Reaper Blog

I really need to stop procrastinating with these posts.

Welcome to episode 21! It’s been a fairly average week, but I’ve somewhat enjoyed it. I’ve actually gotten a bit of work done too, which I’m happy about. Still have a lot more to do, though. At least the “mid”-semester break starts now, so I’ll have a lot more time to spend on it all. Anyway, I’ll get into the week that was. Just as a note, I didn’t go into university on Wednesday (and won’t be for the rest of the semester), so I’ll be skipping it from now on.

Monday

Up early for the start of another week. As usual, we had the project meeting with our lecturer, which went really well. He was really impressed with a couple of the features we’d gotten implemented (mainly the drag and drop). We also discussed the next stages of the project (mostly the login system). We didn’t have much else to talk about during the meeting, so ended it there and went back to the BESE lab to start work. During that time, I think two of us somewhat annoyed our team leader by taking some initiative and changing things about. He got a bit scary, to be honest. But I think we were able to convince him our idea worked, and made it look better. A bit later, my HISE group had a meeting to work on the second assignment some more (well, three of us did anyway. The other one walked off for a while). We got a decent amount of it done, I think. At the end of that meeting, we went to the HISE lecture. It was a pretty decent lecture, as always. This week’s lecture was on model checking of Z specifications, which was fairly self-explanatory (in my opinion, anyway).

Tuesday

I liked Tuesday this week. I woke up later than I should have (not that big of a deal, since I didn’t need to be at university until 1). When I did get in (around midday), I spent most of my time there talking with the guys that were in the BESE lab, watching YouTube videos, and working on what I had to do for the group project (database backup and restoration). That took me right up until about 3:30 (I didn’t go to the BMS tutorial – had no reason to). I was able to get all of the database restoration done and tested, which I was happy about. At 3:30, I decided to go home (didn’t really have a reason to stick around).

Thursday

Last day of the term! At least, it was for me. It was the usual early morning for the MWN lecture, which was pretty cool actually. We had the second lecturer for the course, since the main one wasn’t in Adelaide. I’d had the lecturer before, and hadn’t really liked how he’d done the lecture content, but this lecture went really well. It was on “Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)”, which was pretty interesting. The lecturer had brought in some sensor nodes as a demonstration of how they work, and what information you can get from them. I liked it. After that lecturer had finished his part, we had the guest lecturer once again. I’m starting to get pretty annoyed by her. But I guess some of the stuff she talks about is useful. At the end of the lecture, I went up to the BESE lab and pretty much just worked on (a part of) the class exercise for MWN (since it was due Friday). I ended up just chatting with the others that were in there, since the topics they were talking about were a bit more interesting (to be honest). Around 3 (or maybe a bit later, didn’t check the time), I decided I might as well just go home.

Round Up

And that ends the last week of the term! I really liked this week, since not that much has gone on and I’ve been able to focus on some of the stuff I’ve really got to get done. Admittedly, I’ve still procrastinated and haven’t done as much as I should, but oh well. At least I’ll have more time now, since it’s the break. In between my work, I’ll try to get some posts out for you all. I can’t promise too much, though.

Thanks for reading this week’s episode. I’ll get back into this series in two weeks time, when I’m back at university.
Robert

Well, I guess I was wrong with what I said last week – these posts are getting later and later.

Welcome to episode 20, everyone! The last week has been fairly quiet, so this post may be a little lighter than usual. I’m somewhat happy about that, though. Let’s get into it.

