Kenn's journal for 2003/05

2003-05-01

On Tuesday, Ankur and I did a bit of last-minute bug-fixing and polishing and turned in our project. When I got back home, Mark had already started on Distributed, since it was due Wednesday, although I somehow had not known that. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help, but it was such a small project and my understanding of RPC was so weak that there really wasn't, so Mark ended up doing the whole thing. I'm kind of displeased about that; since it's my last academic project ever, I'll owe Mark for it for a very long time. Nevertheless, the semester and my college career are now over academically except for finals.

Thursday I went to the Career Center for my rescheduled appointment. Kevin Collins didn't have any particular jobs to point me at, but he helped me figure out what to put as the objective on my resume and told me to send him a copy so he can forward it along if he sees anything. He also told me that if I can't find any specific job listings that appeal to me, I should send unsolicited cover letters to large companies (100 or more employees).

At 16:30 was the Neal Stephenson lecture. Laura had asked me to save her a seat. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to do so as the minutes went by and McConomy filled with no sign of her, but I managed to hold onto it and she arrived just as the talk was beginning. He chose to discuss metaphysics, specifically Leibnizian metaphysics, which was not at all what I had expected, but was interesting once I was able to shift gears a bit.

After the lecture, Laura bought a copy of Cryptonomicon. She called Janie and found out that her game wasn't going to start until 20, so we found a spot on the grass by a tree and sat down and talked. I wanted very badly to take a picture of Laura, because she looked absolutely beautiful and I knew that years from now, I'll want to look at it and remember, but I was too afraid to ask. She had a bunch of jelly beans that she arranged into piles, though, and she asked me to take a picture first of just them and then of her with them.

Back when I was in high school, during cross-country, I believe, I once used the phrase "non-sexual crush". It became a running joke there, but I really do think that the term is useful, and describes a phenomenon that actually happens. I think that I have a non-sexual crush on Laura. Actually, though, the element of sexual attraction doesn't really seem to me to be at all essential to the phenomenon to which I refer by the word "crush", which makes me think that my usage of that term may be non-standard.

Laura asked why I like / trust her so much, and I wasn't really able to say. It feels like there are very specific properties that lead me to feel the way I do, and I know what they are, but the vocabulary to express them doesn't exist, and the concepts are too complex to explain in terms of words I do know.

Eventually Laura did have to go to her game, and she was pretty tired, so she decided to take the bus. I would have gone with her, but I had accidentally left my wallet in my room, and as she pointed out it would only be a five-minute bus ride anyway, so I waited with her for the bus. When it arrived, she quickly hugged me and boarded it, and I smiled all the way back to my room.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-03

Well, my last academic classes of my undergraduate career, and possibly of my life, were today. I'm pleased to say that I managed to make the last instance of each of my classes this semester, which I think I've generally done in previous semesters as well.

This evening was kind of an emotional roller coaster ride. It started when I headed over to the KGB event, around 19. Laura wasn't there when I arrived, which surprised me slightly as Yanna had said that Laura and Priya had planned the event, an arts and crafts night, in her absence. I figured that she would probably eventually arrive. People were playing guys-versus-girls Trivial Pursuit, and music was playing. The music was soon replaced by a movie, Shallow Grave, an English comedy (or at least all of the characters had English accents) which might have been mildly valuable, but which I slept through part of.

I'm unclear as to the exact chronology here, but when the first movie ended, we switched to Hedwig and the Angry Inch. At some point, I got up and walked around (Intersection Lounge is pretty big) and saw that Laura was there, which I had expected to happen. What I had not expected was for Erik to be there too. They had brought dinner, which they were eating. I went back over to the movie and mostly deactivated my mind.

Eventually Erik left and Laura came over by the movie and sat down. She alternated between actively watching the movie and reading something (I don't know exactly what). I alternated between watching the movie and staring at Laura, but she didn't seem to notice. Hedwig had good music, and was interesting, but I had some difficulty following it, and it was definitely... weird. I kept obsessing over the thought that I wanted to go over to Laura and - well, the next step was very fuzzy in my head, but somehow it ended up with her sitting close to me or one of us giving the other a back rub or something. I didn't act on it, though. Laura got up and moved around a bit, eventually leaning against a chair relatively close to mine, but I still didn't do anything. Then she walked over by mkehrt, and he reached out and grabbed her, and she sat down right next to (practically on top of) him.

I turned up the "I am a robot" meme a lot, and emotionally I was sort of okay, although I still had obsessive thoughts. After a while, I think when the movie was over, Laura went off on a quest to find clove cigarettes, and I deliberately left my developing low blood sugar untreated, because it was making me feel better. With Laura gone, I was able to breathe a bit more.

Everyone horsed around for a while, and eventually a bunch of us decided to go to Eat 'n Park. Laura still had not come back at this point, and when we left the lounge (which conveniently has self-locking doors that even students allowed to use the lounge can't unlock after midnight), her bag was still in there. Priya called the police, and although a few people went down to the bus stop to wait for the bus, almost everyone (including me) clung onto Laura like a magnet until the policeman came. Then a bunch of girls, including Laura, went to stop at SH in a car belonging to Zavo (I think) before Eat 'n Park, and the rest of us waited for the bus. I kept yelling to Ed that I was hungry, on the bus as well as while we were waiting for it and after we got off of it. My blood sugar was quite low at this point.

Eventually the group that had taken the bus arrived at Eat 'n Park. The other group wasn't there yet. The table wasn't quite big enough to seat everyone, so Jim and I sat at another table, cognizant of the fact that when the other people arrived, they would sit there. Jim's main relevant characteristic is that he is also diabetic; this was relevant as he had forgotten to bring any insulin, so I offered to lend him some of mine and a syringe. I ordered a lemonade and drank enough of it to keep from getting seriously low, but left my blood sugar a bit low because I felt better that way.

Laura and the rest arrived, and Laura sat at our table. She had us push it up against the other to form one giant table. Laura asked if she could give me my shot, and I said yes, when the food arrived. When it did, though, she nearly chickened out, and I had to persuade her that she couldn't screw it up that badly. Ironically, she actually did better than I usually do when I finally convinced her. After food (Laura had only a mixed chocolate-and-strawberry milkshake), Laura borrowed Abe's tablet PC and drew on it. I was very happy, watching her and talking to her, and annoyed when mkehrt pulled up between us (when his food arrived, he had to go back to his seat to eat it, which made me happy).

