Death by suffocation

Do not let the Epson printer head get exposed to air. If a cartridge is empty, there is a well of ink left in the print head to keep it moist and UNCLOGGED. If you remove the empty cartridge without replacing it with a new one, that well of ink will dry and clog the head. That's why Epson printers keep track of how much your print--so they can stop you before you let it dry out.

Worst week of my life

Is it really? I doubt it. Is it probably? I can't think of a worse one. The bright side (the scary side) is that I don't really care. I'm almost looking forward to the relatively positive light it will cast everything in and it's not like there was nothing redeeming about the week. Next week? It'll probably similar to this week. What happened here? (You can tell that it's going to be a good post, right?)

I have a paper and three exams monday and tuesday. Sunday I kinda have to not be around all day and then I have to come back to work a shift I can't work properly without my password generator. This is a terrible rant.

Well, another bright spot is that everything will look good in comparison to this week. When everything goes well, everything looks bad, right? On to the enumeration. First, I fail to do not one but two programming assignments. Then, I don't fall asleep in class for a day! What a suprise. Then, I have a decent officers meeting. Apple goes up 10 dollars since my sale (yay! [note sarcasm]). I have a decent exam experience. I lose my keys, usb memory key, and password generator for work. I have a nice walk around suburban New Brunswick looking for it and talk to my mom. I find out that I have a $1000 extra dollars to spend dropping my meal plan next semester (good for when I get fired or resign from my job). Oh, I also took the taxi within a 1 mile radius of Rutgers 4 times!!

updated 12:42 same day

Be deliberate

Throughout my life, I've had an aversion to deliberate action and planning. Studying should not be undertaken, because it was too deliberate. Learning should be coincedental and studying should be unnecessary. Humility and courtesy should be thoughtless. Generous and kind deeds were not done without fear of appearing to expect approval or reciprocation. Friendships (if any) were underappreciated and not deliberately made (that started to change after governor's school, but it was kinda late). Wow, what a bad philosophy. I'm currently taking a blogging break, because it's taking me an absurd amount of time to complete an assignment for my African politics class.

What's the result of this, you shouldn't have to try philosophy? Absent-mindedness, indecisiveness, under-socialization, no systematic reasoning, no critical thinking, and no study habits and pathological procrastination results. If it's not as bad as I make it sound, it wasn't to my credit. Thanks to everyone's who's saved my butt, everyone who's reached out to me, people who bear with my strangeness. Several keywords I hope to keep in mind are to be SYSTEM, ENGAGEMENT, REASON, PLANNING, CONCENTRATION.

Utter ignorance

I accidentally bought back my apple shares after selling them because I placed a limit order to buy at particular price. Well, a limit is a limit. It's a boundary. It means that if the market price matches is better than the limit you set, it'll execute. What I wanted to do, was to wait til the market value reached a certain level before buying back. I should've placed a stop limit/market order.

It's an utterly embarrassing way to lose 3 x 11.99 dollars.

Don't ask

This blog has a soundtrack.

Don't be a bystander

This post and the last started to sound like me giving advice, but again, it's still addressed mostly to myself. Often I find myself in, let's say new situations. I can explain it all away by saying, oh, I'm introverted and I like to observe and think before getting involved, but really. That can really get out of hand.

The lesson is, don't be a bystander.

The worst of you

Don't let anyone bring out the worst in you. Then you stoop to their level.

Deadlines

Goals need deadlines. Seriously.

Don't leave home without it

You know what VISA taught us about never leaving home without a credit card? I learned that lesson too well, but it's stupid, because nobody forgets their credit cards. They either had their wallets with them or not. People these days only forget CASH. CASH, CASH, CASH is used for so much. Donations. Restaurants. Chipping in for stuff. What is the correct amount of cash to carry around? My friend J.P. (name deleted to protect him from muggers) says $50 should be enough for day-to-day existence. I guess that means to carry it in various denominations.

Forgot to wear protection

The age old problem of eating spaghetti while wearing a white shirt...

