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.
Saturday, March 22, 2003
.:11:47:25 PM:.
The y'all-gonna-git-it-war?
So we were chatting around and we started talking about the name of this war. There were all sorts of stuff from "Attack on Iraq", "GW:2", and my personal favourite "y'all gonna git it".
.:11:04:40 PM:.
Bowling, DDR, Cellphone Oh My!
Fellowship was pretty fun yesterday night. We had planned on going to Gateway to go bowling, we hadn't planned on it being that busy and not being able to book lanes. So of course I had invited Greg to bowling-only bowling didn't happen at the expected time. So, while Greg was en route we went to Denny's to go grab a bite while we waited for open lanes.
Meanwhile I was waiting for a phone call from Pinky. I mean everything was sort of up in the air, she didn't really say she was going to call but she hinted. So every single time Greg called I was thinking "oh!! what if its her?" and then finally she did call! I was semi surprised (ok, I was happy) when I heard "Hello Danprime"-I just though that was really cool, I didn't think she'd actually say that. She said she was at BP's and that she might come by later on. We sort of knew this was going to happen because when I had invited her she had said that very thing may happen. Ahh well, no harm done, no love lost-its all good.
Anyways after building (Greg and I) a Tie-fighter out of these weird plastic things in Denny's we eventually got back to Gateway and then... I saw a DDR machine. Man oh man, I haven't ddr'ed in such a long time so we had to do it. At first no one else would, so thankfully Greg stepped up to the pad and did the first round. Making it uber-cool. That's what you have best friends for-they step on to the proverbial pad when no one else will. After getting used to it, everyone started to go on there. So by the end of the night, I had played two rounds of DDR, bowled a laughable score of 72, made one strike, and my "crowning achievement" dropped the ball on the back-release!!
That's right, you read correctly, I dropped the ball on the back swing. You see, when I grabbed the ball, I thought "hmm... the holes seem a bit large so why don't I jam my fingers in deeper?" So it was all good when I wound my arm back, and it was all good when I swung my arm forward, and yet when I was supposed to release the ball, nothing happened. uh oh. Now its not-so-good my arm swings back and before I know it BANG the ball dropped on the floor and some guy in the next lane goes "WOOO". Meanwhile Di was laughing like crazy. Bah, at least the place didn't catch on fire like last time ;)
So I'm driving home, almost ten blocks away when the cellphone rings. It was Pinky!! I couldn't believe it, she called to tell me that she just dropped off her last friend and was heading home. What a coincidence so was I... after a short conversation-we had a longer conversation online.
And now, I'm sure this was a huge post-but that's what went on.
Friday, March 21, 2003
.:6:20:55 PM:.
Weird Flip
So this algorithm question was sprung on me this morning:
An array of size n-1 is filled with numbers from 1 to n-each number is only filled once. Find which number is missing.
At first I thought the same thing as my friend just iterate through it with some kind of loop-since we're all brainwashed to use iterative loops, so of course the first answer is to say loop and check it against a global list. Although this method does work, it requires about n-squared operations. The question then becomes-can you make it any more efficient? The thing was, I wasn't pressured at all to solve this question unlike my friend. So I made a couple notes, drew a couple squares-then it came to me. Oh! Why not take the total sum of all the elements and just find the difference? The operation then requires only n+2 operations which is far better than n-square! I was pretty happy about figuring it out, but I guess it sort of disappointed my friend because it seemed so distant from the what you normally would do (keep in mind we hadn't done an algorithms course before). I couldn't believe it though, I figured it out-and then I wondered, if I were in the same situation, facing an interview, would I be able to solve it? Maybe I don't know-I think I sometimes feel rushed with phone interviews, there's that uncomfortable silence over the phone versus an in-person interview where people can see you do work. Anyways, all the time, I kept on wondering-why can't I do this when I have my own interview!?
.:12:46:12 AM:.
Javascript:GetElementById
I'm trying to get the new submenu to show up depending on which sub menu option you click on-but several things come to mind when you do it this way. I'm basing my menu on the CSS menu style I found earlier, and for some reason, when I take it out of the table from that page, I get an error message saying "object required" for the getelementbyid method. So, after a little bit of googling I found this page of javascript examples detailling the getelementbyid. It seems to return a pointer to the tag or object with the same id which you can then cascade and do 'stuff' with it.
Ideas are flowing for the "new" site-meeting people, I'm actually hoping I don't need to do too much. Just create a new stylesheet and allow you to switch back to the old one-that'd be keen :P
The biggest thing that bothers me with the site right now is the menu, I just don't like the way it doesn't hold in Internet Explorer versus it working in Mozilla. Lets face it, most of the people are using IE, even though its not completely standards compliant, yadda, yadda, yadda. I have to look and face the facts that people, be they potential employers or people wanting info, or random are going to be reading this site. I want it to be comfortable to read, a nice visual flow. Does this mean I'm selling out? Of course not, it just means more work :P
Thursday, March 20, 2003
.:3:37:09 PM:.
guh?(Information Over/Underload)
Are you dazed and confused? Don't know your left from your right? War from Peace?
Maybe you thought you were protesting for the right reason: "darn dat Bush, him and his nukes walking all over the place..." or maybe you're just anti-war. Admittedly, now that the war has started there is only one thing I can do-pray for a quick end with few casualties on either side. It is no longer the time to discuss whether or not we should support war-but at the same time its good to know where you stand on the issue and what there is.
Why there should be war...Why there shouldn't have been a war yet
Possible Outcomes from the war (pdf)
Gwynne Dyer
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
.:10:52:20 AM:.
Je ne suis pas un americain
Je protests l'action de la senat des Etats-Unis. Je penses que leur vote pour changer "French Fry" a "Freedom Fries" pour leur cafeteria est non pas seulement stupide, mais ridicules. Vas-tu changer le nom d'echecs chinoise a "Eastern Checkers"!?! Voici un exemple de la immaturite de notres voisins du sud. Leur mentalite vas nous tuer tous. Pourquoi pas concentre vos temps dans l'economie? Peut-etre c'est trop difficile et vous essaies de fair semblance que vous etes productive en votant pour un change de nom. Pourquoi pas discuter a propos le situation de votre education-ce n'est pas une surprise que la plupart de vous ne sache pas meme votre histoire exterieur de votre etat. Vous dites que tous le monde ne sache pas les contributions que vous aviez faites, mais c'est vraiement l'opposite. Souviens-tu de la Statue De Liberte? Votre revolution? Votre parternaires dans les commerces!?! Il faut que vous penses-parce que ca c'est qu'est-ce que la reste du monde faites!
In protest (and for your safety :P ) check out these sites:
www.iamnotamerican.com
Where do French Fries come from
Freedom Fries
About the UN Security Council
