon is in non-free. Also, the DEV line in /etc/efax.rc needs to be changed to DEV=modem.

Problem 3: Apparently I can't get a dial tone. The standard output just says "unrecoverable error," but the detailed log file shows that the error is really "NO CARRIER."

I finally gave up and hooked the line up to one of our oldest iMacs. (Ironically, non of the newer machines have modem ports anymore.) Of course, faxing worked out of the box in OS X. Sigh.

Maybe I've been spending way too much time at the Tech office.

Usually, when I come back to Boston from Memphis, I get a big happy wave of "I'm home" when I get back to Random and my room here. But last night, I was hit by a sudden feeling of alienation and unfamiliarity instead, along with a feeling of "crap, I'm really on my own."

I guess part of it is that my mom's been spoiling me the last week because of my sickness. And now I'm still somewhat sick (still have this really annoying cough), but on my own.

It's still really weird for me to feel this way. I guess for once, instead of feeling I've spent too long at home, this time I haven't spent enough time. On the other hand, it could also just be mixed up feelings from the impending start of IAP already. There were a lot of things that I meant to do before IAP started... -.-

Anyway, in other news, does anyone have suggestions for PE this IAP? I need one more. I was thinking about Group X - Boot Camp, but at this point, I'm not sure my coughing lungs can keep up.

I just finished marathoning the last arc of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Wow, what a rush.

Gurren Lagann is an action/adventure anime from Gainax. It starts with a world where humans have been forced to live underground. Simon and Kamina, however, fight their way onto the surface with the help of a strange mecha that Simon finds, and the plot just keeps spiraling and spiraling out from there.

More than anything else, this series is fun. The characters are crazy, the mecha are crazy, the fights are crazy, the plot is crazy, the music is crazy, everything's crazy, and it's all awesome.

Gurren Lagann is one of those few series that is able to walk the tightrope of a plot of epic proportions without falling into the pit of overpretentiousness. With a core theme of "believe in yourself," Gurren Lagann treads pretty deeply into the territory requiring a suspension of disbelief. However, with just enough realism and masterful storytelling prowess, it makes you forget all about suspending disbelief and leaves you just believing, believing in the power of that drill that will pierce the heavens!

The soundtrack is especially awesome. The choreography between the music and the action is amazing. The soundtrack was what made a number of the fight scenes in Gurren Lagann not just good but awesome scenes. "Row row, fight the power!"

A definite recommendation, something that will be worth your time to watch.

Now... the thoughts on marathoning. This series came to me through a recommendation that had this series pegged as a masterpiece. After marathoning through it, I'm not sure I agree, but I think the difference is in the pace we saw the episodes.

I can tell... there's something lost when you marathon a series like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with such a strong climax (or series of climaxes). Having to wait for a week before the next episode comes out just increases the anticipation. With a great series like Gurren Lagann, which gets awesomer and awesomer as the episodes go by and which can live up to the expectations placed on it week after week, that extra time between episodes makes each successive episode that satisfies your built up anticipation that much greater.

I could feel this with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Probably part of what made that series so special to me was that I was following it pretty much in parallel with its original broadcasts in Japan. Each episode was watched for the first time after a week of anticipation, and thus, when each episode exceeded those already high expectations, they seemed even greater than they probably would have without the week lag.

Now, that following of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in parallel with the Japanese broadcast dates was only possible because of the almost-like-clockwork subbing work of a.f.k. a.f.k.'s subs were almost always ready on the same day of the week every week, and that gave my anticipation an even stronger bent, since I knew when exactly to anticipate for.

This is something that wouldn't have been possible five years ago, I think. It's only recently that some fansub groups have become so efficient, and I think they do an amazing service for the shows that they sub. Watching a well-constructed show an episode at a time for n weeks, giving each episode a week to settle and be digested, being a part of the unfolding of a story as it is being told, is really a unique experience that can't be matched by irregular releases or by watching episodes in batches on DVDs.

Public service announcement...

