Zhanga: October 2007
Entries have their own pages now. Click the date to see the entry by itself with its comments.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 (4 comments)
In Chinese class, the teacher often asks questions and waits for answers, or randomly picks people. He is very good at noticing my eyes drifting off into nowhere, and then sniping me. This causes me great embarrassment, but that's not the point of this post.
There is this really annoying girl who sits a few seats to my left and talks constantly, leakily spewing the usually asinine thoughts in her head. A few days ago, she decided to express her views on the increasing rates of divorce (which is the topic we were on). Apparently, couples back in the day divorced less because they relied on each other for food and shelter so it was impossible to separate. But now, since we all have food to eat, we can divorce. Right.
To date, I've only ever raised my hand one time in this class to say anything. The teacher was obviously surprised and pleased that I finally decided to talk, but all I really wanted to say was, "Can I please shove this chalkboard eraser into your mouth?" Unfortunately, my Chinese vocabulary is not that good, so I only got to make some sarcastic remark about how Americans in the 1950's were all hungry and malnourished, so they weren't able to divorce.
Yes, my classes really are that boring. To keep my sanity, I have to entertain myself with stupid things like this.
12:07PM
Sunday, October 21, 2007 (4 comments)
Like Hanif's comment in the last post says, instead of updating Zhanga I've been playing Pokemon. My dad commandeered my Windows laptop, resulting in my current inability to run computer games. One of the few games that works in Linux is the Gameboy emulator...
So why do I use Linux if nothing works? I hear a lot of "whinewhine, get rid of Linux so you can watch this retarded video on this retarded Korean website, whinewhinewhine" from certain females whose names begin with "Maylene." I could go on for pages, but here's the very, very condensed version of just a few points:
- I alone own my computer. For example, if Microsoft decides you haven't paid for Windows, they can disable certain functionality. Nobody but me decides what happens to my Linux machine.
- One of the things I hated most about Windows was that whenever you installed a program, it would put its icon in the tray and autostart it every time you boot. Linux users like to be in control, so Linux programs don't do this. One result is that your system doesn't get slower over time.
- In Windows, every program (Acrobat, Photoshop, Quicktime, etc) all run their own separate auto-updater programs. In Linux, one unified package manager installs and updates all software on your system, so you don't get six different annoying popups asking if you want to update X program.
- There isn't any virus or spyware, meaning I don't need to run antivirus or antispyware programs.
- Virtual desktops.
- The Amarok music player owns.
- I'm a CS major. I write programs, and it's easier/more convenient in Linux. Also, the operating systems course I'm taking develops on Linux.
- The Linux command line makes Windows 2000/XP command prompt look like a toy. Writing scripts, in a variety of languages, is much easier in Linux. Similarly, running other people's Perl/PHP/etc scripts in Windows is a huge pain but it's easy in Linux.
- Windows lacks a cute mascot (unless you count Clippy... who was most certainly not cute and is now dead anyways).
What doesn't work in Linux?
- Cheap, cheap webcams. Not coincidentally, this is the only price range in which I'm willing to buy. I guess this is a bad thing.
- Some types of streaming video... the kinds I don't care about anyways. Youtube works and that's all that matters.
- Games. My productivity has risen greatly since I lost the ability to play games.
That's a pretty weak list, actually. I'm just too busy watching 24 to come up with good reasons... not that anyone is reading by this point besides Pat anyways.
3:55AM
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 (2 comments)
Little old (well, not that old) econ professor lady:
I don't know the rates on my credit cards because like any good finance PhD, I don't borrow on them. But there are people who borrow from their credit card companies at 18% while they have savings in the bank making 3% interest. Do you know what the standard reasoning for this is? Anyone? Well, they usually say, "I want to have some cash around just in case I need to use it on something." THAT'S WHAT YOUR FUCKING CREDIT CARD IS FOR!!!
