#ece110

[walfas]

April 27, 2011 - 6554 steps

Physics at 10am, what did we learn today, uhh... well my homework wasn't collected

Hour break at 11am, went to library

Comp Arch at noon, except really 1pm because etc. Went over more about what the final project will be, programming the PAL for the ALU involves writing a program to write the logic, and also writing an assembler for the instructions, that generates a binary file to be put on the ROM for prog mem. At first I was like "aw man" but now I am kinda like "yeah awesome" because I like writing programs that parse formatted text. I don't know why.

Hour break at 3pm, ate lunch, looked up some sorting algorithms, and found this article which I thought was kinda funny. (" It uses true quantum randomness to randomly permute the list. The list is then inspected, and if it is not in order, the universe is destroyed.")

Signals review at 4pm, went over several problems from the 2009 exam, half of which we have not learned yet. It involves SSS and WSS whatnot things etc stuff

HSS at 6pm, we got bagels with cream cheese, yeahh. Then people presented their papers and at the end we got our papers back except not mine and one other person who also handed it in on time because she is not done grading them yet

walked home at about 8:45pm, 6554 steps

[walfas]

April 20, 2011 - 6868 steps

Physics at 10am, homework was collected, learned more stuff about energies and potentials (specifically, sketching wave functions given potentials and energies) and tunneling of particles

Hour break at 11am, went to EE lab, put some stuff together for comp arch

Comp arch at noon, except more like 1:15pm (aside from the fact that the class is supposed to be at noon, we were told it was going to be at 1pm today, and he arrives 15 mins later than that of course). Went over some of the assignment and how to use an o-scope. Also ceramic resonators and how to wire up the P16F877.

Rant: We were then given an absurd assignment to design a 4-bit processor using a PAL (which we have learned nothing about), some memory chips (which we have also not learned how to use) with a PIC involved somehow, written up in extremely vague language ("You will have to figure it out on your own" is a thing that was said) and assigned to us on the spot (as always) in a huge indecipherable mess on the whiteboard. With a schematic due by Sunday. I'm sorry but this class is just ridiculous. Sure, it's nice going 90% of the semester without any real work to do and having the first hour of every three-hour class being free time while he's late, but we don't really learn what we're supposed to learn, and get this crazy final project without even a printout telling us what is expected from it. But anyway.

Two hour break at 3pm, ate some food, printed out HSS essay and annotated bibliography, then worked on Signals stuff in MATLAB in the computer center.

MATLAB seminar at 5pm, learned about simulink

HSS at 6pm, presentations on peoples' papers, and discussion about our visit to the Empire State Building two weeks ago. Ended up going 15 minutes late (until 9:15). Also I cannot speak for more than two minutes at a time without completely messing up and having no idea what I am saying, but that is another story.

Walked home at 9:15pm, 6868 steps.

[walfas]

April 6, 2011 - 13011 steps

It'd probably be like 20,000 if I actually decided to walk home from Herald Square (in other news, I now know how to walk from my home to Herald Square), but more on that at the end

Physics at 10am, professor answered about 20 minutes of questions, and then we did stuff about uhh... wait, what did we do today, even? Oh right, interference patterns with photons and something about a Hitachi experiment that is considered one of the most beautiful experiments ever (or in the last 100 years), or something. I guess it is kinda cool.

Hour break at 11am, went to library, planned out schedule. There aren't very many conflicts, and if everything goes correctly (and it probably will, since the random number generator likes me and I got a 49, putting me in the first registration slot again), I will have no classes on Mondays.

Comp arc at noon, except more like 12:45 because he is always late (I will say this every week). Professor talked about Friday (yes, the song). Also learned about some more assembly instructions and what the different bits mean, etc. Seems fairly straightforward.

Went to humanities office with some people to ask about taking foreign language classes at The New School and they were not aware that some of the language classes start in late August rather than September. Anyway I might take Japanese next semester.

Ate some food, went to library and did some solid state homework until 5pm

MATLAB seminar at 5pm, learned about some graphical ways of doing filters in MATLAB, and also looked at the debugger

HSS4 at 6pm, today we had a ~field trip~ to the Empire State building and had a scavenger hunt thing where we took pictures of various tourist things. Best HSS class so far, especially because we got to leave whenever we felt like leaving. We walked to Herald Square and that place just reminds me of WalfasCon now; I remember being there on New Year's Eve with @Yuyuko_Saigyoji and playing Mahjong there with @canon_chan @8bmp and @R1CK_D0M, fun times. I guess those touristy places like Times Square will forever remind me of WalfasCon since those are the only times I've bothered going to those kinds of places.

