Other than running a few kms and watching girls putting the killer moves on each other at a Muay Thai tournament, today I helped out at a UofT recruitment event.

The poor high school students were crazily high strung and asking questions like, whether it's better to have a 77.4 or have a 77.3 but also be involved in their school's baseball team. Though there's no way to completely reassure them that the world isn't about to end, I think that I managed to coax a few of them away from the edge.

"No matter where you go, it'll be a good experience. Your academic experience is what you make of it. Even if you don't get your first choice, you can still have a lot of fun, learn a ton, and come out on top at the end."

Of course, I wasn't talking to them. I was talking to me.

Isn't it strange? A huge crowd of students are lined up to ask me some question about how they'll survive their application process and I'm floundering to try to survive my own. And every time a student asked whether or not I enjoyed my undergrad experience ("It was awesome. I miss it already and I'm not even gone yet."), it made me feel a little more regretful that my eyes are so far ahead instead of enjoying where I am now.

Ah well. They're stressed, I'm stressed, we're all a little stressed. Such is the nature of applications. You put yourself on the line, close your eyes, and hope that if rejection is your fate, it'll be quick and painless. Who needs grad school, anyway?

My TAs were marking my team's assignment in the same room as me this afternoon.

I probably should have left.
Or told them who I was.
Or turned on music so that I couldn't hear.

But the opportunity to hear people critique your work honestly is a rare thing indeed, and I felt that it might be a good experience. I need a little more practice with getting my ego shot at a bit.

Also, I'm insatiably curious.

So instead of leaving, I looked at my laptop, an innocent fly on the wall, nobody relevant to their conversation, and listened.

And sitting there, seeking knowledge, I learned a little too much. Heard the bad choices they were going to make while marking and the short cuts they planned on taking.

I'd hoped that the experience would teach me something about myself.

Instead, it taught me a lot about TAs.

Fall vegetables have started to replace summer ones in my local grocery store, which means that this week's recipe is going to be for the fragrant spiced fall vegetable curry that I love. This recipe is not very spicy (which I consider to be its only flaw) so those of you who only eat food that burns off your tongue might consider a very spicy dish to accompany this one. But it is very warming.

Fall Curry. Serves 4 as side dish, 2 as main course

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2.5 cm chunk peeled ginger, minced
• 1.5 tsp cumin seed
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp each salt, cayenne and tumeric
• 1.5 c vegetable broth
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
• 1/2 smallish cauliflower, cut into florets
• 2 plum tomatoes, seeds removed and chopped
• 1/2 c peas
• large handful chopped coriander (optional but great)
• 1/2 can chickpeas
• 2 portions bismati rice, cooked

Method:

• Heat oil in pan. Add ginger, cumin seed and sizzle for 10 seconds. Stir in remain spices.
• Add broth and potatoes to pan. Bring to a boil. Then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.
• Stir in cauliflower and tomatoes. Mix well. Simmer, uncovered, until potatoes are very tender. This takes about 15 minutes.
• Stir in peas. Cook until hot. Add in chopped coriander, if you have it.
• Add the chickpeas and serve over basmati rice.

I spent most of my day yesterday finding all the US scholarships that I want to apply for. On my side is the fact that I have US citizenship which makes me qualified to apply for most of the scholarships down there (w00t town). But there's one major factor against me: I'm not willing to sell my soul to the States just to get grad school money. What do I mean? Read on!

Eligible applicants for Hertz Fellowships must be students of the applied physical sciences who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America, and who are willing to morally commit to make their skills available to the United States in time of national emergency (see our Moral Commitment section).

WTF?? Are you serious?

I don't even know what to say to this....it's just so....so.....something. Like, seriously. So instead of intelligent commentary, I'll just give another example:

NDTSEG Fellowship is for up to three years of study towards a Ph.D. in specific engineering, mathematics and computer science fields. Recipients of this fellowship must spend at least one term working for the Department of Defense on relevant issues during their study.

Yeah, whatever. Screw that. The idea of helping out the DoD on "relevant issues" to my expertise makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. Seriously.

This NSF sponsored grant is available only to citizens of the United States of America who are beginning their first year of graduate work at an American university in the field of science and technology. Winners of the grant agree to release all findings during their study to the United States government who may use these findings for government or military purposes.

Here's some findings, straight off the presses: go to hell.

I could keep pulling up more and more examples. Wow, talk about money coming with some heavy strings attached. Anyone want to contribute to the "Give Catspaw Money So She Doesn't Have to Sell Her Soul to The US military" fund?

Reading all of these clauses has given me a headache. And is making me feel....twitchy....about going to school in the States. I need a coffee. And then a nap. And then to think long and hard about what I want to do 'bout this whole "american school" thing.

