Rosio Pavoris

I mentioned earlier how I was trying to decide between Computer Sciences at the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering, both at the KUL.
Today, my mom threw two other options at me.

First is Applied Computer Sciences at the KHL. This also has the benefit of being in Leuven, and it’s a Bachelor’s degree as well. On the other hand, it’s a hogeschool, not a university, and it’s in Leuven without being part of the KUL.
The curriculum looks dead simple. Very little in the way of mathematics, and there’s French and English. I’m not sure why they feel we need to know any French (other than because it’s a national language, I mean), but meh.
There’s also the added disadvantage that the KHL doesn’t offer a Master’s in this.

Second is Computer Sciences in Groep T, which is also a hogeschool. This is a Graduate’s degree, not a Bachelor’s. I’m not sure how different that is, but I’m sure it’s significant.
And, of course, it’s Groep T. This is actually quite significant. My dad went to Groep T (though he took Industrial Engineering), and he isn’t too good at grasping things have changed in the past three decades.
As far as I can tell, this also isn’t a full-time college-level type deal. It’s adult education. Whether this is good or bad, I’m not sure. The curriculum is dead simple, limited, and aimed at practica. First year is C++, second year is Java, third is network management, essentially, with nothing in the way of higher mathematics or general computer theory.
While I’d have to try pretty hard not to pass, I’m not sure this will be at all useful.

So yeah. I dunno. The lazy and practical way would be Groep T. The hardest but most interesting way would be Faculty of Science at KUL.
Still undecided. I guess I have until halfway into September to make up my mind.

“How are your eyes? Still in your head? I guess we won’t see a doctor, then.”

In related news, the weather is turning saner. It’s been raining all day, and it’s something like 20°C outside now.

<Skatje> How do you even do atheist weddings?

She’s usually brighter than this, I swear. Still, spoken like a true Midwesterner. I wonder how pervasive the point of view that it isn’t a wedding unless it’s in a church is.

Redundancy is a marvellous thing. Unfortunately, Telenet has never heard of it.

For the record, having a blood vessel on your eye burst because of the heat feels roughly like getting stabbed in the eye.

Or weak agnostics, whatever you want to call them. The people who claim that there might be a god, but they aren’t sure, so they won’t take a stance.
In many ways, I understand these people less than I understand religious nuts. At least they have the excuse of indoctrination. All these weak atheostics seem to have is intellectual cowardice.

Consider Bertrand Russell’s teapot. This story is repeated very often, but apparently there are still people who don’t know about it.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

If there is no reason to believe the teapot is there, why would you believe otherwise? Tradition, sure. That’s painfully stupid, but somewhat understandable.
Now, why would you deny it in the face of tradition? Common sense. Intellectual honesty. And so on.

I like the scientific method. Religion doesn’t stand up to it at all, of course. Neither does weak agnosticism. It doesn’t really apply to strong agnosticism, by definition, I guess. But when the scientific method is applied to religiosity and spirituality, the outcome will always be, in effect, strong atheism.

So, why do these weak atheostics stand by their conclusion?
I’m not sure. My guess is, mostly out of intellectual cowardice. Maybe out of fear of offending, though what they’re doing in trying to please both sides is annoy both of them, I’d guess.
Or maybe it’s the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” thing, combined with a powerful suspension of disbelief because they grew up in a religious environment.

Or maybe they’re just afraid that some day some deity will show up and prove himself, and then they’ll have been wrong all along, oh noes. D:
Protip: You’re allowed to change your mind in the face of new evidence. There are very few (strong) atheists who would keep denying the existence of a god when said god shows up and irrefutably proves his existence. We’re just saying that the chance of that is so incredibly remote that it just isn’t worth planning for by maintaining this wishy-washiness. It’s like Pascal’s Wager. Which is to say, dishonest bullshit.

Anyway, cut it out. Or at least be a deist.

(BTW, related to Russell’s teapot are the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But people seem to lose track of that in favor of retarded memery, especially when it comes to the FSM. Also, a more interesting counterpart to Pascal’s Wager would be the Atheist’s Wager.)

Ever have one of those dreams that causes you to reexamine relationships with some people from a completely different perspective? I think I’ve had… three, so far. It’s cost me some of my best friends every time, in what in retrospect mostly turned out to be good decisions.
This one, though, didn’t do that. Mmhm.

