Advogato blog for khemicals

3 Jun 2000

Sat, 3 Jun 2000 22:48:00 GMT

Advocacy
Well, there has been a lot going on in my life recently, hence my development work has been slowed by a lot... but I hope to soon post an editorial that I have been working on to Advogato/Freshmeat. I think most will enjoy the read and it will be helpful to the community as a whole. People cannot forget the importance of free software advocacy. It is just a very important topic.

Girls
Well, to continue my ongoing coverage of the life I have with women recently... it came to my realization a week before my birthday (which would be the 21st of May, birthday is the 28th) that it is not Jennifer who is interested in me, but it is her friend Suchi, who I have been spending a lot of time with... So her and I talked about it for a bit... decided it was the right thing and 'hooked up' for lack of a better phrase... kinda corney sounding but hey, tis what it kinda is.

So we were together till the Friday before my birthday when she decided things were not the way she thought they were. So I have been dealing with the fact that I really like her but she isn't sure what she really wants (which she says she knows what she doesn't want... but according to her actions that doesn't seem to be the case). For now I will just be a good close friend... is the most important thing anyways... but perhaps more will come of it later.

Computer Science
Well, I had my Computer Science II final on thursday. I didn't think it was 'hard', but I believe that he did some things that I don't consider 'right' to do on a final. Here are the problems that I had with it.

(1) He didn't follow his own style conventions. We are not allowed to use global variables in our programs, why should he be allowed to use them in the programs we have to evaluate for our exam... not that they are hard to look at or understand... but think about it for a second. Is it fair that he test us on something we are not allowed to use? No. But that is only one example of him not following his programming conventions on the exam... so since I don't have it in front of me and that is the only thing that I remember about it I will leave it at that.

(2) He had a class that looked something like this (c++):


class Box
{
   public:

 
    Box() 
   {
      width = 8;
      length = 7;
   } 

 
    void SetWidth(int wide)
   {
      width = wide;
   }

 
    int ReadWidth()
   {
      return length;
   }
   private:
      int width;
      int length;
};

First, realize that that example is greatly simplified... there was a lot more to it. But the problem with the code that is staring at me is that the Box::ReadWidth() function returns the length. It didn't get me... but I know others, many others will have missed that and thus will miss all the points on that one question... which is ~1/12 of the final. That is a lot of points for doing that. I mean I realize that we should be able to debug and find that problem, but when looking at the code on paper and you see a function call in main() that looks like this
box.SetWidth(2);
cout << box.ReadWidth() << endl;
one expects the SetWidth function to set the width to 2 and the ReadWidth function to then return a value of 2 and print it to stdout. But ofcourse it returns the value for length which is 7 due to the class's default constructor.

There were other problems with the exam that I don't recall at the moment but I don't feel like bitching anymore so I will stop :).

14 May 2000

Sun, 14 May 2000 17:51:26 GMT

Movies
Well, I rented Howard The Duck and Red Corner last night. I had seen both of the movies before, Red Corner once and Howard The Duck countless times. I love that movie. Not something I could watch nightly or as many times as UHF but I could watch it a ton.
Anyways it was disappointing last night when Suchi and myself went out to get the movies as we went out to get 2 specific movies, and no others... they were American Beauty and The Usual Suspects or as I usually refer to it, The Unusual Suspects (I think it is more appropriate a title anyways). However when we went to the Blockbuster Video on Calhoun/Taft in Cincinnati they were out of both. So, since we valued the movies as more important than getting a rain check we went out to another Blockbuster, nada there also. We then decided to check out a video store on Ridge Avenue, which is a few miles away from campus... neither were there either, or at the Hollywood Video on that same street. Remember that American Beauty is "Guaranteed In Stock.". They didn't seem to remember how popular of a movie it was and nobody in Cincinnati bothered to get an adequate number of copies. In then end we ended up back where we started and rented the two afforementioned movies. Good flicks but certainly not what we were looking to see in the first place.
Picking out those movies was a challenge in the first place. Must realize a couple things when Suchi and I go movie hunting... Both of us have seen the obscure and international stuff, leaving only a few choice movies that either she or I would be interested in. Thus I was amazed to hear she had not seen Howard The Duck when growing up. Who cannot love a movie about <font color = "white">a duck that gets pulled into Cleveland and saves the world by destroying all the Dark Overlord's in the Universe??? </font>.

