I’ve submitted five assignments to date: 2 algebra (one last night, one last Tuesday night), 2 Computer Science (one last night, one last Tuesday night), and one Calculus (last Friday). I got the results from the first algebra and Computer Science assignments back. I got 80% on Computer Science and 82% on algebra. Not a bad start, I guess.
I’m going to start with the comments section of this because I’m not sure. I noticed today that, unbeknownst to me. some peoples’ comments aren’t going through right away. I don’t know why this is happening, so for now I’m just going to make sure I keep a close eye on comments just in case they get blocked. If your comment doesn’t go through right away don’t worry about it, I’ll see it and fix that.
I was really excited for that Monster. They sell them for $3 ($0.49 less than in stores and I don’t pay taxes) in the main hall of my residence building. I’ve had a long day or two of homework, so I decided that I would get a Monster with my dinner so that I would be more energized for the Algebra Open Help session I’m going to in an hour or so. I picked up my salad then went over to the vending machine to get my monster. The machine was one of those ones where you can see all the items on the shelves and when you select one this arm thing goes up, gets your drink, and brings it to a little area with a plastic cover over it. When the drink reaches its destination, the plastic cover should open. It didn’t. I didn’t get my Monster, and now I’m mad. I emailed the vending machine support people and notified the front desk, but somebody (not me) is getting a free Monster.
The bug named Thor is a big, winged, moth-like bug of unknown species who landed first on my paper then on my friend Tish’s knee during my Psychology lecture this morning. I liked Thor, but he made Tish freak out so I had to exile him. He will be forever missed, and may he have the best of luck in his future.
It went out the window so quickly, in fact, that it came back around the earth and hit me 12.499935521cm below my shoulder (not really, that would require it to have been going 3,206,015,811.62m/s (11,541,656,921.832km/h or 7,171,653,121.91302mph or 10.69411763394 times the speed of light). Fortunately, going that fast eliminates the need to worry about obstacles.). Somebody stole my bike. It was locked to the rack outside my room, and when I went outside this morning it wasn’t there. Some other bikes and bike components wire missing, too. It’s really unfortunate because now I can’t bring my fancy bike with me to school. And I don’t have a bike to use any more. Somebody must have been really desperate; that lock was pretty tough.
I’m impressed that nobody threw up last night. My floor is notorious for being loud and drunk and throwing up. Two nights ago they consumed 72+ beers and A LOT of hard liquor (no, I did not help with that. There was 9999999999999 people from the rest of the school to do that) and a few people threw up. The bathroom floor is now sticky.
Back to the point, nobody threw up last night! YAY! And we didn’t have to kick people out! It was great.
I am fairly certain that there simply are not enough hours in my day for me to do all of the things I would like to do. For example, I can’t remember the last time I touched my synthesizer (that’s a lie, I was playing with it about two weeks ago, but my point stands). Despite my busy schedule, I decided I would watch light travel through stuff. So have a look at this link, some people at MIT recorded a pulse of light travelling through and over objects at one trillion (1,000,000,000,000 or a million million) frames per second, then play it back at sixty frames per second (standard for television and movies). It takes light one nanosecond (one billionth of a second) to travel one foot, and in these videos it takes several seconds. Enjoy!
I had some penetration testing (computer security testing etc.) software running on my computer the other day to show off to my friends, and only just now did the school email me about it. I’m surprised it took them this long to follow up with me.
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012
Sexual assault allegation withdrawn
Waterloo Regional Police on Thursday announced that a sexual assault alleged to have happened on the University of Waterloo campus on Monday, Sept. 17, did not occur.
The statement from Waterloo Regional Police reads in part:
“As a result of investigation by Major Case Branch investigators, it has been determined that the female’s initial allegations to police were not true. The sexual assault previously described at the University of Waterloo campus on September 17, 2012, did not occur. Investigators are appreciative of public assistance received during the investigation.”
No charges have been laid.
The University of Waterloo remains committed to ensuring the safety of all members of our campus community. Safety tips and a full outline of our campus safety services and procedures is available online athttp://uwaterloo.ca/police/personal-safety-guide.
Sexual assault is treated very seriously at the University of Waterloo. A guide to campus and community resources can be found athttp://uwaterloo.ca/police/sexual-assault.