(06:56:03 PM) EV1 Mohawk: your friends only posts have been stolen: [link removed to protect the innocent, though for Google's sake, it contained nimp.org/?u=bantown]

If you get an IM like the above just after you post to your LiveJournal, do not click the link. It pulls up a constantly moving window with some rather unpleasant images and an embedded audio file that announces, "I'm looking at gay porn." It also apparently tries to open a bunch of copies of itself, but Iceweasel blocked that.

Luckily for me, I'm running Linux, so I was able to pull up an xterm and kill Iceweasel without much problem. Because Linux users are such a tiny target, too, I think I've avoided lasting damage to my installation. There are reports from Windows users that the page also nefariously tries to install a bunch of malware (the best one I've found being http://weirdlilfaechld.livejournal.com/147993.html).

(Sidenote: I consider myself a rather knowledgeable computer user, yet I found myself instinctively clicking a link from an untrusted source. It kinda drove home how Windows computers getting infected with all kinds of stuff can only be blamed on user ignorance so far...)

Note that the AIM "user" that IMs you is a bot which may be relaying. It uses the same technology, it seems, as TheGreatHatsby. Thus, don't be too put off if the person you talk to afterward seems rather confused as well. (This information is mostly via http://community.livejournal.com/themissinghat/115733.html.)

An interesting thing is that the bot master himself may jump into the conversation as well. I had a rather interesting conversation with him. Something that I find really interesting is the instinctive anti-gay streak that runs in these kinds of people. There's probably a social studies thesis somewhere in there. :P

Anyway, in the course of the conversation, he tried to impress me by barraging me with IMs from different screen names. Of course, Pidgin just collapsed all of them into one tabbed window, but it was rather tedious to close them all. Just for the record, screen names you should watch out for include AfricaPWNDNorway, BlackManAnal, chodidvtech, EV1 Mohawk, Ev1S TravisB, ihaveabigrotty, JewsAreOurMisery, plasticbrained, TypicalRottyLovr, and Vote Hitlerly 08.

Well. That sucks.

My Sony MDR-EX81LP/B earphones have been my main audio device since I bought them about two years and three months ago. They're not bad for ~$35 earphones, but they definitely have a design flaw. The connection between the end of the clip that goes behind the ear and the insulation at the start of the wire is too weak.

That wire insulation had detached itself from the clip by a few months after I got the headphones, exposing the metal wiring within, but the earphones still worked, so I kept using them just fine.

However, it seems that I've finally put too much stress on the metal wire. My right earbud has quit working, and upon closer inspection, metal wire has pretty clearly frayed apart.

Sigh... I guess it's time for new earphones. Anyone have suggestions? This time, I think I'm looking in the ~$100 range.

I've been using Zephyr for a few weeks now, and there are two things I've noticed. First, Zephyr's communication model really is more of an IRC model than an IM model, especially for activity classes, which roughly translate to IRC rooms. Second, Zephyr personal classes may in fact be one of the first instances of a micro-blogging service. It really does have that feeling of being a lightweight way to broadcast things about yourself and interesting things you come across. (BTW, if you're also on Zephyr, feel free to subscribe to my class eefi.)

In other news, I was rather miserable yesterday afternoon and evening with some cold or flu or something. However, I ended up sweating it out under three blankets last night, and my fever broke sometime while I was sleeping, so now it's back to just an irritated throat and slightly stuffy sinuses. I guess if I'm going to get sick, it's better to do it at home than at school...

Sigh... I seem to have picked up a light sinus something or other. It's causing intermittent headaches and last night my throat started feeling really irritated, probably from the drain-off. The headaches aren't helped by the fact that I'm having to wear my backup glasses right now, since my main ones are with Costco Optical for new lenses (apparently since 3 years ago when I got them, my astigmatism has gotten better but my left eye has gotten more myopic).

I finished ef - a tale of memories today, and I can definitely say that I recommend it. It's not without its weaknesses, but it does more than enough to set itself apart from standard anime fare.

ef - a tale of memories is a 12-episode romance/drama from the animation studio Shaft. Apparently, it's based on a two-part visual novel called ef: a fairy tale of the two. ("ef" is pronounced like the name of the letter "f".)