Star Craft
A few friends of mine and myself have been playing a lot of Starcraft lately. However those who play with me are having a heck of a time beating the others. Our current tactic (which hasn't been tested very well) is to have one terran and two protoss, one protoss has the job of building massive numbers of cannons to protect the other protoss and the terran initially, while the terran works at building only siege tanks to build up the ultimate perimiter defense for everyone, than the war continues in their normal way of attaining 20 bases and the central base areas and such. Any comments on this strategy or any others please send me a note or strategy change. I will give feedback on here to how well it works. Send your suggestions to khemicals at marblehorse dot org .

Calculus and Computer Science
Well I believe I did really well on my exam last Friday. I hope I get it back tomorrow with a damn good grade on it. I am also hoping the same for my Computer Science Exam. I will get around to scanning it and putting it on the web along with answers for people to make and get a score on it. I wish good luck to all for it is stupid. :)... perhaps I will get around to making an entire testing interface for it using PHP and some other stuff... will have to think about that possibility.

12 May 2000

Fri, 12 May 2000 01:11:38 GMT

Hmmm... Been a while since I posted last. I have been extremely busy with school. Also been up to playing a lot of bridge and not sleeping.

Girls
This week (or rather early last week) I got an interesting Instant Message (I use everybuddy... good client) from some girl whose name starts with 'jeni'. I know a few jennies, but I also know their IM names. This was interesting but I am not aversioned to meeting new people... so we talked a bit and I found out that she is at Kent State and really good friends with my friend Suchi. So, we talked for about 1.5 hrs that night, almost made me late for my DHA (Daniel's Hall Association) meeting (I am VP, that would have been a bad thing!). Anyways we have been talking back and forth for the last few days and she seems nice enough, good sense of humor and such. Shall see how things work out.

Music
Been playing around with the OpenNap network a bit lately since Napster is down. It is amazing to me how well it has taken off. But I have found some music that I kicked back to a few years back. Toad and the Wet Sprocket, U2 and for kicks, Kyper. Dunno what spawned this but it is good. I also got a track called "Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space" by Spiritualized. That is an interesting tune and I suggest it to everyone. I think it was in a VolksWagon commercial a few years ago... but I really don't know.. I never have watched much television.

Computer Science
C++ sucks, programming is good, but C++ is not :). I love reading the threads of people wanting to put C++ into the kernel... DON'T DO IT.. IT IS BAD!!!
Another thing I love is that my instructor stresses the importance of clean maintainable code... than why does inheritance exist... it seems to make code hard to follow... and besides that his style requirements and coding styles are ugly... his example code is *extremely* hard to read... take a peak at his comp sci page if you wish to verify this. I hope to never have to deal with that again.

More
Unfortunately I have to go to class now, yes... computer science. I want to skip it but have to turn a hard copy of a program in. I hope to get around to writing more in here later. Good day to all.

Pepsi Challenge
Well, the Pepsi One challenge was on campus today... I didn't take it because I refuse to give in to their marketing techniques. I am a coke-head thru and thru (Hey, not that kinda coke :).

Fla-Vor-Ice
This mystical popsicle like invention has invaded my dorm room with the help of the local Sam's Club. Tim and I went shopping (the dining hall food is only getting worse and worse... turning me into a vegetarian) so got some frozen pizzas and ham and cheese hot pockets for those days that I need something to eat but don't feel like ordering pizza out.

Bridge Bidding System
Well here are the basics:
Open --
1-C, 13-15 pts and a preference in a black suit
1-D, 13-15 pts and a preference in a red suit
1-H, 16-17 pts partner to respond with weak suit
1-S, 18-19 pts partner to respond with weak suit
1-NT, 20+ pts partner to respond with weak suit
If overcalling oponent's bid the system shifts over that many. For example, the other team opens up 1-D and you wanted to call 1-S, you would call 2-C.

