| WikiNews |
[Feb. 15th, 2006|10:24 am] |
Well, I've got a variety of wiki-related things to mention tonight (yes, I know it's ten thrity in the morning). This WikiCentric post was inspired by David Weekley, the creator of PBWiki (making a wiki should be as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich), who is offering a free doubling of storage space for anyone who mentions his site in their blog.
I personally run two wikis on PBWiki. One of which is only privately viewable, and I use to keep track of personal information that I want to be able to access anywhere on the web. The other is used by Team Constantly Disemboweled by Bears to collaborate on our CS50 project, DisTrace.
In other WikiNews, UCSBWiki is slowly gaining users. We also have more than 50 articles now, and are constantly adding new ones and improving the old. Anyone who is affiliated with UCSB really ought to check the site out.
Finally, I've been using another MediaWiki implementation to centralize and organize the years of D&D content that I've developed and is now sitting around in hundreds of messy directories on about half a dozen hard drives. Not viewable to the public yet because it contains some DM-only information, but when there is more content there I'll consider changing that.
PBWiki also has a cute little logo:
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| Ballroom Dance |
[Feb. 12th, 2006|11:25 am] |
Alright I've (basically) finalized my schedule for next quarter. My pass time starts Monday morning so chances are none of the classes I want to take will fill up before then.
I also added up all the courses I need to take before graduating to meet the requirements for my major and general education. I need 116 units worth of classes, and I have 10 quarters left at UCSB, so that averages out to 11.6 units per quarter. An "average" courseload is supposed to be 15 or 16 units. So I really don't need to feel bad about only taking 12.5 units Spring quarter.
- Physics 2: Basic Physics
- Computer Science 60: Introduction to C, C++, and UNIX
- Mathematics 5B: Vector Calculus
- Exercise and Sports Studies 1-16A: Elementary Ballroom Dance
So the anomaly in this schedule is, of course, Ballroom Dance. It is only worth half of a unit, and it doesn't meet a single major or general education requirement. It will, however, teach me how to dance. Hopefully. Which will be good, because it will mean I won't have to say no when people want to take me to cool dances. Emi is also enrolling in the class, so I'll have chances to practice outside of class as well. If the class is enjoyable I might even take Intermediate and Advanced Ballroom in subsequent quarters. We'll see.
Now, in order to fit this dance class in my schedule I did have to make a major sacrifice: every tuesday and thursday I have my physics lecture at 8 in the morning. Now, to be fair, I will very rarely actually attend said lecture, but it will be a pain getting out of bed to take the midterm.
So overall my schedule is quite light. This is good because it should allow me more free time, and also more time to work. I've been working much less this quarter because of my current schedule, so it'll be nice to get back in there and make more money again. |
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| Northern Star |
[Jan. 25th, 2006|03:32 pm] |
Well once again I find myself encompassed by a number of projects.
- UCSBWiki is a collaborative database that seeks to accumulate all knowledge about University of California, Santa Barbara, and the surrounding communities into a single, easy to access location on the internet. I've announced it on the ucsb livejournal community, and will likely soon start promoting it via facebook. I still contribute the vast majority of edits, but some other individuals are getting involved as well; hopefully soon growth will accelerate. The goal is to reach the critical mass of articles so that we can attract readers in addition to content contributers.
- Constantly Disemboweled by Bears is the name of my CS 50 project team. We are developing a distributed raytracer in Java. Right now I'm focusing on the storage format of scene information, and am getting involved in research into X3D, the successor to VRML. If you're interested you can check out some very early screenshots of the renderer here.
- Work. Yes, I'm still active at my job. Coding PHP. Blech; I hate web programming.
- Possible government contract work. I've been contacted by someone who wants my help writing Java code for some simulation software for the NSA. No lie. I'm not sure if I want to get involved in this, but I'll let you know how it turns out.
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| Come from the air... |
[Dec. 5th, 2005|11:45 am] |
Wowza! I just sold three textbooks for a grand total of $119.25. How very exciting! I was honestly prepared to accept about $5 per book, but I got offered $25, $44.25, and $50 for them! That's a damn good sale, in my opinion. This money came just in the nick of time, too, because I have less than $20 in the bank, I had less than $10 in my wallet, and I need to buy gas to drive back to Pleasanton on Thursday. My first check from work was supposed to come on December 1st, but I haven't seen it yet.
