Hello all, It is once again time for those magic things called final exams. It is the time when I will once more dissapear from the face of the earth for a few days into my little cave of studyness. On the trip to the caffine and sugar infused reading binge, Betty and I stopped at a drugstre for some sugary goodness.... We wound up with more then we though we would get.... Its the candy of the beast.... GARWA... (you would think they would make sure nothing in the store would add up to a total of 666)   Read the rest of the entry...

I've got the schedule for next year mostly worked up, check out the creamy goodness: Teaching & Research CMPS-200 Fall 2005 Advanced Operating Systems CMPS-221 Fall 2005 Programming Languages CMPS-203 Fall 2005 Storage Systems CMPS-229 Winter 2006 Analysis of Algorithms CMPS-201 Winter 2006 TA TA Winter 2006 Advanced Computer Security CMPS-223 Spring 2006 Artificial Intelligence CMPS-240 Spring 2006 TA TA Spring 2006   Read the rest of the entry...

Hrm, life is good. I've started looking at what classes I get to take next year, grad classes look so nice. It seems that I'm going to take the advanced OS class, the advances security class and the storage class all next year. I also get to take a class in Information theroy from Yellin, and probably his advanced crypto class too. I also found out that the family is all going to be down here for my graduation. My grandfather is coming in from Wisconsion (or New Orleans, I'm not sure which), my immediate family is coming from Grass Valley, and my Aunt is also coming down from Grass Valley. We are only missing one uncle and an aunt and we would have a full blown family reunion.... it's been so long since we've had one of those. Aww well, maybe everyone will come down for the bigger graduation in 4 years. That's the really important one anyways. I can hardly believe that I am near the end of my undergrad life. It seems like I have been going to school forever, my life has changed so much in the last four years that I hardly recognize myself. I am ...  Read the rest of the entry...

Here's a neet trick, given this piece of code: If (required_function() == false) exit_program() I can write it this way, and both have it look nicer and work the same: required_function() or exit_program() Function short-circuiting prevents the second from running if the first one resolves to true, so it is only run when it is false. I am throwing away the results of the "or" operator, but in this case we don't care.   Read the rest of the entry...

That time has rolled around once again... the time for the beginning of a new quarter. This quarter looks to be just as interesting as last quarter as I get to take comparative programming languages (CMPS112), databases (cmps180), and "finish" my bit-torrent client. I was origionally worried that I would catch "senior-itis" this quarter, but it seems that I'm about as psyched up for my classes as I have ever been. (either that or the caffeine from this jasmine tea I'm drinking is going to my head) I got the grades back from last quarter yesterday, it seems that even though grades were due in last Wednesday, the grading system was't updated until yesterday for some reason. I can't figure out why they put their update through on Easter, but go figure. I got A-'s in both computability and computational complexity and in computer security. Watch that GPA go up :) I spent some hours today interviewing with ZoneLabs for a possible summer internship. If you wish to know how it went then send me an e-mail or use that old fashoned thing called a telephone. Blogs have this nasty habit of showing up in google....   Read the rest of the entry...

Final exam week is here.... Wheeeeeee! I shall return to the world in a week.   Read the rest of the entry...

Hrm... I have a paper assigned for my Computer Security class, which in and of itself is interesting to have a paper due in a CS class, but on to the real point. This paper must be written in .tex format. My first reaction was .tex, what is this? As it turns out, .tex is a computer scientists answer to word. Most word processors, like word, assume the user is a master of page layout. Given the results, they were wrong. Most people, myself included have problems making "centered" text actually look centered when you print it, let alone staying within the strict requirements that the IEEE has on submitting papers. One possible solution is addressed by the .tex format: keep the writer out of the page layout thing entirely. There is a template online that has all the margins and stuff defined, then it is compiled into a pdf. Yes, that is compiled. A compiler for a document. It even has unknown identifier errors. Anyways I digress... Assuming the paper does not segfault when you open it, it looks really good after compilation. You wind up with margins in the right place, columnd, tables and even math notation all looking ...  Read the rest of the entry...

What can I say.... WHOOHOO!! --------------------] Dear Jeffrey, I am pleased to inform you that you have been recommended for admission to the PhD program of Computer Science at UCSC with full financial support. You should be expecting to hear from us formally by email in about one week from now. UCSC will be holding an open house visitation day on March 28, Monday and we hope you can attend the same. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ethan Miller or me. thanx, -- Suresh Lodha Graduate Director Computer Science [------------------ SNIP   Read the rest of the entry...

Here's how you know you are going to an engineering college. This week is "national engineer's week", so they decided to stick some post-it notes to the side of the building:   Read the rest of the entry...

OK, this is an ongoing thing, so this is going to be refered to again, but as alot has happened already I'm going to post this to my blog for those of you out there that care about the happenings in my life... It all started about a week ago.... It was a normal night at my place, I was programming for my computer security class in jeans and a t-shirt, you know normal around the house but wouldn't want to go out clothes. I was summoned to the door by my roomate who said that there was someone there for me, which was odd considering that it was seven at night and everyone that I know personallyu would call my cell before dropping by. When I got to the door, I was greeted my a man in his early 30's who introduced himself as being from ZoneLabs (the maker of a windows firewall, for thouse of you not into computer stuff) and was wondering if I would be interested in working for them for the summer. It was one of those jaw drop moments. I was in fact looking for an internship for the summer, but never did I consider ...  Read the rest of the entry...

