Today's Strange Visitor Award goes to someone in the Tampa Bay area who got to my site through a Google search for "facebook account so i can see girl". At the time of posting, I am the 7th result.

Check it out for yourself:
Google: facebook account so i can see girl [google.com]

It's called going out and making friends with girls. Facebook isn't going to automagically make you friends.

In one of the ITaP labs on campus. Just loaded up my site with Safari because I could (using a Mac), and wow, are there some rendering differences.
*sigh*.

Need to figure out why it's being rendered the way it is, and how to possibly fix it. I don't have constant access to Safari, but to the KDE users (using Konqueror) out there, do you notice the following:
- the list of 'friends' is all on one line
- style switching buttons are still input type buttons
- some text may overflow or be on a single line

Seems like the WoF2 site works just fine in Safari.

TSA callout. Same as last time, same inconsiderations. *sigh*

DDR with Hali. Hard drive died again when copying songs. Played on PS2.

Math homework was all on said hard drive. Finished re-doing it at 1:30.

MA266 power hour tomorrow with Vicky. Need to get some sleep.

Hopefully the drive will recover itself sometime. I need to figure out a permanent solution for this.

Finished (hopefully) the rest of the 'Lara' template- comment styles as well as a few changes to the index code to make things display properly. If you find any bugs, please tell me and I will fix them. Be sure to include a description and where to find it (URL works nicely).

And as teh Seanasaurus [xanga.com] pointed out, IE conveniently makes the style switcher disappear if you switch to another style and back. This is a known bug, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it. Well, that, and I haven't expended too much effort to do so.

Taiwanese Student Association (TSA) callout is tonight. I'm heading out soon.

I should be asleep right now. It's something like 12:45 on Sunday night/Monday morning and I have an 8:30 class.

Played badminton with Terence and Vicky earlier today. The birdies were way too light, and the rental rackets (I had my own) were warped. Oh well. I need to get some good birdies to play with.

Um, was Photoshopping a CD cover, and I stumbled across the layout I was making for Lara but never finished. Charles walked in at that time, and he said something to the effect of "that better not be your website" and "that's a horrible color scheme for a guy". Well, guess what? It's now an alternate stylesheet. You can view it by switching the style layout to 'Lara'. Tina, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Note: the comment links are 'invisible' right now, since they're the same color (white) as the background. I haven't made the comments styles yet, but I will soon. That's the only limitation right now.

Okay, sleep time.

Okay, so I made it through the first week of classes.

The 364 lecture moves extremely fast, but that's because there's a lot of material to cover. Good thing the notes are online so I can look ahead.

It's been a good week, though. Not too much homework, got to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a while, meeting new people, etc. Getting back into the college routine.

Didn't really do much last night except play CS with Vickie (which wasn't terribly exciting or last very long), attempt to do homework, and watch Charles, Ed, and Mike play a tower defense map in WarCraft 3 for a few hours. We're going to Dwayne/Justin/Rick/Wyp's townhouse tonight, though. Should be interesting.

Am acting vice-president of Asian Cinema Society now. Terence decided to change the name so we can include a wider range of movies. Will have more information about our events soon.

Did I mention that Pablo, the Associate Dean of Students has a Facebook account? President Jishke has one as well.

Second day of class. I had a 9:00 power hour for MA266. The professor, Ben Walter, is just like Professor Bell, except younger. Seems like he's a bit new to the whole teaching process... maybe he just needs a little bit of time to adjust. He's interesting, though. Shouldn't have any problems with it.

I also had ECE364 lab today. Between math and the lab, I was in one of the computer labs on campus using a Mac. I can probably deal with using one, but some of the keystrokes are different. I could probably adjust pretty well, though.

ECE364 was pretty interesting. As Charles said, we're going to be learning Korn Shell as well as Python. We're using RCS (revision control system) to turn in and manage the code, which is a good idea. I have an old ECE270 TA, Sungwook Yoon for that class. He's a funny guy. Will be having fun in this class. Although Ed isn't in my lab section, he's in my lecture on Friday.

