Feel free to add it as a bookmark and peruse. I doubt it will be anymore interesting then the stuff I post here, but you never know.
Peace,
Chris.
I think I had an anxiety attack today.
I woke up and realized I had a final in two hours, and another one I should've been preparing all weekend for in less then 24 hours.
And I couldn't calm down. Now matter what I did or tried to tell myself.
I was just walking around, blaring music from my iPod, and even that wasn't helping me calm down.
I felt better after I took my first final and spoke with the professor who's going to be giving the second one. I think I can get by on the skin of my teeth. I don't want to fail anything because I sure as hell don't want to be here come september (unless its working for a professor @ pitt).
I hope to never be like that again.
Quick Update: tripod apparently doesn't let you link to the their images directly. In order to view these images correctly and quickly, copy the hyperlink, open up a new window or tab, and paste the copied URL into the address bar. They will then load.
Me Drawing On Becky's Arm
Me being a little too excited about our sharpies tats
Me being myself according to Colleen.
Me and Jason being drunk...
Another classic seanbaby impression
All these images courtesy colleen's web site
Its probably best to view this images in context, and they seem to be slow loading unless you're on the tripod site, but check them out one way or another.
VLSI has gotten the final nail in the coffin.
I am more then confident that our chip will fail.
The architechture team, in their infinite wisdom, didn't specify to the Bit and Check Node teams that they can only Place and Route with 2 metal layers of our 5 metal layer process.
So Bit and Check Node teams used all 5. Because even grad students don't know any better.
So the Network-On-A-Chip isn't going to work very well because we've always assumed that we can route OVER the Bit and Check nodes.
We've come up with a way where it MIGHT be possible, but only if our router node is super, super small. Which is also unlikely.
They're also assuming all our routers will conform to a uniform shape, which because we use Parameters in Synthesis, and we have 3 different types of routers with different pin outs and interconnects, that is also a flawed assumption.
So what it comes down to is that the Arch. team hasn't lifted a figure since they came up with their specs. They've had a semester, and they've done nothing but look good.
Well, we're all fucked now. No matter how hard Iwork, Pitt's goose is cooked.
This whole semester up until this week has been a slog.
For some reason, this is the first week where I have felt any drive at all.
And it feels great. It feels like the way it used to, where it wasn't me who picked engineering. Engineering picked me.
And did I mention that it feels wonderful?
I saw the woman I worked under my freshmen year. I was a programmer under her NSF grant. I saw her walk into Western Psych.
I knew she was crazy.
I have fixed the last with-standing issue I've been having with my G3 Macintosh. The on-motherboard ATA controller is buggy, and Apple never patched it. The bugs are fine for OS 9, where the OS codes around the hardware problems. But on OS X, the bugs make the whole system crash eventually. So I bought a third party ATA controller card by Sonnet Technologies.
However, I was still having problems with it. Apparently, there was a bug in their firmware as well. And I couldn't install the updater, because the updater required classic.
So my system was unusable. The bug affects the ATA controller w/respect to responding on boot up with a "hey, i got a bootable drive" if the drive has an 8MB cache. When I was upgrading this computer, I sprung for the larger cache.
So I finally hooked up the drive that came with the mac into the on-board ATA controller. Installed Mac OS 9 (which Abby gave me, this is the third time its come to the rescue) and then download and installed the updater.
Now everything with my mac works. I don't have to fear rebooting.
Yay!
I can't wait for Spring Break, because this Busynesss has no end.
I'm going to write things down in my journal from now on until I feel like stopping. I think the two issues that bothered me where that I had a lot of fair-weathered friends who'd probably read it for sadistic kicks. And I didn't want to show the weakness. Another this that bothered me was when it came to write in the journal, I thought about what I had to do, what I didn't get done, and how far behind I am. I'm not going to focus on the negative.
I'm gonna give this a shot.
This is soapbox post(my private disccussion mailing list i run). If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments:
1) First and foremost, my roommate and i use verizon dsl because its the
cheapest in the area. However, verizon won't let you use anything but their
assigned (to you) email address. Their smtp servers literally will not
relay if your "from" field matches a valid username, and you have a verizon
ip. I can't use my pitt.edu smtp server, because pitt will only relay if i
have a Pitt IP. This means I've been using webmail since April, and I've
grown sick of its lack of functionality. As good as most webmail clients
are, they are not for the serious power user. Or even measure up to great
email apps like eudora.
So from what I can tell, I've got three options if I want to work around
this:
1) Find an open relay: I've already started doing this. I've contacted John
Gilmore, one of the founders of the EFF. He runs an open relay, and refuses
to close it, citing "freedom of speech". He's very anti-spam, and has never
personally spammed anyone. I sent him a nice email, asking if he would be
willing to let me and my roommate use it in order to relay our outgoing
mail.
But if anyone happens to know of an open relay, let me know. Especially if
you happen to know the admins don't have any plans to close the relay for a
few months unless someone unexpectantly uses it to spam people.
2) Run my own SMTP server: I'm trying to do this now. I have the service
installed and up and running on Win2K laptop, but I don't know where to go
from there. If anyone has any experience in doing this in windows, I would
appreciate some help with that.
3) Subscribe to SMTP.com: Its a service I found through google's sponsored
links. Basically, I pay for an account, and they let me use their SMTP
servers. Works anywhere. With any mail application. But its something like
$40/year.
Of course, the obvious, which is switch from verizon to another competitor;
however, verizon is the cheapest dsl provider in the area, and besides this
usuability issue (we can receive mail) we have no other complaints. No
downtime. Its never slow, unless we're pulling something huge off
BitTorrent.
