Diary: a web of judgements…

It’s strange – I caught myself making antagonizing conclusions about people who do not deserve it. Or rather I understood how their actions could be justifiable if I were them… strange feeling when I realized that I further lost my grip on right vs. wrong.

Tomorrow’s party is gonna be nuts… nothing is prepared, it may rain, BUT Bar 9 will let us tinker with their video system, so worse comes to worst, it will turn into movie-watching.

Diary: a public confession/apology…

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I don’t like some people. I do like them on some level, and I wish them the very best, but at the same time I can not help it, but on an intuitive level they make me uncomfortable, angry, even bitter. And I can not help it. And they do not deserve it – some of them have been nothing but good to me. And, on occasion I even want to see them and make sure that they are ok, but at the same time, something inside me turns and demands distance. Different people, different distances, different demands, but this I can not help. And the more I hide those things inside, the more I try to live up to my own expectation of what it means to be a respectable individual, the more I turn into a bitter hypocrite mistreating those around me. Today I told someone who has been nothing but helpful that I do not want them to stay when they visit me. Was it necessary? I could have wrapped it in a white lie, I could have welcomed them upon their arrival, but instead I openly said that I would be uncomfortable.

And it would be fine if I left it at that, but one must wonder whether I exacerbated the situation by profusely apologizing…

With every day that passes, I discover more and more that my social skills are grossly inadequate and find justification for why some people find my manner of argument offensive despite my best intentions.

Diary: the morning after…

This morning decided to go for a run. Ended up meet a root canal specialist who happened to be running in the same direction as I (opposite of everyone else), and, at her pace which was just slightly faster than speed-walking for me, ended up running 7 miles (that is after the first 2 that I did on my own). Surprised? Me too, but behold the power of good conversation and beautiful women (one sends me into an emotional tailspin, another results in a 9 mile run, what is going on????)

Anyway, couple of interesting observations:

1. For a good part of the run, I wanted to whine. I was a bit uncomfortable physically, but it almost felt like whining would have given me pleasure. So could it be that whining is actually a defense mechanism? If I whined, she would have antagonized me (and vice versa) and it would have been easier for me to stop. Or is it just an amplification mechanism that would prevent damage due to desire overriding the desire to run and the social implications are just a cool side-effect.

2. My knees are really hurting… last time I ran… was… uhm… with Ilya? And I barely lasted 4 miles if I remember correctly…

Diary: what can I say…

All wear bowlers is ridiculously interesting…

But what followed… ai… let’s just say that sad and unhorsed I am sitting at my apartment without the least desire to see anyone except for the one who had no choice, but to engage in the aforementioned de-horsing process. As a result, Iwas once again reminded that:

1. All people are different.
2. I know many different types and will make no excuses.
3. Of the myriad of people around us, so few are intuitively close.

May be it is just late and I am just tired. Or may be in The Unbearable Lightness of being, I’ve been too harsh on Sabina… I hope it’s fatigue…

Musings: a question about cancer

OK. BTW, I am sorry, I am probably going to butcher some of the terminology due to being completely ignorant on the subject. So here is the way I undertand cancer:

– random mutations in cells lead to a considerate increase in cell longevity and/or high growth rate
– since these are random mutations, every instance of cancer is unique

So, if cancer is indeed found, it is necessary to identify the mutated cells and destroy them/mark them for destruction by antibodies or destroy the entire region (chemo, amputation, etc.)

And so the question: how are cells recognized by the antibodies?

Given a cell, is it possible to create its model and identify the culprit elements in the DNA? What is the temporal and computational cost of the procedure?

What are the main methods for destruction of cells (artificial antibodies, marking cells, nanotech robots)?

Once the mutation is isolated, do present methods allow for cleansing of the system?

Basically, it seems like a fairly simple-to-understand problem. What are the bottlenecks?

Problem: seeking the perfect analogy…

Report Manager is to Crystal Reports as…

• velcro is to shoe laces
• VB Script is to C++
• building a house out of rooms is to building a house out of bricks

HELP!!! Need some analogy to demonstrate a relationship between:

Something that is very powerful, but requires time and skill to work with (Crystal Reports)
and
Something that is geared towards a more narrow domain, but does it faster and easier.

Report Manager:

http://www.simx.com/users/nikita/tutorials/ReportManagerPro.html
http://www.simx.com/simx/home_report%20manager.htm

Diary: post-publishing bliss…

Another interesting experiment: couple the Mind-State tracking app with LifeTracker.

Really really want to learn Braille… anyone know of an easy way to do so? Eyes get too tired sitting in front of the computer all day.

On a different subject: just published http://www.eDebate.info – am curious how it’s gonna grow and what the next stumbling block will be.

Off to get some sleep (should have done that 3 hours ago)…

Butterflies… haven’t had those in a while…

Web-App: eDebate

The new version is up!!!! www.eDebate.info

Musings: buttons buttons buttons…

Interesting to realize one’s own buttons and then to press them myself… lalalalala [press] lolololo [smack] lililili [kick] loliloliloli [CTRL-ALT-DEL] “Hello, my name is Nikita”…

Diary: of interest…

Too many things going on to list. But heard a very useful analogy today in the car:

“An apple has a peel and an orange has a peel. But that doesn’t mean that an apple and an orange are the same thing.”

Was part of a ridiculous discussion on what’s going on in Israel that seemed to follow the depressingly common smart vs. dumb discussion. Ex:

Smart Question: Why would it be a bad argument to say that “Creation of Palestine is a reward for terrorism.”
Dubm Answer: Well, US was created as a reward for terrorism. Terrorism against the British!

Now I do not know enough to say whether Palestine should or should not be created. Having said that, has the man ever read the Declaration of Independence where personal liberty was at the core of the document? Or is the document just rhetoric that was not indicative of what was going on? Of course some heinous things have been done in the US at the time as well, but comparing that to indiscriminate attacks on civilians hardly holds any merit. May be I am wrong… My knowledge of US history is just as shoddy as that of the Israeli-Palestine conflict.