My day consisted of:
ECE255
ECE202
ECE270
no orchestra.

Orchestra doesn't start until next week.

So, my schedule said WTHR 320 (a room in the chem building) for my first class, but when I got there, it was some ME class. Turns out they swapped rooms, and my class was actually in ME156. The professor was late, too. First, he went to LILY thinking it was WTHR, and then realized it wasn't even in WTHR.

I have the Furg for 202. Hopefully I'll do okay.

I think I've secured a violin. While I was getting a locker for orchestra (sharing with Emily now), I started talking to this guy called Eric. His parents are affiliated with Purdue, and so I went and talked to them. Went to his house and "practiced" violin (first time playing in like 3.5 months), and walked him through some of the UNIX stuff.

Just watched someone give up a Warcraft 3 match in about 5 minutes. Oh, and Mike won the tournament. Sweet.

I'm at Purdue now. Moved in, slowly unpacking.

Don't want to unpack too much, since the room will probably get moved around. Need to wait until Ed gets here.

Mom is now a level 15 nagmaster. That, and excelling at being redundant. Oh well.

Let's see what's going on tonight.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I forgot my violin at home. I'm in orchestra, too. Oops.

Currently at OSU. Will be going to Purdue tomorrow.

Posting from my sister's computer.

Since my laptop hard drive died, I'm using a 4.2GB drive via an external USB hard drive enclosure as my primary drive now. I had one heck of a time trying to get Linux to boot up; it was kernel panicking (there HAS to be a better term for this) because it wasn't finding /dev/sda (this is how most USB drives are noded), but the USB/SCSI scan was literally finding it 5 seconds later.

Final solution? I followed the instructions from a certain website that I don't have, because I was booting from a live CD at the time (which doesn't carry over profile changes). I'm going to reproduce the steps below, in case anyone gets to here searching how to do so. If I had the link, I would post that instead.

Note that these instructions are for Ubuntu. There are instructions for other distributions; I know, because I found and read them.
1. Install Ubuntu in 'expert' mode. This is so that we can execute a shell before the system reboots.
2. Before you 'finish' the install (one of the choices), select 'Execute a shell'.
# cd /target/etc/mkinitrd
# nano modules, and add the following to the end:
sd_mod
ehci_hcd
uhci_hcd
ohci_hcd
usb-storage
3. Save and exit nano, then open mkinitrd.conf and change DELAY=0 to DELAY=10 (or higher value). This is to allow the kernel to load and detect USB devices before the kernel attempts to mount the root filesystem. This is the problem that I had.
4. Since we changed the initrd parameters, we have to make the new initrd image.
First, we chroot (change root directory) to /target/, so that everything is relative to the new install:
# chroot /target/
# mount -t proc none /proc
5. To actually make the new image, we execute:
# mkinitrd -o /boot/usbinitrd.img
This can be named whatever you wish, and can include the kernel version at the end. Make sure you remember what this is called (you can always switch to another virtual console and check), as you will have to update your grub (or lilo) configuration.
6. Nano didn't want to load when I was in the chrooted environment, so first I did
# exit
to return back to the original environment. Remember to prefix /target/ on the paths.
# nano /target/boot/grub/menu.lst
Find the first uncommented kernel entry, and comment out (put a # at the beginning of the line) the initrd line.
Below it, type in
initrd /boot/usbinitrd.img # Make sure this matches your initrd image filename!
The comment is optional, but is commented out in case you typed it in so it won't affect the configuration. You can also put the appropriate number of tabs so everything lines up nicely.

For LILO, I don't remember exactly how the configuration file works, and I'm not sure where Debian/Ubuntu places lilo.conf. However, since you are probably outside of the chrooted environment, the way to set up LILO so that it goes in your bootable drive is to execute something like this:
# lilo -c /target/path/to/lilo.conf -M /dev/sd[x] -r /target
The -c specifies the configuration file path, the -M installs to the MBR on /dev/sd[x] (where [x] is the appropriate device), and the -r tells lilo the path to the actual root of the filesystem. You should do a lilo --help to make sure I haven't said anything incorrectly.

