My mom brought me State of Fear by Michael Critchton when my parents visited me last weekend.
As always, I wonder how Critchton has the time to research all the information that he puts in his books.... It simply breathtaking! One of the reviewers in the book compared this book to Dan Brown's "DaVinci's Code" but more real. They both have a claim that many things in the book are factual so I wonder how many people will think that a lot of concepts are true...
This book talks about the greenhouse effect. I'm sure that all of you have heard of it before. Now the surprise: According to the book, there is no greenhouse effect. It is only a theory that is be over politicized by politicians and media since the Berlin Wall has been taken down in 1989. Of course, everybody will find this fact hard to believe. Critchton provides many real references that anyone can check to back up the story (although I haven't personally check the references myself). The point of the book isn't to say that we can all pollute the earth all that we want, however that there is a over-radical emphasis on the greenhouse effect that really shouldn't be there.
All in all, if you enjoy DaVinci's Code, you'll probably like this book too :-). Keep in mind that Critchton usually writes his book with a sci-fi slant... although a lot of his science fiction could be possible in the near future.
RIT Housing did in fact had my parts from Mouser. I guess they haven't cateloged the package so they didn't know that they had a package for me. Of course, that means I don't have to blame USPS for losing my package. Interesting, they do check their e-mail - a representative named Tina asked for more information.
Anyways, most of the parts were for my PPA headphone amp. I tried assembling everything I could. Next time, I should read the instructions more carefully so there are less parts to troubleshoot the first time I power the amp. I decided to wait on install the power reserve caps until I get the propolyne caps from Digikey.
Apparently, the Molex female connectors do not have the pins inside. I got two female connectors, but only three connectors which is good enough for one. That means I need to buy three more of those pins.
Dan managed to fix my video card :-) Soldering the SMD capacitors were tricky since the legs are underneth the capacitors. Dan soldered them by bending the legs down so that the soldering iron can reach the legs. I was really surprised my video card has been resurrected! Thus, I don't have to worry about buying another video card for another two or so years.
However, my sound card is a disaster. I wanted to put the socket for the op-amp as planned before. But, I was having a hard time getting the op-amp off. Dan was a little too strong in his ways and not only broke a pin on the DIP adapter but pulled all the traces off the EMU. I thought my 0404 was done for. However, Dan managed to backtrack the traces and soldered the left-over wires from the resistors (for the PPA). Amazingly, it works! However, there is a huge 6V offset on the left channel which is very very bad. Whenever I change the volume, the left speaker will crackle. I sure hope I didn't damage it in any shape. I think a capacitor blew, which led to that aweful DC offset. In any case, I guess I'll just buy another sound card.
If you haven't already, go ahead and download the newest version of FireFox . I think the main fixes are updates will be less than 500 kbytes and security updates. I believe the extension systems were redone since you have to redownload all your extensions.
May your family have a happy Thanksgiving :-). I'm sure you guys are as hungry as I am :-)
I haven't written for some time yet again. I really have to try updating this blog on a daily basis :-(.
Right now, it is 7AM, the Monday of Thanksgiving week. Alex and I are heading out to Auburn (a suburb of Syracuse) because Alex needs to look for housing for his co-op. Bryan and Dan already left for Niagara Falls yesturday; I'm wondering what they have been doing since.
The good news: All A's for all my three courses. The bad news: Still need to find a co-op for the Spring and Summer.
Since nobody was home yesturday, I was bored to death. Watched some TV, cleaned up our media room, surfed the web, etc. Some interesting notes on TV: The Bills were really getting hammered by SF 49ers, whoever drove the 48 car in Nascar was really dumb for not driving more carefully (although admittedly, it was the last race and everybody probably thought there was no way he could have a shot at the championship), and the MythBusters episode on the Civil War rocket was really awesome.
I did buy 3/4 of the parts for the PPA (PPL's Portable Amp) from Mouser last Thursday. USPS should deliver the parts sometime this week, and maybe I'll actually get started assemblying it after 2 years joining Head-Fi. Unfortunately, I still need to build the power supply ($100), some hard-to-find caps, and the cases for the amp and power supply. I also did want to try out several op-amps for both my soundcard and amp although they are pretty expensive at $5-$20 each. The soundcard requires either one or two depending if the opamp has dual or single amplfiers packaged in the IC. The amp requires three single opamps. So obviously, I could easilly $100+ just on op-amps. Fortunately, I did hear the differences very easily when I changed the op-amp in the 0404 from its stock to the AD8120 (a lot brighter, detailed, and wider soundstage) so I'm sure that the investment would be worth it.
The plan for this week: Today, spend the day at Auburn and goto Buffalo for the night. Tuesday is a do whatever day at Buffalo. Wednesday night, I guess Bryan, Alex, Dan, and I are going to the 'famous' Boston Pizza in Toronto. Not sure I'll have the greatest time, but whatever. On the turkey day, I'll be back @ Rochester where I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving w/ Alex's family. Black Friday, I hope I could do some shopping, but I have no transportation. On the other hand, my family is planning to do a road-trip here (pending on weather) :-). Saturday, visit Corning's Museum of Glass. On Sunday, get mentally-prepared for classes again :-(.
Unfortunately, classes start back up Monday. I do, however, fly back home after three weeks for the very very long three week Holiday break. I definately not very happy about RIT extending the break for three weeks since it means the breaks do not align w/ Sandburg's events (Orchesis and Party 2005) and I'll probably forget everything covered in the forementioend three weeks. I guess I'll see how it goes.
Come back throughout the week for more interesting things to read :-)
Here is a homework question in my DSD class (Digital System Design)
3.19 How is it that perfume can be bad for digital designers?
Thankfully, the book told us the answer in the text. But still, a lot of us were scratching our heads when we first read the question.
Answer: "For example, after months of trying to figure out why gates made on some days were good and on other days were bad, legend has it that one manufacturer discovered that the bad gates were victims of airbone contamination by a particularly noxious perfume worn by one of its production-line workers!"
Morale: Don't wear perfume while fabricating gates :-)
Wakerly, John F. "Digital Design: Principles and Practices." 4th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NY: Pearson - Pretence Hall, 2005.