DSP Development Boards

So, our school came out with the new TI 64x DSP Testboards, pretty sweet stuff. Runs at 350 MIPS, those things are really quite marvelous. Finally something to work with.
I used the older boards last year in making a nonlinear adaptive speaker equalization system. With an accelerometer attached to a speaker's diaphragm, I used feedback from that accelerometer to determine how much the speaker's off from the original music/speech being played, and how I can make up for it by doing stuff before I pass them on to the speaker. Say if the bass is too quiet, then the system can turn the bass up a notch before passing it on to the speaker, so that it would come out equalized. This system needs to do this real-time, and that was a challenge. I had to use the newer TI 62x DSP boards then, implementing my nonlinear filtering algorithm was a pain because not many people have done it before. This one was particularly interesting, because my professor, Douglas Jones, had a student do a master's thesis on it with him, which is the filtering configuration I ended up using then.
I am looking to do some pattern classification tasks with these guys, such as pitch detection, timbre detection, so on and so forth. I don't know where the projects will go, but they might evolve into something.

So, 14.25 CAD HD Projectors...

So much for 14.25 CAD HD Projectors... I found them at megaxport.com, really nice projector. Going for 14.25 Canadian Dollars, makes no sense, right? I know, but I tried to get one, keeping an eye out for anything that looked fishy. There were a couple of parts where they want you to check the box for an Xbox 360 Pre-Order (I do not understand this, they have been on the market for almost a year now), and I carefully avoided marking those. By the end of the order, they sent me an email detailing the purchase, which is 28.* CAD including shipping.
Then I went back to the website, logged into my account, and there is an additional $999.* charge placed on 2 Xbox pre-orders. That is most intriguing and outrageous. I do not want to acknowledge that they deliberately added those costs in there, but I am not naive enough to believe otherwise. This is very dangerous. After a certain period of time elapses, getting the money back would be very difficult. If and when that charge appears on my credit card account, I can get the bank to talk to them. Amazing. This glaring disregard of the most basic of business etiquette and more importantly, common human decency, just left me speechless for a while.

Playing a Game Called "Overlord"

It's an interesting game. Well, after I got my video card upgrade on my computer, this game runs much much better. It's got beautiful graphics and pretty unique interface. The concept though, is somewhat borrowed from the "Dungeon Keeper" series.
So you are an overlord. I don't know how you came to be this "overlord" figure yet, but apparently you are in possession of absolute trust and loyalty of a bunch of minions. They aren't too impressive, though; just small, goblin-like creatures that go around and ravage at your whim.
At the beginning, you are quite weak. You don't know any spells, your attacks are harmless, your resilience low, constitution frail, and your minions few in number. As you progress through the game, though, you collect artifacts and spells that make you and your minions better. In particular, you can find these forges in which you sacrifice your minions' lives to forge magical weapons (this is a pretty cool part of the game, you say "forge" and you tell how many minions, and what kind of minions you want to sacrifice, then a cut-scene appears where the exact number and kinds of minions would rush through the door and jump into the forge, while making wild noises. If you said sacrifice 500, then it will take a long time for them to all jump in, one after another). Your minions will pick up anything that they happen upon along the way, say put hollowed pumpkins on their heads to increase armor, you get the picture (unpleasantly, sometimes they are dumb about this - they will see something clearly on the ground without picking it up - and you need to explicitly send them out to do so). Their effectiveness goes up as more items are collected and equipped.
Ah, the interface. You fight like any first-person RPG, but no pausing. The unique thing is the minions. You send them out straight by left-clicking in a direction, but they will just rush out and auto-kill/smash/loot everything in the way. However, if you want them to be more careful about things (because they will rush into a fire and die, if that's where you are pointing), or more strategic, you can group them, and "sweep" them across terrain - guide them with gentle mouse movements - to arrive at the destination, where they will commence auto-kill/smash/loot. A lot of monsters in the game are much tougher than your average minion, so it is important to use them with tact.
I'm not sure what the plot of this game is yet, so far I have been trying to restore my tower after the latest hero came in and smashed it up. I found myself a mistress who is kind of weird. That's all, maybe I will write again if I come across something interesting.

