The Misadventures of Dan
Peer into the mind of Dan as he tries to build an MP3 Player for his PDA and searches for the next thing in his life be it an electrical engineering job or graduate school.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
.:8:42:44 PM:.
TCP/IP, Sockets, C oh my!
I just came across this site, its a quick primer (with examples) on how to use sockets.
.:12:44:54 AM:.
Almost Over
So exhausted-hopefully done finished with almost all of it. I wrote my final midterm today for my VLSI/Integrated Cicuits design course. It wasn't that bad, had plenty of time to study, write down my formula sheet. The fun came after the midterm, when we had to write up and hand in our lab write up for the SCR Interface lab in 570. The weird thing was, our circuit worked the first time! This may never happen again, and I just wanted to make a note of it! Yay!
My mind is mulling more and more about getting a new layout/design for the page. I'll keep the current one as a style, but from what I see-there just aren't enough people out there using CSS-compliant browsers. As a result the top links get mushed up when you pretty much look at it from any other browser. So more CSS to the rescue! Yep, I've pretty much decided that I'll finish up a few small projects on hand-and get a new layout up and running by the weekend-if possible. I'm thinking of reverting to a lighter-tone, maybe more subdued-not quite sure yet.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
.:8:02:48 PM:.
Jurassic Park all over again
I just finished reading "Prey" by Micheal Crichton, it wasn't bad. Perhaps it was a slightly bad move to pick up a book during midterms but well-what can you do? I can sometimes go through books as quickly as Japanese people change tech fads. I knew that once I picked up "Prey" I would have to read it right away. And I did.
"Prey" takes the whole nanotechnology, artificial life programming, and genetic engineerings and weaves a tale in which a company, Xymos creates, a swarm of nanoparticles that are programmed to do just one thing, accomplish their goal. Be it hunting down rabbits, people, evolving to imitate other people. The focus, like Jurassic Park, is about those who go the lengths without considering the consequences of what they're really doing. Its really another "Frankenstein". What interested me was the whole concept of agents, not as a nanoparticle but the programming concept, how programs can act individually and still work in a group. I find that very interesting-yet I'm not exactly sure how to implement it.
That's one of the things that intrigues me the most about new things, learning something new, then figuring out how to use that. Theoretical knowledge is always great, but for me, I get my kicks in seeing the application of it. Of course you can use this technology/methods to create (maybe) some insane new class of intelligent thing which can speak (read the book), move (read the book), or kill (read the-you get the idea). At the same time I'm pretty interested in how I could apply this idea. Hmm... another project maybe?
Sunday, February 23, 2003
.:1:40:21 AM:.
All that jazz...
I spent some time going to a movie with a friend of mine... I dunno, like I said before all of this, was the bonus, only God does. We watched 'Chicago', the movie made based on the broadway musical. It was really well done. I didn't know Richard Gere could tap dance, I didn't know Renée Zelweiger and Catherine Zeta-Jones could dance and sing either. Its different from 'Moulin Rouge', because 'Moulin Rouge' was a musical movie, whereas 'Chicago' is more like (to me) a broadway movie. Its like watching 'The Sound of Music' versus 'Les Misérables' on Bravo-totally different. But I thought they did Chicago quite nicely. I guess I was sort of used to it, like the transitions between Broadway stage and movie set was nothing new-but at the same time it felt natural. To do it any other way would lose its flashy broadway feel.
As my friend put it, she felt sorry for John C. Reily's character, Amos, Roxie's (there-should-be-a-little-heart-to-dot-the-'i') husband. Roxie(there-should-be-a-little-heart-to-dot-the-'i') in the end wins, because she gets what she wants-fame, and in a way at least Amos left, he didn't stick by her getting pushed over. The singing is great, the storyline is perfectly broadway, the style is amazing-different from 'Moulin Rouge' but different in a good way. Go see the movie!
