In the midst of everybody losing their composure, I am, once again, perfectly calm.  After I finish this entry, I’m writing my paper on wind power (it blows… har har har) and continuing with my studying.

History?!

During the semester, I have been doing all my reading and I can recall a lot of information.  Yet, I have been getting Cs on my all-essay tests.  During the tests, I write practically nonstop.  To gain a better understanding of the situation, I visited the TA on Friday.  Unfortunately, that was counterproductive as I left more ticked off because they appear to just want regurtitation of information and little sense of organization.  I ran into one of my colleagues while checking out the synchrophasor stuff Professor Mack Grady just finished setting up, and he echoes my sentiment.

My ability to maintain my composure seemed incredible at the time, but as soon as the final is over, I’m selling those books and ensuring those blue books are taken care of like company top trade secrets.

Funny Pics

Also on Friday, I spent the evening with some friends at a barbecue.  On the way back, I noticed that a storefront has this painted: “If it’s in stock, we’ve got it!”  My car trip today involved taking a picture of this:

My challenge to you: Devise something to contradict this statement.  Now for something not so obvious:

I found the typo on the receipt after I went to the Asian food mart to get this sauce.  I shall refrain from making jokes here…

It’s a compulsion of sorts that I go into my spam box and clear it out every now and then. There is always that garden variety of pornography, medicine, and drugs that supposedly enhance the size of a man’s phallus. Today, I had this observation/revelation I would like to share. I found it quite ironic that I get these messages when the senders are the ones who need it much more than I do. As a matter of fact, I don’t even have to look down to know mine is there.

Given a few sensors and user-provided offsets, I do not see how hard it is to align something on a page correctly with only 1 pt. error any way (note: 1 pt. = 1/72 inch). A month or so ago, I offered to burn some DVDs of all the pictures and video I took during orientation. It is a 3-DVD set, and I decided to go all-out on it with DVD labels and covers. It is simply incredible that it prints off by as much as half an inch!  Even after correcting for the printer’s errors with my ruler, I obtain a defect rate of at least 50%.  If I were to fail at half the tasks I was given, I would surely be unable to even get a high school, part-time level job.

I do not know how to write printer drivers, but I know that it will be a while before HP will see a dime from me again. Don’t be surprised if I take this printer down Office Space-style. I take that back… maybe I do something more civil and EE-like: Take the entire printer apart. Either way, it really deserves to rest in pieces.

This is a continuation of “Homeowners’ Associations = UGH!” As promised, the letter is attached as fcca_letter.jpg. Now, open it up and follow along… it’s time for me to take the letter and rip its arguments to shreds, for it hopelessly lacks common sense.

Basically, here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going on:

• When we got our house, there are these rocks in the landscape bed that lead up to the front porch.
• Over time, these rocks became buried or discolored, so we replace them.
• First Colony Community Association sends us a letter about this unauthorized modification.

A picture of the front of my house. The white rocks are the thing they’re complaing about.

By performing the maintenance work, we feel that we are doing our part in “an effort to maintain property values in [our neighborhood].” There is no need for “a full understanding of [any] restrictions.” It is simply common sense. I went to this Andrew Vacek’s office in an attempt to get it resolved, but I was merely handed this:

That’s right, folks! A 1/8″ packet of their by-laws that is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand and describes all the bureaucracy.

For the record, this association seems to lack common sense, and I could probably come to the conclusion that this Andrew Vacek is a stubborn blockhead. This lack of common sense stems from one thing: Greed — greed for revenue. Consequently, I will state again that after I get my degree, I shall not live in First Colony, for “common sense revolts at the idea”¹ that I am required to submit a “modification approval” request to keep my yard in decent order.

Over the past year with the help of Digg, I was able to see the speculation behind Apple’s highly-anticipated “iPhone,” including the much pleasing thought that it just might be sold unlocked (i.e. you are able to use any carrier). However, that is not the case. This, in addition to the lack of support for 3G wireless and inability to add 3rd-party programs, makes this phone an unattractive buy.

Per an exclusive deal with Cingular, the iPhone is available for $599 with a two-year contract from Cingular. Naturally, the phone will come locked to Cingular’s service. Setting aside the fact that Cingular’s service could be craptacular in certain areas, the price point already brings this phone to the point of being unpractical. Indeed, there are products that are able to do everything the iPhone can (and then some) for significantly less.

