so i remember when i was little-ish going to the bank and getting candy (jolly rancher or lolly pop). my current "local" bank for checking is bank of america. i needed to deposit a couple of checks today, so after work i headed over there. as i pulled into the lot i was worried for half a second that they were closed (since today is nevada day for all you non-nevadans). but they were open. i went in and filled out my deposit slips and then went to a teller to make the deposit. i know you can do this using an atm, but that would mean i don't get a chance to get candy. see, i know this bank makes a lot of money off of me since they give me some crappy interest rate like 0.03% (yes that is right). so i figure part of the perks of being part of this bank is the candy. so on the way out i didn't see the basket with the lolly pops on the counter of thier welcome desk. but i did spy it in the work area of the welcome person so i casually walked by and swiped myself a lemon lolly pop. mmm tasty. okay not the best candy ever, but it makes me feel a bit less ripped off.
29.10.04
28.10.04
birthday....sigh
most people don't like b-days because they are getting older. me i don't care about that; most of the time i can't remember how old i am, though i think i am 26 now. what i do care about is awkward social situations. i don't like parties. fortunately keith isn't good at organizing such things. although we did go out to eat with his parents last night which was good. but it was bad because i think it was his mom, told the waiters to do their birthday singing thing. i just stared at the table. tried to say thank you at the end, but ughhh i hate that. just let me be non-important. don't make me try to be socially graceful. i know they were trying to be nice and say how much they love me, that is the only reason i endure things. just makes me wonder what i don't do for them that they wish i did for them or didn't do...
27.10.04
peer review
i read this loose parts comic and it reminded me of the debate regarding peer reviewed publishing and grant approval. the comic i think is true peer review, just great!
now apparently some people argue the current publishing system is out of date. right now, if you want your work to be taken seriously, you send in a manuscript to a journal. they briefly look at it and decide if they are going to take the time to send it out for peer reivew. if it does get sent out, your manuscript goes to about three other respected people who work in about the same field and they read the manuscript and send back comments. these comments are combined and sent back to you so you can make changes (these can be simple like add more background or complicated like do more experiments or explain these results more definatively). then you send the reworked manuscript back to the journal and they edit it, type set etc. and finally it comes out in print. that takes like ohhh 6 months i think (shorter or longer depending on journal). most of that time is occupied by the peer review. see the reviewers have other things to do than read your stupid paper so they put it off for a while. hence the debate that we should just publish things to the web, with a few controls. then people can trash on it there. it is immediately available and more widely available and cheaper than print journals.
another place that gets interest in terms of peer review is the awarding of government grants. again you submit your grant and it goes out for peer review (with all the indentifying info stripped from it). and basically other people in the field vote on if they think that idea is worth funding. i guess some people in the government want to just be able to fund ideas without that. it would be faster and then you could play favorites.
peer review is good. although one paper my name is on was rejected initially (currently be resubmitted to another journal) because the peer reviewer didn't read very carefully and just claimed that the research was too similar to what was already published; in fact, we had published something with a similar compound but it was a completely different application and showed dramatically different behavior. so the review process is only as good as the peers. and there are a lot of lazy people out there. plus the peer review process doesn't take advantage of the quickness of the internet that we now know and love. ACS (american chemical society) is trying to speed things up by using an on-line system they have named paragon to do the submitting, peer reviewing, and revising of drafts. not too bad, but a lot of people (my advisor included) don't really understand what they are doing and so the system isn't quite bullet-proof enough for them. the problem of reviewers taking forever to read the paper is also not solved by this system. part of the reason i think is that the process hasn't been given the excitement that say blogging has. your comments are immediately posted and you get to dialog back and forth, kind of. something needs to poke these slow people into moving at the speed of internet when they do their reviews!
now apparently some people argue the current publishing system is out of date. right now, if you want your work to be taken seriously, you send in a manuscript to a journal. they briefly look at it and decide if they are going to take the time to send it out for peer reivew. if it does get sent out, your manuscript goes to about three other respected people who work in about the same field and they read the manuscript and send back comments. these comments are combined and sent back to you so you can make changes (these can be simple like add more background or complicated like do more experiments or explain these results more definatively). then you send the reworked manuscript back to the journal and they edit it, type set etc. and finally it comes out in print. that takes like ohhh 6 months i think (shorter or longer depending on journal). most of that time is occupied by the peer review. see the reviewers have other things to do than read your stupid paper so they put it off for a while. hence the debate that we should just publish things to the web, with a few controls. then people can trash on it there. it is immediately available and more widely available and cheaper than print journals.
another place that gets interest in terms of peer review is the awarding of government grants. again you submit your grant and it goes out for peer review (with all the indentifying info stripped from it). and basically other people in the field vote on if they think that idea is worth funding. i guess some people in the government want to just be able to fund ideas without that. it would be faster and then you could play favorites.
peer review is good. although one paper my name is on was rejected initially (currently be resubmitted to another journal) because the peer reviewer didn't read very carefully and just claimed that the research was too similar to what was already published; in fact, we had published something with a similar compound but it was a completely different application and showed dramatically different behavior. so the review process is only as good as the peers. and there are a lot of lazy people out there. plus the peer review process doesn't take advantage of the quickness of the internet that we now know and love. ACS (american chemical society) is trying to speed things up by using an on-line system they have named paragon to do the submitting, peer reviewing, and revising of drafts. not too bad, but a lot of people (my advisor included) don't really understand what they are doing and so the system isn't quite bullet-proof enough for them. the problem of reviewers taking forever to read the paper is also not solved by this system. part of the reason i think is that the process hasn't been given the excitement that say blogging has. your comments are immediately posted and you get to dialog back and forth, kind of. something needs to poke these slow people into moving at the speed of internet when they do their reviews!
