I think I have reached the point where I am completely burned out on school. I am going to take the rest of the quarter off (I'll take the incomplete/F/Z/whatever I get for not finishing) and try working on a few personal projects.
I have several Android app ideas and I might try picking one and see if I can get it done and published on the market before summer quarter starts in June.
If that doesn't work out or the university kicks me out, then I'll be looking for a job in 3 weeks.. either way I'm so mentally over with this quarter...
I have several Android app ideas and I might try picking one and see if I can get it done and published on the market before summer quarter starts in June.
If that doesn't work out or the university kicks me out, then I'll be looking for a job in 3 weeks.. either way I'm so mentally over with this quarter...
Been working on the netbook (Dell Inspiron Duo 1090) and getting the dock to work in Linux (Gentoo).
Out of the box the dock works IF the netbook is booted while docked. It mostly works (minus ethernet, haven't tested the card reader) if you boot solo and hot dock.
I did find a way to get the ethernet to work after hot docking by forcing the kernel to rescan the PCI bus, but this isn't ideal as it disrupts pretty much everything (in particular will disconnect the WIFI momentarily).
However, if the netbook is docked and you hot undock it, then try to hot (re)dock it, there is no way to get the ethernet to work again that I can find. I've tried unloading the related modules (r8169, mii, *_hci, etc.) to no avail. My suspicion is that the module (r8169) doesn't support hot swapping and once it has created the device it expects it to still be there - although I haven't confirmed this as I haven't bothered to look at the source (I'm still in the let's-figure-out-the-damn-dock stage).
At least the BIOS DSDT work-around stopped the random kernel oops when docking/undocking or pluging/unpluging the AC adapter...
Out of the box the dock works IF the netbook is booted while docked. It mostly works (minus ethernet, haven't tested the card reader) if you boot solo and hot dock.
I did find a way to get the ethernet to work after hot docking by forcing the kernel to rescan the PCI bus, but this isn't ideal as it disrupts pretty much everything (in particular will disconnect the WIFI momentarily).
However, if the netbook is docked and you hot undock it, then try to hot (re)dock it, there is no way to get the ethernet to work again that I can find. I've tried unloading the related modules (r8169, mii, *_hci, etc.) to no avail. My suspicion is that the module (r8169) doesn't support hot swapping and once it has created the device it expects it to still be there - although I haven't confirmed this as I haven't bothered to look at the source (I'm still in the let's-figure-out-the-damn-dock stage).
At least the BIOS DSDT work-around stopped the random kernel oops when docking/undocking or pluging/unpluging the AC adapter...
So the wife and I adopted a parrot. He's a yellow double-headed amazon. The previous owners (who were moving and couldn't take him with) believe he is 10 years old.
He's a mean one, Mr. Grinch! He bit 3 of us while we were visiting him at the previous owner's house (which was nearly empty). I'm sure he was upset by all of it, but holy damn he broke skin through a towel! The wifey got the worst: she got bit on the hand 3 times and was gushing blood all over the place...
Hopefully he calms down in his new friendlier environment. We need to pick up some "treats" for him to try and reward good behavior...
Here is a phone pic of him on top of his cage
Here is another phone pic of the kitten trying to figure "out WTF is this?"
He's a mean one, Mr. Grinch! He bit 3 of us while we were visiting him at the previous owner's house (which was nearly empty). I'm sure he was upset by all of it, but holy damn he broke skin through a towel! The wifey got the worst: she got bit on the hand 3 times and was gushing blood all over the place...
Hopefully he calms down in his new friendlier environment. We need to pick up some "treats" for him to try and reward good behavior...
Here is a phone pic of him on top of his cage
Here is another phone pic of the kitten trying to figure "out WTF is this?"
So this morning, while enjoying my morning cup of coffee and checking email, the kitten decided to chew up the router AND cable modem power cords! The worst part was that she did it right in front of me and I didn't even notice until the Internet went out.. *sigh*
I took the two cords and noticed that she's obviously been working on them for a while as they have a lot of chew marks and several near-separations in the wire. Given that there were such large sections of questionable wire I decided to cut that bad sections out.
I planned to solder in new wire but after 30 minutes of being plugged in the soldering iron never got quite hot enough to melt the solder (it got hot, but not enough). It was a pretty old iron and a cheapo one at that. It went in the trash. Then hunted through my electrical parts/connector bin and found a few solder-less connectors, but only enough to just put the wires back together in a shortened state.
