Friday, March 12, 2004
Blind as a .......
Just got back from uni not too long ago.
The tutor was sympathizing with us that it's just the 2nd week of school, and already we have so many deadlines to meet for my IT Advanced Project Management Module.
The whole group (and other groups) had to stay late in the labs trying to finish up crazy amounts of documentations, charts, diagrams, tables...what have yer. The weird thing is that we're the only group who brings their own laptops, claim the whole foyer to ourselves by occupying 4 out of 5 of the available tables, whereas the rest of the groups goto the labs below and use the school computers for their work.
Although all of us own laptops, none of us are even remotely mobile. We're ALL tethered to the power sockets even though all of us are blessed with Wi-Fi equipped laptops. We're all IT savvy individuals, but when it comes to exchanging files, we don't share out our drives, we copy it onto a thumbdrive instead and pass it around. I'm thinking about it now, and asking why we're so absolutely underutilizing the resources we have now, it's really extremely perplexing. Possibly one of the reasons is that each of us are ripping files off the campus network, but tiny word, excel, project documents wouldn't even make a dent in our transfer rates (well actually for wireless, it's abit tricky to say), but it's ultimately easier just sharing the file out.
The other thing the thing about power. We're all so scared to go on battery mode, coz that means the CPU usually powers down, so we stay anchored to where the power sockets are (of course another reason is that we might as well keep our batteries topped up with school electricity).
Towards the end of the session, we were definately feeling very "high" on fatigue, because on one point, we were rolling around laughing because of a scrollbar!
One of the laptops was a presario (it must be pretty old, coz it's labelled a Compaq and not a HP), and it had a section of the trackpad delegated for scrolling use. I must have hit a bug, coz I was furiously scrolling up and down this huge document, when the whole image on the screen screen started shaking up and down. We were all staring at the document and when that happened, we all just burst into laughter altogether! The owner was of course really embarassed that we had found the bug and showed me that instead of furiously sliding up and down the scroller side, I could just flick quickly from the bottom to the top of the scroller trackpad, and the screen would scroll to the very top of the document smoothly. Being absolutely intoxicated, I then went flicking from the bottom of the document, to the top, and then back down again, going "Wheeee!". It sounds really ridiculous now, but we were all really really in sticthes over the bug and the over-enthusiastic use of the scrolling"feature".
The streets near uni can get pretty dark because there's usually no street lighting like in Singapore. On the drive to drop off the group members, something flew into the windscreen. The term "blind as a bat" does come to mind, but it looked more like an Owl then a bat though. Thing is that one's supposed to have extremely good night vision, and the other creature of the night, a sonor system far superior tomodern submarines. I guess being nocturnal dosn't make you immune to being fatigue to the point where intoxicating disoreintating behaviour becomes the norm all around. We are afterall, human?
Not sure whether to sleep, or to watch one of the movies I succeeded in copying off the college networks.
Have lecture at 8am though. Sigh...I need a car!
Over the air: Gerry Milligan - Walking Shoes
Just got back from uni not too long ago.
The tutor was sympathizing with us that it's just the 2nd week of school, and already we have so many deadlines to meet for my IT Advanced Project Management Module.
The whole group (and other groups) had to stay late in the labs trying to finish up crazy amounts of documentations, charts, diagrams, tables...what have yer. The weird thing is that we're the only group who brings their own laptops, claim the whole foyer to ourselves by occupying 4 out of 5 of the available tables, whereas the rest of the groups goto the labs below and use the school computers for their work.
Although all of us own laptops, none of us are even remotely mobile. We're ALL tethered to the power sockets even though all of us are blessed with Wi-Fi equipped laptops. We're all IT savvy individuals, but when it comes to exchanging files, we don't share out our drives, we copy it onto a thumbdrive instead and pass it around. I'm thinking about it now, and asking why we're so absolutely underutilizing the resources we have now, it's really extremely perplexing. Possibly one of the reasons is that each of us are ripping files off the campus network, but tiny word, excel, project documents wouldn't even make a dent in our transfer rates (well actually for wireless, it's abit tricky to say), but it's ultimately easier just sharing the file out.
The other thing the thing about power. We're all so scared to go on battery mode, coz that means the CPU usually powers down, so we stay anchored to where the power sockets are (of course another reason is that we might as well keep our batteries topped up with school electricity).
Towards the end of the session, we were definately feeling very "high" on fatigue, because on one point, we were rolling around laughing because of a scrollbar!
One of the laptops was a presario (it must be pretty old, coz it's labelled a Compaq and not a HP), and it had a section of the trackpad delegated for scrolling use. I must have hit a bug, coz I was furiously scrolling up and down this huge document, when the whole image on the screen screen started shaking up and down. We were all staring at the document and when that happened, we all just burst into laughter altogether! The owner was of course really embarassed that we had found the bug and showed me that instead of furiously sliding up and down the scroller side, I could just flick quickly from the bottom to the top of the scroller trackpad, and the screen would scroll to the very top of the document smoothly. Being absolutely intoxicated, I then went flicking from the bottom of the document, to the top, and then back down again, going "Wheeee!". It sounds really ridiculous now, but we were all really really in sticthes over the bug and the over-enthusiastic use of the scrolling"feature".
The streets near uni can get pretty dark because there's usually no street lighting like in Singapore. On the drive to drop off the group members, something flew into the windscreen. The term "blind as a bat" does come to mind, but it looked more like an Owl then a bat though. Thing is that one's supposed to have extremely good night vision, and the other creature of the night, a sonor system far superior tomodern submarines. I guess being nocturnal dosn't make you immune to being fatigue to the point where intoxicating disoreintating behaviour becomes the norm all around. We are afterall, human?
Not sure whether to sleep, or to watch one of the movies I succeeded in copying off the college networks.
Have lecture at 8am though. Sigh...I need a car!
Over the air: Gerry Milligan - Walking Shoes
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