That should be enough to get Ubuntu to boot from an external USB drive. When you boot up, you will see a 'Wait 15 (or whatever DELAY was set to) seconds or press ENTER for a shell' message. If you want the system to continue booting as normal, do not enter a shell. After the specified delay is reached, the system will continue to boot normally. If, at that time, you still get a kernel panic, try increasing the delay time, as the modules may not have been loaded and the devices may not be ready yet.

Hope this helps.

An apology to the non-technical oriented visitors. I should implement categories, but that's still under debate.

From Benton's sweet site [net.tc], more specifically one of the questions of the day [geocities.com]:
[quote=Charles]People who overdose on ccylan tend to become numb in the head anyway.[/link]

How true.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm back stateside. I got my luggage yesterday night around 10ish. Went to sleep a short while after that, and woke up at 2PM today.

I am half-way unpacked, and will be packing tomorrow for Purdue. Currently finished digging through the 4.2G hard drive I have, which is connected by the nice USB external hard drive case I bought in Taiwan. I will use it as my primary hard drive until I get another one. My remaining backup drive has most of my music on it, as well as my old home directory image. I will most likely be loading that along with Linux up on the 4.2G drive to use. Or should I use XP?

I will probably be doing the install tonight. Need to figure out what to take to Purdue tomorrow.

I saw Jummie online for a brief while. Her laptop died, current condition unknown.

Back. My two pieces of checked luggage are back in Chicago. Possibly arriving here tonight.

Made it through immigration and customs without any difficulty. I had to walk the entire length of the B concourse at Terminal 1 at ORD. I barely made the last flight.

Kinda tired, but that's because I'm jetlagged. The world is kinda swaying right now.

I'll listen to the voice recordings I made during the flight and write a post around it.

My bed is really soft. That was to be expected, though.

I'm packing the computer now. Will see most of you guys stateside in a few days.

I'll write some more thoughts at a later time.

Went to the world's tallest building (as of time of posting) this afternoon. Not only does it hold the title of world's tallest building, it also holds the titles of world's tallest occupied floor and tallest structure (probably for the spire on top).

The building is pretty amazing, in terms of the engineering and construction. It has the only publically viewable wind dampening ball, which is suspended from floor 92 to 87. There are a few more of them throughout the building.

Networking for the building consists of two 10Gbps fiber-optic lines, with "microwave satellites" and "satellite uplinks" as a redundant communication system. Talk about high latency. =) In the event of a power failure, the building's backup generator can sustain 70% of the building's electrical requirements.

The observation deck is on the 89th floor. From there, you can see pretty much all of Taipei, and a small glimpse of the Taiwan Strait near Dan Shui.

In order to get to the 89th floor, you have to take the world's fastest elevator (but I'm sure there are stairs). I'm not sure how high up the 89th floor is, but the building is supposedly 509 meters tall. The elevator travels at about 1010 meters per minute, or around 60 kilometers per hour. Google says this is 37.6550942 miles per hour. I won't get into the technical details of the elevator, but the atmospherically sealed capsule is shaped for aerodynamics, and features a "spoiler" at both ends. All it needs is some hydros and some rims.

We made a telephone call from the observation deck. The touch screen was poorly calibrated; it was off to various degrees, such as having to press near '5' to get a '3', and around '8' for a '9'.

Oh, and I was wearing my BTFU shirt. So, there's a BTFU from the world's tallest building for you.

Earlier, before lunch, my cousin and I went to the store where I bought the MP3 players to swap a cable, since it was a USB extension cable rather than the device cable. The older model of the player used the extension cable, and so it was mistakenly placed with this one. No hassles, just a simple exchange. Later, we went to some political party's headquarters (I think the KMT?) to look for flags. Charles and I want to hang some up in our rooms next year. Too bad they only had some crappy small ones (that were less than 2"/61cm wide) and some huge ones (size 6 and 7). I ended up getting a nice hat, though. No buffalo hat this year, folks.