So in the end I got it all put back together, but they are definitely shorter - especially the cable model cord which is probably only about a foot long now (it was probably 3 feet pre-kitty-lunch).
I'm surprised the little shit didn't get shocked...
I took the two cords and noticed that she's obviously been working on them for a while as they have a lot of chew marks and several near-separations in the wire. Given that there were such large sections of questionable wire I decided to cut that bad sections out.
I planned to solder in new wire but after 30 minutes of being plugged in the soldering iron never got quite hot enough to melt the solder (it got hot, but not enough). It was a pretty old iron and a cheapo one at that. It went in the trash. Then hunted through my electrical parts/connector bin and found a few solder-less connectors, but only enough to just put the wires back together in a shortened state.
So in the end I got it all put back together, but they are definitely shorter - especially the cable model cord which is probably only about a foot long now (it was probably 3 feet pre-kitty-lunch).
I'm surprised the little shit didn't get shocked...
I finally got Linux (Gentoo) to work on the netbook without crashing when docking/undocking or plugging/unplugging the AC adapter by hacking the DSDT data in the BIOS. Turns out the source of the problem is a buggy BIOS from Dell (surprise...) wherein they are registering the power adapter twice with the same name.
It's been a few days and after removing the extra entry from the DSDT seems to have fixed it (knock on wood!) The problem with the crash was that it didn't always happen, so there is a little part of me that's worried that I keep getting a good boot and the problem is still present... I guess time will tell.
It's been a few days and after removing the extra entry from the DSDT seems to have fixed it (knock on wood!) The problem with the crash was that it didn't always happen, so there is a little part of me that's worried that I keep getting a good boot and the problem is still present... I guess time will tell.
If I were trying to survive the zombie apocalypse I would be making use of law enforcement tactical gear!
Specifically I would be wearing "SWAT" or more likely riot/crowd control gear (or maybe some combination of the two). Why? Simple: riot gear is padded, has a helmet with a full face shield, and the shield that you see police kneeling behind when being shot at/large objects thrown towards them can be used as a melee weapon. This would be my body gear of choice when dealing with zombies.
It's funny that in all of the zombie movies that I've watched, and I've seen most of 'em, I think I can only recall seeing riot gear used once (and I can't even remember what movie that was now...)
Yes, I think about such hypothetical events way too much!
Specifically I would be wearing "SWAT" or more likely riot/crowd control gear (or maybe some combination of the two). Why? Simple: riot gear is padded, has a helmet with a full face shield, and the shield that you see police kneeling behind when being shot at/large objects thrown towards them can be used as a melee weapon. This would be my body gear of choice when dealing with zombies.
It's funny that in all of the zombie movies that I've watched, and I've seen most of 'em, I think I can only recall seeing riot gear used once (and I can't even remember what movie that was now...)
Yes, I think about such hypothetical events way too much!
I woke up not feeling so good today. I went to my morning class (math) and then came home and went to bed for about 4 hours. I feel a lot better after sleeping, but still kinda crummy. Tomorrow is my long day (at school) so I hope I feel better by tonight so I can get a good/full night's sleep!
I'm thinking about buying a new graphing calculator. I have a TI Nspire CAS (the original version) and I've decided that I 1) think the interface is too sluggish and 2) don't like how everything takes like a minimum of 3 clicks of the ok button and multiple arrow key actions to get anything done. I'm considering buying an HP 50G (I'm one of the few people who probably likes reverse polish notation) but I haven't found anyone that carries them locally. I downloaded the emu48 emulator and a 50G ROM and have been playing with that a little here and there and so far I really like the 50G if it's like the ROM.
So having the 1U rackmount server in the office as the KVM server has been very loud. I kind of want to buy a xrackpro2 4U to put it, another 1U, and a network switch in. I don't know anyone personally that has a xrackpro2 cabinet, but from the reviews online they seem to be pretty positive. Any noise reduction would be a plus as this thing has like 8 15K RPM fans plus a few smaller ones and sounds like a bunch of mini-jet engines. The downside is they're like $600 + shipping which I can't afford this month so no matter what it will have to wait.
