Saturday, December 24, 2011

Sleepless Nights

To my mind there is probably nothing worse than insomnia...

Well, that's not true, I guess. I can't speak with much authority, but I'm pretty sure that raep, for instance, is far worse than insomnia. However, seeing as it's not in my nature to downplay negative situations, for now I will act as if insomnia is pretty much the worst thing on Earth.

For me it is, in a way. Being awake the whole night long is just so decidedly lonely. It's not like I often crave company in any way, but the stillness, the quiet, and the feeling that I'm completely and utterly alone just makes me very uncomfortable. It also doesn't help that I'm both paranoid, and obsessive, so that if any noise does happen to pierce the silence, I start to imagine what could have made it, and since I'm a pessimist (I prefer realist), the cause I think up is never very pleasant.

That was an incredibly long sentence. You'll have to bear with me on that, I do it very often. As far as I see it, a sentence can never have enough clauses! I tend to be verbose and repetitive, although I'll admit to having a very poor vocabulary. Some might disagree with that as I use a more formal tone than most, but that's geneerally because thos people haven't read any respectable books, and don't quite know what English is.

A side note on the degradation of the English language: I've noticed a propensity for people these days to use "then" rather than "than", and it really, really annoys me. They're two completely different words! (Don't even get me started on aspostrophe usage or "to", "too" and "two")
I honestly cannot fathom how the majority of people passed high school English. Furthermore, if you are older than twenty and still seriously use "u" instead of "you", you should probably be shot, reapeatedly. It's not that difficult to use proper English. Stop raping the langauge, please!

Now where was I? Ah yes, insomnia. That subject is a little boring though, much like staying awake all through the night is. Although, it is nice seeing the sun rise (kind of, it's too cloudy today... That's better than swelteringly hot, I guess).
Not being able to sleep does give me time to read though. I'm almost finished with iWoz, written by Apple co-founder Stephen Wozniak. I use the term written a bit lightly, as he didn't do it alone, so it's difficult to tell how much is actually him writing.
Wozniak is a legend, and the only Apple co-founder that I like, and this book is incredibly interesting and entertaining (especially as I'm a computer engineering student), I might even go so far as to say that it is mildly inspirational. However, I do have a few issues with it. Wozniak states how he holds logic to be very dear to him, but there is little logic in the structure of the book and it tends to jump around in time quite frequently.
It's writing style is very conversational, which I actually like (it's not too different from how I write) although I think whoever called it a "gee-whiz" style was spot on with that description. Wozniak comes off as a shy, polite, oddly funny guy. The tone seems to portray him as humble, as do most of his anecdotes, however there seems to be a large amount of bragging going on. Every few pages we are explicitly reminded how clever he is, which is't too bad as I agree with him, but it tends to get a bit annoying. I can't say I blame him though.
Steve Jobs was/is always in the spotlight, and got most of the public recognition regarding Apple. Heck, his death got far more coverage that the death of the co-creator of the C programming language, Dennis Ritchie (a man infinitely more important than Jobs). So I can't really fault Woz for wanting the general public to know that he is the genius behind computers as we know them today.
All in all it is a very entertaining book though.

I think this post has gone on long enough for now, and I've completely forgotten what I wanted to say in the first place. Sleep depravation will do that to a person I guess...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

It's been a while...

I realized recently that I haven't touched this blog at all in ages, and it seems like a shame to me.
The beauty of a blog: I can express myself, and "speak" as if speaking to an audience even if there isn't one. It's not often that one has an audience completely dedicated to listening to his every word, waiting patiently at every pause, and paying absolute attention. Only a few types of people have this kind of audience; people comedians and presidents.
Seeing as I'll never be a president, and I'm not talented enough to be a comedian, I find great pleasure in having this completely hypothetical audience at my disposal.
At this point I realize that there might not be anyone reading this at all, and that's okay, what really matters is that the content is getting out there. If I write enough, eventually something genius will come out of it (remember the monkeys + typewriters = Shakespeare conjecture?). Although, that being said, if you are reading this, yes - you, then please, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page.

Anyway, let me get to some actual content.
Firstly, the reason why this blog has been stagnent for so long is probably due to a number of things, such as lack of inspiration and the fact that University takes up so much time, and makes me forget pretty much everything else I had planned.

So, this past year (or rather the past six months) have been pretty tough for me, both physically, emotionally and mentally. This is due to a number of things that I'd rather not go into. Suffice to say, that a number of things have happened that have left me feeling even less cheery than my usual self.
However, it's not all bad news. As Nietzsche said, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.", and my still being alive despite all that happened that gives me some hope. I see it as an opportunity for some personal transformation.

Well, the topic of improving myself has suddenly reminded me that I should be studying for an exam. Ah, Electrical Principles, the only subject I've ever had where I understand everything, get the beginning of the questions right, but screw up in the calculations. It's ridiculous how many stupid mistakes I make...that little negative sign is so easily forgotten.

So, let me end off with this. If you've read this, comment - say anything really. Anything that could give me some inspiration for a discussion or blog post would be great. I really do have a large amount of general knowledge and common sense, and I enjoy participating in discussions and learning new things.