When I listen to people who are smarter than me --- way smarter than me --- for any length of time, I usually start analyzing what makes them so smart so that I can find components of their brilliance that I can replicate and incorporate into my own personality.

Sometimes, however, I'm too busy laughing to catch my breath, nevermind search for the source of their power.

Fortunately, I think I've detected a pattern. I think I've figured it out.

In order to be brilliant, your name has to start with a "Jo". This is not to say that all "Jo-" people are brilliant, but it may be a prerequisite.

• Jon Stewart
• Joss Whedon
• Joel Spolsky
• Jon Udell

See? The "Jo" prefix leads to smarts. And tonight's Jon Stewart laughfest only contributed to my theory. Hmm. This is going to have to be investigated further. "Jocatspaw" just doesn't sound right...

The OpenNet Initiative (CitizenLab plus Harvard+Cambridge) released a report about internet censorship in Burma. (See the NYTimes article for the abridged version.)

It's another case of US tech being used to support internet censorship elsewhere, this time by a company called Fortinet. But here's the part that makes me snicker...

Fortinet, the company providing the censorship tech, denies that it directly sold such software to the regime. Nothing new there. They all deny it. But a May 2004 article in a Burmese newspaper features a picture of the company's local sales director presenting a gift to Burma's prime minister at a ceremony commemorating the sale. BAM!

Heh heh heh heh heh. If yer gonna be evil, don't lie about it. Embrace it. Accept it. Or else you'll just come out looking stoopid when evidence against you is discovered.

Remember when you were in grade school and had to write a book report but didn't want to write it so you just read the first few sentences of the book and made up the plot from there and then everyone believed you and you got a better grade than everyone else? Remember that? Well here's what happens if you don't grow out of that behaviour.

A few days ago, the BBC reported Bird Flu Found in Turkey. Birds with the H5N1 strain (which is dangerous to humans) were discovered in Romania and Turkey. Is everyone with me? Bird flu was discovered in the country named Turkey.

Today, there's news about Bird Flu Found in Turkeys. And there's interviews with people who are asked whether or not they feel safe buying turkey this thanksgiving. And interviews with scientitions who talk about how chickens and turkeys are particularly susceptible to the bird flu.

This struck me as odd...that just after bird flu was found in Turkey, there'd suddenly be a discovery of bird flu in turkeys. So I checked it out...

There was no discovery of bird flu in turkeys!

There is bird flu in Turkey, the country.
There is no bird flu in turkey, the bird that says "gobble" and tastes great with gravy and stuffing.

Some dipshit reporter must have read the headlines "Bird flu found in Turkey" and decided to hold a big scare on the dangers of thanksgiving dinner. Then other reporters read that report, and decided to add their own two cents. And suddenly people are being interviewed about gobble-gobble turkeys.

At first this discovery made me laugh. Now I think it just makes me feel sad. Very, very sad.

After a "Run Lola Run"esque dash to the GRE center, I finally wrote that damned test which had been haunting me for the past month. Though I've mostly forgotten the whole experience, I'll recount it as best I can, as I assume that some of you will be able to find humour in my suffering.

"Please sign this form", said the lady at the desk, handing me some sort of I-will-not-cheat form. The form asked for my name, the date, and then for me to copy a little paragraph about how I promise not to cheat on the test. I handed in my form.

She glanced at it and then handed me a new, identical one. "You have to write the paragraph", she said. "Write. Not print."
"Like, cursive writing?", I asked.
"Yes. Like 'cursive writing' Handwriting."
"Well, erm..."

I have a secret. Well, I have several secrets. But I have a relevant secret which is about to no longer become secret as I disclose it here. I can't write. Cursive writing, I mean. Due to some complicated not relevant story, I actually managed to miss the grades where they taught this skill.

Some of you might be saying "Well, they teach it in grade 3 and 4, but you have to use it all the time afterwards!" This is true. And most other children would therefore have picked it up later in life. But I am not most other children. I am Catspaw, stubborn child.

"Woah woah, hold on here Catspaw", you say, in our imaginary little conversation. "It's just writing. It's not that complicated. Surely you can fake it." Well that's what I thought. So I grabbed her new form, and sat down, and proceeded to write the paragraph, again, this time again in printing but with really curly little bits at the end of words, and my letters touching, and lots of loops, and slanting the printing slightly. I sat back after finishing, admiring my work, and then handed it to her.

My art was received with a Look (tm).
"This is still printing."
"No it's not! It's writing! See?" I pointed. "Loops".
"This capital 'G' is very obviously a printed 'G'."
"I...don't know...what a capital G handwritten looks like........."

