Monthly Archives: September 2007

Scanners

I have been fighting with my scanner.

I needed to opt out of the university health plan. Seeing as I already have paid for blue cross seems a waste of time and energy and possibly money to have yet another health plan. Not that I really plan on using either.

But in order to opt out I need to submit proof that I have a health plan. I figured, since they actually mentioned it on their website, that an image of my blue cross card would suffice. 

Seeing that I exist in the stone age, and did not have a readily available method for performing such a task, I had to set up a scanner to do this.

I don’t know why things work the way they do. but my scanner decided not to do anything. at all. It has been proven to work on other machines. Other machines which I may add are NOT supported by the manufacturer. But on this one machine nothing worked. 

The driver would install it would detect the scanner, but when it came down to scanning something, it froze.

Trying multiple things, such as rebooting, swapping usb ports, swapping power cords, different drivers nothing happened. I even shook the scanner to no avail.

Giving up I attached it to one of these unsupported machines that I had not yet tried it on, installed the driver and everything worked correctly the first time.

sigh.

I then re-attached the scanner to the machine I originally wanted it on. And guess what? it worked. I am going to have to move it physically to the place I want it to be. so I am a bit worried it will never work again.

This is why I hate computers.

Can you explain why this is the case?

I cannot.

I refuse.

I hate computers. and scanners.

Welcome To Hell

It was written on the sidewalk I use to get to the arts building every morning.

yeah. 

I have been told by various members of the blog reading community that I must write something now, or suffer a fate worse then death.

I have not yet decided what I should write about.

The universe is a rather boring place.

Liar you say.

ha.

I have been to university for a full 3 days now. However that statement is wrong and should be ignored. Orientation was boring and pointless.  I skipped out on half of it because I had work to do apparently. But then decided I did not want to so I think I had coffee or something. 

Orientation part2 was completely skipped. Tried to do loan signing but they said I could not until I had chosen my second term classes so I quickly did that. Anthropology, Chemistry, and Math calculus. the physics and English carry over from first term. right now I am in economics, computer science,  math, English and physics.

First day was boring. It took me forever to get my locker so I was carrying a tonne of books with me through my classes. I probably broke something.

Fortunately I need not bring books to class.

Taking notes is hard and I can never read them. and what does ogre vision have to do with physics? Every class has all the notes online. so. um. what am I doing but listening to a professor and reading a power point slide? seems pointless.

I already have assigned reading in all my subjects. assigned as in read this so you may understand what we will be discussing later but not necessarily read this so that we can mark you on you reading things. 

I have to take a mathematics placement quiz. may fail that so I have to ask myself If I should take this class. Quadratic formulas were so long ago.

English will not be teaching grammar or spelling. so me have problems passing. There is a list of books a mile long that I will have to end up reading.

Computer science is boring. however being a student I can buy thousand dollar software for around a hundred. I have already been labeled the expert as I have already done ANY programming. this is a course for engineers, so not a whole lot of computer experience amongst the first years.

Economics may be interesting, the instructor keeps comparing it to physics which I find amusing. the instructor also seems to dislike CA and Marxism. Should become a socialist chartered accountant?

Physics is boring. so far. but again this is the first week and is just review. 

Labs and probably important things start next week. 

I purchased the calculus books twice. that is fun. I will keep them both. you can never have too many. I will add it to the half dozen I have already. which may be the same books. hm. I should check. 

There are too many people at university. Although this may make me anonymous in terms of there being a bazillion of other people to shield me from pretty much anything. I find them to be annoying. silly people. They even ask me questions. why? I mean if they just sit there long enough such questions are inevitably answered. well that does depend on the question. oh well. 

I need to find a library with real books. the Physics/Geology library is surprisingly lacking in that regard. mostly magazines and computers. however I may be able to use it just simply to read.

There are restaurants every were. one would think the whole place is one big food court. I have only been in 5 or six buildings so this may just mean the arts and science type eat all the time which is probably true as they are always full.

oranges.

I purchased a USB cable from the computer store. the place is sad and disheartening for a computer store.

Tomorrow is the Computer Science Boot camp. Apparently the Engineers are invited, I probably could go. But I wont. They have an advanced session for people who know how to compile Linux and use command lines. But I think they are using Linux. WHO DOES THAT? oh well. I’ll show them all someday. But in the mean time I get to fool with Visual Studio 7, I currently have 6 (the last of the great visual studios). Visual studio 7 is .NET so, well, not nice, but the way the world is going to. I will buy a copy next week I think. 

I am currently having a few doubts about If I am going the right direction. Computers are all that I really know. Physics is often a passing fancy. um. if that made sense, but I will see. not like I am blowing everything up yet.

I should make sure I am taking the right courses I really wanted a second computer science for second term but there was not one available.

I got my new glasses. they hurt my eyes. sometimes. so. um. yeah. will have to get used to them I think. also there now is this clear spot in front of me and fuzzy stuff around where there are no glasses. I should get prescription goggles. that would be fun. also. I don’t think they gave me my prescription card back. lol

do you know how hard it is not to go to A&W when it is just sitting there? sheesh. Either I am going to get fat or broke. whee. hoping for fat. so. send me your monies.

I really wanted to take CMPT 117 second term, but it conflicted with my physics. sad. however I am asking myself why am I taking the course designed for engineering students (116) when 111 is designed for computer science students, but open to everyone. I could also have taken CMPT 115 instead of CMPT 117. I hope I am not painting myself into a corner here.

going to have to focus physics first, computer science only when I can. but if I swap chem 112 out for cmpt 115 this may work. Can I do that. do I want to?

ooog.