It does a powerful job at its basic romantic and dramatic elements. For example, in one of the later episodes, it's amazing how you know that a tragedy is coming through the foreshadowing throughout the episode, and yet when it happens, it still happens in a way that takes your breath away.

In addition, there are a number of other themes, especially surrounding memories and reaching for your dreams, that are conveyed quite well and give the series an extra layer of meaning.

More interestingly, for me at least, ef - a tale of memories really shows some of the power of the anime medium, a way of storytelling that live action can't really match. ef - a tale of memories is very artistic, with stylistic effects thrown in all over the place, but which seem quite natural in the already stylized pictures of anime.

In previous Shaft endeavors, Shaft's striking visual style had hints of brilliance, but more often than not it ended up distracting from rather than enhancing the core story. But in ef, the effects work, and they're crucial to turning a good anime with a strong story into a great piece of art.

When you add some great voice acting, you get some really memorable sequences. The end of episode 7, one example of a unique Shaft presentation of story backed by some amazing voice acting, especially comes to mind as one of the most amazing scenes I've seen in an anime.

ef is not without its flaws, and they keep it from being quite masterpiece level for me, but I definitely think that it can be labeled a great anime. If you've got some time to burn this break, I recommend giving ef - a tale of memories a try.

Tonight I went to a dinner party with my family and a couple other families at a Chinese restaurant somewhat in the outskirts of Memphis. Because of its location and the fact that it was Thursday night, there weren't that many other people there.

During dinner, my brother pointed out a 40-something (?) Chinese man sitting at a booth by himself eating dinner. He was kind of mocking him, but I felt my insides clench, and a sense of foreboding, almost like I was seeing the Ghost of Christmas Future.

10, 15 years down the road, will the one eating dinner alone at an out-of-the-way Chinese restaurant be me?

Last night, someone tried to pull a Nigeria scam on me from Ghana. Not so unusual...

...except they did it via cell phone.

Now that was a rather unique experience. They called once at 1 a.m., and another time at 5:30 a.m. (CST). The caller ID showed two different Ghana numbers. The somewhat freaky thing was that they had my real name associated with my cell phone number, so it was rather targeted.

It's not every day that you get a con artist calling you from Ghana, so I tried to string them along for a bit, but unfortunately, the Ghana accent apparently makes enunciating some English consonants rather unnatural, and the cell phone quality audio connection didn't help. I could make out that they knew my name, and that they were from Ghana, and that they wanted help with something in the United States, but everything else was an indecipherable mess.

I'm not too worried, because I haven't exactly been very careful with my cell phone number, and a name and cell phone number is not exactly identifying for anything serious, but I guess I should look into getting a credit report a couple weeks from now, just to make sure.

I've finally decided to jump on the Zephyr bandwagon. If anyone has suggestions for interesting classes/instances that I should subscribe to, feel free to Zephyr me.

I finally irrecoverably lost my little pencil bag today, I think.

I know I had it with me just before I left my room at Random to see Madness at Mokuba, the MIT Dance Theater Ensemble show this semester. I know that it was gone by the time I was standing in line at Anna's to get dinner after the show. I've looked in my room, I've looked on the path to the theater, and I've looked around where I sat in the theater, and I couldn't find it.

I'm really sad... I've had that pencil bag for 6? 7? 8? years now. With its cylindrical shape and its perfect length, it fit 7 or so pens and pencils quite compactly. It was the perfect way to keep pens and pencils always available in my pocket, and it's been through a lot of use and abuse. I've almost lost it a few times, but I've always found it again. I don't think I'm going to be so lucky this time...

Luckily, I do have one other like it (this one with a blue zipper), but it's not quite the same, and if I lose this other one, then I'll have to go out and find a new one. Sigh...