There! I confessed! Was she happy? No.

"Here, I'll draw one for you. Copy this. Once all your capital letters are in handwriting, you can go in."

So after about half an hour of negotiating the fact that I'm a handwriting-deprived idiot, I was finally allowed to enter the testing area. It looks like a bunch of cubicles where everyone is wearing sound-proof headphones and trying to practice a variety of grimaces at their computer monitor.

The program began and the first few minutes were teaching me how to move and click a mouse, and how to use the multiple choice system. "So far so good", I thought, having not made a fool of myself in at least three...maybe even four minutes.

"Okay, Catspaw, thanks for the little stories but let's get to the important bits. How did it go?"

It was pretty much exactly what I expected. My best bits were sentence completion (cuz I rock), argument analysis (cuz I'm good at finding problems), and math (cuz it's grade 10 math). And, as expected, I probably only got one fifth of the antonyms section correct. Oh well. Who needs antonyms anyway when you can just add "un" and "non" prefixes to whatever word you need if one unexists.

The cool part?

It's over. No more GRE. Regardless of how well/poor they decide I did, I no longer have to worry about it. My fate is sealed.

And, if I'm really, really lucky, that sealed fate won't involve working at McDonalds.

There're a lot of acting school classes which I'd love to take: stage fighting, stage brawling, stage swordplay, ... you may notice a theme.

But above all of these, I'd love to take a class in evil laughter.

There's all sorts of evil laughter out there. But there's very few people who can do evil laughter well. Usually it just comes out silly or lame. But when true high quality evil laughter bubbles up, it's a fearsome thing to behold.

The idea of an evil laughter class seems kinda Gary Larsonesque, but I think it'd have greater practical application in my life than whatever it is I'm supposed to be studying for right now. (Syntax analysis tasks in compilers?)

Maybe instead of grad schools I should be looking into evil schools...

On the walk home today, I noticed that my backpack had magically opened on its own. Ahhhh! Everything inside could be strewn across the sidewalk somewhere between me and where I left twenty minutes ago!

I rummaged through my bag, desperate to make sure that everything I cared about what still there.

Laptop? Check.
iPod? Check.
Cell phone? Check.
Binder? Check.

Confident in the new knowledge that I hadn't lost anything vital, I continued walking home without even stopping to check if I'd lost anything else. What else could have fallen out? The remains of my lunch? (Which, by the way, shouldn't be confused with the remains of the day.) Don't worry, this story doesn't end in horror when I discover that I'd lost something I forgot about.

A few minutes later I realized that I didn't check to see if my wallet was missing. It hadn't even occurred to me. Even more interestingly, once it did occur to me, all I thought about was "is there any information in there that I can't get back?" I'd recently memorized my social insurance number, and was pretty sure I could remember all the other information on cards and such.

Sure, if I'd lost all my ID cards, it'd be a pain in the ass to get them replaced. But I wouldn't lose anything forever. I even had about $80 in my wallet. To lose that would suck. But it wouldn't be lost forever. Well, I mean, it would...because someone would probably find it and go spend it on a videogame or something, but my point is...

What I cared about was the information.

Last week I backed up my laptop to my desktop and that reassured me that even if I had lost my laptop, the data could be recovered. Same thing with my binder. What was important? The information. Cell phone? The numbers. iPod? The music. The financial values of these things would have been a pain in the ass to replace, sometimes even too big of a burden for me to replace, but it wouldn't be a catastrophe if the data was okay.

I think I've hit this weird point in my worldly possessions where the idea of replacing physical objects (computers, iPods, TVs, coffee makers) doesn't bug me nearly as much as the idea that I'd suddenly lose my Inbox for the past few years. Or that my Documents folder gets wiped. Because you know what, kids, when that's gone, you're not getting that back. No matter how much money you're willing to throw at it.

This was a strange realization for me. What I value most is the information I've accumulated. How bizarre is that?

"In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king." This famous parable has haunted me for as long as I can remember. My question is always the same: can the one eyed man see?

After years and years of wondering this question only in my odd little head, I finally asked it aloud last night on IRC:

<kjs3> In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
<Catspaw> that saying always struck me as odd. is the one-eyed man's eye blind or can it see?
<coral> dunno, i turn a deaf ear towards those sayings
* Chris_B hands Catspaw some safety scisors and construction paper
* Chris_B writes down "asks too many questions" in Catspaw's permanant record
<kjs3> Catspaw: In a place where all are blind, the man even with a single useful eye (that is, no depth perception, etc) is "king".
<Catspaw> kjs3: but just because he has one eye, it doesn't *imply* that the eye works.
<Catspaw> kjs3: or it should say: "In the land with no eyes, the man with one is king."
<Catspaw> kjs3: because if it's truly the land of the blind, all eyes, even just one, would be blind
<coral> tourist trap
<coral> you check in, but your sight checks out
<kjs3> catspaw: That's one way to overanalyse a pretty straightforward parable...sure.

