Well, I think I have a firing solution for this summer.

Plan:

Epoxy Research for Dr.McInerney

Catapult CS Assistant


Dr.McInerney has hired me pending him verifying that he actually has the funds to hire me.

I sent in my assistant application just a moment ago.

There may yet be time to salvage this summer.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

http://www.yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

It is a cool thingy.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

So yeah, in December and January, I applied for an internship at the University of Minnesota's Supercomputing Institute. The deadline for getting materials in was February 28. Mine were all in before the end of January (though I recieved no confirmation of this).

It was getting to be about the time that I should have heard something from them, so this morning I called them and asked when I should know something one way or the other. I was told that I should have already heard something, and when I gave them my name, they told me that I had been offered a position (awesome!). They next told me that since they hadn't heard anything from me, the position had been given to someone else.

Apparently, they sent me an e-mail (only) telling me of my acceptance. When I applied, everything that I gave to them was sent through the US mail, so it seems a bit odd to reply only in e-mail. So, I searched my mailbox and indeed there was the message. It was sent on 28 Mar 2006 and required me to respond by 4 Apr 2006. That is exactly one week.

Now, why didn't I notice this incredibly important email? The message looked like spam. The subject line was "offer of internship". There were no capital letters, no mention of the Supercomputing Institute, REU, or the University of Minnesota. I get over 1000 messages a day at my guyblade.com e-mail addresses. Over 99% of these messages are spam and a reasonable percentage of that spam is of the "free dipolma online" variety. This message, which was from someone that I'd never heard of and which had a poorly chosen subject line, looked to my cursory inspection as if it were just another piece of spam.

I'm not going to blame them for my error. They sent the message to the proper address, I simply failed to read it. If I'd read the e-mail, I'd have accepted it in a moment. If they'd sent it by mail, I'd have read it and accepted it. If I'd known when to expect the message, I'd have contacted them sooner. There were mistakes made by everyone. Their mistake was in not keeping me informed as well as they could have. Mine was in not paying enough attention. Regardless, I have now lost what was a great opportunity.

Just a note, I was accepted to work on the project High Performance Algorithms for Predicting the Properties of Electronic Materials.

Fuck.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

I seek the long path to happiness. I have found the short pathes many times. Yet those pathes end before they have even begun. There may only be short pathes, but I shall endeavor to find one that shall last long enough for me to savor it. Find me a map and you shall be rewarded greatly.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Sliderule won't compile nano.
I believe this is IAIT's fault.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

{A}

I finally implemented a method for dynamically updating my DNS records over the internet. All the machines need to have in order to be able to update is to have a way to occasionally connect to a website and provide HTTP POST data. If you can't do post data, it also supports sending everything in HTTP GET. I had to do this for my Irix box that doesn't have a modern copy of wget and doesn't have a compiler. If you want to use the service to have a dynamic hostname of form hostname.dyn.blade.io, just comment and I'll give you instructions (and a host passcode). I'll probably link to the source code once I'm less ashamed of it. It isn't very efficient. It is of order m * n where m is the number of lines in the old zone file and n is the number of hosts that it has to deal with. This isn't a big deal because I have less than 20 hosts to deal with and it only updates once a day.

Part ii

I'm considering building a rack-mount box. By this, I mean a box in which one would mount rack-mount equipment. I have already found a supplier that sells rackstrip and a reasonably priced model of rack-mount case that I could use to replace all of my current boxes (at least at rose). Currently, I am attempting to determine how much supplies would cost. I would only need a saw, screws and MDF. Unfortunately, Lowe's website doesn't do a very good job of describing its lumber offerings. I'll probably go tomorrow to attempt to determine what sort of costs I'd be looking at. If I can build the rack for less than say $175, there is a good chance that I will do it. Especially since I already have the equipment necessary to stain it. Just a note, I'm aiming for 44U.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Yep, so grades just came out:

Japanese Society	A
Discrete & Comb Algebra II	A
Electromagnetism	A
Intro to Quantum Mechanics	A

Next quarter, I am taking:

CSSE332	Operating Systems
OE450	Laser Systems & Applications
PH325	Adv Physics Laboratory I
PH402	Intro to Atomic Physics

This quater, my GPA rose by .02 to 3.87

I created a graph to illustrate:

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Don't talk about Φ_E♣.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

I sent an email yesterday asking for a copy of the Open Forum video about RHIT presidential candidate Tom Hanley. I was told:

A copy of The Open Forum is not available and it is not available online. I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you Tammy Shaffer Executive Assistant to the President Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Now, that's too bad. Maybe I can help them out somehow?

If given a little time and access to the video, I could make a copy if that would be helpful. It is a trivial process to duplicate the video or provide online access to it. Such a thing would allow myself (and others) to view it at our leisure. In fact, it could even be put in the game room for lending to the student body. I would think that any increase in distribution of the video would increase campus awareness about the presidential candidates and provide greater feedback. -Guy

I'd like to know the truth behind their refusal to allow copies to escape the president's office. If I am given a straight and reasonable answer, I will stop pressing the issue. Until then, however, I intend to fight for openness and honesty especially with regard to something as important as selecting a new president.

Last time we chose one, it didn't go over very well. I'd like to make sure that this one goes over better. That can't happen if we are quiet and secretive about the candidates.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

So earlier today, everyone at rose got the following email:

style=''>A DVD of the Open Forum with Dr. Tom Hanley is style=''>available for viewing from February 10–February 17, style=''>8:00 a.m. – 5:00 pm., in an office on the style=''>2nd floor of Hadley Hall (H208). style=''>  style=''>  style=''>  style=''>  style=''>  style=''>Tammy Shaffercolor=black> style=''>Executive Assistant to the President style=''>Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology color=black face=Garamond>5500 Wabash Ave., Box 20color=black> style=''>Terre Haute, IN  47803 style=''>Ph:  812-877-8003 style=''>Fax:  812-877-8001

Now, I was slightly confused. Why would I have to go down there in order to see the film? I went down and asked if I could get a copy of it as it really is difficult to find time during 9th or 10th week between 8 and 5 to come and sit somewhere for an hour. They told me they weren't allowed to give it out. When I commented about how that seemed sort of odd, they stimply told me that it was the "policy the President's Office had set." I wonder what is so secretive about this that they cannot afford to let copies of it be online or floating around. As such, I sent an email in replay asking these very questions. If I do not get a satisfactory reply, I intend to ask her boss. If I don't get a good reply then, I shall continue going upward and making noise until I get an answer that makes sense. I encourage all of you to do the same.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Today, I reinstall Windows 2000 on emeralda, my gaming machine. I was having odd problems until I realized that it had the same mac address as my router. The reinstall took a while (I had to install service pack 4 plus all the updates since then), but I think it is working fine now. I'll test it with Half-Life 2 soon enough.

I've been playing Polarium now that I've beaten Under the Knife. It is a puzzle game that is simple, yet suprisingly challenging. I've completed 59 of the premade puzzles. I'm currently having difficulty with number 57, which is I must beat in order to unlock the next set of 10 puzzles. Maybe tomorrow...

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Yeah, so I just beat Trama Center: Under the Knife. It was a completely different type of game than I'd played before. Essentially, you are a doctor and have to perform various surgeries. It is really fun. However, some of the levels are obscenely hard. Most notably, the last level of the game took me over a dozen tries to beat. It had a 10 minute time limit and I had 7 seconds remaining when I beat it if that gives you an idea.

In other news, apparently I've got myself some sort of sickness. Sinus draining, running nose, fever, all that fun stuff. I have been given decongestant. Hopefully it will be sufficient.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

I was browsing my registry attemting to shut off unnecessary startup processes when I found something interesting. Apparently IAIT always installs the RHIT Group Policies. This makes sense as they use a standard images on all machines. However, this means that if you want to analyze the group policy settings, you can see where they are:

\\ms.rose-hulman.edu\SysVol\ms.rose-hulman.edu\Policies\{9A043A4E-60BE-4663-8654-00D6D2B004FB}\Machine

It is somewhat interesting to note that the startup processes are batch files that call Visual Basic scripts. It is also interesting to note that I was unable to access the VB scripts (they are stored in a $ share on tibia that apparently I do not have rights to access). This leads to a few interesting questions:

1. What do these scripts do? Their names are only vaguely enlightening as to their purposes.
2. Why do they use VB script rather than standard batch command processing?
3. Why am I unable to access the files? Does this mean that they cannot be executed on startup?
4. What are all the other policies under \\ms.rose-hulman.edu\SysVol\ms.rose-hulman.edu\Policies for?
5. Why are \\ms.rose-hulman.edu\SysVol\ms.rose-hulman.edu\scripts and its contents readable to anyone with a valid login?

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

Yeah, so I just went through everyone who was listed at myspace as either a current student at Rose or a former student at AHS. I added all the people who I would consider "friends." I should probably have spent this time doing something useful...

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Posted by Crosspost! software.

So yeah, earlier this week I purchased a Nintendo DS. The first game I got was Trace Memory. It was awesome because there was a puzzled that I just solved that required me to close the DS's lid. Basically, there was something that need to be smashed and I had something to smash with. How does one smash something on the bottom screen? By closing the top screen on it.

Genius.

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Posted by Crosspost! software.