Woot! Flying back to Richmond!
I am writing this post on my tablet PC on the plane =) Need something to do to kill the time.
Of course, I’m not posting this on the plane =) too cheap to use the $30 (IIRC) satellite connection.
Can you see me waving at you 10058 metres above sea level? =P yeah yeah. shamefully old, I know.
ETA 8 hours 24 minutes. The plane is just north of Japan now. Need to fly across the Pacific. I heard planes from mainland China actually goes across the North Pole. That would be so cool =P
Everyone around me is sleeping right now, including this restless baby that has been screaming constantly for the past two hours. They really should ban babies from airplanes, for security reasons, considering the insane energy density of babies =P. They are like TNTs. But then again, chocolate bars have even higher energy density, just that the energy cannot be released as quickly.
I am actually doing an experiment with myself, to combat jetlag. I won’t go into the details, but the point is, I want to stay awake for the entire flight 🙂 which is just starting to prove itself difficult, as it is already 3am in Taiwan. So far, coffee and tea have helped a bit, and I am trying to keep myself awake by ranting on and on and on in this post :). I came prepared, too, with loads of good stuff on my computer (which I can supposedly get ~5 hrs of battery life out of, with two batteries… or until the guy in front of me decides to slant his chair), such as Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 that I am listening to. I am learning Debussy’s Children’s Corner btw, really pretty piece (I THINK it’s the second movement. The one that starts with endless 16-th notes on the right hand). I’m really starting to love impressionist stuff :). Next up – Wicked =D. I am carefully selecting my music here. Need exciting stuff. Pictures at an Exhibition just won’t do =P.
BTW, this headphone I am using now is really nice with active noise cancelling. Active noise cancelling basically works by recording the sound from OUTSIDE, and merging the INVERSE of the noise into the headphone’s output, effectively cancelling out the noise. Really cool technology, and it actually works =P. I can barely hear the sound of the engines, and I am sitting right on the wing.
Also brought with me, on my tablet PC, is an archive of xkcd.com, some articles on computational geometry (my interest of study at this very moment), and a collection of almost all 金庸 novels =P (a Chinese “fantasy” novel writer). I am not sure if I want to read the geometry stuff, as that’s some hardcore calculus, and I am not exactly totally awake now :). xkcd comics could kill some time =D.
I think I will watch Red Cliff some time later :). At least there are (or is) pretty girl(s) in there. Or so I heard. Was hoping they would have Wall-E. That’s like the movie of the summer that I missed this year.
… Music has stopped… I have just finished listening to ALL OF Wicked…
WOOT WOOT WOOT! 1/3 way there. ETA 6 hours 51 minutes…
And at this very moment, one of my batteries just ran out…
I finally understand why people buy $3000 laptops just to get 7 hours of battery life…
haha there’s actually an AC outlet in the washroom. Not sure if I want to charge my computer in there, though…
Interestingly enough, I don’t feel sleepy anymore.
Now some random stuff that I have always been wondering. Have you thought that, maybe we all perceive the world in different ways visually? For example, maybe my red is your green? Maybe what you see as pink is the same as what I see as blue? As long as there is a one-to-one mapping, we humans will never be able to tell.
My fingers are really getting tired now. Time to put my computers to sleep and watch some movie =).
ETA 5 hours 28 minutes. Bummer. Didn’t end up watching any movie. The entertainment system thing is really screwed. All the movies are messed up.
Turbulance =S. The plane is REALLY REALLY shaky now. You know, humans cannot feel velocity, but only acceleration. I feel like I am riding a roller coaster right now, with the same feeling in the gut. It’s pretty freaky, especially on an airplane =P. But yeah, if you are reading this, I did come out of it alive.
My eyelids are getting heavier and heavier and heavier…
can’t sleep. can’t sleep. can’t sleep…
hmm. I wonder if anyone makes anti-sleeping pills? like caffeine pills? =P
ETA 1 hour
haha just watched a random movie. “Smart People” or something, about one weird, arrogant, self-absorbed, bastardicious literature prof going out with a student he failed ten years ago, who someone went into biology and became a doctor instead…
I made it =D
Hmm yeah, no sleep for >24 hrs + 9 boring hours in economy class + battery-life-challenged laptop isn’t exactly fun. Will see how my experiment turns out, though =).