Linkstew

So I've got a lot of issues with Mac OS X, but you wanna know what my #1 biggest pet peeve about OS X is?

It can't remember my fucking web browser preferences!

I want OmniWeb to be my default browser. I do not want IE to be my default browser. Even using this tip, my default browser regularly switches back to IE. This is especially irksome for me, because I navigate my bookmarks with LaunchBar, which just uses my default browser to open the bookmark in question, no matter which app it got the bookmark from.

Jesus Christ, how hard could it possibly be to retain a preference? You'd think this was a fucking Microsoft OS or something...

So as I expected, I was moderately busy having a life this semester, so a lot of what I had planned to do didn't actually happen. But regardless, I feel like this semester was a success, and that's what counts.

• I wanted to get two As and two Bs this semester, but I ended up taking Astronomy Pass/No Pass, making that goal impossible. I ended up with an A in CS162, a B+ in Linguistics, and a B- in Psychology, and that'll do.
• I've done a lot of thinking about my plans for next year, and at the moment I'm planning on the fall of 2002 being my last semester at Berkeley, though I'll stay in town through July of 2003. It's vaguely possible that I might still decide to take a class or two in the spring, but that's a $2000 decision. Beyond July of 2003 I can't say with any certainty where I'll be, because the answer depends on who accepts me for what after I apply to grad schools and apply for jobs next fall/spring.
• I decided that my time this summer would be better invested in doing just one job, so I applied to be a 61a or cs3 TA for the fall. Of course, that means I'm going to be trying to do approximately 139 things this fall, but in my head I'll just imagine it's the final boss fight of my Berkeley adventure.
• I've done some grad school research, and I have a vague idea of some programs I might want to apply to, but I still need to do much more research. One thing I realized this semester is that given the choice, I'm pretty certain that I'd rather do CogSci than CS.
• I feel much more organized than I did this time last semester. I've been mainly relying on keeping work notes in a notebook and the calendaring tool at work. I still could be doing a lot better, though.
• Ridiculously, the only reading I managed to do in my free time this semester was a book about Hawaiian Volcano Legends. I feel like such a failure. (later: Oh yeah, I completely forgot that I also read Neverwhere right at the beginning of the semester.) (later still: And oh yeah, I also read The Illustrated Man.)
• Not only did I not read, but the only video game playing I did all semester was getting 2/3rds of the way through Jedi Outcast. (later: Oh yeah, I forgot that I also played a lot of Escape Velocity Nova.)
• I haven't made any final decisions, but I've been playing with the idea of using Moveable Type for that ever unmentionable third site... More as it develops.
• Not only did I not add any new features to the The Stew, but it's gotten mysteriously slower in the meantime. Before I can even think about enhancing it, I need to make what's already there more efficient and maintainable.
• My brother's new computer is done, and once I finish playing Jedi Outcast, it's all his. When I noticed just how seldom I used my desktop, I decided that it'd make sense for me to take all of my best parts and put them into one computer for him, leaving me with my faithful PowerBook.
• And finally, something that I did a lot of this semester that I neglected to put on my list back in January, was snowboarding. Whoosh. I wish it were December already.

This was another idea that came out of my last final, but don't worry, I didn't write it all during the test.

Psychology 126 (Visual Perception)
• Interdisciplinary, Hypotheses, and Heuristics.
• Requirement, Redundant, yet still Interesting.
CS 162 (Operating Systems and System Programming)
• Concurrency, Synchronization, Security and Protection.
• Communication, Frustrating, Practical, and Time consuming.
Astronomy 12 (The Planets)
• Differentiation, Composition, and Satellites.
• Distraction, Easy, for Personal Interest.
Linguistics 105 (Cognitive Linguistics)
• Metaphors, Categories, Head and Side.
• Disorganized, Confusing, Egotistical, and yet amazingly Stimulating.

An unexpected turn of events found me at a table at Blake's with calstuff and praglib tonight. Though I've never read either of them at length, they were both nice in person. Ah, small worlds, and friends of friends, and all that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to sleep.

Heh, the silly things I think of while taking a final:

One Final, Two Final,
Red Final, Blue Final,
But only if you're a Synaesthetic.

Sheesh, last semeser I came up with a jokeless punchline, and this semester I come up with Dr. Suess does Cognitive Science. I suppose it's worth noting that Synaesthesia had nothing to do with my final as evidence of how ridiculous I am.

By the way, of particular interest on that linked Synaesthesia page is the use of stroop effects to prove the existance of synasthesia. That's so neat. I love CogSci. I want to do this sort of thing when I grow up.

On the bright side, I'm done with finals.

In hopes of forgetting about how unhappy I was about my final, and in hopes of making me like Episode II more than I did, my roommate and I watched Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace last night. Here are a few choice quotes from our MST3king of Episode I:

"If it was muted, I might be feeling something right now."
-- michael, on Anakin leaving his mother on Tatooine.

"Ah, suddenly happy memories of that first trailer."
-- michael, on the Gungans in the fog

"This is going to be traumatic for him when he's older. I mean the actor, not Darth Vader."
-- michael, on Anakin
"Heh, I can see Vader watching home movies... 'My god, I was such an idiot!'"
-- me

"Sure, everyone thinks they'd want to be a Jedi if they were in the Star Wars universe, but the obvious question they're overlooking is 'Do Jedi get to *drink*?'"
-- me

The verdict on Episode I versus Episode II? Honestly, even after watching Episode I again, I still feel each movie had highs and lows, and I think the peaks and valleys canceled themselves out. I maintain that I liked both movies about equally.