New Blog Host

Now my blog is hosted on a new SFTP server, more secure, easier to maintain, for I have access to everything. Better things will ensue, I am sure of it.
I have recently started reading Samuel Beckett, and it is rather fascinating. I will try to explain more if I get the chance.
Until next time,

1.1.3. The Aftermath of asdf

1.1.3. The Aftermath of asdf



Many among us have dreamt, at one point or another, to become a hero, to be the preserver or the liberator, to perform beyond the call of duty, and be recognized as such by the people. Such is a glamorous dream; while the motives are not entirely selfless, the notion is still commendable. To achieve and be recognized for the achievements, to prove one’s value to oneself and everyone else, is fulfillment, satisfaction, and success. On the other hand, many among us have feared for failing an assignment, falling short of expectation, crumbling under pressure, and being despised for such lapses. For a hero of the people, this fear can amount to incapacitating levels: his power burdens him with much responsibility, which in turn generates much fear for failure. One mishap, and the hero becomes the scapegoat: people are gifted when it comes to blaming others for sins of their own, especially those ‘others’ who have tried and failed to help them. “If only he did better…” In this light, many heroes were subjected to exceedingly harsh judgments, deemed worthless, and derided for many generations after their deaths. However, is that the worst fate for a hero, to be mocked for thousands of years to come? No, the worst fate of a hero is to be forgotten, his name invisible in the books of history and the memories of the people, his deeds absent from the decorated lines of legends and epics, and their effects taken for granted. When his sweat and blood is spilled for reasons unknown to others, can there possibly be reward in his sacrifice? Some may argue that one who seeks recognition is no more than a mercenary of fame; but arguments aside, the suffering of the forgotten heroes from the communal negligence is very real.

Our hero in Chapter 1.1.2 embarked upon his adventure with a heart full of hope and anticipation; great expectations were placed on him, both from the people and from the scholars in controversy. In convincing others of the validity of their hypotheses the scholars had convinced themselves: they saw the quest of the hero as a way to prove their unsurpassed wisdom and foresight. The people, on the other hand, held mixed feelings towards the hero's undertaking. Some wished for dispelling of the dreadful theory put forth by the scholars, others wished for changes to be brought about by the hero's potential discoveries, and yet others feared change, and wished to never hear from him again. The resolution of our hero's quest was a long one, and the lasting effects of his deeds should never be taken lightly; because for the negligence and faithlessness of the people, the course of the hero's quest, the facets of the prophecy and the hypothesis, and ultimately, the past, present and future fate of us all have been irreversibly altered. Some opine that the hero's case have not been resolved even till this day. There is truth in that, although that expression is more likely figurative. The events that are occurring now have little to do with the actions of the hero; but the disturbance of history and time-line, the general reversal of the Divine Laws, and the severance of us from our ancestral knowledge, would never have taken place if not for his existence. In a sense, the prophecy induced the irresponsible hypothesizing, which provoked the hero's quest, whose findings -- or the lack of which -- invoked responses from the people and machines alike, which shaped the world that we live in. It is the case of the Northern ancestors and the Northern Lands that yet lacks resolution, the prophecy of asdf and jkl; that needs definition and interpretation. Mayhap the resolution of the roots will bring us all to the end of this era. Perchance soon, a new era will begin, an era in which asdf and jkl; will be connected somehow. The answer lays in the destination of our very hero's journey -- the Great Haze.

New Computer Is Good

I assembled a new computer for my new home entertainment system:

Asus Motherboard, DDRII800 dual channel access, 800MHz FSB
Pentium D 820 2.8GHz Dual Core 2Mb Cache
2X512Kb DDRII800 RAM
80Gb SATA 7200 RPM HD w/ 8Mb Cache
nVidia 7300GT w/ 256 MB RAM @ 2.5 ns
Creative Audigy 4 w/ 7.1 Surround (Oh man this one is good)

This one will have sovereignty over the 46' LCD TV in the living room, it has a resolution of 1280x800... There is also a 5.1 surround sound system, so... upmixing with the sound card when playing non-quality demanding movie stuff, digital input from the sound card when playing for quality or from a 5.1 source (DVDs or so). I am pretty happy. I think that this computer is really balanced, with plenty of everything, and lacking nothing in particular. So, well done to me.

Finally, a computer to really play UT2004. On a TV.

The Saga of asdf -- 1.1.2 The Dispute that Ensued

As discussed in Chapter 1.1.1, the once-renowned scholars, then discredited by their intolerance towards their own theorizing, had not given up on fighting for, as they saw it, what rightfully belonged to them. In their shame they proclaimed that the unnatural forces affecting them came not from their irresponsible hypothesizing, but from the certain curse that was passed down, originally, from the Northern Ancestors. They claimed that since they were about to discover the true nature of the curse, it had inflicted them in order to disable their search for its alleviation. Such claims created the very chaos that we see now amidst conflicting historical interpretations and misplaced facts.

However, as seen throughout the course of history, not once has chaos won over order, be it good or bad. There has always been some kind of resolution at the end of the turmoil, a conformation, and a submission by the people to some common ideal, advocated by certain heroes who were impersonations of strength and character in the eyes of the people. Thus when the brawling of the historians reached a climax, and tension began building in the general public in fear of an actual curse placed upon them for their realization, a hero of the people stepped forward and accepted the challenge: this hero, our hero, decided to undertake an excursion to the deserted Northern Lands, and find the true origins of the Northern Prophecy, within which there are two particularly strange entities that he hoped to demystify: asdf and jkl;. There had not been any other historical mentioning of such entities in existence from any other source, and no scholar had been able to associate such names to significant occurrences or people in the Northern Lands, or anywhere else. Although it was possible that the prophecy had never been realized, the picture it painted was certainly a gloomy one. The hero had resolved to change the course of history, be it past, present, or future, to prevent the realization of such a prophecy in the land where he considered home.

