Sleep

Wow. I needed sleep. Badly.

Last night, in an effort to relax after a tough couple of weeks and an even tougher 24 hours, I took a "nap" at 8:30 last night. I just woke up.

Awesome.

Daddy Needs a New Pair of Shoes

No, I didn't take up gambling. Today was training/sign off day for the KAAPA project. I spent the entire day in my suit and painfully uncomfortable dress shoes. I'm sure my toes are bleeding right now.

They signed off, though. The project can officially be deemed a "success" no matter how pleased they are after transition...

A Long Evening

Tonight has been a night feared all year: the night before Construction Sign-off. It seems, however that the project is getting put together rather well under the conditions we had the past week. Tomorrow is training and the most important meeting of the year.

All this, and I still need to do normal homework. Hopefully, I can sleep tomorrow night. Unlikely, though.

Newsworthy

Crunch Time

I spent all evening finishing homework due tomorrow. I got it done rather quickly so I could spend the rest of the night coding a storm for reaching feature-complete and getting the major bugs out of the system for Design Studio. Essentially, I need to be done with most things by team time tomorrow so my team can adequately prepare for training on Wednesday. However, I will still be coding all night tomorrow (and doing more homework) so I won't have a life until I leave for San Antonio... then I'll be nicely isolated and happy.

A Disgraceful Plug for Content

Sometimes I photoshop some images for inside jokes in a forum. I think I'll start posting some of them here, so you can guess their context.

Unfortunate Networking

Facebook is a useful social networking website for those who like to be social, but don't actually like meeting people in person. Also, people can be creepy and stalk other people. Boredom can be delayed by clicking random links. The last action made me sad today.

I use facebook primarily as a tool to keep my friends updated and to share some funny pictures. However, I clicked on my "music preferences" which consisted of "Anything but rap and country" which prompted a search of people at UNL with similar interests. However, all I got back were people who liked "mostly rap and country" or "everything from rap to country". It made me sad that facebook decided to "link" me to these poor excuses of human beings. However, it is an honest mistake for a computer to make, I guess.

Warp Speed: Engage

A certain friend of mine got engaged the other day. This reminds me of how my parents got married right about this age. What's the rush?

Aspects, Annotations, and Interceptors, Oh My!

I'm so very excited to get working on my research project this summer. The release of Java 1.5 has introduced nice features into the language, notably annotations. Annotations are little statements before a class or method that start with '@' and give some meta-information about that code. I can then look it up later to make my code be more customizable. This leads a lot into aspect-oriented programming, which I've been skeptical of, until I realized my project is best as an aspect-oriented project. If my cache is properly implemented, someone should just be able to add an annotation with some information about the parameters and then it should just work. I guess a second annotation would be needed to show that my interceptor is called.

Java has upgraded their web service implementation for this, as well. This catches it up with ASP.NET web services, possibly exceeding it in ease of development. It's still probably harder to run since the web service needs to run in several different application servers, not just IIS.

The Longest Short Week Ever

This week was only three days long. However, I was very ready for it to be over by the end of the day. Next week is going to be very tough to get through.

In fact, the rest of the semester is going to be rather hectic, especially because I'll be going to San Antonio in two weeks, and then have one week of class, dead week, and then finals week. I'm pretty much assuming my role in my design studio project will end in two weeks. Too bad for my team...

A Coincedence? or Fate?

I just got a requested journal from the UNL Library so I could copy an article in it. The specific journal, Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing Volume 28, Number 1, was published in October 1984. This paper is older than me, but not by too much. The library stamp states that it was placed in the collection on November 5, 1984, the same day I was issued into the collection of the human race.

Key Swapping

My roommate lost his room key. I returned from class today to be locked out and needing a key replacement because they rekeyed the lock. It was very sad.

I had to walk all the way over to Selleck. It was awful.

A Picture, A Drawing

I recently got a Wacom tablet to help me with my casual photoshopping and occasional drawing. I decided to try to use some of the advanced brushes of Alias Sketchbook Pro to make the picture below.



(image links to full-size version).

Weather is my Hero

Nothing like a second snow day to make up for work missed on the first... oh wait... no, more laziness.