Monday

As usual, I had to be up early for the group project meeting. When I got into university, I pretty much just watched YouTube videos until one of the members of the group turned up. When they did, we pretty much just talked about what’s been done and what else needs completing. In the meeting, we started out just with our lecturer. He needed to go for a bit for some reason (don’t remember why), and in that time we were able to get in contact with our client and organise to talk with them as well (they were in America at the time). So we talked with them about the current state of the system, and what the next steps are with it. They seemed really impressed with the editor functionality we’d completed (and bugs we’d fixed), which was good. At the end of the meeting, after the clients had left, we had a bit more of a discussion with our lecturer. I got the feeling he was just as impressed with our work. After the meeting, we started figuring out our client’s current website (since we had gotten the password for it from them). Annoyingly, we found it had pretty much been turned into a forwarder (makes our job of transferring the system to them fairly difficult). The rest of the day until about 2 or 3 was spent just talking about that, and trying to figure out what we can do about it. We decided that we should talk to our lecturer, to get his opinion, before saying anything. At 3, we had a meeting with our BMS group to finish up the second assignment and hand it in. That didn’t take us too long – the longest part was probably trying to get the coversheet scanned. That was fun (sarcasm intended). After getting that done, we went to our HISE lecture. For the most part, that lecture was a continuation of the lecture from two weeks ago (the lecturer pretty much covered the same content that was in the podcast for last week). Admittedly, there was some new stuff, but a lot of it was just covered again. It wasn’t too bad, though.

Tuesday

Like most weeks so far, I was up around 9 on Tuesday. It’s getting pretty weird that I’m waking up the same times almost every week. At university, I spent most of the day pretty much just reading papers for my MWN project (as well as watching YouTube videos). To be honest, it was a fairly average day. At 2, I went to the BMS tutorial (like usual) with a friend (who I somewhat had to poke to go as well). The whole time we pretty much just set up the template on Google Docs for the third BMS assignment, while partially listening to what the lecturer was jabbering on about. At the end of the tutorial, we headed back up to the BESE lab for a bit. Around 4:30, I decided I might as well just go home (wasn’t really doing anything useful).

Wednesday

I was able to get up a bit earlier than usual Wednesday morning! Still not the time I’m wanting to get up, but it’s getting there. On my way into university, I was somewhat attacked (not literally) by someone advertising Islam week within the university. It was a bit weird, cause I had my earphones in at the time. For the most part, I just kept walking. When I made it to the BESE lab, I just spent a bit of time watching a couple of YouTube videos. My group for the second (and third) HISE assignment had organised to meet up at 2 on Wednesday, so they started turning up a bit after I did. For the most part, we just chatted about other random stuff until everyone was there and thought we’d start the meeting. That took us pretty much right through until 3, and was actually kind of fun. At 3, those of us in BMS went to that lecture. It was pretty bad, as always. Thankfully, it was the last one for the semester. During the lecture, I pretty much just zoned out (sort of watched a friend do some stuff on his laptop). At the end of the lecture, I just went home.

Thursday

Yet another early Thursday morning. I got into university a bit later than I like to (not that it matters). For half an hour after I got there, I mostly just checked my emails before going to the MWN lecture. That was a pretty decent lecture, covering ad-hoc and mesh networks. I somewhat already knew about ad-hoc networks, but didn’t know much about mesh. It seems interesting (and useful), though. After the lecture, I went back up to the BESE lab to work on part of my MWN project. I somehow got a fair bit of the introduction done, in between watching YouTube videos and listening to others in the room talking. Around 3, I decided I might just go home, since I wasn’t really being as productive as I should have been.

Round Up

And that ends yet another week. Looking back, I have done a decent amount this week. Probably not as much as I should do, but enough to be satisfied with. This coming week is the last for this term, so next episode will be the last one for a couple of weeks. I’ll still try to get up some other posts (might try to review something), to keep to at least one post a week. We’ll see how I go, and what I come up with.

Thanks for reading this episode.
Robert

To answer myself from last week: Yes, but you’ll get back into a rhythm.

Welcome everyone to episode 19! It’s been a packed week at university once again, full of assignments (or one, anyway) and lectures. Thankfully, the rush to get things done will decrease now (at least for a little while, until the next wave). Anyway, I’ll get right into what’s happened this week.

