Interesting wish list

I was just reading on slashdot about a NY Times article called Ideas Unlimited, Built to Order. They asked 11 people what they think would be the best technology to make / have. They got some interesting ideas, but my favourite is from Bill Joy. I'd love to be able block off background noise / other conversations. I'd actually be able to talk / interact with people who I want to in a noisy place rather than just smiling and nodding polietly because I have asked them to repeat something twice and I still couldn't hear them. I usually give up after 3 attempts at most. Most of the time I don't even bother asking once. And it would be great on the bus. While going to school I'd love to block out the annoying chatter of the 17 year olds on the bus. Some of them sound like their age is greater than their IQ, while they never shut up. *sigh*

It seems both of my assignments that were due this week have now been moved to Monday. That'll give me a chance to actually get them done. But somehow, my modivation is gone. I am doing everything half assed and I am still pulling off 80's and 90's. I think that my 4100 prof is correct: fear modivates best.

Well, even though I was bitching before about getting my engine light in my car turned off, my car seems to actually be running better. I guess that sensor actually did something. Today I got an oil chance, tomorrow it's snow tires. Almost 1000 $ in 3 days on my car. Yikes. I guess that's the cost of having a babe mobile (the third). I should go an carve a pumpkin with my sister now... Ah, I love Halloween...

Listening to: Moby - Sleep Alone

Engine light off = 450 $

To turn off an engine light on my car (only a warning one), it cost too much. To fix an o2 sensor too... yikes. I mean, what did this sensor ever do for me? Ah well. THe guys at the dealership pointed out that I need new tires. I knew this. I didn't know that I had a couple of nails in my tires. I think that they must have been there for a long time. Ah well. I think that an oil change somewhere and new tires at frisbee. Maybe. I have to call around and figure out where to get them.

I'm happy tonight because other than the extension to Monday that I got for my security class I also have my books from amazon now. One is a Java XP "cookbook" which seems to be all like "this is your problem, this is how you fix it". Nice. Not too much talk. Easy to find things later. I think that is something important for a tech book: small sections, really good index. Most of the time people don't want to read it like a novel, they just want to flip to a section to refresh their memory (until it gets stuck in there head). *sigh* Now I should get back to my parallel assignment.

Listening to: Soft Cell - Tainted love

I'm S-M-R-T! ;-)

It took me a big chunk of today, but I got the first part of my parallel assignment done. I posted it for those who know where to look. ;-) Anyways, there were two things that helped me get it done: 1) VIM (VI but better... I guess M == better?). I don't have the syntax highlighting working, but it bolds and underlines things, and it actually has code compleate. Yes, code compeate in ssh. I think it's christmas... and 2) The moment that I figured out that using message passing you don't to match blocking and non-blocking methods. You can use a non-blocking send with a blocking receive. Who knew? I don't remember the prof telling us. I don't think that he did. So if anyone wants to compare answers, don't tell me how you did it. I don't want to know. I don't want to work on it anymore.

I don't know if I want to go to bed now or start on the second part. I mean, how hard can writting a parallel program in C (over ssh) that uses threads be when you are tired? ;-P

Listening to: The Beatles - Any Time At All

(cookies && coke) != lunch

Apparently coke and cookies don't make (a good) lunch. I got in trouble about that today. Who knew? They cover all the (student) food groups: sugar, caffeine, chocolate, ... And they come in a form that can be served out of a machine. Speaking of machines, it seems that they have removed all the vending machines and microwave from SITE. Just when I think that they can't piss me off anymore, they find new ways to do it. Ah well. At least I am not stuck in CBY most of the time.

I am trying to figure out what to what to dress for Halloween this year at my brother's place in Almonte. Laura pointed me to a great site that has all these cheap and funny costume ideas. My favourites include a Software Pirate and the Partly Cloudy With A Chance of Showers. I think that the Deviled Egg is really cute, but I think that it is more of a "girl" costume (to be sexist). I think that the best would be the One Night Stand, but I am tired with costumes that I can't sit down in.

I figured out today that my parallel assignment is due on Thursday. I really have to start looking at my planner more. Something is going to come up and bite me in the ass. And you don't know how hard it is to do software engineering if you can't sit down... (because something bit you in the ass... now laugh. Please. Ah, nevermind...)

Listening to: Mussorgsky - Samuel Goldenberg & Schmuyle

Links, comics and books.

