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2009-07-24

Waterloo Unlimited

Filed under: General — 19day @ 07:57:44

So apparently my alma mater has decided to rebrand itself.

Here is the comparison between the old and new logo I swiped from The Register (I’m surprised a British tech column would cover this).

Waterloo logo comparison

“No, shoot the streamers right at the camera, then I’ll take a picture”

I think it looks awful. I mean, they’re just trying to “hip” the place up a bit, I know, but people can detect that effect, and react badly to it. The old logo has a heraldic air to it, representative of an old institution (though the place itself isn’t that old) but that’s the feeling they should be trying to get across. Ivy takes time to grow.

They say the new logo isn’t really the new logo, but a transitional state along to whatever they end up using. I hope they ditch the laser beam rainbow.

2009-07-23

****ing ****book

Filed under: General — 19day @ 21:04:09

Facebook pisses me off. It always sort of pissed me off, so I barely used the thing, but now I can’t even idle my account without them doing something stupid.

So I log in to find a notice at the top, it telling me that my current contact email was invalid. Seemed valid to me, sent myself a test email, worked fine. So I trawled through their help system, and came across this.

> It says my email address is invalid.
Unfortunately we do not support email addresses with generic prefixes (e.g. info@, webmaster@, etc.). Since email addresses of this nature are typically used for organizations and businesses, we do not allow them to be used for personal Facebook accounts. You will need to use a personal email address that does not contain this type of prefix. There are no exceptions to this rule.

What the hell is that? My email address may start with admin, but it’s my personal damn site… you mean you want me to create some dummy email address just to keep you happy? No exceptions to this rule? Why not? I can’t even imagine what they are thinking. And I assume that their list of verbotten words grows, since references to this asinine policy go way back, so I assume “admin” just made the cut.

It’s a small thing, but it’s a stupid thing, and just another reason to dislike facebook. Hell, you can’t even complain to them since they provide no customer support outside their FAQ help center. And since I presume this doesn’t affect most of the people using the site, there seem to be very few groups formed because of this, and they’re quite small.

I have to assume eventually this policy will expand until we won’t be able to use anything outside the form asshat_52@yahoo.com

2009-07-16

Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep

Filed under: General — 19day @ 00:33:48

Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep *snooze* Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep *snooze* Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep BeepBeep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep *snooze* Beep..

Apparently I’m a problem. Or at least my alarm clock is. See, last christmas, I got a new alarm clock, because my old one’s alarm was too quiet and I wasn’t waking up (I couldn’t decide whether I was just getting used to the sound, or if it was just failing). The new one had two modes, radio and buzzer. I preferred the buzzer, but sadly the volume control wouldn’t work with it, it had only one volume: very high. Since that time I had been using it fine. At first it woke me up all the time, but now I’m getting used to it as well, and sometimes can sleep through it for quite a while. Other times, I hit the snooze in my sleep, so it will cycle until I finally wake up enough to remember doing it.

For years I had lived in this apartment and never really had a problem with other people’s noise. Well, sometimes people in the hallway could get rowdy, and I found the door to be particularly bad at insulating noise, but all the rest seemed fine. Even other people’s smoke detectors sounded like little bleeps in the distance.

However, early this week I came home to a message from my machine from the management about my alarmclock. Apparently several people had complained, that it was going off all day and such, waking people up, and he was reminding me about the problem. Now, I knew it couldn’t be going off all day, it has a 2 hour limiter. I think once or twice I had left it on by accident when I left the apartment really early, but I was still surprised that the sound was carrying. And since this was the first time I had heard about this in the 6 months I had the clock, so I could only have been minded of it.

When I spoke to him directly, it got weirder. Apparently he himself could hear it in his apartment in the mornings, and his place is 2 apartments along the hallway. The sound was carrying that far. And during my rebuttal in the meeting (despite my best efforts, I was starting to get defensive) he said people who complained could be (as he didn’t want to name names) across the hallway, or even apparently on different floors. What an amazing alarm clock, it can wake people up on different floors, but still not me apparently. One bit of the exchange was that someone said they could hear in their bathroom.. I responded “So they’re already awake… yes?”, okay, I wasn’t being very helpful there, but I was getting defensive. I can hear people’s shower water hitting tub in the bathroom too, and the whistle of the pipes, should I be complaining about that?

I decided to speak directly to the people to the left and right of my apartment in the hallway (on the same side). Both of them said that yeah, they did hear the alarm, but never seemed to care about it and said they weren’t the ones who complained. This might have been just them trying to avoid a confrontation, but if it’s true, that means that people further away had an even greater objection to the noise. The powers of this alarm never cease, the irritation has some sort of inverse relationship to distance.

