NEW PHONE!!!

I was going to use my cell phone here, but the reception sucks. Something probably to do with the asbestos in the walls.

Anyways, I took the plunge and got an actual land line. Now if any of you care, and I doubt that many of you do, you can e-mail me and I'll pass along my number.

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FOLLOW UP TO LAST POST

So I e-mailed the guy that knew about the all the network traffic problems last night. He response was an eye-opener. I'm no network engineer, but what he told me was surprising. Apparently, St. John's is on an unswitched network. Using any number of publicly and free software tools, you can monitor all the internet traffic on our network. He said it's perfectly legal to do so since you're not going in and rooting around inside anyone's computer. You're simply analyzing the data that's coming over the network.

Well, I tried this right away. I went to download.com, typed in "network sniffer", closed my eyes and picked the first program my finger pointed to. In about ten minutes I was able to see what everyone was doing on Internet in my residence. Some people were using MSN Messenger, others were using Outlook, and most everybody was surfing the net. Here's the interesting thing, I was able to also see what sites they were visiting.

To my dismay, at first everyone was visiting really innocent and productive sites, eg. Yahoo mail, Hotmail, NY Post online, TSN, UBC departmental sites, UBC student services, etc. Where was the porn? Where were the racy sites? I began to get bummed out. I couldn't be the only pervert in St. John's! I suddenly became very conscious of what sites I had visited recently.

Undeterred, I continued to monitor our network. About 15 min. later, everyone was still doing completely productive surfing. Then, it happened, two IPs on the network began listing porno sites as activity. Yes! I am not alone! Ha ha ha...

The lucky thing is that you can't match the IP to exact room numbers. I'm not sure who has that list, I don't think it's public. Nonetheless, it's a bit weird knowing anyone can see what other people are doing over the network.

Ok, I gotta go read some stuff. Take care.

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UM, I NEED TO GO TO THOSE SITES FOR RESEARCH

So, sometime between 12am and 12:30am my internet connection crapped out. Everything stopped. I couldn't do anything. About fifteen minutes later, I reboot and everything is fine.

An hour later or so, I get this e-mail on the St. John's mailing list. One of the residents is looking for a specific port owner on the St. John's network. In his e-mail he states that one particular port caused the gateway to shut down to due to a massive amount http requests from that port. Furthermore, he said that most of the requests were going to web sites that were unavailable. His message was a warning to that particular port owner that something might be wrong with their system.

I read that e-mail and forgot all about it. Twenty minutes later, it clicked in my head... wait a minute, how the hell did that guy know about the traffic over the network? How did he know what sites that port owner was trying to visit? Did he have access to network stats or something?

Geez, with all that porn I've been looking at, my log of sites visited must probably make me look like a real sick individual!

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YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING

After reading this, I'm of the opinion, there was more than just random chance at play there.

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EPISODE II DVD TRAILER



If you're like me, and let's hope you're not for your sake, you're eagerly awaiting the DVD release of Episode II : Attack of the Clones. I am counting the days till November 12th.

Sure, you could start looking for a copy of the disc one leak, but why not wait two months for the real thing?

In the meantime, you can take a look at the Episode II DVD trailer. I snagged it off the dvd.ign.com site. It's pretty slow with so many people getting the file. I decided to put it on my server. Right-click here and choose Save As (.asf / 8.9 Mb). You'll need to have Windows Media Player to play the file. One other note, if you're using Media Player 9, the file will screw up at the end. Use an earlier version of MP to see the really cool parts near the end. Enjoy!

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TODAY'S SUMMARY

It was an interesting day today. I had three hours of class time today: a one hour lecture, followed by two hours in a lab.

At the lecture, something neat happened. The prof was describing a software engineering concept. After he was done, the girl next to me asked me to clarify what he had just said. I was like, "Whoa, some girl in com sci is asking me, some clueless dude in mechanical engineering, to explain this com sci stuff!" I did the best I could to explain the concept, I'm not sure I did a good job in relating it to her. It's neat that she asked me and that I was able to explain it to her because I was a bit apprehensive about doing all these com sci courses. This sorta validates that, yes, in fact, I can do com sci and I can keep up with the com sci students. Then another funny thing happened. The girl wanted me to put down my name and e-mail address so that she could e-mail me any questions she had... lol... I told her I doubt I could be much use, but I gave her my contact info... ha ha ha.

After the lecture, I headed straight to my lab. This was going to be my first lab in a long time, and even longer since my last com sci lab. Despite some minor network problems, the lab went quite well. I was keeping up with the rest of the computer engineering students. The lab was quite enjoyable, though easy, but it was a good intro to some software engineering tools. The TA was really nice too, and he explained a few things about Java that C++ programmers would need to know.

So, though I know it will get harder, I'm sure I can do this com sci material now. Yay!