The other business ventures I'm currently setting up aren't really going anywhere right now, but it's too early to expect anything. Hopefully I'll be getting a small but steady flow of income from Usana by the end of 2006, and I think UCSBWiki will start making money around May or June.
So after I get off work today I'm going to go over to Davidson Library and study. How weird is that? But it's a necessary evil. My math grade is very precarious right now, and if I don't get at least a C I've basically destroyed my chance of majoring in Computer Science. So studying it is! The final is on Tuesday, and it's the only real final I have. I also have tests for Computer Science 10 and 20, but I have very high As in both of those classes right now, and the finals are going to be jokes. |
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| ahahAHahahAhahAHAHhahaAH!11! |
[Nov. 15th, 2005|03:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | mean | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Daft Punk - Too Long | ] |
So...when I was in Berkeley on Friday night one thing kept bothering me. I couldn't see nor hear the ocean. What's up with that? I thought all colleges had beaches? |
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| I am the what? |
[Nov. 2nd, 2005|02:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | money, school, work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nine Inch Nails - The Collector | ] |
Yes, I'm at work and I really should be doing that instead of updating. I've also got three homework assignments due at various times throughout the evening (5, 9, and 12) that I have no time to complete. So naturally I'm doing everything but those.
I've decided the work I've done so far on The Empire is actually pretty decent, but I'm going to need to really keep at it in order to truly reap the fruit of my labor.
One thing I really need to do is stop spending so much money. Between my halloween costume, buying food for cute girls, buying food for myself, and other random impulse buys I'm starting to feel the strain on my bank account. My first check from work should come within a couple of weeks, and that will start to alleviate the strain, but I need to be way more careful with how I spend my money.
The sun just burned a hole through the clouds outside the window of my spacious office, and is now pointing directly at the screen. I'm too lazy to close the blinds, though. My office is pretty cool, and has a great view. I hope when they move me to the new building I get one that's at least close to being this cool. |
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| Emi's Birthday |
[Oct. 27th, 2005|01:13 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | emi, food, party, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  good | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Fischerspooner - Tone Poem | ] |
Yesterday was pretty awesome, overall.
In the morning I got out of bed and over to trailer 387-101 for my CS 20 midterm. The entire test was cake; I finished in fifteen minutes. I then went over to get some breakfast at Ortega, cause I was actually awake and not in class during breakfast hours. They have bagels! I ate many, with cream cheese.
After eating I meandered over to Engineering I for my math lecture, but I ended up sleeping through the entire thing. After class was over Zac told me that I had been snoring. Whoops.
After my nice nap I went back to Manzanita and did some email and showered. Then I got on the 'cycle and headed across campus to work. Although I'm peeved about using PHP instead of Perl, work is still going well overall.
I snuck off work half an hour early to take care of a couple of errands, including picking up a vase and roses for Emi. At 3 I made my way to San Nic, and wished Emi a happy birthday. She had already been visited by her TriDelta sisters who had brought champagne, and her mom had gifted her a marvelous cheesecake.
We quickly grabbed Heather and Wei out of the hall to come join us as we drank champagne and ate cheesecake. Of course, Emi only has one wine glass, so we all ended up sharing it. Heather, impatient as always, just drank it from the bottle. The party broke up after just an hour or so because both Heather and I had to get to class.
After Writing ended I went back over to San Nic, and dragged Heather to the bus stop where we met Emi. We took her to this very nice Italian place where I had the best food I've had since coming here: a medium-rare cheeseburger on fresh Italian sourdough.
We finally left the resturaunt around eleven, and ended up back at the UCen. Here we just lounged around and threw paper airplanes for about an hour, and then everyone went to sleep. |
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[Oct. 16th, 2005|11:05 pm] |
Sometimes the music I list on these entries relates very closely to what I'm writing about or feeling, and other times it has nothing to do with it at all.
I'd also really like it if I could list multiple songs for an entry. It'd also be cool to have a field for current weather, and other things like that. I think some of that could actually be important meta-data for an entry.
So for the most part this weekend has competly rocked. Starting Thursday night and ending sometime this afternoon I spent a TON of time with Emi, and on the whole it kicked ass.
This weekend also saw the success of AMA's roadtrip, which she deserves both huge props for pulling off and congrats for finally making some major progress with her parents.
I also found out a lot of shit about a lot of people, some much more shocking than others. Honestly though it's all good, and none of it's gonna keep me down.
Plus I made hella money on the markets on Friday.