When we were all finished, Yanna and Laura stood around outside giving hugs to people. I got one from Yanna, and mkehrt hugged me because he thought (mistakenly) that I was going with them. I wanted a hug from Laura, but for some reason incomprehensible to me in my current mental state, I didn't go up to her and get one.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-05

This is probably paranoid, but it almost seems like Laura is deliberately avoiding me. She wasn't at the KGB meeting today, and there have been several times recently when I've signed onto AIM and she's signed off in the next few minutes. If that is the case, I suppose I can't blame her. My journal entries of late have probably been an overrepresentation of how obsessed I am with her, but even my actual state would probably be enough to freak most "normal" people out.

On Saturday evening, I let myself get pressured into playing poker. I lost $4 by the time it was over. I didn't have a lot of luck, but I was also playing very weakly, folding whenever I didn't have much of anything.

Nothing at all happened Sunday. Today was a KGB meeting in which several interesting things happened: first of all, after the formation of the No Shirt Committee and its purchase by Julie, Shawn moved to suspend the normal order of business and get a personal report from the new chair, which was a success. :-) Then, someone (I forget who) moved to suspend the normal order of business altogether for no particular reason. That motion also succeeded, although I voted against it, and the rest of the meeting was vaguely chaotic.

I'm listening to the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack. It's a nice change of pace from the Linkin Park and Evanescence I've been listening to for weeks now.

This April was a new record for most words in my journal in a month.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-06

I have realized something that disturbs me quite a bit. My journal is boring. I was reading through a large part of it again over the past few days, and I just couldn't make myself finish. I'll write it off to my current personality for now, and hope my opinion changes. (Aside: I think I may tend to explain too many of my patterns of behavior in terms of personalities. Most people would require a far greater change to say that someone had a new personality. Still, it seems more reasonable than calling them mere "moods" or anything else of which I can think.)

This afternoon, the world felt totally dead. No one was emailing me personally; all I received were announcements and mailing list traffic. Nothing was happening on Livejournal. No one was sending me ICQs or IMs. Even Slashdot and Kuro5hin were having slow days. So I put on Evanescence on Pandora and went on a walk, perhaps half-intending to find people. The second half of that was quickly stifled, though. I walked slowly around Schenley Park, remembering how this was the path I had followed on February 29, 2000 with Sherry, and also realizing what the song Imaginary meant, almost going into an altered state because of it. When Fallen ended I put on Meteora and headed down Wightman, looking for the spot where Laura and I had lain down on the grass a mere month and three days earlier. I'm pretty sure that I found it, but it was daylight and people were milling around, and I didn't feel like laying there again at that moment.

When I arrived at Murray I took a break / intermission to go into a drug store and buy some Sharpies, some pens and a drink. Then it was back to walking, back to Meteora, back to letting my mind run free over vast stretches of emptiness. When I got home I sat in the piano lounge reading large parts of the HTTP RFC for no particular reason. Eventually it was time to go to the Networks final. It was quite long - I only finished with 37 minutes to spare, and I believe only 2 others finished before me. Hopefully that means that a lot of people didn't manage to finish it at all. I answered all of the questions, but I'm almost sure that some of my answers are wrong, and some others are pretty weak. Still, I'm reasonably hopeful that I beat the curve, at least.

I am naught but an empty slate. Alone, I am hollow inside. David King, Charles Dake, Edward Ryan, Alison Peebles, Thomas Annandale, Laura Marsh, unnamed others, those I have not yet met - bring me to life.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-06

Well, Laura might be deliberately avoiding me, but Thomas definitely is. He just signed onto AIM and I asked him if he had deliberately left or been kicked off the other night, and he immediately signed off again. I suppose I could be irritated, but instead I'm just amused. I guess I'll leave him alone for a while.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-08

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that Laura isn't deliberately avoiding me, but is just really busy at the moment. This means that my last few journal entries make me look like a self-obsessed loser, but I won't change them, because that would mean violating the sanctity of the journal, which I never do. But there was that one time - shut up, you.

On Tuesday night I went to the Almost Midnight Breakfast. I waited in line for a long time, vaguely pissed at the people who were just going ahead, but too ineffectual to do anything about it. Ed was one of those people, and I got irritated with him, but I managed to hold it inside. I consciously avoided having my omelette prepared by Peter Lee because I'm ashamed of never having done most of the work for Compilers, which he taught and which I really did like, and in which I don't deserve the B my Incomplete is almost certainly going to be replaced with. It took me almost an hour from getting in line to actually getting any food, and once I did get it I ate it very quickly, but it was good, and I sat with Ed and Priya.

I just took the Databases final today. I had a Red Bull immediately after getting up to make up for my lack of sleep, which as it turned out I probably didn't need. There were a few questions I didn't really know, and guessed whatever seemed most obvious in hopes it would be right, but I didn't leave anything blank, and overall it seemed pretty easy (and I finished in a bit over an hour when we were allotted three).

After that I headed over to the UC to buy tickets to The Matrix: Reloaded, which may well be indirectly responsible for your reading this.

I added a page giving a quick overview of myself, which I think should be useful to new visitors to my site, and might even interest my regulars.

I guess that's all for now.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-13

I haven't been not writing because nothing has been happening in my life. While there are things that could be further from the truth, they'd be really, really weird things. The reasons I haven't been writing are that my site has been down, that I've been lazy, and that I've used up most of my ability to commit my thoughts to verbal form on something else this past week or so. As usual, a few issues have take over a very large percent of my thinking time.

Robert III

I bought a new laptop. Cost me nearly a thousand dollars. This is a big expense, especially when I'm about to enter an uncertain period in my life. But this isn't just a totally irrational expenditure - I figure that I'm going to be moving around a lot more in the coming months, and thus will want to have a good computer to bring with me. Robert Jr., while I have never for a minute regretted buying him, has several deficiencies that have become quite annoying - inability to play movies (due to slow speed), lack of a DVD or even CD-ROM drive, operating system (this could be fixed, but with only 96M of RAM, nothing good will also be peppy), small storage capacity, and most annoyingly (in that it doesn't just mean I can't do certain things, but annoyingly interferes with almost everything I try to do on him), an incredibly flaky pointing device. Anyway, here are two descriptions of Robert III.