Anyway. Either it’s cooling down or I’m getting used to the heat. The fans help, no doubt. I’m pretty sure the heat did some permanent damage to my motherboard, but I guess I need a new computer anyway. I should back the important stuff up, but then I’d have to decide what stuff is important.

Having discovered our surprisingly extensive DVD collection, I watched a few movies.
Scary Movie 1 and 2 suck ass, 3 didn’t want to play.
Jesus Christ Superstar is still a pretty good movie, though I regret watching the director’s commentary.
A Beautiful Mind is still an awesome movie. American Beauty is still not bad, but vaguely overrated.
Apparently the only LotR DVD we have is Return of the King, which still has some seriously awful special effects side by side with some really good ones.
Next up is Moulin Rouge, I guess. And Bruce Almighty, maybe. Though there are some surprisingly good DVDs in this collection, it’s still very obviously a collection gathered by my mom and sister.

On an unrelated note, Junji Ito is both pretty good and incredibly repetitive. I’ve been downloading a lot of his work. Uzumaki is the most famous, I guess. It doesn’t suck. Read it. If it didn’t add up to 141 MB, I’d upload it.

It’s still ridiculously hot. There was a crackling and a burning smell and a non-respondingness from my computer earlier on, but letting it cool down, removing the sides of the case, and turning three real fans on it apparently settled that for now.

I finished Baldur’s Gate 2 in slightly over two days, and BG2:TOB in one. I seem to remember these games being longer, though I guess I did skip a lot of side-quests and knew where I was going. Oh well. Still worth 15 €.

Also, happy Belgia Day. Today, 175 years ago, Leopold I was crowned king, IIRC. Wooh.
It’s also my dad’s 50th birfdey, but I don’t think anyone remembered that.

On an unrelated note, you may not have been following the stem cell thing in the US, but Jon Stewart is, in fact, God.

I went to see Superman Returns with Quhan yesterday.
I don’t think I saw the first four Superman movies, unless I was like four years old at the time. I certainly don’t remember any of them. Either way, I do remember some of the comics, and I think I used to watch Lois & Clark, so my expectations weren’t too high.

All in all, though, it wasn’t too horrible. It had some really bizarre ideas about the way gravity works (mostly just in the opening sequence—which, though visually impressive, was painful to watch because of it—and one of the last scenes, where he pushes an island into space; nothing quite as bad as some of the things in the comics, though), and it was, of course, Superman, but if you ignore that, it filled two and a half hours pretty nicely.
I like Kevin Spacey. He’s nothing like the Lex Luthor in the comics, but certainly an improvement over the Lex Luthor in Lois & Clark.
The rest of the cast wasn’t particularly impressive, but most of them didn’t suck.

We also found a boxed set of the Baldur’s Gate games (the PC ones, including the expansions) for 15 €, so we bought that. Baldur’s Gate 1 won’t run under a Dutch-language OS, which is pretty retarded, but BG2 is my favorite anyway. I’m pretty sure I still have my original copy of BG1, which does work, so meh.
I’ve mostly been busy with that, then. It’s much easier than I remember, but I suppose it would be.

Also, it’s ridiculously hot today. Yesterday was sweaty-hot, but today is turning-blind-and-deaf-because-my-veins-are-exploding-in-an-effort-to-cool-off-hot.
I’m not even kidding. My eyes hurt like hell, and my hearing sucks even more than it usually does.

I’m moving to Iceland. O\__/O

A few months ago, I talked about my parents’ renovation efforts, and I said how the then incredibly unfinished garden seems to be a step in the right direction.
It occurred to me that between spring earlier and summer-blooming stuff now, the result would be pretty obvious now, and tonight was colder than it’s been in a long time, so I went outside and took a look.

Turns out it’s pretty impressive. The new brick pathway things haven’t sunk at all, despite several weeks of fairly heavy rain early in the year, and the flowers and plants and whatnot actually don’t suck.
Also, I noticed we have sunflowers. We’ve had sunflowers before, both here and in our previous house, and they’ve always looked like really gay corn. These sunflowers are much more sunflowery. They work.