If anyone wants to know more about anything I alluded to in this entry feel free to ask; I'll either tell you or I won't.
Alright, I've got a paper due tomorrow, which again hasn't been started. I've also got a math midterm on Friday, which is bad news because I suck at Calculus. Wish me luck! Have an awesome night! |
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| Die Hard |
[Oct. 9th, 2005|09:07 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz, school, westwing | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  lazy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | MC Chris - Fett's Vett | ] |
Alright, well my traditional study habits struck back with a vengance today. I've got a 5 page paper due tomorrow, but instead of getting started I spent all day watching episodes of The West Wing (both old and new). Depending on how much self control I can muster up over the next few hours I'm either going to finish the paper tonight and be well rested, or put it off until the wee hours of the morning. I'll let you know how that goes.
Oh, and quizes:
( Read more... ) |
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| Basically a weekend... |
[Oct. 6th, 2005|03:49 pm] |
Well, since my only class on Thursdays is CMPSC20 today is effectively a weekend, because there is absolutely no reason for me to attend those lectures.
Not much happened last night other than me getting all my homework assignments in on time, which continues to be source of amazement for me. I met up with Arina and Zac after my writing class ended, and we hung out together until about 11, when Zac excused himself to go home and sleep. Arina did my laundry for me again; it's nice to have someone who does it for me after I've had to do it on my own for the last four or so years. We watched TV for an hour or two in my lounge, then we walked back over to San Nic and ended up sitting out in the hall on the 8th floor discussing philosophy until four in the morning.
I haven't done anything productive today, although I did manage to make it to the cafeteria before they stopped serving lunch, and I took a shower sometime between waking up and taking my first nap of the day (I've had two already).
I also downloaded an emulater and both Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers (with the English fan translation). I'm not sure what I think of 'Dreamers right now, but now that I've played it a little I can certainly recognize that some of the music from Chrono Cross is taken directly from Radical Dreamers. I'm considering buying/obtaining a playstation so I can replay some classics when I'm bored here.
I've got a pretty long paper due on Monday for Writing, as well as another calculus assignment and two more programming projects to get done. Thankfully I've got almost a week to get that all done, so I feel fine not working on any of them today.
Allie called to say she recieved her birthday present, which was good cause I'd started to worry that I'd miss addressed it or something and that it would be lost forever. I also got a call from the Biology department. They want to interview me for an IT developer position. If that goes well I should be making $12 an hour writing web applications pretty soon.
I think I'm going to go play Radical Dreamers some more, and probably visit the beach and get dinner a little later. I'll probably hit up DP tonight. |
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| Keep a mild groove on... |
[Sep. 29th, 2005|12:00 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | arina, school, work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | good | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Gorillaz - 19-2000 (Soulchild Remix) | ] |
So I’m sitting in my CS20 lecture and we’ve still got 15 minutes left. I’ve spent most of this class editing my resume and writing cover letters for some of the 8 positions I’m applying for. I’m going to try to stop by the Career Services open house today to talk to Don Lubach about applying for jobs as well. This is, of course, assuming that I don’t get distracted and end up on the beach instead.
I haven’t updated this much since I’ve moved, but honestly I haven’t been doing much. I mean, I have been going to classes and socializing and chilling every day, but nothing incredibly noteworthy has happened.
Arina is going to visit her boyfriend in Irvine this weekend, so I’m going to need to figure out what I’m going to be doing. I didn’t really realize it, but I guess the only “good” friends that I’ve made here are Arina and now Zac. I have of course met hundreds of other people that I’m cool with, but I’m not exactly close with any of them. Maybe I’ll get an opportunity to change that this weekend.
In addition to meeting new people one thing I'm going to focus on this weekend is doing all the stuff I was supposed to do or have been doing a while ago. I'm going to finish applying for jobs, I'm going to do some homework (gasp!) for my classes, and I'm probably going to try to finish up that Magic auction I started ages ago. I'm also going to do some major research into studying abroad. I've actually looked into it quite a bit already, and I think that I'm going to be studying in Hong Kong fall semester next year. |
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| Midnight Groove |
[Sep. 21st, 2005|02:58 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | arina, list, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Moby - Run On | ] |
Activities of the evening:
- Ate pizza at Carillo
- Picked a random room on a random floor of San Nic to ask to borrow a movie, and succeded!
- Watched said movie (Orange County!)
- Went to the UCen and listened to a guy spin salsa and hip hop.