The Saga of asdf -- 1.1.1 The Bloodline of asdf

"We shall sing songs that cleanse the earth, when JLK: comes;
He will reproach the tormenters, then transform them to sheep;
He'll weep, he'll feed, he'll keep, he'll lead, for our weak hearts he'll heed;
And he'll defend us 'gainst the void of lurking, smirking asdf; ..."

The coming of asdf was first prophetized by a folk song originating in the Northern lands. The curiosity lies in that the Northern lands, once a land of exceptional beauty and home to the most intelligent and devout people, suffered heavily from the First Divine Intervention, from which most of its inhabitants lost their free will. The mystery of the transformation of its populus still remains unresolved, though many hypotheses have emerged in attempts to find the true reasons behind the providencial punishment. Some scholarly documents, penned by legendary authors equally, if not more, mysterious as the mystery itself, have made extensive references to this particular piece of folklore: in the Northern Lands, the coming of asdf and JKL; are, if not believed, widely known to be prophetized by the common ancestors of all Northern clans, the people that "were the precurse of the human accompanishments that are surely to supersede the belief in a higher power than us, or, them" (General Historics, Volume XI, Page 34892). The precise causes as to why the General Historics Generation Algorithm has chosen these precise words to describe the ancestors of the Northern clans can never be known, since men and machines are, ever since their emergence, "failing more and more at understanding the other party, like lions and rabbits, the sun and the moon, a camel and the tides, an angry husband and an angry wife, or a fleeting sadness and a piece of marshmellow" (General Historics, Volume II, Page 29). However, some most authoritative scribes within the discourse of litterae ex machina have vocalized their opinion on the first words among the entire dictation: while "precurse" is but a forerunning, a certain substring within this particular word is suggestive of a hidden meaning. Unfortunately, the uncertainty they have imbibed in exchange for their renewed controversial status within the intellectual circles was too much for their now frail innards, which have grown quite selective of their ingestions from years of controlled intaking. Their hidden pain came to show itself when their symptoms became apparent enough for themselves to accept: the most popular member among them was sighted randomly bursting into tears 547 times for the entire past year.

asdf

asdf... Came across a site: http://www.asdf.com. Didn't know people liked asdf that much.
asdf is a quick fix. It stands for the void that I speak of. When I tire of answering the questions we ask ourselves, I use asdf as a placebo. Surely, it should be plentifully good; better than nothing.

So the story of the asdf shall begin on this very day. I have really got something this time.

Why do flies exist

Why?
Someone asked me today, "Why do flies exist?" It's a really tricky question. They just do.
In our accountancy we often overlook utility. True utility, that is.
Watched Fight Club, and found it to be quite expressive of this void, the void which dangerously constitutes the foundations of much of our functioning.
In life, we preserve it. Flies do, too. They feverishly search the world for edibles, and then reproduce, compelled to preserve their gift, to pass it on: they receive, and then they give, maintaining the equilibrium. The void is why.

William Faulkner

Yeah, he is pretty good.
I just finished his Wild Palms, which was originally titled If I Forget thee, O Jerusalem (Methinks this one is from Psalm, but correct me if I am wrong, OK?). Editors have been continuously plaguing and blighting the purity of creativity, or so it seems. Anywho, it was about finding "Jerusalem", I guess.
Well, majestic. I like that word, and I like the sense it bears: the majesty of a certain phenomenon is the weight of it, the significance and impact and ineffaceable impression, and the inevitable inundation of sense and adulation in oneself that follows one’s full perception of its occurrence.
I was filled with a strange but fresh perception after completing reading If I Forget Thee. Oh, right. If you haven't read it, read it. Now that's out of the way, let's avoid talking about details lest I make unintentional revelations of the progressions of either story (dang I already told you that there are two parallel plotlines), but focus on the purposes of Faulkner's narratives as perceived by me, of which I have only recently be able to come to a somewhat definitive conclusion.
It has been three months since I finished the book. It warns of one thing: respectability. In his masterful setting of a back-drop, a fair idea of respectability can be drawn: DO NO WRONG. It does not mean that everything a respectable man does has to work out perfectly and make everyone happy, but he must do it in a "respectable" manner, which, in actuality, is equivalent to "agreeable". Heroic acts were seen, mercy and grace shown, hardships endured; but while these noble deeds were carried out, in one man's case, for the realization of his ideals, they were for the maintenance of his image and stature in the other's. The latter is propelled to perform those deeds disregarding his will, since they are the actions that will be agreed and praised by many. Ultimately, the question becomes: when one is given the facility to make a choice, what is it that influences the man to choose one way or the other? Is it the pursuit of his ideals and dreams? Or is it the need of acceptance and praise from others? Which one is "righter"? And pragmatically speaking, if the choice would be the same either way, is there no telling them apart?
To become respectable one stops noticing the unanswered questions I listed above, and focus on the satisfaction of the consequences of his actions. One is rewarded handsomely for being "respectable", i. e. both economic and social needs of a man can be satisfied. His life then becomes satisfaction-centered; he revolves around becoming more satisfied day by day. Eventually he loses his insistences and lives his life entirely for his satisfaction's sake that he can even looks upon himself respectfully and extract pleasure from seeing his respectable image. But the other man who holds his ideals will not be deterred by the judgments of others. It is not compensation of satisfaction that he seeks; he is purpose-oriented. He lives his life for an integral idea that he has taken as the reason of his existence, and for that idea he is willing to invest all of his possessions, but will not trade that idea for a life of satisfaction and pleasure. It is that strife (be it empty or not) that sets aside a doomed person from a person with a possibly-doomed purpose. "Let him be, let him live."

