Things I’ve been doing
08 Dec 2008
Ok ok I know this is long overdue. I’ve been lazy, I’ve been busy, I’ve had better days and my world right now is little lorentzy.
Sorry for my uncalibrated sense of humor, I meant chaos, but that would just ruin the perfect rhythm. In this not-so-interesting-at-all update of my recent non-digital life, I will try to make it up for you. Yes, YOU. And no, not YOU.
- A Whole Slew of ANALysis
- The Part of Excel I’ve Never Used
- XKCD Junkie
- Tablet PC, Tablet PC, Tablet PC
- Dad Has an iPhone
A Whole Slew of ANALysis
I’m taking a course called MATH 320: Real Analysis I this term. Of course you already knew that, I’m just talking to myself. From what I heard it all started from some French guy named Augustin-Louis Cauchy. His writings sparked some really big fires on the Calculus domain, and eventually burned a hole into the realm of mathematical analysis. And today I’m sitting in the classroom suffering pages of proofs, with his name constantly whispered in the air. Not that I’m not grateful for the contribution he made to modern mathematics, but this whole analysis thing is just mind-twisting. And every single proof I’ve written just proves my own incompetence. I’m not exactly happy.
The Part of Excel I’ve Never Used
Really, I just can’t pretend that I knew Excel can do DE’s (Differential Equations). No, not solving it silly. It merely plots the solution once you’ve got that and managed to convert the delicate mathematical expressions into that long, long string of formulae with incredible complexity. For example, the following expression
would translate into something like:
$N$1*((-1)^$A9*(2*$A9+1)-5)/(PI()*$J$1*(2*$A9+1)*(-6+$A9+$A9^2))
and
($B9*COS((2*$A9+1)*$J$1*$H$1)+$C9*SIN((2*$A9+1)*$J$1*$H$1))*COS((2*$A9+1)*E$2)
Headache1, isn’t it?
XKCD Junkie
God knows how I stumbled upon this addictive little webcomic, but it does prove my eccentric (or, dare I say, geeky) sense of humor. With the numerous “your mom” jokes and metaphorical mathematics and linux loves, I just can’t stop watching. Well, it may not be bad thing at all.
My poor imitation of my favorite webcomic. Oh where is the last of my sanity?
Tablet PC, Tablet PC, Tablet PC
I’ve always wanted a tablet2. From X41T to X61T to T5010, I haven’t stopped watching. I can talk for hours on tablet touch/ink technology without stopping…ok, I know this symptom is typically called daydreaming. I guess I’ll go read more books. Maybe a data sheet or two of that newly released Fujitsu Stylistic slate.
Oh Dollars in the Toilet, Again
If you’ve been watching recent currency rate, you probably know that the Canadian dollar is not doing very well. I’m actually happy about this since I’m an international student. And that CAD-to-CNY rate has been rising ever since I’ve got here. But this is not entirely a good thing since the fall in the exchange rate is guaranteed to cause rising prices in some goods. Especially those that are imported. And Canada imports nearly all of the IT products from the rest of the world, mostly from the US. For example, a Core 2 Quad Q9650 CPU was sold for CAD$600 last month, and it is now sold at CAD$700. Not like I’m buying those things, just a thought.
Dad Has an iPhone
While most people on the street think iPhone is “teh Jesus Phone”, I have no taste for it. The reasons? Simple: it’s made by a company named “Apple”. I’m not against Apple or anything, I have an iMac G5 purchased back in 2005. My point is, this phone is over-hyped and overrated. I mean, can it walk on water?
But I’ll admit this: iPhone is a great phone. The UI is the best for the generic people who just don’t want to fiddle with their phone every once in a while. Frankly, Apple knows what it’s doing when making this phone and it has certainly pulled a one-shot success.
Recently, my dad bought an iPhone. Before buying it he asked my opinion. I wasn’t going to recommend the iPhone and I was thinking hard: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC, etc.. And he said to me, some friends of mine recommended to me this iPhone from Apple, what do you think? Then I suddenly realized that this is exactly the phone he needed. My dad has been wearing glasses due to old-age hyperopia and he doesn’t like the small keys found on most of the mobile phones (he has big hands too). He also tried hand writing with some Windows Mobile powered devices, and hated the small buttons and fonts. iPhone may actually solve his problem. So I approved the recommendation and said, yeah that’s an excellent choice; you’ll gonna love it.
Later on when I was speaking to my dad on the phone, I asked about his experience with the iPhone. To my surprise, he loved it for like two days before finding it somewhat flawed. Problem number one, is there is no replaceable battery, and he has to recharge the phone every two and a half days and he doesn’t it much (2~4 calls per day, no surfing online, no picture taking, maybe a little gaming).
Problem number two, which I’m sure is a mistake, is that his iPhone is GPS-less. Yes his phone is the 3G version. Unfortunately I can’t help him on this, and it’s up to the dealer who sold this phone to fix this.
Problem number three, is that there are too few applications. I told him there is an “App Store” somewhere in the digital world but I really, really don’t want to introduce the crappy iTunes to him. So I guess he’ll have to make do with whatever is installed on his phone for now.
Besides that, he likes it.
???
Arghhh….I forgot to post this!