Category Archives: Computing

My thoughts and works in computing and programming.

Finally Peace?

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Hehe I hope so. The peace part I mean. Err… I’m getting ahead of myself…

Finished my second exam today, this one being for Programming Languages. Not pleasant, since there was a good degree of Scheme on it. I actually hoped for more of a theory exam but no… mostly Scheme, Prolog, a BNF, and implement pseudo-language question thrown in for flavour. I finished in the expected time, a good chunk of my answers felt weak, so not too happy. None of this means that I will fail the course. So far I have not failed a single assignment or the midterm. In fact I’m expecting a 55-65% mark overall. Nothing to balk at in general. Still I learned alot of what makes a programming language, a language. I learnt about 3-4 new languages: Scheme, Prolog, ML and C++. Overall a pretty good achievement.

On Monday I had my Operating Systems exams like I mentioned. One word says everything about the exam: cakewalk. I got every question, finished a 3hr exam in 1.5 hours, and nearly all my answers were as airtight as… well… think of the most airtight thing… and then take that to the exponent of 100. Oh yeah! I must confess that I am bit of an expert in operating systems, being overexposed to the topic by playing with Gentoo Linux, Minix and reading Andrew Tannenbaum’s Operating Systems books. Yes I read both of them. Anyways I am a bit of a freak in that sense. Come to think of it, many of my classmates consider me to be an expert in a lot of the theoretical-technical part of CS. Being a host for an oversized ego, I neither admit or deny the honour.

Life otherwise has been placed on hold. With one more exam on next Friday, I can finally get back to doing StudentABC work. Since Keith asked me… please, please go visit his site: StudentABC. Its an excellent resource for citations especially for websites. Works near flawlessly for MLA and APA. Heck, I helped do the research and test cases for it. In the near future we will have support for parenthetical citations too. Once I get my lazy butt over there to work on the test cases. And its a totally free service. (Probably should convince Keith to get PayPal though for donations. ;-))

The real progress has come in brainstorming for my novel, Beneath My Icy Cloak. I have come up with a real basic plot, a few characters, and have done most of the research about technology, etc. When I started on the project, I decided to cut out the fantastical “technology” most sci-fi has. I even scrapped all forms of FTL travel. Why? Cause its extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon (read as before the next millenia) and its probably not physically possible. I actually nearly got bogged down on selecting suitable starship drive technology. I finally chose a combination of solar/magnetic sails and nuclear propulsion drives for travel. After some tossing and turning, I decided to keep some warp tech. Yes it helps travel somewhat. But I made it that it is so unpredictable that its mostly used for… other uses. I guess I need a tiny bit of artistic license. Anyways, I have a location, a back story, and now all I need to do is to solidify my skeleton of the story. A select few friends will get the honour of helping me edit it. How long all this will take? I’m not sure. One thing is for sure, I will publish this one. I doubt it will make its way to your local Chapters-Indigo or what-not. But you never now.

Gotta run.

A Scheme for Work, A Scheme for School

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Sigh… can’t really sleep. So I guess I might as well post a blog entry about this pas week. Funny, come to think of it the reason why I blog. Its not for money or popularity since nobody really comes to see this. In fact since comments are the only really way I can judge things, literally nobody comes. I told my friends, but they probably visited once. Shame really, I would not have to repeat myself in questions like “So how do you feel?”, “What’s up?” and others. Oh well, maybe I’m too whiny or too verbose. Anyways, I just blog to keep a memoir of my own activities, so that I don’t feel like if every week is the same, and that I didn’t do anything in life. So essential a memoirs. (I wonder if I came/come off like a emo-kid…

This week I was sick. I started feeling “sniffly” Sunday evening, and I barely made it through the 324 midterm on Monday. Most of Monday was spent on trying to focus, doing a bit of Datasphere, and mostly feeling bad. The last lecture of the day (Web Programming) simply became unbearably long. Tuesday was abysmal. I just simply slept, ate tiny meals, and force-fed myself Mom remedies. It became painfully obvious this was not going to be a 24-hr disease, like many of the ones I had in previous years. Wednesday things started to level off, and by Thursday I was “able” to do work. Mostly I was so distracted by my attempts (mostly failures actually) of working on a potential commercial project, and by playing the two N64 Zelda titles on an emulator.