And then, just as it looked like no answer would be found...

<KevinMarks> it's from a Wells story
* Catspaw sits down in front of the fire to listen to KevinMarks' explanation.
<KevinMarks> a man comes to a valley where all are blind, and can't convince them that his sight is useful
<Catspaw> KevinMarks: then what happens?
<KevinMarks> http://www.litrix.com/cblind/cblin001.htm
<KevinMarks> read it
<KevinMarks> he falls in love

So I read it. (Yeah, I have a midterm tomorrow morning, what's your point?) It turns out....in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is crazy.

Though this doesn't answer my question directly, it still satisfies me. Specifically because it reminds me of another quote, "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is stoned to death", which was said by an author, Joan D Vinge, of particular interest to me.

I may have spent less time studying, but I spent more time learning.

Top three disappointing lectures/tutorials of term so far:

1. Code action: This tutorial was 90-95% less hot than it sounded.
   
   
2. Massaging left recursion into submission: Again, this class totally didn't deliver what it promised. It turned out it was about algorithms. Huh.
   
   
3. Semantic Analysis Rules: This lecture title totally lied to me! Semantic Analysis doesn't rule. It's actually pretty boring.
   
   

And then profs wonder why I sit in my seat and frown. Each week promises excitement and then fails to deliver. sigh.

The joke "I just got back from Muay Thai and boy am I Muay Tired" was funny before. Now the laughing has been replaced by pain.

Lots and lots of pain.

This evening I went with fLufFy to her Muay Thai class. My back and legs may never recover from the brutal ass kicking that they received tonight.

On the plus side, if you were to come up to me and punch me really, really, really slowly, and I was like, prepared, then there's a good chance that I'd be able to grab your head and start kneeing you in the stomach in an awesome flowing-like move.

I need to go take a bath in epsom salts and then sleep til Monday. Maybe by then I'll be able to walk again.

Well, the exam schedule for December was just posted this morning, and let me be the first one to say: assmonkeys!

Here's what the end of the term looks like:
Wednesday - Assignment due
Thursday - Assignment due
Friday - Assignment due
Saturday - ...
Sunday - ...
Monday - Compilers exam

What?! You want me to write a compilers exam the monday after classes end? Are you friggin' insane?! What's wrong with you people?

What's more? I've been invited to go hang out in London for a conference somethingsomething for few days from that Friday to that Monday. Dammit dammit dammit.

Are you allowed to schedule exam conflicts due to "but people want to pay my way to go to Londoooon"?

Then my other two exams are both a week and a half later (20th and 21st of Dec) in order to completely minimize my holiday relaxation time, which, let's not kid ourselves, will be spent applying to the last handful of universities.

Assmonkeys! Assmonkeys, I say!

This exam season was brought to you by the letter F and the number 0.

Well, I filled out the form:

Do you intend to graduate at the end of this year?

[*] Yes

[ ] No

Take that, undergrad! I'm so outta here!

.....in nine months.

In my software engineering course this year, halfway through the project we have to switch projects with another team to learn what it's like to start with an existing codebase. A cute idea.

More importantly, we're given a 2.5% bonus for every team who chooses our code. It's to prevent us from sabotaging our own code, I guess. We're also given the "option" of including a brochure to try to sell our code to the other teams in the class. Seeing as there are ten teams in the class, that bonus starts to look pretty sweet.

So during a boring class (it's not "disrespectful", it's "multitasking") I designed up a quick brochure for our team. Note how the buzzwords and buzzphrases are in different colours for maximum pimpage.

(I was going to have our selling phrase be "Team 11: We hold your team in contempt" but it didn't have the same ring to it.)

Based on the number of buzzwords/buzzphrases per paragraph, plus a class diagram smack in the middle, and a little bargraph on the side, it's obvious that our code kicks ass. Because that's how these things work.

Oh, and the OSX theme is because everything looks sexier in OSX themes. Duh.

You're standing at a streetcar stop. You've been waiting for a few minutes and it doesn't look like a streetcar is coming any time soon.

Do you...

a) Walk in the direction that the streetcar will be coming from. That way you'll reach the streetcar sooner. As a bonus, you'll also be more likely to get a seat if you get on the streetcar sooner.

b) Walk away from the streetcar. If you keep walking, never seeing a streetcar coming, eventually you'll reach your destination. Also, by the time the streetcar reaches you, you'll have to be on it for less time.

