Kyle's University Escapades

The Door Sign Mk. III

2006-03-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

Or, how I have fulfilled my dream to become even more antisocial. I took my old doorsign (which had LEDs indicating where I was at the moment), and added a stripped-down webcam that transmits through the longest USB cable in the world right back to my computer. So now I can see what's going on out in the hall without actually opening the door and checking. It's great.

Here's a picture of the doorsign itself:

This is what it currently sees across the hall:

And just for kicks, here's the nice box that controls the LEDs (it used to be bare wires sticking into a breadboard, just for comparison):

Anyways, the next step is going to be to add a pan/tilt mechanism to the camera. maybe even a zoom, if I can find an old camera or something to cannibalize parts from.

Zombie Invasion Tomorrow: Be Ready

2006-01-14T02:44:00.000-05:00

Since it has been determined that the zombie apocalypse starts tomorrow, I've decided to write a bit of a guide to surviving a zombie attack. Specifically, it will be dealing with survival in a city.

Section 1: Shelter

As we've all seen in the movies, news of a zombie invasion usually causes mass panic, and many people try to flee cities. The concept of avoiding densely populated areas is a good one; however the worst thing to do is to get caught in a mob of people trying to escape a city. The average modern building is strong enough to withstand quite a pounding by zombies, even if they gain strength in the transformation. So the key is to hole up. Barricade weak points in the building such as doors or first-floor windows. If at all possible, keep to the second floor and above and barricade the stairwells and elevators. Then simply wait it out until the zombies are thinned out enough that you can leave the city safely.

Section 2: Food and water

Stockpile water as soon as possible. Once there are reports of zombies in the city, do not use tap water. In the average room there are many items that can be used to store water; use them! The roof is key to replenishing your supply from rainwater. As far as food goes, canned food is your best bet. It can last for years. It's best to have a healthy amount reserved in advance, because leaving the building to raid grocery stores - or for any reason - is not advisable. However, it is likely that most of the people in the building will have tried to leave the city, so food can be taken from their refrigerators and pantries.

Section 3: Power

Don't count on it lasting for long. Even if your city is fed by a nuke plant, it is likely that it will shut down sooner rather than later with nobody maintaining it. The only thing that electricity is really needed for is heat, but fires can be lit inside the building for warmth as long as EXTREME CARE is taken. Burning down your hiding spot is not recommended. Conserve batteries, because what you have is all you get, and they might come in handy later. If there are any generators around (which is unlikely in the middle of a city), it's probably more beneficial to save the gasoline for use in vehicles when it comes time to leave the city.

Section 4: Weapons

Remember that ammunition is limited, so do not shoot a zombie unless it is a direct threat. If you don't have a gun, a simple bow-and-arrow can usually be constructed using items found in the average room. If all else fails, a sword or some sort of blunt object can be used as a last resort. Weapons will be most useful when leaving the building.

Section 5: Leaving the building

If at any point it becomes necessary to leave the building, perhaps to gather food or supplies, make sure to go in a group of at least three (all armed, of course). Also, have someone covering you from the building at all times. It is best to leave via a ladder or rope from a window rather than moving the barricades to the first floor. If the trip is going to be more than a few minutes' walk, the group should take a vehicle, because the less time spent outside, the better. Also, a vehicle will give some protection. MOST IMPORTANTLY, if anyone is bitten by a zombie, do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let them back into the building.

Section 6: Moving out

After the attack has died down, you and whoever else is left will want to leave the city and move to a preferably unpopulated area. Canada's North is a good bet. If you're worried about getting lost, just bring a GPS unit. Zombie attacks don't disturb satellites, so the system should still be running perfectly. By this time, there should be very few zombies left, but there will probably be lots of car wrecks and other obstacles in your way. If possible, send out a scout on a motorcycle beforehand to determine a clear path out of the city. You'll need to bring all your fuel with you, so gather a bunch of gas cans and get siphoning on any abandoned vehicles you find.

Looking back

2006-01-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

One year ago, I made several technology predictions for 2005. Let's see how they panned out.

Huygens successfully lands on Titan, and sends back proof of complex organic molecules

This one was spot-on.

computers will advance to the point where they have more processing capability than humans

This was, again, a pretty safe bet. Blue Gene/L achieved a speed of 280.6 teraflops, so with an estimated processing capacity of the human brain of 100 teraflops (which is Hans Moravec's estimate) we have at least one computer with almost three times the processing power of our own minds.

fully functional "butler robots" will start being sold, with voice recognition, facial recognition, and the ability to cook, clean, repair stuff, etc.

Not yet, unfortunately. While we did get the new version of the Roomba, the average bipedal robot is still little more than a toy. Show me ASIMO with a vacuum cleaner and I might reconsider.

holographic projectors will start becoming mainstream

I wish, hah.

the space tourism industry will begin to grow exponentially

Hardly exponential, but another tourist went up to the ISS this past year. We need a couple more years still for the X-Prize stuff to really start coming into it's own. '07 or '08 and you'll be taking trips into orbit for $200,000 on privately built and operated spacecraft.

quantum computers will surpass the speed of regular computers

Nope. There were a few advances in things that might eventually be used in quantum computers, but that's about it.

a functioning nanobot will be constructed that can run simple programs, move around, and pick up and drop different types of atoms

No, but they did build a nanocar. Getting closer!

brain implants will become advanced enough to create a "Matrix" of sorts

Patented by Sony. Though they're a little fuzzy as to the actual workings of a brain interface device.

optical storage will be developed that will allow over 2 terabytes of storage on a single disc

Okay, well, it's only 200 gigs, and it was actually announced in '04, but if I were an astrophysicist then getting it right to within an order of magnitude is "close enough".

the final merger of cell phones, PDAs, mp3 players, digital cameras, projectors, camcorders, and handheld gaming systems will take place

If only, ha. Instead we got the PSP and the ROKR; duct tape them together and you might get something interesting.

And there it goes

2005-12-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

That was it. The last exam of the semester. Differential equations; the hardest of the four. But it's done. Done. Done.

And hey, I got a free monitor out of the deal - it was sitting out in the hall with some other old computer parts with "free to take" on a sign". I would have taken all the stuff but I can only carry so much. And while a 17" CRT isn't the epitome of hugeness anymore, it still gets pretty heavy after a few hundred meters. In retrospect I shouldn't have brought my textbook and binder to the exam; I would have been able to put it in my backpack. But yes, now I have a "new" monitor. It's crappy, old, small, and the blue's almost gone, but hey. Can't argue with a free monitor. And I have it spanned vertically. YOU HEAR THAT CUBE?! I HAVE IT SPANNED VERTICALLY. Of course this is more a matter of practicality than anything; there wasn't anywhere to put it except on top of the tower; and having a horizontal span just wasn't working.

So, now I just need to get a video monitor and I can hook up the RF modulator (yes, dad, I bought an RF modulator - it was only 15 bucks; I couldn't help myself) and I'll have a third screen, albeit with somewhat lower resolution.

Anyone got any old video monitors that you're getting rid of?

Videos, Part 2

2005-12-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

Explosions is up: here

Videos

2005-12-04T14:58:00.000-05:00

So I finally got around to uploading some of my videos onto the Google Video site. There are four up right now:

House Walkthrough was a test video that I actually uploaded back in April.

The First of three time-lapse videos that I made back in the summer of '03

The Second time-lapse video which is pretty much the same thing, just from a different angle.

Time-lapse of a sunset, my personal favourite. See if you can spot my friend's face in the second frame.

All of these videos were made with a Fujifilm FinePix A200 camera. I built a thing out of Lego that would press the button every 20 seconds to do the time lapse ones.

I'm currently uploading an edited video of some explosions that my friends and I set off in February '04.

Fire alarms at 5:30 in the morning = NOT COOL

2005-11-17T05:49:00.000-05:00

SHUT IT. THE #*$&. UP!

Next time there's an alarm, I'm plugging in the soldering iron and sticking it in a pile of something flammable. Because they just made me stand outside in the wind and cold for fifteen minutes wearing nothing but pj's and a thin housecoat, just so firemen could come and say "lolz nope there's no fire haha!"

So. Thinking about running fire drills in the middle of the night when it's freezing cold outside? Think again, unless you want a little more than you bargained for.

This is what happens when you're studying electronics and you get bored.

2005-11-14T22:39:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right, it's what you've all been waiting for! Logic gates made in "The Incredible Machine 3".

Note to readers. If you are unsure what a logic gate OR "The Incredible Machine 3" is, you're going to become very confused. If you aren't already.

So, everyone remember TIM, right? The game where you build Rube Goldberg-type machines out of different components... Well, it all started when I wanted to make a machine that would work in a loop and always end up at the same state. I decided it would be nice to have something to count the number of loops, so I started thinking up ways to count. There are many different ways to do it, but I wanted to see if I could make a binary counter. But how? Levers and ropes might work, but would be ungainly and the game seems to dislike having more than a couple of them attached together. I eventually hit on the idea of using lasers (the red ones, specifically), mirrors, and laser switches. AAANYWAYS, before I go on all night, let's just say that I didn't manage to build a counter (it would have been very hard, not only due to the number of parts needed, but because of the limitations imposed by the game). However, I did put together a few logic components that I will share with you now.

We'll start off with the easy ones: an AND gate has to be on only when both input lasers are on. So one of the input lasers is switched to green, and then both are put through a laser collimator - only if the output of that is yellow will the output switch be turned on:

An OR gate is made even easier by the laser collimator:

Out of the three basic logic gates, NOT is actually the most difficult to build. It is similar to the design of an AND gate, except that the second input laser is always green, and the switch after the collimator is green. This means that when a red laser is fired into it, it shuts off the switch:

An XOR gate came next, for use in an adder (any reasonable sized adder would have far too many components for the game to run, unfortunately). This one's a bit more complicated, so I'll let you figure out how it works:

And then an attempt at a feedback loop: a simply S-R latch (flip-flop). Unfortunately, TIM3 wasn't meant for logic design, and does not take kindly to feedback loops. However, in theory this would be fully functional:

Of course, to make any sort of feedback circuit useful, you need a clock. And since i was not about to use the old three-inverter method (lest the computer explode), I opted for something a bit more... simple. This is what I came up with - it's about the slowest clock speed I could manage without making something more complex. There is a noticeable gate delay in all of these, so slow is the way to go. Even then, it won't run the flip-flop properly. Either it's still too fast, or the flip-flop just doesn't work due to game limitations. Anyways, here is the humble clock:

So there you have it. The Incredible Machine 3 is Turing-complete. If it didn't crash for having too many things on the screen, you could build anything you wanted from these logic gates. Feel free to comment on how much of a nerd I am.

Dear The City Of Toronto

2005-11-12T00:53:00.000-05:00

Thank you for the free subway ride yesterday. You might want to look into that big gap in the barriers at Osgoode station.

Sincerely, Kyle Buchanan

P.S. After I got off the subway, I gave $2.50 to a homeless guy. This makes us even.

Aaargh

2005-10-13T01:18:00.000-04:00

I'm currently sitting here waiting for a torrent that's 99.8% finished. It says it needs 20 more minutes. I don't believe it. Seeing as it's been stuck at around 30 hours for, oh, the past two weeks.

But, 99.8%. It's *gotta* be done soon, right? Yeah, let's hope so.

So, today I finally got around to starting assignment 2 for AER 201. Fun, fun, fun... sitting in a lab for hours trying to build a circuit on a breadboard by copying someone who (poorly) copied someone else's circuit that didn't even work in the first place. Hell, I'll probably be the first one to get it running properly. But I didn't finish; I had to leave. If I heard the sound of an electric drill ONE MORE TIME, I would have lost it. Lose it. It means go crazy. Nuts. Insane. Bonzo. No longer in posession of one's faculties. Two fries short of a happy meal. WACKO.

Ah shit, now I've gotta watch Window of Opportunity again. Oh dear.

AHA! "Task Download Completed: Average Rate: 1 kb/s". Considering that it was close to a 2 gigabyte file... well, you do the math. But it's done! I'm thinking that I might now transition to using the laptop for the internet and my main computer solely for gaming... only because it would allow me to unload all those virusscanners and antispyware programs and internet-related windows services that clog up the RAM and eat processing cycles. No virii to worry about; the most secure computer in the world is one that isn't connected, after all.

Sleep time now. I've got a big day of circuitry and copying physics assignments ahead of me.

So I went to a family Thanksgiving Lunch thingy yesterday.

2005-10-11T23:04:00.000-04:00

Only problem; it wasn't my family. Completely serious. Let me tell you the story.

So it all started out... well, I guess it started out with whoever invented Thanksgiving, and then us Canadians stealing the idea. But anyways, I went home for the long weekend. Took the train. The train, as you might know, is not exactly the epitome of transportation technology. I don't particularily like it, in any case. So imagine my surprise when Mary's parents offer me a ride back to Toronto. This was Saturday night. Sunday I phone Via Rail, cancel my ticket. I then manage to get a communiqué through to Mary; seems I forgot to ask what time they were leaving. 8:15 in the morning. Blast. And I had planned to spend Monday relaxing at home. But hey, can't argue with a free ride; and besides, I could just spend the day relaxing in Toronto instead.

Or not.

Monday morning arrives. Mary and her dad pick me up in their pickup truck. I am informed that her mom is taking a different vehicle. That should have been my first clue as to something being up. "Why is she going too? That seems rather inefficient; driving to Toronto for no reason", I might have asked. But of course, it was too late now. They say that we will be having lunch at the grandparents' house. I thought nothing of this; but hey, now I had a free lunch tacked on to the free trip. As we approach said house (somewhere in the unexplored regions outside of Kitchener), it becomes apparent to me that this isn't just a quick stop for lunch. No, this is a full-blown family get-together.

Oh dear. I can't say that I'm the most sociable person at the best of times; hell, even at my own family reunions I usually find the nearest computer or video game console and spend my time there.

The "social interation" circuits in my brain start warming up in preparation. Unfortunately for me, they don't actually exist.

Back to the story: We get to the house, and yes, there's a bunch of relatives there. I get to go through all the fun introductions. "Cousin so-and-so, this is my boyfriend Kyle." (all the while I'm wincing inside whenever I hear that word; it's still too weird for me. Not complaining or anything, but surreality has been the norm for the past 2 and a half months). "Kyle, this is aunt what's-her-face."

You may notice that I'm not the best with remembering names either. There was a Grandma Mary (same name as my girlfriend; easy to remember), a cousin Emily (I know some Emilys), a cousin... Mark (same as my dad), and I think a cousin Brian or Ryan (or some derivative thereof). Four names out of... hell, how many people were there; must have been around 20... well, that's better than par for me.

So I'm sitting there eating (food was great); and suddenly it hits me. This isn't my family. What was I doing there? Do they now consider me part of their family? That's a pretty scary thought. For lack of anything better to do, I grab another roll and some more potatoes. As I said, the food was great.

Thankfully, Brian/Ryan has just got the sixth season of the Simpsons on DVD for his birthday. This provided a welcome distraction for the younger generation from the increasingly alcohol-fueled goings-on upstairs. The Simpsons is a funny show. There was an awkward moment or two, mostly when Mary and I were on the couch; cnuggled together like... two people that are snuggled together... and her mom comes down the stairs. Weirded me out, but neither of them seemed to think anything of it. Fine by me.

Oh, and there was at least one of those (inevitable, i suppose), jokes about marriage. For a guy that's never dated before; and has now only been going out with someone for a couple of months, that's a pretty scary thing to hear. Oh, side note: my parents met in second year university. Gee, guess which year I'm currently in. They were kind enough to point that out before the summer was even over. Thanks, mom and dad, for that.

Anyways, it seems I've been completely accepted into their family. Sure it's nice, but... things certainly do seem to be happening at an ever-increasing rate. Maybe I'm riding that exponential curve that I'm always talking about (that was for TECHNOLOGY, dammit!). And if they (and everyone else) could refrain from using the m-word for... a couple of years at least, that'd be nice.

On a completely unrelated note (other than the fact that it was during a game of Katamari Damacy with Mary that I noticed the similarities between the HL2 rollermines and a katamari), I got bored and made a YTMND today: http://rollerkatamari.ytmnd.com/

Aha, I have to go to class

2005-09-22T12:44:00.000-04:00

Well, actually a tutorial; but last week I went and there wasn't one. Do I go? Yeah, I probably should. But it's alll the way dowwwwn in the Waaaaallberg building... it's like 800 meters away... I guess that means I should get going.

First Update in a while...

2005-09-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

Apparently I haven't written anything here since August 2. I'm actually amazed that I posted anything then, considering that I broke both of my arms on July 29th... typing was a real pain, literally and figuratively.

So, new news. I have a girlfriend. Hah, do I dare append the word "finally" onto that sentence? Five years, multiple failed attempts... and it all worked out in the end. Mary and I have been dating for almost two months (tomorrow is our two-month "anniversary", if you will), and we are still very much a happy couple. She's at York University, which is less than 15 kilometers away, so I get to see her pretty much whenever I want. It's awesome.