Some people don't think that there is too much hope for the high tech industry in Ottawa. I am not sure if this is true or not. I guess that this will mean even more people will try to get into the government then. Or switch to another industry. I hope that I'll be safe, but I am sure that things will work out in the end.

I read an funny comic today. I should probably put up a list of the comics that I read in case anyone is interested... maybe, maybe not. Peter suggested that I make a script / page that just collects all the emails. But I actually like to go to some of the pages to read the write ups, espically if they are web comics. Most of the commerical ones just print them. With thoses, it's pretty much like reading the news paper, but in colour and I get less ink on my hands. ;-)

The other day I bought a couple of books from amazon.ca. The first book is about JSP's, J2EE, etc. Stuff that I felt that I should have learned at my last co-op, but never really got the chance to since I was just doing text changes, mostly to properties files. The second I just thought would be interesting. O'Reilly books are usually pretty good, and this one had an okay pretty good rating, even though it was only by 7 people. And besides, this has a picture of a Buffalo on it! I mean, how could you not get that book! ;-)

Listening to: Howard Shore - The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers - Isengard Unleashed

80 % for sure

I had a conversation with one of the ladies that hired me for my last job. While I was there she moved departments, but was still in the same place. She's looking for a junor developer. Apparently they changed the rules in gov't. She will have to run a nation wide companition unless 1) The person being hired has graduated in the last 4 months 2) They have a degree in a applicable field (i.e. if I did Pol. Sci. I couldn't go for a Engineering job) and 3) that they have worked at the place before. Yay! I fit all three! ;-) The whole conversation was like "this is the job. Are you interested? Okay, I'll start the paper work then." Yay! ;-)

However, there are always things that come in the way. She has to get approval first. So she said that me getting this job was dependant on the budget, and she told me to keep looking, keep my options open.

The job sounded pretty good. There would be no maintenance. Yay!! It would be a really small team (jr. dev. (me), sen. dev., PM (her), a DB person and a part time UI person). J2EE stuff, web applications; the project starting from scratch. If I got hired I'd start as a CS-1, which is what I would expect in this market. If this works out, I should know in < a month. We'll see what happens.

Listening to: Bob Marley - Red Red Wine

One to go

Only one midterm to go now. Ever. Oh ya. I am pretty happy about that. It's Nov 18th, which really means that the prof doesn't understand the expression "mid term". Ah well. I think that sometimes he's a bit slow, he's had to use Excel too much. ;-) This is the same guy that gave us an extension 29 minutes after the assignment was due and the application locked us out. I sent off an email to him complaing about this. I was very, very mad at the time. I tried to word it to be nice though, and I think that the prof agreed because he wrote back (and this is the whole email): "well you try to be nice. A bonus is a good idea,". By the way, I love his email skills. I have not seen anything that beautifully written for a long time. *sniff*

I really love playing cribbage, but it is never one of the games on the computer. So I tried to find one somewhere, without too much success. I really would like a free one. So, I decided to look for an open source one to no avail. I found two projects, but they had not released any code. So then I thought "how to I learn best. By doing", so I decided to start programming a game for myself. I spent about an hour on it and made a couple classes. It'll be really done iteritively. Right now I am just working on doing the logic, and I am doing it in java with JUnit. I might have to switch later (depending what UI I want to put on it). I don't think that I'll do a Swing front end. Maybe SWT or XUL (if they can put Java as the back end). Or I might redo it in C#, but I'd have to get the env. for that first. But I don't really expect to work on it till Late December or January. I'll keep people posted and let you know what is happing if anyone is interested.

Listening to: Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams

Poop report?

Okay, I just can't believe this site. People actually have this domain? Yikes. And they have long discussions about poop? I am sure that I don't want to read any more. In case you are wondering how I got to that site in the first place, I was looking if anyone has fake puke / barf . Peter was telling me how he wanted to get some fake barf that looks like it has a text book in it and hand it in for the exam. I just thought that was really funny. What else do you do in your undergrad when you are at school other than spit back what the prof has said even if you know it to be wrong. Or, if you wanted to use another term than "wrong", we can say different. Like if in every other class that your students get taught, they use one definition, and in 4th year you tell them that it is actually something else. We are not actually apply what we "learn" in the class, we are just going to remember how to pass the exam, and then forget most of it. (mostly the dumb parts, the interesting / useful parts get remembered automatically).