It's not that I'm not a good speller

I seem to chronically omit rs from the word your. I think your, but you gets typed... I think it has something to do with my corpus callosum and you all being on the right side of the keyboard and the message to type the R gets lost somehow.

Lesson... remember this tendency...

What's the good of writing down your mistakes if you just forget them?

Ok, so move out was a disaster. And, I got sick (and missed out on Great fun) from all the staying up and other unsavory things, etc. Is this a part of know your limits as well as review you stupid flagged-out-so-you-can-avoid-them tendencies? Yes.

I belong in a cult

So as we're working on our Operating Systems project, I repeatedly have myself proven wrong by believing/assuming things without substantiating them with evidence. First, I confuse ppid and uid (they're actually totally different values), and then assume that processes are displayed in order of CPU usage, even when they show zero usage down the line (they're actually displayed in order of PID). The sad thing is that I was so adamant about them.

The last point was about what does or doesn't invoke the scheduler, which prompted Mike, who usually won arguments to ask me whether or not I had ever participated in a cult. Well, not really, unless you consider the Catholic Church a cult. Even there, I regret that I'm not too faithful. Kinda like the time I was adamant about the spelling of definitely and insisting that it was spelled definately.

I think what's symptomatic here is me jumping to conclusions without thinking things through, and then stubbornly refusing to budge. The up-side is that I usually admit that I'm wrong, but that happens way too often. The lesson is that I should think things through and justify to myself logically my decisions and actions.

On waking up...

Now, regarding waking up in the morning. How many close calls and missed classes/flights do I have to experience before I learn? Phone alarms are not trustworthy and staying up all night may be the only way. That or planning ahead and getting enough sleep or something else.

A major close call was when I had work the day before and Will McG woke me up to go to our last regional tournament for table tennis. Then I missed my flight coming home from Texas, although luckily catching a standby seat on the next flight. Then I miss the second algorithms lecture in a row right before an exam...

BTW, the scarcity of posts here in no way represents a decrease in mistakes... and in this case, no news doesn't necessarily mean good news :/

MORE INSIGHT ON PROCRASTINATION: Removing things from your "stack" of things to do ASAP is not merely a preference, but essential to getting things done on time.

Know your audience

So in trying to get corporate sponsors for the table tennis team's trip to our national championships, we tried to sell the sponsorship as a good business decision and an opportunity to gain a stronger foothold in a fast-growing market. Well, one response went something like, "This idea has merit, but it'll have to be approved by marketing. [Therefore] We won't fund this."

The lesson of the day (I've been bad about keeping this updated) is that the paid philanthropists in a corporation don't care about marketing. They want to know why you are a good cause and not why you'll make them money. Now, this might vary from company to company, but generally, super-large ones are more horizonatally structured (?) and focused on accomplishing their purpose, not some other department's purpose. This is sad, because we had what I thought was a pretty compelling case.

You gotta play the game...

I made a pretty big mistake in finding out about Sony's flash new line of flash players and still not selling. This was about 9:00 AM on Tuesday morning, me having gotten about 3 hours of sleep the day before. AAPL was trading a dollar lower than the previous day in extended-hours trading. Fast forward one day, AAPL is down 3-4 dollars a share. Well, it's not the end of the world.

The other big mistake is overestimating the value of "the webcast" that was aired yesterday and not today as I had expected. Probably the combination of none-too interesting news, combined with the flash announcement lifted any pressure to boost the stock price.

I'm not worried that the price will go back up, just that I didn't capitalize from this significant dip that could have netted more shares. And I really like Sony's players, too. Shoud've stayed out, but now that I'm back in the game... AHHHH this is disastrous. It's like Apple's price dropped 14 dollars had it not split (remember the whole naptersnapster announcement). END DISORGANIZED RANTING.

Communication in this day and age...

Still isn't as easy as I thought. Rule number one: Never assume people check their emails daily. Never assume they check their emails weekly. Never assume people check their emails. That is, unless they're reading this blog. Don't learn the hard way.

Lesson for next time: Don't assume people check their voicemail.