Warm saturday!

Posted on January 31, 2009

Finally I can venture outside.And I would be happy to do just that if only I understood parking rules. It usually goes like this: I arrive where I want to be, and then I start looking for a parking spot, yet I never can find any.

I blame the gouverment! they let me pass my the theory tests with minimal possible score on all sections. Anyway spots where I know I can park are taken, spots I’m not sure about are taken, and the spots where I can’t park are taken too.

So, I park in a far away land, far from parking signs.

So,Â outside. Right. Like a tourist! Well I went and took some photos. I got hungry and went to “Baby and Dingos” bar. I asked for baby, but apparently dingos ate it. Instead I had fish and chips.Â And got drunk on purpose. What else could I do on such wonderful day in Ottawa. I don’t know anyone here, other inters don’t want to go anywhere and I don’t even have a good camera.

So, the sun started to shine brighter, birds sung, and I became more sociable. I even asked aboriginal Ottawian, what camera should I buy. ;-)

(The good part about working is money. I can spend them on food and booze. I tried to spend then on something else but I coudn’t decide what I need. All I mastered is a Wall-e toy. Just because I saw the movie and I liked it. But I don’t need it. So what am i gonna do with all the money I make?)

So thinking all that, and bunch of other thinks that bother me. I figured I’m a brokenÂ human, and got really depressed.

Here are almost all the photos IÂ made since I bought the new cell phone.

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Week 3

Posted on January 30, 2009

My blog is not my diary. Some posts are blogworthy, some are not.

Anyway, I guess proress report would be appropriate, it’s been 18 days after all.

I guess so far I can divide then in three parts, first week I did not know anything, second week I was desperate and now I’m back to the comfort zone.Â At the begining when they gave me a project, I really did not know where to begin, I was reading source code, asking people, basically gathering all the informating I could. Then I started working towards my final goal. This was the most frustraiting part beccause I moved so slowly. So many components moving independently, some in unison some on thier own. It’s hard to create a correct static and dynamic mental models of the working system. Basic strategy was fuck aroud the system with debugger, and trace the executing to see what it does.I was feling pretty desperate, the old system was working OK, but my port was getting 20-80% success rate. And it was unreprodusable (application is multithreaded and distributed).And then the laky break. I found what caused the problem.

The third part is easy, I completed the solution, polished the details and wrote the documentation.

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Using a PDP-11/10 to Teach Computer Organization

Posted on January 17, 2009

Using a PDP-11/10 to Teach Content and History in Computer Organization Courses

I found those videos very interesting. Probably only geeks will appreciate them.

http://www.youtube.com/v/XV-7J5y1TQc

http://www.youtube.com/v/7zaaD_xP6nU

http://www.youtube.com/v/xiE2QldpQRQ

http://www.youtube.com/v/NUSn59iY8U8

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Day 3

Posted on January 14, 2009

I did not blog yesterday because I was too tired. And after I signed the contract with my blood, I can’t say much about my work.

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First day at IBM. Orientation day 1

Posted on January 12, 2009

The first day at IBM was quite good, even though it started with a bit of confusion on my part. This time in addition to me turning too early or going wrong way, my GPS decided to drive me to incorrect locating. I arrived to a huge unmarked building, with lots of parked cars but no kind of logo or street number on it. After asking for help from security, I finally arrived to IBM.

At the training centre I met other students and program coordinators. They gave us an overview of what IBM does, how we will fit in the organization, showed us the movie about IBM past, present and future. Basically we learned that IBM were no longer “Identical Men in Blue” but rather a company concentrated on innovation, change and new ideas. Then we had a rather boring presentation from Cognos, I almost fell asleep, that gave us a demonstration of products and explained what products why make, where they can be used. I am not working for them so it was rather boring for me.

Then we had a 30 minute break to met out mentors and have time to chat and eat some pizza. I will work with another intern from Brazil on IBM J9 class libraries and other 20 or so interns will with work mostly on Rational and Cognos products. Over the break I also found that a some of them would rather work for J9 team ;-)

After we had some more orientation session, we also set-up out passwords, entered bankÂ details. We also had to read and discuss a story of some poor sod and his “Internship of doom”.

Most interns are from U of Ottawa, two exchange students from Brazil, one from U of Monitiba, me from Concordia and maybe one or two from other places. I asked a guy from Ottawa what can we do here, and he basically confirmed that Ottawa suck and he thinks that Montreal rules! ;-)

First day was fun. We finished at about 4pm and I went to IKEA to eat.

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Ottawa. Day 1 at Bymarket

Posted on January 11, 2009

Ottawa might be a capital city full of important people

but it has it’s share of crazy fun people:

And even though culture is just few kilometres away

And cops have to sell lost/found items to buy doughnuts

but they have a real hockey team. (if only they knew how to play ;-)

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First day at Ottawa

Posted on January 11, 2009

Day after we drunk 16 litres of beer

I arrived to Ottawa. Iâ€™ve been here few weeks ago on a road trip with David and Alex, and as a coincidence I stopped in the same Timâ€™s on the way here.

Two days in advance I called Michelle and asked when can I come on Sunday, January 10th, she said anytime. When I arrived I found that there was a miscommunication between me and Michelle (10th is actually a Saturday) , and she was expecting me tomorrow. I had to wait till she can come from work.

While I was waiting I decided to check how long it will take me to go to IBM lab. Well, itâ€™s only 15 minutes of relaxed walking! Iâ€™m really happy that I would not have to drive to work everyday.