Anyway, we finished at about 7:20 and I was going to walk back (rather than spend $2.25 on a subway ride), but then decided to just take the subway rather than walking about 50 blocks. It was raining very slightly.

13011 steps taken today.

[walfas]

March 23, 2011 - 5884 steps

Physics at 10am, examples of conservation of 4-momentum and energy, and the importance of the fact that the squared magnitude of the 4-vector is an invariant quantity and does not change for any reference frame

Seminar on "Lessons from Africa" it was actually pretty interesting, probably the most interesting of all of them

Comp arc at noon, except more like 12:45 because he is never there on time. Pre-12:45, the class watched Friday parodies on the computer projector. In the actual class we examined one possible way to make a 4-bit ALU with add, subtract, and, or, left shift, right shift functions. Did not go over WinCUPL at all, which is okay because I did not download it

Two hour break at 3pm, went to library and did some signals homework, except really just one single problem because I kept doing it one way and then realizing it's not the same as partial fractions with s-plane stuff. And I didn't feel like going upstairs to use a computer so I just used wolframalpha and browsed informative inverse z-transform via partial fractions sites on my iPod touch. It was difficult.

it was very unpleasant outside

MATLAB seminar at 5pm, learned some things about handles to plots, and creating animations by manipulating those plots. Also some filters (butterworth filter, or something like that, and general filters) at the end

HSS4 at 6pm, discussed the Club Med reading and the stuff about the KdF thing and the Butlin holiday camps in London. Went over some other things too, probably. Got two of the previous assignments back, did well

Walked home, it was even more unpleasant outside than it was before. All this slush on the ground, ergh. Got home, everyone was at a restaurant because it's my cousin's birthday and I was told to head home since it was unpleasant outside and I get out of class really late anyway, so I went home. Then food was brought back and I found out it was from that seafood and chicken place that we barely ever go to anymore. Then I ate the food and it was good

5884 steps taken today

[walfas]

March 9, 2011 - 6461 steps

physics at 10am, Minkowski diagrams with lots of drills and doing things in the present that affect the past by going faster than the speed of light, except not because it is not possible in a causal universe

hour break at 11am, went to library, did solid state stuff

comp arc at noon, except really it started at 1:20pm as usual. The class spent the time browsing f yeah nouns on the projector. In the actual class we looked at some WinCUPL stuff

two hour break at 3pm, went to library, more solid state stuff

matlab seminar at 5pm, learned cell arrays and stuff

HSS4 at 6pm, discussed MacCannel reading (or however it's spelled), the beach chapter of Lofgren, and then some primary documents related to our topic

Walked home at 9pm, 6461 steps

[walfas]

March 7, 2011 - 3448 steps

Physics at 1pm, did some Lorentz transformation examples, did a graphical representation of spacetime, and probably something else I'm forgetting

Computer center at 2pm, did Matlab assignment #2 until about 5:15pm

Walked home, 3448 steps

[walfas]

February 23, 2011 - 7289 steps

Physics at 10am, more about that Michelson experiment thing, the speed of light is constant for all observers

Went to library at 11am, did solid state homework

Comp arc at noon, people went over their projects, there was some discussion about memory, whatever

Two hour break at 3pm, did DSA homework

MATLAB seminar at 5pm, learned about syms

HSS4 at 6pm, the professor brought in her son for whatever reason, and he was being impatient and distracting. Then everyone discussed their research topic and then there was some browsing of old German guidebooks.

Walked home at about 9:10pm, 7289 steps taken. Have a physics exam tomorrow morning that I am not very prepared for.

[walfas]

February 14, 2011 - 4999 steps

Woah, 4999 steps; that's almost 5000!!

Took subway to school, saw people with flowers and people sitting on other peoples' laps and then I stared at my physics notes from lecture

Modern physics at 1pm, something about thin films (like, air and then a very thin layer of oil on top of it, and then more air) and crazy rainbow-looking effects. The colors correspond to the thickness of the oil. At the end, someone got free money

2pm, went to computer center, did MATLAB assignment

~3pm, played some Technika, @eph_c was also there

these songs (might not be in order): Sweet Dream, I Want You, Ruti'n (failed) / Honeymoon, Flea, La Campanella NM / Oblivion, Freedom, STOP (failed) / Someday, Love is Beautiful, Remember

I also got a blister on my finger at some point during the third play; oh boy, my first Technika-related injury (well not really an injury, but as close to one as you can get with Technika, hopefully). Overall probably not as good as usual, except I got all Max on Someday except two cools (298,445 yeaaah)

Got home at about 4:45pm, 4999 steps taken

Edit: Okay wow this technika-related is injury is worse than I thought, it hurts to type unless I don't use the middle finger on my right hand, but then I type slower and it feels weird