Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Thoughts for the day
People at the gym need to learn how to sign up for machines properly. This afternoon, out of the four treadmills, there were two in use with no names on the signup sheet, and two empty ones with people signed up for them. I'm sick of having to kick people off machines, and I was pretty sure I knew what would happen next, so I took an empty one. Sure enough, the girl whose name was on the sheet never showed up. I understand the logic of signing up for multiple machines, especially with the weird upstairs/downstairs setup at the SRC, but please take the extra two minutes and go cross out your name when you make up your mind. Does this happen everywhere, or is it just a UNC thing? </rant>
On a happier note, I have come up with a brilliant idea. One of my professors has a laptop which he uses for his slides in lecture, and this laptop's battery is not the greatest. It lasts exactly an hour and fifteen minutes. So precisely at the end of class, even though he still has five slides to go, the laptop shuts itself off and he has to say "We'll finish this up next week." The possibilities here are amazing. Every professor should be equipped with just such a laptop. I won't name any names, but it would make some classes a lot more bearable.
Today what makes me happy is finding the perfect anniversary present for Ed. And no, I won't tell you what it is ;)
On a happier note, I have come up with a brilliant idea. One of my professors has a laptop which he uses for his slides in lecture, and this laptop's battery is not the greatest. It lasts exactly an hour and fifteen minutes. So precisely at the end of class, even though he still has five slides to go, the laptop shuts itself off and he has to say "We'll finish this up next week." The possibilities here are amazing. Every professor should be equipped with just such a laptop. I won't name any names, but it would make some classes a lot more bearable.
Today what makes me happy is finding the perfect anniversary present for Ed. And no, I won't tell you what it is ;)
Monday, January 30, 2006
Gratuitous Microsoft bashing
Just came across a somewhat interesting article in Wired about a guy who is being sent to jail for trying to sell the leaked Windows 2000 source code. The most amusing part of the article, to me, is the following snide comment that the author managed to sneak in:
Today what makes me happy is warm weather. And consequently, the fact that I washed my car and it's now all pretty and shiny.
"The company has also expressed fears that making its source code public could allow hackers to find security holes in Microsoft products -- though, so far, intruders are doing fine without the source. "Apologies to Jeff S - I have nothing against Microsoft personally, nor do I think it's entirely their fault that so many attacks are targeted at Windows (as opposed to, perhaps, that tempting pool of Linux users who can't figure out how to install antivirus software?) Still, I couldn't help giggling a bit. :)
Today what makes me happy is warm weather. And consequently, the fact that I washed my car and it's now all pretty and shiny.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
New great location, same erratic updates...
Okay, I've decided my blog needs a new home. While writing my own blog software from scratch was fun, I don't feel like going through periodic wrestling matches with it anymore, and I never got all the bugs out anyway (as Jeff S. can tell you...) I've been using Blogger for a while now to keep working notes for my research project, and I really like its interface. Plus, it has an RSS feed, so all you LJ people can be lazy and put it in your friends page.
Will I actually update my blog more, now that I'm doing it the easy way? No promises... :)
Anyway, on to the actual news. First of all, pictures from Friday's party, courtesy of Sarah and Jason. Unfortunately, they got one of me completely failing to finish a car bomb. In my defense, I'd like to point out that the Guinness had just been poured and they didn't give the foam any time to settle.
Also, massive amounts of organization and reorganization paid off on the basketball-ticket front: twelve of us have RISER TICKETS to the Carolina-Duke game! :-D We were about 500 people back, so we expected the riser tickets to be all gone; when we found out they weren't, we gladly took a bunch. Then we found out why people were turning them down. To get spots in the front of the risers for most games, you have to get in line four or five hours before the doors open. For this game, the line starts on Saturday afternoon...and the game is on Tuesday! Though there is still some debate, most of us figure it isn't worth that much effort. Even if we end up in the back of the risers, what the hell, we'll still be there. The bragging rights alone are worth it. And that's what makes me happy today. :)
Will I actually update my blog more, now that I'm doing it the easy way? No promises... :)
Anyway, on to the actual news. First of all, pictures from Friday's party, courtesy of Sarah and Jason. Unfortunately, they got one of me completely failing to finish a car bomb. In my defense, I'd like to point out that the Guinness had just been poured and they didn't give the foam any time to settle.
Also, massive amounts of organization and reorganization paid off on the basketball-ticket front: twelve of us have RISER TICKETS to the Carolina-Duke game! :-D We were about 500 people back, so we expected the riser tickets to be all gone; when we found out they weren't, we gladly took a bunch. Then we found out why people were turning them down. To get spots in the front of the risers for most games, you have to get in line four or five hours before the doors open. For this game, the line starts on Saturday afternoon...and the game is on Tuesday! Though there is still some debate, most of us figure it isn't worth that much effort. Even if we end up in the back of the risers, what the hell, we'll still be there. The bragging rights alone are worth it. And that's what makes me happy today. :)
