robbat2 | Recent Entries

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Meat Loaf - I'd do anything for love

This morning, I was not impressed with being woken at 10am. It turned out, that despite the laws of chance and probability, another HP-UNIX workstation had failed at the paper mill in Trail, BC. Yesterday their primary workstation failed. It was replaced with the backup system. This morning, at 6am, the backup station failed. Luckily they had another workstation to use that seems to be working presently.

Anyway, one of my father's sub-ordinates was tasked to put together a replacement workstation to ship them immediately, and he hit a major problem. There were no 2 gigabyte SCSI drives to be found anywhere. My father called me, to ask what SCSI hardware I had. Waking me up at 10am during the holidays is not really recommended, esp. as I am currently taking my vacation from employment. I was not impressed. I grudgingly dragged myself out of bed, had a shower, and dug in my piles of old hardware to see what could be put together. I located a number of SCSI drives: 2x 1GiB, 1x 780MiB, 3x 520MiB. And an ancient Panasonic external SCSI CD-ROM drive. I took the bus to MetroTown to get picked up by my father there. He works in the industrial complex at the bottom of Boundry, where no busses go, except for 2 of them at 5pm and 6pm. Thusly, I was stuck there all afternoon, behind the extreme firewall in place there. I couldn't get out of it to do any productive work. Not even web browsing is allowed from inside. They ended up using the 1GiB drives and the 780MiB drive together with LVM (Logical Volume Management) to get a single large space area. I'll have to see what I can get out of them for giving them SCSI hard drives and CD-ROM.

Around 5.30pm, I managed to get a lift home with one of the other guys that was leaving. Since I didn't want to wait for my father to come home. (He normally gets home 8-9pm, but this evening he came home at 11pm).

I didn't get to the bank like I wanted to, nor get to ordering some new computer hardware from Fly Computers. However, I have managed to find a motherboard that will be suitable to repair galaxychild's computer. The first one I found wasn't right as it did not support MMX, but this other one does.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Paul Van Dyk - Live Rosenmontagsrave Radio (1 of 2)

Yet again, I haven't updated much for a few days. There is not much of a particular reason, except that I have not had many noteworthy things happening.

Saturday I didn't do much. Played Jedi Knight 2 some, nothing significent.

Sunday, I got up, had a shower, and was playing Jedi Knight 2 when Marissa showed up early to pick me up. She was going to show up around 2.30pm originally, but then showed up 1.45pm, so I grabbed my stuff together, and left. Went to a prize giving ceremony where she took first place for one thing, and got glass trophy & $500. (Look at her LiveJournal if you want a fuller report on it!) Then we went to her house, and pitched tent in the living room. It was a good thing we had the tent indoors, with all the nasty weather that was had. (Hail and big thunder). We put an double air mattress inside the tent, and had some nice camping together ;-). It is good to have anemities of indoors while camping ;-).

Monday I got up nice and late, 'cause sleeping with Marissa is nice and comfy ;-). I went to Yvonne's house to see about her computer. Previously it was thought that the video card had died, but instead, it turns out the entire motherboard died. I'll have to see if I have one that I can give her, but I am not certain. After that, I had to go and fix Jon's linux server, since he had some idiots around that thought they know linux that TRIED to get sound working. But they just messed up the system to the point that it did not even boot properly. Mixing modules between kernel versions is BAD!

This morning (Tuesday), I got up at 11.30am. Read the newspaper about some really friendly Dutch politician that was brutally murdered. Shot 5 times in the head is bad. Played Jedi Knight 2 some. I was going to go to see the 4.45pm showing of Spiderman at Tinseltown, but Tara was working until 5.30pm, so we changed plans to go to the 6.30pm show instead. I got there at 5.30pm to buy tickets, only to find that the only show I could get tickets for was 9.45pm, since the rest were sold out. I bought 2 tickets instead of 3, as I did not know if Tara wanted to wait that long. She did not, and Marissa and I went out for dinner at Milestones on Hamilton in Yaletown before our movie. I was really happy with my Red Chicken Curry, but Marissa did not find her Seafood pasta, nor her chocolate cookie to be good. Back to the movie house to line up early. Marissa had a bit of a dizzy spell, so she took a nap in my lap while we waited. We saw the movie. It was quite good. Aftering reading Marvel comics all through my Math 12 Honours class instead of paying attension to the teacher, I knew a lot of the comic plotlines. I still managed to get a B+ in the class after that, and good marks on every test, and make it to the American Invitional Mathematics Examination (AIME). Afterwards, I saw Marissa onto the skytrain at Stadium station, and made sure that she had managed to contact her parents successfully before going on my way. I was going to Hastings and Granville to catch the last 151 Coquitlam bus, but I got there a bit late, enough to see the bus on Seymour and Hastings stopped at the traffic light. The bus started moving, and was a bit ahead of me, and I ran two and a half blocks to the next stop to catch it. I need to make myself fitter, because I used to be able to catch busses when I missed them like that a lot easier than it was tonight. Starting soon, I will need to see about proper exercise. I will take my brother's Discman, and put some good music in it, and go running or cycling more.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Merdith Brookes - I'm a Bitch

This week has been so totally different from my previous weeks. For the first time in nearly 4 months, I haven't had anything significent (work/school) to get up for. It's been wonderful just to relax now. I've been so lax that I haven't updated my LiveJournal even, so I will give a synopsis of events yet again.