This past weekend was Tech retreat. Once again, we rented a large house just north of North Conway, NH, and spent the weekend there. Lots of fun was had. ^.^

One of the things that happened was hiking. The group I went with went up the Liberty Trail on Mt. Chocorua. We started around 2 p.m., so we didn't make it all the way to the summit, but we did make it the 3.2 miles up to the cabin that's close to the summit on Liberty Trail.

It's that time of year again... I walked out of my 4&ndsah;5 p.m. class to a dark sky...

I was feeling kinda screwed, because I thought I had a lab due at midnight. It was 6 p.m. or so, and I had yet to get around to starting, and this is a lab in a class where each of the test runs takes about an hour.

So I opened up the lab handout PDF, and it says due November 7. Which is not today. That was rather interesting...

Though I ended up skipping various classes during the day today taking care of other things in preparation for working on this lab all through the night. That skipping was apparently for nothing, though... Ah, well...

The Tech just got Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii.

Oh, crap. >.>

For at least five years now, I've been using DynDNS's free Dynamic DNS service to keep the hostname eep.dnsalias.org pointed to my own server. The service worked quite well for me, and I was pretty satisfied.

The main function that my server does for me is to be my email server. Ever since high school, recognizing that my school addresses are probably ephemeral and not fully trusting online services, I've used espeoneefi@eep.dnsalias.org as my permanent email address, the email address I use for most things that aren't school-related. In addition, because I want server-side filtering, I've redirected all of my MIT mail to espeoneefi@eep.dnsalias.org.

The problem arose when DynDNS (apparently recently) changed the way it treats free accounts. DynDNS now expires accounts that have no activity in a 30-day period. Of course, since I have eep.dnsalias.org pointed to my static IP address here at Random, I definitely have no need to log in to my DynDNS account at all, much less at least once every thirty days.

Now came the comedy of errors. I had originally registered the DynDNS account using a Yahoo! email address (Gmail had yet to exist) from way back in the day (not very useful to have a DynDNS account tied to an email address that's dependent on that account in case something goes wrong with that account, after all). However, I almost never check that Yahoo! account anymore. Unfortunately, the "your account will expire in 48 hours" warning email got sent to that Yahoo! account, I missed it, and the eep.dnsalias.org hostname stopped resolving on Monday around noon.

I unfortunately didn't notice this until a couple hours later, when I ended up making a new account and getting the eep.dnsalias.org hostname set back up. However, in the meantime, the MIT mail servers were getting hostname lookup failures for espeoneefi@eep.dnsalias.org, and unlike with connection timeouts (e.g., when Random has a power outage or I turn off my server for a bit of maintenance), hostname lookup failures apparently trigger a complete delivery failure and a rejection of the email. Thus, I lost a couple hours of email on Monday afternoon. -.-

Anyway, yeah... the lesson is definitely not to trust free things. For now, I can deal with logging into DynDNS at least once every thirty days, but I guess I really should starting thinking about moving to a real domain someday...

The obligatory "what classes am I taking" post...

6.003: Signals and Systems

Mainly an EE class, but it's required for me to get a course VI degree.

6.163: Strobe Project Laboratory

Yay getting in through the lottery on the first try. Supposedly the most fun course VI lab. Also fulfills my Institute Lab requirement.

6.823: Computer System Architecture

6.004 on crack. Learning about the cool things (in the architecture design level, not the materials or manufacturing level) that make processors so fast nowadays.

6.UAT: Preparation for Undergraduate Advanced Project

A class to teach me how to talk. Oh, CI-M requirements... -.-

21F.505: Advanced Japanese I

My fifth semester of Japanese. Mainly taking it for the "Ooh, shiny!" factor than anything else at this point. Yay for junior/senior P/D/F.

So... 57 units total, with 12 of those P/D/F. I feel kinda lame. >.>

I did flirt with the idea of taking 18.701 for quite a while on Monday, but then I realized that I didn't really have space in my schedule to complete a full math degree in the coming year, and I'm not sure that putting myself through the 18.701/18.702 sequence just for the hell of it is quite worth the stress that it'd cause. I guess I'll try my hand at writing or something this year. >.>