Pop goes the student


So Ms. 'Nique in the third panel? Yeah, that's me. Only instead of "being alive", my condition is more aptly described as "being roasted alive by pure stress and workload".

I am trying to claw my way back into blogging, but I have a feeling things will not get back to snuff until after Dec. 18 (my last final). I have a bunch of stuff in my head though, so there will be something to read... eventually.  ¶ 1:52 p.m. 0 comments

  Knowledge == Power == Money
Apologies in advance for linking to the New York Times. Fortunately, these fine folks can get you past that thrice-damned registration system those short-sighted newspapers are so fond of.

As I was saying...

Really, what does Wal-Mart knows about customers' habits, anyways?

A week ahead of the storm's landfall, Linda M. Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier. Backed by the trillions of bytes' worth of shopper history that is stored in Wal-Mart's computer network, she felt that the company could "start predicting what's going to happen, instead of waiting for it to happen," as she put it.

As freaking cool as this is, it also scares me somewhat. I read a short story a long time ago about a kid named Alexander who decided to do what Alexander the Great did -- take over the world. The way the character in the story went about it was by building a computer to analyze historical data and predict the future. Eventually the computer became a precognitive AI* and the kid went on to rule the world... until his computer realized there had never been something like it and crashed. (Bork!)

* Think HAL as a character in Minority Report.

I am of the opinion that history does, to a certain extent, repeat itself. It's never quite the same, but general themes and trends hold. In the Foundation novels, Isaac Asimov imagined the prediction of the future using mathematical analysis of statistics. I see no reason that that can't happen, provided you have enough data.

By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to experts.

Well that settles that, I should think. Eep.

I remember being told a long time ago that the magic equation of hurricanes + computers helped get Wal-Mart to the Alpha Retailer position. Just earlier this month another SoftE at school mentioned that thanks to Wal-Mart's uberdatabase, beer and diapers will be found on the same shelf, since any father needing to take care of the baby on a Friday night is likely to grab a six-pack at the same time as the Huggies.

Imagine the potential of having this information open to everyone. Think about all the things we could learn about consumer psychology. Imagine making the start of psychohistory real.

Now consider how much that will never happen, since there's no way Wal-Mart will give up their information without a fight to the death.

Foo.  ¶ 1:20 a.m. 0 comments

  Strange, pervy and looking to be a very good comic


Man is the Doctor Pepper Show messed up. It is, however, really good. Somehow, there exists a complicated mathematical expression out there that governs how the combination of gothic Victorian-ness, medical fetishes and chibi artwork can all get together, have a few drinks and produce a love child. Go read it now, but do realize it is not work safe.

As if you cared anyways. (If I put smileys on this site, I would put one here, but I don't, so there thppp!)  ¶ 1:12 a.m. 0 comments

  ...
BOO!

Just checking if you were still there. I'm not dead, but I have been busy. As in waking up, lectures for 4 hours, coding for 7 hours, assignments for an hour, followed by a couple of hours of Half-Life 2, then sleep busy. I don't even really have time to make this post. I'm losing sleep over this site! Really!

Anyways, one way or another, it'll all be over in 3 weeks. I remember thinking the same thing last week when it was only 3 weeks to the end of lectures. Now it's the end of school until the fall. Oh yeah, did I mention I got placed for my coop term?

Oh. Well I did. Gonna move back to Calgary in a month or so. There's a bunch more security stuff, but I'm not complaining. I just hope that I don't forget to do all this while I'm working myself to the bone. I swear, if the Bachelor's I'm going to get isn't made of gold with my name written in diamonds, heads are going to roll.

Glah. All I have to do is make it to Wednesday. Workload drops then.

I can do it.  ¶ 1:18 a.m. 0 comments

  Half-Life 2: On TUESDAY! SQUEEEE!!!
Yet another uber-post from the wonderous Penny Arcade. I bring this up only because I sincerely think it is a portent of things to come:

After getting his hands on it himself he told me how full of shit I was, and how I knew all along which one was better. I replied that, yes, I could have spoken with more precision: it isn't that you can't compare the two, it's that trying to compare them is meaningless. The combination of Half-Life 2 the game, the Steam delivery system, and the Source SDK will define a new generation of PC gaming, usher in a golden age of man, and focus the mod community into a coherent beam which punches a hole straight through our notions of professional and amateur development.

  ¶ 10:04 a.m. 0 comments

  If you see me after next Monday, poke me.
I might be dead.

Really. Right now, well, things are getting to be a bit much. Between:

• Being enrolled in the worse course in existence,
  
• Essentially losing my long weekend working on the above,
  
• Having a lab partner who easily qualifies as my largest single source of stress,
  
• Feeling like I never have any time for myself,
  
• Worrying about employment issues,
  
• And missing out on all the great November gaming,

I really do feel like I won't make it through the next week. It's really a drag. On the other hand, I could try to look on the bright side. I:

• Essentially have a job for my next work term, and shouldn't really have a problem with employment,
  
• Will be getting Half-Life 2 when it comes out, which knocks a HUGE item off my To Play list for November,
  
• Still have a kickass house for a kickass rate,
  
• Am currently doing reasonably well in my courses.

So do the two lists counter each other? I don't know. Unfortunately, I don't really have any choice. This long weekend and all the due dates that come immediately after it are coming, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. The choice between tackling it head-on with guns blazing and continuing to be morose and bitchy however, well that's something else.

I think I will draw a picture. That usually makes me feel better. Hold tight.  ¶ 8:53 p.m. 1 comments

  *gasp!*
Just coming up for air very briefly with another great post by Cory Doctorow about copyright. This time, however, it concerns me because it's about Canada and the fact that we are considering adopting the WIPO's position on Internet and copyright. I really don't want this to happen...

Read more here.  ¶ 12:00 p.m. 0 comments