This Sort of Thing Never Happens!

Not in Northern Virginia at least. Places with monsoon seasons, totally reasonable. But not here.

It's been raining for the last 20+ hours. Not just a sheepish drizzle like what happens over in Blacksburg (think gray and miserable and depressing and you're on the right track), but real steady rain. At times like a downpour. Weather.com is screaming about flood warnings, but let's hope nothing too bad comes.*

Good thing it seems to be settling down. Hmm, now onto random subjects.

So, I harbor some sort of pure absolute disliking for cell phone companies--that is, more so than usual. Apparently, someone sat down to do the math and found that it costs less money per megabyte (MB) for beautiful pictures such as this and this from the Hubble Space Telescope to be sent to Earth than it does for you to say "sup?" to your friend in a text message. How much is the difference? Easily than four times as much and up to forty times as much. Ridiculous? Very yes. Doesn't it make you want to yell at your provider?

In other news, it seems something on the AOL front has gone wrong (um, again >.>). For those of you who just recently tuned in, last summer I interned over at AOL, my first real full-time job. It was actually a blast and I learned much more than expected. Anyway, they had me working the entire summer on a gadget for iGoogle (kinda like Netvibes), one which I'm now embarrassed to be associated with. Somehow in the last year it has gained a few thousand users, along with a poor rating from several of them. The system for retrieving mail is slow, and the code which I wrote--code that initially worked--is broken. Hmmm...

A sternly-written letter is in order!

Ever the procrastinator, I found something else to distract me from my work.** Installing another operating system! I hadn't booted into OpenSolaris in forever, so I basically had an open partition on my hard drive. That and the fact that I've never given Gentoo the true attention it deserves and thus I jumped on for a third attempt. The difference this time was that I tried to configure the kernel (the core of any modern linux distribution) to the best of my abilities. And two and a half hours later I was done and compiling--yum! But, an experience much like my first encounter with linux and later Arch, I soon found myself unable to get past having a base system installed. This morning, from nine to noon, was spent in a futile stab at getting my wireless to work. *grumble grumble* Ohs wells, probably time to get to work anyways..

After that letter, p'raps.


*Dad says some people who work with him lost power at their homes.
**A four page paper for a program that I'm applying for. More later(?)

PS: As predicted, the rain has stopped, huzzah!

The Rants, They Just Keep Coming

I feel like blogging about nothing and everything. I do have, and have had, four unfinished posts in the works, but those are not time-dependent and can be finished at my leisure.

Now, starting with complaints.

It seems I'm doomed to have lotsa complications to deal with (and none of them the fun kind). Two days ago was my last final exam--statistics, yum!--which meant that that afternoon I would be leaving for home. Problem was the amount of packing I had to accomplish in a three hour period. But, a frustratingly undisclosed amount of time later I was finished and ready to leave! My parents and I hopped into my mom's RAV4* and, following a quick stop at the BP on South Main, proceeded on back to NOVA.

Once home, I began the tedious process of unpacking, which somehow takes multiple days no matter how much or how little I had to unpack. Stopped after getting the basic necessities and slept. Next day--yesterday--I had to get up bright and early to go to the doctor, who happily made money for seven and a quarter minutes with me and for providing a referral. Afterwards a bevy** of phone calls had to be made to surgeons, American Airlines, my dentist, and a few other odd places. Hmm, you know, after interacting with so many receptionists/secretaries I've realized that it would be pretty kickass to have one. *adds to list of things to do* I don't care if my occupation doesn't require one, I will make sure to keep one around. Anyone looking for a job?

Mmm, got off topic again. Sorry. So, lesee.. this Friday I have a four page paper due for this program I'm applying for, still unpacking, and meeting with the general surgeon tomorrow to see when I can get surgery. Oh, and I gotta figure out if--though most likely yes--and when to I will be moving my trip to Puerto Rico. Originally the plan was to leave the fourteenth and return the twenty-ninth, but all that looks like it'll be changing. Yeah..

So, summer just started and it seems as if it might be as busy (and definitely crazier) than the last. Good and bad, just hoping things turn out all right. Oooh, and in mid-August I'll get to start moving into the house we're renting next year. Many fun things in store, just gotta live through these next couple weeks.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, I have a hernia. No, I didn't do anything to get it--that I know of--they can apparently just happen sometimes. But yeah, this has been the undoing of my summer. The wrench in the machine.

I have no clue if that last sentence is even a phrase. *shrug* Ohs wells.


*The one that just so happens to drive like a dream.
**YES! Finally got to use it.