Friday, April 26: Got in in the morning, and met with one of the people that I showed the FakeSpace software to. She had a program that she had written for her thesis years ago, in C, that rendered to a movie, since it was a lot of math. It took me a little while, but I ported over her program to our FakeSpace system, updating some of the code along the way, and then make it fast enough to run real time, with 3D :-). She was sufficently impressed that she has offered me a job starting in mid-May. This job will be doing what I want, coding C++ graphics stuff 24 hours a week. Since this last job ended this Friday, a new one starting in two weeks is really good. However, it is only for 4 weeks, as after that she is going away to Rotterdam for a month. At which point my previous boss wants to hire me back more! :-) On my way home in the evening, I stopped at Fly Computers with Patrick, intended to buy some speakers, but they didn't have the ones I wanted. Instead, on my way out to dinner later in the evening, I bought some Yamaha speakers and a 5 port ethernet hub second hand from Patrick. The speakers work well.
Saturday, April 27: Marissa came to my house, with her computer. She was going to get the bus to be here around 10am, but instead, her father gave her a ride, and I was woken at 9am with her arriving. Too Early! I moved hard drives around in her computer, got USB in place, and installed Linux along with Windows. We went cycling in the afternoon, and had lots of fun ;-P. In the evening, she went to take a nap, and I cooked dinner (Sphagetti Bolganse) and desert (Tipsy/Brandy Tart) both from scratch. After dinner, I set up my computer with my speakers and the monitor facing the bed in my computer room, and I watched Hackers with Marissa. It's a great movie. After that, it was getting late, so I finally told my parents that I sleep in the same bed with Marissa, which I had never done here at home before, and then went to bed with her. It's nice having somebody to cuddle with in bed.
Sunday, April 28: Woke up nice and late with Marissa. Had lunch, worked on her computer some more. Played Jedi Knight 2 with Marissa in the afternoon. I had a headache after that, so I lay down for a nap (with Marissa) around 4pm. I woke up at 9pm, instead of the 7pm that I had intended to. Had pizza for dinner, which my brother had cooked, and then my father gave her a ride home.
Monday, April 29: Woke up 8am, had a shower, fixed Tai's computers, dashed out to Surrey to meet with Mick and Norm for a business meeting about our new company that we are trying to start. Nothing much else happened.
Tuesday, April 30: Slept most of the day, played Jedi Knight 2 some. Went out in the evening to take Marissa to dinner. We ate at Urban Monk again, since the food was so good the last time I was there. Marissa had the Marinara tofu that Yvonne had previously, and I have Soyloin Steak. The steak tasted great, but there is a lot of work to be done on the texture side still. After that, we walked over to Cows on Robson for icecream. Then walked Marissa to the QE theatre for the Opera, which I couldn't see this time, as no tickets could be arranged for me. Next season i'll see about having my own tickets.
Wednesday, May 1: Went out Surrey way again, this time to go to Marissa's high school, North Surrey Secondary. While on transit, I noticed that Surrey would fit a description from star wars very well. It's a hive of scum and villiany, just like Mos Eisley. Her high school was ok, but the architecture is not as nice as Burnaby North. It is too repetitive and dull, almost depressing.
Thursday, May 2: I went to my father's work, intended to fix monitors and power supplies. The monitors are in such a state that they are not worth fixing, and should just be tossed. I've found a batch of suitable monitors that work to replace them with. Great for server monitors that only support 640x480. Went out for lunch with my father, his secretary and one of the south african co-workers, to the pub that they normally go for lunch. Had a decent Teriyaki chicken burger. It's a nice place there. On my way home, I picked up a 20gb drive and some RAM from Jon.
Friday, May 3: Woke up nice and late again. Played Jedi Knight 2 some. Worked on hardware. Jon's 20gb drive doesn't work. I'll try to see about fixing it some time, not now. The hard drive on my brother's computer failed, so I'm busying installing windows on a backup system for him to use. He has a project due monday, that was assigned 3 weeks ago, and he hasn't started on it yet.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love

I saw this philosophy test in ministerphobia's journal, and I took it. It is a very interesting look into seeing if you are fair in your evaluations of evolution and religon.

