| 1. Basically: either something "is", or it "isn't". Don't say that something is "basically" something else.
2. To be honest, to tell the truth, etc: do people even realize this makes them sound any less sincere than they would without this phrase?
...I can't think of anything else specifically right now, so I'll just add them in if I think of them later. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| We received the following fax at work this morning from one of our residents. When Jennifer read it, she laughed and handed it to me, presumably because of my very open beliefs regarding the two swans, Zeus and Leda, that live in our pond. The fax reads as follows, however with the names and addresses removed for the residents' privacy.
TO ALL MANAGEMENT OF THE PRESERVE, IN WHICH I CALL HOME.
I, [resident name] GRANT [resident's relative's name] ACCESS TO MY MAILBOX, SO THAT A PHONE REVIEW CAN BE CONDUCTED BETWEEN US ENSURING MY BILLS BE PAID ON TIME. MY APT # IS [removed] ALONG WITH MY MAILBOX # [removed]. I ALSO ASK THAT YOU ALL BE FAIRLY NICE TO HER ALTHOUGH SHE LIVES AT GODLEY STATION. IF SHE GIVES ANY PROBLEMS TO YOU THOUGH YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RELEASE THE EVIL SWANS ON HER.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.
The only emphasis I have added to the above is the bold on the final body sentence. The resident that sent us this fax called our office just a moment after I had read the letter to ensure that we had received it and that there would be no problems. When I answered and realized it was the same resident, he and I discussed the common treachery these swans regularly engage in when tracking their prey, which I at times fear is the work of some higher intelligence, as the hunting patterns they display is often beyond their otherwise lacking intellect. Only time will tell if this is indeed the case or not. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| OMG I'm so tired of this professor! Assignment reads as follows, emphasis added:
Assignment 1: Creating a Test Plan Design Create a BLANK test plan design for a user interface with form fields. By Saturday, March 14, 2009, submit the Word document to this Discussion Area. | Assignment 1 Grading Criteria and Respective Point Value | Maximum
Points | | Created the test plan as per the template, and included all aspects to be tested of an user interface design. | 30 | | Total: | 30 |
Professor's response to classmate's posting and classmate's rebuttal:
P: "I have opened the form and there does not appear to be any data or information entered. Perhaps you should review the contents."
C: "The assignment says blank, I thought it was to be empty. Do you want me to fill it in?"
Later posting by professor: "A test plan is a sequence of events that a programmer or quality control analyst will put into a computer program with the expectation of seeing specific results. The plan creates "test data" for each event. The data is designed to force the program to execute specific lines of code and control structures thus determining if the logic in the program is correct. The test plan document should include all of the events to be tested, actual test data and expected results."
My planned reply to the later posting (all-caps will be used but not other formatting, since we don't have access to rich text or html): "Yes [prof's name], but the assignment specifically says we are to be making a BLANK test plan DESIGN. I read this as meaning a template for test planning that is not related to any specific project aside from the fact that it is testing the user interface of whichever project it is assigned to, and judging by postings from the other students I believe this is what they read as well."
There are quite a few other things I want to add to my reply by the time I actually post it, but I'm specifically waiting to make that post because I need some time to work out which bitchy things I can reword to be less bitchy but no less true, and which things I need to just leave out for my own grade's sake.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm both asking for and trying to provide help for one of the public computers at work. Said computer is booting up without problems, but within 30 minutes of startup it is *acting* like it is going into hibernate or stand by modes, with the monitor light orange and steady, and the power light on the cpu orange and blinking. The only way to return the computer to normal is to actually unplug it for 15 seconds or so, until the cpu power light finally turns off. No problems reported on up-to-date Avast boot scan of all files, no error messages displayed prior to crash.
