I’ve got to be at a meeting tomorrow at 8:30 am. Unholy. That means I have to be up by 6:30 am. I’m going off to bed.
b0x3n
Damn, it sucks to watch other people packing up to go back. 🙂 I’ll
only be going back for a month max in December. I guess it’s just as
well since I’ll be graduating next year in July anyway. Anyway, I’ve
been busy these few days with my IE programming modules that I want to
get done before I go back. Oh well, at least I got some Cheetos today
at Coles. Mmm…Cheetos.
WHEN IT COMES TO TEAM-KILLING, I’M A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. [gamespy.com] hahaha Look at this, it’s really funny.
Fireworks
Summer is here…the temperatures are heating up and the cicadas are
coming out in force. Anyway, I saw some fireworks over at the cricket
oval just now. Don’t know what’s going on there, but heard the
fireworks and saw a couple of people watching from halls. I did get a
couple of pictures, but there was a spotlight in the way so it’s either
underexposed or overexposed. Here they are:
Anyway, the halls are starting to empty out now that the examination
period is nearly over. Summer at halls is really boring, there would be
like only 5 people in each hall. I stayed here during the summer of
2000 and I was the only one on my stairway. It gets really deserted
over the vacation period since everyone is going home. Oh well, I’m
planning to go back in December instead of February anyway. It seems
impossible to finish my IE project within the month and the client goes
on a one month break after that. I’ll be taking a summer subject in
January, so I’ll only be home for about 3-4 weeks in December.
Veritas – Latin for Truth
I have installed Movable Type on my server. Click here [sixthseal.com] for my new blog.
Posted in by Huai Bin at 11:13 PM Permalink
| Comments (0)
November 08, 2002
Veritas – Latin for Truth
“Mr. Foaf” is back, but with a new handle. He wishes to be referred to as
“Veritas” now. I hear it’s Latin for truth. The usual disclaimers apply – I am not him, he is not
me, the views may not necessarily represent the views of sixthseal.com etc etc. This is his
report:
Lab Report: The relationship of annual seasons with respect to
horticulture
Name : “Veritas”
Hypothesis : “The THC concentrations in cultivated cannabis has an
inverse relationship with increasing temperatures” aka Damn, my weed fucking sucks in summer.
Materials :
2 grams of hydroponically grown cannabis
1 x blue smoking implement (bong)
30 ml H20
1 x combustion device (lighter)
Methods :
1. A small amount of cannabis will be manually shredded to maximize
combustible surface area.
2. The cannabis will the placed on the entry point known as the “cone” on the
smoking implement.
3. Heat will be applied to the cannabis.
4. The subject will inhale, forcing the smoke from the cannabis to enter the
chamber and exit the mouth piece.
5. The subject will hold the smoke in his lungs for 2 minutes.
Safety Issues :
Cannabis is known to induce laughter.
Solution: The subject will watch an unfunny video.
Cannabis is known to induce craving for food (“munchies”)
Solution: The subject has access to several chocolate bars and has the
option of ordering pizza.
Results :
The subject (“Veritas”) has heard an anecdote that the quality of weed
decreases during the summer months due to some unknown factor affecting the cultivation of the
plant. The source of the anecdote did not elaborate further. The subject is rather dubious of this
claim considering some of the best cannabis is produced from temperate countries like Afghanistan.
Furthermore, the very claim that heat is detrimental to cultivation is somewhat mind boggling as
hydroponics involves the use of very hot lamps to simulate the sun. Thus, the subject has managed
to get hold of some of this purported summer cultivated cannabis to prove the hypothesis wrong. The
subject has procured a new smoking implement from Off Ya Tree, which is a alternative culture shop
in Swanston Street, Melbourne. The subject has also gotten hold of a nifty combustion device which
the sales attendant at Off Ya Tree was very enthusiastic about. Apparently this device has a normal
flame,
a green (!) flame
and a purplish blue flame.
The different colors are attained from twisting a ring located near the top of
this device. The device also has a small compass embedded into the top of the lid, apparently to
help guide confused stoners to the way home. The subject has partially filled the smoking implement
(which will be referred to as a bong from now on) with H20 (that’s water for those of you who
failed Chemistry) and filled the cone with an appropriate amount of cannabis. The lighter was
applied to the cone and held there while the cannabis material slowly combusted and displaced the
remaining air in the chamber of the bong with THC smoke. The subject has found that the cannabis
does differ in potency with other batches he has tried. However, the subject maintains that this is
not because of any relation between seasons and plant cultivation times, but rather because the
cannabis is comprised mostly of leafy material and has minimal hairs and THC crystals. In other
words, this is piss poor weed. It is however, fairly damp, which supports the source of the
anecdote’s claims that this is a recent summer batch.
