Robin Etc

She’s too tired.

robin Lauren, Robin

I got disgusted with GMU’s sad excuse for internet access, so even though there is wifi in the room I am in, I’m connecting using my cell phone’s EVDO connection, shared as a modem via bluetooth. Amusingly enough, it is noticeably better than the campus net. Some college.

robin Robin, Technology

I have a Samsung SCH-i760 cell phone. It’s a PDA also. I paid mondo bucks for it, partly because I wanted to be able to use it for internet access wherever I go. I wanted my laptop to be able to use the net even in places where no net access is available, such as at the beach house.

Well, I did a lot of digging, but never managed to get anything to work. I finally gave up the issue. Verizon Wireless does not officially support this, for example.

I started digging again a few days ago, because I was bored and wanted to try again. I found some tracks to follow that weren’t there before, and after a few days of fussing with it, I have finally done it. I now can use my cell phone as a modem to connect to the internet. In fact, I am using it at this very moment.

Mobile data access. I am soooo pleased.

robin Robin, Technology

Apparently gcc has a bug in how it handles left-shifting of signed integers by values 32 or greater. I ran into this doing a programming assignment for CS367, a class I am a TA for. When left-shifting a constant by a constant, the expected result of 0 is attained, since the left-shift is beyond the range of the signed integer’s 32 bits. However, when left-shifting at runtime, only the rightmost 5 bits are examined when doing the left-shift. Thus, a left-shift of 32 bits is the same as a left-shift of 0 bits.

It’s most frustrating.

robin Rants, Technology

So, we had a clogged shower drain. It was emptying very slowly, although it picked up a bit when I rattled the metal bath plug up and down. I poured down half a bottle of Drano, waited 15 minutes, and rinsed with hot water.

It was amazing!

robin Robin

So, I finished my AI homework yesterday. It was pretty easy to do this time. Last time it took me a while because I was making a total rewrite of the code that the instructor provided. However, this time I just had to make minor modifications to my own code.

I’m still a little curious what an IFF constraint with multiple values on both sides means, though. I think it will mean that one or more of the items on the left side is associated with one or more of the items on the right side. We’ll see, though; probably in class today.

Lisp is fun.

robin Robin, School

I’m an undergrad TA for CS105, which is basically a computer ethics course that all students of the university are required to take to graduate. My responsibilities are twofold: I am to answer questions on the class discussion board, and to grade assignments. I am currently in the process of grading assignment 1.

I have never seen such nonsense.

There has been a near total lack of following of directions. The assignment is pretty clear, and the answer key is pretty clear, but at least half of the students do not address the issues that they are required to by the assignment. I try to be a good grader, but this is a bit ridiculous.

I now feel sorry for a lot of professors. This is a 100 level class, so it’s not going to be a very advanced one, but you would think that following directions is a skill that college students should have developed by the time they attend university.

Oh well. At least I get paid.

robin Rants, Robin, School

See subject.

robin Robin

I finally finished my AI homework last night. It was a bitch. I had a lot of lofty ideas of how to do it, but ended up doing it similarly to how the instructor did it. I am happy to say, though, that I wrote all of the code myself. The assignment was to modify the instructor’s code to take into account negative constraints on the logic puzzle solutions. I asked, however, and he said that I could ditch his code entirely.

So I did.

robin Robin, School

Insert token post here.

Because blah blah blah, bleh bleh bleh.

robin Lauren, Robin