Model: Dell Optiplex
OS: WinXP SP3
On local network with 2 other computers; neither other computer has this problem
Ideas? I kinda want to have a plan when I come in to work next week and work on fixing it... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I need to pick one of these for my character. I've taken things out of the list that are redundant with my major power (mechanical and computer manipulation or "Mechano-Link") and with biological stuff for my chara, such as night vision (I'm an alien from a twilight-world):
Clock Manipulation
Manipulate Kinetic Energy
Bend Light
Flight: Glide
Heightened Sense of Taste
Energy Expulsion: Fire
Power Channeling
Radar
Flight: Wingless
Heightened Sense of Hearing
Mental Stun
Nightstalking
Energy Expulsion: Electricity
Adhesion
Flight: Winged
Healing Factor
Supervision: X-Ray
Alter Physical Body
Energy Expulsion: Energy
Heightened Sense of Smell
Extraordinary Attributes (stuff like strength, endurance, rolled randomly)
Impervious to Fire and Heat
Energy Expulsion: Electrical Field
Underwater Abilities
Superhuman Strength
Energy Resistance
Heightened Sense of Touch
Horror Factor
Body Weapons | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| So, today's been interesting already, and as of starting this post it's only 11:10am. We disassembled the office on Friday afternoon for carpet installation on Saturday and Sunday, so I've been reassembling the computer network since 9am. Everything is working more or less as it should, with the partial exception of my manager's computer. It prints fine, but the damn Internet is slower than AOL, and it's on the same network as all 3 other computers and the printer; a printer which it is quite capable of printing to. Whatever, I'll figure it out--nothing else to do today, anyway. Well, that's not entirely true; but everything else I had planned @ work today involved this same system, anyway.
Other than that, not a lot going on. Have 1 assignment due tonight and another tomorrow, Heroes @ 9 tonight, and that's about it. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Luckily, unlike in my Ethics class a while back, I'm not the one being plagiarized here. However, plagiarism is still taking place in my fault tolerance class. The following text is from my online class lectures, regarding the topic Fault Injection:
Fault injection helps evaluate if the system designed as fault tolerant is resistant to faults. It also evaluates the performance of the system under faulty conditions. This technique is useful for evaluating complex systems that run for many months or years. Techniques to implement fault injection vary depending on the kind of application and computing system used. Some ways to evaluate the hardware components of a complex system are ion bombarding and forcible alteration of the voltage levels of pins on circuit boards to create faults. Injecting faults in mission-critical systems is difficult. Therefore simulations of these systems are created to observe the effect of perceived faults. To evaluate software behavior in response to faults, you can modify the source code to include programming errors. This technique is called mutation. You can modify software by changing either the native code or the managed code. The Microsoft tool called Detours intercepts and redirects operating system function calls to modified versions of functions. This allows you to determine if the software can handle faults in other functions. And here is a discussion question and one classmate's answer:
3. If you had to develop a tool to automate the process of fault injection, what will be the ideal features of this tool?
Answer: Fault injection helps evaluate if the system designed as fault tolerant is resistant to faults. It also evaluates the performance of the system under faulty conditions. This technique is useful for evaluating complex systems that run for many months or years.
Techniques to implement fault injection vary depending on the kind of application and computing system used. Some ways to evaluate the hardware components of a complex system are ion bombarding and forcible alteration of the voltage levels of pins on circuit boards to create faults.
To evaluate software behavior in response to faults, you can modify the source code to include programming errors. This technique is called mutation. You can modify software by changing either the native code or the managed code. The Microsoft tool called Detours intercepts and redirects operating system function calls to modified versions of functions. This allows you to determine if the software can handle faults in other functions.
He either chose not to use, or just accidentally forgot to copy, a SINGLE SENTENCE from the original text for his post. I am incredibly tempted now to just not do the assignment, and when my teacher asks about it tell him, "Oh, I figured I could just get the same grade So-And-So got. After all, we did the same amount of work."
Asshole.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| Okay, I'm a little late to the party. I knew about this whole UGO thing, but not how widely it was affecting the actual presence here at 1UP. I personally like it very much the way it is--or was--so while I don't know that I'll be ignoring the site outright anymore, I will be taking a brief break. If anyone wants to still follow me, chat, whatever, here's other ways to get to me: http://twitter.com/BrennaCeDria
http://brennacedria.livejournal.com
AIM: MiladyBressnia
Yahoo: Fomoria_Lightbender
MSN Messenger: brennacedria@gmail.com I also have my Facebook under my full name, but I don't always add people there until I've "known" them longer. Just got some personal stuff, you know? Anyway, I'll be putting any game posts on my LJ for now, and that automatically (well, after an hour or so) is imported to my Facebook so if you are actually interested in following those posts, that's how to find them. (ALSO: my Twitter account is "protected" so I have to add people manually after they contact me. Just leave a post on your own Twitter, a comment here (I'll check back for this reason alone), or email me that it's someone from 1UP and I'll get you added quick as I can. Which is normally to say within 5 minutes, since I'm a terrible addict.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| So, as the rest of the web keeps reminding me, it's time to summarize the past year.
