Lolrus.org
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February 15, 2007 at 01:27 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentEh, finally something good happened to me as far as getting a co-op is concerned. I got an offer from Intel today which means I will be moving to California in 3 weeks after finals (driving there). I will be there for 6 months.
Yup. No more snow for me this year! No more -15 degree weather. No more potholes. No more 8:00 am classes.
If things work out right I will only have to spend one more quarter at RIT. And by things working out right I mean going straight to Germany to study abroad for 5 months after my Intel internship. I won't be back for a year! Weeeeee. Rochester is cool and all in it's own way, but it's just not for me. I need a change of scenery.
So what am I going to be doing at Intel? It's a bit vague now, but I do know a few things. I will be working on a team that optimizes software for Apple. They look at everything from the high level algorithms to the low level assembly. I will be working on Mac's. And apparently, the second day I am there they are flying me to a conference in Phoenix, AZ, which I wasn't told much about.
Believe it or not, I don't have much to complain about, except for maybe a lonely Valentine's day, but not everything always goes your way.
Deutchland
December 15, 2006 at 01:42 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentWell, it looks like I am (hopefully) going to Germany for five months next year in Osnabrück. It also looks like I will finish my RIT education there if I take classes this spring as well. Gonna be great. I wonder how I will get all my photo gear to Germany... and the stuff I actually need.
I think I have decided which area of computer science I would like to concentrate in finally. Vision and AI. Mmm.. Functional Languages. I'm not sure if I want to do the human side or the computer side of it. I think they complement each other which ever path I choose. Ooh, I need to get my GPA up so I can apply to grad school for Color Science. Yeah, color science is great.
The school at University of Osnabrück I will be studying at is Cognitive Science, not Computer Science, so that will be a nice change of things. I'm getting all the low level stuff out of my system this quarter :D.
Oh, I struck out with Microsoft :( They want me to interview in the spring again for the same position because I was really close apparently.
Wee so much work. I have to finish all my prints for the Southwest trip relatively soon, else I am fucked.
I'm really disgusted with a lot of people I know. Everybody is so afraid to do anything remotely adventurous. All these people I know are co-oping at RIT when they could be getting a job across the country, or just settling for a job in Rochester when they graduate. I can't believe people would stay in the dorms after their first or even second year. I mean maybe I don't have ambition as far as getting a 4.0 goes, but I certainly don't want to stay. Grrr... people. I need some more adventurous friends. </rant> I need to get an internship on the West Coast so I have an excuse to drive cross country by myself.
Oh, and I'm also annoyed that my posts have digressed into non-technical crap. Sorry, I hate myself for it too :)
It's Been a While
November 27, 2006 at 02:12 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentWow, I've been busy lately. At least I'd like to think so. Last week I had my finals and I passed all my classes :). I even pulled a few surprises with my grades. I've had some less than great luck with getting a co-op for this winter. Here's my story:
Well, there are 3 main companies involved. Since I don't want to burn any bridges, lets call them really-big-search-engine, consumer-end-printer, and web-based-collaboration.
It all started at the career fair in the fall... I first talked with web-based-collaboration, a company where my friend has co-oped and still works there part time. Everything went well, and I ended up having an interview with them a week later. They promptly sent me a job offer in the mail. The pay wasn't all that good (it was actually less than what I had been making for the past few summers), and it would have meant that I had to stay in Rochester, but it was also an interesting opportunity to learn some new things, and not be a testing monkey. I called them up and asked them if I could wait until a specific date to give them a decision and they said OK.
At the career fair I also spoke with consumer-end-printer company. It seemed to go pretty good--until they brought up their minimum GPA. I explained to them that my GPA did not reflect my capabilities and performance and that I have proven myself at various companies in the past. I didn't expect to hear from them again because they seemed to be pretty strict on their policies, but I actually did about a week after I got the offer from web-based-collaboration. They wanted to interview me. And they did. Funny thing is is that I wrote down the time wrong and was actually woken up by their phone call. It went over well though. Even when they brought up the GPA thing and asked me what mine was and mentioned that they had a minimum GPA that was higher than mine. They actually called me back later that day saying that they were filling out the paperwork to hire me. I was pretty excited.
