- N = 18: I became a health freak! I also finally got a Power Mac G5 (and it's liquid cooled!) Dream come true after seven years much? Oh yeah I got into college.
- N = 17: I learned how to play bridge. I also quit violin cold turkey. I grew out of gaming, although I occasionally play pinball and get the occasional high score.
- N = 16: I built my first computer =D
- N = 15: I learned how to program (albeit in AutoIt). I started trolling people.
- N = 14: I got the world's thinnest dual core laptop, the MacBook Pro 1,1. I also met Steve Jobs in person!
- N = 13: I used Linux (albeit Ubuntu)! I also hackintoshed my Dell (and proceeded to get a copyright infringement notice from my ISP for seeding).
- N = 12: I sold my soul to Steve Jobs. Possibly one of the best decisions ever. I also learned how to play Sudoku from a classroom activity.
- N = 11: I started cracking my joints and got my first computer. I also was a moron and chose a Dell Dimension 4600C over a Power Mac G5.
- N = 10: I went to this awesome summer camp in which I did EE and played Super Smash Melee. I think this was when I got my first 1:18 diecast car (a 1998 Guards Red Porsche 911 Carerra).
- N = 9: I got into cars. Every day at lunch I would draw cars with these two guys who were into supercars. I also bought Hamburger at one of the holiday botique sales in school.
- N = 8: I immersed myself in Honda lawnmower literature because my family was going to buy a gas-powered mower.
- N = 7: I got my Nintendo 64 (and I still have it!) I also got a teal GameBoy Color, which I retardedly sold to GameStop for a measly $15.
- N = 6: I learned how to solve a two-equation two-variable linear system of equations. (this honestly can't be the most interesting thing, can it?)
- N = 5: I learned how to play violin.
- N = 4: I learned multiplication.
- N = 3: I learned addition: the start of my math career.
- N = 2: I broke my parents' VCR. This was possibly the start of my affinity towards EE/MechE.
- N = 1: lolwut
05 May 2011
Stuff that's changed in the past $n = 17+2!$ years
What's notable/changed from year N to year 19:
01 May 2011
29 April 2011
New York Auto Show!
tl;dr because designing 32-bit carry select adders are fun.
- Fiats are cute and inexpensive. I'll probably get one if people don't start saying ``Fix It Again, Tony'' any time soon.
- The NuLuxe leatherette in the Lexus CT200h was unimpressive. I want my leather!
- Bugatti Veyron looks stunning in person. It's hard to imagine seeing a beautiful and physics (and common sense)-defying piece of art in person. Be sure to watch its documentary (produced by National Geographic)!
- Electric cars are unimpressive. Sure, they're fun to build, but driving them is another story. I would not sacrifice luxury for supposed greenery any day soon (I would gladly take the electric Rolls, though).
All 350+ photos up at the photo gallery (does not work in Chrome, apparently).
I really want a car now :(. I haven't driven in quite a while; hopefully I finish my electric scooter before I leave for Apple so I can build my electric car next year! (of course it will have leather =P)
I really want a car now :(. I haven't driven in quite a while; hopefully I finish my electric scooter before I leave for Apple so I can build my electric car next year! (of course it will have leather =P)
21 April 2011
Late night pinball
Possibly yielded me a personal best for one ball:
Yeah, I guess I should have been hubmottering.
Also, Pinball music does not go well with Rebecca Black parodies.
Yeah, I guess I should have been hubmottering.
Also, Pinball music does not go well with Rebecca Black parodies.
20 April 2011
CPW 2011: From the other side
Everyone says CPdubs is a blast if you're a prefrosh, but does the fun wilt when one becomes a student at MIT?
Thursday:
Since we're students and the rigorous MIT calendar does not allow for ``holidays,'' I dutifully went to my classes, 6.046 (Algorithms), 6.004 (Computational Structures), and 15.053 (Optimization Methods). At the end of 15.053, I talked with Professor Orlin for a bit regarding these ``hard problems'' he mentioned in class. We got into a little bit of complexity theory talk, which was pretty cool. I might end up taking some TCS classes after all…
After class, I scootered around a bit and ran into two BCA prefrosh. This makes three as I had run into one during lunch. Then I chilled at the MITERS booth in Lobby 10 to help show off EE talent (and be obnoxious, of course). Since there was only an hour left before we had to clean up, I did not bring my case mod and hacked displays. Instead, we blasted (contemporary) dance-pop music (Friday included) using LOLriokart's 100W sound system. That sure got a lot of attention!