So now we are up to today. Today was much more eventful. Started the morning off with a meeting with Dr. Jeff and Arun. Played a bit with MathFactor, and listened to some of the requirements. Actually with Arun all I am doing is designing a bit of things. Completely apart from Datasphere, and can’t even see what direction we are taking. Not to mention, we found out that there is a new product called Blackboard, that might a good chunk of Datasphere redundant. Honestly I feel sortta disappointed, and useless. Or maybe Arun is taking the awkward way of trying to make Datasphere to his own liking. Me, I’m adaptable and I just want to see some results.

I started work on the 309 assignment today in class. Much nicer, and I know my way around web programming in general. I just need to hack some Perl along the way. No issue there.

Later on Rudy, Albert and I went to the Gym. Originally I didn’t want, because of an assignment being due in a few hours, and not feeling especially well. They convince me to go, so I did. We ended up watching the end of the soccer game. We then played a very strenuous round of basketball with some other guys. Not fun, especially I never really had the height or talent for that game. After a short break, I joined in a volleyball game that just started up. Now that was fun. Rudy and Albert unfortunately were the anti-talents of the game. I thought that I would be bad at it. Considering how many serves I had and how many times I managed to get the ball over, I would say I did rather well. Some much fun…

I arrived home with an hour to spare for the Scheme assignment. I actually started it after the “official” due time. I only finished three questions, but this is the last Scheme assignment for this class. Actually I got tired of Scheme, especially since I am finding thinking in it very difficult. Most of the time, dealing with nothing but functions just get in my way. It just a big puzzle that I am stumbling blindly throught. A far better excuse is the mere fact that I was sick this entire week. On that note I am ending this, since I need some shut-eye. The coming week is shaping out to be a busy one, but at least I know where I’m going. Good night fellow blogsphere wanderer.

Update for February 26, 2006

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Good morning. The sun is shining brightly, its brilliance reflected off the snow. The sky is a nice light blue gradient, and is cloudless. I’m in a pretty good mood as well.

Actually I don’t have too much time to write this, as the time to leave to church is approaching rapidly. So will be concise. Today will hopefully be a productive day, in terms of actual studying and work.

Yesterday I managed to setup an Apache, Subversion, & mySQL server. I also went out of my way to secure the machine, and to give it a dynamic DNS. So whenever its on, so is my website now. 😉 No, really have not done to much work on it. But here it is anyways: Celestia. I am pretty happy in the fact that I just need to setup three more things: my printer, my Palm and configure that pesky SQL server.

Have to run now.

Here’s Some Snow For You to Eat, Mister Groundhog

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It decided to snow yesterday night. Which meant the first thing I did this morning was shovel the driveway and sidewalks. Apparently something got messed up, since on Groundhog’s Day the prediction was that spring was to occur the next day. The winter had been ridiculously light this year, so everyone expected a soon spring. Even mother’s snowdrops burst out of the light snow cover around the old pine tree’s stump on the front yard. They are probably still there. Under around a metre of snow. I have yet to see metre high snowdrops.

As is the custom of Saturday mornings, the rest of the day has started off slow. No real surprise there. My folks have come up (dreamed up for the sarcastic alter ego in me) with a number of tasks that I have to complete today. I reiterate; no real surprise there. However, I plan to finish my journal entry as I promised yesterday.

University is the life for me, yahoo! Right… Third year course in Computer Science are starting to become interesting fortunately. (Side note: mom bugged me about undoing the 2 metre high snowbank on top the snowdrops. I guess we will get to see the snowdrops this year. That and seeing a grown man using his hands to move a 2 metre high snowbank, 3 metres to the right of its current position.) This semester will be probably be my last in the actual CS major program. Which means I will have the opportunity of maybe TAing next year, and be in class whose girl-to-boy ratio is not worse than 1:20.

This semester I am taking Web Programming (to satisfy the hacker in me), Programming Languages (adventures in Scheme and Prolog) and Operating Systems. All of these I find interesting, and I have yet to actually fall asleep (from boredom that is) in one of the lectures. Web Programming being taught be Arnold Rosenbloom, means that are assignments will mirror the real world applications. That translates into massive code-monkey projects, which we can’t open source or subcontract to others. Lazy me. As for Operating System Fundamentals are being taught by G. Scott Graham. This results in a lot of technical details, derailing of lectures by introducing tangent topics, and assignments that may or may not be explained in the course content.