Where I've Been
Doctors' offices and Day Surgery
Thanks to some problems first suspected around November of 2007 and actually discovered around February of this year, I had to go for a laparoscopy in April for endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and a fibroid tumor. The slightly scary thing about it all both then and now is that when I went to the hospital for my scheduled surgery, we were only expecting the endo, since we thought the rest would have long since shown up on my ultrasounds and they didn't. The good thing is that everything was successfully removed and to-date, I haven't had any serious relapses. In spite of the good, though, this was by and far the worst bit of 2008.
Seattle
Oh my god, for every bit of bad that I had to deal with leading up to and recovering from that surgery, my trip to Seattle last August more than made up for it. Between PAX itself, which was my technical reason for going, to the city and climate as a whole, I adored that trip and I bawled when I got home and was struck with the sticky stink of Savannah's air. In spite of the hills of downtown, which I admit I wasn't entirely prepared for, that trip was easily the best experience of the entire year.
[My] Movies of the Year
I really don't go see things in the theater too much anymore, thanks to having worked at one for so long, but I did see a few that have stood out. Most of these I saw on DVD/cable/etc:
The Dark Knight: The only movie that was FANTASTIC that I saw in the theater. While perhaps not as amazing as the hype made it out to be, still an extremely good movie. In Batman Begins, I was interested in seeing Bruce Wayne's story. In the Dark Knight, Batman bored me. The Joker's where it's at, and no matter what they do for a third movie, no other villain is going to be half a watchable as any incarnation of the Clown Prince, especially not the current version.
Enchanted: I got this on a promotion on Disney Blu-Ray, and it's probably my favorite "classic" Disney movie in a long time. Self-parody, done well, goes a long way in my opinion and on top of being cute Enchanted definitely succeeded as a parody of Disney films.
Paprika: While the movie's a little too trippy for some, I still think this was absolutely wonderful and probably my favorite new [to me] movie this year. In spite of the absolute horror that I know the events of the movie should technically inspire, but it's so beautiful as it's happening that I, at least, can't help but enjoy it. Tied for favoirite of the year with Blade Runner.
Blade Runner (Super Ultimate Final Edition): As I said in my original review on Facebook, not as mind blowing as time would have you believe, but still an extremely good movie. Tied for favorite of the year with Paprika.
[My] Games of the Year
This section is going to be a bit "off" since I don't think many of my games are actually new to this year. This evaluation is based off my quality time to date with the game, and as such some really good games that did come out this year will probably be on my next year list because of this.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Yeah, I know, I know... I bought this when it was already old, and I'm only just getting it on my list now. But, to be fair, I didn't complete the main quest line until just last week, so I'm up to date with myself, really. Short version: Best value for a game I've played this year, period.
Final Fantasy IV DS: Very nice remake of the game, which some tasteful script changes and a fairly insightful addition to the story in the form of a single cut scene with Cecil and Golbez's childhood.
PixelJunk Monsters: I'm still not done savin' da bebes, but damn it, I'm trying! Tied for best PSN download with Puzzle Fighter.
Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Remix: I. AM. A. GOD. I found out much after the fact that had I been playing the 360 version, I would have long-since surpassed the highest achievement the game has to offer, and then some, yet I still get my butt kicked online. Must be the lag. :p Tied for best PSN download with PixelJunk Monsters.
MOST LIKELY TO BE NEXT YEAR'S GOATIES: LittleBig Planet, Chrono Trigger DS, and Crisis Core
Where I'm Going, 2009
Graduation
Currently slated for September 13th. Well, the end of my last class is the 13th at 4:59am, at least. Not sure when graduation itself will be, if I participate in the ceremony itself anyway.
Seattle
Hopefully returning for another PAX, although scheduling might mess me up, since PAX week is the second-to-last-week of my last-class-ever. The two might be mutually exclusive.
Moving
Originally, I was hoping to be out of Savannah by summer this year, but because of some bad luck in class ever since my surgery, moving probably won't be until Autumn at best. I'm still shooting for before Christmas either way.
What about everyone else?
Edit: WTF that's not my Yurika avatar! Changing to Doctor Who instead. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | christmas, finals, school, sick, work | | Current Music: | Random radio stuff in office | | Current Location: | Work | | Subject: | [LJ2ME] It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas | | Time: | 10:53 am | | Current Mood: | Okay |
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| ...everywhere but here!
Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just a bit annoyed that everyone I know out of state seems to be getting at least some degree of winter weather, while Savannah sits at nearly 80 degrees. A related note to this is that I think the sun thinks it needs to work overtime in this part of the country just because it's been laid off everywhere else. Yes, it's a beautiful, sunny day but as it's December I'd prefer a partly-to-mostly cloudy day in the low 60s at the warmest. Oh, well. At least the forecast for next week is slightly optimistic so far.