Snow Day

The recent storm dumped about a foot of snow on Nebraska, bringing a nice snow day. Another day away from classes is very welcome. The snow day allowed me to catch up not on work, but Battlestar Galactica's first two seasons. I've been keeping a list of the human models for my own enjoyment, especially after I saw the miniseires. At the end, Adama receives a note that says there are only 12 models (up to isomorphism ;) ). The list so far is as follows (hopefully, in order of appearance/realization):

Tall Blonde (Gaius' gal)
Guy in the station
Travel guide
Sharon
Farm Doctor
Reporter
Priest

I'm probably missing some. But by my count, there are still 5 more to go... It will be interesting to see how they show up.

Weekendings

To finish off my relaxed spring break, I head to Kansas City to visit Beermann. I got to see his new house, get fed, and even play a game or two with Adam and Johnson (who was also visiting). KC is a neat town, and I got to see a lot of it.

The rest of the day will be spent in front of the TV as I attempt to be slightly productive.

Beauty Killed the Movie

...or better: the strive for beauty killed the movie. King Kong is a movie worth seeing in a $2 theater because you don't waste more that $2 and 3 hours of your life and you're less motivated to just stop watching. I felt as though I would have just stopped a DVD version. The whole movie tries to take an age-old story and make it a technical marvel and and emotional thriller. However, it fails at both with entirely contrived plots, characters, and far too many over-the-top action scenes that just wouldn't end. It also seemed that there was an infinite supply of bit characters in the expedition that would just die randomly in this futile search for a single female barely anyone cared about.

The whole movie I was hoping everyone would just die immediately and it could spare me from the rest of the movie. I now have a new passion to watch Ultraviolet just so I can be sure worse movies are being made.

Laura Darko

I just noticed (as I rewatched Donnie Darko) that Mary McDonnell, who plays Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, was Donnie Darko's mother.

Neat.

ASP.HATE

I like to complain about all of the Microsoft-created languages because they sometimes just scream "I'M TRYING TO ACT BACKWARDS-COMPATIBLE EVEN WHEN I'M NOT!" My latest hate can be directed towards the "runat" attribute.

When working with an ASP.NET script, you can put ASP.NET components in using XML tags like <asp:Button ID="MyButton" Text="Click Me!" runat="server" />. Notice the "runat" in there? It signifies that the server preforms actions on the object from the code file associated with the script. If you omit it, the compiler gives you an error, saying that the attribute has to be there. If you put anything ELSE in there, "browser" perhaps, and it yells at you: "server" is the only accepted value.

SO, we have a compiler that can tell which components require to be run on the server, and a specification that doesn't allow any modifications to an attribute that has to be there. Why is this still around? I think it is useful for those people moving from old ASP, where this might have actually had meaning. I could see the use of allowing someone to write that, but it shouldn't be necessary. I hate writing that in there when it is strongly implied and inferred.

I'm sure Spomer, the ASP expert who reads this blog, could shed some light on this issue. He may actually know what he's talking about.

Spring Break Has Begun

I'm two days into Spring Break. Kauffman is dead. Most everyone has gone home or on vacation. I spent most of yesterday cleaning and doing laundry instead of working, but today became productive with my design studio project. Development is moving smoothly, but I still have a lot to do this week. I've already gotten more done today than I thought I would, but the extra stuff is full of things I forgot I had to do. The rest of the week will probably follow the same pattern: do what I need to do, find what I forgot to do, do it.

The quiet atmosphere and the steady supply of coffee has kept me working pretty well. Soon I will pick up Tom from the airport and probably stop all productivity for the rest of the night.

Almost Done

This hell of a week is almost over. I just need to make it through sitting in a few classes and my weekly TA meeting. Shouldn't be too bad, then I can finally rest.

Pens Are Fun

I got my Wacom tablet in the mail today. I've been wanting to play with a tablet interface for a long time. Mostly for drawing purposes, but also to aid my normal photoshop activities. Finally, I splurged on the smallest version of the popular pen interface. After playing with it for a while, I really started to like it. It's very different to be writing on something on the desk that translates to the screen. It doesn't work like a mouse at all, the slate defines a region of the screen. I was rather sad about the distortion caused by my multiple monitors until I found how to limit the effected screen to scale. That made my drawings much happier.

Hopefully I can start drawing more fun sketches and put them here.

Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride is good enough to delay (or slightly slow) work. However, I felt nerdier than normal when a character (not telling who) said "We're perfectly matched." and I thought of graph theory. I'm sorry. That's just where my mind is a lot recently.

Some Short Stories

I took Tom to the airport so he can fly to Tahoe and ski during what may be the busiest week of my college carreer (so far).