Programming Languages is being taught by an amiable younger (younger than most of the older faculty, if that means anything to you) professor by the name of Richard Kruger. This course I call my Adventures in Scheme. Now there is a language thats different. I really feel like I am learning programming all over again. Which is a nice feeling, I guess. I keep on having to ignore the itty-bitty nonsense of thinking in imperative languages, and dealing with memory issues. In fact, I found that thinking in “Scheme” alone helps alot with the assignments. Programming in this LISP derivative, sometimes feels intiutive and sometimes counter-logical. So I get this love-hate type emotion when dealing with this language. The best way of describing this emotion is with a mind-image:

Imagine being placed in an abstract world. One of those checkerboarded, cubicist, and colour-uncoordinated worlds of dreams and freaky puzzle games. Experiencing such a world in the first person, would be at time totally familiar. At others totally alien in the most mentally alarming manner. That is how I feel about this course. Since I would enjoy such a trip (prefer the land of the Sentinel over Hawaii); I find the entire course as a novel, refreshing adventure.

Now to crashland into Reality’s lap, I want to discuss my impressions on the people around me. I have been getting along much better with my family generally. My brother is becoming as a irritiating and obnoxious like I was at his age, only much less rude and in a much more lovable manner. This week being Reading Week, I decided to go out on Wednesday to meet some of the leaders of my brother’s Polish scout troop. So I went with my brother to the scout meeting, just to find out almost none of the leaders were there. For some reason, I volunteered to deal with the “Zuchy” (read as a Cubs/Brownies). Damn little brats. I had the honour of working with a girl from the older Girl Guides, Gosha as the leader of “Zuchy” decided not to show up. So I had the experience of being a teacher-substitute of Kindergarten/Grade One class. Yummy. Which basically meant extracting troublemakers out of trouble, yelling my voice off, and dealing with silly conversations with smart-ass mini-punks. One of the best conversations/rumors was that I was either the boyfriend, fiancée or husband of Gosha. Righto… like I would be married to a 15 (maybe 16) year old girl. Not that she was bad looking. But WAAAYY too young for an old fart like me. Too much of an age difference anyhow. Damn kids. In a funny way I did enjoy myself. But I made sure I never showed it.

The next day, Rudy invited me to go go-karting. So he picked me up around 9:30, and along the way there we find out that his “so-called” ex-girlfriend Shelly was not feeling too hot. So we ended up going to her house. I never really liked Shelly, but since Albert and Rudy were there I obliged. I probably shouldn’t of gone, since my opinion of Rudy and Shelly went down a few notches that night. So we talked a bit, over wine and beer (hated the wine, and I never tried Corona). After deciding to hit a bar later on, Rudy and Shelly decided to get stoned. Since I was there, and I hate the smell of weed, they decided to go outside to smoke. I am totally against getting intoxicated in any manner, I found their actions very childish. Since they didn’t want to take their precious bong outside, and Shelly couldn’t roll to save her life; they made an improvised bong out of a small plastic water bottle. Sigh… since I never liked Shelly, her smoking up just added to my abysmal impression of her. And Rudy… he is simply immature. I don’t know who was more immature Rudy or those “Zuchy” that I had put up with yesterday. I vote Rudy. That is just sad.

When they finally finished, we hit the road to get to a bar. Poor Albert had to get directions from those two crack-heads. After a near hour of rather pointless circling, we arrived at a sports bar ran by the father of one of Albert’s old acquaintances. We played a few rounds of pool, in which Shelly even in her state beat us down badly. Since it was late, I found it a little difficult to concentrate on the game. I think it was more of the late hour than the single bottle of Stella Artois beer I had there. Around half-past midnight, we left the place, and had to stop by a Tim Hortons to satisfy some folks’ munchies. Again another long sigh… I ended up getting a ride home with Albert at one in the morning. Overall it was a waste of a decent evening.

To end this entry in a positive note, I am still working in my work-study job on Datasphere. I was supposed to have a nasty meeting Wednesday morning, but that by the grace of God was cancelled. So I have recently buckled down and done some serious work in that region. I am hoping to work off an fair number of the hours I owe them in the next couple of weeks.

Well I better be off, since I have a number of tasks I want to complete today. Till this evening’s post, farewell fellow blogspherenaut.