My dad’s vegetable garden still looks ugly and out of place, and would even if he made the time to take care of it, but at least it’s kind of out of sight thanks to the sunflowers. Our garden shed needs to be repainted, too, though I think he was talking about doing that tomorrow.
But besides that, it’s a pretty decent backyard. Our neighbors’ look derelict by comparison.

I don’t expect it’ll last more than a year, but it’s a nice change.

Edit: Now with map! North is up and vaguely to the left, IIRC. Dutchie neighbors to the left, 30-year-old who lives with his mother to the right.

1. The house itself. My room is in the back on the second floor, on the right, overlooking the garden. 2. Stairs to the front door, about a meter up. The basement windows are right at ground level. 3. Wooden garden shed type thing. Made of cobwebs and spiders on the inside. 4. My dad’s vegetable plot. It used to have rhubarb, now it’s mostly a lot of beans. 5. Lawn. Actually pretty green, still. 6. Patio type thing in yellowish bricks. 7. Side path type thing. The plants on the side are pretty low, mostly flowery, though I’m not sure what kind. There’s a gate between this and our actual patio, which we had installed mostly because of our dog. 8. Down to the garage under the house. Not actually wide enough to accomodate my dad’s car, so my mom parks there. 9. Sunflowers! 10. Front garden. Used to be a hueg spider-infested conifer, but we chopped that down years ago. It was mostly mud for a few years, now it’s mostly flowers. And our mailbox. 11. Flowers. Used to be a hedge and bushes, now it’s mostly bushes and bushes. And tulips and roses. But mostly bushes.

Scale probably isn’t all that accurate, actually. But meh.
Our house leans against our neighbor’s on the right, but is open on the left.

VM Computers, for those who are not Coren or Quhan, being the place I got my current computer. Also being quite possibly the only computer store in Tienen.

When I got this computer (August 2004, I think) it worked fine for a week or so, then it refused to even boot. So I returned it, and got it back a week later with some mumblings about extreme fragmentation. “It was all red.”
Now, evidently, in their efforts to figure that out, they’d opened up the case and messed with the insides, because the main fan was loose afterwards. Not to the point where it’s necessarily dangerous, but to the point where you’d occasionally get annoying grinding noises. This wasn’t a problem most of the time, and I really didn’t want to start my ownership of a brand new computer by not being able to use it in the first month, so I ignored the problem, and it went away.
The reason it went away, apparently, is because it became fall, and then winter. The fan only made those noises when it was hot in my room. Next summer, it came back, but I ignored it, and it went away.

Also came back this summer, and just now, the fan asplode. It sounded like it finally broke free and crashed into my motherboard, so I pulled the plug and opened up the case. Turns out it’s still there, so I’m not sure what that was about.
The reason I hadn’t opened it earlier is because that voids the warranty, but at this point I’m pretty sure I’m never trusting VM Computers with my hardware ever again, also because of what happened with my dad’s desktop and laptop computers, and my sister’s laptop and printer.
The inside of the case was dusty, of course, after two years, so I cleaned it out. I couldn’t reach the main fan directly, but I poked at it and it’s been quiet since (though it’s still running).

It annoys me. These people order the finest computer hardware known to man for a fuck of a lot of money, let a bunch of barely-trained monkeys put it together and manhandle it to the customers, and then overcharge for service and handling. This computer cost me slightly over 2,200 €. If I’d ordered everything and put it together myself, it would’ve been maybe a fourth of that, and it certainly would’ve been more competently done.

Anyway, not the most potent or coherent rant ever, but I just woke up to having to go to the basement to find the right kind of screwdrivers and cleaning out two years’ worth of dust from the insides of my computer. My point, basically, is that if I disappear from the internets soon, that’s why.

Edit: Also, I think it’s rather antisocial of my neighbors to, when I’m having cooling issues with my computer, have a barbecue outside. Vague panic, and whatnot.

NO LYING - BE HONEST

(001) Your gender: Mail.
(002) Straight/gay/bi: Bisecksual.
(003) Single: Nein.
(004) Want to be: Nein.
(005) Your birthday: Eleventy Novembah.
(006) Age you wish you were: 20?
(007) Age you wish to die: 94.
(008) Are you looking forward to death: Meh.
(009) The color of your eyes: Braun.
(010) Piercings: Nein.
(012) Tattoos: Nein.