-- Frustrated in Ottawa

Listening to: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger

Web standards

I know web standards is sort of an oxymoron term. And I know the over used quote "What do I like about standards? That there is so many to choose from". Yes. Har har. Okay, my comment is how some people have set it so when you click on a link it opens a new window. I guess that they don't want you to actally leave their page. I am sure that lots of people love this. I don't. This pisses me off to no end. If I wanted to leave a window / tab open to your page, I'd have done it. Don't make decisions for me. I'm a big boy, really. I don't think that it will happen, but I'd love for pages to get a pass / fail rating from a UI perspective. And everyone would agree on this minimum standard. Even if it included not having spelling errors on your page (I know, I know...). Maybe if google and other search engines ranked you by how usable your site was, people would work harder at it rather than just throwing up crap html with the only critera is that it displays "okay" in IE or Mozilla. Even if there is a system config for this, I still don't think that designers should make that decision for the user. </rant>

I just bought the Two Towers (Special Edition) on dvd tonight. I was actually able to have the will power to hold off buying it (and getting the non-special edition) till now. I am impressed. Maybe it's cause every time I had a craving for Middle Earth I would just throw in the Fellowship of the Ring. Great movies, great books.

I wrote my Robotics midterm on Saturday. It was bad, bad, bad. Not only did I run out of time (as did most of the class), but I answered a question wrong because the prof changed the sub-scipt on a convention and I didn't notice. Yes, because I would normally notice it when you change the letters TRPY around (in a subscript!!). Riiiight. I think that was a dirty trick on the professors part. He should have highlighted it or something. Jerk.

Listening to: Moby - Into The Blue

Not a creature was stirring (because there was no coffee)

The night before my robotics midterm and I should be worried. I am not. Not because I don't have a reason to worry. I'm just not worrying. Let's see if I can sleep at all though, that'll be the real test.

I was happy to see that I am going to make more money than short people. I could use it too. I need a kayak. ;-) Some times I think that those studies are just full of crap though. I don't think that your height has to do with how much money you make anymore than this rock keeps away tigers...

One place I DO see computer software moving is being able to process tons and tons of text though text mining. I think that this will be good (and it's a logical step) to be able to find relivate info. Will google do this? Maybe one day.

Today I got an email from one of the ladies that hired me at my last co-op job. She says that there is an opening in January and she'd like to speak to me about it. Yay! ;-)

And in other news... I was happy to see that they made a sequal to a game that I really liked (playing the demo of). I always liked playing Max Payne (even though I never played the full game). I thought that the bullet time was SO cool, and it had a great dark, moody atmosphere to it, similar to Blade Runner. Which is another great movie. I think that it's based on a novel by Philip K. Dick who wrote short stories that the movies Minority Report and Total Recall. His stories are interesting if you get a chance to read them. I think the collection that I have has a forward that says something like "His stories are characterized by protagonists trying to do better, but almost always doing worse". Interesting and make you think kind of stories. I like Sci Fi. ;-)

Listening to: The Vapors - Turning Japanese

Different backgounds

I can't believe some of the knowledge that I have gotten in the last 4 (5?) years that I just take for granted. I was reading an article about Linus (thanks Ryan) and I was telling Heather about it. She had never even heard of Linux. Woah. Sometimes I just take it for granted that people are big nerds like me, who read slashdot 50 times a day (like keeping a tab open to it in mozilla and just hitting refresh). Does this mean that other people don't count in binary (or hex or oct, ...); think in logic controls (AND, OR, ...) and loop structures; and don't spend most of their free time in front of their computers? I guess that I am just an inside the box kind of guy now. I guess that's one thing about school, they take many different people and end up making them all the same (or damn close).

Listening to: 311 - Amber

Ugg...

Man oh man. I thought that I was so smart there for a second. In our 4th year project we use the Singleton pattern a lot for our code. For the data repository part we also use an interface. The things that implement the interface are singletons (and hence have a static method). Well, I tried to do a cool way to test against the interface, but alas, it cannot be so. Too bad, so sad. And I thought that I was doing a good job. There are other ways (other than cut and paste) that can be done, but we shall see about that. I don't think that I have enough brain power right now to be able to do it. Maybe tomorrow.