Installing Kubuntu On a New Dell Desktop

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Well its been a while… since I last blogged that is. Life has been more or less alright. A number of things happened in between that time so I will spend sometime on each of the major events: installing Linux on a new desktop, impressions of my courses, impressions about Scheme (which sort of relates to my courses), the Datasphere work-study saga, the madness of acquaintances, and general lack of girl friend and major events (hey, I need to bitch about something)

I recently got a new machine, so like any real technophile (or more accurately gadgets-techs-and-other-toys-lover or simply a normal guy) I totally went nuts the day I got it. A few weeks ago I ordered a brand-new spanking Dell Dimension 9150 with a 19″ UltraSharp LCD thrown in. Naturally the morning it arrived I was on a tech-driven high. The poor Puralator guy must of thought I was nuts, bouncing all over the place. But hey, its not everyday is a Christmas equivalent, and the delivery guy basically became a Santa Claus. 😉 A few minutes later of forced calmness, I managed to drag my new toy upstairs and get it setup. The rest of the day was spent either installing stuff, or doing random chores and putting the machine through its paces. I must say that I was impressed with the machine in general, and strangely enough I enjoyed playing around with Windows XP Media Centre which I found to be very well polished and thought out for the most part.

Ater a tiny bit (read as days) playing around with Windows XP Media Centre, I got into installing Linux. All I can say to that is that one I’m a Linux junkie, and second that the target machine is a desktop, hardware issues would be less of an issue. Or so I thought. Fortunately for me I did a bit of research before deciding what kind of a machine to get (and kind of hardware it would contain). Hence the presence of a nVidia card (sorry ATi you maybe Canadian but your support is below par :(), the Intel integrated sound card (I’m not too serious in the music production scene… yet), and the Intel e1000 based network card. This time while having a much more agile machine, I decided against going with Gentoo. Simply I got tired of all the hassle of baby-sitting the system, and dealing with a never-ending stream of updates. So I decided to try out Ubuntu to see what all the fuss was about. Specifically I chose KUbuntu, since I prefer the more polished KDE over over-simplified Gnome. The installation went without a hitch, except for the network card. Aparently I have the latest generation of Intel’s Pro 100/1000 Ethernet cards, and the e1000 driver that comes with most Linux kernels was too old. Intel preceiving this released the source code for an updated e1000 kernel module. Since I was new to Ubuntu and Debian-style distributions in general, so kernel source recompilation was out of the question. I switched back to Gentoo for about two weeks. During that time I found that some compiled and posted the module for the Ubuntu. So I reinstalled Ubuntu, and I have stuck with it since.

My intial feelings about Ubuntu are positive. The distribution packaging system is based in the rock-solid apt build system (which mirrors Gentoo’s Portage), and has a decent number of packages available right of the bat. The hardware detection and setup is very well done, and I appreciate the dbus-hal-ivman automounting functionality (even thought the automatic starting of Kaffeine player when plopped in a DVD is a bit unnerving). The idea of doing sudo for everything that would normally require su-ing in as root is an excellent idea. In a matter of a day I had pretty much everything I needed to run a full scale development box. I even found this neat blogging utility that I am using now called BloGTK. All I need to figure out is a few minor issues such as DVD copying. I hope to get comfortable with compiling kernels under Ubuntu too, so that I can peacifully upgrade to any newer kernel (or slightly tweaked one), and still keep my Ethernet functionality working. Overall, I am greatly surprised how easy it is easy to install and administer a Linux computer nowadays. I think the open source community has gone a long way to making Linux a viable desktop option. I still can remember the fun and games of installing older versions of Mandrake, and SuSE on an older machine and my laptop a few years ago. You want X running on your laptop back then? Good luck. And you want to use your funky-dory nVidia card for 3d accelerated graphics??? Under X??? Dream on. Fortunately those days and experiences maybe numbered. That is all on the topic of new desktops and installing Linux.

Err… remember that I would write about more stuff earlier on? Well I guess I lied. I will continue on later tomorrow. Night.

Lurking in the Shadows…

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Well its a new year, but I have been lurking mostly in the shadows. Nothing much happening, other than the start of classes. Life is the same as always. Chaotic. And my house is divided up into territories (rooms) held various factions (members). 😉 So far, I think the year is alright. Too early to tell naturally. But I hope that this year will be the year I really break out into the open.

Having said that, I started working intensely on a the new news and gallery pages for my two projects, justCheckers and Insomia. Seeing that I could join my work together in a simple cohesive whole, and the potential that it might be useful for more people than just me; I started a new project. This project, Simple Site, plans to create a simple, bare bones content management engine that will allow for developers to add news, and image gallery functionality into their sites. This engine will be so simple, that it will easily be modded into any custom website that uses PHP and MySQL. Now all I need to see if SourceForge will accept my proposal.