Non-geek version: Robert III is fast - about twice as fast as Laura, in fact. He probably can't play really new games (I haven't tried yet), but older or slower ones should be fine. He can play DVDs and burn CDs. He weighs about the same as Robert Jr. (7ish pounds). His screen is big, he has a touchpad, and he runs Windows XP (which I've managed to make act mostly like Windows 2000). He has a decent amount of storage for music, movies, pictures, etc. but not anywhere close to as much as Laura. He has wireless, but only because I gave Robert Jr.'s wireless card to him. He should be able to display on a TV once I get the cable. Oh, and he has lots of blue blinky lights.

Geek version: Athlon 1.53 Ghz, 256M RAM minus 64 for shared video memory = 64M usable, some non-Radeon ATI video card, 30G hard drive, 14" (I think) screen @ 1024x768, 24 (CD-R write) x 10 (CD-R/W write) x 24 (CD-R read) x 8 (DVD read) DVD + CD-R/W combo drive (Toshiba SD-R2312), 1 CardBus slot currently occupied by an ORiNOCO Silver 802.11b card, 1 Firewire port, 2 USB ports, 3ish hour battery life (depends a LOT on what you're doing), built-in 10/100 Ethernet, built-in Winmodem, S-Video TV out. HP ze4315us if you want to look it up, although there seems to be very little information about this model online.

Matrix ticket seeks date

The university bought tickets for graduating seniors to see The Matrix: Reloaded. Those ran out before I got one, but then they acquired 50 more. Each senior was allowed to purchase up to 2 tickets: the first for $7.00 for himself, the second for $9.50 for his guest if he wished.

While standing in line to buy my ticket, I pondered whether or not to buy a second one. I didn't have anyone in particular in mind - Ed was already going with Priya - and I had no intention of scalping a ticket. I tossed around in my head an idea I had also considered when I first intended to buy the tickets.

I bought two tickets, and upon arriving back in my room, I posted the following message to cmu.misc.market, a public bulletin board here at CMU:

Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 13:02:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kenn Brooks Hamm <khamm@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: kenn@cmu.edu
Newsgroups: cmu.misc.market
Subject: Matrix ticket seeks date

So, being a graduating senior, I just picked up a couple of tickets to The
Matrix: Reloaded on Wednesday night.  I am now looking for someone to give
my second ticket to, in exchange for accompanying me.  This is not a joke.
This is not a left-myself-logged-in post.

Qualifying factors:

* Must be female

* Must be a CMU undergrad student (freshman through 5th year senior is
  fine), although I might waive this requirement if you can make a really
  good case

If you're interested, please submit by email to kenn@cmu.edu the following
items:

* A recent (last 2 years) picture of yourself, or a link to same

* An essay of not less than 100 nor more than 200 words describing
  yourself (please do not include information I can retrieve with
  finger(1) - name, major, or class standing, in particular)

* An essay of not less than 100 nor more than 200 words telling me why I
  should pick you over any other applicant

If you have a personal website or webjournal, please include a link to it
in your submission.  Feel free to include any other information or links
you wish, but make sure that the items listed above are clearly marked,
and keep in mind that I may not go through such material, especially if it
is voluminous.

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, May 11 at 23:59:59
(coincidentally, the same time as my 15-498 take-home exam is due).  The
winner will be notified by email by Monday, May 12 at 23:59:59.  If I
receive no acceptable applications by that time, my second ticket will be
for sale for $9.50 (the same price I paid for it), but I hope I don't have
to do that.  I reserve the right not to pick a winner even if I do receive
applications.

If you want to know about me, please refer to
<http://ragnar.nilmop.com/kenn/Kenn.html> for information, and
<http://ragnar.nilmop.com/kenn/news/default.html> for my webjournal.

Kenn

One result of this was that ragnar.nilmop.com had to be disabled in order for Ragnar to regain network access - someone apparently got pissy and decided to do a lookup on him, then report him to Computing Services - .com addresses aren't allowed in CMU's network.

Anyway, as you might be able to guess, I attracted a lot of flames and initially no serious responses. I had been expecting that, though, and I managed to hold my own and remain in good humor. I eventually relaxed the requirements somewhat and received two entries (both from people I already know), picked one, and will meet her after Schlag3a @ Dave and Busters.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can read the whole cmu.misc.market thread here (warning, potential time-waster: 226K of raw text).

Distributed final

I kept putting the Distributed final off just long enough that I knew I'd still have time to do it. I finally got around to it on Sunday afternoon. I don't think it was too hard, although Mark's answer (from a cursory glance) looked a lot more detailed than mine. Also, the first half of the exam was totally a networks question. It barely involved distributed anything at all.

In other Distributed news, Mark and my 3rd project (the one we didn't finish) was graded ridiculously leniently. The grade was very obviously assigned by the TA rather than Kesden. The difference in score between what I expected us to get and what we actually got, multiplied by the weight of the project, comes out to an entire letter grade in the course overall.

Steam tunnels

Late Sunday evening, I was in the CS Lounge, ostensibly studying Linear Algebra. Needless to say, this was not actually happening. So, when Matt Brewer and mkehrt and Abe and a girl I didn't know named Chelsea and some guy whose name I don't remember, but who was at the KGB meeting the next day despite not being a member, and one other person I don't remember at all were going to check out the steam tunnels, I went with them. The steam tunnels are really not incredibly exciting once you've seen them, but that was okay - people didn't try to talk to me too much, and I thought about this journal entry / my life at the moment as I walked. Plus, I saw the construction now going on in the UC basement which hadn't even been started the last time I went there, and we also went up to the Doherty roof, which has a truly frightening drop-off with no guard rail.

KGB / Linear Algebra / Selection

On Monday, I went to probably my last KGB meeting ever as a dues-paying member. The meeting got sort of out of hand, but was very amusing nevertheless. Afterward, I went to India Garden for dinner, then over to the CS Lounge, where I found out that Ed had finished his Concepts of Math final in a matter of 10 minutes (it had been all multiple-choice, and they had been given the questions beforehand). So I went up to meet him in the Physics lounge. We did actually get at least a bit of studying done, as I agonized over which of the two who had submitted and not retracted entries to my above-mentioned contest to pick. Eventually I made a choice, just as Ed was about to leave. I walked to the door of Priya's dorm with him, then walked to the UC and emailed the person I had selected, then walked home.

Fire Alarm / Laura

That night, around midnight, the fire alarm went off. This was probably some incredibly rude person who felt the need to make a complete ass out of himself now that he was done with finals. Some of my friends and I paid a visit to... err... an interesting location nearby. Eventually we came back to Mudge.

Laura logged into AIM, and I started talking to her. She was upset, and I figured that meant I should leave her alone, but she had just told me not to do that when the fire alarm went off again. I seriously considered just ignoring it, but I've been informed by Professor Covey that the fire alarms in these buildings are literally designed to cause you hearing damage if you don't leave (and yes, that is a proper use of the word "literally"). I told Laura I would try to be back as soon as possible.

I returned about 4 minutes later. Laura is very lonely in Pymatuning. I felt helpless, like all I could offer her were vague platitudes, but I tried really hard to make them the right vague platitudes and to put genuine feeling into them, and by the end it really did seem like she felt at least a little bit better. I hope so.

Linear Algebra exam

Because of staying up so late, to talk to Laura and because I wasn't able to fall asleep instantly after she left, I only got about 4 and a half hours of sleep last night. I set about 4 different devices to alarm me in different ways at various points in time, to make really sure I wouldn't sleep through my last undergraduate exam, possibly my last exam ever.

My mind wasn't working very quickly, and though I'm sure I got some of the questions right, I'm also sure that I bullshitted some of them, and did so poorly. The highlight, though, was that when there was about an hour left, I had one problem left completely unanswered, and I was drawing a blank. The only way I could think of to solve it seemed way too easy for a problem on the final, and thus I assumed it couldn't possibly be right. But I was really tired, and I was sure I wouldn't be able to figure it out the "right" way, so I just put down the ridiculous simple answer and then after it wrote in parentheses "Yes, I know this probably isn't the right way to do this, but hey, it was good for a laugh, right?" This might not bear mentioning except that as it turns out, Ed put down the same answer, and seriously thinks that it was correct. I hope we got it right, and I'm glad they don't grade on confidence.

That afternoon, I was completely exhausted, so after a few hours of not sleeping in the CS lounge, I came home and discovered that my comforter felt incredibly warm on my bare legs. I slept for a couple of hours and felt much better.

I think I like this journal format. The sub-headings are useful.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-16

Right now I am going through an identity crisis. The person I am is undergoing huge fluctuations every few hours. And yet...

I wonder if this is really so unusual. I wonder, in fact, if it may not be the case that most days are more or less like this one, but that I am merely paying closer attention right now.

I was so happy about my post to cmu.misc.market not only because it generated a great amount of amusement, but because it was mine. For once, I made a decision without asking anyone about it - without even telling anyone I would do it. All I would tell Priya and Ed before making the post was "you'll have to wait until it's on misc.market to read it like everyone else". And it was the right decision. I knew that with increasing certainty as each hour passed, as each flame arrived and I did not lose spirit.

Many (most?) of my personality traits are copied from people who I've admired. I'm very worried about the rest of my life. I would do almost anything to go back a year and relive this one, but immerse myself more deeply earlier, or to have everyone be here another year, to let things develop from here. Instead, my world is being torn apart.

Dave and Buster's

On Wednesday we left Mudge for Dave and Buster's at about 18. I rode in Mitch's car with him and James. Other people eventually arrived, and we got a huge table and ordered food. There wasn't much vegetarian selection, but I asked the waitress what I could get and she found something for me. I had a Bass, which was not a bad beer but went terribly with the food, as I've found most beers seem to do. After dinner, my blood sugar felt a bit low and I was still hungry, so I had a piece of key lime pie. Then we went into the game area. I didn't play any, because they didn't look incredibly entertaining and I was really just killing time already, waiting for 23:30, but I watched Ben and various other people play light-gun games. Eventually I got a huge gumball (half of it was as much gum as I could chew at a time) and we headed over to the pool tables, which CMU Alumni Relations had rented for the evening. They were also with providing free food. The rest of the Schlag3a crowd was there and I took pictures of many of them.

Gradually people started to leave and I followed around the ones who were still there. At the end Chris and I think Dave were there, talking to the Mudge housefellow (who I recognized as someone I knew, but could not identify, to my slight chagrin). Everyone was asking who I had picked from the Matrix contest, but I didn't feel comfortable talking about it, which I eventually ended up saying each time someone asked, because when I just ignored their question they assumed I hadn't heard them. Then Chris and dave left as well, and I had about 20 minutes left to wait. My blood sugar felt low again, so I bought some candy, then headed outside and stood around until Michelle arrived and picked me up.

The Matrix: Reloaded

Michelle and I talked about life and our plans for the future as she drove us over to Loews. She has ended up taking a job at Dolby, which she starts in July, and I told her about my current situation. When we arrived, I saw Ed in the lobby and he said that we would have trouble finding seats, since we hadn't beaten the bus, so I went ahead to get them while Michelle stayed to buy popcorn.

As it turned out, pretty much the entire front row was empty. With chairs as cushy as the ones theatres seem to have these days, the front row is fine - it means one can just lean back and not stress one's neck at all. The movie started out a bit slowly - it was developing the world and new characters who weren't in the first one more than advancing the plot. The movie was pretty long, though (although not unpleasantly so) and it picked up after about 45 minutes. Although it's true that the special effects were not all that groundbreaking, like they were the first time around, I felt that they were much more polished, and some scenes were truly impressive. And only a crowd of CMU students would burst out laughing at the sight of one of the protagonists running ssh.

After the movie, Michelle drove me home. She said that I should try to keep in touch. I think I should too.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-17

Sharp Edge

Thursday evening Chris and Dave went out for one last trip to Sharp Edge, and I joined them. We played darts and drank beer. I started out with a Guinness and eventually had two Belgians as well. I'm just starting to learn what kinds of beer I like, and that most beer (but not the three that night) goes terribly with food. Eventually we were joined by Steve and Carlos. I made sure to have food to go with my drinks (I had barely eaten all day before that), and once again I didn't get drunk.

Laura

I talked to Laura last night and she said to call her some time this evening to see what her schedule was like. When I did, we agreed to meet in Kirr today at 14.

Parents

My parents are both here. My mom called when she got in, and I went out to dinner with my father. I'm not looking forward to packing, but I suppose I'll manage somehow. It's hard to believe that they're here and that so soon, my college career will be over.

Grades

It looks like my final cumulative QPA will be a 3.55, in-major 3.75. I actually ended up getting a C to replace my incomplete in Compilers rather than a B, which ironically enough makes me feel relieved, because I didn't deserve better than that. Nevertheless, my QPA still actually qualifies me for University Honors, although even a 3.5 as of last semester would have been enough for me to get them.

Twelve Monkeys

I just watched Twelve Monkeys with Mark and Dave. It was a very interesting movie. I felt that the psychodrama aspect was slightly weak, in that it was slanted to one side, but the ending was almost impossible to anticipate and yet fit perfectly.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-18

Sunday morning

On Sunday morning, I met all of the people who had travelled to Pittsburgh to see me graduate. We first headed over to the SCS breakfast, which was very elegantly catered, and had food perhaps more in the style of a brunch. After getting enough to eat, though, we headed over to the Philosophy department diploma ceremony, which was already in progress when we arrived. I was somewhat surprised to learn that that year there was only one philosophy major who was not a double-major (of which there were about 6, of which I was the only one in attendance). The Philosophy department at CMU also offers two other majors, one in Public Policy and one in Logic and Computation, which accounted for the rest of the students.

When that was over, my parents headed over to Gesling as I went to Wean to put on my robe and join the SCS part of the procession. I met friends, had my picture with my robe on taken, and so forth, and eventually we lined up and began to walk towards Gesling.

Commencement

When we arrived there, we sat down and waited for things to happen while leafing through the program. I was glad to have it, as it gave me something to do during the often boring ceremony. The student speaker was horrible; she didn't make a single actual point but just reiterated the same kind of humanistic tripe of which I've already heard far too much, and I could have easily come up with 5 speeches more worthy than hers. The actual speaker, though, was a little better (I've heard opinions of her that were higher than my own, which may have been partially because I wasn't giving her full attention). President Cohon actually conferred the honorary degrees, then the dean of each college gave a short speech and Cohon conferred the degrees on them.

More details: Gesling is a stadium with bleachers only on one side (these were used for family and other guest seating). It consists of a field surrounded by a track. The track was used for the procession and the field was covered with seats - the outer parts again for guests, the inner for the graduating students. On the field opposite the bleachers was the podium, with flags for each college depicting its mascot or emblem. I sat relatively near Michelle (she was a row behind me, though) and Shion and I think some of the other Schlag3a people. The weather was cloudy but nice, and there was no rain.

SCS diploma ceremony

After the ceremony we proceeded out. At one point Alisa and then my mom yelled out my name. My cap was very loose the entire time and kept falling off, particularly when I jerked it anywhere rapidly, as I did at the sound of my name.

The plan had been for me to meet my family at the intersection of Morewood and Forbes, but the ceremony had been long enough that it was obvious I wouldn't make it to the Carnegie Music Hall if I waited, and I had mentioned to them that if it were late I might not wait. So I walked there with Mark and others and let my family find their own way there.

The actual ceremony opened with a fake advertisement for robot insurance and closed with "if it's not Scottish, it's crap!". Between the two it consisted mostly of the calling of names - there were a lot of both graduate and undergraduate students receiving degrees from the School of Computer Science. We had assigned seating to facilitate the reasonably rapid progression of the ceremony, and at each seat was a bag containing an alumni t-shirt, a business-card holder containing a good luck card from the faculty, and I think a few other items I'm forgetting.

I graduated with "University Honors and an Additional Major in Philosophy", as it says on my diploma. The diploma, incidentally, is enormous, although it also came with a handy wallet-size version. When I walked across the stage, I wasn't really thinking anything in particular. The ceremony would probably have felt very long but for the fact that I knew some of the people graduating - although as things went on I realized just how few.

After the ceremony was a reception. My mom seemed to want to get going but I had a few things to accomplish first. I wandered around and eventually managed to find and take pictures of both Nicole and Michelle, which was the goal I had set for myself. There were also a bunch of pictures taken of me, my sister, and others in my group. After everything was over, my father and I headed back to Mudge to start packing, and my mom, Betsy and Vic said goodbye to go back to their hotel.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-18

Just now, in my room here in Mudge, I found a card from Grinnell. Somehow it managed not only to survive 4 years or so, but also to travel with me to CMU, despite being almost completely irrelevant to me during that period. It reminds me that these past four years have truly been a choice, not an inevitability; that my entire life could have been drastically different, that many of the people who mean so much to me I might never have met. I believe that I made the right choice. I know that I can't picture it any other way.

Senior Will

The Tartan offered to print 1000 characters of each senior's choosing in a special issue to be distributed on Sunday. I got Mark to submit the script we wrote that contains a C program which plays a song, and which compiles itself, along with "instructions":

$ cat>g
#!/bin/sh
tail -2 g>f.c
gcc -lm -o f f.c
./f&exec rm f f.c
#include<math.h>
main(v,i,z,n,u,t){for(v=-1;;)for(n=pow(1.06,"`cW`g[`cgcg[eYcb^bV^eW^be^bVecb^"[++v&31]+(v&64)/21),i=999;i;putchar(128+((8191&u)>i?0:i/8)-((8191&(z+=n))*i-->>16)))u+=v&1?t/2:(t=v&6?t:n/4);}
^D
$ chmod +x g;./g>/dev/dsp

Here's my own submission (exactly a thousand characters):

Here are some things from 1999-2003@CMU I'll always remember:

F99: CatMan, Priya, 80-100/Mark, Schlag3a, American Beauty
S00: 251/Rudich, Sherry, 2000-02-29, Sheila
F00: Scobell, Alison, 212
S01: Linux, Breakup
F01: Mudge, Kesden/OS
S02: TAed OS, CoMC, FF9, Physics w/Ed, KGB
F02: Single, Found Thomas
S03: Thomas visit, J, 21st, Laura, misc.market date

Thanks for giving me a place where I belonged, a world that I could join.
I regret only that I did not take full advantage of it in my first few
years.  I hope these haven't been the best years of my life.  But they've
certainly been better than I could have imagined.