Conclusion :
The cultivation time of cannabis does not affect potency in hydroponically
grown plants. The subject has pulled this conclusion straight out of his ass and would advise you
not to quote him.
Unholy-ness, not amounting to blasphemy
Today was unholy, weather wise. It was already in the high twenties
when I stepped out at 9 am in the morning and it just grew warmer and
warmer and the heat has not even fully dissipated from my room as of
now. Good thing I was at the campus labs most of the day, trying to
finish up my Industrial Experience project. “But you’ve just finished your exams!” you say. Yup, no rest for the wicked.
Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to finish my IE project early
and get it signed off before the client leaves for the holidays in
December. It might be possible, I’m going to try anyway. I’ll have to
fully commit myself the whole of next week and see what happens then.
If it’s nearing completion, I’ll try and push for a client review the
week after and leave one week for modifications and hopefully a sign
off after that. We’ll see. *fingers crossed* This is my last real
holiday, so I was rather hoping I could have a long 4 month one. That
is out of the question, but perhaps a 2+ month one is still within
reach. I wouldn’t want to stay here in summer anyway. From the way
things are going, it looks like it’s going to be a scorcher. I stayed
back 2 years ago and it reached 45 C at times.
CSE3002 Distributed Computing Systems Postmortem
Well I’ll be damned. The questions that came out today were EXACTLY the same
as the Semester 2 2000 one and the Semester 2 2001 one. I had read the past year exam papers, which
were actually removed from the past exams database and yet, available under a different course
code. By inferring and extrapolating, I had expected this year’s questions to be the same, and I
wasn’t disappointed. I would have done better though if I’d gotten some sleep though. It was hard
trying to recall facts that I already know and I’m sure there were some “cross-contamination”.
Cross-contamination is the phenomenon that occurs where you mix up the answers of one question with
another. The borders start getting fuzzy after a lack of sleep, you know. I might get a Distinction
if I’m lucky, but I’m going to be conservative here and predict:
Expected Grade: Credit
It’s off to bed for me. I haven’t had any sleep last night.
CSE3002 Distributed Computing Systems
My brain is absolutely saturated. I did not sleep last night to memorize the
prodigious lecture notes of this subject. It’s amazing how this subject has 80-120 (!) slide
lecture notes. Times that amount by 13 weeks. Plus, every slide has stuff to remember. I can’t even
type properly now coz I’ve archived the “language” portion of my brain to make space for the
“memorize and regurgitate” part. Quorum consensus method, Suzuki-Kasami’s broadcast algorithm,
Singhal’s heuristic algorithm, push push push, go into my brain dammit!
Segmentation fault…
Core dumped!
CSE2203 Information Technology Project Management Postmortem
Well…I didn’t do too well in this exam. I was rather appalled when I first
read the exam paper. I found out that I’ve been concentrating on the wrong stuff. However, I did
manage to rally up a bit and wrote what I feel was right, so I should be able to pass. The past few
year’s exams all had Gantt charts, which is like a free 11 marks, but it didn’t come out this year.
Bummer. Oh well.
Expected Grade: Pass
Anyway, the Doom III Alpha 0.02 (the E3 demo) has been leaked. I downloaded it
last night, but didn’t manage to unzip it until today. It damn near took 8 minutes just to unzip
the RAR file. It took another 2 minutes just to start and get to the new id animation with the
hybrid metal/flesh heart fusion loop. I tried bringing down the console and typed map
e3/e3_3 and waited for 25 minutes while my aging Athlon 750 w/ 128 mb RAM and a GeForce 2 MX
tried to load the demo, but gave up after that. It was an exercise is patience, and patience is a
commodity that has eluded me thus far.
This is an er…a screenshot of the Doom III alpha. =D
CSE2203 Information Technology Project Management
Another exam in a couple of hours. Wish me luck.
CSE3153 Network Administration Postmortem
Hmm…I found the paper pretty easy today. I was expecting more technical stuff and read up on
ASN.1 packet details and stuff like that. What came out was more general and abstract though, but
that’s just as well, it made things easy. I noticed that I haven’t held a pen since the exam last
semester. Heh. It seems that my course has a lot more to do with keyboard input rather than pen and
paper. The downside to this was my hands were cramped and sore after only 10 minutes of (hard)
writing. Lack of practice, eh.
Expected Grade: Credit
Anyway, I headed down to Chadstone after that with the intention to renew my health insurance
premium. However, I was told that I needed my enrolment statement and my passport to do it, so I
guess I’ll have to go back again after my exams. However, I did get some doughnuts from Donut King
for dinner. Mmm…sprinkles.
