mahadri's cave

Meme: Wallpaper

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:38:13 GMT

☞ Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper.
☞ Explain in no more than five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
☞ Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

I like big cats and I can not lie. You other furries can't deny, that when a cat walks in with a striped or spotted waist and a tail in your face, you get sprung... Extra-long wallpaper for all three heads. No, I'm not compensating for anything. =P Blame perro for this meme.

Misrepresentations, Hatemongering, and Statistics

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:04:19 GMT

Nappa: Vegeta! What does FurAffinity say about her pageviews?
Vegeta: IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!
Nappa: WHAT, NINE THOUSAND!?

Fursuit Cooling: Liquid Nitrogen

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:04:41 GMT

Furries occasionally bring up liquid nitrogen as an exotic cooling solution that will solve all your fursuit heat problems. While it is possible to design such a system that might actually do so, water (and in its solid phase, ice) is actually a more efficient heat sink than liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen might come to mind as a heat sink because it is very cold (-195.79°C), but a substance's ability to absorb heat, its specific heat capacity, is actually what makes it a good heat sink. A 16oz bottle of liquid nitrogen can absorb about 40 Calories, which is how much your body generates while walking for 10-15 minutes, depending on your weight. The bottle should last longer because your body will release some of that energy into the environment via convection, perspiration, and exhaled air. A 16oz bottle of ice frozen in a standard home freezer at 0°F can absorb about 50 Calories, which is 25% more than liquid nitrogen. If you want to combine the best of both worlds, a 16oz bottle of ice frozen in liquid nitrogen to -195.79°C would absorb about 80 Calories, double that of the same volume of liquid nitrogen. And this is why you will never see a liquid nitrogen-cooled fursuit. =P

Week in mahadri: MFM 2009

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:04:22 GMT

That's about all that happened this week: four days of convention fun sandwiched between two 8.5 hour drives to/from Chicago. The ride wasn't quite that bad, since I had a CHUFF furry held captive in the passenger seat for most of the trip, and he was willing to talk with me. =P

Thursday

Firr blows my car's auxiliary power fuse with his monster laptop. It dissipates more than 240 watts!?
arrived around 6pm
met up with my roomies tristanwolf1134 and W0lfb0y, both whom I haven't seen since Anthrocon
grabbed dinner with them at Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken, tristanwolf1134 's suggestion. IT WAS DAMN GOOD FRIED CHICKEN. You must go there if you're ever near Memphis.
went down to the hotel's Garden Court, where fursuiters were already out and about
ran into kellogg_collie in an old suit I had just learned he had gotten back after 3 years
hung out there until 11pm, as that's where all the action was, which consisted of mostly Karaoke and meeting other furs
ran into pistolpup with tristanwolf1134 , who introduced us to dubstep

Friday

woke up 8am before my roomies, who were out later last night
got a TXT from kellogg_collie and met him at the con suite, which was lacking in filling breakfast foods. Fortunately, they had milk and I brought cereal.
went to Checkers for lunch. We wanted something quick, but it was anything but.
watched tilt_longtail entertain a toddler near the front desk for what seemed to be half an hour.
ran into linnaeus and tagged along with him and some Memphis locals to a hole-in-the-wall Japanese restauraunt for dinner. It was alright.
got back around 9:30pm, missing what I heard was a very entertaining round of fursuit musical chairs (fortunately someone posted a video), but I enjoyed the last hour of the games.

Saturday

woke up around 8am again to another TXT from kellogg_collie . He is part of a balanced breakfast. =P
con suite breakfast is awesome on Saturday and Sunday. and there's always random people in there to chat with.
fursuit parade at 11am. I got lucky by being behind duncan_the_dog so I could play with his balloons. I didn't realize how entertaining that was until I saw the video
Things were dead around 2-3pm, and I was worried about the rest of the con. Suiters were out, but standing around bored. tristanwolf1134 talked to iceleopard to try to get the props for the fursuit games, but they only want to bring those out during the games. So he and W0lfb0y pitched in $30 for a Walmart run to pick up some beach balls, padded swords, pool noodles, a nerf football, frisbees, tennis balls, and some other things that livened up the con. The tennis balls quickly disappeared into dogs' mouths and migrated all around the convention. =P
got carry-out ribs from Corky's BBQ for dinner, brought them to the ice cream social, then at them in front of everyone in line for ice cream, then got our dessert after 20 minutes when there was no line. =P This is the start of a MFM tradition.
camped out in the garden court the rest of the night. I'm going to do this relaxing at convention thing more often.
the live Internet radio show/dance was awesome for about 15 minutes. It comprised about 50% suiters in a smallish, very cold, and dark room... Anything where suiters outnumber people makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Sunday