Anyway, I'm packing right now. There's stuff that my dad wants me to take back for him, and it's raping my space. I have two bags of 'fried flour' that hopefully won't be mistaken for any illegal substances, as well as some fried/dried onions. I also have a few books, two of them which are technical manuals, that I probably won't read since they're in Chinese, as well as the equipment I bought here. I think I can get it all to fit, though. Too bad I'm carrying back two dead hard drives. I think that's a bit ridiculous.

My flight is at 10:10 tomorrow morning; I'll be on later tonight (morning Stateside), but I'll probably be packing up my computer before I go to sleep.

I'll see some of you guys soon.

My hard drive is dying/dead.

You have no idea how pissed off I am. First Psyche's hard drive dies, and now mine is acting up. What the fuck.

Hopefully I'll be able to grab at least some of the data off of it, especially the development code.

OMG. I am not pleased. That's putting it very lightly.

Went through pretty much the entire 'computer district' today twice. Finally bought three MP3 players.
I got the price each down to 2050, and when I paid, he gave me back 100 instead of 50. =) Total cost was 6100.

Need to go test it out.

I was working on pump shotgun skills, and I noticed that I got 400+ damage with the M3. That's about the same as a headshot with an AWP. So, I did some further testing, and managed to get 684 damage with one hit. Here's a screenshot [purdue.edu].

Quoting aphor:

I have a theory that iTunes Party Shuffle uses computed Eigenvalues [wikipedia.org] of your iTunes library to compare the end of one track to the beginnings of other tracks and find a good match so that songs flow together.

So, add 'coming up with theories on certain algorithms' to the uses of linear algebra.

Pretty interesting, nonetheless.

IM Conversation with Xine:
Linux 2.6.12.3 and the ipw2100 drivers aren't playing nicely for me. :sigh:

I just finished all of UserFriendly, up to and including today's comic. I read through about a year and a half's worth.

I am a half-webdesigner [userfriendly.org].

And my dad is still checking his email.

Terence is up for various reasons. Usually I see Vicky on at this time, but she's already done with her internship and is probably home.

Well. I think I'm going to boot into Linux and putz around for a while.

This is the THIRD typhoon since I've been here. At least this one isn't supposed to pass over Taiwan. It's not that pronounced in the satellite image, but it's the white blob to the south of the Taiwan outline.


Hopefully it won't affect my flight plans.

A guy is taking a walk and sees a frog on the side of the road. As he comes closer, the frog starts to talk. 'Kiss me and I will turn into a princess.' The guy picks the frog up and puts it in his pocket. The frog starts shouting, 'Hey! Didn't you hear me? I'm a Princess. Just kiss me and I will be yours.' The guy takes the frog out of his pocket and smiles at it and puts it back. The frog is really frustrated. 'I don't get it. Why won't you kiss me? I will turn into a beautiful princess and do anything you ask.' The guy says, 'Look, I'm a computer geek. I don't have time for girls. But a talking frog is cool!'

Original source unknown.

Ever since reading Tina's entry on college advice [blogspot.com], I decided to share a few thoughts of my own. However, I never got around to writing this entry until now.

So. You've made it through high school, and probably had your most memorable summer. Now, you're about to begin a new chapter in life: college.

'What's it like?', you might wonder. Think of high school, but with your classes distributed among the week. You will have lots of free time, or so it seems. You must use the time you have wisely, which brings me to the first point:

Manage your time.
Use the time between classes to your benefit. Review your notes following a lecture, while the knowledge is still fresh in your mind. Review (or actually read) the assigned reading before attending a lecture. Work on a homework problem, so you won't have quite as much to do later. Take a nap. Every little bit you do adds up, and you won't feel quite as stressed if you only have to do five as opposed to ten homework problems that night.

Make new friends.
Chances are that you won't have any friends going into college. Just about everyone else is in the same position. Be friendly, meet as many people as you can. You can always scale back your circle of friends later if you need to.

Make sure you meet people in your own area of study, as you will have a basis for a study group. Make sure you meet people not in your area of study, since a group of engineers (for example) might be a bit eccentric .