Other then that... well, I've already covered the breaking of my arms... yeah, I tripped and fell at work and somehow landed as to fracture both my radius bones right up near the elbow. Woot for WSIB (and the money that they're still sending me; suckers).

And I'm back at school for another year of Engineering Science... other than differential equations and thermal chemistry, I'm finding most of it to be pretty easy so far. The differential equations and thermal chemistry are giving me quite a time though. Oooh! Design projects! This year, we actually get to... build stuff. Sure, last year we built a bridge... out of bristol board... but this year we build machines that actually do something. I'm hoping that my previous experience with design projects at Shad Valley (and also my knowledge of industrial machines that I was in the process of acquiring at the time that I broke my arms) will come in handy.

Since I've been back at school, I've rekindled my love of Stargate that laid dormant for most of the summer (interesting sidenote: it was during a three-hour Stargate: Atlantis marathon [in HD, it rocked] that I decided to ask Mary out. Therefore I am indebted to the creators of Stargate - maybe I'll stop pirating all the episodes and buy the DVDs). I burned 28 DVDs full of Stargate, all in one day. That was a fun day. Then you realize that 28 DVDs is about 130 gigabytes. Even puts my porn collection to shame.

I met someone a couple of weeks ago that has a better computer than I do. That made me sad. But I suppose I couldn't stay on top forever... my computer reigned supreme for more than a year; that's more than anyone could ever ask. I suppose a few upgrades couldn't hurt; but to bring my processor up to the current cutting-edge would require a new motherboard, which in turn would require a new graphics card (I should have gone with PCI-E)... then I'd need a better power supply, and basically the point is that by the time I'm done I'd have basically bought a new computer. And since this one cost over $4000 when I got it last year, that's not likely to happen. Maybe if I win the lottery (though I'm not stupid enough to play the lottery, so that isn't particularily likely either). Or if I convince the WSIB to send me checks for the next month or so.

Oh, and I printed out almost a million digits of pi and stuck it on my wall. And I have the big LED sign in my room.

I Hate Linux

2005-08-02T22:26:00.000-04:00

(Originally posted here)

I love how the linux fans scare 99% of n00bs away from linux by turning every thread into a huge debate about which distribution is better, etc... Seriously, stop scaring away the potential converts! First off, quit it with the unfamiliar terminology. Someone who is just starting out is not going to know what dependencies or binaries are, or the difference between KDE and GNOME or whatever. Second, you should stop arguing with yourselves about whatever you're arguing about, and just recommend a good distro for a person with no prior linux experience. I know we're somehow inferior because we weren't born with intricate linux knowledge pre-programmed into our brains, but perhaps a "candypanzy" linux where its a bit easier to install and run would be better for us, so we can learn and eventually move on to something a bit more difficult. But for now we don't need to see your penis-measurement contests of who's running the linux distribution that's so complex that it takes an entire team of MIT graduate programmers three years to install it.

As you may have guessed, your first experiences with linux WILL be painfully frustrating. So either grit your teeth and work your way through it, or get murderously angry and give up, like I did. And don't expect the linux "community" to be of any help. I know they are rumoured to be very welcoming and helpful and whatever, but I don't think it counts if you aren't already one of "them". In my experience, you'll first be criticized for choosing the wrong distro, then you'll get made fun of for not knowing how to do something basic (the "stupid n00b" effect), and then if you're very lucky someone will post a helpful response - or at least it would be helpful if you had a Ph.D. in Advanced Linux and possibly a Bachelor's degree in C Programming. Truth is, you're on your own. Don't expect the documentation to help you, because it assumes you already have a working understanding of linux. And no matter how hard you google, there will never be a good starter's guide for linux. This is because once you understand linux, it alters your brain chemistry in such a way that you regard non-linux users as a lower life form. To them, writing a starter's guide to linux would be like writing a television operator's manual for a squirrel - completely pointless.

So my advice is to just stick with Windows. And before all the linuxers start protesting, I'll answer their three main arguments that they have for convincing people to attempt the switch:

1. Linux is free!

This is the most common argument they use. A variation is "Linux is open-source!", however we'll consider them equal (oh yes, we're all just *dying* for an OS that we can add to ourselves - it's a good thing I have years of free time so I can read the source code, and I'm glad I'm the smartest person on the planet so I can actually understand it, much less be able to make useless modifications to it without accidentally causing it to format my hard drive or blow up the processor...). You know, lots of things are free. Dirt is free. But more importantly, YOU ALREADY PAID FOR WINDOWS. So why are you getting rid of it?

2. Linux is more stable!

Windows XP has crashed maybe twice since I got it three and a half years ago. I think that's stable enough.

3. Linux is more secure!

So is Windows if you install a decent virus-scanner. Unfortunately, this fails as an argument anyways because the people who need the most protection from virii and hackers and the like (you know, the type of person who opens every single email attachment) are the least likely to even have the mental capacity to install linux

So there. Just stick with Windows. It's like the blue pill to Linux's red. But I happen to agree that ignorance is bliss.

Next Steps in Video Games

2005-05-28T23:19:00.000-04:00

Let's face it; video games will soon be to the point where they are photorealistic. Don't believe me? Just check out some of the screenshots for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. And of course, now, everything has physics. Current physics engines are pretty good; they've matured enough that there's even some consideration being given to having a "physics card" in the same way that you have a graphics card.

So what's next? Predicting the future is hard, so we'll look at the real world to give us a hint of what's to come in the virtual world. 3D engines are just a bunch of math that's used to render the world on your screen. In the real world, if you take mathematics, and you apply it, you get physics (basically). So there's our next step - which has already been taken. But what happens when you apply physics? As a student in an "applied physics" program, I can say with good authority that you get engineering. Engineering is concerned with the properties of non-ideal objects - instead of the rigid, unbreakable solids of physics, you have things that can bend, deform, break... It doesn't seem like that big a deal, but imagine a game where if you shot a bridge with a rocket launcher, it would weaken and collapse - without being scripted. Or you could plant explosives in a building to demolish it. Wouldn't that be cool? Red Faction's Geo-Mod engine was a very rudimentary form of this - you could destroy walls and collapse rock bridges by blowing them up. It isn't likely to be implemented fully until games start using voxel rendering (which will be a good complement to the anticipated switch to raytracing - it takes about 40 Ghz of processing power to raytrace a videogame in real-time, but dedicated hardware could mean it happens much sooner).

It's likely that another application of physics - chemistry - will be introduced to gaming at the same time as engineering engines. This won't be quite as exciting, but we may see some neat effects like pouring acid onto a cable to make it break, or being able to burn objects.

As for the next step, I'm guessing biology (applied chemistry?). This will allow for not only genetics and evolution (i.e. the upcoming game "Spore"), but also realistic organ systems and bone structures - so you could break your leg and be unable to move, or get shot and experience different effects depending on where you were hit (more than just the "zoned" systems of today where a headshot hurts you more than getting shot in the leg). Biology could apply to other things in the game, such as trees or animals, though this might be more useful for an MMORPG than a first person shooter.

Speaking of MMORPGs and FPSs, I think the line is going to start blurring pretty soon (if it hasn't already). Internet connectivity is only going to increase in the future, so it's likely that games will focus more on the multiplayer experience than a singleplayer one. So an FPS could take place as a sub-part of a larger game world, with the advantage that you could get friends to come and help you on your mission, or you could step out of it and enjoy other parts of the game when you get bored.

So that's my prediction for the future (the near future, at least). Call me when engineering engines are being implemented.

View from the Other Side

2005-05-19T21:36:00.000-04:00

For a good portion of my life, I was a student in the public school system. From 1990 to 2000 I attended Brigden Public School, and from 2000 to 2004 I attended L.C.C.V.I. in Petrolia. As I am only 18 years old, this constitutes an amazing 78% of my life so far. So I'm quite used to thinking of myself as a student. The world of teachers was something untouchable; unreachable. But recently I have been thrust into this world. Less than a year after completing high school, I am now working at one. There are students there that are older than me. Retaining my student mindset has given me an interesting perspective on the teacher/student divide. Here are some of my revelations:

-The staff washrooms aren't any nicer than the student washrooms. In fact, they're the very same, only smaller.
-Conversely, the staff room is the the nicest in the school (carpeting? OMG)
-Scantron machines aren't actually big dark unseen monsters that purposely knock marks off your multiple choice test. In fact, they are quite mundane.
-Male teachers (when away from the company of female teachers) will talk about sex even more than the male students.
-It doesn't matter how young you are, you will instinctively call the students "kids" once you start hanging out with teachers.
-Teachers enjoy fire drills and snow days too - possibly even more than students. I quote: "you should see us on fog days. It's like a party in here."
-Teachers also enjoy showing movies to their classes. As a student, you instinctively believe that whatever is fun for you is necessarily not fun for the teacher, but this turns out not to be the case.
-No matter how rebellious a student may seem; from a "higher up" viewpoint they all seem like sheep - note how they may rebel in class, but then go to the office to get in trouble when they are told to.

Crazy stuff, eh? I hope I don't get fired for this.

Why Nobody Came to the Time-Travelers' Convention

2005-05-18T22:12:00.000-04:00

Some of you may remember the story about the Time Travelers' Convention that was floating around the internet a couple of weeks ago. Well, as you may have guessed, they "had no confirmed time travelers visit". This was originally thought to be due to the fact that you had to register a few days in advance to get a ticket; or else you wouldn't be let in. But surely this would be no problem for someone with a time machine.

No, the real reason is simply this: no time travelers came because no time travelers came. Think about it. Since nobody from the future showed up, this event will fade from the public mind quite quickly. Perhaps it might warrant a couple kilobytes on archive.org's Wayback machine. In any case, it will be forgotten long before anyone invents a time machine. Thus, anyone with a time machine won't know about it and therefore won't travel back to attend. Simple, even though causally it's rife with paradox. What is needed in order to get time travelers to come to an event is a way of marking its location in time and space that will endure for longer than a website. Engraved in stone? Maybe. Carved in huge letters in the surface of the moon using a laser? Possibly. How about you store it in something that's already lasted thousands of years, and is likely to last a few thousand more - like the pyramids of Egypt. A wall on the inside of one of the great pyramids would be a perfect place to put the coordinates of a time travelers' convention. In fact, it's surprising to note that there isn't intertemporal graffiti all over historic landmarks like the pyramids. If I had a time machine, I wouldn't think twice about carving my initials into one of those huge limestone bricks. "K.B. was here; June 9, 3392 BC". Perhaps it's there, just not in an accessable place. We'll need to dismantle the pyramids to know for sure.

In the meantime, we'd better busy ourselves with the practical aspects of constructing a time machine. Either that or (and this is almost more likely) improve our space-faring capabilities so we have a better chance of finding a time machine left by some ancient civilization on another planet... yes, Window of Opportunity is one of my favourite Stargate episodes. Of course the last few episodes of season 8 featured a time machine as well.

Now if only I could find something of infinite mass...

New Post

2005-05-11T20:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I came across this interesting story about self-replicating robots, and I figured it warranted a new blog post. Unfortunately, this wasn't included in my technology prediction list that I posted here back in January. Oh well. Perhaps it's time to revise my "exponential technological progression" chart.

10,000,000 years ago: spoken language
1,000,000 years ago: fire and homes
100,000 years ago: social structures, simple machines (mostly the wheel)
10,000 years ago: cities, civilizations, written language
1,000 years ago: gunpowder and the steam engine
100 years ago: radio, airplanes, computers, and nuclear power
10 years ago: the internet and sequence the human genome
1 year ago: working nanotech and commercial space travel
0.1 years ago: computers faster than the human brain, computers controlled
directly from the brain
0.01 years ago: self-replicating robots

Now, obviously I'm not expecting this trend to continue and have a phenominal scientific breakthrough in the next 10 hours, but it is interesting.

Happy Birthday to No-one in Particular

2005-04-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

Weird, eh? I was trying to think of a title and that's the first thing that popped into my head. Sometimes I wonder about the state of my own sanity. Ah well. If I were going to go insane, it would have happened long before now.

So anyways, I'm back home... the two weeks that I thought I was going to get a break; nope, I'm working in the factory again. AGAIN. I hate that place, and last year when I left I thought I was rid of it. But nope, I come home and my dad says "so I got you a job working at Autotube again", and all I can say is "uhh... thanks.... that's great..." Believe it or not, they made me come into work TODAY. A SATURDAY. I don't care WHAT planet you're from, that's not even right. Randall had the right idea... "I wasn't even supposed to *BE* here today!"

But god forbid that I would get two weeks off. Oh no, I wouldn't possibly need a break after those hellish exams. Not that this job is particularily taxing in either physical or mental respects; the problems with it are much simpler: 1. it's mind-numbingly boring, and 2. it eats into my sleeping time. Seriously though, after coming in this morning at 6:00... it was horrible. Then the CNC tube bender (I just call it "Bender") that I was working on actually threw a tube at me while I wasn't looking. Call me paranoid, but the damn robot was supposed to just DROP the tube on the floor... I was standing too far away for it to have bounced, and it hit me in the back of the leg. Then it tried to bite me; I was reaching near its arm (which wasn't supposed to be moving) and it jerked back and tried to take my hand off. @&*(&*(!!#()! machines....

Jeez I have to stop talking about that. What to talk about... I suppose it doesn't really matter. This blog has faded into the obscurity which 99.99% of all blogs fall into. Not surprising really. Do people actually read these things? Bah.

2005-04-20T22:36:00.000-04:00

HL2 photomosaic

Why Living in the Country is Better Than Living in the City

2005-04-18T20:45:00.000-04:00

So I was on MSN, having a discussion with a friend about which was better, living in the city or the country. Since I am clearly right, I would like to take this opportunity to post her arguments, my rebuttal to those arguments, then several other points that makes the country superior.

Her points:

-shopping malls are within walking distance
-more ppl[sic]
-more people[sic] = more guys = more hot guys
-harder to get lost
-less ewy stuff
-you can wear flip-flops on the street

Now, it's clear that these few arguments are rather poor, but I'll rebut each one seperately.

1. "Shopping malls are within walking distance."

I have an interesting vantage point, as a country boy currently living in the city. Where I live here, the nearest shopping mall is about a 20 minute walk away. Where I live in the country, the nearest shopping mall is a 20 minute drive away. Sure, you might argue that it's more environmentally friendly to walk, but if you're patronizing such a paean to consumerism and capitalism as a shopping mall, then you're hardly concerned for things like that. Besides, who likes walking? Driving is far more fun.

2. "More People"

Well, okay, this one is pretty hard to argue with. It's a statistical fact that there are more people in the city than in the country, and if you're looking at population densities then it's a matter of definition. I suppose it could be said that it's a quantity vs. quality issue - people in the country are far more neighbourly and friendly (in my experience) than the average person in the city. But why is the existence of more people an advantage anyways? I don't particularily enjoy crowds; I prefer to have lots of space to myself. Which is hardly ever the case in the city. This line of thinking brings me to her next point:

3. "More people = more guys = more hot guys"

I'm not interested in guys, but you could say the same for girls. It's true that with an increased number of people comes an increased number of attractive ones (of either gender). However, if you look at the average group of friends of a person in the city and a person in the country, you'll see that the size is practically identical. Thus you stand about the same chance of meeting someone attractive whether you live in the city or not.

4. "Harder to get lost"

Not true. Cities are invariably harder to navigate in. And now, with GPS systems becoming common, it's even harder to get lost in the country. Here's an experiment. Take a GPS unit in the city and see how often it actually picks up a satellite. The tall buildings make it very hard to get a signal. In the country, it's nothing but clear skies (and trees, but radio waves pass through them easily). Even a GPS system augmented with an inertial navigation unit will do more good in the country than in the city.

5. "Less ewy stuff"

Now, here, I'm assuming that "ewy" is referring to those substances that are sometimes thought to be gross - dirt, mud, etc. Well, a little mud never hurt anyone. Whereas the "ewy" stuff in cities (hoboes, garbage, etc) have a much larger chance of causing harm. And this may be a matter of personal preference, but I much prefer getting a little mud on me than to be attacked by a hobo or get covered in toxic waste.

6. "You can wear flip-flops on the street"

You can do that in the country too; we do have *paved* roads, much to the amazement of some city folk. But why you would want to do such a thing escapes me entirely.

Well, that about covers that, so I'd like to enumerate some things that make the country a superior place to live:

-clean air
-you can see stars at night
-lots of space
-you can have big lawns! and pools! and other stuff of that nature.
-farm animals are awesome
-I have my own forest. How cool is that?
-as of a couple of months ago, high speed internet is available out where I live, which eliminates the last possible bad point about not living in the city
-You can drive a tractor to the highschool prom and nobody cares
-Bush parties >> indoor parties
-you can set off explosions and nobody will notice
-in the winter, it's almost guaranteed that there will be a hill big enough to sled on, somewhere on your property

I could go on, but I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that living in a rural area beats living in the city, any day.