Other than that, not a lot going on. I've gotten sick again, but am feeling better today since I went to the doc yesterday and got more meds. I had to miss the resident Christmas party yesterday though, which sucked. It's the first year since working here that we've had a resident party that I had to miss. The staff party is today, though, including our Secret Santa. Should be a good diversion at the very least. Then Shino's birthday party is Sunday, which I don't know if I'll feel well enough for, and our Christmas party at home at 7PM on Christmas eve. Before those, though, I've got to finish up this quarter at school. If I can complete 3 assignments a day between now and Saturday, though, I should pass one class with at least a B and the other with at least a C. It's not my ideal grades, but between moving and getting sick twice since class started on November 13th, it's the best I really can hope for.
Anyway, I need to get ready for that staff party and then get on with my homework. At least all my office-related busy work is done for the week and won't get in the way. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | [LJ2ME] Crud | | Time: | 12:09 pm |
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| | Yeah, so I'm sitting at the pharmacy at Sam's Club, waiting for my Z-pack. Doc says I've got (or at least, will officially have in a day or so) bronchitis, and I personally figure there's some old-fashioned flu in there too. She can't prescribe anything but fluid and rest for flu, though, so she just said to go ahead home and rest so the antibiotic has time to kick in. I'm gonna change to PJs and curl up in my Sumo with a blanket when I leave here. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | [LJ2ME] Bored | | Time: | 04:37 pm |
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| So, I'm at work and bored out of my mind. I'm running Avast on my work computer, then will do the rest of my maintenance on the other computers either tomorrow (if we're dead) or next week. As an aside, Owner was grilling Manager today through email about "why she authorized [me to make] the purchase for the licenses for 8 computers, when he has his own antivirus for free, and what service was it?" I told her to send back how those free programs are only free legally for PERSONAL use, and the legal liability for improperly installing the software. Haven't heard back so far, so I don't know how that has gone over with him.
Plus note: there is cake here at work, although I don't know when we get to eat it. It's for Rudy's birthday, but scheduling is crappy this afternoon. Moving is mostly done. Just gotta clean up for the most part. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | computer, finals | | Current Music: | Outside noises through the patio door. | | Current Location: | Bedroom desk | | Subject: | [LJ2ME] Gotta be kidding me... | | Time: | 09:11 pm | | Current Mood: | Frustrated |
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| So, either God, my computer, my router, or my school--or some combination thereof--hates me. Today's the last day of my current class, yet here I am, posting to LJ from my phone because I can't figure out why I'm only getting 1-11 mbps on my wireless and why my computer is stupid slow even on offline tasks, and why it doesn't power off when I click shut down (instead, it hangs on the "Windows is now shutting down" screen). I've already checked for updates to everything and now I'm running a boot-time scan with Avast! Just to be on the safe side. I have no idea how long this is going to take, but two corrupted files have already come up since I began thumbing this post out, so I have a feeling that I won't be getting any assignments done tonight.
Either way, wish me sanity and luck. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Not sure why, but LJ2ME worked perfectly the one time and now keeps freezing whenever I try to send a post from it. Not sure what the hell is going on.
Edit: Even weirder, the messages seem to have posted after all, even though it told me they didn't on my phone. I'll have to compose them in "Notes" so I can save a draft, just in case. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Pork N Beans | | Current Location: | Home | | Subject: | [LJ2ME] Testing? | | Time: | 06:27 pm | | Current Mood: | Hungry |
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| | Just checking that things are working okay, since I tried to post yesterday and my phone locked up for 30 minutes strait. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | As always, there's always more to do on days off than actually gets done. Brian had to record an oral presentation for his English/Business class. Now, we're @ Ben's house getting the video off the camera so he can turn it in. Brian's trying to recruit Ben for moving now but not with much success. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| God, I'm so sleepy. I haven't adjusted well to the end of Daylight Saving Time at all this year, and the cats have just made it worse. On the plus side, though, Brian and I are moving from our 1 bedroom apartment to a 2 bedroom soon, officially on the 21st but effectively probably sooner. I've already scheduled to transfer my electric account, so I just need to get the cable transferred and upgraded, and my change of addresses submitted. I think I'll go ahead and submit the ones for main bills (phones, credit cards, etc) on Monday, then the rest from there. Anyway, I'm typing this from my phone, from work, and while the office is dead I do have assignments that I need to get done.
As an aside, what should be dinner tonight? Nabeyaki udon, sushi, or Thai?
Device: RIM Wireless Handheld | | comments: Leave a comment |
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