- We were hot and sweaty from dancing, so we decided a midnight swim in the ocean would cool us off
- Sat on the roof of a large driftwood fort on Campus Point and just watched the moon over the ocean
- Circiumnavigated the entire campus (we thought it was a shortcut!)
- Went back to hang out in San Nic; met a girl from Pleasanton there!
Man this school is awesome.
Class starts on Thursday. |
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| GOLD and BARC |
[Sep. 12th, 2005|02:01 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony | ] |
Alright, so I'm really excited right now. I logged into my UCSB accounts tonight, and found a number of cool things waiting for me.
Firstly, I've finally been recognized as a legal California resident. This means that instead of the over twelve grand they were going to charge me before, I am now covering registration, tuition, housing, and miscellaneous costs for the entire first quarter for just $6,312.45. Saving six grand makes me a happy boy.
Secondly, I checked out my other information and my online transcripts and such. It turns out that all the math I've done is correct: the University has credited me with 60 units, and has officially recognized me as a sophmore. I didn't even need to fill out a form!
I'm ready to go. 5 more days. |
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| List(s) |
[Sep. 8th, 2005|01:08 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | charity, list, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  energetic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nine Inch Nails - Complication | ] |
Information Technology- Resolve the cell phone situation
- Completee Alexandria
- Install tuner card in Zolton
- Get Zolton's video output fixed.
- Digitalize all photos
- Finish organizing all data
Helping People- Donate Blood
- Start and complete the "Cards for Katrina" charity auction
- Donate all clothes I'm not keeping
Personal- Get present for Allie
- Buy a good razor
- Get a haircut
- Make sure my SLR gets processed
- Get the money from the trust fund in Toronto
- Send in my resume to ResNet
Packing & Stuff- Throw out junk from last boxes
- Put all keeping stuff up in the server space
- Make sure all clothes I'm bringing are clean
- Bring vitamins
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| Punk |
[Aug. 27th, 2005|02:18 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, school | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Gorillaz - Punk | ] |
Alright, well I moved my speakers and my woofer down here, and being able to play music while I arrange my new "room" is making me feel a lot better than I was this morning.
I think I'm at the point now where everyone else has been for a while: I'm ready for school to start. But I've still got three more weeks that I've gotta stick around in Pleasanton for, so I'm going to try to make the best of them. Maybe I'll start working again; that should help the time pass much more quickly. Or perhaps I should start a new software project, or finish one I've already started. Or I could start downloading and watching some of those television shows I've been talking about lately.
The garage-room is actually pretty cool...even though I don't have as much personal stuff down here, the room itself is much more spacious, even when you count all the junk that is down here. It's also the coldest room in the house, which is perfect during these evil warm months.
Arina says she might be coming up to the Bay Area around Labor Day, so if she does we're gonna meet up and hang out. She kept trying to get me to come see her in Fresno, but the only time I ever pass through there is on my way too or from San Diego. I also keep promising Bonnie I'll hang out with her, but I've never really made time to do so; so I think I will. Finally, I'm considering driving up to Sacramento for a day or two to stay with Nicole and Kristina, but I'll probably be too lazy to do that. Anyways, I'm not really done moving yet even though my deadline was yesterday, so I'd better get back to work. Late.
P.S. The Frail just came up on shuffle mode. This makes Carl happy. |
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| Moving Out |
[Aug. 24th, 2005|01:29 pm] |
So I'm working on cleaning out my room. I just put all (except for about 30 or so) of my books into boxes, and later today I'm going to take them to a used bookstore and see how much I can get. I'm also throwing away tons of computer cables and old junk that no one would even use any more. I kept all my Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman books, as well as some Neil Stephenson and Douglas Coupland books. I'm also going to be keeping my Star Trek and West Wing DVDs, and my collection of assorted notes and gifts that I've recieved from people over the years. That should fill up about three boxes, which I can keep in the garage here. I'm also going to leave my suit, most my ties, and some other assorted crap like that. And of course I'm going to leave a server up and running in the garage, to synch my files with and act as a backup server.
All I'm bringing to Santa Barbara, aside from clothes and linens and such, are Zolton and Sylvia, my two faithful computers. I'll probably also bring a couple of boxes of Green Tea.