I <3 Photoshop

2005-04-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

Yep, so I did a little photoshopping of a picture of myself, and it boosted my rating on hotornot.com from 4.5 to 7.2 literally overnight. I didn't do much - just took out a little acne, changed the shape of my jaw, got rid of the lines under my eyes - and my rating goes up by 2.7 points. I love technology.

Edit: Rating is now up to 7.6!

Absolute Insanity

2005-04-15T17:25:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I'm being malnourished or what (which probably isn't a bad guess, I haven't eaten a fruit or vegetable in months), but my body has been stubbornly uncooperative lately. I'm tired all the time; and yet at the same time it takes me hours to get to sleep at night. Last night I promised myself I would get up at 10:00 to study for my chem exam, and I didn't end up waking up until noon (and even then, it took a supreme effort of willpower to get out of bed). Convincing myself to study has been difficult too; I'm pretty sure I just failed chem. Oh well. I'll put it down to malnourishment, in which case it will be swiftly cured once I get home. But for now it's kind of scary that I match all the symptoms of mercury poisoning. I've been drinking tap water lately; hopefully there isn't *too* much mercury in there. Besides, where I live at home, our tap water is pulled from a river that literally had pure mercury coating the bottom not even 30 years ago. Fun stuff. Then there's "Safety-Kleen" (or Clean Harbours, as it's called now), which is some sort of hazardous chemical disposal facility; it's some two minutes from my house. Whenever you get rid of batteries, that's where they go. Real nasty place, it is.

Anyways, as I mentioned, I just had my chem exam, which I'm pretty sure I failed. Ever look at an exam and think "holy crap, I don't know any of this"? Well, that's about what I did. But I suppose, I thought the same thing about the midterm, and I passed that. So there's still hope. In any case, I only have to get about a 40% on the exam to pass the course. Not that I'd want to cut it that close, of course.

Remember those couple of photomosaics I posted here back in October or so? I've got an idea for a new one; it should be pretty cool. If I can get the photomosaic software working, that is. Last time I tried it, it got stuck at 3% and was there for about 15 minutes before I got mad at it and shut it off. Admittedly, the mosaics take a crapload of time to complete, but not quite that long. And really, you can only rationalize so many trillions of operations before it just gets out of hand (speaking of which, I calculated how many floating point operations my computer has contributed to the Grid.org protein folding thing: it's on the order of 74,000,000,000,000,000 or 74 quadrillion operations)

Blah

2005-04-05T18:36:00.000-04:00

So, I don't have class tomorrow until 1 in the afternoon, and I'm done at 2 - that's the great thing about this week - all the tutorials are finished. Of course this also means that exams start soon, and indeed they are soon. My calculus exam is next Monday - six days from now. I really should study....

My Love/Hate Relationship with Technology

2005-04-02T23:28:00.000-05:00

For those of you who know me, you know that I'm somewhat of a gadget freak, as well as a computer nerd. My gadgets are all becoming rather outdated, mostly due to the fact that I spent way too much money on this computer. It's a sign of greatness that nearly a year after you purchase a computer it's still pretty much cutting-edge technology. Sure, I could do with more RAM and a bigger hard drive, but my AMD Atlon 64 3400+ and GeForce 6800 GT are pretty much future-proof for now. Yes, I love my computer.

Where the hate comes in is when something doesn't work right. Think of the printer from "Office Space". In my case, my computer has been slowing down due to the accumulation of junk with no reformatting, my Palm Pilot cradle won't communicate with the USB port any more, and just now I tried to buy a drink from the vending machine and it ate my money. Grrr....

I still believe, of course, that technological progress is for the better (and while I could get into a huge philosophical debate about this, courtesy of my "Science and Social Issues" class, I won't). I just hope everything is a bit more reliable once we enter the nanotech age. What happens when whatever smart-fog object you're currently using crashes and turns to dust? How about when your medical nanobots contract a virus of their own and shut down your heart? Well, these are problems for the future (the near future, but still the future).

Oh, that "poem" I posted a couple of days ago wasn't written by me; what, you think I actually write poetry? Poems are for goths and self-absorbed arts students, of which I am neither. Actually my computer wrote it, after I fed a bunch of old chat history files into a natural language parsing program. Fun stuff.

Some Poetry

2005-03-31T21:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm not usually one for writing poems, unless it is explicitly part of an English assignment (strangely enough, I always did really well on poem-writing assignments, but that's a different story). Anyways, I was in kind of a -weird- mood earlier today and I wrote this. Comment and tell me what you think!

It's hard to decide, what, did you need someone?
You, back at tomorrow.
I sleep.
I feel.
For the next year is crappy.
I went to understand me.
But I will have the next year.
I love.

Computer Existentialism

2005-03-30T16:02:00.000-05:00

So I finally got around to training Microsoft Office's voice recognition system. I guess it's one of those things that seems cool until you actually have it. How many times have you seen someone talking to a computer in an old science fiction movie and thought "Whoa! What I wouldn't give to be able to talk to my computer!" And now, it's more of a "meh" reaction. Truth is, it's not all that useful yet, and won't be until it gets closer to 99% accuracy. Until then, its still faster to just type (as I'm doing now).

So after playing around a bit, talking to Word and trying to get it to understand the words that I was saying, I did the natural thing and experimented with playing music into it. For the first song, I figured I should use something where the lyrics are plainly heard, without much actual "music". Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" seemed to fit the bill nicely - and here's what the voice recognition thing came up with:

The LAN and they can at any time a new time and data and can handle the pan am on an outline of the default along with all he can ignite it, and lived a life-and-white<>>and a date and time the event that anybody can advocate and an event have 88 and an analog and>what the NFL won’t have it, and yet, the nothing but a little evidence, and Atlanta 88 at the hand that have enough but a lot, in a lot on the phone at 8:00 PM on Sunday that he had failed yet left behind the veil dependent at all along that line and only handle if it came with eight am I felt only a need that can lead a little with a handful of any-and-but I can’t open an envelope and Aviv of them can have anything, and you might have been attacked a little debate and ifview the annual event the the the gave the event, and then gave the But you’re there

But it get's more interesting. The next song I tried was "The Anthem" by Good Charlotte. A song which, I gather contains a lot of "the"s and "can"s.

The the at that date, shows the shot The Dow fell by the way the end of the can Can can The the the the can A Can I am I then can’t get at the the If

My next try was "The Grange" by ZZ Top. Note that the word "anthem" actually shows up here, whereas it did not in the previous song.

Two of those without homes and I’ve pitched moved out of his better just to the to handle the phenomenal data what>to assume that little about half of the virtues of adults, if deserved to the and then at an average can and can’t have an aunt Dan and the and the data and did that can and the can may have been an anthem and Canada and they’ve been can and the AM and FM in the anti-and an anti an aunt the end of the can Can I can get can and can’t be an F. If if

For my final experiment, I played "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. In what I think is the strangest one, this is what it transcribed from the entire song:

IfAs stuff If if a half if if if If If If if if if if if If if if if if if if If if

Stuff (Damn I suck at making up titles)

2005-03-22T18:32:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, I would like to announce that I've now gotten over 5000 pageviews... *celebrates*. Another factor of 20,000 more and I'll be ranking with the likes of Maddox, who is a seriously cool guy.

Secondly, I got accused of plagiarism yesterday. For a physics lab write-up, I pasted in some pictures I had taken during the lab of different interference and diffraction patterns. I got the write-up back from the TA, and in the comments was this: "These web pics are not your experiment and technically constitute plagiarism." Then there was the mark, a lovely 5/10. Thanks for the vote of confidence there. I was going to speak with the TA about it, but she was nowhere to be found, even though she was supposed to be available for the full lab period to answer questions and the like... That really pissed me off. I wonder if I can get them fired for unfounded accusations of plagiarism?

Thirdly, while opening a door today, I somehow managed to rip the fingernail on my right middle finger halfway off. It hurts like a son of a bitch, and typing is quite a tedious process now. Thankfully I'm left handed, so I can at least write stuff the old-fashioned way.

Ignore Me, I'm an Idiot

2005-03-20T00:59:00.000-05:00

Disregard this, please.

Defend Your Castle!

2005-03-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

I'm sure we all remember this game; it made the internet rounds a couple of years ago. I just started it up again tonight, and I'm on level 29, with 500 archers, 300 craftsmen, 330 wizards, and 100000 wall strength.

I also have a story about this game. See, from the summer of 2002 to the summer of 2004, I worked in the local library. Pretty boring work; but how could I complain. I was making money for pretty much doing nothing. So it comes to be February of 2004. Somebody had sent me a link to this game, so I decided; what the hey, I'll play a bit of it. But it turned out to be so much more than that. It just so happens that you can save your progress in this game. So I saved it the first day, and the next time I went in I played it some more... Soon enough, it's July of 2004. I'm on level 162, with 3400 archers, 2000 craftsmen, 400 wizards (any more than this is superfluous; you can't use them fast enough to make it worthwhile), and a wall strength pushing 2000000. By this time, the levels had gotten so long that I could only finish two or so per shift. The plus side is: after about level 20, you can pretty much let the game run in the background without worrying about losing.

But then, of course, I had to quit my job and go to university. I entrusted the regular library patrons with the task of making sure the game was run every night the library was open. Predictably, they forgot rather quickly, but the last time I was in there, the savegame still existed...

Happy Pi Day! (and happy birthday, mom)

2005-03-14T00:41:00.000-05:00

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884
19716939937510582097494459230781640628
6208998628034825342117067982148086513..

All your base

2005-03-05T21:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I found the company that made the thing that I ripped the guts out of to create the ceiling fan display: Versatile Visions. Also, I figured out how to program it, as can be seen in this picture. Unfortunately, the messages can only be 18 characters long, so putting "All your base are belong to us" would be impossible.

All your base are belong to us!

Wacky Ideas Part 3: An Implementation!

2005-03-05T16:13:00.000-05:00

Well, this wacky idea wasn't exactly mine, but it seemed cool so I figured I would do it. I present to you: The ceiling fan LED display!

Ceiling Fan LED Display

Wacky Ideas, Part 2

2005-03-02T16:56:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple more that I've recently come up with.

Idea #1: A handheld directional EMP weapon

I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that cell phones going off at inappropriate times are extremely annoying. For example, today in Calculus, this one girl's phone went off not once, but THREE TIMES. It's unfortunate that us victims of cell phone harassment have no way of getting back at the owner (besides beating to death - it's happened before). So what if there was a way to shut down their cell phones remotely? Even better, what if there was some way to burn out the circuitry in their phone? They would certainly think twice before leaving them on in classrooms, movie theaters, etc.

The obvious answer, of course, is an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon. Yes, like the ones in The Matrix, only a lot less powerful. Cell phones have essentially no shielding, and the antenna will easily channel a properly-tuned blast right into the microprocessor at the heart of the phone. The way I figure, you could do it with some AA batteries, assuming a large enough capacitor.

What you'll need:

- A bunch of batteries (I'd recommend rechargeable)
- A large capacitor (Anything over 500 μF should do; I have a 10,000 μF cap at home that should do the trick quite nicely)
- Some sort of circuit for modulating the blast
- A parabolic reflector (ideally, tuned to the pulse frequency)

How to do it:

1. Build the damn thing. An empty Pringles container would work for the casing.
2. Charge the batteries and put them in.
3. Let the capacitor charge.
4. Wait for the offending cell phone to ring.
5. Fire away!

As an added bonus, you can target people who check their e-mail on blackberries every five seconds, and the laptops of those who think that class time is "Solitaire time".

Idea #2: Cheap, easy-to-make E-paper

So I'm sure many people have heard about this amazing new technology that never seems to materialize: electronic paper. We've been promised this ever since they demonstrated a black-and-white 320*240 paper display back in the mid-nineties. But various problems due to [insert excuse here] have prevented any products from coming into existence. Perhaps they just can't agree on who should be selling it: paper manufacturers, or the electronics industry? In any case, I say we should be making our own. Near as I can tell, electronic paper consists of two main components: the paper and the ink. As far as the paper goes, it needs to have a matrix of electrodes through it in order to activate the ink, as well as some sort of connection to a computer. The ink is tricky, because you need something that can change from black to white when electric current is supplied. The most common way of doing this is to have microscopic spheres, half white and half black, that align themselves according to electric charge.

What you'll need:

- paper (it probably doesn't matter what kind you use)
- very thin wire
- a sewing machine
- those weird glass microbead things (made by 3M)
- black spraypaint
- some sort of mass-seperation equipment (perhaps something as simple as chromatography could work; I'm not sure)
- an old LCD screen

How to do it:

1. Take the spool of thread out of the sewing maching and replace it with the wire.
2. Use the sewing maching (on the appropriate setting) to sew a grid of wire into the paper.
3. Spread a bunch of microbeads onto a flat surface.
4. Spraypaint the microbeads. With any luck, you'll have a bunch that are all black, a bunch that aren't covered at all, and a bunch that are approximately half-white/half-black.
5. Since the microbeads with more paint will be heavier, use the mass-seperation equipment to seperate out the "half-and-half" ones.
6. Somehow, embed these extracted microbeads into the paper. (Wet it, spread them on, wait for it to dry? Make sure the spraypaint isn't water-soluble)
7. Pull the circuitry out of the old LCD screen (especially the stuff that actually drives the pixels. Hook it to the edges of the piece of paper (which should have a bunch of really thin wires to attach it to).

And there you have it; your very own, home-made, electronic paper.

Wacky Ideas

2005-03-01T17:05:00.000-05:00

It seems that every once in a while, I get an idea that's either sheer brilliance or complete insanity. And every once in a while, one of those ideas will stick with me; I can't seem to forget it, no matter how crazy it sounds. So I figured I should start writing some of them down.

Idea #1: A method for producing arbitrary-length single-walled carbon nanotubes.

This one came to me as I happened to be staring at the metal screen on the microwave while thinking about space elevators. I wondered - isn't there some way to make them fast, cheap, and as long as you want? And even better - to do it with stuff you can find around the house (or at least order off the internet)? So here it is.

What you'll need:
- a bunch of polyethylene
- a microwave
- a Proton Exchange Membrane (well, something with really tiny holes through it)
- something to spin the nanotubes together

How to do it:

1. Melt the polyethylene. Send it through something to pull it out into fibers (not sure exactly how to do this). Pull it into thinner and thinner strands, until you get something about the width of a nanotube.
2. Send the strand through the microwave slow enough for it to rip all the hydrogens off the carbon chains.
3. Push the charged carbon chains through the PEM.
4. Let the carbon chains come together in a tube shape.
5. Tada! Instant carbon nanotube.
6. Do this at a bunch of places on the PEM, and spin the nanotubes into nano-string.
7. ???
8. Profit!

Here is a diagram of the process.

Idea #2: An entopy scanner.

This one I thought of the other day while sitting in chemistry class. Since every process increases the entropy of the universe, if it were possible to measure the entropy increase in a given volume of space, then you could tell if something was happening even if there was no information coming out of said volume (What I've just said probably contradicts some law of quantum physics, but oh well). For example, say you have a black box, which contains one of two things. Either it contains two cubes of some material at different temperatures, or two cubes at the same temperature. The box is opaque to any kind of electromagnetic scan or any other type of scan. How do you tell what the box contains? Why, use the entropy scanner, of course. A box with two cubes at different temperature will have a higher rate of entropy increase. In fact, if you were able to focus the scanner on a smaller region of space, you could tell exactly where the cubes were. And if you could focus it even smaller, you could probably tell what material they were made out of.

Imagine the possibilities of a technology like this! You could passively scan any object and determine it's characteristics. It would be particularily handy as a "life-signs detector", because living things are notorious for increasing entropy.

What you'll need:

- probably a new physical theory that would allow this to exist

How to do it:

1. I have no idea.

Idea #3: A cure for cancer!

From what I've heard of cancer cells, the reason they are so hard to target is because they essentially look the same as non-cancerous cells. They have the same surface proteins as healthy cells, which makes a virus-based attack impossible. So what differences do these cells have? For one, there are certain proteins that are more common in cancer cells. So what if one was to devise a virus that needed to attach to two proteins before activating? Then you could just tweak the distance between receptors in order that it wouldn't attack healthy cells.

What you'll need:

- a modified virus that has two receptors
- a bunch of cancer cells and healthy cells to test it on
- a way to change the distance between receptors

How to do it:

1. Genetically engineer the double-receptor virus. Or build it from scratch.
2. Test the virus on the healthy and cancer cells.
3. Tweak the receptor seperation until you achieve the highest ratio of cancer/healthy cells killed.

Here is a diagram.

Idea #4: A four-bit finite-state machine (with unusual implementation)

This one has it's roots in the last house meeting I attended here in residence. Since we have co-ed washrooms, there had been a lot of complaints about toilet seats being left up. Naturally our discussion gradually turned into an argument about putting the seat down. People on both sides had good information to support their opinions, but in the end it boiled down to the usual: guys have to put the seat down. Now, I know it looks like I'm going off on a tangent; after all, what does an argument about toilet seats have to do with computational theory? Well, I got to wondering what would happen if everyone who went to the bathroom followed some kind of set rule which depended on the state of all four toilet seats? Could one actually do computations with the toilet lids?