Make sure you contact your roommate before school starts. You will have at least one person you know.

Study habits.
It's important to have good study habits. In college, no one other than yourself can actively force you to study. Sometimes, you must rely on yourself and your classmates to learn the material. If you are given assigned reading, actually read it. Take good notes, and actually refer to them. Make use of office hours. If you can get good marks in college by relying on knowledge you already have, then why do you need to be in college?

What to bring?
Space will be limited. Try not to bring too much.

Clothing. Make sure you have suitable clothing for the local climate. Have at least one set (two, if possible) of formal wear.

Alarm clock. You don't want to be late for class. It also serves as a timepiece for your room.

Bedding material, toiletries, and anything else you use on a daily basis. Consult your housing information, as some of these may be provided. I usually bring enough to last the entire semester.

Bring one item from your room that makes you feel at home. Keep it small, or something that you know will fit easily.

As for appliances, discuss this with your roommate. You only need one of something.

Headphones. Not everyone wants to listen to your music.

After a few months, you will have a better idea of what you need and don't need. Adjust accordingly.

Try something new.
Why should college be the same routine? It's a good time to try something new. Take some classes in which you have interest. Pick up a new hobby. College is perhaps the last chance you will get to try something new before going off into the "real world".

Final thoughts.
College is a time where you can start anew. If there's something that you want to change about yourself, do so. When you're meeting people for the first time, you can always shape the impression you give. What they remember from the first time you meet them is usually what they will remember.

Keep a balance between fun and study. Remember that you are in college to learn, but also remember to have some fun. Just remember your priorities. If you're going to college to party, why pay the multi-thousand cover charge?

Drinking. Remember that there are consequences for under-age drinking if you do get caught. If you do drink, make sure you are in good company and know your limits. I've had several friends rushed to the hospital because of alcohol poisoning. Be careful.

Hopefully you will find some of this information useful. After going to college, you may find something written above to be completely different. Be sure to share your findings if you do so. There's always the group of college-bound students next year.

Revision One:
I forgot to mention some things like stress. You will be stressed, but do try to manage it in a healthy manner. One thing I learned from engineering is knowing when to give up. By that, I mean that there will be a certain point where it's 'good enough', and at that time, you need to move on to something else. As much as I don't like doing it, I've found it to be absolutely necessary.

Like just about every other EE related thing I did this summer, I simulated burning my mix to CD. Why? I don't have any blank CDs.

Yes, that's right, all of my CDs are in Taipei. I also need at least 4 CDs to do make some backups. After I burn the first copy, it's going to get tested in just about every CD player to which I have access.

Too bad I still can't mix, though. Otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with the CD.

I'm at the library again, probably for a good 4 hours or so. My dad has 63 unread messages in his inbox. I probably have none, since I checked it a few hours ago.

I'm actually on my laptop now. I can't do anything useful on the wireless network, and I don't really feel like breaking into it. I'm just stealing the ethernet cable on the computer I'm sitting at. They actually DHCP configure these computers.

Needless to say, I'm bored. Maybe I'll run through the mix again, or start working on the album art.

Well well well. Back in Changhua after spending the night in Tai Chung last night.

I did another run-through on my mix. The tracklist has been finalized, and it's actually under 80 minutes now.

I also watched Armin's liveset at Sensation 2005 White. How does he (or anyone) mix? Does he have a filter block, or is it just a mixer? Maybe the software mixer I have doesn't have high enough resolution, or maybe I can't actually control all the parameters at once (with the mouse). I really need to get a midi controller and soundcard. Oh, and he ends with Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit. If I was there, I would have gone ballistic.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'll be doing tomorrow. I think I'm going back to Taipei on Thursday.

So, I only have a little bit over a week left on the island.

Back in Changhua right now. I spent most of yesterday and today mixing. Haven't made any progress, really. My mixing skills are still pretty bad. I still don't understand how people mix with two turntables and a mixer. Maybe I just haven't got the skill down yet.

Serenity, the Sensation 2005 White Anthem, is really growing on me. I may include it a later mix that I make.