woke up later, around 9am
lunch at a Chinese buffet with tristanwolf1134 , kellogg_collie , and W0lfb0y. It was horrible! The food didn't sit well at all.
tried to plan a dinner outing to Uncle Lou's again with kellogg_collie , tilt_longtail , and foxwell , but Uncle Lou's closes at 6pm on Sunday. =(
stayed out until 3am with the help of kellogg_collie 's sugary drink concoctions, mostly just chilling and chatting with kellogg_collie , tristanwolf1134 , tilt_longtail , and other furs that stopped by to join the conversation.

Monday

farewell lunch at Waffle House
8.5 hour drive back home
still haven't fixed the fuse

Week in mahadri: furries, MFM, fursuit projects

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:07:36 GMT

It turns out that the phpBB mailing list integration thing I set up last week for lafflist was working perfectly, but the first post was being held for approval. If you've ever wondered what a mailing list converted to a forum looks like, here is one. Off and on over the next day, I tried out Pandora radio and managed to find a few good songs I haven't heard before. I ended up chatting a bit more than usual this week, but it led me to find that I know a few people who will be at MFM, and I managed to squeeze into a room with an offer of feng shui and inflatable mattresses, so I will see you there if you're going! There was a furmeet last weekend just 10 miles from where I live, and I got in contact with the northwest Indiana fur who seems to organize things. They later posted pictures, and there were 7 people there if I remember, including a staff member for IndyFurCon who drove all the way from Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the meet happened while I was sleeping, as I'm in the process of returning my sleep schedule to something more normal so I don't sleep through all MFM's evening events. In the meantime, I dusted off my fursuit reference sheet and am hoping to finish it up next month so I can commission a full suit. It's about time, as I've wanted one for almost 2 years now. And trying to nail down exactly what I want gets a little frustrating at times, so I'm also working on the new fursuit database. It's a slow initial process, as I'm learning how to effectively use TurboGears and its powerful underlying components, but it will be worth it in the end.

Week in mahadri: business idea, sleep and TV, Furries

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:33:32 GMT

After three weeks of a restless mind and 6 hours of sleep/day as a result, I was bound to crash. And I did after finding a pretty good business idea, but it requires writing Win32 applications and browser plugins. I may, but not this week it seems. Instead, I started sleeping more, 10-12 hours/day, and watched Lie to Me and Dead Like Me.. Pretty good shows, but not as good series, since they both lacked character development. I topped that off with Serenity, the movie after the Firefly series, which made me want to watch Farscape again. I looked for a Thai restaurant in my area, since I haven't had any in months and got side-tracked by looking into the Chicago furry community, which is organizing events near downtown, about a 50 minute drive from me. They're using a mailing list and are arguing over switching to a forum for silly reasons, so I tried to implement a technical solution, Mail2forum, a phpBB mod that integrates a mailing list into a forum, but was foiled at every turn and eventually got receiving working, but the list server is discarding replies for some unknown reason. Strangely, that failure is driving me to want to continue working on an improved fursuit database, and I follow my interests that change abruptly.

Lions, Tigers, and Foreign Transaction Fees. Oh my!

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:55:17 GMT

I usually ignore "Changes to your Credit Card Agreement" letters because they don't affect me, but most VISA issuers are now charging a foreign transaction fee transactions in US Dollars if they are made or processed outside of the United States. Interestingly, this also affects some unlucky Second Life users because Linden Lab sometimes uses a bank in the wrong country. The unexpected $0.83 fee was enough to make me switch to another issuer without any foreign transaction fees and cut up my current card. Free markets FTW!

18 Days in the Furry Fandom

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:18:15 GMT

I just recently started participating in the Furry Fandom, having only been in it for 18 days. This post is intended to allow other furs to quickly get to know a little about me. In it, I summarize my relevant personal history, what got me interested in the fandom, and my furry-related activities for the first 18 days.