Now for some random observations. As I walk around campus, I've noticed that nearly everybody wears their backpacks with both straps over their shoulders. Back when I was in undergrad, it seemed to me like less than half the people wore their backpacks with both straps. It just wasn't done. Only if your pack was really heavy, or if you were a square did you wear both straps. Now, times appear to have changed. I remember a few years back, there were some news stories in the media about how children should wear both straps and that not doing so could cause back problems. I guess the kids that were around when those stories broke are now in university. Weird.

Here's another weird observation. About two weeks ago, I was at Walmart at Lougheed Mall buying stuff for my new place. While I was there, I'm sure I saw a guy that I used to go to high school with. His face was very familar and I think he was in my math class or something. Anyways, it was no big deal and I filed it away in my head.

Well, twice now, I've seen the same guy leaving the vicinity of the Electrical Engineering building on campus. Everytime, I see him leaving that area and heading to The Barn, which is a coffee shop. The thing is, I haven't actually seen him leave or enter the EE building, so I can't really be sure where he's coming from. Now I want to know.

And for my final observation, man, the chicks here at UBC are so damn hot!!! Ha ha ha.... ha... heh... ahem...

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HOLY CRAP, THAT'S A LOT OF READING!!!

Wow, I just noticed this on the web page for the CPSC 544 course I'm taking. The first class was today, and the next class is on Friday. In the meantime, the professor wants us to read over 70 pages of material for Friday!!!

Whoa, I know grad courses required lots of reading, but 70 pages is a lot in about three days!!! This is going to put a dent in my free time. Geez, I hope this doesn't limit the time I have to play games. :)

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MOMENTOUS EVENT

Ok, so this may not be a momentous event, but it kinda feels like one.

I have a lab in my Software Engineering course tomorrow. Tonight, I wrote some Java code for the lab. Well, actually, I re-wrote some existing code, but still it's kinda cool. And, I really don't know Java either, but I'm not letting that get me down. I haven't written code for a class since my fourth year of undergrad, which would make it 1996. Woo hoo! Exciting!

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MORE STUFF

The beginning of school can be hectic. I did a lot of running around again today. I had a class and a seminar, but together, they only lasted an hour and a half.

After that, I came home, had a shower, and ate lunch. That's when the fun started. I then went to see a CS prof about her class. Next, I decided to buy a textbook I needed, so I trekked across campus to the bookstore. Once in the bookstore, I saw my textbook was listed as costing $183.00!!! This book was tiny. Nearly $200 for a single text, what a rip off! I don't think I've seen a textbook costing so much before. Balking at the price, I went and bought some dividers for my binders. I paid at the computer section thus, bypassing the clueless newbies at the front of the store.

I decided next to see if the used bookstore at the village had my book. So off I trekked to the village. One sweaty walk later, I arrived to the used bookstore only to find they didn't have my book. The library I decided might have the book, so I took the considerable walk from the village to the library. At the library, I used a terminal to find out that the book was out and wouldn't be back for three days. Bummer. I put in a request for it, but I still had to wait three days.

Ah, the Civil/Mechanical Reading Room might have the book I thought. From the library, I took the long walk back to Civil/Mechanical to check out the reading room. There, I found out that the Reading Room did not have my text.

Being fed up, I knew it was time for pizza. So, I took another walk, from CEME to the Sub and bought a slice of pepperoni pizza from Pie'RSquared. And then I went home.

At home, I checked out chapters.ca and found that my textbook was being offered for half the price the bookstore was selling it for! What a total scam by the UBC Bookstore! So, I ordered it online and it'll be here in a few days.

If only I knew beforehand, I wouldn't have had to walk what felt like a marathon today!

Oh and another thing, have I told you how hot some of the women are here at UBC? ;)

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STUFF

Sorry for not posting in a while. I am still adjusting to being back in school.

I would say I am more comfortable being here than I was last week. The first week was a bit of a shock. In terms of school, I think I'm in the calm before the storm. None of my classes have really assigned any work. Well, I guess I could be reading my CPSC 352 text, but it's no biggy. I'm expecting that two weeks from now, I'll be deep into work, though I'm hoping it won't be the case.

Let's see what else... strangely, even though I get more TV channels here than at home, I'm watching less TV. I know I now have channels like CNN, TLC, etc. but I still forget once in a while they're available to me. I love CNN, it's the best channel for news.

Now I've said this before and I'm going to say it again. I am still very much stunned by the sight of all these girls on campus. I worked a year and a half at EA, and that skewed my perspective on what realistic female to male ratio are. Here at UBC, nearly 90% of girls are between the ages of 18-24. It also seems that almost all those ladies are super hot.... ha ha ha...

I will leave you with a few links to enjoy:

www.drunkcyclist.com - definitely not a site to be surfing on at work, however, it contains an excellent collection of free porn (no popup ads, no crap), a rarity these days

www.paulkatcher.com - undoubtedly one of the best personal web sites I've ever visited; Paul's site is like mine in every way except it's well-written, more funny, and better looking; his site contains the most interesting links I've ever had the chance to visit, they literally can suck hours out of your day.