Everything else is getting thrown out. I have until Friday morning to vacate my bedroom. |
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| Things to do before I start classes |
[Aug. 23rd, 2005|10:36 am] |
- Move out of my room by Friday
- Find temporary living quarters
- Move in in Santa Barbara in mid-September
- Spend as much time as humanly possible with Allie
- Read the most recent Harry Potter book
- Play lots of Diablo II
- Re-watch Season 6 of the West Wing
- Drink green tea
- Finish paperwork so I can actually go to school
- Setup remote access and backups
- Keep bothering Mr. Ladd
- Get the $774 that my high school still owes me
- Get a tan (is that even possible?)
- Get stuff for dorm room
- Get tuner card for Zolton
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| Dashboard |
[Aug. 16th, 2005|10:30 am] |
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| Poop |
[Jul. 12th, 2005|09:37 pm] |
I just spoke with my father on the phone; he was having lots of trouble with one of the family computers at his house and he called me for help. It wasn’t something I could solve over the phone however. He was really frustrated because he had spent hours attempting to solve this issue, and he got really mad when I couldn’t help. So now I’m in a cranky mood as a result.
The rest of this week has been so much more awesome, though. I spent the last three days in Santa Barbara at orientation. In addition to participating in that fun program I also got to spend a fair deal of time with Allie, who is currently vacationing there with her family.
I really do want to spend as much time with Allie as possible while I still can. As soon as college starts I’m going to be lucky if I get to see her once every month or two, so I don’t think it’s so ridiculous that I want to spend so much time with her now.
As an aside, I’ve really come to realize that a huge portion of Desktop Support and IT stems not from extensive education or study, but is actually an acquired talent. If it was simply a question of knowledge I would be able to troubleshoot any problem over the telephone simply by conveying the appropriate instructions to first diagnose and then solve the problem. As it is, however, unless it is something very simple I usually can’t even think of what to try unless I’m sitting at the terminal reading the error message myself. Somehow when I am operating the machine it is different, and I can solve issues that are far more intricate and twisted than I otherwise could.
This is why instead of going back to Pleasanton tonight I am going to get dropped off in Saratoga so I can fix all those fucking problems with the computers. I don’t actually even have my OS CDs with me, but I’ll see what I can do without them. I can probably bittorrent every image I need overnight, and then burn them when I wake up in the morning.
Aside #2: As I’m writing this on my new laptop in the car on the way back from Santa Barbara, and I keep stopping my writing to chat with my mother and answer the phone, I’m actually listening to the entire album (Fragile) as I write this entry. It’s definitely one of my top five favorite albums of all time, and may even be number one. I can’t decide whether or not Discovery belongs on that list. It’s also another contender for the coveted #1 spot, but for some reason I don’t feel like it really is the best album ever. Maybe it’s just cause I’m in more of a NINy mode right now.
Anyways, as I was saying, Santa Barbara was awesome. It’s a beautiful campus, especially when looking out over the water. In fact, I think the two best moments of the entire weekend were when Allie and I were constructing sand structures on the beach, and when we spotted two dolphins gracefully swimming west along the shore.
Other highlights include discovering that earning my Bachelor’s is going to require even fewer classes than I previously thought, meeting some really fun and interesting people, and having a late night powwow on the beach.
Aside #3: Just because I’m curious to know: do you, my readership, enjoy reading my longer, more detailed but multi-subjected entries? Or do you prefer when I write shorter, more focused entries about a single topic? Chances are I’m not going to change anything as a result of this survey, but I am interested in knowing the answer. |
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[May. 13th, 2005|09:27 am] |
Alright, so I'm sitting here listening to Mr. Hanson teach the Pre-Calc kids derivitives. It's pretty cool to remember when I was learning this for the first time, and how much more math I know how to do than I did just one year ago.
I'm also highly bored, though. I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed this morning, even though I'm not doing anything important at school all day today. I just turned in most of my textbooks. Physics is the only class where I have any "real" work left. I also have a couple of really easy projects in some other classes, but I have until the end of the school year to work on those. Every one of my classes (except Physics) literally consists of the students sitting around and doing whatever we want. I played Scrabble in AP Gov yesterday.
I don't actually have anything to say in this update, but I also don't have anything else to do so I think I'm just going to sit here and keep writing. Actually, what I can do is turn this into another to-do list for myself. Even though all of my school stuff is effectively done, I am falling behind where I should be for robotics. I need to re-send the intent to compete form to AUVSI, and I need to write that damn command software. I've also got to schedule some more hardware meetings starting next week, and hopefully get the computer up and running very soon as well.
Actually, this is making me realize that I have plenty of work that I can be doing right now, so I'm going to go be productive. |
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irritated