Which is the smarter direction? Which do you do? I'm not sure which is the "right answer", but I've decided that you can tell lots about a person based on which answer they choose. :)

Well, it's smack in this middle of midterm and project season, the busiest season of the year, which means that there's no better time for me to leave the city!

Tomorrow I'm headed out to sunny Kal-ee-for-nigh-eh for a few days. Though apparently it's going to be raining. And not very warm. But it'll be cool anyways. The bonus? I get to check out the Googleplex. I'm totally hyped. How long have I wanted to visit Google mecca? Forever!

It feels comfortably flying back to that area of California. Although my whole family lives here, and I only lived there for a few years (0-2 and 7-8), it still feels a little bit like going home. Strange that. (As Slogs said when we were standing outside of the Stanford University Hospital five years ago, "hey, your total displacement is zero!".) Sorry to those of you from the area who have asked if we could hang; it'll have to wait for another visit.

And then my flight back arrives in Toronto at 6 am on Sunday morning and a few hours later I'm hopping on a train to head to Montreal to go talk about human rights in security and surveillance in China. Yikes! I'm gonna need some heavy duty train coffee. And then before I can yawn, I'll be back on a train to Toronto and I'll have to quickly get back into the swing of being a student again. So that, y'know, I don't fail.

Anyway, my point (and I do have one) is that entries may be thin over the next week. If you don't hear from me, assume that I'm off having fun. Or dead. Or still sitting in a customs office somewhere, wondering why I'm always pulled over. But chances are that it'll be one of those three.

What do you do after signing an NDA so strict, that explaining that the NDA even exists (nevermind what is on the NDA, nevermind what the NDA is protecting) is against the NDA?

It's a difficult question. And one which required some thought. But, at last, I believe that I have the solution....

You write a blog entry with a whole string of exclamation marks. And then you hope that it conveys, at least in part, the holyshitohmygodity of the place you were visiting, which far surpassed your already unreasonably high expectations.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But, like, even moreso.

I like DVD TV boxsets. I like to purchase them and then watch them ninety times instead of just downloading them off of BitTorrent because it helps me pretend that I'm not a poor undergrad. They're my crack.

Anyway, when we begin our tale, I'd purchased The Simpsons Season 1 through The Simpsons Season 5. They all sit on my shelf in a little row, next to the other series which I've deemed worthy of collection. They make me happy, sitting in a little row like that.

So then Simpsons Season 6 comes out. And what do they do? They change the friggin' box! The new box is some sort of weird Homer's head shape which is nothing like the previous boxes.

This pisses me off. I haven't collected five whole seasons to suddenly have a change of box shape! Argh!

So for almost two months, I refused to purchase season 6. I stubbornly refused. But as the weeks ticked by, it occurred to me that I wasn't going to win this match, so I gave in. I purchased the Season 6 boxset.

It comes in the Homer head shape box (I grumbled as I opened it) and the first thing inside is a piece of paper that says the following:

For all those that fear change...
For all those anal-retentive nerds who like their DVD boxes to line up perfectly on the shelf...

Just call 1-800-223-2369 for a very derivative, old-style, just-like-before box with almost nothing new or creative to annoy or terrify you. Enjoy!

ACK! How did they know? How did they --- wait a second! I'm not an anal-retentive nerd! Dammit! It's like they had cameras. Freaky little Simpsons cameras following me.

PS: I'm not going to call, just to show them who's boss.
PPS: I'm lying. I'm gonna call as soon as I'm back home.
PPPS: I'm typing this from the VIA lounge on my way to Montreal. The train also has wireless. I love T3h Future.

I've been in situations where what I'm saying has been translated. But it's always been on film, or at a press conference, or something else like that, where the translator and you have to take turns saying one sentence at a time.

Catspaw: Hello, my name is Catspaw
Translator: blahblahblah Catspaw blah
Catspaw: And I'm giving an example.
Translator: blah blahblah blah.

But at the talk today we had live translation. Live translation. This means that there were two dudes behind a glass booth thing that heard what you were saying into your mike and simultaneously repeated it in another language.

At one point, one of the speakers was speaking French and I put on the translating earsets just to listen to what it was like. The translation was one, maybe two, words behind what was actually being said. Crazy town.

So when it came time for me to speak, I kept glancing at the lips of the translators in the glass booth. I could see my own words being mouthed in French almost as I was saying them.

And I wasn't saying "Once....upon....a.....time....." either. This was tech talk.

Dude, that's gotta be so damn hard to do.