April 03, 2003
Make Install Clean
Warning: The following post will most likely make you lose all respect for me as a person. I ask that if you do have a shred of respect for me at this time, to refrain from reading this post. However, for the majority of you who don't respect me to begin with, by all means, read ahead and relish in the fact that you are in fact way cooler than me.
I had the craziest dream last night. I'm not joking. It was CRAZY. To begin with, I don't usually dream at all. I think it has something to do with me not having a soul but that's besides the point. Last night I returned home at around midnight, after 6.5 straight hours in the Main Stacks, buried in English homework and organic chemistry, and having drank one overpriced mocha bianca coffee from FSM Cafe. Considering that I had to wake up the next morning for my 8am chem lecture, I immediately went to bed upon returning home.
The problem was that I had had the coffee pretty late in the day, and now I was unable to immediately fall asleep as I normally do. On usual days, I'm so tired I usually fall asleep within minutes of going to bed, but try as I might, I couldn't fall asleep last night. In any case, I was just lying there, listening absently to the noise of my server, half awake and half not, as the fight between the forces of exhaustion and caffeinated animation dueled for my attention. I was in a somewhat subconscious state at this point, and this is when my dream started, but I was still conscious enough for my imagination to fill in other details and for me to remember the details this morning.
I suddenly was transported (into my dream) into my bedroom, where I could see myself as a third person might. The light was on and when I looked at the clock, it read 4:36am. Don't ask me what that means. I'm no Freud. In any case, I think it was a similar setting to when I spent all night completing my CS 61C project early before leaving for Thanksgiving Break.
For the rest of this passage, I refers to my real self whereas "I" refers to the personification of myself that I was seeing in my dream.
"I" was sitting and typing on my laptop, and "I" ran the following command:
rohit@autocrat ~ % ssh -l root rohit.nafday
At first, I (the real me) couldn't figure out what "I" (the one in the dream) was doing, but then I realized that "I" was trying to gain wireless access to my OWN BRAIN! Apparently it was successful or my SSH keys worked, or whatever, because "I" logged into my brain and set about my work (this work was still unclear to the real me). I continued to observe myself and realized that "I" was trying to install some new file IN MY BRAIN. This is the command "I" typed:
root@rohit ~ % cd /usr/college/ucb/courses/chem/3b/
root@rohit /usr/college/ucb/courses/chem/3b/ % make install clean
What the hell was happening? Apparently "I" was trying to "install" the "port" (ie. program) of Organic Chemisty (Chem 3b) into my brain. What the hell?! Whatever the case, the "port" had "dependencies" or other programs it relied on to work, which the make install process accounted for. It traversed down to /usr/college/ucb/courses/chem/3a/, and installed it successfully. Then it went to /usr/college/ucb/courses/chem/1a/ AND FAILED TO INSTALL. Apparently, "I" couldn't install the Chem 3b files without first installing Chem 1a files. (This failure also makes sense because I never took Chem 1a at UCB, since I took AP Chem. The only problem is, using that same logic, Chem 3a should never have installed, because Chem 3a depends on Chem 1a as well. I don't know what to say.)
"I" was getting pretty pissed now, because "I" REALLY wanted to have Chem 3b installed, but it just wouldn't work, no matter what "I" did. "I" even tried to install the Chem 1a "port" separately but it failed, telling me that the "computer" didn't have enough resources to run Chem 1a (ie. I was too stupid for Chem 1a). Apparently the "computer" (ie. my brain) had a mean streak.
Frustrated and angry, "I" was about to slam my fists down on the desk, when suddenly I pulled out of this state of subconsciousness, and was immediately transported back into it, this time in the first person (I could understand what "I" was thinking). However, the situation was somewhat different. This time "I" (and I, because I was in my own mind) was upset that whenever "I" closed my eyes, I only saw a "black-screen" (darkness / MY EYELIDS). Apparently, "I" was working on installing a "screensaver" (written in GTK of course) that would project models onto my eyelids whenever "I" closed my eyes, so "I" wouldn't have to have the shitty "black-screen screensaver." This "screensaver" was written by the Gnome project and found on their website (I guess under there section for Gnome for the BRAIN).
Anyway, this install went successfully and I swear, right before I came out of this crazy ass dream, I saw an image of Josie Maran or some other model in front of me! Having finally come out of this whacked out subconscious state, I realized it was like 2am, and I finally fell asleep after that, having (relatively) normal dreams about living in Russia during the Bolshevic Revolution of 1917 and subsequent civil war (I had just finished Dr. Zhivago the night before).
So WHAT WAS THIS?! Insanity? Most likely, yes. What brought it on? Any number of things -- an overactive imagination, too much ochem, listening to my computer before I sleep, messing around with Unix too much, but these are all parts of my life that I cannot (or don't have energy to) change and so I'm just going to blame the coffee I had and leave it at that. I know for sure if I decide to drink coffee tonight, it won't be right before I leave the library and go to sleep. THAT'S FOR SURE!
Hopefully these recent bouts with insanity don't become the norm, because I'm not sure I'm willing to deal with any more surreal dreams such as the one I had last night!