I grew up in a good home with supportive parents and lived a normal childhood life. Like most children, I generally liked anthropomorphic characters on television and in video games, but instead of fading away with age, the attraction grew. In retrospect, I can guarantee I was a furry since at most the age of 10. Until I was 14, I simply took these feelings in stride, but two years after The Lion King's debut, it struck a chord that made me look into the movie and, along the way, find the The Lion King (TLK) fandom. I subscribed and posted to the TLK-L mailing list and was always in the #TLK-L IRC channel, where I met several like-minded people, including the greatest friend I could ever wish for (although now I wish he were furry, but I won't push my luck.) After a few years, the TLK fandom faded away, and I stopped participating but kept the TLK posters, decorations, and stuffed animals in my room and continued to sleep with my first TLK stuffed animal, a cub Simba, in my arms every night until college.

I attended a small, technical college for Computer Engineering. There were a few interesting clubs, and I began watching anime with the Anime Society every Friday, then added additional series with friends on weekends. I enjoyed watching anime because of its interesting stories, either being relevant to my age or life situation or imposing thought-provoking new realities, and characters with animal characteristics, both physical and behavioral, were always a treat. There was one girl in the club, appropriately nicknamed "Catgirl," who wore cat ears everywhere. Every Halloween, I found myself wanting to wear matching ears and a tail, but I never remembered to order them enough in advance. Four Halloweens and a few months later, I graduated, entered the corporate world, and unintentionally ignored all my non-technical interests. A month ago, I joined a friend and fellow alumni for a weekend in Austin. It was the weekend before Halloween, and the streets and bars were crawling with costumed people. Again, I wanted matching ears and a tail, so I searched for them online, and this time around, Youtube contained a stockpile of furry convention clips. I spent all weekend watching them and learning about the furry fandom.

I first heard about the furry fandom during my TLK fandom days, but I was happy with the subset that is the TLK fandom. I overlooked the furry fandom, forgot about it, and was occasionally reminded by Trigger Happy TV, CSI, and Entourage, but they never made me realize I would enjoy it as much as I do and think I will. A video of fursuiters just being themselves hooked me. I wanted to be fursuiting with them. I wished I was one of them. This desire drove me to spend the majority of my free time learning about the fandom and meeting other furries. I couldn't stop myself from going to MFF 2007. I had to see if the real thing lived up to the highlight footage, and I expected to be disappointed, but it completely blindsided me. On several occasions, I was so happy that I had difficulty holding back tears and sometimes couldn't. The first was when I realized I was definitely a furry. At a few events, I was surprised how much trivia I knew from just being interested in anthropomorphics in popular culture. "Weird stuff on the net," an audience-requested and audience-commented video session, was the first event where I was able to see the group mentality and how similar mine is. Many audience comments struck chords with me, eventually erasing every doubt about being furry. I knew who I was, enjoyed the company of the furs around me, and felt at home with them. Another occasion was the Midnight Howl, an event where ~30 people congregated in the Hotel parking lot to howl at midnight. The completely innocent task unleashed new emotions. Howling into the night with complete strangers, I felt instantly connected to them and to a part of myself I didn't know existed. Throughout the convention, I met a lot of people just by starting conversations at every opportunity. Everyone kindly obliged me and many enthusiastically discussed the fandom. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time at the convention to build relationships, but I did get to know a handful of people well enough that we'd stop for a friendly chat whenever we ran into each other. One even stopped by in fursuit to greet me with my first head scritch, which was surprisingly enjoyable.

Since the convention, I've been meeting local furs by participating on a forum and IRC channel for Texas furs and attending local furmeets, two in San Antonio and one in Austin so far. Everyone, being very kind, generous, and caring, has welcomed me with open arms. Sadly, I've only had the opportunity to start getting to know a few people, and it will take a while to build the meaningful relationships I'd like to have. I've just been passively observing the furmeets for the most part because I'm shy in large groups of people, although I did get into Guitar Hero and some karaoke games at the first San Antonio meet at Path's house. I had a blast last weekend in Austin at spottylogic and baktre's den warming. I carpooled there with Path and Maru, and I'm glad I got to spend the weekend and several hours on the road with them. The den warming itself was a lot of fun. Admittedly, nine of us snuck out to the bowling alley in UT's Underground for a few hours and Kerbey Lane afterwards, but we did warm the den the rest of the time with a pot-luck dinner, The Lion King (TLK) sing-a-long, board and card games, random videos, long discussions, and other interesting furry activities. I especially enjoyed the TLK sing-a-long. It was the first time I watched The Lion King with other fans, something I never thought would happen, and something I wanted to do since I heard about similar events within the TLK fandom. Most of the other furs left Saturday night, leaving a handful of us together for 8 hours on Sunday. It was a relaxing time and great opportunity to get to know the hosts and interesting Austin furs. I know I will be returning to Austin to see them again.