Holizz versus the Web

Sorry, it’s an unordered list. Recently, I have been:

• Installing Gentoo Linux twice. It’s rather educational. I’ve learnt a lot since installing it.
• Recompiling my kernel about ten times (before this week I had recompiled it unsuccessfully once, when I was still on SuSE – a long time ago).
• Finding a pretty, functional, and hasn’t-crashed-yet music player for *nix (that word looks like a pointer to my C-addled brain): amaroK. I’m impressed at how useful it is. Its only fault is that it’s yet another processor-sapping GUI application.
• Starting the long path of relearning C (although I must say I never learnt it very well the first time round). I wrote a simple linked list data type and a few functions to do things to it. C is pretty much useful only for writing kernels, things that need to be super-fast, and compilers; it’s important to know how C works though. Like Lisp, it’s a different way of doing things. Also, I’m becoming interested in compilers; kernels too, in fact.
• Getting a badge in archery for having a top score of over 300 – 320, which I shot last Saturday.
• Trying out fencing. It was enjoyable, but I already do hundred and one other things, so I’ve decided not to carry on with it.
• Discovering that making ALSA work was as simple as /etc/init.d/alsasound start.
• Completing the sai level 1 syllabus. I’ve almost completed the yellow belt syllabus too, but the rolls are a little tricky (I need to practice breaking ground strangles too). The grading is the fourth of March.