Monday

Yet another early Monday for a meeting with our lecturer for the group project. When I got into university, I started out just watching YouTube videos. There wasn’t too many to catchup on, surprisingly – by the time the first member in the group turned up, I’d actually watched them all. At that point, we talked about the project any current bugs in the system. Turned out there was a weird one introduced at some point, so we fixed it and uploaded to the server. When the last member in the team turned up, we found out there was a lot more bugs to be fixed. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to fix them before the meeting. So, in the meeting, we had to show the lecturer those. Happily, most of it was still working (at least partially, after a refresh). At the end of the meeting, the group had a quick discussion about what needs to be done. We all pretty much agreed that for the rest of the week we wouldn’t work on the project, but instead on our other assignments. After that, we all went to the BESE lab for a bit. In there, I mainly just read some papers for the first HISE assignment. I also chatted a little with people when they came in. After midday (may have been closer to 1), I decided to go home (since the lecture on Monday had been cancelled).

Tuesday

I’ve been getting in the habit of waking up at 9:30 on Tuesdays (as some of you may have noticed). This week was no different. Once I got into the city, I decided I better get a card and gift for my dad for fathers’ day (this Sunday). I also decided to buy a new set of earphones (since my old pair has been broken for a while now). I then headed into university and up to the BESE lab. In there, I mostly just watched YouTube videos or played Minecraft (yeah, not the best use of my time). A bit before the BMS tutorial at 2, my friend turned up. We chatted a bit, mostly just about Minecraft, before heading over to the lecture theatre. That tutorial was just as bad as always. The three of us (all software engineers) didn’t really take any notice of what the lecturer was on about, and instead talked about the feud between Apple and Google. At the end of the tutorial, I pretty much just went home.

Wednesday

I actually don’t remember what time I got up on Wednesday. It was early enough to get into university a bit before midday, though. When I got to the BESE lab, I pretty much just worked on my essay for the first HISE assignment until the BMS lecture at 3. Unfortunately, I was only able to finish the introduction in that time (I’m not that good with concentrated essays, if you didn’t know). So, at that point, I went down to the lecture theatre for the lecture. When I got there I found the two members in my project group talking about the project (not sitting next to each other, though). Turns out one of them was going to start looking into the system our client is currently using, which was what I had been asked to do on Monday (from memory, anyway). I didn’t really mind – means I don’t have to worry about it now, and have more time to work on other stuff. Anyway, the lecture was just as bad as always. For the most part, I just watched my friend play a game on his laptop. At the end of the lecture, I had to hurry to my bus stop to get home on time – this week was slot car racing week. I didn’t do too badly (for me, anyway). Out of the 13 racers there, I placed 9th after the scratch race series and 10th after the handicap. I was happy with that.

Thursday

As always, up early for my one early lecture for the week. MWN was pretty decent again this week. The main content in the lecture was about the network layer in the protocol stack, and changing that slightly for wireless networks. It was interesting how the methods discussed all seem to rely on the wireless device having a global static IP address within their “home” network. From my understanding of current networks, this is usually never the case (for those interested in my reasoning, look up DHCP). At least the lecturer was able to explain the methods could be adapted for this. After the main content, we got a visit from the research lecturer person once again (third time she’s turned up). This week she talked about how to structure paragraphs in our reports – I didn’t find most of it too interesting, or useful. After the lecture, I went up to the BESE lab and just worked on my HISE essay for the rest of the day. Happily, I was able to get a fair bit of it done. Unfortunately, around 3, my productivity went right down when another student started trying to get the printer in the room working. About half an hour later, we’d fixed it. So now, we all have access to a printer and scanner in the BESE lab. At that point, I decided to just go home – there was no way I’d be able to do much more of my essay after helping out with the printer.

Round Up

There ends another week at university. This is actually half way through the semester, now. In fact, I only have this last half of a semester left for my degree (as long as I pass, and obtain some work experience soon). This past week has slowly gotten more and more busy, but at least I’ve completed the one assignment that took up most of my time. Over the next week I may be just as busy, since I have (luckily, a non-assessed) project overview for MWN to work on before the end of the coming week. We’ll see how I go.

Thanks for reading this week’s episode.
Robert