During this time, I received an email from an engineer really-big-search-engine saying that he came across my resume and wanted to interview me. I thought it was a joke at first because it was a pretty informal email, but from one of the companies that many people I know would give their left arm to work at, including myself at the time. I had the interview with him, wrote him a bit of code, had an interview with somebody else, wrote some code. He told me he was filling out the paperwork for the offer, but nothing was official yet. I couldn't believe I was actually going to work for this company. A day or two later I received an email from the recruiter at the company saying that I needed a second interview. I was befuddled because I already had a second interview. Apparently, my second interview didn't actually count. The second second interview was scheduled a week later. It was approaching the deadline that I had for giving web-based-collaboration an answer. I was also a nervous wreck because I thought I would mess something up. I didn't and a few days after the interview I heard from the recruiter that they were filling out an offer for real this time. She explained to me the training process and all the benefits and asked me when I would want to start and such. I was pretty sure this was going to happen. At least that's how it came across. She said she just needed to clear everything with the VP and would get back to me. She called me a couple minutes later, asking me for my GPA. I told her, and she said it might be a problem. My heart sunk. She then asked me to email her my unofficial transcript. I did. About 10 minutes later, I heard back from her, "I'm sorry..." I was absolutely devastated for about three days. Rejection is okay, but how this company went about things just wasn't right. As a kicker, I have two friends working there as engineers right now. One graduated from the same school as me with the same degree with a lesser GPA than mine. Another friend of mine was a drop-out here. He didn't make it to graduation (albeit, he is also a FreeBSD contributor and that might have helped).
Devastated I was, but I contacted consumer-end-printer a few days later seeing why I hadn't heard anything from them yet. They said, "We thought we gave you a job offer already," and I said, "No, I haven't received anything." After a little looking up they realized they gave an offer to another Lewis, but that wasn't a problem. The recruiter explained to me all the benefits of working there, how they would house me in a really nice apartment by myself, how my transportation would be reimbursed, and all of that good stuff. This was sounding great. He then asked for an unofficial transcript. I said something to the extent of, "My GPA won't be a problem, right?" And that's where it began. He said that he'd have to see, and that they were very strict about their policy of a minimum GPA. He got back to me a day later saying that this wasn't going to fly, even though I told them my GPA during my interview and at the career fair. There was nothing he could do, even though I was by far the best candidate for the position. My heart sunk even further.
I called web-based-collaboration right away to accept the offer, but request if I could only co-op for a three month term instead of a six month term because I really wanted to get out of Rochester, at least this spring. I mentioned that I would still work there either way. She said she'd get back to me Wednesday. Thursday I get a call from her, "Sorry, but we're going to have to withdraw our offer..." Yep! They did it. They withdrew it because they didn't feel I was interested in the position. I can't really blame them though, I probably came off that way. It was just the cherry on the sundae. Wait, no, it isn't. I was called by HP a few days before that saying they wanted to interview me for winter quarter, but I had to turn it down the opportunity because I thought I had already accepted the position at web-based-collaboration. Funny how things work out.
The thing is is that I don't need to co-op. I have at least 4 quarters worth of previous experience to count as my co-op requirements to graduate. I want to co-op and therefore since I have a choice I refuse to be just another "code monkey" or do testing because I find that stuff really boring and that's what most of the companies what their co-ops for. Even though I have a lot of experience, it's only at two different companies (although very similar work) and I need experience in other places so I am more well-rounded, and can figure out what I really like to do (aside from photography). Also, this winter is going to murder me. I am taking Operating Systems, Systems Programming, Data Communications and Networking, and Intro. to Computer Vision. Well, I am actually psyched. I love programming project classes.
I also have this really great idea for a new type of Web 2.0 site that I am going to start implementing with my friend, Karl this winter if I have enough time. We decided to use Ruby and ActiveRecord, but no Rails, because I find Rails overrated and a bit superfluous. But yes, it will be great, even if it doesn't work.
More RAM.
October 18, 2006 at 09:53 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentSunday I placed an order 2 gigs of DDR 500 RAM.
It will increase my total RAM to 2.5 GB. Unfortunately, I have to remove 2 x 256mb DIMMs because all my slots are full. The nForce2 chipset only has room for 3 DIMMs. I purchased the RAM to make my desktop more usable until I can afford a new PC. Maybe by that time I'll even be able to afford quad core CPU(s) :)
It's not a waste even when I do replace this box. It will become my server and replace skank* which is my CSH user rack server. Skank is an Athlon T-bird 900 with a whopping 512 megs of pc133. I don't know how, but it's stable, and before I added new hard drives it had a 384 day uptime. This box will still be a huge improvement over skank, especially when upload tons of 6.1 megapixel images for it to resize in gallery.
Anyways, it will save a ton of time processing those Flextight scans and sorting out those miscellaneous RAWs.
* My server, skank, is named because "skank" is the verb form of "skanking" which is a type of dancing (to ska music). It is not named after the noun, "skank", used to describe a promiscuous female.
