my fellow aussie students, welcome to the university 2007 spring session. My, does time fly or what? It feels like a week ago that i finished my final exams. in practice, it's been four and i barely saw it pass by.
well, apart from that, you should know that i am an avid stumbler. it's not unusual for me to spend 3 hours just randomly going through websites using 2 firefox browser windows at once. and oh, the stuff that i've found out on there! for example, did you know that you can stop an atom from moving by freezing it? or that there are tons (figuratively, of course) of e-books you can read for free (i knew that before, thanks to cory doctorow, but still).
today, i've found two beautiful articles on there:
one about how former police officers, judges and other law enforcement personnel really feel about prohibition.
another about a guy who dodged taxes for TEN YEARS AND WON THE COURT CASE TRYING TO INDICT HIM (yes, it is true)! Consider the dictom that death and taxes will always catch up and tell me it wasn't worth the upper case "scream".
To be honest, stumbleupon has saved me from a pretty boring browsing experience over and over again, and i really like it. There are several things i wouldn't mind seeing, though:
true randomness: it's not uncommon for Stumbleupon to come up with the same website twice or even three times. it's happened to me more often recently. here's a tip, Stumbleupon; if you want more websites on stumble, try and include an "i feel like random" channel in your Toolbar.
that'd definitely be a favorite.
a zero-toolbar browsing option: sure, you can check out all the newly found websites on the Stumbleupon main website, but if you are marooned on someone else's computer, it'd be nice indeed to be able to stumble from the website itself.
a new front page: seriously guys, the front page hasn't changed in months. i should know, the SAME DAMN WEBSITES were up on the "welcome" page when i first downloaded the toolbar. What the hell would it take to bloody well get you to change the &#*%ers? it's not like they're even ^*&%ing interesting (seriously, i've checked them out. THEY ARE BORING)! so please, put some new websites up on the welcome page. it is seriously annoying the hell out of me.
So yes, i love stumbleupon, but it is not at its full potential yet. i hope that somebody reads this, says "i like it" and brings this fact to Stumbleupon's attention. to my fellow stumblers and students, i wish you goodbye and good luck. have fun!
update: stumbleupon HAS actually gone and done the browser-based stumbling, though it's still pretty limited (mostly demo site stuff). They still haven't changed the goddamn front page links, though... come on!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
things you should know about vacation
well, i know that a lot of people out there reckon that vacations are the best part of their life. But, really, who of us has ever had a vacation?
Ever really wondered what it would be like to have a TRUE vacation, where you can literally DO NOTHING AT ALL? No kids, relatives, nagging about how you should be doing something useful with your time, taking out your girlfriend/wife for dinner/dancing/excursions and then having to subject yourself to a post-mortem assessment of the whole thing just because some detail didn't go as planned? In a very real sense, it would be a vacation, a very real one. So would you do it?
I've had a few of those and, quite frankly, i'd be happier never to have them again.
It's great to have a few days or a week off and, in truth, a week's vacation is a lot more refreshing than a month.
why is this? because a week of relaxation gives you time to not stress about things, visit a few token relatives and enjoy yourself while you realise the value of what you have in terms of freedom and enjoyment. A week is just long enough for you to do nothing at all as an excuse of just relaxing and enjoying versus a month where people start nagging you to do something practically from day one. also, a true vacation can be a lot more boring over long periods of time where even you start nagging yourself into doing something after a while because you are...so...BORED!
