First CS Project Blunder

Ouch. It hurts when you screw up on a project you spent at least 23 hours on. The BigInteger project was due at midnight last night (or this morning, rather), and we couldn't finish it on time. We actually did everything except for getting the power method optimized, but if we had turned it in it would've been bad because we found more bugs afterwards. The thing with power is that he wanted us to find 2 to the power of 132049 minus one, which is the 30th marsenne prime. As you can imagine, this is an enormous number to calculate (almost 40,000 digits), and he wanted it calculated in less than a quarter of a minute. Java can do it in like a second, but their code is way intense. We got everything else in our project working except for that part (you can e-mail me for our code if you'd like to see it), and that's what sucks. We'll have to drop this project grade and do really well on the others, but we invested so much time in it only to have it not count. At least we learned the importance of getting more done early, and I think I've passed the first feat of the CS program: spending ten hours in a day coding only to not be able to finish on time.

Today's post isn't going to be too long because I've invested so much today in that bloody project. Microsoft decided that WinFS will be backported to Windows XP, which means that rather than coming out with Longhorn it'll be available for XP. WinFS relies on the relational database model, as this article explains further. It's an interesting system but this is a rather confusing move and may suggest that M$, for some strange reason, is not encouraging users to upgrade from XP to Longhorn. In more lucid news, Google has released its first free desktop search application, and will soon provide the APIs for it. It sounds pretty sweet and with the news I reported Thursday would suggest that maybe Google is stepping further into the OS arena. Another cool thing in technology news is that RollerMouse Pro has been released and sounds really cool except for the $200 price tage. The way it works is that you basically use a sensor pad below your keyboard to utilize your cursor, and it seems to work well except for FPS games. And lastly, those geniuses at Samsung have created an 82" LCD screen, which is truly massive. An average person would have no use for it, but it would make for some cool theaters at dorms and such.

Today I am immensely pleased to report that the final Sin City trailer has been released so go watch it now! This movie is going to be so sweet and I'll let the trailer do the talking about the amazing cast and the legendary people calling the shots. If this move doesn't rock, I will eat my shoe and post a picture of it here. I have some other really interesting news today. It appears that Quentin Tarantino is in talks to direct the Ultimate Jason Voorhees Movie. This is really crazy since all accounts of what Tarantino will do next has been pretty quiet, and apparantly it's meant to be a quick project for him. Rocky fans can bask in the joy of being able to read the first pages from the Rocky VI script. I was never big on the series, but it's still big news. Tim Sullivan has been hired to write Shrek 4. You heard me, four. Overconfidence is not a virtue and I think they're being a little too bold here. And lastly, I hope you all enjoy this new Batman picture that surfaced:



A couple of other things left. Those of you underage like me who wish they had a fake ID may want to read this article explaining the police's fight against fake IDs. Now they have devices that can scan IDs and determine whether they're real or not. All this will do is prevent people from clubbing though because they can just get friends to buy liquour for them. A long while ago I posted about people getting fired for what they write in their blogs and now CNN has an article about it. It's good news that there's a movement for companies to start outlining their policies because then people won't get randomly fired. Finally, Strongbad put up a new e-mail about writing a rap song so give it a look see.

Today's post title is fitting for some Monday Madness:

1. What's on your refrigerator? (Please feel free to use a picture to answer.)
A few magnets (New York and Niagra Falls and Gumby's) with our schedules on them. On top of the fridge itself is some snack foods.

2. What color is your refrigerator?
White and boring.

3. Is the freezer on the top, bottom or side?
On top, because it's one of those small, crappy, apartment fridges.

4. How old is your fridge? Does it match your stove?
It's pretty old (I'd say at least five years), but I'm not sure if it matches the stove.

5. How regularly do you clean the inside of your fridge?
Clean? I've only had to clean it once, and that was because I spilled something. I do rearrange stuff weekly, but that's about it.