My results

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Vanessa Mae - Collection 2000\01 - Classical Gas

Ok, two days now I haven't updated, so I might as well.

Wednesday, I work on getting Nvidia display drivers into Linux, only to find that there is absoltely no support for video input. Bah! That sucks. Marissa (amethest) and her father came to see the FakeSpace system. I showed them, and set up the Bubbles demo with the MTC TacTex pressure pad. Worked on phpMyAdmin some during the day. Paid Patrick with lunch for helping me with one thing in it. I got a ride home with Patrick in the evening, and he had a GPS map unit on him, so I took down co-ordinates for my house: 49°15'52.02" N 124°58'33.78" W. That is accurate to about 7.5m. They exist in my DNS LOC record as well now.

Thursday, I got a ride to TechBC with Patrick in the morning. I was supposed to be doing a tutorial on the FakeSpace equipment for several people. Marissa came and paid me a surprise visit :-). One person shows up 5 minutes. The second person shows up 30 minutes late. So I don't end up doing the demonstration, since it's not worthwhile. I sent out an email about it, and then went out for lunch with Gordon, since he had offered to buy me lunch given that tommorow is my last day. I went back to try and redo the tutorial at 2pm. More people showed up this time, but neither of the two people that wanted it in the first place! I did it anyway, and saw a really nice demonstration of something Jagdeep is working on. MPEG4 video conferencing. Uses only 4kbps for a really nice quality, image size and 15 frames per second. Came home, and tidied up computer junk that was in my computer area.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Enigma - Return to Innocence

Bah! Misleading telemarketers are scum.

"Hello, I am calling from ADT Security. I am not trying to sell you anything ... (and she goes on for a while) ... Our representative will come and see your property, and if you allow us to put a small sign in your lawn, we will install a free security system. And for only $XX.XX each month, you can get a security response as well."

Not trying to selling anything eh? Sounds otherwise to me.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Delerium - Silence [DJ Tiesto Remix]

Armin Van Buuren - Live at Club O 18 03 2000 Today

I had a meeting with Norm and Mick, about our business idea for a web development/hosting/programming company, and had lunch, before going back to work.

In research presently, Tom has me working with a pair of USB webcams, trying to do some funky video stuff. We wanted to get four webcams working together originally, but we can only get two going together so far. I need to see if I can find another pair of identical cameras to use. Then we will get stereoscopic webcam vision on the FakeSpace system once I write a little program for it. Hopefully the other researcher is going to stay at TechBC as well, and I can see about getting another job in Research!

On my way home today, I stopped firstly at FutureShop Metrotown to buy a blank DVD-R. They had Verbatim DVD-R's on special, for $14.99+tax each. Then I got a 130 bus up to Hastings, got a Slushie, bought a DVD-ROM drive and some USB D-brackets at Fly Computers.

Then, I went to Mac's on Holdom and Hastings, and finished the process of returning the cellphone that I found yesterday. The owner's parents were happy to have recovered it. Their son, who is 17, and attends the high school at Canada Way, has lost four cellphones including this one. I guess this is my good deed (mitzvah) for a while, since I don't actively seek to do anything good for somebody most of the time. I generally just go, and if I feel like it, do some random act of kindness.

Current Mood: lonely
Current Music: James Horner - Braveheart\18 - End Credits

Just thinking. Not having Marissa to talk to, makes me lonely :-(.

Current Mood: lonely
Current Music: DJ Armin Van Buuren - Live at Club O 18 03 2000

DJ Armin Van Buuren - Live at Club O 18 03 2000:

(Catchy tune)
This is da SOS.
Sound of Saturday!
(Catchy tune)
Raise em up!
Raise em up!
(Catchy tune)
Raise em up!
(Extra Catchy tune)
DJ Armin van Buuren!
...

This piece really rocks. It's got a really nice beat, plus great synth work.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: DJ Armin Van Buuren - Live at Club O 18 03 2000

Yesterday was the first time I have gotten up early, by my own free will and volition, to get something done, in who knows how long.

I got up at 7.15am, took a shower, and went to catch the 151 bus with Marissa's headlamp. Even tho the bus came a few minutes late, it got me to granville and hastings about 5 minutes ahead of time, however that works. I walked down to Waterfront station, and met Marissa and her group of campers from SFU's OOC and PIRG. I was going to leave after dropping off the lamp originally, but I had a cinammon bun, caught the SeaBus over to Lonsdale Quay with them, and saw them all off to the bus. I took pictures with a digicam along the way, so I'll post those up a in a bit.