I'm thinking about buying a new graphing calculator. I have a TI Nspire CAS (the original version) and I've decided that I 1) think the interface is too sluggish and 2) don't like how everything takes like a minimum of 3 clicks of the ok button and multiple arrow key actions to get anything done. I'm considering buying an HP 50G (I'm one of the few people who probably likes reverse polish notation) but I haven't found anyone that carries them locally. I downloaded the emu48 emulator and a 50G ROM and have been playing with that a little here and there and so far I really like the 50G if it's like the ROM.
So having the 1U rackmount server in the office as the KVM server has been very loud. I kind of want to buy a xrackpro2 4U to put it, another 1U, and a network switch in. I don't know anyone personally that has a xrackpro2 cabinet, but from the reviews online they seem to be pretty positive. Any noise reduction would be a plus as this thing has like 8 15K RPM fans plus a few smaller ones and sounds like a bunch of mini-jet engines. The downside is they're like $600 + shipping which I can't afford this month so no matter what it will have to wait.
I overslept, missed my morning class (math), and generally just don't feel like doing anything today. Unfortunately for me, I have two important homework assignments due tomorrow...
Oh, and I'm also out of Mt. Dew!
Oh, and I'm also out of Mt. Dew!
In my computer security class today we were surprised by a pop quiz. 
It was a single sided piece of paper and at the top was a message that had been enciphered with a Caesar Cipher. Our quiz was to, in less than 20 minutes, decipher the message! Well I haven't even read that chapter yet (yeah, I know...) and was freaking out. Making matters worse the instructor misspelled "Casar" and I thought it was something else!
Had I known that it was Caesar I might have actually gotten part of it done because I actually studied Caesar and Vigenère Ciphers as background (i.e. what was done in the past) for my thesis paper last year (it was on WWII codes and ciphers)... anyway I was completely flustered and couldn't figure it out and when the time was up he asked if anyone got it, but only one person got part of it or no one got it (hard to tell from eavesdropping form the back of the room), so he let us take it home!
I like take-home quizzes!
He did warn us that the one would be harder (different cipher I guess). I guess that means I need to make up my own quizzes and practice doing them in under 20 minutes!
It was a single sided piece of paper and at the top was a message that had been enciphered with a Caesar Cipher. Our quiz was to, in less than 20 minutes, decipher the message! Well I haven't even read that chapter yet (yeah, I know...) and was freaking out. Making matters worse the instructor misspelled "Casar" and I thought it was something else!
Had I known that it was Caesar I might have actually gotten part of it done because I actually studied Caesar and Vigenère Ciphers as background (i.e. what was done in the past) for my thesis paper last year (it was on WWII codes and ciphers)... anyway I was completely flustered and couldn't figure it out and when the time was up he asked if anyone got it, but only one person got part of it or no one got it (hard to tell from eavesdropping form the back of the room), so he let us take it home!
I like take-home quizzes!
He did warn us that the one would be harder (different cipher I guess). I guess that means I need to make up my own quizzes and practice doing them in under 20 minutes!
I wish there was a men's tank-top in the SG shop. I love the unisex shirt (have two of them), but there definitely needs to be a men's tank-top!
I've started playing with GTK+ in Windows after I found a nice guide on how to set up Visual Studio to work with GTK+. Haven't really done much other than a few simple test programs, but it looks promising!
So I need to start planning out what classes I'm going to take during summer quarter as registration is in a month and there really is only one regular class that I can take (AI) for 4 credits (I need at least 6). So another option is to take a CS 400 class (directed independent study), but I've never done one and I'm not sure what it would focus on and I don't know which prof to do it with... Basically I have to come up with an idea and present it to a professor and hope he/she accepts it, or at least that's my understanding of how it works.
I've started playing with GTK+ in Windows after I found a nice guide on how to set up Visual Studio to work with GTK+. Haven't really done much other than a few simple test programs, but it looks promising!
So I need to start planning out what classes I'm going to take during summer quarter as registration is in a month and there really is only one regular class that I can take (AI) for 4 credits (I need at least 6). So another option is to take a CS 400 class (directed independent study), but I've never done one and I'm not sure what it would focus on and I don't know which prof to do it with... Basically I have to come up with an idea and present it to a professor and hope he/she accepts it, or at least that's my understanding of how it works.