At first I wondered if a toilet-based computer could be Turing-complete. But I soon realized that without some sort of storage device, the best one could do would be a finite-state machine. Admittedly, a four-bit finite-state machine isn't exactly the epitome of excitement, but imagine if it were done with eight bits? Sixteen? Thirty-two? These would allow for more computational possibilities, but the bathroom size would quickly become impractical. So it's four bits for now. I haven't bothered working up any algorithms yet, but I'm sure someone can come up with a set of rules that will, say, allow two two-bit numbers to be added together. As far as input goes, perhaps the initial state of the machine would work?

Addendum: After more careful thought, perhaps the number of bits could be extended by using other bathroom digital devices. What first comes to mind are the stall doors (open/closed) and the faucets (on/off). With four stall doors and four sinks (each with two faucets), this would allow for a total of sixteen bits! I also had an idea for making this into a true universal computer. The traditional Turing machine has a paper tape with squares on it.... I'm sure you can think of something that's found in every bathroom that also fits this description.

Idea #5: Pool Noodle furniture.

I'd say the title of this one speaks for itself. I thought of this when I realized I was completely broke, and was wondering where to live next year. After finding a place to live, there's the problem of getting furniture. So why not make it out of materials that are cheap, cushiony, easy to work with, and aesthetically pleasing? I don't know exactly how to join the noodles together; perhaps hot glue? Contact cement might work for the smooth outsides of the noodles.

What you'll need:

- pool noodles (Buy a bunch; they're dirt cheap)
- a saw/knife of some sort
- glue?

How to do it:

1. Draw out the piece of furniture; get approximate measurements.
2. Cut the noodles to their appropriate lengths.
3. Glue the noodle-pieces together

Couldn't be simpler! I bet you could furnish an entire home in an afternoon, with about $50 worth of noodles. However, be careful with your designs, because noodles aren't quite as sturdy as materials that would regularily be used to build furniture from (i.e. wood).

Not Sure

2005-02-07T23:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I made it through the calculus midterm mostly intact; even finished the computer science assignment (a record 1 hour and 24 minutes before the deadline). So just two more midterms, the easy ones, and I get to go home. It's interesting, though, that I am starting to realize that maybe "making it to the next time you get to go home" isn't really such a good goal. Perhaps there's something more important that I should be thinking about. The obvious answer is that I'm here to learn stuff so I can get a good job; and thus I should be placing more importance on my courses. But why? Really, why? What good is four (or five, or six) years of university going to do me in the long run? Am I really doing what I want? Where's the payoff here?

Truth is, I've wanted to have a career in the aerospace industry ever since I was four years old and my parents bought me a space picture book (which I still have). Sure, most kids go through phases. There's the "space" phase, there's the "dinosaur" phase, etc. But how many actually become astronauts or paleontologists? Are their dreams forgotten; are they content with mediocrity? Or is it I who is at fault, for not realizing that my dreams are impossible? Have I just never grown up from being the typical kid who wants to be an astronaut?

Am I even following the right path towards my goals? There's no list of "steps to follow if you want to go into space". The only real astronaut that I've talked to was a mechanical engineer, not an aerospace engineer, and he was in the military. Perhaps I should sign up for the army? Drop all my pretensions of being smart enough to do all this? Maybe instead, I should become an entrepreneur, eventually become the next Richard Branson or Paul Allen (hell, even Dennis Tito); fund my own ride into space?

But even as I write this, I am coming to grips with the fact that space in and of itself can no longer be considered a lifetime aspiration. Give it three years, and a couple hundred thousand dollars will get you on a sub-orbital sightseeing flight. Another three, and orbit will be a destination. There'll be a Starbucks on the Moon before NASA returns there, I'd put money on it. The future of space travel is something I've thought a lot about, but I hardly expected myself to be living it. Maybe I'll go into nanoengineering; focus on asteroid mining. Continue on my current path, pick up some classes on plasma dynamics; design fusion rockets? Become a civil engineer; build bases on Mars?

I don't know.

For now I'll keep my head down; keep working...

I wish people would stop pretending. They're your friend as long as it helps them, but then as soon as you need something... gone. Why are they so fickle? Why are females, in particular, so fickle? It's all illogical. But eventually, once you have your heart broken enough times, you give up. I've almost given up. But... that's what they do. They taunt me. Seemingly within my reach, but... they aren't. Taunting. Why why why why why. I don't understand any of it. Even my virus-infested computer is more logical. And it doesn't seem to have the desire to hurt me constantly. What are a computer's desires? Does it have any? What if we get to the point where they do? That would be bad... I can't even understand my own species, much less any other. Ah, fuck it.

When it becomes feasible, I'm going to build a spaceship, fly to the asteroid belt, and live out my days as a hermit on Ceres. And did I mention I'm up to 4,000 hits on this shitty blog too. If there are actually people reading this, do something. Post a comment. Click on an ad. E-mail me. I don't care. I don't care.

Light At The End of The Tunnel? Not Likely...

2005-02-04T00:40:00.000-05:00

As this is the beginning of midterm season, it is the time during which the academic establishment tortures us poor students by piling on an amount of work that is higly disproportionate to the average amount of work we should be doing. And it came up so fast. Why, it seems like just yesterday I was stepping off the train and into Union Station; feeling fresh and ready to start the second semester. But that was over a month ago.

I know it sounds crazy. "Only one month, and midterms are starting already? That's madness!", I hear you thinking. But it's true. Though this is only the fifth week of class, everyone is rushing to fit in any midterms, assignments, projects, and essays before reading week. The professors do it, I think, mostly so they can take the week to mark everything. But in truth, I am happy that I can go home for a week and not have to worry about studying or doing any work (Work of the intellectual type, that is. It's basically guaranteed that my parents will have me stacking wood, moving hay, cleaning stalls; doing any and all of those myriad tasks that make living on a farm so much fun).

So in the long term, everything will work out nicely. In approximately seven days, sixteen hours, and 25 minutes, I'll be on my way home for a carefree week of fun and relaxation. But what about the time between now and then? I have everything from a poetry reading (no kidding) to a calculus midterm worth 20% of the final mark. It's this calculus midterm that's really bothering me right now. See, I have a problem. I don't know how to integrate. Now, I know what you're thinking. "This guy calls himself an engineer, and yet he can't do an absurdly simple task such as taking the integral of [cos(x)-sin(2x)]^(2/3)?". Well, it's true. The problem is that in last semester's calculus class, one could get by without an understanding of integration. But in this class, they expect you to know it right away. What's the deal here? And don't even get me started on the pages of identities that we are supposed to memorize. cos(x)^2 integrates to cos(2x)/4? Who the hell invented that? Surely it won't be detrimental to our learning if we were allowed to have some sort of reference for all these identities. Unfortunately, calculus at U of T is stuck in the dark ages. We don't even get to use calculators, so good luck trying to bring in a CRC book.

And don't try to get my hopes up by telling me that I'll remember everything once I get in there. During a quiz last week, I couldn't integrate e^x. Seriously.

Calculus notwithstanding, there's a heck of a lot of other stuff I need to get done, not the least of which is the computer science assignment. In this case, I know I have the ability to do it; the only question is whether I have the programming prowess to manage to seperate everything into classes, .h and .cpp files, functions, structures, etc. I failed miserably last time I tried, and in fact ended up submitting two copies of the program (a "working" version that had everything inside int main(), and a "non-working" version wherein everything was seperated and commented properly). Actually, on second thought, there is another problem with this assignment. Due in no small part to my procrastinating tendencies, I put off starting it until last Saturday. It's due in three days. Finishing it is one thing, but debugging it is another. From past experience, it's generally a 1:10 ratio between writing code and debugging said code. Given that I've spent rougly two hours on it so far, and I estimate I'm about 1/4 done, I don't have time to finish it even if I went the entire weekend without sleeping, eating, or playing video games.

In conclusion, sorry about the rant. I usually try to write about stuff that has at least a little bit of humour value, but it appears I have failed here. I'll hopefully be back - unless I flunk out and have to stary a blog titled "Kyle's Unemployment Escapades" - with someething a bit funnier, and more importantly, a bit shorter. Truth is, I'm most likely to update after the hit count passes 4,000.

Random Musings

2005-01-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Ah, where was I, before I was so rudely interrupted by the audio from a "Megaman" flash animation that had apparently loaded in the background? (props to rtgrl for that). I was thinking about what this update was going to be about. Certainly not the elements, which I tired of before even hitting my favourite one, #5. Milla Jovovich is hot. I suppose I could talk about yesterday's calculus quiz. After getting last weel's quiz back with the lovely mark of 3/10, I figured it was time to put in some extra effort. So I grabbed my trusty bic pen (it's "trusty" due to it's being the only pen I've used for the last four weeks) and went to work adding some non-permanent tattoos to my right hand and forearm. Cleverly placed to avoid the attention of the TA, of course. It's a good thing I did so too, because in each of the quiz questions, I used at least one of the formulae I had so conveniently inked onto my skin.

After the quiz (which I'm sure was a disaster, but less so than last week), I went to sign up for a "space symposium". I only wanted to attend the talk that took place last night, but it turned out that I signed up for the whole weekend (I shot off an e-mail to see if I could sort that out). I then went to the talk, which was pretty interesting; it featured speakers on the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Cassini mission, and some other rather cool stuff. Apparently the MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of STars) space telescope is the first telescope to be based off a cartoon character. And that character is Spongebob. Nearly everyone in the auditorium cracked up when the comparison picture was displayed.

When this "space symposion" finally finished up (an hour and a half late; but I wasn't complaining), I decided it was a good time to watch a movie. I scoured my hard drive for one that I hadn't yet seen, and hit on "Pi". It's a pretty creepy, though absolutely fascinating movie. The most disturbing part, however, was after I turned it off and looked down to see calculus all over my arm. So I didn't waste any time washing that off.

Apart from these relatively few events, my weekend has been rather boring. Today, I've already watched two movies, but I also did a shitload of work on my computer science assignment (yes, the switching of semesters did nothing to rid me of the scourge of c++). There is something notable about that, however. I actually understand what I am doing. I sat down with a pen and paper, and wrote up a bunch of code, then ran through it, and it worked. The first time. Then I typed it into the computer and it still worked. Well, it compiled, anyways. I have yet to test the program as a whole (for obvious reasons; it's not complete yet). But I have a good feeling about this one.

Anyways, that's all for now. I'll try to update more often (yah right, as if that's gonna happen), mostly because it seems to increase my stats (even though nobody seems to be clicking on the ads! come on, people!).

Element Number... Ah, Fuck It.

2005-01-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

What the hell ever gave me the idea to write about the elements anyways. They really aren't that interesting. At least it got rid of those damned Christmas ads that google saw fit to put there...

Element #4

2005-01-19T18:37:00.000-05:00

And now, the fourth element on the periodic table, weighing in at 9.012 g/mol, it's time to welcome the lovely Beryllium!

Okay, I only say that because it has a cool name. Just say it. "Beryllium". Doesn't it just flow nicely?

Beryllium has the interesting property of being the first carcinogenic element. In powdered form, if you breathe it in, you're screwed. And yet many people are around Beryllium powder every day. Why? Because it is one of the strongest and lightest metals, which makes it invaluble for things that have to be, well, strong and light (think missiles). Beryllium oxide has the strange combination of being an insulator for electricity but a conductor for heat. Some spark plugs have beryllium oxide in them.

There's really not too much more to say about beryllium. It's a pretty interesting element, but I haven't had any personal experience with it (just wait until I get into the non-metals).

Element #3

2005-01-19T18:27:00.000-05:00

After a short break, I am back with tales of the third element on the periodic table: Lithium. You might be asking yourself, "is there anything really exciting about lithim?", and the answer, of course, is "no."

Lithium is pretty much just a boring element. It sits there, between hydrogen and sodium, but with none of the coolness of either of those. It's not really a very common element; you would find it mostly in lithium-ion batteries that are used for laptops and other portable electronic devices. Soon to be surpassed by fuel cells. So where does this leave lithium? About the only interesting property it has is its high specific-heat capacity. It's used in some alloys with aluminum, sometimes. In the movie Apollo 13, the air filtration canisters used lithium hydroxide.

That's about it for lithium. If anyone knows of other uses of it... anything that would make it more interesting... feel free to mention it.

P.S. Dilithium and trilithium have nothing to do with lithium, because both of them don't actually exist.

Element #2

2005-01-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

Good morning campers, today's element is helium. Two protons, two neutrons, two electrons (mostly). This is the standard helium-4 that is by far the most common form on Earth. Helium-3 is interesting, though, because it has the potential to be used as fuel for a fusion reactor. It's found mainly on the Lunar surface and on Jupiter, according to many science fiction stories.

As a chemical, helium is pretty boring. As a noble gas, it's pretty tough to get it to react with anything. However, it's lighter than air, and safer than hydrogen, so it's regularily used to fill balloons. And get this, it's actually mined from the ground.

The best use of helium, once it has passed its useful life as a balloon-weight-reducer, is to breathe it in. As you well know, this makes your voice sound pretty funny. It has to do with the different speed of sound in helium, which changes the way the waves are created in your larynx...

Well, that's about all I have to say about this lovely second element. I'll be back tomorrow with stories about lithium.

Element #1

2005-01-16T17:25:00.000-05:00

So I thought of an idea for something to write about; at least for a little while. My adventures with the elements! Still needs a good slogan though; "Kyle's Elemental Adventures" isn't all that catchy. Anyways, without further ado, I present to you my tale of the first element:

Hydrogen.

As the lightest element; also the most common element in the universe; hydrogen deserves a special mention. It's in the same period as the alkali metals, but it is not a metal. However, solid hydrogen acts like metal, and is even magnetic. Hydrogen has two other isotopes: deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is the basis for heavy water, which is essential for nuclear power, and in the future it might be used a fuel in a fusion reactor. It has one neutron. Tritium is unstable and radioactive. If you've ever seen the movie "K-19", the blueish glow in the water around the reactor core is caused partially by tritium. Tritium has two neutrons.

Enough with the background, it's time to tell the story. In truth, there isn't really much to tell. Hydrogen is phenomenally easy to produce in the home with electrolysis, and I was doing this at a rather young age. There's nothing like putting a lighted match into that inverted test tube that looks empty and hearing that satisfying "POP!" as the hydrogen explosively combines with atmospheric oxygen to form water vapour. However, electrolysis is inefficient for producing higher volumes or pressures of hydrogen. Higher pressures might be needed, say, if you wanted to fill a balloon with hydrogen. This is most easily achieved by reacting some type of metal with some type of acid. I chose Aluminum foil and muriatic acid. In case you don't know, muriatic acid is the name under which hydrochloric acid is sold. It will burn you. If you breathe in the fumes, it will burn your lungs. As I found out on several seperate ocassions.

The interesting thing about having hydrogen in a balloon is that it will float; in fact it floats much better than a helium balloon. So if you let your hydrogen balloon go before the inevitable explosion (for why else would you want to fill a balloon with hydrogen?), it will float up to the ceiling. Depending on what the ceiling is made out of, the explosion can scorch it. Thankfully, the phrase "Oh, that was always there" works in a lot of situations.

Anyways, that's my story. Well, not really so much of a story. I'm going up by atomic number, and believe me, when we get into the halogens, I will have much more entertaining stories for you.

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that I am not liable for any injury or property damage sustained by repeating any experiments posted herein. Please follow every safety precaution, and more importantly, use common sense! I am very lucky that I haven't been killed or seriously hurt by any of my experiments so far, and I don't want anyone reading this to get hurt.

Rain? Thunderstorms?! So much for winter...

2005-01-12T17:55:00.000-05:00

Yep... I swear, Southern Ontario gets the strangest weather patterns anywhere. It's been raining on and off, all day, and now I just heard some thunder. Crazy. I want snow dammit!

Ever heard of "numerical integration by piecewise approximation"? That's what I learned about today in calculus. It's strange how this piecewise approximation looks exactly the same as an audio compression algorithm that I thought up back in grade 10.

Holy crap, it's really raining now. There goes the last of the snow...

A little help here...

2005-01-11T01:26:00.000-05:00

Come one guys, I know you want to help me. Just a
little support. Financial, I mean. I'm thinking that
it would be nice to have some spending money, just in
case I want to eat... I do sometimes need to eat, you
know.

Okay, the reality is; I'm okay for food, but I also
need money on ocassion. For random stuff.

This is why I'm making this plea to you. There's this
hard drive (external, 160 GB), that I have had my
eye on for quite some time...

Anyways, If you desire to help me, you know what to
do. At least, you should. I am assuming that the
subconsious mind will pick up on it...

[/subliminal message]

Almost Forgot...

2005-01-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

HAPPY WINTER-EEN-MAS!!!!