Anyway, as I’m not particularly fond of facing eviction, I decided to try using the radio mode, with it’s volume control set to a lower, hopefully non-objectionable level. I decided to write a little note out explaining that I wasn’t leaving the alarm going all the time, that I was a heavy sleeper, was unaware the noise was carrying and will use a quieter method from now on, and to let me know if problems continue. I made three copies and put them in the mail slots of the three apartments near mine by on the opposite wall of the hallway (as they weren’t home when I tried the human touch). I had already spoken to the people on my wall on the left and right. The manager’s place is the next one on the right and the hallway ends, there is another one further on the left but it was so far I couldn’t imagine it traveling that far. But the door spacing made it possible that the people involved were the three across the hallway, and so were candidates for the note.

I got one thank you note back, saying they appreciate my consideration, but they weren’t among those who complained. I seem to be doing well tracking down those who claim not to have been bothered. Oh well.

One thing the manager mentioned was that the people involved (wouldn’t give me numbers either, but I think it was 2) were getting so angry for so long that they were about to slip a note under my door. Shocking I know. The issue could have been resolved long ago if they had done that, or, god forbid, direct human contact. Staying silent while getting angrier and angrier isn’t really fair to me, as I couldn’t respond to a situation I didn’t know existed.

Admittedly, I didn’t know my neighbours through direct human contact at the time either, but now at least I’ve met a couple of them, if only to apologize for all the beeping.

2009-07-10

United Breaks Guitars

Filed under: General — 19day @ 11:34:47

This has been going through the interwebs for a few days, getting quite a lot of press. Here it is for those vanishing few who read this blog, but not the news or other interweb homepages.

Based on a true story:

2009-07-07

The 28th Happy Return

Filed under: General — 19day @ 00:22:14

So I had yet another birthday, they just keep piling on.

In the morning Ian dropped off my presents, a new desk (some assembly required) and 2 monitor mount arms. I didn’t have time to play with anything at that point since in the afternoon I got together with Alicia who graciously agreed to keep me company on my birthday. We saw a movie and had dinner, and I walked her home. By the time I got back I was far too tired to mess around with the desk, but I did watch some of Alicia’s gift to me, the Get Smart box set. Such nostalgic memories, coming home from school, changing it to one of the 3 channels we could receive, and watching Get Smart and the old batman series. She also got me Punch Out on the wii, but I haven’t tried it yet.

On Sunday I was off home for a family BBQ. Well, limited family, since virtually all the family members invited couldn’t make it for one reason or another, some even going so far as to accept, later decline, re-accept, and finally bail on the day. Spent a few hours there, and also bought a new videocard for my parents computer since theirs was grinding its way to oblivion. It scares me since we have virtually the same model of computer, so I await the day that mine starts sounding like rattling teeth and angry.

When I got back to the apartment from the BBQ I started assembling the desk. I took an inventory of all the parts, checking them off on the master sheet. I was far more organized with this than any other thing I’ve put together. All the screws were in separate bags, and the instructions were mostly clear as to what bits to assemble with which screws, and as it happened I had the correct amount. The makers also saw fit to include a bag of spares, which had 1 of every type of fastener, which I appreciated though didn’t need. It still took a couple of hours, and a few of the instructions were ambiguous, but I got it together. It’s reasonably solid, though I still feel like my old desk is slightly more solid for some reason. I guess I don’t trust my screw-tightening skills.

Desk Assembled

Some assembly required, 3 hours

I put together the monitor arm mounts a bit, and finished them off today (since I basically had to attach the monitors as I put them together, which involved shutting down the computer). So today I shut down, and unwired everything to start again. I moved the old desk and table out and did some sweeping (far too much stuff in the way of the closet to get the vacuum out). I put the desk in place and rewired things as best as I could. I took out the dead usb harddrive, and its supporting wires. Also the old computer finally got moved out of the way, and the old subwoofer and speakers it used.

Side-table cleaned

Down to 4 external hard drives
Wires

Still endless rat’s maze of wires

The swingarms work well enough, but I find that they force my head to look up, since they raise the height of the monitors a bit, and further the desk is high anyway, making it worse. I’ll have to experiment. I also have some difficulty moving the monitors because there isn’t any clearance behind the desk, so the swing-arm portion of the mount just hits the wall and I can’t move it further. Such is life in a small apartment. Also, one of my monitors still has the stem from the base attached. I can’t see any way of taking it off without breaking the monitor, so for the moment it stays on.

Setup finished

And the computer booted once more

But it’s pretty neat to be able to move them around so freely. They use a weight-tension system, so I just reach out and move things around. And the new desk comes with a swingout table which goes over the spot where I kept my computers, so I didn’t lose any room, but gained more desk, which is very handy. Thanks to brother and parents.

So another year come and gone.
Until next year.

Edit: Now you can see the arms in action

disco desk

Even the swing-table got in on the action

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