DO YOU…

(013) Smoke: Nein.
(014) Wish you were someone else: Nein. If I weren’t me, I’d wish I were.
(015) Read the newspaper: Rarely. I do follow the news, though.
(016) Watch TV: Nein.
(017) Talk to strangers who IM you: Rarely.
(018) Take walks in the rain: Nein.
(019) Drive: Not if I can avoid it.
(020) Like to drive fast: Not really.
(021) Hurt yourself: On purpose? No.

HAVE YOU EVER…

(022) Been out of the country: Yais.
(023) Been in love: Yais.
(024) Done drugs: Maaaybe.
(025) Gone skinny dipping: Nein.
(026) Had a surgery: As in, a surgeon’s office? I’m pretty sure the actual operation doesn’t take an indefinite article.
(027) Ran away from home: “Have you ever ran away?” Grammar FTW.
(028) Played strip poker: Yais. Only ugly people lost. ;__;
(029) Gotten beat up: Nein.
(030) Gotten picked on: Once or twice. Rarely for long. :3
(031) Gotten on stage: Nein.
(032) Slept outdoors: Yais. There was a moth on my face.
(033) Walked Outside naked: Not since I was three or four.
(034) Pulled an all-nighter: Yais.
(035) Cut youself: Not on purpose. The three scars on my hands are all from cutting, though.
(036) Talked on the phone all night: N…o.
(037) Ate sushi: Yais. Horsemeat winar.
(038) Slept all day: >____>
(039) Killed someone: Nein.
(040) Made out with a stranger: Nein.
(041) Had sex with a stranger: Nein.
(042) Kissed the same sex: Nein.
(043) Done anything sexual with the same sex: Nein.
(044) Been betrayed: Yais.
(045) Broken the law: Bent, more like.
(046) Loved someone that never loved you back: Nein.
(047) Been on radio/tv: Yais. People like to interview me. ;.;
(048) Been in a mosh-pit: Nein
(049) Had a nervous breakdown: Yais.
(050) Been criticized about your sexual performance: Har.
(051) Had a dream that kept coming back: Yais. Even nightmares are fun when you know what’s going to happen.

RANDOM

(052) Shoe brand: Er. Dunno. Boss, probably.
(053) School: This one. Hey, they changed their front page.
(054) Wear hats: When I can get away with it. So, not very often.
(055) Judged other people by their clothing: Only in extreme cases.
(056) Wear make-up: Nein.
(057) Favorite place to shop: “Leuven.” I like spending money, but I don’t like shopping.
(058) Favorite article of clothing: I like my ring. Jewelry counts, right?
(059) Are you trendy: Vairy.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN…

(060) Life on other planets: It’s likely, I guess. Haven’t done much research.
(061) Miracles: Nein.
(062) Astrology: Nein.
(063) Magic: Nein.
(064) God: Nein.
(065) Easter Bunny: Nein.
(066) Santa: Nein.
(067) Ghosts: Nein.
(068) Birth: Er. Whut?
(069) Love at first sight: Not really.
(070) Ying and Yang: … That’s a philosophical construct, not something to believe in as such. What?
(071) Witches: In the magic kind, or in the “lol let’s go dance in the forest” kind?
(072) Toothfairy: Nein.
(073) The shoe size is the size of a penis: I think I’d have noticed if I was 42 inches.
(074) Sex after marriage: :O

MISCELLANEOUS

(075) Favorite Color: Black.
(076) Pants size: Pants come in sizes?
(077) Do you remember your first love: Yais.
(078) Still love him/her: Yais.
(079) Do you consider love a mistake: Nein.
(080) What do you find romantic: These questions suck.
(081) Turn-on: Maia.
(082) Turn-off: Stupidity.
(083) Do you base your judgement on looks alone: …
(084) Do you have a crush right now: >.>
(085) Have you ever been romantically attracted to someone unattractive: That… doesn’t work unless you equate unattractive with ugly.
(086) Miss someone: Yais.
(087) What is best about the opposite sex: Bewbies and cockpouch. :3
(088) What’s the last present someone gave you: I don’t even remember.
(089) Do you like someone at this moment: Repeating questions with slightly different wording isn’t lazy at all!