12:24PM
Sunday, October 14, 2007 (1 comment)
Sometime in August, I was writing a tutorial for setting up Bemused so you can use your cell phone to control your computer's music player. Well, I was 90% done, and then the KDE Bluetooth guys decided to completely remove Bemused support from their software, so that basically killed my tutorial because I'd be teaching something that no longer existed.
Enter anyRemote. I'm not sure how it took me this long to discover anyRemote... maybe because it's taken until today for me to have so much math homework that I've procrastinated the entire day.
This is the coolest thing ever. It lets you use your cell phone to control presentation software, photo album/slideshow software, music and video players, etc etc, and it's pretty easily scriptable to extend it to other programs.
Even better, my laptop has Bluetooth but my desktop has the speakers, so controlling music on my laptop does me no good. Fortunately, Linux owns and it's easy to script things, so I can get my cell phone to talk to my laptop through Bluetooth, and my laptop to talk to my desktop through the network (SSH), so I can control my music like that.
Man, being a computer nerd sucks. My only real consolation (and it's not much of one) is that in a parallel universe somewhere, I am getting all the chicks.
Yeah, right.
12:20AM
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 (1 comment)
Pat requests that I make a separate blog about computer stuff because my computer-related stuff are interesting but all my other entries are really boring. Gene says I should write a blog that just talks about my TA work in scary ways so that when students read it, they will tremble in fear. I think we may have something here... but for now I'm too lazy.
On Facebook, I got this today, which made me chuckle a little bit:
Kristy Gao (Parkview High School) wrote at 3:10pm
david whats that chinese song u were playing? the girly one
Girly Chinese song... well I guess that eliminates 5 or 6 possibilities.
I have a test tomorrow so I don't really feel like writing here, but I'll tell you about my Greyhound trip and why that was the last one I'll ever take (for real this time).
My ticket was for 10:20 PM Friday night from Durham to Charlotte to Atlanta. Hanif and I arrived at the Greyhound station around 9:30, and some employee asked if we were taking the 9:25 or 10:20 bus. Both were significantly delayed, and that bus station closes at 10:30. To wait for the delayed 10:20 bus would mean waiting outside in the parking lot. So we took the 9:25 bus (which showed up around 10:05) to Raleigh. It stopped there for a long time, then drove back towards Durham. Three hours later, we were back in the parking lot where we started, for a net displacement of nowhere. Oh, and for the trip to Raleigh I stood because there weren't enough seats.
Obviously we missed the Charlotte transfer, so we got to Atlanta 4 hours late. Fun.
11:56PM
Monday, October 1, 2007 (1 comment)
My first tutoring session for first-semester econ was Sunday. I thought it would be cake because, well, it's intro to intro econ. As usual, I was wrong. The guy asked me to go over his test, so I tried to, and ended up giving him a lot of "uhhhh" and "I don't know..." and "dude, I have no idea" and other generally uninsightful answers. That sucked.
The questions were impossible, though. It would give you three sentences giving a very high-level overview of a system where companies can buy or sell carbon dioxide credits so it costs to pollute. Then he asks why economists prefer a carbon tax, while polluting companies prefer this "cap and trade" system where you pay to pollute. This is 30 points... and the guy I was tutoring got like 6 points for drawing a good supply and demand graph, plus like 4 points for something he wrote down. They haven't even learned about externalities yet... what else is there to write??
So I asked the professor for the exams, problem sets, and their answers. I went to Blackboard today and found that I now have access to exam answers. Here are the links I currently see:
- Exam 1, Unfair Version
Word file (87 Kb) - Exam 1, Unfair Version Answers
Word file (710.5 Kb) - Exam 1, Impossible Version
Word file (78 Kb) - Exam 1, Impossible Version Answers
Word file (1.287 Mb)
This guy has a funny sense of humor. Poor econ students... all 479 of them. Also notice how the answers are 10-15 times bigger than the questions. I'm lucky I had easy tests...
Now I have to memorize all the answers so I don't look like an idiot when I try to tutor the next undoubtedly dispirited soul.
3:38PM
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