Out with the New, In with the Old

Windows 7 - I hate you. Aero really needs to stop being so finnicky. Aero off, classic back on. I don't care if I don't get eye candy - I just want things snappy. You'd think having an SSD would be sufficient. But no, Aero has to be that laggy overlay on top of a pretty zippy system.

And why did you have to go and re-organize my bloody control panel? I liked how it was in my old setup. Sure I can change it, but do you think of your non-power users? Why do they have to be put through this whole hell of re-learning where things are located? Why does control alt delete bring up a random screen that blacks everything out instead of the task manager? Every single bloody option that you offer in that menu is available through the start menu anyway. People LIKED old ways of doing things. I for one am not impressed. This is after using Windows 7 for too long. I might just be going back to XP if hardware support comes through.

Old stuff is so much better. Long live XP! That and Windows 2000.

Communication

I woke up this morning to this email from Christina Eftenaru - one of the SFU CS Coop Coordinators.

"Over the last 6 years, I've come to believe deeply in the idea that that becoming a great programmer has very little to do with programming. Yes, it takes a modicum of technical skill and dogged persistence, absolutely. But even more than that, it takes serious communication skills..."

Why? Read more at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-without-writing.html

This got me thinking - I ought to keep blogging. As much as it can turn into a pain in the rear, it will help me down the road. Communication is key for everything we do these days - we're living in the Information age. How else do we expect to exchange information? If we can't communicate properly, it doesn't matter how skilled we are at <$skill>. The best person at <$skill> will be a mediocre person in that particular industry if they cannot communicate. By communicating, we let others know our thoughts. We "get leverage" by letting others know what we really want to say.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. So maybe this is ultimately why I suck at what I do. It isn't because I can't code or do maths do whatever it is. I just can't communicate.

Course Dropped

So I sort of dropped 376 because .. I ended up not needing it. This means..

1) I'll probably be blogging Less again, because I'm not academically obliged to do it anymore. I still might, depending on whether or not I have profound insights to share with anyone.

2) I have to take two courses over the next semester or two as opposed to just the one I have to take next semester

3) My coop Has to go smoothly, otherwise I'll be royally screwed over.

Going to start doing days of gym again. Need to trim myself down and get back to (wait, get To) being under 80kg. My goal for the end of February is to be at 80kg, loaded after dinner. We'll see if I am successful.

Attitude: Lots of vegetables and drink litres upon litres of water. Throw in the occasional chicken breast, eggs, and tomatoes. Rinse and repeat. Find a set of meals that work and stick to it. Stay trim and focused on your goals. You don't want to walk through that dark road again.

Chinese New Year

Just wanted to write randomly about Chinese New Year. Of course the traffic on this blog is so low that no one is really reading it. I just get the odd bot that crawls onto here. In any case, Chinese New Year is today. As a kid I found it really interesting that the Chinese New Year would be on a different date every year. Then I realized the calendar that they work on is old and based around the moon's rotations around the Earth.

In other news, I might end up not needing to take 376. I signed up for the class thinking it would count for my three additional upper division CMPT credits. When I reviewed the graduation plan for my program, it said that these three additional UD credits must come from a list. However, on the SFU official calendar, it only says three additional UD credits with no limitations. Oh the stresses of figuring things out before graduation.....