LAST PERSON…

(090) That you laughed at: Dunno. Random nubie, presumably.
(091) That laughed at you: Nobody ever laughs at me. O\__/O
(092) That turned you on: I wonder.
(093) You went shopping with: I shop alone.
(094) To disappoint you: You. ;__;
(095) You loved: Maia.
(096) To make you cry: Maia.
(097) To brighten up your day: [repetition]
(098) Hugged you: Er. Roberts, actually, I think. I don’t hug people very often.
(099) You saw a movie with: Quhan.
(100) You talked to on the phone: That one guy who wanted to know about how the National Exam Commission works for mixed educations.
(101) You talked to through IM: Maia.
(102) You saw: My parents and sister, downstairs watching TV.
(103) Held your hand: I don’t think anyone ever held my hand.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU…

(104) Smiled: Yesterday, I think.
(105) Laughed: Also yesterday. Jon Stewart winar.
(106) Cried: A few weeks ago.
(107) Bought something: Two days ago. I bought food and the July issue of Dragon. Dragon sucks since Paizo took over.
(108) Danced: I have never danced. Unless you count the PE rhythm exercises, in which case, three or four years ago.
(109) Were sarcastic: A few lines up.
(110) Hugged/kissed someone: Hugged, last December. Kissed, nevar.
(111) Thought about someone: …
(112) Watched your favorite movie: Last week somewhere.
(113) Talked on the phone: February? Dunno.
(114) Listened to the radio: I… can’t remember.
(115) Watched TV: Four hours ago, during dinner.
(116) Went out: On a date? Never. Just left the house? Two days ago.
(117) Helped someone: Quit asking stupid questions.
(118) Cut youself: I cut my hair a while ago.
(120) Did something with someone you didn’t want to: That doesn’t happen very often.

So, I went to see the The Da Vinci Code movie with Quhan yesterday, and I’ve had a headache of varying severity ever since. I think I need more sleep.

It wasn’t a great movie, but it didn’t suck all that much, really. Anyone who claims it’s anti-Catholic or anti-Christian needs to do more of the shutting the fuck up thing, though.
Compared to the book, the role of Opus Dei was dramatically reduced, brought down all the way to suggest it was just a single guy who was acting on his own and who was to blame for the corrupting of the albino, because clearly Opus Dei would have nothing to do with the self-flagellation and whatnot. They didn’t go out of their way to present Opus Dei positively, but they definitely made an effort not to present it negatively.
Then the thing about the Council of Nicaea and the suggestion that the Bible (or at least, the New Testament) might not have been written down by God, but rather, decided on by a committee of “early” Christian leaders, and that the divinity of Jesus Christ might not have been accepted by all Christians all along, but rather, defined with the Creed of Nicaea. If you consider that suggestion anti-Catholic, you seriously need to just… go away. It’s not the movie that’s making these claims. It’s not the book that’s making these claims. It’s fucking history itself.

Honestly, with the main bad guy being pagan (apparently) and the token atheist (Audrey Tautou’s character) converting to Christianity and the movie ending with a shot of the main character praying over the tomb of Mary Magdalene, I’d say that Christians don’t have much to complain about.
It annoyed me, really. I’m not sure if it was trying to be pro-Christian, but the lengths it went through not to be anti-Christian (-Catholic, whatever) just made it preachy and lame.

So yeah. Not worth seeing as much as the book was worth reading. Audrey Tautou didn’t even take her shirt off.

How can you not know anything about anything? Seriously.

Northlands finally rolled out. The adventure areas could do with some more content, but that can easily be added later.

I need a nap.

I want one of these.

I’m actually getting fair amounts of work done on Muffins. This is the first time in ages I’ve actually enjoyed working on content. I’m reasonably happy with most of the new content, though still vaguely stuck on some bits.

Heat is kind of making my drawerings suck, though.

People need to stop wishing me a happy 4th of July. On the 21st I’m just going to go around and wish everyone a happy 21st, see how much sense that makes. O\__/O

I guess it’s almost over.

Stoled from Qow.

D: D: D:

Draai een keer in het rond
Stamp met je voeten op de grond
Zwaai je armen in de lucht
Ga nu zitten met een zucht
Stap nu rond als een gans
Zo gaat de kabouterdans!

On repeat for three hours. D: