I think it’s been a great start to the term so far. I’m keeping up with all my Soc readings, and I’ve finished all my assignments well before the due date. It’s starting to get really busy now. So many assignments and tests in the upcoming weeks… I need to make sure I get everything inserted into my Google Calendar so I don’t lose track of things.
Archive for January, 2007
Image Conscious Males
January 19th, 2007
Today, in SOC 101 we were covering Symbolic Interactionism, and we watched a video on weight-training. It featured four high-school boys, and interviews of what they thought of weight-training, what they think the girls look for in a guy, girls’ perspective of what they look for in a guy, as well as people in the fitness business (trainers, supplement store rep, etc.). It was definitely an interesting video, because when people talk about being image conscious most would automatically think of girls — e.g. how the media portrays beautiful women. I haven’t heard a lot of talk about the pressure guys (especially young men) experience in terms of their weight, and appearance in general.
Things to Ponder
January 16th, 2007
I find it pretty scary that this is going to be my very last term at UW. Five years seem to go by so fast. Now I have to think about what I want to do after graduation, both short term and long term. But most importantly, this is the last chance for me to do things in an academic setting. I’m not thinking about doing grad school, at least not immediately following undergrad.
There are so many things I wish I have done differently during my nearly five years at UW. Of course there’s the usual, “I wish I had worked harder” thing. I also wish that I had been more involved in non-school activities, such as Navs and general outtings with friends. There were some opportunities to do interesting research in some CS and Stats courses that I wish I had pursued.
This is going to be my last chance to do all those things. I’m going to make sure I participate in Navs more, not just going to large group meetings. For my AI course, there’s a Masters project that undergrads can do for bonus marks. You pick your own topic and you can either do a coding project or write a paper. I think I will talk to my prof about it after class on Thursday and see what I can do. There are interesting topics in AI, and it would be fun to explore them AND get bonus marks on the side.
UWDC++
January 9th, 2007
I recently discovered the joy of using DC++ on Resnet. At the University of Waterloo we have bandwidth restrictions on our Internet connections (in residence). Basically, we can download 3.5 GB every 7 days. If you download things on the internal network, however, it doesn’t count towards your limit. For the longest time I used the “normal” methods of finding and getting things on our network. It was okay for a while, but you really can’t find that much because most students are not sharing any files. Then comes DC++…
DC++ has been around for a long time. It’s similar to IRC in that you have channels (or hubs) in which you can connect to and chat. You can also share your files with other people, and in turn you can get files from other people. I found out that there’s a hub created for UW’s Resnet. The hub’s address is “uwdc.rednine.org”. You need to at least share you DC++ downloads folder, as well as set your max (upload) slots to 5 (/slot 5), or else you’ll face a 10 mins ban. I’ve gotten a lot of TV shows and stuff from there, and if you download from people in your subnet (UWP, V1, etc.) you’ll get faster transfers. I’ve downloaded a lot of videos at 600 KB/s transfer speed. :)
There’s Never a Never
January 9th, 2007
In the Concurrency lecture today the prof was talking about using flag variables when coding. He said you should never use them because they complicate the code. He then followed that up by saying that, of course, there’s never a never, and in some situations you might want to use them.
At first hand, the statement “there’s never a never” seems pretty straightforward. But if you think about it, the meaning is unclear. If there’s never a never, then the first never suggests that there’s sometimes a never. I don’t know why I think of these things during lectures, the lecture wasn’t even boring.
Sunday Sundaes!
January 7th, 2007
My floor meeting for res was tonight, and we had “Sunday Sundaes” at 10pm. I convinced Peter to go with me and grab a bowl of sundae with lots and lots of toppings. Mmmm… so good… *drools*
Le Final Term
January 4th, 2007
Today was the the second day of my last term here in Waterloo. I had a pretty good Christmas break (well, I’ve been on break since October). Got to see a lot of my friends as well as Ams’ friends. I also ate so much food that I wouldn’t be surprised if i gained 5 lbs.
I just learned something interesting about jump-starting a dead car. At Steve’s house last Saturday, we played Cranuim, and one of the questions show a picture of a car engine (a very poor quality picture), and asked where the last cable should connect to. The answer is the largest metallic part under the hood of the dead car. You need to ground it instead of connecting it to the negative part of the dead battery because there will be a spark and it may ignite hydrogren gas around the battery and cause an explosion. Very interesting indeed.
PS. Happy Birthday Grace!