For a responding bid to the above these would be appropriate:
If bid was C (just use the other suits for a diamond bid) the response would be a club if you have a 2-card preference in clubs or spade if there is a 2-card preference in spades. For a one-card preference it is suggested to call the major or minor of the other color suit... so to say you have a 1 card preference in spades one would bid a heart of the appropriate level. All of this assumes greater than 6 points to bid.
If one has either (1) a well balanced hand in all suits (2) a dislike for the color of suit called (3) other situations that I forget one would call NT.
for a complete lack of points one would call pass as normal.
Blackwood is called as normal
After the bidding has run around the table once without you or your partner bidding it goes to the normal bidding style that you are used to, most of us use "American Style" bidding.

I will add more to those later as we refine them and work with them. They seem to work really well.

1 May 2000

Mon, 1 May 2000 05:12:37 GMT

Music

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young... good for the old in me... No, I am not old... but we all have an old part in us :)

Vacation/Business/People

This weekend I was in Boston and Maine visiting the FSF and roguemtl. It was a good trip. I got a chance to see my girlfriend of 2 years ago and celebrate her birthday. Things change and times move on but catching up is always good. I may have a bit of bitterness and sadness left in me, but I have a great respect for good people who do no wrong to me.

FSF

The FSF is a group of good people. Friday after our meeting with the FSF (our being roguemtl and myself) they took us out to lunch at a place called Rita's and Fajitas or somesuch. It was a decent restraunt with decent food. But there were a few things which set it apart from other restraunts. The first thing is that there is no menu. The order is taken on a carbonless copy order sheet. This would, I presume, lessen the mistakes in taking orders. The next impressive thing about the restraunt is that they let people draw with crayon on the walls. There was some interesting wax graffiti on the walls. Too bad they didn't seem to be giving out crayons anymore.

Logo's

On my plane ride out to visit roguemtl I decided to open Gimp up and try my hand at creating a logo for marblehorse. We still have a lack of graphic creativity in the group at the moment. Nothing I work on looks quite right though I have a decent start. I think someone may end up being paid to make us a logo. This has just lasted too long. WE NEED A LOGO!!!! :)

Computer Science

Computer Science is good. Computer Science classes can be bad. I have made multiple observations about the lack of time professors spend on programming concepts which are needed to write programs. I have spent a large portion of my day helping people with programs. They look at the small snippit that I made (which is usually just a function or two of theirs combined/rearranged) and look dumbfounded at it. This code is not complex. Instructors need to be aware of the importance of explaining things such as 'scope' and functions. The person I had been helping didn't understand how the functions I wrote worked because the variable names changed between the function code and when the function was invoked. Classes in c++ also need to be explained better. Either go back to teaching a non-object oriented language or spend the time to describe the object portion of it so that the students may understand it. It really frustrates me that the instructors are not spending enough time on important basic issues.

Guy Problems

NO... I DO NOT HAVE GUY PROBLEMS! Let me first stress that I am very strong in my sexuality and am very heterosexual. That being said one of my friends is having some 'guy problems'. Of course I gave her the advice to not jump around the issue and not ignore the issue. But I also told her to make sure he knows what is up and how she feels. It is important that people talk to one another. After all if you have a relationship the goal for most people is to find that 'right' person. I think that a little more talking could solve a lot of issues. I am guilty of not talking enough and seeing what it can do. Perhaps I am not the one that should be discussing it... but if it works for her and nobody else says 'boy, khemicals seems like he is on crack' than I will presume that despite my lack of years on this earth compared to many others I am on the right track.

UHF

UHF -- Ultra High Frequency
UHF -- A hilarious comedy with Weird Al Yankovich being the producer, writer and main actor.
I noticed somebody else make a comment on my diary entry from the other day when I had to return the movie to the movie store. I have seen that movie no less than 20 times. Every girl I have ever dated has seen that movie. Maybe that is why I am not dating anyone at the moment :). It is a great movie and I have loved it ever since I first rented it at the Drug Mart in Vermilion, Ohio.