While I waited for the SeaBus back, I got a cup of hot chocolate. Went back, got on a 160 bus, thinking that I could get off at Holdom and Hastings, but no, the bus doesn't stop to let off passengers normally! Argh! How evil is it to trap people on the bus? Eventully at Sperling and Hastings somebody else was getting on the bus, so I got off there. Stupid Translink. Caught a 135 back to Holdom and Hastings, and walked up to Jon's place. In the park at the back of Capitol Hill elementary school, I heard something beeping, it was a cellphone, batteries nearly dead. I picked it up, and found a home phone number on it, and called to say I had the phone. I said the batteries are about to die, my number is 604-339..." then the phone died. I'm trying to find a charger that will fit, so I can charge the phone up to call the owner.

At Jon's place, I set up a Linux router running Slackware 8, while watching all of Serial Experiments Lain. That is a freaky show, but really neat in some ways. I like their computer systems!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Cream Anthems\09 - Biniary Finary - 1999

( Quiz Mania! )

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Vangelis - Five Circles

My boss just came by, with a package that he found while cleaning his desk. It seems that ACM (Associaction for Computer Machinery) sent him two SIGGRAPH2001 packages, and he gave me one. It's a heavy little box, with the complete proceedings printed in a book, as well as some cds of the proceedings, and a video of the cool SIGGRAPH stuff!

I'm going to get lunch now.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: UB40 - Red Red Wine

Since next week might be my last week, I am offering something up to everybody I know. Come to visit me at TechBC, so that I can show you the awesome computer hardware that I have access to here. Including an SGI supercomputer with 10ft X 20ft displays! Contact me on ICQ, or via email, or just leave a comment on this posting. The whole week except Thursday morning is available for people to come and see it, however, I need a bit of warning that you are coming (30 minutes or so) to sort out the security side of letting you in.

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Cream Anthems\02 - Solar Stone - Seven Cities

This is a long awaited LiveJournal entry now, given that my last entry was Thursday last week.

That Thursday night, I did not sleep, as I was working on assignments. At 6am I left and went up to SFU to see Marissa as a break from the work. My pile of homework was way too huge that week. I spent the weekend working on more assignments, and a bit of Linux to relax between homework.

This week I have had my final exams, and between them, I have been working in FakeSpace, as well as setting up a QuakeWorld server for TekKnights. I will put up some pictures of one of the projects in a bit. It is built entirely from duct tape and cardboard. Snakes and ladders with a new dimension to it. Some of the presentations that we had to give dragged on some, but they are all done now. The programming exam was easy as per usual, apart from one section that I had to think twice about. The math exam had one nasty question that nearly caught me:

Integrate:

6x^2 + 4x - 4
-------------
(x-1)(x^2+2)

None of the quizes had done partial fractions where one of the solution variables A & B contained an 'x', but this question required it.

I have also managed to get video displaying properly on the SGI Workstation, so that is going to become the system that does data backups to DLT tape soon.

Some promising news next. I'm seeing about doing more web development over summer, and depending on some details from SGI that I am trying to find out, and if one of my bosses collegues is staying with TechBC, they will put me on one of the few research projects that has retained it's funding, so that I will still be gainfully employed over summer!

My bank balance presently stands around $1,409.34, and I will probably get another $1000 odd by the time my job ends next week, as I am working nearly full time now, as I need the money.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Bon Jovi - It's My Life

This morning was really bad. I went to bed at 4.15am. I had my alarm set for 6.15am. I woke up at 6.45am. Realizing I was going to run late, I basically rolled out of bed, put on clothes and brushed hair, and walked out the door. I got 500m down the street, then realized I didn't have my keys, bus pass or TechBC ID. Return to home to get them. Made it on transit in time still luckily.

Our usual math instructor was away today, so we had some other guy. I think I did quite well in that quiz today, which makes a change from last week.

I am working on the piles of homework now.

Which Hacker's Character Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty

As dictators go, you're kind of pathetic! Instead of military coup or systematic persecution to get power, you just happen to be the head of the only party in the UK that isn't totally worthless! While not very impressive it is none the less effective! You can do whatever the hell you like without any chance of getting voted out of office! People know that the only alternative would have them eating their children if they ever got back into power! However, you still think that you are as loved as you were when you were first elected into power… News flash for you: You're not!

What tin-pot dictator are you? Take the "What Dictator am I?" test at PoisonedMinds.com

If I lived in Middle-Earth, it would be in:
Lothlorien or Rivendell

You prefer the tranquilty and peacefulness of nature and enjoy the milder seasons of the year. While you know it is necessary to keep in contact with other living beings, most of the time you enjoy the seclusion of an aesthetically pleasing, woodland environment.

Take the
"Where in Middle-Earth Would I Live?" Quiz
by