Two phones I can readily point out that are capable of doing everything the iPhone can (and then some) are the Palm Treo 680 and the T-Mobile Dash. While it is possible to get an unlocked version of the former for $399, the latter can be obtained with a two-year contract for $199. Both feature not only 3G support, but unfettered ability to add any program you wish to do whatever you want with the phone. Can the iPhone offer that kind of freedom? I don’t think so. Now, if some “bad guys” unlock the phone, you can actually use it with other services.

With everything said, I believe that the iPhone is defective by design. I was particularly offended when Lurie from Cingular called unlockers “bad guys.” I believe in reciprocity, so here’s my statement: The iPhone is yet another pair of iCuffs for the iSheep. A fool and his money are soon parted. I will tell you more about these “bad guys” later.

Finally, I was not paid to mention any of the brands. I know that T-Mobile has a very liberal policy with respect to their phones and do not cripple them much (if at all).
Written with contributions from natmaster and Spencer.

I think I have said before that VH1 shows make me sick. That is reinforced by a show I saw recently, called “The Flavor of Love.” When my dormmates watch that show, there was an unprecedented amount of bleeping, and that made me sick because of how unrestrained people can be. Sure, that is reality, but here is where it gets unreal: I see this show as some jerk manipulating women’s minds under the guise of searching for love.

In yet another surprising move, Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion (reference)! Now, MySpace is whining about it by threatening to block YouTube (a.k.a. GoogTube)(reference). Censorship in a place allegedly intended to let people express themselves?! I am appalled, and this is one of the reasons why I have my own web site and not a MySpace — I can post anything I please! I dare MySpace to block YouTube videos — I really do. People do such stupid things for money, I tell you.

While I am on my soapbox about MySpace, I would like to tell you about what I saw yesterday: There were two people sitting next to each other, on MySpace, adding each other and telling each other to post on each other’s walls! That is not too bad, considering that little girls would get together and dress each other’s dolls in a similar manner. What shocked me was when one of them, in her attempt to bling up her post, goes to some site offering all kinds of graphics, blindly copying HTML code, and posting it on her wall! Gosh… I really do not know where to begin taking into consideration that there could be code to do drive-by downloads of spyware and all that fun stuff into the viewer’s computer! But then again, I think I have said enough.

Today, I was responsible for directing the flow of traffic into elevators and make sure people do not stuff them.  Although everything went smoothly, I did have to yell at a parent for using the emergency exit door.  Well… I really cannot blame her because it is really hard to understand that a door with a red sign that says “EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY” along with instructions on opening the door (meaning that you would have to try REAL hard to accidentally trigger the alarm) and beeps real loudly when the door is opened is not a door for routine exit of the building.  With that aside, when she tried to open it for the second time, I yelled at her and said that it was an emergency exit; and just to shame her, I turned to the people waiting for an elevator, I said, “I will NOT tolerate have another alarm here unless it’s a real emergency!”

Finally, GUADALUPE ST. IS NOT A DRAG RACING STRIP.  I think I will call APD and ask them to monitor this area closely.

My EE and CS friends and I like to take crack shots at MySpace because of the people on there, the shoddy way they code the pages (try running the thing through W3C’s validators!), and the things they post, such as:

• Their so-called “exploits” that are hilariously stupid and self-incriminating
• Songs and lyrics
• Videos from YouTube
• … and other useless Flash widgets

By posting this stuff, they are all vying for attention. However, I am quite sure that any user will blow right through the text and start clicking on the useless Flash widgets, watching the videos, and listening to the songs (that is assuming that the page was not coded so badly, the browser crashes). We could care less about the person!

But I digress. Last Sunday, the power went out at the place that MySpace’s servers are housed at. The UPSs and generators failed to kick in and take over. Just that is enough to add some more ammunition to why MySpace is no good: Their infrastructure is frail! It is Network Engineering 101 that when you are running the number one site that teens visit that you would not only have redundant power backups, but have redundant copies of your site scattered throughout the US synchronized in as close to realtime as humanly possible! Or was this a coverup for something worse: Tom’s landlord suddenly demands this past year’s rent which he let slide when he bought the building and they were roommates. This brings me to the second lesson: Always pay your rent on time.

Snippet from Slashdot
Rules for the MySpace game

On a totally unrelated note, I can’t stop posting using HTML!