I have finished all my finals. Now I get to enjoy less than 2 weeks of summer vacation before my coop job starts. I should make a list of all the things I want to do or else I don’t think I’ll get anything done. Maybe I’ll finally have some time to play Xbox360. It seems that with school I haven’t had much time at all the be able to play. I have been playing with my server some more. I upgraded the BIOS and set the “strap N/B” to FSB1066. One webpage said this allows me to up the FSB and not affect the PCIe frequency. Well it seems to have worked. I’m not sure if it was the BIOS update or the changing of that setting but I’m idling a lot cooler now, around 25 degrees. I also upped the clockspeed to 3.0ghz by setting the external clock to 150mhz. So far so good.
Category Archives: School
School Related items.
Positive Results
I have finally gotten back some of my marks and I have to say that I did good on the early finals. I am a little disapointed that my Chinese mark wasn’t above 90% but that is just wishful thinking. I am surprised with my mark on the CS340 final. I actually got 80% on it, and here going into it I was getting all worried about failing it. I haven’t gotten back anything else yet. I only have one more final left; wednesday I write Economics 202. This one could be interesting since my marks so far this semester in this class seem to be on the low side. I didn’t do well on the midterm and my assignments are below perfection. This can all be attributed to not having enough time to designate to this class. So now, with only 1 complete studying day before the final I have to make up for an entire semester of falling behind. I figure it should be manageable since the class is “Introduction to Macroeconomics”
3 Down – 2 to go
I have finished Chinese 100, CS340, and CS290AF. Now all I have left to do is CS306, and Econ202. Those two shouldn’t be too difficult and I’ll have plenty of time to study. I still haven’t gotten back any marks yet, but that is to be expected. In other news, I am thinking about upgrading my apache/mysql server. I have been looking at the Intel Pentium D 805, it seems like a really cheap dual core processor with good overclocking capabilities. If I order that I’ll probably get a decent mobo with 1gb of ram. I think that this would stabilize this webpage because as of late things just seemed to be getting flaky. For some reason the Pentium 166 keeps losing its IP address and disconnecting itself from the network. This isn’t that hard to fix but it requires rebooting. With the Pentium 3 – 500mhz machine, it will occassionally blue screen. I could probably fix this by reinstalling windows or installing linux but it is also used by my parents to check emails. They won’t let me touch their emails or let me switch them from outlook :( Time to get the credit card ready because I’m ordering a new computer!
Finals Moving Along
I have only finished my Chinese 100 final so far. I think I did really well in that class and I am looking forward to doing Chinese 101 in the fall. Next up, CS340 tonight and CS290 tomorrow night. These two finals will be terrible and I am not looking forward to doing them. I am hoping that I will somehow get a surge of knowledge and somehow answer all the questions correctly. After these finals are done, I’m going to make sure I buy a new game like Oblivion. I haven’t had much time at all to play any games recently so I suppose I could go back and play some of the games I already own. Summer is almost here and I am highly anticipating it.
Chinese Oral Exam
I start off what I consider to be my first final today. I have a Chinese oral one-on-one exam. The interview is going to consist of me answering 10 questions, and then asking 5. After this, I will have to read a paragraph writen in pinyin. I do not think it will be too difficult but I would really really like to do well. I guess I will try. . “do or do not, there is no try”…
Final Stretch
It is almost April, and that means that summer is fast approaching. That also means finals. Lectures at school will be finished April 12. After that, I my schedule of finals is as follows:
April 17 (Easter Monday) – Chinese 100
April 19 – CS340
April 20 – CS290AF
April 24 – CS306
April 26 – Econ202
Other than the first week there appears to be reasonable amounts of spacing for studying. I can’t wait for summer, working at a coop job will be a good change of pace.
Computer Science Grad Banquet
I was at the Computer Science Grad Banquet, Thursday March 23, 2006. I had a really great time at the event. Many of the guests were from the IT industry in Regina. Larry Symes was the guest of honour for the event. I first met Larry when I was working at CVIC in China. During Larry’s address to the guests he got me to stand up and he mentioned how he got to know me from the visit to China. Again, almost 6 months after I finished working in China, I am still being reminded of what a great opportunity it was for me to work their.
The food at the Queensbury Center was really good. My favourite was all the deserts. I had a piece of lemon marange pie, and a piece of cherry pie. The main course was turkey, which was cooked just right.
Pictures:Larry Symes – Matthew Demyen, far
Larry Symes – Matthew Demyen, near
Time Flows
The past week has gone by without much of anything interesting happening. I have been keeping a close tab on the World Junior Curling championships in Jeonju Korea. Go Team Canada!! The official webpage for the championship hasn’t been that great and I seemed to have better luck with live results at another webpage. I sure hope they are having fun on the other side of the world.
In school news, I have a CS306 assignment due on Monday. That brings up another interesting fact; I raised the mark of my midterm by 10% by argueing with the prof about bits and bytes. . . He had given me 0 marks out of 10 on a question about the data rate of a T1 line. He told us about how there are 24 – 8 bit characters with 1 additional bit for framing. I did the calculation by using bytes not bits. I even made sure to point out that 8 bits = 1 byte. My final answer was 193KBps. So when I get it back with a zero I wasn’t sure what I did wrong. He even wrote a line “I don’t follow”. Needless to say, I argued this and explained it to him. In the end I got 8/10 , since he said my units were wrong. Don’t ask me how it was wrong since he didn’t specify he wanted it in bits. So since the test was out of 75, the arguement paid off.
8 bits = 1 byte
School Continues
With almost another week gone bye, I have finished another midterm CS306. On Friday I will have another quiz in Chinese 100. I am really enjoying that class due to the fact that I already know so much of what we are learning and just how easy it is to pick up all the new stuff. In not as good news, I had a CS340 assignment on Tuesday. I don’t think I will be getting a good mark on it seeing as how the second programming question didn’t work. Oh well, better luck on the next one I suppose. There can’t be many more days left in school since it is already into March. I believe I am done classes in the beginning of April. So that means about one month left then summer. Although my summer will consist of full time employment, I am awaiting the change of pace.
Last Friday, I made it out to the Owl for Arthur’s Birthday. I had a really good time. I would have liked to stay longer and have more to drink but I had to drive home and get to work by 8 the next morning. Maybe we could all do it again sometime since I had a lot of fun.
Get Back to Work
The break was good while it lasted. Having returned to school, I have had to get back to studying. The midterms this week are CS340, and Econ202. Both of which require a great deal of memorization and understanding. Econ202 shouldn’t be too dificult but for some reason this semester I am finding it to be more difficult. I think this might have to do with the prof. Dar seems to write incredible amounts of notes and this seems to overcomplicate rather simple ideas. I prefer that simple ideas have simple explanations. Oh well what can I do.
In other news, Ben is back from college in Alberta now. Arthur is having a birthday upcoming, and I will attempt to make it to the Owl on Friday night. . although I work till 9 and then again the next morning at 8. This seems like plenty of time but I shall see.