The university appreciates the efforts of Waterloo Regional Police and the University of Waterloo Police Service in this investigation.
Apparently the girl lied. Or something.
Or first principles. I have to find the equation of the tangent line to a polynomial without using calculus or any kind of first principles. For my calculus class. What is this madness? What kind of calculus class requires me to not use calculus for my assignment?
On Monday, September 17, between 10 and 10:30 p.m., a female student was sexually assaulted by two males while walking through the west cul de sac between Village 1 and Mackenzie King Village.
Police provided the following descriptions of the suspects, who fled after the assault:
- Suspect 1: male, white, 19 years old, 5’6”, with a heavy build, wearing a red hat
- Suspect 2: male, non-white, 19 years old, 6’, black hair, slender build.
The ongoing investigation is being led by Waterloo Regional Police, supported by University of Waterloo Police. We will update the campus community as more information becomes available. Anyone with information is asked to contact Waterloo Regional Police at 519-650-8500 ext. 3310, University of Waterloo Police at 519-888-4567 ext. 22222, or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at1-800-222-8477.
The safety of our students and all members of our campus community is of paramount concern at the University of Waterloo. As a result of this incident, campus police have increased patrols in the area of the student residences. Students, faculty, staff and other members of our community are encouraged to be alert to danger and report any suspicious activity to campus police.
When walking,
- Follow a major road at night, or a well-lit path
- Walk at a steady pace and with confidence near the curb
- Avoid dark entrances and shrubs
- Do not walk home alone at night — make arrangements with a friend to meet and walk home together, call for a ride, or use one of the resources offered by the university.
Further information about campus safety resources, including our shuttle service, can be found online at https://uwaterloo.ca/police/safety-resources. The shuttle service is available from the first day of registration to the last day of exams. It leaves regularly from the Student Life Centre at about 7:00 p.m. in the winter, at 9:00 p.m. in the summer and runs until 2:00 a.m. Women have first priority for rides. Emergency intercoms, with flashing blue lights, are located throughout the campus.
For more information, contact:
Dan Anderson
Director, University Police
519-888-4567 ext. 32828
danander@uwaterloo.ca
The above is an email that was sent around today. I didn’t know University of Waterloo was so sketchy. I suppose I’ll have to stop dressing so scantily, then…
On a lighter note, my calculus homework is too hard for Microsoft Mathematics to solve. It’s not even that hard. It’s a an inequality involving the absolute value of two quadratic functions.
It’s amazing how some people make it through life. I was at Zehrs today with two of my friends getting some food, and we decided to use the self-checkout. We thought it would be faster than standing in line; we were wrong. We were second in line (behind a very nice lady who took part in making fun of the troglodyte) for about half an hour. The woman who was trying to use the self-checkout machine believed that to scan an item in you must slide the item around over the scanner (not necessarily with the UPC code actually facing the scanner), angle the face you are currently sliding towards the mirror, put it back down, slide it some more, then rotate to another side when it doesn’t work. She would often end up covering the entire surface area of her items several times before actually getting it to scan properly. She had an amount of groceries which reminded me of how much my mom bought while my brother and I were living at home. Needless to say, this took quite a while. The machine telling her to wait for the attendant to come help her only added to the wait. I weep for humanity.
As for illogical logic, the bonus question on my assignment requires me to program a function which will determine if a given number is even or odd, then based on the result either divide the number by two (even numbers) or multiply the number by three then add one (odd numbers). Normally, this would be easy. The code would look something like this (in c++, I don’t know how to do conditions in the language being taught (called Scheme) yet):
int x;
cin >> x;
if (x % 2 == 0) {
cout << x/2;
}
if (x % 2 != 0) {
cout << 3x+1;
}
Pretty easy to follow, right (that percent sign means modulo in mathematics, which divides the number and returns the remainder. A value of 0 means the numbers are divisible, anything else means they are not. Any even number will be divisible by 2 and any odd number will not)? Unfortunately, for this assignment I’m not allowed to go teach myself to use conditions in Scheme. I have to do it without using any kind of condition statements whatsoever. I am limited to variable and function declaration and use, and mathematical operations. My dad helped me find a way to determine if the number is even or not by getting it to return 0 if the number’s even and 0.5 if it’s odd, but I’m not sure where to go from here.
Simon At School 