So I just got back from the family reunion at Nevada City. Some of you may have noticed that I was on DA during that time. I tried logging in twice (on different days) but was only on for a couple seconds each time, since we were really busy. Other than that I've had no contact with the outside world for seven days straight.

I'm not in a position to DO ANYTHING for the next day or two. Prolly means I'm gonna miss the 4th of July think with you, Mark. And I'm not going to be able to do the Anime Convention with everyone either.


My mom's not into doing anything. Just my asking will cause her to go off on me XP

Also my Mood journal section is STILL broken. Apparently I'm still gonna be Dumbfounded for a while

Yeah, I dunno if anyone knows this...but I'm gonna be gone from today to next tuesday or wednesday up north to visit my dad's side of the family for out annual reunion. GONNA BE WIN. We've got lakeside cabins rented, everyone brings instruments and dogs, it's always fun. Plus there's like 30 people in all (most of them cousins) coming around.

I don't expect to have internet for the whole time, so don't expect responses from me for anything until next week.

On a side note, I'm participating in an open research thing from the Lucidity Institute at Stanford (yay Stephen LaBerge!). It's a basically studying better ways to help people new to it all induce lucid dreams by finding the right sleep position for them based on handedness and involuntary tendancies torward nasal dialation.

it's my new word for things that surpass even "Eats Your Face"

The story behind it? I was playing with the Stumble Upon add-on for Firefox and came across something called PhysicsForums.com I immediately looked for a Quantum Physics subforum, which I found, and the very first topic I saw was titled.

"What is the operator for velocity in spherical coordinates?"

at that moment I knew I had found happyness XP

in case you're wondering, it should be noted that it's apparently a controversial issue, because the variables used to represent position and momentum are different depending on what specific branch of a theory you're working with. for example...okay, maybe that's be a little much XD
BUT YOU CAN SEE that I'm excited about it! Online resources win SO hard!
...
as long as they're reliable

also there's a bug in my journal page that isn't letting me change the "mood" setting, so it'll be stuck on Dumbfounded for a while XD

*lol update*
so I totally forgot to even give you the word. It was supposed to be the title but I completely forgot to write it. as you can see that's changed now XP

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Take Another Look
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

One of the things I always hear from people about quantum mechanics is that it's hard to understand because it's so complicated. As with almost everything people have trouble with, I find that the reason it's so hard to understand it because it requires people to take a new perspective on something. To think in a new way is the difficult part, and once you've gotten that far the rest is alot easier.

General Relativity requires something of the same sort as well, but it's still relevent to very recognizable and familiar concepts.

Physicist Brian Greene wrote a popular book called 'The Elegant Universe', which was made into a 3-hour tv special by the same name. There's an excerpt from it that illustrates the differences between the two rather well.

go here [link]
and click on the segment titled 'Two Conflicting Sets of Laws' in the top row, middle column.

So I'm not happy right now.

Last night, my DSL modem apparently forgot how to connect to a WLAN miniport. I got no PPPoe connection which would mean no internet, except I've got neighbors who don't know how to set passwords on their routers.

yeah, I'm back to siphoning a connection from foreign networks. it's slow going, but the real problem is that I couldn't get my modem's UHP to ping, even through Earthlink's direct WLAN.

also, EA is distributing pre-ordered copies of the SCC alphabetically by email...I know that my email adress starts with the 20th letter of the alphabet, but the SCC shipped 8-9 hours ago, you'd think they'd have gotten around to just about everyone by now, eh?

anyway I'll feel alot better once I can figure out what went wrong with the modem, I'mma keep working on it until I finally get my confirmation email from EA.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Alright, it looks like I've found a way to circumvent the point-to-point protocol configuration and access the ethernet port connection exclusively. this lets me avoid stealing other people's internet at the price of a highly insecure connection. anyone on the network could look at anything I do at any given moment, even non internet-related things, so I need to be careful until I can fix the modem.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Another trickyness! I still haven't fixed the modem, but I've solved the PPP security issue. By feeding the connection through our wireless router with another ethernet cable, I can limit the access other people on the network have to my computer.

This works because the router isn't controlled by earthlink, it's controlled by Lynksis! During my tech support call, the rep I was talking to immediately saw that something was blocking his access, so he told me to connect the computer directly to the modem. That's where I got the idea for this little trick!

also still no activation email from EA. I'm really getting impatient here...by the way, here's my Sporepedia page [link]

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

They finally goot to the 'T' section! I'm downloading the SCC full version right now! about 11 minutes left.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

So good news and bad news. Good news is that normal internet is back up, bad news is that EA STILL SUCKS MAJORLY.

basically their download manager causes compatability issues with the SCC, so bad that it crashes to desktop as soon as you try to open the program, but if you uninstall it you can't use the game in the first place since it's also linked inexorably to the said crappy download manager.

I've looked all over for a solution, and I may have found one. I'm re-installying the SCC now and once it's done I'll do the bugfix and let you know what's up