Heh, here's an interesting hypothetical, not that this has ever happened or anything... let's say someone has an entire two year plan for the upper devision of a degree planned out, and is working towards a gradutation in say June. Then the devision the major is in, say SOE changes the requirements for the major, dropping one single requirement and adding a diffrent one. Now this student has catalog rights to the old requirements, but at the same time if he changes to the new catalog then he can finish a quarter early... not that I'm in this suituation or anything... :) It seems that I can take, ummm anything next quarter. I'm still going to take classes, as they wont let me into grad school early if I dont take more classes next quarter, and they wont give me any financial aid unless I do take more classes. Next quarter is going to be quite fun :) Now I just have to decide whats left in the undergrad CS department that is interesting... hrmm....   Read the rest of the entry...

I've started playing with Python to make my bit-torrent client... and I'm surprised at how easy it is to do threads and control management... This thing is really well written. I was also surprised to find out that the official implementation of Bit-torrent was also written in python, so I suppose that makes my job a bit easier? I hope so.. I have found that I can't code at home right now, even though it is set up for it... I played some computer games in my room over the last break, so now my room is a place to play games, instead of a place to do work, which helps not at all with my productivity. I've taken to hanging out at Lulu Carpenter's coffee shop in downtown Santa Cruz to get my work done. It has all the appeal of local coffee shops, and enough wierd music t keep me working. It dosen't have couches like coffee society though, but I guess I can't have it all.   Read the rest of the entry...

Heh... my classes this quarter take me to the REAL pit of UC Santa Cruz, the Natural Science Annex. Its this old hallway of classrooms UNDER the science building. There ane NO windows, and onle one entrance. This place was either a bomb shelter, or a earthquake crush test waiting to happen. Check out the entrance: And in other news: (I\'ll let the picture speak for itself) !!!!!!!!   Read the rest of the entry...

Yeah! Classes have started up again... Welll maybe not Yeah but still. I\'m taking computational complexity and computer security this quarter, in addition to an independent study with the OS professor. I\'m not really sure what I\'m going to do with that independent study, but I\'ll figure out something. I should probably stop posting to my blog during class now.   Read the rest of the entry...

This is a little place where we can write things about the second 190x assignment.   Read the rest of the entry...

Took the GRE in computer science today, at like 7am grrr... It wasn\'t nearly as bad as I had worried, but it did cover nearly everything I have gone over in classes since I got here: Finite state machines, caching bit sizes, growth of functions, virtual memory, schedulers, many different sorts and searches, trees and graphs, grammars, NPN and decidability, and even some asymmetrical cryto. I answered 68 out of the 70 questions (as I had no clue on the other 2)... Now I just have to wait 4-6 weeks for the scores to see how I did. One GRE down, one more to go on Friday, then another step in the direction of grad school is done.   Read the rest of the entry...

According to the GRE (graduate record exam), the SAT for grad school, I should know: 1) The FIRST card of an input deck submitted to a batch processing computer center is a(n) _________ card. a) Executive b) job c) format d) language ??? We are expected to know current languages like Ada, COBAL and LOGO... ??? This is pre-pacsal! I think studyinbg for this is gonna take a while.   Read the rest of the entry...

W00T... The new engineering building is open ^_^ Took some pics of it tonight. I guess the building at night is not the best thing to post, but I havn\'t put up anything interesting for the past few weeks as I have been coding too much so here you go. In other news, classes are really time-consuming this quarter. Repeat after me: \"Never take more than one hard programming class at time. Never take...\" -_-   Read the rest of the entry...

Remember the days when eight hours of sleep was normal? heh. This quarter is freaking nuts. I have a homework project due Friday, and a large homework project for the proofs class due thrusday, and I have yet to make significant progress on either one of them. From the outside, college seems so cool, being able to write process schedulers for kernels seems like such a grand thing to do, but what you don\'t take into account is that there are hard deadlines for getting this stuff done, and it takes a large amount of time to make it happen. That and I can\'t seem to get the c compiler for the DLX system to compile on a little-endian linux box. Darn endian issues. It\'s sad really, when it\'s summertime I wish for a large coding project to keep me busy, but then when the coding project comes my way I reminise about all the sleep I could be getting that I\'m missing. The grass is always greener I guess.   Read the rest of the entry...

Hrm... I have this odd feeling that this is turing into one of those crazy, not getting any sleep, but extreamly fun quarters. I have 3 homeworks due next week already, and I willl be assigned the first project ni the Operating Systems class on Monday. I was kinda of hoping to take a day trip to SF to look at katanas this quarter.... but it looks like that idea is out now. Tow nights ago I ordered 3 \"bags o crap\" from woot.com for $8.00 after shipping, and it showed up today while I was in class... I\'m kind of anxious to get home to figure out what was in it... I\'m hoping for an iPod. An $8 iPod would be nice ;) It really is too bad that I don\'t have any life. Working downtown of Friday night lets me see all the things I am missing, but then I also don\'t smell like some of the peope that are coming in here, so I suppose that\'s a plus. I guess I gotta eat so I don\'t really have mush say in the matter. neh.   Read the rest of the entry...