This would basically be the same as subscribing to SMTP.com, except with an
even bigger convience, as my roommate and I would have to spend some time
without the internet, he would have to switch providers with me when he
sees this as "not a big deal" (and it isn't really, but I'd still like to
have ALL the comforts that I'm paying for with high speed internet, whether
verizon thinks I should or not.)
I got nothing done over break.
I'm going to crash and burn for finals.
I worked so hard to fuck it all up in two weeks.
Atta boy.
I wish I had health insurance, so I could afford to get all medicated up on something like Prozac, Lexipro, Welbutran, Paxil, Buspar, Valium, or Lithium.
But alls I got is a Bottle of Jack. And I'm not touching it for all the right reasons. If you drink when you're depressed, its a slippery slope to a lifelong problem.
I'm going to make a best effort to pull this all together. And I'm probably going to talk to a conselor next semester.
Its the night before thanksgiving, and I'm not going home for break. My friend Kyle has been asked by a friend of his he works with to go to a "Serbian Club" in the southside. Wouldn't give the name of place. Kyle is interested in going out because he has nothing better to do, and because I told him that Serbian chicks are hot. However, he has no interest in this particular girl, he wanted Wingmen, so Jay and I joined him.
So after work, I go home and clean up, going for a more traditional club atmosphere-ish look. Khakis, Belt, good shoes, nice shirt, not too flashy, but eye-catching.
One mistake: Forgot to get cash. The place ended up being up-town south side...23rd street. It was by the "Unique Pizza Factory", which is an installation selling pizza, and it looks and smells more ghetto then antoon's.
So this place next to the "Unique Factory Center" serves as the Serbian Community Center on Wenesday nights. There's a band there, singing songs from the old country. A bar for those of legal age. And a lot of Serbs, of all ages.
This following statement will hardly be called observant, but serbs are entirely white. So when you show up with Two asian kids, you stick out. Stick out like two sore thumbs and a band-aid. Now, this isn't to say they weren't welcoming. I think it was just we culture-shocked ourselves. We had no idea what we were getting into. We had no idea how many people were going to be there. And, because this is a "community center", they all knew each other (hence the word "community") so we were outsiders, who looked different. And Engineers aren't exactly known for their people skills.
Almost instantly our body language went defensive. Hands in pockets. Arms crossed. Heads crooning toward the floor.
We didn't become anti-social. We talked to the people we came with. We just didn't hit on girls like we would've on any other club. It was partly the idea that they would probably want to stick to their own kind, and the fact that if anyone picked up an girl here, they'd probably have to spend all their wenesday nights here. It kinda toned down my single friend's enthusiasm.
Which is what a wingman is for, I guess. Serbian girls are fucking hot. Take a tall skinny white girl and actually add tits and ass, and a really nice pair of eyes, and wow. Its just that, Serbian Dads are big and well muscled, and probably know a couple of ways to lay you out if you try to take any liberties with their daughter.
Aside from there being really nice eye-candy for everyone, there was a bar. I had the wristband, but no cash. So Jay gives me cash, and I got get him beer. But its a cashless bar. They take tickets. You have to go somewhere else to buy tickets. Tickets cost $.50. Then you get to the bar to learn that a beer is 6 tickets. 6 *
And the music was very polka sounding. So Jay needed it. So we quickly ran out of money. They might be a serbian community, but they sure know the american tactic of gouging!
The dancing was really cool, but none of us could get the hang out of it. To be honest, it was our first try, and we were trying to remain in synch with people who've been doing these dances as children. I sucked. I will have to work on that.
And I actually once won a dance contest. The woes of those who spend all their time in front of a computer instead of doing anything physical. I gotta start running a lot. Getting into shape.
There was one girl there that caught everyone's eye. It was a serbian version of Erin's little sister. She couldn't have been more then 16. The amount of underage jokes that Kyle, Jay, and I are going to be making will triple for the remainder of the semester. It was eerie. The likeness was uncanny.
All in all, it was a good time. The culture shock wore off, I danced some more. We ran out of money, and dodged out at midnight. And while Kyle and Jay felt a little jilted, all I have to say is it beat a night in.
Thank Paradise for Breaks from School and Mogwai.
Ugh, I woke up to the rain this morning, knowing it is a monday, its raining. Later, I realized I missed an E-Week meeting with Janie. This week is off to a perfect start.
For the two weeks or so, I've been having trouble concentrating; its felt like I've snow crashed. My mind's just a sea of static.
And then today in the middle of networks, it dawned on me. I'm depressed. Its been some kind of lingering depression ever since KIT solutions, Inc., terminated their internship program, and with it, the interns chris valasek and myself. And with no break, and the gray, dreary pittsburgh getting grayer and drearier, for me, its been getting harder and harder to ignore, which is why i'm starting to become apathetic all the time.
And working Pitt Parking's event staff job is also depressing. It equates to standing around for 4 hours a time in the cold/rain/sleet/snow. But at the same time, since I have no other means of making money, every time i spend something, i'm coming closer and closer to destitution.
If I don't feel better after thanksgiving break, I'm going to contact the conseling center. I feel like I've got amotivational syndrome, except I'm not smoking pot. I'm also just forgetting important things. Times and places I need to be and such.
I can't allow this happen. I need to get my shit together, and I need to do it over break. I need to focus before I slam face first into the motherfucking wall known as finals.
I hate winter.
"I have five dollars for each of you." -- Bernhard Goetz