Well I am off, to play a short round of VegaStrike and work on Datasphere work.

A Near Icarus Flight

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We will be returning to normality. Once we figure out what that exactly is.

— The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Yup. Normality, that would be nice. Relaxation would also be welcome. Yes, the universe is not letting me experience either of the above. This week is the final critical week in my semester. And the amount of stress is leveling to its normal high plateau. Again, my own fault for everything that has transpired. Last week was probably the worst.

Last week was work like no tomorrow time… I had three assignments, all due on Friday. Visual Computing naturally took the longest, and I had to iron out bugs. I hoped to finish it at latest Thursday 6 PM. When everything was said and done, I had completed it on Friday @ 2 in the morning. Right after I got to work on the Requirements Engineering spec that was due in the morning. Regardless, it took me up to 5:30 in the morning. That was a record time, because everyone in my group actually worked on the assignment. With a tiny bit of sleep, Rudy and I arrived at school to hand that in. In the process we interrupted a first year CS class. I felt like such a prick, but hey, I am third year. Everytime I talk to a first year CS student, I always come off like some “Zeus” of programming. If I want to light up my listener’s eyes like First of June (Canada Day, you hopeless Americans), all I have to do is slip that I am a hacker. Which is more or less true, both by the 1980’s coder definition and the more modern non-techie defintion (Don’t worry all your base safe with me… right…).

Databases was last. After a short nap, I viciously attacked that assignment. I actually figured out how to do most things in SQL finally (me == slacker), after a semester of procrastination. I knew it, but never really sat down and actually wrote the stuff up. Theory always has been my weak side, so I never really finished that part. I had done enough. And enough damage I had done to my lack of work on Datasphere.

So here I am employed at school, in this Datasphere project. I told my project manager that I would get something done two weeks ago. I did it yesterday. Later I encurred his wraith due to my keeping a low profile. And not answering his emails. I got an earful today, about it. I will admit it was unprofessional of me. However, I didn’t want to fess up that I had not touched it. To make things more interesting, there was supposed to be a meeting this morning. And yes, I showed up. Just to save my skin, and hopefully my job. No else did, cause it was rescheduled for Friday. Bummer. Nevertheless, I saved my skin, and despite the stern warning today, I still get to keep my job.

Yay. Tomorrow I have an exam first thing in the morning. Databases. Yummy. Friday is Visual Computing. After that I can actually take a short breather… err… I mean attend Datasphere meetings. I can probably expect another scalping for my previous behaviour… On the positive side, all my hard exams will be finished, and I will go shopping for a new box. I am still debating whether or not to build the system from scratch or just go with a prebuilt package. Considering that I have to basically get one from the ground up (with the exception of the mouse)… both options are expensive. The only great thing about a self build system, is that I can mod it to my heart’s content. Hmm…

Mayan Nightmares and Lazy Dreams

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Yesterday was both a rather eventful and uneventful day simultaneously. I did not get much done, but instead I had a pleasant chat with Mike. The usual science fiction, writing, and social issues chat, which I enjoyed greatly. I think I might have come off as conservative, hardhead… and there is nothing wrong with that. We discussed everything from the state of fiction, the state of states, and just other random stuff. Anyhow, this chat was a welcome change in mood for me. Earlier that day I tried to catch the attention of Katarina, and while for a moment I thought I had gained some ground. Then it died off again… oh well. Rudy told me to let her go, but she is only person I can actually practise on. No I am not the person to just go up, and serendipitously ask ladies out. Anyways, talking with Mike cleared my head of those thoughts. I actually want to go off and write a novel now too. (Alas time where are you?)

From the university scene, the requirements engineering assignment is due this Friday. No I have not really worked at it, and I am not motivated to do extremely well on it. I will probably end up staying up tonight to do it. Databases nothing exciting happened. We finally got our assignment for visual computing. One of the parts we have to do a 30 min. short animation in Maya. Not too impressed since I have to use the Personal Learning Edition to do this. I am familiar with Blender, and would rather use it. I stayed up yesterday figuring out a way to use Blender and final work in Maya. Alas, the PE version does not have a 3DS plugin, and Blender does not yet support Alias’ FBX format. A real shame. The only positive light to all of this was, the fact that I can still make my models in Wings3D. That is good… unfortunately I still have to learn how to use Maya PLE. I have not decided upon an animation as of yet either.