As Things Wind Down

The end of the semester is in sight. A short sprint to the finish line. The evening before Christmas. Readying to touch down after that long flight. One last all-nighter...

Speaking of all-nighters.

So last Sunday John and I had a CS project due at midnight (soon extended to 9 am the following day). Let me get one thing straight right now: I had not been putting it off. I actually did everything except for one small--well, I didn't think at the time that it would take too long--part of the program. Hence you can't blame this one on procrastination.

It was somewhere around 3 am when I realized that I would not be sleeping. By this point I had been working nearly six hours straight (after having worked three earlier Sunday afternoon) and was still getting odd errors the likes of which I had never seen. Now, I could rant about the inadequacies of C++ as a programming language. I could also rant about B-trees, though their implementation is not too bad. But I'd much rather make it known that, after many trials and tribulations, I received a perfect score.

Following a day of falling asleep in my classes, I then finally went to bed at 11 and woke up at 7 the next morning, with my cell phone in my hand*. Yes I was confused. Yes I felt slightly better.
I was still fighting sleep in my Mechanics class today. Probably need to sleep more.

What remains is one day of class and six exams. Three on Saturday starting at 7:45 am. Do wish me luck, I'm pretty sure I'll need it.

Oh, and research will most definitely be interesting.

*I have no recollection of getting a phone call, much less picking up the phone and conversing. Felt like I slept through everything.

The Joys of Spring

Aside from allergies. They are having their way with me. And it is nothing like fun. *runs off in search of tissues*

Much more better.

The worst part has been the pace at which I'm going through boxes of tissues. I bought one less than a week ago and it's half gone (and I'd only gotten allergies on Wednesday!). It's gotten so bad that, in order to conserve my precious supply, I've resorted to using napkins, paper towels--the bathroom kind that hurt--and just about any sort of paper short of inflicting papercuts. This has just 'caused much irritation on mine and my skin's part.

I have to say, one hellishly productive Saturday just passed. Watched Gurren Lagann*, played Half-Life 2 Episode Two (my roommate can again say he woke up to gunshots), watched more Gurren Lagann, did over half of my CS project, and also finished watching Gurren Lagann. That anime was beyond excellent; I would put it nearly on even grounds with the Ender's Game series, even if they're in different categories. The CS project, eh. Simple for the most part, I'm just down to creating a b-tree that is stored in a file. That part's not too bad, just a lot of maths and working with C++ streams.

Now onto slightly less nerdy matters.

The semester is slowly drawing to a close, with an excruciating month left between me and sweet sweet freedom. Well, at least a vacation in Puerto Rico**. After that it's all up in the air right now, which is actually really annoying. I'll most likely be staying at Tech for most of the summer, given that I can find an apartment or work something out on campus. And I really want to, as I'd get to do research (more on that later) and most likely get paid to do it too!

That's it for now. Just a short one. Tune in next week when I wrestle a boar!

..but not really.


*This is epic. It will change your life. Watch it. 'nuff said.

**You know, someday I'm gonna have to sit down and explain that.

A Linux Fetish

Oh come on! Once the title popped into my head I had to. Plus, I absolutely adore the word fetish. It's one of those good* words.

Warning: There are somewhat technical terms used in this post, though I did my best to keep them to a minimum. But do try to trudge on. For Mandrake's sake.

Three years ago or so, I remember James mentioning how he wanted to try out Linux on his computer. At that time, honestly, I had only the faintest idea of what he was talking about (that Gabe knew little about computers). Hence, I did what any curious high schooler would do: I googled it.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Fast forward a month and some change and I had my first Linux distribution--distro for short--burned onto a CD, ready to install. What distro? Mandriva Linux (formerly Mandrake, not to be confused with Mandrake the Magician). The reason for my pick was that it was supposedly the most "newbie friendly" distro** and it was also one of the largest. So I hoped that things wouldn't be too bad.

And I could not have been more wrong. Must have spent a good eight hours one weekend racking my brain and stalking for answers in forums before giving up. I could not get the graphics working so all I had was a beautiful--although admittedly bland--black screen with grey-ish text. From that interface I had no way of accessing the internet (okay, so I didn't hear about Links or Lynx 'til just last year) and was constantly switching between Mandriva and Windows XP. At that point, having no real clue as how to fix my issues, I scrambled around the intarwebs looking for a way to "uninstall" Linux. *sighs* Oh how little I knew.