Friday was the big day. After 15.401 recitation (which only had 4 people show up), I went back to my room and slowly disassembled my desktop setup to carry to Lobby 10. I managed to haul my Power Mac G4 Quad and my two Apple Studio Displays after half an hour of hard work and assistance. At the booth, I plugged everything in and fired up unholyballs (for lack of a demo) and then switched to xlock since it looked flashier. Too bad I didn't have a newer graphics card to do real time ray tracing. I wasn't quite expecting my casemod and displays to get much attention since MITERS really isn't the place for these types of projects (or is it?), but to my delight a good number of people asked me about my setup. I even had someone ask me about my overclock!
Meanwhile, we continued blasting pop music from LOLriokart. Charles was not happy when we played Friday (for the $$n^{th}$$ time), but he approved of the cycling theme from Pokemon Red/Blue. I suggested to him to drive around LOLriokart while playing the song, which he did. He gave some prefrosh rides on LOLriokart and even taught one to ride SegFault! I still am deathly afraid of that thing, most likely because the person stands above the axle.
Later that evening was the MITERS build party. Quite a lot of prefrosh went and they got to see the facilities and us in our native habitat. They were all amazed by our Make-a-bot, a handmade 3D printer, printing a white naked woman (I say white not only to be factually correct, but also to emphasize the contrast with the black naked woman sitting atop the Make-a-bot). After a while, all the prefrosh left to attend other events. We then did the usual: drinking soda, winding hubmötters, and burning vegetables with Bayley's incomplete and probably defective SLR.
I went back to MITERS on Saturday to finish winding my hubmötter. I was surprised and happy to see a prefrosh building a circuit! He was working on a little thing that had a POT to change the frequency with which an LED blinked (controlled by a 555, of course). After getting distracted by many things, I finished winding my hubmötter! Time to buy magnets and finish my electric scooter =)
Thursday:
Since we're students and the rigorous MIT calendar does not allow for ``holidays,'' I dutifully went to my classes, 6.046 (Algorithms), 6.004 (Computational Structures), and 15.053 (Optimization Methods). At the end of 15.053, I talked with Professor Orlin for a bit regarding these ``hard problems'' he mentioned in class. We got into a little bit of complexity theory talk, which was pretty cool. I might end up taking some TCS classes after all…
After class, I scootered around a bit and ran into two BCA prefrosh. This makes three as I had run into one during lunch. Then I chilled at the MITERS booth in Lobby 10 to help show off EE talent (and be obnoxious, of course). Since there was only an hour left before we had to clean up, I did not bring my case mod and hacked displays. Instead, we blasted (contemporary) dance-pop music (Friday included) using LOLriokart's 100W sound system. That sure got a lot of attention!
Friday was the big day. After 15.401 recitation (which only had 4 people show up), I went back to my room and slowly disassembled my desktop setup to carry to Lobby 10. I managed to haul my Power Mac G4 Quad and my two Apple Studio Displays after half an hour of hard work and assistance. At the booth, I plugged everything in and fired up unholyballs (for lack of a demo) and then switched to xlock since it looked flashier. Too bad I didn't have a newer graphics card to do real time ray tracing. I wasn't quite expecting my casemod and displays to get much attention since MITERS really isn't the place for these types of projects (or is it?), but to my delight a good number of people asked me about my setup. I even had someone ask me about my overclock!
Meanwhile, we continued blasting pop music from LOLriokart. Charles was not happy when we played Friday (for the $$n^{th}$$ time), but he approved of the cycling theme from Pokemon Red/Blue. I suggested to him to drive around LOLriokart while playing the song, which he did. He gave some prefrosh rides on LOLriokart and even taught one to ride SegFault! I still am deathly afraid of that thing, most likely because the person stands above the axle.
Later that evening was the MITERS build party. Quite a lot of prefrosh went and they got to see the facilities and us in our native habitat. They were all amazed by our Make-a-bot, a handmade 3D printer, printing a white naked woman (I say white not only to be factually correct, but also to emphasize the contrast with the black naked woman sitting atop the Make-a-bot). After a while, all the prefrosh left to attend other events. We then did the usual: drinking soda, winding hubmötters, and burning vegetables with Bayley's incomplete and probably defective SLR.
I went back to MITERS on Saturday to finish winding my hubmötter. I was surprised and happy to see a prefrosh building a circuit! He was working on a little thing that had a POT to change the frequency with which an LED blinked (controlled by a 555, of course). After getting distracted by many things, I finished winding my hubmötter! Time to buy magnets and finish my electric scooter =)
14 April 2011
HTOP + Folding@Home
...with 24 threads:
My life is complete.
[EDIT] I ssh'ed into the 48-core box and was greeted with almost 4800% CPU usage:
So beautiful that I want to cry!
[EDIT] I ssh'ed into the 48-core box and was greeted with almost 4800% CPU usage:
21 March 2011
Apple, Please Fix Your Nvidia Drivers!