Finally I actually did some Datasphere yesterday. Not a gigantic amount, but still it is progress. I will do the bulk of my task today. The rest of the time I will delegate to the 340 requirements report. I will have to continue reorganization first, before I get serious with any other work. In the gaming universe, I killed my first Yeti yesterday in Kingdom of Loathing. Then I noticed the Bounty for Yeti and Penguin fur… and I went nuts. I am proud of being able to level up, and to increase my meat amount by 100% in one day. 😉 Now I will probably continue with one quest, and level up so that Yeti hunting is a single strike issue. After that I am planning to open up a store, and upgrade the clan with the gained meat.

Other all I am feeling in good spirits, but extraordinarly tired. I assume that my writing shows this. Anyways, I have to run off to do some chores, and work on all this stuff.

Back in the Void Again.

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I feel so out of place nowadays. There is a bit of lull between assignments and exams, so I have taken advantage of this to do a few random things. These past few days I have returned to work on my pet project, justCheckers. I am quite pleased with the new look, and setting up the forums was a quick issue. This time I even included an avatar gallery. Only two things remain to do. One is to write a dynamic news page, and an image gallery. Thanks to my new found knowledge in databases, I can finally make this a reality. The only issue is that there is a bit of planning that needs to go into this.

I have sort of taken a hiatus from my Datasphere work too. I am sort of ashamed of this, but with schoolwork and all… My most recent task of coming up with requirements is not fun. Originally when I applied for this work, I was hoping to become a code monkey and not a designer. Oh well. I have a 10 page memo to go through, which I am not too excited about.

I have to do a financial check today. I have sorta neglected that for too long. Recently I have spent a lot outside of home on food, and entertainment. Not to mention the paychecks coming from Datasphere. Taking about entertainment, the topic of Rudy’s new girlfriend is starting to be a bit irritating. I am in fact slightly jealious of Rudy, and also the amount of attention he gives her. No I am not complaining… but I still am going to. I learnt a few things about Rudy, that I would have passed on knowing. Also my own failure of picking up any girl, or even getting the slightest hint of interest is most depressing. I do loathe this type of depression cause it leads to defeatism and more depression. The fact of having little social activities, the looming perpetual cold of winter, and the stress of the end of the semester, is bad enough. This little issue (I mean this is only an emotionally large problem) is compounding to the general depressing mood. HEY SOMEONE GIVE ME A LITTLE ATTENTION!

On a good note, I recently acquired a sexy little USB optical mouse. I am seriously looking into acquiring a Palm keyboard. The funds of getting my own system are still not present. Fortunately things are looking up in that department. I still feel a tinge of guilt… I really aught to buy a few presents for the family… I promise I will.

Farewell until later, fellow blogsphere traveler.

And the Rain Kept Falling…

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Slowly, very slowly the time seems to creep for eternity… Life. The continual stream of assignments and midterms has worn me out. Today, I have to finish off a DB assignment which I am about halfway through. Writing SQL Server frontends in Visual Basic .net is not a task I relish. Figuring out all of VB’s nuances drove me yesterday to the point of despair.

Basically my days are spent living in front of a computer. Also since this my Father’s work laptop, I don’t have the option of messing it up into my nice and pleasent cubbyhole. A 15-minute break of playing Star Wars: Battle of Yavin got me an ultimatum. I know. I know. I should not of. But when all you see for most of the day is an IDE, and you have stare into the face of a bizarre, mind-numbing language, the idea of blowing up TIE fighters and Star Destroyers becomes pleasant. Anyways, I have to follow the no-mess up rule until I get a new machine/fix my old one.

I have not had the luxury of fixing it. Most likely I will try to do so tomorrow, after my tutorials. I might have to say no to going kart-racing to allow for it thought. I don’t know what to think about it. If I am fortunate enough to finish the two applications by evening, then all will be fine. Most likely I will stay up and work on it. I really hope that Rudy is correct that this is a misaligned heat-sink issue. Today, I will inquire about the possibility of getting a grant to buy a new machine. I am thinking a decent desktop, and maybe a keyboard for my Palm. In that case, I will be the most mobile. Laptops are too expensive and underpowered for my liking. I want to build my own box. I would love to play around with it… modding it. Come to think of if it I do have an ancient box lying around… A new motherboard with a P4 would be inorder. Oh and 1 GB of RAM.

Anyways… I have to run and do a task for Mom. I pray that I can go all out and defeat this DB assignment in a fallow swoop.