I'm going to go play some Halo to celebrate.

Attention-Grabbing Title

2005-01-09T02:23:00.000-05:00

Well, look at me, up blogging at 2:30 in the morning.

So, the fact that it is 2005 is old news now, but I suppose I should say "Happy New Year". Or perhaps I'm just mentioning it as a segue into talking about New Year's resolutions, which then have somewhat of a bearing on another topic that I plan to talk about.

Anyways, I made only one New Year's resolution this year. I wasn't planning on making any, but I was coerced into making a resolution to "get a girlfriend". In fact, this was originally supposed to happen before the end of 2004, but as there were only 45 minutes left... you get the point.

In any case (I need to find new paragraph transitions), I've started going to the gym. I started yesterday, and I figure it's a good sign that I also went today. This is somewhat loosely related to my goal of getting a girlfriend, I suppose. But is it worth it? My muscles are absolutely killing me right now. (It must also be noted that while on the exercise bike, I was analyzing the design of the roof trusses. I must be an engineer.)

Well, that's all for now. Still working on thinking up an actual point for this blog.

Kyle's Technology Predictions for 2005

2005-01-01T19:45:00.000-05:00

Here they are; check back in December to see how they pan out.

-Huygens successfully lands on Titan, and sends back proof of complex organic molecules
-computers will advance to the point where they have more processing capability than humans
-fully functional "butler robots" will start being sold, with voice recognition, facial recognition, and the ability to cook, clean, repair stuff, etc.
-holographic projectors will start becoming mainstream
-the space tourism industry will begin to grow exponentially
-quantum computers will surpass the speed of regular computers
-a functioning nanobot will be constructed that can run simple programs, move around, and pick up and drop different types of atoms
-brain implants will become advanced enough to create a "Matrix" of sorts
-optical storage will be developed that will allow over 2 terabytes of storage on a single disc
-the final merger of cell phones, PDAs, mp3 players, digital cameras, projectors, camcorders, and handheld gaming systems will take place

Okay, Okay, I Give Up

2004-12-22T20:17:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm updating. I can't stand to see my visitor stats dropping so drastically. Although this blog now has over 3,000 hits. Crazy, eh? Who ever would have thought that the semi-coherent ramblings of a maladjusted university student would attract such attention. Granted, a rate of 1,000 hits a month isn't anything to write home about, but it's something. Now if you people would just start clicking on the ads once in a while, before I starve to death.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. I can't see myself updating again anytime before then...

Merry Christmas

2004-12-16T16:50:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am leaving tomorrow for home, and I highly doubt that I will be updating until I get back here in January. So, for all you folks reading this, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (also happy Hannukah, Festivus, Chinese New Year, Martin Luther King Day, or whatever).

On that happy note, I'll leave you with something to do over the break. Think of it as a present (not really). In any case, it's the calculus exam that I just wrote. It's the very antithesis of the spectacularily easy physics exam. If I passed, I'll be happy.

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Bored? Why Not Try...

2004-12-14T16:18:00.000-05:00

the EASIEST first year physics exam EVER. It was a 2 1/2 hour exam, and I had it finished within 1 1/2 hours. In fact, as I'm writing this, it's not officially over (it won't be technically over until 4:26)

So go ahead, take the test.

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In other news, I got my internet back (it's been down since yesterday morning), and I need a new pen.

Three Down, Two To Go

2004-12-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

Well, my second and third exams are now complete. That leaves Physics on Tuesday, and Calculus on Thursday. Wait, why am I writing this? Does anyone care? Perhaps I should do my introspection elsewhere; somewhere where the entire planet cannot access it. In any case, it's irrelevant. I suppose the reason I am writing this is simply sheer boredom. I leave for home in a week, and I doubt if I will be able to update until I return (January 3rd).

Ah yes, I remembered something that might be of interest. Last night I went to a bar for the first time in my life. I didn't drink anything though, which I suppose makes it something of a non-event.

Man, my computer is dusty. A couple of weeks ago, when I bought my new graphics card, I had to open it up for the installation. And I nearly suffocated due to the dust that billowed out of the case. It's almost come time for a complete cleaning, perhaps before I go home I can do this.

With all apologies to any of you that actually read this, I am wracking my brain for ideas to write here. Maybe I should post my theories for the workings of a real-life stargate (as they were not too well accepted over at halfbakery.com). Alright, here goes:

Okay, we've all seen the show "Stargate SG-1" at least once (and if not, go watch it. Now.), and therefore we've all thought to ourselves: "Wouldn't it be cool if the stargate was real?"

Of course it would.

Basically, what you need to create a stargate is a wormhole. Creating that is easier than it looks. Since our universe is embedded in higher-dimensional space, there's no reason that forces like gravity and magnetism wouldn't penetrate into the fourth (or higher) dimension. So what we need are magnets that are so powerful that they pull each other together through the fourth dimension but not the third. Think of a two-dimensional analogue: a piece of paper that represent the universe, with two magnets glued on it. If these magnets are strong enough, they will attract through the third dimension and fold up the paper! Of course this doesn't solve the problem of actually creating the wormhole, but it gets the regions of space REALLY CLOSE to one another. Then you need something to actually rip the two "sides" and join them together. Presumably a large concentration of energy could do it (perhaps by launching a black hole at the middle of the ring?).

But it gets better. This proposed method can only work between two gates, because with more gates it would pick whichever one is closest. So obviously we need a method of "dialing" which gate we want to attach to. So instead of the gate being one giant magnet, have it be composed of several electromagnets, so that if you were looking at the gate from the front, it would look like

http://tinypic.com/olrhj

where the "O's" represent electromagnets. Now, by switching the polarity of these magnets to match the polarity of another gate, you can choose which gate to attach to! (Mathematical note: On the show, the stargate uses a seven-symbol combination drawn from a bank of 39 symbols. This is equal to 39^7 or 137231006979 possible combinations. Turns out that this is very close to 2^37, so 37 electromagnets would be needed for every possible combination.)

There are, admittedly, some flaws in this plan:

1. It would take an extraordinary amount of energy to run a system like this. 2. It assumes that the stargates are already present on other planets. 3. I have no idea how magnetic fields propogate through four-dimensional space.

But other than that, you gotta admit it would be pretty cool.

Again, I feel compelled to write something.

2004-12-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

Yet, again, I have no idea what to write about.

Perhaps I could think of something funny, but my mind is elsewhere. No, I'm not concentrating on exams, as I should (I went through hell with my linear algebra exam; I'm not doing that again). No, my thoughts center around two things. Watching more Stargate, and playing this lovely new video game that I discovered, called "Far Cry". The graphics are at least equal to those in Half-Life 2. It's a pretty cool game, actually.

At the risk of making these short posts seem like a trend, I must end here. For I am being called away by the siren song of video games and stargate episodes.

It's Over

2004-12-06T18:29:00.000-05:00

Thank. God.

I completed my linear algebra exam. Hopefully successfully. My relief is almost tangible. Well, it's tangible to the point where I'm going to allow myself to dine out at Pizza Hut, and perhaps watch a bunch more Stargate Episodes (I'm into season 3 now).

Wow... Snow...

2004-12-06T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yep, I woke up this morning to find the world blanketed with that white stuff; usually associated with Christmas and winter in general. Of course it was freezing in my room, as we had left the window open last night. Hopefully this is a good omen for today's linear algebra exam.

Tales from Linear Algebra

2004-12-05T01:59:00.000-05:00

Before I begin, I must say that I apologize for the unsatisfying nature of my previous post. I realize it would leave readers wondering many things. Does Kyle get his computer science assignment done? Does he manage to prepare for linear algebra, at least enough to pass the exam? Will he get his HL2 fix?

Alas, dear readers, these were questions that I myself was grappling with on that fateful night. I hope I will be able to resolve at least a couple of these pressing issues here.

First off, let me say that I did indeed complete my final computer science assignment. Sort of. I ended up handing in two version of the program. The first version worked, but the second version was all commented out and broken up into files with all the proper data hiding and stuff done. It was the data hiding that got me. Try as I might, I absolutely could not make it call a function from a class that was addressed by a pointer. I tried every combination of symbols possible. I tried:

class->function
class::function
&class::function
&class->function
class.function
&class.function
*class.function
*class->function
*class::function

Then, I started doubling up:

&class->.function
&class->&function
*class::*function
class::.function
(*)&class->::function
((&)(&class))::->.function
etc...

Nothing worked. So hopefully, they will see that it is mostly done properly, and it is all commented out, not to mention the fact that I did include a working version, and give me a relatively good mark.

Now on to the second part of the story. I mentioned in my last part that I was "woefully unprepared" for the linear algebra exam. Now, not two days later, I believe that statement to be incorrect. During the past two days, I went through all my lecture notes, the entire course supplement (all 156 pages of it), the handout on "diagonalization" (which admittedly I still don't quite understand, and quite a bit of the textbook. In doing this, I generated 16 new pages of notes; most of which are solutions to problems in the supplement. It's true, what my old mathematics mentor used to say: "Mathematics is not a spectator sport". Indeed, blithely copying what the prof writes on the chalkboard does not teach you math (as seen in the 14.5/40 I got on my last term test). But now, I have done problems (hopefully correctly; I haven't managed to find any solution sets anywhere), and I feel that I almost fully understand what has been taught in the course. Regrettably, I am still unable to visualize higher-dimensional space, which is a skill that would come in enormously handy for some concepts in linear algebra. Three dimensions is sometimes just not enough.

It is somewhat interesting, though: I always have considered myself somewhat of a mathematician. I distinctly remember being the only person in any of my high school math classes that actually "liked" math. Not only that, but I always wrote all the math contests, and for most of my high school career I would sacrifice my entire Tuesday night in order to go to London to take a special math class (taught by the aforementioned math mentor). The peak of my mathematical career was when I wrote the Fermat contest in grade 11, recieving a score of 134/150. Only 26 people in all of Canada got a higher score than that.

But I digress. The point I was attempting to make was this: although I consider myself a mathematician, I prefer mathematics that is grounded in the real world, and not things that are logically sound but are merely abstract creations that have nothing to do with the physical world. However, the only part of linear algebra I understand is the physically grounded "diagonalization". All the abstract stuff about "bases", "rank", "vector spaces", etc., I understand perfectly (okay, not perfectly, but close enough). I suppose this situation will have to be rectified. Not tonight though; I'll do it tomorrow. The last thing I want to do during the exam season is to fuck up my sleep cycle.

As for Half-Life 2, it turns out that I was very close to finishing it, and in fact beat it in about 15 minutes yesterday. So that fulfilled my desire to play it, at least for a while. Most of the time I allocate for breaks is spent on watching Stargate SG-1. I honestly don't know why I never watched this show until now. It is, by far, the best show ever created.

To come full circle, I guess this post is a bit unsatisfying as well. It leaves you wondering. Will Kyle pass his exam? Will he have time enough to study for the other exams that he does well on them? Will he get to the end of season 2 of Stargate before tomorrow?

But rest assured, my friends. These questions, and more, will be answered in time.

I Can't Believe It...

2004-12-03T01:22:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not so much one thing, as a combination of several things. Here are the things that I am currently having difficulty believing:

1. That tomorrow (or rather, make that today) is the last day of this semester.
2. That my linear algebra exam is in three days, and I am hopelessly unprepared. (okay, I understand this one. It has a lot to do with the copious quantities of video games, porn, and Stargate episodes [every single one!] residing on my hard drive)
3. That my program just compiled. And I must add, I am quite thankful seeing as it is due tomorrow (today).
4. How damned good Half-Life 2 looks on a DX9 video card.

I'll go through these one at a time.

1. Yes, it is here. The last day of the semester. It came all too quickly, and if it wasn't for those pesky exams I would have four weeks of Christmas break. But, alas, I have five exams spread over two weeks. The next two weeks are going to be... weird... You see, I won't be going to class, but I can't be expected to study 22 hours a day (24 hours when I don't have an exam). So what will I do? Also, my roommate leaves on Wednesday, leaving me alone for the next nine days. Well, I'll have my computer to keep me company, I guess.

2. Linear algebra. I believe I have covered this topic in previous postings, but let me reiterate. Linear algebra is the work of satan. Why, oh why, must I learn to do things that computers were built for. Not that the knowledge gained in this course could actually have any practical application. Sure, I may know how to invert a matrix, and maybe even how to diagonalize it and find its eigenvectors, but what use is that? The prof kept alluding to Google during the last few lectures, but never actually explained what a search engine had to do with matrices. I did a bit of Googling myself, and I came up with this page, which is, curiously enough, hosted by the University of Toronto (even though it was written by someone from the University of Pennsylvania). But in reality, the only "practical application" I care about is how to pass the exam. It's worth 60% of the mark, and the other 40% isn't looking too good right now.

3. Ah yes; again the joys of CSC 181. Known formally as "Introduction to C Programming", it could easily be referred to as "Obfuscation 101". Or, perhaps, "An Introduction to Comments Where One Learns Nothing About Computer Science". Because that's the essence of this course. It assumes that you already know how to program, forces the syntax of a new language down our throats, and then it's 30 lectures of how to break up code into "functions", "classes", "structures", and ".h files", and then how to write excessive numbers of comments describing each piece. In all seriousness, and this is taken directly from the marking scheme, only 30% of the mark is based on if your program actually works. What is the other 70%? Let's see:
30% - Correctness (i.e. does the program work)
30% - Class, code design (i.e. how you broke the program apart and commented it)
30% - Design by contract principles (i.e. proper commenting)
10% - Style (i.e. whatever they want; basically commenting)

So, as you can see, 70% of the mark is based on your ability to follow instructions and write comments where they are supposed to go, and 30% is based on your ability to actually program. I can't wait until next semester's CSC 191, which is called "Algorithms and Data Structures". As such, hopefully it will actually have something to do with algorithms and data structures. Not 30% algorithms and data structures and 70% commenting.

4. Ah, yes, I saved the best for last. Half-Life 2 on my brand-new GeForce 6800 GT video card... it's practically orgasmic. The water in this game looks real. Let me say that again. THE WATER LOOKS REAL. The designers of the source engine have really outdone themselves this time. I personally have no idea how they model the reflection, refraction, waves, etc. in realtime without resorting to a supercomputer to raytrace it. All I know is that it is beautiful. I replayed the airboat sequence three times just so I could stare at the water. Oh yah, and the sky looks real too. Not to mention nearly everything else in the game. The AI is actually smart enough that if you have a squad following you around, they won't trap you in a room with a grenade that just got tossed in by blocking the door. Hell, they even know how to find good cover, watch your back while you reload, lay down suppressing fire... it's amazing. The city combat sections feel like something from Fallujah or whatever Iraqi city is the stronghold for the rebels now. And then you get to the Citadel.... oh man, if I had only had the high-powered grav gun earlier...

Well, writing this has left me feeling like I want to play more HL2. But I must be strong and finish my computer science assignment... but HL2 is so pretty.... but the assignment is worth marks that could be the difference between passing and failing... but HL2 is so much fun... yah, screw it. Half-Life 2, here I come.

Please Ignore the Google Ads.

2004-11-29T23:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, perhaps Google AdSense isn't the best thing for a blog... I noticed when I checked the page that it picked up one the word "s.u.i.c.i.d.e" (had to do that so it won't see it again) in my last entry and both the ads were for suicide prevention centers. Don't they have a sense of humour over at Google? It was a JOKE, people, come on...

In other news, today I officially had over 2,000 hits on this page. Who the hell actually wants to read this drivel? Honestly, get a hobby or something. There are far more important things to do than read this... my life isn't as interesting as most of the stuff you would encounter on a day-to-day basis. Hell, my life isn't as interesting as an average trip to the washroom.

Well, seeing as my first exam is now in less than a week, I'd better go do some work. And study. And stuff. Although HL2 looks really good on my new video card. (GeForce 6800 GT, oh yah).... ooooooooh...... /me wants to go play more HL2....

I Have Absolutely Nothing To Write About

2004-11-27T19:43:00.000-05:00

So why, you might ask, am I posting something here? Well, I suppose there are two reasons for that. On reason is that I am sick of doing homework, and need a break. The second reason is that I don't want all my loyal readers (yah, all 2 of you) to think that I've died or something.

I really need to stop posting everything on Massassi that I find interesting, and start using my blog for what it's supposed to be used for. You'll notice that I refrained from posting "Give Bush a Brain", "Transformer Car", and "Jet-Propelled Outhouse" on here. Perhaps if I put them here instead of on the Massassi forums, I would get more visitors. Of course, the forums are also my main source of visitors, so I need to create lots of threads and post a whole bunch in order to get new visitors. I guess that's what's called a "Catch-22".

But I truly am bereft of any ideas for what to put here. Perhaps I should emulate 50% of the blogs that I find around here... please don't take this too seriously:

LoL gUyZ wUtz uP?!! mY nAmE Iz cAsEy aNd this iS my 1St pOsT oN mY bl0g!!!!1~~~~~ i'M 14 aNd i hAvE lOtZ uV gR8 fRenZ!!11~~` yAh U nO wHo u aRe!!!```~~~!!1 lol kAte yAh U 2~~~~~````!!@!!!!

Of course, then there's the other 50% of the blogs:

Life Sucks:

Current Mood: Suicidal

I've noticed that ever since turning 15, everyone seems to hate me. I'm so alone. It feels like I'm falling into a pit of despair. my parents don't care about me, and I wish they would die. but I want to kill myself too. i'm so depressed. my life will never get better. i'm seriously considering suicide. the reason i feel like this right now is because my g/f broke up with me last week. we had been going out for almost three days, and i was in love with her. and now she broke my heart, and i want her to die. i want everyone to die. i cut my wrists last night, just to see what would happen. it was kind of scary, but i want to do it again, and more. one day i'm going to take the knife and cut my throat with it, so i can watch myself bleed... and die... i wrote a poem about it

falling
the hurt is unbearable
i can't take it
lost in a sea of evil
swimming in pain

life is pain
death is escape
can i bring death on myself?
i look at the world
and realize i must

By the way, when I become a billionaire, I am going to personally hunt down anyone who puts stuff like this on the internet, and punish them for their hideous waste of server space.

Riding The Exponential Wave...

2004-11-25T23:34:00.000-05:00

I was having a very interesting conversation on MSN about mortality, technological progress, the end of the universe, etc., and the subject of exponential technological growth came up. I had never really thought about it before, but once I did, I thought it was pretty fascinating that technological progress maps out to orders of magnitude almost exactly. Essentially, this is what I came up with:

10,000,000 years to invent language
1,000,000 years to invent fire
100,000 years to invent social structures, homes, simple machines
10,000 years to invent cities and civilizations
1,000 years to invent gunpowder and the steam engine
100 years to invent airplanes, computers, and nuclear power

So, I ask, what will happen in the next ten years? And in the year after that? What about a month later? Three days more? It's kind of scary, and unless this curve does some serious levelling off... Well, suffice it to say that in 2020 we won't even recognize the place.

Feeling the Pressure...

2004-11-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

I suddenly realized today that this semester is coming to an end far faster than I ever imagined. And with that end comes what is known as "crunch time". Five exams, three lab reports, a computer science assignment, an engineering design project... One more week of class. Then finals are spread over two weeks. Kind of scary really. Hell, I should be working, not posting here.

Nothing else notable happening; nothing that I noticed anyways. Too busy to go out of my way to find interesting stuff to talk about.

I apologize for the blatant disregard of grammar rules shown in the above paragraphs.

Linear algebra < *

2004-11-21T22:25:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's a math class... WITHOUT NUMBERS. How fun. From the anti-calendar: "The aptly named linear algebra features a conucopia of Greek letters. There will be no numbers and confusion is a pre-requisite. Throughout this course, you will begin to question yourself as you fail to prove that 0 + 0 = 0..."

Naturally, I thought this was an exaggeration when I first read it, but it is true. I am studying for the third (and last) term test, as well as finals, and I realized that I really have no idea what the hell is going on in this class. At least in calculus you can draw pictures to illustrate concepts...

Honestly, I don't know why we need to learn all of this stuff that we will never use again. Sure, it's useful if you are going to become a mathematician, but is an engineer ever going to have to calculate matrix inverses without a calculator? Computers were invented for a reason, you know. And while certain parts of finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics use linear algebra, there is no need to have anything more than a basic understanding of the concepts involved as long as the computer doesn't break down. On second though, if your computer breaks down, you would have to be insane to try doing computational fluid dynamics by hand anyways. Unless you had several hundred years, a lot of paper, and infinite reserves of patience and perseverence, it would be impossible.

In other news, Pizza Hut is one of the greatest restaurants ever. Mmmmm... just thinking about it makes me hungry for more pizza.

It Finally Happened...

2004-11-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

Yes, the day I have been waiting for has finally arrived. Today, I enjoyed more pure bliss than can be described in words. I still can hardly believe it. There were so many things I wondered about... was it as good as everyone said it was? Would my equipment give adequate performance? Would I EVER find out the true meaning of pleasure? Well, all of my questions have been answered. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. It was as good as, and better, than my expectations led me to believe.

Anyways, believe it or not, I'm now heading off to experience more of this joy. I'm tired already; I don't know how much more I can take!

Some parting words: If you haven't tried this, I highly recommend it. It's more fun than you can imagine.

Okay yah, I give up. I'm talking about Half-Life 2. I could only come up with a certain amount of sexual-sounding stuff. So STFU.

Proof That Assignments Should Not Be Done The Night Before Due...

2004-11-17T19:18:00.000-05:00

Late last night, I was working feverishly to complete my computer science assignment (due today). Today I woke up with only a very fuzzy recollection of what I had done on the assignment. But it was sitting there on my desk in a brown paper envelope, ready to be handed in. After handing it in, I began to remember what I wrote. And these memories scared me. Apparently I had gotten so sick of working on it that I just started writing down whatever came to mind.

Later on, I found on my computer the "overview document" which I wrote to explain certain aspects of the program I wrote. Just to illustrate some of the stuff that your brain produces at 3:00 in the morning, here it is in its entirety:

Part 3: Overview Document

Class Design – Part 1:

In part 1, Three classes were used: Student, Graduate, and Undergraduate. Student was the parent class for Graduate and Undergraduate. Inheritance was used because both Undergraduate and Graduate students share characteristics like student number, first name, and last name, and also because the assignment said we were “encouraged to use inheritance”. In each class, all member variables are kept private, and Get() and Set() functions are used to read and write to these variables. The Student class runs no constructors or destructors, because it should never be called except by Graduate or Undergraduate, which have their own. Destructors are in fact never used, because the “new” command was not used, and as such the memory does not need to be freed. Which is a good thing, because I am pretty sketchy on how memory works. But that doesn’t matter, right? As long as I can comment my code properly, and separate function definitions and implementations, it’s all good. Heck, on assignment 2 I got 30/50 and my program didn’t even work.

The class Graduate has three constructors: one for no initial parameters (which sets the student number to -1), one for only one parameter, and one that sets all the variables according to the passed parameters. The constructors have a simple tester to make sure the student number is 8 digits long. Similarly, the Undergraduate class also has three constructors; the only difference being the set variables and the tester checking for a 9-digit student number.

Each class, per the assignment requirements, is contained within its own .cpp file, and has its own .h file. This makes for lots of “#include” statements, but I suppose it makes things somewhat neater.

Class Design – Part 2:

For part 2, a new class called StudentRecords was created. It uses no constructors or destructors. Again, all the member variables are kept private, because there are some variables (such as arraylength) that could cause serious problems if modified from outside. Get(), Insert(), and Delete() functions handle everything that is allowed to be modified externally.

For a data structure, an array was used. This seemed at the time (sometime late Tuesday night) to be the best choice, because I was sick of linked lists. In retrospect, a linked list is probably a much better choice, but as it is now Wednesday morning, there isn’t much time to entirely rewrite the code. However, there are some advantages to using arrays:
1. Eliminates pointers! (I hate pointers)
2. They take up less space in computer memory (kind of; this will be addressed later).
3. They are phenomenally easy to write algorithms for (being able to address an array member with a variable comes in handy sometimes).

The only problem with using an array is that you can’t dynamically change their size. To get around this problem, I wrote the code blindly assuming that you could. After all, if you can do it in Java, it should be fair game for a C++ assignment that isn’t even being marked electronically. Writing the code with this assumption is actually pretty neat, because it allows you to write algorithms for deleting and inserting without having to call functions that create new arrays and passing around pointers and all that garbage. I figure that it’s the concept that’s important, not the implementation. Perhaps this should wait until next semester’s course though (Algorithms and Data Structures). Anyways, since the students are stored as an array of pointers, it made the GetAsArray() function (which is supposed to return an array of pointers) quite easy to write too.

Space/Time Complexity Analysis:

Wow, when you say “space/time” it sounds like you are talking about relativity or string theory or something. But I digress. I don’t even know why a space complexity is needed; my computer has 1.5 gigs of RAM, and I know some people that have even more, so I’m not entirely sure why space is so critical. After all, even in the worst case there are still the page and swap files (which one is it that acts as extra RAM? I can never remember. It’s like the difference between the stack and the heap.). Although I must admit that when I tried to declare an array that would be big enough to store all possible student numbers (all 900,000,000 of them), it gave me an error. I guess Windows XP doesn’t like competition for taking up the most system memory. Granted, nine hundred million student numbers would never be used, but until you get up to that number you can never really be sure that the array is big enough. “Segmentation fault”, here I come! So. Time complexity. For the Insert() function, the complexity is O(n) for a list of length n, because it runs through the loop once to move all the items, then adds the new item. Get() is O(1), because it just goes right to whichever entry is i+1th. GetStudentNumber() is again O(n) because it has to go through each item in the list and check for the correct student number. Delete is O(n), and so is DeleteStudentNumber(). GetAsArray is O(1) because the array already exists and it just gets passed back.

Am I Just Stupid, Or Is Blender Impossible To Work With?

2004-11-15T23:25:00.000-05:00

Blender: I swear; a more unintuitive, user-unfriendly program has never been made. I won't even bother complaining about the strange choices for keyboard shortcuts (which aren't really shortcuts; there's no other way to do things). I figure they chose things like "w" to stand for "boolean operation", "b" to stand for "select", and "g" to mean "translate" because they are Dutch or something. No, what irks me is the lack of basic functionality. You'd think that joining three vertices together to make a triangle would be something that any basic 3D modeling and rendering program should be able to handle. Well, Blender can handle it - but only when it feels like it. One minute, it's happy to let me select any number of vertices, click "shift-f" (because that obviously stands for "triangles"), and it would fill (maybe it means fill?) the space between them with triangles. But then the next time I try to do it, even with only three vertices (which is pretty elementary), it tells me "error: can't make face/triangle". Near as I can tell, the only difference between the two situations is that the second time they weren't parallel to the XY, YZ, or XZ planes. And while I admit that it would be theoretically possible to align everything parallel before joining the vertices and then rotate it back, it would take an inordinate amount of time to do so. And I've been told that Blender is efficient. Ha! Efficient!

Another gripe I have with Blender is it's apparent inability to change the number of frames in an animation. Yes, believe it or not, I actually figured out how to do an animation (on a curved path no less). But it is preset at 100 frames, and no matter what you set the number of frames to be, it will always be 100 (plus some number of copies of the last frame). This isn't changed by modifying the frame rate or duration either. Thankfully, I didn't need an animation for a project or anything... Oh wait, I did. Well, it's a good thing that 4 seconds was enough.

Another serious problem is the lighting system. I'm a pretty experimental person; and I tried every combination of every setting on anything to do with lighting, and I couldn't even make it do shadows. But that's okay; it wouldn't have helped the looks because the textures all looked like plastic. Yes, all of my solid-colour textures (because I can't for the life of me figure out how to load .BMPs), looked like plastic (no matter what I did with that "specularity", "reflectiveness", or whatever other options there were.

Anyways, before I get a flood of e-mails saying "OMG UR STUPDI LOL READ THE TUTORIALS ON TEH INTARNETS!!", I did so, and all of them seem to be describing either:
1. How to move the camera so you can look at the default cube in different ways, or
2. Real-time animated boolean operations with patch NURBS splines controlled by bezier curves in advanced ray-traced 7-dimensional space for models with half a billion vertices.

So if someone could write a Blender tutorial covering stuff in between those two, like:
1. Why the shortcut keys are so counter-intuitive,
2. How to make things not look like plastic,
3. How to make shadows,
4. How to make a collection of three vertices into a face, and
5. How to make animations with more than 100 frames.

I would be very appreciative.

But for now I'll stick to JED.

3 AM Pizza, and More Fun With Road Cones

2004-11-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

Last night, me and my roommate decided to go get pizza at 3 in the morning. There's never a bad time for pizza (a sentiment that is shared by many, judging by the number of people who seemed to be getting pizza at the same time as us), so we set off on our arduous trek to the pizzeria. Halfway there, we noticed two guys lining up road cones across the street. I have a picture of this, but unfotunately Adobe Photoshop refuses to co-operate when I want to do such hard tasks as "opening a file". I suppose I could just use the Gimp, but that would mean figuring out it's user-unfriendly, multi-window interface. And right now I'm feeling too lazy for that. Maybe I should just post the photos at their full 1600*1200 resolution? Maybe later.

Anyways, after the funny randomness of the road cones, we witnessed a garbage truck driving by - with a broom glued to the side. I kid you not. I have a picture of this as well.

I Have Nothing Better to Do, So I'm Posting Here

2004-11-13T01:52:00.000-05:00

I realized something today. All my life I strove to not be seen as "nerdy", or "geeky"; labels that come all too quickly when one is a math genius and likes computers more than people. But what if it's not that bad? I just spent my entire friday night with little to no human contact (and what contact I had was unintentional), and I ENJOYED it. I watched seven hours of Stargate SG-1 episodes without a break, from 3 until 10. Then - get this - I get a knock on my door, and it turns out to be three attractive females that want me to go to some stupid "pub night" or something... (that, by the way, was the extent of my human contact). I turned them down; it was the only logical thing to do, because I had already decided that I wanted to watch Return of the Jedi. Oh, and I drank an entire 2-liter bottle of Coke.

So, I'm thinking that if I have fun doing stuff like this, then why should I change? Why should I leave my room, and run the risk (and a large risk it is) of social humiliation? The only things that I have to fear in here are malnutrition and computer breakdowns. Yes, I suppose that's what keeps me in here. Fear. Fear that I will go out there and not know how to interact with other people. Not be able to adapt to changing situations. Fear that I will do something so incredibly stupid that I will never be forgiven. And judging from my past, that has a large probability of occuring.

It's interesting what one will write, when one knows that (in theory) the entire world can access it, and yet nobody will read it. I'm sure it reveals some part of the mind that isn't normally seen. But now I'm talking about psychology, which puts me way out of my depth. I'm an engineer, dammit! And until we get to the point where we can re-engineer the human mind, I'll be perfectly happy with inanimate objects.

So I guess that's all that I will write tonight. I'm sure that tomorrow night will be just as interesting; although I need to download some more Stargate. I really need to get a hobby...

Fun In the Structures Laboratory

2004-11-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

That's right, they let us into the structural testing lab this morning. We got to see an interesting demonstration of a wooden beam failing in shear, as well as some other chunks of wood failing under compression. Basically we snapped stuff and squished other stuff. Not that these were small pieces of wood though - they were all 10 x 10 pieces. It takes an insane amount of pressure to fail a 10 x 10 piece of wood, but the machine we used can generate up to 12 million pounds of force. So it was no big deal. The machine was quite impressive though. Installed in 1961, it is still the largest machine of it's kind in Canada. It can test objects that are up to 20 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 7 meters tall (the size of a double-decker bus). And yet it is sensitive enough that it could measure the force it takes to crack an egg. The concrete floor under it is something like 5 feet thick, so it can take the force of a test that would actually use the full 12 million pounds that it's capable of.

Seeing the wood being tested was an interesting experience. The first piece we tested was a 10x10 beam that was about 2.5 meters long. It was kind of like snapping a stick over your knee, except on a much larger scale. And it took several minutes for the snapping to complete. The next piece was a chunk of a 10 x 10 that was loaded perpendicular to the wood grain. It was literally "squashed", probably down to about 60% of its original height. Next we tried squishing a piece parallel to the wood grain. This one was much stronger, taking over 1 MN of force before failing. I got a piece of that one as a souvenir (I deserve it; it snapped off during the testing and nearly hit me).

I was going to upload pictures, but unfortunately Photoshop has decided that it wants to be a bitch. So maybe later.

Doom 3's Harmonic Simultaneous Four-Day SOUL CUBE

2004-11-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

You are stupid. Evil media like email and video discs have brainwashed you. Soul cube is ultimate. Souls have FOUR SIDES not one like you stupid moron believe. Soul cube DISPROVES linear soul. Soul cube is a hypercube and takes five four-sided souls to complete the corners. You are educated stupid! I offer $10,000 to any stupid academic professor who disproves soul cube. Evil bastard Bertruger and his DEMONS try to stop you from seeking soul cube.

You are stupid and cannot comprehend soul cube. Evil liars have hidden soul cube and DENY it. You are lazy and worthless if you do not seek soul cube. Religious bastards say you will go to hell for seeking soul cube. SOUL CUBE DISPROVES HELL! Since souls have four corners: life, death, light, and dark they cannot reside in stupid linear hell. Five souls complete soul cube and makes it symmetric. Soul cube is perfect! Do not believe LIES from evil UAC. They CONTROL THE MEDIA and will not acknowledge soul cube because they are STUPID EVIL! Power of media is the power to ignore. THEY IGNORE SOUL CUBE TO HIDE ITS EXISTENCE. Stupid lazy sheep do not protest, and believe soul is linear.

