So over the Christmas break I took up crocheting - it's great! I love having an outlet for making things with my hands, and when I'm done it's something I needed! So my next project will probably be making a rug, any suggestions? So far I've found some instructions online:
http://crochet.about.com/library/weekly/aa092599.htm

Also, this is a collection of links with instructions, I haven't gone through all of them yet:
http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/rugs.php

Share your thoughts!

So I've spent quite some time getting Crystal Space running on a Mac...which is almost the same I think as getting it to run on Linux...with a few exceptions.

At first I thought I hadn't gotten all the dependencies. In some sense, that's true, I hadn't installed libjpeg, but I actually had everything else.

The main problem is that I wasn't installing crystal space in whatever the default directory was supposed to be. Once I realised that, I put in an extra argument to the ./configure:

1. ./configure --prefix=/Users/kamilah/Downloads/CS

Obviously, insert your user name for kamilah, or whatever path is appropriate in your situation. The next problem was that apparently it wasn't actually installing everything...so I added -k all to make

2. sudo make -k all
3. sudo make install
4. sudo make distclean

After all of this, there were still some technical things that needed to be done...There's some defaults file that you have to add things to...
5. defaults write NSGlobalDomain CrystalSpaceRoot "/Users/kamilah/Downloads/CS"
6. CRYSTAL=~/Downloads/CS; export CRYSTAL
7. echo $CRYSTAL
8. defaults write CrystalSpace.Global Engine.Lighting.Ambient.Red 50
9. defaults write CrystalSpace.Global Engine.Lighting.Ambient.Green 50
10. defaults write CrystalSpace.Global Engine.Lighting.Ambient.Blue 50

And then, just typing walktest apparently won't launch the walktest demo, you have to type something along the lines of:

11. bin/walktest.app/Contents/MacOS/walktest --relight flarge

Finally, sweet success.

I was recently introduced to Ethiopian food, so I'd already tried it once by the time I wined and dined in Washington D.C. [after the Inauguration, may I add]. So far, I haven't developed any favourites, but I did absolutely adore the honey wine I had with the food, Tej. It was exquisite, and I plan on unwinding after my qualifying exams with a well deserved glass of Tej =) [pronounced something like Tesh].

That's all I really have to say...so far, I like Ethiopian food, but nothing has stood out as my absolute favourite yet. Stay tuned.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Edit: I just noticed that when moving where my blog was hosted, I seem to have lost some files. I'm working to fix this asap! - 02/10/2011


Edit 2: Due to my file hoarding tendencies, I found a backup of all my files before I switched my blog over to blogspot, yay! - 02/10/2011


I have officially found my favourite Jamaican restaurant. Meet Crystal Edge Restaurant, around the corner from the fabulous Strawberry Hills, and adjacent to the best coffee spot (or at least one of) on the island, Cafe Blue.

It's a little bit of a drive through Irish Town, but stick it out, this place really is one of the hidden gems. We'd already heard rave reviews of their oxtail, and came just in time to get the bottom of the pot.

My dad had their Brown Stewed Fish, and my sister had some Chinese Roast Chicken along with the Oxtail. All of our meals were accompanied by a side of some amazing rice and peas.

I think the above quote from my little cousin Myra in Jamaica best captures the Obama phenomenon is from my little cousin Myra in Jamaica. She had to go to bed before the results came out, but she was certain that there was no other possible outcome.

I will never forget November 4th, 2008. Since 2000, I've been increasingly cynical about politics and the world in general, but over the course of Obama's campaign, I've found myself hoping against all odds that he would make it. Going on Green Street afterwards and being in the middle of a crowd of hundreds of college kids overjoyed....I mean I don't have words to describe it.

Chants of "No More Bush!", "Yes We Can!" and "Obama! Obama!" reverberated through the streets.

More specifically, in Illinois. Because sometimes I just get a craving for oxtail or devon house chicken patty. I actually just found out that a new Jamaican restaurants opened in Chicago, called Jamaica, Jamaica. I'm not sure when I'll get to sample it, but hopefully I'll get this chance soon.

On a related note, I did try a place called "Calypso Cafe" in Hyde Park, Chicago. The name seemed like a warning sign, but I'll give them props for their Veggie Patty, it was pretty nice...the Jerk Chicken...well, I've had better, but perhaps I should have tried something that would have been easier for them, like their Jerk Wings or Rasta Pasta. Still, I'm willing to give them another try.

This may be more accurately phrased as how to survive using legally free software...

Browser: Mozilla Firefox

Newsgroup Reader: Mozilla Seamonkey

Vector Graphics: Inkscape

Image Converter: Squiggle, ImageMagick

LaTeX Editor: TeX Shop

Music: iTunes

DVD Ripper: HandBrake

Video Player: VLC

Generally Useful: Xcode, Image Capture (shift+command+4)

Again, this may be more useful to me than to others, but here is a quick and easy way to make circular level sets in matlab:

[x,y,z]=cylinder([1 0], 1000);
contour(x,y,z)
axis equal
axis image
axis off

Told you it was simple. The 1000 parameter is what makes the circles more circular and less octogonal. By default it's set to 20, which isn't so pretty.

I've been meaning to blog for a while. Been eating a lot of good food all over the country. But right now I'm mad. I'm mad that that blasted company Comcast took me off of my high after Obama's electrifying speech. I was in such a good mood. I was able to forget for a while how tight my bills are this month, that tropical storm Gustav is sweeping across my country Jamaica, that I had a headache and toothache. But now, now in the middle of writing my first conference paper, I am reduced to stealing internet despite paying over $4o US a month to those crooks. My internet just stops working, out of the blue, and after spending an hour with 4 different idiots who were spelling out "cmd" and "ipconfig" like i'm some idiot who can't tell when her internet is not working, after all of that, they're going to tell me, oh, what do you know, you're right, you're internet isn't working and we'll need to send someone there to fix it. Oh and guess what, we can't send anyone till next Saturday. Yes, next Saturday. Today is Thursday. I am supposed to wait for over one blasted week to get my internet service restored. No, we can't push it earlier. I'm sorry, we could fix your bill for this month. Like there was ever a question that you'd be fixing the bill for this month.

Words cannot express my anger. I hate you Comcast.

Edit: Comcast saw this blog, asked me for my number, and got back to me earlier. Of course, this leads me to wonder why I was told I had to wait 9 days when there were apparently several openings much earlier than that...but they did credit my account for 2 weeks, even though it was just down for 1 week. So, thank you for Comcast for redeeming yourself.

This experience makes me appreciate the power of being part of the blogosphere...