However that is not the point I really wanted to make with this entry. The point I wanted to make is that I feel all video stores should have that movie in their collection. Especially in a large town. I live in Cincinnati at the moment and the Block Buster nearest myself did not have the movie. I was greatly disturbed and then decided to try another down the road. They had it and I introduced those who remained on the floor of my dorm (sorry, "residence hall"... I am the Vice President of the "residence hall" and thus should no better than to refer to it as a "dorm") over Easter break. <offtopic> Yes, we didn't get extra time off for that weekend. But still most left. The amazing part is that the USA gets the day after my birthday off as a holiday (as my birthday falls on a Sunday) this year. They call the day Memorial Day and I don't mind sharing my birthday with the cause, but I don't want any confusion with the issue either :).</offtopic>

OffTopic

Yes, I already had one offtopic or more... but this is about being offtopic. One should pay attention to what they say in a channel or how they use copy and paste. Else they may post something like this to a channel such as #kernelnewbies "Only by nubile vigins, Addi?". I find that humorous and non-offensive so don't get on me for putting something in my diary that was an honest mistake. Certainly I have made them before and am not perfect. But I needed something to attempt to make my entry longer than Schoen's for a day :). When I am done we shall see. None-the-less his will most likely be of higher quality than mine :).

I am still waiting for a shipment of BBC's from LinuxCare for the ACM group here at the University of Cincinnati. Perhaps they will arrive sometime this week. I had a feeling they would have been here last week. Oh well. Just looking forward to getting them out to people to use. They are an indispensable tool.

27 Apr 2000

Thu, 27 Apr 2000 00:19:54 GMT

Hmmmm... I had a feeling that it had been a while since I posted to my diary.. this is a bad thing. I really should post to here more often as I do work on a bunch of things... I will be heading off to visit roguemtl tomorrow evening. I have a flight and will arrive around 9:00PM. Roguemtl and myself will be going to visit the Free Software Foundation on Friday. It should be a good meeting with much to come out of it. Also possibilities of me stepping up my efforts for the FSF for the forseeable future. They do a lot of good work and the least I can do (since monetary donations are something I cannot give at the moment) is to volunteer my time. Poor college student donates all time to FSF :)... fails out of college :P).

Apparently last night I accomplished the impossible. My computer science professor put up a bonus problem worth like 2 programming assignments and said "the first person to get this done will get the points... but I don't think any of you can do it." Well... I proved him wrong no less than 24 hours later. I could have had it done earlier but I was fooling around with c functions to do it and thought.. He is gonna make me rewrite it in c++ using the standard functions so I basically wrote two versions of it. Does it work well... hell no... but it does exactly what he wanted and I think for what it does it was written fairly well. At any rate he can shove his boot in his mouth.

And another thing about my Comp. Sci. professor. He really is a jerk. He returned a test the other day (I did not take it due to being in Chicago at Comdex with LinuxFund.org) and apparently almost everyone did bad on it. He said "Well, nobody did very good on the test... good thing the class is offered again in the summer." I mean how much tact can you not have... this dude does not belong where he is.

Well... another successful day of helping other Comp. Sci students with their homework. I successfully helped megan and patrick finish off their programs today. They are definitely not pieces of art but I helped them clean em up and work a bit better... they should be satisfactory now.

I didn't do to well on my Calculus test from the other day... I really need to study a bit more and pay more attention to what I am doing. The TA graded very leniently and I just made a lot of stupid mistakes. I jsut need to make sure that I do a lot better this quarter than I did last quarter. Last quarter was a wreck.

And now for the fun stuff... thinking into the future. I am gonna head up north back home to Oberlin a week from this friday. I am gonna visit my Croatian friend up at John Carroll in University Heights. Also gonna take some stuff back home with me while I am at it. It should be a lot of fun. Mother also told me they got a hot tub... gotta remember my swim trunks... will be fun.

What am I gonna do this summer. I have to find myself a job doing somethign I like and I am not really sure I want to work with the school system I have been working with for the past few years. A Windows network admin is just no fun at all anymore. There is not a lot to it besides reinstalling windows and programs on computers that the students messed up. Perhaps I can find a Linux consulting position up in the Cleveland area... feel free to email me on it if you have one khemicals@marblehorse.org.

I think this is plenty long enough and plenty good enough to make up for the lack of posts for a while. I hope you enjoy and keep reading my diary. I also thank those who certified me.

/me goes out to return some movies at block buster

/me sends out the subliminal message to see the movie UHF... great movie

/me reminds people not to rent movies without reading the back of them first. You might see somethign you have already seen.. like arlington road... which is a good movie.