Today I wrote my first last midterm. First because it's the first this semister, last because this is my last semister. YAY me! ;-) And it appears that my exam schedule is again posted, and I should go done on the 12th. So that means that my count down has been revised. It looks like me missed another milestone (64 days to go), so I guess we will just have to party when there is 32 days to go. Yes, we are big nerds. ;-)

The wind has been really strong here. I am just glad that it is only rain (for like 5 days straight!) and not snow. Snow would make the driving impossible. As it was I almost got blown off the road (it felt like) at one point. I honestly don't remember ever driving in wind that strong before. It was pretty scary.

Okay, I was going to mention the thing about character sets by Joel that Ryan put in his media blog, but I am not going to. I am much too tired. ;-P

Listening to: Third Eye Blind - Semi-charmed Life

Loosing thoughts

It's really weird, but I think that I am getting dummer every day. I keep on having thoughts and thinking "oh! I must remember that!", but then 20 minutes later (or much less!) it is long gone. *sigh* Ah well. I guess this is one reason why I should make sure that I do lots of "thinking" all the time. Even do things like Math *gasp* just to keep my mind sharp.

I should be able to post some pictures from the weekend at the cottage when my dad gets them off the camera. I'll do that when I have a chance. As it is, I should be going to bed... my brain is a bit burnt, and I have to write a midterm tomorrow. Ah well. ;-)

Listening to: Dirty Vegas - The Brazilian

Troubles with sympatico to hotmail

Yes, as I am sure that you can see from the title, I am having troubles with sending people stuff from sympatico to hotmail accounts. Things are getting there a week late, if at all. I was being some messages from hotmail accounts that never got to me. Other people (like Heather) are having this trouble too, so it's not just me. I'll try and do hotmail to hotmail when I remember, but I am sure that I'll forget. This really sucks, and I have to complain to sympatico and find out what is happening, but I am sure that it'll just be hotmail's fault. ;-)

In other news the Sens won against Montreal last night. They are two of my favourite teams. Which is weird 'cause I don't really like the Leafs that much, and I spent over 1/2 of my life in TO (well, more or less TO). Ah well.

Apparently most people don't know about my school page (it's actual a tripod page where I keep all my school stuff). I guess if people actually read my blog, I should be nice and share things like kibbee. Espically after his last comment. I don't think that anyone cheats now (or I hope not), but we do definally share answers. Which, to some would be the same thing, but to me there is a big difference.

Heather has pointed out some of my spelling errors. That's one thing about a my blog, it's all about the creative spelling. "It is a poor man who can only find one way to spell a word". ;-) So, if you are getting annoyed about my spelling / typo's, that's unfortunate. I'll try my best, but I am not going to spell check everything. This is my creative outlet. ;-)

Listening to: Tragically Hip - The Dire Wolf

A pox on 4100!

It seems that the 4100 assignment has now been delayed till 2300 on the 11th. ;-) Yay! That means that I can put it off for a little while longer. Oh joy! But I still think that the whole class is dumb, but I'm not doing to get into that (again) right now.

The leaves are finally turning colour, and right when it got warm again. Excellent. Perfect for walks outside. I love the cruncyness under my feet as I walk. I think that Fall is the best season, even better than twinky season! ;-)

I have taken to counting again as a way to keep myself calm in class. About 2/3 though my parallel class I had to go get a coke 'cause I wanted to hit Mr. Obvious Man in the head. In case you didn't understand from his name, he litterly just repeats what the prof said, with a pretense that he has a question. The prof sort of sighs when the guy starts to talk. And there are only about 9-10 ppl that show up for the class too. Grrr...

Listening to: Moby - First Cool Hive

Modivation? Fear works best.

I have been trying to work on my SEG 4100 assignment now for about an hour and I have not written anything. I can't seem to actually modivate myself to get it done. Yesterday I wasn't having a problem because it was due today at noon, it has since been pushed back to Friday. I can't understand why I can't get things done early. Why? *sigh* Maybe because the course just seems like a big pile of crap.

The prof has just sent out an email (through WebCT, but let's not go there right now), telling us to buy the book before it gets sent back. It seems that almost no one has bought the book yet. Well, considering that he tries to go through about 150 ppt slides / 3 hour lecture, I am not going to go out and buy a 100 $ book. I have more than enough to read as it is. My brain is overloaded with this crap, and frankly I don't want to add any more anyways. The whole course seems outdated because he is baseing everything on the waterfall method. He keeps on talking about liklyhood of failure etc. And I am sure with most / many sw projects now, if you don't show progress, only documentation, you have a bigger chance of getting canceled. I'm not sure if I am all for XP, but at the very least do iteritve developement, seesh.

