psyche

Exams were OK. Made binary and quadratics for lulz. Not useful, really.

Doing S2 and C4 in maths. Interesting. Fred and I continue to brutally annihilate Dr Eves’ extension questions. Kishore pays no attention (and sometimes falls asleep) but easily completes all of Mr Motion’s work very quickly. We’re a good set. Dr Eves has to write references. Joy. Sentences becoming fragments now…

Doing physics competition thing with Will, Fred and Elliot. Must make mechanical or simple electrical clock to time 2 minutes with well-defined start- and endpoints. Then make a machine to raise an egg 1 metre (I think) as slowly as possible while still being continuous. Wonderful. Perhaps if I get Elliot and Fred working on proof that space is well and truly quantised making the task impossible (all distances discrete) then we’ll win for ingenuity.

Have to use BMAT to revise for TSA over summer. Also, 2000-word “science prize essay”. Will do on LHC and CERN grid computing systems and such. Also, 2minutechallenge.

Haven’t heard back from Aerospace Challenge people. Got sick today (dehydration). Good to be happy. Forgotten how good!

Pax

I’ll standardise CPT1 and CPT2 to 3.7. Core 2 was 3.8ish? Have all three physics papers on Thursday, Stats 1 on Friday and then a break for a week. Then Core 3 and FP1 on Monday, all three chemistry papers on that Wednesday and Mechanics 1 on that Friday - AND I’M DONE!

Pax

Yes, I forgot a lot of stuff.

I went to the CERN open day on Sunday April 6^th - I’ll put up videos (of the Computer Center) and general photos if someone reminds me. For now, here and here.

I saw Muse and The Futureheads on April 12^th (Teenage Cancer Trust) thing with Oliver Jones (I don’t think I give that guy enough credit for his sociopolitical intelligence. A good guy. One to watch.) and it was awesome.

With Bryant Tan and Charlie Patterson being prodigiously good informaticians and Vivan somewhere in Princeton talking to legends of computing, it actually seems like maybe some of the interesting things that are going to happen in computer science could, you know, be initiated by some of us. That’s cool. We’re not bad. As Mr Rokison despairs over our computing set, I can’t help thinking that actually we’ve come a long way - and are, for the most part, totally awesome.

Also, I’m going to buy this. It is an almost-perfect proxy for the experience of old computer stuff. Which I missed. Because of time.

I saw Iron Man. I didn’t think it was a masterpiece… but I thought it was very good, actually. The thing I liked about Fantastic Four was the characterisation (especially The Thing and The Human Torch) - but the rest of it was crap. Iron Man, however, had Mr Downey Jr. (who I thought was really good in this - REALLY!) as well as other general awesomeness. I don’t know about the Stane guy - I don’t think he had the villainous undercurrent these superhero bad guys usually do. I think a subtle hint of what a character will develop into isn’t actually that unrealistic and can be an elegant storytelling device, even if people pan things like that as making the plot too obvious etc.. Done properly, it would have added weight. Anyway, yeah. That was good. Yeah.

Good things coming up: The Dark Knight, Watchmen, The Incredible Hulk
Horrifying things: A-levels

Crippling self-doubt, not helped by genius of peers, can be remedied, I found out, with guitar practise*. Just practise. Seriously. You’ll be a better guitarist and worry less. Coping mechanisms: fun, fun, fun! I don’t even let the self-doubt thing percolate properly anymore. I just refresh my whole brain whenever it starts. It’s pretty good.

Pax

* lulz commas

SciCast went reasonably well considering how… uh, basically we had a rather high input:output ratio… =]

Michael (Bali) agreed with me that I was losing my intelligence, citing my random theories which I adopt because “some famous guy wrote them” etc. and I guess he’s right but I think that’s a slightly outdated viewpoint. I am now totally lost - but at least I can’t be criticised as much for trying too hard to justify my own existence/define myself as an individual.

I think I’m going to have to find a happy medium between rationalism and acceptance of the uncertainty that underpins reality. Urgh. I continue to catch solipsism’s eye when it looks around but I don’t think I’ll strike up a conversation just yet. I have to trust that even in the total absence of purpose or meaning, my actions’ consequences are somehow valid. I don’t really know if I can do that, but I have to, right?

Right?

Pax

This morning, while considering the Wired being represented by messed up red pools in shadows in SEL, I looked for my own shadow. Depressingly, there was not enough ambient light to cast a shadow. Dark days indeed… and then in the afternoon the red clouds made me think I was insane.

I have a backlog of three chemistry homeworks to find/do for tomorrow, and I have to plan this SciCast preliminary presentation thing. I am glad that I have things to do.

My electric guitar teacher, David V Miles (link very out of date, but at least I’m not deep linking), is trying to help me play faster by teaching me crazy shred legato techniques which I must practise until I can play them very, very quickly. Maybe when I can, I’ll redo Requiem (again) with some insanely fast solo.

Better start my homework now. Let’s all love Lain!

Pax

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3FEKJNAE3c]

Pax

[...snip...]

Being awesome isn’t inherently good, unless Vivan was oversimplifying something… but it will help me to offset my stupidity and dementia. I don’t understand the significance of hypertime - just another dimension we can never directly interact with?

What the hell is socionics?

Pax

In previous posts I have alluded to things from my past reappearing in such ways that I understand them better this time around (e.g. the Game of Life and SEL). Something else is happening too. Usually, I phase through interests. That is to say, when I am interested in one thing - be it fencing, physics, computing or music - I neglect the others, both in terms of wanting to do them and actually doing them. However, now I feel like I want to engage in all my interests. I’ve never experienced this before - it’s some kind of consolidation of who I am. I may still lack an identity but now I am ready to forge one. I am no longer a computer enthusiast OR a bad musician OR a wannabe fencer etc. - I am in a state of superposition of all of them.

Observe me and my wavefunction collapses and I appear to be only one, but observe me again and I may differ… or not.

My analogy is approximately 1*10^-999999*awesomeness_of_Feynman.

That makes it the single greatest analogy ever.

Pax

I was meant to go for the Guitar-X thing today, but I woke up too late (at 14:34, to be precise). I don’t know what I’m doing or what I want to do. I’m so tired! It’s unbelievable! Nuclear projects were described as “tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon”. Oh no! I am not sure what’s going on, you know. I really am not sure. Ha ha ha! Also, call me retarded, but was the point about Slughorn thinking that Lily was good at potions and that Harry, when using Snape’s textbook, had inherited her abilities because Snape, who had potions with Lily, gave her all the hints he devised? Snape is pretty great. So is Dumbledore. So is Voldemort. All great, really. How great.Sometimes I want to know everything and live forever and meet everyone who died and exhaust everything and just be eternal. Sometimes that’s enough to make me consider religion. HA HA HA, religion. I will live forever as a series of sceptical statements and hopefully scientific achievements. As Elliot said in response to me saying that I wanted to do something significant, “Most people don’t do anything”. How right he was.Pax

I’ve just realised something that threatens to totally mess me up - forever:

Ethics is like psychology which is like quantum physics - the conclusions don’t seem right; they’re uncomfortable, inconvenient and go against everything I wanted them to be!

I just don’t know what I’m doing now.

Also, the good ol’ test (my results have worsened a lot since I last took this: perhaps I’m just more honest now? I think that’s it… I was expecting “Very High” for Histrionic, but hey…)

Pax