http://ragnar.nilmop.org/kenn/default.html

val K="open String; print(\"val K=\\\"\"^concat(List.foldr op:: [\"\\\" \",K] (List.map (fn #\"\\\\\"=>\"\\\\\\\\\"| #\"\\\"\"=>\"\\\\\\\"\"|l=>str l) (explode K))))" open String; print("val K=\""^concat(List.foldr op:: ["\" ",K] (List.map (fn #"\\"=>"\\\\"| #"\""=>"\\\""|l=>str l) (explode K))))

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

Senior Honors Convocation

This morning was the Senior Honors Convocation, for the recognition of University honors (including me: cumulative QPA above 3.5) and college honors (not including me: defined by college). The speakers seemed to recognize the blessedness of brevity, fortunately. I wore effectively an Academy uniform (alumni tie included) with my trenchcoat and hat, and thought I looked pretty cool. After the speeches, we went over to the SCS table for the actual distribution of medallions (for University honors) and cords (for college honors) by Mark Stehlik, with Jim Morris actually hanging the medallion and/or cord over one's neck and Peter Lee waiting to shake one's hand. I didn't realize that quite so many people (about 50 out of my SCS class of about 130, and about 400 University-wide) receive honors, and my cumulative QPA was only just over 3.5, but still, I feel at least a little bit proud of myself.

After the convocation, my dad, my mom, Vic and Betsy (i.e. everyone who came to Pittsburgh for my graduation) headed over to Squirrel Hill. We meant to go to the Thai restaurant for lunch, but they weren't open yet, so we went to Panera. After that my dad and sister took me back to my room.

Meeting Laura

Somewhat tired due to only getting 3 hours or so of sleep the previous night, I headed over to the University Center a bit before 14 to meet Laura. I sat half-dazed in Kirr until she arrived. Then we walked over to the mall and sat beside one of the giant red cubes and talked. Laura finally agreed with me that some people just seem to be terminally dumb. Yes, they have potential, and one can see it, and it's very frustrating when one can't get them to express it. But the things that make one unable to do so are ingrained in them at a very deep level.

We also discussed Laura's idea to found a school, which sort of ties into my own concept of what I would do if I somehow came across a few billion dollars: found a university. Laura thinks, probably accurately, that university is too late in life to really mold a person; that by the time he enters college, he largely is what he is, for better or for worse. I agree, but I remain unconvinced that one can mold someone in such a manner even at the grade-school level, and would thus opt for the wealth of selection over that of creation. Still, Laura does have some interesting ideas, one of which is to have me teach philosophy at her school. If she ever made this idea into an actuality, she just might convince me not to homeschool my own child(ren).

When it was about time for Laura to go, we began walking towards the UC. I decided that I was not going to be stupid about it this time and asked Laura if I could take her picture. She enthusiastically said yes and I took a couple by the UC, one of us together and one of just her. Then she tried to convince me to choose how to pose her in different spots in the area, but I was indecisive. Laura chose a spot by a tree (the point of which I entirely missed at first, which I might be able to pass off to lack of sleep were I looking for an excuse), then I took a few of her inside the UC wearing her graduation cap making funny faces. After that we waited outside for Erik, who ended up being quite late. Laura said I would see her again the next day, but I knew that was very unlikely to be true. That's okay, though - barring unforeseen disaster, I will definitely see her again some time.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-19

Short version: I graduated.

Long version: will have to wait until I have time to write it.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-20

Moving out

Moving out was slightly less of a pain than in previous years, partly because my room wasn't quite as disorganized. Also, my mother took the TV and fan in her car, which turned out to be necessary - the station wagon was totally packed when we left. Still, it wasn't until 13 or so that we departed from Pittsburgh, due largely to the time it took me to install a UPS on Ragnar and make sure he was still working.

Drive home

My dad drove the first 100 miles and I drove the rest of the way. We got in at about 21:30. It's interesting how driving affects my thinking. I have to listen to music while driving or I become stultifyingly bored (although having someone else to talk with can help too). Yet for all this, I can't really get any serious thinking done in the car, perhaps because the attention that driving demands is relatively continuous and therefore doesn't mix well with complicated analysis. Also, the inability to record my thoughts on Pandora or Robert is frustrating.

Charlie's

Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, I visited Charlie. Things were moving pretty slowly there, due largely to my feeling exhausted (possibly because the last week or so had been pretty intense for me). So, after Dan arrived home from The Matrix: Reloaded and told Charlie how it was great and he should see it, I said that I wouldn't mind seeing it again, so that's what we did. I enjoyed it, although I only picked up on a few minor plot points I had missed the first time. Those points, of course, might prove crucial to the interpretation of the third movie.

After getting back home, we eventually ended up discussing an important issue with which I am trying to deal. This is that frequently when others try to assert their control or influence over me (and sometimes when all they're doing is offering advice that I misinterpret as such), I lose all capacity for reasoned consideration of the alternatives and am left with only the choices to blindly obey or to blindly disobey. I think it would be beneficial to me to develop an ability to make decisions less dogmatically, but breaking out of the old pattern is especially difficult since I can't just dogmatically order myself to do so. At this point I feel kind of stuck in this issue, and I suppose that only time will tell what the solution is, if there is one.

Eventually Charlie wanted to go to sleep, and he offered that I help myself to the alcohol he had - an offer of which he said he knew I wouldn't take advantage since I was a light drinker. I said that I'd just start watching Apocalypse Now, which I had already started and gone to sleep before finishing 3 times, and it would put me to sleep. I did do that, but then I did have some of his Absente (the first time I've ever had a drink alone) mixed with Livewire, and I may have underestimated the amount or overestimated my tolerance for alcohol, but it had a very noticable effect on me, probably as much as any other time I've had alcohol. True to form, I got further in the movie that any of the previous times but still failed to finish it before falling asleep. I slept only a few hours that night, and basically just hung out for the morning and afternoon before taking off for Catskill.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-24

It was Saturday night and nothing much was happening in Catskill. My father and Nance were out of town. So, I decided to go see The Matrix: Reloaded yet again.

I arrived in the theater area with plenty of extra time - I hadn't known when the movie started, so I had chosen to assume 19 (and arrive with some extra time relative to then), when it turned out to actually start at 19:20. I walked around the Main Street area vaguely looking for a liquor store, actually found one, spent probably 10 minutes pondering whether to go inside, finally decided to do so, spent some more time browsing, and ended up buying a 750 mL bottle of Bacardi, which was only about $10 (hence would not put an outrageous dent in my finances, the reason other than nervousness I had considered not buying anything) and about which I was curious. I took it back to the car and had a tiny sip before the movie. Anything that's 80 proof is going to burn a little, but it was interesting.

At the movie this time, I did something different. I had originally intended to record the Architect's speech with Pandora for later perusal, since some of his word choice was a bit odd and it is slightly difficult, even for me, to fully process not only what he was saying but all of its implications in realtime. Once I had the basic idea of using Pandora as a recording device, though, I ended up recording most of the speeches throughout the movie.

Another thing I did that I hadn't done the previous two times I saw the movie was sit through all of the credits so that I could see the trailer for The Matrix: Revolutions. The trailer gave away very little in terms of plot, at least as far as I could tell, and moved so quickly I could barely process certain parts of it visually at all. So basically it was a typical movie trailer, and will probably have little effect on my - or anyone's - tendency to see the movie. Pretty much anyone who saw Reloaded has to see Revolutions anyway, given the ending.

If you haven't seen The Matrix: Reloaded and ever intend to see it, I urge you not to read the rest of this entry, because it consists of an in-depth plot analysis certain aspects of Reloaded and speculation on Revolutions. This means that not only will it spoil Reloaded for you, but you'll have a tough time understanding much of what I say if you haven't seen it. Actually, even if you never intend to see Reloaded, you'd probably be better off skipping the rest of this entry.

Matrix Reloaded analysis

Plot points:

First of all, this is probably very obvious to most people, but I somehow managed to fail to fully realize it the first two times through the movie, so it's worth noting: the scene early in the movie with Morpheus, Niobe and others meeting takes place in the Matrix. Somehow I didn't manage to connect this part up with the immediately ensuing fight between Neo and the agents.

The second, perhaps more controversial observation is that while the aforementioned fight appears to be between Neo and three random agents, I believe that it is actually between Neo and three copies of Agent Smith who have disguised themselves as random agents, and that Smith's principal goal at this point was to see how his new abilities compared to Neo's. This is important because I saw others complain about how the Agents simultaneously became more difficult for Neo and easier for Morpheus and Trinity. While it's true that the times that Morpheus and Trinity fought an Agent in Reloaded weren't total slaughters, neither were the heroes actually able to defeat an Agent in either case. Furthermore, if my interpretation is correct, it was not the case that Neo found Agents (considered generally) more difficult than he expected. Rather, he found Smith more difficult than expected. I think that Smith has diverged enough that he can no longer accurately be thought of as just another Agent.

Lastly, the scene near the end where the Sentinels freeze in front of Neo seems to be calculated to create the impression that Neo did the freezing. In fact, his motions seem to mirror those which he uses when he freezes bullets in mid-air. However, looking more carefully, the Sentinels clearly have electricity arcing over them when they stop. The possibility that they were disabled by EMP is left open.

Here are my predictions for the third movie:

• I think that Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and all the other purportedly human characters will in fact be human. While an ending wherein Neo was a computer program would be interesting, it wouldn't please the audience, who happen to be human.
• For similar reasons, the "real world" from the first two movies will still be considered as real in the third movie. It would totally break the audience's trust if Zion turned out to be a recursive Matrix or another segment of it - they would have trouble trusting that anything was real at that point, which would be detrimental to the plot. Again, I think that this type of idea (and particularly the subtype in which each One leads to the creation of a new recursive level of the Matrix) is very interesting, but fails for probable audience disapproval.
• The possibility that the last couple of scenes in Reloaded take place in another segment of the Matrix is left open, but I don't believe it to be the case.
• Based on Reloaded's plot and the short trailer at the end of the credits, I think that Agent Smith will assume a pivotal role in Revolutions. In Reloaded he was more or less only an annoyance, but he has been building up power, and I think that that power must go somewhere.

Questions I think the third movie needs to answer to succeed:

• What is the nature of the One? In particular, does he have his powers only because the Matrix gives them to him, or are they innate in him personally?
• What is the meaning of the choice Neo makes at the end of Reloaded? It seems far too obvious and simplistic for the Architect to have been telling Neo the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
• For that matter, why does the Architect give Neo information which he knows full well will push Neo to irrationally choose the option resulting in the extinction of the human race and his (the Architect's) own demise? The obvious explanation would be that Neo had to be given a free choice, complete with all the information needed to make that choice truly free, but this would simply push the question back a level.
• Who or what stopped the Sentinels at the end of Reloaded, and why / how?

Things that are different this iteration of the Matrix:

• The Keymaker dies - at the hands of Agent Smith, but both he and the other Agents were trying to kill the Keymaker. Since the Keymaker was essential for Neo to reach the Architect, this implies either that future Ones will reach the Architect some other way, that the Keymaker is reloaded each time that the Matrix is, or (my favorite theory) that the system knew that Neo was the last One long before he did.
• The Merovingian says that the Oracle's time is "almost up". He also says that "I have survived [Neo's] predecessors and I will survive [Neo]." These both may have just been for show, but if not, then combined they seem likely to imply that the machines have some way to get by without Zion and the One.
• At the end, Neo apparently makes the choice none of the previous Ones have made - to end the human race - in order to save Trinity. I say "apparently" because I don't think that we can take the Architect's speech at face value - at least not until we've seen Revolutions.

While I'm pretty sure that Zion has not yet been destroyed at the end of Reloaded, there is very little time left until the Sentinels reach it. Thus, either the entirety of Revolutions has to take place with very little "downtime" (time spent travelling, etc. that isn't shown on camera), the Sentinels have to be delayed somehow, Zion will be destroyed (which I judge unlikely - again, it would trigger big audience disapproval) or some major plot twist has to happen relatively early on. In any case, I think Revolutions will definitely have some awesome special effects, but whether or not it resolves the plot in a satisfactory manner remains to be seen.