17 Apr 2000

Mon, 17 Apr 2000 01:17:26 GMT

I have been working on a few things today. This first project started around midnight and I have been working on it since I woke up on and off. I have been working on creating a logo for the Marble Horse Free Software Group. I finally came up with a decent looking horse and just recently changed that black horse to look like a marble horse. GIMP is a slick tool and playing with layers is fun.

Another thing that I have worked on today is the Free Software Directory for the FSF. We released some docs to them today of which I will be publically releasing for all to read after they go through them and make sure they are on target. I want to make sure this project meets as many people's needs as possible.

I am also going to start working on testing the CVS version of Spruce for Jeff Stedfast. He requested that I beat on it for a while. I think I can handle that job :)....

Also of note is that I will be at Comdex this week. If anyone cares to meet me stop by the LinuxFund booth. They have asked me to help represent them there.

15 Apr 2000

Sat, 15 Apr 2000 01:28:19 GMT

wow, its been a few days since I posted...

I have been fooling around with Opium a bit more lately. It has been a fun project but I think the codebase we have now will be scrapped, but oh well. I need something that is functional :).

I resigned my position as a Stampede GNU/Linux developer today along with 21 others. The text of the resignation letter can be found at khemicals.org.

I can't think very well at the moment about what to put in here but all I can say is it has been an interesting day and if anyone has any questions for me about anything (specifically the resignation) don't hesitate to email me and I will get back to you.

11 Apr 2000

Tue, 11 Apr 2000 02:52:36 GMT

Well today has been a good day until about an hour ago. My main development machine went down. I stress that that is not a good thing tm. Playing with things but the issue seems pretty intermittant. At times it will boot up and all is well, others it won't even go through the POST and other times it will hang on OS load... now this is just funky.

Worked on the program a bit that I mentioned on the 7th. I did a lot of reading and thinking. Still figuring out the best way to do things. I got tired of waiting for my professors to teach me new programming concepts so I pulled out O'Reilly's Practical C and learned a bit more. Having a few problems here and there ridding my mind of evil c++ habits... comparing strings using == and things of the sort. STAY AWAY... it is ugly :)

The perl script I was using yesterday for log conversion to HTML I scrapped and found a better one in c. I then took that and modified it to meet my needs. It is a lot more suitable now and I even fixed some bugs it had . I may submit those back to the original author. Only a few lines of code. Gonna see if my other machine will boot up so I can pull the code from OPIUM off of it, that is the name of the program I am writing for Stampede.

10 Apr 2000

Mon, 10 Apr 2000 03:48:02 GMT

Yet another exciting Sunday here in Cincinnati... Boy I cannot wait till I don't have to eat the food plans here at the University next year.

I have been working a log with roguemtl on a project for the FSF. The specifications document for the Free Software Directory is almost done pending the inclusion of a section from dexter . This should hopefully pan out to be a nicely organized and finished document with minor modifications needed by the FSF staff. The document has been going very quickly and then hopefully we can finish the next spec doc on the database prior to my trip out to Boston. I have spent a lot of time on it this past week... roguemtl has too.

Hax0red up a little perl script and PHP3 today working on some eggdrop irc log to html and then had to change the php3 to redirect to the html log rather than plain text. I will probably rewrite it in c or c++ pending time to do so or tomorrow afternoon, whichever omes last.

well off to help Megan with her CS2 assignment... fill in more later.

9 Apr 2000

Sun, 9 Apr 2000 01:50:42 GMT

I had a lot of fun last night despite the Reds losing to Chicago. I got to soak in a hot tub at the Triangle Fraternity house for ~2 hours while it rained down on us. It felt really good.

I and others went around Cincinnati today and looked at houses. We are looking for a place to live next year off campus so that we may have a little quiet and more room. This is fun but also tiring. I hope we can get a place soon that is suitable for our needs. There are 7 of us looking so it is hard to please all.

Working on a document that I am gonna submit to the FSF on Monday regarding a project I am working with them on. I am hoping to have it finished tonight with the help of roguemtl and dexter. I need to get a bit more done before I go to Boston on the 28th of April. I just hope I don't have any tests on the 28th as I really want better grades this quarter.