A period longer than two weeks' vacation gives you no time at all to relax. the nag factor is part of it, your brain starts melting down for lack of anything interesting to do and after a few days you try to find something to do to occupy your time. most of the interesting things you can do during your vacation take some time to learn about, so if you're at university and you spend your time learning about more stuff, it does not fall into break-time category anymore.
that and, well, after a few weeks your brain will do ANYTHING to keep itself from becoming neural play-do. so it starts to focus on memories, starting with those that are the most intense. most of my intense memories fall into the 'bad trip' category. as a result, i become moody, irritable and a bit depressed, not exactly a picture of perfection incarnate. of course, I'm not alone in this. This, of course, does not help my thinking dark thoughts (most intentional man-made disasters occurs because some random guy/girl had too much time on their hands. look at Joan of arc and dare to disagree). Then your brain turns to current woes and boy, does the fun start then. The past has nothing on the future in terms of thoughts of impending doom. result: if you know you have a 2-week + vacation, you start stressing from day 3. and anything you want to do during your vacation, well, vacations are procrastination central, anything you REALLY have to get done during your vacation, you're likely to wait until the last day. such is the sad truth of vacations: they stress you out so badly you WANT to go back to work (at least in my case) just to relax again as you wanted to in the first place... i can't wait 'til the end of this break. I'm fed up and want to learn shit again, get in touch with my friends again, feel ALIVE again.
i'm bored and ranting, if you haven't noticed. if you have read this far, thank you, for you are a better person than i'll maybe ever aspire to be.
p.s.: the sad truth is, i've spent most of my most relaxing vacation time in my university's library. That is the secret: you want to relax during your summer break, find a university library, sit down and don't get up until you have to go to work/lectures again. it will be, by far, more relaxing and free of consequence than anything you could ever do.
Ever really wondered what it would be like to have a TRUE vacation, where you can literally DO NOTHING AT ALL? No kids, relatives, nagging about how you should be doing something useful with your time, taking out your girlfriend/wife for dinner/dancing/excursions and then having to subject yourself to a post-mortem assessment of the whole thing just because some detail didn't go as planned? In a very real sense, it would be a vacation, a very real one. So would you do it?
I've had a few of those and, quite frankly, i'd be happier never to have them again.
It's great to have a few days or a week off and, in truth, a week's vacation is a lot more refreshing than a month.
why is this? because a week of relaxation gives you time to not stress about things, visit a few token relatives and enjoy yourself while you realise the value of what you have in terms of freedom and enjoyment. A week is just long enough for you to do nothing at all as an excuse of just relaxing and enjoying versus a month where people start nagging you to do something practically from day one. also, a true vacation can be a lot more boring over long periods of time where even you start nagging yourself into doing something after a while because you are...so...BORED!
A period longer than two weeks' vacation gives you no time at all to relax. the nag factor is part of it, your brain starts melting down for lack of anything interesting to do and after a few days you try to find something to do to occupy your time. most of the interesting things you can do during your vacation take some time to learn about, so if you're at university and you spend your time learning about more stuff, it does not fall into break-time category anymore.
that and, well, after a few weeks your brain will do ANYTHING to keep itself from becoming neural play-do. so it starts to focus on memories, starting with those that are the most intense. most of my intense memories fall into the 'bad trip' category. as a result, i become moody, irritable and a bit depressed, not exactly a picture of perfection incarnate. of course, I'm not alone in this. This, of course, does not help my thinking dark thoughts (most intentional man-made disasters occurs because some random guy/girl had too much time on their hands. look at Joan of arc and dare to disagree). Then your brain turns to current woes and boy, does the fun start then. The past has nothing on the future in terms of thoughts of impending doom. result: if you know you have a 2-week + vacation, you start stressing from day 3. and anything you want to do during your vacation, well, vacations are procrastination central, anything you REALLY have to get done during your vacation, you're likely to wait until the last day. such is the sad truth of vacations: they stress you out so badly you WANT to go back to work (at least in my case) just to relax again as you wanted to in the first place... i can't wait 'til the end of this break. I'm fed up and want to learn shit again, get in touch with my friends again, feel ALIVE again.
i'm bored and ranting, if you haven't noticed. if you have read this far, thank you, for you are a better person than i'll maybe ever aspire to be.
p.s.: the sad truth is, i've spent most of my most relaxing vacation time in my university's library. That is the secret: you want to relax during your summer break, find a university library, sit down and don't get up until you have to go to work/lectures again. it will be, by far, more relaxing and free of consequence than anything you could ever do.
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