The third and last (yay) midterm for me this week would be in CS241, Algorithms and Data Structures. Fortunately, the material covered during this period is a lot more straightforward than the last, so it was somewhat less nerve-racking
The normally scheduled music event for me today is teaching an hour in the morning, but I definitely got to play in a quartet for a reception hosted by the chancellor here at Wash U, and afterwards I got together with Hannah and we spent about 3 hours working out what we're going to be playing tomorrow morning...
Wednesday, 30th of October, 2002
On the midterm front, I had an exam in PS224, Methods of Analysis today, which will be interesting to see the result of since 25% of the exam grade was based on a modeling assignment.
Tuesday, 29th of October, 2002
Monday, 28th of October, 2002
Sunday, 27th of October, 2002
I bought a new commercial-sized 36"-wide bookshelf at Office Depot Friday and got I finished putting it together and arranging it today. Now I can be more efficient with space - back to my original area of floor and still have my stereo system. It came with enough shelves that I can slip white paper and stuff in mini-shelves.
Friday, 25th of October, 2002
Tuesday, 22nd of October, 2002
Friday, 11th of October, 2002
Monday, 7th of October, 2002
Here's a question. The 2003 Subaru Impreza 2.5TS has a 33.5-foot turning radius. The 2003 Subaru Impreza WRX turbo has a 35.4-foot turning radius. The 2003 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport (a version with heavier suspension) gets a 35.4-foot turning radius. The 2000 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport has a 33.5-foot turning radius. We're talking 1.9 feet of turning radius difference here, quite significant when making a U-turn. Why does the sporty WRX or even the upscale Outback Sport turn bigger circles? The WRX and the Outback Sport do use 205/55R16 tyres as opposed to the 195/60R15s on the 2.5TS. But the 2000 Outback uses 205/60-15s, which are the same width as the WRX, so... besides, the difference cannot account for all of those 1.9 feet. Oh but wait - this is Subaru. They probably have different AWD systems between different Impreza trims. I know the 2000 Outback has no rear VC differential, and the WRX does - perhaps they stuck one on the new Outback Sport too. But even still, 1.9 feet? This is defintiely something I'll ask a Subaru dealer one day...
I went to an Arianna String Quartet concert tonight and it was really awesome! They played Mozart's Quartet in C Major, K. 465, the "Dissonant". I played the fourth movement of it my senior year in high school, but I had no idea it was a part of the "Dissonant" quartet! Then they played Schickele's Quartet No. 2, which was one of the most awesome modern classical pieces I've ever heard. They finished it off with Beethoven's Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59 No. 2. All three were quite beasts of quartet pieces, and they were well played and it was pretty cool.
Sunday, 6th of October, 2002
I bought this cool rotating CD tower at Target for a clearance price of $3.49 today. It's pretty cool-looking, and rather functional for finding CDs quickly though the quality of the metal construction is so bad that a couple of the slots aren't big enough for normal-sized CD cases, lol.
Friday, 4th of October, 2002
I went to a SLSO concert tonight, and they played Chabrier's Habañera, Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and a really awesome piano piece, Liszt's Totentanz. They concluded with Sibelius's 2nd Symphony, which was definitely cool.
Thursday, 3rd of October, 2002
Wednesday, 2nd of October, 2002
A person I work for is cleaning house and wanted to get rid of a turntable/tape/FM Sharp stereo system she had, so I said I'd take it. The big 2-way speakers actually sound pretty good if I crank up the treble on the amp. Now I have to find a proper place to put them in my room. It was a pretty revolutionary machine packed with technology back in the day. It has the APS (Auto Program Search) System for the cassette player to find the next song on the tape without searching manually. The turntable is fully automatic with "stacking" capabilities - so one could stack a bunch of records at the top and it will drop each one down once it's finished with the current record. Cool!
Tuesday, 1st of October, 2002
I started teaching a class of 8 beginners in addition to a class of 15 more advanced students this morning at Bierbaum. The beginners are great, and the smaller class size is perfect.
"And now we have cases where people are suing McDonald's and Wendy's and fast food places for getting fat form eating their foods. You have these fat cases floating around. The potentials for that are enourmous - no pun intended" - Professor Nye, Washington University
"There is this freeway in Pasadena where there is this onramp and offramp, and it was designed for 45 mph back then but now it's 55 mph, and so every time I'd get on it I'd be like making the turn and then push the accelerator down and and just barely get on the highway. Sometimes you get there and there are all these cars splattered all over..." - Professor Nye, Washington University
Cingular is consistently on my good list for providing great service. They've introduced something called Rollover minutes now, so that unused minutes on the cell phone plan roll over proceeding months for up to a year. I also reported problems with the BMC-2 battery that came with my Nokia 3360. Performance has declined to almost ridiculous levels, and they said it's a common problem. So the guy just gave me a BMC-3 (the higher capacity Ni-MH model) that came out of some open box or something to use. Cool!