Ryan Morlok’s Blog

Once upon a time ACM@UIUC was an engineering group. They did cool projects ranging from vending machines, to computer animation shorts. Now we’re really a marketing group. Sure, there are still some cool projects going on, but it just doesn’t feel like the stories I’ve heard of the past.

This is probably just me being bitter. I’ve been working on posting flyers for events lately, and it seems like every evening there is some sort of information session or tech talk that we’re hosting. There’s no way I even have time to attend all of the events we host, nonetheless organize them. Top4 has been working to try to encourage more project work, but right now I feel like we’re the kings of corporate event advertising. It doesn’t help that I’m involved with CSGSO, which also has corporate events.

I sat down during office hours this evening (thankfully there were no students visiting) and fixed some of the problems people have been complaining about.

1. I fixed the header links. You can now get to my calendar with ease
2. I am now XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant. Yes I had to hack the Wordpress source directly (the problem wasn’t in the theme that I had installed) and this once again affirms my belief that PHP is a HORRIBLE language.
3. I now have threaded comments on my blog. Dusty will have to find something else to complain about. Not saying they’re great, but they are threaded.

We’ve been having some issues here at Morlok.net keeping the internet connection up and running. The cable modem keeps getting screwed up and we have to reset it. It’s been happening every couple days or so. Comcast’s solution to the problem: move the cable modem to a non-UPS outlet. Wow. We’ll be getting a new cable modem in a couple days when this doesn’t work.

(AP) A recent study by the National Institute of Science released findings today that the intelligence required to consistently use an automobile turn signal is roughly equivalent to the average two-year old. Experts implied that this should encompass a full 8% of licensed Illinois drivers…

Ok, I’m bitter, but every time I go jogging I have to deal with some wahoo cutting me off as I’m waiting to cross the streets. I’ve taken to never trusting to cross whenever there is an automobile in the area, regardless if I’m crossing a street perpendicular to their line of motion and they aren’t signaling (OK, I’d be moving parallel to their motion, but the street is perpendicular).

And don’t even get me started about the use of horns around here. Back in Minnesota, you have a couple seconds to get going after a light turns green. People get annoyed, but it’s considered rude to honk at such a thing. If it seems the driver just isn’t paying attention, you give them the friendly barely-tap-the-horn-I’m-not-trying-to-be-rude-but-please-look-at-the-light honk. Here, the horn is a much more used instrument. It’s not as bad as other places I’ve been (bigger cities like Chicago), but the difference is noticeable. I guess I never really understood Minnesota Nice until I left.

I had to get up early this morning for the traditional semester TA kickoff meeting. This meeting isn’t so much about getting things going for TAs as it is a way for the department to make sure that everyone is back on campus a few days ahead of time so that they will be available when classes start. The net wisdom I obtained from the meeting was the TSG had changed their policies for lab printers. If I print to a non-TA resource room printer, and release the job through the online web tool, I will be billed for the printout. Wow. That couldn’t have been communicated through an email.

On the upside, it forced me to get going to get a handle on some administrative stuff I’ve been avoiding. Did a little office hopping with more on the way. I’ve also spent some time this afternoon working on a “book” I’m writing for CS 105. It’s really just a written description of what we teach in lab. I’m going to pitch it to Prof. Woodbury this afternoon, and if I can get her buy-in, we’ll have the various TAs write some more sections for it and it should be rather useful. Best case scenario, in a semester or so, this document can replace the VBA book that we’re making the kids buy. It will save them some money, and we won’t have to deal with the different coding styles presented in VBA for Dummies (you know it’s quality programming eduction when it has ‘dummies’ in the title). Then maybe we can move on to an SQL book to replace the confusing book we have now. It’s not that bad of a book, honestly, but it gets into too much detail for what we teach. All of this is quite a bit of work, but I guess that’s the burden for caring.