As far as feeling better about the final? Episode I didn't need to distract me that much, because half way through I found out that I somehow got an 81/100 on the test, despite not answering a 4 point question and totally guessing on a 16 point question. That puts me at an 86% in the class, which probably means I'll get at best a B+ after the curve is applied.

The latest TMBG announce email had some new tour dates for their summer tour to promote No!. Notably, there are some west coast dates:

• 7/19 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
• 7/20 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
• 7/26 Los Angeles CA - John Anson Ford Theater
• 7/27 Anaheim CA - House of Blues
• 7/28 SPECIAL KIDS SHOW Los Angeles CA Storyopolis

They better announce an SF show or two in that gap between Seattle and LA, because I already planned two other trips in July, and as much as I want to, I don't really have time to take a third trip to socal to go to a couple of TMBG concerts.

Hm. Though if I didn't go to AX, I'd have the time and the money to go to those socal concerts... And I'd be going to AX more to hang out with my Bakersfield friends than for the anime content... But if I went to the TMBG concerts, I don't know if I'd have anyone to go with me. Blah, I suppose I should figure this out soon.

Blahhh...

Basically, my final didn't go very well at all, and I'm looking for things besides the final to worry about. Let's put it this way: 16/100 points on the final were for being able to recite the details of 2 phase commit, the details of which I did not to commit to memory. It was purely memorization, and didn't test our understanding of it at all! In contrast, last year's final said "Here is how 2 phase commit works. What happens if it fails at this point? This point? This point?" Last year's question actually tested that the students understood the concept, while this year they just tested to see if we could recite the stupid thing from memory. 16 points! And another 4 points were for knowing what caused a particular bug in a particular processor that he only talked about in lecture. And so I'm not a very happy camper. I could have gotten an A in the class if I'd done well on the final, but now I'll be happy if I get a B.

State Dependent Learning is a pretty well studied phenomena. But in addition to the effects of chemical states and moods described on the linked page, evidence has also been found that a person who studies in the same environment in which he or she is tested will perform better.

So here I am studying for this final and thinking about State Dependent Learning (which has nothing to do with network protocols, I assure you). I'm wired on caffeine right now, but that's not a problem, because I'll be equally wired on caffeine while I'm taking the test. Hell, I'll probably be consuming caffeine while taking the test. I figure I'm not going to be able to take the test in my bedroom, so I'm not going to be able to do anything about the location factor.

But what I'm really pondering is Music. Of course I've been listening to music while studying, but I certainly won't be able to listen to music while taking my final. Instead, when I'm taking tests, I always have some song or another that I hum to myself. Obviously, to be maximally effective, it should be a song I listened to a lot while studying.

So let's see what I've been listening to today:

• Amon Tobin - Bricolage
• Amon Tobin - Permutation
• Amon Tobin - Supermodified
• Lamb - Lamb
• Moby - Play
• Moby - Play: The B-Sides
• Moby - 18
• Radiohead - OK Computer
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Radiohead - Amnesiac

Most of these are conducive to my studying because they either have no lyrics or I can easily ignore the lyrics. In contrast, I cannot study to TMBG no matter how much I love them, simply because I get distracted by unignorable lyrics.

Heck, the song I had stuck in my head during Monday's final was Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box off of Amnesiac, so I should be in good shape to focus on a song I've been studying to during the final tomorrow.

Assuming, of course, I actually study instead of writing about studying.

I know there have been studies of the effect of music on learning, but I don't have time to look them up right now and see if they thought to investigate state dependent learning effects as part of those experiments. Did they test the performance of the subjects with and without music? Did they poll the subjects to see if they were thought about the music they studied to while they were being tested? These would all be interesting questions to know the answers to, and seem extremely important to any study of the effects of music on learning.

I'm such a horrible student. I've got a final in 23 hours, and I haven't even looked to see if there are any practice finals available on the course website. Instead, I'm sitting here thinking about what I'd rather be doing:

1. Go snowboarding. Of course, this is only reinforced by my friend emailing me this morning to let me know that 2002-2003 Kirkwood season passes are already available. Gah, it's so far away!
2. Read more of the book I started last night.
3. Go jetskiing. On the bright side, I'll get to go jetskiing in July and I don't even have to pay for it.
4. Finish up Jedi Outcast, which I've been playing for almost two months now.
5. Figure out what's wrong with Linkstew.

::sigh:: I suppose I'll start studying now. Well, after I go to three hours of meetings this afternoon. And as much as I want to watch the Enterprise season finale tonight, I'll be a good boy and leave it on my TiVo until tomorrow.

Because what better time to start reading a random book because I want to than 36 hours before a final that I have not yet begun to study for?

Oh this isn't good: after four years of having the same credit card, I just recalled the number from memory for the first time.

One of my coping strategies is to remind myself that "Wet socks are worse" whenever something is getting me down. Because, well, they are.

Unprepared for your final today? Don't worry, because no matter how bad it is, wet socks are worse.

Sleep deprived? Wet socks are worse.

Didn't have a chance to eat breakfast? Wet socks are worse.

Of course, this whole strategy fails when your socks get wet while walking to a final you're absurdly unprepared for, because it turns out that taking a final with wet socks is a lot worse than wet socks.