Tidbits: School Stuff, Song Lyrics, PowerMac G5, Disappearing Friend

Monday, 2003-06-09; 03:22:00


Just another random log entry on various stuff, like the end of finals, an answer to Bryce's question about the lyrics of "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon, some cool hints at the upcoming PowerMac G5, and the mysterious disappearance of Charity.

Ahhhh.... finals are almost over, and I'm stressing much, much less now. This is mainly because my Physics final is over, the one final about which I was really concerned. It seems like it went OK: they already posted my grade, and it was 130/200. Of course, physics tests are always curved; the mean of the first midterm was 68 (if I remember correctly), the mean of the second was 34 (both out of 100), and they said that the final would be harder than the first midterm, but easier than the second. With that in mind, the mean should be about 60% or so, which would translate to 120 points, meaning I would get above the mean (excuse the pun). That's good, but of course, this is all a theoretical analysis. But it went pretty well, I think.

What was funny was that on the final, one of the problems was talking about how an astronaut was stranded from her spaceship with no jet fuel, and just a flashlight. Given her mass and a distance from her ship, you had to calculate how long it would take her to reach her ship using the flashlight as a "rocket". Of course, this relies on the force of radiation, but I didn't read any of that until I glanced at it like two minutes before the midterm; needless to say, I couldn't calculate that force. The funny part, though, is that I just defined a force F-sub-R called the force on the astronaut due to radiation, and then just calculated the time using kinematic physics; so I was basically demonstrating that I knew nothing about how to calculate the radiation force, but they had to give me some credit for being able to do the kinematics. :)

I'm still waiting for them to send us an e-mail telling us what the mean was.

As for my other finals: Italian went fine (I still have a short essay to do), for Mars I had no final, and CS is still coming up (tomorrow morning). After the essay and the CS final (about which I'm not concerned in the least, since we did a lot of practice while making the programs), I'm going to be done! And if I don't procrastinate today and get the essay done, I can turn them both in tomorrow morning. :) :) :)

Oh, I also did get my grade for my Mars class (since the professor and TA are going to do some field work, and they had to leave today), and I got an A! (woot) I so did not deserve that grade, in my opinion, given that I really only put 2 days worth of hard effort into it. :p Apparently they didn't care about me not turning in an outline, either. :) Maybe it was better than I thought, after all.

I remember last year I would always get better grades on my IHUM essays if I did them as late as possible. I got like Bs on essays that I did a few days in advance, while I got B+s and above for papers I did mostly the night before. Funny how things work. Maybe I just write better papers while under pressure. I dunno.

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Enough about school. Bryce writes, "Alright, next topic. I can't really figure out exactly what the lyrics to 'Everything You Want' by Vertical Horizon mean/how they're supposed to work. It's a good song, I like it quite well, but all this time I've wondered about this:

...

Okay...he's great, he does all the right stuff, but he means nothing to you and you don't know why? Er...what?

The song later includes a variation that does make sense, as it has the subject switched at the end:

...

(notice the switch...'I don't know why' rather than 'you')

Anyone have a good idea how the (normal) version of the chorus is supposed to work? C'mon, don't be lazy, take the minute needed to make an account so you can post comments. *coughyouknowwho* Heck, tell me what name you want and I'll register it for you."

Disregarding the snide remarks at the end of the blog entry (just for a moment :) ), I think I can provide an answer that's pretty straightforward. Basically the singer is talking TO some girl about this other guy -- he's everything SHE wants (but it's "you" because the singer is talking TO the girl), but he means nothing to HER (again, "you") and SHE (again, "you") doesn't know why. Basically the singer is making a statement about the girl's feelings to her... and then at the end he reveals that the other guy is really himself, which is why it changes to "but I mean nothing to you and I don't know why."

(Side Note: Periods go INSIDE the quotes if they're at the end of the sentence even if they're not part of the quote itself, right?)

Does that explanation make sense? It's pretty straightforward once you think about it, even if the explanation seems a bit runaround. A far more interesting question would be the meaning of the chorus of "You Say", also by Vertical Horizon.

As for the commentary at the end, I don't think it's nice that you require me to register to post comments while I don't require you to. :p I even paid $14 to get my comments hosted on a dedicated server. So don't you go telling me that I'm lazy! ;)

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Rumor sites are buzzing with the news about the upcoming PowerMac G5, purported to be released at WWDC, which is on June 23. All the normal rumor sites are chiming in, including the ever-accurate ThinkSecret, and the ever-inaccurate MacOSRumors. Even NON-rumor sites *cougheWEEKcough*, are chiming in, saying that it's release is imminent.

Juicy little tidbits are coming out, suggesting that the new PowerMacs will sport a new enclosure, FireWire/USB ports on the FRONT of the computer (which is long overdue, IMHO), HyperTransport (more on this in a sec), USB 2.0 (long overdue, even though it is still slower and a worse standard, championed by Intel), DDR 400 RAM (which implies that a file system bus of at least 400 MHz is in order), and processor speeds ranging from 1.4 to 1.8 GHz of the new 64-bit PowerPC 970 chip.

HyperTransport is probably the most exciting of them all (besides the new chip -- if you're interested in all the nitty-gritty stuff, you should read a VERY in-depth look at the new chip: part 1 and part 2). This article pretty much explains exactly what HyperTransport is: a technology that connects all the different chips and devices on the motherboard together, with a much higher bandwidth that is currently available on Apple's computers. This means that, contrary to the current G4s, the new PowerMacs will probably be able to use their RAM to their full potential, rather than being bogged down by the interconnections between the CPU and the RAM.

WWDC 2003 is shaping up to be a big event, probably one of the biggest in recent history (besides the obvious MacWorld San Francisco 2003 that happened back in January of this year). Apple has officially announced that Mac OS X 10.3 Panther will be unveiled, and other more unreliable rumors say that Apple may release new PowerBooks (including the long-awaited update to the 15" PowerBook G4) and potentially even better iBooks. I, personally, think that only new PowerMacs and Panther are going to be announced and demonstrated at WWDC, but the other announcements could come shortly after or before WWDC.

Any way you slice it, it's a great time to be a Mac user. Mac OS X is shaping up to be the most user-friendly and most advanced operating system (being updated faster than Windows), and Apple's hardware performance is poised to finally complement the awesome design that has always come from Apple. Yay!

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Last but most definitely not least, we come to the final topic of today's tidbits log entry. Where the HECK is Charity? I haven't heard a peep from her in the past 2.5 months. She hasn't been online (June says she was online for like a few seconds back in May), and she hasn't posted anything in her blog. I'm a bit concerned, given the fact that she said the big event was going to happen back in April, and that obviously didn't happen (hopefully, anyway). What's up, Charity? Leave us a note! We want to hear from you!

That's all for today. No doubt next time I post, I will be free from the shackles of finals!


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