SOUL IS CUBIC. Evil bastards DENY soul cube and yet OPENLY ATTACK those who seek soul cube. I will give $1000 to anyone who disproves soul cube BUT NOBODY TRIES because they are educated stupid! Soul can rotate from life, death, light, and dark and cannot exist in stupid linear world. SOUL CUBE DISPROVES THREE DIMENSIONS! World has four space dimensions and four time dimensions, but EVIL teachers still teach STUPID WRONG linear soul and world.

I am more powerful than your god. Anyone who finds soul cube gets equal power. YOU ARE WEAK AND STUPID! Evil media are AFRAID of power so they IGNORE soul cube, and ignorant people DO NOT PROTEST. Unless you seek soul cube you will always be WORTHLESS MORON. Soul cube is the TRUTH. Without soul cube the EVIL will OVERCOME US. Soul cube will DESTROY EVIL and yet you are stupid and will not try to find soul cube.

Congratulations for reading through all of that. It is a parody of Time Cube , which is even more mind-bending than this.

I Have Officially Graduated From High School.

2004-11-07T23:19:00.000-05:00

That's right, last night was my graduation. Despite the guest speaker calling us the class of 2003, and the guy beside me on the stage grabbing my ass, it went pretty well. I recieved a grand total of 10 awards (though I could have had even more), which got me the title of "the person who won the most awards". As for the party afterwards (it goes without saying that you party after graduation), it was nothing to complain about either. Though I didn't get laid, I still managed to have a good time. And then today I spent two hours on the train with a former crush of mine... but that's another story.

Speaking of trains, whoever organizes the rail schedule must be brain-dead. Ever since I proved to myself that a monkey could get a train to its destination on time without much effort, I figured that it must be the scheduling that sucks. And indeed that's what it is. I don't know how many times the train actually had to stop and wait for other trains to pass, but it was quite excessive. Any idiot with two weeks of CSC 181 experience could write a program in 5 minutes that could schedule trains better than whatever dolt (or team of dolts) does it at the Via headquarters. I suppose nobody has ever told them that trains are most efficient when they aren't stopping and starting every five minutes. If I wanted that, I would have driven. But the ultimate solution, of course, is to simply rip up the rails and replace the trains with a mag-lev system. Sure, the cost runs up into the millions of dollars per kilometer, but I would be willing to bet that people would pay good money for a trip at 600 km/h. The tracks and trains would pay for themselves in 20 years or less, I'm sure of it.

The U.S. Presidential Election, and My Theory Of Engineers.

2004-11-02T20:51:00.000-05:00

Well, in case you have been living in a cave for the past few months, today is the day that the President of the United States gets elected. Although I'm Canadian, I'm watching the results on CNN as if it's a game of Risk (which it does resemble). Personally, I'm rooting for Kerry, but at this point (and God knows things can change) Bush is in the lead. It's funny how the vast majority of the rest of the world would prefer Kerry to be in power, but it's about a 50/50 split in the States. I really hope Bush doesn't win. However, there is a positive side: after another four years under Bush, the U.S. will be so weakened economically (and possibly even militarily) that it will set up my plan to take over the world quite nicely.

I must admit, I am the master of awkward social situations. By "master", I mean they happen to me a lot, not that I am good at handling them. Due to an overwhelming abundance of such situations, I got to thinking. Why do I find it so hard to be accepted by my peers? Once I thought about it for a while, the answer became clear: social interaction is muddled and ambiguous (one might even call it chaotic), while my mind works (most times) in a logical and ordered manner. It explains why I am more comfortable with my computer than with other people. It even explains why I can have long, meaningful conversations on MSN. You see, unlike a "real-life" conversation, an IM convo has structure (it's handily arranged in chronological order), there is only one data stream (the text), and in general there are only two people per conversation. Whereas with a real life conversation has multiple overlapping data streams (speech, tone of voice, eye contact, body language, etc.) and multiple people interacting at the same time. It's no wonder I find it hard to adjust to social situations where many people are interacting.

Holy Jeebus... I just refreshed the election results page, and it looks like Bush has control of the bible belt, as well as basically the entire midwest. But it's still a close race.

Anyways, after explaining my inability to act correctly in social situations, I felt that I should extend the theory to something else that was bugging me. A contradiction, of sorts. You see, I'm an engineer; and historically, engineers have been known for being loud, fun-loving, and huge party animals. But in my classes, I look around me, and what do I see? A bunch of quiet Asian guys (my class is about 95% Asian, and 95% male). Where did the discrepancy come from? Was it a long-standing tradition from back in the days when engineers were the "real men"? Was it the fact that we hate artsies with a passion, and would do anything to prove ourselves superior? Or was it something else?

Before this question can truly be answered, let's look at some of the stereotypes about engineers:
1. We love to party.
2. We are extremely loud.
3. We can drink inordinate amounts of beer.

How are these connected? The answer is obvious when one thinks about it. Assume that I am a typical engineer. I represent what would most likely be classified as a computer engineer (though that is not what I am). I am shy, nerdy, and absolutely terrified of social interaction. Note that these attributes map DIRECTLY to the three stereotypes presented above, except they are opposite. How can this be? Well, first let's look at the similarities between the three stereotype characteristics. The obvious similarity is that beer-drinking and being extremely loud would most likely be accomplished at parties. This links the three together, and the key is that parties are social situations, which engineers despise. So what gives? Why would engineers go to parties if they hate them? TO DRINK BEER. An engineer will go to a party, realize that he or she is not having a good time, and then start drinking. Now, the effects of alcohol are well known. One of these effects, of course, is to make a person very extroverted. So the typical engineer is remembered as someone who is a great guy to have at a party, as well as someone who has the ability to absorb large quantities of alcohol.

It's too bad I don't drink.

Boycott ATI

2004-11-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

As many of you already know, ATI has extremely poor customer service. I have personally experienced this twice, first when I had problems with the drivers for an old Radeon 32Mb back in 2000; and now, as I have been waiting three months for them to ship the X800 XT that I ordered.

They may, as some people think, make superior products, but this doesn't make up for their complete lack of good customer service.

In light of these events, I am asking each and every one of you to help me boycott ATI. Never buy any of their products again. nVidia all the way!

The Debate Is Officially Over:

2004-10-30T16:04:00.000-04:00

Yes, the age-old question has finally been answered: Onion rings > french fries.

This revelation came to me today as I was sitting eating my lunch. Generic fast-food place, you know. I had debated with myself whether to get onion rings or french fries, and decided on the fries simply because I had eaten the onion rings last time.

As I worked my way through the meal, I realized that the fries were not nearly as satisfying as onion rings. In fact, they were downright disappointing. I added more ketchup, and tried to be satisfied. Even though the ketchup helped, it revealed a fatal flaw in the design of french fries. They are an empty vessel; a blank sheet. By themselves, they are nothing. They rely on toppings and condiments for the full french fry experience. Onion rings, on the other hand, reqiure nothing. In fact, they rebel against any help that toppings might give them (they taste rather nasty with ketchup). This is clear proof that indeed, onion rings are better than french fries.

That's all for now; I had a bunch of other stuff I was going to write, but I'll save it for later.

Damn Clouds...

2004-10-27T21:50:00.000-04:00

Why is it that whenever there is a major astronomical event, it is always cloudy and therefore I can't see it? Meteor showers, Mercury being visible, opposition of Mars, etc. And now the total lunar eclipse. Armed with my trusty digital camera, I trekked up to the top of the tallest building in a half-mile radius, which happened to be the physics/astronomy building here on campus. They had two telescopes set up; one with a motor that kept it pointing at the moon, and another that was not motorized. Due to the clouds, all that was visible in the motorized one was a smudge of light (mostly due to reflection off the clouds). The other one had been moved so we could watch the people on the observation deck of the CN tower. In any case, it wasn't a total disappointment, because I got some pictures of the city at night that will do quite well for my desktop background.

Well, This Is Ironic... Or Something.

2004-10-25T17:04:00.000-04:00

Does anyone else find it strange that these two articles (one, two)are on the New Scientist site right beside each other?

The first article describes how brain cells from a rat were used to create a "brain" that can fly a simulated airplane. The second tells us of a microchip that can replace part of the brain... So first they grow a brain to replace a computer, and then they make a computer that can replace a brain... I'm sure there must be a good joke in there somewhere.

2004-10-24T19:06:00.000-04:00

Well, it turns out that the only thing that's more processor-intensive than making a photo mosaic, is making one from the decompiled frames of a movie. Video editing takes so goddamned long. But rest assured, the results were worth it. You may have seen the poster of Darth Vader that is made up from frames from the Star Wars trilogy. Well, I have created the equivalent one... of Dark Helmet!

Flying Lawnmowers, And A Trip Down Yonge Street.

2004-10-23T21:14:00.000-04:00

There is a rather interesting video floating around on the internet; it is a flying lawnmower... and it's real. Check it out. It's insane.

So today, while my computer was processing another one of those photomosaics, I got bored and decided to go for a walk. I hadn't been out to Yonge street yet, so I walked down there. Nothing much interesting happened, but I did hear a guy use the word "bling-bling" in a serious context... I thought that was funny as hell.

2004-10-22T21:09:00.000-04:00

Wow... this took a shitload of processing time.

EDIT: Yes, that is a picture of me.

Woohoo! Screen of the Day, and 28/30 on my Physics Midterm!

2004-10-21T18:15:00.000-04:00

Seeing as the only link I have posted to this blog is on the Massassi Forums, I'm sure some of you know that I got Screen of the Day for my latest Jedi Knight level. The only other time I ever got SoTD was back in '02, with a shot from a CTF level that I never actually released. Damn, that was actually a pretty good level. Unfortunately, the flow was horrible, and I never could get the CTF cog to work right... but I'm babbling.

As for the other piece of good news, it's pretty much covered in the title. Man, I love being smart (not that this is a common occurence: I got around 70% on both my calculus and linear algebra midterms).

Anyways, that's about it for now...

More C Woes

2004-10-17T20:26:00.000-04:00

Alas, this computer science assignment isn't as easy as I first thought. Apparently, putting in "malloc"s (that word sounds so cool) in random places doesn't prevent the accursed "segmentation fault" from occuring. However, I do get to type "malloc" over and over again. Man I love that word.

In other news, it has been shown that trees are the cause of a bunch of air pollution! I can picture the new slogans already... "Help The Environment: Cut Down a Tree!"

Computer Science Assignments (and the associated problems)

2004-10-16T19:25:00.000-04:00

Well, now that those midterms are done, I have focussed my efforts on my C programming assignment. An assignment that should be absurdly easy (the instructor gave us all the algorithms we need), but somehow isn't. The problem isn't with pointers this time, but instead it's something with memory, because I keep getting those dreaded segmentation faults. Even though it seems that every other line of code is a "malloc", it still gives me the "Segmentation Fault (Core Dumped)" error. Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually (most likely by inserting "malloc"s in random places, which is what I have been doing so far).

However, on the bright side, I have somewhat figured out the pointers. The operation
"->" comes in REALLY handy sometimes... But it's a good thing I figured them out, because this assignment is full of them. Pointers, and pointers to pointers, pointers to structures, structures of pointers that point to other structures, etc. It's crazy.

In other news, well, there really isn't much other news. The world hasn't ended yet, which is fortunate.

Midterms, Midterms, and The Curse of Handheld Computers.

2004-10-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

It may seem a bit early, but midterm season is starting for us Eng Scis here at UT. Last week was linear algebra, yesterday was calculus, and today was physics. These tests ran the gamut from absurdly easy to impossibly hard. The easy one was physics. There were only three questions, and success basically came from using one's calculator correctly. The impossible one was calculus. There was stuff on that test that I had never seen before; and even though we got 110 minutes to do 11 questions (yes, that's 10 minutes per question), I barely finished. Well, truthfully, for the last question I just wrote down some random stuff. Perhaps somebody reading this will be able to solve this question:

Consider the function f defined on (0,1) by
f(x) =
/ 0 if x is irrational
|
\ 1/n if x = m/n

where m and n are integers without any common divisors. Prove that f is continuous at every irrational point in (0,1), and that f is discontinuous at every rational point in (0,1).

Pretty tough, eh?

Anyways, as you may have noticed from my last post, I brought a lovely three-year-old handheld computer (a Palm M505) from home. I'm afraid that this device is going to be my downfall, or at least the downfall of my marks. Anyone who has ever played the game "DopeWars" knows how addicting (haha) it can be. That game now fills the time before, after, and during lectures. My notes have become substantially shorter since the Palm came into my life.

My First Mobile Blog Entry

2004-10-11T23:17:00.000-04:00

Coming to you (almost) live from an obsolete Palm M505 handheld computer.

Well, I'm on a train, heading back to the big city of Toronto, after a weekend of... interesting things. Being a farm boy, I had fun as only a hick could. Lets see... driving around in an old pickup truck (as drunk guys throw beer bottles out the window), check. Having a bush bash with my buddies, check. Going to the fair, check. Gotta love the rural life.

Saturday night was actually quite an interesting night. That was the night of the bush party. After my friends were relatively inebriated, we all piled into my truck and went to crash another party. We got there around 2:30 in the morning. Not much "crashing" actually took place, but we did steal some lightbulbs, and left an old tire under someone's car for them to run over in the morning. And I took some pictures. After that, we proceeded to drive to a convenience store to buy some food. And wouldn't you know, but the mother of one of the girls from the party we had just left was working there. Honestly, it seemed pretty funny at the time.

On Sunday night, I had my family Thanksgiving dinner, which was nice. Today, I went to the Brigden Fair. It wasn't as much fun as last year, though that is probably because last year I was at the fair for all three days, and I went to at least two parties. But it was good nonetheless.

It has just come to my attention that there was some sort of minor disturbance as I was writing this. The guy sitting two seats up from me on the left side appears to not be enjoying the ride. Something seems to have happened, but I missed whatever it was. Maybe he is just pissed off because the train is late. Oh well.

Anyways, it's back to the University (and back to work) for me.

Oh, and 56k modems suck. Hard.

Addendum:

I just got an e-mail from the webmaster of Brigden Fair, thanking me for linking to the site. Also, he told me that the actual attendance numbers were closer to 50,000. Either I forgot a zero, or I was just thinking of the number of people who are there are any given time. But yah, the fair is awesome.

Oh My God, She Smells Like Old Crackers.

2004-10-07T23:22:00.000-04:00

Before I start off, I had better define what old crackers smell like. You know when you have a box of crackers (usually Ritz crackers), and they get REALLY stale - stale enough that they almost feel soggy, and they crumble apart like nothing? Well, have you ever tasted one of those super-stale crackers? If you haven't, I don't recommend it. If you have, then that taste is like the smell I am talking about.

Anyways, I got to my linear algebra class this morning, sat down, and got my binder out. A couple of minutes before class started, this girl whom I had never seen before comes in and sits down beside me. I thought nothing of it, until she asked me, "Is this CHE 220?". So I was like, "No, this is linear algebra. MAT 185." And that's when I noticed what she smelled like. Old crackers. It's really not a smell that a person should have associated with them. It was quite putrid, and the smell came in waves (basically whenever she moved). Thankfully (or so I thought) she was in the wrong class, and she would therefore soon get up and leave. But no, she stayed. Not only that, but she took down notes too. It was all very strange, and I was going to ask why she was in the wrong class, but my mind was overpowered by the stench. I never knew old crackers could smell so bad. I prayed for the end of the class, when I would finally be outside of the smell range.

But no, it was not to be. You see, I happen to have linear algebra and calculus in the same classroom, one after the other. So naturally I stayed sitting down, and waited for her to get up and leave. But she did not. Why? Who knows. She then asked me what class it was now. "MAT 194," I replied. She then took out her schedule and stared at it. I glanced over, and noticed that neither MAT 185 or MAT 194 were on her schedule. Anywhere. So not only was she taking notes from the wrong class, it was a class that had no relevance at all to whatever she was studying. Yes, she took down the calculus notes too. I was nearly sick from the old cracker smell.

In any case, I have learned an important lesson from all this: never leave an open seat beside you when going to class. For you never know what the person next to you might smell like.

Google AdSense Is Cool.

2004-10-06T18:25:00.000-04:00

Well, this morning I finally figured out how to add those Google ads (see top and bottom of page) to my blog. Turns out that I had to put them in the actual template... I'm not much good with HTML. But, as it turns out, they are quite good moneymakers for the amount of effort I am actually putting in. Since their activation this afternoon around 12:30, I have made exactly $1.81. I suppose it's not that much, but it will eventually add up to a larger number. They send you checks every month, as long as your balance is more than $100.

I have to say this: MWUAHAHAHA!!! IM GOING TO BE RICH!!!

So anyways, I'm going back home to visit my family and friends on the weekend. For all you non-Canadians out there, this weekend is Canada's thanksgiving. It is also the weekend of the world-famous Brigden Fair. How many other rural fall fairs have their own webpage AND a flash intro? That's what I thought. I believe that it attracts something like 5,000 people per day, which is a huge number (seeing as Bridgen itself has a population of 540). I'll be sure to take some pictures, and post them on here when I get back on Tuesday. Oh yah, and they have helicopter rides too. I prefer to just fly over in a Cessna. It's a lot cheaper, plus I get to control where I go. But the helicopter dude gets mad if I go too low.

