My courses:

CSC340H1 F - Reqmnts Engineering
CSC407H1 F - Softw Arch & Design
CSC443H1 F - Database Sys Techn
CSC458H5 F - Computer Networks (UTM)
CSC347H5 F - Intro to Information Security (UTM)
CSC494H1 F - Project Course

CSC408H1 S - Software Engineering
CSC422H5 S - Cryptology & Comput. Complex. (UTM)
CSC321H1 S - Neural Networks
CSC495H1 S - Project Course

My schedule:

first semester, second semester (dashed outlined boxen are at the UTM campus — yay 20 min commute)

Yes, that’s right: 10 Computer Science courses. I’m hard-core like that.

I’ve been lacking my camera for the past few weeks so I had to resort to taking pictures with my phone. Now that I got it back, it’s time to unload! Let’s begin:

This here is the remnants of a scavenger hunt, found on College st. just east of Spadina. Why don’t people do more things like this?

Now this is the pinnacle of productivity in the office. I was very proud of my accomplishment. (Had to use paper buffers between the cards because they were too damn slippery. :-()

Surely this is what you”ve all been waiting for (without knowing it): Office monitor art. Created entirely out of post-its, it’ll make any monitor look that much better. And it’ll make passing by grad students go “what is THAT!?” Or at least it did for one, while the rest must have been too busy deriving pi in their heads.

Last, but certainly not least, my new monitor. The Acer AL2216W, 22″ of wide screen goodness. As a screen quality junkie, it’s not that much to brag about, but after being shackled to a 17″ 4:3 monitor for forever, it’s certainly liberating to go dual screen, let alone wide screen. Hoorah.

While reviewing the latest hubbub on GPLv3 (the open source license) I got hit with a strong wiff of nostalgia. Back in my Windows days, some 9-10 years ago — before I discovered the dark art of pirating software, I would browse download.com for freeware. My perception of freeware was that a very kind-hearted developer, surrounded by a throng of money-hungry leeches, stood up and exclaimed “I’m going to try make the world a better place.” On Windows, freeware was so rare, I’d be lucky to find anything at all that was worth using, but occasionally I did (like IrfanView, one of the best image viewers I’ve ever used).

Fast-forward to today, into Linux-land, where 99% (literally) of my software is open source and free. The 1% being Cedega (used for running, non-free, Windows games).

While reading the debate on GPLv3, I see that there really is a throng of kind-hearted developers amidst the throng of money-hungry leeches. Albeit a smaller throng, but a throng nonetheless. Enough people to make the free world turn.

Some things are free.