"new" computer
so i took over keith's laptop after he sucessfully recovered my documents from my other laptop. so far it is working out. just have to remember what programs i was using and where i put the install disks. some of the installers i had on my old laptop and were transferred over, so that was easy. i'm just glad to have my files back. now i should burn a couple cd's of the really important stuff.
26.10.04
slightly better
okay fixed the whole network using keith's laptop thing
turns out that someone stole my ip! grr. i have a guess who that is too. if the printer required an ip, kyle may have fished until he found one open. oh ya, kyle the little prick was the one that set up the printer. i guess he just decided he was the one that should set it up and so he did, couldn't really gather from talking with him if suk-wah said to do so or not. in any case that just means that i am completely justified in not wanting admin rights on that computer.
finally, there are good people in the world. i called up computer support (had the wrong extension written down for my usual support guy). the poor guy finally figured out that some other computer was using my ip (like i said i think it was kyle). so they had to enter the help ticket into the computer etc. ge may make you go to canada for computer support, but here it is all on campus. not that it helps anything because his official statement was to give 24 working hours (3 days). stupid. so i asked for bill's extension, the guy who actually supports chem and phys buildings. he had given me his extension but i wrote it down wrong. the computer support kid couldn't give me his extension but could transfer me and if bill wanted to give away his extension he could. so talked to bill. he gave me his extension and a new ip. beautiful. gotta love cool people like that. just goes to show it is who you know.
and my half a stamp didn't kill itself when i compressed it this time, and survived for an hour while i cured my mold. (i even survived dropping the hot bulb to the UV lamp and it still works.)
finally, my loving k2h told me we'd get stuff working. i hope my laptop recovers...i think in the future i'll avoid windows update since sp2 may have been the cause of the whole toasting.
turns out that someone stole my ip! grr. i have a guess who that is too. if the printer required an ip, kyle may have fished until he found one open. oh ya, kyle the little prick was the one that set up the printer. i guess he just decided he was the one that should set it up and so he did, couldn't really gather from talking with him if suk-wah said to do so or not. in any case that just means that i am completely justified in not wanting admin rights on that computer.
finally, there are good people in the world. i called up computer support (had the wrong extension written down for my usual support guy). the poor guy finally figured out that some other computer was using my ip (like i said i think it was kyle). so they had to enter the help ticket into the computer etc. ge may make you go to canada for computer support, but here it is all on campus. not that it helps anything because his official statement was to give 24 working hours (3 days). stupid. so i asked for bill's extension, the guy who actually supports chem and phys buildings. he had given me his extension but i wrote it down wrong. the computer support kid couldn't give me his extension but could transfer me and if bill wanted to give away his extension he could. so talked to bill. he gave me his extension and a new ip. beautiful. gotta love cool people like that. just goes to show it is who you know.
and my half a stamp didn't kill itself when i compressed it this time, and survived for an hour while i cured my mold. (i even survived dropping the hot bulb to the UV lamp and it still works.)
finally, my loving k2h told me we'd get stuff working. i hope my laptop recovers...i think in the future i'll avoid windows update since sp2 may have been the cause of the whole toasting.
Life Stinks
my laptop doesn't work.
i am a moron and can't figure out the network settings (even though i wrote them down) to make keith's laptop work at school.
suk-wah was all nice yesterday and asked me to set up the new printer and i said sure. today i am using the "group" computer to post this and someone set up the new printer. pretty sure it was suk-wah. way to make me feel like i am totally not needed.
earlier i decided to take my admin privledges off this computer so i couldn't be responsible for anything and now i can't compare the network settings.
my stamp for research killed itself so i had to cut half of it off.
just remembered i didn't change my patch this morning.
i am a moron and can't figure out the network settings (even though i wrote them down) to make keith's laptop work at school.
suk-wah was all nice yesterday and asked me to set up the new printer and i said sure. today i am using the "group" computer to post this and someone set up the new printer. pretty sure it was suk-wah. way to make me feel like i am totally not needed.
earlier i decided to take my admin privledges off this computer so i couldn't be responsible for anything and now i can't compare the network settings.
my stamp for research killed itself so i had to cut half of it off.
just remembered i didn't change my patch this morning.
25.10.04
That Moment
there is a moment when things break. one moment it works and suddenly it doesn't. tragically, i observed this moment with my laptop. i pressed the on switch when i got into work this morning and it got to my log-in screen. i realized i had hibernated it last and so its hardware profile was for home. so i went to turn off computer and did restart. sadly it has not ever fulfilled that promise. i have done multiple things like unplugging peripherials, power, battery; booted to safe mode unsucessfully, etc. so hopefully when i get home and boot to cd, it will be able to fix itself.
it is just so tragic to see the moment of break and know that you could have avoided it. i could've just run under my home hardware profile...but i didn't choose to. somehow, having something break when you don't see it or are not involved is so much better. less stressful because i don't go, "what if?"
well, i am recovering. hopefully my computer will tonight.
it is just so tragic to see the moment of break and know that you could have avoided it. i could've just run under my home hardware profile...but i didn't choose to. somehow, having something break when you don't see it or are not involved is so much better. less stressful because i don't go, "what if?"
well, i am recovering. hopefully my computer will tonight.
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