Hopefully this next week won't be a waste of my time; I'm pretty anxious to get back to the US. I know I've said that before, but it couldn't be more true.

I did a run-through of the tracklist (with one major trainwreck) today and found out I'm over the 80-minute mark.

For some reason, the program I was converting from .wav to .mp3 was changing the left/right channel balance, and I haven't figured out why. Oh well. I used another program, and I'm listening to it now.

My dad had his class reunion today. The punch was spiked. I think I had maybe 5 or 6 cupfuls. I basically mixed the entire time.

Too bad nobody's on during this time; Vicky's on her way back to Wisconsin, and Xine's already home. Nobody gets up this early. Oh well.

At least, I think that's what it's called.

I really haven't seen any strong winds. Maybe some last night, but not as bad as a few weeks ago, with Haitang. It's raining, though. It's pretty heavy at times. It's really not that much bothersome, but today, while traveling to Taipei, I got to witness some flooding. It was sort of like the Missouri River flood in St. Louis back in, oh, 1993 or so, where the low-lying areas around the river were completely swamped. About 200 or 300 meters from where the river normally would have been, there were these really high (like four-story high at least) walls that protected the rest of the city.

Anyway, I finished the tracklist for a CD mix I'm making. Now to actually mix it. My mixing skills aren't up to par yet.

This is the second one since I've been here.

After a lot of putting off on the search function, I finally implemented it. I think I've worked out most of the bugs (I dare not say all), and have uploaded it to the live site. You can find it in the sidebar on any of the templates, except for 'Green Tea', which does not have a sidebar. I have been considering fixing this.

If you do find any bugs or strange behavior, please notify me. As always, include a description of the bug, and how to duplicate the bug.

Okay, it's official. I'm leaving Nan Kai on Friday morning to go to Taipei, and won't be going back. Nothing planned for tomorrow, except the professor is giving me two golf VCDs. I need to arrange everything on this end as well as transportation. I guess I'll do that tomorrow.

This only gives me one day to talk to Girl. Oh well.

Search function is in the works. I need to figure out how that is going to work, too.

I know this is old, but I stumbled upon it again. Don't think I've posted it before.
Rock, Paper, Saddam [rockpapersaddam.com].

Beats the hell out of my RPS program for TI-89.

I'm testing if my web host has MySQL configured to handle unicode.

Chinese: ç´�
Korean: �보��
Japanese: �����

I have no guarantee on whether the Korean or Japanese strings actually mean anything.

EDIT: guess not. I'll have to figure out a way around it if I'm going to post in any of those. Not a big deal.

This proxy is filtering Purdue webmail and GMail. I can't connect to either one. I know they are both up and available... I SSHed into one of the MSEE190 computers and checked.

At least I don't have any new (worthwhile) mail.

So, I'm back at Nan Kai. Earlier today, the professor wanted me to go over to the MM department, and it turns out that he wanted me to solder some stuff. Well, first off, I've never formally learned how to solder, and haven't really done much soldering anyway. Of course, he's not there, and so I'm just putzing around, soldering random wires together. Oh, and there weren't any wirecutters, either.

He finally comes back around 3ish, and I get a phone call to go back over. First words out of his mouth were "this isn't how you do it". WTF. You're not here to teach me how to do it, and so I try to duplicate the effect of what I've seen on commercialized products. Maybe if you were here to show me how to do it right in the first place, I could actually do it 'right'. Geez.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what's going to happen with the whole 'embedded' and 'ARM' stuff. I'm supposed to talk to the other student tomorrow, but 1. I don't know if he's going to have the test equipment with him, 2. I'm supposed to see if he's done any of it before, and 3. I'm supposed to do some testing on the machine. Okay, that's fine, but I'm not going to be here for much longer, and if you're not going to actually start on the project (or even use the same embedded OS [Linux] as what I'll be working with), then what's the point? I think the organizational aspect has gone out the window on this.

Evidently there's another typhoon coming. Oh well.

Oh, and I saw Girl today.