The title of the third movie is very interesting. First, note that it's pluralized. It's hard to tell exactly what this means, although it could lend some credibility to the recursive-Zion theory alluded to above. Second, while the apparent meaning of the term "revolution" in this context is that of overthrowing an oppressor, the word also has another meaning - an instance of revolving, a cycle - exactly what Reloaded describes the Matrix / One system as. Last, although this is probably pure coincidence, revolutions is only one letter away from revelations - something which we certainly hope that the third movie will deliver, and also a book from the Bible.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-24

It's funny, over the last two weeks I've tried to watch Apocalypse Now 5 times, and each time I've gotten further than any previous time, but each time I've fallen asleep before finishing the movie. I don't think it's an incredible movie, nor do I expect any profound revelations in the last half-hour or so that I still haven't seen, and I am starting to question whether the amount of time I've invested in it is worth it. I certainly shouldn't start watching it again when I'm sleepy, but should instead do so when I'm fully awake, although only time will tell whether that actually happens.

In other news, thought of the meaning of the plot of The Matrix: Reloaded means and what The Matrix: Revolutions might have in store have been occupying a very large portion of my thoughts recently. There are a very large number of possible directions in which the third movie could go - I think the most restrictive constraint may be based on the need to ensure audience satisfaction (and thus repeat viewership and DVD sales / rentals) rather than the plot itself. An analysis of some of these points will be in a future entry.

Dentist and opthamologist appointments

On Thursday I had a dentist checkup at which nothing interesting happened. Friday I had an opthamologist appointment which was also uninteresting (my prescription didn't even change), but after which my dad had to drive me to my mom's house because my eyes were dilated. I stayed there for a few hours and then went to the Madison to meet Ed and see a movie.

Bruce Almighty

The movie we saw (on opening day, no less) was Bruce Almighty. Although I didn't fully realize it until after the movie was over, it followed the standard romantic comedy story arc pretty much to a tee. Actually, now that I think about it, it bears a lot of similarity to Mr. Deeds - both romantic comedies, both with stars known for doing somewhat weird comedy, both involving men in a newly-found position of power which goes to their heads, a factor which they have to overcome to get their respective girls. Bruce Almighty was quite funny, definitely worth seeing.

Discussion with Ed

After the movie, neither Ed nor I really wanted to go straight home, so we walked through the city talking. The topic of conversation for probably the first hour and a half or so (with plenty of digressions, of course) was Laura, or more specifically Ed's relationship with her, which I wanted to know about both for its own sake and also to understand Laura better. This culminated with my expressing an impulse to call Laura on my cell phone, Ed saying he had been having similar thoughts, and Ed actually calling and leaving a message on Laura's voicemail saying we had been talking about her for the past hour and a half.

After that, the topic turned toward Ed's basic nature, and more specifically his desire to have people understand him. This desire seems to him to be embedded at a very deep level, and he is unable to think of any instrumental reason why he should have it. I suggested that it might simply be an intrinsic desire, but Ed was reluctant to accept this. We kept talking until about 23, when Ed started to get cold (I had been a bit cold for some time, but it hadn't really been bothering me that much) and we went home. Throughout the conversation we had been focusing much more on Ed than on me, which was unusual. I was glad for that: exploring my own problems has become somewhat of a cliché in our conversations, whereas Ed tends to talk very little of himself.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-26

Here's a quote from the episode of King of the Hill I watched last night from tape:

Bobby: "I mean, to tell you the truth those guys are a little pathetic. Can you believe Ward was wearing socks with his sandals?"

Hank: "Unbelievable."

Bobby: "I guess I still need to find exactly what my thing is."

Hank: "Well, that's okay, son. You've still got time. I didn't really find football 'til high school. And I was in my twenties when I found propane."

John Redcorn: "What's wrong with wearing socks with sandals?"

(Only worth noting because Laura telling me not to wear socks with sandals is one of those little things I'll probably remember a long time from now.)

I was up quite late last night, watching that tape and episodes of Family Guy and generally not accomplishing much. I also discovered that rum and Coke tastes really good. Hmm... although I think that it was basically an arational piece of dogma for me not to drink for so many years, it also made certain decisions easier. I want not to make any dogmatic rules like "only drink in social situations" or a hard cap on the number of times per week or drinks per day I have, but I also want to be very careful not to become dependent on drinking, and not just in the "I can quit any time I want" sense. (The difference being that I actually could quit any time I wanted, but my wanting to do so would be in question...)

Today I haven't done much. Worked on my journal a fair bit, as you may have already noticed, and watched a bunch of Family Guy. Fox had NASCAR instead of their typical lineup, which annoys me slightly. I've been thinking about how my use of undirected (aka "free") time is very inefficient, not only at accomplishing anything useful but even at entertaining me, but nothing has come of that pattern of thought yet.

Wiki page for this journal entry

2003-05-29

Billy Elliot

I just watched Billy Elliot. My mom bought it for me on video a long time ago (I think it was a Christmas present several years ago), and I let my sister watch it once, but I just got around to watching it myself.

I'm starting to realize how pointless most of my writing about movies is. I mean sure, something detailed like my analysis of The Matrix Reloaded has at least some use, but just writing "I liked x" really does no good. Okay, so what is worth writing about Billy Elliot? That it made me cry? Almost every drama makes me cry, or at least that used to be the case. I guess I'm just a sucker for movies, buying into them too easily. This was particularly noticeable in the critical scene of the movie (and now I'm starting to realize that part of the reason my writing about movies is often pointless is that I try to avoid spoilers) when I was consciously trying to suspend judgement until the movie told me the result for sure, but I was still fooled by it.

See, here's the thing. I'm almost sure this is not an amazing movie. I'm almost sure that I've seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of movies of equal or better quality. Yet somehow this movie managed to draw me in, to make me live in its world instead of my own (which, incidentally, has lately been strongly influenced - "controlled" might be more accurate - by another movie, The Matrix Reloaded) for a couple of hours. What does that mean? I guess being easy to please is a net benefit to me, but does it also mean that I'll have trouble creating anything good, since I won't be able to recognize when I have created something not so good? Of course, I'm not trying to create a film, and with poetry I have nearly the opposite problem - nothing is good enough to get much of a reaction out of me. Perhaps my level of sensitivity to novels is just right - although many of them draw me in, others bore me to tears and still others I find positively perverse. Indeed, it's probably not films per se but rather the formulaic stuff which Hollywood produces to which I am so vulnerable.

Wiki page for this journal entry

Older news

Kenn Hamm
For copyright and other information, click here.
Last modified: Wed Jun 4 13:16:52 2003