CMU has a stupid purchasing system. For orders for computers under $1000, the university charges a fee (about 50%) to the purchasing department. I recently ordered two Mac Minis, unaware of this fact, because they were the perfect computers for one of the labs we have. They arrived yesterday, in absurdly small boxes, and when taken from said boxes, turn out to be smaller than a Gamecube. They're wonderful systems, even moreso because I got them with extra RAM. I, alas, found out about this price floor from a neighbouring lab, and thus, in order to make our group's money be spent as efficiently as possible, need to add about $400 to each system's price. Two keyboards, two mice, and two nice flatscreen monitors later, and after many phone calls to make sure I don't need to return the systems and order them again, I can rest knowing that I have a better armistice with the bureaucracy. I then talk to some people, and find out that it's not due to weird tax laws -- in this case, it's CMU trying to simply extract money from the departments, and, surprisingly, the government actually has established the $1000 as some kind of a limit which keeps the university from charging departments more. It's strange that the government knows enough to get involved in things like this, but I don't fully understand it, and probably don't want to. In summary, CMU doesn't have stupid purchasing system, CMU has an evil purchasing system. Nevermind that I'm likely not to use any of the extra hardware I ordered "for those machines" on the machines (but who knows?).

I've been talking with a newish local friend about life, love, and things. It's good to have another perspective on these things. While love is always a comprimise between a number of things, I think that seeing them as being divided into a primary duality is a good abstraction. Just as much in life is divided into desires of the flesh and those of the mind, or almost-aligned to that, the real and the ideal, so too is love. Satisfying both is essential to happiness. It would be tempting to say that we can rely entirely on instinct, and deny the blue sky, but the latter has so long been in our blood that what was once surely denying our nature has entered into it. Humanity could no more easily devolve that far than a hungry wolf could ignore a rabbit. On the other hand, many religions and philosophies mark the physical as profane, and the mind as sacred, but that is not our nature either -- the human mind turns as strongly against that as the other. The nature of humanity is complex, and to simplify is to deny what we are. My way of living is aimed at taking life at a slow enough pace that I can find good ways to mediate my dual-nature. I often see that others, who admittedly may get a lot more done, trip in their runs through life. A mosey is good enough for me. I've taken the time in life to understand what I want decently well, and I accept myself and my limitations. To do otherwise would be destructive.

I've been playing with OurMedia recently, and it's pretty cool. Sign up for an account, and upload media, and they'll store it for you, and let you link to it from anywhere. They're affiliated with archive.org, who brought us the (also very cool) wayback machine. Anyhow, I'm starting to dig through my photo collection and upload my favourite photos there. Keep an eye on that space -- I'll be using it to stash my photo set in the future, I think. They also offer blog space, but I don't think I'll be switching :)

I've been having strange dreams recently. One of the recent ones had me walking down an empty road, far from civilization, and as I walked, a lot of the people who've been important to me in life sort of materialized out of the air behind me and walked along. Eventually I was the tip of a moderately large triangle of people I've known in my life. Later I dreamed that my laptop grew long, skinny spider legs and that I could sit on it and have it take me places. Hmm.