Playing frisbee after several weeks of inactivity is not a good idea. I better get back in shape, or close to it.

Apparently it is clear that I'm busy because people ask how I keep motivated. I guess I work too much. That's my fault.

I need to feed myself over spring break. I'm looking forward to lots of ramen and about $15 in sandwhich materials for the whole week.

I don't want to talk about hyperplanes in general, but rather coordinate hyperplanes. That's better.

I finished a grading program for the freshmen maze assignment that I wrote. I sure hope they do well. I like giving good grades.

Its Lent, so I am going to watch Jesus Christ Superstar soon. My roommate and some friends already beat me to it while I was working instead of enjoying rock opera goodness.

I hope to emerge from the next 168 hours alive.

Translate This

I hate language courses. Nothing is worse than a class with mandatory attendance, high levels of mandatory daily involvement, and success determined by wrote memorization. My experience with the Japanese language has been mostly good, but the class grinds me in the wrong way.

Note: attendance is key to success in hard courses. However, time is manageable. I miss classes when necessary. Mostly when it is necessary that I stay in bed for a few more hours instead of being worthless in class.

This brings me to my next note: involvement is good in class. It provides immediate feedback between student and teacher and both involved benefit. However, when I'm forced to go to class when I'm barely awake, my involvement is sorely lacking. I could learn the material quicker and better in my own time, so class is actually a detriment to my learning and personal health.

Also, I hate memorization. Any course that relies on pure memorization is a class that's not worth taking. That's right. Every history, literature, and most introductory biology courses are not worth taking unless your job will require that you can cite information from these courses immediately (surgeons, for instance). There is no benefit in memorizing the order of shoguns in the 14th century. If I was going to use that information, it is in some reference. History professors rarely teach how to analyze historical documents until graduate school. This is completely different from Computer Science. After your introductory programming course, no one asks you to write programs from memory on a test. You have assignments that allow you to reference material necessary to write the code. The tests and quizzes test your understanding of algorithms and abstract concepts. The concepts can be understood and applied to any programming language. Mathematics requires you to "memorize" theorems, but just memorizing them does you no good. You need to understand them to the point that you could recognize that a proof requires it, apply the theorem, and complete the argument.

However, language courses are in a difficult position. Vocabulary is the medium in which the knowledge is passed. I don't memorize. I understand. I know the forms, conjugations, and can extend them better than anyone in the class. If I get mixed up on wether kaitte means "to buy" or "to recieve" and the context can't help me distinguish between the two, I suffer. However, with a very limited selection of common vocabulary I can make complex sentences longer than most English sentences I write here.

The benefit I gain from actually understanding the language I am learning is far outweighed by the amount I suffer through vocabulary. I'm sad to admit that I probably won't complete my Japanese minor because I'm just getting sick of it. That, and I'd have to wait another year before taking the next class.

Blogger Widget

I found out that Google added a dashboard widget for Blogger.  This allows me to make blog posts from dashboard.  However, it still has bugs.  For instance, it doesn't resize.  My long blog title wraps over the title textbox and makes it look bad.  Hopefully they will release a new version soon.

This post was made with the blogger widget.

A Surprising Revelation

Today, my professor for CS 924 gave out the ranges for the first exam. He pointed out that I, an auditing undergraduate, had the third highest score in the class (actually ranking me in the top 5; some tied for perfect). That had mixed reactions from the grad students, from awkward chuckles to mixed glances.

An Unintentional Visitor

George lost the keys to his apartment last night. He's borrowing the living room for an indefinite period of time. Hopefully someone he knows has his keys so he can get back to everything he owns. The manager at the Spaghetti Works building is hard to reach, so who knows when she could get him in.

Fat Tuesday

My brother Andrew likes to complain that my life is nothing but homework and videogames. He claims that I don't take advantage of the fact that I am actually in college and he was in a military academy. While the most notable parts of my life are dull to others, I find them more interesting to post about than the interactions you could find from any college student. Last night was special enough to mention and should put his notions to rest.

Today, my friend Lincoln Demaris moves to Seattle to start working at Microsoft. Last night, we sent him off proper by accompianying him to various downtown venues in the spirit of Fat Tuesday. Most places were full of people decorated with beads, and I think the public alcohol consumption ban was abolished just for that night: there were sidewalk Corona stands. However, I continue my position that a quiet place to sit and talk with friends is infinitely better than any crowded bar.