That was on the family computer, the one my dad and I had built together. To put it lightly, my first venture into the world of non-Microsoft operating systems had ended in failure (unlightly would involve painful acts which I shall save our younger readers from hearing). Anyway, after this defeat I decided to stick to the familiar.

Freshman year of college was when I really got back on the saddle (I'd dabbled a few times before). More experienced. More dedicated. This time, I got openSUSE running with relative ease. But, I barely used it. Didn't really have a reason to. Though the idea of SSH did tickle my fancy..

Enter Arch. Once more this was James's fault. He randomly brought it up in conversation and all of a sudden I just had to try it. Ignoring the fact that this distro was for "experienced" Linux users and that James hadn't downloaded let alone tried it himself. *shrug* Oh well. So I dove right in, downloading, burning, installing. And immediately hit a huge roadblock. This was even worse than the stab I took at Mandriva. See, Arch Linux goes by the KISS (also not to be confused, but with a band this time) principle. As a result, you get the base system and then install whatever you want on top. Something I was most definitely not ready for.

Fast forward--good phrase--again a month and I had me a working desktop. I loved it. From that point on my only reason to use Windows was primarily scholastic, as we were forced to use software not available on Linux. However, I did so with much chagrin, for I had one of the greatest toys on another partition.

Eventually this led me to dual-booting multiple Linuxes and even triple-booting. Though, quite honestly, that's a whole 'nother matter.


*When I first found this thread it did not require you to register to read. But you really should as Koala Wallop is an excellent forum. Or at least to read the thread, trust me, it's worth it.

**No Ubuntu back then, you lucky kids. And my xorg.conf actually had to be edited, and it required twice the settings it does today!
...*rambles*..uphill both ways...

Under Construction

Please excuse the mess and all that. I will be spending the next I-have-no-idea-how-long working on the layout of the blog. Blogger's nice because it lets you choose templates and then change them, but it's also a little annoying since you're forced to read through all this code. At least it's rather straightforward. Moving on..

The other night Alex (the one back in Ashburn) and I were having a nice chat as usual when he brought up an interesting bit of news. The fact that a quarter of teenage girls has some sexually transmitted disease. I hadn't heard about it when he told me, so I was beyond shocked. But of course, Alex always puts in a twist to things:

Alex: So my friends and I have started doing this thing at school.
Me: ??
Alex: Whenever we see girls in a hallway we count.
Alex: "One, two, three.."
Alex: and then
Alex: "..STD!!"

Oh Alex >.>;

"Research" or "How I Got To Do What I Love For Credit"

This past semester I took a class titled "Thesis Proposal" dealing entirely with that thesis that I'm supposed to write by the end of my senior year. The one for Honors*. It only met twice a week for the first half of the semester, still, it got me all worried about getting started on some research.

Therefore:

A few weeks after the class ended, and after several trips to VTURCS, I was sitting in a professor's office in front of its occupant. It was an informal interview of sorts, just so he could see that I was as competent--hopefully more--than a quick email from me led him to believe. The topic of research was virtual machines, which I had been playing with on and off for the last year or so. The professor decided that I seemed qualified enough, meaning that I at least knew what I was talking about, and thus I became part of the Synergy group!

So, how did this all begin?

My first two years at Tech I began playing with different operating systems on my laptop. Mainly Linux, but there was attempts at OS X and others. It was a terrible addiction wherein I would accidentally "break" my laptop whilst in class, rendering it completely useless. Nothing like sitting in the front row of your engineering class, where a computer is required, and shutting your laptop since it no longer boots. For example.

Well, by this point I was just getting over my habit of installing a new operating system on my computer every month or so. Be it a new Linux distribution or the latest OpenSolaris, perhaps I'd broken Windows again. The point is that all that experimenting required large amounts of partitioning and repartitioning of my lappy's hard drive. With a slow 5400 RPM drive, doing almost any sort of partitioning takes an afternoon. No good. Luckily, there was hope to be found. *cue choirs of angels*

I learned of a nifty new thing called a "virtual machine" nearing the end of my first year. Namely VMware. In essence it allowed me to run an operating system within another operating system; no partitioning, rebooting, or migrane required! A novel concept for sure, hence I quickly began looking into the details, soon finding plenty of other software that did the same thing--more or less. QEMU, KVM, VirtualBox.

Obviously, then, as I blabbed on about how much I loved virtualization, my professor could see my enthusiasm. Hmm, more like couldn't help but be hit by it. And, for once, playing around and having a child-like interest in things actually paid off! Who'd've thunkit.


* I'm still not entirely sure what the benefits really are at this point.