RAID 5s and Flextight 848
October 02, 2006 at 11:15 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentI apologize if anybody tried accessing my site, or Jeremy's this weekend. After 385 days of uptime, I decided that I needed to take "Skank", my server, down for maintenance. It's 60gb hard drive had a whine of death and I had 3 80gb drives to put in it. And that I did.
Basically, in Linux (or BSD I believe), you don't need a RAID controller to have a RAID. And I wanted to take full advantage of all 3 drives, so I set up a RAID 5 with them. To migrate the data from the 60gb reiserfs partition, I used dd to copy the bits to the new 160gb partition. After that which took an hour or two I used the command resize_reiserfs to resize the 60gb partition on what was actually a 160gb partition to 160gb, and bam!, a couple more seconds and I was migrated. I also set up a RAID 1 for my boot partition and and a RAID 0 for swap. Then I just had to tweak my fstab and grub config and grub the new drives, restart, and yup it worked. Okay, I embellished a bit. It didn't go all that smooth, but the outcome is what matters, right?
So right now I am scanning tons of 4x5s on a Flextight 848 and damn, they are sexy. So very much faster than the Flextight II's and that makes me happy. Honestly, they scan at 2040dpi, about 4 times faster (just an estimate) than the Flextight II's do at 1800dpi. Heh, and I am on the same network as my server so I can just scp all my 16bit tiffs to it instead of storing them.
Yeah, I am stressed... my portable hard drive got destroyed and it had a lot of stuff on it.
EDIT - Ruby and OpenGL Seminars at CSH
September 07, 2006 at 08:07 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentEDIT: Seminars will be held now on SUNDAY instead of Saturday
If anybody who reads this is in the Rochester area or goes to RIT, I will be doing two seminars this Saturday. One on OpenGL, and one on Ruby.
For those of you that don't know, I am part of Computer Science House, and CSH does seminars which are pretty much crash courses/tutorials on specific topics. They're free of course, and everybody is welcome to attend.
They are both going to be in the software room on CSH as of now. If you need instructions on where to go, just drop me a line.
My OpenGL seminar will start at 2:00 pm. Ruby at 3:00 pm, or whenever my OpenGL seminar ends.
Here's a tentative list of topics:
OpenGL:
- GLUT
- Basic Geometry Creation
- Transformations
- Perspectives
- Matrix Transformations (maybe)
- And more
- Interactive Ruby Shell (IRB)
- Gems
- Features (such as yields)
- HTTP stuff
- REXML (Ruby XML API)
- More...
I hope I see a good turnout. Like I said, everybody is invited.
I Need a Jorb
September 05, 2006 at 03:37 PM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentWell, I didn't get a job at Harris RF after I had a good phone interview and such because currently my GPA is .075 below their minimum requirement. I find this very upsetting. I think my friend, Drew, worded it quite well, "It's one thing to have a [GPA] policy of limiting interviews so that they aren't inundated, but not accepting someone because of a GPA after you've decided you like them is really stupid."
Well, I also didn't request to work remotely part-time in the fall for Mastercam in the fall because I was pretty optimistic about getting this job. I am SOL. I also refuse to sell my soul to retail because I am worth more than selling iPods at BestBuy and I have too much integrity to sell people garbage at CompUSA that's marked up at least 200%.
If you are reading this and know of a place near or in Rochester where I can apply to work part-time this fall, or a place I can work remotely I would greatly appreciate it. Also, I will be happy to do freelance work as well.
I won't make it through the fall--especially because I need about 40 portfolio prints by the end of fall quarter.
Anyways, I have good news too. I am really excited about my color science class. The professor seems great and like he knows his stuff. It's going to be a challenging class, but it's definitely applicable to stuff I want to do after I graduate. I also think I will enjoy the Imaging Science department a lot. I am very pleased that I found out about the Imaging Science minor. Who knows, I might even be sucked into going for an imaging science masters after I get my CS degree.
Internet--or Lack Thereof
September 05, 2006 at 08:07 AM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentWell, I haven't gotten cable internet in my apartment, but I think I am deciding not to get it. Why? Because I think I will be much more productive and get better grades and get out of the apartment more.
I can always go to CSH or some hotspot to use get my email (p.s. I love CSH internet)
Unfortunately, this also means I will not be putting much work into my personal projects for a while.
More GLens
August 31, 2006 at 11:45 PM | categories: Uncategorized | CommentWow, check this out:
If I do say so myself, it looks quite sweet. So I have all the tracing code worked out. Now I just need to (a) add interactive features and (b) optimize the hell out of it (c) give it a little chromatic aberration. It's terribly inefficient right now, but I just set it up so it works.
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