Listening to: Robbie Williams - Me And My Shadow

One down, 876,982,150,721 to go...

Well, one more assignment is done. Now I just have to start 4100. Oh well. Every assignment, every character that I type brings me closer to the other side, and at this point, for the first time ever, I truely feel that I am getting there. That I am almost done.

It seems that Peter is having troubles with Windows Explorer. I started it up, and it weighed in at just under 3 Mb. In about 6 minutes it has gained about a Mb, even though I have not touched it. I'll have to keep my eye on it. Maybe the solution to making my computer fast is just to close all MS products that I can. ;-)

Ryan has written about him getting people asking for his resume, which I think is damn cool. In this market, how many people can say that they are getting people that they have never even met ask them to send in their resume? Not me for one. Ryan said that he thought that it was cool that "recruiters use Google" to find people. I am not sure if this was stated in one of the emails, but I wonder if someone working on the team used one of the solutions that Ryan found and passed along the info to the HR person. Interesting... I guess that I'd have to write about technical stuff instead... Naaa... ;-)

Last Friday we handed in all the documentation for M4 for AudioMan, which is our fouth year project. We all hate doing documentation, but it forced us to take a look at our code for some things. We found several things that are not how we thought that our own stuff worked. Which shows how important customer tests are. Unit tests are not everything.

It looks like Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend. My brother and I were going to go to the cottage this Friday, but plans have been moved to Saturday early. My brother is usually at work by 4 am, so we are going to leave my house at 5 am. Oie. I usually come home at that time... I just hope that a hot shower and LOTS of coffee are going to be enough. And I hope that I have enough energy at the end of the weekend to study for all of the upcoming midterm....

Listening to: Space - Tin Planet - Fran in Japan

Almost there...

You know that you have been sitting in front of the computer for a while when you start hearing the same songs when you are listening to your mp3's on "random". Espically when you have like 2300+ songs in your playlist. Oie.

Well, Robotics was done yesterday (with a lot of help from Karen). The programming part of Parallel is done (thanks in a big part to Kibbee). Now all I have to do is finish off the written part of Parallel. Yay! Almost there. But then I have to start on the crazy assignment that our 4100 prof gave us. I emailed him as soon as I saw it because I have some questions about it, but he still has not gotten back to me. *sigh* And he gave us less than a week from when it was posted. Crazy! But whatever. I just need to do enough so that my grades don't drop too much.

This weekend coming up is Thanksgiving, and as always, it's going to be nuts. That and I have 2 midterms the next week, and one after that. Not too bad overall, but I don't know how well I am learning this material. In Parallel, a lot of the time I just sit there and don't have a freaking clue what's going on. We had a "surprise" quiz (it didn't get marked if you didn't want it to be), and I really had no freaking clue at all. If that had been the midterm, even with the redicious questions, I would have been screwed. Robotics on Friday was one of the first ones where thinge really sunk in. I'm pretty good with 3D, but some of the stuff just gives me a headache.

Oie. think that I should go to bed now... I don't do too well on 5 hours of sleep.

Listening to: Howard Shore - The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers - The Passage Of The Marshes

Exams: now you see them, now you don't

So, as it turns out, I don't really know when my exams are going to happen. They had it up on info web, then they took it down. Go figure. Af first when I saw it, it has Dec. 8, 9, 11, 12. (yes, 4 in five days). I know that isn't that bad, and many people are happy with that, but I am not to happy with it. I'd rather have at least a day between exams. More like 2. But, as my dad said, they will be the last exams that I will ever write. I think that he may be wrong, but I am sure that he is close. ;-)

I started to get really down today about everything closing in on me already, but then I got into my car on the way home the the CD that Laura made for me started playing that old song Don't Worry, Be Happy, and I went, ya, I should be. I have no reason NOT to be happy. I have food, a roof over my head, people that love me, and just about every convience there is. Some times I just forget just how lucky I am, and how most of the crap that I stress over every day is just that: crap. When I finish school, most of this will not matter. It won't matter if in a class I get 6 / 10 or 9.9 / 10. I'll sleep soundly either way. It surprises me just how often I lose sight of that. Don't sweat the petty things (and don't pet the sweaty things!)

Listening to: Ben Harper - Strawberry Fields