So things like this won't happen:
While doing some intensive editing, my laptop actually locked up for a full half an hour before I force-rebooted it. I checked the logs only to see the driver acting up (click to see log dump):
Otherwise I'm jumping ship toATi AMD when I upgrade my Hackintosh! (Linux users: now's the time to scream ``NO YOU WOULDN'T!'')
[EDIT 17 Aug 2011] Seems like Apple has better drivers in Lion and Aperture is no longer locking up my machine anymore!
Video corruption while working with Aperture 3 presets on my Late 2010 MacBook Air
While doing some intensive editing, my laptop actually locked up for a full half an hour before I force-rebooted it. I checked the logs only to see the driver acting up (click to see log dump):
Otherwise I'm jumping ship to
[EDIT 17 Aug 2011] Seems like Apple has better drivers in Lion and Aperture is no longer locking up my machine anymore!
15 March 2011
Woah
I just realized that I have a legitimate need for Mac, Windows, and Linux:
Hmm actually I could probably get away without Linux, but coding just works so much better on Linux than on Windows. Plus my EvilWM setup with mysplit keyboard and trackball just seems so hardcore and user unfriendly hahah
Time to build another box so I can run all three platforms concurrently?
- Mac: Aperture (because I'm a semiserious photographer, but not serious enough to warrant me a 12-core Mac Pro)
- Windows: AutoDesk Inventor (3D parametric modeling)
- Linux: General development, OpenCL, CUDA
Hmm actually I could probably get away without Linux, but coding just works so much better on Linux than on Windows. Plus my EvilWM setup with my
Time to build another box so I can run all three platforms concurrently?
05 March 2011
Gaming
Looking back, I used to be a relatively big gamer. Especially for a girl.
Now, I'm not. Not at all. (Although I can wallop a good handful of people on my hall at Super Smash Bros. Melee)
Ten years ago, things were mostly `mechanical,' or physical, to be general. Rubik's cubes, block letters, stuffed animals. The thought of a multifunctional handheld device that contained an alternate universe was unfathomable. Perhaps my fascination with this new concept is the reason I played Pokémon for upwards of eight hours a week on my teal GameBoy Color (which I somewhat regret selling to GameStop). In sixth grade I would devote some time each week to practicing Super Smash Brothers Melee when family friends came over. I did get `better' at these games; I could beat a good number of people who challenged me.
Today's world is more or less the opposite. Activities are mostly virtual, from organizational tasks, to learning, and even to simulation of mechanical objects. `Mechanical' things mostly have been relegated to the past. The thought of building a microprocessor out of transistors seems anachronistic today; it is `trivialized' to writing some number lines of simulation code in JSim. Sure, prototyping in software is much faster and more cost efficient, but one does not gain the tactile experience of merely touching a transistor, never mind stripping wires, hooking everything up to a breadboard, or even soldering.
Perhaps the digital dominance has pushed me to pursue `mechanical' activities more than before.
Now, I'm not. Not at all. (Although I can wallop a good handful of people on my hall at Super Smash Bros. Melee)
Ten years ago, things were mostly `mechanical,' or physical, to be general. Rubik's cubes, block letters, stuffed animals. The thought of a multifunctional handheld device that contained an alternate universe was unfathomable. Perhaps my fascination with this new concept is the reason I played Pokémon for upwards of eight hours a week on my teal GameBoy Color (which I somewhat regret selling to GameStop). In sixth grade I would devote some time each week to practicing Super Smash Brothers Melee when family friends came over. I did get `better' at these games; I could beat a good number of people who challenged me.
Today's world is more or less the opposite. Activities are mostly virtual, from organizational tasks, to learning, and even to simulation of mechanical objects. `Mechanical' things mostly have been relegated to the past. The thought of building a microprocessor out of transistors seems anachronistic today; it is `trivialized' to writing some number lines of simulation code in JSim. Sure, prototyping in software is much faster and more cost efficient, but one does not gain the tactile experience of merely touching a transistor, never mind stripping wires, hooking everything up to a breadboard, or even soldering.
Perhaps the digital dominance has pushed me to pursue `mechanical' activities more than before.
04 March 2011
Spring Cleaning
My computer needs it.
Unfortunately, this is the result of running my case with the side panel off. The sad thing is that, even before the dust, my computer will shut down with the panel on after like 10min of intense work. A new case is on its way; I just have to finish modding it!
This thing is so clogged that no air can flow through; the hot air ends up flowing into my case.
I always wondered why my 8800GTS ran at 72ºC: now I know why!
Unfortunately, this is the result of running my case with the side panel off. The sad thing is that, even before the dust, my computer will shut down with the panel on after like 10min of intense work. A new case is on its way; I just have to finish modding it!
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