Ok.

I laid waste to the barricade.

There was no witness, no bystanders, no crossfire. There was no barricade.

I laid waste to it, I made short work of it. Then there was silence. It was a delicate, inflective, subtle silence. The barricade fell from nothing, nothing but me. I came from above, from behind, my trail convoluted like a serpent tail, while the tale was weaved in the day, told by night, forgotten with the renewed sunrise, all foretold, all struggled, all pacified, and all fled.

Then there was the fallen barricade, its origin now a quizzical mystery. Burnt wood, quaintly redolent, sends a ghost from the past. What surfaced with ease then, now remains buried deeply within the burrow, its defenses layering up day by day, another core with barricado untouchable which must fall by my hand one day. All foretold, all struggled, all pacified, and all fled. I fled too.

It is precisely in fleeing that I came upon the conquering: in fleeing honor I conquered my pride, in fleeing pain I conquered my stoutness, in fleeing substance I conquered my consciousness. Such lands I conquer, such cities I purge; in the end I find nothing.

And the rejuvenation occurs without knowing.

One sound, one vision: all the opposing armies come back with quadrupled strength. They will not be ruled. They will not be contained. It is my folly for assuming the opposite. Because THEY ARE TRUE. I, the active entity, am lost in the war against myself. There is no more treaty to keep, no more land to defend; they win. Truth wins. There is no extracting myself from reality, or attacking the barricade of freedom in truth. I am the fallen, in all my wars.

I have fallen in love. Again.

Beauty, Everyone...

Everyone... Such should be the scope of what one calls Beauty. Everyone holds it in possession, everyone creates it in different ways. The nature of the work is simple; a mere "pleasing" may suffice for many as the consequences of Beauty. But there is Beauty of some sort in suffering, in persevering beyond belief, in bearing, sternly, the burden of being: there is Beauty in those that make one shiver, those that lure tears, those that dwarf one's most brilliant accomplishments in their presence. It is a humbling, a decimating force, landing on our retina as a sun glare. It brings about an annihilation, a purification of sorts. No earthliness sprouts in its blazing trail.

OK, I have disembarked my load of bull for now. Really, this is about beauty, such common observation to the gifted! Is it an immitation of life and reality? A transcension? Or an illusion created by our insatiable vanity? Many forms can it take, for many purposes can it be. It changes with time, yet remains immutable in its core.

A divorce between utility and necessity caused the escalating transcension of Beauty. Back in the days when an object was utilized because it was useful and necessary, Beauty is functionality; a woman was beautiful only if she was fat; a pot was beautiful only if it was sturdy. Then we conjured up our own standards. Every newly borne is ineluctably infected by the standards of judgment. One decision at a time, we define our own world where necessity is no more, and all that is valued will be built upon the human race's mere hypothesization. Then we would have no solid ground left, and all of us would be floating within cottony clouds. Then necessity will make its come-back. People long for the things that they do not possess. It is not the identities of the things themselves, but rather people's status of NOT owning them, that makes them valuable. When people lose their ability to live a life driven by necessities, they would strive to lead a "necessitated" life. Insatiable.

night is the waking hour
when all mouths fall silent, still
still the chimneys point to the stars, lest
lest the furnace is lit
those tall, solemn shades dance wildly
licked by tiny, restless flames--

all swpet down the drain, the rain-water
assiduous sweepers, splashing the puddles with their boots
broom-twigs wet with earthy fluid: tic, toc
the night slips away-- with the forced streams
the chimneys were diligently sealed--