This has got to be one of the funniest unintentional comics I have ever seen.

I have finally upgraded the kernel on my laptop and enabled a dual stack IPv4/IPv6 setup. Now all of the currently active machines on the Newmarket subnet except for mayflower (aelscha’s laptop) support IPv6. There are some currently inactive machines which don’t (vega, bloodymary, the SGI), but I don’t know if I’ll ever end up setting those up.

isomerica.net is now offering two new services over IPv4 and IPv6. The first is a public access stratum 2 NTP server. You can use ntp.isomerica.net to get to this. The second is a public access Jabber server. You can use any Jabber client to create an account. My jabber ID is spinfire@isomerica.net.

So, I have now had all of my classes for the spring semester. In approximate order of difficulty:

• CS 620: Operating System Fundamentals. This will be my second CS “concepts” class, the other being data structures. My last CS class involved a lot of programming. This class is going to involve conceptual understanding of how operating systems work. There will be a few C programming assignments, but they will be of minimal scope. So far, the material given in the class has mirrored what we covered in ECE562 last year. I also feel like I’m entering the class with a pretty good grasp of how operating systems, especially Linux, fit together.
• ECE 583: Design with Programmable Logic. This class will introduce VHDL and other modelling techniques. In typical fashion, there is an unsupervised lab where we will be building something. While the professor has a strong Chinese accent and is sometimes hard to understand, I feel like the material will be relatively easy to grasp.
• ECE 544: Engineering Analysis. Multi-dimensional Calculus with a slight emphasis on electrical engineering applications (IE, electric and magnetic field modelling). This could be a tough class. The professor has some interesting ideas about a hands on learning method which well set us loose trying to solve problems on our own. Then we’ll discuss potential solutions in class and come to conclusions. Very new age. My concern is that with the tight density of engineering math courses and the slower teaching pace described by the professor we’ll run into a time crunch or not be able to cover all of the material. Hopefully, it will work out alright.
• PHYS 408: General Physics II. As with most Physics classes, I anticipate a lot of work. This class already has significantly more scheduled time than any of my others, with three hours of lecture, 1.5 of recitation, and three hours of lab scheduled each week. In addition, online (”webassign”) homeworks are due three times a week, plus lab reports. This adds up to a significant ability to eat time. I tend to find physics principles easier to grasp than other students, but that doesn’t make this class any less difficult. I think I’ll find the topics covered in this half to be more interesting than mechanics.

I’m excited about this semester. I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, and the material we are covering is very interesting.

Aelscha and I are in Florence, Italy. So far we’ve been to Venice, Florence, and today a day trip to Pisa. Tomorrow we’re going to travel south of Rome to Sorrento, near Naples. We’ll get to see Pompeii and samples some of the Southern Italian cuisines. I am actually relatively impressed with my ability to speak a few words of Italian. Right now we are on a wireless access point in Florence. More later, when I have a chance!

Aelscha and I leave for Italy today. We’ll be back on January 14th. We’re going to be starting at the top - Venice - and working down. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post an update here from a net cafe. And, as always, expect lots of photos when I return.

In our global economy, occasional language difficulties crop up. I bought a second global mains plug adapter today at Staples. These warnings were found on the back:

• Do not put it on the place where is instability (such as on top of a shaky table, or the place that declined). Where it fells, it will cause trouble of an injury and damage. Also pay attention to a shock.
• Do not put a metal fragment inside (such as a wire). It will cause trouble of electric shock, and fire.
• Do not use it in the other methods besides an instruction manual.
• Do not put in on the place where infant can reach their hands. It will cause an accident of injury.
• Be sure to pull out the plug from the power socket after use. It will cause a trouble, and fire.
• Do not wet with liquid. It will cause trouble of an electric shock, short of an electronic circuit, emit smoke, ignition, and corrosion.
• Do not use it in condition where fixed to refrigerator/electric heater, etc for a long time. It will cause a fire.
• Do not decompose or remodel. It will cause trouble of electric shock, and fire.
• Do not use it in over 250 Voltage/6A eletric [sic] current. It will cause trouble of electric shock, and fire.
• Do not handle with wet hands. It will cause trouble of electric shock.
• Where there is abnormality, stop using it immediately. It wil cause trouble of electric shock, and fire when abnormal things happen such as a smoke, smell, and enters water.

On the plus side, the thing is built like a transformers toy and it supports type A,B,C,O,BF,B3,O2, and SE socket types. I didn’t even know there were that many. Of course, I am constantly nervous the thing may suddenly transform into a robot.

As some of you know, I’ve been working off-and-on on having my own piece of webspace again. Not that I don’t love Dan and all, but I’ve never really quite felt at home posting on the isomerica.net frontpage. Our styles are too different.

Thus, I hereby announce the existence of ThunderSnow.us. It’s currently rather sparse on content and rough around the edges, but sandpaper is being applied, and content will trickle in. And thus I will not be posting over here so much (not that I post that much in the first place), but will instead be posting over there.

I have IPv6 working on crow’s Windows XP (sortof). The support seems kind of rough-edged at this point, but it does work. I can confirm it works with both firefox and PuTTY. When running ipv6 install I did run into an “Error 0×800704b8:” The solution is to type:
esentutl /p %windir%\security\Database\secedit.sdb

Next step is to get the Linux install using IPv6 too. Should be easier :)