catch-22

no study = fail
study = no fail
no study + study = no fail + fail
(no + 1)study = (no + 1)fail
study = fail

i was passed this little gem today.

why i'm bad at conversation

1. i don't ask questions very often
2. my mind wanders when others speak
3. i often guess what people are about to say and say it
4. it is uncomfortable for me to keep eye contact
5. my mind works faster than my mouth moves
6. i like the sound of silence
7. i don't know what to do with my facial expressions when someone is speaking
8. i say things in my head before i say them outloud and it feels like i'm repeating myself
9. i tend to mumble parenthetically
10. i say the most awkward things

Opera 9.5 Beta

at the beginning of September, i posted about the public alpha release of Opera 9.5, codenamed Kestrel.

[marketing spiel] included in the alpha, and now given a name, is the Opera Link service. it is essentially an online repository for your browser's bookmarks, personal bar settings and speed dial sites, allowing you to synchronize any computer or mobile phone running either Opera 9.5 or Opera Mini 4. the process is simple, painless and works in the background. you can turn it on or off at your leisure. if you have multiple computers and a mobile phone with wi-fi capability, this handy feature will save you a bundle of time. there is also a web interface for firefox/ie/safari users who use Opera Mini on their phones.

9.5 is a significant evolutionary upgrade from the latest stable release, Opera 9.24. as i mentioned before, the rendering engine has been retooled for greater performance both in speed and resource usage. it will bridge the gap between 9.2x and Opera 10 (Peregrine), as most of the backend of the browser will be in 9.5. Peregrine will improve on the user interface, cross-platform compatability and usability and new tools for web developers.

[/marketing spiel]

i downloaded it this morning. i only just got home to install the beta over the alpha. so far it has not exploded. it feels snappier than the alpha (i was using an early public build as the later versions tended to crash when using Google Reader). i just signed up for the Opera Link feature a couple of nights ago before it was publicly named. it has not caused any problems, although i don't exactly have any other computers or mobile devices to actually try it out on. i just signed on so in the event my settings get wiped, or i decide to clean up my browser profile, i'll have an easy way of getting it all back. and when i eventaully migrate to a mac and need to install Opera 10 on it, i'll be set. can one of you mac users please try out the beta on OS X (Leopard leaps tomorrow, btw)?

all the rendering glitches in Blogger seem to have been ironed out as well. the glitches i've been putting up with in GMail have also been cleaned up (paragraphing, not being able to read text that i've typed unless i press enter before typing, crashing if i type then go back and press enter... it was a chore). Google Reader seems to be running without trouble. i am well pleased.

i heard the best chemistry riddle today...

What would be more likely to dissolve in water, a bear from Alberta or a bear from Nunavut? Answer: a bear from Nunavut, because it would be a polar bear.

if you liked that one, you might be tickled by this.

[edit]browsing about, i found something very mindboggling and hilarious. some guy wrote a personal ad on craigslist mathematically proving why you should go out with him. inspired by Dating Pools.[/edit]

[another edit]okay, just one more for tonight.[/another edit]

because everyone else is talking about it...

this is for the Potter-heads in my readership (all 4 of you that i know of)...

i heard today from a student today that Dumbledore had been outed by his author as a homosexual. this is not a spoiler because it is an irelevant contextualization. this was revealed well after the stories were published and released, and only came about because some insightful reader asked Rowling if Albus Dumbledore ever found true love. if anything, this charges [spoiler] Dumbledore's defeat and imprisonment of Grindelwald [/spoiler] with significance hitherto unforeseen.

naturally, there has been an outpouring of crazy from both ends of the spectrum (e.g. "you ruined Harry Potter for me and now i can't imagine Dumbledore without visualizing him with another man"). in the midst of the crazy, one voice piped up to lay down some fine editorializing. yes, you can all have opinions, but there is a certain level of decorum expected when you express them, especially in a public forum. so i uphold the linked article (mild spoilers) as a model of expressing an opinion in a decorous and well-reasoned manner.

research is a great cure for unsubstantiated ranting and raving.