SpaceShipOne Part Two

2004-10-06T13:24:00.000-04:00

On Monday, October 4, 2004, SpaceShipOne launched for the second time in five days. It again rocketed past the boundary of space, capturing the X Prize for the Scaled Composites team. You can see more about it here. It's not often that one gets to see history in the making, and even though I was watching the webcast instead of doing my physics lab, I think it was worth it. Personally, I was rooting for the Canadian Arrow, but to see any team win is awe-inspiring.

In other news, comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield passed away yesterday. May he rest in peace.

SpaceShipOne

2004-10-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

Well folks, this is it, the moment you have been waiting for: this is officially the future.

As many of you know, on Wednesday, SpaceShipOne made its first X Prize flight. On Monday it will attempt the second. If it is successful, it will usher in a new era of cheap commercial spaceflight. Before long, we will have passed sub-orbital flights and be capable of going into orbit. Commercial space travel used to be science fiction, but now that a few people with a lot of money are paying attention to it, it is quickly becoming fact. Plans for a hotel in orbit (or on the Moon) now have set timelines. Spacecraft are under development for taking paying passengers into space.

Yes, the future is now. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Attention: C Sucks Ass. In other news, the world is ending.

2004-09-28T19:26:00.000-04:00

I must say, C is not one of the better programming languages I have worked with. The sub-standard string functions, the idiocy of pointers, and the fact that we are forced to use UNIX are all really irritating me. In the lab today (the one where the TA didn't even show up), we were expected to create a function that takes a string of characters and tells you whether it is palindromic or not. Because of my intense dislike for pointers, I decided to try and do it without. Apparently, this is impossible, because C doesn't treat string arrays the same as other arrays. Even though strings are really just arrays of a different name. I'm beginning to think I took the wrong programming class; nobody else seemed to have any problem with the assignment. Speaking of assignments, we have one due next Tuesday that is being a huge pain in the ass. Basically, all my knowledge of other programming languages is useless in C. I'm literally learning programming all over again. I wish they had programming classes where all you had to do was write things in pseudocode. Even better, someone should make a compiler for pseudocode. Now that would be a much better programming course.

As of late, it has become increasingly apparent that the world is coming to an end. First we had the hurricanes. More hurricanes in such a short period of time since sometime in the 1800's. Now, apparently Mt. St. Helens is acting up again; threatening to blow its top. And just today there was a relatively large earthquake in California, with the promise of even larger ones to come. To top it all off, a huge asteroid is passing by the Earth tomorrow. Damn, it would be a shame to be destroyed just as things were getting exciting.

Addendum: Oh, and, North Korea now has nukes. Yes, I sense that the end is near.

Liquid N2 Containers, The Future of Space Flight, and Shaun of the Dead

2004-09-28T01:29:00.000-04:00

This morning, I got to sleep in, so I was happy. My physics lab is only every other week, and this was my off week. But being the off week, it meant that I had to hand in my written up physics lab from last week. Now, I knew the room where the TA has his office where I was supposed to hand it in. It's FINDING the room that is the hard part. It was in the basement of McLennan Physical Laboratories, and the basement is an absolute maze. I swear, it was designed with confusion in mind. I wandered around in the basement for a good 20 minutes before is finally got to the room. Every room I walked by had some sort of warning sign on the door. There were three large tanks of liquid nitrogen sitting out in the hall. I think they were empty, because they weren't cold. It had a big "DANGER: LASER RADIATION" sign on the door, and there was a box where we were to hand in our completed labs. And then began the arduous task of finding my way OUT of the basement. I don't think I have ever seen that many warning signs in one place before. Honestly, do we really need to be warned of an "intense magnetic field"? Oh well. It was some excitement (not much really) in an otherwise dull day.

Later on in the day, I came across an interesting article about some rich guy who is starting up a space company that will take paying passengers up into space. It's nothing new, I suppose, but he is planning on having commercial space flights in three years. And with enough profit, he is then planning orbital flights, space hotels, and possibly flights to the Moon. Cool. They can count me in, that's for sure.

I also *ahem* acquired the movie "Shaun of the Dead". If you like crazy British humour, then this movie is for you. It is one of the most hilarious things I have seen in the past couple of days (ever since I last watched Harold and Kumar). I highly recommend it.

I suppose I should wait 6 minutes so that the datestamp is different, but...

2004-09-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

Well, today was pretty boring. I got my laundry done, and I got my physics lab done...

Oh, and I watched the movie Aliens. That's a great movie. But honestly, when the aliens are all coming through the ceiling, I could not help thinking "OMQ ZERG RUSH!!!!111!!!!111". Yes, I know I am a disturbed individual.

After the movie, I found this gem on albinoblacksheep.com. I must warn you, it's not for the weak minded.

Addendum: Fire Alarm

2004-09-26T04:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I was on my computer, chatting on MSN, minding my own business. When suddenly, the fire alarms goes off. This was at 3:30 in the morning. So, I begin cursing as I reluctantly made my way to the exit. Well, it turned out to be quite a social event. Nothing brings people together like a fire alarm in the middle of the night.

Obviously, there was no fire. However, I noticed two strange things when I came back to my room. First, the entire third floor smells like burning (probably caused by someone's lack of skill with a microwave. Second (and even weirder), when I came into my room, two out of three of my air fresheners (AKA: Bounce dryer sheets hanging from the fan) had fallen off. And they were there when I left. Very strange indeed.

Wrong Rooms, Chinese Convenience Stores, and Movie Stars

2004-09-26T01:08:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday (or rather, Friday), I go to my Engineering Design tutorial with my fully completed assignment. I'm all ready to hand it in as I walk towards the room, but suddenly I see that there is nobody there, and the door is locked. Shit. I had forgotten that I was supposed to go to a different room. But damn if I have no idea where this "different room" is. I at least have a pretty good idea what building it is in. So I walk over to the building, and begin looking. I look into every room on the first floor. Nothing. I walk up to the second floor and begin the same process. Anyways, after I had just begun searching the second floor, I found someone who was doing the same thing I was. However, they had already looked on that floor, and so we deduced that it was probably on the third floor. So up to the third floor we go, and at last, we get to the tutorial. Just in time to see the demonstration of stress and strain on a steel wire. Which, in other words, means weighting it down until it finally snaps. Which was cool. But what was even cooler is that we got our first quiz back. And I pulled off a sweet 100%. Score!

Later on that day, after my final class, I decided that I would go shopping. You see, there were two things that I desperately needed: duct tape, and CD-Rs. Actually I needed neither of these things, but I figured they might come in handy. So from my last class, I began walking south, because I vaguely remembered seeing some stores an unknown distance away from the university in a somewhat southerly direction. Anyways, after being detoured away from my planned path by some construction, I found myself walking through some sort of residential area. But, I thought, if I continued walking straight, I would eventually get to a store. And indeed I did. However, by this time, I was right in the heart of Chinatown. I entered a convenience store, hoping to find duct tape and recordable CDs. I found the duct tape, but when I asked the store clerk "Do you sell CD-Rs?", she thought I asked "Do you know how to get to city hall?". I had a hell of a time trying to explain that I wanted "A compact disk that your computer can record on", and finally she found me a box of 10 CD-Rs. However, I was looking for a bit more than 10, and I was not going to shell out the $15 bucks it was going to cost for the 10-pack. So, I left, and began walking north. Eventually, I went to the university bookstore and bought a 100-pack there. Problem solved.

Today (or rather yesterday), I went to visit my Aunt Suzanne in Scarborough. We went out to walk her dog, and she told me how the other day, she was walking through the park, and there was a big setup for filming a movie. Apparently, parts of the upcoming movie "Cinderella Man" (IMDb it, lazy ass) are being shot in that park, which is meant to look like New York's Central Park in the 1930's. Anyways, to make a long story short, my aunt met the director Ron Howard. So that's kind of cool. However, I can beat that, because I personally met the guy who played "Extreme Sports Punk #1" in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. He works with my uncle; they run a skateboarding store. He's a cool guy; he gave me stickers for the store which are now residing on my refridgerator and dresser. You should check out their website here . And no, I'm not getting paid for advertising it...

*THIS JUST IN!! SPECIAL REPORT!!!

I have just been personally informed that a girl thinks I am "cute". Sweet!

*And now, back to your regular broadcast.*

Anyways, I actually met the guy a couple of weeks ago, at which time I had no idea that he was in the movie. Although, he did look really familiar when I met him. I only found out tonight that he was in the movie when my unvle was driving me back to the residence. So when I got back here, I checked it out on IMDb, and sure enough, there he was. I also checked to see what other movies were filmed in Toronto. And there were quite a few. There were even some that were filmed right here at the university (most recently, the movie "Mean Girls"). But the most famous would definitely have to be "Good Will Hunting", which not only was filmed here on campus, but parts of it were filmed right in this residence. Room 206, if I remember correctly. I was down there the other night, and the girl who lives in that room told me about it. So that's pretty neat. I actually have never seen the movie Good Will Hunting; I think I may watch that after this.

Forgotten Assignments, Evil C Compiler, and the Stress-Strain Curve of Steel

2004-09-23T22:48:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up happy. Well, considering that it was 8:00 and I had gotten less than 6 hours of sleep, I was relatively happy. I was happy because I had a physics assignment due, and I was completely finished, and I had checked and rechecked my answers to my satisfaction (this is something new; back in high school I would do assignments at the last minute, if at all). Anyways, after a leisurely chili lunch, I went to my room and packed the assignment safely in my binder where it would be kept until handed in at the physics tutorial. I walked down the street to the Bahen center, up to the third floor, into my tutorial room, and I got out my assignment. It was missing a page. A very important page too, as the entire thing was only three pages. So, I calmly got up, walked out of the room, and ran as fast as I could back to my dorm to pick it up. Thank God that it's only 600 meters between my residence and the Bahen center, because I got it there just in the nick of time. In fact, it probably shouldn't have been allowed, because it was due in the first five minutes of class, and I got it there after seven minutes. I can only hope that my memory is better tomorrow morning, when I have to hand in my Engineering Design assignment.

Throughout the course of my life, I have come across several different programming languages. However, the award for the most non-user-friendly goes to C. Sure, the low-level stuff might come in handy once in a while, but give me good old Visual Basic anyday.

Seven Things I Hate About C: (It would be 10, but I couldn't be bothered to think of any more)
1. The semicolons at the end of each line.
2. "\n"
3. Pointers. One "*" in the wrong place can crash your system.
4. Having to put all the functions before the main procedure.
5. No booleans!
6. No 64-bit support (I assume that's why the compiler doesn't work on my system).
7. Having to use UNIX in the labs.

Anyways, I downloaded a C compiler for my computer (although you can apparently log in to the ECF lab remotely, the website is down whenever I try it). I started it off with something simple, a "Hello, world" program. It compiled, but when I tried to run the program, it just flashed some sort of command line window and closed it down again. So I'm completely at a loss, but I have not given up yet. The computers in the lab are so horrible that it is worth a bit of trouble to get C working properly on my system.

I believe I mentioned my "Engineering Design" course in the first paragraph. The full name of this class is "Structures and Materials: An Introduction to Engineering Design". This is, without a doubt, one of the best courses I have ever taken. Instead of learning theory, like my other courses, we are actually doing practical stuff. For example, in the tutorial last week we had a demonstration of a static force system, and we measured the angles in it and then did the calculations to show what the angles are. Also, the professor had a big model of a suspension bridge in one of the lectures, and we figured out the forces on some of the cables. Tomorrow we get to see a demonstration of how much force it takes to snap a steel wire. So naturally, today we started learning about material strength, and in particular we studied steel. Finally, I understand stress-stain curves. I also now know that the toughness of a material is equal to the area under the curve, and the resilience is the area under the elastic portion of the curve. For once in my life, I am actually learning something that will be useful to me in the future! It's amazing!

Road Cones, Canceled Lectures, and Nuclear Electric Propulsion

2004-09-21T18:11:00.000-04:00

Last night, my roommate Tyler and his friend Mike apparently decided they wanted to join a fraternity, and went off to some pledge initiation thing. I guess that afterwards, the frat guys took them out to a bar, and they got piss drunk. I had just gone to bed when they came in at around 2:00. With them, they brought a road cone. Not one of those small ones though; this was one of those monstrous cylindrical things. Here is a picture of it beside Tyler's bed.

Anyways, they were pretty drunk, and they wanted to watch a movie, and Mike apparently couldn't figure out how to work Tyler's computer. When he couldn't find the file, Tyler attempted to call Mike a "dipshit", but what came out was "You're a shitdip." Yes, he actually called him a "shitdip." Absolutely hilarious.

Tuesdays are bad days for me. I have seven hours of classes; I start at 9 and end at 6, with two hour-long breaks at odd times. So it's 3 in the afternoon, and I am sitting in my computer science lecture room waiting for the dude to get there. I call him a dude because it's a graduate student that is teaching us, not a professor. He finally runs in just before the class is about to start, and goes to the board and writes in big letters: "LECTURE CANCELLED TODAY." Then he proceeds to run out. He looked like he was in a hurry. So I got an extra hour of break time before my computer science practical, which was nice. The practical, or "lab", or whatever you want to call it, was relatively pointless. There were two parts to the lab, with the instructions on the internet for us to download. Get this: by the time you download them, you are already finished part one, which consisted of "Figuring out your login name and password", "How to get to the internet in linux", and "where to find the instructions for the lab." That's it. So then, naturally, I moved on to part 2. In this part, we had to complete the incredibly hard task of writing a "Hello, world" program in C. And we were given the code for the program. Not much difficulty here. Although, truthfully enough, the UNIX terminal takes some getting used to. The worst part, however, is that the keyboard is SO DAMNED CLOSE to the edge of the desk, and the computer is bolted down right behind it so it can't be moved. So after a session of using those computers, everyone has painful red lines across their wrists.

Later on, I was browsing the net, and I came across some interesting news stories. First off, there's the strange story about how Microsoft is helping to sell Macintosh video games in Japan. Read more here.

Another news item that caught my eye was the one about how NASA has chosen a contractor for the 2011 Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) probe. Read more here. This bad boy will be the largest space probe ever, and it is going to be using Nuclear Electric Propulsion. Why is this significant? Well, the efficiency of rocket engines is measured in specific impulse (Isp), which is the number of seconds that a pound of fuel can create a pound of thrust. The best liquid hydrogen/ liquid oxygen engines available have an Isp of about 450 seconds. Nuclear Electric Propulsion can have an Isp of up to 5,000 seconds. And this is the first mission to ever use this type of propulsion.

Missed Classes, Huge Hard Drives, and Michael Moore

2004-09-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

So today, I get up and go to my physics laboratory from 9 to 12 AM. Apparently I was so engrossed in the exciting* experiment that I completely forgot about my computer science class right after it. It turned out okay though, because I got lunch early, and I got an extra hour to play Unreal Tournament 2004 (awesome game). It's not like one needs to go to any lectures to learn things here anyways; all the lecture notes are posted on the internet. However, I hope not to accidentally miss any more of my lectures (although I'm not saying anything about purposely missing them).

After dinner, I came back to the residence, and while browsing the internet, I came across the biggest hard drive I had ever seen. http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10129
At this corner, weighing in at 1,600 gigabytes, is the monstrous LaCie "Bigger Disk Extreme"! At the other corner, at a relatively puny 200 gigabytes, is the hard drive I bought last month. You see, at the time I thought 200 gigs was plenty for anyone, right? Wrong. I neglected to take into account the fact that not only do I have high speed internet, but I am connected to the university network. A network containing thousands of movies, hundreds of thousands of songs, and gigs and gigs of the loveliest porn you can imagine... I filled up 60 gigabytes in less than 2 days. I really need to start breaking out the DVD-Rs. Before I came to university, I bought a stack of 25, and I have hardly used any at the moment.

Later on, I was talking to some girl on MSN. Apparently she was at a math camp I attended two summers ago, but in all honesty I have no idea who she is. Anyways, she apparently has never heard of Michael Moore. I really thought she was joking, so I told her that if she wanted to ask stupid questions ("Who is Michael Moore?"), she should ask Google, not me. It turns out, however, that she was serious. I hope that at least she learned the value of googling. Note: I realize that "googling" should be capitalized, because Google is a trademarked name. However, they never intended their name to be used as a verb, and therefore I am taking the liberty of dropping the capital.

*exciting is used sarcastically in this context. The experiment consisted of using a slightly inclined air track and a motion sensor to determine the acceleration due to gravity. This was stretched out over three hours.

First Post

2004-09-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

Well, this is my first post of my first blog. I figured since everyone and his dog has their own blog, I should too. Sure, I know, blogging is so 2003, but better late then never, right? Anyways, check my profile for information about me, and I'll try to post at least once daily.